Chunking your way to fitness

Chunking.

Sounds like something that’s done to a piece of chocolate before it’s put into a cookie, but in this case it’s much more than that.

It’s a way to chop yourself back to fitness in small steps, each one building on the previous step.

Chunking is a tool used to solve a problem or complete a task. It’s when a bigger problem or issue is broken down into smaller more manageable pieces. As each piece is resolved, there is less of the whole to complete, making the overall task much less daunting.

To use a non-fitness example of chunking, let’s use one of everyone’s favourite pastimes…cleaning.

Let’s assume you haven’t cleaned your place in weeks.

You’ve got a kitchen counter piled full of dirty dishes because the sinks already full, you’ve amassed a collection of laundry hampers overflowing with pretty and not so pretty underthings and overthings, you’ve seen the dust bunnies replicating exponentially in every dark, hidden corner, and you’ve created your own leaning towers of papers piled up on every available horizontal surface.

Every time you open the door, that’s the scene you’re greeted with.

And every time, you push the thought of even starting the momentous cleaning task to the back of your mind because it’s just that overwhelming.

You don’t even know where to begin. So you don’t.

Instead, you add more clothes, more dishes and more papers to the ever growing piles. And then you repeat the same steps again tomorrow. And the day after that.

Now let’s imagine that one day, you read this blog post and it stuck in your mind. At that instant, you make a decision that today is the day that you’ll get your place clean and you’ll use chunking to accomplish it.

Let the chunking begin…

You take stock of what needs to get done in a global sense, but this time, you don’t let that foreboding sense of doom stop you in your tracks.

Using your newly found chunking skills, you decide that you’ll start your chunking with the laundry.

Because once you’ve started the laundry, you’ll have the washing time to work on another task, thus increasing your efficiency and decreasing the overall time you have to put into cleaning.

You sort and start the wash.

It’s not as bad as you originally thought (or maybe it is, but as piles are organized and distributed to the machine, there’s less of an affront to your eyes, and it doesn’t seem as overwhelming anymore ). You’ve got a load in the wash, and a few more piles patiently awaiting their turn in the machine.

You know you have roughly an hour for the cycle to complete, so you move on to your next task.

You decide that the stench of the dirty dishes is no longer tolerable, so that will be the next chunked task. As each dish is washed and dried, the counter space opens up and the once bare cupboards are now back to their glorious fullness and the kitchen is clean.

This is getting fun now!

Each completed task encourages you with the results you’re seeing, a deep sense of accomplishment washing over you with every square inch of your place becoming visible again, with every now fresh breath you take.

By this time, the washing machine has gone through a cycle, you flip the freshly washed clothes to the clothes dryer and add another load to the washing machine.

Chunked, which now gives you time to work on those papers. You sort the mail, file the receipts and recycle the unopened weekly flyers and advertisements.

And so on and so forth.

What started off as a huge, seemingly insurmountable task of cleaning your whole apartment just became a series of smaller, interdependent tasks that don’t paralyze you with their sheer scope.

As each task was completed, the overall problem grew smaller.

Now let’s use that same process with chunking your way to fitness.

Let’s say you’ve been mostly sedentary for quite a few years now. You’ve been dutifully paying your monthly gym fees, but you haven’t actually been going. You work a desk job and you have a busy social calendar, often involving socializing with good food and just as good drink.

With the above scenario, it’s possible that over the years you’ve put on a few extra pounds. Or maybe you’ve put on more than just a few, maybe 20 or 30 lbs extra and now you’ve noticed it’s impacting your health and vitality.

You’ve just identified the larger problem (you’re out of shape and overweight) and you’ve made the decision that you want to remedy it (you want to lean up and improve your fitness).

The major issue is that looking at a problem like the one above on its own often leads to paralysis.

Where do you even begin? What should you even do? What type of diet? What type of exercise? How much? At what intensity? How long will it take?

All these questions and all the questions the answers to these questions may bring…It’s overwhelming.

It’s probably better to just have some wine and cheesecake and think about them.

Well, that’s what the old you might have said, but this is the new, chunking you.

Whereas before, identifying the problem would have lead you to just quit before you even started, the new you takes that big problem and chops it up into small, manageable pieces.

You’ve taken the first step, you decided that you are ready to start your fitness journey, that you’re ready to trim down and shed those extra pounds and improve your fitness.

You want to feel energetic and vibrant again. Since we’re all about honesty, you know that leaning out would make you look good again, too.

Once that important decision is made (this is the same as deciding that today was the day you’re cleaning your place), let the chunking begin…

Since chunking involves taking a much larger problem and breaking it down into smaller, more manageable chunks, you realize that improving your fitness has two major, equally important components: exercise and nutrition. You recognize that both play different, but complementary roles in your overall health and fitness journey.

So you chunk both of them, making your bigger problem (being out of shape and over weight) into two smaller problems (lacking consistent exercise, lack of nutritional plan).

And then you chunk some more in each of those two areas.

In your exercise chunk, you know you need to start. But where and how? You could start with adding something as simple as 10 minutes of moderate to faster paced walking a day after dinner.

In your nutrition chunk instead of trying to overhaul your diet completely and putting yourself on some intense, highly restrictive and daunting diet-of-the-week, it can be something as simple as eating slower, or taking more lean protein at every meal. Something that’s just a little different than what you’re already doing but aligned with your end goals.

That’s it.

It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

Now instead of worrying about being out of shape and overweight, you just need to focus on and complete the two tasks you’ve decided on. That’s how you’ll work on resolving your chunked problem.

As these tasks push you past your inertia and you get comfortable doing them consistently, you can add more tasks, still keeping each task fairly small and manageable.

It may be as simple as adding 10 more minutes of fast walking for a total of 20 minutes or adding 2 servings of high fibre veggies to every meal.

In any case, all you’re doing is consistently and diligently completing very small tasks that work towards resolving your major issue without getting caught up in the enormity of “losing 30 lbs” or going from “unfit to fit” in one fell swoop.

For many of these chunked tasks, the time commitment is small, but over time, the effects add up.

Here’s the caveat with this type of chunking…

You will have to set your expectations appropriately.

Making these types of very small changes usually don’t lead to very rapid changes. These are not the changes that will give you the hyped up, gimmicky results that are plastered all over the supermarket impulse buy magazine racks. You won’t “lose 10 lbs in 10 days”, or “drop 4 dress sizes in a month”, or “build a six pack in six weeks”.

However, at these levels of change, these chunked habits are sustainable.

These chunks lower the barrier to resistance dramatically.

Tell me, which seems much less draconian to the average person:

Scenario 1: Full diet mode with restricted food items, no eating past certain times of the day, limited flexibility/control.  Restrictive practices may lead to later binge eating (you know that feeling when you’re told you can’t have something). Committing substantial amounts of time to exercise in the 5-10 hrs/week range at moderate to high intensity while already deprived of energy from food. You will likely be moody, tired, fatigued, and generally irritable.

It’s quite possible that you’ll see rapid drop in weight initially (N.B. this drop may not be all fat loss, but also loss of important lean tissues like muscle – the number on the scale would just be smaller) but after this initial drop, you will likely hit a plateau (if you’re eating so little already, it’s very hard to eat even less, and if you’re already exercising so much, it’s tough to add more in).

Scenario 2: Chunking both exercise and nutrition. Making one small change in each area such as eating each meal slower (20-30 minutes rather than scarfing down meal) allowing hunger cues to dictate how much you really need to ingest, eating 2 or more servings of veggies with each meal, or making sure that each meal has a lean source of protein. Adding one small element of exercise daily such as a 20-30 minute brisk walk after dinner, a short morning swim before work or a circuit-based body weight workout building up to 3-5+ hrs of moderately vigorous activity a week.

With the above, there will likely be very little initial change in weight or appearance but the new chunked habits are not drastic and would cause very minimal disruption to current habits and behaviours. Over time, these would lead to fairly significant yet sustainable changes. Your new fit, healthy lifestyle.

I think it’s pretty easy to see which one of these two choices is more comfortable, and more importantly, sustainable over the long term.

And that’s where results will be found.

But I just don’t have enough time for exercise

Time. There’s never enough time.

Sound familiar?

Any time the phrase “but I just don’t have enough time” escapes open lips, it’s often met with a round of heads nodding in agreement and a cacophony of “oh yes, me too” and “same here”.

It’s an epidemic. Or it would seem that way.

But is it really?

Is there really such a shortage of time that we can’t fit everything we need to get done in the time we have available? Do people really not have enough time in the week to accomplish what we want to get done?

Not enough time for exerciseLet’s look at exercise.

We know it’s good for us.

We’re well aware of the incredible physical and mental benefits that it offers. We know that almost every aspect of our lives improve when we get enough physical activity including general health, work performance, mood and learning to name a few.

And yet we know we often don’t get enough.

When life gets busy, when we’re stressed, when we’re tired, when we’re pretty much anything, it’s the first item that can be rescheduled, shuffled, delayed and abandoned because we just don’t have enough time for it.

But is it really a matter of having enough time? If our days were an hour or two longer, would that really suddenly allow us to get our exercise in? Would any portion of that extra hour or two be used to get our heart rates up and our muscles working?

For a small number of people, perhaps. But for a vast majority, it’s not really about time, it’s about priorities.

Exercise is just not important enough because if it were, it would get done.

This is not to say that spending an hour in the gym with a half hour commute each way is going to be feasible for everyone, nor should it be.

But this is to say that many people just don’t place exercise high enough of the priorities list to have it reschedule, shuffle, delay or abandon another activity such as watching a movie on Netflix or perusing Facebook.

Let’s talk a little about priorities.

What are yours?

We may have a list of priorities in our minds, but our actual priorities may be very different in real life.

How can you find out?

Here’s a quick and easy way to get a rough estimate of your actual vs imagined priorities.

Take a piece of paper (or use your smartphone) and note down how you’ve spent your last week. Mark down how many hours you’ve spent doing various things from work, to exercise, to meal prep, to Facebook, to sleep, to Netflix or TV, to reading, to child minding etc.

Be brutally honest otherwise you’re only lying to yourself. As a side note, memory recall is quite fallible, so these won’t be extremely accurate for most people, but will give you a general idea. If you want a more accurate measure, keep a notebook and a timer with you and start clocking.

Tally up all the hours under the various headings. Divide each by 168 for the total hours available per week, multiply by 100 and voila, you have your weekly priorities in percentage form.

e.g. If I sleep 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, that gives me 56 hours per week. Divide 56 by 168 = 0.333 multiplied by 100 = 33.3%

Now that you have that information available, you can decide if there are any changes you need (or want) to make.

And if their costs are worth it.

Do the work.

It’s not good enough to just show up.

You have to do the work.

Yes, we all think we do the work.

We often do enough to get by or satisfy our belief of what’s work.

Or we do what’s comfortable, what we’ve always done.

But when it comes to fitness and health, there are so many forces pulling us in so many directions that we aren’t always truly doing the work we need to be doing.

This is not meant as a personal attack.

But if you want to start seeing results*, the first item on the agenda has to be taking stock of where you’re actually starting from, doing a current audit of sorts.

When you go to the gym, how hard are you working? How efficient are you? Do you take your mobile device and check Facebook every few minutes? Do your water breaks seem to stretch out into happy hour territory? Does the intensity of your exercise actually leave you feeling like you’ve put everything you had at that time into it or could you go for round two without even breaking a sweat?

In most cases, we find short cuts. We find the easy outs.

We find any number of ways where we can make the work easier. Longer rests. Lighter weights. Slower pace. Lower difficulty setting. And so on.

This is human nature (at least for the vast majority of us) – we seek the path of least resistance.

When it comes to health and fitness, that’s not always the best course of action.

To teach the body to adapt to higher levels of fitness, we need to put it in higher levels of challenge and stress, beyond what we’re comfortable with, with enough consistency over a long enough period of time.

Being at the gym for an hour will not suddenly confer improved performance, decreased body fat or improved cardiovascular fitness or stamina.

Unfortunately, the feeling many people get from just showing up translates into the feeling that the work was done. This is almost like a mental check mark. And what do we do when we’ve crossed something off our to-do list is we often congratulate ourselves for the job well done and take a break in celebration.

Now, being at the gym and busting your butt for an hour, pushing yourself, putting it out there in a progressive manner, that, when repeated over time, will confer physiological changes. That will be the stimulus your body needs to change and adapt. That’s how fitness is earned and physiques are crafted.

Basically, showing up is not the same as showing up and doing the work.

So if you’ve been working on your health and fitness and haven’t been seeing the results you want, it may be time to sit down and do an honest, objective audit of the actual work you’re doing.

And keep in mind that to earn the results, we have to do the work.

*The work audit should also take into account the “work” you’ve been doing with your nutrition. Exercise without appropriate nutrition will not yield optimal results.

Perfect Form in Exercise – Does it even exist?

There is no such thing as “perfect form” in exercise.

There is, however, ideal form, which is more of a range of forms rather than one fixed position.

Ideal form changes from person to person based on myriad variables which can include at a minimum:

  • body shape (e.g. height, limb length, anatomical structure/build)
  • training experience (beginner, intermediate, advanced, elite)
  • injury and/or fitness status (rehab, post-rehab, post op, fit, sedentary)
  • goals (recovery from injury, lose body fat, gain muscle mass, improve mobility, increase endurance).

Take for example an individual who comes in with knee pain when squatting (either with body weight or with external load). Once cleared for any underlying issues such as nerve involvement or ligament/cartilage injury, there are few ways to aim to get back to squatting pain free.

In many cases, the above described individual will find relief and be able to continue squatting with just three simple positional alterations:

  1. Change in stance position: Many people do better and experience less knee discomfort with a wider stance. There are some people who do better with a narrower stance. Play around with this to find your sweet spot. You may also find that comfortable stance position changes for different types of exercises (e.g. wider back squat vs narrower front squat).
  2. Change in foot position: This involves changing the position of the foot itself. For some people, this may mean turning the foot out (toes pointing away from midline of the body). For others, this may require bringing the foot back to a more forward facing position (neutral foot). Again, your ideal foot position may be slightly different for different exercises. Play with your foot position to find the one that allows you the best range of motion with no pain.
  3. Change in hip travel path: This involves changing the direction of travel of your buttocks as you squat. For some people, a more backward travel path may help, while other may find a more vertical path less painful. As with the previous two, your ideal movement with this may be different with different exercise.

If you’ve been having knee trouble with your squats, give these three a go. Some people may only need to alter one item on the list, while other may have to work with a combination.

And if you’re still having trouble after trying the above, get in touch with us.

We’ll help you get back to squatting pain free.

 

If you pay attention to this once concept, could it change your results?

If you’ve come to see me for physiotherapy treatment or for physical training, you’ve probably noticed, I use the term, “it depends” a lot.

When engaged in debate and discourse in the health, fitness or rehabilitation industries, I tend to straddle the fence, rarely committing fully to one side or the other.

That’s because one side never has all the answers, or is the right choice, in all situations.

There are never any absolutes.

The missing ingredient is often context.

Without context, it’s easy to throw absolute statements around and come across as certain. But in a world with as many dynamic and fluid situations as you can imagine, context can change and impact so much.

For one client, taking rest in the short term may be what’s required to assist with tissue healing and a faster return to function in the long term.

Because she doesn’t ever sit still and is always on the go. Rest helps her.

For another, the key ingredient may be early return to specific movement or exercise.

Because he’s usually sits at a desk and is mostly sedentary. Movement helps him.

As you can see, it all depends on the context.

Context matters – it drives the intervention.

And context can change.

So the next time you’re not seeing results using XYZ athlete’s rehab program or following XYZ celebrity’s fitness routine, maybe it’s not the intervention that’s wrong, maybe it’s the context you’re using it in.

Is walking considered the best exercise?

An oft repeated, and overheard, expression suggests that walking is the best exercise.

And people want to know.

Is it true?

Is walking really considered the best exercise?

Does is rank higher than squats? Push ups? Or any of those fancy machines at the gym?

Does is do better for your body than running hills or pushing yourself through grueling marathons?

Or are the health and fitness benefits of walking being overblown and shown out of proportion from the reality?

The truth, as is almost always the case with these types of questions is, it depends.

It will depend on your current level of fitness and your current health status.

As a physiotherapist, I see people who come in varying states of de-conditioning, disease or injury healing.

For some of these people, a short walk may be an extreme challenge, zapping massive amounts of energy and requiring tremendous physical resources. A few slow steps may necessitate a 10 minute rest before the next attempt. The heart and lungs screaming, sweat dripping down the brow. This would be considered exercise.

As a physiotherapist, I also see people who come in with excellent baseline fitness levels and no active injuries. In their cases, walking would be considered a physical activity (Non-Exercise Physical Activity, or NEPA) but not exercise in the traditional sense. In order for them to be challenged by walking it would likely have to be over rugged terrain, over long durations, and at higher speeds.

Now that we’ve established that walking can be both considered, and not considered, exercise based on individual background, is it the best?

This gets even trickier.

What does “the best” even mean?

I propose that the best exercise is the one that you’re able to do consistently over time at a sufficient intensity that challenges you and moves you towards your goals.

If you’re sick, ill, or out of shape, then walking may be the best exercise for you at that time.

If you’re healthy and fit, then walking, while offering all sorts of associated physical and mental benefits, may not be the best exercise for you. It’s likely too easy for you in your present state.

So to reiterate, it all depends on where you’re starting.

And if you need some professional help finding out where you stand and what exercise is best for you, feel free to get in touch with us.

No Gym? No problem…with 8 minute fitness!

The following is a eight-minute routine using only body weight that can get you started back on your fitness journey. While this type of program won’t get you contest ready or into the upper echelons of sport, it’s a great way to safely introduce a basic level of physical fitness back into your daily routine.

And that’s what we’re all about: the habit of exercise and the behaviour of movement.

The Pros:

  • You don’t need a specialized gym or fancy equipment – this can be done anywhere, anytime
  • You can vary the intensity as required – you control of how hard you push yourself, or how easy you go)
  • It’s a gateway into introducing more activity without being overwhelmed – you only have to invest eight minutes!

The Cons:

  • Unless you’re quite sedentary, 8 minutes of activity may not be enough to change your physique or fitness levels
  • If you’ve been very sedentary or you’re really out of shape, this eight minutes is going to feel very tough

Prior to going through the exercise circuit, take a few minutes to warm your body up with movement. A dynamic warm-up is more effective for preparing you for activity than the “old” version of just stretching prior to exercise. This should only take about three minutes (yes, this is part of the eight minutes) and you should break a light sweat.

You can do any activity that you enjoy as long as it keeps your body moving continuously (upper and lower body). Some examples include:

  • Jogging on the spot
  • Jumping jacks
  • Skips, hops, jumps
  • Crab walks
  • Bear crawls
  • Variations of lunges, leg swings, kicks

Now for the actual exercises. Do each exercise one after the other without any breaks between each exercise in a circuit format. Aim for 3 cycles of the circuit. Use only a short 20-second rest break between each cycle. Done in this manner, this will give you a total of five minutes of exercise.

  • Burpees (no push ups): 20 seconds
  • Side Plank: 2 per side x 10 seconds
  • Air Squats: 20 seconds
  • Push Ups: 20 seconds

Give the above 8 minute workout a try and let us know how if felt.

Yours in movement,

Team Primal

 

How to make change easy.

Why is it that we often wait until we’ve lost some component of our health or fitness before we decide we are going to try to get it back?

Why do we wait until the odds are stacked against us, until the challenge is seemingly insurmountable, before trying to fix things, to set them right?

Especially when we know what we should be doing. When we know we need to exercise more, eat healthier, stress less, and sleep more.

It’s not for lack of information.

We have Google. Yahoo. Bing. Men’s Health. Oxygen magazine. Or any of the other innumerable portals of health and fitness knowledge that are readily available for mere dollars or often, for free.

Too much information, perhaps? Paralysis by analysis? Too much contradictory “facts & fallacies” from the health and fitness gurus, the Dr Oz’s, the Atkins of the world?

But there are tools and resources out there to filter through all that noise.

Is it because change is hard? Because fixing your health and fitness requires a massive, complete, and immediate lifestyle change? An extreme makeover of sorts with hours upon hours of exercise, regimented diet plans and no more fun?

Credit: Felix Burton

Surprisingly, change isn’t as hard, or as negative, as you think it may be.

People have kids. Sometimes more than one. People make big investments or purchases: houses, boats, cottages. Jobs and careers change. Travel to foreign or exotic places. Relationships are formed and broken: people get married and divorced.

Those are big changes, yet people do them all the time. Many of them are the same people who believe that changing health and fitness is nearly impossible.

So why do so many people struggle with making that health and fitness change?

Too much, too soon.

The same way we see people in our physiotherapy practice come in with injured knees: they started full tilt into a running program after spending the whole winter curled up on the couch. There was no build up. Their body wasn’t given a chance to develop the ability to cope with the stress of running.

Too much, too soon.

It’s the same way we see people in our chiropractic office for neck or shoulder problems: they decided to paint the whole house in one go, spending hours on end with no rest with their heads tilted skyward and their arms extended overhead.

Too much, too soon.

We see the same all-or-none mentality in people looking to transform their bodies, looking to lose the spare tire around their midsection, looking to improve their energy levels, their base fitness.

Too much, too soon.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Small changes repeated consistently lead to huge results.

If you’re trying to lose extra weight, start small. You don’t need to revamp your whole diet. You don’t need to starve yourself and fight off self-inflicted hunger pangs. You don’t need to restrict yourself to boiled chicken and broccoli for every meal.

You could do something as simple as cutting out any calorie containing beverage and switching to just drinking water.

And then repeat that habit consistently.

If you’re looking to improve your fitness and you’re completely sedentary, it could be as simple as adding in 5-10 minutes of intentional exercise a day.

You could start by just walking, or doing squats in your living room.

As long as it’s a little bit more than what you were doing before, it’ll have a positive impact.

And then repeat that habit consistently.

To your optimal health. And ultimate performance.

The Primal Team