a drop of water

I spend an average of 8 hours a day in my cubicle.  That is approximately 40 hours a week, or 2080 hours a year or almost 25% of my time inside of what I estimate to be a 4 x 8 space.  Spending that time makes me antsy and my mind is often chaotically running in multiple directions at the same time.  While I wait for compiles or think about how to best solve a problem, I try to clear my head and relax by simple exercises in my cubicle.  Here are some exercises you might want to try:

1. Tri-dips. Remember these from High school fitness tests?  You can easily relive those days by using your chair, desk, filing cabinet, trash can, or computer tower to support your arms as you work out your triceps.
2. Cubicle Wall Pull-ups / Cubicle Wall Hang. First, please make sure your cubicle walls are strong enough to support your weight and also be sure to dust off the top of the wall first unless you like dust.  For beginners you can hang from the wall to stretch out your back that has probably been unhealthily hunched over the keyboard since you got in this morning.  For advanced power-cubicle-workouts, try pulling yourself up over the wall but take care not to surprise your neighbor.
3. Abs chair roll. Who needs an ab roller wheel when you have an office chair with 4 to 5 wheels of its own?  You can grab onto the seat of the chair, or for advanced power-cubicle workouts, the legs / base of the chair to work out your abs in your own office.
4. Declined / Normal Push-ups (and sit-ups).  Nothing complicated here.  Prop your feet up on your desk or on your chair and practice your push ups.  Hand stand push ups are not recommended, but very possible depending on your strength and the strength of your cubicle walls.
5. Arm chair lifts.  These are recommended for those short down times where you don’t want to be caught rolling around on the floor doing sit-ups or hanging awkwardly on the wall by your superiors.  Straighten and tense your legs, and then push up on the arm rests of your chair, lifting your body off the seat.  Repeat as time permits to work out your shoulders and core.

Other suggestions include being conscious of your shoulder (make sure shoulders are pushed back and not hunched forward) and back posture (straight and resting against the chair back) as you sit at your desk.  Be aware your breathing as you work because anxiety and stress often make our breaths short and inefficient.  Lastly stretching is always helpful, in your chair or against the cubicle wall.

Yesterday our mudrun team drove out to Cowles Mountain for practice.  The course was a little over two miles to the summit with an elevation delta of a little over one thousand feet.  From the trail head, we could see what we believed to be the summit and started running in that direction with at a slight incline.  But shortly after, the grade increased, the trail became more rocky and dusty, and head high foliage blocked our views of the summit.  Every now and then we would get a glimpse of the summit, but then turn off in the other direction in a set of dusty switch-backs.  The trail routed us up a nearby moutain (hill) and then across a ridge-like stretch where we could see the true peak of Cowles Mountain, slightly higher than the peak we saw from the trail head.  We also got to see increased grade of the final stretch for our run.  The head high brush no longer blocked our view and the sun became a lot more harsh.  When we reached the summit, it was a good feeling.  There were other hikers and bikers there, enjoying the breeze and the view.  We tried to see where we had come from and we tried to recognize places in San Diego that were familiar to us.

Often I feel runs like this illustrate aspects of my life and walk/run with God.  I feel like the task before me is like a mountain.  At the trail head I’m full of expectation and optimism of the journey ahead.  But a little ways into the journey, I get discouraged at not being able to see the goal anymore.  The rocks and dust temper my determination.  The head-high bush distractions of life get in the way of my view of the goal.  I have to focus on the trail, and just put one step infront of the other.  The trail always gets steeper, despite my hoping that maybe it will get easier.  Though, now and then, if I’m aware enough to look for them, there are glimpses of the goal ahead.

As I get closer to the goal, the distractions of life get put in the right perspective, but there is more heat beating down on me.  When we near the actual summit, we realize that what we thought was the peak really wasn’t the peak at all, and that God had something different (better) in mind.  When we do reach the top, there will be others waiting for us there, who have run the trail before.  We look back on how God has provided for us in the past and where we have come from.  And then, we run back down the mountain only to go and find the next higher, harder one to attempt, having gained the perspective, the learnings, the failures and the successes of that completed mountain.  Lastly, the run would have been much more difficult if it were not for my teammates.  We are in this race together, and we will finish together.

Disclaimer: Take my advice with a grain of salt.  All that is written here is just from my own experiences and habits.

There is definitely a correlation between mental and physical health so I want to share with my 2 readers, how I try to keep physically fit as I try to avoid those costly gym memberships and those thousand dollar aerobic / weight machines.  It is healthy to physically exert yourself regularly because it clears your head and it helps you manage in the chaos of today.  I personally find solace when I’m working out listening to Dallas Willard’s, Divine Conspiracy after the demanding work day.

For starters here is a list (in order of my personal preference and importance)

• (2) Dumbells (10-15lbs) $20 (or you might go this route too…haha)
• Door Frame Pull Up Bar $50
• Ankle / Wrist Weights (3lbs) $10
• Perfect Pushup Set $40
• Asics Running Flats $30 (okay…really not that necessary…haha)

Free weights, or dumbells, are number one on the list for me because when done correctly with full ranges of motion paired with the huge variety of movements, they can workout your whole upper body, from forearms, biceps, triceps, shoulders, lats, deltoids, pecs, back, and abs.  I can not emphasize enough that in whatever movements you do, you do them with the full range of motion.  I consider large inflexible muscles, limited range of motion, muscles…unhealthy.

The pull up bar is next because, like push ups, using your own weight as the resistance force to work out your muscles just makes sense.  There are a number of pull up and chin up variations that can workout all your muscles listed in above.  For some pull up bar inspiration check out this guy on youtube.

The wrist and ankle weights should probably only be used if you do not suffer from wrist and ankle problems, as the added weight will most likely only aggravate the current problems.  Along the same lines of using these ankle and wrist weights to increase the level of workout and muscle tone, would be to use a more expensive option of weight vests.  Running up hills and going through punching drills with these weights increase my twitch, reflex and speed muscles, which is probably just a lingering habit from martial arts.

The perfect push up set is at the bottom of the list because, despite my excitement about them, I don’t find a whole lot of difference using them over doing push ups with my hands on books, cinder blocks, dumbells, etc.  The perfect push up set does two things for you: 1. allows you to go down lower than you normally would, below where your hands are positioned, and 2. allows you to rotate your arm as you do your push up, exercising more muscles than you normally would in a static push up.  The rotation is nice and increases the strength of your stability muscles and gives you some extra toning for your shoulders, but its really more of a luxury in my mind.

So, those are most of the tools that I use to workout.  Aside from these tools, I encourage push ups, sit ups, crunches, lunges, jumping exercises, wind sprints, jogging, swimming and…watching tv…I mean the Olympics for inspiration.  My last and probably most useful tip for working out is to find a friend(s) to work out with (especially when running), because except for the super motivated people, working out is sort of boring unless you have some good company.