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Posts Tagged ‘training’

We Are Stronger

Posted in motivation, Uncategorized, tagged Barefoot Running, Cardinal Sin, New York City Marathon, running, stinky shoes, stronger, tougher, training on September 21, 2012| Leave a Comment »

So after this, I promise no more Boston 13.1 posts…well, not this week anyway.

Last Sunday I committed one of the cardinal sins of running – I ran a road race in a brand new pair of shoes; they still had that brand new smell to them as I slipped them on Sunday morning right before the race. Why, you ask? Why did I do something so phenomenally stupid? Well, ever since Sugarloaf, the Green Mountain Relay and my subsequent Plantar Fasciitis, I’ve been transitioning off my Kinvara’s and back to my Vibram Five Finger shoes, specifically the Bikila’s. Every Sunday for the last 10 weeks I have been taking out a small group of Team Up with Autism Speaks runners for a long training run; in my Bikila’s, which were getting smellier, smellier with each passing week.

It didn’t matter that I was washing them after each run – for whatever reason, they were permafunkdified…big time. It got to the point that 2 weeks ago after taking the group out for one last run, I kinda grossed myself out in my car on the way home.

It was time for a new pair. I meant to go on Monday so I would have a chance to break them in at some point. I had found that with the VFF’s, I generally needed one short run to break them in. Monday turned into Tuesday which rolled into Wednesday. Late that afternoon I finally got myself to the store and picked up a brand new pair (on sale no less for $59!).

And then they sat in my closet. This was the second week of the kids back being in school, which, for me, is always the craziest time of the year. Suddenly, it was Sunday morning and I hadn’t broken in my new shoes. I was going to have a car full of people on the way to the race so I left the stinky shoes at home and brought the new pair.

They felt good going on, but I knew from moment one exactly where the blisters were going to form – it was now a question of how long before they became unbearable.

Within a half mile I could feel the hot spots. The blisters were coming and they were coming fast. By mile 3 or 4 there they were…and so I faced a decision: do I continue to run like this, knowing that the blisters were only going to get worse, or do I take off my Bikila’s and go barefoot?

Barefoot running has always had an appeal to me, but to that point, the farthest I had run with naked feet was 5 miles, and those 5 miles really put a beating on my soles.

What to do? What to do?

4 to 5 miles in I couldn’t take the burning sensation anymore and off came the shoes…and to my surprise, the ground felt great! Something I didn’t know before Sunday, the streets along Revere Beach are much smoother than those in my neighborhood.

I proceeded to finish the race barefoot. I would finally put the Bikila’s back on for the final 2 to 3 miles of my 22 miles that day because A.) the finish chute was littered with pebbles and glass (though I did do it barefoot for quite a while) and B.) when Jess texted me that she was fading, I went into race mode and ran as fast as I could to get to her.

What does this all have to do with the title of this post? I guess it’s a long, drawn out way of me saying that we are all stronger, we are all tougher than we think we are.

Before Sunday I had never run more than 5 miles barefoot – on Sunday, I did 16 miles and today (all this week actually) my feet are fine. Before Sunday, Jess had never run/walked 13.1 miles, but when push came to shove, she did it. So many Team Up With Autism Speaks Runners went a distance that they had never gone before.

We all have it in us to push beyond the boundaries we think surround us. Sometimes those walls are very real, but more often than not, what we think is just beyond our reach is just waiting there for us to push ourselves just a little harder, stretch a little bit futher, dig a little bit deeper.

We all have it in us.

Heck, I’m even thinking that a barefoot New York City Marathon isn’t totally out of the question!

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New York – Here I Go Again

Posted in New York City Marathon, Uncategorized, tagged autism, Autism Speaks, blue hair, fund raising, katy perry, marathon, new york, New York City Marathon, NYCM, running, training on August 27, 2012| 2 Comments »

I finally pulled the trigger last week – I officially signed up to run the New York City Marathon for the third year in a row.

And for the third year in a row, I will be running as a charity runner – raising funds for the organization that is particularly close to my heart – Autism Speaks. I had held off signing up for so long this year because I was busy recruiting many of you to run Boston 13.1 on September 16th (also for Autism Speaks – If you haven’t signed up to run, there are still spaces available. Sign up —HERE—).

I could go on and on about why I am running and why I need your help, but it really comes down to this: Autistic people like Brooke face a wide range of challenges both as children and as adults. Autism Speaks tries to take these challenges on from several different angles – funds raised go to scientific research, social services, development of employment opportunities, and raising awareness.

They work tirelessly to make the world a better place for my Brooke and all autistics who are both like and not like her – that’s how wide the spectrum is.

So I come to you, hat in hand, asking for your help. I have agreed to raise $3000 by November 4th (that’s on top of the $500+ I’ve already raised for Boston 13.1). Whether it’s $5, $10, $20, $50, $100 or even the whole darned $3000, I’m asking for your help.

Every dollar counts.

Last year, because you put Jess & I over $10,000 for the Boston Autism Walk, I dyed my hair blue for the marathon. I figured it would be pretty boring if I did the same thing again, so I’m going to mix it up a little while maintaining the theme. This year, if you get me to my goal of $3000 by October 15th, I will run in this:

It should make me easy to spot along the way.

Now, if you all really go crazy and get me to my goal of $3000 before September 15th (that’s only a few weeks away), I might just be convinced to run in this:

Come on…you know you want me to do it! And the truth is, I do owe Katy Perry something for nudging me in the direction I find myself (free training session for you Katy should you ever find yourself in the Boston area). If it does come to this one though, I may reserve the right to put it up in a ponytail if it gets too hot.

Speaking of Ms. Perry, you may know I am currently working toward a CSCS certification that will allow me to officially work as a personal/team trainer. My plan is to be certified by the end of March 2013. How is this significant? For every $25 donated, I will put the donator’s name into a hat (so $100 would be 4 entries). On November 1st, I will have Brooke draw out a name. The winner will receive (after I am certified) 3 training sessions that will include on top of that a full nutritional and physical intake evaluation and a long term program to get you where you want to be. Hopefully, after three sessions, you will still want to work with me!

If you live outside of New England, I could use some credit card miles to fly to you for a weekend or we could do something via Skype – we can work out those details later.

Okay, so here’s the link to my donation page – http://events.autismspeaks.org/nycmarathon/runluaurun – donate early and often, and remember, every $25 buys you one raffle ticket ($200= 8 tickets!).

You know you want to see me running through the streets of New York with a Katy Perry wig!

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Going Public

Posted in health, tagged 5K, achieve, Goals, going public, inspire, marathons, races, running, training on August 24, 2012| 3 Comments »

Sometimes going public is not such a good thing. Facebook? Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. That picture of you streaking through the center of town?

In this age of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, there was no way that wasn’t going viral.

But there are times when going public is a good thing. There is a reason I put it out there to all of you that I had begun studying for my CSCS certification. It created accountability on my part. I also figured that if I made it public, I would have hundreds of readers who would in their own way make sure that I stayed the course (so to speak). By making it public, I could not let the books and CD’s gather dust in the corner of my desk like so many other things have.

This works for just about any goal. If you are thinking about running a race, be it a 5K, a marathon or anything in between (or beyond!), tell somebody – tell everybody! If you’re thinking about joining a gym and getting yourself into better shape, announce it to the world. In doing so, you will be creating your own support system that will A.) hold you accountable and B.) lend encouragement. Offer regular progress reports whether through social media, email or even through a blog of your own (if you start a blog, let me know so I can check in on you regularly!).

In the rare circumstance that someone you share your plan with comes back with a negative response, USE THAT! Get mad, get angry, prove them wrong and then shove your accomplishment in their face while thanking them for the motivation.

In the end, you will accomplish your goal and even better, by going public, you may inspire others to follow.

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Totem

Posted in motivation, Uncategorized, tagged motivation, physical, running, totem, training on August 14, 2012| 4 Comments »

I got lucky in March of 2010.

I was fortunate enough to land an Invitational Entry into the Boston Marathon. A teacher at my daughter’s school had a brother who was in charge of the chip timers that year and he was given several entries to do with what he wanted. He originally gave one to one of his employees, but she ended up injuring herself. He gave it to his sister who had heard I was on a quest to get to Boston. After initially hesitating because I wanted to get there by qualifying, I came to my senses and happily took the gift from the running gods. How cool would it be to BQ at Boston?

I missed running a BQ in that race but had an incredible time nonetheless.

After the race, the wife handed me half of a magnetic oval with a “B” on it.

“Now that you’ve completed the Boston marathon, you get this,” she said, “when you qualify for Boston, you’ll get to put this on the car.” She handed me the other half of the oval, which had a “Q” on it.

That “Q” lived on my treadmill for the next six months as I trained for the Smuttynose Marathon. It came to symbolize my motivation, a totem if you will of my desire to qualify for the grand daddy of all marathons. Every time I felt myself drag or drift, I would look at that “Q” and I would find a renewed source of energy. For most of us, achievement only comes through hard work and my qualifying for Boston was no different. We find motivation where we can, but in this Age of Veruca “I Want It Now” Salt, it’s easy to get side-tracked, distracted or even discouraged from our goals.

I have found that creating a physical home for my motivation helps tremendously.

So, how does that help you?

Well, let’s first ask what it is you are trying to accomplish? If it’s qualify for Boston, I highly recommend the homemade BQ oval or an oval with 26.2 on one side and a BQ on the other.

But what if it’s simply to cover 26.2 miles? Have you run a half marathon yet? Then go grab one of those 26.2 ovals, cut it in half, stick half on your vehicle and put the other half on your fridge. Not a runner? More interested in losing a few pounds or maybe just redistributing your weight? Find an old outfit (a pair of jeans, a bikini, a fitted shirt) that you used to wear and instead of hiding it away in shame, put it in a place where you will see it every morning as you get dressed and every night as you get ready for bed. If you don’t have that outfit anymore, find a picture of something you want to wear in three months and pin it to your dresser, your refrigerator, your desk, your dashboard – make it the screensaver on your phone as a reminder to make smart choices. If your goal is more abstract that fitting into an outfit, maybe something like finding inner peace, then find a physical manifestation of that inner peace and carry it with you.

The point is to have a touchstone or totem, something physical to bring you back from the edge when you are slipping and back to YOUR reality, back to the reality that you envision for yourself.

Will the totem guarantee success? No. There are no true 100% guarantees other than taxes and death – but having a physical source for motivation will carry you through many of the times you find yourself struggling.

Do you already have a totem that you use? I would love to hear what different people use to keep themselves motivated.

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Step One

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged career, CSCS, fitness, NSCA, running, trainer, training on August 7, 2012| 8 Comments »

This morning I took my first step toward becoming a CSCS (Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist).

I became a member of a national fitness organization (NSCA – National Strength & Conditioning Association) and ordered the study materials for certification.

This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. And now I am on my way.

I am…

Excited.

Nervous.

Hopeful.

Absolutely scared.

Totally thrilled!

I can’t wait for my study materials to arrive. I can’t wait to get started, to find out how much I already know; how much I have to learn. I want to start right now! I’m targeting March as my certification date, so keep me in mind if you need help getting ready for Summer Pool Days!

My request to you?

Let yourselves go this Fall and Winter. Eat like it’s Thanksgiving every day from October until March, and then give me a call. I’ll be waiting, ready to help!

Can’t wait!

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Shadows & Shades

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged depressed, depression, ghosts, health, mental health, running, shades, shadows, training, unhappy, Wambulance on July 24, 2012| 13 Comments »

Sometimes I’m just a shadow of myself…

I wrote this post on Sunday night…hence the weird time references.

***

Some days I feel like a fraud.

Who is this guy?

What the hell is he talking about?

Does he even know what he is saying?

Today I was overcome with the sense that I’ve been faking it for the last 15 months – ever since, well, Boston 2011…hell, maybe even before then; that I’ve been nothing but a shadow of something that once was…a shade. I thought I had rallied hard for 12 weeks at the beginning of this year for Sugarloaf 2012, but looking back I wonder if I really did. When I came up short at the finish line, instead of being driven to work harder, I simply wanted…

…to stop.

There were commitments though – there was the Green Mountain Relay in June, where I tried to live up to my billing as one of the faster runners on the team and proceeded to puke throughout my first leg and then get passed by a one legged middle aged woman in my second leg. The overall experience was a lot of fun, but quite honestly, between my puking sessions during my first leg, I was pretty sure this was it for me with running. I’ve got two more running commitments on the calendar, both related to Autism Speaks – the Boston 13.1 Half-Marathon in September and then the New York City Marathon in November. After that? I have no clue? I must admit I am enjoying the group runs I am leading for the Team Up with Autism Speaks runners on Sundays, but I still haven’t begun my training cycle for New York…time is ticking.

After Sugarloaf, I tricked myself into believing that I just needed to take a week off from running to let my body recover, never mind that I had a 200-mile relay the next month I should have been training for. The week turned into many weeks. I’d throw in an occasional run to tell myself I was still running, but the runs became less frequent and much shorter. They started to feel so insignificant that I stopped logging them.

I just stopped.

Any runner who has religiously logged their miles will tell you just how important that simple act of logging the miles is. It gives substance to what we have just done. It gives us a place to go to re-live miles run but also inspires us to add more.

I stopped logging my miles.

I just didn’t care.

I stopped writing regularly too – if you go back through my blog posts, you will see large gaps in time after Sugarloaf…maybe even before then.

***

We all need a break now and then, but this felt different. This feels different. Believe me, I still want to make my way back to Boston, to toe the line in Hopkinton. I still want to run 40 to 60 to 80 miles a week. I just don’t have the drive anymore.

And because of that, I’ve felt like a fraud as of late.

And it’s creeping into the rest of my life. I feel like I’ve been mailing it in everywhere, that I’ve given up on whatever dreams I may have had as a younger man or even that man just a few years younger than me.

I want, I want, I want…I just don’t have the drive. I can’t get out of neutral; even when I do manage to get it into drive, I end up just spinning my wheels goings nowhere.

My weight has come up 10 -15 pounds (depending on the day), my legs have slowed, my hair has suddenly greyed rapidly (though it’s still there), I’m tired and I’m weak.

I know what should be done.

I can see myself from when this blog first started looking at me through time in disbelief, wondering What the Frak is happening to you, man???

***

I should call a frakkin’ Wah-mbulance, believe me, I know.

By most standards, my life is pretty good. I need to shut the frak up.

***

Yesterday (Saturday) my friend Maddy posted on dailymile that she had run a marathon – not an official one mind you, but wanting to make sure she could still do one, she went out and ran a little over 26.2 miles. The part that absolutely killed me was that she did it in 3:24.

Right…that’s 1 minutes slower than what I had considered my gutsy run at Sugarloaf – my second fastest marathon ever, and she just cruised around town and did it just to see if she could. It both depressed and inspired me. To show you just how much of a badass Maddy is, I will tell you that just a couple of hours ago (Sunday evening) she posted that she had run another 20 miles today (in 2:40). She is a bad. ass! (I can’t hate her though…she’s a total cutie-pie!)

Maybe this was God sending me a message?

I don’t remember the last truly long run I did. It may well be that Sugarloaf, way back in May, was my last long run over 13.1 miles (of course if I had been logging my miles I’d be able to tell you!). Maybe the running gods were trying to remind me through Maddy that the feeling of speed and strength and generally all around badassness comes at a price, that price being miles, dedication, desire, drive.

It all comes back to want and drive.

Right now I’m sitting on a whole crapload of want but I’m staring at an empty roll of desire.

***

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Basic

Posted in health, training, Uncategorized, Vibram Five Fingers, tagged barefoot, runblogger, running, running form, saucony kinvara, training, VFF, Vibram Five Fingers on July 13, 2012| 5 Comments »

About a month ago I went to my 20th year college reunion (yes, I’m that old). To kick the festivities off, a few fraternity brothers and I decided to take to the links for 18 holes of golf. I suck at golf. I mean, really, really suck. I’m so bad that I tell people that I essentially get to play twice as much golf as your regular hacker for the price of admission.

Yeah, I’m bad. I’ve got this wicked slice that essentially means I lose at least one ball off the tee on every hole. It’s so bad that I play to my weakness on short par-3’s. While everyone else is pulling out 7- or 9-irons for the short shot to the green, I pull out my driver, place the ball on a tee, line up the shot…and then turn 45° to 60° to the right (I’m left handed).

Last month initially my friends looked at me like I was crazy, but when the ball flew off the tee, began to turn to the left about 50 yards out and then land mere feet from the cup, they were dumbstruck (of course, I ended up 2 putting it missing my opportunity for my first ever birdie, but that’s my golf game).

Short par-3’s – essentially my only opportunity to keep up with anybody.

But then on the last hole we were presented with a situation where we needed to hit the ball off of the tee over a deep ravine to the fairway a good 100+ yards away. The guys I was playing with could all easily make the distance, but with my awful slice off of the tee, I was pretty convinced I had no shot – the distance was too far for me to play to my weakness. Even if I line up at a 45° angle, the ball was not going to cover the straight distance. So I tried to relax. I loosened my grip and just the club swing itself. To my (and everybody else’s) surprise, my ball went straight and long, past everyone else’s save one (and it was close).

At that moment I realized that I had played to my weaknesses too long and that if I wanted to improve as a golfer, I would have to simply get back to basics and start all over again.

***

This past week I ran twice for a grand total 6 miles.

6 miles? Isn’t that a little short for you Luau? I mean even for like one run?

Yes, it is, but I feel like these two short runs may have been the most meaningful 6 miles I’ve run in a very long time. Those two runs were done in my bare feet, on the sidewalks and roads of my neighborhood. Because of the hard surface and complete nakedness of my feet, I was forced to run very carefully, more specifically, more correctly. To say that the experience was totally painless would be a blatant lie – pebbles, hot asphalt, twigs; they all hurt when you step on them just so. But what didn’t hurt were the arches of my feet, the joints in my knees and hips, my back or my neck. The reason? Because I was running with proper form – I had no choice.

A few years back when I first started this running thing, I made the early adoption to the Vibram Five Finger trend. I was so gung-ho about it that my wife got me this as my birthday cake:

Yes, that is a Vibram Five Finger KSO Cake

I would end up running several marathons in some version the VFF product line including Boston 2010. Eventually however, I moved away from the VFF’s. I migrated to Saucony’s minimalist shoe, the Kinvara, and immediately took 11 minutes off of my marathon PR and qualified for Boston 2011. The Saucony, though minimal in spirit and design, still afforded me some decent protection when my form would break down in the later miles. They allowed me to to extend my stride forward when I was tiring without causing pain to my heel.

I happily ran in them for almost 2 years, even coming close to re-qualifying for Boston under the new standards this past May.

But something has been off. Something has been wrong.

I love my Kinvara’s but they have allowed me to play back toward my weakness, which is the heel-strike many of us have grown up into with the over-sized bricks we grew up with as children of the 80’s and 90’s.

I recently watched this (courtesy of my good friend Pete over at runblogger.com)

And then I saw this (also courtesy of Pete over at runblogger.com)

One thing became clear to me, it was time to go back to basics. Much like I was able to improve my golf stroke by going back to basics, I plan on improving my running and running form by going back to basics and starting all over again. The 6 miles of barefoot running I did last week brought me back to the basics of running. Stripping away all of the technology (and as much as I love my Kinvara, they are still a thick soled shoe) at least two or three times a weeks and going naked I believe is going to make me a better runner in the long run.

I will not be as fast immediately. I will still probably do my longer runs in either my Saucony’s or my VFF’s, but this stripping down, this completely natural running I believe is the key to making me better, stronger, and eventually, faster.

I feel like someone who has just discovered running for the very first time…again.

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You Mean This Weekend?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged boston marathon, BQ, RaceMenu, running, Sugarloaf Marathon, Teammates, training on May 16, 2012| 8 Comments »

It’s been on the calendar for months now. I had been checking off the weeks, putting in my training, focusing on my attempt to return to Boston.

But then a couple of weeks ago I got sidetracked. It wasn’t for anything bad. In fact, it was a pretty cool trip to our Nation’s capitol where our family got a private tour of the West Wing of the White House (you can read about the trip over at Jess’ blog). The side tracking was that the trip came in the middle of the week and require over 18 hours of driving in less than 60 hours. I was exhausted and my shoulders and back were a wreck. A massage helped, but for the last two weeks, I’ve been having trouble staying focused.

Just last night I realized that Sugarloaf is not weeks, but only days away – and that scares the crap out of me. I aches and pains the body goes through at the end of a taper I can deal with – I’ve been there before, many times. But with only 11 weeks of training, and that training being a new plan, I am unsure at best. I don’t know how my body or mind is going to react to Sunday’s race. I know my last couple of 20-milers didn’t go as planned…neither did my last couple of 15-milers.

I am dreading “the wall”. I know it’s out there, waiting for me. Over the last couple of 20-milers, it hit me just before 17 – the first without gels, the second time with. I’m trying to take comfort in the reality that the last 16 miles of Sugarloaf are essentially downhill, but I’m not convinced that will be enough. Will my quads hold up under 16 miles of pounding? Will I be able to take advantage of gravity?

The good news is is that I will have my friends with me. My buddy and teammate JB decided that after running several half-marathons and several ultra-marathons, maybe it was time to run a marathon-marathon. Although he is much younger than I am, his goal on Sunday is the same as mine – sub-3:15. In addition to JB, I also found out a couple of nights ago that another RaceMenu teammate, Tommy, will be joining us as well, and his goal is also a sub-3:15.

If there is one thing I have learned over the last couple of years of road racing, it’s that having friends with you is a huge help…as long as you follow “the plan”. My mistake at Boston 2011 was that I went out with friends (Tommy was one of them) who were running faster than I had trained for.

Not gonna happen this time.

The plan is to average 7:24 – 7:30 over the first 8 miles (the first 5 being flat, the next 3 rolling), do whatever it takes to not kill ourselves over the next 2 miles (uphill) and then slowly pick up speed over the final 16. Here’s a shot at the elevation chart:

Elevation Profile of the Sugarloaf Marathon

The key to this race I think that stretch from mile 8 to about mile 10 1/2. I’m not sure what “not kill ourselves” will mean. Do we slow down to 8:00 miles? 8:30’s? 9:00’s? I don’t know. What I do know is that when we reach the crest, we’ll have some time to make up. Should JB, Tommy and I manage to run 7:30’s over the first 8 miles and fight through the hills with 9’s, that will mean running just a smidge over 7:12’s the rest of the way – even with the downhill, I’m not sure I can do that. If we can maintain 7:24 pace through 8 and then only drop to 8:00’s on the hills, we only have to run 7:23’s the rest of the way. Sounds more reasonable, but again, the hills are the X-factor.

We’ll see.

One more little jog tomorrow and then it’s countdown ’til go time. Who am I kidding, the countdown started 3 months ago…I just forgot.

This weekend? Really?

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The Road to Boston…

Posted in boston marathon, tagged boston marathon, jealousy, running, Sugarloaf Marathon, training on April 11, 2012| 7 Comments »

…goes through Sugarloaf – at least for me.

5 days until one of the greatest annual road races takes place. After traveling from all over the world, thousands will take the slow, what feels like forever bus ride from the Boston Commons to the town of Hopkinton, where they will wait – wait for their turn to run one of the greatest marathons on the planet.

I must admit, I have been more than a bit jealous as I’ve watched people post their bib numbers and complain about their tapers on Facebook, Twitter, dailymile and other social media. There is a part of me that feels like I belong right there with them, but I know that I do not. Under the modified registration process, I missed getting in by 33 seconds and I chose not to run for a charity – somehow, that doesn’t make the pangs of jealously hurt any less; especially since the new standards mean I will have to PR by 4 minutes and 20 seconds to re-qualify for next year.

The deceptive early downhill, the women of Wellesley College, the brutal hills of Newton, the deafening crowds in Boston – these are but a few of the highlights Monday’s marathoners will experience. What will I miss the most about Boston this year? I think it might be the waiting in the Athlete’s Village – seeing my friends Mike and Brian, who are running for the Liver Foundation; hanging out with the amazing Suman, Maddie, Steve S., and Andy O.; finding dailymile and Twitter friends along the way.

I will definitely miss you guys on Monday.

Have fun. Run strong.

If everything goes the way I hope it does at Sugarloaf, I will see you next April in Hopkinton.

Hopefully on May 2oth, I ‘ll be making this face –

BQing at Smuttynose October 2010

as I hit a sub-3:15, so I can get back to this place

somewhere on the Newton Hills - Boston 2010.

and share the journey with you once again.

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If You Don’t Know…

Posted in training, Uncategorized, tagged ask, ask a trainer, exercise, fitness machine, if you don't know, local gym, running, training on April 10, 2012| 6 Comments »

My new training program has called for a lot of cross-training and some timed runs that I find easier to do on a treadmill. Because of this, I have found myself going to the local gym way more than I have in the past. I have probably been to the gym more in the last month than I had in the previous 2 years combined. It’s really been an interesting time watching the wide spectrum of people who come in for their workouts, ranging from young to old; athletic to, well, not so athletic; the focused to the people who are just there to chat and people watch.

During this stretch I’ve included swimming, cycling, stair climbing, rowing and a variety of elliptical machines. When I try using a fitness machine of any kind for the first time, I always want to make sure that I am using proper form. Doing otherwise is a surefire way of either A) getting injured or B) failing to maximize the health benefits of a workout. I start slowly to make sure that I am “doing it right” and slowly pick up speed, constantly conscious of where my body parts are. Most of the time, those first workouts feel extremely light – I am unable to get my heart rate where I want it to be – and that is because, as soon as I feel my form is falling apart, I will dial it down until I get it right.

After two or three attempts on an apparatus, I usually have it down and am able to push to where I need to be and get the amount of sweat I’m looking for.

What has struck me as I go to the gym on a regular basis now is the complete mess that so many people seem unaware that they are:

On the rower I see people with their arms and legs completely out of sync and with their hands moving up and down as if going over a hill,ending up near their eyes.
On the stairmaster I see people bent over at the waist almost 90° with their hands turned out on the rails.
On the treadmill I see people holding on for dear life to the top of the display as their legs go flying out behind them.
On the elliptical I see people, and Lord knows how they do this, bent over with their elbows above their heads.

Every one of these people is working hard, but I know they are doing themselves a disservice. Now you may be thinking Luau, maybe they are at the end of their workouts and they’ve just run out of gas. You know, that would be fine (sorta!) but I’ve been watching these people for several weeks now and it is how do their workout for the WHOLE workout.

Honestly though, their bad form isn’t entirely their fault. There are several trainers that are walking around the gym at any given time. THEY should know better. THEY should take the opportunity to show these people the proper form. That being said, each individual should take the time to make sure they are doing something the right way before putting the pedal to the metal when exercising – this includes running outside too.

If you’re just starting this exercise thing, keep in mind, that if you don’t know how to properly use a machine or are not sure how to run with proper form, don’t be afraid to ask somebody. You’ll end up seeing positive result in the mirror, on the scale and in your head much more quickly. Swallow a little pride and ask. It can make all the difference in the world.