Exercise No-Brainer and Time-Saver

At right: My blood pressure has remained steady (except in stress periods) all my life, but with this latest round of exercise in the past year, I’ve seen my resting pulse slow from high 70’s/low 80’s to the low 60’s.

After a LONG day at the office–often 12 or so hours–I go home to work out, let go of the stress, form a boundary between work and home, and…NOT think for a little while.  So the last thing I want to do is kick my brain back into gear to analyze every little thing.  I need to be on auto-pilot and just let go.

One of the ways I do that is by

creating playlists.  Seems like a simple thing, but I’ve taken this to the level of no-brainer.  And that’s good!

I’m currently trying out (with nice success!) the diet/exercise regimen recommended by the brilliant folks at Metabolic Effect Fitness (check out their book and/or like their Facebook page for regular tips).  Their methods are similar to what I’ve found through experimentation to work for me.

Every day of the week, I go for  walk for 30  minutes or 60 minutes.  Generally, I use jog.fm on my iPhone, which pulls songs from my music library to match my initial gait.  It reminds me a bit of walking a labyrinth to the beat of a drum circle at the Florida Pagan Gathering  because my mind can freely wander and solve the world’s problems (or replay every little titilating conversion with that special someone) without me losing a beat or slowing down.  I don’t have the think…it’s very meditative for me.

The rest of  my regimen, I use playlists based on a little help from jog.fm.  Three days a week, I do a 20-minute rest-based workout with weights, with a 5-minute warm up and a 5-minute cooldown.  Spme of the hybrid exercises are from the Metabolic Effect book and others are from my P90X program.  So that I can concentrate on the exercises and not worry about the time, I simply follow one of several 30-minute playlists and when I hear the last song, I start my cool-down.  No clock-watching for me–that’s for the work world!

Another 2- 3 days a week, I do 20 minutes of sprints for varying lengths of time.  I use jog.fm to create 20-minute playlists at different speeds, say 5mph or 8 mph.

The biggest difference in this exercise regimen and ones I’ve tried before is that it’s more time-based for me.  It’s short and effective, but the very specifically timed playlists keep me on track and my focus where it should be.

Just for grins, here’s one of my rest-based high-intensity weight session playlists:

1. Katy Perry’s “Hot N Cold” (warm-up)
2. AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”
3. Pink’s “U + Ur Hand”
4. Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance”
5. Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf”
6. Ke$ha’s “Blow”
7. Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” (just the push I need to keep me on track and let me know I’m nearly done)
8. Pink’s “F**king Perfect”  (cool down and congratulate myself on a fast and effective use of my time!)