My wife had always been a runner. Running for her is one of the best stress relievers (next to wine). She had to turn to swimming mostly for her workout program a few years ago, but still worked her way back up to fitting in some runs either outside or on the treadmill. Life was good.
But then she started doing some of our workouts, which means she had to follow my direction. It went surprisingly well 🙂 Anyway, next thing you know and she is not only doing the workouts, she is helping train others and has become as preachy as I am about proper form and Functional Fitness.
However, a funny thing happened to her the other day. She was not up for a full-out workout by herself at home, so she thought she would just hop on the treadmill like she used to.
Uh oh. It was boring. Yep, unfortunately for her, once you are used to the variety and used to impacting all those muscle groups, trudging along on the treadmill is excrutiatingly boring and painful (mentally).
I ruined her.
To deal with it, she shook things up a bit. She decided to run one mile at a time and then jump off the treadmill for some exercises. I can’t remember her exact choices, but it was something like 40 Rowboats one time, Push-ups and Pull-ups another time, etc. Her philosophy ended up being that she could mentally do a mile at a time, just not more than that without shaking it up. It worked out alright for her, but it was an interesting note about her newfound addiction to variety.
So sorry if I have done the same with you. I’m sorry you can’t just jog for 40 minutes anymore. Ok, I guess I’m not really sorry. Welcome to Functional Fitness.