The most difficult thing  with working out on the road is your commitment. Working out on the road begins before you leave home. Whether you work out regularly or rarely, are fit or out of shape, you have to decide, that on this trip, you WILL work out, no matter what. If you are not sure you want to pay the price then do this experiment.

1.       Undress

2.       Look in the mirror

3.       Ask yourself, "Do I like what I see?"  If the answer is yes, then ask yourself “Do I want to maintain my fitness while I am away?” If you do not like what you see, then ask “Do I want to start dealing with this now?”

If the answer is “yes” then you are ready to commit. Once you are committed, plan and prepare. To prepare ask "What type of workouts would I enjoy – outdoor, indoor, or a combination?"  Now reflect on the question “What are the obstacles to working out most likely to occur on my trip?”

If you commit and prepare adequately, I guarantee you will dramatically shrink all of your obstacles and objections. Here are my tips to help you overcome the more common problems on the road.

·         Space                  (Indoors) You only need a 6’ x 8’ space which can be found in any hotel room. Gyms are a luxury but not necessary. (See this video I made on working out in a small area.)

·         Time                    Make working out your first priority after you awake and meditate. This frees you up to enjoy the day’s schedule. Otherwise ensure you get it done before bed.

·         Company          Your best scenario is to have travel buddies with the same priority for fitness. Otherwise wake early and get it done before everyone else gets going.

·         Equipment       The less equipment you take the better. (See my list below).

·         Nutrition           You need to eat well! High protein breakfast and foods that sustain you throughout the day. Carrying good food with you when you can ensure you control your calories and may even be cheaper than eating out everywhere. (Check what I take with me below). Hydrate regularly throughout the day.

·         Injury                  If you have an injury respect it. Rest or train lightly. You are on vacation and want to be in good shape to enjoy your day!

Here is how I prepared for my 6 week trip to Australia:

Firstly I decided to do a combination of indoor and outdoor workouts, including surfing. The indoor workouts included resistance, high intensity cardio, plyometric -jump training and yoga, five days per week whileaway. My preparation was simple.  I packed a set of work out DVD’s for indoor training (played through my laptop), a black resistance band (weighs 1 pound), portable push up stands (1.5 pounds),  running shoes and shorts.  For nutrition I am taking supplements and a month’s supply of shakeology. Luckily my wife is a perfect travelling buddy who loves to workout and shares my commitment to stay fit.

So rather than return home after a great holiday to project “resurrect me”, I will come back strong, in my training groove, and looking as good as, or better than, when I left! Now that is a win-win vacation.

As a traveller how do you stay fit when away? Please add your comments below as this is such an important part of your journey. Also I would love to know if these tips helped you at all and if so, how. Thanks for your reply.

Travel well and Stay Strong

Laurie

“What just happened?” I wondered as I came home from my first day at school in September, 2006. I was reeling and disoriented.  Having taught math to high school students in the mid-1980’s, it was my first day teaching again after a twenty-year break.

Instinctively, I sensed that the kids I just met in my classroom were different from those I had taught over decades earlier. But I could not put my finger on the difference. I did know, however, that if I was to survive and thrive as a teacher, I had better figure out quickly what that difference was!

Fast forward four years. The nature of the changes in students between 1985 and 2010 is starting to reveal itself. I can identify tangible observable patterns.

Based on my observations, I have classified this generational change in students as follows:

Students today

·         Have greater access to far more knowledge, with far less effort

·         Are less willing to make effort or struggle to gain depth of understanding.

·         Tend to not respect hierarchy unless it is, in their estimation, earned by an elder, teacher, etc.

·         Rely more on parental  assistance  than self-reliance

·         Are more likely to have poor health and diet, be overweight, medicated and dull.

·         Lack resources to manage stress or be resilient under pressure

·         Often replace accountability and respect with deception and manipulation

·         Experience interrelatedness, i.e., relationship to peers, primarily through technology

What has given me a unique perspective on these changes is the fact that I took twenty years off from teaching to study the spiritual dimensions of life (see Bio). I was not a part of the incremental shift from one generation to the next. I went AWOL from the world of family, friends and work to experience and explore the more subtle dimensions of reality. Indeed, I wanted desperately to understand how life works.

Returning to teaching was like coming back to the town you grew up in after twenty years away.  Things are familiar but the changes are disorienting and curious. In contemplating these differences I have been developing some radical methods in the classroom in order to reach out to this generation. I have found many students deeply out of touch with their experience. Consequently many are deeply cynical about their ability to be free agents to affect their future. Giving them this glimpse that they have deeper, untapped resources way beyond what they believe is in them, is the biggest gift I can offer my students.

Some of the methodologies I am now using with students in my classes include meditation and character building (see classroom pictures).  Students are often amazed when they discover that they can manage their stress or use their minds to discover inner resources that no one ever told them about. Simple discussions on accountability, choices, and consequences often give them a means to respond more maturely and with greater self-awareness. They are building back some of the qualities that students of prior generations had—qualities which, unbeknownst to these 21^st century students, remain for them relatively undeveloped.

I’ll be sharing more about my innovative work with students in upcoming blog posts. For more information about my work in the classroom you can also contact me through my website or email me.

Stay Strong,

Laurie 

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OR WHY OSTEOPATHY WORKS.

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In my last post called Recovering from Injury, I mentioned the dramatic jumps in my recovery after Osteopathy Treatments from my friend and Dr. Michelle Hemingway. She suggested I write about the experience of my treatments as a follow up.

Firstly, I have to make a disclaimer here. While I found these treatments extremely effective, I have to admit, I don’t really understand what happened. It was subtle and somewhat mysterious. I was simply asked to lie down on the massage table. Once there, Michelle placed her hands in several locations for extended periods of time—my sternum, back, feet and head. Without any explanation my body started to relax. My breathing, which was shallow because of the pain, began to deepen. By the end of the session I felt the trauma was leaving my body. Immediately after the session the pain was still restricting me, but I had much more range of motion.

I looked up the Principles of Osteopathy and found they made total sense, even though I am not medically trained. Here are some of these:

The invaluable lesson Michelle has taught me through her work in Osteopathy is that we are designed to heal. This is a perspective based on strength, not weakness. In her work with me, Michelle activated my strongest points in order to catalyze healing. It works. It is counter to how medical practitioners traditionally approach healing—i.e., they generally believe there is a problem to fix, so let’s focus on what is wrong.

To my delight, I see that the principles of Osteopathy mirror my Life Coaching principles. Life Coaching avoids a therapeutic approach and believes in and supports the strength and integrity of the client. My approach to life coaching is based on the conviction that you are designed to succeed.

I hope you have found these blog posts to be of value.

In Strength and Vision,

Lawrence Carroll - Life Coach

www.core-strength.net

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I wanted to write to you about what happens during the healing process when you are injured. I recently fell 5 feet onto my ribs. The pain was so great that it sent me into shock. I let out a blood curdling scream that alarmed my wife and sent my neighbor’s dog into a barking frenzy.

I was doing an abdominal crunch pull-up when the chin-up bar dislodged from the door jam. I hit the hard wooden floor onto my rib cage and scapula with a force of about 17,000 Newtons (I later did the math.) It was enough force to snap ribs as if they were twigs.

Fortunately, my body was warmed up and swimming in enough synovial fluid to absorb this enormous impact. My wife brought to the emergency room where I had my ribs X-rayed. Two hours later, I was ready for a good night’s sleep. Alas, it was not in the cards. I had to sit up and doze all night. Every breath, every tiny muscular twitch reminded me that I had just suffered a severe trauma. Sleep was out of the question.

I began to search the internet for a quick cure, but the general consensus is it may take 3 to 4 weeks to recover and that nothing can be done to speed up the healing process. So what do you do? I have discovered that you can do a lot! So, I offer this advice in the unfortunate event that you have to deal with injury:

• Drink lots of water–3-4 liters a day! This flushes the enormous amount of toxins that injury generates in the body.
• Don’t go to work for at least 3 days, even if you are convinced you can get through it in some modified form. I tried and immediately regressed.
• Rest. Rest. Rest. Sitting, lying, doesn’t matter. Be still as much as possible.
• Quickly learn which side of your body to roll onto to support yourself when getting up. (Hint: the wrong side sends your muscles into searing spasm).
• Ask your wife (or husband) to help you up after a warm bath. Make sure she or he can take your body weight to alleviate the burden on your bruised muscles.
• Treat yourself to an Osteopathy session from a qualified practitioner.

The most dramatic jumps in my recovery were triggered by Osteopathy sessions with my doctor, Michelle Hemingway, MD So what is Osteopathy? In my next email, I’ll post insights I’ve gained from this highly effective approach to healing!

Stay strong!