Overthinking Exercise

As my family can tell you, I get overwhelmed easily. In fact I probably now exist in a permanent state of overwhelm.

And the prospect of exercising, which I desperately need to do as I age is incredibly overwhelming, as there are an infinite number of options on how to do this.

But I have a coping mechanism that keep me from freezing up and not doing anything new.

And that is overthinking it, cutting out options, and finally coming to a starting point that is probably decent enough.

Because, while I do need to overthinking anything to start, the real trick is that your initial foray is not going to be anywhere close to perfect. The bet you can hope for is that your starting point was decent enough that all you'll need to do is experiment and iterate to find something that really works instead of having to start again.

The intial decision

The most important part of my overthinking is that I should focus on something that is compelling to me, something that provides me a goal that I am excited to acheive, and also something that fits my life as someone blessed to be busy with a full time job, a growing family, and hopes of starting new side projects.

What Excites Me is Calisthenics

To make a long story short, the algorthims that track my doomscrolling on social media probably noticed that I lingered a little more on videos of people doing calisthenics than anything else. The body control, balance, and strength these people exhibit is as astounding to me as anything that Olympic level athletes show. And while I know that I'll probably never get to the level of these young people, I also know that there's nothing keeping me from getting close and acheiving at least a few of the 'skills' that I am amazed by, and that the journey of gettting to there will give me the health and strength that I desperately need.

So calisthenics it is and that one decision makes the universe of additional decisions to make much smaller.

It also helps that I've always been intrigued by the idea of 'bodyweight' exercises in which you don't need equipment to work out, and so my antisocial self can do it from home without any need to pay for any equipment.

BUT Calisthenics DOES need equipment

The idea that I could just use my body was, a lie though, as as I started diving down rabbit holes I started to quickly notice that calisthenics requires exercises like pull ups and dips, which you can't really do at home without buying some stuff, and I REALLY am not interested in going to a local playground and using the monkey bars and benches to provide the required stable platforms to do these.

So I ended up spending between 250 and 300 dollars on:

• A pull up and dip station.
• Resistance Bands
• Gymnastics rings
• Exercist Mat
• Some Foam blocks.

The first was the most expesnive and the one piece that it seemed I really couldn't do without.

So what's the plan?

The next part is I need a plan to start. And from what I can tell there are two things that I should start with, and that is joint prep and mobility.

For all of Calisthenics benefits, it's hard on joints, and I really don't want to have wrist and ankle injuries.

Joint preparation

Start with 3 x a week, go to 5x a week, since this is focused stretching more than anything else.

Wrist

• From a channelcalled striqfit, I learned the following
• Hold hands with yourself and roll the wrist 20-30 seconds
• Get on hands and knees, hold shoulders over wrists, rock back and forth, 1 minute
• then move wrists to be backwards but still palm down and do the same, 1 minute
• then move body in circles over on the wrist, fingers front, for 1 minute.
• then same with fingers back, for 1 minute
• Finger pulses push down with fingers and move palm up in a controlled by quick pulse motion 10-20 times

Ankles

• Calf raises on steps 10 - 20 times.
• Tibias raises, back to wall raise toes while heel on the floor 10 - 20 times

Then there's.

Mobility

I have tried static stretches and yoga, and they're kind of boing for me, so instead I'm going to try mobility exercises. These feel a little more intense than joint prep so I'm planning on starting 3x a week go to 4 x a week.

Rotational Hinge

• One foot in front of other, back knee bent.
• Take hand opposite front foot and lower it to touch front foot
• Then smoothly take other hand and rotate to point it up and away diaganolly to the ceiling
• Then loop to first hand
• Should feel in glutes and hamstrings
• Should feel hip rotate internally
• Can add small dumbell, to moving hand (first back hand going down, then switch to front hand going up.)
• Do it for a minute one side, then one minute the other.

Deep Squat

Just go into Deep Squat for a while, about a minute, slow shifts from side to side

Dead Hang

Hang from that pull up bar. Do for a minute. Until you can do it do it for full minute, do slight foot taps to help.

90/90+ER

• Start in 90/90
• 90/90 is sitting on floor and having one knee pointed to the side say, East, and the leg is in 90 degrees pointing say, South. Then other knee is in front also pointed South but with leg pointing West. North in this case is behind your butt.
• Slowly raise front knee by externally rotating hip, and move it over, as you do your side knee raises, and you go your front knee becoming the side knee pointing West and the side knee being the front knee pointing South.
• Then lean forward, using hands if need be, can plance hand on foot and push in to go deeper, should feel in glutes and hips.
• Two minutes.

What's next.

And that's fine for a start. Let's do this for two weeks and see how we are. I'm interested in dead bug core, bear walks. and make the 90/90 harder by getting up and going down maybe.

Then will look at acutally doing strenght exercises such as pushups, pullups, dips, hollow holds.

Finally maybe start working on simple skills like Frog Hold.

Also start going swimming once a week.