Never to old!

As we get older, we start to think about the things in life we have accomplished, and all the thing we haven't gotten to yet. For years, I was wanting to learn to snowboard. Many friends, ex-boyfriends, all said they would teach me. Only for me to be a pest constantly asking, and never learning anything new. Well, at 37, I finally took a lesson. My friend and I were in Alberta for other reasons, and we decided to go to Lake Louise to snowboard. We found a cheap snowboard in Edmonton for me to buy, and I registered for a class. He did his own thing, I took the class, which was only me. It was awesome! I had a few hours of private instruction for the price of a class.

Not only was the price right, but the experience was amazing! I couldn't believe that it took me so many years to experience something so much fun. I mean, I wiped out alot, some worse than others, but I kept going. I don't excited about many things, but I get excited about going to “play” in the snow. I mean, where I live, snow is a part of life for 6 months of the year, so it makes sense to find something to make it fun.

I don't bounce back as fast as I would've if I started in my teens or twenties, but I wouldn't take it back for anything. I look forward to snow now, whereas before, I dreaded every snowfall thinking about how crappy my drive to work was going to be the next day. Now, I see that snow is coming & start to plan my day around when I can get out riding. I'm still not good by any means, but I get out as often as I can. I find places in parks, river banks, anything with a slope, and only a few trees. And it turns out that I get out more often than my friend who introduced me to it. I ask him if he wants to go, but usually he declines.

Learning to snowboard has been probably one of best experiences of my life. It's not just about snowboarding, it's about the things I've learned about myself since I started snowboarding, only a month ago. I've learned that it feels great to get out of my comfort zone, and it's actually very healthy to do so. I've learned that with lack of focus, pain is gauranteed. I'm still learning to re-train my body from instinct, because instinct can be very painful. But most importantly, I've learned that you're never too old to experience something new, and that every new experience teaches you how to grow and be a better person.

Insanity

Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.” We've all heard this before, so why do some people keep doing this at the gym?

Why do some people go to the gym, do the same boring cardio, maybe a few weights, and then complain that they don't see the results they want? I know that some exercise is better than no exercise, but if you want to see results, you have to change things up! Keep shocking your body.

Keeping workouts the same for long periods of time will put yours body into a training plateau. You'll stop seeing results in your workout. This happens in strength training, cardiovascular training, and in weight loss. Keep in mind, how you prevent these plateaus, will depends on what your goals are.

For strength training, there are various ways to keep your body from reaching a plateau. You can change the order you do the exercises in, the speed at which you do each repetition, the weight and the number of repetitions and sets you complete.

For cardiovascular training, working in intervals will help. Stay away from steady state training daily, your body will get used to it quickly. Interval training means to change the intensity every few minutes. Sudden bursts of intensity, followed by short periods of rest. This is also helpful in strength training and can be done with any exercise.

These are a few ways to keep your workouts fresh. If you continue to keep your body guessing, you'll continue to see results.

Positive Attitude

The best way to bring about positive change in our lives, is to have a positive attitude. Seriously. If we feel good about changes, believe we can accomplish our goals, we're half way there.

Negative thoughts and behaviours bring us down. If we constantly tell ourselves we can't do it, we won't be able to, we have already given up on ourselves before we even try. Fear of failure will do that to us. We can't fail at something we never try, right? But if we don't try, how do we accomplish anything?

We have to tell ourselves that we can do it, there's nothing stopping us from reaching that goal. It might not be today, i tmight be tomorrow. But as long as we're working towards that goal, we will reach our goals!

We always have to believe in ourselves, and our ability to grow, and positive changes will always come our way.