Monday is the New Thursday

Forty is the New Thirty!
Strong is the New Sexy!
And apparently Monday is the New Thursday.

For as long as I can remember, Thursday has been “Burpee Day” at NLXF.  And believe me, when it comes to burpees, my memory is more than accurate.  Thursday is when we do burpees.  Thursday is “Burpee Day.”

So you can imagine my complete shock when at 6:37 a.m. on a MONDAY Ryan informed us that we would be starting a 2 minute cardio set with burpees.

BURPEES???  ON A MONDAY???  WTF??????

To say that I was pissed off would be an understatement.  Everyone knows that on Mondays we do a moderate warm up followed by a bit of cardio.  The cardio typically focuses on the muscles and moves needed for jabs, hooks or roundhouses.  If Ryan’s feeling particularly cranky we might do some ab work.  But mostly we kick box.  We work on our form.  Ryan goes crazy because none of us shift our weight, use our toes, turn our hips, or snap our leg.  He goes especially crazy because after 22 weeks I still don’t adequately shift my weight, use my toes, turn my hips, or snap my leg.  And Mondays NEVER include burpees.

Until today.

Now, I could have spent the remaining 53 minutes of class pondering WHY Ryan decided to include burpees on a Monday, but that would have been a total waste of time.  After 22+ weeks of NLXF I have to admit defeat on any or all attempts to get inside HIS head.  I’ve tried.  And I’ve failed miserably.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Ryan.  Not only is he able to get inside MY head, he’s been living in there so long I should charge him rent.  But that is a subject for a future blog J

What I did ponder as I got onto the floor in a push up position, pushed myself to a squat in one lovely plyometric move, jumped high in the air, returned to the squat and then reversed the plyometric move back into the push up position (sucking air all the while I might add), was WHY I was so annoyed that we were doing burpees on a Monday.  You see, it wasn’t so much the fact we were doing burpees that annoyed me…they are a fact of NLXF life…it was the fact we were doing them on a Monday.

And then it hit me…Ryan had CHANGED the routine.  Suddenly I went from being supremely pissed off to embarrassed.  Wasn’t I scheduled to teach a workshop on adapting to change at 11:00 that very morning? 

For the past two years I’ve been teaching workshops for students, business people and educators on strategies for adapting to change in their respective work and study environments.  My message is always the same; to be successful in the 21^st century you have to be open to change, flexible in your approach to change, responsive to change, and most of all, USE change to move forward.  In my workshops I stress the importance of developing the adaptability skills needed to handle change:  how to take risks, stay focused, remain spontaneous and accept the ideas of others.  And here I was doing everything BUT that.  I was blocking, resisting, stalling, negating and most of all, pouting. 

I hate it when I pout!  I’m a whiner, not a pouter J

I know it sounds crazy but all of this went through my head during the first 20 seconds of burpee work.  During the second 20 seconds of burpee work it occurred to me that burpees on a Monday were a perfect way for me to practice my agent of change lessons.  I could use those darn burpee sets as a way to move forward, challenge myself and elevate my fitness goals OR I could resist the whole idea of burpees on a Monday and choose to make that resistance the focus of my workout.

I sighed and moved forward.  Not because I’m the patron saint of workouts, but because that is what NLXF has taught me.  It’s not about perfection, it’s about persistence.  It’s not about settling, it’s about setting.  It’s not about giving up, it’s about giving in.  And truth be told, I did some of the finest sets of burpees I’ve ever done in my life!

 

So thanks Ryan, for changing things up, for pushing me forward, for making Monday the new Thursday.  Now if you could just get out of my head… J