Month: September 2019

Stacking Habits

/ Mark A Nutting / Leave a comment

Having the right habits in place is important to our businesses and our lives. When it comes to breaking old habits or creating new ones, one thing that can help is to use existing habits as cornerstones to change. The idea of stacking habits is when you add a new habit directly after something you already do habitually. “When I do “X”, I will then do “Y”.

To use this you first have to acknowledge those things that you do automatically throughout your day. Say your alarm goes off in the morning, what do you do first? Second? Third? In example, I know I 1) get up, 2) go to the bathroom, 3) make myself a cup of coffee, 4) sit down and read emails, then 5) go through social media, yada, yada… Once you have created a list of your habits, you can start to tack on an additional task in the appropriate place.

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Say, you want to start writing a blog. Your evening routine is to eat dinner, clean up the dinner dishes, watch tv until 11pm, brush your teeth, and go to bed. You could stack writing into that schedule. “When I finish cleaning up the dinner dishes, I will sit down and write for 30 minutes before I turn the tv on…” You’ll have to keep reminding yourself for awhile, but this will soon become habit.

That’s to add a new behavior. You can also stack habits to help break or change bad habits. Maybe you come home from work and, before you even change out of your work clothes, immediately snack on chips or some other junk food. You could insert a behavior to help break that one. “As soon as I get home, I will go to the kitchen, take 5 minutes and eat an apple, then change my clothes, and then, if I still want chips, I can have them. The fact is that once you’ve cut your hunger by having an apple, and stalled the routine further by changing your clothes, you will find yourself in more control and be less likely to want the junk food.

By linking a new behavior to something you are already doing (stacking habits), you create an anchor for the new behavior and are much more likely to stick with it then if you just tell yourself to do the new behavior at some random point.

Try it out. I’d love to hear how this works for you.

 

There’s a Tabata for Everyone

/ Mark A Nutting / Leave a comment

A couple years ago I briefly mentioned the Tabata protocol and I thought it was time to bring it back. This time I’ll go in more depth and discuss how anyone can do some variation of it.

Dr. Izumi Tabata (University of Ritsumeikan, Japan) was studying the effects of an all-out, high intensity interval training program (on a stationary bicycle) that consisted of 8 rounds of 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest, totaling a mere 4 minutes. The results were surprising in that the training improved participants’ VO2 Max (the efficiency of the body’s use of oxygen, typically achieved through longer cardio programs), their anaerobic or sprint endurance, increased their resting metabolism, and it also may aid in fat loss and in retention (even building) of muscle. Pretty darn good for only four minutes. This is why I actually use it with many of my clients, more bang for your time buck.

Now, the catch to this is that purists will say that for maximum results it has to be an all out effort and most people aren’t ready for that. This is true… for maximal results…, but maximal results doesn’t need to be the focus. How about good results, or even any results? Most people can wrap their minds around going a little harder than usual if it’s for only 4 minutes. Taking the Tabata protocol (20 sec work:10 sec rest x 8 rounds) and working even a little harder than usual will give better results and start you on the road of being able to handle higher level workloads. Bit by bit you can build that intensity to get even more out of your Tabata. You could also start with half a Tabata protocol (4 rounds/2 minutes) and build to 8 rounds.

Here’s a guideline to get started, start with 4 rounds of an exercise that you can last for 20 seconds with, say air or chair squats. At a nice even pace, not intense, do them for four rounds of 20 seconds. Then build to 5 rounds, then 6, then …. When you get to all 8 rounds, start counting repetitions each round. Next, try to add a rep or two to each round. Continue to increase the repetitions per round until you truly are pushing as hard as you can. This takes time to build up and you cut yourself some slack and let it be a very gradual progression. You will eventually get there and in the meantime you are increasing the results from each Tabata that you do.

As for the activity or exercises, almost anything that can be done at very high intensities and involves the large muscles of the body will work. Again, Tabata did it on a stationary bike. To keep it interesting, I will often pick 4 exercises and do 2 rounds of them (8 rounds total). i.e Build-a-burpee: Speed Squats, Squat Thrusts, Squat Thrust Jump, Squat Thrust Push Up Jump.

So, Tabatas are not just for the ultra fit. Anyone can start working their way to being able to work at higher intensities by giving yourself permission to start slower and build gradually.

BTW: there are all kinds of Tabata apps that you can use to keep the timing simple. I happen to use Tabata Timer