Morning Routine: Our New Class at CBCGym
Morning routines are all the rage. From Tim Ferris to Rich Roll, people who aspire to be high achievers are adopting some kind of regular routine from the moment they awake to the second their butts hit their chairs at work (or their feet hit their standing desk pads because it’s 2019, yo!). Ferris likes to quote W.H. Auden, who says “Routine, in an intelligent [person], is a sign of ambition.” Now, maybe the whole ambition thing isn’t really your bag, which is totally fine and understandable. But if making change in your life is something you want, then you have at least that type of ambition. I talked about this way back in January, after coming back to Portland after a blissful two weeks in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Needing a change and a way to kickstart my physical therapy routine, I began with a simple start: eight minutes of any PT exercises before I got to drink my coffee. After about a week, I did my exercises, grabbed my coffee, and banged out some gratitude journaling. By the end of the third week I added ten minutes of writing to the end of the journaling. Right now, as I write these words, I’ve got three minutes left on my daily ten minute timer of writing, which I’ve completed just about every morning in 2019. Here are some of the results from the seven months of routine:
A return to regular running, mostly pain-free (and waaaaaaay better than where I left things in December)
More power going uphill on the bike, due to daily clamshells
Greater stability in everything I do, due to regular core work
A huge uptick in published articles around the Interwebs, with an ensuing rise in freelance pay
A more expansive sense of gratitude throughout each day
A plan for the day and for the following seven days—i.e. a sense of sanity in an often too chaotic world
So that’s all well and good for me—what does this mean for you?
You’ve heard about our new announcement regarding the CBCGym. Now we’ll begin letting you know about the new classes we’ll be offering, and this is one of them. Every Monday morning at 6am, I will lead a class consisting of the following:
40 minutes of the “basic strength you never do,” such as:
internal/external rotation clamshells
banded arm pull-aparts/circles for scapular stability
ab braces and core moves
hamstring curls on stability balls or benches
hip flexor stretches to avoid high hamstring tendinopathy
movements to strengthen and mobilize ankles and knees
basic joint health
10 minutes of heart rate variability breathing, intended to get your autonomic nervous system to chill out!
10 minutes of journaling, where you’ll use the following structure
three things for which you are grateful
three things you want to accomplish within three months
three things that will make TODAY a win for you
three things that you want to accomplish by the following Monday
So yes, you will need a journal for this strength class! We will have ones for you to purchase at the gym if you’d like, but any old notebook will do, really.
Sound like something you’d like to try? You can head here, to our brand new gym page, and sign up for one class OR a package of classes, and we’ll see you on the first Monday in August!