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Hey, Everyone! It’s Josh here wishing you a happy Thursday and hoping your week is going well with some great fitness goals! 

Speaking of goals, I was reading an article on the amazing Diana Nyad, the 62 year old swimmer from LA, who failed in her third attempt to swim the 103 mile stretch from Florida to Cuba. She did not fail from a shark attack, or from exhaustion (after 40 hours of swimming she was actually getting stronger) but due to jellyfish stings that could have proven lethal if she received another. 

She said something that struck me about her focus while she swims that can be applied to goals in general. She remarked that her thoughts were not consumed with the beaches of Key West, Florida that she was planning on hitting, but instead her thoughts were focused on what she had control over at that moment and that by focusing on the “here and now” she would end up at her destination. Obviously she knew what her goal was, but knowing that she had to put “one foot in front of another”, or in her case, “one stroke in front of another”, and focus on the little victories, she would have success in her bigger goal. 

Each of us who have health or exercise related goals can learn from this perspective. Often as I train athletes, I hear frustration about some of these longer term goals that they have, whether it be hitting a time in a 10k, completing a marathon or even obtaining a desired goal weight. Little goals along the way help to obtain the bigger ones and are important to have in place as markers. I thought about what direction to take this post in and thought that I could talk about the virtue of patience or consistency or discipline, all of which are important, but instead I chose to concentrate on “Spicing up your Exercise Journey”. 

As you travel towards your exercise or health related goals know that it does not have to be the result of strictly traditional approaches to exercise. These are probably the most convenient and therefore the means in which you plan on utilizing the majority of the time, but as you accomplish little goals along the way (2 days in a row without soda, running 5 miles without stopping, losing 3 pounds, etc.) reward yourself with a new form of exercise that will help break up the monotony of your main form of exercise and yet still let you walk away from it knowing that you chose to spend part of your day exercising. 

As I searched for some of these different ideas I liked some of the more practical approaches that were suggested such as: actively playing with your children, breaking up your exercise routine into 10 minute segments, getting up and moving every hour at work, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, using the hand baskets at the grocery store and doing arm curls while you shop or parking in the farthest parking spot so you have to walk farther. These are great, but I knew there were some more creative forms of exercise that were available and I hit the jackpot when I found several lists of creative workouts on Google. I omitted some that I didn’t quite get like Equestrian Yoga and Hot Tub Treadmilling, others that seemed a bit crazy like Mountain Unicycling (isn’t regular unicycling hard enough?) and finally any activities that involved not having any clothes on, which there were several of! Below you will find 104 different potential ideas that will get your heart rate going, burn some calories, put a smile on your face and get you one day closer to accomplishing that big goal.