BY TORI RODRIGUEZ
Our fitness videos are created with a body-positivity focus that encourages viewercisers to listen to their bodies, work at their own pace, and adjust any of the moves as needed. And even though the workouts are designed to accommodate various fitness levels, our Bettie Page Fitness: Total Body Strength and Cardio video might feel too challenging at times.
Don’t cry — just modify!
Below are 5 ways to make it more doable if you: are new to fitness or this kind of workout or getting back into it after time off; need to dial back the intensity when you’re tired or recovering from illness or injury; or just damn well feel like it. These tips also double as ways to make your whole approach to fitness more mindful and body-positive, since they encourage you to slow down and be purposeful about tuning into your body to see what it really needs in terms of pacing and rest.
Background: There are four circuits in the full 45-minute workout – the first three include upper and lower-body strength exercises using dumbbells and plyometric cardio bursts between strength sets. The fourth circuit hits abs before the stretch and cooldown at the end.
♥ Pick a circuit, any circuit. Each one takes about 10-12 minutes. You could do one per day, or maybe do one strength & cardio circuit plus the abs circuit and stretch for a well-rounded routine that you can knock out about in 20 minutes. Or do 2 strength & cardio circuits. There are lots of ways to mash this up into various shorter workouts and still get tons of physical and mental benefits.
Working out shouldn’t be this hard — fitness should help you, not hurt you!
♥ Cut the reps. Just do every other one – when we do 12, you do 6. Rest for the extra repetition in between or take more time for each of your reps. Or do 6 or 8 of the 12 and use the remaining time for a slightly longer recovery period between sets. A good general rule of thumb is to only do as many reps as you can do with proper form (for optimal safety and strength-building purposes), so if you find that you start really struggling or half-assing it after a certain point, skip the rest of that set and come back strong for the next one. This is definitely a quality-over-quantity situation.
♥ Stay high. (Heh.) Our thigh and butt muscles use tons of energy, so lots of deep squats and lunges can wear you out quickly if you’re, say, low on energy or getting used to a new workout. In that case, don’t dip as low in the squats and lunges; instead of squatting until your thighs are parallel to the floor, for example, aim to lower about 6 inches. And guess what – it’s actually a good idea to sometimes work in partial ranges of motion like in a half squat, as this has different effects on muscle fibers that you won’t get when you’re always using the same range of motion.
♥ Use lighter dumbbells or none at all. It can be great to master the moves with less or no weight, and you’ll feel extra strong in each move as you add more weight over time. You might also find that you can get more length and spring in your moves because you don’t have to keep the dumbbell as close to your body for fear of overloading a joint or tendon. Basically, you’ll have more control and freedom of movement, and this can bring a whole different feel and set of benefits to it.
Drop the dumbbells and take a break if you need to — no shame in self-care!
♥ Break up the moves. This workout includes a lot of compound movements, which use multiple muscle groups at once, and some combine upper and lower body moves. This is more functional – i.e. makes more sense for the movements required of us in real-life situations – and allows us to pack in more in less time. But it uses more energy and effort because of increased demands for balance, core strength, and cardiovascular activity. Separate the moves when it’s a bit too much – for example, when we do the narrow squat with upright row at the bottom of the squat, do the row after each squat (at the top) instead.
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Part of keeping a healthy and functional approach to fitness is doing whatever is needed to make your workouts work best for you so that you can stay safe, strong, and motivated in the long-term. There is no benefit in pushing yourself too hard and hurting yourself or losing your motivation to stay engaged with regular exercise. Checking in with your body to see if it needs any modifications each time you work out is an excellent, simple self-care practice that can strengthen your sense of body awareness along with keeping you safe and well.
Make your workout work for you. You got this!
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