SSF Episode 3
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[00:00:00] Beth: Hello and welcome to the Smiling Soul Fitness Podcast. My name is Beth Alexander. I am the founder and creator behind Smiling Soul Fitness. I am your host today. And I am also the guest . This is my first solo episode. So that's right. It's just you and me for the next little bit. And if you know me, we're gonna have some fun. Today's focus is some of what people call Bethisms or things that I'm constantly saying in my workouts.
These are things that I love to remind people about. These are calls to actions that I make in cues. These are phrases that I'll say in comments and [00:01:00] messages and emails and within our community at smiling soul fitness, because they are some of the tenants of what I really believe, make up a healthy, a sustainable, and a feel good movement practice and at Smiling Soul Fitness that's what we're all about before we dive into any of that, I'd like to share our working definition of a smiling. Smiling souls are resilient, optimistic, and community focused beings. Even though smiling souls, share core values and attributes we come from so many different backgrounds and lived experiences.
We hope the stories we share here inspire you to better health and fitness and support you in feeling connected and inspired on your personal path. Woo. Welcome smiling soul. So. The first thing that I love to say at smiling soul fitness is [00:02:00] congratulations, you showed up today. I am really big on celebrating when people show up, because in my opinion, that is the hardest part.
Getting to the point where you push play or you've put your shoes on. You've rolled up your mat. You've made that commitment to showing up to your workout. That is half the battle. If not, most of it, once you get moving and grooving, our bodies like exercise, they like movement. It is designed to help us feel good.
Literally on a cellular level, we get endorphins. We get all of these wonderful benefits from exercising. And so once you're exercising, you can usually get into a groove, but getting there is the hardest part. So at Smiling Soul Fitness we celebrate that you showed up. We encourage you since you showed up to move in a way that works for your body today.
So that's the second thing you'll hear me say a lot, make this workout work for you. Pick the option [00:03:00] that works for you and your body today. Honor your body today. There are so many amazing ways to move your body. I have specialized. Core and functional training. So in your workouts with me, you're going to see exercises like squats and deadlifts and lunges and dead bugs.
And we're gonna throw in mobility drills, like thoracic rotations and cat cow. We're gonna do exercises like pushups. We'll do exercises that integrate your arms and your abs. Everything that we do is gonna be really functional because that's, what's gonna get you the most bang for your. But that's only one of the amazing ways to move your body.
You could move your body through yoga practices. You could do it through Pilates. You could do it through jogging, hiking, hockey, ice skating, cycling, swimming, [00:04:00] Tai Chi, other martial arts. There are so many amazing ways to move your body and. I really want to encourage you to pick the option that works best for you and your body today.
I'm always honored when my workouts get to be a part of that rotation. and I am committed to celebrating you, showing up for whatever workout actually feels good to you in that moment. And then in my workouts, I like to say that I'm the queen of options. I teach things as progressions. So we might start on your hands and knee and we'll say here's an option.
If this is challenging for you, stay here. If you want a little bit more, maybe lift your arm and leg. Hey, you want a little bit more, let's take your arm and leg out to the side. Let's come back to center. Let's reach up. Let's go down. Let's move around. And one option is not better than another. I do my best to equip you with different options so that you [00:05:00] A have different things to choose from.
B so that you can actually experiment and explore and figure out what works well for you and C because I hope that you're working out in whatever ways, feel good to you, that you start to learn what different options, what progressions and what regressions for different exercises are. And so even when you're not working out with me, You're like, oh, I remember that Beth said that this was an option that I could do instead of that.
So even though I'm in this class and the teacher's telling me that I have to do the pushups like this, or that's the only way they're demonstrating it, I know that I could do it this way instead, and that's gonna feel better to my body. And when you get to that spot, oh my God. It makes me so happy to hear from people that are like, I hear your voice and my other workouts.
And more importantly, I'm applying the skills that you've taught me to other ways of moving [00:06:00] that light me up and that make me feel good and that give me confidence and that boost my energy. That is awesome. And that is a win, win, win all around. And it is one of the things that fills my heart up the most.
So if you're someone that has been impacted by me by my energy, by my workouts and this capacity, whether it's learning different ways to do clamshells or finding some new cues that help you feel glute bridges or squats or lunges better, I would love to hear from you. So please, if you have some time, send me an email, send me a message.
I love, love hearing about that. And I also just wanna shout out to all of the teachers and the people that have taught me these cues, um, I've been in the fitness industry for almost 12 years now. Definitely not a lone soldier. I have learned from amazing yoga instructors, Pilates instructors. I have almost a dozen maybe.[00:07:00]
I think I have between 12 and 15 fitness certifications under my belt now. I have a degree in exercise in sports studies and I am the trainer and the person that I am today because of all these other teachers who showed up with their great cues, who showed up with their great regressions and progressions.
And it's an honor to be able to pay it forward and share it with you. So again, make this workout work for you and pick the option that works best for you and your body. Today, you will hear me say this and almost every single workout, Smiling Soul Fitness.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Smiling Soul Fitness Podcast with me, Beth Alexander. As a thank you for tuning in. We'd love to offer you an exclusive 10% discount off your first access pass. You can get 10% off your first month or 10% off your first year by using the code [00:08:00] podcast10 at checkout.
Sign up anytime during 2022. And as a first time member, you can get 10% off. The third thing that you'll hear me say a lot is sometimes we regress to progress. So sometimes, you know, people have it in their head that doing an option that like looks easier or seems easier. Isn't as beneficial as doing something that's harder and that's simply not true.
It really depends on your body and what you're going through. We all go through different seasons in life. It's a part of nature and we are a part of nature. And so sometimes we need to back off, make it a little bit easier. Sometimes something poses too much of a stability challenge. And while we might have, you know, really good cardiovascular capacity and we can do all of the cardio challenges when it comes to balancing, we need to [00:09:00] take it back a step and master some of the fundamentals before moving on pushups are a great example.
I always cue people to do pushups on their toes, but that doesn't mean that you need to do pushups on your toes, on the ground. In fact, I think that can be a pretty advanced exercise for a lot of people. And so my favorite thing to do with pushups is actually have you do pushups on an elevated surface, so you could find like a kitchen countertop, desk a table. You could even find something lower, like the height of a coffee table. You're looking for something thats safe stable and sturdy. So it's not gonna move and it's gonna be able to support your body weight, and you can practice your pushups on your toes this way, which gets you more core activation.
Which is a win-win, we're working more abs with our arms. making our workouts more efficient and more effective, and it's helping you build up the strength so that when you go and eventually you're down on your hands and your toes on the floor, you are [00:10:00] rocking those pushups on the floor. And you know what it feels like to move through your full range of motion all the way down and all the way.
Which are little parts that a lot of people miss when they're just practicing it on the floor and they've never tried, you know, regressing or progressing. So it's a perfect example of sometimes we make pushups a little bit easier. We take some of the weight off so that we can get better at the mechanics of pushups and that we can get better and stronger for when we progress and go to the ground.
It's going to actually make your workout program more effective and more efficient. And it's gonna put you at less risk for injury. So you will hear me say that a lot, same thing applies with high intensity workouts. So hit workouts, or anytime we are doing high intensity or high impact moves, moves where you are running or jumping.
Those kind of moves can be jarring on the joints. And sometimes people feel like if they're doing a low [00:11:00] impact workout that it's. Not hard or it's not challenging. And let me just tell you, at Smiling Soul Fitness, the members they know that's not true. cause we can all work up a sweat. We can have a great time and we can get challenged mind, body, soul from exercises that don't include any jumping.
Again, it's me. So if you're working out with me, I love offering options. So perfect example for this and one of our power sculpt workouts. Those are our cardio and strength workouts that we do once a week. I might offer squats as a low impact option. I might offer jump squats or squat jacks as a high impact option.
And I'm here to cheer you on one option is not better than the other. The best option is gonna be the one that you can perform. Well, that feels good for your body. And that keeps you showing up tomorrow. it keeps you showing up again and again and again for your [00:12:00] workouts. The last thing that I want to leave you with is that your body is absolutely amazing.
You will hear me celebrating your body and all of our workouts. Your body is magnificent. It is awesome. It is an amazing source of information for you. And I really want these workouts to help you connect with your body in meaningful ways to help you appreciate all that it does for you, whether you're thinking about it or not thinking about it.
I want you to understand the information that we have access to. And we connect to our bodies and how empowering it is to really feel the muscles, to feel the connection, to feel our embodiment so that we can move through life, feeling strong, feeling confident, feeling proud of ourselves, how we showed up the way our body is no matter the shape, the size its abilities.[00:13:00]
Your body is amazing. It's magnificent. It's awesome. And it deserves to be celebrated every single day. I hope that I can be at least one small blip on your path to deepened embodiment and more gratitude and more connection to your body. That would be so, so meaningful for me. . So I'm gonna leave you with that again.
You should come to Smiling Soul Fitness. If you work out with me, you already know I will celebrate every time you show up for a workout. I don't care if it's five minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes. You're there. I am so happy to see you and I am ready to move. So I will celebrate with you and I will encourage you to keep moving for the duration of our time together.
I will encourage you to make this workout work for you to pick the option that works for you and your body today to honor your body and your needs. In this moment, I [00:14:00] will remind you that sometimes we regress to progress and I am here to celebrate your body and to remind you that your body is amazing.
It's magnificent. It's awesome. And having a deepened connection with your body is an extremely fruitful experience in life. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. I appreciate you. I would love to hear from you and as always, I look forward to being with you again soon. Thank you so much for being here on the smiling soul fitness podcast today.
We appreciate you. We appreciate you showing up and being here with. It means a lot. If you liked this episode, if you like our podcast and our message, please leave us a five star review on apple, Spotify, or wherever you're streaming this podcast. It helps us to connect with other like-minded smiling souls around the [00:15:00] world and share our message.
And if you like the podcast, you'd probably like our workouts and meditations too. So come on. You can join us at smilingsoulfitness.com. We've got workouts. We've got guided meditations. We've got healthy eating recipes and we've got an amazing community of resilient, optimistic, and community focused, smiling souls.
And we'd love for you to join too.
