When Reality Intrudes on Good Intentions

Every week I clamber into the Moving Crew captain's chair, stretch my fingers and rain fitness dicta upon the land: "Warm up before intense exercise! Stretch afterward! Slow and perfect form beats fast and heavier weight! Do cardio four days a week! Blah blah blah!"

All of which raises the question: Don't I ever shut up? But even more germane: Can anyone with a job, a family and a life -- including, um, me -- heed all that hectoring?

(41825.000000 - Getty Images) In Depth About the Crew | Ask the Crew Susan Morse Health section assistant editor, hiker, kayaker, swimmer and dabbler in a variety of exercise regimens. » VISIT THE ARCHIVES Browse the Archives Recent Columns Discussion Transcripts Save & Share Tag This Article  Saving options 1. Save to description:  Headline (required) 2. Save to notes (255 character max):  Blurb 3. Tag This Article

As we all know, this sticky goo called reality mucks up even well-intentioned plans. Pretty soon three days have slipped by and the closest we've come to exercise is picking up a tab. ("Lift with your legs, not your . . ." Oh, forget it.)

Me, I have a professional responsibility to maintain a workout routine, lest a devout reader, whipped to exhaustion from diligent workouts, finds me eating nachos and watching "Hogan's Heroes" reruns again. But believe me, I've got my own issues. To demonstrate, I recorded my real-life activity during one recent week. The details:

?Monday Plans for hour-long gym session muddled by work, but manage to wedge in 35 minutes (elliptical for 15 minutes; turbo mix of core and strength work). No time for recommended cool-down or stretching. So sue me.

?Tuesday Play full-court basketball for an hour (a weekly event with friends) -- running hard, panting harder, missing many shots and cursing. Post-workout refueling includes . . . two beers.

?Wednesday Stiff from basketball. No appreciable exercise, unless you count walking like a robot and massaging my hamstrings. Take comfort in the knowledge that soreness prompts my muscles to rebuild and come back stronger, especially when fed protein afterward.

?Thursday Heading to gym when boss corners me. Deadline? Of course I remembered! Gym plans thwarted. Ran for 20 minutes after work. (Half of what I'd hoped.) Watched NBA playoffs, bewildered at success rate of jump shooters.

?Friday Nada. Hey, I'm man enough to admit it.

?Saturday Big plans for mountain bike ride foiled by wife's big plans for residential maintenance circuit training. A couple of hours of moderate activity, but not enough to raise my heart rate. Do a few pushups between chores; realize floor really needs dusting.

?Sunday Play 75 minutes of singles tennis, earning a cardio workout probably equal to a 20-minute jog. Resolve to hit gym Monday.

Hardly a paragon of workout virtue, I know. But by my tally I logged one long, hard workout (basketball), three decent fitness sessions (one gym, one run, one tennis) and one day of modest physical activity involving lawn mowers, trash cans and other exotic workout apparatus. I also had some fun along the way.

But enough about me. If there's a message here, it's something like this: Be flexible with fitness plans. If all you can do is grab a 15-minute jog or half your gym time, so be it. Don't flog yourself for slacking. Have fun, and make sure some of your activities involve other humans, which makes sessions harder to blow off.

And when you do come across decent fitness advice (I can recommend a weekly column if you're in the market), view it as a guide, not a mandate.

See you later at the gym, right? Oops . . . we have a fitness chat today: 11:30 a.m. at http://washingtonpost.com/ . Don't sweat it: We'll hit the gym tomorrow.

-- John Briley