Mindset and Recovery

Skinny VS Strong

As Bob Dylan famously sang all those decades ago, "the times, they are a-changin'." I grew up in the 80's and 90's and watched my mom go to "aerobics" classes and then joined her in my teens in those same classes. We danced, pranced, whooped, hollered, and stepped up and down off those pink and green Reebok steps 1000's of times. We definitely worked up a sweat too. But what was our drive? What were we putting all those hours of sweat equity in for anyway? We were either gett

Lisa Magnuson

Jun 20, 20244 min read

Try Dry January??

It's that season again when we reflect on the year we are bringing to a close and look forward to a fresh start in a new year. Some of us have had major successes this past year, while others may have suffered a loss or slogged through the months, anticipating the new chapter a new year promises. It's well known that January is prime time for resolutions made (and often broken) but our original intentions are always solid. The part where the resolution making falls apart is

Lisa Magnuson

Dec 31, 20233 min read

Practicing Gratitude

Around this time of year things get a little crazy. I swear that when I'm out and about shopping for groceries or perusing a store, people have a half-crazed look in their eyes with a laser focus on whatever it is they are pursuing at that moment; be it a frozen turkey or Airpods for their nephew. Manners get scattered in their wake and the "it's all about me" mentality comes through loud and clear. Why does this happen? Why do we get so frazzled that we lose our sense of dec

Lisa Magnuson

Nov 28, 20232 min read

Will Yourself More Willpower

After secretly gobbling down your kids' Halloween candy have you ever asked yourself, "I wish I had more willpower." At one time, willpower was viewed as a limited resource, meaning you only had so much of it and once you used it all up, you were up to your elbows in candy wrappers. This belief was built on scientific studies examining how the brain works with varying levels of glucose (brain fuel) and having subjects complete difficult tasks. The results were basically, if

Lisa Magnuson

Nov 12, 20233 min read

Training to Failure Sounds Terrible

Who sets out to fail? Not me, so when someone says do this one thing until failure, my knee jerk reaction is, no thank you, that sounds counter-productive. However, training to the point of failure (occasionally) can be immensely beneficial for muscle growth as well as psychological understanding of your actual end point. For the sake of argument, in this article let's assume the failure point is momentary muscular failure and not technical failure. Those are two versions of

Lisa Magnuson

Oct 12, 20234 min read

What is HRV and why does it matter?

Many of us wear fitness tracking devices, whether we know it or not. Your smartwatch, be it an iWatch, Garmin, or Fitbit, are just a few I can name that can track all sorts of health and fitness data from heart rate, to step count, to calories burned; they do it all. One of these measurements you might not be as familiar with is Heart Rate Variability (HRV). It seems like everywhere you turn now, people are talking about HRV and why you should care about it. I'm going to do m

Lisa Magnuson

Sep 20, 20234 min read

Reframe "losing weight"

So you want to lose weight- join the club. I feel like most people I chat with either professionally or casually want to lose some "x lbs" amount of weight. There are A LOT of options out there, and many health and fitness influencers whispering in your ears (via social media feeds) about what works best and how to get the most out of particular eating plans/diets. I've touched on this topic before but I think it's worth revisiting. How about we start by reframing how we thin

Lisa Magnuson

Jul 27, 20234 min read

My Birthday "List"

It's June, and for our family that means several things. It's one of the busiest months of the year, with two birthdays (Anya and me), Father's day, and the end of the school year. It's transition time, yet again, from a busy scheduled school day routine to the more laid back, easy morning and lazy evening groove of summer. Despite its craziness, I actually love June, partially because I love birthdays (especially my own), and because of the slow slide into less structure a

Lisa Magnuson

Jun 9, 20236 min read

Processed foods and you

A new term started popping up in news articles- "ultraprocessed food". This caught my attention because I hadn't heard it before and I wondered what the "ultra" part meant. After reading a few of the articles, I quickly came to understand that ultraprocessed foods (UPF's) are just what we used to consider processed foods, however there is a new hierarchy of foods I was unaware of. There are four tiers to label foods- unprocessed, minimally processed, processed and ultraproces

Lisa Magnuson

May 22, 20232 min read

Forest Bathing 101

If you haven't heard this term yet, you will soon. Forest bathing stems from the Japanese practice called "shinrin-yoku", which roughly...

Lisa Magnuson

May 4, 20232 min read

Will Winter EVER end?

The days are getting longer, but the persistent cold and rainy weather in the PNW has been affecting everyone. No matter where I go...

Lisa Magnuson

Apr 21, 20232 min read

How Best to Aid Recovery

Recovery is as important, if not more so, than training itself. In order to create the adaptations (results) from your training sessions,...

Lisa Magnuson

Apr 5, 20235 min read

Getting Back into Training After a Break

Sometimes life gives you lemons..... It's what you do with those lemons that counts. Most, if not all of us, will take an extended break...

Lisa Magnuson

Feb 22, 20233 min read

AH-CHOO! Should I workout if I have a cold?

ANNOUCEMENT!! First, we want to thank everyone who participated in our "Burn the Bird" beach workout. We also wanted to let you all know...

Lisa Magnuson

Dec 7, 20223 min read

Preparing for your "Marginal Decade" of Life

Common catch phrases like YOLO (you only live once) and carpe diem surround us and our culture is filled with uplifting, live in the moment type of hype. It's a fun way to help encourage you to experiment with new activities or push yourself out of your comfort zone on occasion. But what about the long game? The short game is pretty easy to manage and day to day or even year to year you will slowly see things change, but if you think way ahead into your future what do you see

Lisa Magnuson

Aug 23, 20224 min read

How, When and Why to Stretch

As benign as the topic of stretching would seem to be, there is a lot of controversy surrounding its purpose and validity. To start, let's delve into the two most common forms of stretching; static vs dynamic. Just like the names imply, static stretching involves simply holding a stretching position for a given period of time; usually 30-60 seconds. Dynamic stretching, on the other hand, is moving your body though different positions and planes of motion which in turns stretc

Lisa Magnuson

May 10, 20222 min read