My workout philosophy

Check out my daily workouts here: https://unexpectedembraced.com/daily-workouts/

My workout philosophy is to use exercise to set me up to be capable of pursuing any physical adventure that comes my way. I never want physical fitness to be an excuse to not be able to take an adventure. Exercise and nutrition are also the closest thing to the fountain of youth so it should be super important to everyone.

When I worked in consulting (60-70 hour weeks), I let fitness go by the wayside and I had to train and diet in order to run a race or go on long hikes. I didn’t like that. I’m not going to let that happen again.

I mix up my days with HIIT, longer runs, and more weight focused workouts. I’ll always prioritize playing a sport or going on a trip with friends, because duh – that’s the whole reason I work out in the first place!

When it comes to weights, I prioritize being lean as opposed to bulking up. So I tend to do more high rep exercise and have adopted the superset methodology (2-3 exercises with no rest in between the different exercises, and rest between sets).

Cardio is huge for me. Having high aerobic (cardiovascular) capacity is super important to me as it allows me to have the energy to function day to day and to go on longer hiking excursions. I like to push myself on runs (sometimes distance, sometimes running 3 miles as fast as possible) and mix in spinning, rowing, and swimming from time to time. I also tend to build in burpees and other plyometric exercises to my weight days to keep my body guessing.

Finally, I’ve had knee injuries in the past and historically was very inflexible so I make sure that I warm up and cool down appropriately. Yoga is also a consistent part of my exercise schedule for both the flexibility benefits and the release I get from the practice.

The three metrics I like to look at most are
1) Resting heart rate (measure of aerobic capacity)
2) Body fat
3) Weight (maintain a higher weight with low body fat = lots of muscle)