Friday, June 15, 2012

Weight Training for The Writer's Mind


I realized while on a 6-mile run last Saturday, if I was going to stay injury free and have the stamina to make it through the training required to run a marathon, I had to get someone to help me. 
 
My sister-in-law has been an aerobics instructor for over twenty years. Her best friend is a trainer. Donna hooked us up, and I met with Pat Carlson on Tuesday.  I already knew I had no upper body strength. I didn’t have to get on the machines to find that out. We lose an average of 5 percent of our muscle mass every 10 years after the age of 35. I’ve almost lost 15%. It’s possible to regain your muscles by doing the following:

1.     Ease back into exercising
2.     Focus on specific muscle you want to rebuild
3.     Make exercise part of your daily routine
4.     Get more rest
5.     Eat a balanced diet rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables and lean meats
6.     Increase protein intake by including eggs, lean meats, and fish
7.     Drink water to keep your body hydrated
8.     Avoid supplements that claim to build muscles

My goal for the next 10 weeks is to focus on increasing my body strength, which will protect me from injury and give me more power to run.

While thinking about my workouts with Pat, I was reminded of the on-line classes I took with  Margie Lawson If you haven’t had the opportunity to take one of her classes, run, don’t walk to her website and sign up for Empowering characters’ Emotions; Deep Editing: The EDITS System, Rhetorical Devices, and More; and Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues like a Psychologist.

Her classes are weight training for the mind. The Empowering Characters' Emotions and Deep Editing class will “help you get in touch with your characters' visceral reactions, and will show you how to use characters' emotions to drive plots in compelling and evocative new directions.” CJ Lyons, bestselling author and former student.

I highly recommend Margie’s classes. They are addictive, much like the adrenalin rush athletes get. 

Happy writing and running, Kathy

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