Fitness Goals: Floral Trends

Fitness goals and a floral pattern may make for an odd pairing but indulge me for a few minutes and I’ll explain the connection. Finding myself potentially short on a floral to feature for this post as publishing day approached, I’d been browsing through a well-known international department store when inspiration struck. A cursory look through the clothing sections had been a bust and then I spied a display in the activewear section. My typical fitness wear tends towards solids but this floral like pattern really caught my fancy.

I’ve seen a few other bloggers opine on how, for them, September is the new January and I fall (LOL) into the same train of thought. Somewhere in my archives, there is a post I wrote on this topic but I cannot seem to find now (I’ll keep looking). Back to this post, with my shoulder and foot nearly back to 100%, I can now move forward with some of my fitness goals I’d hope to achieve over the summer. Along with that, my recent and thankfully temporary physical incapacities has had me thinking about a few new ones.

While I know that I had an extreme case with both my right foot and right shoulder out of commission at the same time, the experience made me realized how unfit I’d become. For instance, I was unable to pull myself up from the floor to standing with only the use of my left side extremities even with help from The Husband. The first couple of weeks propelling myself on my tush up the stairs in our place with just my left leg and left arm was very hard until I built up strength in those limbs. Early on, my daughter had observed that I needed to coordinate my moves better and engage my abs as I did so. My journeys up the stairs became easier and quicker once I did that.

After that little tumble that set me on my tush, I had a lot of time to sit and think about “age fitness”. In doing some research on that topic, I found an article from last year in The Telegraph titled Are you as fit for your age as you should be?. How well do you (or other women in your life) measure against these checklists?

*In your 20s you should be able to: Run 5km in 30 minutes, do 20 burpees in a row, hold a full plank for one minute
*In your 30s you should be able to: Run a mile in less than 9 minutes, hold a plank for 45 seconds, deadlift more than 50 percent of your bodyweight
*In your 40s you should be able to: Sprint for 60 seconds without stopping, do 10 press-ups without stopping, touch your toes comfortably with straight legs
*In your 50s you should be able to: Run at a moderate pace for 60 seconds without stopping, do five burpees without stopping, lower yourself into a cross-legged position on the floor without using your hands, and then return to standing
*In your 60s you should be able to: Regularly take more than 10,000 steps in a day, do 12 bodyweight squats without stopping, touch your fingertips with one hand over your shoulder and the other behind your back
*In your 70s you should be able to: Walk a mile in less than 16 minutes, climb a flight of stairs with 10 steps in under 30 seconds comfortably, rise to stand from a chair without using your hands or arms, and repeat at least 12 times in 30 seconds

Many of us will think of setting fitness goals with a primary purpose of losing weight and looking better in our clothes (or out of them). Those motivations are not be mocked but health experts advise us that there are other considerations besides appearance. Key components of physical fitness include muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, and body fat composition. I know that focusing only one or two of these components without attention to the others will not get me to where I want to go. My plan is still in development but with new floral gear, I’ll look good as I work on it.

My apologies to those of you who may have been looking for this post on Saturday. With my late start on taking photos and a weekend get-away with The Husband to celebrate our 27th anniversary, I ran into technical difficulties getting this post published on schedule. Good news, however, photos have already been taken for the upcoming link-up post so there should be no delay with it (fingers crossed).

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