Welcome to the Mindless 15!

In addition to my Journal-Copy-Breathe morning routine, I’ve been adding stairlaps at the park across the street.

About Stairlaps

I started doing them in July, a few weeks before we were planning to do a backpacking trip on the southeastern side of Mt St Helens, which is just a 90 minute drive from our front door.

I got hooked. I can pace myself well on the stairs, I hate to run, but somehow I enjoy walking up stairs, always have. The first week or so, I was totally winded each time, so just completing 10 reps felt like a major triumph.

As I got better over the next few weeks, I realized I need to pace myself, skipping twice a week to avoid burnout, exhaustion, or injury. These are typical outcomes I’ve put myself through in the past because of my tendency to Set it and Forget it.

Also, I discovered that the top of the stairs was a perfect place for a set of toe-touches, pushups, air-squats, etc.

Now it’s mid-Sep and I’ve been playing around with what to marble into my stair laps, and how much time, effort, energy I can expect to devote each day. I generally do 10 reps of double-step stairs (two steps at a time) once or twice a week, with a set of 10 pushups in between each rep.

Also, I always warmup with 3 reps of single-step stairs, because I don’t want to pull anything and I do this first thing in the morning.

Sometimes I focus on flexibility, so in between stairs I do toe-touches, mountain climbers, triangle poses, lunges.

Sometimes I work a set of prone abs, so that’s mountain climbers, 30-second planks, planks with alternating shoulder-taps.

Finally, I’ve continued my practice of skipping breakfast, drinking water and black coffee until lunchtime or even late afternoon.