The Workout: Swim Training at Hart House

Author: Laura Berger

Welcome to THE WORKOUT, a semi-regular series where I tag along with law students to learn about their favourite ways to get moving. Instead of sticking to my regular exercise routine (yoga and running), I’m hoping to test-drive some new activities—whether it’s archery or rock-climbing, Zumba or Spynga, hopscotch or hip-hop dance. With exams looming and deadlines fast approaching, sometimes we neglect to emerge from our fluorescent-lit study carrels for some much-needed exercise. Switching things up, and exploring the myriad options for breaking a sweat on and around campus, can help in the motivation department. 

The workout: Swimming laps at the Hart House pool with Lane Krainyk, 3L student and former swim coach.

The experience: I approached my swim date with Lane with some trepidation—primarily because Lane had promised to wear his tiniest Speedo, but also because he’d promised to design a gruelling workout. Although I love swimming, I generally adopt a leisurely approach. As in, I usually find myself sharing the slow lane with octogenarians in chin-strap bathing caps. It seemed like swimming with Lane would be somewhat more intense.

With its vaulted ceilings and vintage photos lining the walls, Hart House has always struck me as an eminently civilized place to exercise. The pool itself is rather small (only 25 yards), with a lovely Art Deco skylight overhead. The environs seem much more suited to afternoon tea than workouts of the heart-pumping, arms-throbbing, lungs-burning variety.

When I arrived at Hart House, Lane—who coached speed swimming during high school and undergrad—explained that we would be alternating laps in the pool with exercises on the pool deck. We would start with a small number of laps, and then build up from there. So far, so good.

After a few warm-up laps, Lane hopped out onto the pool deck and asked: “So, how many push-ups can you reasonably do?” Fear struck my heart; I will happily portage a canoe for a kilometre, but I absolutely loathe push-ups. “Um… six?” I replied. To his credit, Lane was completely unfazed by my woeful lack of upper-body strength. He led me through a series of arm exercises and gave me lots of encouragement.

Over the next thirty minutes, we switched between swimming laps in the water and doing core, shoulder and leg work on the deck—plus some stretching, which was a relief for my poor accustomed-to-yoga body. In the name of journalistic inquiry, I asked Lane about his background in swimming; chit-chatting also gave me an excuse to stretch out the breaks between exercises.

By the end, my arms felt mushy and powerless, but I was loving being in the water. Swimming laps can sometimes get tedious, but Lane’s workout kept things interesting. Plus, I was mad impressed by Lane’s butterfly stroke.

Practical details: Access to Hart House fitness facilities, including the pool, is free upon presentation of your student card. From Monday to Friday, the pool is open 7:00-9:00 AM, 11:00 AM-2:00 PM and 4:00 PM-10:30 PM. Click here for complete schedule information (including weekend and holiday hours). Towel service is available for a small fee—a nice option if you want to avoid schlepping a soggy towel around after your swim. Hart House also hosts free drop-in AquaFit classes several times per week; check out the schedule here.

 

Deadlines: Steps to Success

It’s Due When?!

Impending deadlines often feel like this (Image from http://www.lifehacker.com).

It’s that time of year when deadlines start looming – but happily, there’s help!  Lifehacker’s advice column has a great piece on how to make deadlines work for you rather than a source of stress here:
http://lifehacker.com/5972811/how-can-i-make-deadlines-less-stressful?tag=mind-hack

The advice column makes the point that “even though we can’t control time or get rid of deadlines altogether, it is possible to turn that pressure into a more positive force rather than a panic-inducing one.” It recommends four things:

1. Set realistic deadlines (yes, we all assign 15 minutes for a task that will take 30. Budget over the time limit, not under).

2. Think of your deadlines as time allocations (focus on how much time you have and how you are going to spend it).

3. Work backwards (figure out how much time your task is going to take and how you can make that more efficient, or work on higher-priority tasks).

4. Troubleshoot your deadline issues (if you’re chronically late, take a moment to figure out why and resolve the issue rather than let it continue to ruin your productivity).

More Muffins, Less Madness?

Think HWSAC just puts a bandaid on the issue of student stress?

(1) Check out this article by Sarah Harland-Logan to see one committee member’s views on the issue: http://ultravires.ca/2013/02/more-muffins-less-madness-a-response-to-leo-elias/

(2) Please send any feedback to utlawmeetingminds@gmail.com. We’re interested in your opinion!

More Willpower: “I Will, Won’t, Want!”

“You know that feeling when you really want to accomplish something, but it seems like your brain is almost fighting against you?” 

In this video, Kelly McGonigal, author of The Willpower Instinct, explains how to tap into three distinct types of willpower – “I won’t,” “I will,” and “I want”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2G3nxr1nvY. 

Unless you feel that you already have more willpower than you can use (…in which case, please come and join our committee immediately, so we can all learn from your infinite wisdom!), you should probably take the three minutes to watch this.

Productivity: Executive Summary

We strongly recommend AsapSCIENCE’s efficient and (literally!) colourful distillation of some of the key principles of productivity that we’ve been discussing – and will be exploring more extensively in the weeks to come! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHfjvYzr-3g

In particular, this movie makes a great point about willpower – which is something we all tend to feel like we could use more of:

“The first thing to come to terms with is that your willpower is simply not enough.  In fact, some studies suggest that willpower is an exhaustible source that can be entirely used up. […] So instead of simply convincing yourself to try harder, a more methodical approach is suggested.”

Apparently, said methodical approach involves the “Zeigarnik effect,” and it looks hilarious:

Cheers!

The Health and Wellness Student Advisory Committee

Welcome Back!

We hope that you had a relaxing reading week – but are aware that many of you were hard at work focusing on readings, interviews, and/or extracurricular commitments.  So in that spirit, here’s a fantastic Harvard Business Review article about how to keep your cool as you get back into the groove: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/12/nine_ways_successful_people_de.html

The author (Heidi Grant Halvorson, associate director for the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia University Business School) leads off with the key point here, which is that “The difference between those who are successful and those who aren’t is not whether or not you suffer from stress, but how you deal with it when you do.”

We can probably all agree that law students in general are going to be stressed a pretty high percentage of the time, our best efforts notwithstanding.  So, how to proceed?  This article offers some powerful tools.  In fact, we’ll be exploring several of them in subsequent posts, but for now let’s focus on one of the key take-home messages for the increasingly frazzled middle-of-term law student:

“Most of us believe that we need to be hard on ourselves to perform at our best, but it turns out that’s 100 percent wrong. A dose of self-compassion when things are at their most difficult can reduce your stress and improve your performance, by making it easier to learn from your mistakes. So remember that to err is human, and give yourself a break.”

Best of luck!

The Health and Wellness Student Advisory Committee

Reading Week Programming is Different

Hey everyone,

This is Reading Week – excellent!  Sadly, though, many of you still have to do not-very-relaxing things (such as, well read stuff, and/or prepare for job interviews).  So, while we encourage you to try to take an actual break at some point this week, we also think that all of you – including both the super-stressed and those who are getting some well-earned R&R – will enjoy these deceptively cuddly tigers! 

http://gizmodo.com/5978306/snowman-cam-lets-you-experience-what-its-like-to-be-mauled-a-tiger-spoiler-adorable

We hope that, much like this camera work, you’ll be able to see the warm-and-fuzzy side of even the scariest beasts in your path.

Sincerely,

The Health and Wellness Committee 

Interviews: Not the End of the World

Hey everyone – but especially first-years!

 

This is a stressful time for many of us.  But folks, it’s okay for a large number of reasons if you end up with a non-legal job this summer – or if you don’t use the time to pursue gainful employment at all.  In fact, that might even be for the best.

 

No, really, we mean it:

http://lifehacker.com/5978475/how-to-pick-a-career-you-actually-like?tag=success

In conclusion – things will be fine!!  

 

Cheers,

 

The Health and Wellness Committee

 

P.S. Just because everyone seems to want to go into corporate law (…though many will change their minds as the years go by), doesn’t mean that YOU have to want that, as well.

Strategic Renewal

 Hey everyone!

It’s no secret that law school has an overabundance of work. And when the readings start piling up and the deadlines are rushing toward us, we’re all tempted to think that if we just cut back on a little bit of sleep, or just took fewer breaks, we’d be just that much more likely to do a good job. 

Turns out, that’s one thought we’d all be better off ignoring. As a recent piece in the New York Times by Tony Schwartz points out –
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/opinion/sunday/relax-youll-be-more-productive.html – breaks are the key to productivity (officially termed strategic renewal). Tony has made a business out of breaks, and works with industry leaders such as Google and Pfizer to increase employees’ productivity – by teaching them to take more frequent and fulfilling breaks. 

The acronym is BRAC (Basic Rest Activity Cycle) and the idea is simple: we progress from a state of alertness to fatigue in approximately 90 minutes. And as you’ll notice, “physical fatigue” sounds very far removed from “most productive.” Work is draining, and there’s only so much sustained effort we can tolerate before starting to feel the strain.

Tony himself is an example of just how effective appropriately spaced breaks are. He’s published five books. Three, he wrote working 10 hour days (that sounds familiar). Each book took about a year. For the last two, he spent a mere 4 ½ hours working per day, in 90 minute intervals. He finished both in less than six months. 

The take-home message is straightforward: more frequent breaks will lead not only to a better experience but to higher-quality work. It’s a win-win: in the short run, you’ll enjoy a relaxing break. In the long run, you’ll reap the rewards of a job well done.

Napping is not Procrastination

It’s easy to think of napping as a common and fairly harmless, but insidious, form of procrastination – we often seem to lump napping in with things like watching endless YouTube clips or falling into the black hole of Facebook updates.  However, napping for an hour – or possibly as little as ten minutes (!) – enables the memory consolidation that solidifies new skills.  So if you’re making difficult decisions about allocation of time, and you’re forced to choose between napping and cramming, make sure that you save some time in there to get *some* sleep.

Don’t believe us? Here’s a really boring, expensive journal article that details the process:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878331710600253#.

Here’s a slightly more accessible article:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13415-011-0052-z?LI=true.

Here’s a totally fluffy (but much more accessible) blog post saying the same thing:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201111/the-value-nap-during-skill-learning).

The takeaway here is that it’s okay if you’re totally exhausted after a demanding class: taking a nap is the smart and strategic choice. All-nighters are a terrible trap to fall into – make sure that there’s time to consolidate all of your learning.