Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

What Type of Workout Personality Are You?

Today, I’m not quite sure what’s wrong with me.  I am both ravenously hungry (like, hungrier than normal even for my increased appetite) and feeling kinda weak with a little scratchy throat.  I’m truly hoping it’s just a little bit of allergies but honestly?  It could be a cold.  Yeah, the week of my race.  I had nightmares of it being 20 and sleeting.  I had nightmares of injuring myself this week.  Illness?  Nary a thought.  I am invincible – right Happy Runner?

The plan for today is to a) eat as much healthy and nutritious food I can handle (I’m already into a carton of blackberries, an oikos yogurt, half a packet of kashi hot cereal, a turkey sandwich on sprouted grain bread, a bag full of raw veggies, and a handful of pistachios – and it’s just after lunch) b) skip my cross training workout – it was going to be mellow anyway and I don’t think it will hurt and c) pump myself full of water and tea and some emergen-c and d) rest rest rest – leave work at 5 as scheduled and veg on the couch and sleep way way way early.  Wish me luck that I’ll be back to my snappy self tomorrow.  Until then, a “Back to Reality” day.

This post originated in April 2009, and really helped wake me up to WHY I was working out and how to encourage it (races, goals, and deadlines, oh my!).

Although I will shout loudly at the mountaintops about how I was able to lose 80+ lbs using SparkPeople, a lot of the articles are sorta drivel.  The other features are great, don’t get me wrong.  Tracking what went into my mouth for the last year and a half has helped me become aware of what a normal human should eat and what foods work for me.  Logging exercise made me accountable when I didn’t want to pursue fitness for any other reason than losing the proverbial junk in my trunk.  Seems silly now that anyone would have to push me to workout, but times have changed.  Getting involved with the community provided me inspiration and an outlet when I used to blog over there.  However, the articles – meh.

That being said, since I’m on the site all the time tracking my foods and logging my awesome fitness minutes, I do catch some and once in a while they’ll really hit home.  A few weeks ago, I read this one.  If you don’t want to jump over there and read it all, I’ll give you the reader’s digest version…actually the article IS a summary so this is a summary of a summary.  How meta!

There are 5 different types of workout personalities: squares, rectangles, triangles, circles, and squigglies.

Squares are very rigid and like to have a plan and stick to it.  They are committed, but hit plateaus easily because they don’t change up their workouts.

Rectangles are like squares in they like a routine, but they are more flexible and also tend to be more social.  Since they’re more flexible they will resort to a Plan B (as in, planned to run outside today but it’s raining, so I’ll hit the treaddy at the gym), but if they workout alone, they aren’t likely to stick to it.

Triangles are competitive and very focused on improving and tracking that improvement.  They appreciate all sorts of improvement (even if the scale didn’t move, they’ll appreciate the new personal best on their mile time), but are likely to get frustrated without a higher purpose in mind.

Circles are the emotional, social people who couldn’t imagine working out alone.  Having gym time double as social time gets them there regularly, but they’re likely to spend more time chatting than working out.

Squigglies are the polar opposite of squares.  They abhor routine and value, above all things, fun.  They rarely see plateaus because they’re always changing it up, but are likely to get bored and drop out of a regular exercise program.

It really hit me here that I was fully and completely a triangle.  It’s not just my body shape (inverted triangle, at least), it’s my workout type!  This inspired me to ditch April’s planned experiment, which while it sounded FUN, it also sounded like a chore since it was super varied.  I really like a routine.  I like to make a list and check it off.  I definitely have elements of square (in that I like routine) and rectangle (that I’m ok being flexible, if it’s raining the treaddy is fine, or if I’m exhausted and planned a hard workout I’ll switch it to another day and do something lighter), but I am true and true a triangle.  Even before I was working towards a race, I was working on improving my times, my distances, using heavier weights, doing more reps, and the like.

So this gave me the oomph to actually put this half marathon plan into place, I think I wrote out the spreadsheet the very same day.  It still scares me but more than anything I’m excited.  I’m also signed up for a 5k in 2 days and a 10k next weekend because I realized – I love races.  I got myself a stopwatch to time myself because it was one more stat I could track.  Now that the article validated for me what I already knew (I thrive on competition), I’m rocking out with my new wicking socks out and embracing it.

What type of workout personality are you?  How do you embrace it and make it work for you?  How do you get over your weaknesses?

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4 Comments

  1. My work-out personality is an octagon. I just say STOP.

  2. MizFit

    OOOH INTERESTING.

    no surprise to me that im a full on squiggle 🙂

  3. AIEEE! Go away GERMS! Hope those blackberries work their magic and you have a great race:) As for a my workout type, I’m think I’m a triangle with you LOL.

  4. Uh oh. I’m a Square. plateau city. I know too. But I’m slow to change up.

    …and about those Blackberries. The seeds stick in my teeth.

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