Physical Funness for the Motion Starved

Fit more fun into your fitness while exploring the outdoors.

Category Archives: Stories


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We Ran for the Seals!

During my second workout with Paige I asked her to run down the beach about 200 yards, turn around and come back. Immediately she moaned but forced herself to trundle off behind her workout partner Cindy. When Page arrived back, I asked her if she was okay, she said, “ I just really hate running.”

A couple of weeks later I heard Paige say, “I think I might like to try a 5k some day” I don’t think she realized what she had said until she heard me say,  “Great! Lets find one and start training.”

To Paige’s great distress, I found a “fun run” for her, and I invited my other clients to join in. The event could not have been more perfect. It was a 4-mile relatively (although the organizer description said it was “hilly”) flat fundraiser for the Marine Mammal Center, in Sausalito CA.  It’s called Run for the Seals.

For about two months everyone trained, adding a little distance at a time, working on their form, rhythm, breathing and the general psychology of how to get through an endurance event.

Our Run for the Seals event was this past Saturday. I am very proud to announce that Paige, Mike, Lindsay, Bessie, Rich, Cindy, Diana and Kazumi all finished strong and had a great experience. Bessie and Lindsay were there to stretch their legs for longer events scheduled in the spring. For the rest of the crew, this was their first event and longest run ever. For Mike, the best part was realizing that his asthma doesn’t have to slow him down.

As for Paige, while ascending the final “climb” she looked up and saw the hill choking down on her, panicked, and said “can I walk, just for a second?” I asked, “why?” “Because we’re on a hill.” “No, not a good reason, look straight ahead and keep running.” With about 100 yards to go I asked Paige if she had anything left, could she sprint over the line? Her reply was simply, “yea.” And so, as we approached the line we gradually sped up putting the hammer down completely over the last few yards.  Paige sprinted over the finish line looking strong to the delight of her cheering family.

In the end, I could not be more proud of each and every one you who represented Motion Starved on this day. For some, this was just the beginning. For others it was practice for bigger events. For each of us it was a celebration of our personal strength, our fitness, our friendships and the wonderful place we live.

XOXO, Kelley


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What in tarnation is a Fitness Court?

Fitness Court in action!

Fitness Court in action!

Well, if you Google “fitness court” you’ll see that a fitness court is simply a place set aside specifically to work your body out. Could even be a basketball court by another name. In this case I’m referring to the Nation Fitness Campaigns’ Fitness Courts.

I bring this up because a couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a nice fellow named Alex with the NFC (National Fitness Campaign). Alex emailed to let me know about the new Fitness Court his organization is putting in on the Marina Green and invited me to Treasure Island for a sneak peek.  A chance to have my way with the court before it launches. After reading about the NFC and seeing photos of the court I figured I’d be a fool not to check it out.

So, on Saturday right after our Stair Climbing Workout, I gassed up the car and headed for Treasure Island…

When I walked into the massive airplane hangar that temporarily houses the Fitness Court I had flash backs of walking into a school dance without a date.  Panic set in as I shyly strolled in and realized I didn’t know any of the 30 beautiful people rhythmically jumping, lunging and bounding around the court. There was a cameraman and orchestrated workout session with music going on. It looked to me like serious business and that everyone knew exactly what they were doing. As I stood on the sidelines in awe, a tall, fit Alex magically appeared and began to explain the court. As I stood there wondering if I had the nerve to jump up and have a pass around, another really nice, fit looking fellow asked me if I’d like to have a go. Again, I flashed back to school dances, it was kinda like being asked to dance by a stranger. Finally I managed to gather the words “yeeea, okay, thanks” and off I went for my romp around the Fitness Court with my partner giving me detailed FC 101.

Here’s what I learned; The Fitness Court is a free outdoor body weight training system designed with adults of all fitness levels in mind. The court features seven exercise stations: Core, squat, push, lunge, pull, agility and bend. These 7 stations are meant to build strength, balance and flexibility. The idea is that you go through the entire court a number of times, with one minute at each station recommended. After a full circuit, rest for 3 minutes and then around again and again if you like.

On this day I managed just 2 circuits but only because they were starting to do a serious photo shoot and I figured I’d stay out of that business.  I do wish I’d had longer to play around on my own. I was so busy trying to do the right thing at the right time, and follow the circuit that I didn’t have time to think about all the different exercises one can actually perform at each station.

So… with that, I highly recommend that each and every one of you make the effort to go check out the Fitness Court once it’s planted on The Marina Green. I’m not certain how long it will be there but I do know that this is a trial and if it’s a hit it may get to say and we may get to see more of them pop up in other parts of the city and the country for the matter.  If you are worried about knowing what to do once you get to the FC, don’t be. There are directions and there will be trainers there to help you during peak hours. Or, you can go with me. If you’re a current client, be sure we’ll be visiting the court as soon as it sprouts at the end of this month.

Lastly, I’d like to say THANK YOU to: Alex for finding me and inviting me to check out the FC! To my workout partner whose name has escaped me (I’m really sorry about that because you were very nice to take me around. I’m just super bad with names!) To Chelsea for chatting me up, and to the National Fitness Campaign for doing what they do and for bringing this super cool contraption to my hood. I hope to see you all again soon…

P.s. The National Fitness Campaign is an organization works to build fit communities by providing public outdoor fitness courts in schools and parks across the country.


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Don’t groundhog yourself!

Punxsutawney Phil

Groundhog day is celebrated on February 2 in the United States and Canada. According to folklore, if it’s cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day then spring will come early. If it’s sunny, the groundhog will supposedly see its shadow and retreat back into its burrow, and the winter weather will continue for six more weeks.

Is it me or does that make absolutely no sense? Read it again and think about it. I got the paragraph from Wikipedia. They know their shit, but it’s the logic that has me confused.

From what I can tell there are a few groundhogs around the country that have been coaxed into predicting the weather. There’s Jimmy the groundhog, Wartian Willy the groundhog, Staten Island Chuck and the most famous, Punxsutawney Phil. PP lives in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and does his work there. Being a person that hates the idea of caged animals I don’t much care for this practice especially after seeing photos of these critters. While they all look well-groomed and “healthy” they’re all extremely chubby and perhaps (although I’m not an animal fat specialist) very over weight. I fear they all could use a bit of exercise and some diversity in their daily routines.

That brings me to the Movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. Remember that? Bill plays a TV reporter who finds himself repeating the exact same day over and over again. After indulging in hedonism and numerous suicide attempts, he begins to re-examine his life and priorities and eventually realizes he’d be wise to take advantage of the situation and break out of his patterns. Once he makes some changes to the cycle, his life improves and all is well. Storybook ending so to speak.

Unfortunately Punxsutawney Phil probably doesn’t have the option to change his ways to better his life and health but you and I do. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; change it up, mix it up, challenge yourself, excite yourself and you’ll become a more rounded athlete, happier, flexible, interesting person. Doing the same thing over and over again makes you good at one thing and teaches your body and mind to move only in that one direction, and eventually it will fight back.

Lets start with this: today brush your teeth, your hair and open doors with the opposite hand you normally do.  Just try it!

Happy Groundhog Day!


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Morning people

Morning stretch

Most mornings I wake up at 5:30 am and trudge around making coffee and getting ready to go out into the freezing cold where I command people to do things they usually don’t want to do. That’s my job these days. I’m a trainer. I love this job although I’m not used to thinking of myself in this manner just yet. Regardless, it was early on the morning of Friday, January 27th 2012 that I realized just how special it is to be up and out, starting your day while most of The City is still snug in their beds.

I think we all know that it’s difficult to cultivate and maintain the self-control and motivation necessary to regularly hoist ourselves out of a warm cocoon and heave our bodies into a state of ferocious discomfort, in the name of physical fitness. I will say this though; it’s well worth the effort. There is truly something special about watching the fog pull back from the shore or watching the sunrise, realizing that the clouds are sometimes orange, pink or purple early in the day.  Sometimes you hear owls and see wild critters, on a very special day you might see a bunny or three darting across your path. These are things you can’t begin comprehend until you experience them yourself.

So, the next time you’re laying in your warm bed trying to force your leg over the edge and toss the covers off, remember, feelings of discomfort are fleeting, only lasting for a moment. And, the first step onto the cold floor is the hardest; the day gets brighter and warmer from there.

Hope to see you out there…


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Inspiration seeds

Bespoke inspiration

You’ve heard of “paying it forward” right? It’s when you do something nice for someone and in turn that person pays it forward by doing something nice for someone else, and so on and so on and so on. Pretty soon everyone is doing something nice for someone else and the world is a much better place.

The same thinking works for inspiration. If you inspire someone to better himself, they may just inspire someone else to do the same, and so on and so on… See where I’m going with this?

Here’s a current example:

Last January  I started working with Diana, she wanted to lose some weight and tone up. At first, Diana could do about 3 abdominal crunches before she’d slam her legs to the ground and groan in pain. After a few months Diana got much stronger and actually began to like working out, she lost a nice chunk of weight and people took notice. One day about six months into Diana’s training, her mother became so impressed with Diana’s new ways that she talked her neighbor into power walking 3 mornings a week with her, something she had not done in years. After a few weeks of steady walking Diana’s mother and her walking partner inspired another neighbor to join their morning walks. Now, six months later they’re walking five mornings a week and have added another two walkers to their group.

So you see… it started with Diana, she inspired her mother, her mother inspired the other three walkers, those three walkers have now gone on to inspire their friends and family.

Pretty cool, don’t you think?

Inspire someone; all you have to do is plant the seed in one person and then watch it grow…


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Motion Starved is 1 year old today!

One year ago today I launched Motion Starved. It started with my friend Skinny Scott giving me a blog for my birthday in November of 2010. See, I’d been talking about using a blog format rather than the standard website to promote my business and share my knowledge, but I never expected to have one handed to me all set up and ready to go. “Yikes” I thought, “now I really have to get my shit together!”

So then it began, I started coughing up words of wisdom in a massive effort to feed and inspire the motion starved soul in all of us.

If you’ve been reading this past year you’ll be familiar with the people who have contributed to the success of Motion Starved. Bear with me as I take a moment to thank them now.

To Scott, words cannot express how thankful I am for all that you do for me, every day. I’m touched and deeply honored to be your friend. When I’m rich I’ll build you a special town just for Vegans.

To Michelle (aka GP-2011). Thank you for letting me practice on you, for all your creative genius, your support and mostly for all the times you’ve enthusiastically followed me into the depths of potential imprisonment.

To Dawn for being the best friend I never actually met, for your daily challenges, encouragement, advise and your infectious positive spirit. I so look forward to drinking wine with you on the moon.

To Pen & Mo for keeping me in check and for always pushing me, for your support, and mostly for appreciating that life is all about the stories. Without you I’d have far fewer really good ones! Long live the AB’s.

To Dora, your comments keep me on my toes and your support is appreciated more than you can know. Mostly, thank you for being brave enough to call me out when I make a really bad spelling error. The world thanks you for that!

To the rest of you, I say THANK YOU for following and friending, for reading and for working out with me! I am incredibly thankful and greatly appreciate your spending time with me. Without you I would have no purpose and God forbid might have to get another dreadful advertising job.

So there you have it. I’ll stop here and invite you to review “The Annual Report” that WordPress put together for me. It details how Motion Starved did and what it did during 2011. It’s actually very interesting and kind of funny, although I learned that the post most viewed was the one about having a crooked butt crack. Not sure how I feel about that.

Happy New Year my friends!

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.


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I can’t wait until 2012!

Climb to the Moon

Climb to the Moon

Happy New Year everyone!

While 2011 was a fantastic year I’m super excited to begin 2012!

To start the year off right, Motion Starved has a couple fun things on tap to feed the truly motion starved and offer opportunities for us all to get moving, get healthy and have a good time doing so.

Check it out!

Stair Climbing Workouts – Each Saturday for seven weeks we’ll climb a different set of stairs visiting all parts of San Francisco. This Saturday we meet and climb at Lands End. This session runs from 1/7 – 2/18.

The price for seven, one-hour workouts is $40 paid in advance, the drop-in rate is $12 per workout. We workout rain or shine!

Why stairs? The beauty of climbing stairs is, no matter your pace you always get a fantastic cardio and booty-boosting workout. These workouts will include core and stretching exercises as well as interval stair climbing. Participants are encouraged to climb at their own pace but will be urged to push themselves. Walkers as well as runners are welcome.

Climb to the Moon 2012 – This “event” is completely free of charge and is about fun, motivation and being part of something larger than yourself.

Here’s the short version of the story: One day, my friend Dawn and I wondered how many stairs you would have to climb to reach the moon. Dawn did the math and found that you’d have to climb over 4 million stairs to reach the moon. Yikes we thought, that’s a lot of stairs, we’re going to need a team to help us walk, run/climb if we’re going to make it to the moon in a reasonable amount of time.

That’s where you come in. Dawn and I would like to invite you to help us climb to the moon this year. Think about it, it’s kinda cool to imagine that with enough people we can actually get as far as the moon.

Here’s all you have to do: run, walk or climb stairs, the idea is to inspire you to walk, run and climb a little more than you might normally. You’ll need to record your steps either by wearing a pedometer, counting miles or if you plan to climb actual stairs those are pretty easy to count. Every day or when you choose to, Tweet us your steps and that will record them on our website. The big (477,714,000 steps) number on the site will go down the closer we get to the moon. It’s our goal to start counting with the light of the first full moon on 1/9 and reach the moon by the last full moon in 2012 on December 28th.

That’s the basic idea, there are other details like we’re working on prizes for those who climb the most within a certain time period but that’s still in the works. For fun we hope that folks will take photos and tweet them to share where they’ve been climbing. It’s likely that we’ll have folks from all over the world climbing with us so it’d be super cool to see photos from other places. Don’t you think? Another hope is that we can get individuals and corporations to donate money to their favorite fitness related charity as an incentive for us to reach our goal. Currently we have a $5000 donation promised to the San Diego Downtown YMCA if we’re able to make it half way to the moon by July 1st.

So, won’t you please help us? All you have to do is run, walk and/or climb a few extra stairs, open a Twitter account (super easy, you can use any profile name you like), follow @MoonClimb and tweet us your progress. Details on exactly how to make sure your tweet will be picked up by us are at the bottom of this page in the footnotes.

That’s enough for now; let me know if you have any questions. Please join the fun and help us make 2012 a really amazing year.

Kelley

* Sample tweets: You must tweet the number of steps, the word steps as well as mention moonclimb. Like: I did 100 steps for moonclimb today. OR moonclimb inspired me to climb 50 extra steps today. Easy!

** The average person’s stride length is approximately 2.5 feet long. That means it takes just over 2,000 steps to walk one mile, and 10,000 steps is close to 5 miles. If you count miles please do the conversion before you tweet.

*** Pretty Please “like” both Motionstarved and MoonClimb on Facebook!!!!

**** The Moon Climb 2012 site is not up yet but very soon! Stay tuned and check here.


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It’s my birthday and I’ll do what I want to

That's a lot of candles!

If you follow along you’ll have noticed that I’ve completely slacked off this week. I have no excuse. I just didn’t feel I had anything interesting to say so I didn’t post like I usually do.

Today however, is my birthday. Normally I wouldn’t toot my own horn unless I did something amazing, but today I’m going to talk about me anyway.

Some things you need to know about me are that I have zero patience; I despise excuses and people who constantly make them. I adore animals, I eat things that are bad for me, I drink a little too much wine sometimes and I don’t play hard to get, I am hard to get. I stop listening when people talk about negative things or their shitty lives, jobs or physical/mental ailments. If I like you, I will do pretty much anything for you to a fault (hence my being single). If I don’t like/respect you, I block you out because I feel we should focus on, and spend our time/energy on/with those who offer positive experiences. I believe we should surround ourselves with friends and lovers that make our lives better and whose lives we can better. People seem to like me but I find that odd, as I am not an easy person. In the end, I feel that life is about coming to terms with one’s self and truly appreciating the gifts that The Universe gave to us.

When I say that we need to appreciate the things The Universe has given us I mean all the things. The people, the good ones and the bad ones. The nuances of our bodies, the things we like and the things we don’t. The simple things like the really chubby ladybug that landed on my pillow today and the chicken dinner I “cooked” for Jackie’s dad years ago. Appreciate the things you’ve learned and be excited for the things you will come to learn.

One of the most important things I’ve learned in my life (and I just recently figured it out) is that you must let people be who they are. If you change them, they will no longer be the person you cared for. Appreciate, and embrace the good and the bad within the people you choose to spend your time with. If you can simply not bear to let them be who they are, then let them go.

Lastly, we are in control of our lives. Each of us makes zillions of decisions every day that drive our lives in the direction they’re heading. Remember this, and take responsibility for yourself and your life.

I leave you with those words of wisdom and that lovely view into the mind of Kelley. I hope you take the wisdom part to heart…


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We really are fat heads!

That's a big brain!

I read in one of my fitness magazines that our brains are two-thirds fat. That sounded like a lot to me so I did some digging. What I found was a whole shitload of interesting things.

  • First, there seems to be a bit of a discrepancy as to how fat our brains are. I found numbers that range from the 2/3’s to 10%. I know personally that my entire head at one time was 18.3% fat. This was back in the day when I was trying to ride my bike super fast (I had a body scan that breaks you down piece by piece to measure stuff; muscle, fat, bone) By my calculations 2/3’s does not amount to 10% or 18.3% for that matter, but I’m as bad at math as I am with spelling. I guess the fatter your body is the fatter your brain is?
  • The thing about fat in the brain is that the nerves are wrapped in fat; this insulates them and allows the impulses to travel quickly. Greases the way so to speak.
  • The strangest thing I found (remember, you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet) is that our brains are the consistency of warm butter. I found that odd. I’ve seen plenty of brains on TV and none of them looked like warm butter. Just last night I saw Ted Danson pick up a brain on CSI and it looked hard and rubbery. If it were the consistency of warm butter wouldn’t it have fallen apart? But then it must have been a fake TV brain.
  • I like this fact as it makes sense, I just never thought about it; the harder, or more you think the more energy your brain uses (energy = calories). Your brain uses as much as 1/5th of all the calories you use in a day. The more you use your brain the larger it can grow. Now, I’m sure that’s true but I wouldn’t worry that your brain will grow so large that it’ll bust out of your skull (your skull can grow too).

Back to the magazine, here are a three of the best foods for your brain:

  • Blueberries – these yummy little balls help to improve memory.
  • Almonds – are high in good fat, which aids in decreasing mental decline and ward off the negative impact of stress.
  • Ground Flaxseeds – are abundant in omega-3 fatty acids.

So there you go. Have a Happy Veterans Day and I’ll see you on Monday…


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Dusty Muddy fun – NorCal Warrior Dash 2011

We are Warriors!

Talk about stepping outside your comfort zone! When I refer to getting outside ones comfort zone I’m referring to pushing beyond your usual day-to-day physical or psychological limits. Well let me tell you, there’s nothing like walking into what seems to be a ginormous frat party where 75% of the population is well under the age of 30 and you, are close to twice the average age of participant. All you can hope for is that nobody notices.

That’s what it was like stepping into the corral at the Warrior Dash in lovely Hollister California yesterday. What’s the Warrior Dash? If you don’t know, look here. It’s video of our course. If you have a clue than you know it’s a 5K obstacle course. You run, climb things, slide down things, jump over things and swim through mud so thick it’s like being inside a pudding cup. The best part was the dude driving the truck along side as you run the first 1.5 miles kicking up warm dust so thick it felt like running through a forest fire.

In an effort to keep this quick, let me just say that in spite of dust induced diminished lung capacity and a few extra lines in my face I had a great time at The Dash. This was my first obstacle course and a great introduction to this sort of event. I will say that if you plan to participate in one of these things (even this one, the “easy” one) I suggest you do some research and some training. Old Lady Kelley passed up dozens and dozens of 20 something’s having to walk rather than run and unable to complete the challenging, but basic obstacles. These events require well-rounded fitness of endurance, agility and upper body strength. Make no mistake.

So there you have it. I give The Warrior Dash 4 stars. A great way for anyone to shake things up, step outside your comfort zone and test your fitness, or just have a little adventure. Oh… and you get a free body mud facial, you get hosed down by a hot fire man with a big hose and a really cool fuzzy hat with horns!

P.s. I’ll post official photos on our Motion Starved Facebook page once they become available. Go there now and “like” us if you want to see ‘em.