Exercise!

[PSMKay]

We've spent plenty of time talking here about food and drink, feeding our crews, and the stresses of the job.  Something we've never touched on before is keeping in shape while working a job with long hours, irregular schedules and varying locations.  Theatre wobbles back and forth between extreme health consciousness to the most unhealthy situations possible.  Actors who fret about their weight and eat entirely organic food will turn around and smoke a pack a day.

How do you safeguard your health among all of it?  Do you watch your diet at all?  Do you work out, and if so, how do you manage to do so with any consistency?  How about your mental health?  Do you take care of your eyes after all those hours of straining to see in the dark?  Please share with us your routines, I'm sure we can all benefit from whatever tips are out there!

[planetmike]

I've had good luck with a Wii Fit. It's a small platform (about 18" x 24") that has four weight sensors on it. Then you can do lots of various exercises (yoga, strength, balance games, aerobics games) on it. Now that's it's warmer out, I've been able to do bicycling and the pool. Another thing that is harder to do, but has been helpful, is cutting back on the carbonated drinks. I'm not obsessing over calories, but soda has a ton of calories. Since January I've lost about 15 pounds.

[Jessie_K]

I feel much shame to write this.  My current job is with a cirque style production.  We have a fully equipped gym in our studio.  And I never use it.  Shame on me.

I do manage to eat pretty healthily (if you don't count all the beer I drink).  We have healthy catered lunches and I cook my own evening meals.  I have been a vegetarian for 15 years and even in really busy/ stressful times can manage my food pretty well.

Really sad that I can't make myself hop on a treadmill that sits literally 20 feet from my desk . . .

[ReyYaySM]

During rehearsals, I'm usually not able to make it to the gym, but I do my best to eat healthy meals and snacks.  I cook my own meals and prepare healthy snacks like carrots with hummus or apples with peanut butter.  I also keep a bottle of water on my SM table and try to drink the whole thing by the end of the day.  And since I'm not going to the gym, I do try to do small things like taking the stairs instead of the elevator or taking a short walk over dinner break to do something active.  I've also stopped having candy on my tech table and have started having pita chips, veggies, and hummus.  After my last show, my TD and I talked about how much better we felt and how much more energy we actually had not having all of that sugar. 

Once I'm in performance, I go to the gym 3-4 times a week (I'm lucky-my apartment has a free gym for residents that is actually pretty well equipped).  If the weather is nice, I'll go for a jog.  And summertime is my favorite because I'll swim 4-5 days a week. 

[Tempest]

Between shows, I run, 30 minutes on busy days, an hour on slower days.
For during busy rehearsal and performance times, www.yogamazing.com has a wonderful podcast of 20-45 minute yoga routines that vary from leaving me refreshed and energized to leaving me panting on the floor.  Since I take my laptop to the theatre for doing notes, etc. I can access any of them at any time.  I just keep a rolled up yoga mat stashed in a closet.  I like to make a habit of being super early, so I can usually squeeze in a yoga session before the cast arrives, or on lunch.

Really, I cannot reccommend that website and podcast enough!

[SLY]

Some of my routine always suffers when I do a show. I forget to take my vitamins. I forget my weekly face mask scrub.


However I cook a lot more versus grabbing Chipotle and Thai. Because the hours are long. I cook things and prepare snacks and they consist of lots of vegetables and tofu. Almonds and Nuts for snacks. Among other things. And I end up drinking lots of water. So I definitely eat healthier when I have a show.

Mentally....I have to have me time. Even if its five minutes. Five minutes of NO theater. NO emails NO reports. NO nothing. Just sit in bed and read and book and forget that theater even exist. And then after my time is up, I feel refreshed and the only thing that matters is theater.

Mentally during a show...I also feel revitalized artistically. I'm surrounded by artist and designers with great ideas and experiences and we're literally making magic. So my creative mind is in a candy store. As a writer as well, I develop so much material when I'm working on a show.

I also ride my bike to and from a lot of rehearsals and shows. So that's a physical workout as well.

[kiwitechgirl]

In rehearsal, I very rarely have a carpark (long and complicated story!) so I ride my bike to work - takes me about twelve minutes, and I find it does kickstart me into the day pretty well.  It can be a bit unpleasant during the winter (although we tend to get more frosts and sunshine rather than rain and hail) but it does kepe me relatively fit.  When I'm on evening show calls, I run three or four days a week and go to the pool a couple of times a week - can't manage it when I'm in rehearsal though!

[ScooterSM]

For me the biggest thing is healthy snacks, especially during tech.  Since I work for a rep company and we are in tech every two or three weeks, I had to stop allowing myself to justify bad food just because it was tech.  It also really helps to cook at home and bring food instead of going out.  (This should not supplant the even 5 min walk outside during a break, which is one of the most healthy things I feel like I need, both physically and mentally).  It was an amazing realization that actually taking 10 mins to eat real food made it so much easier to not grab junk when I was hungry later.
I have recently discovered tai chi, which is great for both exercise and focus, and can be done in 10 mins or 60 mins depending on how much time I have.  It also really helps to put gym time on my calendar, like any other appointment, because I am less likely to blow it off and sleep and extra hour.
I will second what someone else said about soda.  Regular soda has a ton of calories (~250 in a 12oz can) and no redeeming benefits.  It is bad for your teeth, bad for your kidneys, and bad for your weight.  I haven't been able to give up soda totally, but switching to sugar free (still bad for your teeth and kidneys, but at least no calories) has been a huge benefit.
It also seems like the more water I drink the better I feel.  Having a water bottle with me all the time that I can just refill has been great.  I found these lemonade packets (other flavors too) that are made to go in a 16 oz water bottle and they are great!!  It is easier to drink water that has some flavor/color, and the packets are only 5 calories each.

I am definitely going to have to check out the yoga podcasts!  That is a great idea...

[GalFriday]

Jesse -
Your reply cracks me up. When I worked with those Cirque artists I looked at them and thought...well I can never look like that so why bother. It did not stop me from practicing my chin ups backstage though. Something about the cute Russian guy egging me on makes it so much better.

I prefer to do with out my car whenever I can. I am frequently rehearsing in a new town so I put my feet to the pavement and get out and explore. I may only have one day off so I make it worthwhile. Walking the beach in California is a great day off when you live in the desert.

I try to avoid the unhealthy snacks. My last project the snacks table was a regular assortment of cookies, red vines, chocolate candy, cheese corn....and we were in an amusement park with all the junk food you could ever want nearby. I brought in Veggie trays. I am much more likely to have a carrot if it is right there. The trays were very popular and I had to bring in a bigger one on day two. I will say I felt alot better at the end of those days than I had been feeling after snacking on garbage all day. I lost ten pounds during one month of reh...woohoo!

[BeckyGG]

In the past year and a half or so I've been exercising a lot more and found it greatly helps the mental stress of stage management. 

Previously I had a gym membership, and would sort of go when I was in performances but always slacked off when I was in rehearsals.  (ie...I'd go on my day off and that was about it.)

What's changed?  Around a year and a half ago I quit the gym and started taking karate.  My acupuncturist had my try out this amazing dojo that is centrally located to most of the theaters I work at and happens to be the worldwide headquarters, so it offers a multitude of classes to accommodate my varying schedules.  (None of these are reasons why he sent me there, just part of the reason why I've chosen this place and stuck with it).  So...when I'm in rehearsal I try to hit up a 7:30am class or an evening class and when I'm in performance mode I go to something mid-morning.  I've found martial arts fantastic because this style that I'm taking is very zen-based and the mental is just as important, if not more so, then the physical.  I've found a lot of actors, musicians, other theater professionals in my classes as well as therapists (massage, acupuncture, etc) are there as well.  I've become friends with tons of folks, so it helps motivate me to go even when I'm incredibly busy. And..my teachers always ask if I've been away for a few days, so the guilt factor is good sometimes.  This helps keep me in shape mentally and physically.  Seriously, I could go on and on about my karate for hours.

In the past 4-5 months I've also started running regularly.  We will see how this fares when I get back into rehearsal, but occasionally when I know I have a long break between rehearsal/meetings or a decent dinner break I bring my shoes to the theater and will jog on my break.  I'm also starting to train for a 1/2 marathon come the fall.  Fingers crossed..

[Thespi620]

I'm not very good at remembering to exercise, but this past semester I added a few things to my regimen, even if only for a few weeks. 

My first show this spring, the other ASM, SM and I instated "SM Situps" before rehearsals-it never took our full half hour to sweep the stage and get rehearsal props out, so once all of that was done we'd do an ab workout while we waited for the cast to arrive.  Some of the actors walked in on situps one night and joined us, and for the next week or so a few of them would get to rehearsal early and our situps would start warmups.  This fell to the wayside once we got into tech, but it was nice to have an allotted time each day for crunches.

My second show, the cast were huge fans of Sun Salutes, and ended warmups with them every night.  During early rehearsals I typically had too much to do to join them (this was the show with nomadic rehearsals across campus, never the same room setup twice for a few weeks), but once we got into a fixed space and setup became normalized, I made a point of joining them at the end of vocal warmups for a series of Salutes.  Not only are they a great stretch, but we did them back to back, gradually building up speed, so they get your blood pumping and are also great for focusing.  I still try to do a set of Salutes every day--first thing in the morning tends to be the best time, I've found.

I also swear by my water bottle and either ice water or Emergen-C--having something to hydrate me 24/7 saves me so much trouble and money, as I'm not buying soda/juice/coffee/tea/etc at every meal. 

[ChaCha]

I always have good intentions. That counts, right?

[missliz]

I have to second the WiiFit...I have one and absolutely love it. In the morning, late, even 15 mins to spare....keeps me fit.

I also make the effort to walk to work as much as I can. I have to take the subway, but I get out early and will walk about 3/4 mile to the theater. I do it again at night (when I'm not too tired) and it makes all the difference.

[MatthewShiner]

I have, over the past year, totally redone my health - I have lost about 165 pounds, work out twice a week, cut out all meat form my diet (although I do dabble in fish on occasion) - and really have taken control over my life.  It was my blood pressure that was doing me in.  I still smoke - that's next on my list - but crap, I need some vices.   

[c45207]

I have, over the past year, totally redone my health - I have lost about 165 pounds, work out twice a week, cut out all meat form my diet (although I do dabble in fish on occasion) - and really have taken control over my life.

That, sir, is a commendable accomplishment and deserves a hearty round of congratulations!

Best wishes on quitting smoking.