The Amazing Stickie and Single Arm Clean and Press

As always, the Amazing Stickie loves efficiency in workouts.  Today she is working on her oblique abdominals, moving multiple joints for a metabolic boost, and getting her heart rate up all at once by doing the single arm clean and press.

She begins by holding a light weight in one hand.  Most of the time she puts her other hand on her hip, but that doesn’t really matter.  She squats down and bends at the waist to bring the weight to the floor near her foot.  Then she straightens up and brings the weight to shoulder level.  From there, she lifts the weight overhead.  That is one rep.  Stickie usually does fifteen on one side and then repeats using the other hand.

Pilates Principle: Head, Neck, and Shoulder Organization

I love organization.  It is not, however, a word that springs to mind when I think about my head, neck, and shoulders.  I mean, I don’t want a disorganized head, neck, and shoulders, but, until Pilates, I didn’t really even know what that meant.

Basically, head-neck-shoulder organization means that our bones and muscles are moving the way they should.  We reduce tension.  We improve our breathing because we’re not relying on our neck muscles to do everything.  We learn to keep our highly-mobile shoulder joints stable in all kinds of positions.

 

In terms of posture, this means that most of us need to shift our heads back a little, so that our ears are over our shoulders.  We may need to draw our shoulders back and down a little so that they line up with our hips.

 

When we are moving, we want our shoulder blades to be able to glide over our rib cage in appropriate directions without popping away from the rib cage. 

 

One way to practice this is by doing arm arcs, with or without a foam roller.  We get to lie down, either on the floor or with the roller along our spines with our head and behind both on the roller.  Our knees are bent and our feet are flat on the floor.  We begin with our arms at our sides.  As we inhale, we lift our arms up toward the ceiling and then toward the floor over our heads.  We return the arms along the same pathway with the exhale.  Simple, right?  Now we take a moment to notice what our shoulder blades are doing as we go through this motion.  They may want to go gallivanting up toward the top of our heads.  We want to avoid that if we can.  Practice helps.

 

One good reason to do this practice is that it can help us avoid shoulder injury.  Shoulder injuries are often extremely frustrating and long-lasting.  It’s better to skip that step if at all possible.

 

Go play.

Fight the Monster

This is one of those posts that comes with a bunch of disclaimers.  I am not a doctor or a therapist or a psychiatrist or a psychologist.  Anyone suffering from depression should consult a real professional.  Taking medication for depression can be a lifesaving decision. 

Another important note:  I’m here for you.

 

Now, on to the actual post.  Which is about fitness and depression.

 

Depression comes in many forms and it can be persistent, sneaky, and frustrating.  Fitness activities are not a substitute for medical or therapeutic help, but they can be a helpful addition.  Here are some things to try to lift our spirits:

 

1.     Cardio.  This is a proven strategy for improving mood.  We don’t even have to do a ton of it, or work very hard, for it to have an effect.  Dragging ourselves out for a fifteen minute walk can make a big difference.

2.     Outside.  Speaking of that walk, exposure to daylight and fresh air and nature helps us feel better.  Forest bathing is a thing, but if all we can manage is a visit to the tree on the corner, that is useful, too.

3.     Hydration.  Drinking more water is almost never a bad thing.  Water makes all our body processes work better, including the ones in our brains.  Having enough water will increase the likelihood that we will feel better.

4.     Breath.  Doing a mind-body kind of exercise, like Pilates of yoga, can reconnect us with our breath, which can help soothe us or energize us, depending on how we use the breath.  (To soothe, make the exhale longer than the inhale; to balance, make them the same length; to energize, make the inhale longer than the exhale.)

5.     Food.  No, I’m not suggesting we dive face-first into the cake.  Sometimes when we are depressed, we do want to eat everything in sight, so it’s a good idea to make sure that most of what’s in sight is good for us.  Other times, we don’t feel like eating at all, so it is good to have some tasty, healthful choices available.

6.     Rest.  It is okay to rest sometimes.  Depression can mess with our ability to get good sleep, so we may need to be taking care of our bodies by taking it easy.

7.     Action.  One of the wonderful things about fitness activities is that we can check them off our lists without too much effort.  Accomplishing anything, no matter how small, can help us battle the depression-voice that says we can’t do anything.  Plus, if we choose strength training, we can know we are getting stronger while doing it.

 

I could make this list longer, but it’s already pretty long.  Anyone who wants more should hit me up!  Be well.

Monday Workout: Asymmetry and Core

I am kind of obsessed with balance right now, so we’re continuing to work on it with asymmetric exercises and compound exercises that challenge our core strength.  Three rounds.

 

1 arm clean and press	30
rows	20
1 leg squat	10
jacks	30
lunge to curl	20
skullcrushers	10
squat heel lift	30
lateral raise	20
brains	10

The Amazing Stickie and Truck Driver

The Amazing Stickie loves a sneaky core challenge that works her arms at the same time, so today she is doing truck drivers.  She uses a weight plate because it is shaped like a steering wheel, but it is also all right to use a dumbbell held by the ends.

To begin, she stands in her usual fabulous posture holding the weight out at arms’ length in front of her at shoulder height with her hands on the left and right edges.  She twists the weight so that her right hand is on top of it and her left hand is underneath it and then rapidly switches to left hand on top and right hand on the bottom.  This is one rep.  She likes sets of ten.

Pilates Principle: Spine Articulation

Today’s Pilates principle is spine articulation.  Spines, as most of us are aware, are made up of a bunch of vertebrae, all of which interact with each other at multiple joints.  In the thoracic spine (the part that connects with the rib cage), there are over 100 different joints, and that is just one segment.  Joints are for movement.  A joint that doesn’t move is not super useful.  A joint that moves too much also has some issues.

In Pilates, we seek to get our spines to move appropriately at every joint.  That means we want our spines to flex (bend forward), extend (bend back), side bend, and rotate.  Different areas of the spine are better at different kinds of movement.  For example, the cervical spine (that’s our neck) has a lot of rotation compared to our lumbar spine.

 

Our best function happens when our spines articulate relatively evenly across the segments.  What does that mean?  Among other things, we don’t want our lower back to do all the work.

 

One of my favorite ways to increase the articulation in my thoracic spine is by doing the supine arm twist.  It’s extremely simple and takes about a minute.  To do it, we lie down (yay!) on our backs with our knees bent and our feet flat on the floor.  We put our arms up in the air over our chests, palms together.  Keeping our elbows straight and the rest of our bodies still, we move our arms left and right (it is ok to let the shoulders move).  We do about ten reps.  Then we add head movement by doing about ten reps while gazing at our hands.  Then we do about ten more reps moving our heads and arms in opposite directions.  It’s simple, it feels good, and it helps with both posture and breathing.  (For bonus points, put some yoga tune up balls in the space between the shoulder blades, one ball on either side of the spine.  The exercise is a lot more… spicy… that way, but it really gets the kinks out!)

 

A spine that knows how to move and how to stabilize is a spine that will support us in all our activities.

 

Go play.

How to choose

As a personal trainer and Pilates instructor, I have some suggestions for those of us who are looking for one or both of those folks.  These are not rules, but things to consider when choosing someone to work with.

Is the person I am considering qualified?  What experience does that person have?  It is worth asking what certifications and specializations the person has.  A personal trainer who primarily works with youth sports teams might not be the right choice for me, as a fifty-four-year-old non-team-sport player, for example, even if that person is technically qualified to train me.  I need to know that the person I am working with will keep me safe.

 

What do I need?  Some clients need tons of encouragement.  Some need a person who is flexible around chronic conditions.  Some just want someone to do the thinking bit so they can just show up and move.  It can be challenging to be honest with ourselves—maybe we don’t want to admit that we want someone who isn’t bothered by our complaining through the entire workout, or that we need someone willing to suggest that maybe eating an entire cake is not conducive to meeting our fitness goals.

 

Where does this person work?  Some people love working with a trainer in a crowded gym.  Some want a trainer who will come to them.  Some are happy with a Zoom trainer.  Some want to meet in the park.  Both client and trainer have to be happy with the situation in order to have a long and fruitful relationship.

 

How responsible is this person?  It pains me to say this, but some trainers are more reliable than others.  It can be worth it to check in with other clients to see if the trainer cancels a lot, or shows up late, or, worse, ghosts out on sessions.  We all need grace from time to time, but a pattern of flakiness is no good for anyone.

 

Do I like the workouts?  Do I like working with this person?  This can be a bit of a challenge to figure out.  It is one reason why I always, always offer the first workout with a new client for free.  During that first workout, I have a chance to demonstrate what kind of trainer I am.  I am a professional, and it never bothers me if someone doesn’t enjoy my style of training.  Even if the first workout goes well and the person buys a package of sessions from me, I usually know who is going to continue after the paid sessions are over and who is going to seek other options.  Do not stay with a trainer who does not meet your needs.  Do not.

 

After working with someone for a while, it is also useful to ask one more question:  do I like the results I’m getting?  If we find that we are stronger or leaner or happier, awesome!  If not, we may need to find someone else to work with, even if we personally like the current trainer.

 

Go play.

Monday Workout: For Balance

I’m still thinking a lot about balance, so we’re working asymmetrical and core exercises.  Three rounds.

1 leg step ups	30
bench press	20
truck driver	10
squat to leg lift	30
flies	20
kickbacks	10
woodchoppers	30
rows	20
v sit press	10

The Amazing Stickie and Deadlift to Curl

The Amazing Stickie loves to be efficient.  So today she is working her whole body by doing the deadlift-to-curl.  She begins standing with good posture holding some dumbbells.  She chooses the weight based on what she can curl, not on her maximum deadlift weight.  Then, keeping her chest lifted (slight thoracic extension, in technical terms), she hinges forward at the hips, letting the weights dangle at the end of her arms.  She returns to her starting position, except that she bends her elbows so that the weights curl up toward her shoulders.  She lowers them back to the actual starting position before doing the next rep.  Sets of twenty are good.

Pilates Principles: Axial Elongation and Core Control

Last week, I wrote about breathing as a principle of Pilates.  Today, I’m adding a second principle:  axial elongation and core control.

What the heck is axial elongation?  Basically it is making sure that our spines are positioned optimally for good posture.  Our spines are not intended to be rigidly straight.  The neck portion of our spine curves forward slightly, the chest portion curves back slightly, and the lower back curves forward again slightly.  This ideal shape tends to get distorted in real life by everything from structural abnormalities to plain poor usage.  How many of us spend a lot of our lives hunched over desks?  That messes with our axial elongation so we often end up with a posture that has our heads thrust forward and the whole rest of our spines curved around our bellies.

 

Pilates strives to help us get and maintain a better alignment because when we start from an optimal position, we have more freedom of movement and we can move more efficiently.

 

We get that axial elongation through, among other things, core control.

 

Core control is not, as some of us may think, simply holding in our tummies all the time.  For one thing, the core musculature is not just in the front of the body!  For another, all our muscles are strongest when they have the right amount of tension on them.  Clenched muscles and totally slack muscles are both weak compared to muscles with the correct amount of tension.

 

The Pilates repertoire helps us learn how to keep our spines long and happy and our cores strong.  People often report that they feel taller after a Pilates session.

Foot Fun for Ankles

I recently watched a presentation by Brent Anderson of Polestar Pilates on ankle function.  Ankle injuries are super common and, unfortunately, tend to reoccur.  So what do we do to improve our ankles?

The good news is that many of the exercises that help our ankles are very simple to do.  They involve our foot intrinsic muscles, which are muscles that begin and end in our feet.  These muscles make the adjustments we need to balance and react to the ground.  With my clients I use a Franklin ball, but a tennis ball will also work for the exercises that use a ball.

 

Here we go:

 

1.     Push like a gas pedal.  Place the ball under the ball of the foot.  Then, using just the ankle (not the whole leg.  The goal is not to flatten the ball, but to work the ankle), press the ball of the foot down as if accelerating in the car.  Do a set of ten.

2.     Side-to-side.  With the ball in the same position, grip it slightly with the toes and move the forefoot side to side (big toe toward the floor then little toe).  This movement should also come mostly from the ankle, not from the hip rotating in the socket.  Do ten reps.

3.     Sink into the grass.  People who have never worn high heels may not relate to this image, so imagination may be required.  This time, the ball of the foot is on the floor and the heel is on the tennis ball.  The heel presses into the ball, which is like what happens when a person wearing heels attends a summer wedding and the heel sinks into the damp grass.  Do ten reps.

4.     Arch stretch.  Place the ball under the arch of the foot.  Put some weight on it.  Go gently at first as this can be a little uncomfortable until we get used to it.  Hold as long as is comfortable.

 

Repeat all exercises with the other foot.

 

These next exercises don’t require any equipment at all!  We can do one foot at a time or both together.  At first, they may not seem possible, but with practice, we get better.

 

1.     Big toe lift.  With the foot flat on the floor, we lift just our big toes off the floor.  The ball of the foot should stay down.  Do ten.

2.     Other toes lift.  This time the big toe presses into the ground and the other four toes lift.

3.     Middle toes lift.  The big toe and the little toe both press into the ground and the middle three toes lift off the ground.

 

Don’t be discouraged if it feels impossible.  Practice helps build the motor pathways which will give eventual success.

 

Go play.

Monday Workout: Gravity

This week we continue to work on balance with a variety of relationships to gravity.  Which is to say, we are doing some standing balance work, but also doing some core work with weight bearing on our arms.  Three rounds.

plank jacks	30
renegade rows	20
pushups	10
leg kicks	30
bench press	20
1 leg squats	10
squat raise	30
flies	20
pretty princesses	10

The Amazing Stickie and Spiderman Pushups

The Amazing Stickie loves to read comics in her spare time.  But first, she likes to do Spiderman pushups.

She begins in plank position.  She lowers her upper body toward the floor, keeping her elbows in toward her sides and her shoulder blades flush against her ribcage.  Then she presses back to plank position.  She brings her right knee toward her right elbow and then returns it to its starting position.  Then she does another pushup and brings her left knee toward her left elbow.  Sets of ten are good.

Pilates Principles: Breathing

Over the next few Wednesdays, I am going to be writing about some Pilates principles.  They are, of course, central to Pilates practice, but they apply to movement generally.  The first principle is a simple one:  breathing.

We are all breathing (at least I hope so!  Reading after death is impressive…).  Becoming conscious of how and when we breathe, however, can change how we feel and how we move.

 

A lot of us think that when we breathe in, the front of our body expands.  We know our chests lift and our abdomens fill.  This is, of course, true, but it’s not the whole picture.  In fact, our whole torso, front, back, and sides, expands when we inhale.  Depending on how mobile the joints are in our spines and ribs, the expansion can be large or small.  Improving the mobility of joints gives us flexibility in our breathing.

 

That flexibility in breathing in turn facilitates our other movement.  If we have, for example, the ability to breathe into the sides of our body, side-bending movements become easier.  When we are bent forward, we can use the expansiveness of our backs to give us a way to get breath into our bodies and we can use the exhale to increase our ability to flex our spines forward.

 

Pilates offers a number of opinions on the best way to breathe for different kinds of movement.  Some options make the movements easier and some challenge us more deeply.  At first, thinking about how and when to breathe while doing new exercises can be one thing too many, so it is absolutely all right to breathe any way that works.  We can experiment and refine later.

 

It can be fun, though, to try different kinds of breathing in exercises we already know well.  For example, we can try breathing in during the lowering phase of pushups and breathing out in the raising phase.  Then we can try the other way around and see what happens.  I would love to hear what folks discover!

 

Bottom line:  keep breathing.

Water, even when it's icy

So it has been pretty darn cold this last while.  Personally, I’m over it.  I’m ready for warmer weather.  But, I am not in charge.  In the meantime, we still need to get our workouts in.

There are a variety of challenges to cold-weather workouts, starting with getting out of the nice warm bed, but one that sometimes gets forgotten is hydration.  When it’s hot out, we notice how thirsty we are and we don’t forget to drink our water.  In the cold, we are somehow not so motivated to keep drinking.

 

My solution?  Schedule it.  When we have the habit of drinking between sets, we keep on doing it.  The pickleball game finished and it’s time to switch up the teams?  Drink.  Got to the bottom of the ski slope and it’s time to wait in line?  Take some sips.

 

Hydrated people are nicer people.

Monday Workout: Favorite

Squats are my favorite exercise.  They are super practical and help us in our daily lives.  We rarely do just plain squats, but this week it was time.  Body weight is fine, or hold some dumbbells or put a weighted bar across the shoulders.  Three rounds.

 

woodchoppers	30
squats	20
Arnold press	10
kb swings	30
kb twist	20
kb 8s	10
lunge punches	30
renegade rows	20
brains	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Single Leg Step Ups

The Amazing Stickie has amazing balance because she works on it.  Today she is working on it by doing single leg step-ups.  Because Stickie has a stick version of everything, she is stepping up on a sturdy stick box.  We can use a gym step, a sturdy bench, a step stool, or anything else that will not tip over and will support our weight.  The higher the step, the more challenging the exercise.  Stickie can also hold dumbbells in her hands to increase the difficulty if she feels like it 

She begins standing in front of the step.  She steps up with one leg, bringing the other leg to a position where her thigh is parallel to the floor.  She can hold the balance for a moment or she can return directly to the floor.  She can do all the reps with one leg and then repeat on the other side or she can choose to alternate; both ways are good.

 

Stickie likes to do sets of 30 per side.

Travel

Sometimes my clients travel, either for work or pleasure.  I am always happy to send them a workout to take with them.

If my clients are staying at a place with a gym, it’s easy.  I give them a list of things to do and let them loose.  If they aren’t, or don’t know, I can always send them a body-weight workout that can be done in any hotel room ever.  Sometimes clients travel with stretch bands or sliders or other workout stuff and I plan around what they have.

 

But.

 

It can be extra challenging to work out when we are not in our usual routines.  If we’re traveling for work, working out might be a useful way to stay energized and reduce stress.  Or we may find that shifting time zones and dealing with logistics and eating restaurant food is more than we can cope with as it is; working out is just too much.

 

Vacations are a whole different story.  Depending on where we’re going, we may find ourselves way more active than we are at home.  Trekking through museums burns a gazillion calories, more or less.  Skiing, swimming, hiking, and biking can be energetic vacation activities.  Then again, we may have the kind of vacation in which our biggest exercise is turning over on the beach.

 

Travel workouts are great.  Not working out while traveling is also okay.  We need to do what makes us feel best.  Sometimes that is working out and sometimes that is rest.  What we definitely do not need to do is beat ourselves up about what we choose.  We do our best.