The Amazing Stickie and Couch Stretch With Activation

Today the Amazing Stickie is working on her amazing booty by doing couch stretch with activation.

 

She begins in front of a couch (thus the name) or bench or sturdy chair.  One foot rests on the seat with the knee (on a cushion!  No need for extra ouchiness!) on the ground.  The other leg is in a lunge position and her body is upright.  (If this stretch is too intense, choose something else!)

Once she is in position, Stickie squeezes the glute of the back leg and then releases it.  After a minute or so of this, she switches her legs and does the other side. 

Effects of Strength Training - 9

Want to hurt less?  Lift more.  That’s oversimplified, but generally true.

Strength training helps manage pain.  It works in several ways.  Various mechanisms in the body produce analgesic effects when muscles work.  In plain English:  the body feels better moving.  The mood-enhancing effects of strength training help us cope better with any pain we are experiencing.  Further, our sense of self-efficacy built by lifting weights makes us more resilient to whatever we experience, even pain.

 

A few caveats.  It’s crucial to warm up.  Avoid exercises that are dangerous for any conditions (e.g., no spinal flexion for folks with osteoporosis).  Discomfort is all right, but if there is actual pain during an exercise, stop that and try something else.  Always use good judgment, appropriate equipment, and safety precautions.

 

Go play and feel better.

Effects of Strength Training - 8

In general, all of us need more sleep than we tend to get.  We could also use a better quality of sleep.  Strength training can help!

The People Who Do Studies have found that strength training reduces the prevalence of insomnia.  (OK, it’s not a surprise that when we make ourselves really tired, it’s easier to sleep, but it’s good to have our common sense validated by science.)

 

But strength training also increases the proportion of good sleep we get.  I know I’m not alone in having the occasional night where technically I got plenty of sleep, but I’m still tired and I wake up feeling like I was wrestling alligators all night.  There’s less of that when we strength train regularly.

 

Work hard, sleep better!

Monday Workout: Switch!

End of the month means a little switch in format to keep our minds and bodies awake and growing!  Three to four rounds, depending on time and energy.

 

1 min cardio
(lunge) punches	30
rows	20
bench dip	10
leg kicks	30
skullcrushers	20
Russian twist	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Step Up Reverse Lunge

The Amazing Stickie loves an amazing challenge.  When she gets bored with her usual step ups, she amps things up by doing step up reverse lunges.

 

She begins with her right foot on a step or box or bench sturdy enough to support her.  She steps up on to the box lifting her left leg so that her knee is raised like she is marching.  She steps back to the floor with her left leg and then moves her right leg behind her, bending both knees in a reverse lunge.  Then she stands back up and repeats the exercise beginning with her left foot on the box.

A set of thirty is good. 

Effects of Strength Training - 7

This effect of strength training is a little more warm-fuzzy.  We improve our sense of wellbeing when we lift.

A number of things go into this benefit.  One is that anything that gets our heart rates up tends to make us feel better (and if our heart rates don’t rise when we lift, we aren’t lifting enough!).  Another is that we increase our sense of efficacy.  Look!  I can lift a weight!  I am strong!  This sense of efficacy carries over into other areas of our lives.  Exercise generally releases endorphins in our bodies and those are the happy chemicals.  We like those.  Finally, over time as we lift, we look better and we improve our health, both of which tend to improve our sense of wellbeing.

 

So:  Lift and get happy!

Effects of Strength Training - 6

One of the guiding principles of my personal life is that crutches are bad.  I say this from experience.  So when something is likely to reduce my risk of injury, I tend to be in favor of it.  Strength training decreases the risk of injury.

There are a few ways that this works.  For one, the stronger I am, the more likely I can lift that thingie or whatsit without throwing out my back.  Having practiced good form as I lift, I know how to lift safely.  Because strength training improves my proprioception (five dollar word translator:  sense of where my body is in space), I react better to my environment and bump into fewer things and fall down less often.  I also cope with surprise curbs, gopher holes in the grass, and other unexpected obstacles better.  My body is generally more resilient as a result of my strength training.  Plus:  stronger bones less likely to break.

 

Lift to skip the crutches!

Monday Workout: Related!

The renegade row and the plank to pike are related exercises.  Skill building while we build strength for the win!  Three rounds.

 

jacks	30
good mornings/deadlifts	20
renegade row	10
squat raise	30
bench press	20
truck driver	10
suitcase swing	30
flies	20
plank to pike	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Plank to Pike

The Amazing Stickie loves exercises that help her prepare for other exercises!  Plank to pike was an exercise she used when she was building up to do renegade rows, but it is also a great exercise all on its own.

She begins in plank position, a lovely straight line from her heels to the back of her head, her hands directly below her shoulders.  Then she lifts her behind up in the air until her body is the shape of an inverted V.  From there, she returns to start.

 

Ten reps make a good set.

Effects of Strength Training - 5

Strength training improves posture.  As we increase our strength and we balance out the strength of various parts of our bodies, our posture gets better.  Part of this is focus on form because as we pay attention, we hold our bodies with better alignment.  Part of it is that in order to lift heavy stuff, we have to coordinate our bodies efficiently and good posture is efficient.

Good posture is good for us because of that efficiency.  It also helps us breathe.  And who does not want to look thinner?  Good posture makes us look better and leaner.

 

Lift and thrive!

Effects of Strength Training - 4

Want to increase stamina?  Surprisingly, hitting the treadmill for hours and hours is not necessarily the way.  When we do weight training, especially with fairly heavy weights, we automatically get benefits in our endurance.

Essentially, by getting stronger, we also get more durable.  Lifting heavy is, of course, not intended as cardio exercise, but I don’t think there is a person out there whose heart rate does not go up while squatting to a one-rep max.

 

Lift to win!

Monday Workout: New Things to Try!

This week we have a couple of new exercises to keep things fresh!  Three rounds.

 

 

suitcase swings	30
rows	20
alternating crossbody front raise	10
woodchoppers	30
kickbacks	20
db pullover with bridge	10
mountain climbers	30
curls	20
brains	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Tick Tock

Today the Amazing Stickie is working on balance by doing tick tock.  She knows that this particular exercise is also a great way to warm up her body before she gets into heavier work.  She begins standing up tall.  Then she leans to one side, lifting the opposite leg up.  From there, she rocks back the other way, lifting the other leg as she transfers her weight to the first leg.  Essentially, she goes back and forth like a pendulum, which is where the name of the exercise comes from.

 

For variety, sometimes she stays on one side for a while, holding her leg up or pulsing it up and down.

 

Thirty or so is a good number to do. 

Effects of Strength Training - 3

Use it or lose it, baby.  When we work with weights, we help maintain our flexibility, mobility, and balance.

Flexibility is how elastic our muscle tissue is.  We think of it, often, as whether we can bend over and touch our toes.  Flexibility definitely has a role in that process—those of us whose hamstrings protest about the process could use a bit more in the flexibility department—but mobility is also key.  If the many joints of our spine or our hip joints don’t have any mobility, we’re going to be out of luck bending, no matter how flexible our muscles are.

 

Balance is what keeps us from falling over when we try.

 

All three of these skills are enhanced when we do strength training.  (There’s a theme here:  we adapt as we work!)  Moving our bodies and our weights through space requires that we deploy our flexibility, mobility, and balance in appropriate degrees to meet the needs of the task at hand.  Practice makes perfect.

 

Go practice!

Effects of Strength Training - 2

Next on our list of effects of strength training:  improved joint function.

How many of us find that we have a knee or a hip or a shoulder that doesn’t always behave the way we’d like it to, or the way it did back in the day?  Most of us, right?

 

Strength training to the rescue!

 

So, first a disclaimer.  We cannot actually strengthen joints.  Joints are intersections where bones come together.  They’re more of a location than an actual thing.  When we talk about strengthening joints, what we really mean is strengthening the muscles and other tissues that surround joints.

 

Many of the joints in our bodies are synovial joints.  We don’t need to go into all that that means, but we do need to know that the way that nutrition gets into synovial joints is through movement rather than through our circulation.  Feed the hips and give them a shake or two!

 

Our bodies, by nature, adapt to the challenges we give them.  When we give our bodies weights to play with, we get stronger and our joints adapt to their new reality.  We want to ensure that we give our bodies appropriate challenges:  no 300 pound deadlifts on the first day, babe.  We increase our weights gradually, allowing our tissues the time they need to grow and change.

 

Similarly, we become what we do.  When we take all of our joints through their full range of motion on the regular, they like it.  They habituate themselves to that kind of movement and it gets easier.

 

Go do it.

 

Monday Workout: New Year!

Welcome to the new year!  Let’s make it a great one by working with compound exercises.  Those who want some extra challenge can add a reverse lunge to the end of the step ups.  Three rounds.

 

kb swings	30
kb twists	20
kb 8s	10
step up (reverse lunge)	30
bench press	20
quadruped lateral raise	10
squat to leg lift	30
flies	20
pretty princesses	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Quadruped Lateral Raise

Today the Amazing Stickie is working on multiple things at once, as she often does.  She’s challenging her core strength by working in quadruped position while also working her arms in the quadruped lateral raise.

She begins on her hands and knees, ensuring that her knees are directly under her hips and her hands, holding light weights, are directly under her shoulders.  She raises one arm directly out to the side until it is parallel to the ground and then lowers it back to starting position.  Then she repeats on the other side.  (For less of a challenge, do all the reps on one side first and then switch.)

 

A set of ten is usually sufficient.

Effects of Strength Training - 1

In the new year, I’m going to begin by focusing on the effects of strength training on the body.

Today, we begin with perhaps the most obvious effect:  our muscles get stronger, our bones get tougher, and our tendons and ligaments become more resilient.

 

In theory, I think we all get behind this as a worthwhile goal.  In practice, we come up against a few obstacles.  One of those is that sometimes other people don’t really want us to be strong.  They get invested in our weakness.  We have to decide that what is good for us is more important than other people’s agendas.

 

Another perhaps obvious obstacle is that strength training is work and sometimes we don’t much want to work.  This is another spot where we have to focus on what’s best rather than what is most fun.

 

Go play.