I Have Answers

Because I do both personal training and Pilates, folks sometimes ask me which they should do.  I have two answers:  it depends and both.  (Yeah, I know.  I’m annoying like that.)

The “it depends” answer springs from the fact that we are all coming to fitness from our own special spots in the universe.  We have individual needs and goals.  For most of us, it will be pretty clear whether the usual outcomes of weight training or Pilates will align better with what we need and want.

 

The “both” part comes from the synergistic nature of weight training and Pilates.  When we do both, we improve our outcomes even more than just by getting the individual benefits of each of those training modes.  The strength we gain in weight training opens up opportunities for us in the Pilates repertoire.  The finesse and balance and alignment we learn in Pilates translate into better form and performance in our weight training.  Our powerful brains benefit from the mindset of both disciplines and from the challenge of switching between them.

 

The good news is that we can start anywhere.  It’s all good.

Outside!

As the season changes, so do our workouts.  Here’s what we need as we start to work out more outside.

Sunscreen.  I confess I am bad at remembering it, but I’m working on it.  The higher the SPF the better.  Reapply often because we sweat it off.

 

The right clothes.  We need breathable fabrics when it gets hot.  Exercise clothes have come a long way since those Rocky movies with the gray sweats.  The new fabrics really do make a difference; we don’t have to feel soggy anymore!  If we’re doing water sports, a supportive bathing suit is a wonderful thing.  Rash guards and other sun protective clothing are also good.  A hat can be useful, too.

 

The right shoes.  It might be warm, but we still need support.

 

Water.  Yes, I will go on about this forever.  Dehydration is bad.  Drink lots.

When it hurts...

We all overdo ourselves from time to time.  Maybe we were on vacation and we were hiking and it turned out to be more strenuous than we expected.  Maybe we were trying to impress that cute person in the gym and we lifted more than was good for us.  Maybe it was just one of those days.  Now everything hurts.  What do we do?

First, we need to decide if we’re sore or actually injured.  If we think we might have an injury, we want to seek qualified medical advice.  (I am not a doctor, a physical therapist, or anything like it, so I do not diagnose or prescribe treatment; get real help when needed!)

 

If we’re just really darn sore, I can make some suggestions that might help.  Pain, while useful in keeping us from doing too many dumb things, is not a fun thing to experience.

 

Take ibuprofen or your favorite OTC pain reliever as appropriate.  This is not being wimpy.  Pain relief is a good thing.  We are nicer when we don’t hurt.

 

Use ice or heat.  Ice is particularly good for anything that feels inflamed or swollen.  Heat soothes when things feel tense.  Bonus points for heat in the form of a soak in Epsom salts, which will add to the soothing.

 

Move a little.  This one may sound counterintuitive.  We got this way from moving too much!  But a little gentle movement really will help the body heal by keeping everything from stiffening up.

 

Rest.  Duh.  We need to stop doing what made us sore until we feel better.  A good night of sleep or two will also help.

Goal Setting Part 2: What to Do

All right:  we know what we want.  Here’s what we need to do.

If we have cardio goals:  Our first target is 150 minutes of cardio per week.  Those of us who haven’t been outside since 2001 will need to work up to this, starting with something stupidly easy, like five minutes of cardio per day.  We want to increase our time gradually, about 10 percent per week.  (It is also all right to choose a distance and work up to longer distances instead.  Do what works.)  When we are building a cardio habit, I’m not actually in favor of total rest days unless we really need them.  It is better to have a very light day than a total rest, just to keep our rhythm going.  One rest day can magically turn into a rest month.  Once we have hit our target 150 minutes, we can add intervals, work on speed, or increase the intensity some other way if we want.

 

If we want to get stronger:  we need to have strength training goals.  We start with one weight workout that works all our muscle groups per week.  Once we’ve got that habit well established, we can add a second and even a third.  In all our weight workouts, we need to adjust the weights so that we are challenged but not overwhelmed.  This takes some practice and there will be some times when we overdo ourselves and need plenty of recovery time.

 

If we want to refine our movement, we probably want a Pilates goal.  A session every week with a professional plus daily brief home practice should do the trick.

 

All of us need a stretching goal.  It’s simple:  stretch every day.  Five minutes is a good start.  Fifteen minutes should take care of everything amply.

 

Folks who want to lose weight and get more shapely need goals in all four categories.

 

Still need help?  Talk to me!

Basics: Stretching (2 of 2)

I hope that yesterday I convinced the skeptical among us that stretching is worthwhile.  Now let’s talk about how.

The first thing I need to emphasize is (and I’m about to yell it, so be prepared):  STRETCHING SHOULD NOT HURT.  Not even a little.  It is all right to feel, well, a stretch, but not pain.  In my recent experiments on myself and my family members, best results were obtained without even discomfort.  (I feel like I have been lied to in the past by the Stretching Industrial Complex and I’m a little bitter, but I’m sure I will get over it now that I can stretch in comfort!!!)  When we stretch a muscle group, we want to find the first place where we feel even slight resistance to the stretch.  We want to go a little bit past that, but not so far that we feel a lot of resistance.  Between these two points is where the magic happens.

 

However, we have options about how we work in that stretch zone.  Perhaps the most familiar and traditional method is the static stretch.  We get into stretch position and we hang out there.  It’s simple and pretty much foolproof, but we need to make sure we hold the stretch for at least 30 seconds for best results.

 

A newer and potentially more interesting method uses perpetual motion.  We take the muscle into the stretch zone and then explore around with motion, being careful to avoid pain and stay between the minimal resistance and the much resistance points.  We may discover, as we keep moving, that the range of painless motion gets larger!

 

Finally, I need to talk about reciprocal inhibition because it’s cool.  To paraphrase Newton, for every muscle group, there is an equal and opposite muscle group.  The hamstrings bend the knees and the quads straighten them, for example.  If we are stretching our hammies, we can help them relax by tightening up our quads (do this by trying to move the kneecap up toward the hip).  The act of tensing the quads (the antagonist muscles to the hammies) tells the hamstrings to relax, opening up a whole bunch more flexibility and range of motion.  It is the optional add-on to the stretching process or a fun party trick, if you go to those sorts of parties.

 

Go play.  AND IT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO HURT (in case I wasn’t clear about that).

Basics: Stretching (1 of 2)

Stretching is possibly the most neglected part of our workouts (assuming we manage to DO workouts in the first place).  I think there are a few different reasons for this.  One is that we have this idea that working out has to be hard and painful and stretching, done right, is not.  In fact, it feels good.  How dare we have a good time at the gym???  Another is that by the time we get to the stretching part, we’re tired, we want to go home, and we don’t really see the point.  I get it.

So:  we are allowed to do things that feel good and there are plenty of benefits of stretching.

 

That feeling good thing, from a certain point of view (does everyone hear Obi Wan when they use these words, or just me?), is why we work out at all.  There are people who love sweat for its own sake and enjoy the process of lifting weights, but most of us work out because we want to feel good at some later time.  That time might be when we go out on that hot date in our very cute outfit that we bought to show off our toned body or it might be those extra years of independence we get by putting in an investment in our health now or something in between.  In the same way that we try to pick activities we like to do in order to get the appropriate amount of exercise, we can put stretching right in there as a good part of the process.  Far be it from me to get between people and their desire to feel guilty for feeling good, but on the scale of self-indulgence, stretching is not up there with getting another puppy or eating an entire cake.  Live a little, people!

 

I know some of us really need to know the reasons.  So here is why it is good for us to stretch, assuming that feeling good is not enough of a reason for the sticklers among us.  The most obvious benefit of stretching is that it improves our flexibility and mobility.  And yes, those things are important.  It doesn’t matter how strong we are if we can’t raise our arms over our heads, for example.  Stretching reduces tension in our bodies and I should not have to explain why that’s a good thing.  Additionally, it can help us sleep well and reduce pain.  Not enough?  How about improving performance and balance?

 

Tomorrow:  how to do it!

Both!

Unsurprisingly, I read and watch a fair amount of stuff about fitness.  I do this so that my clients don’t have to unless they want to and because I like to learn new stuff.  Sometimes the new stuff I learn is that I already know stuff.

I recently spent an hour watching a webinar about combining Pilates and weight training.  I thought:  hey, I’ll get some new insights!  Nope.  It was a lot of what I’ve been doing all this time where I use Pilates (sometimes in stealth mode) with my personal training clients to build more control or proprioception and I use my knowledge of weight training to make sure that my Pilates clients get appropriately challenged.  Doing both Pilates and weight training, and sometimes both together, is better than doing either one alone because bodies need both strength and precision, both relaxation and challenge.

 

We grow where we work.  How can I help?

More about pain.

I’ve done a couple of posts recently about pain and discomfort, but I realized that I have a bit more to say about the recovery process.  Just like we need plenty of strategies for getting through our workouts, or even getting to our workouts, we need a toolkit to deal with the inevitable soreness.

Please note:  I am not a doctor or a physical therapist.  Actual injuries require actual medical treatment, not just some advice from a personal trainer.

 

Traditionally, trainers recommend RICE for dealing with soreness and injury:  Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation.  Those are all useful things to try, but they’re not the only things we can do.

 

For one thing, we can take Ibuprofen (if it is appropriate for us) to reduce inflammation and pain.  (There is no added moral benefit to suffering when there are helpful drugs available.)

 

Ice is great for swelling and it can reduce pain, but if we’re just sore and not swollen, heat can be helpful as well.  Personally, I find that when I have to ice some part of my body, the whole rest of my body tenses up from the cold so I have to be really hurting to be willing to do that.  On the other hand, I love adding heat, either via a heating pad, a microwaveable gizmo, or a hot bath or shower.  Your mileage may vary:  do what works.

 

Gentle movement has been shown to reduce sensations of pain.  This means some stretching or maybe a casual walk.  Again, if it doesn’t work for you, don’t do it.  Rest is also good and useful.

 

Our friend hydration also has a role to play in recovery.  Water is essential to so many body processes, including coping with the waste products of exercise.  Drink up.

 

Appropriate nutrition also helps us recover.  We need enough calories.  It can also help to avoid excess sugar, which can contribute to inflammation.  We also need enough protein, but basically none of us needs to worry about that.

 

Self-myofascial release using foam rollers, tiger tails, or yoga tune-up balls can help with those very very tight places.  It can be uncomfortable at first for people who are not used to the feeling, but most people find it to be a “hurts so good” kind of thing.

 

Possibly my favorite way to deal with soreness is massage.  It will be obvious if I ever win the lottery because I will get a massage every day.  Finding a massage professional who gets your body is worthwhile.  Different people respond best to different levels of pressure.  It is important to communicate with your massage therapist about what hurts, what level of pressure you like and can tolerate, and what your priorities are.

 

What are your favorite tools for dealing with the results of workouts?

Scheduling 101

Over the last weeks, we have gone over all the different kinds of work we need to incorporate into our fitness routines.  It’s a lot, so we might feel a little overwhelmed about how we are going to manage to do fitness and anything else in our lives, too.

 

Never fear!  Today I’m going to talk about scheduling and how to make it all work together.

 

One traditional way to make it all fit is to stagger workouts.  We do our cardio every day and add in strength training with some stretching and balance work on two days a week.  Maybe on one day we forego the cardio and take a yoga or Pilates class to increase our commitment to flexibility and balance.  It’s perfectly workable and gives our weight-training muscles a chance to rest.

 

However, there are a couple of tweaks to the traditional system that make it work better in less time.  May I introduce everyone to my two favorite things:  interval training and circuit training.

 

Interval training (sometimes called High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT) allows us to burn more calories and improve our cardio fitness in less time.  Once we are warmed up, we intersperse whatever cardio thing we are doing with bursts of about a minute of going as fast and/or hard as we can.  If we are, say, walking on a treadmill, we increase the incline and/or speed for a minute.  Then we recover for a minute or two and repeat.  If we are biking, we add hills.  If we are swimming, we go faster.  Our hour-long workout becomes half an hour.  What’s not to like?

 

When we combine this concept with circuit training on our two or three days a week that we plan to do strength training, we get even more efficient.  We combine our weight work with cardio intervals and we’re done with both cardio and strength in 45 minutes.  (Note:  the workouts I post every Monday are designed on this principle, so we have plenty of resources available!)  With a bit of planning, we can ensure that we are building in balance moves right there in the circuit.  This is why there are always core moves and often asymmetric or single-leg versions of exercises included in the workouts I write.

 

So a weekly workout plan might look like this:

 

Monday: half hour interval cardio, 5-10 minutes stretching

Tuesday:  circuit strength training interval workout, 5-10 minutes stretching

Wednesday: same as Monday

Thursday:  same as Tuesday

Friday:  same as Monday

Saturday: Pilates or yoga

Sunday: gentle walk and stretching

 

We’re done in under an hour every day except possibly Saturday, depending on class length.

 

Go play.

Flexibility and Balance 101

Unfortunately, we don’t just need cardio and weight training to be physically fit humans.  We also need flexibility and balance.  I touched on this a little bit yesterday in talking about Pilates, which is a good way to improve both flexibility and balance, but it is not the only way.

 

Flexibility first.  I have bad news.  Most of us are getting less flexible all the time.  This is because we tend to skip even maintenance in this area.  How many workouts have we ended without a stretch?  I think we assume it’s not necessary because it feels good; we assume that all fitness things need to be unpleasant to be effective.

 

So how do we turn this around?  First:  exercise is not a punishment.  If it hurts a lot, we are doing it wrong.  (Sometimes it’s a bit uncomfortable, but that’s different.)  Second, we learn how to do flexibility right.

 

There are various schools of thought about stretching.  Personally, I think doing static stretches first thing in a workout is a good way to get hurt.  We want to warm the body up a bit before we stretch those muscles, which means we can do a little walking or we can do dynamic stretches (think of things like high knees, or windmills, or twists) if we want to do some flexibility work before our main workout.  There is some data to suggest that doing flexibility first reduces our weight lifting performance, but we may not care about that if we are not going for a world record.  I prefer to stretch after other workouts, when the body is good and warm.  It is best to stretch whatever muscles we have been using for our workout and science says holding stretches for 30 to 60 seconds works best.  Alternatively or additionally, we can add a flexibility practice like a yoga or Pilates class to our routines, but please note:  flexibility is one of those things that works best if we do it every day.  Five minutes can make a big difference.

 

Balance is a life skill.  We are all getting older and one of the major predictors of mortality in older people is falls.  Good balance is basically insurance against icky stuff like hip fractures.  I have good news:  balance is easy to incorporate into our daily routines, both in and out of our workouts.

 

In our workouts, we work on balance any time we do core work or asymmetrical work.  All those single leg exercises we do are for balance, as are things like single arm clean and presses and woodchoppers.  Our work on our pretty princesses and all our other core exercises help with balance, too.

 

However, we can sneak balance practice into regular life.  We all (I hope!) brush our teeth in the morning.  If we stand there on one leg, we are practicing balance.  Same deal for doing the dishes or waiting in line at the store.

 

A safety note about balance work:  start slow and easy and make sure that there is a counter or sturdy piece of furniture to hold on to if necessary.  We don’t want to fall while we’re learning.

 

We can do this.

When Things Go Wrong

October was a rough month for me, for a lot of reasons.  I got a bit off track with my fitness.  It happens and I’m not going to beat myself up about it or anything.  Instead, I’m going to share what I do when I need to get back to my healthy habits.

 

The very first step for me when I’m not doing what I’m supposed to do is to figure out how to get my cardio in.  Cardio is the thing that gives me the most, fastest.  When everything is going wrong, I need cardio’s mood boost.  I need the extra energy it gives me.  I need the cognitive help.  And, yeah, I need to burn some calories.

 

While I often suggest cardio as a first step for other people for all those reasons, I would like to point out that we are all individuals and some of us might get the most benefit from starting somewhere else.  The point here is that the first step should be the one that gives us the most traction so that we can get to the second step.  (Apply this same principle to all the steps, please!)

 

For me, that second step is about what I put in my mouth.  When I am stressed, I want ice cream, mac and cheese, and all the caffeinated soda in the universe.  Sadly, this does not match up well with the list of foods that are actually good for me.  Weaning myself off the junk food helps me sleep better, ache less, and feel less irritable.

 

Step three, once the first two steps are well along toward becoming habits again, is to add just a little something.  Some days that might be some yoga.  Other days, it might be some weights.  Nothing too big or that takes too long or that feels too overwhelming.  Just a little push.  Those little pushes add up over time.

 

If I find that I’m stressing out again, I back up.  I return to the cardio.  I step away from the freezer.  I try not to add more stress about what I’m not doing.

 

What works for you?

Naturally...

Yesterday I talked a little about why I don’t use fitness photos for these posts all the time.  Here’s another reason:  nature is good for us.

 

As annoying as it is when our moms turn out to be right, it’s good for us to go out and play, especially in natural settings.  Forest bathing is a thing because it really does reduce our stress and calm our minds.  People who struggle with meditating can get a lot of the same effects by walking under trees or at the beach.

 

Please note:  nature is all over the place.  We don’t have to go far to find some, even in the city.  We have parks and gardens and even street trees.  It may be awesome to get to somewhere there’s a lot less car noise and crowding, but even a quick five-minute stroll down a tree-lined street can help us reset our brains and our bodies.

 

So for today, I will be playing the part of your mom:  don’t waste this whole beautiful day inside!  Go out and get some fresh air.

Not a punishment.

Welcome to the day after the picnic or barbecue.  I hope it was fun and fabulous.  And now I hope that, whatever it is that happened yesterday, we forget it today.

 

But wait!  There was ice cream and pie and popsicles and beer and cheeseburgers and Grandma’s famous potato salad and and and.  I don’t care.  It was a holiday and maybe we made good choices and maybe we didn’t.  That was yesterday.

 

Today we are about treating our bodies with love.  We are not working out to “pay” for what we did yesterday.  Working out is good for our bodies.  It is not a punishment.

 

Let’s move and be happy today.

Captain Obvious, At It Again

We get better at what we practice.  Thanks, Captain Obvious!  I had no idea! 

Yeah, I know.  We all know that, but sometimes we forget that it applies to fitness.

 

This means that if we always spend half an hour on the cardio machines, we will get good at doing half an hour of cardio, but we are not getting better at doing anything longer.  And, unless we are actively choosing to vary the speed and incline and resistance levels on the machines, we are not getting better at adapting to varied environments.

 

When we stick to our old favorite weight training routines, we get stronger at those specific exercises.  Depending on what those favorites are, we may be building endurance or strength or muscle size or power, but if we don’t switch things up, we’re not building the other ones.

 

The implications are twofold.  First, we need to know what we want to get out of working out and then choose exercises that help us practice for those outcomes.  Marathoners need different workouts than sprinters and power lifters are going to choose different exercises than folks just figuring out the difference between dumbbells and barbells.

 

Second, variety is good for us.  Even when we choose a workout in line with our goals, we will need to mix things up so we can practice adapting to different circumstances.  Adaptability is a basic skill that underlies all our movement in the world, fitness and regular.

 

I’m here to help anyone who needs to sort out the best kinds of workouts.

Anxiety Training

I write a fair amount about the connection between exercise and depression (short version:  get cardio to reduce symptoms), but I sometimes forget to write about how exercise helps with anxiety.  (Note:  exercise anxiety is a thing, but I’m talking about the garden-variety kind here.)

 

People who deal with anxiety are familiar with the raised heart rate, shortness of breath, and panicky feelings it can produce.  They know about the hamster wheel of worry.

 

Here’s what exercise does to help.  That hamster?  It gets tired out when we do our cardio.  Our brains literally calm down.  When we go outside, it works even better.

 

Cardio also raises our heart rate and makes us breathe faster and harder.  In effect, we practice for panic attacks by doing cardio.  We get familiar with the feelings and we know how to recover from them because we’ve done it so many times before.

 

None of these things are a substitute for actual medical and/or psychological help.  If we need medication, we should take it.  If we need to talk to an expert, we should do it.  What I am suggesting is that exercise can be a helpful addition to the coping toolkit.

 

Be well.

Sick Workout, Dude

Sometimes we get sick.  When we’re sick it can be hard to tell whether we are well enough to work out or not.  Here are some thoughts to help the decision process.

 

First and foremost:  rest is devalued in our culture.  Most of us run around on not enough sleep.  We are constantly stressed out.  Getting sick is one of the only acceptable reasons we have to get some sleep.  It is not only all right to rest when we are sick, it is almost always a really good idea.

 

Also important:  we do not bring our germs to the gym.  Nobody wants them.  We need to stay away from others until we are sure that we are not sharing.

 

Now that we’ve dealt with those important bits, what if we still want to work out?  If we are having any GI issues, it is probably best to wait until they’re fully done.  We want our insides to stay inside while we are working out.

 

If we are congested, we may want to go easy on the cardio.  It’s already a challenge to breathe; we don’t want to make it worse.

 

In fact, going easy is the magic concept here.  A gentle walk, a bit of yoga or stretching, maybe some light weights:  these are the kinds of workouts we do when we are getting better.  We want enough work to remind ourselves that we know how, but not so much that we tax systems that are already trying to deal with our viral or bacterial invaders.

 

Again, resting is a perfectly valid option.

Oilcan, part 2

Yesterday I wrote about my oilcan exercises and why I do them as an example.  However, since everyone else has a different body than I do, here are some things we might want to include for various issues:

 

If you are recovering from an injury:

            • Do the exercises your physical therapist has given you.

            • Stretch whatever feels tight.

 

If you have knee issues:

            • Do band walks or band squats

            • Use sliders to do skating

            • Do hamstring curls with a stability ball or sliders

 

If you have shoulder issues:

            • Do supine arm twists

            • Do arm arcs with or without a foam roller

            • Do floor angels with or without a foam roller

 

If you have lower back pain:

            • Do pelvic tilts and/or bridging as possible

            • Do core exercises (e.g., femur arcs, pretty princesses, brains)

 

If you have ankle/foot issues:

            • Do toe lifts

            • Point and flex feet

            • Make ankle smiles or circles

            • Do calf raises

 

If you need to work on balance:

            • Do single leg squats

            • Do single leg deadlifts

            • Do calf raises, on two legs then one leg

            • Do core exercises

 

If I didn’t mention your particular issue:

            • Talk to me!

 

As always, don’t do anything that hurts!

Oilcan, part 1

One of my clients asked me about my oilcan exercises.  Somebody might have a better term for them than I made up, but oilcan exercises are the things we do every day to keep our bodies mobile, the equivalent of the Tin Man’s oilcan in The Wizard of Oz.

 

Because we are all unique Tin People, what we need in our oilcans will vary.  Additionally, our bodies change over time.  We may realize that our continuous practice has made a former problem area stronger, so we can remove something from our oilcan list.  Or, conversely, we may have an injury or develop a new issue that needs the oilcan daily TLC, making the list longer.  However, we want to make sure that our oilcan list does not take more than five or ten minutes, start to finish (once we’re familiar with it!), because if it gets longer than that, we will just not do it.

 

I hesitate to share my oilcan list because, as I just said, we’re all different, but I am the handiest example and I’ll explain why the various things are on my list as a way to access the kind of thinking we need to put into the process.

 

Here’s what I do:

 

YTB

ball under PSIS/glute

supine arm twist

supine hip circles

supine thigh press

supine knee to chest

half happy baby

bridge with block

side leg lifts

mermaid

pelvic floor

 

Now I’m going to explain why.

 

1.     YTB – this stands for Yoga Tune-up Balls.  They are a brand-name item and come in pairs in a little mesh bag.  They’re about as dense as a Pinky ball (remember those?) and two of those in a sock would be a good and cheaper alternative.  (People who want a less firm option can use tennis balls; people who want a firmer option can use lacrosse balls.)  There are gazillions of ways to use them for self-myofascial release, but I limit myself to two ways on a daily basis.  I get on all fours and roll my shins on them to help my ankles flex better.  This relieves my plantar fasciitis symptoms and improves my ankle function.  For me, this is important because I have ruptured my plantar fascia and I do not want to repeat the process ever again.  Then I put the balls in their little bag so that the space between them lines up at the base of my spine as I am lying down.  I roll them up my spine from the bottom to the top, slowly, letting them release the knots.

2.     ball under PSIS/glute.  This is another YTB thing.  I, like most people in our culture, am functionally scoliotic, which means that the muscles in my trunk pull my right shoulder and hip toward each other.  This affects my posture.  It also does not play nicely with my hip issues (right hip pain due to overuse in biking/spin).  To even out the muscle tension, I put one of the balls under my right glute and the other under my left PSIS as I lie on the floor.  (PSIS stands for posterior superior iliac spine, which is the top of the pelvis in the back, the spot where the dimple is!).  I take at least five breaths in this position to allow my body to adjust.

3.     supine arm twist.  This is one I do both with the YTBs and without.  I lie on my back with my knees bent, feet flat on the floor.  The first time through, I put the balls just above my bra strap.  With straight arms, I put my palms together over my breast bone.  Keeping my arms straight and my hips down, I twist my arms right and left, staring at the ceiling.  This hurts.  It is the good kind of hurt, but it may take some getting used to.  I repeat the exercise, taking my head with me (looking at my thumbs).  I repeat it one more time, my head turning the opposite direction as my arms.  I take the balls out and repeat the whole sequence.  The purpose of this exercise is to loosen up the 100+ joints in the thoracic spine.  Movement in the thoracic spine allows better breathing, which enables better posture and more aligned movement.  This exercise is great for anyone stuck in a chair for long periods during the day.

4.     supine hip circles.  Lying on my back, I extend one leg along the floor and take the other one up into a tabletop position.  Using my hand, not my leg muscles, I circle my femur in the hip socket five times in each direction and then repeat with the other leg.  This exercise helps move nutrition into the hip joint (synovial joints get nutrients via movement not circulation), helps set the head of the femur deep into the socket, and improves stability at the sacroiliac joint.  For me, it also reduces hip pain.

5.     supine thigh press.  Again, lying on my back with one leg in tabletop, I press the opposite hand into my thigh as I press the thigh into my hand (isometric pressure).  This improves SI joint stability and reduces hip pain.

6.     supine knee to chest.  Still lying on my back, I hug one knee to my chest while pressing the other leg away from me along the floor.  Then I do it on the other side.  This improves flexibility in the hip joint, stretches the butt muscles, and reduces hip pain.

7.     half happy baby.  Happy baby is a yoga pose in which I lie on my back holding both feet with my hands, knees pulling in toward my armpits and feet poking up toward the ceiling.  Half happy baby is just like it except that one leg is stretched out along the ground.  Both the whole and half versions stretch the lower back and behind and do good things for the SI joint and, again, work to reduce hip pain.

8.     bridge with block.  Bridging takes the spine through a full range of motion, so it is a good exercise for almost everyone (do a bridge without articulation if you have osteopenia or osteoporosis!).  Adding a yoga block under the sacrum on the last rep provides some traction for the lower spine.  I do it to improve glute strength, lengthen my spine, work my pelvic floor, wake up my hamstrings, and align my knees.

9.     side leg lift.  This is exactly what it sounds like.  I lie on my side, legs long.  With a flexed foot, I lift and lower my top leg, keeping my hips still and stacked on each other.  Then I roll over and do the other side.  This is more hip nourishment, alignment practice, and pain prevention.

10.  mermaid.  With my legs in a Z-sit (one shin parallel to the shoulders in front of the body, the other tucked back along the side of the body), I inhale my arms out to the side and then exhale as I side bend away from my back foot.  I do about five reps and then stretch the other way.  Then I repeat on the other side.  This exercise works the internal and external rotation of my hips, helps me align and create space in my spine, and stretches out my rib muscles.

11.  pelvic floor.  As a person who has had two babies and a hysterectomy, I have pelvic floor issues.  I do a quick series of exercises to keep the pelvic floor strong and functional.

 

This is a long post already, so I’ll discuss what exercises a person might want for some hypothetical issues tomorrow.