Friday Exercise: Bench Press

Bench press is one of the most popular exercises to brag about.  Somehow, how much someone can bench has become a measure of her general strength.  While I don’t think it is the best benchmark (ha!), bench press does have a lot to offer for all of us.

Stickie is demonstrating a dumbbell bench press.  She has her feet up on the bench to make the exercise easier on her lower back, but people with no lower back issues can feel free to keep their feet on the floor.  Stickie prefers the dumbbell version of the exercise to the barbell version because it is more challenging; the barbell allows the stronger side to help out the weaker side, while the dumbbells make both sides work equally.

To begin, Stickie holds the weights at chest level.  This means, ladies and gentlemen, that the weights line up with one’s nipples, which, generally, are not located just below one’s neck.  On an exhale, Stickie presses the weights straight up into the air so that they are still aligned with her chest, not floating over her face or belly.  The weights do not touch each other at the top of the motion:  that would be cheating.  As she inhales, Stickie slowly lowers the weights until they are nearly but not quite touching her chest.

She chooses a weight heavy enough that completing 8 to 10 reps is the most she can do in a set.  She likes to do three sets, unless she is working up to her maximum weight.  In that case, she increases weight each set until she can only complete a single, good-looking rep.

Thursday book notes: Functional Movement

Functional Movement in Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy, edited by Bruce Brownstein and Shaw Bronner may go into more detail than the general reader might want.  I read these things so others don’t have to, but I would not dissuade anyone from going for it.

In the Preface, Mark Morris is quoted on the subject of whether grace can be taught.  He says, “…It’s not just a physical thing; it’s a mental thing—to know what one part is doing while the other part is happening, to have that happen seamlessly and efficiently.  I think efficiency has to do with grace, in employing the most direct action to accomplish a task.  Like picking up a pen, or folding a piece of paper, or talking on the phone, or tying your shoe, or putting groceries in a sack:  functional things.”  That relationship between body and mind, between movement and function, is what amazes me about fitness in all its forms.

The book goes on to discuss topics such as biomechanics, neuroscience, and functional outcomes.  There are chapters on various body parts (shoulder, spine, etc.).  I found the chapters on sports, dance, and geriatrics to be particularly interesting.

Again, not exactly a page-turner, but an engrossing read with lots of useful information and food for thought.

Fun, fun, fun

Sometimes all we need to make exercise fun is a new toy or game.  For those of us who enjoy the thrill of victory or who seek to avoid the agony of defeat, any kind of contest can do the trick:  who can do more pushups with proper form?  Who can get to the corner fastest?  Betcha I can ride my bike farther than last week…

For some of us, it’s all about something out of the ordinary.  Tired of looking at the dumbbells?  Say hi to the TRX!  All zumba-ed out?  Spin class!  Snoring too much during savasana?  Try Pilates instead.

Sometimes it helps to go outside if we always work out inside, or vice versa.  Sometimes we need to jump on the box instead of thinking outside it.  Maybe all we really need is a new soundtrack.

And, bonus points:  our bodies like novelty!  We learn more from doing what is unfamiliar, even if we are bad at it.

Also, if Daddy takes away the T-Bird, we get to walk...

When I was a kid, I never thought about getting exercise.  When I wanted to go faster, I ran.  When my mom insisted that we had to go outside in order to survive, my brother and I would ride bikes or big wheels, climb on our play fort, or jump around on the big log sections in our yard.  When she could watch us, we swam.  I took dance lessons.  My brother played Little League.  We played kick the can and tag and kickball with the other kids on our street.  It was just part of what we did.

The trouble with being a grown-up is that for many of us, exercise is not an automatic part of what we do.  We schedule it.  We have to squeeze it in.  We often dread it because we might end up sweaty, smelly, tired, sore.  I object.  It is time for exercise to be play again.  For some of us, that might mean finding a soccer team (or asking the neighbors if they want to play kickball?).  It might mean going salsa dancing.  Maybe we want to try paddle boarding or skiing or mountain biking.  Maybe we just need a friend to go lift weights with us to make it fun.

Find the fun and health will follow.

Ouch!

Getting back into the groove of exercise always feels great.  Except when it doesn’t.  Hi, Soreness!  Haven’t seen you in a while!

Soreness comes from work we aren’t used to doing.  The muscles we use doing an unfamiliar or neglected workout get tiny bits of damage; as those bits heal, we get stronger.  What that means is that when we feel sore, we are doing something right.

This does not make soreness more fun.  However, there are some things we can do to make it go away quicker:

Rest.  Don’t work out the same muscle group two days running; give the muscles a break.  Also, make sure you are getting enough sleep.

Drink Water.  Dehydration makes almost everything worse.  The water helps us flush out the lactic acid buildup in our bodies.

Move.  I know.  I just said rest.  But if we neglect stretching and moving our sore muscles entirely, they get stiffer and more sore.  We can focus on cardio while our muscles heal.  We can lengthen the muscles with myofascial release, massage, stretching.  We can relax our brains at the same time in yoga or Pilates.

Advil.  We don’t want to take it all the time because we want healthy livers into our very very active old age.  However, there are no bonus points for suffering. 

And when the soreness eases up, we can get back to work!  Hooray!

(The photo is some art I saw when I was in Wisconsin...)

Friday Exercise: Overhead Press

The Amazing Stickie is demonstrating the Overhead Press, an excellent exercise for upper body strength.

Stickie begins by standing with correct posture.  Her ears are aligned with her shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles.  Her abdominals are engaged.  She is remembering to breathe.

She has weights in her hands and her hands are held up at her shoulders.  As she exhales, she presses the weights up until her elbows are straight but not locked and the weights are overhead.  It is hard to tell in the picture, but Stickie is maintaining excellent shoulder stability by using her back muscles to keep her shoulder blades down as her arms rise up.  When it is time to inhale, Stickie lowers the weights back to her shoulders.

Three sets of ten repetitions at a weight that is barely tolerable with good form would be a great choice.  Start with lighter weights than you think you can do because you can always add more. Also, it is always allowed to change weights either up or down; you are the boss of your workout.

Thursday book review: The Roll Model

Fitness, in a larger sense, is about taking care of ourselves.  While we may love exercise for its own sake (hi, skiing!), or tolerate it because it is good for us (burpees?  Again?), the point of it all is to increase our ability to enjoy life.  At times, our daily lives and even our play at the gym can leave us sore, tight, and achy.  Reading a book won’t fix that, but following the directions in Jill Miller’s The Roll Model will go a long way.

Miller has created some very spiffy tools for myofascial release, the yoga therapy balls and the coregeous ball.  The book lays out the nitty gritty of using the balls to make happiness in your body.  I love my balls and the exercises she has created around them.

I have a high tolerance for puns.  This comes in useful reading the book because every single thing has some kind of punning clever name.  I have a low tolerance for glowing testimonials, which means I skipped a lot of the stories of successful users who have been transformed.

I took my book to have the regular binding cut off and a spiral binding put on to increase the usefulness of it; now it lies flat while I am rolling and referring to it.  It was cheap and totally worth it.

I highly recommend the content of this book for anyone looking for increased flexibility, mobility, and happiness in the body.