Number Five Might Be the Very Best

 

Following on yesterday’s how-to-stretch post, here are my five favorite stretches:

 

1.     IT band stretch.  All of us who sit a lot need to stretch our IT bands.  To do it, we lie on our backs (yay!) and then extend one leg up toward the ceiling, possibly with a strap around our foot (less yay!).  This is only the first part.  Our hamstrings are now stretching, which is good, but not what we came for.  Now we take that leg across the midline of our bodies, allowing the pelvis to follow.  The outside edge of our leg from the hip to the knee will probably scream, so we need to go slowly and gently.

2.     Quad stretch.  There are a couple of ways to do this stretch, but I’m going to focus on the one where we get to lie down.  This time we lie on our side.  We bend the top knee as if we were trying to kick ourselves in the butt with our heel and grab that foot with our hand.  The front of the thigh will stretch.  This stretch is improved by keeping both knees next to each other.  Extra flexible people may need to press their hips forward and/or push the foot hard into the hand holding it.

3.     QL stretch.  For this one, we sit up with our legs spread out wide and our spines nice and straight to begin.  We want to lift our ribcage up off our pelvis and then bend to the side, reaching toward our toes.  That’s just the start:  the inner thighs and possibly the intercostals and obliques at the side of the ribcage we are stretching away from may feel the effects, but it’s the next part we’re aiming for.  Now we want to round our upper body toward our foot as if we were trying to put our belly on our thigh.  I grab my foot with my same-side hand and put my other hand on my thigh.  At the same time, we press the hip we are stretching away from into the ground.  This stretches the QL (quadratus lumborum), which is a deep back muscle in the lower back, one that gets tense and sore when we sit a lot.

4.     Chest stretch.  Again, there are several ways to do this one, but the fun one is to stand in a doorway with forearms against the doorframe.  Then we lean forward, opening the chest and feeling a lovely stretch across the whole thing.

5.     Neck stretch.  This is a stretch that can be done seated or standing, but it’s pretty useful when we’re stuck at our desks, so I’ll focus on that one.  We begin sitting up nice and straight.  For many of us, this may mean sitting at the edge of our chair, feet flat on the floor.  We tilt our head to one side, pulling the head toward the shoulder with the arm we’re tilting toward.  The other hand reaches down toward the ground; the energy out that hand makes a difference to the stretch.  After we hold a while, we can turn our head toward our bicep (the Kaepernick variation!), still pulling the head down with our hand.

 

What are yours?

Stretch Goals

I spend a good chunk of time encouraging people to stretch.  Almost no one does enough stretching, so from that perspective, any kind of stretching is good stretching.  However, in the interest of promoting optimal behavior, here’s a basic primer on how to do it:

 

There are at least two kinds of stretching:  static and dynamic.  Static stretching is the kind where we hold a stretched position for a while, like when we bend over and touch our toes.  Dynamic stretching is when we move through stretched positions, like when we twist back and forth at the waist.  Both kinds are good for us.

 

When we do static stretches, it is important to begin with warm muscles or at the very least to go slowly at first.  Taking our muscles to their maximum stretch first thing is a good way to pull something.  So:  we begin gently, stretching our muscles to the point where we feel a little tension.  NOTE:  stretching is not supposed to hurt.  It may be slightly uncomfortable, but if we hit the pain point, we are going too far.  Once we find that little bit of tension place, we need to hang out for a while.  Most of us are really impatient.  We stretch for about a second and say, “Done!”  Ideally, we stay in the stretch for thirty seconds to a minute.  For most of us, a good marker for that amount of time is about five deep breaths.  This gives our muscles some time to adjust to the stretch.  We may find that after those five breaths, we can go a little farther into the stretch without pain and repeat the process.  This allows our bodies to build flexibility in a gradual and sustainable way.

 

Dynamic stretches, in my experience, don’t build flexibility as well, but they do wake up existing flexibility.  I like them as part of a warm-up.  It’s what dancers do at the barre before getting to the actual dancing.  Just like with static stretches, the goal is to take the muscles to a place where they feel a little tension, but not pain.  We go gently to that place and out of it, not with quick bounces like some of us were taught eons ago in P.E.

 

Ultimately, any stretching is better than no stretching, so we should do the kind that appeals most to us.

 

Go play.

You're Getting Warmer

It’s cooling down outside, so, naturally, I’m going to talk about warming up.  On one level, I’m not a big believer in warm-up exercises.  The body will, in fact, warm up as we go along with our workout.  That said, we don’t want to jump right into the most difficult and heaviest and most demanding bits of our workouts.  We need a little preparation for that.

 

Now that I have everyone good and confused, let me unpack what warm-ups are and are not.  Warm-ups are essentially slower and less challenging versions of the exercises we do during our workout and/or some cardio to get our hearts moving.  They are kind of like practice versions of the real stuff.  Because of the way I design workouts, the first exercise is always a cardio one, so the warm-up is essentially built in.

 

A lot of people think of stretching as a warm-up exercise.  This is only sometimes true.  Doing static stretches before doing some movement is not super effective for flexibility, can cause muscle pulls, and, if we are looking for personal bests in our lifts, can, according to some studies, have a negative impact on our one rep max.  Dynamic stretching (think lunges or old-fashioned windmills) are better for warm-ups or static stretches can follow cardio.

 

In general, the older we are, the more warm-up we need.  Yes, this is unfair.  Please file the appropriate complaint form in the round file.  I would fix it if I could.  I will, however, point out that a little extra warm-up time is way better than sideline time due to injury.

 

Bottom line:  do a few minutes of cardio and maybe some dynamic stretching before doing the heavy lifting.

Monday Workouts: Burpees are back

 

We are getting aerobic this week with the return of burpees.  I’m not sorry.  Three rounds.

 

suitcase swings	30
rows	20
kickbacks	10
squat to leg lift	30
flies	20
burpees or pushups	10
mountain climbers	30
lateral raises	20
Russian twist	10

Terrifying!

For Halloween, I present some of the most common fears people have about working out and maybe some ways to cope with those fears:

 

1.     It will be too hard.  If the workout IS too hard, we don’t have to do it.  We are grown-ups and no one can make us.  We can go at our own pace, even if that pace is not the one we think we should be using.

2.     It will be embarrassing.  There are a couple of ways to deal with this one.  One is to embrace the embarrassment.  (Looking at me, every time I’ve gone to Zumba.)  Another is to work out at home or in a less-populated area of the gym or with people we trust to be kind to us. (BTW, there is a special place in hell for people who make fun of anyone working out, right next to child molesters and people who talk in the theater.) (Yes, that was a Firefly reference.)

3.     It won’t work.  Working out once is not going to transform us instantly.  It does take some time and some determination to make change.  I can say for sure that working out works better than not working out.

4.     It will work.  All of a sudden we are stronger and faster and more powerful!  Our friends and family will look at us differently!  Some of them may not like our new more awesome selves.  I’ll be blunt here:  anybody who does not want us to be our best selves does not love us.  They can go pound sand.  We don’t need that negative energy.

5.     I won’t like it.  Maybe not.  But there are tons and tons of different kinds of workouts out there.  We’ve all seen bad movies, but we don’t conclude that all movies are terrible; we just pick something else next time.

6.     I won’t know what to do.  Guess what?  There are lots of people who would love to help us with that (me included!).  The internet is full of workouts.  Gyms have helpful staff and orientation programs and actual instructors who give classes.  No one expects us to know what we are doing at the beginning; it is more than okay to get help.

 

Now the music at the gym?  That can be truly scary.  Best I can say is bring headphones. 

Food Fight?

With Halloween rapidly approaching, we have officially arrived at Food Season.  It is never easy to make healthy food choices in our sugar-and-fat-and-salt-obsessed culture, but between now and January, we are going to be basically bombarded with cake, candy, gravy, pie, latkes, bacon, stuffing, and chocolate.  How do we survive?

 

Like with everything else:  we pay attention.  Of course we want to have some of Aunt Gertrude’s special peanut brittle, but we can notice that we’re actually satisfied with a few bites rather than an entire pound of it.  Note:  this means we can have some LATER!  Also note:  if it does turn out that we want a whole pound of it, the world will not end.  We will still be valuable human beings, worth far more than whatever number the scale shows us.

 

We also practice our tact.  “Yes, Aunt Gertrude, it is truly delicious and I love that you made this for me.  I just want to save some to share with Cousin Jimmy, too.”  A lot of people (myself included) think that loving people means feeding them.  We have to be sure to acknowledge the love even when we decline the third helping.

 

We move.  It is not possible to out-exercise an entire cake, but our good exercise habits will help burn off some of the extra calories.  Cardio is good, but doing some weight training will also improve our metabolisms.

 

Worst case?  We enjoy our holidays.  I hope we savor all the good parts and skip the less good parts.

One sick workout??

I’ve had a cold for the last week or so, which means I have been thinking about whether or not to work out.  Here are some general guidelines for anyone in a similar situation.

 

First, we want to avoid “sharing” our illness with others.  This means skipping the gym workouts and the non-virtual classes and training sessions.  Having a home-based or outside workout for this situation is a good idea.  No one will like us if we share our germs, and this is especially true in pandemic times as flu season approaches.  I hope we have all learned a lot in the last while about taking care of other people’s health by staying away from them when we are sick, but it is never bad to be reminded.

 

Now that we’ve got public safety out of the way, we can address the personal issues.  One of the first things to keep in mind is that IT IS OKAY TO REST.  Sorry to shout, but it can be hard to be heard over the noise of the Protestant Work Ethic and all that advertising telling us we’re not doing enough to be fabulous and the general ick of the white-supremecist-imperialist-cis-normative-heteronormative-capitalist patriarchy.  Our bodies need more sleep when we are sick.  Fighting off bacterial or viral invaders takes a lot of energy.  If we don’t feel up to working out, we don’t have to do it.  The workouts will still be there for us when we feel better.

 

If we don’t feel like we need to rest all that much, it is still a good idea not to go for a personal record of any kind while we are sick.  Skip the hill route, substitute a walk for a run, do the body weight workout, or do restorative yoga.  This is one time when a light workout is definitely better than a challenging one.

 

Cardio is normally one of my favorite things because of its mood-boosting properties.  However, when just plain breathing is hard because we’re congested or coughing, it is best to choose something like stretching or yoga or light weight-lifting or Pilates.  Our bodies are working hard enough fighting the snot.

 

Another thing to consider is how well our brains are working.  When we are fuzzy-headed from congestion or from decongestants, we may not have the focus to keep ourselves safe while working out.  When in doubt, skip the workout; it’s much better to miss one workout than to get injured and miss lots of them.

 

Finally:  drink lots of water.  This is always true, but especially when we are sick.