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 |
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leg kicks | 30 |
bench press | 20 |
1 leg squats | 10 |
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squat raise | 30 |
flies | 20 |
pretty princesses | 10 |
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.
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.
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.
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 |
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kb swings | 30 |
kb twist | 20 |
kb 8s | 10 |
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lunge punches | 30 |
renegade rows | 20 |
brains | 10 |
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.
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.
