The Amazing Stickie is working her abdominals today with Side Banana (which also reminds her to eat her fruits and vegetables).
She begins lying on her side. From there, she lifts her head and her legs up toward the ceiling. Then she lowers them back down. A set of ten on one side and then the other is good.
Yesterday we talked about anatomy. Today: physics! I know a lot less about physics than I do about anatomy, so maybe I’ll be brief? We can hope.
Force, as we all recall from physics, is mass multiplied by acceleration. When we do strength training, we are essentially doing a physics lab on ourselves. How cool is that? No dorky lab coat required, unless you want to wear one, in which case, do you!
In this instance, the mass part is the easy bit. It’s right there, on the dumbbell rack. Whichever one we choose, it will remain constant throughout our endeavor. (Unless we approach light speed. Then the workout will probably become irrelevant.) The other two parts of the equation will vary. When we lift the weight, we have to accelerate it from a standstill into motion. That initial acceleration against gravity results in a different amount of force than, say, at the top of the motion when we want to slow the movement down, stop it, and start the descent. As the acceleration of the motion changes, so does the amount of force we use.
The good news is that we don’t actually have to do the math on this. We have very smart bodies and brains that do the work for us. Motor units, the functional groups that do the work for us, consist of motor neurons and their muscle fibers. Those are plugged in to the central nervous system.
Bottom line: strength and strength training are a function of the central nervous system. It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that we get smarter when we lift weights.
Go play.
Let’s talk anatomy for a moment or two. In the classical conception, we have muscles that attach to bones via tendons. (Nowadays, we talk about the myofascial system and it’s a lot more connected than previously thought, but for the current purpose, the old way works well enough.) Tendons are thick pieces of connective tissue and they are less elastic than our muscles. When we do weight training, we are of course strengthening our muscles, but we can also strengthen our tendons.
Why would we want to do that? Hypermobile people need strong tendons to keep their bodies together. The rest of us also need our muscles to stay attached.
The People Who Do Research have done some and what they learned is that isokinetic exercises are great for strengthening tendons. That five-dollar word there? It means exercises in which the movement takes place with an even cadence over the same distance. What we need in order to do this work is a simple metronome app, or an actual metronome if one happens to be lying around from the days when we took music lessons.
(In theory, we could just count evenly as we did our reps. It turns out that we all make lousy metronomes and it is worth getting a free app and letting it handle that for us.)
Even if we’re not super excited about the idea of getting strong tendons, it’s a new way to play with our exercises, and who doesn’t want that?
This week we’ve got a little of everything. We’re working in multiple planes. We have some whole body stuff and some stuff that will help us refine our movements. Three rounds.
step ups | 30 |
gorilla row | 20 |
bench dips | 10 |
| |
clean and press | 30 |
flies | 20 |
hip rotations | 10 |
| |
side hops/side lunges | 30 |
deadlifts | 20 |
pretty princesses | 10 |
Today the Amazing Stickie is working her amazing abdominals by doing Captain’s Chair.
She begins sitting on the edge of a box, leaning back slightly, hands behind her. From there, she lifts her knees toward her chest and then lowers them back to the starting position.
Ten reps is a good set.
November is a month of gratitude.
No month of gratitude would be complete without a shout out to my clients. I am privileged to work with and for some truly remarkable people.
As I watch them get stronger, I am inspired. When they have setbacks, they trust me to figure out how to get them back on track. They teach me so much.
Thanks, y’all, for putting up with me!
November is a month of gratitude.
I am grateful for the Internet today. While we certainly have to be careful to evaluate the quality of the information we find there, we have access to so many more resources than ever before as we figure out how to create health in our lives.
Need a new workout? No problem. What to do for that achy knee? (The Internet is no substitute for actual medical care, but can provide handy tips for stuff that doesn’t need a doctor’s attention!) Veggie box came full of kale and no idea what to do with it? Zillions of recipes are right there!
What’s your favorite fitness site?
