exercise of the week: side lunge

Muscles worked: quadriceps, hamstring, glutes, inner & outer thighs

Purpose: Strengthen

Form: To perform the side lunge, begin standing with your feet together. Slowly take a large step sideways with your right leg. Keeping your left leg straight, your right knee bends in line with your ankle. Hold for 2-3 seconds. Push off your right leg bringing it back together with the left. Repeat on the left side. Keep your transverse abdominis activates, ribs to hips, and clasp your hands together to keep your shoulders back.

Note: You can also add resistance to this exercise by holding a medicine ball.

exercise of the week: split squats with bench

Purpose: Strengthen and Stabilize

Muscles Worked: Quads, Gluteus, Hamstrings, and Core

Form: Place one foot on a weight bench. Ensure your legs are hip width apart. Your front leg should be about 3 feet away from the bench. Place your hands on your hips. Slowly squat down until your knee is bent about 90 degrees. Be sure to keep your upper body straight as you squat with your ribs to hips and abs contracted. Return to the starting point.

Perform for several repetitions, then repeat the exercise on the opposite leg.

exercise of the week: sumo squat

Muscles worked: gluteus, quads, hamstrings,and inner thighs, and calves.

Purpose: strengthen

Form: stand with the feet beyond shoulder width apart. The wide stance forces the inner thigh muscles to work harder. The toes should be turned out. Hold the medicine ball(optional) in front of the body or hands on the hips. Squat down until the legs are parallel. A partial movement (e.g. half way down) is okay for those with limited mobility. Be sure to keep the back straight and head up. Exhale as you stand up. Keep your hips tucked under, core activated, and ribs to hips.

Be sure to not allow your knees to extend beyond the toes during the course of the lift. This exercise can be performed with or without weighted resistance.

Exercise of the week: Thera-band shoulder flexion

Muscles Worked:  Deltoids, Pectorals, Traps

Purpose: Strength and Stability

Form: Standing in the middle of the theraband, grasp the ends of the band in one hand. Lift you arm upward in front of your body to shoulder level. keep elbow straight and thumb facing upward. Hold and slowly lower, and repeat. Complete exercise on both arms.

Exercise of the week: Assisted Pull-ups

Assisted pull-up with heavy resistance band

Muscles Worked: Latissimus Dorsi (back), and Biceps

Purpose: Strengthen

Form: Secure bands under one foot or knee. Place hands slightly wider than shoulder width. Grasp pull-up bar. Pull up until chin reaches bar, keeping proper posture. Slowly lower yourself to the starting position, repeat.

Special Considerations: Reach to grasp the pull-up bar with pronated grip. Place your hands shoulder-width apart.
Don’t lock your elbows and keep your shoulders back.

Essentrics – What is it???

Want to learn more about our new ESSENTRICS  classes on Thursdays at 6:15pm-7:15pm?

Read below and check out the link so see some videos on what will be happening in most classes.

The Esmonde Technique is a fitness method that combines essentric stretching and strengthening, pnf, physiotherapy techniques, ballet, tai chi and many more forms of fitness to help individuals achieve the goal of a toned flexible and balanced body. Created by Miranda Esmonde-White over 20 years ago, her technique has helped Olympic and professional athletes excel and the general population achieve their fitness goals. Miranda began her career as a professional ballet dancer and later went on to train many top athletes and coaches in her unique stretch program called Classical Stretch. Classical Stretch was the first program developed under the Esmonde Technique and consists of a balanced fitness program that has helped people achieve overall body flexibility, healing, health and anti-aging, with a side-bonus of creating long lean muscles.

Click here to see more

Testimonial of the day :)

Here a testimonial Erica received the other day… Thought it would be nice to share the positive energy and show you how others are benefiting from Erica’s personal training efforts.

“Its such a great experience working with a trainer who is as invested in helping me obtain my physical goals as I am . Erica’s commitment to helping me accomplish my goals has been profound and highly effective.  I love the results and feel great!  Thank you Erica for your dedication to my overall wellness. You are so appreciated! :)”

Stability Ball Classes

Stability Ball Classes have started!

A strong core is essential to well rounded fitness and decreased overall pain cause my muscle imbalances. Focusing on all the core components; shoulder stability, trunk stability, hip stability; including glute control and strength, balance and muscle control through movement.

To keep the class fresh and interesting we use a variety of techniques and equipment such as stability balls, BOSU balls, foam rollers, balance boards, etc. Including all components of fitness from cardiovascular endurance to more traditional strength training exercises to flexibility and range of motion work tone your entire body while building functional strength. This class is appropriate for  for all levels of fitness.

Drop in or sign up for our 6 or 8 week series.

Wednesday night at 6:30pm – 7:30pm

Hope to see you there 🙂

Hello

Just writing a little entry to say to all of our members that I am very excited to meet all of you and be a part of the team!

To get us started I am going to share a health tip of the day:

Did you know we are made of 70% water and hte daily recommened water intake is 8 glasses of water every day. Are you getting enough?

Also did you now that thoughts influence how water molecules interact with each other… positive thoughts lead to beautiful formations. Masaru Emoto takes picture of this phenomena. Check it out here. For more information on Masaru Emoto’s work click here.