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.

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! :)”

Deep Breathing

Deep Breathing Exercises

Deep breathing is a relaxation technique that can be self-taught. Deep breathing releases tension from the body and clear the mind, improving both physical and mental wellness.

We tend to breathe shallowly or even hold our hold our breath when we are feeling anxious. Sometimes we are not even aware of it. Shallow breathing limits your oxygen intake and adds further stress to your body, creating a vicious cycle. Breathing exercises can break this cycle.

The importance of good posture cannot be overstated. While sitting, we tend to slouch, which compresses the diaphragm and other organs, resulting in shallow breathing. Slouching also strains muscles in the neck and back. It is helpful to sit in a chair with good back support to avoid fatigue that leads to slouching.

How to do Deep Breathing Exercises:

Sit up straight. (Do not arch your back) First exhale completely through your mouth. Place your hands on your stomach, just above your waist. Breathe in slowly through your nose, pushing your hands out with your stomach. This ensures that you are breathing deeply. Imagine that you are filling your body with air from the bottom up.

Hold your breath to a count of two to five, or whatever you can handle. It is easier to hold your breath if you continue to hold out your stomach. Slowly and steadily breathe out through your mouth, feeling your hands move back in as you slowly contract your stomach, until most of the air is out. Exhalation is a little longer than inhalation.

After you get some experience you don’t need to use your hands to check your breathing.

You can also do the above breathing exercise lying on your back. Deep breathing exercises can help you to relax before you go to sleep for the night, or fall back asleep if you awaken in the middle of the night.

You can also practice deep breathing exercises standing – e.g. while sitting in traffic, or standing in a lineup at the grocery store. If you are really tense and feel as if you are holding your breath, simply concentrate on slowly breathing in and out.

 

Source.

 

Training the fundamentals

Interesting blog post from fitness anywhere:

Trainees want workouts to be challenging, and with the TRX, it’s easy to provide that challenge. Anyone can push trainees to go harder, faster and for longer. But “good” training should do much more than just provide an intense conditioning challenge. It should help trainees to build sound movement patterns before moving on to strength, power and metabolic components.

This was a detail entry, rewrote it twice… computers though amazing cam some times be so frustrating! More to come later.