Design for Fitness

Movement

For Those Long Days at the Office: Seated Cat/Camel

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I would wager that most of us don’t think about what is happening to our spines when we sit for long periods. There may even be those among us that LOVE sitting, and equate it with relaxing! But of course! When was the last time you were completely relaxed when standing?

The thing is, you good old back is working hard when you sit. Your spine is, after all, holding up your upper body.

This can be especially true when you are at work, at your desk, diligently doing your job for hours on end.

For those of you who have days like that, I have a suggestion that may help you avoid accumulating stiffness, chronic bad posture, and pain or injury down the road.

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Getting a Big Bang Out of Donkey Kicks

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The effect of this exercise is to give you more energy, better posture, a more solid core, and train your muscles to work together more efficiently.   This makes for a nice Big Bang, all in one exercise!

Here’s a few of the high points:

  • It lets you become aware of how it feels to be in good alignment, with shoulders and core supporting you.
  • It lets your butt muscles be the star. The more you can train your butt to be the main muscle you use when you bring your leg to the back, the better off you will be. It means you will be averting low back overuse and possibly pain.
  • It helps you to walk efficiently, using your butt muscle more than your hamstrings or low back. You are also training your hips to remain stable so that your walking gait does not stress your hips, knees, or back. In addition, it reinforces using your core as you walk or do other activities.
  • It heightens your awareness and reminds you to sit up straight if/when you are sitting. If you use your core and good shoulder alignment, it will keep you from slouching or  rounding your back. You will also be more aware of sitting right on top of our sitz bones, so that your pelvis doesn’t tilt forward or back.  All of these things will help to keep compression stress off of your spine.

Check it out!

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Foam Rolling: Questions and Answers

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Foam Rollers. They seem to have popped up and multiplied like mushrooms in the past several years. Now they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, colors, degrees of softness, and grid patterns. There must be something to it, right?

The idea is that you can break up adhesions in the fascia that surrounds and integrates with our muscles.

If you break up the fascia adhesions by rolling, what are the benefits? Is it worth the time spent?

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Where Do You Start When You Want to Get Fit?

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Let’s say you have decided to “get fit”, or even “get more fit”. You are committed, and you want to start after a long hiatus or even just a short one.

What is the best action to take?

I’d like to make the case for starting with your core. It’s at the heart of everything you do! Here’s why, AND a few ways to get it working for you without doing any sit-ups or crunches!

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Quick Fixes for an Aching Neck

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Your neck is an amazing thing. It lets you nod “yes” by going up and down, get to “no” by going back and forth, and keeps you safe while driving by looking over your shoulder.

As we all know, however, neck pain or soreness is very common, often coming from chronic stress and strain.

Sometimes, even your hobbies can eventually cause neck pain. Things like gardening, needlepoint or knitting, reading, going to the movies, or taking long trips in the car. Doesn’t seem fair does it? Even when you are trying to relax, you can be giving yourself a pain in the neck.

There’s a couple of good ways to fight back from all this gloom and doom by focusing on just one muscle.

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How Much Exercise Do You Really Need?

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Our bodies are amazing and complex. That means that it is often difficult for science to study just one thing at a time.

Having said that, in the fitness biz, often THE marker for how fit you are is how much oxygen you can use when you exercise. The more fit you are, the better you are at sucking oxygen in and getting it to your cells to help them create energy for you to keep going.

To put it into a different context, what really matters is how good your heart is at pumping, and how good your circulation is at getting oxygen to your cells.

Exactly how much exercise do you need in order to keep your arteries, those amazing transporters that get oxygen to your cells, in good shape?

Here’s some recent findings.

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