Fitness Tip of the Day: Saturday's Stretch & Flexibility -- Stretches for Back Pain

Back pain is something that many people experience at one time or another.  I myself have had a herniated disc and had to undergo physical therapy, electro therapy and muscle work.  It still bothers me once in a while if I do something too strenuous or move the wrong way--Don't make fun of Sammy Sosa--I've pulled my back while sneezing too!

One thing we all know--back pain is NOT fun!  It's some of the worst pain that you will ever experience.  In my case, I'm talking worse than labor!

Back pain is the main reason I became a Pilates instructor.  A lot of my physical therapy was actually doing Pilates on a stability ball.  I believe that I have my back health because I do Pilates regularly.

Now back pain isn't limited to your lower back, you can get pain in your middle back and your neck as well--remember, they are all part of your spine.

I was very excited to see today's video posted on YouTube by Psychetruth.  It is entitled "Safe Stretches for Back Pain."

Remember, go only as far as your body wants to go.  Your range of motion may not be as large as hers.  You don't want to force any stretch, especially when twisting.  If sitting cross-legged bothers you, sit however is comfortable.

When threading your arm through to the floor while you are on all fours, you can place your arm on a pillow if the stretch is too deep or painful.

While lying on your back, you can also put a pillow under your knee if it's too deep without it.

Doing these kinds of stretches regularly, along with doing core work like Pilates will help to keep your back strong and flexible.

Fitness Tip of the Day: Friday's Findings -- Fast Foods & Junk Food are Killing Us!

How fast food and junk food are affecting us, from the Psychetruth channel on YouTube.

 Holistic Nutritionist, Corrina Rachel's point of view:

Some of this is common sense--eat more healthy organic fruits and vegetables, eat less processed food and junk food, period.  The main theme is to eat foods that were around 100 years ago, foods that don't have all the chemicals and additives added to them.

Here are the steps she mentions to help you:

1.  Eat more fruits and vegetables.

2.  Stop drinking sweetened beverages, especially soda.

3.  Invest in a water filter to remove chemicals from your water.

4.  Stop eating processed foods.

5.  Avoid processed meats.  Grass fed is recommended.

6.  When eating out, look for salad bars, and asian restaurants--without MSG--avoid deep fried foods and go for the entrees with lots of veggies.

I'll be posting more videos regarding nutrition in the future.




 

Fitness Tip of the Day: Thursday's Total Body/Cardio -- Crazy Cardio Challenge

Today's workout comes from LiveStrongWoman's YouTubeChannel.  It is a crazy cardio circuit challenge from the A-List Look with Valerie Waters series.

It consists of 10 exercises that will keep your heart rate up the entire time tabata-style; working for 20 seconds, resting for 10.  Your lower body will be challenged and you will get some upper body work as well.  Keep track of how many reps you can perform in each 20 second segment.

You are to repeat the circuit 3 times, so you can either repeat the video 2 more times, or follow the printable workout that I linked below.  Note, it's expected that as you get tired that you'll do less reps.  Please be aware of your form as you get tired--keep good form the entire time; move slower it you need to.

You can take this challenge again in 4 - 6 weeks and see how you've improved.

There is no warm-up or cool down/stretch.  Please do those on your own.  They are both extremely important.

Printable workout:  Crazy Cardio Challenge

Fitness Tip of the Day: Wednesday's Wild/Warrior Workout -- HIIT and Total Body Tabata

Today's wild workout comes from FitnessBlender.com.  It is a 45 minute, high intensity, interval workout.

According to the their website, you can burn anywhere from 322 to 507 calories doing this workout.

It is set up tabata style, which is 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times.

Here are the workout details from the website:

"Fitness Blender's 45 minute tabata training video targets multiple muscle groups, builds endurance, and burns off a great deal of calories.

This time we do HIIT intervals (20 on, 10 off) eight times through for a whole four minutes for each exercise. It’s tough, and a bit different from our usual structuring of HIIT workout videos up until this point – we usually do two minute intervals, but mixing it up like this is a great way to keep your body on it’s toes.

What I really ended up liking about this workout was that it was great for calling out weak spots in your body in terms of strength and endurance. It’s definitely a total body workout, and if you pay attention, the exercises that you really struggle with in those long 4 minute intervals are likely the places that you need to work on most. For me, I had a very hard time with the push ups (try not to laugh as you watch me trudge through those...). Upper body strength is definitely my weakness and something that I know that I need to work on – as you can probably tell from the video, after a few rounds of active intervals my push ups started to slow down and my form started to waiver. If I put a little extra effort into training my upper body muscles, I will likely find that the next time I try this workout, this part will be a little easier.

Be mindful throughout this workout and pay attention to the intervals that you find the most challenging – core, upper and lower body, and cardiovascular endurance are the main components of this routine; being aware of which one is hardest for you may be revealing of muscles and training types that you are neglecting in your normal program."

A warm up and cool down with a stretch are both included.  Please don't skip either of these, they are both important!

Fitness Blender offers all of their workouts for free.  They do accept donations on their website to help offset costs.  They also offer some other programs (an 8 week program most recently) in which members pay a fee for.  There is a link to their website on the right sidebar.

Are you still doing your squats?

Fitness Tip of the Day: Tuesday's Trunk and Core -- Fat Burning Pilates

Today's workout comes from JessicaSmithTV on YouTube.  It is about 27 minutes long.  It is a Pilates inspired workout that takes some moves that are traditionally done laying down up to standing, and takes some of the floor exercises at a faster pace to make the workout a cardiovascular one as well.

I'm definitely going to incorporate some of these exercises into my Pilates classes.

Fitness Tip of the Day: Monday's Muscle Work -- Inner Thighs and Triceps

I usually post either upper or lower body exercises on Monday, but today I thought I'd post one that has exercises for both the inner thighs and the triceps.

For women, having toned triceps makes your arms look more shapely than just having toned biceps.  Goodbye bat wings!

It is a 10 minute workout.  There is no warm up.  Please do that yourself first.

It's important to work the opposing muscles as well to keep your body balanced--if you don't do that today, then make sure you do tomorrow.  The opposing muscles are the biceps (yes, you should still work them) and outer thighs--the squats and lunges do work more than just your inner thighs.  They also work your hamstrings, glutes and quads.  For outer thigh, you can do some side leg lifts.

On the plie squat make sure you stay upright, you don't want to bend at the waist and keep your head in line with the neck (she tucks her head down a bit, don't do that).

On the kickbacks, keep your elbows high only moving the lower part of the arm--bending and straightening the elbows.  On these you do want to be leaned over at the hip only--keep your chest up and your shoulders down from your ears.

Don't forget to stretch afterward!  The butterfly stretch she does at the end is good for the inner thighs, but she doesn't stretch the triceps--to do that take one hand and reach for the middle of the back.  Take the other hand and gently press the arm back just below the elbow to increase the stretch.

I had a very busy Sunday, so I didn't get to post any recipes.  I thought I'd post one here.  I just shared this on facebook, but thought I'd share it here too.  The recipe is for "Healthy Butterfingers" from Chocolate Covered Katie.

Again, I wouldn't necessarily call these "healthy" but they have much better ingredients than what is in the original candy bar I'm sure:  peanut butter, bran flakes, agave (I'm going to try honey since that's what I have in my pantry).

Be careful with portion control--they still have 115 calories and 7.2 grams of fat per serving.  The really good thing is that there aren't any chemicals or preservatives or any of that stuff you can't pronounce in them!  Here's the link:  Healthy Butterfingers