Start with 10 Jump Squats, Pause, Reset, and Begin again 10 Jump Squats, 9 Double Leg Lowers. Pause, Reset, Begin again 10 Jump Squats, 9 Double Leg Lowers, 8 Pushups. Repeat down the ladder until you get to the 1:00 Cardio exercise
Get creative! Maybe you sprint around the outside of the house or have a race or competition of some kind!
Grab a deck of cards, pull out the jokers. Each individual or team is assigned a suit. Create a distance to run from start to the full deck of cards, shuffled. Each team or person runs to the deck and chooses a card from the deck. If it’s their suit, they run it back to their start/pile. They run again, or the next team member, to the deck again. If the suit is not theirs they put it in the discard and run back to start before trying again. The first person/team with all 13 cards wins!
Make it harder by changing a rule to run to the deck to be skips, hops, etc.
Head to an open area, park or field. Mark 4 corners. Run/walk to corner 1. Perform 20 jumping jacks or tuck jumps. Run/walk to corner 2. Perform 10 pushups or frog hops. Run/walk to corner 3. Perform 20 squats. Perform walking lunges to corner 4/start.
Make it a competition or try to beat your own time by keeping a family record book. Write the date and time each person. Cheer on the participants!
More people than ever are working out at home whether via live-stream videos or Facetime, pre-recorded videos or just making things up as they go. But there are some things you’ll want to take into account to maximize your home workout efficacy – and safety!
Find a space with some room to move, good ventilation, and away from distractions. Are you watching a screen to follow along with your workout? Make sure you can see well enough by viewing on a computer screen, Smart TV, or other larger screened device. This is your time!
Even during chaotic times, schedule your workout and don’t break your appointment! Let those around you know that you have an appointment you can’t miss whether in your home or otherwise. It is all too easy to skip a workout when you simply, “get around to it at some point”.
You have your workout planned. Now make sure you are dressed and ready for your workout, have your water ready, and check-in. Check-in with your trainer, your friend, or whomever you are keeping accountability with. If you are self-motivated and can stay accountable with yourself, awesome, but many of us are not! Find your person! This is a really simple, REALLY effective tool.
If you’ve always been a gym-person, you haven’t had to worry about at-home equipment. But what if you are temporarily at home or on the road?
– Resistance bands and minibands are very cost effective. It is a great idea to have one for the “just in case” times. They can easily be tossed in luggage or in that drawer to not take up extra space.
– If you normally use some kind of assistance for your pushups, use a chair, a counter-top, a wall, or anything secure to elevate your pushup!
**Have Nothing? If you need some “make do” workout equipment, grab some of your reusable cotton tote bags or a duffel bag and fill your weight as needed. The bags can be held like a kettlebell for Turkish get ups, deadlifts, overhead presses, bicep curls, and so much more!
More ideas: canned foods, laundry detergent bottles, ½ and gallon milk jugs filled as needed can make great substitute weights. Get creative and/or ask for help! How to sub equipment, modify movements, etc. ask us!
Although in many cases barefoot is the ideal way to train, if you have not worked out barefoot or in minimalist shoes previously, start slow! Use the same training shoes you have been and maybe try 10-minutes of your workout barefoot to see how you feel. This might be a great time to adjust to minimalist footwear, if it’s right for you.
In 2012 a research team designed the “sitting-rising” exercise that seemed to predict mortality in those 51 – 80 years old. Over 2000 adults were tested. Essentially it tests strength as well as hip mobility and how it may be related to mortality.
According to the CDC, over 61% of U.S. residents over 65 died from fall-related causes in 2016. Although there are other factors that can come into play, it’s a good reminder that moving well is just as important as other aspects of health/fitness (like heart-health, body composition, muscular strength, bone density, etc).
Sit on the ground and cross your legs. Try standing up from the cross-leg position without touching the ground. Success? Cross your legs the other way and try again!
Start with a score of 10
Subtract 1 point for each time a body part other than your feet touches the ground
Subtract 1 point for placing hand on the knee
Subtract 0.5 points for loss of balance
Interested in other self-tests? Check out this great article!
Bottom line: if you don’t continue to move and put your body through different ranges of mobility, it will go away. Have aches and pains with movement? Try these tips!
Go barefoot, roll your feet with a tennis ball, walk on a rock mat, give your feet a daily massage/”gymnastics”. Take care of your feet! They are the gateway to your body.
When we sit a lot, we tighten our hip flexors which causes the glutes to lengthen and compensate (which can often result in back pain). Our core strength can also be diminished.
Rather than sitting at a computer or on the couch watching TV, try squatting, using a stability ball, using a tall-kneeling position, using a half-kneeling position, sitting back on the heels and/or a combination of all the above.
Offset tight hip flexors and underactive glutes by adding in single leg hip lifts into your exercise routine a number of times per week.
Are you mobile enough? Another simple test to check your general strength and mobility is to place your feet next to each other and squat down, keeping your heels on the ground. The movement should be simple and pretty effortless.
Today, RIGHT NOW, add some hip mobility into your day with 5-10 reps of “The World’s Greatest Stretch”.
Try sitting on the edge of your chair to keep challenging your body and core strength. Start with 1 minute, and add an extra minute every day for a month. In no time you will be watching an entire episode of your favorite TV show on the edge of your seat with little effort!
The Plank is a simple, but very effective and EFFICIENT core exercise that helps you build stability and strength throughout your entire body. The primary muscles involved are the erector spinae (muscles around the spine that straighten and rotate the back), rectus abdominis (the “6-pack” muscles), and transverse abdominis (a deep core muscle that stabilizes the low back and core).
Some credit Joseph Pilates for the concept of the plank exercise, dating back to the 1920’s! Like standard planks, side planks recruit the transversus abdominis muscles, but also the glutes, obliques, and adductors as the primary muscles.
In today’s world we are in spinal flexion so often, hunching over our phone or computer – therefore doing loads of “crunches” is unnecessary. Instead utilizing planks encourages stacking the spine, improved posture and can greatly reduce the incidence of back pain.
The plank is a popular exercise in yoga, boxing, and sports because it not only increases strength and stability in the whole body, but it also trains balance and flexibility.
Planks are perfect for that workout you need to complete at home or while traveling. No equipment is necessary, and it can be done anywhere! Your job is to make a plank hard to be the most effective. Before increasing your time in a plank make sure to master the form, only then increasing INTENSITY to make sure it’s the safest and most effective plank.
1. In the pushup position, push up through the shoulders (shoulder protraction) to create stability so the upper back feels rounded arm to arm.
2. Set your wrists under the shoulders (in a low plank our elbows are under the shoulders) and stay there! As we fatigue, we tend to push away from the hands causing unnecessary strain on our shoulders, neck and wrists.
3. To keep your head aligned with your spine, pretend you are giving yourself a double-chin or you are up against a wall and pulling your head back against it.
4. When we train deadlifts, you may have seen a coach place a dowel or pole on a member’s back to have them connect their head, shoulders and tailbone to it while hinging. The same three connections should be seen in a plank.
PUT IT ALL TOGETHER!
Wrists under shoulders, actively drive your hands into the ground, double-chin, push up through the shoulders, squeeze your quads/front of your legs, squeeze/engage your glutes, and build tension in the legs by drawing the legs towards each other.
One final tension boost? Make it a STRICT PLANK by drawing your elbows/hands back as if you are on a rug and pulling it toward you.
You have 642 of them, you use them every day, but what do you really know about them? Knowledge is power if every aspect of life and training is no different – read on!
When talking about muscles sometimes it is easiest to think of a really simple one for starters, so let’s begin with those biceps being shown off up above! When you bend your arm, your bicep contracts and your tricep does the opposite (elongates) in order to let your elbow bend.
These are called “opposing muscle groups”. Our workouts need to cover all aspects of muscle training from the composition of muscle to how they perform.
Muscle fibers are long and cylindrical; only about the size of a strand of hair! These fibers determine how much weight you can lift and for how many reps (think a bunch of hairs tied in a ponytail make up what a muscle looks and acts like).
There are two types of muscle fibers:
Slow twitch fibers are used for aerobic exercise and are very resistant to fatigue and are good for things such as longer distance running. The downside is, they don’t move very quickly (like if you suddenly need to sprint to the finish line). You train slow twitch fibers with higher repetitions, at a slower tempo, and with short rest times.
Unlike slow twitch muscle fibers, fast twitch fire very quickly but also fatigue quickly. Fast twitch fibers are used for things like sprints and heavy lifting. You train fast twitch fibers with explosive movements like the push press, kettlebell swing, and box jumps. This type of POWER training needs more rest and recovery time.
NO! Every person has a different percentage of fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers, which is why some people tend to be naturally better at running distances than sprinting, or better at longer sets than short ones. Even within each person different muscles may be various ratios of fast and slow. For instance maybe your hamstrings are 60% slow twitch, but your biceps only 30%.
You are born with a certain number of muscle fibers so you can’t increase the number of them, but you CAN increase their overall mass and strength.
Remember when we said there were TWO muscle fiber types? Well…technically that’s correct, but within “Fast Twitch” there is the potential to train for more short bursts of power or more endurance. Muscles literally change based on your activity and these hybrids will shift more toward slow or fast depending on your training. Train for your goals!
Determine if your workout is designed to gain muscle size (HYPERTROPHY), strength, or power.
Hypertrophy training aims to fatigue the muscle fiber, which after proper rest will cause the muscle to grow larger. 6-12 Reps and rest 30-90 seconds. The focus is more about the process vs the actual load.
Strength (vs muscle size or power) requires a slower speed and lower reps (like 6 or less) with heavier load/weight.
Power training is similar to strength training, but speed of contraction becomes a factor as we want to generate as much power in as short a time as possible.
As you have seen this week, to get a fully balanced program to build muscle strength, size, and power takes a fine balance and a deeper understanding of how the body works. At Ellipse, you see Tabata, Declining Hypertrophy, Eccentric Training, Pause Training, and so much more. All the different formats and styles are to achieve RESULTS! If you can step through that front door and work to YOUR best, we’ve got the rest covered 😊
