Building a House – Progression
When planning out your workouts, when planning out how to reach your goal, what factors do you consider?
Do you build on what you’ve done the days and weeks before?
Or do you randomly draw exercises out of a hat based on what is sore…or what you want to work that day…or maybe even what just seems like it would be killer?
Most people take no time to create a progression. They just string together exercises and workouts that are tough or have certain moves with no thought as to how they are going to measure their success or how the workouts will actually build toward their goal.
And then they wonder why 3 months later they still haven’t gotten results.
HELLO!
If you truly want to reach a goal, you’ve got to PLAN out a way to get there. I call this plan a “progression.”
It is a progression because over a set amount of time, it will work to step-by-step get you closer to your goal.
It is like building a house.
You don’t randomly throw bricks together and hope it comes out right. You have a plan.
And then you don’t start for with the roof or even the second floor.
You build from the ground up!
Your workout progression should work the same way.
You first build a base, you lay the foundation.
Work on form. Focus on correcting imbalances by lengthening and loosening some muscles and activating others. Learn the basics.
Then once you’ve learned the basics, you start to advance moves or add weight.
Make yourself EARN harder moves…EARN heavier weights.
Build up your strength slowly so that you allow your body to adapt so that you don’t get injured and have set backs.
And while you are planning out what moves and what weights will get you to your goals, consider repetition and set schemes. Think about rest intervals.
Consider how many days you are going to lift and how long the workouts will be. Also how often are you going to include cardio? What type of cardio?
WOW! Lots to consider right?
YEP! But if you put some thought into each of the pieces ahead of time, you are going to be much more likely to hit your goal AND when you hit your goal, you will actually KNOW what it takes to get you back there if you ever need to retrace your steps.
Even if you don’t hit your goal, you can then tweak things, taking out things that didn’t work and adding in new things that may work.
Otherwise you will just end up floundering around time and time again with no way of knowing what works and probably never actually hitting your goal.
I know it seems random, but it really does seem like building a house….not that I know that much about building a house.
You have to create the blueprints so you know where everything is going to go. You’ve got to get the right tools. You’ve got to know where to start. You’ve got to lay out the plans to get it finished. You’ve got to understand your timeline.
You’ve got to lay a foundation and then build upon it sometimes using fancy things and sometimes using the basics.
The point though of all of this is that you’ve got to have a plan and you’ve got to start from the bottom up.
Ok so after all this rambling, I’ll try to break it down a bit more. Say you want to lose weight and get toned (hey it’s about to be bikini season and this seems to be about every other woman’s goal that comes into the gym).
A basic outline of a progression may be strength training 3 times a week with cardio 2.
With the strength training being three times a week, I would recommend some sort of full body-ish workout each of the three days. I would break down each day into maybe something like this…
Monday Press and Squat, Wednesday Pull and Hinge and Friday Rotational.
I would then select appropriate exercises based on the outlined movement patterns above. I would give them basic exercises to start. They would then have to EARN the harder more fun moves. Master the basic squat motion and then we will talk about fun squat variations. You don’t just get to do the fun variations…You’ve got to earn them.
Just like you EARN heavier weights.
I would start the person out with either light weights or even body weight movements for about 15-20 reps (of course depending on their level of fitness). Over the weeks I would progress them to heavier weights and lower reps. I would probably never really get below 8 reps. If I did go below 8 reps it would only be for a week.
Also, the weights would change slowly, allowing the body to adapt slowly.
Yes..Usually drastic changes lead to drastic results. But they also lead to lots of injuries that could have been prevented by just being a tad bit more patient!
While I’m a fan of the maximal strength rep range, it isn’t necessary for a goal like the one listed above unless the person does really fall in love with lifting. It may also be something to bring up in a later progression.
AND even though I’m not a fan of higher rep ranges (they are good…just mentally I hate counting to 20 haha), it is important to cycle back through that 15-20 rep range to give your body a break from the lower ranges.
Plus your body adapts to whatever it is doing so mixing it up can help you break through any plateau you may have hit!
Each progression would last about 4 weeks before I would give an active recovery-ish week and change up the workouts.
If you don’t change things up, you may hit a plateau, BUT this doesn’t mean changing things up every day or even every week.
Some consistency is key. It helps you track progress and it helps your body build up moves before you change things up again and make it adapt to new moves and weights.
And you don’t only need to build slowly with weight training. Cardio is the same way. You need to build an aerobic base first. Start with some long slow cardio. Build your base. Then as you up your aerobic endurance, add in some sprints. Start your sprints with a 1 to 3 or 5 work to rest ratio. Then decrease your rest as you get more fit. You can also play with making the sprint longer, BUT consider what you are trying to achieve.
What energy zone are you trying to work?
Consider the variables! What are you trying to accomplish and will the workouts you are doing TRULY get you there?
Anyway, so next time you lay out your goal, plan out how you are going to get there.
Things don’t just magically happen. If you want something done, lay out a plan to do it! Don’t just flounder around using random tools!
Part 3: Bootilicious – Activation
Ok so you’ve rolled out your hips and have loosened and lengthened the tight muscles.
Next, you’ve got to get the appropriate muscles activated – you’ve got to warm up those butt cheeks!
Most of us are quad dominate and our butts aren’t firing on all cylinders. So a few moves can get your glutes awake and ready to work.
The moves below aren’t the only moves you can use, but they are some that I like. They really make you feel your butt cheeks so that during your workout you will be well aware that your glutes are ACTUALLY working.
These moves may be funny…and yes…some of them are very Jane Fonda…but they are seriously EXCELLENT at what they do!
- Sit and squeeze – One of the simplest moves you can do to activate your butt cheeks is literally sit there and squeeze your butt cheeks. If you can’t do this, then you probably aren’t using your glutes at all during your workouts. If you are doing this properly, you should feel like you become taller.
- Kneel and squeeze – So in this one you are kneeling on one knee. So if you are kneeling on your right knee, with your left knee up, you are going to drive your hips forward and really squeeze that right butt cheek. You aren’t leaning forward, you are simply squeezing and hold that back butt cheek. You can make this a bit tougher, if you stand on one leg and bend the other knee to 90 degrees and squeeze the butt cheek of the standing leg. The standing move has the bonus of working on your balance!
- Fire hydrant – So this move basically mimics the move a dog does to pee on a fire hydrant so I’m assuming that is where it got its name. Place your hands underneath your shoulders and your knees underneath your hips. Flex your feet. Then raise one leg out to the side, keeping the knee at 90 degrees. Try to not let the foot get higher than the knee or the knee get higher than the foot. Really squeeze the butt cheek as you lift. Repeat all reps on one side before moving on to the other side.
- Straight leg lift – To make the fire hydrant more challenging or to just add some variety, do a straight leg lift. So on hands and knees, straighten one leg out to the side and then lift that straightened leg. On both the fire hydrant and the straight leg variation, make sure NOT to bend your elbows. The straight leg move is tough and you may not lift the foot very high off the ground. Don’t force it or rotate. Just really isolate the glute. It should be firing on the first lift!
- Donkey kick – So setup just as you would for the fire hydrant. Instead of raising the leg out to the side, you are going to kick the leg straight back. Keep the knee bent close to 90 and keep the foot flexed. Don’t let the low back arch. Make sure that as you lift you are squeezing the butt cheek of the leg you are raising! Also make sure the foot is driving straight up to the ceiling. And do not let your elbows bend.
- Hip Circles – So this move combines the donkey kick and the fire hydrant with a knee drive. To do this move setup on hands and knees. First drive the knee back and do a donkey kick. Then without lowering to the ground, bring the leg out to the top of the fire hydrant move. Then without setting the knee down, drive it forward into the elbow. Keep the foot flexed the entire time. When you drive into the elbow, you should really feel your abs engage. Then lower the knee down and repeat.
- Clams – So these can be done with or without bands for resistance. If you use a band, put it around both legs right below the knees. Lay on your side, propped on your forearm. Place your feet on top of each other and bend your knees to just above 90 degrees. Then without rotating, open the top knee, squeezing the glute. A great way to do this at first is to set up with your butt right against a pole or a wall so you can’t rotate. You are opening your top knee and driving it up toward the ceiling by squeezing your glute. Lower down slowly if using a band and repeat.
- Glute bridge – So this move deserves its own whole post and will get it, but the basic glute bridge is a great activation/warm up move so I had to include it. Lay on your back with your feet about hip width apart. You should basically be able to touch your heels with your finger tips. Then bend your elbows to 90 degrees. Drive your elbows, shoulders and heels into the ground as you drive your hips up. Make sure your knees do not fall apart. Actively squeeze your butt as you drive your hips up. If you feel this a lot in your hamstrings, make sure that you aren’t driving off your heels backwards. You shouldn’t feel like you are driving back into your shoulders. You want to actual feel like you are driving your knees forward over your toes even though you are driving through your heels.
- Posterior Plank – So this move looks like a move right out of Flash Dance to me (maybe she could get her hips up a bit higher, but yep….it is the exact move. Start seated on the ground with your hands behind you. It is best if you can turn your finger tips toward you. Push up onto your hands and heels. Drive the hips up as high as you can and really press your chest out. Relax your head back.
- Band walks – So a great active way to warm up that butt. You place the band around both feet. To make the move easier, for one you can use a lighter band. For two, you can place the band up above your knees or even right below. The higher up the band the easier the move. The closer to your feet, the harder the move. Two great walk moves that I do…one forwards and one sideways. Walking forward…walk with monster steps out to each side. Do not let the feet come all the way back together. Also walk backwards back. Then walking sideways…just like a shuffle. Take a big step out to the side then bring the other foot to almost meet it, keeping tension in the band. Make sure the toes stay pointing forward. Don’t rock side to side. Keep the knees bent and take as big a step as possible.
So those are my top 10 activation moves. You don’t need to do ALL of them each and every time. I usually choose 2-4 depending on which ones I plan to do and what workout I’m doing that day. Today, since I was doing a posterior chain workout with single leg deadlifts and swings, I did 4 activation moves to make sure the glutes were really really awake.
Check back next week for a break down of some great butt STRENGTH moves! And if you missed it, or your butt cheeks are now active and ready to workout, try one of these deadlift variations!
Are you healthy?
So what does “being healthy” really mean?
Is being healthy NOT being sick?
I mean cause really just because you aren’t sick doesn’t mean you are healthy.
So then what is HEALTHY?
Is it having all of your vital stats fall within that “healthy” range set out by the medical community?
I mean is that really healthy if the person eats crap all day yet has supposedly falls within the healthy ranges for cholesterol and blood pressure and such!?!
Ehhhhh…doesn’t sound healthy to me.
They might look healthy on paper, but frankly I don’t think that is any guarantee that they won’t be plagued by illness or die at an early age.
Eating crap is eating crap. And frankly, I think it will come back to bite most people.
So then…what is “being healthy?”
Honestly, I don’t have an answer for you. And neither does anyone else.
That is why people are so confused about what diet or exercise program to follow – there are studies used to say that almost a bazillion different things are healthy!
So how do I judge when I’m being healthy?
Well I took a look at all of the evidence and picked a side.
I choose to pick the side of eating whole natural foods – real foods. I choose this diet because it seems most logical to me.
People have called it a “fad diet,” but as someone said in “The Perfect Human Diet” documentary that I watched last night, “It then is a 2 million year old fad.”
We evolved the way we did because we ate meat. Our systems are adapted to eat whole natural foods.
So processed foods? Foods that we only started eating with industrialization?
Those are not whole natural foods. Those are NOT foods we were meant to eat.
Those to me aren’t healthy.
And there are people who will site studies saying I’m wrong and that my diet is a fad.
Really!?!
You are going to call my diet a fad when there haven’t been any early vegetarian human fossils found? You are going to tell me that I should eat grains when humans didn’t eat grains until recently!?!
HA!
I have the whole of human evolution behind my beliefs…How many years are behind yours!?!
And yea…now some of you will say…”Well we didn’t have science then”….or “We didn’t know any better”….or “We lived way shorter lives back then.”
Yea we didn’t have science…we ate what didn’t kill us. Just like all animals seem to eat what is right.
I mean if a study came out today saying we should feed lions grains are you really going to believe it?
And yea…we did live shorter lives. We didn’t have medicine back then to keep people alive. We also now don’t have to contend with a lot of the dangers that they did!
And don’t get me wrong, I think science helps us learn a lot and even better ourselves.
But please don’t use it to tell me that grains are healthy and natural animal products aren’t.
We use grains to fatten animals…Maybe…Just maybe then grains really are at the heart of the problem.
Anyway, one last little factoid before I get back on topic, which was mentioned in The Perfect Human Diet….
Look at cattle feed nutritional info….the feed used to FATTEN cattle. It recommends low-fat, moderate protein and high carb.
Think about who else recommends a diet set up this way….
OH! The food pyramid! That is where I’ve seen this diet before! And guess who came up with the food pyramid orginially?
POLITICIANS!
So yea…I chose my side.
And once I picked that side, I tested it and realize just how much freaking better I felt day in and day out while eating, living and working out that way. So because I felt better than I’d ever felt before, I decided that I was being healthy.
Feeling energized and strong day in and day out to me is feeling healthy.
Not having to down 50 cups of coffee to make it through the day to me seems healthy.
Not feeling bloated. Or sluggish. Or winded at the slightest exertion….
That to me is healthy.
Being able to constantly achieve greater and greater fitness goals because I’m fueling proper, sleeping enough and not overtraining.
That to me is healthy.
Feeling GOOD.
That to me is healthy.
I honestly sort of believe that we can FEEL when our body is in order especially when we’ve cut out all the crap.
Trust me, anyone who has gone to a clean whole foods diet can now recognize how crappy they actually felt when they ate all of the processed junk.
So I challenge you to ask yourself, “Are you really healthy?”
Do you actually feel good day in and day out?
Really Jillian Michaels? Really!?!
So I wrote a post a while back about Jillian Michaels…It was actually a rant against her.
She demonstrated a crossfit workout and looked HORRIBLE doing just about everything. I had some people rush to her defense…
“She’s done so much for fitness.”
“She looks amazing.”
“So what…crossfit isn’t her thing. It is hard.”
UHM! She is a trainer. A huge, celebrity trainer. She SHOULD be able to do the moves. AND she has enough power that I’m sure she could even dictate which moves they did on the show. She could choose moves that she even looked good doing. AND on top of that the moves they had her do weren’t even difficult!
I’m sorry…Jillian Michaels is an AWFUL trainer!
I mean there is some really really bad form out there…just cruise the Awkward Gym Moments page and you will get your fill. There are some videos on that page that make me cringe.
However, bad form from a person that supposedly has made fitness and a healthy lifestyle their living….now that just makes me want to throw up.
There really is no excuse for her bad form. She does this for a living and has more than enough time to do the research (or have others do the research for her) so that she can master proper form.
Just to set things straight…A kettlebell swing isn’t a squat exercise. It is a hip hinge.
In a squat, your butt goes down toward the ground and you bend your knees. You aren’t bending your knees or dropping your butt toward the ground with a hip hinge. Your butt is going back toward the wall (or the ground if you are doing a glute bridge) and then you squeeze your glutes and drive your hips forward (or up).
So a TRUE swing is a hip hinge NOT the squat that Jillian is doing.
Next…a TRUE kettlebell swing is NOT an arm exercise. Sorry crossfitters but your American swing ISN’T a true swing and honestly destroys the whole point of a swing.
A true swing is a glute exercise. NOT an arm exercise.
Seriously why turn an awesome butt exercise into an arm exercise?
Why?!?
There are plenty of great arm exercises out there. Use one of those and leave this great butt exercise be!
So in a TRUE kettlebell swing, you DON’T bring your arms overhead. That throws off the whole rhythm of the swing.
If you watch and really good swing, there is a great connection between the forearm and hips. The glutes move the kettebell forward and then the hips catch the kettlebell to slow it down.
If you bring the arms overhead, you lose this whole connection! So…DON’T DO IT!
Here is a GREAT TRUE kettlebell swing. Her form is great. I don’t want to hear your excuses for not doing a swing like this.
This is right…If you don’t do it like this…You are wrong….Period.
And honestly, I don’t even know where to start with her long cycle (aka clean and jerk). It is so terrible I almost want to throw something at my computer screen every time I watch the video.
If you do it like that, you may as well just go bash your shoulder into a wall because sooner or later you are going to get injured.
Although….if you use a freaking baby weight like that….maybe you won’t. Seriously…lady at least LOOK like you are lifting something heavy to encourage women to lift heavy!
Way to go Jillian! You have awful form AND you don’t even promote women lifting heavy!
The New Normal and Periodization
It’s funny…when you first lose weight or lift a new PR, you feel super good about yourself.
But then after a while, when you stay at that weight or keep lifting around the same amount, you aren’t as happy or as proud with where you are.
It is obviously still a good point if you were happy to get there, but at some point, you begin to expect and want more.
You can actually become super UNHAPPY with where you are even if it is miles beyond where you started.
It’s like we get used to our success and begin to not see it as the success it once was – we begin to see it as the new normal.
And once something is our normal, we just seem to want to improve on it.
I know I do.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be satisfied no matter how much I achieve. Sometimes I just keep pushing and pushing expecting more and more NEVER giving myself a chance to take a break and enjoy all that has already been accomplished.
But you will drive yourself crazy that way.
Yes we can always become better, fitter, stronger, faster.
But is always pushing forward really good? Don’t you need to at points sit and enjoy what you’ve already accomplished?
Don’t you need to give yourself a break even if it is just a mental break from constantly pushing forward?
I whole-heartedly believe in giving yourself a “break” every few weeks if not a small break every week.
This new “normal” that you achieve can easily become a plateau if you keep pushing forward at the same pace day in and day out.
Honestly, your body and your mind can’t handle the same intensity day in and day out and sometimes you are lucky if you simply plateau when you don’t give yourself a chance to relax and reflect. You run the risk of actually going BACKWARDS if you never give yourself a break!
So once you’ve achieved a new normal, how do you use a “break” to keep you moving forward?
One word…Periodization.
What do I mean by periodization? I mean that you cycle through times of intense work and really pushing toward your goal, working harder and harder, and then taking a little time to let your mind and body recuperate BEFORE you push forward again.
And when talking about workouts, I don’t mean the day or so you take each week to let your body recover from the week of workouts. AND I don’t mean a complete week off from working out.
When you create your workout program, you want to create a progression. A progression can be anywhere from 4-6 weeks in length. And over those weeks you should build each week on what you did the week before. This means heavier weights or maybe even earning more advanced and complicated variations of moves.
But anyway you look at it you are PROGRESSING. You aren’t randomly picking workouts. You are building each week toward a goal…even if that goal is simply to do a heavier squat or be able to use weight on a single leg deadlift.
And then after building for those 4-6 weeks, you need to recover. This can mean going back to body weight for a week. It can mean completely switching up your progression or even just doing different workouts for a week.
Whatever it is, you’ve got to give your body and your MIND a break from the constant pressure to move forward.
Same goes for dieting. And again I don’t simply mean a cheat meal or even a cheat day each week.
Sometimes you have to let go completely…like on a vacation. Sometimes you have to take a couple of days and just enjoy even if they aren’t on whatever usual schedule/plan you follow.
Your mind and body can’t keep pushing forward all the time. You’ve got to give yourself a chance to relax and enjoy your new “normal” but still improved/better/fitter/happier state before you push forward again.
So think about your program right now…Are you actually building toward something or just haphazardly going about things and then getting mad when a new normal turns into a month-long plateau?
Have you been working at the same intensity for the last three months and been wondering why you haven’t seen results?
Give this a shot. Write up the next few weeks and then PLAN in a week to enjoy how strong you’ve gotten while not focusing on moving forward or your goals for the next few weeks. Plan a week every 4-6 weeks where you are going to just enjoy and PLAY!
Weight Loss Measurements
When most people come into the gym, they come in because they want to feel better, but also because they want to lose weight.
I usually ask them how much they want to lose and why they want to lose that amount. Most of the time the weight people want to be is the lightest there were at some point in their life.
I then ask them about the type of workout program and diet program they were following.
Many times people will tell me that they were just trying to eat well. Most of the time men will tell me that they were active and lifting and just sort of fell off which is why they gained the weight. Most of the time women will tell me that they had been running while eating well and then fell off the wagon for some reason or another.
When I hear this, I usually believe that the men will be more likely to hit their target goal than the women.
Why?
Because I believe that in our current culture women become cardio queens and calorie restriction junkies to lose weight because thin is all they care about while most men don’t just want to lose the weight to be skinny. Guys actually generally have the opposite pressure on them – they should be strong and muscular.
Whether or not having either standard is right, is a discussion for another time. The point is that both standards exist and that both genders generally go about reaching their fitness goals in different ways.
Which leads me to usually state to women, “You know that you can’t just focus on that number on the scale right? With the addition of weights into your program, you may not lose all the weight that you want, BUT you may actually look slimmer and fit into that ______ that you want to wear even better!”
I then usually turn their focus to circumference measurements and body fat measurements. AND I usually only do these once a month…at most every two weeks.
BUT I definitely try to avoid the scale obsession.
From Nia Shanks’ website…See weight doesn’t mean EVERYTHING!
While it would be great if we could all just focus on how we FEEL and how we PERFORM, wanting to look good is the reason why most people head to the gym.
So while you can check the scale, you can’t let it be the be all and end all. You’ve got to use some other measures.
And if you are going for aesthetic changes, circumference measurements and body fat tests can be great.
If you are dong circumference measurements, you need to make sure to measure the same spot each and every time. Here is a link that tells you WHERE to take measurements so that your measurements are consistent so you can actually track progress.
Here are great places to test and track! I sometimes do a hips one, a true waist measurement (so the smallest point of the waist) and then also a belly button measurement (so a lower ab measurement) if the belly button isn’t at the true waist).
For body fat testing, there are a few ways to do it. Whichever way you do it, you will want to use this scale to find out what your body fat means. Please don’t set your goal for essential. Even the bodybuilders who reach that point DON’T maintain it for very long. At the essential level is where you get into health ISSUES.
And depending on the tool you use, there is some room for error, especially with tools like these handheld “electronic” measures or the scales that supposedly measure body fat. These tools are very dependent on hydration status so can be easily effected by how hydrated you are that day and whether or not you just worked out. If you use these tools, try to keep when you measure as consistent as possible.
I personally am not a fan of these.
Calipers are great too, but make sure you measure the same spot and really read up on how to use them. It is best to actually have a trainer who is experienced use them on you or at least teach you to use them.
The best body fat test is the dunk test or the bod pod. Both are more expensive, BUT if you really have an aesthetic change as your goal, why not use the most accurate measurement? Do one when you begin and then one every 90 days! It will definitely keep you from becoming obsessed each week with the measurement! (And you could still use circumference measurements just to see where you are at.)
Anyway, try to experiment with these other two measures of “weight loss.” I mean shoot, you can even use pictures as a measuring tool. You can see changes when you compare pictures even if you become used to seeing yourself every day in the mirror. And if you see changes that you like, who cares what the scale says?
Along the way to looking the way you want, if you can throw in some performance measurements, you may just find that after a while you become less and less worried about exactly how your weight loss progress is going and more and more focused on working hard and sticking to your program.
And guess what?!? When you start focusing on performance, you may actually more easily look the way you want to look! You won’t be obsessed with each fluctuation of that scale!
So try to take the emphasis off the weight you see on the scale. I know it’s not easy, but it really causes more pain than anything else!
I <3 Brutal Workouts
For those of you unsure of what ❤ means – it is a “heart.”
I “heart” brutal workouts.
Do you think this is cool?
That was the sign hanging from one of the crossfits around here.
And every time I see it, I get annoyed.
There recently has become an obsession with gnarly, brutal workouts. People want to seem “bad-ass” even if it means risking injury.
Like even the other day at the gym, a new woman in her 40s said to me, “I was doing insanity before I came here.”
I said, “Oh yea?”
This woman has movement patterns that NEED improvement. She can’t do half the moves yet and she has no aerobic endurance so the idea of her doing insanity made me cringe.
She said, “Yea it’s super intense. You like want to pass out.”
AHHHHHHHHH!
She was doing these workouts because they were known to be “brutal.” She decided that because they were “brutal” they must be good.(And note when I say “doing” these workouts, she wasn’t actually doing the workout as it was laid out….just like half the people now aren’t truly “doing” crossfit.)
She was doing “brutal” workouts because that is what is cool even though her body wasn’t NEAR ready to handle them!
And what happened?
SHE GOT INJURED!
Yep she came into us with an injury. AND on top of that, her movement patterns were bad enough that it was only a matter of time before she developed other injuries that could affect her for the rest of her life.
BUT it didn’t really matter that she got injured. She still liked the workouts…She still RAVED about the workouts.
Why?
BECAUSE THEY ARE BRUTAL. And apparently brutal is the new cool.
WHY!?!
SERIOUSLY WHY!?!
Why is doing some so intense that half the people who do it get injured cool?
And don’t get me wrong, I love an intense workout as much as the next person. I LOVE pushing myself hard.
But I want a purpose. I want a goal. I want to be pushing myself hard in a way that is actually going to get me results – make me move better, feel better and be healthier!
Can we please stop promoting barfing, passing out and injury as the measure of if a workout is good?
Can we get back to a focus on progression and workouts that actually drive you toward some goal?
Are you brutal workout obsessed? Do you get it?
Please…someone explain to me this obsession with brutal workouts!
Part 2: Being Bootilicious – Inhibition
So this post should actually have been post number one because what you need to start with is inhibiting and lengthening the tight, overactive muscles!
If you want to work your butt, the first thing you have to do is relax the tight muscles.
You aren’t going to feel butt exercises in the correct places if the right muscles aren’t activated!!! And you won’t activate the right muscles if other muscles are overactive and tight!
SO what do you do?
The first thing I do before I workout is roll out.
And if I really want my butt to work, I’ve got to make sure that everything around my hips is loose.
While I’m fortunate enough to not be confined to a desk all day, I sit enough that my hips are flexed for a good portion of the day.
That means they are tight. And tight hips can lead to low back pain. They can also restrict your glutes from really activating during exercise.
If your glutes don’t activate during leg movements, you are going to use your low back, have inefficient movement patterns, not lift as much AND risk injury. You are also going to miss out on working one of the biggest muscles in your body!
SO roll our your hips before you begin!
While a foam roller is great, I find any sort of ball to be WAY better at getting into those trigger points around your hips.
I prefer a tennis ball, trigger point ball or lacrosse ball. I find the golf ball to be too small.
If you are just starting out, you may want to invest in one of the foam blue balls that are a little bigger and a little softer. The smaller and harder the ball you use, the more you are really going to dig in.
Ok so to roll out your “hips,” and I use this term a bit loosely, my three favorite moves are:
- The Hip U – So in this move you start by digging out the fleshy part of your butt. Literally sit on the ball with it under one butt cheek. Roll it around until you find a sore spot. Hold it on that sore spot and remember to breathe. You can also lift and lower the leg to help get deeper into the muscle. As you roll out your butt cheek, move the ball up to your low back. Find any trigger points there and hold for a bit. Then make an arc over the hip bone once you dig out your butt and low back. Hit your side butt, or glute medius. This is usually very tight on people. Again hold as you find trigger points. Then roll the ball to the front of your hip. Dig out the TFL and all the muscles right around that hip bone. Remember to HOLD if you find a sore spot…also remember to breathe! So that is the U over the hip
- Ab release – So most of the time we go for the exact spot where we “feel” pain. So we roll out our low backs if we feel pain when the cause of the pain may actually be somewhere else…like our tight hip flexors! BUT that being said that doesn’t mean we need to target the muscles that insert right below our hips. A hip flexor muscles actually connects up at a point in our spine! Which can mean that by placing a ball in your abs by your belly button and relaxing over it, you can actually help release your hip flexors! So try it…get a ball (and if you have a small ball you may need to put it on a trigger point block to really get it to dig in, but lay over the ball and relax. The ball should be to the side of your belly button and above the hip.
- The peanut – So one of my absolute favorite foam rolling tools is what I call the peanut. It is two tennis balls tapped together. They are perfect to use on the area around your spine. I like to hit my lower (and upper back for that matter) with these two balls. You can really get in and around your SI joint and then up into your low and mid-back. You can even target the spot where you psoas connect up in your spine.
So while these aren’t the only moves to use and you may also want to hit your adductors, calves and chest (other common tight muscle groups) these three moves are a great place to start!
After foam rolling, you will then want to do some dynamic stretches for these muscles before you begin your workout.
Notice I said DYNAMIC. Save the static stretching till afterwards!
A dynamic stretch is a stretch that you don’t hold for a long period of time, but actually move through (not bouncing though). A static stretch is one you hold for about 30 seconds or so. A static stretch is great for flexibility BUT has been show to reduce power during the workout.
So in an effort to increase mobility without any strength or power lost, we will use only dynamic stretches BEFORE exercise.
Here are some great moves I use to open up my hip area:
- Leg swings – You can do these swinging your legs forward or back or side to side. Both ways open up your hips. Try to increase the range of your swing without leaning your upper body forward and back. It is best to hold a wall when doing these.
- Hurdles – These are a variation of the leg swing. You can do these going forward or backwards (or BOTH!). What you do is bend your knee and swing your hip as if stepping over a hurdle. Alternate sides. Do about 10 per side.
- Simple kneeling hip stretch – So the basic stretch for your hip and even your quad is the kneeling hip stretch. Kneel on your right knee with your left leg bent to 90 degrees in front. You can make this dynamic by stretch by pushing the hip forward and then relaxing back. You can also add in a reach overhead and across. So if your left knee is forward, your right arm is going to lift up overhead and across. Then you will relax back down. You can also do a rotational stretch, so rotating over the front knee. To increase this stretch down your quad, you can also pull in the foot of the knee that is down and then release. By pulling the foot of the knee that is down up toward your butt, you will bring the stretch lower in your quad.
- Lying glute stretch – Lay on your back with your right knee bent and foot flat on the ground. Cross the left ankle over the right knee. Then grab behind either your right hamstring or in front of your right shin. Pull the right leg with the left foot across it unto your chest and then release. You should feel that in your glute. This stretch will make sure you are loose all around the hip joint! (I love doing the pigeon pose after my workouts as my static stretch!)
- Spider stretch – So this stretch is great to open up the hips. It can get your groin and your hamstrings and even calves too! So to do this stretch step one leg forward in a lunge. If this is too much you can put your knee on the ground. So if you lunge your right leg forward, you will then drop your right elbow right into your instep. Then rock back and sit on your other heal and straighten that forward leg to stretch the hamstring. Then rock back forward and drop your elbow again. Do about 10 each side moving smoothly through the movement.
- 360 Lunges – One of my favorite dynamic moves to warm up the hips is the lunge. BUT I don’t just use the forward lunge…I lunge in a few different angles. One lunge out front. Maybe one front at an angle. One out to the side. One opening up back. I do those four lunges on each side to create a 360 circle!
Glute Stretch
Kneeling hip stretch variation
These stretches and even the foam rolling moves aren’t the only ones you can do. I didn’t even really get into static stretching…BUT the point is these are good ones to start with and are very efficient ways to target all the muscles in and around the hips.
So between the foam rolling and stretches, your hips should be loose and ready to let your butt be activated!
Check back for Part 3 when we discuss glute activation exercises to use in your warm up!
P.S. I will add more photos! Sorry for these few that I managed to quickly take a few weeks ago after a workout!
My WHY
Recently I’ve been doing a lot of writing (most of these posts are yet unpublished) about finding your WHY.
The reason WHY you are committing to a healthy lifestyle…but not just the superficial reasons.
Those deep dark reasons that keep you coming back for more no matter what else is going on in your life.
The reason that would keep you coming back even if you didn’t make money or get any recognition for what you’d done.
And this got me to thinking about my true WHY.
Why did I really want to become a trainer? Why did I want to dedicate my life to health and fitness?
It’s funny…When I started as a trainer, I did it because I loved fitness. My why, I thought, was a passion for health and fitness.
But the reason I continued as a trainer wasn’t because I loved fitness so much – it was because I loved people.
If I could do one thing every day, it would be to make at least one person realize their own strength and feel more confident and happy about who they are.
And more specifically, I want to empower women.
Don’t get me wrong…I love improving the health of all my male clients. I love making them stronger and more confident and happy about how they feel. I love seeing their progress in the health and fitness realm carry over into every day life.
BUT my true why is empowering women.
I think this whole empowering thing was bred into me at an early age by my mother who loved to read me fairy tales where the princess rescued herself and sometimes even the prince.
I’ve always been on a quest to be strong, self-confident and independent.
And for me…sports became a way to develop these things.
There is just something about lifting heavy weights or pulling out grueling matches or games that makes you feel so freaking strong.
The victory of doing something as simple as lifting a heavier weight than you lifted before is empowering.
It doesn’t just make you feel better about your fitness – it carries over into every aspect of your life.
And while I think lifting heavy can empower men, I think it has an even bigger effect on women.
I really do feel like most women aren’t raised to want to be super strong, independent, self-confident and empowered individuals.
I feel that most women believe they are supposed to suffer in silence and want only what is best for others – I believe that many women are raised to try to see themselves as selfless individuals.
Which don’t get me wrong, can be a good thing. It is great to put others first.
BUT how can you really serve others if you don’t take care of your own needs first?
If you aren’t truly your own person, how can you really be there for anyone else?
Anyway, I believe that through sports and heavy lifting, specifically, women can develop a clear and empowered sense of self.
I know I did.
And well….my WHY is to share this with as many women as possible. I’ve seen it work. I’ve seen women grow stronger and more confident right before my eyes.
I’ve seen women give themselves permission to embrace qualities of themselves that they didn’t realize they had before.
I’ve seen women who once said to me, “I’m not strong and confident like you” become incredibly empowered, strong and self-confident individuals who could hold their own against any challenger.
I’ve seen women reach beyond what they once thought possible because they became more empowered simply by lifting heavy.
Lifting heavy is empowering. I saw myself grow and change because of it. And my WHY is that I want to help as many women as I can realize just how strong and wonderful they truly are!
Maybe this post is too philosophical for a Thursday, but heck it is 75, I just went for a run on the beach (YAY and ICK) and am now relaxing with a cider on my afternoon off. So…well…bear with me!
One Simple Change
I frankly think that developing a healthy diet is simple.
People make it seem like it is super complex. Heck companies want people to think it is complex so they can sell supplements and weight loss products and processed foods that supposedly have all these health benefits.
But honestly, you really only need to remember one thing when it comes to eating healthily – eat whole, natural food!
Cut out all the crap!
Don’t worry about freaking supplements even if they were on Dr. Oz. Don’t worry about your micronutrient intakes. Don’t worry about exactly how many fruits or vegetables you eat or how many omega-3s you are getting.
Don’t worry about doing a diet with 20 bazillion different rules! Make one change first!
Just cut out all of the processed crap!
If you started focusing on just eating natural foods, so things that spring out of the ground and aren’t processed…aka usually have a short shelf life unless frozen, your healthy and the way you feel will improve exponentially.
Just by starting to even cut out one processed thing a day, like the crackers you eat for a snack (even if they are supposedly “healthy” crackers), you will be cutting out a ton of crap from your diet.
Processed foods are loaded down with vegetable oils and sugars. I mean take a look at any nutritional label on any pre-packaged food at the grocery store. I bet there are a ton of things listed in the ingredients that you’ve never heard of.
AND I bet all of them have way more sugar than you expected…but then again you were probably more worried about the fact that they were supposedly advertised as low-fat or “all-natural,” right!?!
But seriously, those pre-packaged foods can do some damage.
Here we are worried about the amount of saturated fat in an animal product and yet people are consuming a TON of simple sugars and vegetable oil (which is SUPER bad because it causes inflammation because it contains a horrible ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s) in all of the processed crap out there!
Anyway, the point is if you cut out processed, pre-packaged foods and focus on eating whole, natural foods, you will instantly cut out a TON of bad things.
Once you do that and have a good diet baseline, then start looking at ratios and exactly what natural foods are best and how you react to gluten, dairy and carbs, in general.
Don’t make it complicated to start!
At work we constantly talk about getting back to basics. And that is exactly what you’ve got to do here. Don’t make a ton of changes and complicate your diet.
Make one simple change and get back to the basics – eat whole, natural foods!
Man Bicep 