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Giuliano is a young Romanian boy living in Italy, trained by his gymnast father. Thank you reader Paul J for telling me about him.
Below is a link to the short video clip where I captured the above photos. I was not able to embed this movie, by request at the source. Click to watch 5 year old Giuliano do air pushups:
I used to teach air pushups in my yoga classes. Every class gave opportunity to see, try, and learn. I'd coach, encourage, even lift the students personally if it helped them try it, or feel the leverages needed. Were students excited? Inspired? Did they get strong and focused?
They might have if they tried it. They whine, stall, pout, refuse, and complain to management that my class is haaaard, and they had to connnnnnn-centrate. They didn't want any of that.
Each week new students arrive in my yoga class, holding expensive yoga equipment. Some are yoga instructors. They explain to me that yoga cures all back pain. I ask why they have come and they tell me all about their back pain that they have for 4 years and they do yoga every day (not curing anything evidently). They say they do yoga all the time and know all about it and how it gives you peace and love and concentration and good posture and strength and balance. Then they sit in terrible posture waiting for class. They get indignant when I tell them to sit well. They correct me that "class hasn't started yet." In the first minutes of class I teach standing on one leg. They topple over and refuse to try again. I have them stand on the other foot and they are flabbergasted that we are doing it again when they just spent all that time insisting to me that they can't (instead of trying). We do simple planks and they sag their back and lock their elbows. When we start hand balancing to learn the basics of air pushups, some of these yoginis have thrown full-out tantrums.
Then the next week, a new crop comes to class explaining to me that yoga gives you love and acceptance and peace and good posture. So I teach them air pushups.
Giuliano also does The Flag - To be covered in the future.
A study of men and women over age 70 found two to three times more bone fractures occurred following a hospital admission compared to not being in a hospital. The risk of new fracture was greatest during the first year after hospitalization and increased with the number of times a patient was hospitalized. This included increased numbers of hip fracture, which leads to a fatality within the year in about 30% of people over 50.
Study authors stated, "Because the risk of fracture is greatest soon after hospital discharge, assessment and interventions to reduce risk should be started during the hospital stay or shortly after discharge. Evaluations should include measurement of bone mineral density, assessment of the risk of falling and vision testing." According to the authors, appropriate treatment for these patients include calcium and vitamin D supplements; bisphosphonate drug treatment, such as alendronate (Fosamax) or risedronate (Actonel); vision correction if needed; and physical therapy, including walking programs and exercises to improve flexibility, strength and balance.
Being in a hospital is often joked about as being unhealthy. It is also a reality:
When people are sick, it is not the time to keep them sedentary, indoors, eating institutional food, out of fresh air and sunlight, and taking medicines that reduce bone density and increase pain syndromes.
Lack of standing and activity quickly reduce bone density.
Several commonly prescribed medicines directly reduce bone density and cause stomach and body pain. Instead of stopping these medicines, others are given, which further depress health, and the mistake of further unneeded and unhealthful drugs.
It is a circular problem when people feel they must reduce activity to prevent falls and injury.
What is needed is the right, carefully supervised, healthy movement to give the physical skills that prevent falls, the stiffness that results in more pain and lack of function, and reduction in bone density, balance, strength, and mobility crucial for basic health.
"I'd bought a steel fire pit that weighs about 50 lbs, and when I got it last November I could barely move it more than a few feet and that was with some pain. I was going to ask someone to help me move it for use on New Years Eve. But I've been really watching and correcting my posture for the last couple months, and when I picked it up New Years Eve, it seemed really light. I just whisked it out to the front yard like it weighed nothing, and there was no pain!!!
Left drawing shows neutral spine and hip. Center and Right show two kinds of swayback (hyperlordosis) a slouching posture you can easily change to stop pain.
"I was amazed. I would never have guessed that good posture makes one so much stronger, but it does! I've also noticed a difference in my poise -- like forcing yourself to smile makes you feel happier, so does good posture make you feel more self confident. No surgeon could ever have given me that!
"Thanks, Dr. J.
"Happy 2010! -Bill"
Good body mechanics are a powerful performance enhancing aid.
--- Read success stories and send your own. See if your answers are already here - click Fitness Fixer labels, links, archives, andIndex. Subscribe free - "updates via e-mail" upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Fast Fitness - Mobilize and Strengthen With Serratus PushUps
Friday, December 18, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Strengthen and learn to use the often forgotten serratus anterior muscles and learn a good mobilization for your shoulders so that you don't get stiff, and become stuck round-shouldered when driving or typing.
"Serratus" muscles wrap your chest below your armpits. Their sections fan out like your fingers, looking serrated, giving the name. They wrap around your sides to the front, so are further described with the word "anterior." Muscle names are often descriptive, and can be easy and fun to understand. They are important for keeping your shoulder blades in place - but only when you use them to.
My student Yash demonstrates:
1. Hold a push up position with straight not locked arms. This is often called a plank position. Keeping your arms straight at the elbow, let your upper body sink under your weight so that your shoulder blades roll back and squeeze together - photo 1.
2. Correct that problem by pulling your upper back to a straighter position - photo 2
3. Do as many repetitions of sinking and pulling upward to correct the winging that you can at once. Improve by increasing the number and speed you can correct.Coming posts will describe the serratus more and what it does, more on winging scapula, more fixes for it, and more on understanding muscle names and uses. Understanding, rather than memorizing, will help you know if claims for exercise fads and machines will help or not, and to not feel like an outsider about your anatomy and health. No medical degrees needed to understand your own body.
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - Fun rows to strengthen your back, chest, arms, grip, and torso muscles, without bending over or forward, using commonly available objects, no gym needed:
To start, leave both feet on the ground. Hold a low study pipe, branch, or overhead handle. Lean far back, body straight. Bend both elbows to pull up and lower down as many times as you can. Improve by increasing the number of times, and how fast you can pull up.
Once you can hold on and pull up, increase strength and balance by lifting your feet to the overhead support. Hold on whatever way you want that is safe. Pull up and down.
Hold your body straight, not rounded as pictured. You will work your muscles harder, involve core muscles, and train knowledge and use of healthier positioning.
Rows are great and useful exercise. Instead of standing or sitting bent over, you can strengthen the same and more muscles without loading the lumbar discs. These incline rows are fun and useful for climbing, and building ability to do pull-ups.
Readers send in your straightened photo to be featured as the Fix for this Fitness.
When you send me your photos of fixing this and other fun things, send a photo sharing link of web-size, not high resolution, instead of e-mailing photos to me. Blogger isn't letting me upload directly, and when on the road, I don't have programs to resize. Have fun.
--- Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and The Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal feedback. Top students may apply for certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
We planted a vegetable garden this Spring in my mother's field. Hard exercise changed a rocky ruined area into beautiful food. It's getting cold now. Readers asked how the garden turned out. Here are stories:
We are harvesting. By afternoon it is dark with a large orange moon overhead lightning our work. The hard work keeps us warm.
When we first cleared the area, we filled the wheelbarrow with concrete slabs, pried and dug from the patch. Paul bent to grasp the wooden handles. When he rose lifting the handles, the barrow was so heavy that both handles snapped, scattering everything. Paul is strong.
We sawed and attached new handles. Much good squatting, bending, rising, lifting, and reloading. Paul bent well (upper body fairly upright, knees bent over heels). At almost seven feet tall, he needed to bend low. When he rose, the wheelbarrow handles were so high in the air, the front of the barrow tipped forward so far that contents spilled everywhere.
Hoeing a field, breaking concrete, digging stumps and rocks, bending and reaching, lifting right, hauling bales of compost, and all the rest that gardening can involve, is more exercise than you can get in a gym. It combines hard natural movement using much of the body at once to give muscular and cardiovascular exercise. To pull weeds, you squat well, both heels down, loosen roots with a digging stick, grasp weeds at the roots, rise pulling slowly. Over and over. Rise and bend. Garden prayer.
We were amused that more grew outside than inside the garden. Outside, tall weedy grasses grew everywhere. Inside, small seedlings grew into low herbs and vegetables. Deer and other animals didn't eat our garden. We had built a 6-foot fence around it, but deer can easily jump that height, and small burrowing groundhogs and rabbits can wiggle through or under. What we had done is leave them a bushy meadow near the garden area, with plenty of food and hiding places. They didn't need to bother the garden. The municipality cited my mother for a violation of some kind for not mowing her "lawn." Sorry Mom! We paid it for her.
Large slabs of concrete lay buried, inches below the surface of much of the area we wanted to plant. We needed to break and remove them. I managed to lift Paul's huge sledgehammer, swinging it with both hands over my head. It came down on the slab and bounced. I tried a wider stronger swing. It was heavier to swing than it looked. It bounced off the concrete each time. I handed it to Paul. He swung it quickly with one arm, splintering the slab. We dug the dozens of new football-sized pieces and made a rock border for the flowers nearby.
We gardened without pesticides or chemicals. We hauled hundreds of pounds of compost that the municipality gives away free at the recycling centers. Thank you recycling center for all the good exercise, compost, and manure. Plants grew healthy and didn't need chemicals to fight insects. They could fight them from their own internal health - people can do the same much of the time from simple good health practices. Plants manufacture their own anti-inflammatories against disease. That is part of why eating vegetables and fruit is good for your own health against inflammation.
The work it took to eak out a few plates of vegetables for each meal reminded us of subsistence farmers - how worrisome it is to have to rely on what you can scratch out of your own soil. If we had to last the winter on what we grew, it would be a long thin winter. Much of the world does not sit around indulgently with fast food in the refrigerator. Many do not have refrigerators. Before spending money on junk food, then complaining you are too heavy, think. Save the money. Improve your health. Refraining from eating does not make anyone fat.
The tomatoes grew tall and long. They grew so much that we could not find the strawberries.
We are saving the seeds from the sweetest cantaloupe, the largest cabbages, and the most wonderful purple peppers and white eggplants for next year.
The wonderful Thai bamboo hoes we brought back with us have shrunk in our colder dryer climate, loosening the heavy metal shovel-heads so they tilt sideways with each overhead swing. We have been fixing them, then going back to hoeing. The ground will soon freeze. Hoeing is more upper back strengthening and work than anything in a gym, even more than all the pushups and handstands that I love. Bend knees, upper back upright, breathe in, swing up, breathe out, swing down. Over and over.
Saturday night was Halloween. The World Series was playing. Paul didn't want to disappoint me by not going out to see the fun going on for Halloween in the city, and would never have said anything. I put on a costume and sat with him to watch the game. It was a great evening. The next day I put on a scarecrow costume and we worked in the garden.
We were just two city kids, who grew up in urban slums. I didn't know about gardening, but we read, worked, learned from mistakes, and sweated under the hot sun and the cold evening air.
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and The Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal feedback. Top students may apply for certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
"I enjoy the all day exercises using squat and lunge for my daily activities. Thank you for sharing your philosophy.
"However, those exercises are mainly for lower body. I would like to ask if there are good all day exercises for upper body parts i.e., shoulder, neck.
"I found some stretches for shoulder and neck that you introduced.
"Thank you and best regards, Vietanh"
This is a great question and understanding that fitness is something that you do during real life. In gyms and health centers, even therapy settings where people are going there for the purpose of fixing and increasing function, they sit waiting in terrible unhealthful positioning - photo at right - waiting for a class or activity for health. I have read fitness books saying the posterior shoulder is "difficult to target." Hold your shoulders straight, rather than letting them slump forward. You will get built in upper body functional exercise. Apply this to exercise, to lifting, sitting, sewing, all you do.
Look at your many hours each day of real life - when you prevent round shoulders with retraction to neutral, you are getting upper back extension exercise. When you sit and bend and lift right instead of rounding forward, you get healthful, functional upper and mid range back extension. When you use neutral spine to walk, run, kick, and jump, by extending at the hip instead of allowing the lower spine to increase in arch passively into hyperlordosis, you get healthful lower back extension and abdominal exercise at the same time. It is the abdominal muscles that will flex you forward to straight, rather than overarched. They only do this when you deliberately use them. Strengthening alone does not create movement to healthful position. Healthful positioning strengthens and gives exercise. Look at the photo above again and see that how you really live, not a gym, is your exercise and health.
Apply upper body muscle use for function in daily life:
Using upper back muscles to prevent rounding forward in round shoulders gives continuous built in exercise. This is not forcing, just mobile, comfortable muscle use. How are you sitting while reading this?
There is more to this excellent question. Will come in future posts.
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Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, or in the Fitness Fixer Index.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. ---
For weightlifters who enjoy Olympic lifts, rows, cable cross-overs, curls, and all the other good stuff with endless heavy weight, you may like growing vegetables.
We have been tilling a vegetable garden from a rocky field at my Mom's. Seems her home was built on landfill. We had to sledge-hammer and pry concrete slabs - prodigious squatting, levering, clean-and-jerking, and hundred pound medicine ball throws over the just-built garden fence into a pile. Then lifting and hauling away the pile.
Carrying sand, earth, rocks, weed bales, tree branches as heavy as you can lift, over uneven rocky hilly earth back and forth from the truck, the field, and the new compost pile a hundred feet away for hours is functional weightlifting. Hours of repetition-maximum (RM) hoeing gives a harder abdominal, arm, and gluteal workout than it looks.
Healthline software still isn't uploading my own photos. At left above, a photo of a statue with too much lumbar curve/hyperlordosis to be healthy, but in general doing functional weightlifting. Use your muscles to prevent overarching like this when you swing a sledge, a kettlebell, or other weight. For Fitness Fixer posts on neutral spine and hyperlordosis, click the photo or here.
Over the winter while visiting home in Asia, my husband Paul and I went to a workman's shop. The store-keeps remembered us and smiled. The first time we went there years ago, they were so sure we were lost tourists, they took our shoulder and gestured at a restaurant. In the best Thai I could manage, I explained that Paul is a carpenter, has done forge metal work, and loves old-world tools, strong bamboo handles, and hand-hammered metal. They smile each year we return. In the US, we live in a crowded urban area with minimal bricked exterior in deep shade from surrounding buildings. Vegetable gardens don't grow. Paul wanted to plant my Mother's field - a brambled overgrown area.
In the Thai tool store, I explained with the words I knew that Paul was looking for a specific Thai tool, shaped like a backward shovel, that you use in overhead action, like a mattock (flat bladed pick).
Quickly, excitedly, word went from the store-keep, to her friend in the next shop, to the next, and next:
"Man who good to Mother of wife!"
The coconut telegraph was happy. We bought two heavy tools, called "job" in Thai. Both had thick lovely bamboo handles. One was giant sized for Paul, the other for me. Fun getting them through flights and US customs.
Mom had asked a local man what it would take to clear her field, and he told her a blowtorch, a machine plow, three men, and a week. Paul and I cleared it in one day in early April with a digging stick and the Thai hoe-shovels. The ground was half frozen. Six, or so hours massive exertion - first clearing brush and tall grasses, then hours of half-squats to seize handfuls of stalks, standing back up to pull them with grip strength. Then excavating slabs of concrete and discarded materials with a pry bar, the Thai digging tools, and bare armed weight lifting.
The packs of seeds we had scattered in assorted flowerpots, pans, shoeboxes, and containers sprouted over just a week into tiny plants - broccoli, cabbage, pea, hot and sweet peppers, strawberries, eggplants, and assorted spices. We have been learning about complementary planting - plants, just like people, who are better and healthier with specific other kinds of plants so that chemical fertilizer isn't needed. We are learning about plants that repel pests, instead of using insecticides.
We got a rain barrel to reduce water bills. We attached an old broken hose. The holes made it a natural soaker hose. We poked more holes and arranged it around the garden for drip irrigation. We don't know the water quality of either the rain or from the tap. We will send six dollars and a soil sample to an agricultural university for testing. Maybe other toxic things are in that landfill that we don't want the vegetables absorbing. Maybe commercial food factories have the same problem. Many things to learn.
Weeks pass squatting and sitting well to plant seedlings, still hitting buried rubble. More lifting and hauling. Each night we are too tired to worry or think anything bad. We are barely were able to lift hands and feet. I consider what people for thousands of years have been doing just for subsistence farming, day after day, year after year. I thought of Fitness Fixer success story Ivy and her story - Farm Work, Lifestyle Exercise, and Preventing Overuse Pain.
We thought we planted everything, then found a half pack of pea seeds left. Paul mentioned we didn't have one more container for them. I laughed, "we didn't have a pot to pea in."
Ideas:
If you're a tough vital strong person, or want to be, dig a garden.
If you don't have anywhere to dig one, hook up with some nice elder who wants one, a community group, Habitat for Humanity, or someone who doesn't want to exercise like this but still wants a garden.
Contact your community to see about organizing parents and children out in sunshine for functional exercise doing good for all.
If you only want one hour a day of hard total body fat burning muscle building exercise, only plant a small vegetable garden.
No need to buy fancy tools, use what's handy.
If you don't want to exercise so hard, try a single pack of seeds in some potting soil in almost any container on a sunny windowsill. A chance to get the vegetables you like.
Fancy individual peat pots and seed starters aren't essential; a simple pack of seeds can get you a pan full of fragrant oregano, said to be very healthful. It gives a gasp of wonder (to me) when seedlings actually sprout.
Before the 2008 election, a video appeared by Roger Doiron (I don't know him, just liked the video). He asked the next President to grow a garden. It did come true. Here is his viewpoint of getting your own garden started, showing various bending, occasionally good:
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, or in the Fitness Fixer Index.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Fast Fitness - Double Arm Strength, Endurance, Balance, Stability, and Free Inversion Table
Friday, May 01, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - build on the handstands you have already been doing with Fitness Fixer.
Do a handstand against a wall. An easy way is to stand with your back about a foot or so from a wall, crouch down and put one foot, then the other, high on the wall.
With feet still against the wall, begin to lean your weight until you are holding yourself up on only one arm.
Hold as long as you can. Breathe normally. Leave shoulders relaxed, not tight. Switch to the other arm.
"Sorry my video requires a lot of phone power so I had enough to snap a shot before I have to charge it. Angle is kinda odd as it is on a "tv" with my wallet ingeniously holding it in a position so it can see me instead of the floor lol. I need to go and buy a camera.."
If you like lifting weight overhead for upper body strength, you don't need to wait to go to a gym, or to get weights or equipment.
How to get started with a wall handstand - Wall Handstand Success With Liz. Use your brain before trying this. Be safe and careful, obviously.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify throughDrBookspan.com/Academy.See Dr. Bookspan's Books. ---
Here is the latest fun update from Robert Davis on losing fat and increasing strength and flexibility. He has been sending success after success using Fitness Fixer techniques:
"I have noticed a big improvement since I started in my flexibility. I noticed this the other day when I realized just how much farther I can stretch now. I could not lower completely into a sitting squat without tipping before. Now I can and it sure as heck makes working in really low areas for a longer time very easy without resorting to bending (bad weighted flexed) which I refuse to do at all now.
"I have seen increases in all areas of stretching. I see that it just takes time and consistency.
"Since I am a musician, I carry a guitar bag everywhere. I decided to make a "portable" gym. Got a pull-up bar that goes in doors (removes and mounts quickly) and my guitar bag. That is all I need. I fill the bag with random objects to add weight and strap it on (like a backpack) and do everything from the books with increased weight and also pull-ups of all kinds of grips/variations for more challenge. You mentioned the wall handstand pushups and this reminded me of that. I strap my weighted bag to my back and do those now too. No need to go to the gym =P
"PS my friends think the wall stand pushups are "nuts" and can barely hold themselves up in position when they try. Who needs the military press? I actually found this to be much harder because of all the stabilization. Unlike a machine or barbell, it feels like a lot more muscles are coming into play a bit more when doing them like that. Seems so with almost all the body weight exercises. No wonder aside from cosmetics, weight training has no functional use outside of the gym. Takes a bonehead like me to realize this!
"Oddly, since I had changed my diet from meats and animal to Vegan (inspired by the body builders you have shown on the Fitness fixer) I have had people comment that I seem to be getting bigger! This is kinda funny because I actually lost some mass and it is mostly body fat from the weightlifting diet (now changed to vegan) and doing these exercises in place of weight training. They often do not believe me when I say I have not touched the bench in 3 months or so now. =0"
Watch for Fast Fitness this Friday to see what Robert Davis will show you next.
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Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from cool ones. Before asking, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, and archives at right.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. Become certified through the Academy - Dr.Bookspan.com/Academy BrowseDr. Jolie Bookspan's books on her website.
Fast Fitness - Add Balance, Stability, and Portability to Military Press - Handstand Pushups
Friday, April 17, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - If you like lifting weight overhead for upper body strength, you don't need to wait to go to a gym, or to get weights or equipment.
Get more exercise, practice balance, and shoulder and arm stability, with handstand dips:
Do a handstand against a wall. An easy way is to stand with your back about a foot or so from a wall, crouch down and put one foot, then the other, high on the wall.
With good judgment, do upside down pushups (dips).
Vary the depth of each dip, speed of each, speed you can do a number of dips, and distance of your hands from the wall to vary the exercise.
Robert Davis sent in his video of how to do handstand pushups. Blogger is still having trouble uploading visuals. Click this link to watch it:
he writes, "I replaced the military press with this. It is portable for one! Ever notice how pronounced male gymnasts shoulders and arms are? They do things like this:) "
Robert was a weightlifter who hurt his back with conventional lifting (bad bending and overarching the lower spine). He rehabbed quickly with Fitness Fixer techniques and has been sending in his success stories one after the next. He writes:
"This was not a very problematic exercise as I had been used to destroying my shoulders with mega high weight LOL. But this is different because of the engagement of muscle groups that control stabilization.
"But yeah, I have been doing that in place of military press and see how it is more beneficial as the stabilizers have to kick in more then being benched or using a machine.
"Once again thank you and I think people should really listen to you. I am glad I did because I have no need to go in to get scanned or be told I need surgery or something silly ;)
"Like I said I am not into pro body building, I just did it to stay "fit" and look fit as I thought it was. But after going thru this, it is not all that functional to pound out reps of heavy weight and not be able to do a plank or walk/sit straight. I lifted enough just to have "lean muscle" but not to be huge. But I realize now this is easily done safely with your methods and I do not need a gym."
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify throughDrBookspan.com/Academy.See Dr. Bookspan's Books. ---
Fast Friday - Oblique Core Strength and Balance on the Ball
Friday, March 20, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - develop strong side abdominal and back muscles, and train balance at the same time:
Put both hands on the floor and step one foot up onto an exercise ball of any size
Step the other foot up to the ball and turn sideways. Hold straight (upper photo). Hold and feel all abdominal and back muscles working strongly to hold yourself straight.
Work up to raising one arm.
Don't let body sag (lower photo). The idea is to train your muscles to be able to hold straight against the resistance of your own body weight during daily life when walking and everything you do. If your muscles don't have the strength or endurance to hold you, then you will sag onto your joints.
At first, you may need help to steady the ball. Practice until you can steady it with your own muscles, balance, and stability.
Instead of sitting on an exercise ball, remember that you might already sit much of the day. Get up and use an exercise ball for more functional, active, and healthful things.
Send in your photos of your fun successes using the ball in ways that train function. Exercise ball success story already in progress from Robert Davis. See his first story - Fixed Injuries, Got Strong, With Functional Exercise.
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Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, and archives at right.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right.
Reader Robert Davis has been enthusiastically sending in success story after success story. He sent his first story of fixing a painful back injury from weightlifting - Fixed Injuries, Got Strong, With Functional Exercise.
Since getting the idea of using healthy daily movement instead of injurious movement during daily life and exercise, Robert stopped major causes of his injuries. He has rapidly been getting strong using fun functional exercise, and improving function. He has been taking ingenious photos using his camera phone. His stories and photos will be posted. He is sending them in fast and furiously. I enjoy hearing how he experiments with each thing, and sees and understands how they work so he can incorporate the concepts into daily movement, not just going thorough arbitrary motions and calling it exercise.
We are still having problems uploading photos and movies for you - since October. It has been a time-intensive and difficult process to get any photos at all uploaded for these posts. It has changed and delayed a few of the articles I wanted to write for you. When Healthline staff can help, they will. Robert generously made a page to store visuals so you can link and see them. Start with:
Watch how he uses a healthful squat for real life, not just 10 times in a gym.
Robert writes:
"Make a mess and pick up only one item at a time via a squat. If you need to clean the house only pick up one item at a time. The constant up/down motion of the squat etc should get the heart rate up for a good cardio workout. Why not kill two birds with one stone? Tired of the stationary bike? Do this for a half hour:)"
Good bending is natural built-in cardiovascular exercise, leg strength and stretch, Achilles tendon stretch, hip strengthener, warm-up for stretching, and back pain prevention, since it stop one major cause of back pain - bad bending (bent over at the waist or hip). Done properly, good bending strengthens knees and does not cause knee pain. The Related Posts below explain more. For all Fitness Fixer articles on each topic, click the labels under this post - for example, "Achilles stretch."
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. SeeDr. Bookspan's books.
Fast Fitness - Even More Core With No Forward Bending
Friday, March 13, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - build on a previous Fast Fitness for increased strength of body and core. Strengthen almost everything with this fun move.
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and The Fitness Fixer Index. Read inspiring success stories of these methods and send your own.For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. For personal evaluation take a Class. For top students, certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy.
Hold a straight pushup position. Extend one leg 90 degrees out to the side. Your foot and knee point straight to the front.
Keep that leg and foot parallel to ground, not sagging downward to the floor.
Do pushups keeping the leg held straight out to the side and off the floor.
Keep your back straight (demonstrated center) in neutral spine. Don't allow lower spine or neck to droop under your weight, to prevent compressive spine sagging (gray t-shirt right foreground). See how in Fast Fitness - Strengthen by Changing Your Plank.
Readers - send in your mpeg movies of doing this and all your other successes.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. LimitedClass spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply for certification -DrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more with Dr. Bookspan's Books,
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - learn how to use your abdominal muscles for what they need to do in real life - hold your spine in neutral position, even against resistance:
Lie flat, face up. Legs out straight, as if standing up. Hold a weight a few inches above the floor with arms outstretched, elbows by your ears.
Lift the weight a few inches up and down, using your abdominal muscles to prevent your ribs from lifting up and to keep your back from leaving neutral position.
Keep your lower back close to the floor. This is the key to making this into an effective and functional abdominal retraining exercise. Also prevent the weight from touching the floor (don't drop baby on head).
This video was made by David from Belgium with his baby Aiko, born one year ago today, Feb 27th 2008. Happy Birthday Aiko!
Click the arrow to run. If the video does not load, here is the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k4zDwce7bE
Watch how David bends well with heels down and upright body to pick up baby Aiko, and gets up again without using hands.
Press your lower back toward the floor and feel your abdominal muscles working strongly. The point of this retraining drill is to have fun learning to hold your spine stable against resistance, learn how to reduce an overly large lower back arch using the floor as a guide, then transfer that knowledge to standing and lifting overhead. This is how your abs are supposed to work in daily life when standing - to prevent the spine from overarching (overextending backward).
For more on using neutral spine in real life see the third expanded edition of The Ab Revolution™.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify throughDrBookspan.com/Academy.See Dr. Bookspan's Books. ---
Partner 1 (white uniform) does biceps curls and other lifts using partner 2's weight.
Partner 2 uses core and whole body strength and endurance to hold straight positioning. Partner 2 can face up, down or sideways, in each case using appropriate muscles to maintain straight position. Breathe normally.
This Fast Fitness can be done with willing friends, children, pets, and furniture.
Partner 1 uses core and abdominal muscles to stand with neutral spine rather than leaning backward, and whole body strength to support weight of partner 2.
It is a myth that you must lean back to offset a carried load. You get intense and functional abdominal muscle workout by using them to pull you forward to neutral standing position.
I once used this exercise of holding straight horizontal position (partner 2's part) while helping out a friend who is a stage magician. I filled in for his absent assistant for the floating lady illusion. I was too tall for the apparatus. It usually holds your body out flat using struts reaching from head to thigh. It reached only to my midback. I wound up holding my weight myself, from hips to feet - high above the stage - while trying to look hypnotized. More on this, someday, in another post.
I make posts from fun mail. Before asking more questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Try fun stuff, then contribute! Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy. ---
Fast Friday - Functional Oblique Abdominal Muscle Practice - Holding Straight
Friday, February 06, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - use your oblique abdominal muscles functionally - to hold yourself straight against resistance:
Stretch out on the floor. Turn to the side, standing on one hand and one foot
Hold straight as long as you can. Don't sag. Feel how to hold yourself straight and relaxed.
For more, raise the top leg. Keep body straight, instead of bending forward at the hip. Don't increase the inward curve at the lower spine when you raise the leg. Keep neutral spine.
Photo is of one of my students, Dr. Hanley Owen, a physician from Fairbanks Alaska, who took a workshop with me at the Wilderness Medical Society meeting 2008. Check my web site CLASS page for workshops this summer - DrBookspan.com/classes.
Instead of curling forward and sideways to exercise abdominal muscles, this drill retrains oblique abdominal the way you need them in real life - to keep you straight instead of slouching to the front or side when carrying shoulder bags and other loads, including yourself.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
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