I sometimes find that after I hike and I put the puppies into the jeep, I jump right in myself and drive home. I pull in the driveway and step out of and that is when I am reminded that I didn't stretch. From that short ride home my legs are stiff and tight. It's very easy to ignore the stretching part, we work out and then immediately start thinking about the rest of our day. I should have stretched at the trail, and since it was a matter of only few minutes, I got down on the floor and stretched.
When I train clients, stretching is always the last thing they do before they walk out the door. Some will say oh no, I will do it later, knowing that they won't and later might be too late. When you don't stretch your muscles after a workout and while they are warmed up, you run the risk of injury. There are many runners that will stretch before they start and the new information out there is to stretch only after your muscles are warm and pliable.
If you are a runner and enjoy that good stretch before your long run, then do some dynamic stretching, a walk or a little bit of jogging, just enough to get the blood pumping, then go ahead and stretch. Imagine you are holding a rubber band and you stretch it out and stretch it out and then it snaps. Ouch, that is the process you put your muscles, tendons and ligaments through when you stretch them cold.
Regular stretching restores flexibility which is
one of the components of fitness. When you have tight muscles you are more
prone to injury. Stretching promotes increased circulation to your legs, arms,
hips, and back. A well balanced exercise regimen will include a warm up, the workout and flexibility. Make sure you are taking the time to do this so you have don't injure yourself.
Most of our lower back and knee problems can be associated with tight muscles, stretching is as important to our health as any other portion of the workout. When you stretch, make sure you are working the muscles you actually used in the workout. So take running for example, stretching out your hamstrings, quads, calves makes sense, but stretching out your core, back and even your arms is just as important too. Yes you run on your legs, but you also swing your arms and probably even tighten them as you run.
Remember the little old woman shuffling across the floor or walking ever so slowly across the street, never lifting up her feet? She does that because she has no flexibility, don't be that little old woman.
If you need help with an exercise routine that is well balanced and created for you, let me know.
People work out at differing times of the day and I know some who can get up and workout before they eat breakfast or even before they drink their morning cup of coffee or tea. Everyone has their preferences and depending on the type of workout you do, waiting to eat may work for you better. If you are doing a hard high intensity workout you may not want to eat much before and time always plays a part in your decision as to whether you eat before or not.
Working out first thing in the morning after sleeping and fasting over night may be hard for some. You may even find you have to get up even earlier to eat a little in order to get through that early morning workout. I love to workout mid afternoon so the timing is between lunch and dinner. A mid afternoon workout is best for me because I don't have too much food in my belly yet I'm not starving yet, so I have enough energy for the workout.
You should eat approximately 25 grams of protein
at least one hour before training. You can get this easily by drinking a protein shake, it will give you the boost you need and not fill you up. After your workout eat a piece of fruit within the ½ hour and within an hour another 25 -30 grams of protein to replenish what you spent during the training session.
Fueling your workout will get you much better results and you will feel energized instead of drained.
If you want to lose weight faster and easier with a great protein powder that has;
- No artificial sweeteners
- No bloating
- Mixes easily
- Comes in 3 flavors
- Gluten Free
- Non GMO and Growth Hormone Free
Let me preface this article by saying anything you do now that you weren't doing before you started exercising will help you get results. Having said that, circuit machines are a great starting point to help someone new to the gym and not sure how to get started. There will come a time when you need to venture off the circuit machines and challenge yourself a little bit more. Circuit machines train one set of muscles generally in one plane of motion and your brain does not work that way. The brain works automatically and will compensate if needed.
Take the shoulder press for example; you sit down, grab the handles and push straight up. One movement, one motion, the machine does most of the work and you control the weight coming back down so you don't make a loud clunking noise when the weights fall back to the starting point.
Take that same shoulder press with dumbbells; stand, tighten your core, hold your arms out to the side at 90 degrees, push the dumbbells upward toward each other and have them meet together at the top of the movement over your head and then slowly bring them back down. Performing a shoulder press in this manner engages many different muscles without isolating the movement.
Our movement patterns are as unique as
our thumbprints. Your joints cannot move naturally on a machine. Joints that do not move
naturally cause bones to meet at surfaces that are not designed to take as much
stress: this can lead to arthritic changes in the joint or injury.
For most individuals, machine training provides an inferior,
incomplete and less efficient way of training. When a person trains in this manner only, their body relies on the machines and not on themselves. You burn fewer
calories on a machine versus doing body weight exercises such as; free
weights, stability balls, medicine balls and cables.
Training in multi planes of motion is more functional to how we normally move our bodies. Training in this fashion will also challenge more of your stabilizer muscles; the smaller muscles that help the larger muscles. By engaging more muscles in your movements, you work your body more efficiently.
Check out my Get Fit 101, I teach you a lot of basic moves in addition to increasing your flexibility, mobility, strength, and progressing to much more complex moves, but don't be fooled that you won't learn how to work out more efficiently, more effectively and see more results.
Many times when I meet with a woman to discuss what they are really wanting to accomplish in their exercise program and their life, they tell me they want to exercise but they don't want to bulk up. With a little bit of education, I encourage the women to add strength training into their lives and explain why women do not bulk up.
Women sometimes correlate strength training with body building, so the end result is they don't strength train at all. Women are afraid of getting too “bulky” or having a
masculine- like body if they weight train. You cannot walk into a gym a couple times a week and "bulk" up. Testosterone plays a factor in building muscle mass and women have very little testosterone and more estrogen which does nothing for muscle building.
Women who are healthy and fit will
have a well defined lean muscular body, which is covered with a thin layer of
body fat. To obtain this goal it is necessary to train with weights heavier than those 2lb weights you see the women in the magazines using; but don't get scared, you still won't get bulky. The bulky women on those magazine covers have made it their career to look muscular or they are taking some type of supplement to help them build excess muscle. Ladies; the more lean muscle you have the higher your metabolism and the more efficient your body will burn fat.
Another very important reason for weight training is the adaptation your body goes through, each time you challenge the muscles, they tear down and rebuild, thus getting stronger, but this also happens with your bones and connective tissues as well. Weight bearing exercises are very important for women because as we age we start to lose our bone mass as well muscle mass as our estrogen levels decrease.
Put down those 2lb weights, challenge yourself and you will love the results. If you need help contact me.
