Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Use a Towel for Core Work

Barefoot or with sneakers, place a folded towel under each foot and get into the wedge position. Stick a straight leg out to your side as far as you can without engaging the lower back muscles. Repeat for the next leg. Do two to ten sets of ten repetitions, as you can.

Advanced 1: When both legs are straight behind you, do a push up!
Advanced 2: Extend both legs at the same time, like a scissor opening. Then return to starting wedge position.
Advanced 3: Move both straight legs at a time and straighten your arms to stick your butt up and have your hands and feet almost touching. Return to the wedge position. Add difficulty: Perform a push up right after the wedge position and as you begin to bring your feet to below your belly.
Advanced 4: Repeat 3 with the difficulty, but when you return your legs to the wedge, do so with a circular motion. So, extend each leg out in a circular motion to its respective side and to the wedge.

For these exercises with the towel, and more, see this video on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/1620614438206037/videos/1722218994712247/?pnref=story

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories

Monday, May 30, 2016

Swiss Ball Obliques

Rest your elbows on a medium-sized Swiss ball. Extend your body out in a plank. Breathe out and raise one leg straight about a foot above the floor. Repeat 10 times for two to four sets of 10 repetitions, depending on what you can do. Repeat for the other leg.


Friday, May 20, 2016

Work Your Abominal Muscles While Driving a Car

This is from www.truthaboutabs.com:
  • You can do them standing, seated (such as in a car), kneeling in a four-point position, or even lying flat on the floor.  I prefer them seated or standing.
  • The movement is as simple as pulling your belly button in as far as you can by imagining you're trying to touch your belly button to your spine and holding for 10-20 seconds at a time.
  • Start by inhaling deeply. Then, as you exhale, start pulling the belly button in towards the spine and hold it there for 10-20 seconds while just taking short breaths. Repeat for several of these 10-20 second holds, perhaps 5-10x if you have enough time while in the car.  But even just repeating 3-4x every time you're driving somewhere can really add up over time and give you the benefit of a flatter belly!
  • Get in the habit of doing this at least 4-5 days per week while driving somewhere and you may find that this helps to flatten your stomach more by strengthening the transversus abdominis muscle (the deep abdominal muscles beneath the rectus abdominis) if you previously had a "lazy belly."

Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Psoas Muscles

This blog post is from Dr. Christiane Northrup and does not necessarily contain my opinions: http://bit.ly/1VJJq66