We’ve all experienced it. We do an everyday activity and all of a sudden—boom—we feel a stiffness or pain. It usually comes from lack of movement. We live and work in a very sedentary environment. Most of us have a schedule like this: arrive at work by 8 a.m., plop down at desk, get up around 10:00 a.m. for a quick coffee break, then sit back down again until 12:30 p.m. and get up for lunch. Outside of an occasional meeting or break, most people don’t move until 6:00 p.m. What’s wrong with this picture?
Our bodies were designed to move, not to stay in one position for hours on end. Exercise is a healthy habit that should be part of each day. When we don’t move, our flexibility wanes and our bodies react with stiffness and pain. Corrective exercise and a variety of stretches can help loosen up these muscles and bring your flexibility back to where it should be.
If you have yet to make exercise a part of your daily routine, start small: make it a point to take several breaks during the day to get up and stretch. Do it at your desk, take a walk or go up and down a few flights of stairs. Here are some stretches to do every day in order to keep your body limber and working properly. The trick is to make the commitment to do them frequently and ongoing – from there, build up to adding more cardio and strength training exercises to your routine.
Chest (pecs)
Place your right arm shoulder height, palm forward at a 90 degree angle with the inside of your elbow touching the wall. Your right foot should be facing forward. Turn your chest to the left. Hold the contraction for 30 seconds before switching sides. Do 1-2 sets on each side.
Lats
Get down on your hands and knees. Extened your right arm on a foam roller or stability ball. Your chest should be off the ground and your other arm off to the side. Hold the contraction for 30 seconds before switching sides. Do 1-2 sets on each side.
Shoulder (Posterior)
Stand up tall and place your arms behind your back with your hands resting on top of each other. From this position, push your elbows forward and feel the stretch in the back of your shoulders. Hold this position for 30 seconds before switching sides.
Ryan Krane, Fitness Consultant and Certified Corrective Exercise Specialist, Ryan Krane, Inc.
How have you created healthy habits by incorporating exercise into your routine?
Leg Up on the Competition
Side Lunge – works the adductors, glutes and quads.
Start in a standing position, feet together. Step one foot out to the side about 3-4 feet, bending into the knee slightly. Bending from the hips, touch the ground besides your feet with both hands then stand upright back to starting position.
Perform on the other leg and then alternate for 15-20 repetitions each side. Start slowly to get the technique and then pick up the speed. Always be sure your body and knee face forward.
Radan Sturm, Fitness Director – 57 Street Branch, Complete Body
What action steps have you taken to prepare your legs for sundress season?
The Ultimate Upper Body Exercise
Dips – The triceps dip is the fastest way to tone the arms and build strength in the shoulders and chest. Men can achieve the “horse-shoe” shaped triceps and women can tighten the dreaded underarm with the dip.
Begin with bench dips. On a flat bench or chair, place your hands outside of your hips, palms on the bench and fingers facing the share direction as your feet. With legs feet planted on the floor and the hips up in a bridge, bend at the elbows and lower your rear end to the ground. Keeping your core engaged and chest up, press through the palms and return to the starting position. When bench dips become too easy, elevate your feet onto another bench or stable surface.
If you are ready to take the triceps dip to the next level, you will need a dip station or parallel bars. Grasp your bars, and suspend your body above the bars with arms extended. Bending at the elbows, lower your body towards the ground until your upper arm is parallel to the ground. Finish the movement by driving through the palms flexing the triceps and core to return to the stating position.
Joe Vennare, Director of Programming, Hybrid Athlete
Feel the burn by trying these daily exercises for a toned body that will turn heads on the beach this summer! What have you done today to get ready for swimsuit season?
Push Up Variations for Strong Arms
1) PUSH UPS- Yes, i said it. Just do some simple push ups. But you can do a variety of push ups. Do some tick tock push ups. Get in a push up position, do one push up, then turn your body going in a clockwise position, do another push up, and keep going in a clockwise position until you end up where you started.
2) Another arm workout includes using some light dumbbells or resistance bands and do some curls and tricep extensions. Take the dumbbells in both hands or resistance bands and do some curls. Do what you call a burnt out set which means you curl the dumbbells/resistance bands as many times as you can until you can curl them anymore and really burn your arms out until you can’t even lift them up.
And for the tricep extensions, you do the same thing. Do overhead tricep extensions with the dumbbells until you burnout or use the resistance bands the same way until you burn out.
Kenyon Glover, Arm Workouts, Ultimate Fitness Company
Make May your month of action! What will you do today to prepare yourself for swimsuit season?
Sculpting for Sleeveless Season
For this sexy arm and shoulder sculpting exercise you will want a set of 5-10 pound dumbbells and a timer. You will do 2 movements each for 1 minute and repeating for a total of 4 rounds.
Your first move is a front shoulder raise with alternating lunge done for 1 minute. With arms to your sides, palms facing inward, lunge forward with your right leg. Raise both arms up to shoulder level with palms facing toward the floor. Step back into starting position and lower arms back to sides. Repeat the same movement but lunge forward with your left leg. This time do 2 front raises. Continue and chain up with just the front raises with a goal of getting to 10. If it’s too easy to get there, you may need to increase the weight.
For the 2nd minute, you will do the same alternating lunge movement, but with lateral raises. As you step forward into a lunge, your arms will come straight out to the sides in a “t” position with palms facing downward. You will not chain up on this exercise, you will just do one lateral raise each time you step forward into a lunge. Do this for 1 minute.
Make sure when you are lunging that your front knee stays behind your toes and your back knee reaches straight down toward the floor. Always keep your abs contracted to protect your lower back.
Natalie Tuman, Founder, MyThinkFit
Make May your month of action. What did you do today to prepare yourself for swimsuit season?
Mountain Climbers for Stronger and Tighter Glutes
Incline Mountain Climbers – Using the incline of a bench, this exercise engages every muscle below your pelvis especially the glutes while building a stronger core in this plane of motion. By utilizing the incline bench, this exercise will incorporate more muscle fibers in your glutes, hamstrings, and calves then doing this exercise on a flat surface. Mountain Climbers are a movement that can be considered the equivalent to running horizontally.
To perform, start in a military push-up position and keep your elbows slightly bent holding on to an incline bench. Bend one knee and bring it up to your chest, as if trying to touch your shoulder. Then, draw the leg back and perform with the other leg. While alternating legs, maintain a consistent solid speed throughout.
Remember to keep a neutral spinal position and don’t drop your hips. Beginners should set a goal of three sets of 20 repetitions while resting 30 seconds in between sets. The more advanced individual should shoot for three sets of 50-80 repetitions.
Shaun Zetlin, Founder, Zetlin Fitness
For further demonstration, check out this video we found on Youtube:
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Swimsuit Ready Challenge
This exercise is part of our Swimsuit Ready Challenge (April 2-30, 2012). Do this exercise and comment below “I did this!” to be entered to win our $100 and $50 giveaways. You may enter up to one time per day through April 30th.
Also – be sure to share this on Facebook, Pinterest and other sites to let your friends cheer you on or – better yet – join in on the challenge so they can hang out on the beach with you this summer! read more →
Washboard Without Wear
Crunches shorten the rectus abdominus and depress the manubrium of the sternum resulting in a “dropped front panel”–essentially a position of exhalation. In order to maintain respiratory mechanics, the body juts the head forward and fragile neck muscles end up paying the price first. Then the eyes (which must remain level with the horizon) become strained, the mouth drops open, and the entire kinetic chain collapses into dysfunction.
Train the abs with the Forward Ball Roll instead. In a prone position with feet on the floor and forearms on a physio ball, maintain neutral spinal curvatures as you push your arms forward. Extending the lever arm in this way forces the abdominals (flexors of the spine) to contract in order to prevent gravity from forcing the spine to drop into extension.
Essentially, you have an isometric contraction of the abdominals with co-contraction of the lumbar erectors. Without movement, there is no wear/tear on the vertebral discs as occurs with a traditional crunch. So you get the six pack without destroying your back or affecting your posture.
Andrew Johnston, Master in the Art of Living, Triumph Training
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Swimsuit Ready Challenge
This exercise is part of our Swimsuit Ready Challenge (April 2-30, 2012). Do this exercise and comment below “I did this!” to be entered to win our $100 and $50 giveaways. You may enter up to one time per day through April 30th.
Also – be sure to share this on Facebook, Pinterest and other sites to let your friends cheer you on or – better yet – join in on the challenge so they can hang out on the beach with you this summer! read more →
Bicycle Your Way to Great Abs
My top ab exercise is a bicycle crunch done with legs in a table top position: Lying on your back, position knees directly above your hips (table top position). Hands behind your head, elbows open lift your shoulder blades off the mat, this is start position. Lift and twist right shoulder towards left hip at the same time extending your right leg, the left leg remains at table top position. Return back to start position and hold then lift and twist left shoulder up and over towards right hip, extending left leg. Repeat slowly 8 times per side, then quickly for and additional 8.
Remember to maintain tabletop position; when one leg moves the other is completely still. Keep your lower back connected to the mat and your abdominals engaged. Avoid pulling on your head/neck, instead use your abdominals to lift and lower. To make this exercise less intense extend leg towards the ceiling and to make it more intense extend the leg parallel to to mat.
Keri Cawthorne, Owner, Iron Mountain Movement
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Swimsuit Ready Challenge
This exercise is part of our Swimsuit Ready Challenge (April 2-30, 2012). Do this exercise and comment below “I did this!” to be entered to win our $100 and $50 giveaways. You may enter up to one time per day through April 30th.
Also – be sure to share this on Facebook, Pinterest and other sites to let your friends cheer you on or – better yet – join in on the challenge so they can hang out on the beach with you this summer! read more →
The Yoga “Boat Pose” is a strong ab builder. Our guest blogger, who will walk us through this pose is Jane Ribinskas who is giving away a training package in our Swimsuit Ready Challenge.
Follow along with Jane who tells and shows us how to do this sequence:
Great Abs Sequence in Sanskrit “Navasana” or The Boat Pose
1. Start with the legs crossed and palms a little bit in front shoulder width apart on the mat. Exhale through the nose draw the navel towards the spine engage the pelvic floor then with the inhalation lift the body off the mat (That may or may not happen depending on hip tightness and strength). Once you land back down with the exhalation(or you may remain on the mat) lean back a little lifting your knees so the touch together making sure your spine is straight and you’ll be on the flat part of your sitting bones and your shins will be in a right angle to your knees with your toes pointed. Also lift up through your chest and work your pelvic floor as well as drawing the navel to the spine. The arms will run parallel along the body in line with the knees and draw the shoulders back. Keep the breath even in and out of the nose connecting back to the core.
2. To take this to a more advanced level straighten the legs and point the toes you’ll be in a V shape. Next take the arms up wards and out to a v shape above the shoulders. If you lose the V shape in your body come back to the first position. Repeat by bringing the legs back to a crossed position to the starting position push up through the palms as you exhale through the nose drawing the navel to the spine push the sitting bones and hips off the mat on landing…lean back and follow the original instructions with either bent knees or straight legs this can be repeated 10x times.
This will be a fun way to cultivate “bikini body” abs. Love and blessings to you and remember most of all to love and accept your bikini body no matter where it is at on your journey!
Jane Ribinskas, Director/Teacher, YogaConcepts
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Swimsuit Ready Challenge
This exercise is part of our Swimsuit Ready Challenge (April 2-30, 2012). Do this exercise and comment below “I did this!” to be entered to win our $100 and $50 giveaways. You may enter up to one time per day through April 30th.
Also – be sure to share this on Facebook, Pinterest and other sites to let your friends cheer you on or – better yet – join in on the challenge so they can hang out on the beach with you this summer! read more →
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