I skipped last week.  OH well… I’m here now!  This last week I’ve had a cold knocking on my doorstep and I’m happy to say that I haven’t let it in yet, but it’s still there waiting for a weak moment.  I’m loving my Thieves and fermented cod liver oil though.  I’ve been consistently staying up until 12 and up around 7 or 8, normally I would have crashed by now with a cold, sinus infection or flu but I haven’t caved yet!  Part of that is taking it a bit easy and not over doing it during the day, so I’ve been letting my work outs slide a bit.

So this post is about keeping the pep in your step or the resiliency in your muscles!  Something we all lose as adults is the ability to jump.  To jump well.  Seriously, try it.  squat like a frog and jump straight up into the air arms over your head.  You didn’t get to high right?  And you feel exhausted from jumping once.  And maybe you twisted your ankle coming down on it too hard?  Sorry bout that….

So after you’ve stretched, rolled out, warmed up and all that (refer to my last posts about ‘The Pursuit’) lets work on getting your hops back.  Why is it important to be able to hop?  It’s not so important that you can HOP as much as it is that you can recover and that your muscles retain their ‘spring’ or elasticity.  Losing your ability to react to movement sets you up for injuries and the inability to catch yourself if you trip or miss calculate a step.

After you’ve done your pre-hab stretching and rolling lets do the vertical leap.  Squat down feet a bit wider than hip width arms back.  Then leap up as high as you can arms thrown overhead, land back in that low squat and without any rest hop straight back up.  Repeat 6 times.

Now lets do single foot hops.  Pretend you’re standing on the corner of a box approximately 2 ft x2 ft.  On one foot hop  to the next ‘corner’ and so on until you’ve hopped to each corner, then repeat going the opposite direction.  Switch to the other foot and repeat.

Box jumps.  You can do this with stairs or a low porch.  Start with something about 10 in-12 in high.  Jump off both feet and land softly on the box/stair.  Step back and repeat.  When this starts to get too easy, find something higher and start hopping back down rather than stepping down.  I’ll post other progressions later on.

Oh you want to know about MY progress in my pursuit of optimal fitness?? Uhhhhh…. I love cheese.  Too much.  And bread.  I’m not losing weight yet, but I sure am getting limber and strong again!  If I could stick to 4-5 days of workouts each week, I’d have lost at least 7 lbs by now.  Sigh.  Okay, so this week I’ll be a bit more serious about eating things that will give me energy and not make me feel like I’ve eaten a ton of bricks!  Oh did I mention I started playing on an indoor soccer team?  Ya, it’s pretty comical.  But man it kicks my butt!

This is my third installment of my pursuit to optimal fitness.  I skipped last week due to Caleb having psuedo-mumps, and I was feeling a bit too wore out to post about work outs.  So I have quite a bit to share with you this week, but first you can see my workout equipment collection is growing

I purchased a foam roller (the large black cylinder), minibands (the bright green and blue bands) a jumprope (the red handles rope), a kettlebell (black bell with handle) and a a couple of dumbells (do I need to describe?)  also pictured are the furniture sliders and an 8 lb medicine ball.

This week was okay for me, I got in 3 workouts and pushed myself to panting so hard my chest hurt from breathing so heavily.  Yes, you can have sore chest muscles from breathing hard!  Really, that’s how workouts should feel if you want results.  They should be intense.  Don’t mistake that with ‘pain’.  Your joints shouldn’t be screaming for mercy and your muscles shouldn’t feel like they’re tearing.   They should feel exhausted and burning, but never push to the point of injury, cause… whats the point of that??!

I wanted to touch a bit on crunches today, because that’s one of those exercises that EVERYONE feels like they should do.  Especially women.  Especially women who just had babies.  And now I’m about to blow your mind.  DONT DO CRUNCHES!!!!

Here’s why.

1.First target training DOESN’T WORK.  You can not just workout one area hoping you’ll lose weight just right there.  Your body loses weight evenly.  Usually the stomach is the last thing to look toned.

2. If you are training for  functionality, crunches are pretty useless.  Think of an activity that mimics a crunch… uhhhh getting out of bed?  um… anything else?  Not really.

3. Do you want to be all hunched over?  How much do you ALREADY sit crunched up at a computer, in the car, at work, going out to eat….etc…..  You don’t need to train those muscles to crunch you up anymore into a ‘C’ shape.  You want to be tall and have good posture, right?

4.  Train your body in the gym to do what you want to do OUTSIDE of the gym.  I would assume we all want to be able to lift things, put up your own curtains, bend down to pick something up, play with your kids, hike…etc… so we need to train the body to MOVE.

So what do you do then?  Think of your stomache muscles as being the core of each movement.  Actually, your back and upper thighs and butt are part of that too.  With each movement, your stomach should be supporting you.  When you go to pick something up, if you engage the stomache muscles, back, upper thigh and glutes (butt) you are able to lift substantially more than if you just lifted with your arms and back.  So when you exercise, keep that in mind.  Instead of sitting at a weight machine, doing a bicep curl grab a couple weights, start in a kneeling position, activate your stomach, glutes and thighs and curl dumbells to an overhead press.  That way you’re using the full range of motion.

Be sure to keep those glutes, thighs and stomach TIGHT.   Your rear end shouldn’t be sticking back, your back shouldn’t curled forward, and your neck should be holding your head straight, not letting your chin jut forward.   Want to make it a bit harder?  Start by sitting back on your heels, then as you curl the weights, come up to kneeling by contracting those glutes and thigh muscles.

Does this make ANY sense??  Okay, for a ‘stomache’ specific exercise, do planks.  Lots of them.  Your low back should be fully supported by your stomache muscles.  Think of drawing your hip bone towards your lower rib cage, but not so much that your back starts to curl.  Also, activate those upper thigh and glute muscles.  Hold up to 30 sec.  You should be shaking and feeling that burn go through all your stomach muscles.  Then try side planks.

Here’s a plank

Here’s side planks

So give that a shot.  I’ll get to the other part of this post later, which will include a bit about food, digestion and your liver function.

Before anyone chooses to workout, there has to be a motivation.  To wear those skinny jeans, to run a race, for a certain sport, to get rid of cellulite… etc.  Mine?  I want to play with my kids, play sports, do chores, garden and feel exuberant and vibrant without pulling muscles, having achy joints and feeling like a slug.

This means I ultimately do not care about ‘weight’.  I don’t care if I’m 10 lbs over the ‘optimum’ weight for my height, nor do I care if it means I end up looking skinny and wirey.  Whatever shape my body takes in this journey is fine with me.  I do know that I will be able to fit into my pre-baby bump clothes though.  Which is a major motivator since I cant afford a new wardrobe!

So in my pursuit of optimum health, I mentioned that I will be utilizing diet, exercise, proper stretching, supplementation; in the form of traditional methods like cod liver oil, herbs, oils, massage, etc.  I also mentioned that I don’t belong to a gym, so I’ll give you some hints on some equipment you can purchase to have at home, and no, that does not include a thigh master, elliptical or bow flex.  The equipment I’ll be using will probably cost less than a months membership at the gym.

My personal gym consists of a theraband, 8lb medicine ball, yoga mat, furniture movers (I’ll explain later).  I still need to get some kettlebells, a few dumb bells, a jump rope and something to jump over and onto.  I’ll explain all this later.  Right now this post is getting too long.

I  suggest you do some exercises that resemble recess at an elementary school.  Jumproping, throwing medicine balls, skipping, one legged hopping, pull ups, you get the idea.  Because tell me this, who is more agile than a pre-teen child that plays rough?  It’s not due to just their age or their super high energy, it’s because of the way they keep their body agile by constant movement.  All TYPES of movement, utilizing all their muscles and to the full range of motion that each is capable of.

However, the warm up and stretching is crucial!  Also, be aware of your current limits and injuries.  So first a stretch, check THIS link.  This is great for your hip flexors, hamstrings, calves, ankles, and many more muscles.  It’s whats called a dynamic stretch because you’re ‘moving’ through the stretch, which also warms the muscle while stretching it through it’s full range of motion.  Actually This blog is a great resource for alot of tips.

So this week I got in 3 yoga seasons, all of which I could only complete half hour of, 2 dance workouts (these are purely for fun and warming up, don’t expect results from these) and a few plyometric/full body workouts.  I’m starting to feel my agility return, and with it my energy.  My pants are starting to feel a bit looser around the middle, but  I haven’t lost any weight yet….. but that’s probably due to the fact that I’m still having a hard time giving up my morning pastry.  Until THIS morning, I finally decided to forgo my usual carb loaded breakfast and eat my veggie egg scramble and some figs and peaches…. sooooo good.  Of course I felt much lighter and energetic after this breakfast as opposed to my coffee and pastry breakfast.

So food tip:  make your calories hearty and few.  Eat WHOLE foods, not prepackaged and you’ll feel fuller, better and more satisfied.  This includes fats.  Eat whole fats, like butter, whole milk, yogurt, coconut oil and olive oil.  Just use less of it.  You get the good vitamins and nutrients and the fat helps keep you satiated longer so you don’t feel the need to constantly eat.

Exercise tip:  Exercise shouldn’t be painful.  It should burn and be exhausting, but you shouldn’t be getting shin splints and chronic pain in your shoulder.  You’re training to feel better, not break down.

Next week, I’ll try to be a bit more organized and get this out sooner and with a bit more detail regarding exercise and a few facts and statistics regarding eating and weight loss.