Bootylicious Continued...
ONE LEGGED DEAD LIFTS:
Deadlifts are great for your hamstrings, butt and lower back, but form is critical and you should skip this exercise if you have any back problems.
To do this move, take the left leg back just a bit, lightly resting on the toe. With the weights in front of the thighs, tip from the hips and lower the weights as low as your flexibility allows. Keep your back flat or with a natural arch and make sure you keep the abs contracted to protect the back. Squeeze the glutes of the working leg to raise back up. Do 2-3 sets of 8-12 reps.
Note that your back leg does not have to remain straight like in this picture. It can remain bent with the toes at your ankle.
Body Fusion ~ A must see Workout video
Low Impact exercise (which is when one foot is always in contact with the ground) is actually really good for your body. It does not mean low intensity - you can still have a high energy, intense workout.
Advertisement
From Other Guides
How to Water JogWalking Off WeightStaring a Swimming Fitness Plan
Recent Discussions
Bulk Up Keeping Body Fat LowTarget heart rate questionMuscle building diet
Related Sites
Getting a Good Workout with Low Impact Exercise
Can you have high intensity with low impact workouts?
High Impact Exercise Isn't for Everyone
If you're trying to lose weight, you know that getting into the middle-high range of your target heart rate zone (about 65% to 85% of max heart rate) is important for burning calories. You also probably know that it's easier to get your heart rate up when you're jumping around. But, for some people, high impact exercise just isn't an option. Some reasons you may have to avoid high impact are:
- Pregnancy
- Injuries in the joints, bones or connective tissue
- Chronic problems like arthritis, osteoporisis or stress fractures
- Being a beginning exerciser
- Being very overweight
- An aversion to high impact exercise
While it's important to have some type of impact in your workouts for healthy bones, you don't necessarily have to jump around to get an intense workout.
Sponsored Links
Making the Most of Low Impact Exercise
If you've ever added any running into your walking workouts or tried some jump roping for the first time in years, you probably noticed how high your heart rate can shoot up as soon as you add higher impact. But, if you can't or don't want to do high impact exercises, there are some alternatives. The following are just a few of the most popular low impact activities along with some tricks for getting the most our of your workouts.
Walking
Walking is by far the most popular low impact exercise, but in order to get your heart rate up there are some things you may need to do.
- Walk faster. One mistake we often make is walking too slowly to get the heart rate up. Wendy, About's Walking Guide, offers a great tutorial for How to Walk Faster. Picking up the pace can help you up the intensity of your workouts.
- Try interval training. By adding short bursts of speed or an occasional steep hill to your walking workouts, you can increase the intensity of your workouts as well as your calorie-burn. Try one of these Hill Workouts on the Treadmill or one of the Beginner Interval Workouts to get started.
- Use your arms. Make sure you're not holding onto the treadmill and, when you're outside, swing your arms to keep the intensity up. Holding weights as you walk is a no-no (it can cause injury), but consider using walking poles as an alternative.
- Mix things up. If walking is your sole source of cardio, cross-train with other activities to keep your body challenged. Walking is something we do every day and, therefore, we're very good at it. Learning something you're not as adept at can be a great boost to your endurance and fat loss.
Walking the Stairs
Walking up stairs, whether they're real stairs or the revolving staircase at the gym, can be an incredibly intense workout and a great way to get your heart rate up. If you're a beginner, try adding a few minutes of stairclimbing to your usual workout or hop on the stepmill at the gym for a quick five minutes towards the end of your workout. You'll find you don't have to go very fast to get your heart rate up.
Hiking
Hiking can be another tough low impact activity, especially if you're hiking up an incline. The changing terrain requires a lot of work from the lower body and walking up a mountain involves the large muscles of the glutes, hips and thighs - exactly what you want for an intense cardio workout. Add a backpack and you're burning even more calories.
Step Aerobics
Step aerobics can be a great alternative if you like choreographed exercise but can't handle the pounding of hi/lo aerobics. Because you're stepping onto an elevated platform, you can typically get your heart rate up without doing any jumping. Using the arms can add more intensity the the workout as well. Cathe Friedrich is just one video instructor who offers low impact workouts for the more advanced exerciser such as Low Impact Circuit, Low Impact Step and Low Max Step. You can also try group fitness classes or other more advanced videos that may include high impact and modify the workout to keep it low.
Other Alternatives
You can also choose other activities that have no impact, but still offer high intensity workouts like cycling, swimming, cross-country skiing, the Versaclimber or rowing. Any of these activities can be intense if you work hard, but you may also want to cross-train with impact activities to keep your body challenged in different ways.
Ways to increase intensity:
Adding Intensity to Your orkouts
The key to making low impact exercise work is to work a little harder by involving your entire body in what you're doing. Try some of these ideas for making your workouts more intense:
- Add upper body movements. Upper body moves can contribute to your overall intensity so think of swinging your arms when you walk, raising the arms overhead during step or other types of aerobics or choosing machines at the gym with upper body options like a cross-country ski machine or elliptical trainer.
- Go Faster. Picking up the pace, whether you're walking, cycling or ellipticalling (did I make that up?), is another way to make your workouts a little tougher.
- Use big movements. Another way to add intensity is to use big, exaggerated movements. For example, if you were marching in place, you could make the move harder by bringing the knees up high and circling the arms overhead.
- Involve the lower body. Most cardio activities do involve the lower body, but you can add intensity without impact by doing things like squats or lunges to really get the legs involved. Add walking lunges or side steps with squats to your usual walking workout to increase intensity.
Bootylicious all week Long!
Happy freakin Monday!
All week we will be working on your booty. Let's face it~ sitting on your ass all day at work is not going to magically smooth out the cottage cheese or turn that flabby tush into muscular perfection for all behind you to workship.
So today, Lunges. You may do lunges already - you might be doing them at this very moment. But the video below is a quick explanation of proper form. There are also many modifications and variations to help mix it up a bit.
Change it Up
Start with 8 on the right and then 8 on the left.
Alternate legs 16 x
Add Weights!
Add hammer curls as you lung (Hold weights parallel w/elbows in at the waist. Raise and lower weights from shoulders to thigh.)
Add bicep curls (weights horizontal with palms in toward your chest to begin, lower hands to thighs).
Lunges work the glutes, hamstrings, quads and hip flexors.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The perfect pushup!
Stop grimacing and listen up! We are more than half way through April and that means...SUMMERTIME is almost here. Stop pinching your waist and thinking hopeless thoughts!
I am going to get you into that bathing suit and you are going to feel good about it, damnit!
So we start with the PUSH -UP. I know, I know... but it is truely one of the greatest exercises around because it tones your entire body - especially the abs, chest, arms and back. Hmmm... all your parts not covered by your bikini or (god forbid) speedo. ~ Can i digress? I mean why a speedo? Who told you it would be a good idea to wrap your junk in lycra and spandex and then get it wet....No. Just no. ~
Do It Right or Don't Do It At All
Assume a prone (face down) position on the floor or other hard surface that's able to support your body weight. Keep your feet together.
Place your hands under your shoulders with your palms on the ground. Curl your toes upward (towards your head) so that the balls of your feet touch the ground. This position is called "plank," it is the beginning and ending position for your push up.
As you raise and lower yourself be sure to keep your head in alignment by looking slightly ahead and not down flat to the floor . Once you start to burn out, it is OK to go down to your knees.
Here is a demo:
If you think that's hard....
*YEAH*
So start small (no guinness records just yet) and each day add a few more.
Here is a crap-ass video of me joining the fun ~ can you see how much fun I am having?
Get it done!
Work it at the office!
We've discussed the benefits of the exercise ball. And have even talked about using the ball at work. Let's see that in action:
The weirdest exercise video ever!
There are no words....
A moment for Richard...
I LOVE Richard simmons! Did you see when he was on "Who's Line is it Anyway?"Hilarious. Seriously - you have to give him credit for sustaining a career in fitness for about 30 years. Especially since his exercise progams are not all that challanging. However, I do credit him for getting people who wouldn't normally exercise on their feet by providing a program that is fun and not intimidating.
I couldn't get the video to post but here is the link http://s110.photobucket.com/albums/n105/icemantx21/?action=view¤t=WhoseLineIsItAnyways-RichardSimmons.flv
You can write to him directly at http://www.richardsimmons.com/pages/write_richard.php
and while you do you will hear him sing "ABCD Email me... tell me all your hopes and dreams" It is priceless.
Lets just take a moment to say Thank you to Richard for sweatin to the oldies and sequence tank tops.
Step Away From the Egg Roll!
So, you are sitting at home too tired to cook and make the call. In 30 minutes (or so) your buzzer sounds or your door bell rings and as you open the door the heavens part and shine light upon (usually )a man holding a white plastic bag with a smiley face on it. And inside is your chinese food, God's food.
MMMMM....Chinese food. Right up there with pizza on most popular delivery food.
But in my delightful form I am here to ruin it all for you so that next time you take a bite, you will curse me and all that is fitgurl.
It is safe to say that anything you might eat in a chinese restaurant is full or saturated fat and salt. Research has shown that meals like General Tso's chicken contains more than half of the calories recommended for daily consumption and about 140% of daily sodium recommendations.
I know what you are thinking...I'll get a veggie dish. Well I am sorry to be the barer of bad news but a plate of stir fired greens has 900 calories! and 2,200 mg of sodium (limit is about 2300 for entire day).
Even Oprah puts in her 2 cents on her website. She suggests:
Instead of…Egg roll: 190 calories, 11 grams total fat, 1 gram saturated fat, per roll 
Order…Steamed vegetable dumpling: 55 calories, 1.5 grams total fat, less than 1 gram saturated fat, per dumpling
Below I have listed the calorie, etc info for some popular chinese dishes. You can check out more here at http://www.calorieking.com.
Wantons
| Calories 110 ( Kilojoules 460 ) | ||
| % Daily Value* |
||
| Total Fat | 8 g | 12% |
| Saturated Fat | - | 0% |
| Cholesterol | - | 0% |
| Sodium | - | 0% |
| Total Carbohydrates | 6.5 g | 2% |
| Dietary Fibre | - | 0% |
| Sugars | - | |
| Protein | 3 g | |
General Tso's Chicken
|
Calories 844
(Kilojoules 3528)
|
||
| % Daily Value* |
||
| Total Fat | 40 g | 62% |
| Saturated Fat | - | 0% |
| Cholesterol | 167 mg | 56% |
| Sodium | 2157 mg | 90% |
| Total Carbohydrates | 61 g | 20% |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g | 8% |
| Sugars | - | |
| Protein | 56 g | |
Beef lo Mein
|
Calories 570
(Kilojoules 2383)
|
||
| % Daily Value* |
||
| Total Fat | 21 g | 32% |
| Saturated Fat | - | 0% |
| Cholesterol | - | 0% |
| Sodium | - | 0% |
| Total Carbohydrates | 61 g | 20% |
| Dietary Fiber | 5 g | 20% |
| Sugars | 9 g | |
| Protein | 36 g | |
Chicken Chow Main
| Calories 390 ( Kilojoules 1630 ) | ||
| % Daily Value* |
||
| Total Fat | 26 g | 40% |
| Saturated Fat | - | 0% |
| Cholesterol | - | 0% |
| Sodium | - | 0% |
| Total Carbohydrates | - | 0% |
| Dietary Fibre | - | 0% |
| Sugars | - | |
| Protein | ||
MIght as well enjoy a Fortune cookie ....
| 100 calories | % Daily Value* |
|
| Total Fat | 0.3 g | 1% |
| Saturated Fat | 0.0 g | 0% |
| Cholesterol | - | 0% |
| Sodium | 5 mg | 0% |
| Total Carbohydrates | 6.6 g | 2% |
| Dietary Fibre | 0.1 g | 0% |
| Sugars | 3.3 g | |
| Protein | 0.4 g | |
| Potassium | 4.6 mg |
Your Fortune: Eat well. Live Long. And prosper...wait... :)
Exercise of the week! Pilates 100~
Pilates ~movement of the week~ THE HUNDRED!
-
- Breathe in and zip and hollow.
- (Breathing out): curl your chest up off the floor refer (PAC with Arms for details).
- Breathe in and then (beathing out): straighten your legs so that your toes are softly pointing to the ceiling. Keep your legs close to vertical! -stops your lower back arching.
- (Breathing in and still zipping): Pump your arms up and down for a count of five. Keep your scapulas anchored and fingers lengthening away.
- (Breathing out): pump your arms up and down for another count of five.
- Repeat steps four and five for a total of five to ten times.
Latest comments
@*dtcomment*@@*titolopost*@
@*nome*@