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Travel Workouts with No Lower Body Work

November 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I am here in the Smoky Mountains, enjoying a long overdue vacation at my parent’s cabin with my husband and his siblings. The scenery is gorgeous, and as you can see from the picture of the driveway if I want to get out of breath by walking, all I have to do is go up and down the driveway a few times…shoot, just once it’s so steep at the bottom!

My current physical is somewhat frustrating and limiting, and altogether new to me, though not new to lots of people.  I have been suffering from a mysterious hip pain for the last year and have been to several physical therapists, massage therapists, chiropractors, and even an orthopedic surgeon to find what was going  on.

What my latest physical therapist has found is that I have a pelvic assymetry; meaning that my pelvis was tilted in three different directions: the left side was higher than the right, one side was farther in front than the other and the entire pelvis had an anterior tilt.  This condition is actually really common among women, according to this therapist, but my situation is compounded by the fact that I am hypermobile in most of my joints (not double jointed, but hypermobile, meaning too flexible) and my lifestyle is an extremely physically active one.  He believes these things are causing the problem.

Once the therapist put the pelvis back “in” to proper alignment, I have been in therapy to train my muscles to hold me “in”.  I’ve also not been allowed to 1) cross my legs 2) spread my legs 3) squat 4) do any kind of one-legged training or balance work 5) do plyometrics 6) go running.  So I’ve been pretty limited in what I can do; basically, I can ride a recumbent bike and go walking.  I can’t even demonstrate exercises to my clients!

So, now that I’m in the mountains, with no gym, how can I stay active?  Well, beyond the walking and hiking we plan to be doing, I have my resistance bands and that’s it.  Knowing that I’m on vacation and don’t have any desire to do a long workout, what kind of workout can I do that is A) effective and B) keeps me physical therapist (and my hips) happy?

The exercises:

Pushups
Band resisted shoulder presses
Dead Bugs
Planks
Bridges (with and without kickouts)
Bicep Curls
Overhead Tricep Extensions
Rows or Lat Pull Downs

There are several ways to structure this workout depending on the amount of days you want to do it.  You can cycle through all of them once or twice with no stopping in between, or you can break them up into movement patterns: vertical push/pull, or horizontal push/pull.  You will notice that there are some lower body movements in here namely the bridges, planks and dead bugs and for those people not able to move their legs at all these motions can be left out.  However, since these are exercises I am doing in physical therapy and they serve the purpose to strengthen my deep core muscles to hold me “in” while giving me a good overall upper body workout.  The glutes are targeted in the bridges, and the glutes are considered part of the core.

So how I might set this up:

Warmup: Static Chest Press, Lat Stretch, Arm Circles, Wall Slides

  • Pushups (incline, flat, decline, narrow, etc) 12 reps or to failure
  • Band Resisted Rows (this works with JC Travel Bands) 12-15 reps at a 1 back, 2 hold 4 negative tempo
  • Dead Bugs 30 seconds hold superset with 15 glute bridges (with or without kickouts), repeat once
  • Prone Iso-Holds or Planks (Iso Holds done at 124 tempo are MUCH harder!) 12-20
  • Band Bicep curl to Band Resisted Shoulder Press to Overhead Tricep Extension (due to instability in my shoulders I would leave out the tricep extensions – they get hit in the pushups anyway) 12-15 each done slowly
  • Lat Pull downs 12-15  with a 124 tempo
  • End with one last round of pushups to failure.
  • Repeat if you want to.  All reps should have been done with no rest in between

As you can see, when you go slowly things are more difficult and you can get away with doing only one set.  In fact, I’d encourage it, because even if you’re in the middle of a different workout back home, if you’re limited to just upper body, going back to slow rep work will challenge you in a new way.

Then go take a hike, walk, swim or whatever, but get out and enjoy your vacation!
Want more information about the cabin where we are staying?  Check out www.WildMountainHoneyCabin.com

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Mini-Bands

October 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I use these  for glute activation exercises like lateral tube walking and for a client’s who’s knees cave in when they squat, the band around the knees serves as a tactile cue to keep the knees out.  Can also be used on the upper body.  Check out the video on the webpage; click on the product picture to take you there.  The video is at the bottom.



 

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Home (And Portable) Workout Equipment/Products

September 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

As I was surfing through my Twitter feed this morning, I came across this great link from ABC, mentioning just a few workout products that were talked about on “Good Morning America”.   Making up excuses to not exercises is about as popular (if not more so) than making up fishing stories here in America.  The truth is, people should not judge you for not exercising: if you don’t want to, that’s your decision.  Just like if you don’t want to eat brussel sprouts or wear purple socks or leave the house on Tuesday or whatever.  Why do we feel the need to explain ourselves to people if we don’t exerercise?  We feel guilty.

In some ways, that attitude is justified because it’s on our “list of things I knwow I should do because it will make me healthier”, just like eating brussel sprouts (but not like wearing purple socks).  In any case, there are some products that help take away some of the more popular excuses for not exercising like “I don’t have space”, “I don’t feel comfortable at a gym and cant’ afford membership” or “I don’t have money for equipment” (use your bodyweight to get rid of that one!).

Behold the list:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/excercise-home-workout-equipment-products/story?id=11539964

Some of these are great for working out at home.  Some of these, like the Valsides, resistance bands and TRX are EXCELLENT for travelling.  They take up very little room and can offer great workout options in small spaces.

Another option is the P90X craze.  If you want to hire a personal trainer, but don’t have the money, why not give these videos a try and make it your goal not to quit them until you’ve finished?  Much cheaper and you can do it at home.

If you would love to have a home gym  but really don’t have the space, Bowflex makes a great dumbbell product.  It’s one set of dumbbells that can be adjusted from 5 lbs all the way to 50 and can sit in the corner of your room.  I have used these and I will say, that though compact, they are a little bulky and akward as you go up in weight and the plates increase in size.  If you don’t have space for a room full of dumbbells though, this is a great option.

Here’s are some questions to consider: where do you prefer to exercise?  How often do you exercise?  What are your favorite products and which ones have given you the most results?

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How to Optimize Posterior Chain Power: Glute Activation | StrongLifts.com

July 2, 2010 By 2 Comments

Today I went on a hike to Rainbow Falls, in Gatlinburg, TN.

Rainbow Falls

While hiking, my comrades and I got to talking about their knee injuries and I mentioned to them, the possible reason for their knees hurting after awhile is that their glutes area asleep.  After they got over the confusion of what I just said, they asked what I meant.  Only too happy to explain, I told them that we live in a sitting society.  The body is meant to move, not sit, and when you sit for so long, your hip flexors get shortened and tight, same with your quads, and then your hamstrings get stretched and your glutes do not fire properly.  Thus, your glutes are asleep and need to be activated so they can do their job properly.  If the glutes are not doing their job properly, your quads will take over.  This can present a problem because when you climb stairs, for example, your hamstrings and glutes should be doing a lot of the work to pull you up the stairs.  If they are asleep and your quads are pushing you up the stairs, this could lead to injury very easily.
For suggestions on how to fix this and some great videos, check out this link:

How to Optimize Posterior Chain Power: Glute Activation | StrongLifts.com.

Glutes

This is one of those great things to practice after sitting on a bus/car travelling all day!  Or, for that matter, sitting in rehearsal or in front of a computer, typing.

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Stretching ADEQUATELY before/during/after playing

July 1, 2010 By 6 Comments

What does it mean to stretch adequately?  And why should I bother?

Stretching is underrated and underdone and people, especially musicans, are paying the price for it.  The body was designed to move and it was not meant to hold static positions for long lengths of time, be that sitting in a car, typing, playing an instrument, etc.  If one is confined to a rather static position for a long length of time, the body will become stiff and tight in certain areas.  If, after that, you try to move suddenly, or for example, spend a long day at work in front of your computer (or several hours in a practice room) and decide then to go lift weights, if you do not stretch and warm up properly, you are literally begging for an injury.  You are asking muscles that are tight/weak/stretched to do things that they are not ready nor capable to do.

Let me give you an example.  For my bodyweight workout this past week I did not take the time to adequately stretch and warmup before hand and for the last two days, my hips have been paying for it.  They have been so incredibly tight that I was almost limping.  This led me to stretching ever opportunity I got yesterday, almost to no avail.  Today before my workout, I spent the better part of 20 minutes, if not more, stretching and warming up, making sure my body was ready to meet the demands I was about to put on it.

How did I know I was ready?  Well, let me tell you.  After sitting for a long time, the hip flexors get shortened, the hamstrings and lower back can get stretch and the glutes fall alseep and fail to fire.  What is the first thing I did when I got in the gym today?  Dynamically and statically stretched my lower body and did plenty of glute activation exercises.  It took awhile, but when I finally felt like my glutes were working (there was a burn starting to happen, I could feel them working) and my hips no longer felt like they were going to snap, but instead started to feel loose, and move more freely, I knew I was ready to go.

Let’s  apply this to woodwind  players and the upper body.  What can you do?  Make sure you warm up your upper body before you practice, during and after.

Next time you are about to practice, try this little warm up sequence and tell me how it went for you:

Arm circles 2 sets of 10

Doorway chest stretch 2×30 sec.

Scapular Wall slides 2×10

Do all three once before repeating.

What is happening?  Well, if you play an instrument, more than likely you will have your arms in front of you.  These stretches will warm up the chest, upper back and shoulder girdle allowing the muscles to move better and fire more accurately.  If you have extra time,  (and ideally, an exercise ball) do a couple sets of prone lower trap raises and/or YTLW’s.  These will really fire up your lower traps and upper back.

What about if you are going to be sitting?

One thing that you can do is to do the standing warrior lunge stretch.  Stand tall. Take a long step forward and descend into a lunge.  Stretch your pelvis back, you should feel a deep stretch in your hip on the trailing/semi-straight leg.  For added glute activation/hip stretching, squeeze your buttock on the trailing leg, let the arm on the trailing leg side drop towards your leg and raise you opposite arm high until you feel a longer stretch up into your abs on the trailing leg side.  Hold this for 30 seconds.  repeat on the other side.  Do twice on each side.
If you have some time before a rehearsal, you can do some glute bridges, but if you have no where to lie on the floor, an easy way to get your glutes firing (so your hips and quads are doing less work) is to take long strides as you are walking to rehearsal/concert/ the bus/around, etc. and squeeze your butt with each step.

Anything I can do while I’m playing or even walking around?

Yes!  If you recall the neutral position you are to take whenever you begin weight training (chest out, back arched, stick your butt out, shoulder blades back and down), you can modify this stance to be useful during the day.  Basically, if you will depress and retract your shoulder blades while you are playing/practicing/rehearsing and even just walking around throughout the day, you will accomplish several different things:

  1. Your chest will open up, stretch out and be less tight.
  2. You will have taller, easier posture with less effort.
  3. Your upper back will hurt less, and be less stretched and weak.
  4. You will automatically have more confidence as when you depress and retract your shoulder blades you have to stick out your chest, which is a subconsciously vulnerable area and to do so signifies confidence, whether real or imagined, eventually it will become real.

Try this for a week and tell me how it worked for you!

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Cardio out – movement in and hotel workouts

July 1, 2010 By 2 Comments

One of the worst things about travelling is the constant sitting.  Sitting in a bus, sitting in a hotel, sitting in rehearsal, sitting in a concert, sit, sit, sit.  The human body was made to move and sitting is not per se, a natural position, not for long periods of time, anyway.  As I have been travelling this last week and a half, I have tried to get in as much movement as possible.  Yes, I know getting my heart rate up is a good thing, but when I get to a hotel, after a long day of sitting and look in the “fitness room” and all that is there is a stationary bike, elliptical machine and a treadmill….that really doesn’t look appealing to me.  Is it cardio, is it motion?  Sure, but it’s still staying in one spot, looking at one thing and after travelling all day, all I want to do is move!
So, I have definitely become a proponent of MOVEMENT and, shall we say, functional cardio.  I have been doing a LOT of walking, as much as I can, anyway.  One of the “perks” of travelling with a group is that you are reliant on the bus to get you places; you do not have your own car.  So what do you do if you want to go somewhere?  Well, you have to walk.  So, the other day I did a fantastic bodyweight workout in my room and instead of traditional “cardio” I went on a long walk to Smoothie King for my post workout shake.  Then I had to walk back, uphill.  Plus, it was raining, so I threw in a few sprints to get me to my destination sooner.  When I got back, I had to go to Wal-Mart, about a half-mile away, but since I didn’t have a car what did I do? Walk of course.  I blew my calorie burning goal out of the water that day, mostly by walking.  Yesterday morning I went for an hour long walk around town before we had to get on the bus to go to our next gig.  My body was definitely grateful for it and I felt wonderful the rest of the day.  Blew my caloric burn goal out of the water yesterday, too.
Today, I got to the hotel and was greeted with a fabulous gym, of which I was only too happy to avail myself.  Did I want to do cardio afterwards?  Heck no.  So what did I do?  After I took the 10 flights of stairs up to my room for my PWO meal, I walked around Knoxville.  Granted I didn’t walk long enough to meet my calorie goal, but I got my movement and activity in for the day.

Moral of the story?  Get in as much activity and as much motion as you can during the day when traveling.  See your situation as an opportunity and a blessing to move more, rather than a hindrance because you don’t have a car and things are farther away.  Look for opportunities to move!  Take the stairs.  Walk to the store.  Explore the town if you can.

As for my workouts, I did one of the great bodyweight workouts by Craig Ballyntine of Turbulence Training.  Since I had to buy his stuff and it’s copyrighted, I cannot reproduce it all for you here, but I can tell you most of what I did, and I’m still sore two days later.  All you need is about 5-10 feet of space in your room and a stationary chair.

Pushups
Split Squats/Bulgarian Split Squats
Wall-slides
1-legged squats (these are killer!)
Planks
Burpees
Do those in your room and tell me if you aren’t out of breath!

Today my workout was a full body workout availing myself of the great gym.  We’re going to Gatlinburg tomorrow and I will not have a gym to use, but you can bet I’ll workout again in the room  and run the hills!

Today’s workout:
Narrow Leg Press 3×8
superset with Hack Squat 3×8

TRI-SET
Lying Leg curl 2×15
leg extension 2×15
Seated calf raise 2×15

Shoulder Press 3×8
superset with straight arm pushdown 3×8

Cable woodchop 2×15
superset with close grip row 2×10

If you’ll notice, there’s a conspicuous lack of arm motions and single joint exercises.  This is because mulit-joint exercises (otherwise known as compoud exercises) include these muscles, so they do not need to be addressed.  For example, when I did a shoulder press, I also hit my tricpes, and when I did a close grip row, that also hit my biceps.  If I had wanted to make this a quicker workout, I could have left out the single joint leg exercises and I could have left out the abs/close grip row.   However, I noticed that during the concert last night, my uniform does not allow me to properly raise my left arm and my back/rhomboids/lats were hurting because of it, so I wanted to make sure I hit them in the gym today.

So, don’t let traveling prevent you from moving.  Look for excuses!

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Music, Fitness and Travelling

June 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

As you may know, I am a proud member of the 129th Army National Guard Band.  What this means is that I am in the Army, but it’s a part time job for me.  I “drill” with my unit one weekend every month and for two weeks in the summer.  Right now is that two-week time period, called Annual Training, or AT, for short.  Our AT this year is a tour of the state of Tennessee.  We’re playing concerts, doing parades, recruiting, etc. and having a good time of it.


Our schedule is such that we are on the road almost every single day for more than two weeks.  We get to a place, play the gig, stay at a hotel and leave the next day, save three cities where we are staying for more than one night.  This rigorous schedule poses its challenges and also its opportunities when it comes to fitness and how to take care of yourself to play your instrument to the best of your ability.  To meet the demands of this schedule, it takes more than good health, you have to know how to take care of yourself, and through the next few days, I hope to have a couple of blog posts about the different stretches, workout routines and exercises that can be done to not only counterbalance the effects of being confined to a hotel, but confined to the road/bus/car for long times.

A few things that have come up as I’ve been playing:

After riding in a bus for several hours, your whole body is going to be somewhat stiff.  Couple that with then having to go sit in a chair for a few hours and play a concert and you’ve got a possible injury coming your way.
A few stretches to be done when you get off the bus:

Dynamic: calf stretches, high-knees, leg swings

Static: Psoas stretch, Calf Stretch, Hamstring Stretch, Quad Stretch

Upper body stretches: SCM stretch, doorway stretch, lat stretch
Dynamic upper body: arm circles, neck circles

Stay tuned for more descriptions and exercises.

In the meantime, you can find our schedule on our Facebook page!

http://www.facebook.com/search/?post_form_id=e54fec336f4a35b6d336af91a714d147&q=129th+army+band&init=quick&ref=search_preload#!/group.php?gid=50386808169&v=app_2344061033&ref=search

Friday: Friday Night Lights Concert, Dickson, TN 7:00 PM

Saturday: Harpeth Hills church of Christ concert 6:30 PM, Nashville TN

Sunday June 27: Dogwood Park – 7:00 PM concert in Cookeville, TN

Tuesday June 29: Concert Crossville First Baptist Church

Thursday July 1: Public Performances on Market St. Square, Knoxville

Friday and Saturday July 2-3: Various performances in Gatlinburg, TN

Sunday July 4: Midnight Parade in Gatlinburg!  Concert at Gatlinburg Aquarium 7:00 PM

Filed Under: Fitness, Flute, Travel, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Need something to kick your own butt in 10 minutes?

December 10, 2009 By 2 Comments

Cardio can be really boring.  I mean, really, who wants to spend the better part of an hour on a machine staring at a screen?  Even if you’re on a bike outside, or walking or running, if the scenery isn’t great, it’s easy to get bored.  And if you’re like me and you like to try new things, well, meet my new thing…

bodyweight circuits.

These are in no way new to the world.  Heck, I did them at Basic Training for the Army and didn’t realize it.  We would go outside and set ourselves up in stations: jumping jacks, mountain climbers, skiiers, full situps, crunches, pushups, diamond pushups, squats, military presses, and anything else the drill sergeants could think of.

Well, bodyweight circuits make a great substitute for cardio, and a good sub for HIIT, or High Intensity Interval Training.  If you don’t know what that is, basically, you run all out for a brief period of time, recover, repeat, puke. :)    HIIT has been proven time and time again to be a better cardio choice than steady state cardio for upping caloric expenditure, especially, post exercise calorie burn, meaning your body will be burning calories at a higher rate for hours later.  What’s not to like about it?

You can do it in about 5 feet of space, with no equipment, anywhere and anytime you want and in 10 minutes you’ll be sufficiently huffing and puffing and dripping, if you really give it your all.  What’s not to like?

It’s really hard!
Here’s the Crazy 8 Bodyweight Circuit I did twice this week by Craig Ballyntine.  You can see the original here: http://fitnessblackbook.com/workout-routines/body-weight-circuits-are-kickin-my-butt/

In fact, he has a ton of bodyweight videos on his Turbulence Training website here: http://fitnessblackbook.com/recommends/turbulence-training-videos

So here was my circuit today:

  1. 60 Jumping Jacks: Done as fast as possible, but make sure you do full jumping jacks.
  2. 15-20 Spiderman Pushups: I’m just doing normal pushups until they become too easy. Typically it is a breeze for me to do 40+ pushups, but it is much tougher when you do these with zero rest in between jumping jacks.
  3. Walking Lunges: I take 20 steps total. This is the easiest part of the workout in my opinion.
  4. Spiderman Climb: I do a total of 20 of these (10 per side) I really feel these in my abs and obliques.
  5. Wall Squat: Do for 45-60 seconds. This hurts! Don’t rest your hands upon your legs, since it makes it easier.
  6. Planks: Do for 60 seconds. Tough after doing all these other exercises without rest.
  7. 5 Burpees: Make sure and do a full pushup at the bottom and explode as high as pssible at the top into a jump. I’m still kind of uncoordinated with these…probably because I’m “smoked” at this point!
  8. High Knees: Done as fast as possible. Do 50 total. I just count when my right leg hits the ground for 25. It is hard to count both legs for 50 since you are going fast. You will be dying about 1/2 way through.

Notes: Each exercise is done back-to-back with zero rest in between. You will want to rest, but immediately hit the next exercise. After this 8 exercise circuit is done, rest exactly 60 seconds. I usually run over to the microwave and set the timer. Those 60 seconds will feel like 15-20 seconds. Do this circuit 1 more time. Don’t add in the 3rd one until you are ready.

I Felt Like a Chain-Smoker After My 2nd Circuit!

I simply was not in good enough shape to complete the 3rd circuit my first 2 times doing this routine. I was breathing hard and my body was zapped. My skin was hot to the touch. These are all great signs of a great interval workout, but I just couldn’t push myself to do this circuit a 3rd time. Again…I have pride when it comes to being fit. I can max out a treadmill for 60 seconds followed by 30 seconds of walking and continue this pace for 15-20 minutes. This is after lifting heavy weights. That being said, these body weight circuits are a humbling deal.

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