I thought today I would post some of my favorite core exercises that you can do at home. Surprisingly, the best core exercises are squats and deadlifts - I know most of you don't believe me - but they are! However, below are some more traditional ones that I also like :)
Pike with Feet on Stability Ball
This move can also be done with your feet on the floor. Start in a plank position with your shins on the ball, your body is in a straight line from head to toe. Then contract your abs and lift hips toward ceiling, as if you were going to do a handstand, rolling ball down toward feet. Lower back to start position. Repeat 10-20 times.
Cross legged Sit Up Unfortunately, I couldn't find an image from this one.. .but it's pretty self explanatory. Lay down with your legs criss cross able sauce. Now lift your shoulder blades and low back off the floor towards the ceiling. Hold for 1 second and return to start position. Breathe out as you lift up and in as your lower down. Repeat 20-30 times
Plank Jack
From a plank position, jump your feet out wide and then jump them back in to start position. Repeat approximately 25 times.
Creepy Crawler From a plank position bend one knee towards the elbow on the same side and return to start position. Then bend other knee towards the other elbow. Repeat 10-20 times. This exercise can also be done from your forearms.
I thought I would share this recipe with you. I made these yesterday and they are delicious :) They are made without flour and sugar so I feel less guilty about having a sweet treat. Enjoy!
Kristen
Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
2 cups peanut butter 2 cups Splenda (or sugar if you don't have splenda) 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp baking soda
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Mix all ingredients together Roll into balls and flatten with a fork on a greased cookie sheet Bake for 8-10 minutes Let cool
Here is a tough workout that you can do at home. There are 11 exercises - 50 reps of each exercise. Go through it as fast as you can... the next time you do it see if you can beat your time.
1. Reverse Lunge with a front kick (25 per leg) 2. Push-ups 3. Mountain Climbers 4. Plie Squats (also known as Sumo Squats) 5. Single Leg Bridge with Leg Lift (25 per side) 6. Squat with leg extension 7. Body Weight Tricep Extensions (25 per side) 8. Jackknifes 9. Squat with Woodchops 10. Side Plank with Dips (25 per side) 11. Wall Sit with Single Leg Lifts (25 per side)
A transcript excerpt of Health reporter Kelly Crowe’s interview with Mark Tremblay, director of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, one of the authors of the Statistics Canada survey, Canadian Health Measures Survey. The findings, based on the 2007-09 study, involve data on 2,800 adults and 1,600 children and teenagers.
Crowe: What’s the most important information from this report?
Tremblay: There are a couple of important things. One is for the first time ever we have an accurate picture on the movement behaviour of Canadians. The Canadian Health Services Survey allows us to carefully partition the types of movements that people are doing throughout the day into different categories with some degree of accuracy. We know how long and when people were sedentary, were doing light activity, and if they were doing moderate or vigorous activity. We are able to compare and contrast this to previous information, which might have been based on self-report information that clearly has the inherent weaknesses that go along with that.
Crowe: What did you learn?
Tremblay: Well, we now have good robust information for comparison and that’s the good news. The reality is that approximately 15 per cent of Canadian adults and seven per cent of Canadian children and youth are meeting physical activity recommendations based on the best available evidence.
Crowe: What does this mean?
Tremblay: Seven per cent of kids in the country are accumulating 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity six days of the week. Only 15 per cent of adults are getting 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity throughout the whole week accumulated in ten-minute bouts. It means we’re very inactive. We’re a long way from meeting targets that are associated with substantial health benefits. Further and perhaps most strikingly from the research is how much we’re sedentary, which isn’t just the opposite of the physical activity picture. What the research shows is that we can quantify the amount of sedentary behaviour, and kids are accumulating 8.6 hours per day of sedentary behaviour; for adults it is 9.5 hours of waking time per day. That represents 60% to 70% of the entire waking day that we’re essentially immobile.
Crowe: Is that really a problem since we are working or at school.
Tremblay: Well, we don’t have to be totally inactive during these times. You could be standing up doing this interview for example. There are ways we can interrupt our sedentary behaviour. There’s a growing body of evidence showing that’s advantageous to cardiovascular risk factors — even standing up more frequently, moving a little more frequently, standing up at meetings, standing up and sitting down again, changing our posture. Although that’s not going to increase physical activity it will reduce sedentary behaviour and produce health benefits.
Crowe: Were you surprised by the findings?
Tremblay: Yes, the degree to which we are sedentary and the degree to which we are not physically active is surprising and disappointing, especially in light of the efforts made by different groups to motivate people, to encourage people, to inspire people to be physically active. It seems the more accurate the information we get, the worse the story is. I have a high degree of confidence in this data. This is the situation as it is. The good news is we know what the situation is, we’re probably close to the bottom of where we can be at, and what we need now are aggressive sustained programs to change that.
Crowe: Are you saying we’ve bottomed out?
Tremblay: Well seven per cent for children and 15 per cent of activity for adults means 93 per cent are not reaching the targets — 85 per cent of adults are not meeting the targets and the targets are very modest. They represent one, two, three per cent of our daily time that we’re asking people to be physically active. At the other end of the spectrum, more and more of the time that we are not physically active, which is almost all of our time, is spent almost completely sedentary. Both of these we need to change to preserve and to promote health.
Crowe: It sounds like we are hardly moving at all?
Tremblay: This is true for many people for very large chunks of the day. The argument that we are at work or in school during the day is one we need not accept. We can modify the school day, we can modify our workday to introduce movement into the day — to interrupt complete sedentary time — and I think we should do that, while at the same time put programs in place to motivate people to be physically active.
Crowe: What is moderate and vigorous activity?
Tremblay: Moderate means something like doing a brisk walk, doing your sporting activities, going for a jog, going for a swim. At moderate you should still be able to talk but be a little bit out of breath. As you get to more vigorous activity you lose that ability. Overall it is important to do something to interrupt sedentary activity. We need to get people moving more often.
Here are some of my recommended snacks for the mid morning or afternoon munchies....
1. Hard boiled egg One egg has approximately 70 calories and is packed with five to six grams of protein! I like to cook a whole bunch on Sunday and then they are ready to go each morning!
2. Almonds About 12 nuts has 184 calories! They are packed with protein and omega fatty acids, which are great for your heart!
3. Apple and Cheese or Peanut Butter This snack is high in fiber, protein and fat! I like light baby-bel cheese or natural peanut butter.
4. 1/2 Avocado Avocado's are so good for you. This rich fruit is very high in fiber and will keep you full until your next meal
5. Cottage Cheese and Fruit This is high in fiber and protein but low in fat. A great pre-workout snack!
6. Organic Taste of Nature Granola Bar Not all granola bars are created equally. In fact - some of them are just as bad as eating a chocolate bar. Look for something with < 10 grams of sugar, having some fiber and some protein.
7. Celery (or carrots) and Hummus Hummus is great for you. It's high in fiber, protein and it has nutrients that help normalize blood pressure.
8. Tomato Slices and Cheese This combination contains fat and protein. Plus tomatoes are full of antioxidants!
9. Baked Sweet Potato and Tuna ok - I know this one sounds strange but it is super healthy! It is a great balance of protein and carbohydrates! It is also packed with fiber and beta-carotene!
10. Banana and a glass of milk This is a great snack for after a workout. Banana's are high in potassium and the milk provides a great balance of carbohydrates and protein needed for after a workout.
All of us are faced with the challenge of fitting a workout into our busy daily schedules. Our friends, families and communities all require time, and in today's marketplace many people have great demands placed on them at work. Our personal time is becoming very precious.
So, how do we fit it all in? Everyone should make daily appointments with themselves to exercise for their own health and well-being. It is not selfish, it is necessary. In order to care about the other people in your life, you must first care about yourself. If not, just how are you going to be any good to them?
Tonight, before you go to bed, plan what your day is going to look like tomorrow. When will you make your appointment for exercise? What will you do? The next day, all you have to do is get up and stick to your plan! Sounds easy, right?
Everyone who attends bootcamp already has 2 or 3 days where their exercise appointment is already made. However, I have said it MANY times before.... 2 or 3 days just isn't enough. You need to make your own exercise appointments when we do not have bootcamp. There are tons of different things you could do.... take your dog for a long walk, go for a run, play a sport, join a dance class or group fitness class, go to the gym...... the possibilities are endless....
Tonight I will be giving away free bootcamp! We will have a competition and the winner will get free bootcamp for the month of May (up to 8 sessions!).
Today, I was thinking about how long it has been since we have done a fitness assessment at bootcamp. To make up for it - I found this link:
http://www.topendsports.com/testing/hometest.htm
On this page, you will find fitness tests for push-ups, sit-ups, squats, vertical jump, step-ups, and flexibility. On each page is a table to see where your fitness level measures up for your age.
On Monday, February 14th bring a loved one to bootcamp if you like. It can be a friend, significant other, child, etc. ... basically just don't bring joe shmo off the street.
We will have a fun workout and I will even give a prize away at the end of the session!
From a plank position, jump your feet out wide and then jump them back in to start position. Repeat approximately 25 times.
