Category Archives: Core Training

Feb 11 2012

3 Tips for Effective Movement Strength Training for Women

It is important for women to do movement (functional) strength training. You should train for the way you want to live–train movements and not just muscles. It is important to shape and tone your butt, hips, thighs and arms. But, it is more important to train in a way that improves your quality of life as you walk, run, jump, squat, twist, etc.

For example, if you are going on a ski trip, you need to tailor your exercise program to get your body ready for that activity. Just walking 30 minutes a day won’t get your body in shape for the snow hills and trails. And, if you want to play rec sports, your training needs to be intense and sport specific.

Here are 3 tips to follow during movement strength training:

1. First, you should strengthen and stabilize your core area. The saying “you are only as strong as your weakest link” is true in the case of the human body. All movement begins with the core so you’d better strengthen it. And, the majority of powerful movements are either initiated with or transfer through the body’s core area. Many injuries can also be linked to a weak core area.

Most core exercises should be performed in a standing position if you participate in sports or races. These exercises will also involve the important hip stabilizer muscles and not just the abdominals. A great full-body core exercise is the medicine ball rotational throw (pictured below).

The core exercises should be multi-dimensional and progressive. Many of your daily movements involve twisting, rotating, turning, squatting, bending over, etc. The exercises should also constantly challenge and improve your endurance and balance.

Note: Strength exercises such as standing shoulder press and squats also heavily work the core area.

2. Train your body in all planes of motion:

a) Frontal Plane – imaginary bisector that divides the body into equal front and back halves. The motions primarily involve abduction and adduction (side-to-side motions). Abduction takes a limb away from the midline of the body and adduction takes the limb closer to the midline of the body.

Examples include hip abductor and hip adductor exercises. Other frontal plane motions would be side lunges (pictured below), dumbbell lateral shoulder raises and side squats. Quickness and agility movements, like side shuffles, require adequate frontal plane stability, strength, power, flexibility and balance.

b) Sagittal Plane – imaginary bisector that divides the body into left and right halves. The motions involve forward-backward and up-down movements relative to the body and/or joint. Examples would be walking, running, bicep curls, leg curls and seated back rows.

Traditional training techniques (such as training with machine weights) have focused on the sagittal plane of motion. This is not an effective training technique if the other planes of motion are ignored during training.

c) Transverse Plane – imaginary bisector that divides the body into top and bottom halves. The motions are primarily rotational. As stated above, you will do many turning, twisting and rotating movements at work or play. You should train your body during exercise to perform these movements with strength and ease.

Your body also needs to be stabilized and strengthened before progressing to high-speed power exercises. If this is not done, you are headed for certain injury when more intense exercises are introduced.

Along the same lines, you should perform an exercise correctly before progressing to power exercises. Full body strength training is a great place to start preparing your body for the challenges ahead. Vary your exercises using barbells, dumbbells, medicine balls, stability balls and resistance band exercises, etc.

3. Make regular use of bodyweight exercises. Simply put, bodyweight strength workouts allow you to use natural body motions. Machines limit your natural range of motion. Try doing a squat on the Smith Machine and see how natural that feels.

Train hard, train safe and change your body for how you need to live.

Be sure and download my FREE 14-Day Accelerated Fat Loss Program and get started training the right way!

“Exercise is not my life…..exercise makes my life better!”

Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

Check out my other great blogs:

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! The blog has also been named one of the 50 Best Sports Medicine Blogs by Masters In Healthcare! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody—including athletes!

Jan 17 2012

Burn Fat, Reach Weight Loss Goals with Home Gym Workouts

Burn fat and reach your weight loss goals with short, intense and effective home gym workouts. It is one of the best timesavers.

You won’t burn fat in your home gym by just setting it up. How many little-used treadmills and fitness gadgets are sitting in people’s garages gathering dust?

About all you will need is a stability ball, medicine ball, resistance tubes and some dumbbells. And, don’t forget about bodyweight strength exercises—pushups, pullups, inverted rows, squats, lunges, mountain climbers and step ups are all staple bodyweight exercises you should be doing.

Building muscle mass will speed up your metabolism because your body has to work harder to maintain it. Muscle mass will also help you to lose body fat and inches which is more important than losing weight. Transform your body to lean and toned–that’s how to keep the weight off.

Do strength training 3 days a week and interval cardio exercise 2-3 days a week.

Vary your workout routines and intensity to keep your workouts fresh and to keep making progress. Your body will adapt if you do the same workouts week after week.

A shorter, more intense 20-30 minute full body circuit strength workout will give you better results than doing a 1 hour strength workout when you are trying to lose body fat and weight. A circuit workout is one in which you do one exercise after the other with little or no rest between exercises.

Research at Duke University, directed by Dr. Cris Slentz, supports high-intensity exercise for better fat loss. The eight-month study showed that people could lose weight with exercise and no dieting. Those who exercised intensely (especially using interval training) lost much more fat than those who exercised moderately.

According to the research, the high-intensity exercisers had these advantages over the low-to-moderate intensity exercisers:

–more release of fat from cells
–more fat used as fuel during exercise
–increased metabolic rate after exercise

Also, change up your interval cardio routines—such as rotating sprints, jump rope and bodyweight cardio.

Here are some more tips to keep your home workouts from becoming boring:

1. On some days, it helps to split up workouts into 2 separate workouts—such as doing two 15-minute strength training workouts (morning and evening) instead of one 30-minute workout.

2. Exercising outdoors can be a refreshing change from exercising in the living room.

3. Doing something fun and different works too—such as playing soccer, basketball or tennis (these are 3 of the best natural interval cardio exercises).

4. Exercising in a totally different place works sometimes—such as running on the trails at the lake.

5. Take a day off from working out—sometimes even on a scheduled workout day. Its always important to listen to your body.

Also, don’t make the mistake of laying around as much as possible until your workout. Research proves that your fat-burning enzymes shut down when you sit down. Keep your metabolism ramped up all day and burn more calories.

Walking helps you lose the weight and keep it off because it helps you maintain an active lifestyle. Walk at least 30 minutes every day.

Be sure and download your FREE eBook: “10 Must Know Fat Loss Tips,” Free Fat Loss Meals and Free Fat Loss Workouts!

“Exercise is not my life…..exercise makes my life better!”

Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

Check out my other great blogs:

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! The blog has also been named one of the 50 Best Sports Medicine Blogs by Masters In Healthcare! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody—including athletes!

Jan 12 2012

Burn Fat, Look like a Goddess and Stay Injury-Free

Sure you want to burn fat and lose weight. But, it doesn’t help you to “look like a goddess” if your body is totally wrecked with injuries, muscle imbalances and postural problems!

Getting healthy and fit is more than just burning body fat and sculpting your body. You need to do exercises with correct technique to prevent injuries.

The structural alignment of your body is called posture. The human movement system consists of the muscular system, skeletal system and neural system .

These systems must work together and function properly for you to achieve true health and fitness. A personal trainer is there to make sure these systems are corrected and working together while you get “trimmed and buffed!”

For you to look and feel great, you must correct your postural dysfunctions and muscular imbalances as much as possible.

You should also increase your elasticity in the muscles by improving your flexibility. This will improve your performance. Self myofascial release with foam roll is like getting a massage. The foam roller is one of the most effective techniques for releasing tension while improving mobility.

Foam rolling exercises will release and organize your muscles, as well as release and align your skeletal system. Muscle injuries such as strains and tears and broken bones can be avoided with proper flexibility and skeletal alignment.

You might also need the services of a massage therapist or chiropracter to keep your body fine tuned.

One good place to start training is with leg circuit workouts:

Leg exercises (free weight and bodyweight) will help you burn more calories and fat during and after your workouts.

1. You activate more muscle fibers by doing leg exercises such as squats, lunges, deadlifts, step ups, mountain climbers and sprints. The bulky, fast-twitch muscle fibers will shape and sculpt your legs better. Fast-twitch muscle fibers will lie dormant if you don’t “fire them up.”

2. Your core will also get work, especially with squats, lunges and deadlifts.

3. You will burn more calories during and after your workout because your metabolism stays elevated longer.

Exercise Post-Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) causes your body to burn more calories and fat after a tough workout. Your body has to work harder to get back to its pre-exercise state.

For instance, athletes in speed and power sports are usually very cut and lean because most of their exercises are done with intervals at full speed.

4. Your workouts will be shorter and more intense because you will be doing compound (multi-joint) exercises.

Always do leg exercises early in your workout order because they take so much energy from you. Single-joint exercises like bicep curls and calf raises should be done at the end of your workout order.

Good upper body exercises are shoulder press, bench press, pullups, inverted rows, bentover rows, triceps dips on bars, dumbbell front raises/lateral raises.

To your health, fitness and goddess-like physique!

Be sure and download your FREE eBook: “10 Must Know Fat Loss Tips,” Free Fat Loss Meals and Free Fat Loss Workouts!

“Exercise is not my life…..exercise makes my life better!”

Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

Check out my other great blogs:

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! The blog has also been named one of the 50 Best Sports Medicine Blogs by Masters In Healthcare! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody—including athletes!