The Physical Movement, Lifestyle: The Problem With Exercise On The Internet!
Why what we see on the internet is mostly out of touch, will make us feel sub par and probably hurt us if we try!
Exercise or training online is a bit of mess.
The problem with social media and what we see on the interweb is that most of it is inappropriate.
I don’t mean inappropriate in a “parental guidance “sort of way, although there is too much of that as well (put some clothes on people!! ). I mean more inappropriate for you and me.
Random exercises performed by someone who is ½ our age, or has 10x more experience in the gym, or is a freak of nature, or has no injuries, or (I can go on and on) is not the best guidance for most of us.
I can come up with a few different examples.
Here is one I see often. Back squats.
The squat that we did in high school or perhaps our sporting years, with bar loaded up on the back of our neck and down we go! Back up, Down we go.
The old school lifters will tell ya that all you need is master the squat, deadlift and bench press and you are good to go. But those guys have been doing that for 25 years!
The new school fitness coaches will give you all kinds of variations to keep things interesting. Too many sometimes.
The answer is somewhere in the middle for most of us.
Nothing wrong with the squat unless you have not done in 10+ years and your knees bark every time you get close to the floor, or you are coming off an injury, or your core has been ignored and back is cranky etc. etc.
The goal is not to exhaust or injure, the goal is to get stronger, get more pep in our step and stay injury free during our favorite activities.
Solution: Start with just body weight, lower your backside between your legs and hold. How’d ya do? If like me a few years ago, not so good. So the last thing most of need is to load up the weight when our range of motion is , well , less than ideal. We want to be able to smile after our workout!
Not able to do that? From an athletic stance, move one leg behind and kneel down. Reverse lunge is what it is called. Hold it. And come back up.
Do a few. Then other leg. Build yourself up to 15–20. Then we can consider adding small amounts of weight.
1 leg work (unilateral) is real popular with athletes and athletic training …why ? because most of their movement is unilateral. We skate 1 leg at a time, we transfer weight from 1 leg to the other when swinging a club, we move in every direction 1 leg at a time. So training 1 leg at a time.
Simple: Split Squat hold: (hold for 15–30s.) Can apply with or without dumbbell.
Split squat hold builds leg strength, balance and mobility.
Here is push up plank with progression:
If you do 3 rounds x 3 times per week, you are 200% better off than where you are now, and 500% better than loading up the bar and trying to squat like you see on social media!
And it involves no cranky back or knees barking.
Nothing too sexy about those split squat holds and planks …when compared to that nice back squat with 3 plates per side, but ask your better half about your glutes in a month (after 12 of this micro workouts) and I guarantee you …Simple , Safe, Stronger and Suitable seems more appropriate.
There are a few free resources for you over on the website: https://athleticover40.com/free-workouts/
Please get clearance with your MD if you have not done much in a while.
Simple, Safe, Stronger & Suitable. The 4 x S’s !
This article was originally published at http://athleticover40.com