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The Right Way To Get A Strong Lower Back (4 exercises)

The Right Way To Get A Strong Lower Back (4 exercises)

by | Feb 27, 2022 | Blog, Butt, Core, Exercises, Functional Fitness, injury-featured, Pain Relief

Many of us have thought to ourselves, “My lower back is so weak” when we’ve been suffering from lower back aches and pains.

We feel it during ab movements or deadlifts and think that we feel it because we need to strengthen it.

But what if the problem isn’t that your lower back is weak?

What if the issue is that it’s actually OVERWORKED?

This is all too often the case when it comes to our lower back.

The muscles there become overworked due to our daily postures which have created mobility restrictions and underactive abs and glutes.

So all of that strengthening you’re trying to do, all of those superman you’re doing, may actually be perpetuating the issues making them worse instead of better.

Instead you may need to be working on your hip and thoracic mobility while activating your abs and glutes to protect your lower back from being overloaded.

Remember the point of pain isn’t always where the problem started. And feeling a muscle work during a move may not be because it is weak. Instead it may be working when it shouldn’t and become overloaded.

So if you’ve been feeling your lower back during moves and thought, “I need to strengthen it,” try including these 4 moves in your warm up routine instead! And stop overworking your already overloaded lower back more!

Exercise #1: Thoracic Foam Rolling

If one area is lacking in mobility, we will seek out mobility from another area to compensate.

Because we often lack proper thoracic extension due to hunching over our technology or driving in our cars, we tend to compensate for this lack of extension by arching our lower back during exercises.

If you’ve ever felt your lower back during overhead pressing movements or bent over rows or back flyes, you may be arching your lower back in an attempt to maintain a neutral spine because of your limited thoracic extension.

That’s why it’s key we work to improve our thoracic extension to avoid seeking out mobility from our lumbar spine to compensate.

That’s why I love peanut foam rolling. It’s a great way to relax those muscles that may become tight along our spine while improving our thoracic extension.

To do this move, you can use a peanut, which can easily be made by taping two balls together or tying them in a sock. Lie on your back placing the peanut in your mid-back with a ball on either side of your spine.

Place your hands behind your head, pulling your elbows open as you relax over the peanut.

Breathe and hold for a second, then crunch up and relax back down. Do a few of the crunches, extending back over, before moving the peanut up your spine.

You can also reach your arms up overhead and sweep them open and out to your sides before crunching up to stretch out your chest further.

But focus on breathing to relax as you hold and allow your spine to extend over the roller.

To progress this move, you can use something like the Simple Mobility tool which has a larger diameter and will require more spinal mobility to relax over.

Exercise #2: Bench Hip And Quad Stretch with Rotation

Tight hip flexors, and a lack of hip and spinal mobility in general can lead to you overusing your lower back as you then aren’t able to properly engage your glutes or even your upper back and abs.

That’s why stretches to improve your hip extension and spinal mobility are key.

Too often if our hip flexors are tight, we end up feeling moves that should be felt in our glutes in our lower backs and quads. Not to mention we can develop hamstring synergistic dominance where our hamstrings start to become overworked instead of our glutes working when they should!

To address both limited hip and spinal mobility, I love this Bench Hip and Quad Stretch With Rotation.

To do this move, place one foot up on a bench or chair behind you and half kneel on the ground with that back knee down and front foot flat on the ground. Move out far enough that you can squeeze that back glute to drive your hip into extension while keeping that front knee aligned over that front ankle.

In this half kneeling position, place both hands down on the ground even with your front instep.

In this position it is key you squeeze that back glute to drive that hip into extension or you lose out on the hip flexor stretch. Having your back foot up on the bench flexes your knees to stretch your quads at the same time.

Then lift your hand closet to your front foot to rotate toward that front leg. As you rotate your chest open, don’t just move at your shoulder. Focus on engaging your upper back to rotate your chest open.

Reach up toward the ceiling then place that hand back down on the ground. Then lift your other hand up to rotate away from that front leg. You may find it harder to rotate one direction, especially away from the front leg.

Make sure to keep that back glute engaged the entire time to stretch your hips and engage your upper back to help you twist and rotate.

Do not let yourself rock out on that front foot and cheat, seeking out mobility from other areas!

Move slowly and work for about 30 seconds per side even before switching legs.

To modify, you can place your back foot on a block instead of up on a bench. You can also place that back foot on a wall if you don’t have a bench.

If you can’t kneel due to knee issues, do this from a runner’s lunge position, even modifying with your hands up on an incline.

Exercise #3: 3-Way Hip Circles

The best way to protect your back is to strengthen your glutes and your abs so they brace to help protect your spine so your lower back isn’t doing all of the work!

That’s why this 3-Way Hip Circle activation move is so important to include. It not only helps mobilize your hips, but also works on your core engagement, activating your glutes, abs and even obliques.

Avoid leaning away or rotating your pelvis as you focus on moving just at the hip joint.

In this drill you want to pause in each position as the donkey kick will target your glute max while the fire hydrant will target your glute medius and the knee tuck will engage both your hip flexors, but especially your abs if you focus on drawing in your belly button as you pull in to tuck.

By also fighting the urge to lean away you’ll feel those obliques working to keep your hips level toward the ground.

To do the 3-Way Hip Circles, start on your hands and knees with your hands under your shoulders and your knees under your hips. Flex your feet.

Then, keeping your knee bent to about 90 degrees, kick one leg back like into a Donkey Kick. You may slightly abduct the leg to better engage the glute, but do not let the knee rotate open. Focus on stopping the move with your glute over arching your lower back to lift up higher.

Pause here even assessing if you feel your glute. If you feel your hamstrings, relax your foot or even kick slightly out. And make sure your hips stay level to the ground.

Then, without bringing your knee back down, circle it out to the side into a Fire Hydrant position. Do not bend your arms or lean away to try to get the leg up higher.

Pull your knee in line with your hip, keeping your knee bent to about 90 degrees. Focus on keeping your lower leg about parallel to the ground. Do not let your foot flare up higher. Feel the side of your butt working to hold the leg up.

Pause here then tuck your knee straight in toward the elbow on the same side.

Pull your abs in as you crunch and don’t be afraid to flex slightly through your spine. Focus on those abs working as you drive your knee into your arms.

Pause then repeat the move kicking back into that Donkey Kick position.

Move slowly focusing on avoiding rotation or arching of your lower back as you kick back.

Complete all reps on one side before switching.

You can not only modify this move but also simply add variety to it and a balance challenge, by doing this standing. You can also do a straight leg kickback if you really struggle with arching your lower back or your hamstring compensating.

The key is making sure you actually feel the glutes working. Because doing the right moves, without feeling the correct muscles working may only perpetuate the problem over correcting it!

Exercise #4: Pelvic Tilt Balance March

Improving your pelvic stability to properly be able to brace your abs during movement is key if you want to avoid lower back overload and injury.

It’s why the Pelvic Tilt Balance March.

It is far from an easy move but it is a great way to engage your TVA or transverse abdominis while working your rectus abdominis and obliques to stabilize.

Just make sure you advance it slowly over rushing it.

You don’t want your lower back to take over or your hip flexors to be doing all the work.

To do this move, place a larger foam ball or pilates ball right under the top of your butt.

You want to balance on this ball, pressing down into it with your arms down by your sides, palms pressing into the ground.

Then bend your knees to about 90 degrees, bringing them into that tabletop position. Better to have them slightly out than to tuck them more into your chest as that will make it easier.

Balancing here, slowly touch one toe to the ground, fighting the urge to rotate. Raise that leg back up then touch the other toe down.

Focus on bracing those abs and not letting your abs dome out or your lower back arch. If it feels like too much, bring the ball up slightly higher.

To advance from here, you may bend your elbows or even raise one or both arms off the ground. This will give you less of a base to assist with stabilizing.

But only progress as you’ve earned it. Better to modify and really feel those abs working!

Move slowly with this move and even consider starting without the ball to master that posterior pelvic tilt progression if you haven’t!

SUMMARY:

Too often our lower back becomes overworked due to hip and spinal mobility restrictions and weak or underactive abs and glutes.

But because we consistently feel our lower back during moves, we assume it is actually weak and instead try to do more to work it.

This only perpetuates the problem.

So make sure you’re also working to improve those mobility restrictions while strengthening supporting muscles so your back doesn’t become overloaded.

Remember where the point of pain is isn’t always where the problem started! And injury doesn’t only mean an area is weak!

Use these 4 moves in your warm up, even just spending 30 seconds per move to start to help you avoid those lower back aches and pains!

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FHP 408 – How Old Are You?! 

FHP 408 – How Old Are You?! 

by | Feb 22, 2022 | podcast

Struggling With Your Age? These 5 Tips Will Help

I’ll admit, there is nothing I hate more than when someone asks my age on a photo…because I know their goal is to give themselves as an excuse as to why they can’t look that way.

They’ll say no they’re just curious or whatever, but I know…because I’ve done it myself.

And I get it. There are new challenges we face as we get older.

Changes we have to make.

But these changes don’t have to limit us. They just require us to shift how we are doing things.

Never give yourself the excuse to give up.

Because guess what? That doesn’t help you ever live your healthiest happiest life!

Not to mention, I have to admit that I pride myself on not only achieving something personally. I think what we can personally achieve honestly doesn’t even translate well to how we coach.

Now the fact that I can help CLIENTS achieve their goals? Well that is what matters! Being called the menopause whisperer may be one of my proudest life moments ever.!

Now what are 5 tips you can use to overcome the AGE hang up?

#1: Realize it’s often previous dieting practices adding up.

Often what we associated with age is simply build up over time.

It’s that we used to be able to “get away with something” that..well…we shouldn’t have tried to get away with.

Because it actually resulted in overload and injury.

And the sooner we stop those improper habits, the more we can avoid feeling like it’s our age adding up.

You need to re-train your body as soon as possible.

You need to add in that mobility work and proper warm up.

You need to stop the extreme deficits and restrictive diets.

Start focusing on the long-term success of your body!

#2: Avoid More Extreme Deficits

So as we get older, the struggle to lose weight becomes, well, more of a struggle.

Metabolic adaptations happen with age as it becomes harder to build and retain lean muscle to start with.

Plus, too often we’ve created metabolic adaptations through improper dieting practices that now cause us to gain weight while under eating.

Remember our body adapts to what we give it. It will find a way to function on fewer calories.

So when we create an extreme deficit we cause our body to adapt and function off of fewer calories not to mention we create hormonal imbalances that can even cause us to feel hungrier as our body learns to function off of less.

This leads to us gaining weight and even losing muscle.

It then makes it harder for us to lose more weight or even keep it off long term.

So the first scary step is actually to retrain our body to eat MORE before we create that deficit.

You need to restore hormonal balance. Teach your body to use more fuel. Give your body the fuel it needs to build muscle.

Only then can you actually create a deficit that will help you lose.

#3: Don’t fear a macro.

Too often when we try to lose weight we restrict whole food groups.

We cut out all of a macro, like say carbs, fearing they cause us to gain weight…especially because if we do eat more carbs after going low carb, we DO see that scale shift up.

But so often when we cut out a whole macro, we throw off our hormonal balance and we can even destroy the anabolic environment we need to build and retain muscle as we diet down or even as we get older.

So while we can strategically bump or lower a macro, we don’t want to demonize it. AND we need to realize that even occasionally favoring one or the other could be key.

Going low carb we CAN deplete glycogen stores to potentially expedite the process of using stored fat.

HOWEVER, this can backfire if we’re training intensely.

We may also find we usually go low carb, BUT strategically bump carbs at points to maintain balance and even benefit from the whoosh effect.

The key is NOT fearing a macro but realizing we can cycle them to our advantage!

#4: Realize more is not better – your workouts aren’t just to burn calories.

When we are struggling to see results, often we turn to doing more.

But trying to train harder as we eat less can not only backfire and cause further metabolic adaptations but it can lead to a lot of wasted effort!

We have to remember that the benefit of our workouts goes beyond calories burned.

Working out should be about doing something we love and learning to move well. It should be about building functional strength.

By focusing more on moving well and even building muscle, we help ourselves stay strong till our final day on this planet and even AVOID metabolic adaptations.

Focus on designing for the time you have. You can make even just 20 minutes work if you design strategically. And this can benefit you more than hours in the gym AND be sustainable!

And then don’t skip that mobility work! Learn to use muscles correctly to avoid aches and pains adding up!

#5: Focus on building muscle and strength training.

This can not only fuel the sports you love but help you avoid metabolic adaptations, injury and keep you functional strong till your final day on this planet.

Use it or lose it really is spot on.

So don’t just go for the highest calorie burning training you can or fear lifting heavy.

This is what keeps you young. It’s what helps you actually burn more calories at rest and look leaner!

SUMMARY

Yes changes happen to our body as we get older. But age is just a number. And at any age we can become our leanest, strongest selves.

Don’t just say you can’t because of a number.

Realize that often it’s just about learning what our body needs and reversing not so ideal habits we’ve ingrained in the past!

The Worst Diet For Fat Loss – Why Intuitive Eating Doesn’t Work For Fat Loss

The Worst Diet For Fat Loss – Why Intuitive Eating Doesn’t Work For Fat Loss

by | Feb 20, 2022 | Blog, Diet

I was in a discussion about weight loss with a couple of people and one of my clients was listening in.

One person said that they believe the best way to lose weight is to listen to your body and eat intuitively.

When my client and I walked away, she said to me…

“What if my body is intuitively telling me to eat ice cream, pizza and cake every day?”

While she was joking, it did really highlight a key issue with the promotion of Intuitive Eating as a weight loss strategy.

Let’s face it…most of us honestly have destroyed any intuition we have about what we need to fuel.

And processed, hyperpalatable foods only create another challenge to “eating intuitively” as they are designed to work against our natural cues.

Now yes, you could say that we shouldn’t be eating those foods anyway, but the reality is, most of us WANT TO and ENJOY processed foods and will plan to include them long term in our balanced diet.

So we need to understand how to balance them in.

While the idea behind intuitive eating is a good one, and it has a very specific purpose and design, saying to just intuitively eat to lose weight is a recipe for disaster.

One that ultimately leads to a lot of frustration as we don’t get results and aren’t sure why.

It’s why we can even feel like we’re eating healthily and not seeing the results we want.

Because the simple fact of the matter is…most of us need to RE-LEARN how to eat intuitively.

And you can’t just do that by “listening to your body.”

So if you’re just starting your weight loss journey, the worst thing you can do for yourself is expect yourself to just instinctively know what you need. Because let’s face it, what is instinctual and easy is what got us to the point we’re seeking out something to lose weight.

That’s why I wanted to share 3 tips to not only help you lose weight but actually learn how to keep it off by re-learning what proper portions and dietary practices are for you so can eat according to your needs and goals, even as they change over time.

But before I dive into those 3 tips, I do want to remind us to STOP the guilt around eating certain foods.

Too often what also derails our weight loss efforts is the feeling of guilt we inflict upon ourselves when we eat something “unhealthy” or “unclean” or “off plan.”

Let’s face it, so many of us eat for reasons other than purely fueling…socializing and having fun or even out of stress. And while we always want to work to understand our personal relationship with food to establish a healthier balance, we do also want to avoid making ourselves feel bad when we aren’t perfect with our plan.

Because it’s often those feelings of guilt that lead to us ultimately failing, not the one indulgence or overindulgence. The guilt makes us self-sabotage even more.

It’s like we get a flat tire and instead of calling a tow truck or putting on the spare, we slash the other three tires. And that ultimately is what holds us back from moving forward faster.

I know there are those clean eating crusaders out there who make you feel like a horrible person for not just eating healthy foods every day, but the fact of life for many of us is that we enjoy foods that aren’t the best for our health.

And finding our own personal balance for our lifestyle is key.

Because we have to be able to be consistent long-term. And constantly having to drain your willpower to fight your urge to have anything you enjoy just isn’t sustainable. It ultimately leads to us eating more crap over the year than if we’d just struck a balance in the first place.

So stop worrying about someone else’s version of a healthy lifestyle and start first by focusing on small sustainable changes to what you’re currently doing!

Now what are 3 tips to help you start to lose weight and ultimately understand how to eat according to your personal needs, goals and lifestyle?

#1: Embrace The 80/20 Rule.

Those processed foods you love, the candy, chips or other treats? They are designed to make you crave more and even overeat. They basically disrupt our natural hunger cues.

Let’s face it, they’re empty calories. And because they don’t really fill you up, you can consume more calories you need without feeling full. They also have a lower thermic effect than whole, natural foods, which means you won’t burn as many calories to process them.

Now you may be expecting me to say you have to cut them out to lose weight. But I don’t believe in doing that.

I believe in the 80/20 rule to eating well.

80% of the time you do focus on those nutrient-dense whole, natural foods. But 20% of the time, you just don’t care as you enjoy those foods and mentally they’re satisifying.

Within that 20% you do want to understand what foods you can have in moderation and those that just trigger more cravings.

If you find you just want more of a specific thing, since processed foods are designed to make you crave more, you may decide to keep that treat to specific days to strike an overall lifestyle balance.

Or you may even experiment with more macro-friendly variations of that treat, say Halo top over Ben and Jerry’s or even greek yogurt with granola, that satisfy the craving but without triggering your desire for more.

Also, I honestly believe the more you tell yourself you can’t have something, the more you want it. And the more you’re having to FIGHT against eating something, the more you ultimately just drain your willpower, eventually give in and then ultimately even overeat what you would have consumed to start.

Heck, often just telling yourself you can have something, even if you ultimately don’t eat it, makes you feel like you have the choice and over feeling forced to not eat it.

And then if you do want it, by focusing on macros you could work it. Plan in something you’re craving even first and work backward around that.

Ultimately, we strike an 80/20 balance because, to still hit our macros because we need to include a lot of nutrient dense, high volume foods around the processed treat.

And those other volume foods keep you feeling full even when enjoying the processed treat that doesn’t trigger make you feel full even when it’s more than enough calories.

You may even find you ultimately choose NOT to have the treat because the way you’d have to adjust other meals isn’t “worth it.” But the point is you are choosing your balance and creating something sustainable.

You need to assess your lifestyle and make small adjustments to that if you want them to be sustainable.

Small changes can add up.

Even swapping white bread for whole grain and a process cheese for a less processed cheese can increase the thermic effect of the foods you eat.

And as you make those tweaks you want to realize that processed foods may be a part of your balance BUT that they won’t make you feel full while being calorically dense and are hyperpalatable foods that make you want to eat more and more!

#2: Don’t Start By Making Changes

It may sound strange to tell you not to make changes when you’re first starting your weight loss journey, but too often we just jump into these all or nothing programs without assessing whether they will even be sustainable.

And part of what ultimately works for us is what will allow us to dial in our macros and our calories to meet our needs and goals long-term.

One size doesn’t fit all.

It’s why your friend could do really well on Keto while you feel horrible and ultimately gain weight.

If you want to create a sustainable version of your lifestyle and ultimately learn what you really need fuel, you need to create changes based on your current lifestyle.

One of the most eye opening things is to just track what you’re currently doing.

And the accountability of tracking helps us automatically start to make changes that aren’t forced.

Tracking begins to make us more aware of how we’re truly fueling and can even help us start to assess how certain foods make us feel.

It gives us true feedback as to what we are doing and the results we then get based off of specific habits.

And then from here we can make realistic and sustainable changes personalized to our needs.

Too often I hear people say, “I just don’t have as much willpower or discipline as (insert person/friend/family who got results).”

We feel like we don’t have the willpower someone else does because we aren’t creating small changes that allow ourselves to engrain the habits and mindsets need.

We cut out something we love most first. And feel deprived.

We create so many changes we’re constantly fighting against everything that is habitual and instinctive, even if it isn’t “right.”

The key to actually building lasting results isn’t some sexy extreme fad diet.

It’s small changes over time that build and allow us to make those habits so engrained they don’t really take willpower to replicate. They are our new normal.

So don’t start to try to lose weight by following some all or nothing plan.

Start by determining what your current lifestyle is and then make tweaks to it. For some that may mean setting a calorie cap or calorie intake range based on their goals. Even just 100 calories under what they’re currently doing.

For others it may be making small macro changes, increasing protein while not worrying about where carbs and fats fall.

For others it may mean making one simple swap and including veggies at a meal. The key is first assessing where YOU personally are currently to make small changes you can build upon.

#3: Realize that change is uncomfortable.

Most of us simply don’t like change. It’s hard going against what has become instinctual and easy even if we know its for the better.

But change requires change and that means stepping outside our comfort zone.

It’s why this idea of eating intuitively and whatever you want is false.

Because we will keep just repeating the habits we are comfortable with, the ones that aren’t moving us forward and may even be causing us to gain.

So as you start to track, and learn about the impact of the foods you are consuming, realize that there will be times you don’t feel comfortable. That there will be times you don’t want to do what is needed.

There will be times that things that ultimately are sustainable don’t feel that way to start.

But new habits will become instinctual and easy if we give them time and base them off our current lifestyle.

The key is even realizing our mindset behind the new habits.

We can’t just take actions we don’t believe in. We can’t just fake it till we make it.

We’ve got to recognize that we are CHOOSING to make these changes and believe in the process.

Your mindset has to back the actions you’re taking or you’ll set yourself up for failure and ultimately fall into old patterns.

So even recognizing before you start to make changes that things WILL be uncomfortable can help you embrace the process more.

Too often we make these sweeping changes and try to tell ourselves they are easy when they aren’t. And then when they aren’t easy, we feel discouraged and give up.

Instead lower your defenses against the changes and even tell yourself they’re going to be challenging. Honestly, you’ll be surprised by how much easier it ultimately makes the process of change that you aren’t surprised when you do encounter a difficult time!

SUMMARY:

Change requires change and if we knew how to eat intuitively for our needs, we wouldn’t be seeking out a weight loss solution.

Learning to better understand what we need is a process.

So if you’re starting out on your weight loss journey, start tracking what you’re currently doing and be ready to be a bit uncomfortable as you make those changes that build toward results!

Ready to create the healthiest version of YOUR lifestyle?

Schedule a call to chat about the program right for you!

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FHP 407 – A Lifestyle Isn’t Forever

FHP 407 – A Lifestyle Isn’t Forever

by | Feb 15, 2022 | podcast

Often when we talk about creating a lifestyle with our diet, we act like we’re going to do one thing for the rest of our life.

Which is interesting because we don’t just do exactly the same workouts forever.

Heck, if you look at your current lifestyle it probably isn’t exactly the same as it was just even last season.

I know personally my schedule and even activity level slightly shifts from Summer to Winter.

So if our lifestyle is constantly adjusting and flowing, even due to family obligations and work, why would our diet ever stay exactly the same?

The thing is it shouldn’t.

Your diet should evolve over time as your needs and goals change. Your lifestyle should evolve as you get older.

Menopause will change things.

Injuries will change things.

This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. We just have to be open to the changes.

And it’s why creating a lifestyle doesn’t mean you’re doing one thing forever.

And honestly, it’s why I love teaching clients about macros.

No one macro ratio works for everyone. And even when you find ratios that work for you, they’re going to change and adjust.

But the key point is, you have a solid foundation off of which to build.

Macros is like having the house frame set up and laid out.

You can adjust the paint colors, the decorations inside, anything else you want whenever you need or want based on what you want at the time. But you have that solid foundation off of which to build and tweak to suit your needs.

So instead of running from macros and letting the learning process push you to seek out a quick fix, embrace the learning process knowing that it will give you that solid foundation off of which to create a true lifestyle.

Because a fad diet and quick fix isn’t that. It may get you fabulous results, but you can’t keep doing it often which is why you fall off.

Results don’t come from doing something then going back to old habits.

Results come from evolving as your needs and goals change.

And remember evolving doesn’t mean what you were doing was bad or wrong. But if systems are mismatched, you’re not going to see results from them even if they are good independently.

What worked for you when you were training hard 6 days a week for hours, may not work now when training 3 days a week.

What worked for you at 20, may not work for you at 60.

It doesn’t mean you’re doomed. But you have to meet yourself where you’re at. And that’s why I wanted to share these 3 tips to help!

1: Track what you’re doing.

I know everyone hates hearing this but what you measure, you can manage.

If you don’t truly know what you’re consuming, you can’t accurate adjust.

The only way to know what may be mismatched to your needs is to have a clear picture of your current lifestyle.

This isn’t judgement. It’s data so we can get the results we deserve.

Tracking isn’t about cutting out either.

Heck, so often with clients we actually need to ADD IN calories because they’re actually under fueling.

Tracking just gives us the power to truly adjust to have that solid foundation off of which to build.

2: Embrace Learning Why

It is easy to start defending what you’re doing, even when it isn’t working. But if it isn’t working, see opportunity in making a change.

To help yourself embrace the change, learn why it may be worth testing out.

If it does’t work, you can always go back to what you were doing. But you don’t know if a better system is out there if you don’t risk experimenting a little.

Just do your research. Learn how or why it may help in your situation.

This knowledge can make you truly embrace testing and implementing new habits that may seem scary.

And it even helps you understand when NOT to test something as, even though it may have helped your friend, the ratios or plans don’t match YOUR specific lifestyle even if they may have at another time even!

3: Set end dates.

I’ve mentioned this a lot recently but you want to have end dates to things. We don’t do well with forever and staying consistent.

When there are end dates, there is accountability. AND there is a chance to re-assess and adjust.

This can help us get more consistent because we don’t feel like we’ll be stuck doing something that isn’t working and end up jumping ship too soon.

It can also help us even plan in consciously to adjust when our lifestyle evolves so we aren’t using an outdate “system.”

But having end dates gives us times to learn and tweak and grow while remaining consistent.

SUMMARY:

Our needs and goals change. We have to be willing to evolve with them.

It’s even FUN to adjust workouts, try different ratios, experiment with new activities.

See changes as an opportunity instead of an obstacle.

Don’t get so frustrated repeating the same old systems that are outdated just because they used to work.

The Most Underrated BODYWEIGHT Leg Exercise

The Most Underrated BODYWEIGHT Leg Exercise

by | Feb 14, 2022 | Blog, Bodyweight, Butt, Exercises, Functional Fitness

Too often we only think about progressing movements to build muscle by adding loads.

However, you can build muscle by creating progression in other ways especially if you don’t have any tools at your disposal.

If it challenges you, it will change you.

So if you’re only training with bodyweight but want to strengthen your legs?

You’ll want to try this amazing move, and one of my favorite bodyweight leg exercises we often aren’t doing – The Airborne Lunge!

Before I go over how to do this move, I want to highlight other ways you can create progression without loads all of which can be done with this great lunge variation.

One, you can use unilateral movements over bilateral moves.

Two, you can create more instability, through changing the surface you’re performing the move on or even the base of support you have, such as doing a fully single leg movement.

Three, you can change up tempo. You can slow down the whole movement, parts of the movement or even speed the move up and make it more explosive. You can even slow down one part and speed up another. Or you can even add a pause or hold.

Four, you change up the range of motion you’re working through. Increasing the range of motion of a move can make it more challenging. It is also a great way to make sure you’re working to maintain the mobility you build through your other prehab work!

It’s key to remember we can find ways to progress movements and build strength and muscle even when we don’t have weights.

So if you’re training at home or when you travel and need to progress the basic bodyweight leg exercise, try this Airborne Lunge Variation.

It’s a great move if you even want to build up toward that pistol squat!

The Airborne Lunge:

The Airborne Lunge is a great bodyweight glute and leg exercise that can help you build up to that full pistol squat even with a more hip dominant movement pattern.

It is however a deceptively hard move.

To do the Airborne Lunge, stand tall and shift your weight to one foot, bending the other knee to bring your heel up toward your butt. You want to keep that foot pulled toward your butt so you only touch your knee down when you lower.

Then sit your butt back to hinge at the hips as you bend your standing knee to drop your back knee down toward the ground. You will lean forward as you hinge, but do not round over. You are leaning forward to counterbalance your weight and sit back.

Touch your knee to the ground gently without letting that raised foot touch down.

Do not reach that raised leg back too far or you will get too spread out. Your standing knee may travel over your toes. This is NOT a bad thing and this ankle mobility is required to build up toward the full pistol squat. Just make sure you’ve pushed your butt back to load your glutes while keeping that standing foot, and especially your heel, firmly pressed down into the ground.

Lightly touch your back knee down, then drive back up to standing. Do not push off that knee or the raised foot.

You want the entire movement to be powered by that standing leg.

Stand tall at the top and squeeze that standing glute. Try not to touch the other foot down.

Repeat the move again, sitting your butt back to hinge as you bend that standing knee to lower down.

The range of motion on this move and the instability of the unilateral movement make it a challenge. To progress it further, you can increase the ROM, by performing the lunge with your standing leg up on something so you have to sink deeper.

Or you can change up the tempo, slowing things down, even pausing at the bottom.

However, you can also modify this movement by reducing the range of motion and touching your knee down to a block or box. You can also reduce the instability by holding on to something to help you balance.

But this unilateral move is a great way to build strong legs and glutes, correct imbalance and progress your bodyweight training WITHOUT adding loads!

And it’s a great way to perform a more hip dominant exercise that can help you even build up toward that full pistol squat as well!

SUMMARY:

Just remember, if it challenges you it will change you. Muscle growth and strength increases come from forcing our muscles to adapt to a challenge!