Stay-At-Home Exercise Moves – April 27

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Wall Sit and Stay (for core, back, shoulders, and leg muscles). 

Wall Sit 3

Wall sits: Perform 1-3 repetitions of 30 seconds per sit, every day.

  1. Stand with your back pressing against a wall, arms along the sides of your torso with hands flat against the wall. Your feet are about 2-ft away from the wall, legs hip-width apart or a little wider. Toes may be pointed slightly outward.
  2. Slide your back and arms down the wall until your hips and knees are at a 90-degree angle. Your shoulders, upper back, lower back and back of your head should all be flat against the wall. Distribute your weight evenly between both feet.
  3. Engage your abdominals, relax your shoulders and breathe evenly while counting to thirty. Recover for 15-seconds by standing up, shaking legs out, walking around.
    Then, repeat the remaining repetitions.

For progression: Hold arms out in front of your chest. Keep shoulders and lower back pressed against the wall.                 wall sit2

Stay-At-Home Exercise Moves – April 20

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Bird Dog Slides (for upper body strength, core stability). Note: Perform Bird Dog Slides on tile, concrete or wood floor surface, use a small towel, rag or other item that will slide across your floor surface. If this exercise is new to you, perform all repetitions by extending one limb at a time (i.e. you will have three points of contact with the floor rather than two).

bird dog slides

Source: RedefiningStrength.com

Bird Dog Slides (in bare or stocking feet); practice your walk out maneuver from last week to get yourself into position. Perform 10 – 15 repetitions, 1-2 sets every other day. Do all repetitions on one side  then switch to the other.

  1. Place a slider (or towel) under the ball of one foot and set up on your hands and knees with your hands under your shoulders and your knees under your hips.
  2. Drive your foot down into the slider and slide out, extending your leg while reaching your opposite hand toward the wall in front of you. Keep your hips square to the ground and brace your abs as you extend out. Feel your glute working to extend your leg as you drive down into the slider. Then slide back in, bringing your knee back under your hip as you touch your hand down to the ground. Feel your abs working as you bring your knee back in. Then again extend back out.
  3. Really press down into the slider as you extend and tuck. Move slowly and control the movement, bracing your abs and even pausing to feel your glutes when fully extended. Complete all reps on one side before switching.

Alternative exercise: Perform a traditional bird dog maneuver without a slide under your forefoot. From the quadruped position, extend the opposite arm/leg while keeping the hips level. Do all repetions on one side, then switch to lifting/extending the opposite limbs.

Not-Knowing Is Knowing

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Rambling thoughts have rattled around in my head today, however, I have to admit I prefer this disposition over the roiling emotions I was experiencing last week. It has been a month of living with the ‘stay at home’ order and there does not yet appear any soon relief from our social separations. Honestly, these days of pandemic provide a full spectrum of emotion for the unsuspecting, home-bound furloughed working person.

And in all of this, I want to know something. Don’t you? I mean I think I really want to know! I want to know WHY? I want to know HOW MANY will live or die? I want to know WHEN will this end? I want to know WHO started this insanity? Most of all it seems we all want to know WHO is TO BLAME? WHO is IN CHARGE? And last but not least, WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR ALL OF THIS? I think we all feel like naughty children banished to the corner. HOW LONG must we stay in our rooms?

Must we go on in this dungeon of not-knowing? I want to KNOW why…why must we? Must we, ALL OF US, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US…go through this great disturbance? And then I wonder, would knowing those things I don’t know really help me right now? My next thought is this: Could I actually handle knowing the truth(s) of my recent, mad-raving questionings? Could any of us handle such knowing? Because when I think about this for any amount of minutes, it seems that once we gain a knowledge of what we don’t know, the unveiling truth becomes like a death to us. Our innocence dies; our peace of mind dies; our hope dies…everything we think we have a right to know about something, anything really, actually brings us to a point of living death.

Examine these thoughts, because they are fears about outcomes. But this worry is based on your need to know. Break the cycle of those thoughts by being aware of the now. Savor the quest, not the finish. The Cool Impossible ~ Christopher McDougall and Eric Orton

There are only a few certainties in this life, namely, we are born, we live, we die…of these things we may all agree upon…we all know these three to be truth. So how does knowing these things help us or make the hard things of not-knowing easier? Is it better to know or not know? Do we want to know to ease our discomfort? Or should we consider our not-knowing is given for the purpose of expanding our character and humanity.

We cannot feel good about an imaginary future when we are busy feeling bad about an actual present. When we try to overlook, ignore, or set aside our current gloomy state and make a forecast about how we will feel tomorrow, we find that it’s a lot like trying to imagine the taste of marshmallow while chewing liver. Daniel Gilbert – Stumbling on Happiness

Perhaps we might do ourselves a favor and acquiesce our need-to-know so we may apprehend how to exist meaningfully…in what each moment reality reveals to us. Perhaps then we might grasp the real reason we have been given a life to live…perhaps our being and doing is for the sole purpose of living from Source…which is LOVE!

Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.
~ Eckhart Tolle ~

Lest you think me daft, may I remind you these thoughts of mine are simply the rambling, house-bound webs of perception which have rattled around in my head today. Thank you for reading them…I hope you may find some comfort from my sharing them with you. It does seem, especially in these days, that life is pure mystery, and yet I am okay believing that for truth. Really, I do believe that reality, life as we know and experience it, is actually very kind to us. When I consider how I may live comfortably with not-knowing, I make peace with what IS. Yes, the need to know is the beginning of death.

Cast your cares for stones they are,
Cast away, cast away, near and far,
Throw away, far away, small or large,
Worry not to see where stones land, for
The power of casting comes from the hand;
So cast away, cast away, cast away all,
Throw stones hard, throw stones fast,
Watch feet trample over stones cast; now
Trod across, trod across, yes, trod across brave,
Across the stone path trusting heart has paved.
Brave heart, true heart, pure heart behold,
Yes! Mystery perceive, embrace, and imbue,
Life lived not-knowing is knowing life true.
~DEBreen

The Space Between

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Think...Feel...Be....BodyWise!

As I sit here this morning in quiet contemplation, I wonder what it is that the Lord would have me know and do today; I am thinking several things at once. First, today is Friday and it lays open and bare without the structure of work or requirement of appointments. That at first puts me at some dis-ease as I am so used to having my days booked and scheduled to the full. The other strand that is floating by my awareness is that I should be heading out the door for my morning run. But it’s still a little too cool for my liking, and truth be told, I feel less than motivated to go out when I have no ‘race’ on my calendar.

There are no idle thoughts. All thinking produces form at some level.
~A Course in Miracles~

So I am sitting here tapping away on my keyboard trying to be quiet and not…

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Stay-At-Home Exercise Moves – April 13

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Walk Out to Beast Plank (for upper body strength and core mobility, hip, knee, ankle flexibility). Note: If the walk out is a new maneuver for you, perform and perfect by walking your hands on the floor a short distance away from your body and then walk them back and shift (push) your lower body backwards to finish the movement with your standing posture. Bending your knees throughout the walk out will make this move easier.

Walk out (in bare or stocking feet) to Beast Plank
Perform 3 – 5 repetitions, holding each beast plank for 5-30 seconds. Repeat 1-2 sets every other day.

  1. Stand tall, reach for the ceiling, then bend at the hips to touch fingertips to the floor. Continue walking hands out in front of your body until your hands are underneath your shoulders.
  2. If your knees are not yet bent, bend them now, and hover them an inch or two above the ground. Your back should be flat, and your hips and knees form 90-degree angles. Your feet are flexed (a nice stretch)!
  3. Hold this posture, core engaged, neck neutral for 5 to 30 seconds. Then shift your body weight behind you by walking your hands back toward your feet. Stand up. You have completed one repetition.

 

Stay-At-Home Exercise Moves – April 6

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Reverse Lunge (for balance, posture, glute/hamstring/calf strength and flexibility, core stability) Note: If the reverse lunge is a new move for you, perform this exercise without adding weight. For balance, have a chair nearby or hold a wood dowel or walking stick. If you are an advanced exerciser, add weights by holding kettlebells, dumbbells, or a medicine ball to increase exercise intensity.

reverselunge-e1586183602768.jpg

Reverse Lunge (in bare or stocking feet)
Perform 10 – 15 repetitions, 1-2 sets every other day. Repetitions can be completed all on one leg then switch to the other; or alternate legs for each reverse lunge.

  1. Stand as tall as you can with your feet spread shoulder-width apart. Look straight ahead and keep your torso (and chest) as upright as possible for the entire exercise maintaining a natural arch in your lower back.
  2. Keeping your abs engaged, take a step backward about 2-3 feet straight behind you. Raise your back heel to be on your toes while making sure your weight is on the front heel.
  3. Lower your body by bending your back knee until your front thigh is parallel to the floor. Return to the starting position and either perform all repetitions on one side or alternate backward lunge steps.

Tips:
(1) Your front knee should not pass your toes.
(2) Back knee should be close to a 90-degree angle.