What’s a quick way to get that core working?

If you’ll remember, one of my favorite lazy person tips is to breathe in and out all through your nose to activate three core muscles. 

However, I gave that tip to a new client recently and he was struggling a little bit with the execution.

The next workout he said, “I have a solution to learn to breathe through my nose!”

The title of the email might give it away…. But the video is above if you need the answer! 

Working like mad to get the website bugs fixed and looking forward to opening up the group training program soon… thank you for your patience!

Here’s to balance, strength and lazy person core happiness!

🙂 Laura 

 

 

On Wednesday, I talked about my brother and his back pain from just leaning over, and hoped that was the end of it.

That same day, I called him and asked him why he wasn’t at the mountain snowboarding.

“My back is still a little sore, so I decided to stay home and take care of it here,” he said.

I of course asked, “Well, what did you do?”

He replied, “Well, I did a 10 minute cold plunge, deep breathing, hot tub, went for a run, but now I want to lift weights and I think that might hurt my back so I am hesitant.” 

I said (again, as you will recall I asked him about this last time we talked), “Did you warm up before your run?” 

“Yes,” he said, “I did a couple stretches for 30 seconds or so.”

**sigh**  *More about the stretching part on Monday.*

I said, “Did you do anything for your glutes? What are you hesitant about doing?” 

So I talked him through various exercises, and he sent me the 30 second video above with his results. 

This isn’t just a story about my brother- it applies to everyone! 

Happy FriYAY!

-AND-

Thank you so much for all of your responses. 

I can’t tell you how excited I am for this group training project to almost be complete. 

It has been a long road, but I am excited to see how it goes. 

Hope you have a great weekend!

Here’s to balance, strength training and happiness!

🙂 Laura

Quick Announcement and a favor….

I’ve got that audio fixed from Friday’s video (ugh Mercury in Retrograde strikes again!!) and will pop the link below.

But first I need to ask you a favor please….

After what feels like a zillion delays, we are really close to wrapping up our long-awaited group training program. 

I am looking forward to releasing it in early May. But before we do, I have to ask 2 really quick questions. Can you help me out, pretty please? 😊

With sugar protein (ha ha!) on top? 😊

You can answer the questions here (and get a little more detail on the program) at this link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1g5DA9vad_HsbW4CptzZDW5dM_WLSG6LCuRlG5xVV84Q/edit

Now: here’s the link to the fixed video from Friday (thank you to everyone who reached out to let me know it wasn’t working) so you can find out the answer to my second question!

 

Thank you in advance for your help, Just Muscles SuperStar SuperFans … you make the day brighter! 😊

Here’s to balance, strength, and life out loud happiness,

😊 Laura

The other day I got a SOS text.  “Laura! My hip is killing me. Any chance we can squeeze in a session? Even just 30 mins?” You know I can’t stand when people are in pain, so of course I squeezed him in, as I try to do whenever I get SOS texts.  Turned out it has woken him up at night, and he had been trying to manage it but hadn’t gotten much sleep in the last couple days.  I asked him to point where it hurt, and he pointed to the front of the hip bone. I was immediately suspicious of that wicked bossy quad, because that is where it attaches.  So, we got to work on breaking it loose, and it turned out I was right…  the hip was fine, but the quad was ridiculously tight.  Fast forward 10 days, and I asked how it was feeling. “Better, but still really sore,” he said. “What? Still sore? What exactly have you been doing for it?” I asked. He was doing all the things- ice, infared, rolling, etc. Then I asked one more question.  What was the question I asked that sealed the deal to make it feel significantly better?  Watch the 1 min video above to find out! Here’s to balance, strength, and FRIYAY happiness! 🙂 Laura

Watch the left heel compared to the right heel. 

What a difference, eh? 

Left heel is super cattywampus and tracking on a diagonal, while the right side tracks straight. 

When I asked my client if he could feel any difference between the two sides, he could not. 

So, I made this video for him and texted it over for him to watch. 

“Wow,” he said, “that left side isn’t working the same way at all.” 

Yup. 

That means that the left leg doesn’t get strong in the same way the right leg does, and if we don’t correct this I’m letting him get strong asymmetrically and doing him a huge disservice. 

Hence the value of someone keeping a sharp eye on your workouts… they can see discrepancies that you might not be able to see or feel! 

However, it is something I see all the time: 

You get so used to having a certain body part move a certain way, that it feels “fine” and “normal” when it is anything but. 

What do you do to keep an eye on things? 

Here’s to balance, strength and happiness! 

Laura 🙂

Hope you had a fantastic start to April with April Fools Day!

I did not play any jokes on anyone, but I did make a passing remark to my client Debby and she took it to heart. I never know what stories are going to stick with people, and this one apparently stuck!

I was telling her how when I was training for marathons, my right knee used to start to pitch a fit. Now, a “normal” person might say to themselves, ‘Oh, poor knee, we should stretch you, and rub you, and maybe rest you. All this running can’t be good!’

*INSTEAD*

I said to myself, “That damn left hip! Causing problems for the right side again!” Sometimes it shows up as a sprained right ankle, sometimes it is sciatic pain down the right hamstring, or right low back, and sometimes it is this knee thing. Almost always on the right side, and again, a “normal” person would say that is the ’trouble’  side of my body.

I know it is actually the workhorse side of the body, and the left hip specifically is on vacation. This causes the right side to complain, so what is the solution?

In this case, I decided to hop down the road on my left foot to try and get that left hip working again. Debby heard that story, and while walking her grandsons to school got some low back pain on the right side. She decided her left hip was also not cooperating and decided to not hop, but stomp on her left foot harder as she was walking along.

She said it “helped really quickly…10 steps and really was complaining less!” How about that! A little stomping on the opposite side of the body that hurts, and *voila* you get some pain relief. I love this!!

Hope that helps you in a paradigm-shifting way.

Speaking of hopping, I wore my bunny costume on Easter to go snowboarding and that’s your hopping inspiration above. 🙂

Here’s to balance, stomping strength, and hopping happiness,

 

🙂 Laura 

I love when I hear from Just Muscles fans! 

This was in response to my “are you nauseous”  post and might be something you need to hear…

“Laura,I don’t know if you’ll get this but I want to say, “thank you” for this post! I have been having lots of Gi issues and heart arrhythmia (some of it is related to a new autoimmune diagnosis) but I’ve noticed much more tightness around my mid back too. 

I’ve actually been getting acupuncture treatments for it. I haven’t been very active for years due to feeling unwell but am realizing that this whole thing is a viscous cycle and I’m becoming less flexible and feeling far too old for my age (almost 47). 

Going from a person who couldn’t live without the gym to one who is thinking she’ll never be able to get back in one again has been heartbreaking, but I know if I don’t do anything, nothing will improve.

Your post came a just the right time. Such a great reminder of taking pause to listen to our bodies and making connections. Legs up the wall today😀

Many thanks,

Katie”

UGH! Nothing worse than feeling old or older than you are. 

I had the opportunity to go tubing with my family over the weekend and I was particularly impressed with my 81 year old dad who went tubing right along with us. 

I caught some video of my daughter and my dad on a double tube above- oh my heart! 💚🧡

It’s 11 seconds and it will make you smile 😊 

Don’t let your body make you feel old – I think that’s very fixable! 

Here’s to balance, strength, and youngster happiness,

🙂 Laura 

All week long we have been looking at knees that twist in when people are moving… from a professional male runner to a midlife lady and a very young girl.

That means that knee problems aren’t two things that most people think they might be:

It isn’t a gender thing. 

It isn’t an age thing,

Most people conveniently blame those two things (and others!) as the potential source of the problem.

The video today is of an older woman I observed going down the stairs, and it made my knees be sore just watching hers.

Remember, we want those knees to be like hinges and work like a door.

You can see how uncomfortable the twisting of the knee is, and how difficult it makes it to come down the stairs.

You can also see the potential for other things: losing balance, missing a step, etc.

Check out your knees: what direction are they going? 

Happy FriYAY! Hope you have a Hoppy Happy Easter if you celebrate!

😊 Laura

Friday and Monday we saw videos of knees that were doing things other than tracking straight ahead. 

Our Olympic marathon hopeful Conner Mantz has a left knee that really turns in,and my client Elizabeth put stickers on her knees to help illustrate the direction they were going. 

Their feet hit the ground, and their knees turn in. 

What direction are knees supposed to go? 

Straight ahead: you want them to be like a door hinge. 

If your knees don’t work like a hinge, then they can complain, and that can be a reason they hurt. 

Have you watched your knees in a mirror or had anyone video you?

 You’ll just want to put some stickers on your knees (Elizabeth used the edge of her book of stamps!) in the middle of the kneecap. 

Watch them walking or running, forward or backward. 

They will show you what the truth of the matter is! 

The video above is another example of how knees can really turn in and impact how someone moves. 

If you are amongst the fortunate ones who have knees that turn in and don’t hurt; lucky you! 

My concern is if you get sideswiped or step off a curb wrong or hit a banana peel…you don’t have things lined up to absorb the misstep.

Then simple things like missing a step can become Olympic events for joints. 

That’s no fun! 

I am on the mountain today celebrating my birthday – see you Friday!

Here’s to balance, strength, and straight ahead happiness,

🙂 Laura 

This week we have been talking about asymmetrical abs in very lean, fit men. 

We used poor Jake Perry & those hot Australian firefighters as an example. (Don’t know what I’m talking about? Check out Wednesday’s email!) 

Isn’t it amazing? 

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. 

We are using the very obvious six-packs in these guys to illustrate a bigger problem:

Their hips are not level, and therefore their abs are off. 

Simple as that. 

Is it fixable? 

Yes! 

So how do you get hips to level out? 

One big hip leveling muscle is one of my absolute favorites: the hip flexor. 

The next question then becomes:

How do you know if your hip flexor is working? 

The video above is a little test for you to find out! 

The moral of this week’s story is: 

Great abs start with level hips! 

Happy FriYAY!

Here’s to balance, strength, and rockin’ abs (actually level hips which aren’t so sexy but SO USEFUL!!) happiness,

🙂 Laura