Happy National Fitness Day in the UK!
The USA has a National Fitness Day in May.
Shoot! I guess I missed it!
Last week I talked about the one exercise I would do if you didn’t have time to warmup.
You do have time to warmup, you just need to carve out a tiny tiny bit of time.
Remember our friend the bear crawl?
One of my clients Julie took my advice to heart, and sent me a photo of her exactly replicating the exercise on a big log over the Hudson River.
That was funny! 🙂
She is super funny and both she and her husband Mike have been workout buddies since the pandemic.
I think it gives them an advantage as they have recreation time together, and are each other’s accountability partners.
I do love the idea of working out with a friend or a group that you can join regularily.
Remember, that group coaching program is coming up.
Love to have some fun and work on painful spots and give you strategies to use the rest of your life together.
In the meantime, do you have any burning questions that you’d love to see answered?
I haven’t asked for any feedback lately, so shoot me a question if you have it!
In the meantime, think about those people in the UK celebrating their fitness day.
How would you celebrate that day if you weren’t in the UK?
Here’s to balance, strength, and happiness,
: ) Laura
Happy World Dream Day!
Yesterday I was at the first of two soccer games, and one of my teammates Mia had her neck spasm on the field.
As in, couldn’t turn her head without turning her whole body.
To my amazement, she continued to play the game as best she could.
At halftime, she said, “I need your help,” and so we jumped into trying an exercise to take pressure off the neck muscles and give her the ability to turn her head again.
Now, my teammates have grown accustomed to someone asking me for help, and tend to stop what they are doing to listen to what I am talking about this time.
When she said her neck was tight, there was a general murmur amongst the nearest players to us, and they all nodded that their necks were perpetually tight, too.
I also noticed the body language of those players: it is what I call the ‘international tight neck’ signal.
Whereby you reach up and grab that tight spot with one hand, move your head around a little, and grimace.
I’m sure you’ve seen this happen countless times.
So, we tried the exercise, and it took some, but not all the tension out.
Enough to turn her head more than she had been able to previously, and then it was time to take the field again.
What did I have her try? The video is above, and we did a version of that.
If it is your dream to have a pain free life or to not panic that your pain might strike at any time and you will be forced to stop what you’re doing, consider joining the upcoming group training program.
I am going to bump the start to mid-october for a bunch of reasons and it will run 27 days.
Here’s to balance, strength, and dreamy happiness!
🙂 Laura
Don’t have time to warmup?
Yes you do.
Take a tiny chunk of time (and I mean tiny!) and do one thing.
How about a really fast warmup exercise that uses every muscle from your hands to your toes?
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it before…
Don’t groan…
Remember, we are thinking super time efficient since you “don’t have any”.
I am talking the bear crawl.
There’s one big mistake that I see people make all the time, and that is to mistakenly move like an elephant instead.
Both cute animals, but differ in one way.
What do I mean by that?
Well, watch the <1 min video clip above to find out the trick.
Cheers on this Elephant 🐘 Appreciation Day and Happy FriYAY,
Here’s to balance, strength, and happiness,
🙂 Laura
Happy National Indoor Plant Week!
Did you become an indoor plant enthusiast during lockdown?
Good for you, but get back outside now!
I’ve been outside playing soccer on the weekends with my teams, and inevitably someone comes up with a sore something that needs some immediate attention.
Last week it was an inside of a knee that was the problem; this week it was a deep hip tightness.
In both cases I used the exact same exercise to address both sore spots.
What was the exercise?
Watch the 3 minute video above and learn all about it.
Get outside! Get moving! Your plants will love to see you refreshed and invigorated.
Here’s to balance, strength, and happiness,
🙂 Laura
Yesterday was National Women’s Friendship Day.
As a busy working mom, I felt like I rarely had time to see my friends.
Now that I’m a bird launcher (as opposed to an empty nester!) I make a point to schedule workouts with different friends nearly every day.
Mondays I see my friend Heather, Tuesdays I have my soccer friends and strength (we call our group the Hard Core crew!) friends, Wednesdays I have my track team, Thursdays are more soccer & strength, Fridays are my friend Tara, and Saturday mornings are long runs in the forest with Carol, Holly, Tiffany, Margaret, and any others who join in.
This makes for some incredibly fun time socializing, staying current on big and little events in each others lives, and celebrating birthdays.
Most importantly, it’s extraordinary accountability.
I don’t miss workouts because I don’t want to let my friends down.
I don’t miss workouts because I don’t want to miss out on the fun and camaraderie.
In return, I don’t miss workouts & stay pretty darn fit as a result all the while having fun.
I often think about not going due to missed sleep or too much to do, but then I know I’ll be sorry.
I believe deeply in this group power, which is why I’m launching a new group coaching program the first week of October.
If this sounds appealing to you or someone you know, just reply to this email.
Do you have workout buddies?
If not, shoot that friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with and see if you can’t schedule a walk or hike or run in the forest.
It could just be the start of a new fantastic weekly social (exercise) time!
Today’s video is how to think about exercise like medication…
Here’s to balance, strength, and accountability happiness,
Here’s to balance, strength, and accountability happiness,
🙂 Laura
Have you heard of Gua Sha?
Happy Collect Rocks Day!
I was interested in getting after tight spots in wrists and ankles and elbows, but the foam roller wasn’t doing the trick.
Too big.
I turned to another idea: Gua Sha.
Gua Sha is an Eastern practice whereby you use tools and lotion to massage small areas that might be too little for a big foam roller.
Traditional Gua Sha tools include water buffalo horn and jade. Have some of that at home? 🙂
Maybe you’ve seen jade rollers for Gua Sha style facials…
At any rate, you want something firm and somewhat smooth for your tool of choice.
I think river rocks work great, so I grab one out of my garden.
Western medicine took Gua Sha and re-named it SYSTM and ASTYM, and they use plastic spatulas and other shaped tools to accomplish the same thing.
Further, I saw a YouTube video where a man took a jar of Vick’s VapoRub and used the lid from the rub to do the rubbing.
You get the idea: lots of ordinary items around the house are good choices.
So, if you have a little tight spot in a little area, you just put lotion on it, take your river rock, and dig in towards the heart.
I demonstrated this in the video above for tennis elbow, and hope it helps for those tiny areas that need a little loosening up love!
Happy FriYAY and Rosh Hashanah for those who celebrate!
Here’s to balance, strength, and happiness,
🙂 Laura
Happy Positive Thinking Day!
One of my most un-favorite statements that occasionally roll off my client’s tongues is: “I can’t”.
I immediately interrupt that statement with, “I’m having difficulty” instead. 🙂
I like to say that your muscles can hear what you’re saying, and this mindset will make a huge difference in how you approach getting better from an injury (physical or otherwise).
I love watching long-time clients practically choke, trying to overcome that seemingly automatic response (“I can’t” …. to “I’m having difficulty”) to adversity.
Mindset is so fascinating.
Like all things, it requires practice.
So, how else can you positively spin a challenging situation?
I often speculate aloud …
“I wonder what the blessings are” in attempt to infuse a supposedly bad situation with more hopefulness. This also opens up the possibility that something that looks detrimental initially might actually be a great thing long term.
Think of: forest fires. Oregon had a devastating forest fire that burned a significant portion of our precious beautiful Columbia Gorge.
Two years later, the president of the Friends of the Columbia Gorge was interviewed, and he said it was the best thing for the forest and that it had done important things.
I was stunned. I had read of this phenomenon before, but didn’t think such devastation was applicable this time.
And yet…it was okay in the end.
That’s another one of my favorite sayings from an unknown author:
“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
If you need to get a little stress out so that you can think positively, I enjoy using a sand-filled medicine ball called the smash ball. It does not bounce, instead it only smooshes into the floor. So, you can throw it as hard as you’d like into the floor and keep doing that until all your stress is gone.
Look at that! You get stress gone AND you get a strength workout. Very satisfying!
My friend Margaret is visiting this week, and I made a video awhile ago of her using one. She is a big fan.
Have you tried it?
Here’s to balance, strength, and happiness,
🙂 Laura
Today is 9/11 Remembrance Day.
Have you been able to visit the memorial?
It is beautiful and haunting and astonishing how quiet it is in the middle of the city.
One of my favorite parts of the memorial is the pear tree.
It was found in the wreckage, miraculously surviving the attack, and taken to a nursery in the Bronx where it was carefully tended to until it flourished again.
Then, and only then, was it brought back to the memorial to be re-planted and its story told of its resilience in the face of horribleness.
A little sign of life in all of the destruction.
It reminds me of one of my favorite sayings, attributed to Eleanore Roosevelt:
“When you think you’ve come to the end of your rope, tie and knot and hang on!”
Hang on like the little Callery pear tree.
You can do it.
Peace and blessings on this most somber of remembrance days.
Here’s to balance, strength, and hanging onto glimmers of resilience and happiness,
🙂 Laura
Happy National “Fight Procrastination Day”!
Well, I have a strategy to fight procrastination and some exciting news!
I think having a crew to workout with is super fun and very helpful in many ways.
Therefore, I am getting ready to finally launch my virtual group training program in the first week of October.
If you have ever wanted to work through your back (or hip, knee, shoulder, neck, elbow, ankle, or wrist) pain and nothing else has seemed to help… now is your chance.
If someone has told you that you need to lose weight to get your back feeling better (not true!), this program is for you.
If you worry that your back pain will strike at any time and take you out, this program is for you.
If you want to have strategies to tackle your back pain – no matter where it happens- and to feel that it is within your locus of control to keep it under wraps, this program is for you.
I am so excited to offer this program, and there will be lots of things to keep it fun along the way.
You know it has to be fun! 🙂
Shoot me an email (you can simply respond to this one if you’d like) if you’re not already on the waiting list when the website goes live to snag the limited spots.
In the meantime, I think the best strategy outside of having a crew and all of the live coaching I will be imparting is to schedule time to workout.
Just like you schedule time for meetings, schedule time for your movement.
If that movement isn’t going the way you’d like, then consider joining me in the official Hack Your Back Pain crew!
Love to have you!
More later on this, and in the meantime, schedule time for you!
Right now! No procrastinating!
🙂 Here’s to balance, strength, and happiness!
Laura
Happy Labor Day!
Fun fact: Canada, The United States, and Bermuda are the only countries to celebrate Labor Day in September. All other countries celebrate Labor Day in May.
“The end of labor is to gain leisure.” – – Aristotle
This begs the question: What can you do to increase your leisure time?
-OR- How can you end your “labor” quickly?
I think for workouts that means doing an interval -style workout.
The latest research talks about women over 45 lifting heavy weights twice a week, and then doing interval -style workouts two other days.
HIIT workouts are ‘high intensity interval training’ where you choose a short interval to work really hard, and then recover for another period of time.
How long?
That’s up to you.
Try 10 seconds really hard, and then recover until your heart rate is back down to 120 (if you happen to have something that tracks heart rate.) Try that a few times.
See how many intervals you can get accomplished in 20 minutes.
You might also consider keeping track of your workouts and your heart rate, because two things will happen relatively quickly:
Your heart rate will drop faster, and you will recover faster. That means you are done with your workout faster.
Therefore, ‘the end of labor.’
Time for leisure!
Happy Labor Day!
Here’s to balance, strength, and happiness,
🙂 Laura
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