“There are only two options regarding commitment, you’re either in or you’re out.”
Examples that can lead to a poor posture:
Lack of exercise
Being overweight or obese
Sedentary lifestyle
Stress
Bad work practises
Picking up objects with a round back
Driving long distances
Performing exercises using the wrong technique
Improving the strength of the muscles in the back helps bring the body into balance and away from poor posture and potential pain. This is very important for both sedentary and active people. Especially for those that follow unbalanced exercise programmes.
You only have to look around to see people’s poor postures with their round backs and forward head and shoulders to appreciate how common this is. Investing in looking after your back by performing preventative exercises can avoid a future of pain and injury together with better aesthetics.
An excellent exercise that can be done at home for the posture is to lie face down on the floor keeping the chin tucked.
Toes should remain on the ground.
If you have a large curve in the low back when standing – tense the backside muscles together throughout the exercise.
As you bring the head and upper body off the floor simultaneously bring the shoulder blades together. Your arms should be out by your side with palms facing away from the body with thumbs pointing up towards the ceiling.
The extended position should be held for a total of 3 minutes, hold for as long as possible without losing technique. Your toes should remain touching the floor throughout the exercise.
The holding position may be broken down into less time followed by a brief rest until 3 minutes total time has been reached in the extended position. For example, 30-second hold followed by a 30 second rest and repeated 6 times or 10 seconds hold followed by 10-second rest repeated 18 times.
If your posture isn’t as good as it should be then this exercise could be done everyday preferably at the end of the day or at the end of your regular workout. The reason for this is if you have poor posture and were to perform this kind of exercise before your workout or at the beginning of the day then the postural muscles would be in an even more of a weakened state. This would make poor posture persistent and possibly worse than normal.
Lifestyles need balance especially when exercising intensely a few times every week. Tough workouts require adequate rest otherwise energy reserves run low and the mind and body become stagnant. It is important to listen to the responses from each workout and act accordingly. Not only will it help prevent injury but will keep energy and enthusiasm high.
The best ways to look after your body between workouts is to make sure you eat a proper diet, stretch tight muscles, get enough sleep and find time to relax.
My motto is this, if you are following eating guidelines and they aren’t working you are either being conned or you are conning yourself.
There is no giant step that does it.
It’s a lot of little steps.
The downside to exercising on a piece of gym equipment designed for a particular movement is that you burn fewer calories and work fewer muscles than if you were to do the same exercise using free weights. This is due to the fact that machines allows you to perform a fixed movement without using the body’s stabilising muscles. This can lead to a weak core, an imbalance in musculature and a poor posture.
Using free weights requires more effort and a greater recruitment of muscles particularly from the core and a higher calorie demand.
Cable machines allows you to move in a three-dimensional plane providing the benefit of free weights. Movements outside the parameters of the common gym machines have the greatest carryover effect and can help you in work, sports and life’s tasks.
Are you finding it difficult to get your new diet & exercise regime off the ground? What follows is a different approach that will guarantee to motivate you.
Write down what you want to look like. Describe your goals and compare it to where you are now. Make two lists. You should end up with a before (where you are now) column and a column where you want to be i.e. what you want to look like.
Now this is the important bit, you need to join the before and after column by writing down steps that will help you achieve your goal. These steps are the nuts and bolts of your success.
Once you have written all this down and the changes you would like to see it is easier for the mind to believe and accept it is possible.
Doing the above will give you a powerful psychological advantage and all of your efforts will take a giant leap forward. This is made possible by having a plan and a path to follow. According to my research this is a routine almost all successful people have used regardless of their goal.
Anyone wanting to lose excess body weight & fat can get initial results on almost any fad diet. Whenever an overweight person changes their diet for a calorie-restricted diet they are restricting the types of calories that are making them fat in the first place. This is the main reason for any change in body composition from dieting. But the responses from fad diets are short-lived because they fail to recognise the importance of combining the right food groups at each mealtime. Eating protein with carbohydrates helps to stabilise blood sugar levels and prevents the fat storing mechanism from kicking in. The ratios and quality of these foods are just as important.
Note that I didn’t mention anything to do with the number of calories or counting anything. The main reason for this is if you are failing to combine the right carbohydrates and proteins every time you eat then the amount of calories however moderate they may be won’t be enough to help you.
If you want to learn more about this contact me to book a free consultation.
The number of daily calories isn’t the priority when it comes to weight and fat loss. The quality, the type and how they are combined come first. If you fail to set this standard you risk hormonal challenges that will keep you fat and tired. I know what you are thinking, diets can give quick fixes but I can assure you for long-term results you have to step away from counting calories.
Next time I will talk about how people get results following mainstream diets and why they can’t sustain it.
Reducing calories and increasing exercise doesn’t work for long-term weight loss and fat loss. It’s not practical to keep reducing calories or to keep increasing exercise volume when results stand still. If this was the case how come so many people on low-calorie diets are still fat and gym members fail to get the results they want? If this sounds like you – look out for tips coming this week.
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