Exercise News

Finding the Right Sports Bra

Sports bras are dangerous creatures, willing to squeeze, compress, chafe, wrestle and even bite unsuspecting female chests into submission. As any exercising woman knows, just getting them on and off is a workout in its own right, and feeling the pain of in ill-fitting sports bra can turn an already challenging workout into a disaster. Finding the right sports bra is often as perilous and soul-sucking as finding the right pair of jeans or the right bathing suit. Contemplating the racks and racks of bras with straps and hooks and lung-twisting elastic can be enough to bring even the most stoic woman to her knees. However, there are ways to make the process a little easier. I consulted with Haidee Johnstone of Leading Lady, a company that specializes in lingerie for mothers-to-be, new moms and full-figured women, for tips on how to find the right sports bra, including clues for how to know when the bra you're trying on isn't such a good idea. You can find these tips in my ... More >>

Exercise and Weight Loss Lesson of the Week: You have to find your own exercise recipe

I never learned to cook growing up, so the first time I was on my own, I called my mother to ask her how to make biscuits. After lamenting her failure as a mother for not teaching her southern daughter something so fundamental, her instructions were to take a handful of this and a dash of that, then pour in some buttermilk and stir it until "it looks right." Those vague directions (that turned my first effort into very effective paperweights) are very much like exercise guidelines. Take a handful of cardio, add in a bunch of strength training, throw in a dash of flexibility and stir until it looks right. So, how do you know when it's "right?" We have the guidelines I mentioned, of course, and I've put together any number of programs (weight loss, weight gain prevention, and getting healthy) to help make the process easier but, in the end, figuring out how to exercise comes down to the same thing I needed to learn how to make biscuits: Practice. And, in my ... More >>

Exercise of the Week: Pushups with Side Plank

Last week, I blogged about the idea of incorporating core work into traditional strength training exercises, namely with pushups and pikes on the ball. Because I'm on a core kick lately, I wanted to highlight another favorite combination, which also includes pushups. I find pushups to be excellent (my clients would insert the word "excruciating" here) work for the core and you can add even more excruciating excellence by adding in a side plank. This exercise works everything, with a particular focus on the obliques as you rotate to the side and send the arm up in the air. You can modify by doing the pushup on your knees and then keeping one knee down in your side plank. You can also add intensity by holding a light weight in each hand as you lift the arm up. Do it right: Get into pushup position on the toes or knees. Do one pushup and as you come up, shift your weight on the left side of the body and rotate to the side while bringing the right arm up towards the ... More >>

Resolution Check-In: How are you doing on your resolutions?

I was listening to a local radio station recently and the host mentioned a survey suggesting that most of us will abandon our New Year's Resolutions by January 9. If you don't have a calendar handy, that was 21 days ago. I don't know where that survey came from or whether it's true, but I did notice a sharp drop in motivation after the first week of January. In fact, I didn't even have to fight for a parking space at the gym in January, which makes me wonder if some of us have already given up. As we near February (or, as some call it, "Oh-my-gosh-winter-will-never-end-will-it?"), I'm wondering: How are you doing on your resolutions? Or, if you didn't make formal resolutions, how are you doing with your exercise and diet in general? Are things moving along for you or are your resolutions already toast? Vote in this week's poll and then leave a comment telling us how you're doing. What do you need to keep going as we slog through the rest of this winter?

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