Think twice about skipping the gym

For muscles to grow and change, the stimulus must be great enough to allow the muscles to grow back stronger than before. Muscle growth happens whenever the rate of protein synthesis is greater than the rate of muscle protein breakdown. Resistance training can profoundly stimulate muscle cell hypertrophy and, as a result, gain strength.

Just a single bout of exercise stimulates protein synthesis within 2-4 hours after a workout and may remain elevated for up to 24 hours.

There’s no exact measurement as to how much muscle you can build in a month, but it’s typically between one-half to two pounds of muscle. Overall, the timeframe generally takes several weeks or months to be apparent. Greater changes in muscle mass will happen in individuals with more muscle mass at the start of a come back. Other variables, such as volume, training intensity, genetic factors, rest, hormone levels and diet, all affect muscle gain outcomes.

Commonly our muscle mass and strength increases steadily and reaches its peak at around 30-35 years of age. After age 40, men lose as much as 3-5 percent of their muscle mass per decade. And, unfortunately, studies from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging found that muscle power declines faster after age 65 for women, and 70 for men. We really can’t “stop the clock.” So, it’s important that we push our muscles as we age. Dr. Len Kravitz, program coordinator of exercise science at the University of New Mexico, happily shares that the ravages of time on muscles have been shown to be restrained or even reversed with regular resistance training.

Of course, life and unwanted stuff happens, and it’s quite all right to take two or three weeks off. Sometimes you just need rest and recovery. Yes, your ability to generate force in the muscles does take a hit. You might notice that the 10 body-weight squats you once did with ease now have you huffing and puffing. Thanks partly to muscle memory, you can get back lost muscle quicker than you thought, reverse muscle loss, and continue to progress.

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru-think-twice-about-skipping-the-gym/article_baa3bce2-79c5-11ee-9c1f-6b985a4275e7.html

Learn Hip Airplane for strong hips and stability

If you’re trying to get the most out of your leg program, you might want to try an exercise called Hip Airplane. I know a lot of us use squats and lunges to stay strong for strength in the sports we enjoy. With ski season right around the corner, you’ll need good hip function. Good hip function keeps you symmetrical on skis, or in a squat, minimizes any hip shifting, and helps mobility. The Airplane is an exercise that targets the posterior hip muscles, the Gluteus Medius and Maximus. Strengthening these muscles is important, as your glutes are key lateral stabilizing muscles of the hip and legs, including the hamstrings.

Along with teaching you good pelvic control, which can eliminate back pain, or excessive motion in your back (not good) the Airplane also targets six muscles in the deep gluteal region known as external rotators of the hip joint. Yes, squats and lunges are fundamental strengthening exercises. Your glutes have to work hard when you lift yourself out of the bottom of a squat. But squats are typically performed in a one plane of motion-up and down. Very few exercises work on the rotational aspect of a move. The Airplane does just that: it helps improve your mobility, especially if you are tighter on one side. For skiers who feel like they are tighter turning one way than the other, this can be a helpful pre-season exercise.

Airplane is also a terrific neuromotor exercise. Performing it throughout the season can improve your motor skills, such as balance, coordination, agility, gait and proprioception. The advantage of practicing most single leg exercise is that any neuromotor exercise helps solidify a connection between the nervous and muscular systems.

Hip Airplane:

To begin, ground one foot into the floor.

1. Place your hands on your hips. Ground one foot into the floor, hinge from your hips, and lift the opposite leg back.

Hinge from your hips, and lift the opposite leg back. Hold 5 seconds.

2. Open the hip about 2 inches, or as far as you can, squeezing the glute. Hold 5 seconds.


Tip- Steer the hip inward around the pelvis.

3. Drop the hip inward: you’ll feel a good stretch. Hold 5 seconds.4. Return to start.

Keep pressing into the stance foot, and fully extend your back leg, squeezing the gluteals.

5. To make it easier : Hold onto a bar or wall for support. You can also use your arms for balance.

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 Improve your motor skills with crawling and bird dogs

Watch children play outside on a lawn and you can be sure they are crawling, rolling or somersaulting. From the time we kick and crawl as infants, our motor skills continue to evolve, leading to higher physical activity over a life span. There’s a new trend in fitness programs that focuses on ground-based fundamental or “primal” movements, like crawling. Some of these programs, like Animal Flow, are exercises performed in the quadruped position, linked together in continuous sequences called flows.

If you enjoy yoga flow, Animal Flow is quite similar, though not necessary performed completely on the hands and feet, in a quadruped stance. The later promotes reconnecting with your body’s natural movement abilities, or “primitive movement patterns,” ones of our four-egged friends, to improve function of the “human animal.” Studies show that an eight-week, twice-per-week Animal Flow program, in addition to regular exercise, increased trunk stability scores, range of motion and motor competence.

Crawling lights up your muscles

If we take away the 100-mile-an-hour lawn crawl that children love to show-off, the crawl itself is a body weight exercise that improves motor control mechanisms for better balance and coordination. Adam Eckhart, assistant professor at Kean University has studied how when we are upright, either walking or running, built in motor programs generated in the spinal cord play an important role in the rhythmic coupling of our arms and legs. When you step over an obstacle, he says, the central pattern generators adapt the timing and counterbalancing limb movements to adapt to changes in stability.

Studies show that patients with Parkinson’s disease have higher sensory signals in the arms when anticipating a step obstacle, concluding that a robust arm-leg coupling awareness is very helpful. Stroke patients conversely, rely on the same motor muscle activity in their arms to counterbalance difficulty lifting a leg over a step obstacle.

Compared to walking, hand-foot crawling lights all your muscles up, especially with added speed. Loads on the shoulders, triceps, quadriceps, hamstrings and calves change, depending on the whether the hips are high or low.

Four-point kneeling dogs

If animal flow feels too intimidating, another quadruped exercise called Bird Dog, (with variations) is an important go-to. Evidence shows that these simple but important exercises aid in balance and coordination when we’re upright, on two legs. Bird Dog, (also known as the quadruped limb lift) is one of the most important exercises used in low-back stabilization programs as it targets the back as well as the hip extensors. It also teaches the discipline of using proper hip and shoulder motion while maintaining a stable spine, says Stuart McGill.

Forward crawling. Photos by Connie Aronson
Knees elevated with one arm lifted.
Knees elevated with one arm fully extended. Photo by Connie Aronson
Bird dog. Photo by Connie Aronson
Arms on foam pad, knee elevated, leg extended. Photo by Connie Aronson

Bird Dog starts in a four-point kneeling position, with a contralateral arm and leg lift. The act of raising opposing limbs changes the types of stress on the body and impels the body in the redistribution of forces in an unfamiliar way, forcing the body to adapt. By alternating the base of support, such as using an unstable upper body support, like a foam pad, research shows that you’ll improve total body joint stability, joint proprioception, and range of motion.

The goal of any fitness program is to train your body for the sports and activities you enjoy and to prevent injury. Overall, quadruped movements are simple, fun, and important fundamental movement patterns.

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru-improve-your-motor-skills-with-crawling-and-bird-dogs/article_203fff00-3701-11ee-b736-4f7a28cdca1b.html