A Recipe For Success

Guilt free dessert and drinks all night? Sign me up! Here's a quick recipe for success to make dessert and drinks available again, without necessarily dancing. Although dancing will maybe allow for that high calorie latte in the morning.

Here’s a quick travel workout to make it so you can eat more without packing on the pounds.  The recipe will need about 5 minutes of prep time and only 20 minutes to cook.  Prepare for 25 minutes now that will translate to drinks and dessert later.

Ingredients:

• 2 cans of soup, or similar sized/weighted object that you can hold easily with one hand.
• 1 carry on bag preferably with two handles for both lengthwise and horizontal lifting.
• Mat or towel unless you have a comfortable carpet and can lay on the floor
• Stopwatch (or clock with a second hand) so you can time yourself

Prep:

Holding your small weights (cans of soup) in your hands, start jogging in place for 60-120 seconds.  The goal is to increase your heart rate to about half of what we are going to accomplish in the session.  The better shape you’re in, the longer you’ll need to start to feel an increase in difficulty.  To increase circulation, take some deep breaths with your arms.  Lift both arms up overhead on your inhale, and let the arms open wide to come down for your exhales.  Incorporate 10 breathes somewhere in the middle of this beginning set.

After initial heart increase, jump up your heart rate even more by raising your knees up to your chest while jogging.  Lifting each knee as high as you can.  Try to stay light on your feet, so no one downstairs can hear you.  For an added challenge, raise your weights overhead during the high knees.  Stay at high intensity for 15-30 seconds before returning to your mid intensity jog for half the length from your warm up.  If it took you the full 120 minutes to feel any sort of change in intensity, your jog interval will be 60 seconds and your high knees interval will be 30 seconds.  If you felt an increase in difficulty at 60 seconds, your jog interval will be 30 seconds and your high knees interval will be 15 seconds.  Alternate 6 times.

Keeping weights in your hands, extend your arms to either side of the room keeping your elbows in front of your shoulders and at a height that is lower than the shoulders.  Your feet are parallel hip width apart and your knees are soft.  Start to make small little circles with your middle fingers, as if you are drawing a circle on either side of the room.  Your palms start facing down towards the floor.  Keep circling for 30 seconds.  Then, reverse the circles and turn your palms up towards the ceiling.  Repeat 4 times.

Place your luggage bag on the floor with the handle facing you.  Straddle the luggage.  When facing your luggage, make sure your handle is above your knee and below where a short skirt would hit your thigh.  The height in relation to your body will determine whether you keep the bag horizontal or vertical.

• Bend your knees, keeping them behind your toes, as you stick your butt out to grab onto the handle of your bag.  Make sure both palms face your body and elbows able to open wide.
• With a deep exhale, extend your legs and bend your elbows out to the sides of the room to lift your luggage.
• Carefully bend your knees keep your elbows bent to return the bag back to the floor.  Extend your arms, lift your chest and return to starting position.  Repeat 8 times.

Kneel on the mat with your right leg forward and your left leg back.  Both feet are hip width apart (even though they are not touching) and both knees are at 90 degrees with the middle of the foot lined up with both your knee and your heel.  Tuck your back toe under and stand up, keeping your front knee a little bent.  Keeping your chest lifted, your back knee leads the way as you lunge down, and on an exhale draw your back knee to your chest.  Inhale to lunge again.  For an added glass of wine, as you draw your knee to your chest, jump off your front leg.  Than land and press back to your lunge.  Do 20 on each side.

Lay on your mat and cross your arms over your chest as if you were a mummy.  Try to keep your arms crossed and your heels connected into the mat.  Nod your chin and curl all the way up to a seated position.  Then roll back down again one vertebrae at a time.  Try extending your arms if the mummy position is too much.  If this isn’t available to you yet, place a belt around your feet.  Slowly lower yourself one hand at a time down the belt as you roll down.  Then climb up the belt one hand at a time to roll up.  See how little you can use the belt to complete the exercise.  Complete 4 full roll downs.

On the last one, swing your legs around and come into a high pushup position.  Hold this plank.  Keeping your hips equal, bring your right knee under your body and point it towards your left elbow.  Do the same on the other side.  Keep going alternating sides 20 times each.  Then 10 times bringing the knee to the same side elbow as fast as possible for mountain climbers. Repeat 4 times alternating between opposite sides and parallel.

Congratulations.  You have officially earned yourself Starbucks and dessert!

So I wrote a blog for one of my amazing friends named Patricia.   Patricia has the best travel blog out there called Fresh Traveler.  It's all about promoting sustainable tourism.  She's been on a Yoga retreat in Mexico, Thailand and so much more.  This is a quick 30 minute work out you can use to re-charge your battery.  Use this after a trip holiday shopping to recover from Christmas music, or as a retreat from family and loved ones when you feel you've just been loved a little too much.

As I wrote this blog I began to realize how little I wanted to read the blog.  I wanted someone to read it to me, so I could actually relax.  I'v done just that and more.  I recorded myself teaching the class with my own original piano music playing in the background.  Enjoy and find your Zen.  Just click here or follow the link below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/c1v7nczz22vjjnl/thankszennedmusic.mp3

Step 1:   Lay on your back, with your knees up, and feet flat on the mat.  Your middle toe should line up with your collar bone and your heels. Arms rest long by your side.  If your back is uncomfortable, you can place a pillow under your head or place your feet on a stable raised surface.

Step 2:   Focus on your breathing.  Inhaling through your noes, and exhaling through your mouth.  Feel the positive and fresh air of your surroundings fill your body, channeling your air where to the areas that you need the most.  Exhaling through an open mouth, feeling any tightness, or pain in your body release.  Focus on channeling the positive air in through your noes, and expelling the negative air out through your mouth.  Remember, in Pilates, breath initiates movement.  The next 20 minutes, everything you do, you perform with a purpose, deliberateness.

Step 3:   Place your hands on your low abdominal, even below your belly button.  Exhale really deeply forming the word Haaaaaaah.  Pronounce the H like someone from France.  See if you can feel your abs pull up and in.  It's not just in (although you can do that), it's up and in.  Think as if you are pulling your abdominal all the way up your spine, through your torso all the way up the crown of your head.  This activation, without even moving, will give you the ability to feel the difference between initiating from your core, verse simply using your brute strength.

Steps 4-6: Pelvic Rocking:  

4.  Now use this exhale to rock your pubic bone up towards your chest, flattening your lower back on the mat.  Try to do this without engaging your butt muscles.  Think all front of the body.

5.   Inhale and slightly arch your lower back.  While doing this notice your lower ribs.  You want to think about these as pulling down and together like a triangle.  We always tend to think about our ribs in front.  It's time to start to think about ribs as in back as well.  The ribs angle in opposite directions, encasing and protecting, your major organs like the heart and lungs, Think about two trapezoids, with the wider bottom being your shoulders, and the shorter bottom being your ribs.  They naturally sit as trapezoids, but if you think about it, you can exhale, and turn the bottom shorter line into a triangle point both in the front and the back.  Think about melting them together.  No, going back to our arch, try to keep your ribs down and together, like a triangle point.

6.   Now, find a place in between the extreme up and down of your pelvis.  This will be your neutral position.  I'm not going to define it as I want it to be unique to you; a place where you feel comfortable.  This is where your pelvis will remain.

7.   Repeat Step 3 maintaining your newly established neutral pelvic position.  Repeat and then use this breath to initiate the movement for the rest of the work out.

Step 8:   Marching:  Use your exhale to lift your right (R) leg to table top.  The definition is: Knee above the hip at 90 degrees with shins perpendicular to the floor.  This can be changed.  If you feel this in your lower back or the top of your hips/thighs, pull your knees closer to your chest.  This move can be more difficult for people with less flexibility or lower back issues so be careful.  Continue, alternating sides using your low abdominal to stabilize your hips.  Try to keep your weight equal on both sides of your body.

Step 9:   Table Top: Flatten your back with your abdominal the same as in Step 4.  Then exhale one leg at a time into table top.  This is when you may need to make some modifications. Here's a refresher: 

1.   Modification for Table Top: Pull your knees closer to your chest

2.   Modification for Table Top:  Drop your heels towards your bottom decreasing the angle at your knee.

3.   Modification for Table Top:  Place a small towel under your lower back

4.   Modification for Table Top:  Rest your feet on an elevated surface.  Some exercises will work here, others won't.  The only other alternative would be to skip table top exercises, which is totally possible without missing much at all!

Step 10: DOUBLE LEG TOE TAPS:  Now keeping your table top, hinge your legs towards the floor without arching your back or letting your stomach push into your tee-shirt.  Exhale to lift both legs back up.  Repeat as desired.

Step 11: SINGLE LEG TOE TAPS:  Now keeping the same range of motion, alternate sides.  Allow one leg to lower and exhale to lift it up.  Then do the other side.  Try to only move one leg at a time.  Repeat as desired.

Step 12: WINDSHIELD WIPERS:  Exhale both legs up to the ceiling.  Feel free to bend your knees if need be.  You want your ankles over your hips.  You can always do this next exercise in tabletop.  Keeping both shoulders and head pointed up towards the ceiling, drop both legs to your right side.  Use your exhale to lift both legs back to the ceiling.  Repeat on the left side.  Repeat as desired

Steps 13-15:  Abdominal Crunch: 

13.  Clasp both hands and place them behind your head.  Your feet can return back to starting position.  Lay on your back with your hands clasped behind your head, at the base of your skull.  Before even curling up, press your head back into your hands for a shoulder stretch.   Flap your elbows in towards your midline and away slowly for a shoulder stretch.

14. Find a place where you can see your elbows in your peripheral vision (while looking at your knees).  Now, press your head into your hands once more, but this time feel your shoulders releasing down your back.  Feel your underarms activate and your biceps.  Then, maintaining the activation of your arms (to support the weight of your head) curl up the head neck and shoulders. 

15. Inhale, pushing your head back into your hands feeling the back of your neck lengthening and any pressure releasing away from your neck.  On your next exhale curl up a little bit more.  Repeat steps 14 and 15 four times.  You will basically do an abdominal curl up in four installments, pressing your head back in between each extra lift.  Keep in mind; you don’t have to go very high at all.  By pushing your head back into your hands, you will be creating extra weight.  You can further intensify the exercise by maintaining your neutral pelvis from laying down to the full sit up.  You’ll notice it will want to tuck up.  This will do nothing for your lower abdominal.  It’s hard, but worth the extra effort in the end.

Step 16: Plank Prep: Come into an all 4’s position.  Place your hands under your shoulders, knees under hips.  Cat/cow a couple times to find your flat back or comfortable back position.  Once again, not too rounded, not too arched.  Tuck your toes under, so you can grip onto the floor with your toe creases.  Lift both knees the tiniest amount off the mat.  The lower your knees rest (without touching the mat) the harder the exercise.

Step 17:  To make your Plank Prep a little more difficult we can incorporate the same exercise we used earlier; Marching.  Float your knees of the mat using your abdominals, same as in Step 16.  Now simply float one foot off the mat, and alternate sides trying to keep your weight stable.  There should be no changes in the position of your lower back throughout the exercise.

Step 18: Booty Leg Kicks:  Knees stay under the hips as before, but you can rest your wrists. Place your forearms on the mat, but try to keep the back of your neck active and long.  Extend one leg straight back behind you, all 5 toes on the mat.  Place extra weight on the same side arm.  Use your oblique to keep from collapsing into your stabilization hip.  Below is the rest of the exercise series.  Be sure to repeat on both sides.

1. All 5 toes extended behind you.  Simply lift and lower your back leg keeping all 5 toes pointed towards the floor.
2. Keep your leg lifted in line with your hip (a little lower if you feel your lower back).  Without shifting your hips, pulse your leg in towards your mid-line.  Then extend the leg away from your center.  Nothing moves but your leg and it stays at the same level, or lower, than your hip.  Your inner thigh connects when you cross over your middle.  Your outer thigh works when you take it away from your middle.
3. Extend your leg straight back behind you. Exhale and lift your belly button to the ceiling as you pull your knee into the chest.  Round your back as you draw your knee in towards your stomach, pulling your belly button away from your thigh.
4. Bend your heel straight up to the ceiling, and raise the roof.  Flex your foot and pulse straight up without arching your back.  You should feel this in the gluteal fold and lower abdominal.  The gluteal fold is another word for your butt shelf, or the banana of your bottom.  Where the butt meets the thigh.

Step 19:  Full Plank: Keeping both forearms on the mat, extend one toe at a time behind you.  All 10 toes down and lift into your plank position.  Hold as long as possible.  Repeat on each side.

1. Side Plank Variation: Place one forearm on the mat so it’s perpendicular to your torso. You can either stack or stagger your feet parallel to your forearm.  Lift your hips and raise your opposite arm up towards the ceiling.  Repeat on both sides holding as long as possible.  The goal is 90 seconds.  Of course, feel free to start smaller and work your way up.
2. Reverse Plank Variation: Sit with your legs extended long in front of you, your forearms on the mat by your sides.  If you have knee issues, bend your knees and place your feet flat on the mat.  With an exhale, lift your hips off the mat so your support is your legs, abdominals and forearms.  For an added challenge, incorporate your marching from step 8.  Lift one leg at a time and alternate without shifting your hips or your torso. 

Step 20: Pilates Push Up:  This can be done in an all 4’s position, kneeling plank, or full plank on your hands and toes. 

1. Start standing against a wall with very little space between your butt and the wall.  Nod your chin and start to peel your spine away from the wall one vertebrae at a time without allowing your bottom to lean back.  If you need to start a little further away from the wall to make this possible.  That's fine.  Progressively get closer to the wall as you continue to advance through Pilates.  Just know, if you feel like you’re about to topple over face first, you’re doing this part of the exercise perfectly.
2. When you can’t roll any further, safely bring your hands to the floor and in three big hand-steps, walk out into your plank.
3. Slowly bend your elbows, coming into the bottom part of your push up for the count of 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, and 3 Mississippi.  Then hold at the bottom for the 3 Mississippi count.  Lift up again for the count of 3 Mississippi's.  The slower you go up and down, the harder the exercise.  Start with one push-up.  Then do 2 pushups the next time you walk into your plank.  Be sure to incorporate the roll up and roll down as this one of the hardest parts of this exercise.  Continue to at least 5 pushups.  Repeat starting at the number you finished, and continue back until you are at 1 push up again.

Pilates... with an injury

Summer is the time for injuries.  If your like me, you get one every year.  This year, it was a broken wrist, last year a sprained ankle, the year before dislocated collar bone...  Summer is the time we're active after a long winter cooped up inside.  It's expected that a few of us will over do it.  Below are some quick and easy modification so that you too can stay active, even injured.


MODIFY: To change an exercise to make it accessible to you.

Certain Pilates exercises are modified for ability, but you can also modify for injury.  A nice example is plank.  Obviously this will not be done on hands if you have a broken wrist.  A nice modified version is to place down your forearms instead.  This is nicer to the wrists and hands and disperses the weight more evenly throughout the arm.  If you are experiencing difficulty with toes, drop down to your knees.  If you are experiencing knee issues or lower back, feel free to take the plank to the wall.  Hands/forearms go against the wall.  The feet are as far away as you can support.  The closer together the legs, the harder the exercise.

Another option is to simply invert the exercise.  A common exercise we do in Pilates is in the all 4's position.  Opposite arm and leg extend at the same time maintaining your alignment in the back, shoulders and hips.  A nice way to make this accessible to knee injuries and wrist injuries would be to flip it.

Instead of being in the all 4's position, you can lay on your back with knees in table top and arms to the ceiling.  Opposite arm and leg reach away while the pelvis and ribs maintain neutral.  These exercises are identical.  Simply rotate the picture to see for yourself.  The flipped version may even feel harder at first since the floor provides nice feedback to feel your form.

Equipment can be harder to modify, although there are both ankle and wrist straps available depending on your studio.  In case those are not an option, you can use a yoga strap to help connect you to things like the roll down bar or the other straps.  Simply tighten the yoga strap both around your arm and the equipment.  You can also use the strap for climbing a tree or open leg rocker to help connect the leg to the arm.

If you are using equipment and it hurts to have your legs resting on the mat, simply let them dangle off the sides during tower.  You can also let them rest over a barrel instead of placing the feet directly onto the floor.  Try a lighter weight for footwork or feet in straps before omitting completely.  Sometimes just taking down the weight can make the exercise accessible.

Range of motion exercises, or ROM is a nice alternative for when certain exercises like rowing or footwork just don't work.  They can feel boring and easy, but ROM is so important. ROM exercises will give you the same muscle recruitment without any chance of injury.  It keeps you moving and makes it so you are less stiff when healed.  Most important, it helps maintaing circulation through the extremities.

At any point you feel pain while performing any exercise (even ROM), STOP IMMEDIATELY!  It's one thing to stay active while injured.  It's a totally different thing to cause trauma to an injury.  The ultimate goal is to help the healing process by integrating Pilates exercises to the best that they can be performed.  This is what Joseph (Pilates) did when he was in the prisoner of war camps with his German comrades.  That's what gave birth to the first piece of equipment ever invented; the Cadillac.  This was basically a hospital bed with springs to enable the injured to exercise.

Exercise leads to better circulation which can then lead to healing faster. Just know how far is too far and be sure to listen to your body!

Are you a Duck or a Pigeon?

No, I'm not talking about birds.  I'm talking about your feet.  Look down.



Do your feet turn out like a duck?

Do they turn in like a pigeon?

 Maybe one foot is duck, one foot is pigeon?

This is what my feet look like. Strange, right?  Not so much.  It actually has much to do with our pelvic stability (contrary to scientific beliefs).

Science says we are born like this.  Whatever direction our feet point is genetic.  Pilates, and other movement principles, tells us something different.  The direction our feet point in actually tell us a lot about our postural alignment. There are multiple reasons why your feet may turn out like a duck.  Some of them are:

1. You keep most of your weight on your baby toes.
2. Your inner thighs are not as strong as your outer thighs.
3. Your gluteus maximus needs to be strengthened.
4. Your outer thighs or IT band needs to be stretched
5. Your hips are externally rotated.
6. Your calf muscles are tight and need to be massaged or stretched to release the tension.
7. Bunions on your big toes getting in the way and/or making it painful to utilize the big toes.
8. A drop in the arch from your baby toe to heel.*

More often then not, your reason for duck feet is a combination of all of these possible options and possibly more.  Everything in our bodies is connected.  Therefore, one misalignment, like duck feet or pigeon toes, can cause other issues: hip, shoulder, thigh and ankle.

Some possible reasons for having Pigeon toes:

1. You keep most of your weight on your big toes.
2. Your outer thighs are stronger than your inner thighs.
3. Your inner thighs are really tight and need to be stretched.
4. Your gluteus medias, or side butt, needs strengthening. 
5. Your hips are internally rotated.
6. Your calf muscles are tight and need to be massaged or stretched to release the tension. 
7. Bunions on the baby toe getting in the way and/or making it painful to utilize the baby toes.
8. A drop in the arch of your foot from your big toe to your heel.*

If you are half duck, half pigeon, you are just like me and most athletes that mostly turn to one side. Golfers baseball players and  are the best example of this.  In both sports, you swing one sided.  Of course you'll have the few switch hitters, or switch golfers (not sure how true that is for golf), but predominantly the sport is one sided.  

When you twist, you utilize one inner thigh, and one outer thigh.  This is the lateral system of the pelvis.  Basically, think of your pelvis as a bowl being suspended by four sticks (your legs).  Your left leg outer thigh is one stick, your left leg inner thigh is the other.  Your right leg inner thigh is the next stick, and then the right leg outer thigh is the last stick.  

When you turn to the right, you stabilize your pelvis with your left outer thigh and right inner thigh.  When you turn left, vice versa.  If you only turn right, most likely, your left toe will pigeon and your right will duck.  This is me. A lefty will feel the inverse, right foot is a pigeon and the left is a duck.

If this is you, don't worry.  Believe it or not, this is the easiest alignment to fix.  Simply start turning the other way.

The goal in proper foot alignment is to have your knees and heels line up with the space between your first and second toe.  Your weight should be distributed between big toe, baby toe and heel (tripod of the foot). 

*To understand the three arches of your feet, check back next week.