Wrestling and Playing

The Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith loved wrestling and stick pulls. He also loved to get on the floor and play with his children. It is said that he "did more for the salvation of mankind than any man, except Jesus Christ". While priests of other sects criticized his enthusiasm for physical sport, he sanctioned it, saying that the mind is like a violin string, it needs to be relaxed between periods of serious mental thought.

I remember a seminary teacher who got on the floor and wrestled with a boy in our class. I remember thinking that something was seriously wrong until I saw both of them stand up grinning from ear to ear, red in the face. He probably was my favorite seminary teacher.

In any case, if you want to be in shape, and you have kids, get down on the floor and tickle, wrestle, hug, roll, make shapes for them to crawl through, and go down the slide at the park with them. Enjoy your body.

Nutrition For Us All

I ran across this site this morning when I googled "herbal tooth". I was amazed at the stories and wanted to share.

http://herballegacy.com/Herbal_Tooth.html

Up on your toes.

Today I fell off the step, almost twisted my ankle, bumped my arm on the wall and fell face down on the floor. The point of this story? Just take note of that almost. I was lucky. Now this never happened when I was in dance classes, for this reason: I had strong ankles. Strong ankles come from being up on your toes all the time. This is not something you have to do as part of an hour long workout or gym session where you try to work every muscle imaginable. You can do this anytime. It is fun to twirl around and try to do leg lifts while up on your toes, strengthening your calf muscles, ankles and shins. Walk around in high heels - but don't trip, or better yet, just pretend those heels are there and you can't come down. The result is that you will be less likely to twist your ankle and your legs will look great, at least from the knee down.

Why you're not losing weight:

This article was particularly good because it addresses things that we don't always think of. It uses common sense. http://health.msn.com/weight-loss/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=100213228&imageindex=1

More Pilates

Hooray! I won a total body toning kit for doing a testimonial for Ana Caban. She liked it! She says my kit is on it's way, I am that much closer to being so buff.

Sweat

Need I say more? Sweating is good for you, and it is a sign that you are getting in shape. Just make sure to get enough fluids.

More Walking

Here is a walking workout you can try. There are three different levels, one per page. Enjoy!

Click here to get walking.

Don't beat yourself up!

I have a dear friend who used to berate herself. "How did I let myself get that way." You don't do that any more, do you? In any case, whenever you catch yourself with these thoughts, replace them with "look how great I'm doing now" and a few push-ups, situps, jumping jacks, whatever. Just get going.

5 Minute Office Workout

This guy has some great tips and sound advice. I love that he uses facts and logic to help people stay in shape.
5 Minute Office Workout

Pilates

I love pilates. I did it when I was pregnant. Sometimes my back would pop back into place while I was doing it. Ana Caban, whose dvd I use (Beginning Mat Workout) got into it because her back was severely injured. If you want to get a great body and relax your back all at once, this is a great program. The dvd has a 25 minute basic workout and a 12 minute power workout, so it is very easy to fit into my schedule. Sometimes the kids like to climb all over me while I do it. For the most part I just let them and call it resistance training, and meanwhile they have fun.

Click here to order from Gaiam

Walking

"Pioneer children sang as they walked." and so did the women, and the men, and the elderly, and when they circled their wagons at night they played music and danced because God wanted them to.

I think walking is a great way to be able to test your endurance. I tried this yesterday and I think I did pretty well. Other than a few small blisters (I walked all over town for two hours), I handled it and do not feel too shabby today. I didn't dance last night, but overall I think I got a pretty good workout.

Father's Day Fitness

Click here to read this article from MSN health & fitness.

Take it slow

Doing exercises in slow motion works a different kind of muscle and yields faster results. So rather than pumping through your workout as fast as you can, slow down those reps and feel the burn.

Powerful Push-ups for girls

Ok, this really is not a mystery, at least for me: any exercise that is difficult and does not damage your body is great for you. The only time in my life I was overweight was at Snow College. I was already dancing 2 hours a day - lazily, due to my disillusionment with the drill team - no excuses. I put on a crushed velvet outfit for a performance, looked in the mirror and thought "I look pregnant." I am not unnecessarily harsh on myself, I really did look a month or two along. Well enough of that. I started doing 50 push-ups every night. A month or so later I was back in dancer shape. End of story.

Ok, we can't all do 50 push-ups. Yet. I made myself. Slow, even if it took 10 minutes, I got through it. I allowed myself to push up to an upside down V, but I made the rule that my weight must be somewhat evenly distributed between my hands and feet at all times.

If you do this and you hold your body right, it is a very intense total body workout that is relatively short. It usually puts me in the mood to exercise, which may be why it worked for me down at Snow. But whatever else I did, I kept doing 50 push-ups every night for 4-5 years. Somewhere I slacked off and I am working my way back up. I don't do this every night, as I have learned taking a few nights off allows muscles to heal and build up. I am up to 30 push-ups. How many can you do?

Thunder in my Thighs

Keep this on your mind, because thinking about exercise a lot will lead to doing exercise. Here is one simple exercise that you can fit in throughout your day because it is tough, but you control how tough it is. Sit (without the support of a chair) against a wall and, so you are not using your back to hold your body up, do reverse crunches. Lean forward to almost 45 degrees and then press back until your back almost touches the wall. This will take less than a minute unless you are in incredible shape. Figure out how many times you want to do it in a day, keep a chart, and eventually you may work up to even a minute. The key is to do it on a regular basis.

Have contests with others to see who can do this for longer. If your kids are old enough, this could build a fun memory. It could even be a hoot with other peoples' kids, so you teachers, no excuses. It just takes a minute and could wake everybody up. Besides, the mind works better when it has fresh oxygen.

There. I just did twelve sitting reverse crunches. How many did you do?

A Simple Six Pack

What would my blog be without links to great fitness articles? This one is well-written and encourages healthy habits - a great bonus in my book.

The Six Habits for a Six-Pack

Chicken Legs

I decided to write this blog because of an experience I had while working at a gym several years ago. I was going about my duties, racking weights, etc. when one frustrated young man carped about not having the legs he had been working for. "I max out on the leg press all the time", he grumbled, "and my legs never get any bigger". My initial answer was to stare at him blankly and walk away. I had no idea how to help and I felt sorry for him. So sorry, in fact that I thought about it and the gym was shut down before I came up with a solution: be a soccer player. No soccer player that I know of has ever complained about chicken legs. They all have shapely, well-proportioned bodies, and while they may hit the gym to supplement their workout, most of their work is on the field doing competitive drills and actually playing. So unless you are into power-lifting, here is your option.

The other solution is to get off the leg press and do real squats. This engages your 'powerhouse' or core muscles, which in turn allows you to build your thighs and hamstrings. Without the core muscles to support the extra weight, your body can not handle huge legs and thus does not allow that much muscle to build. Pretty smart, huh?

Body Building for Dummies and/or Brains

So you want to have a perfect body, huh? Well here's my blog. Every day (or at least most, I may pick up a life someday) I will inundate you with facts, tips and joyful phrases to help you in your pursuit. If you don't know a push-up from a pull-up (the exercise, not the diaper), then this is the site for you.