Online Exercise Tips for Women
What is a perfect body image?
Well it tends to have toned hips and legs with a pert
bottom, a strong stomach and an open chest. Only
the genetically gifted or determined fitness freaks
seem to embody this ideal, and yet this is in fact how
everyone is designed. We all have bigger muscles in
our legs than ourarms because nature intended us to
use our legs as our means of transport. Around our
middles are muscles in a similar shape to a girdle that
hold our internal organs in the right place. Along our
spines are muscles similar to struts that can hold the
spine long.
In the middle of our body we have a big
hinge, the hips, surrounded and protected by big
muscles (thighs, buttocks, hamstrings), which help us
move around it.
So if we move using our hips as a hinge and our legs as
support they will be fitter and toned. If we then hold
ourselves upright using our "girdle" and maintain a long
spine with our "struts" we will then not tend to let our
stomachs bulge and our shoulders collapse.
Abdomen Tuck
Most of the stomach exercises we are used to performing
seem to make the abdomen bulge out, but the core
muscles of the body are made active by pulling in.
Therefore, begin by lying flat on the floor on your front.
Rest your forehead on your hands and feel the
weight of your body on the floor. Feel the front ribs
and pelvis pressing into it. You are going to try to
pull your stomach up off the floor, keeping your ribs
and pelvis down.
Begin by simply pulling the tummy up and lowering
it down. How high can you pull your stomach
up from the floor? Can you feel the lower spine
lengthen? Have you created a gap underneath
your body? When you feel confident with this,
move on.
Keep the lower ribs firmly grounded on the floor
and your hip bones and pubic bone flat on the floor.
Now pull your tummy in as high as you can. Feel
the lower spine lengthen and push your legs
straight - so straight that you feel your toes spread.
Push your left hip and upper thigh up by squeezing
the buttock and lifting your left foot off the floor.
Is your tummy still in? Repeat, inhaling alternate legs
up, exhaling them down. Can you begin to feel that
the tummy can remain in, while the lower spine is
kept long, even when you move your legs? Try to
gain control of those pulling-in muscles as your limbs
are moving.
Lengthen the raised leg from the thigh, as opposed to
lifting by squeezing the buttocks. This exercise has the
advantages of pulling your tummy in and of relieving
tension from the front of your hips - a major cause of
lower back pain. It can also lift the buttocks and add
shape in quite a short time.
Stomach Curl
The pubic lift starts in the stomach. It is very easy just
to squeeze your bottom to tuck in your tailbone,
which provides the same action. Pay attention to
the feeling of the correct action - allowing pressure
to be equally distributed throughout the body will
relieve problems.
Sit with the soles of your feet on the floor
and your knees in the air. Sit up as high as you
can, pushing your sitting bones down into the floor.
Cup your hands on your knees, so as not to use your
arm strength to interfere with the exercise.
As you roll back, point your toes into the floor and
feel your thighs work and lengthen and your knees
push down towards the floor. As you come up,
pull your heels towards your buttocks. The hamstrings
and deep abdomen will engage to pull you up.
Look down at your stomach and pubic bone so you can
see how you are moving. Using both hands, grab hold
of your lower ribs and lift them up. Now suck in your
stomach and all the muscles that connect from the pubic
bone all the way up the front of the body.
As you roll backwards, keep lifting your ribs. You will find
that your stomach will pull in as before, but now also up
into your rib cage, making it possible to feel a lift in
the body as you roll down. Try to detect the origin of
the movement in the groin. The fact that the tummy
pulls in so hard gives a feeling that the pubic bone is
lifted, which is turn tucks the spine between the buttocks
and rolls you down.
Elbow Lift
In this exercise extend through your legs to your feet,
feeling the work in the thighs. Push your chest high
off the floor so you can feel the space between your
shoulder blades. This will strengthen your stomach muscles,
and train them to hold your insides in.
Lie on your front and tuck your toes under your
heels. Place your hands together, thumbs on your
sternum, tucking your elbows in towards your ribs
and then push yourself up to balance on your elbows
and toes.
Lift your pubic bone into your stomach, as in the stomach
curl. Practice pulling your abdomen in and up
without sticking your bottom out, as that will disengage
the stomach muscles, which is the part of you that this
exercise is designed for.
Alternative: if you find this too tricky, rest your knees on
the floor, but make sure you really pull your pubic
bone up into your stomach and lengthen the lower spine,
or the hip flexors will get a good workout and nothing more.
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