Category: Fitness

Ready to take the pressure off your lower back? The key to beating low back pain is to build up the right kind of strength and we’re here to help you. 

Your core muscles—not just your abdominals, but the muscles that wrap around your midsection—support your spine and lower back. Your core, hips, glutes, and hamstrings together form one big stability machine, so weakness in any one of those muscles forces the others to pick up the slack. 

Now that we know the information around causes of low back pain, here are some special workouts and stretches that target your lower back so that you can reduce muscle strain and other pain. 

Elbow Plank

Sets: 5 | Reps: 30-second hold per set | Load: Bodyweight | Rest: 45-60 seconds between sets

• Get on the ground, with your stomach on the floor
• Prop yourself up on your elbows and lift your knees off the ground
• Tighten your quads and glutes and continue to push through your elbows and lifting your chest
• If you can’t do 30 seconds, start with 10 seconds [or] start with 15 seconds and then work your way up

Side Plank

Sets: 5 | Reps: 30-second hold per set | Load: Bodyweight | Rest: 45-60 seconds between sets

• Lying on your side, stagger your feet so there’s no pressure on your heels
• Come up onto your elbow into the side plank position, keeping your lower hip high off the ground and the core engaged
• Push through your elbow and pack that shoulder blade back
• If you can’t do 30 seconds, start with 10- or 15-second holds and work your way up gradually

Glute Bridge

Sets: 5 | Reps: 15 | Load: Bodyweight | Rest: 45-60 seconds between sets

• Lie faceup on the floor with knees bent, feet flat on the floor, arms resting at sides
• Squeezing your glutes, lift your hips until your body forms a straight line from shoulders to knees
• Pause for 3 seconds, and then lower back down to the starting position

Hip Stretches

Sets: 4 | Reps: 12 | Load: Bodyweight | Rest: 45-60 seconds between sets

• Kneel on your left knee and place your right foot forward, with your right knee bent
• Pull your left foot upward toward your butt and hold it for 10 seconds. 
• Repeat the exercise with the right leg

These are just a few exercises to help strengthen your lower back. To customize programming and help improve the strength, stability, and flexibility of your lower back, consult with one of our Personal Trainers in club and complete your Game Plan Session.

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is that it can depend based on what type of lifting you are doing and what your current lifestyle is like. And while everyone is different and everyone’s priorities are different, cardio is not something that should be ignored.

The importance of cardio

Aerobic or cardiovascular exercise is the type of exercise that works the heart muscle and is related to lower risk of cardiovascular disease and other chronic disease outcomes. The same way we do bicep curls to challenge the bicep and help it grow and get strong, raising your heart rate in a controlled way helps your heart become more efficient and effective at doing its job.

The fact is that the average lifting routine in the gym doesn’t provide enough challenge to the heart muscle, and it often gets ignored by gym go-ers with all levels of experience.

Will it compromise your ability to build muscle?

There is a fear that doing cardio will compromise your ability to build muscle and strength, assuming that is your primary goal. However, being overall more “fit,” which includes cardio fitness, is likely to help enhance your overall athletic performance even with weight bearing exercise as well.

Being more physically active in even just a moderate way, like taking more steps or doing a couple bouts of cardio a week can help you with your recovery and resilience in the weight room because of the increased blood flow.

So long as you are providing enough nutrients to your body through adequate nutrition and enough stimulus through adequate resistance exercise, there should not be a worry about some cardio severely affecting your gains.

Ways to add cardio to your routine

If strength performance and muscle building are your top priority, there are some ways to strategically implement cardio, so it doesn’t leave you too tired to give your full effort in the weight room.

Some tips include:

• Opt for longer bouts of lower intensity cardio (I.e., 30-60 minutes at a comfortable, speaking pace)
• Do cardio on off days from lifting
• Do cardio after, not before, any weight training
• If you wish to combine cardio and weights, do so on a day right before a rest day
• Start slow and do not over-do it right off the top as this will put you at risk for injury
• Raise your heart rate in a way that is enjoyable to you (run, dance, cycle, skip)

Let’s make 2021 the year we stop shaming ourselves into action.

How many times have you decided today will be the day you make a change and then at the first sign of an obstacle or a waning in motivation you throw your hands up in defeat? Or perhaps a year-long pandemic sidetracks you and jumbles up your priorities and now you feel like you’ll never be able to get the “old you” back?

Many of us may ruminate on regrets and get into a cycle of shaming ourselves for not being better which leads to punishing ourselves through exercise or restrictive dieting practices. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

We’ve compiled a list of 5 ways you can put a focus on your health and fitness without fixating on the things you cannot control or aspects that may trigger negative behaviours:

1. Wear clothes that fit comfortably

A person who reaches their goals is a confident person and you won’t find confidence in pants that are 2 sizes too small. This can be an incredibly difficult task for many as it may act as a physical reminder of body changes, but you deserve to look and feel great in every phase, body shape and size.

Feeling good about yourself is not something you need to earn.

2. Track your progress in behaviours

Achieving health and fitness goals can all be boiled down to behavioural change and so tracking progress should come down to checking in on your behaviours. Set some goals for the week and check in at the end of the week or month to see if you stuck to the plan.

For example, if you want to go on a daily walk and drink 2L of water a day, make note of these things daily and then reflect on whether you were able to do the tasks at hand. This will work better for motivation than tracking your weight or going off how you look in the mirror because they are tangible, smaller and arguably, more important, wins.

3. Measure success in performance

Traditionally in the fitness world we set milestones based on body size or weight, which can be a very fluid measure and one that isn’t always indicative of our efforts, dedication, health or abilities. Instead, determine a performance-based goal for yourself.

This can include getting stronger in a certain movement like squat or push up, improving your endurance on piece of cardio equipment, or even just getting less tired from exercise itself.

4. Focus on what is going right

It’s easy and tempting to think about where you fell short. Maybe you skipped a workout or haven’t been sleeping well, but you have been eating vegetables daily and drinking water!

As you track your progress keep a list of things you have achieved rather than just focusing on the things you did not. This will help you push forward and aim to do even better next week.

5. Understand that perfection isn’t healthy

Ultimately, it’s important to keep in mind that perfection itself is neither attainable nor healthy. Even the most outwardly healthy people have off day, months and even years. Life is not linear, our relationship with fitness is not linear and the healthiest perspective is a flexible one.

When you think of snacks, what comes to mind? It’s just a small meal that you possibly have multiple times throughout the day. Well, the concept of exercise snacking is exactly that!

Exercise snacking means splitting up exercise into smaller bite-size pieces and spread it out throughout the day, rather than just focusing on exercise for a full hour at a time.

While not many studies have been done to determine its long-term efficacy and outcomes, some short-term interventions and anecdotal evidence from those who have tried it sounds promising.

However, exercise snacking is not for everyone, so in today’s blog we’ll go over some reasons to try it or not try it, depending on your goals and current exercise habits.

Exercise snacking is for you if…

You are not currently exercising regularly

The saying “something is better than nothing” is very true when it comes to exercise. When you start from 0, even 5 minutes in your day is a job well done.

Exercise snacking can therefore be a great steppingstone for developing the habit of making time to exercise more frequently or for a continuous period of time.

You have a sedentary desk job

Sitting isn’t inherently bad for you, but rather it’s sitting for long periods of time that can have an impact on your mobility and cardiovascular health.

Splitting up your activity can help your time at work pass by faster and will act as a nice break from the screen if you are someone who works in front of one all day.

You do not have 30-90 minutes/day to set aside any days of the week

Regardless of the reason, if you simply cannot find it in your days to set aside time for exercise or go to the gym because of the time commitment, then exercise snacking is for you!

Are insulin resistant

One of the very few studies done on exercise snacking was done on insulin resistant participants who were instructed to do a relatively short bout of exercise before consuming their meals and it showed some improvement for them.

Therefore, this may be something you can speak to your doctor about.

Exercise snacking is not for you if…

You have serious strength or muscle gain goals

There simply has not been any convincing evidence to suggest that exercise snacking is superior to continuous exercise especially when it comes to those with serious progress in mind.

It does suggest a good way to stay fit perhaps, however if you have your eyes set on goals like putting 100lbs on your deadlift or gaining mass, you’re likely best off setting aside 1-2 hours for your training goals.

You are an athlete and train for specificity

An athlete’s warm-ups alone take more than 10 minutes to complete, so exercise snacking doesn’t apply well. A lot of sport-specific training has to do with building and maintaining skills and is not so much focused on just elevating your heart rate.

Specific skills need to be practiced repeatedly and to become advanced you are best off not relying on exercise snacking to help you get there.

You already exercise for 30-90 minutes a day, multiple times a week

If you are already exercising regularly and intensely, adding 5 mini workouts into your day to get “extra” exercise may be a terrible idea and potentially put you at risk of injury by placing you above your personal threshold of recoverability.

This might be something to consider for off days from the gym, or for times when work and life responsibilities get in the way of your regularly scheduled exercise routine.

Way to implement exercise snacking

Is there any right or wrong way to implement exercise snacking? The short answer is, not really, so long as it’s sustainable for you and hopefully challenges you in some way.

Set an alarm multiple times a day to remind you to get up and move. Depending on how much time you can dedicate in one bout will determine how often you should get up.

Here are some sample ways to break up your workout snacks:

• 30 minutes in the morning and then 30 minutes in the evening
• 20 minutes, 3 times a day, morning, lunchtime and in the evening
• 10-15 min exercise sessions 4 times a day
• 1-5 min every few hours

We hope the idea of exercise snacking helps inspire you to never give up on your health and fitness even when life and difficulties get in the way. There is always something that can be done to make you better off today than you were yesterday.

Happy exercising!

Join MOVATI Today and get Started with This Special Offer. Already a member? To customize programming and help you improve your training, consult with one of our Personal Trainers in club and complete your Game Plan Session or join seminars with one of our fitness professionals.