Call Today! 860-748-7574|maggie@personaleuphoria.com
FacebookXInstagramYouTube

Plank Form

I always tell people to KEEP MOVING but one of the best exercises you can do involves no movement at all. I’m talking about planking. Planking may seem like a fad when world leaders are doing it (remember Canada’s Prime Minster Trudeau planking on a desk?) and the world record for longest plank is over 9.5 hours. But the research on the benefits of planking is so significant that the US army swapped out sit ups for planks this year!

Benefits of Plank

What they found is young recruits flinging themselves up and down to crank out as many sits ups as possible were injuring their backs, using other muscles besides their abdominals, and basically by-passing the ab muscles. (I should note: sit ups don’t have to be a bad exercise when performed with proper form, but at superspeed it’s hard to do them properly.)

In plank, no other muscle is going to pick up the slack. Your abs are going to do the work, or they are not. According to research, planks activate more ab muscles and engage them more intensely than sit ups. So, you build strength, definition, and endurance. […]

Plank Form2022-05-21T23:04:36-04:00

Do You Really Need to Exercise?

Please don’t get me wrong. This is not an article about how you shouldn’t exercise.

It has an important role in our health and wellness, but exercise is not the only way to move and stay healthy. What’s really key is physical activity.

All exercise is physical activity but not all physical activity is exercise. Exercise is the traditional, scheduled, planned, intentional movement you think of when you consider running, weight lifting, and of course your favorite Pilates class (join me through Glastonbury Parks Rec Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:30 to get your virtual fill of that). Physical activity is any movement that activates the muscles and expends energy. That’s pretty much every movement.

Many large, multi year studies show that the more physically active someone is the less likely they are to die of all causes, including cancer and diabetes. In addition the more physical activity we are the happier we are and the less likely we are to develop Alzheimer’s. And it’s a sliding scale. Add a little bit of physical activity and you’ll live longer and grow happier. Adding more only increases the benefit. That’s where exercise can […]

Do You Really Need to Exercise?2022-05-03T17:01:20-04:00

How Many Steps A Day?

Many of us believe we are supposed to walk 10k steps per day. The truth is that there has never been research to back that up. The number comes from a 1960’s, Japanese ad campaign for the first pedometer. Clearly the campaign worked because we’ve all been believing it ever since.

But now we have three research studies that indicate, perhaps to some people’s delight, that we may not need 10k steps for a substantial benefit. It looks like the magic sweet spot is between 7,000 and 8,000 steps. Upon crossing that threshold people decrease their chances of mortality by all causes by 50-70%.

These studies showed correlation not causation, so it is not evidence that walking makes you live longer, but people who walk certainly live longer. If you’d like to be in the “live longer” group, I’d encourage you to build up to 7k steps per day.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting if you already walk more than that (perhaps you have gotten in the habit of 10k steps) that you should reduce your goal. Increased steps was correlated with even more gains, but the most profound leap in longevity came […]

How Many Steps A Day?2021-11-14T16:40:11-05:00

The No Pain, No Gain Fallacy

We’ve all heard the phrase, No Pain, No Gain in relation to exercises.  It’s a popular expression but it is not true.  Actually, it’s potentially harmful.

 

When we think No Pain, No Gain in terms of exercise we tend to think that either our workout should be grueling, or we should be sore the day or two afterward.  If we aren’t then we presume we haven’t done enough.  The problem is working out and pushing through pain increases our risk of injury.  Once we are injured our whole workout plan can be derailed.  Plus the Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) we feel 24-48 hours after a workout isn’t practical or functional.  We are more likely to get injured then because we have to alter the way we naturally move to work around how sore we are.

 

While you can choose to only do an upper body workout every other day, you can’t not use half your body for a whole day.  We need our arms to pick up our children, reach for something off the top shelf, and open the refrigerator.  We need our legs to go upstairs, get in and out of […]

The No Pain, No Gain Fallacy2021-10-15T16:20:14-04:00
Go to Top