Today’s skills are working on some gentle movements. We talked about shoulder mobility last week. Today, we will try some more things to loosen up tight shoulders. Holding the arms straight out to the sides so you look like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, and with palms facing the floor, make small circles moving the arms forward. Then go backwards. Now make big circles going forward and then backward. Then flip the palms up facing the ceiling and do it all again.
Another skill is marching in place. Simply pick up one foot, set it down, and pick up the other foot, set it down, repeat for the number of reps. Only pick your feet up as far as comfortable so you don’t lose your balance. If that is not available to you yet, do this from a chair. Swing your arms as you march. The higher the foot raises and the more exaggerated the arm swings, the harder the movement becomes. Work to your own pace.
A third option for movement is knee raises. Raise one leg with bent knee to waist height and tap the top of your knee with your hands. Repeat on the other side. Again, if your balance doesn’t allow for this much, raise your leg less or do the exercise while seated.
Now, we come to squats. There are over forty different types of squats. So there are many ways going forward to play with this basic movement. Today, we are working with the simple air squat. We will go to a target. A squat consists of standing upright, and then bending your knees and lowering your upper body (with chest held high and not looking at your feet) and then standing back up.
Start by standing tall with feet hip distance apart. As you lower, your knees track slightly outward, if they drop inward, you are torquing your knee and we don’t want that. It will help if you have a target, such as a chair, to know when you are adequately lowered. Then, “pop” back up. By holding your arms high, straight or bent, it will help to keep you from bending forward – a goal for this movement. If a chair is too low, put a pillow on it. If you are unsteady, grab a second chair and put it in front of you to use for balance. If all this is too much, simply don’t go as low and do more of a dip. We start where we are.
Today’s workout:
WARM UP
arms straight out from shoulders
palms down: 6-8 small forward
6-8 small backward
6-8 big forward
6-8 big backward
palms up: 6-8 small forward
6-8 small backward
6-8 big forward
6-8 big backward
CIRCUIT
2-3 times
5-7 air squats to a target
6-10 knee raises (4-5 per leg)
10-12 steps marching in place (5-6 per leg)
rest as needed
All of the workouts I post are what I think can work for you. If they are too much, cut back. If they are too little, add more. The idea is to move in a way that enables you to carry out more of your activities of daily living with greater ease. I want to create a bit of friction, a hard thing to overcome, without creating a mountain or roadblock.
When I was doing CrossFit, and the workouts were written for someone much younger than me, I would often scale the movement or give myself a “senior discount” and do fewer reps. I’ve only had one coach ever argue with me about that and I listened respectfully and figured she was right. I then scaled the movement, but kept the rep scheme. I got a good workout, which has always been my goal. I hope it is yours, too. Do what works, but make sure you are working. You are stronger than you know.
Stay balanced.
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