OnFitness Magazine - September/October 2014 - 19

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AB SLIP-UPS: You're speeding through your workouts.
Fast repetitions rather than controlled and slower won't carve
out your midsection. If you go more slowly, more muscle
ﬁbers will become engaged, creating more effectiveness.
Another trick is to hold the crunch position longer rather
than quickly retracting. Hold for up to one minute.

W W W. O N F I T N E S S M A G . C O M

Weighted forward lunge:

Repeat this move for 20
seconds after which you
should rest for 10 seconds.
Perform this move eight
times for a total of four
minutes.

2 0 1 4

Jump back to the ﬂoor,
keeping both feet together.
Do not rest when you land
but instead jump right back
on top of the bench.

START BY STANDING in
front of a weight bench
with a height between your
knees and shins. Jump to
the top of the bench with
both feet.

Tabata
bench jump

N O

difﬁculty balancing while performing forward lunges. First of
all, make sure you can efﬁciently execute the forward lunge
without any added resistance.
Let your arms hang naturally at
your sides and start lunging.
If you feel shaky with your
balance despite doing only
bodyweight lunges, then widen
the distance between your feet.

This widens your base of support. If your feet are too close
together, it's almost like walking
on a balance beam. Make sure
that your feet aren't too close
together.
There's no rule that the forward lunge must be done with
feet almost in alignment. Space
them apart more. Once you do
this, you should immediately
feel an improvement in balance,
or feel that the act of balancing
becomes less challenging.
Once you have this stage
mastered, do forward lunges
with your hands folded atop
your head. This will force your
body to become more efﬁcient
with balance. It will improve
neuromuscular coordination.
Once this stage is perfected,
you're ready to hold dumbbells
or kettlebells at your sides with
straight arms. Start with light
weights and gradually increase
as you feel your balancing skills
adapt to the new demand.
Once you have no problems
balancing while doing forward
lunges with weights in your
hands, you're ready to add an
overhead press to the movement
- if that's what your goal is. If
it's not, then ﬁne; just the forward lunge itself is an excellent
compound exercise.
A variation for adding
resistance is to hold a weight
plate to your chest. There's no
need to twist your waist as you
move forward. Just hold the
plate still and proceed with the
movement.
A variation of the overhead
press is to hold the weight plate
over your head with straight or
slightly bent arms, and maintain
this position while performing
the forward lunge movement.
This will challenge your body's
balancing mechanism and will
enhance it.

another study clearly shows that
older people who exercise have
a lot more things going for them
than do older people who are
sedentary. One of those things is
fewer pills to take every day.
The report, which appears in
a recent PLOS ONE, says that
older individuals who exercise
for at least 25 minutes a day
(moderate to vigorous intensity),
need fewer prescription drugs.
Another beneﬁt is that older
adults who work out are less
likely to ﬁnd themselves in the
emergency room.
Though many people 60plus report that they're "active"
and "get plenty of exercise," a
much smaller number actually
gets consistent, moderate to vigorous structured exercise. Walking a Pomeranian around the

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HERE'S HOW TO OVERCOME

IT'S NO SURPRISE that yet

block and bowling don't quite
match the beneﬁts of training
with barbells and taking a step
aerobics class.
The 213 people in the study
had an average age of 78. The
medium to rigorous activity was
designated as swimming, cycling
or walking fast. You can walk
your Pomeranian at a fast clip,
but let's be honest: How often do
you see anybody walking a
Pomeranian at 4 mph?
The study subjects wore
accelerometers to yield objective
data about their level of activity.
To easily add more moderate
to vigorous exercise to your life,
see what happens when you
don't attempt to combine exercise with an unrelated task, such
as walking a dog or raking
leaves. Devote a time slot strictly for exercise and for nothing
else. This will force you to be
more mindful of pace and effort.

V O L

Trouble
balancing
when doing
forward
lunges?

No kidding!

Stand holding dumbbells by your
sides. Lunge forward with one leg
landing on your heel then forefoot. Lower your body by ﬂexing
the knee and hip of forward leg
until the knee of your rear leg is
almost in contact with ﬂoor.
Return to the starting position by
forcibly extending your forward
hip and knee. Repeat with your
alternate leg.

Trapezius
stretch
-----------
Place your arms behind
your back and grasp
one of your wrists with
the other hand. Bend
your neck to one side
while pulling on your
arm to the other. Hold
for 10-15 seconds and
repeat, holding onto
the other hand.

Dome squat
jumps
DOES YOUR GYM have one of

those domes or half balls? Then
march on over to it for some
squat jumps. Stand on the top
(mushy) portion of the half ball.
Make sure that your feet are
ﬂush and aligned, rather than
one foot slightly ahead of the
other. The further apart they are,
the more stable you'll be, but if
they're too far apart, the curvature of the device will stress the
outer part of the ankles.
Lower into a squat position,
then from there, spring up and
off the dome, then land back
onto it, re-stabilize and repeat.
It's advised that you do simple
squats ﬁrst before trying to go
airborne. Spring up quickly
from the squat, but don't let
your feet leave the dome.

Latissimus
dorsi stretch
-----------
Raise right arm above
and behind head as
shown. Hold elbow with
left arm. Pull arm gently
as you bend your trunk
to the left, until a
stretch is felt. Hold for
10-15 seconds. Repeat
for other side.

When you feel in control of
this, then allow your feet to lift
off slightly, and keep increasing
that lift-off until your feet are
completely airborne and you're
doing a bona ﬁde jump squat.

By three methods we may learn
wisdom: ﬁrst, by reﬂection, which is
noblest; second, by imitation, which is
easiest; and third, by experience, which
is the bitterest.

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OnFitness Magazine - September/October 2014

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