Focus Friday: BOOTY

Focus Friday: BOOTY

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Two moves:
Curtsy lunge
Bridge with kick

Your butt is your largest and strongest muscle in your body so it’s important to work all of the tiny muscles in there!

These moves fire up your abductors, your outer thighs.

On the curtsy lunge keep your, planted leg with the the weight in the heel and spread your toes for support – ALWAYS keeping your knee over your ankle. Angle your lunge behind the planted leg and curtsy – adding the kick is COMPLETELY optional! That adds another degree of difficultly! Once you master the curtsy lunge try adding the kick!

On the bridge with kick – bridge up and keep your core tight and glutes engaged. Bring one leg under and out and it will really fire up your abductors!

Try doing 4 sets of 12 of these using just your body weight!

Your “inner thigh” and “outer thigh” muscles  are the adductor and abductor. The inner thighs are called adductors, – to remember this, think you move you leg back toward your body – you’re ADDing it back. The abductors are the outer thigh muscles that bring the leg away from the body.

It important to strengthen these muscles because they keep your hips even. Having weak adductors and abductors can result in compromised stride length  and in turn the walking/running gait is hindered and increases the risk of injury.

As we age, it is important to keep the adbuctors and adductors strong to prevent falling and lessen the risk of hip and other lower body injuries.

Tuesday Technique: Lunges

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Form is very important! Here are the basics to doing a proper lunge.
– Knee over ankle
– Back straight (dont lean forward)
– Core tight
– Weight in heels
– Squeeze your glutes on the up and tuck hips under
– Exhale on the way down, Inhale on the way up

Help yourself succeed

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This quote is applicable in many facets of life and we can easily correlate it to the fitness world. If you surround yourself with people that have similar attitudes and views on healthy and active living you are more likely to succeed in achieving your fitness goals. If you prioritize spending time with people who aren’t committed to the gym, eat fast food, and regularly invite you to happy hour then your progress will remain limited.  It is much easier to live an active lifestyle with people that call you up for that morning run or have found a new quinoa recipe that they want to try with you.

Help yourself succeed by preventing the outside temptations and replacing them with positive ones!