Slept in on a rainy day? Make it up with these Core Exercises

From Men’s Health Magazine

Plank with Diag­o­nal Arm Lift
Assume a mod­i­fied pushup posi­tion with your feet shoulder-width apart, fore­arms on the floor. Keep­ing your torso steady, raise your right arm for-ward and to the right, so that it points to 2 o’clock. Hold for 2 sec­onds, then lower and repeat with your left arm, rais­ing it to 10 o’clock. That’s one rep. Your elbows should be bent 90 degrees and directly under your shoulders.

Side Bridge
Lie on your side with your fore­arm on the floor under your shoul­der to prop you up, and your feet stacked. Con­tract your core and press your fore­arm against the floor to raise your hips until your body is straight from ankles to shoul­ders. Hold for 15 to 45 sec­onds, then repeat on the other side. Con­tract your abs and butt mus­cles force­fully to keep your body straight.

Single-Leg Low­er­ing
Lie on your back with your legs extended straight up. Keep­ing your legs straight, lower your left leg until your foot is 2 to 3 inches off the floor. Return to the start­ing posi­tion, then repeat with your right leg; that’s one rep­e­ti­tion. Think about push­ing the bot­tom of your heel away from your hip as you lower your leg. Don’t point your toes; keep your foot flexed toward you. Lead with your heel.

Benefits of Plank

Plank exer­cises are a pop­u­lar ele­ment of iso­met­ric train­ing, which involves con­tract­ing your mus­cles against sta­tion­ary resis­tance. Iso­met­ric exer­cises are com­mon for injury reha­bil­i­ta­tion or recon­di­tion­ing. Iso­met­ric exer­cises, such as planks, can help you get past strength-training plateaus and improve energy trans­fer­ence between your upper body and lower body. Plank exer­cises, in par­tic­u­lar, ben­e­fit mul­ti­ple ele­ments of phys­i­cal fit­ness and your gen­eral well-being.

Strength
The plank exer­cise helps strengthen mid­sec­tion, upper-body and lower-body mus­cles along the front of your body. Planks also strengthen inner core mus­cles that sup­port your joints.

Flex­i­bil­ity
Plank exer­cises help increase flex­i­bil­ity in pos­te­rior mus­cle groups through­out your body. Your shoul­der gir­dle expands and stretches var­i­ous mus­cles around your shoul­ders, col­lar­bone and shoul­der blades. Press­ing the front of your thighs upward and length­en­ing your legs as much as pos­si­ble stretches the ham­strings that form the back of your thighs. Plank exer­cises also stretch the arches of your feet as your toes hyper­ex­tend to sup­port your weight.

Aes­thetic
Plank exer­cises have aes­thetic ben­e­fits that can enhance your appear­ance by improv­ing pos­ture. Planks acti­vate core mus­cles, includ­ing the trans­verse abdo­minis and iliop­soas, which sta­bi­lize your spine and hips.

Men­tal
Plank exer­cises might pro­vide men­tal ben­e­fits that improve your mood. Plank exer­cises stretch mus­cles that com­monly stiffen through­out the day and con­tribute to stress.  Plank exer­cises might also help to sup­press anx­i­ety. Symp­toms of depres­sion may improve if you per­form plank exercises.

Read more →

Four Ways to Stop the Dreaded Side Stitch

Hope all those friends had fun with a taste of work­ing out BC4C-style. Work out every day with your friends in June — sign up today!

From Runner’s World

Few things are worse than get­ting a side stitch dur­ing a run. Here are three ways to pre­vent the prob­lem, and one strat­egy for stop­ping a stitch in its tracks:

Eat mind­fully pre-run. There are many the­o­ries as to why stitches occur, and one of them fac­tors in what and when you eat pre-run. Foods that are higher in fat and fiber take longer to digest. That doesn’t mean they are bad foods, but if you eat them within one to two hours before a run, they can cause havoc—creating stom­ach upset, stitches, and other prob­lems. Exper­i­ment with a vari­ety of foods pre-run, eat lightly, and give your­self plenty of time to digest. One person’s per­fect pre-run fuel is another’s disaster.

Invest in a solid warm-up. Going from sit­ting to run­ning speed may save you time on the watch, but it can cre­ate irreg­u­lar, rapid-fire breath­ing pat­terns, which can trans­late to you bend­ing over in pain on the side of the road (with a side stitch). Invest in two to three min­utes of brisk walk­ing, grad­u­ally work into an easy run­ning effort, and then into your planned run­ning work­out pace. Doing so will increase the qual­ity of your work­out and decrease the risk of stitches that arise from push­ing the throt­tle too soon.

Reg­u­late your breath­ing. Run like a swimmer—with effi­cient breath­ing pat­terns that are in sync with your body. Swim­mers can only breathe when their faces are out of the water (obvi­ously), so they focus much of their time learn­ing their breath­ing tempo and match­ing it to the rhythm of their stroke. Run­ners can ben­e­fit from the same tech­nique by match­ing their breath­ing to their strides—inhaling for two to four strides and exhal­ing for the same. The faster the pace, the shorter the sequence (fast pace = one or two strides per breath, slower = three or four strides per breath). This can not only pre­vent stitches, but also improve the effi­ciency of your oxy­gen trans­port. Plus, it’s a great way to keep in touch with your run­ning effort lev­els with­out a watch.

Slow down and exhale to release the stitch. If you still get another side stitch, imple­ment this strat­egy and it will go away in sec­onds (I promise). Slow your pace and exhale as the foot on the oppo­site side of the stitch strikes the ground. This doesn’t mean every time that foot hits the ground, but as you exhale, do so in sync with that oppo­site side. When you exhale, you use the mus­cles of your diaphragm. When this hap­pens in uni­son with your foot strik­ing the ground, the impact forces travel up the body and through your core (your side too) and exac­er­bate (piss off) the mus­cles in spasm cre­at­ing that stitch. When you change the side of the land­ing forces to the oppo­site side, the ten­sion caus­ing the stitch releases. For exam­ple, your stitch is in your right side. You slow your pace, and exhale as your left foot is hit­ting the ground. Voila! Side stitch is his­tory and you’re run­ning with­out swear­ing once again.

Happy Trails!

Coach Jenny Had­field is the co-author of the best sell­ing Marathon­ing for Mor­tals and Run­ning for Mor­tals. She is a nation­ally rec­og­nized speaker, writer and endurance athlete.

App Thursday: Daily Ab Workout

Sup­ple­ment boot camp with ab work!

Daily Ab Work­out is a great 5 to 10 minute daily ab rou­tine for men and women that steps you through ten of the best ab-sculpting exer­cises. These proven exer­cises, demon­strated by a cer­ti­fied per­sonal trainer, tar­get all major abdom­i­nal mus­cles. Spend­ing just min­utes a day can strengthen your core and tone your abs.

The routine’s sim­ple inter­face, com­plete with video and timer, allows you to eas­ily fol­low along and under­stand each exercise.

Com­pat­i­bil­ity
iPhone
iPod touch
iPad

Cost
FREE

Learn more →

Master the Plank

From Active​.com

There is no exer­cise that works your abs more effec­tively and effi­ciently than the plank. All of your abdom­i­nal mus­cles (trans­verse, obliques and upper) have to work together to sta­bi­lize and sup­port your entire body weight.

It also engages your glutes, shoul­ders, lats, arms and legs. Almost every mus­cle in your body is being toned and tight­ened when you per­form this power move.

Get ready to flat­ten and tone your mid­sec­tion in as lit­tle as 60 sec­onds with all the vari­a­tions of this super pose.

Mas­ter the Plank

Before you try some of the more cre­ative poses it’s essen­tial the you mas­ter the basic pose.

Remem­ber:

1. Draw your navel towards your spine. Think about really pulling your belly up, no sagging!
2. Don’t over­arch your back. You want your whole body from the top of your head to your ankles to be in a straight line.
3. Engage your glutes. This will help you keep that straight line.
4. Keep those angles at a 90 degree angle. This helps your entire body stack correctly.
5. Don’t col­lapse into your shoul­ders or let them rise towards your ears. Pulling your abs tighter will help you direct the hold to your core instead of your neck and upper shoulders.
6. Keep your gaze about 6 inches in front of your face. This will keep your neck from straining.
7. Work up to a 60 sec­ond hold, focus on per­fect form. If you need to rest dur­ing your plank drop your knees down to the ground and then rise back up again into the pose.

Plank Vari­a­tions

Once you’ve mas­tered the basic plank, check out these fun and chal­leng­ing takes on the basic movement:

Oblique Plank: Mov­ing your legs while hold­ing the plank increases the work your lower abs and obliques have to do, plus it gets your heart rate up burn­ing a ton of calories.

Side Plank: Shift­ing the plank from one arm to two forces your obliques and lats to engage– say good­bye to love handles.

Moun­tain Climbers: Want to tone and tighten your abs while ramp­ing up your heart rate? Try this fast paced ab move as a car­dio inter­val between strength moves.

Exer­cise Ball Planks: Doing this bal­anc­ing exer­cise on an unsta­ble sur­face dra­mat­i­cally increases the chal­lenge to your core by forc­ing it to tighten and lift to sta­bi­lize your body.