Balance

What’s the word?

The word is balance. We have to balance when we walk, what we eat, our checkbooks, family time, work time, work-out time and “me” time; it just keeps going on and on, balance, balance, balance!

The problem is we have so many things we are worried about and place a priority on, that we tend to get ourselves out of balance easily and very quickly. Coming from the fitness perspective it is difficult to make changes and have effective workouts if you are not focused, centered and stable during exercise. This absolutely translates over into everything else in life. We need to find that spot where movement is fluid and concentrated. It is from that point everything else can and hopefully will fall into place a lot easier.

When in the gym the focus should be on creating that healthy lifestyle and for 30-60 minutes of exercise, without letting everything else infringe on that time. This will provide an opportunity to release stress, increase energy and create a look and feel that can reward us with greater health and confidence. The other things that hold priority in life are much more easier to take if we feel good about ourselves.

Make the list of your priorities and then try to budget your time and energy to create the balance you want for you. Give your health a top priority and give something good to yourself first so that those other things in life won’t be able to knock you off center and take you out of balance.

Tune into our website http://www.primetrainingonline.com/ in August to learn more about how balance revolves around your core.

Crunch Tips!

Most people complain that their back and or neck hurt when doing crunches so here are a few quick tips to help you out.

Press the low back into the floor as if you are trying to touch your belly button to your spine. Keep your abs tight when crunching up and down, don’t loosen up when you go back down and just flop to the floor.

Continue pressing the belly button into your spine and your low back pressed to the floor. A little trick to get you out of the neck is to bend your head forward and use your chin to hold a tennis ball, a towel or something small between your chin and chest. If you are throwing your head all over the place this is an easy way to keep that head still.

One last thing is to stop going up so far with the movement. Abs are supposed to flex the spine not throw your torso off of the floor. Shorten the motion. If you feel your feet jumping off the floor or moving around you’re throwing from your back and trying to go up too far. If you find you are sitting on your tailbone at the top half of the exercise you are going too far. It is a crunch, not a catapult, just squeeze the abs and keep them tight, up and down, every repetition.

Hope these help!