Exercises I am newly in love with

[flexagon]

1) Do a handstand against the wall, then walk sideways on your hands for a few feet. Walk back to where you started. Since the wall helps you balance, this is primarily a strength move, but also teaches you how to shift weight sideways into one hand. At least, that's what I hope it's teaching me.

2) The stability ball pike. The woman I first saw doing this at the gym was going even farther than the guy in that video, getting her hips all the way over her shoulders to turn the position into a half-handstand at the end. This move is evil: abs, balance, and shoulder/chest strength in one. I tried that variation today after already working on handstands for a while, so my shoulders gave out and I ended up dropping myself on my head, but I could feel the burn in my abs starting well before that happened.

3) Single leg stiff-legged deadlift:



This requires flexibility, strength in the standing leg, strength in the back of the lifted leg, exquisite balance, and a sense of humor. I'm definitely adding it to my lower-body workout -- I really like the way it makes the hamstring work when it's extended. Cruelly, if you look at how the balance works, it's clear that the more weight you want to lift here, the more flexibility you'll need in the standing leg.

Comments

[flexagon]

I know! The text accompanying the picture (it's in Oxygen magazine) said to bend the standing knee slightly, but if there's a bend in that picture it's damn hard to see it. OTOH, you really can't use much weight with this variation anyway.

For abductors there's always "the gingerbread man" -- stand with feet together and arms out in a T, then shift weight over to one foot (say, the left), and start tipping your body over sideways to the left as the right leg lifts. Go as far over as you can, keeping the whole body in a plane and lifting the right leg as high as you can while keeping the right toe facing forward. It's harder than it sounds. I always think I'm working the leg that's up, but then it's the standing leg that turns out to be near cramping....

[bluechromis.livejournal.com]

Actually, in retrospect the sl dl one is basically the same as the one I already do, reaching down to touch the floor on one foot and then coming back up, but I think the whole "ooh weighted exercice" moment I had threw me off. Frankly...um, I can already only do like 50 reps before my hip is burning (and that's in sets of 10). I don't know what it is about those abductors of mine...very uncooperative. Anyway, I'll probably try it with weight anyway and see how it goes.


As far as the gingerbread man goes, isn't that kind of like a yoga pose (I can't remember the name of the pose)? There is some yoga pose with a sideways lifted leg that I found to be a great hip workout, and yeah, on the standing leg.

[flexagon]

50 reps!? I haven't tried that, but Jesus, that sounds like a lot to me. My hip would probably burn too. You're hard on yourself, girl.

I just did 10 on each side with an 8-lb dumbbell in each hand, just to try the motion. I didn't feel a burn, but I did find balance difficult.

As for the yoga pose, you're thinking of half moon pose. The difference is in the rotation of the standing foot. Two years ago I couldn't do that at all because my standing hip would cramp almost instantly... now I can. So, squee. :)