Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Exercise with a twist

One of my coworkers was sharing with me a bit of advice that a personal trainer friend of his was saying. It seems to make sense, so I'm going to share with you all. He was saying that the folks who have nicely defined abs and obliques spend such huge quantities of time exercising, that it really isn't practical for the rest of the human race. Each muscle group needs to be worked individually, so you'd have to perform many different exercises for sustained periods of time. There's just not enough time in a day for most of us to keep up.

According to this guy, the solution to keeping your midsection fit in the least amount of time is to work a twist into your running or walking. When we run or walk, we usually keep our bodies fairly straight as we propel ourselves forward. Try twisting your upper body with each step you take.

I gave it a try and found it wasn't difficult to incorporate a little twist into my walk. The hardest part was remembering to do it. I would often get to thinking and revert to my normal walk. After walking my usual distance, I found myself breathing slightly harder than when I walked without twisting. More muscles being worked means more oxygen is required. This is great, because it took no extra time than if I were to walk normally. You should give it a try.

4 comments:

Maggie said...

Ya know, you could really have something there. Especially if you threw a punch when you twisted. Right punch, left punch. I might have to try that. (when I'm alone, of course)

Geeky Dragon Girl said...

The more you throw into your routine the better! Work out more body parts in the same amount of time. It's why swimming is so effective. Pretty much everything gets worked.

Sarah said...

Sounds like a great tip, will have to give that a try when I'm toning up the baby weight in a few months.

Geeky Dragon Girl said...

Yeah there's always the "looking silly" factor. I personally wouldn't punch the air in public either. But I do a slight twist when I go out for walks. It's not as noticeable and looks less goofy than those power walking people with their rolling hips.