Workout and Diet Advice for Women over 45

This is the second in the series of posts I call “Tips from the Road”.   They were inspired by my extended travel during July, when one business trip started just as another finished.  And while my regular workout schedule and time were disrupted, I got ideas for exercise and or diet, which I thought would be great to share.

There are occasions when I just could not get to a gym (time or circumstance left me feeling a little frustrated in my hotel room).  Perhaps I had only 15 to 30 minutes – which is not long enough to drive to a nearby gym – and the alternative is to use the bike/stairstepper/treadmill in what passes for a “fitness center” at the hotel, and then do some abs in my room.

 Build muscular endurance with yoga moves like this one, called “plank pose into chaturanga dandasana.”  Practiced correctly on a regular basis, you will strengthen your chest, shoulders and arms as well as your core muscles.

Begin in a straight-arm plank position.  This is more difficult than the regular plan we’ve spoken about in other posts.  In this position your hands are directly under your shoulders, your arms are straight, (without “locking out” your elbows) and your fingers pointed forward.   As with the regular plank push back with your heels and draw the crown of your head forward to create a long line throughout your body.   Most important is not to let your hips sag.  It may help to think of your butt as being slight “up”, rather than feeling yourself tightening your hips and “thrusting forward” – which is definitely not the position.  Pull in your abdominal muscles to support your spine.

 Now that I have heard from my readers that the regular “plank” was either fairly easy or a good challenge ‘that made my legs shake’, it is time for the next level.

This time, after stabilizing your position you will lift up one leg while maintaining that stable posture.  Hold for a count of 10 or twenty and lower the leg.  Repeat this with the other leg.  The pictures below are really good to follow.

 First review the Basic Plank

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Do your workout friends (over) share their views on the “right way” to live/eat/workout?   Are they critical of your and others’ choices of food/exercise/lack of exercise etc?   Does this describe you? And the question is are they, and you, driven by real concern for the person being proselytized to, or is it something else?  It is worth taking a closer look.

• “People often project onto others how they feel about themselves”, says clinical psychotherapist Leslie Seppinni, Psy.D.  “If they’ve struggled with something, they can be more likely to judge, be openly critical, or even become outraged, by the choices of others.”

Continuing the review of the exercises I found in the BackPacker Magazine.   In the previous  blog post I commented on 6 of the 11 or so exercises.  So, starting in the left top corner and going clockwise we ended at the bottom of the page (Treating Muscle Cramps).  Moving on clockwise:

7.      Banishing Blisters.  Always good to read about the current thinking  – to pop or not to pop blisters?  I am sure this question has come up for most of you, even if it hasn’t exactly kept you up at night.  Seems it was settled in a much earlier BackPacker article.  And Yes you should pop blisters as long as:

In the first part of this three part article, I introduced the concept that too much of a good thing like exercise is not always a good thing.  In part 2, I outlined the signs of the addiction associated with the “runner’s high” – much like a high associated with a drug.  In case you are still asking “so what?”; still wondering what the problem is with being addicted to something as wholesome as exercise, then read on.  Working out hard will let you see results quickly, but continually overloading the body will eventually lead to negative consequences.  Whilst working out hard is good for bones, going at high levels of intensity all the time puts enormous stress on bones, joints and muscles.  

More on how to change your attitude! A University of Chicago Booth School of Business research study had one group of participants visualizing eating an unpleasant food and the other group visualizing avoiding the unpleasant food. You guessed it – the first group formed a more favorable opinion of the food, the second group, nothing. Seems we are hardwired to equate avoidance with discomfort so the more you skip those hard-to-love-squats, the more you come to dislike them. By physically doing what you may dislike, you begin to change your attitude, because the brain equates taking action with a positive outcome. So either think about how much you love squats; or don’t think about them just do them!!

In Parts 1, 2 and 3, I covered the leg workout, the chest and front delts workout, and the back and rear delts workout respectively, that I do in 15-20 minutes.  I add in 15 minutes to warm up and stretch, so in 30 minutes I can get a good workout when I am pressed for time.

This is part 4, and the final of the four-part series.  And to reiterate  –  the split I use may seem  a little unusual, though by now I suspect some of you are waiting anxiously for the final part.   I split the upper body into back, chest and arms and I split the shoulders over three days as well, so that I do some shoulders on each of the upper body days.  Any and all feedback on this routine is welcomed.

Fifteen minute workouts!?
We are all pressed for time, and rather than skip a workout due to lack of time, it is great to have some exercises that we can simply do in less time and still feel that we got a good workout . I have taken the challenge to suggest such workouts, and will be blogging these suggestions for the time challenged over the next couple of weeks. The objective is to make the workouts shorter in duration and still be effective.