Exercises are abilities, learning a new exercise is like learning a new language. After you teach your body to squat, you never want to unlearn this ability. Therefore, your exercise routine is focused on restoring and maintaining natural human moves, not just burning calories.
Welcome to week two! I will be posting the exercises for every week, so please check back to the RESOURCES page each week for review.
The focus of our exercises is this:
- restore our God given abilities to move as we were intended to move, before we began sitting for eight hours a day which has lead to tight, stiff, stubborn muscles (“sitting is the new smoking, chairs are the new cigarettes”)
- improve patterns of movement, that is the way you sit, stand, push, pull, kneel and carry things, instead of focusing on muscle groups. Your goal is not to have strong biceps or calves only, but to be able to pick things up confidently and securely, stand for hours with good posture, and down and back up from the floor
- mobility and strength come before cardiovascular conditioning – for most people, their first thought is to walk more. If you work on your flexibility and strength with the two exercises listed below for example, you will get a cardiovascular workout. Your “cardio” exercise is very important (going for a walk every day), but too many people focus only on this, and too often to the detriment of the other two key fitness attributes – strength and flexibility
- consider these exercises as new abilities or skills, or better yet, like a new language your body is learning. That is a key CatholicFIT Exercise Principle – just as you will never unlearn 5+5=10, your goal is to learn and improve your body’s ability to do these exercises and never unlearn them. Unless you have had a surgery or have a disability, your body was at one time able to do these moves, our goal is for you to restore these natural human moves
The Workout – mix these things into your new routine like this:
- after going for a walk or walking in place for a few minutes, set a timer for about 5-6 minutes
- work on the Lunge Stretch below for about 3-4 minutes per leg forward. You can alternate back and forth or just stick with the one leg – work in a twist and reach, work on this pattern with your back knee on the floor and try to feel it all through your thighs, groin and hips
- set your timer for another 5-6 minutes
- work on the squat below from a chair for this time focusing on pressing down through your heels, staying tall through your posture, trying out different height chairs, try lowering yourself down slowly from standing to the chair to minimize the plop to your chair
- Mix in any other exercises you may like, especially things like shoulder circles, arm circles, ankle rotations and calf stretches
Each week we will build on the week before – pick and choose the exercises that are a little tougher for you to do and work on those a little more.
CatholicFIT Strength Move – The Squat
- one of our five fundamental human moves – carry, squat, hinge, pull and push round out the five moves we should all be doing
- necessary for getting up and down from a chair or couch
- builds total body power
- tests and requires hip flexibility, strength and ankle flexibility
- many physical therapy and fitness experts say, “fix your squat, and you will fix your knees and back,” because if your squat mechanics are compromised, you are probably putting a lot of stress into your knees, among other areas of your body. We will cover more exercises and stretches for improving your squat
Also, click here to open up a PDF Excerpt from my Catholic Calisthenics eBook featuring the section on The Squat.
Try these out and please tell us what you think … reply to a weekly email, visit us on Facebook, and if you are not receiving the weekly email, please sign up today to join the community.
Week 2 Exercises are:
- Single Leg Squat
- Single Leg Floor Touch (Dead Lift)
- 90-90 Stretch
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