Did you know that if you do not use your muscles they will spasm, form a knot and hurt! Yes! You may be having back pain simply due to a lack of muscle movement. Your muscles will move with or without you. But if they move without you if will hurt. I am a big fan of using what you have to work out. This takes all the excuses out of the equation. Now that I am living in the country, 20 miles from the closest Gym, I use my corn hole game as my bench and a 4×4 I found out in the barn. It is fun to find things around the house to use as weights. Cans of soup work well. When you need more weight use bottles of spaghetti sauce. This way you can get started right away. You have your arms and legs, sneakers and some cans.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
Hebrews 12:1
I love the imagery here. We have all kinds of weights that slow us down, physical weight, and emotional weight, people who are not good for us, financial burdens and all the stresses of this life. But when we strip it off we can run with endurance! Let’s pick up a weight to shed our weight!
Of David. Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle.
Psalms 144:1
Let’s talk about the practical importance of weight or resistance training. Some of you may never have done any kind of exercise with weights, resistance bands or calisthenics. Here is just a little about why it is important. For true health and fitness resistance training is essential. We need resistance or weight to build muscles, stamina, and endurance. Building up muscles makes us stronger obviously. But it also prevents pain and injury.
How to? The best way is with a personal fitness trainer but with Covid-19 shutting down gyms you may be on your own. Good thing we have the internet. You can learn anything on there.
We are going to list a good resistance routine that will go along with your 30 minutes of walking from yesterday. Yes you will need about an hour a day for physical activity and it will benefit you all day long and into the future.
We are going to do a 7 day routine. Don’t worry it will be fun!
Disclaimer: First of all make sure that you are healthy enough for exercise. Check with your doctor. I am not a certified personal trainer but a regular citizen that has taken the advice from many experts and am passing it along to you along with personal experience. Do training safely and within your own fitness level. Assuming that you are reasonable fit and work your way up until you can do all of them. You should be able to target each muscle group in some way at your fitness level.
Here is a sample daily resistance routine. Eventually I hope to have a videos of each one showing them but in the meantime you may need to look up the exercise on You Tube to see how it is done.
Three essential daily exercises
Squats, Lunges, ab crunches or sit ups. Do these every day. They are your foundation for resistance training. You don’t need any weights to start just your body. Every day we will focus on a different muscle group and work it out thoroughly.
Squats: put your feet apart lined up with your shoulders. At first use a chair. Squat like you are going to sit but just touch the seat and stand back up. do 3 sets of 10
Lunges: take a big step forward and go down so that your back knee nearly touches the ground. Then stand back up and start over. Do 3 sets of 10 on each leg.
Abs: Do 30 sit ups or 60 crunches
On all the exercises listed below do 3 sets of 10 each or for a more intense exercise do each exercise for the length of a song.
Monday: Back
Reverse Flies: Targeting Rhomboids, the muscles between the shoulder blades rear deltoids and traps. Bend slightly at the hips with your back straight. Lift your arms toward the back and up like you are going to fly.
Rows: Targets traps and mid back muscles. You can just do the motion at first or use a can of soup in each hand. Bend at the hips or place one knee on a chair. With the opposite hand lift your soup can like you are starting a lawn mower.
Pelvic Lifts: Targets low back. Lay on an exercise ball or a chair with the upper part of your back on the ball or chair. Your body is supported by your feet. Your body starts out straight. Lower your Pelvis to the floor and back up in a slow deliberate movement.
Dead Lifts
Superman
Tuesday: Arms
Bicept Curls
Tricept extenions
Overhead Lifts
Wednesday: Legs
Step up
Calf raises
Quad Extensions
Hamstring Curls
Box jumps
Thursday: Chest and shoulders
Push ups
Flies
Chest press
Forward arm raises
Side arm raises
Friday: Gluts/ behind/ sitting spot/ butt
Fire Hydrant
On all 4s heal press to the ceiling
Glut bridge raises and squeeze
Side lunges
Saturday: Abs
Extra set of sit ups
Knee lifts: standing crunches
Pass stability ball from feet to hands over head and back again
Sunday: stretching
On Sundays we take it easy. Still do a nice stroll so you will have good digestion. Then have a nice long leisurely relaxing stretch session. Stretching every day is important. On Sunday spend extra time achieving a deeper stretch in each stretch.
Every day you will do routine stretching at the beginning of the work out and end of the work out. This will prevent soreness and injury.
Lay on your back with your arms out to both sides. Drop both knees to one side. Then do the other side.
Do the cobra pose to stretch your back.
Lie on your back and cross one ankle over the opposite knee. Pull that knee toward your chest. This stretch is particularly good for the lower back.Then do the other side.
Sit with your legs stretch out and apart. Reach both arms toward your toes. Do not bounce simple relax into the stretch. See if you can get the stretch deeper a little bit each day.
Runners Stretch
Bend at the hips and touch the floor to stretch the back of your legs.
Pull your ankle toward your butt. This will stretch your hip flexer and quads.
These are just a few stretches. Look more up on the internet or subscribe to fitness magazines to switch things up and make it fun.
Keep in mind it is best to have a professional train you on these exercises. This is simply a suggested routine that we have compiled over the years from various personal trainers and magazine articles. It is a good place to start.
The most important thing is to use your muscles in a systematic way so you can feel better and enjoy life.
