"The body, immersed, feels amplified, heavier and lighter at the same time. Weightless yet stronger,” writes swimmer Leanne Shapton in Wallace J. Nichols’ The Blue Mind.
We - you and I - work in the water because, well, water is magic as I like to say. It’s the place where we can move and skip and even play hopscotch, things we cannot do or cannot do without pain on land. Now the pools are closed, so what can we do? Below are some suggestions to keep you moving. Most will be familiar from private or class sessions with me. My hope is that you can engage in some of these activities without pain, introducing movement into these days at home. Be well, be safe. I will miss your company and your joy.
Move, move, and move some more, as often as you can if it doesn't cause pain. It doesn’t have to a big deal, but it’s so important to avoid sitting for long periods of time.
I look very forward to seeing you back in the pool.
Nan
We - you and I - work in the water because, well, water is magic as I like to say. It’s the place where we can move and skip and even play hopscotch, things we cannot do or cannot do without pain on land. Now the pools are closed, so what can we do? Below are some suggestions to keep you moving. Most will be familiar from private or class sessions with me. My hope is that you can engage in some of these activities without pain, introducing movement into these days at home. Be well, be safe. I will miss your company and your joy.
Move, move, and move some more, as often as you can if it doesn't cause pain. It doesn’t have to a big deal, but it’s so important to avoid sitting for long periods of time.
- Set a timer on your phone and get up every 30 minutes during the day. Walk around for a few minutes, even if it’s around the dining room table.
- Sit to stand is a really important movement. When you go to get up, think about repeating the process several times before actually moving away from the chair. It’s basically doing squats, but if I tell you that you won’t like them.
- Move to the front edge of the chair
- Place feet flat on the floor with ankles directly under knees
- Hinge forward, bringing your chest towards the floor and maybe your belly meets your thighs
- Hold onto something – chair arms, chair seat, other furniture in front of you or next to you – and keep hinging forward until your seat come off the seat, and now you’re in a beautiful squat with your weight on your heels
- Push through your heels, straighten your knees and hips at the same time, squeeze your butt at the top, and voila, you’re up! This technique should take the stress off the knees.
- Move your spine. For those of you who have been through my regular spinal warm up, you can do it on land, either standing with knees slightly bent or seated in a chair. In either case, feel the pelvis rolling over the femur heads. If you’re in a chair, you get great feedback from your sit bones as you roll back and forth across the pointiest part.
- Arch, bringing arms to the back, palm up and pulling shoulder blades together; curl, bringing arms forward sliding shoulder blades apart. Repeat several times.
- Lateral bending: slide your hand down towards the ground as you pull the armpit towards the hip and stretch the opposite side body. Pendulum to the other side, keeping your body in line as if you are between two panes of glass. Repeat back and forth several times.
- Rotation: with fingertips on shoulders, collarbones open and shoulder blades back and down – rotate from the belly button up, to one side and then the other. Use the muscles in the side body to pull yourself to each side. Add a gentle rotation of the neck if it feels good.
- Arm raises: most of you have done this with me recently and our arms are out of the water so this one easily translates to land! Extend arms in front of you shoulder width apart and thumbs up. Using the muscles at the bottom of the shoulder blades, slowly raise the straight arms in a slight “V” until you get to your top. Hold the arms high as long as you can, all the while feeling your shoulder blades slide down your back. After holding for a bit (30 seconds would be a good goal to work towards), see if you can squeeze the blades towards your spine. Keep the shoulders away from the ears and your arms straight. Keeping the shoulder blades as active as possible, slowly lower the arms to the starting point. Rest and then repeat 2 more times.
- Scapular pushups: stand in front of a wall, place the hands on the wall at shoulder level, fingers pointing up and arms slightly wider than shoulder width. Step the feet back about a foot so that you are supporting a bit of your weight on your hands. Keeping the arms straight, melt the chest towards the wall, bringing your shoulder blades towards your spine. Pause there for a moment, maybe notice the sticky spots, maybe see if some of them unstick from the pressure - then push into the hands to take the chest away from the wall and the shoulder blades away from the spine. Repeat several times with the goal of lubricating the shoulder blades and getting them to slide nicely back and forth.
- Isometric holds: muscle activation is the name of the game, and you don’t need to lift a weight to get there. As with the shoulder exercise above, holding a position with the muscle turned on but not moving is called an isometric exercise. Experiment and play with this concept on other muscle groups. For example, from a seated position straighten one leg, clench the thigh muscles and hold; pull the toes toward the knee for added excitement. Bend your arm like a beach body model and isolate the bicep and hold. From a seated position push one heel into the chair leg and feel the back of your leg engage. Also from seated, use the hip flexors, that “smash the dollar bill in your pocket” set, to lift your knee off the chair just 2 inches and hold. So many possibilities! Start with an achievable amount of hold time and try to work up to 30 seconds or even 1 minute.
- Stretch: put a towel under the ball of your foot or hang your heel off a step and stretch your calves. From standing or from sitting hinge at the hip and reach for your toes to stretch the back of the leg. Reach one arm up in line with the body and reach 45 degrees towards the opposite side. Stretch whatever feels tight. Hold stretches for at least 30 seconds.
- Mobilize: do the ankle circle/flex and point/toe open and curl routine most of you have done with me lately. Do the same sort of thing with your hands, wrists, elbows and shoulders. Sit in a chair and windshield wiper the feet – internal and external rotation of the hip (if you haven’t had a hip replacement) keeps that joint moving free and happy. Try to address all areas of your body and make sure none is going too long without doing its job: bending, straightening or rotating. Keep that fascia hydrated!
- Stay hydrated. I've been drinking a lot of tea these last few rainy days. It feels relaxing, but then I realize it makes me pee, and that seems so very reckless cause we are almost out of toilet paper!
- Breathe. Those of you who have taken Ai Chi have had some extra training in this. Remember just one minute a day of deep breathing has been shown to calm the nervous system. We might all need some of that about now. Amy likes to practice Ai Chi even on land – up until her arms get tired. Breathing and visualizing the movements also works to calm her or help her get back to sleep. Give it a try!
- Call a friend every day. Write a letter. Read the books piled up on the nightstand. Try a chair yoga video class. Take a walk outside. And most of all, keep moving, every day!
I look very forward to seeing you back in the pool.
Nan