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FocusOnFitness is a series of basic exercises you can do in your house, in the dorm or during a short break. Using the natural surrounding without having to find the right equipment, the best gym or the perfect time to do a little workout. Focus on Fitness is all about doing it when you can and hey, why not?
Maria Johnson, aka Girl Gone Blind, joins Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities Studio to Focus on Fitness and how you can incorporate little nuggets of exercise without throwing your schedule off and being able to work out within your own time and space.
In this Focus On Fitness episode, Maria and Jeff talk about Creating your space and setting the stage for your exercise routine, yoga session and ensuring your free to exercise while keeping your space safe and free from obstacles. May it be a rug or a yoga mat, the tactile surface will keep your whereabouts in mind and you can feel safe to conduct your full exercise without getting disorientated.
Maria talks about the space and how diffusers can bring about a setting fit for relaxing and setting the tone for Pilates or yoga. Music playlist from your smart devices can keep that drive going throughout your workout as well as video workouts. Hey, the music and instruction is sometimes audio friendly and once again, keeps you rockin’ and rolin’.
Check out some more Focus on Fitness episodes and if you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to let us know. You can find Maria on Twitter @Girl_Gone_Blind and follow her blog on the web at GirlGoneBlind.com.. You can find Jeff on Twitter @KnownAsJeff and check out more podcasts with a Blindness perspective on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com.
And remember:
Consult a physician before performing this or any exercise program.
This is especially important if you or your family have a history of high blood pressure, heart disease or diabetes.
It is your responsibility to evaluate your own medical and physical condition,
and to determine whether to perform or adapt any of the exercises in this Focus on Fitness episode.
The use of any information provided on this site is solely at your own risk.
If you start to feel any pain or discomfort while exercising, stop immediately and contact your doctor or health care professional.
Thanks for listening!
Full Transcript Below
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Full Transcript
Pete:
Be sure to consult a physician before performing this or any exercise program. This is especially important if you or your family has a history of high blood pressure, heart disease, or diabetes. It is your responsibility to evaluate your own medical or physical condition and to determine whether to perform or adapt any of the exercises in this Focus on Fitness episode. The use of any information provided in this Focus on Fitness episode is solely at your own risk. If you start to feel any pain or discomfort while exercising stop immediately and contact your doctor or healthcare professional.
Maria:
Focus on Fitness. You didn’t even know you had a muscle there. Goals man, goals. Love it.
Jeff:
15 seconds. You’re doing great. Hold it.
Maria:
A plank. A plank is a full body exercise and it’s a love hate exercise actually.
Jeff:
Five, four, three, two, and rest.
Maria:
It’s worth it. Hi Jeff. How are you doing?
Jeff:
I’m doing good. How’s Maria?
Maria:
Maria is doing great. I’m doing great. I just got done doing a little Pilates. I am feeling pretty good. Yeah.
Jeff:
Did you create your space?
Maria:
I did. I set the stage for my workout with a really gorgeous new yoga mat that I just got.
Jeff:
Really?
Maria:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeff:
Describe the yoga mat.
Maria:
Well, I can’t see it all that well, because I have low vision. I can see that it is a dark color. It is a dark purple with really beautiful, almost a Bohemian design of flowers and leaves. In my mind, it’s absolutely all me and gorgeous, but even better, it creates contrast on my office floor, which is perfect for me to be able to see where my yoga mat actually is.
Jeff:
And you can actually feel that you’re in a safe spot.
Maria:
Yes. The yoga mat obviously is very tactile as compared to carpet or tile or wood floor, whatever you might have as your floor surface. But the yoga mat really does serve as your stage, if you will. If you’re on the yoga mat, then you know you’re in a position to do your exercises. Of course with yoga or Pilates, you’re pretty much doing everything on your mat, but even if you go into doing some weight training or maybe you’re doing some stretching or maybe just some abdominal work, that mat is going to serve as your stage.
Jeff:
And that way you won’t be swinging your arms and striking something that you thought was free, but the pain will tell you it wasn’t.
Maria:
Exactly. Exactly. And if you’re going to be using any equipment, what’s nice, say that you’re going to use dumbbells, you can put them at the end of your yoga mat, say on the short side, you can line them up over there so you know if you’re facing one way, those weights are to your left. Of course, keeping them off the mat so they don’t get in your way. Any equipment can be placed at one edge of your yoga mat. There’s another thing Jeff, that I do that helps to create the ambience or environment I want when I’m doing yoga or stretching or Pilates Jeff.
Jeff:
I’ll hold this stretch until you tell me.
Maria:
I run a diffuser.
Jeff:
A diffuser?
Maria:
Yeah, a diffuser. A diffuser. A diffuser is something you put essential oils in with water and it creates a fine mist that puts the aroma in the air, aromatherapy in the air, and it creates a very lovely, grounding, calm, get your Zen on smell, depending upon the fragrance, for the workout that I’m going to do. I love it. I really do love it. I suppose, if you wanted something a little bit more, bring on that motivation to get your weights on, I suppose you can find something else that would create that as well. But I just find it a nice little additional something to create my space.
Jeff:
Taking the cap off my Old Spice and setting it nearby won’t do it?
Maria:
Oh, it will do it. You can absolutely do it. Just dab a little on before your workout, Jeff, and you’ll be smelling fine during that workout.
Jeff:
But when you’re talking about Pilates or yoga, you’re just building this space that you feel comfortable and you relax in and you’re just creating your own stage as you put it.
Maria:
Yeah, absolutely. And if I’m doing my workout, say a stretch workout later in the evening, I’ll actually dim the lights or I’ll turn the lights off with maybe just the hall light on with the light streaming in from the office door so that it makes a darker room, which again, could be even more relaxing, especially if it’s later in the evening and you’re trying to wind down. You’re not trying to ramp up, such as maybe a morning workout. You’re trying to wind down. Anything you can make it more like a spa-like experience, I guess, that will just make it a little bit more special for you.
Jeff:
That’s great. Creating your space. What I was thinking we were creating a space, I was mostly thinking about like you said, the mat. I really like that, the positioning of it. It really gives you a tactile feel for where you are, because sometimes you’re doing an exercise, say you’re doing some lunges or something and if you have that reference point, you can stay safe. Safety first. Now, when you talk about a yoga mat, how thick is this? What kind of mat? Describe a yoga mat?
Maria:
Well, a yoga mat is a foam mat and it’s maybe a quarter inch thick, or three eights of an inch thick. It’s not that thick Jeff. We don’t want to be stepping on memory foam or something where you simply sink into the foam. You need something that can still keep your foot on a pretty solid surface. It’s great for standing on. It’s textured. When you’re barefoot, you can get a nice grip on it. And just comfortable enough that if you do have it on a tile or wood floor and you’re down on the floor doing ab work or other kind of floor work, it still helps keep those knees protected and those hands or elbows projected depending upon what exercise you’re doing.
Maria:
It’s an all-around great piece of equipment to have. If you need to lay something out, create the stage, keep your area safe, and give you a tactile feel as to where you are on the floor. If you step off of it, you know you may be getting too close to furniture or another piece of equipment. Again, keeping those feet planted and grounded on that mat is going to help you in more ways than just keeping your knees from hurting.
Jeff:
There you go.
Maria:
Another thing that I have used to create a space is a throw rug. And in my garage, we’ve kind of made this garage gym and we used a throw rug and that throw rug is the space. All the equipment is kind of around the rug so that you don’t really move off the rug. It’s big enough that you can do your lunges, you can do your squats, you can have those arms going out and you’re not going to hit anything. But again, it was just an old throw rug that I was just going to discard or donate. And I thought, wait a minute, it was still good enough to use. I just didn’t have a use for it until I thought about creating a space in the garage for another area for the gym equipment. That’s another thing to think about too, if you have a larger space to be able to use.
Jeff:
Yeah. I noticed one thing when I’m creating a space is I like to have some music, because either I’m going to play the music or I have headphones. The other thing I like about creating the space is the music. I’ve been at gyms where they play some loud rock music or they play other types of music that you always want to turn the dial, but you don’t know where it is. But if you can control it, you can turn on your own music, your headphones. Sometimes I don’t like having the headphones in unless I’m on a stationary bike. I don’t mind it there, because I’m not moving around. But if I don’t want to have noise [inaudible 00:08:13] and me doing something where I’m moving around the room, I want to know if someone else is in that space or something’s changed in it or a bees buzzing by or something. But I like to have some music playing, so having a little radio off to the side that you can play is also a good thing.
Maria:
Oh, I love that. Yes, let’s not forget the music to set the stage. I totally agree. You either can have one of those smart devices, I won’t say the names, because mine will go off, that can play a workout playlist. It can play your favorite genre. I absolutely agree with you. It’s hard to have headphones in if you’re doing something that you’re moving around a lot on. The other thing is if you are creating space and your computer is nearby, you can certainly play some workout videos. I know we’re going to talk about those in another episode, but you can play workout videos if you have a really large monitor, or maybe you have a large screen TV in your office or living room that you’ve, again, where your space is created, that you can actually play workout videos on and follow those. Creating audio, music, someone talking you through a workout, that is absolutely something to take into consideration in your space.
Jeff:
Yeah, I like what you said about a workout playlist, like asking your device to play a playlist, and it’ll probably just play music that just has a nice, steady beat and there’d probably be some that you can choose from and if you like it, remember that and ask for that again.
Maria:
Yeah, you know how to ask for different playlists? I want spa-like music, if you’re doing a Pilates yoga stretch. Or I want to do a cardio workout playlist. I’m sure it will find some sort of club music that will really have a great techno beat.
Jeff:
A boom, boom, boom.
Maria:
We want some boom, boom. That’s right. Something to kind of get you motivated to really get going or maybe you’re just going to dance, because dancing burns a lot of calories and you want a disco playlist. Ask for it and go for it.
Jeff:
Hula hoop music. We’ll be doing one on that too. Steve Wickett from England sent over his hula hoop exercise and we’ll be enjoying that in an upcoming one. We also got one from Mike Colbrunn doing pushups. Exciting stuff coming up from our friends and I think you’ll all enjoy it.
Maria:
Oh, can’t wait. Hula hooping. I have a hula hoop.
Jeff:
There you go.
Maria:
I’m excited to hear what he has to say.
Jeff:
Goes round and round.
Maria:
Sounds awesome. Well, this has been great, Jeff. I love our talk about creating space and I hope the listeners will create their own safe space to do their workouts.
Jeff:
Sounds great. Well, Maria, why don’t you tell the listeners where they can find Maria Johnson, AKA Girl Gone Blind on social network.
Maria:
Thanks Jeff. I do write a blog and my blog is called Girl Gone Blind and you can find it at girlgoneblind.com. You can find me on Facebook at Girl Gone Blind and on Twitter at @Girl_Gone_Blind.
Pete:
Be sure to consult a physician before performing this or any exercise program. The use of any information provided in this Focus On Fitness episode is solely at your own risk. If you start to feel any pain or discomfort while exercising, stop immediately and contact your doctor or healthcare professional.
Jeff:
Stay tuned for more episodes of Focus on Fitness right here on Blind Abilities. And remember to enable the Blind Abilities skill on your Amazon device just by saying, “Enable Blind Abilities.” And most importantly, thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed, and until next time. Bye bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective:
Check us out on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com On Twitter @BlindAbilities
Download our app from the App store:
‘Blind Abilities’; that’s two words.
Or send us an e-mail at:
info@blindabilities.com
send us an email at info@blindabilities.com.
Thanks for listening.