Full Transcript
Jeff Thompson:
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 adopt 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.
Speaker 2:
Three, two, one.
Speaker 3:
Focus on Fitness.
Maria:
You didn’t even know you had a muscle there. Goals, man. Goals. Love it.
Speaker 2:
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.
Speaker 2:
Five, four, three, two, and rest.
Maria:
It’s worth it.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson, and in the studio with me is Maria Johnson, aka Girl Gone Blind.
Jeff Thompson:
How are you doing?
Maria:
Hey, Jeff. I’m doing great. How are you?
Jeff Thompson:
I’m doing good myself, and we got a new series we’ve been talking about, and I’m just going to let you tell them because you are the fitness guru.
Maria:
I try. I try. Jeff, you and I have been talking a little bit about doing a series called Focus on Fitness, and I think it was a great idea, and I’m all in to give the listeners little nuggets of fitness that they can incorporate into their daily life or weekly life, however often they want to do it. We thought it might be something people would want to step up into and better their health not only mentally, but physically.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, I really like that, Focus on Fitness, little nuggets. I like it.
Maria:
Yeah. Yeah. We’ve got a few we’re going to throw out there, and I think the listeners are going to love it.
Jeff Thompson:
Can you tell the listeners a little bit about your background in fitness?
Maria:
Yeah. I’ve been a group fitness instructor for, gosh, almost 18 years, and I still teach group fitness to this day. Even with vision loss five years ago, I kept with it. I was not going to let my vision loss take away my ability to teach group fitness classes. I still teach several times a week, and it’s something that I found a passion for many, many, many years ago. Again, it’s just part of my everyday life, my every week. Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
I really like what you’re saying that… with vision loss, because most of our listeners out there have blindness and vision loss, and with that in mind, you are going to be able to describe things maybe in a better way than just a regular video.
Maria:
I would hope so. I do tend to describe more in my classes now than I did when I was fully sighted for the reasons that, if I can’t see them very clearly, I definitely want to make sure they are paying attention to my verbal cues so that they are doing whatever the exercise is correctly. I talk it out not only for the participants, but also for myself so that I am doing everything correctly so that, when they look at me, they can also see the correct form, so it’s made it easy for me to be able to audio describe.
Maria:
It’s something that actually has come quite easily for me. I have taught fitness classes, I mean, not hardcore, at the local Braille Institute, and it really did take my audio description of exercises to a whole nother level because I had never really taught to folks who are blind or visually impaired. I realized that there are folks out there who, one, have never done any exercise, but, two, when you describe a movement and you say it’s like climbing a ladder of sorts, some of these folks didn’t really know what a ladder was. They had never seen one because they were blind since birth, so you really have to get creative when it comes to describing. That’s what I hope to bring to the table here by talking fitness for the folks who are listening.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s great, and, Maria, we’re talking about just getting something to get people started planting the seeds to get these little nuggets into their daily routine.
Maria:
Yeah, I know I’m not going to be describing a whole class. Not doing that. I do that as my… on the off time, when I’m not podcasting
Jeff Thompson:
We’re talking about this series is going to be like 15-minute segments to give you a little taste, give you a little idea of something to do between commercials or while you go out and get a drink of water or something of that nature. It’s something that there’s no reason not to just incorporate it into your daily, everyday routine.
Maria:
Yeah, it’s something that can be done in your own home or simply by walking out your front door. With transportation being an issue, let’s keep it as simple as possible, and the simpler it is, the easier it is to incorporate into daily activity.
Jeff Thompson:
I like what you said when we were discussing this, planting the seeds.
Maria:
Yes, planting the seeds, and anything we talk about, Jeff, I think we can plant the seed and then folks can actually grow with it. They can take it to the level they want for their own health and fitness.
Jeff Thompson:
What we’re doing is just trying to ignite something here. I know there’s many times I’m watching a show and a commercial comes on, and that might be a good time to try something. You’ve got those little windows. There’s 30 seconds or a minute or something. Hopefully, we give you some ideas to do.
Jeff Thompson:
I go out and get a drink of water, and I always do these things where I lean against the counter and I do pushup against it. Now, it’s not a full workout by no means, but if you do 10 of them and then you end up doing it three, four times throughout your afternoon or day, it’s neat. You know you did them. You can feel it.
Maria:
Yeah. Think about it. That could turn into 50 pushups, which no one’s going to do in one session. You can do the same thing with I call it sink squats, and every time you go to the sink, be it to wash your hands, wash dishes, whatever it is, if you’re near a sink, you do a set of five or 10 squats right then and there, and, again, like the pushups, Jeff, before you know it, if you’ve done it five, six, 10 times, just do the math, think about how many you do, which no one is going to do that in one fell swoop.
Maria:
Breaking exercise down into little counts of five or maybe a little 10-minute sessions and you do it two or three or four times a day, that counts. You don’t have to do everything in an hour. That counts throughout your day and, throughout your home, if you think about all the places there’s a counter or a table or a sink, you can get a lot done.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, yeah, I can tell you, the instructor, I suggested five. You know what? He got me up to 10.
Maria:
Yeah. Goals, man. Goals.
Jeff Thompson:
This is the idea, just to find little spots in your daily routine where you can do this. It’s not like you got to get ready and put on shoes, get on the spandex and head to the gym, get a membership and all that stuff. It’s just stuff that you can do, and you’re going to be explaining what a squat is or what a pushup or what anything is, so you’re going to get a good fundamental start to just these little, as you call them, nuggets.
Maria:
Yes. Yes, and I like what you said, it’s just to ignite, ignite the fire. Let’s find the spark to do it. Maybe you used to be into fitness and maybe you used to do a lot of workouts, and maybe that’s just slipped away. This is your opportunity to just do a little bit at a time.
Maria:
Jeff, you know what they say. If you go work out five days a week, two hours a day, boom, you’re going to be burnt out so fast, you’re never going to want to do it again, but it’s these little things you incorporate through the day that is maintainable, and that’s what I hope folks will take away with them is that these are little things that will spark their interest, and then they can continue and maintain it without feeling overwhelmed or overworked in their life, and that’s what people keep doing.
Jeff Thompson:
Nobody’s watching.
Maria:
Nobody. You can wear whatever you want. You can listen to whatever music you want. You can do it in your pajamas. Who cares, right? You’re just in your own home. You go out to get that cup of coffee in the morning. You’re by a sink, so you’re doing your squats in your pajamas or you’re doing your counter pushups in your pajamas, but, hey, think about it. That cup of coffee’s brewing. Yeah, it’s worth it.
Jeff Thompson:
There’s going to be a lot of little ideas that we’re going to throw out there, but, like Maria said, if you have ideas that you’ve been doing that’s working for you, send them in, and you can contact us at info@blindabilities.com, and let’s leave you with a little nugget right here.
Jeff Thompson:
Can you describe to the listeners what is a plank?
Maria:
A plank? A plank is a full body exercise, and it’s a love-hate exercise, actually. It does wonders for the entire body, but it can be difficult if you’re not in as good a shape as you had hoped you are, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try it and start out with, say, 10 seconds of holding a plank, so what people do is they do plank holds, and you’re down in a pushup position, but you’re not moving up and down.
Maria:
You can do a long arm plank, which is when you’re on the ground. Make sure you have enough room. You’re on the ground, and your wrists and hands are right below your shoulders in an extended arm. You’re flat like a plank all the way down to being on your toes, so, again, you’re on the ground, wrists under your shoulders in an extended arm. You got your toes slightly spread to keep balance. You’re just going to hold that. You’re going to hold it for five or 10 seconds. Maybe take a break. Hold it again for five or 10 seconds. Maybe do that a few times, but the point is you want to build up holding that plank for longer periods of time.
Maria:
If you really want to get crazy, you can go down onto your elbows where your elbows are lined up with your shoulders and your hands are just clasped right there in front. No need to do anything with your head. Just keep that aligned with your neck, and your neck is aligned with your spine.
Maria:
A plank can be done anywhere. Now, you can get down on the floor and hold that plank for that commercial. If it gets too much, but you don’t want to quit, just come down on your knees. Bring your knees down for a second. Give that body a little bit of a break. Go back on your toes, but you’re never losing that plank. You’re still in it. Don’t give up. Don’t just say, “I can’t do it.” Just come down to your knees and hold it for 10 seconds. There you go.
Jeff Thompson:
I like to think of it as like a frozen pushup in midair. You’re just holding it. I remember there was a fad that people were taking pictures of planks all over the world. It was odd. It was like what was that like? Like you said, it’s a full core all the way from head to toe, so it’s a neat thing to do.
Maria:
Yes. Yes, it will hit every part of the body, and the longer you hold, the stronger your core becomes, and you do see plank challenges come across social media where, for a week, you’ll do it for 10 seconds. The second week, you’ll do it for 20 seconds. Third week, you’re doing 30-second plank, and you work your way up within a month to, do the math, you’re holding a plank for… It could be a minute or two or three at the end of the month. You can always carve out a little timeline like that weekly. Up it, double it, or up it at 10 or 15 seconds for the month.
Jeff Thompson:
Up your fitness.
Maria:
Really focus in on that plank. One of the things that I find in planks, that you do have to focus in and be present on that plank. Be present. Hold it tight. You can just count to 10 and be done with it. If you start drifting off to never-never land, you may lose your form and you may lose, what, the intention of what you’re doing with your muscles. It’s a good one. It’s a good one, and it’s bittersweet, like I said.
Jeff Thompson:
The thing is, if you’re feeling pain, don’t do any of this. Consult someone. This is just an idea that, if you want to get started on it, you give this stuff a try, but make sure that you’re not going to be hurting yourself.
Maria:
Oh, yeah, definitely. If you have any kind of injuries or reoccurring injuries that you’re always watching and being careful with, please keep that in mind when we talk about the different ideas that we have. Always be sure to stretch after any exercise. Just give a little stretch. It doesn’t have to be much especially if we’re just doing little bits and pieces, and, also, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Keep up that water, and that goes for doing anything. Keep that water up, too.
Jeff Thompson:
I think, the stretching part that you mentioned, I think that’s a good thing like in the morning or something, the day after. It really connects you. It brings back to memory what you’ve been doing because you’ll be able to feel it, and it just connects you with what’s going on, and it does feel good to be aware of your body and your fitness, being firm or toned, so, hopefully, some of this will just get you more aware of it and then it’ll all play out for the good.
Maria:
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve had many of my participants at the gym will say to me, I’ll teach a class, and, two days later, they’re back in class and going, “That one thing you did the other day? Wow, I really feel that,” be it in their waistline or their glutes or in their shoulders.
Maria:
You just might find that a few things that we talk about are going to hit places that you didn’t even know you had a muscle there, so there’s something about that muscle soreness, okay, I’ll say for me, that just gives you, like you said, body awareness, but also you know you’ve worked the muscle and you’re actually making change. You’re actually making change in that muscle because, if it wasn’t sore, you’re not really making any changes. I don’t want it to be so painful that you’re at the ER, but it should just be that small bit of muscle soreness so you know you’ve hit the right muscle.
Jeff Thompson:
I look forward to the next show because this is something that we thought we’d start. It’s something that you can look forward to. There’ll be short little 15-minute little segments. I think this Focus on Fitness series is good. It’s going to be good for me because it’s going to put it into my daily routine, just to do those little things, and they add up.
Maria:
They do add up, and, to be honest here, I could certainly use a little bit more activity in my life as well, so it’s definitely going to spark a little bit of fire for me, too.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s great. Maria, I’m sure the listeners are going to enjoy the series, Focus on Fitness. Why don’t you tell the listeners where they can find Maria Johnson, aka Girl Gone Blind, on social network?
Maria:
Thanks, Jeff. I think this can be a lot of fun, and I hope folks will have not only a good time, but my laugh a little bit through it. Again, if it’s not fun, why do it? That’s what I always say. As you said, 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, @Girl_Gone_Blind.
Jeff Thompson:
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 adopt 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.
Jeff Thompson:
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.
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