Full Transcript
Speaker 1:
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 episodes. 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…
Maria Johnson:
Focus On Fitness. You didn’t even know you had a muscle there. Goals, man, goals. Love it.
Speaker 2:
You’re doing great. All right.
Maria Johnson:
A plank. You know a plank is a full body exercise and it’s a love-hate exercise actually.
Speaker 2:
Five, four, three, two, and rest.
Maria Johnson:
It’s worth it. Hey Jeff, how you doing?
Jeff Thompson:
I’m doing good. How you doing?
Maria Johnson:
I’m doing great. I have a good idea for today’s Focus On Fitness episode.
Jeff Thompson:
Uh-oh, what’s Maria got up her sleeve?
Maria Johnson:
Oh, let’s talk about squats, baby.
Jeff Thompson:
My legs are hurting already.
Maria Johnson:
Squats are great for the lower body and squats are something that you can do pretty much anywhere. Again, don’t get crazy and start doing them all over the town or city you live in.
Jeff Thompson:
Look out Manhattan.
Maria Johnson:
Look out Central Park, here we come. Yeah, we’re taking squats on the road.
Jeff Thompson:
There you go.
Maria Johnson:
Yeah. Squats is something that can be done very easily in your own home as well as other places. But we don’t recommend again, embarrassing yourself anywhere. But squats are something that works the glutes, the thighs, and really, really, really can tone and tighten everything below the belt, if you will.
Jeff Thompson:
And those are the largest muscles, right?
Maria Johnson:
They are, they are. They are the largest muscles. And strong legs are super important because obviously we use legs pretty much every day when we’re walking. I’ve joked in my classes before where squats do help when you have to use those port-a-potties because you don’t want to touch anything. So you want a squat okay. So I have had people thank me. You never know when a squat can come in handy, but just to bring it into your day, you can do several sessions if you will of squats and you can add up to quite a few of them if you do a few sets during your day.
Jeff Thompson:
What I’ve noticed while doing squats is you ever been into those chairs and you got to get out of the chair and it’s hard to get up without grabbing onto someone or grabbing onto anything else that it really helps you rise out of the chair a lot better.
Maria Johnson:
Yes, and or if you’re on the floor in a sitting position, you need to use those legs to get yourself up as well. Weak legs are not a good thing. Not a good thing.
Jeff Thompson:
What is the safe way for someone to first try doing a squat? Can you describe that?
Maria Johnson:
Yes. Doing a squat takes a little bit of room, so you definitely need to make sure you have some space. I recommend that you stand next to a counter or a table or a wall in case you need to hang on for balance. We don’t want anyone falling, of course. So there’s a couple of different kinds of squats, Jeff, and one of them is called a Sumo Squat or a Plié Squat, and that’s simply having your feet right outside your hips. You’re going to point your toes slightly out, not all the way, just slightly, and you’re going to lower your body as if you’re sliding down a wall, that your back is against the wall, imaginary and you’re sliding down a wall with your tailbone pointed towards the floor. You’re going to go all the way down until you are parallel with the floor.
Maria Johnson:
Do not go any lower. It’s too hard on the knees, and then you’re going to push back up with all the weight in your heels. You’re going to push the heels to straighten your legs back out and back to a standing position. Now, let me mention that you don’t have to go all the way to parallel to the floor, you can just go down a couple of inches. It will still fire up the same muscles. But again, that’s all you can do, that’s all you can do. And sometimes that’s just good enough for that day. So keep in mind, you don’t have to get all the way down there. You can just do a little, just do a little squat. All right. And work your way to becoming lower and lower and lower and pretty soon you’ll get there.
Jeff Thompson:
So let me draw a picture of this. If I put an imaginary chair behind me, it’s like I’m hanging onto the side of the counter. The sink is an area where you can kind of grab the sink, it gives you some grip there, but I want to pretend like I’m sitting down in that chair and then coming back up?
Maria Johnson:
Yes, and you can hold it a moment with your imaginary chair or you can just pop it back up at the same time. Holding keeps those muscles engaged and or you can just simply hit that chair quickly and come back up.
Jeff Thompson:
So that’s a squat?
Maria Johnson:
Yeah, that’s a Sumo Squat. Now, there’s also your traditional squat, Jeff, where you don’t have your toes pointed slightly out, they’re pointed more forward in alignment with your knees, and as you drop down, you’re going to push your tailbone back. You’re going to put your weight into the heels and you’re going to keep your knees behind your toes, all right. And the way you do that, if you can’t see if your knees behind your toes, you’re just going to try and sit back as far as you can into the heels. Keep that weight in your heels and you most likely will have those knees behind your toes. Again, parallel to the floor, no lower, and then you’re going to press back up, pressing through the floor with your feet back to a standing position.
Jeff Thompson:
I was always told when I do these that you start by aiming your tailbone back. That’s your main focus is hinging there and not just bending the knees and kind of crumbling your chest down or anything like that.
Maria Johnson:
You don’t want your chest literally on your thighs. You want to still try and keep your chest up. You’re trying to sit into a chair that’s a little too far behind you. If you think of it that way, you know the chairs back there but you’re not quite sure, so you just keep trying to, keep sitting back and sitting back and then you come back up. But again, the chest still needs to stay up. You don’t want your chest to rest on your thighs.
Jeff Thompson:
Great. And this is where you got to pay attention to your knees because this is where there’s cartilage, there’s all sorts of stuff with knees. So if it starts to hurt…
Maria Johnson:
This definitely is an exercise where you want to watch your knees and that’s why I mentioned you don’t have to go all the way down parallel to the floor. You can just do a couple inches, go down a couple inches and then come back up. Again, knee pain is no fun and we don’t want to aggravate anything you might already have going on in your knees. That’s not the point here. The point is to do what you can and do it with as little pain as possible. But again, you know what they say, Jeff, no pain, no gain.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, you said something before that I really liked. It’s keeping the focus. Thinking about the muscles, the areas that you are working on and concentrate on those through each set.
Maria Johnson:
Yes, some people get so carried away with how much weight they can carry on their bar or in their hands while they’re doing any exercise really. But with squats and then they disregard some of the key things in the form of the squat, which in turn is going to cause an injury and it’s not going to work the muscles that are supposed to be worked. So better yet just use your own body weight and concentrate on the form so you are focused and zeroed in on the muscles that you’re supposed to be working, which is on a squat is obviously the lower body muscles.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s great because without the form, you can hurt yourself. So that’s a good point.
Maria Johnson:
Yes. Or you end up working the wrong muscles. So you’re doing the whole exercise, you’re not even working the muscles you’re supposed to be working. So with a squat you pretty much can’t help but zoom in on those quads and on the glutes they’re going to fire up pretty quickly.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, that’s great. That’s something that you can do right in the kitchen, right near a counter. And I always suggest that when you’re first starting out that you use some support just to get a feel for what it’s like to feel what a squat feels like and you’ve got the security of hanging on to something. And as you get stronger and better at doing them or more confident about it, you might be able to do it without hanging on to something. And that helps the balance to more of a core thing to.
Maria Johnson:
Absolutely, I agree. Some folks just don’t have good balance and I do know that when I lost my vision, I did lose a lot of my balance. And it’s something that can come back if you just keep practicing at it. But if you just don’t have the balance now or you just don’t have it, always be near something that you can hold on to. Now, you brought up a chair earlier, Jeff, and I want to mention that if the squat is really not for you, you don’t trust yourself enough to do it. Here’s something else that can fire up the same muscles is pull out a chair from your dining room table or it could be even a couch or a big fluffy chair. I don’t care what you want to use, but it’s a chair. What’s you’re going to do is you’re going to sit in the chair and then you’re going to get back up without using your arms.
Maria Johnson:
You’re just going to use your legs to get back up. Now, if you have to use your arms to kind of help push yourself up, that’s fine. The squat police aren’t coming to your house, but this is one way to slowly introduce those muscles into working a little bit harder and gaining strength in your lower body. Again, it’s just by getting up and down off of a chair or couch without using your arms. So that might be a little something to try first. Kind of see where you’re at in your strength.
Jeff Thompson:
And you can always start adding the remote or a sandwich to add weight to it, right? I’m kidding.
Maria Johnson:
Yes. Why not? Just things around the home, you pick up your dog and see what happens.
Jeff Thompson:
There’s another thing that when you put your back up against the wall and lower yourself down into a chair position.
Maria Johnson:
Yes.
Jeff Thompson:
What is that called?
Maria Johnson:
That’s another good one, Jeff. It’s called a Wall Squat or a Wall Sit and you stand next to a wall with your back on the wall. Then you’re going to slowly walk your feet away from the wall as you are sliding down into a sitting position with your thighs parallel to the floor. You want your ankles right below your knees and you want to be sitting so your hips are aligned with your knees.
Maria Johnson:
I think that should make sense to folks. And you’re just going to hold it. You’re just going to sit and hold, and it may sound simple enough, but let me tell you, your quads, your thighs, which is are those big muscles right on top there are going to burn after just simply a few seconds. Some folks can hold it up to 30 seconds or a minute, but that’s something you can work up to. And to get out of that, you’re simply going to walk your feet back as you pushed yourself back up the wall and come to a standing position. But that’s another way to do it as well. It’s a good option.
Jeff Thompson:
But only try what’s comfortable for you. If you’re going to go down in the chair position, if you feel you’re going too far, don’t go that far. Just go partway, then hold it and then next time see what happens. These are all things that we just want you to try or be aware of. If you do go to a class and they talk about a wall sit, you have an idea of what it is.
Maria Johnson:
Yeah, exactly. And all the things we’ve mentioned, Jeff, be at the Sumo Squat, a traditional squat, the Chair Squat or the Wall Squat, they can all be done at home and you can work those into your day, I think pretty easily. Watching TV, throw some of those chair squats or the chair sits… wait, I’m going off in the weeds-
Jeff Thompson:
Or offer to be Uncle Bob’s chair for the day.
Maria Johnson:
But don’t sit in Uncle Bob’s lap too many times.
Jeff Thompson:
No. We got a railing on our open stairway where you can stand to the side of it and you can reach out with your hand and you can do stuff or face it and grab with both rails, and do some leg exercises like that. Just to have that extra support. It works out. There’s so many places in the home.
Maria Johnson:
Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
Chairs are good, counters, sinks, all sorts of stuff.
Maria Johnson:
Yeah, anywhere, anywhere.
Jeff Thompson:
It used to be just at home.
Maria Johnson:
Yeah. And well that’s the thing. A lot of people think they have to go to the gym to do a workout or to get their exercise, if you will, but that’s just not true. So much can be done at home and with a lot of us who can’t drive and you have to rely on transportation. Not that we can’t do it, but it’s just one less thing to worry about if you can come up with some things you can do in your own home.
Jeff Thompson:
And that’s the whole idea behind these short little Focus On Fitness episodes.
Maria Johnson:
Yep. Focus On Fitness, it’s not only good for you physically, but also good for you mentally.
Jeff Thompson:
Well Maria, why don’t you tell the listeners where they can find Maria Johnson, AKA Girl Gone Blind on social network?
Maria Johnson:
Thanks Jeff. 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 at girl_gone_blind.
Speaker 1:
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.
Speaker 5:
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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