Whether this is your first or fifth pregnancy there can be so many questions.

A big question many women have is if it is safe to workout during pregnancy?

The short answer is YES! And in this post, you’ll find some video guides to modify poses you may be used to getting into and tips on how to successfully navigate your pregnancy while staying active.

But before you get busy with your squats and curls always consult with your healthcare provider before beginning any exercise program as they will be able to offer you personalized exercise guidelines based on your medical history.

Exercise Benefits

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There are many physical and psychological health benefits (1) to performing moderate physical activity during pregnancy that include:

• Reduced risk of excessive pregnancy weight gain
• Reduced back pain
• May decrease your risk of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, preterm birth, varicose veins, and deep vein thrombosis.
• May make losing postpartum weight easier
• Eases constipation

Some of the psychological benefits to physical activity during pregnancy include:

• Reduced fatigue
• Reduced stress, anxiety, and depression
• Improved sense of well-being

In general if you were physically active before your pregnancy, you can exercise at your former level as long as you are comfortable and you have received approval from your healthcare provider (2).

Likewise if you have never exercised regularly before you can still safely begin an exercise program during pregnancy, just make sure you have received the okay from your personal health care professional first.

Pregnancy is not the time to try a new, strenuous activity.

Walking and swimming are considered safe to initiate when pregnant. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (3) recommends 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise per day on most (if not all) days of the week, unless you have a medical or obstetric complication.

What exercises are safe during pregnancy?

Most exercises are safe during pregnancy, as long as you exercise with caution, don’t over do it, and listen to your body (4). For total fitness, an exercise program should strengthen and condition your muscles.

The following are all considered safe and carry little risk of injury, benefit your entire body, and can be continued until birth (and after):

• Walking
• Prenatal yoga and Pilates
• Water aerobics and swimming
• Bodyweight and moderate resistance training
• Moderate low/no impact cardio

If you are an experienced runner, jogger, or racquet-sports player, you may be able to keep doing these activities during pregnancy. Always disclose and discuss these activities with your health care professional.

A few things to keep in mind: Exercising during your pregnancy is great but know your limits and don’t start a new program without discussing it with your provider. Make sure to discuss what types of exercises are recommended for you and if there are any to avoid.

Breathing, Core, and Your Pelvic Floor

Did you know your breath does more than just provide your cells and organs with oxygen? By taking a deep breath you can reduce your stress response by activating your parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS), your rest and digest system (6).

Taking a deep breath also facilitates the relaxation of your pelvic floor muscles on inhalation and the contraction on exhalation. In addition to activating the pelvic floor muscles on exhalation of a proper full breath you can tone your transverse abdominal (TA) muscles which act like a natural girdle, help support the core, and push out the baby during the birthing process.

Heavy loads which cause you to hold your breath or create intra-abdominal pressure may increase abdominal separation (diastasis recti).

I’ve invited Coach Nikki from Team Betty Rocker to take us through these tutorials.

Coach Nikki is a Certified Yoga Instructor (CYT) with 20 years of experience and holds the designations of Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (ERYT) and Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider (YACEP). Throughout her career she has worked as a personal fitness trainer and group fitness instructor teaching barre, pilates, body sculpting, chair yoga, kickboxing, and much more.

As a part of Nikki’s training she works with pre-natal students by offering variations, modifications, and addressing concerns of safety. She has also had first hand experience in exercise and pregnancy as a mother of two.

INTRO: Deep Breathing and Core Toning

Postural changes during pregnancy

As the load to the front of the body increases you may find more noticeable discomfort in the neck, shoulders, and lower back. Check in with your posture throughout the day and during your exercises.

Paying close attention to drawing the shoulders back and down while lifting the chest to a comfortable level. This may also aid in giving you more space to take a deep breath. Try gentle cat stretches from seated or hands and knees position to stretch the lower back.

The 4 Pillars of Health

Now that you are pregnant it is more important than ever to build a good foundation for your health and the health of the baby. By practicing the 4 Pillars of Health – sleep, nutrition, stress management, and exercise – you will be setting yourself up for success both during and after your pregnancy!

Prenatal Exercise Variations, Modifications, and Tips for All Trimesters

Video 1: How to Modify Forward-Facing Exercises 

In this video Nikki will show you many examples of ways you can modify your favorite prone exercises while still getting the benefit of the move.

Prone, front lying or face down, exercises may include exercises such as push-ups, plank or plank variations, superwoman lifts, cobra or updog, and swimmers.

If you can no longer keep your core engaged without doming or feel a significant amount of pressure (bearing down) through your mid-section in any of these moves, consider the following modifications: prop your hands on a chair, table, or counter top to modify push-ups, burpees, planks, etc.

In an exercise that requires weight to be placed on the stomach opt for a standing variation or try working from tabletop position (hands and knees).

Video 2: How to Modify Exercises Lying on Your Back

• Supine or back lying position (face up) exercises may include any exercises that require you to lie on your back to include chest flye, chest press, skull crushers, bridge lift, and the abdominal crunch.
• While it is generally considered safe to perform exercises while lying on the back from the first to third month of pregnancy it is not recommended for more than 3 minutes at a time after the third month. This is due to the increasing pressure and possible compression of the vena cava vein, the main vein that carries blood back to the heart from the lower body. Doing so may leave you feeling light-headed or dizzy.
• For this reason it is advisable to modify exercises that require lying on the back to an elevated surface such as an ottoman, pillows, or stability ball, to lift and support the neck and shoulders. In this video Nikki will show you ways to use common household items to keep the head and shoulders elevated and you safe.

Video 3: How to Modify Standing Exercises for Safety, Comfort, and Balance

In this video Nikki will show you how to make simple changes to find balance and accessibility in forward bends and standing exercises as you continue to grow with your baby.

• Standing exercises and inversions (head below the heart) may require some modification as the pregnancy progresses or to reduce mild discomforting pregnancy symptoms such as nausea, dizziness, or joint discomfort.
• These moves may include exercises such as standing forward bends, down dog, deadlift, squats, and lunges. For example to reduce low back discomfort try modifying your split stance or lunge variations by shortening your stance from front to back foot and create more balance and stability by widening your stance left to right. To avoid discomfort in the knees and feel more secure try reducing your range of motion when squatting by placing a box or chair beneath you.
• If you were using weights before your pregnancy continue with your training using the same weight if it feels good and go down in weight as needed. Keep in mind that as your pregnancy progresses you will be carrying more weight so it will be unlikely you will need to add more weight to moves like lunges or squats.
• Also consider going down in weight in moves that will put more load in your lower back with the added load of a growing baby bump in the front of the body. Exercises such as deadlifts and overhead press are two such moves.

Video 4: How to Modify Abdominal Core Exercises and Twists

• Core activation and rotation (twisting) of the spine can be a bit trickier during pregnancy but are still very important movements. Deep activation of the transverse abdominis (girdle like muscles that act as a corset around your torso) and the pelvic floor muscles can help alleviate or lessen low back pain, lessen diastasis recti (8), and even aid in the birthing process.
• Likewise eliminating rotation from the middle waist and finding rotation in the upper spine (mid thoracic spine) may help to alleviate or lessen pain in the upper back, neck, and shoulders. In this video I will show how elevating the neck and shoulders or working from standing you will be able to perform abdominal core training safely throughout your pregnancy as well as safe twisting techniques.

Video 5: How to Modify Explosive and High Intensity Exercises

In this video Coach Nikki will give you some great modifications for explosive and high-impact moves such as Tuck or Box Jumps, Squat Thrust, Jumping Jack variations, and Surfer Pop-ups to name a few. Just stay in tune with your body and reduce your effort when needed.

• Explosive and high intensity exercises are by nature designed to elevate the heart rate and your core temperature. This can be a great fitness tool for many reasons but not during pregnancy, as these movements can create stress and impact on the joints.
• It is always recommended to keep your internal core temperature to 102° F (38.9° C) or below. There are plenty of options to help get the heart rate up and keep your conditioning in check while keeping the impact, heart rate, and rise in core temperature to a minimum.
• In general using the heart rate as a guideline for intensity is not the best source of feedback (9) considering that every woman’s working heart rate will be affected by their level of fitness prior to pregnancy. Instead using the RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) Scale and rating your effort level on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being little to no exertion and 10 being extreme) may be more effective. It is usually suggested to stick to an RPE of 8 or below for short interval/circuit work and 6 or below for long continuous efforts.

BONUS VIDEO: Prenatal Yoga with Coach Rena Wren

Rena Wren is a certified E-RYT 500, RPYT, YACEP and Yin Yoga Teacher/Trainer. She is the creator of an online workshop for yoga teachers and students that covers everything you need to know about yoga for fertility, prenatal trimesters, postnatal yoga, pose options and modifications, and common discomforts in pregnancy. She is also a mother and has had first hand experience in exercise and pregnancy.

Now that you know many great ways to stay safe and modify exercises to meet your needs as your body changes with your pregnancy let’s look at ways to reduce your stress, make your body more comfortable, and ease your mind during this roller coaster we call pregnancy with a gentle prenatal yoga flow practice.

Benefits of prenatal yoga (10):

• Improve sleep
• Reduce stress and anxiety
• Increase the strength, flexibility, and endurance of muscles needed for childbirth
• Decrease lower back pain, nausea, headaches, and shortness of breath

With a little awareness, self monitoring, and approval from your health care provider you will be rocking your baby bump and workouts safely throughout your pregnancy.

Remember no matter what your pregnancy and pregnancy body looks like, it is YOURS and it is beautiful!

The post Prenatal Workout Guide appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

Welcome to The Betty Rocker Show, the place to be to nourish your mind, love your body, and rock your life.

Today we’re diving in with Jen Esquer, PT, DPT – an internationally-known physical therapist who specializes in mobility and helping people overcome chronic pain and maximize physical performance.

Perhaps you’ve had an injury in the past, or noticed that you have some limitations in your squats or lunges. Getting your body to activate fully is sometimes beyond the help that an online coach can provide, and you’ll see me regularly refer people with injuries or specific conditions to a hands-on physical therapist because of the customized care they can provide.

While we never want to get injured we often don’t think about preventing injury when it comes to training, but that’s exactly what a great physical therapist can help you do. It’s one of the reasons I continue to see my PT in person, many years after my injuries have healed. I want to prevent future injuries, get maintenance and guidance on patterns that I have and continue to work within a strong body.

Jen Esquer has been featured in Shape magazine, Self magazine, Men’s Fitness, Muscle & Fitness and recently graced the cover of Oxygen magazine. As the founder of The Mobility Method and The Optimal Body, she brings a unique whole body approach to strength, mobility, and pain-free living.

Jen is a highly-skilled physical therapist and I’m so excited for her to share her best tips with us today!

This episode will provide you with valuable information to empower you in your self care and provide you with the tools and resources you need to take care of your amazing body.

From her site “ As a self-proclaimed “mover,” Jen has spent more than 2/3 of her life upside down. She graduated with a B.S. in Kinesiology, and received her DPT degree from Loma Linda University.

After schooling, she went on to accept a job at VERT Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation in Santa Monica. Through VERT and furthering her education, she was able to meet some amazing individuals who further fueled the expansion of her knowledge base. Her mission is to help those who are willing to listen to their body, reverse aging, eliminate pain and establish sustainable health.” 

In this episode you’ll discover:

How Jen Esquer got started (2:07)

• How using Instagram grew her business
• How she wanted to empower her followers

What to do if you’re experiencing pain in your body (5:30)

• The importance of awareness
• Why cookie-cutter plans can be detrimental
• The importance of working with someone in person
• How your lifestyle impacts your pain
• The importance of building a strong foundation for your body
• What to look for in a practitioner

The importance of mobility for resilience (10:30)

• The Mobility Method
• The importance of mobility
• The difference between mobility and flexibility

How to be proactive with your self care (15:00)

• How to work mobility into your day
• The importance of listening to your body
• The importance of being consistent
• The all or something approach to self care
• Why it’s the healthcare provider’s responsibility to educate you on the process
• Rock Your Life Online Community

How mobility can help with chronic pain (21:50)

• The most common issues she sees
• Why it’s important to try something new
• The importance of your breath
• The importance of “talking” to your nervous system
• The importance of repetition for lasting change

How your breath impacts your nervous system (27:13)

• What happens in your body when you breathe
• The importance of exhalation
• How to breathe for a relaxed state
• The importance of your rib cage for breathing
• How to breathe in stressful situations
• How stress impacts your breath

How to assess your mobility (32:53)

• Jen’s free YouTube videos
• The Mobility Method
• Where in your body you want to be more mobile
• Why your site of pain isn’t where the issue is

The importance of body awareness (35:59)

• How your alignment can impact your breathing and vice versa
• The importance of applying body awareness to your movement patterns
• How awareness can impact your entire life
• The importance of listening to your body
• The 4 Pillars of Health

Jen’s program The Optimal Body (42:20)

• How it helps you assess your body
• What’s included in the program
• How it can help you build awareness in your body
• How to build your “optimal body”

What women need to know when it comes to mobility (45:00)

• Why leaking after a baby is common but doesn’t have to be normal
• The importance of seeing a pelvic floor specialist
• How Diastasis Recti can differ from woman to woman
• Find a pelvic floor therapist
• The importance of advocating for yourself

How to connect with Dr. Jen (50:46)

• Her Youtube
• Instagram: @docjenfit
• Her Website
• The Optimal Body Podcast
• The Mobility Method
• The Optimal Body

Coming up next week, we’re going to take a look at our bodies and minds from another perspective and look at the long term effects trauma can have. So many of us live with trauma and internalize it and it ends up manifesting in our bodies as pain, disease, eating disorders, and so many more things.

I’ll be joined by the founder of the Institute for Transformational Nutrition, Cynthia Garcia, who shares her incredible journey from pain to power and gives so many insights about the frameworks we can all access to walk through the fires we face, step up to a higher level, create a rich life of meaning and joy, and really heal ourselves in the process. This is a show you won’t want to miss!

Love The Betty Rocker Show? We do too! Share it with your friends, and subscribe on your favorite podcast player to be alerted when new shows drop!

Love The Betty Rocker Show? We do too!

Share it with your friends, and subscribe on your favorite podcast
player to be alerted when new shows drop!

ABOUT THE BETTY ROCKER SHOW:

Join me for open and thought provoking discussions about health, fitness, and how to stop undermining ourselves – and start taking meaningful action that makes us role models to others…

….and, listen in on my intimate conversations with amazing thought leaders, health care professionals, athletes and celebrities to learn their secrets and insights for overcoming life’s challenges, living longer, healthier, stronger and more #flawsome lives.

New shows are released on a weekly basis during each season of The Betty Rocker Show. Shows alternate between solo episodes with me, and interviews with guests.

Subscribe on your favorite player today!

The post Episode 14: Daily Self-Care Tips for a Strong, Fit Body with Physical Therapist Jen Esquer appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

Welcome to The Betty Rocker Show, the place to be to nourish your mind, love your body, and rock your life.

In today’s episode I talk about an important part of rocking the 4 Pillars of Health: SEEING RESULTS!

While all the fast fix solutions sound tempting, and some even work in the short term, many leave us feeling, and looking, worse off than when we started. So today, I’m unpacking part 1 of a 2-part series on how to actually see results faster – the smart, sustainable way.

I’ll cover why we want to do more than just “lose fat,” the best ways to train for sustainable fat loss, mistakes you may be making when it comes to tracking your progress, and how to really optimize your fittest physique with exercise, sleep and stress management tools for a long, healthy life in a fit body you love.

Here’s today’s show! Be sure to leave a review on your favorite podcast player.

In this episode you’ll discover:

The truth about “fast fixes” (0:14)

• Skinny detox teas, fat burners, diet pills, etc.
• Long term damage

How to actually measure your success (1:27)

• Take progress pictures
• Hyper focusing on one area of our body
• The truth about the scale
• Body composition
• Body fat vs. lean muscle

All about body fat (5:24)

• How we lose fat
• Staying the course
• Healthy and sustainable goals
• Nutrition and fitness

Why more isn’t better (8:17)

• Being consistent
• Focus on your 4 pillars of health
• The effects of overtraining
• Muscle grows during rest
• Importance of muscle
• Listen to your body
• Training when sick or injured
• Doing more than one program at a time
• Rock Your Life Online Home Workout Studio

The most effective training for results (15:40)

• Combination of resistance training and explosive cardio
• Skinny fat
• Importance of resistance training
• Bodyweight programs
• Cardio 101
• Why your body needs variety
• Walking
• Weighted vest

The importance of sleep when it comes to your results (22:48)

• Importance of sleep
• Sleep cycles
• Your sleep and the 5 senses
• Eye mask
• Your circadian rhythm
• Blue blocking glasses: True Dark
• White noise machine
• Earplugs
• Effects on your hormones
• Linen duvet cover
• Essential oils
• Diffuser
• Eating before bed
• Liquid consumption before bed
• Four Sigmatic Hot Chocolate
• Cravings

Make a commitment to yourself today (33:35)

• Commitment statement:

I, _________(name), commit to taking action on , __________, and _________(your goals) in the upcoming month. I will look for the good in myself, I will celebrate my wins along the way, and I will stay true to the #allorsomething mindset – because I am ___________, ____________ and _________(affirming words about yourself), and mostly because I value myself and take action toward what matters to me.

Love The Betty Rocker Show? We do too! Share it with your friends, and subscribe on your favorite podcast player to be alerted when new shows drop!

Love The Betty Rocker Show? We do too!

Share it with your friends, and subscribe on your favorite podcast
player to be alerted when new shows drop!

ABOUT THE BETTY ROCKER SHOW:

Join me for open and thought provoking discussions about health, fitness, and how to stop undermining ourselves – and start taking meaningful action that makes us role models to others…

….and, listen in on my intimate conversations with amazing thought leaders, health care professionals, athletes and celebrities to learn their secrets and insights for overcoming life’s challenges, living longer, healthier, stronger and more #flawsome lives.

New shows are released on a weekly basis during each season of The Betty Rocker Show. Shows alternate between solo episodes with me, and interviews with guests.

Subscribe on your favorite player today!

The post Episode 5: How to See Results Faster (part 1) appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

Do you ever feel like you just aren’t seeing the results you want even though you are working out consistently and doing everything “right”? 

I hear you! And I know how frustrating it can be to feel like all of your hard work and dedication is for nothing.

But you are not alone.

Sometimes when people really are doing all of the “right” things and still can’t lose fat, get shredded (and by that I mean add the muscle that creates the sculpted, shredded look) or see their body changing- we have to take a look at what else could be going on beyond just working out. 

While some factors (like your hormones) may need to be addressed by a doctor, there are some things that you can do to help you move in the direction of your goals.  Today I’ll take you through five ways to make your workouts more effective so that you can continue to show up and finally see the results you are after!

1. Take Your Rest Days

The truth is, your body needs days off to repair, recover, and rest—without them, you miss out on your body’s ability to reap the benefits of exercise without getting too burned out.

While it might sound counter-intuitive, it’s when you rest that your body goes through the repair process that sculpts lean muscle. It’s actually the time you spend outside of your workouts where the magic really happens.

During a workout, small microscopic tears occur in the tissue of your muscle fibers. And while this is happening your body is using the nutrients you’ve consumed to provide you with energy for your workout.

After your workout, your body turns its attention and energy towards repairing the tissue in the muscles and joints that you just used. But without proper rest, your immune system goes into overdrive trying to restore you, which can compromise your immune system, putting you at greater risk for getting sick (1).

Overtraining or not getting enough rest, can also result in injuries such as pulled muscles, strained joints, etc. It has also been shown to have a negative impact on the nervous system, the endocrine system (which is our hormone master control system), and can lead to excessive inflammation in the body (2) all of which we want to avoid.

If you’re working out every day and feeling exhausted, take a day off, get some rest, and see if you have more energy and stamina during your next workout!

Not sure if you’re getting enough rest? Planning your workout strategy at the beginning of every week can help. And if you’re still not sure if your plan is balanced,  check out one of my workout programs where I have taken all of the guesswork out for you!

2. Get Quality Sleep

Prioritizing sleep is so important when it comes to seeing results from all of your hard work! When you’re exercising consistently, your body needs more deep sleep in order for your muscles to recover, which is why getting poor quality sleep can sabotage your best efforts in a few ways (3).

During sleep, your body produces HGH (human growth hormone), sometimes known as the “fitness hormone.” In children and adolescents, it stimulates bone and cartilage growth. In people of all ages, HGH boosts protein production and promotes fat utilization.

The amount of sleep you get will determine whether you lose muscle, or you lose body fat.

When you don’t sleep well, your hormones are impacted causing testosterone and growth hormone (HGH) to drop, impairing your recovery and making it harder to build muscle, and harder to lose fat (4). In fact, you may become more prone to storing fat.

Lack of sleep also causes cortisol levels to rise and remain elevated. This chronic high level of cortisol can inhibit your weight loss efforts and actually promote the breakdown of your hard-earned muscle by interfering with the mechanisms that repair your muscle tissue (5).

Being sleep-deprived also impacts the hormone Ghrelin (your hunger hormone), urging you to snack and prompting you to reach for quick energy—usually highly caloric sugary and fatty foods.

Plus, when you are sleep deprived, you won’t have as much energy to work your hardest, and you also increase your risk for injury. Which is why when you are really tired, I recommend that you take an active recovery or rest day! It will be so much more productive for you and your results in the long run.

When it comes to getting quality sleep, some simple tips I recommend are limiting caffeine after 3 P.M., establishing a relaxing bedtime routine and getting off your screens at least 30 minutes before bed (and consider wearing some blue blocking glasses as well).

The bottom line is that the amount and quality of sleep that you get really does impact your body composition and can be the reason why you are struggling to see results!

3. Stress Less

Working out when you’re having a tough day is a great idea, but if you’re chronically stressed out and always feeling exhausted around your workouts, it may be a good indication that stress is playing a role in your lack of progress.

Your body is wired to react to stress in ways meant to protect you against a perceived threat (6).  When we’re triggered by a stressful event, a cascade of hormones is released to help us “fight or flight.”

The adrenaline released increases your heart rate, elevates your blood pressure and boosts energy supplies. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, is also released which increases sugars (glucose) in the bloodstream, enhances your brain’s use of glucose and increases the availability of substances that repair tissues.

Cortisol also alters your immune system response and suppresses the digestive system, the reproductive system and growth processes. This natural alarm system (your flight or fight system) also communicates with the brain regions that control mood, motivation and fear.

Once the threat has passed, hormone levels return to normal. As adrenaline and cortisol levels drop, your heart rate and blood pressure return to baseline levels, and other systems resume their regular activities.

But when stressors are always present and you constantly feel under attack, that fight-or-flight reaction stays turned on.

The long-term activation of the stress-response system and the overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones that follows can disrupt almost all your body’s processes.

For instance when your stress levels remain high, your fat loss efforts are hindered because cortisol stays elevated which can lead to packing on extra (and stubborn) fat, especially around the midsection (7). Cortisol is anabolic to fat and catabolic to muscle, meaning it helps maintain body fat and leads to the break down of muscle tissue.

So, what can you do? While there’s no way to instantly eliminate stress, there are tools you can use to help you handle and mitigate it. Reducing your stress levels can make all the difference when it comes to your result.

4. Nutrition, Nutrition, Nutrition

When it comes to nutrition, I always recommend that you focus on eating whole, nutrient-dense foods and while you may already be doing this, an imbalance in the nutrients you’re choosing could be impacting your results.

When planning a meal, start with your protein, add plenty of greens, then build around that with whole food carbohydrates and/or fats, and eat to satisfaction.

• Because protein is more satisfying than fat or carbs, you’ll feel more full when you include it in adequate amounts.
• A great way to turn off constant cravings and regulate your blood sugar is to include a couple additional bites of protein in your meals rather than going for more of the starches or fats.
• Choose fiber-rich whole food carbohydrate sources throughout the day to ensure adequate and stable energy.  The best way to get into optimal “fat burning mode” and to have enough energy to show up to your workouts, is to make sure that your carbohydrate choices come from whole food sources and that you are avoiding the fake stuff.
• Choose nutrient dense healthy fats for these benefits to your brain – long lasting energy and feel full longer so you don’t overeat
• Don’t skimp on your greens and fresh vegetables. They include vital micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) that aid your body in many processes and enhance the actions of your protein, carbohydrates and healthy fats – plus often contain digestive-healthy fiber.

Bottom line: make whole foods your baseline and include the key nutrients with each of your meals so you are full and satisfied, with plenty of energy to fuel your workouts and sculpt your physique!

5. Supplements

Any time we talk about supplements it’s important to remember that they’re just that- supplements to your healthy whole food eating. I don’t want you to feel like you have to include supplements or go outside of your normal eating but I do think it’s important that you know the facts and how some of these things can really help your body and benefit your workouts. Here are the ones I often use, and recommend:

A quality protein powder: When it comes to your protein powder, it’s more about the ingredients and their source than it is anything else. What’s in a powder mix (or what’s NOT) is what gets my stamp of approval.

-Is the source of the protein one that’s readily absorbed by your body?
-Is it a complete protein (all essential amino acids present)?
-Grass-fed (whey, bone broth)?
-Organic (plant)?
-No artificial sugar?
(I generally opt for a protein that’s been sweetened with a natural plant source like monk fruit, coconut, or ORGANIC stevia.)

To meet all of these criteria- I use and recommend I Vanilla Protein by Whole Betty (that’s me!)

EAA’s (essential amino acids):
Essential amino acids are the ones your body can’t make on its own, and we must get them from food (or supplements. They contain the BCAA’s (branch chain amino acids) within them, which are 3 particular amino acids (leucine, isoleucine, and valine) that are structurally different than the others.

All of the amino acids are the building blocks of muscle, but these three have been shown to have special benefits for your body including increasing and preserving muscle mass (8), reducing fatigue– which can be beneficial anytime, not just around exercise- (9), reducing muscle soreness (10), and speeding up recovery (11).

When you eat dietary protein, or use a protein supplement, the protein is broken down into amino acids, and then used by your body for the numerous tasks it needs amino acids for. When you take a specific amino acid supplement that contains all the essential amino acids with the amino’s already broken down, they can more rapidly get to work.

Check out Rock and Restore, my own free form essential amino acid formula!

If you consume them during or after your workout when the muscle has a greater need for them, they can support muscle protein synthesis and recovery of your muscle tissue (12). If you want to improve the look and function of your muscles, EAA’s may be an ideal supplement to add to your regimen – and the best bang for your buck as they contain ALL the amino’s that you need.

Collagen: Using a quality collagen supplement has been shown to improve your skin’s elasticity – which can reduce the signs of aging and the appearance of cellulite (16).

Collagen has also been shown to reduce activity related joint pain (17), improve your lean muscle mass and increase strength (18) which are all important when it comes to reaching and maintaining your fitness goals!I’ve been taking collagen for the past couple years and have noticed such a difference in my skin, hair and nails (the tissue I can see on the outside) and I have no doubt that it’s contributing to the integrity of my joint and bone tissue as well.

You can get Whole Betty Full Body Collagen right here!

Caffeine: I really dislike most pre-workouts out there because they tend to have added sugars. And, they almost all include caffeine – so I just make it easy and have an espresso or coffee before my workout (I’m sensitive to caffeine, so I don’t do this if I’m working out in the afternoon).If it’s the right time of day, a little caffeine in your system during a workout can really boost your energy and enhance your fat burning abilities (13).

Electrolytes: If you’re sweating a lot during exercise, you may want to consider electrolytes. Sodium, Potassium, Chloride, Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphate and Bicarbonate are minerals that carry an electrical charge and facilitate the communication between the brain and the body. They also play a vital role in muscle contraction, keeping you hydrated and regulating your body’s pH levels (14).

You lose most of your water and electrolytes, particularly sodium, when you sweat, so offsetting that loss is important as dehydration impairs exercise ability and can pose a risk to your health (15).

Usually the sodium you consume through your diet is an adequate amount to cover what is lost during exercise but it is always important to rehydrate adequately. You can replenish your electrolytes by consuming coconut water, avocados, bananas and watermelon.

So what are the keys to seeing more from your workouts?

Take rest days, get quality sleep, remove some stress, fuel your body with whole foods and add in some optional supplements. And more than anything, be proud of yourself and give yourself some grace- change takes time but you are on the right track!

I hope you got a TON of great insight out of this article today.  Please pass it on and share it with someone you love. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, and questions – leave them below.

If you are following a healthy lifestyle, seeking support for sustained energy, mental clarity and overall well-being, check out my healthy lifestyle products to support you!

The post 5 Ways To Make Your Workouts More Effective appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

Everyone always asks me if I work out every day (you might have wondered that yourself) – I do NOT.

I pair my workouts with rest days (either a light activity or simply chilling out), and today I want to share exactly why – and what I do to keep it fun!

While it might sound counter-intuitive, it’s when you rest that your body goes through the repair process that sculpts strong muscle.

This is why I’m a big fan of rest, active recovery and doing activities that reduce stress and improve your mental state of being.

After your workout, your body turns its attention and energy towards repairing the tissue in the muscles and joints that you just used. But without proper rest, your immune system goes into overdrive trying to restore you, which can compromise your immune system, putting you at greater risk for getting sick.

Overtraining or not getting enough rest, has also been shown to have a negative impact on the nervous system, the endocrine system (which is our hormone master control system), and can lead to excessive inflammation in the body all of which we want to avoid. 

The truth is, rest is one of the most important aspects of your workout program. Training alone doesn’t make you stronger training with rest does.

So what kind of rest is best?

Both ACTIVE and PASSIVE (inactive) rest are important but studies have shown that active recovery is more effective when it comes to reducing your overall muscle soreness/stiffness and reducing your heart rate. I recommend taking at least 1-2 rest days a week with some low impact activities thrown into the mix.

My one caveat to all of this is first and foremost, LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. Don’t push it, or force yourself to do anything if you’re tired. And if you have great energy but you worked out hard the day before, try an active recovery day.

In need of some things to do on your Active Recovery days? I’ve got you covered! Variety is the spice of life after all,  so here are the…

Top 10 things you can do on your Active Recovery Days

1. Hiking

I absolutely love hiking on my active recovery days. It’s such a great way to get outside and connect with nature. It always reminds me just how much beauty there is to be seen, and how grateful I am to live in this amazing world.

Hiking is also a great way to disconnect with the outside world and tune into yourself.  It allows for deeper connection and gives you that healthy dose of Vitamin D!

It’s a great activity to do with friends, too. In this pic, I was hiking in Palm Desert, CA with my bestie JJ Virgin Thanksgiving morning.

We had an amazing and unforgettable conversation – as one does with a great friend, when inspired by nature!

2. Go for a Walk

Walking is a great low impact cardiovascular exercise that can be done outside or inside. I love walking because it gives me time to myself, and often time with my doggies. I also love listening to a Podcast or an audiobook while I’m walking to get me thinking outside the box and inspire me creatively.

3. Mobility work and /or stretching

Mobility work is an amazing thing to do on your active recovery days. It loosens you up and promotes circulation. It also helps you recover so that you can perform your workouts with full force!

Some great mobility exercises include foam rolling, neck circles, wrist stretches and hip opening poses.

Stretching is also important when it comes to your active recovery days.  It’s often one of  those things that we take for granted or don’t give time to during our workouts. But stretching is key for a flexible, STRONG body.

Dynamic stretching (stretching that involves movement) allows for better circulation of fresh blood to the muscles, which helps your body recover faster since your muscles are getting the nutrients they need! It also improves your range of motion, your athletic performance and decreases your risk of injury so you can give your workouts your all.

4. Yoga

I love Yoga! It’s such an amazing activity that is not only good for your body but your mind as well. It calms you and allows you to be present, in your body and in your life.

Yoga also loosens muscles, promotes circulation, and has been shown to be more effective in improving range of motion and joint health than static stretching alone.

Yoga has so many benefits – including lengthening and strengthening your muscles, reducing stress, depression and chronic pain, improving sleep patterns, promoting and improving respiratory and cardiovascular function, and enhancing your overall well-being and quality of life!

5. Hot therapy

Think saunas, steam rooms, hot stone massage, and the like have been shown to increase blood flow and allow more oxygen and nutrients to your muscles and tissues.

This is great for decreasing muscle soreness, joint stiffness, and muscle tightness or spasms, all of which can be a side effect of training!

Hot therapy is also great for overall physical relaxation which is why I love using my Infrared Sauna!

It’s one of my favorite ways to aid my training recovery process and decompress.

6. Cold therapy

Cold therapy such as ice baths, cold plunges, cold showers, and Cryotherapy are great on any day but I especially like them on my active recovery days. Studies show that they can be used to improve a wide variety of physical ailments, including asthma, pain management, reduced soreness and inflammation, increased recovery time, anxiety and fatigue (7).

I highly recommend checking out Wim Hof for more tools to make cold your friend and be super inspired by the legendary master of cold therapy.

7. Meditation

Meditation is one of the single most effective stress relieving tools there is. Just like the “deposits” you make in your daily health savings account with your healthy eating, exercise and sleep, meditation has a cumulative effect and strengthens your stress response “muscles.”

When paired with exercise, meditation has been shown to have an even greater effect on your ability to control your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors and decrease your negative thinking patterns.

By learning how to refocus your attention through meditation, you can develop new cognitive skills that make you happier, less stressed and more at peace.

8. Body Alignment, Chiropractic Adjustment or Bodywork (massage, chiro, PT)

Exercise can be the cause of or exacerbate certain structural misalignments that are very common in the body, especially in the hips and shoulders.

And if you are constantly training and lifting weights on a misaligned skeleton, you most likely will have chronic pain which is why it’s so important to get your alignment checked out by a licensed practitioner who can support your body. This is why I am such a big fan of preventative bodywork including Chiropractic care, Physical Therapy and massage for general health.

Studies have shown that people who received chiropractic care had a 30% increase in their agility, balance, kinesthetic perception, power and reaction time which not helps you in your workouts but also your day to day life!

Your nervous system controls all healing and functioning of your body so when you receive a chiropractic adjustment, any interference is removed in the body allowing it to heal at an optimal level.

A physical therapist will usually do a mix of manual therapy, some adjusting and often work with you on exercises to help re-pattern movements in your body so you can exercise with proper form. Using correct form and learning how to activate your muscles properly is so important for preventing injuries and achieving the results you are after.

Getting a massage is another awesome thing to do on your active recovery day to decompress and improve circulation and immunity! Studies show that getting a massage after exercise leads to a decrease in exercise related inflammation and improved cell recovery by boosting the production of new mitochondria. Without mitochondria, our body would not have the energy to carry out things like your brain functioning, your heart beating, or your muscles firing.

Your body works as a unit, so I always recommend treating the musculoskeletal system whenever possible as a unit – as in, if you get a chiropractic adjustment, also get some soft tissue work (massage) and vice versa. They really go hand in hand.

9. Food Prep

Do yourself a favor and use the extra time you have to get your food prep done!

Making a few staple recipes for the week is a great way to set yourself up for success!

Each and every time you eat, you’re creating the foundation and tissue that make up the actual shape and structure of your body-and every time you exercise, you’re simply putting the finishing touches on the beautiful physique you’ve sculpted with what you put in your mouth. 

I have a ton of healthy and delicious recipes for you on the blog. And if you are looking for more meal ideas, I’ve got you covered with my amazing meal plans!

10. Sleep

While not necessarily active, sleep is one of the most important things you can do on your recovery days. And you can actively set yourself up for a good night’s sleep.

Getting good sleep allows you to perform better, makes you happier, regulates your hormones, reduces stress levels, improves focus, creativity and memory, and regulates and reduces inflammation.

Lack of sleep effects your metabolism by negatively impacting glucose tolerance and producing more Ghrelin (your hunger hormone) making it hard to shed belly fat. In one study, a group of people who had the same exercise regimen and diet were split into 2 different groups – one group slept well while the other group had interrupted sleep. The well-rested group lost weight while the sleep deprived gained weight, proving just how important sleep is for your results.

Outside of its effects on your appearance, ability to focus and perform at your best and recover quickly – sleep is important for your overall health and longevity.

Your turn! No matter what you decide to do on your active recovery day, the benefits will definitely be worth it!

Long-term happiness doesn’t come from what your body looks like—it comes from what your body can do.

Focus on making your body more capable of experiencing all that life has to offer, and dedicate time to new activities outside of training or workouts that bring you joy.

Drop me a line below and let me know what activity you are going to try and if there are any others that you enjoy doing that are not on the list!

We talk about important topics like this (and more) in Rock Your Life, my online home workout studio and women’s fitness community!

Come join us and let us support you on your journey of fitness and health – with home workout challenges, workout classes, healthy recipes, and our private support group!

The post Top 10 Things To Do For Your Active Recovery Days appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

One of the top requests I get here on the blog is for BOOTY and AB workouts. That’s easy to satisfy, because I love training those body parts too!

However, one of the biggest mistakes I see people making with these two key areas is not understanding how to properly activate them so they can get the most out of their workouts.

Your core (abs) is made up of layers of interlocking muscle that work together and are the center point for nearly every movement you make. Strengthening and balancing these muscle layers is key in moving well and preventing injury.

Stabilizing and activating your core while you’re exercising will help you get much stronger in all the things you do, and help you uncover your abdominal muscles much quicker.

Your glutes (butt muscles) are super important muscles that stabilize your hips and legs and help keep you upright. Many people aren’t actually activating these muscles fully in their workouts which means they don’t see the results of their efforts. It’s also common to suffer from imbalances in these key muscles (either from past injury, pregnancy, or even side dominance) that translate down through the knee and ankle joints.

While I always recommend working with a Physical or Occupational Therapist or someone local who can hands-on assess you, you can also do a lot to improve your workouts by tuning into the activation of the muscles in these key areas so you can strengthen them and make sure you’re really getting the most out of your workouts.

Join me for this Core and Booty activation routine where I go over all of the different exercises you can do, teach you the benefits of each move and how to use them in your own program. Let’s get started!

I’d recommend doing this sequence and adding any parts of it into your regular routine that you found particularly challenging moving forward as a little warmup to your workouts. I personally work on bridge lifts and lateral leg lifts prior to training, as well as always checking in with my core the way I’m going to show you in most of the movements I do.

For more personalized guidance and demonstrations, take my free Foundations of Functional Fitness series!

How to Activate Your Core:

Start by coming down to the floor or your mat, roll yourself onto your back with your knees bent, feet on the floor, and lay in a natural position. Place both of your hands under your back and notice the natural curve that is in your back.

Now, imagine you have a large, juicy blueberry. I want you to imagine it right in the middle of your lower spine. Press your back down to hold the blueberry down against the floor but do not squash it. Congratulations, your core is engaged!

Now we want to perform moves with it engaged. The key is to keep holding that blueberry down when we are adding extra weight by lifting our legs or moving our body. In many positions, our backs automatically want to arch, so be sure to focus on this feeling you just learned while you’re working them. 

How to Activate Your Glutes:

Some of the best glute activators are the simplest. I either perform bridge lifts or unilateral (single side) moves like leg lifts in a few directions to target and activate the gluteus minimus, maximus and medius. There are deeper, stabilizing muscles that aid you in hip movements and holding an upright posture that also benefit from these types of movements.

One of the reasons I love barre workouts so much is that they target a lot of these. Side benefits to activating the glutes prior to a workout (or making sure your muscles are firing in general) is that you’ll see the results of your work a lot faster. When the muscles aren’t firing right, your body will compensate by activating other muscles – often in your back – to do the work.

Want to practice your newly gained knowledge activating your booty and core? Now is your chance! Check out the Booty and Abs 30-Day Challenge Program!

The workouts in this challenge will give you a great well-rounded workout program with an emphasis on sculpting your butt, legs and abs, help you torch fat, and save time. You can do it from home (or in the gym) with minimal equipment – think dumbbells, an exercise ball and stretchy bands.

The post How to Activate Your Booty and Abs to Define and Sculpt Them in Half the Time appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

I’ve been getting a lot of requests lately for a simple full body stretching sequence, so I put one together for you!

There are just so many benefits to keeping your muscles stretched, limber, and loose. Stretching is a regular part of my self-care regime, and I recommend you add it in whenever you can.

Not only does a healthy dose of flexibility allow for increased functional longevity, but regular stretching also allows for better circulation of fresh blood to the muscles, which can help the body recover faster.

Join me for this Full Body Stretching and Flexibility Routine – it will leave you feeling refreshed from head to toe in just 20 minutes. Plus I’ll talk about some of the benefits of stretching in the sauna (I use one a few times a week), how to stretch before your muscles are warm, and show you great stretches you can do at your desk.

Stretching is a smart, strong, self-care activity that feels amazing, so let’s get started!

What kinds of stretches are there?

Static Stretches, like the kind primarily featured in this video, are best when your muscles are good and warm.  For example, after you’ve worked out, after a hot shower or bath, or during or after a sauna session.

A static stretch pushes a muscle to its full capacity and then allows it to reach a new level of flexibility. For example, yoga is a great practice of stretching that incorporates breathing and flowing movement with deep stretching.

Speaking of breathing, a great way to deepen a stretch is to take a deep breath in, and then gently deepen into your stretch on the out breath. You’ll see me demo this in the video.

Dynamic stretches are great for the beginning of a workout, to help you warm up and I demo those close to the end of the video.

This type of light, active movement essentially alerts the synovial fluid that lives in your joint space that it’s time to get moving.  These simple movements help signal your muscles that it’s time to wake up, warm up, and work!

When is the best time to stretch? 

Any time is a good time to stretch! It just depends what kind of stretching you’re going to do.

• Pre-workout: dynamic stretching; mobility, movement-based exercises
• Post-workout: static stretching and holds

Like I said above, the best time to hold a static stretch is when your muscles are warm – so after your workout is done, after you get out of the shower, after you finish a sauna session, or even IN the sauna.

Overall, the most crucial factor is that you DO stretch, no matter what time of day, both before and after your workout. Both types are effective, so as soon as you take action, you’ll be benefitting!

How long do I hold a stretch?

This is a subjective answer because each and every body is unique.  Even more than that, how long you personally need to hold a stretch can and will change. The key is tuning in and paying close attention to the conversation your body is always ready and willing to have with you.

Here’s how I stretch and how I teach my students to stretch:

On a 1-10 scale, you want your stretch starting point to be about a 7, or a “good hurt.” An 8 on that scale would be an “ow, it hurts,” where a 5-6 just feels good, but not with intensity. This is subjective to you, so while you and I both have a 7, it can feel different to each of us. So really just listen to your body and use the number descriptions to help you get into it.

Once you’ve found your sweet spot at 7, you should hold the stretch until it lessens to a 5 or 6. No need to count to 30 (unless you want to).

Practice taking a deep breath in to lengthen the muscle, and then exhale to fold deeper into the stretch.

For more great info on taking care of your muscles, read:

• Sleek, Sculpted, Strong: How Muscles Work

For more STRETCHES, use my Flexibility Video guide by Body Part:

• Full Body Stretching Guide to Improve Flexibility

Leave me a comment below and let me know which parts of your body need to be stretched the most…

I also suggest you get a sauna session on your schedule asap! Whether you choose to do a stretching session in or after a sauna, you’ll love the gentle penetrating heat of the infrared sauna and how amazing you feel afterwards.

Here’s a quick video where I talk about my sauna and what prompted me to take occasional use to actually getting one in my home in case you’re interested.

The keys to living life in a vibrant, healthy body that stands the test of time, pain free and disease free, are nourishing yourself with healthy food, moving your body with intention, getting rest, and being kind to yourself. 

SHOP THE COLLECTION of Betty Rocker Eating Guides, Whole Food based supplements, Workout Plans, and more RIGHT HERE!

The post Full Body Stretch Sequence and Top Stretching Tips appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

There are some really good reasons to stretch, not in the least of which is that a flexible body is a STRONG body.

What IS flexibility?

According to the American Council on Exercise (ACE), flexibility is defined as “the range of motion of a given joint or group of joints or the level of tissue extensibility that a muscle group possesses.”

That means each area of your body might have a different range of motion, which is your level of flexibility. In some areas, the muscles might be short and tight, whereas other areas may feel looser, like you can lengthen and move those muscles more freely.  

What is the difference between flexibility and mobility?

• Mobility: how a joint moves.
• Flexibility: length of a muscle.

Why is flexibility important?

One of the secrets about being flexible is that as you create more space in your muscles, you increase your circulatory capacity and your body’s ability to grow more supple, smooth muscle more effectively.

Regular stretching allows for better circulation of fresh blood to the muscles, which helps the body recover faster by delivering nutrients to and removing waste byproducts from muscle tissues.

So stretching actually helps you achieve your strength gains faster!  

One of the other major benefits of developing and maintaining healthy levels of flexibility in your body is how crucial it is for continued health as we grow older.

As people age, a decrease in activity (as well as the aging process itself) leads to a tendency to lose flexibility – up to 50% in some areas of the body! And the less active you are, the less flexible you are likely to be. 

Video 1 of 5: How to Stretch Your Neck

When is the best time to stretch?  

A lot of people ask me if they should stretch before a workout. It’s fine to stretch pre-workout gently (your muscles are cold), but I usually do more dynamic stretches or warm-up movements to prepare for my workout, things like hip swings, arm circles, and bodyweight movements that aren’t at my full max potential – for example, holding plank, doing body squats or bear crawls – anything that gets the body moving and warms the tissue.

The best time to hold a static (non-moving) stretch is when your muscles are warm – so after the first set of your workout (or anytime during your workout), or of course, after your workout is done. Warm muscles are able to be stretched to their full capacity, and reach new levels of flexibility.

• Pre-workout: mobility, movement-based exercises and dynamic stretches
• Post-workout: static stretching and holds

Take away: Overall, the most crucial factor is that you DO stretch, no matter what time of day, before or after your workout. Studies show that both are effective and it’s important to simply take action and do a variety (static and dynamic).

Video 2 of 5: How to Stretch Your Shoulders, Chest and Upper Back

How often should you stretch?

You should stretch often! At least once a day, and if you sit at a desk all day, more often is even better! (see the videos in this post for some great ideas for stretches you can do at your desk).

I do a dedicated yoga session at least once a week to compliment my more intense circuit training, and I usually stretch during my workout in short bursts if I’m in the gym, and after my workout to make up for anything I missed whether I’m doing a bodyweight or weight training workout.

Video 3 of 5: How to Stretch Your Lower Back, Abs and Hips

How long should you hold a stretch for?

There is a lot of debate on the “perfect” amount of time to hold a stretch, and you can count to 30 if you like.  But another easy way to think about it without specifically counting is to listen to your body on a scale from 1-10. 1 is not stretching at all, 10 is “ow, this hurts in a painful way.” Take your stretch to a “good hurt” feeling, right around a 7.

This is subjective to you, so take your stretch to YOUR 7, where it “hurts in a good way” but doesn’t “HURT hurt” and hold it until it lessens to more of a 5-6. Then move on. (Of course, you can hold it longer if it feels good. Listen to your body, ALWAYS.)

Video 4 of 5: How to Stretch Your Quads, Hamstrings and Calves

Should you stretch on an injury?

Generally, the answer is NO. If something hurts, you don’t want to irritate it further by pushing past discomfort. But as soon as an injury starts to heal, start with very light stretching and increase your range of motion as your body allows.

The rule of thumb is don’t stretch a muscle that is strained, sprained or pulled – you can create further damage. I strongly recommend working with your therapist, personal trainer, or doctor with questions about caring for yourself after an injury, as having a one on one assessment that’s custom to you will ensure you heal as quickly as possible.

Video 5 of 5: How to Stretch Your Arms, Forearms and Hands

How should you stretch when you get a cramp?

Cramps and spasms are caused by a number of things, the main ones being poor flexibility and tight muscles, muscle fatigue and overuse, dehydration, and electrolyte and mineral depletion.

Cramps usually go away on their own, but you can massage the affected muscle or muscle group to decrease the severity and duration of them.

You can also treat it by engaging the antagonist, which is the opposing muscle. For example, a calf cramp (fairly common) can start to subside if you activate your tibialis anterior (your shin muscle). You do that by flexing your foot up to the ceiling. To activate your calf, you point your toe down, so the opposite, flexing your foot to the ceiling, is what will help. 

A trained sports therapist would do this for an athlete under their care because they have knowledge of all the muscles in the body and opposing muscle groups, so it’s not necessarily something you’d naturally just know, but it IS a handy piece of information to have.

The best route is to prevent cramps in the first place – which you can accomplish by warming up properly, stretching regularly and staying hydrated, as well as adding sea salt and nutrient-rich foods to your diet on a daily basis.

How to maintain and/or improve flexibility:

Keep up with your stretching game!

One of the best ways to ensure that happens is to practice Yoga – I do a yoga session once a week, and more when I can.

Yoga has so many benefits, including…

• lengthening and strengthening your muscles,
• reducing stress, depression and chronic pain,
• improving sleep patterns,
• promoting and improving respiratory and cardiovascular function, and
• enhancing overall well-being and quality of life.

Yoga also has the extra benefit of providing an increase in mental flexibility, too!

BTW – I have tons of yoga and mobility classes inside Rock Your Life, our online home workout studio and women’s fitness community. There are all kinds of workout classes, including HIIT circuits, resistance training, barre, pilates, yoga, mobility, and more.

You can search the library by the kind of training you want to do, or see options by how much time you have, or the part of your body you want to train.

Other Ways to Take Care of your Muscles and Improve Flexibility

Hot and/or Cold Therapy

Studies have shown that techniques like ice baths, saunas and cryotherapy can be used to improve a wide variety of physical ailments, including but not limited to asthma, pain management, anxiety, obesity, and fatigue.

Manual Therapy

A massage can be very relaxing, and a Swedish-style session will improve circulation and can help you lengthen your muscles. There are also many massage techniques and manual therapies that can treat structural and postural conditions, like trigger point therapy, Rolfing, and myofascial release (MFR for short), to name just a few.

Chiropractic adjustments can help alleviate bone misalignment and reduce tension on joint structures.

One thing I learned from years of working with different practitioners (and then becoming one myself) was that you cannot just adjust one body system and expect everything to fall into line.

For example, adjust the bones and the muscles will also need to be re-patterned, or they’ll pull the bones right back out of place. Conversely, if you address the muscles and leave the bones out of alignment, the bones will continue to pull on the muscle tissue. I suggest an approach that integrates both, while exercising with full consciousness of the way your body feels when it moves.

I personally have a physical therapist who specializes in sports medicine as my primary go-to practitioner for maintenance and preventative care. I like this because I get adjustments for my bones, manual therapy to release soft tissue, and I get to learn how to repattern muscles that are used to being stuck a certain way. This last part is important because when your body is out of alignment it adapts and compensates to help you keep moving. When you physically correct the misalignment, those compensation patterns can still exist and your body can go right back to what it was doing before unless you get the awareness and care to retrain it to move efficiently now that you’re re-aligned.

Of course all therapists will be different, depending on their training, type of specialty, and scope of treatment allowed by their state. An experienced therapist in any modality who specializes in postural correction and advises you on complimentary therapy is an asset to your complete flexibility self-care routine.

Self-care Tools

Of course, seeing a professional can help, but there are also plenty of self-care tools out there that make it easier to help yourself. I’ve rounded up a few of my personal favorites for you below.

The Body Stick

The Body Stick is a great massage tool, and very portable and travel-friendly. You can use it by yourself or with a partner to increases circulation and decreases muscle stiffness. The stick is semi-flexible and has rotating spindles that painlessly compress and stretches out all of your major muscles. 

Foam Rollers

Foam rollers are versatile tools that will help you get more out of your workouts through increasing your flexibility and decreasing the soreness that occurs after tough exercise bouts. 

They are available in a variety of densities, which work to smooth out and lengthen your underlying connective tissue that surrounds your muscles – your fascia. Every part of your body has fascia around it, so get friendly with your foam roller in any area that may be talking to you!

Here’s a video where I’ll take you through using the foam roller on your lower body.

It’s a great tool to use regularly, and when you do, remember to stay aligned, keeping your body straight in a plank position either on your hands or forearms, stabilizing with your other foot and hands.

Foot Roller

A wooden foot dowel is a Reflexology Tool designed to activate pressure points, stimulate circulation, and massage and soothe your feet. The feet have the highest concentration of nerve endings in the body, and stimulating the reflex points releases the healing flow of nutrients and energies to regenerate the feet and benefit the whole body.

It’s also a great tool for releasing the fascia in your feet, and is commonly prescribed to people who suffer from plantar fasciitis. The fascia, or connective tissue in your body, connects throughout your entire body. Loosening and smoothing the fascia in your feet can improve your flexibility all the way up to your back and hips.

Try a forward bend, then roll your feet on the wooden dowel and forward bend again. It’s common to be able to bend 2-3 inches farther after rolling your feet out!

Your turn!

No matter what kind of stretching and flexibility routine you decide on, the benefits will definitely be worth it. Just remember to stretch regularly, and within your limits.

Drop me a line below and let me know if you have any questions, and let me know which areas of your body you’re working on making more flexible!

Looking for great workouts?

I recommend following a plan – and nothing is more motivating than a CHALLENGE!

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The post Full Body Stretching Guide to Improve Flexibility appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

In this post:

• I. Benefits of resistance training
• II. Different resistance training options
  • Bodyweight training
  • Weight training
• III. What’s the best way to train?
• IV. Training tips

Resistance (or strength) training is exercise where your muscles contract against a force.

This force could be gravity and your own bodyweight – like in the picture of me doing triceps dips using my own body weight to resist against gravity (the ottoman increases the distance from me to the floor and increases the resistance). This force could also be a dumbbell, a weight machine, a giant tire or any object that you’re exerting force against.

You can do resistance training just about ANYWHERE – the versatility reaches from the gym to the comfort of your very own home – and let’s not forget, you’re doing it every time you shovel snow, pick up your kids or pets, carry your groceries, and any number of daily activities that require muscular strength.

I. Benefits of Resistance Training

Resistance training increases muscular strength, and increasing the health and strength of our muscle tissue is beneficial for many reasons, including increased immune function, more efficient fat burning, joint support and more.

When working against a force, your body releases Human Growth Hormone (HGH) which is essential for muscle growth and optimizing metabolic function (1, 2).  Sometimes called the “fitness hormone” HGH helps to maintain healthy body tissue and plays a role in cell regeneration – so it’s essential for the recovery process after you’ve worked out.

Resistance training will not only make you stronger, but you’ll sleep better (3), experience cardiovascular health (4), and greater mental health (5). You will reap those benefits when you train in balance with rest and recovery, prioritize getting to bed on time, eating whole foods, and managing stress.

How muscle growth works, in a nutshell:

Muscles working against a progressively challenging load leads to increases in muscle mass – a process referred to as hypertrophy. Hypertrophy is a thickening of the muscle fibers, creating larger, stronger muscles to tolerate an increased load.

1. Effort: muscles hypertrophy in response to force or stress being placed on them. When the muscle is challenged, either from lifting weights or lifting your own bodyweight against gravity, it’s forced beyond its comfort zone. Over time, muscle will adapt to the stress, which is why we want to mix up our workouts styles regularly to keep them responsive.

2. Tear down: the stress from exercise causes tension that creates micro-tears in the muscle fibers. Some of the stored glycogen in your muscle tissue is used, and some of the proteins that make up your muscle fibers are broken down as well. This is not unhealthy or harmful (unless you are training in a situation where your body is already under stress, not rested, sick, or trying to repair an injury).

Due to the stress (micro tears) in the muscle created from resistance exercise, the immune system responds with a series of reactions that create inflammation. The inflammatory response is necessary to isolate and repair the damage, and clear the injured area of waste byproducts.

In another article, I outlined the importance of not further taxing the immune system with exercise when you’re sick or injured, as it can compromise your immune response and limit your ability to both get better, and build muscle.

3. Repair: finally, your body uses a cellular process to repair the micro-tears in the muscle fibers, and during this process, the muscle fibers fuse together to increase the thickness of the muscle fibers. Your body works to rebuild its glycogen stores, and repair and regrow its muscle protein.

Because exercise creates a certain amount of stress on our system during the tear down process, it’s important to sleep well, eat properly, and take a break when you’re injured or ill. Remember, the cellular process that creates stronger muscle fibers happens when your body is at rest. So to rock a fit physique, your rest days are just as important as your workouts.

Regular strength training is one of the best ways to define and sculpt a fit physique (6). As you add muscle to your body, not only do you become a more efficient fat burner (as muscle burns more calories due to the increased energy output when a muscle contracts) but you also change the shape (composition) of your body – usually to an aesthetically tighter, more “toned” shape.

While a pound of fat and a pound of muscle both weigh 1 pound, their structure and density are quite different and as a result they take up very different amounts of space in your body.

This volume difference between fat and muscle is exactly why you don’t need to worry about the myth of “bulking up”.

Muscle takes up 4 times less volume than fat, which is why when you add muscle and lose body fat you look and feel more compact — even if the number on the scale doesn’t move.

If you really want to monitor progress,  you’re far better off taking progress pictures at regular intervals or using how your clothes fit as a way to keep track of progress.

II. Different Resistance Training Options

1. Bodyweight Training

Your body is a portable gym. No machine, no added weight, just you plus gravity: think push-ups, lunges, squats, etc.

Bodyweight movements allow us to train functionally, meaning these exercises simulate common movements we encounter in daily living (i.e. walking up stairs, reaching, bending/squatting down, etc) and not only give us a strength foundation, but improve our balance, posture and stability as well.

Being able to effectively strength train with your own body is like having a gym everywhere you go, which is exactly why I use this method in the 90 day challenge. You get a total body workout with no equipment at all.

One of the keys to staying consistent is having a workout you can do in any situation, which makes bodyweight workouts so awesome.

2. Weight Training

Dumbbells  (also called “free weights) are a great way to add load to the body for greater challenge and allow for a deeper contraction to help tone and strengthen the muscles. If you don’t have access to dumbbells, try gallon water jugs, water bottles, or even laundry jugs to simulate the resistance of hand held weights.

One thing I love about simple equipment like dumbbells, an exercise ball and even stretchy bands is you can easily set up your home gym with them. They don’t take up much space, and they can expand your range of options for your home workouts. We use simple equipment like this in Home Workout Domination, my popular 8-week home (or gym) workout program.

While dumbbells offer you the chance to increase the load as you gain strength, it’s always essential to mind your form while performing any movement. For instance in a biceps curl if you go to heavy too fast, you may notice the tendency of the shoulder to rotate out as you perform the curl, which calls on your back muscles to help. Be sure you’re choosing the right amount of weight to control the movement with good form – in this case, keeping the shoulders back and down in the socket so you can isolate the biceps and not compensate with your back muscles.

Barbells and Weight Plates distribute increasingly heavy loads across a wide surface (the bar). A standard Olympic barbell weighs 45 lbs. In some gyms, they may have a 35 and a 45 pound barbell, but generally it will be 45 pounds. It may be more comfortable to move up to using a barbell if you’re able to do squats with two 20-25 lb dumbbells, as they get a little uncomfortable to hold up in your hands as they go up in weight, where the barbell will distribute the load a little better.

Test out your comfort level with the barbell unloaded first, and do some practice moves of your exercise (deadlift, squat, sumo variations, bench press, etc) before adding any weight plates to the bar. Consider having a spotter nearby to help you unload the barbell and set it down.

In my women’s weight training program Lioness, I’ll show you how to start out with more basic equipment like dumbbells so you can build up strength before moving on to barbells. You could begin that program at home with your home equipment, then either upgrade to get heavier equipment (like a barbell and some weight plates) or take your workout to the gym.

Lioness will give you guided tutorials on using barbells in your workouts, but if you’re not using that program consider investing in a trainer at the gym to guide you through proper set up and movement of the barbell onto and off of your body with good form, so you feel confident.

Do not be intimidated in the gym by equipment you haven’t used, instead just respect the amount of knowledge and skill you have currently, and go right ahead and seek the guidance of someone who has something to teach you.

Weight Machines provide resistance for specific parts of the body allowing you to isolate muscle groups. One of the key differences between weight machines and dumbbells and barbells is that with the weight machine, you’re locked into a position which allows just the muscle you’re training to fire. This doesn’t happen in real life, but it’s a fun way to really target and isolate muscles. With the free weights and barbells, you have to recruit stabilizing muscles, even as you train specific muscles.

One size does not fit all, and while weight machines come with a lot of adjustment options, it’s easy to get injured or strain yourself too far in the wrong direction if you’re not careful. Since I’m 5’1″ I find that some equipment in the gym doesn’t fit very well to my body, so I like to test it out with a very light resistance to make sure I feel secure before adding anything significant to push against.

This is a good rule of thumb with any type of equipment you’re using for resistance training: start out light, check your form first, and then add load. If you go too heavy too fast, you can easily injure yourself and then you have to take a break from training – which will not make you happy.

III. What’s the best way to train?

The best way to train is the way that’s available to you, fun for you, and that you actually do. I always say the best workout is the one you do!

While you can of course get stronger and stronger adding more load, you have to start out with a strong foundation to build on. I recommend building a base of bodyweight strength, balance and flexibility and then even if you start weight training continuing to incorporate bodyweight exercises into your training for all the benefits they offer.

It might not always be convenient to go to the gym, and I recommend investing in some home workout equipment as you build your base. Build your home gym equipment options up slowly, and as you have need of them. For instance, if you’ve been feeling strong in your bodyweight squats, invest in some dumbbells so you can add extra resistance.

I started with an exercise ball and some dumbbells, and then as I got stronger, I decided to invest in a squat cage and some barbells and weight plates. Now, years into it I have a full “garage gym” set up. But that’s not how I started, and I wouldn’t have needed all those options in the beginning.

As you get stronger, you’ll often want more options and equipment. And that might mean a gym membership is the best option. I created an online home gym option (called Rock Your Life) for women who want to train at home, and we offer a variety of classes that incorporate everything from no equipment (HIIT circuits, yoga, barre and pilates) up to home workout equipment (strength circuits and resistance training).

Personally, I like using all the options available to me. I’ve been training regularly for years, and as a coach and trainer I’m in the “advanced” category at this point.  I do a variety of both bodyweight workouts and weight-training workouts throughout the week. My bodyweight workouts help me maintain my cardiovascular capacity, stabilizing and balance muscles, core strength and overall strength. My resistance training sessions are focused on progressive overload and key lifts that help me increase muscle mass.

I don’t typically train in a gym (unless I’m traveling) or use weight machines but I love the options when I’m in a gym and enjoy mixing it up. It’s just more convenient for me to train at home. There isn’t “one right way” to train, the most important thing is that you start exercising, find a way to make it regular and consistent, and add variety to your workouts as you progress your strength.

IV. Training Tips

1. Warming up 

This can be as much mentally beneficial as it is physical. It can be a transition from what you were doing before your workout to getting psyched about your session.

With a bodyweight workout, you can use your first round or your first few moves as your “warm up,” running through the moves at a slower pace, or even performing a couple of simple bodyweight exercises to get your blood moving.

When it comes to lifting weights, it’s important to increase the blood flow to the muscles you’re planning to train by performing reps at a lighter weight than your working set, and warming up your entire body at the start of your workout (think jumping jacks, elevated push ups, jump rope, etc).

Lifting on stiff or “cold” joints and muscles will make it harder to move, and you’ll increase the risk of injury. An increased blood flow to your muscles means they’ll respond and recover much quicker (7).

In the workouts I teach, I often use the first set as a warm up, either by going over the form more deliberately, going more slowly and doing some of the moves with different levels of intensity. I always do this whether I’m teaching or working out by myself and I think it’s a huge part of why I don’t get injured.

If you find yourself getting impatient with the instructor’s use of that time, or explanation of the moves, just use the time to do some free-form movement yourself and listen as you move. If you are feeling impatient because the workout isn’t starting fast enough, slow down. Let yourself get into your body and your form.

2. Pay Attention to Your Form

Be especially mindful of your form always, and especially as you add weight to your routine. It’s better to do less reps with excellent form than more reps poorly. Listen to your body, and use a mirror whenever you get the chance so you can check your position – are your joints aligned? Are you engaging your core? Are your hips square?

Your form in setting down and picking up weights or getting on and off of equipment is just as important as the way you’re performing the exercise. Be mindful of your body and alignment in any movement you do.

Go through my free Foundations of Functional Fitness Workshop for daily 15-minute videos that will teach you squat form, lunge form, the foundations of the rotator cuff so you can keep it safe, and so much more.

3. Choose An Appropriate Amount of Weight For YOU (if you’re using weights)

Knowing what amount of weight to choose depends on where you’re starting and where you want to go. If you’re a beginner, a great way to “test” what the right amount of weight to use for a given exercise is to use a range of 8-12 repetitions (aka “reps”). If you can barely do 6 reps, try a slightly lighter weight. If you can do 15 easily, try a slightly heavier weight.

Different muscle groups can handle different amounts of resistance. For example, your legs and glutes can handle much heavier loads than your arms and shoulders can typically.

You’ll find that different programs will have you do shorter or longer rep ranges, depending on what the goal is. One way isn’t the “right way” – try out different things and see what you enjoy. Your muscles like variety, so don’t be afraid to mix it up.

A study done in 2016 showed that increasing reps or increasing weight both resulted in greater strength. So as long as you are varying your workouts, reps, and weight and reaching fatigue, you will increase muscle strength (8). I use a progressive overload approach in Lioness for example, where we intentionally track our reps each week with the intention to either increase our reps or increase our weight. You can apply this principle in any training program as you get stronger.

Safety first: It’s exciting to start a new program, but pace yourself in the beginning as you build strength.

Doing too much too fast puts you on the fast track to getting hurt, so think steady and consistent, and allow yourself time to get into a new program or training style, especially if you’re brand new to lifting weights.

4. Cooling Down and Stretching

After a workout while your muscles are warm is a great time to stretch. Stretching improves mobility around your joints, and also helps bring your heart rate back to normal after exertion. You can also do something simple like walking for a few minutes, and/or hop on a foam roller.

Here is my guide to stretches broken down into short videos by body part.

Here is a full body stretching guided video.

You may also want to use something like a theragun (percussion tool to increase blood flow and release muscle tissue) or any self-massaging tool.

Whenever you have the opportunity, work with a trainer, physical therapist, chiropractor or structural integrationist who can help keep your bones and muscles working together with proper alignment.

5. Take Adequate Rest 

Muscle grows when you rest – not during your training. The fitness hormone, HGH is most powerfully produced while you’re sleeping (9). If you’re lacking quality and quantity in your sleep, your body will miss the valuable time it takes to repair and will result in decreased strength and increased fat (10).

So while the number of rest days depends on your training, taking your rest days is an essential piece to reaching your goals, no matter what they are. As always, pay attention to what your body is telling you.

BONUS PRO TIP…..Be Patient.

Results happen, but not overnight.

Read more about how muscle works in THIS POST to understand hypertrophy.

Read more about the importance of dietary PROTEIN in THIS POST.

Listen to why muscle is the organ of longevity and learn from Dr. Gabrielle Lyon in THIS PODCAST EPISODE.

I know waiting to see progress when you want it right NOW can be tough, but it’s so worth it, and the discipline and consistency you apply to your training can be a practice that you apply to many other aspects of your life as well.

Transform your physique by adding regular resistance training – bodyweight style, with weights or machines – and uncover those strong, lean muscles.

And do yourself a favor by giving your body the quality nutrients and energy it requires to perform at its best and get everything you can out of your workout.

When you combine proper nutrition with your workouts, the results are unbelievable. It’s SO WORTH IT.

Which workout program is right for you? Take the quiz to find out!

The post Resistance Training Guide appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

This is such a popular question, I wanted to create a resource for you.  I know it’s enticing to do ab workouts every day, thinking that you’ll see your abs faster, but actually, doing workouts that target areas where you’re carrying extra body fat will not “melt the fat off” that area.

We cannot spot reduce fat – and I would caution you from taking any supplements that promise to do so, or use “cleanses” or other quick fixes like body wraps, as they are short-term strategies some of which have side effects you don’t anticipate like hormone impacts, and not give you real, long-lasting results.

You CAN get body fat off – and keep it off. Fat comes off our body systemically (which means all over our bodies), and in an order governed by our DNA. It will come off in the order it came on.

If fat burning is a focus for you, building muscle is one of the most effective ways to support that goal as with each contraction of your muscle, you’ll use more energy (and burn more calories). Adding muscle is what shifts body composition to a tighter, more “toned” shape, not fat loss alone.

I know it may not be on your radar to focus on muscle gain over fat loss because we’ve been so trained by diet culture to think about our “body fat” as the primary needle mover, but truly it is our valuable lean muscle tissue that has the biggest impact on our metabolism, long term health, and will help you become, and remain an efficient fat burner.

With that being said, let’s look at four often overlooked strategies that will directly impact your fat loss in a healthy, sustainable manner.

4 steps to follow CONSISTENTLY

1. Get Quality Sleep

Sleep is the most underrated, most important part of losing body fat and gaining muscle. When it comes to toning and sculpting your abs, quality sleep should be one of your top focus points.

Research shows that when we don’t get enough quality sleep, we are more likely to gain weight – specifically belly fat (1).

One study showed a group of people who had the exact same exercise regimen and diet were split into 2 different groups – 1 group slept well while the other group did not. The well rested group lost weight while the sleep deprived gained weight.

Furthermore, those who were sleep deprived had a 55% decrease in fat loss and an increase in the loss of fat free body mass (aka muscle tissue) by 60% (2)! This is why the foundation of my 4 Pillars of Health is SLEEP.

People who lack sleep produce more ghrelin (hunger hormone) (3), are more likely to consume sugary or caffeinated beverages (4), and have a 32% increase of carbohydrate consumption (5) – further perpetuating sleep patterns and creating a vicious cycle.

Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is essential to human growth and development, fat burning and muscle repair, and is most powerfully produced while you’re sleeping (6). If you’re lacking quality in your sleep, your body will miss the valuable time it takes to repair and will result in decreased strength and increased fat (7).

If you’re putting in the time to exercise and not getting enough sleep, you’re undermining your efforts. Just like you can’t out train a bad diet, you can’t out train bad sleep.

Here’s a great resource to follow up with about sleep: How to Sleep for a Longer, Leaner, Healthier Life

2. Nutrition, Nutrition, Nutrition

Every time you eat, you’re creating the foundation and tissue that make up the actual shape and structure of your body – and every time you exercise, you’re simply putting the finishing touches on the beautiful physique you’ve sculpted with what you put in your mouth.

Healthy recipes from The Body Fuel System

One of the MOST important parts to uncovering your abdominal muscle (and really any area of your body you want to sculpt) is eating a balance of nutrients from whole food sources.

I know we talk a lot about the macronutrients – the carbs, protein and healthy fats you need – but you also need the MICROnutrients from greens and plants for essential body, brain and hormone functions. Vitamins and minerals are essential for cell growth, function and development. For so many reasons, it is essential that you take your eating just as seriously as you take your workouts.

I know we have this tendency to have an outside in approach to health and stick to our exercise plan more religiously than we stick to our eating but you can not exercise your way out of a nutrient deficient body that is not functioning at it’s best.

Need some help with healthy eating? Take my Quiz!

3. Actively Manage Stress

If you’re in the habit of putting this at the bottom of your list, it’s time to make it more of an active priority. Chronic stress has been scientifically proven to cause us to reach for comfort foods, undoing your efforts to have a balanced nutrition intake (8).

While stress is an important adaptive mechanism that protects us, constantly getting stressed by traffic, family situations and even negative thoughts about ourselves can lead to disruption in our hormone cycles and cause fat storage.

Elevated levels of stress cause the body to produce more cortisol. While cortisol is an important hormone, when it is chronically elevated, over time it affects where and how much fat is stored. And more often than not, that place of storage is in your abdomen (9).

Chronic stress greatly affects our brain which in turn lowers our immune response so we get sick more often, causes us to recover slower from injury, and results in a decreased ability to maintain a state of health and vitality (10).

In order for you to build lean muscle, lose unwanted fat, and have a great impact on you health it is imperative that you begin to actively cultivate habits that mitigate stress.

Practices like meditation, mindfulness and gratitude are all great ways to combat stress in the here and now. Journaling, getting therapy for unresolved (and ongoing) issues, and practices like neural feedback can also be very beneficial. The act of booking things for yourself you enjoy like a massage, acupuncture or even a facial can be a way to unwind, and also practice self-care. Taking a bath, reading a book, setting aside time for yourself and anything you find relaxing can all be ways to balance out the demands of your busy life.

Here’s a great resource to follow up with about stress management: 5 Ways to Beat Stress and Get More From Your Workouts

4. Exercise

a) Add Interval Training (explosive cardio): Whether that be High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) circuits, plyometrics, or Tabatas, explosive cardio is one of the best ways to maximize overall fat loss during  your workouts (11).

Here are a few ways I add it into my workouts:

• Super-setting power resistance/strength moves with explosive cardio intervals – think jump rope, jump squats, etc.
• Adding finishing circuits to a weight lifting workout
• Doing bodyweight circuits that combine strengthening moves with explosive cardio

b) Add Resistance Training

Resistance (or strength) training helps to sculpt lean muscle, which makes you a more efficient fat burner and will change your body composition and shape (12).

Resistance training also elicits the release of HGH, (especially in training sessions that utilize many large muscle groups at once) (13) – so you’ll be a more efficient fat burner and muscle builder (but let’s not forget – this won’t work unless you’re sleeping well and managing your stress).

So be sure to balance your HIIT with some strength training to see amazing results – you are not going to get bulky just by adding some weighted objects to your workouts.

I personally take a combined approach, doing the best workout for the situation I’m in. If I’m traveling I’ll use my HIIT circuits and at home I’ll cycle between bodyweight workouts and weight-training.

These programs were designed to combine resistance training and explosive cardio:

• Home Workout Domination (8 week HOME workout program that can be done with minimal equipment)

• Lioness (8 week GYM or HOME with equipment program)

• 90 Day Challenge (12 week HOME workout program NO equipment- gravity and creative bodyweight moves will provide you with resistance)

c) TRAIN YOUR CORE 360 DEGREES AROUND, not just your front abs. Focus on training your ENTIRE core to see real ab definition

That means workouts like this awesome yoga core sequence, where we targeted the abdominal wall from the inside out, and all the way around.

We were working on the front, side, AND back muscles that stabilize our core and aid us in all the movements we do. Targeting the deep core stabilizing muscles is key to greater balance and alignment of our spine and pelvis.

The body is super smart and designed for balance. If you only focus on building muscle on one portion of your body, like only doing a lot of crunches, leg lifts or sit ups, you will actually only go so far in the amount of muscle you’re able to develop.

This is your body’s natural way of protecting you, as too much muscle on one side will put undue stress on your underlying bones and pull you out of alignment (read Building a Balanced Physique and Protecting Your Joints).

So what’s the recipe for burning fat off your stomach (or any part of your body, really)?

Get a good night’s rest, fuel your body with whole foods, practice self care and lower your stress, and top it all off with a combination of full body explosive exercise and resistance training!

All of my workout plans combine resistance training and explosive cardio – so you can build lean muscle, and lose body fat if you have it to lose. Wondering what workout program would suit you best? TAKE THE QUIZ!

The post 4 Steps to Burn Belly Fat (and Body Fat in General) appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

How to take useful progress pictures in 3 steps

It’s easy to get discouraged when you’re starting a program thinking you aren’t seeing enough “weight” come off (don’t use the scale as your only indicator of progress!) or that certain areas on your body aren’t responding “fast enough.”

That’s why I always recommend taking progress pictures and measurements periodically and methodically throughout your journey, because it helps you see yourself more objectively and helps you see the bigger picture of progress you’re making (rather than focusing on one area every day).

I want you to be sure to read The Truth About Your Weight to understand body composition so you can enjoy the journey and not be hard on yourself for no reason!

1. Take your pictures and measurements at the same time every week, from the front, sides, and back.

You can also do every other week if you like too, just pick an interval and be consistent. Add a reminder to your calendar every 7-10 days or at your chosen interval so you can stay on top of it.

Wear the same outfit ideally, using the same lighting. This will be really helpful when you line your pictures up side by side and look for changes.

2. Take more full length body shots than just pictures of your abs or one specific body part

It’s tempting to just zero in on the areas we most want to see change in, but if I personally just focus on my stomach or butt, I miss important changes happening in my arms, legs and back!

I see this all the time with the women I work with – they write me discouraged that their stomach isn’t changing fast enough – and they are totally missing the awesome muscle tone they’re creating in their legs, back, arms and other places…which if they keep going will affect their abs shortly!

We have to be able to look for the actual progress we are making – all of it! Not just the physical changes that show in a picture, but also our energy. Our mood. Our self-confidence and strength.

Yes, it’s ok to want to look your best, but beating yourself up mentally along the way is NOT the way to enjoy the journey, and you never need to feel bad about yourself.

So look at the big picture (literally take a picture of your entire body) and remember to pay attention to the other changes that you can’t see in the photo.

A couple notes on progress and fat loss –

Fat does not come off the body in the order that we want it to, it’s a fact of life. We can’t spot reduce areas on our body either. So doing a lot of crunches or ab exercises is not going to make your stomach flat.

Burning off your fat systemically (meaning all over) AND adding lean muscle to your body is the fastest way to change your shape. Fat comes off in the order it went on – an order primarily governed by genetics. So if you gain first on your stomach, guess what – it will come off the stomach LAST.

In the picture of Joanna, she did not lose her stomach fat by doing a lot of ab exercises. She did a combination of strength training and HIIT (high intensity interval training) in her Rock Your Life challenge workouts, and she stuck with her healthy eating.

Having the group to check in with and us coaches to talk to helped her stay focused, accountable, and keep going. She didn’t see a lot of change between day 1 and day 7, but once she took her day 14 pictures and lined them up with her day 1 pictures, she was able to really see the difference, which motivated her to keep going.

This is EXACTLY why you want to look at your entire body to see the changes that you’re making. If you’re making some changes, you’re heading in the right direction. The LAST thing you should do is stop, get discouraged or quit now!

Here is an excerpt from Sculpted and Strong: How Muscle Works (a great post to read next):

How muscle impacts your body composition

If fat burning is a focus for you, building muscle is one of the most effective ways to support that goal as with each contraction of your muscle, you’ll use more energy (and burn more calories).

I know it may not be on your radar to focus on muscle gain over fat loss because we’ve been so trained by diet culture to think about our “body fat” as the primary needle mover, but I want to reframe that viewpoint, and break down some important things you need to know about what muscle does, how it works, and how important it really is to preserve as you go through your life as a strong, capable and healthy woman.

Body composition is often overlooked in “weight loss” focused training. Five pounds of muscle and five pounds of fat both weigh five pounds, but they take up very different amounts of space in our bodies (see picture below). Fat is looser and takes up more space per pound than muscle, which is dense and compact.

As you add muscle to your body, not only do you become a more efficient fat burner (as muscle burns more calories due to the increased energy output when a muscle contracts) but you also change the shape (composition) of your body – usually to an aesthetically tighter, more “toned” shape.

This doesn’t always translate to the amount of “weight” lost – if you were to replace a pound of fat on your body with a pound of muscle, you would not change your “weight” but the composition and shape of your body would change to look smaller and you’d be reaping all the benefits of carrying that additional muscle tissue.

Losing fat without strengthening and growing muscle may make the body appear smaller, but looser. While I dislike the term “skinny-fat” this accurately describes the flabby state of a non-muscular body.

People who focus on excessive cardio and dieting  (without any focus on strength training) can experience negative results, including a lowered immune response and an increased stress response – which contributes to muscle breakdown, and slows fat loss.

When weight loss is your goal, consider adjusting your frame to include “muscle acquisition” as a shared goal with fat loss.

If adding or improving the quality of our muscle is already a goal, we can directly impact fat loss in similar ways as we impact muscle strength – with mobility and flexibility work, resistance training, cardiovascular training, healthy eating, regular rest and good sleep, and mitigating our stress levels.

3. Line your pictures up from oldest to newest left to right. 

Since we read left to right, this is the easiest way to look at your pictures. If you share your pictures with us after rocking a Betty Rocker program, we’ll rearrange them this way for you if you haven’t done it already because it’s just easier to look at.

I recommend lining your pictures up one pose per collage, side by side of the same pose. It’s harder to focus on the body parts and changes when you make a big collage of 6 images all together. You can do whatever you want of course! We just find it’s easier to appreciate and focus on what we’re looking at when there are just 2 images per picture.

When I’m working on a goal, I’ll line up my first picture in one pose on the left and each week, drop my newest picture in the same pose to the right. I’ll mark them with the dates so I can see the progress on a timeline.

Apps like Live Collage, Diptic, Pic Stitch or similar work great for all of this. I personally like to take my own progress pics in the morning before I’ve eaten, but that’s totally up to you.

I really don’t see changes in myself day to day just looking in the mirror – and as we’ve talked about the scale really isn’t a great indicator of “progress.” It can be one interesting data point, but it should not be what dictates how you feel about your progress as so many factors can influence your overall body weight.

Remember: how you feel is the most important thing. Don’t push yourself when you’re low on energy, don’t train hard if you haven’t slept well. It’s a journey, not an overnight express train. The things you learn about taking care of yourself and the habits you create along the way are the same practices you’ll need to use to maintain that healthy lifestyle and fit physique.

A progress pic is great, but what goes into creating it, and how you feel before, during and after is what really matters.

We talk about these topics (and more) in Rock Your Life, my online home workout studio and women’s fitness community!

Come join us and let us support you on your journey of fitness and health – with home workout challenges, workout classes, healthy recipes, and our private support group!

The post How to Take Useful Progress Pictures appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

In this post:

• I. Why muscle matters
• II. How muscle impacts your body composition
• III. What is your muscle made up of?
• IV. How muscle tissue gets energy to move
• V. How muscle is gained (and lost) through exercise
• VI. How your muscle uses the food you eat for energy and growth
• VII. Hormones and factors that play a key role in muscle growth
• VIII. Muscle through our lifespan
• IX. Training on a strong foundation and keeping your muscles balanced and strong

I. Why Muscle Matters

How we move, look and feel is all directly related to healthy muscle tissue. Your muscle powers every move you make, from walking to talking to standing upright. Maintaining strong, healthy and balanced muscle tissue as you go through time will increase your quality of life.

Muscle helps you with daily activities like carrying your groceries, walking up and down stairs, and picking up kids and pets. It protects your organs, surrounds and stabilizes your joints, and is what gives your body shape, “tightness” and strength.

Your muscle tissue is highly concentrated with mitochondria, the cellular organelles responsible for ATP (energy) production. Staying active and exercising regularly helps keep muscle tissue healthy by increasing mitochondrial density.

Muscle tissue has also been identified as an endocrine organ (1), meaning it’s a player in the chemical messenger system the body uses to send signals that regulate our health.  Contracting muscle secretes (produces) peptides and cytokines (chemical messengers) as part of a hormone signaling network which communicate with other organs and support healthy immune function, insulin response and increased metabolic health. (2,3,4)

You can improve the quality of your muscle tissue in so many ways – from stretching and mobility exercise like yoga, to cardiovascular exercise (both aerobic and anaerobic), resistance training with your own body weight against gravity, and using weights, bands and machines.

Variety and consistency are the name of the game when it comes to using your muscle and keeping it supple and strong throughout your life.

II. How muscle impacts your body composition

If fat burning is a focus for you, building muscle is one of the most effective ways to support that goal as with each contraction of your muscle, you’ll use more energy (and burn more calories).

I know it may not be on your radar to focus on muscle gain over fat loss because we’ve been so trained by diet culture to think about our “body fat” as the primary needle mover, but I want to reframe that viewpoint, and break down some important things you need to know about what muscle does, how it works, and how important it really is to preserve as you go through your life as a strong, capable and healthy woman.

Body composition is often overlooked in “weight loss” focused training. Five pounds of muscle and five pounds of fat both weigh five pounds, but they take up very different amounts of space in our bodies (see picture below). Fat is looser and takes up more space per pound than muscle, which is dense and compact.

As you add muscle to your body, not only do you become a more efficient fat burner (as muscle burns more calories due to the increased energy output when a muscle contracts) but you also change the shape (composition) of your body – usually to an aesthetically tighter, more “toned” shape.

This doesn’t always translate to the amount of “weight” lost – if you were to replace a pound of fat on your body with a pound of muscle, you would not change your “weight” but the composition and shape of your body would change to look smaller and you’d be reaping all the benefits of carrying that additional muscle tissue.

Losing fat without strengthening and growing muscle may make the body appear smaller, but looser. While I dislike the term “skinny-fat” this accurately describes the flabby state of a non-muscular body.

People who focus on excessive cardio and dieting  (without any focus on strength training) can experience negative results, including a lowered immune response and an increased stress response – which contributes to muscle breakdown, and slows fat loss.

When weight loss is your goal, consider adjusting your frame to include “muscle acquisition” as a shared goal with fat loss.

If adding or improving the quality of our muscle is already a goal, we can directly impact fat loss in similar ways as we impact muscle strength – with mobility and flexibility work, resistance training, cardiovascular training, healthy eating, regular rest and good sleep, and mitigating our stress levels.

III. What is your muscle made up of?

You have over 650 muscles in your body that work together to help you move. You’ve got 3 types of muscle, the cardiac muscle that pumps our heart and blood, the smooth muscle that controls our organs, and skeletal muscle which contracts to move our bones, and provides stability for balance and posture.

Of the three types, only skeletal muscle is under our voluntary control – fortunately the other two types work without us having to think about them consciously!

Muscle gets its ‘stretchiness’ from thousands of fibers that make it up. Whether you are running, walking or talking, movement happens when these muscle fibers contract.

There are two main types of muscle fiber, slow twitch and fast twitch.

• Slow twitch muscle fibers (also called Type 1) are focused on sustained, smaller movement and posture control. They are more resistant to fatigue, and are well suited to support longer, more endurance type activities. They are aerobic in nature (they rely on oxygen). They have been shown to hypertrophy (increase muscle mass) with progressive overload and with aerobic exercise as well.
• Fast twitch muscle fibers (also called Type 2) are more focused on bigger, more powerful movement but for shorter durations, and fatigue more quickly. Type 2a uses a combination of aerobic and anaerobic metabolism to create energy, where type 2b uses anaerobic metabolism (without oxygen) alone.

You may be born with more of one than another fiber type, making you naturally more capable of excelling in a certain type of sport.  Olympic sprinters for instance have been shown to have about 80% fast-twitch fibers, while marathon runners have predominantly slow-twitch fibers.

IV. How muscle tissue gets energy to move

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the source of energy needed to power muscle contractions. It’s not really “stored” in your cells, so once you start exercising your body quickly begins making ATP. Your muscle cells have three main ways of making it, and they work together in phases (5):

1. Creatine phosphate (with oxygen): this is a high-energy compound found in your muscle cells that can be broken down to make ATP to supply a working muscle with energy, but only for about 8-10 seconds.
2. Glycogen (without oxygen): carbohydrates are stored in the muscle tissue in the form of glycogen, which can be used to make ATP from its derivative glucose. This will produce energy to last for about 90 seconds.
3. Aerobic respiration (with oxygen): within 2 minutes of exercise, the body starts to provide the muscles with oxygen and aerobic respiration breaks down the glucose for ATP in the mitochondria. The glucose can come from the remaining glucose supply in the muscle cells, glycogen stores in the liver, fat reserves in the muscle tissue, glucose from food in the intestines, and in cases when no glycogen is available, the body will break down skeletal muscle for protein to convert into glucose. This is the most sustainable form of energy production, and can supply ATP for as long as the fuel supply lasts.

V. How muscle is gained (and lost) through exercise

Muscles working against a progressively challenging load leads to increases in muscle mass – a process referred to as hypertrophy. Hypertrophy is a thickening of the muscle fibers, creating larger, stronger muscles to tolerate an increased load.

1. Effort: muscles hypertrophy in response to force or stress being placed on them. When the muscle is challenged, either from lifting weights or lifting your own bodyweight against gravity, it’s forced beyond its comfort zone. Over time, muscle will adapt to the stress, which is why we want to mix up our workouts styles regularly to keep them responsive.

2. Tear down: the stress from exercise causes tension that creates micro-tears in the muscle fibers. Some of the stored glycogen in your muscle tissue is used, and some of the proteins that make up your muscle fibers are broken down as well. This is not unhealthy or harmful (unless you are training in a situation where your body is already under stress, not rested, sick, or trying to repair an injury).

Due to the stress (micro tears) in the muscle created from resistance exercise, the immune system responds with a series of reactions that create inflammation. The inflammatory response is necessary to isolate and repair the damage, and clear the injured area of waste byproducts.

In another article, I outlined the importance of not further taxing the immune system with exercise when you’re sick or injured, as it can compromise your immune response and limit your ability to both get better, and build muscle.

3. Repair: finally, your body uses a cellular process to repair the micro-tears in the muscle fibers, and during this process, the muscle fibers fuse together to increase the thickness of the muscle fibers. Your body tries to rebuild its glycogen stores, and repair and regrow its muscle protein.

Because exercise creates a certain amount of stress on our system during the tear down process, it’s important to sleep well, eat properly, and take a break when you’re injured or ill. Remember, the cellular process that creates stronger muscle fibers happens when your body is at rest. So to rock a fit physique, your rest days are just as important as your workouts.

VI. How your muscle uses the food you eat for energy and growth

The foods we eat in the form of carbohydrates, fat and protein are all potential fuel sources for the body’s energy needs. They follow different metabolic pathways that provide us with immediate energy or stored energy for later use, and our muscle cells access them in different ways.

Carbohydrates are broken down into glucose, which can be used for immediate energy, or sent to the liver and muscles and stored as glycogen.  Your body has a limit to how much glycogen it can store in both places.

The liver has a set capacity, and muscle tissue can store a set amount that depends on the amount of muscle you have. If you take in more than you can use for energy and more than you can store in your muscles and liver, it will be stored as body fat.

During exercise, there are several ways your muscles get access to fuel:

• Stored muscle glycogen is converted back into glucose fueling muscle contraction.
• The liver converts its stored glycogen back into glucose, stabilizing the blood sugar, and also making itself available for the muscle tissue to use for energy.
• Stored body fat (in our adipose tissue) is broken down into fatty acids that are transported by the blood to fuel the muscles – but this is a slower process compared to the way the body uses carbohydrates (glycogen) for fuel.

Fat helps fuel your muscles for low to moderate intensity activity (in the presence of oxygen availability), so the daily energy you expend doing your regular activities, and any exercise performed at or below 65% of your aerobic capacity (6). Carbohydrates fuel higher intensity activity, when your body can’t process enough oxygen to meet its needs (see 2 in section IV).

Unlike fat and carbohydrates our body doesn’t have a “storage reserve” for protein. This is one of the reasons it’s a good idea to include it in all of your meals throughout the day. Protein is primarily used to build, repair and maintain body tissue (in a process called protein synthesis) and make enzymes and hormones. It serves only a tiny percentage of the body’s energy needs.

The protein you eat is key in supporting muscle tissue repair and development in a process called muscle protein synthesis (MPS).

Protein is the main building block of muscle tissue. When you eat foods that contain protein, they’re digested into their amino acids which are transported to body tissues and built into tissue proteins. Protein synthesis is the process of building new proteins, which happens in all the body’s organs.

Muscle protein synthesis (MPS) is the process where your body builds specific muscle proteins from amino acids, and this contributes to muscle size.

Muscle protein synthesis can be increased by including protein with each main meal, and by including protein after you exercise – after the “tear down” has occurred. The amino acids from the protein you ingest will be shuttled to your muscles, replacing any lost during exercise (7).

The contractions your muscles make decrease muscle protein synthesis during a workout, but it rebounds post-exercise especially when protein or amino acids are added. Studies show that between 20-40 grams is the best amount to support this process, and that eating protein throughout the day in your meals is also a contributing factor (8, 9).

The ability for dietary protein to impact muscle protein synthesis decreases with age. On my podcast, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon discussed that this response in older adults necessitates a need for increased amounts of dietary protein. This may be significant if you are over 40 and not being mindful of your protein intake. I recommend including between 20-30grams with each main meal, and supplementing with a protein shake pre or post-workout on training days.

Like we were talking about above, your body can store the glucose you don’t need for immediate energy in 3 places, your liver glycogen, your muscle glycogen, and/or your fat cells.

“Nutrient partitioning” describes which of these 3 paths will be taken, and that has a lot to do with your current amount of body fat, muscle mass, and hormone levels – particularly insulin.

If you are insulin resistant, fat storage is prioritized. If you have good insulin sensitivity, muscle and liver storage is prioritized, and you get the bonus benefit of it aiding your amino acids entering the muscle tissue as well (muscle protein synthesis)(10).

Insulin resistance: Insulin’s job is to help bring your blood sugar levels back to equilibrium by opening up the cells to receive glucose. People who are insulin resistant produce insulin, but their cells have stopped responding to it.
The pancreas, which makes insulin, turns up the volume, producing more and more insulin in response to the elevated blood sugar, but the cells still do not take it up and blood sugar continues to rise.
Prolonged elevated blood sugar can damage organs and nerves, and is associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure (11).

Insulin Sensitivity: Insulin sensitivity refers to how responsive your cells are to insulin – so how much insulin needs to be produced in order to shuttle the amount of glucose in the bloodstream.
You are insulin sensitive if a small amount of insulin is needed to deposit the glucose you’ve taken in.
Improving insulin sensitivity can help you reduce insulin resistance, and reduce the risk of many diseases, and ensures your body converts the energy from your food in the most efficient manner (including supporting your muscle) (12).

The more insulin sensitive you are, the more readily your nutrients will be partitioned to the muscle tissue to be stored as glycogen (rather than fat storage). Insulin is also thought to have some influence on muscle protein synthesis. It’s theorized that it enhances the uptake of amino acids into the cell, though I found inconsistent conclusions in my research. Bottom line: improving insulin sensitivity is a desirable goal for better health overall.

Improve your insulin sensitivity by eating whole foods, and getting regular exercise.

Constantly eating high sugar foods (or eating in excess of what your body can process) triggers the insulin response over and over, leading to insulin resistance. Doing the opposite of that, eating low-glycemic (low sugar) foods – in the form of fiber rich whole food carbohydrates is a great way to improve your insulin sensitivity.

A slower, steadier influx of glucose (rather than a huge spike) gives insulin a chance to do its job at the right pace. Including fiber helps us feel more full – meaning we won’t be as likely to overeat. Dietary fat has a similar effect, slowing down nutrient absorption and making us feel more full and satisfied so we’re not as likely to overeat. Plus, fat is very nutrient dense, giving us plenty of energy in a smaller package.

Cooking your own foods so you know exactly what’s going into your body is an ideal way to support your muscle tissue. It’s far easier to overeat when you’re eating pre made foods from refined flour and sugar like breads, cereals, sweets and desserts – they don’t contain as much fiber as their original ingredients did, and constant reliance on them will just keep on spiking your insulin, leading to more body fat storage and insulin resistance.

Here are just a few of the healthy, whole food recipes found in the Body Fuel System, my signature eating plan.

Insulin also has the added benefit of decreasing muscle protein breakdown (MPB). In the absence of insulin, or in the case of insulin resistance muscle catabolism (breakdown) occurs.

Your brain needs a constant, steady supply of glucose to function optimally, and MPB allows the body to gain access to amino acids that can be converted into glucose when there aren’t enough available from your other stores. Muscle protein breakdown can also occur when we don’t eat enough food (or too few carbohydrates) and glycogen reserves are depleted. The body needs fuel, so skeletal muscle is broken down and converted to glucose.

Fat, protein and carbohydrates all provide the nutrients your body needs for your workouts, and eating them throughout the day from whole food sources will provide you with plenty of fuel for both daily activities and muscle growth. Together these nutrients support healthy muscle tissue before, and after a workout.

VII. Hormones and factors that play a key role in muscle growth

Hormones also play a key role in muscle growth, notably growth factor, testosterone, insulin and cortisol. The cellular response that causes hypertrophy is a multidimensional process, involving the interaction of individual muscle fibers with satellite cells, the immune system, growth factors and hormones (13).

Growth Factors: in relation to hypertrophy, these are highly specific proteins that include hormones and cytokines (cell-signaling proteins) that work together (14,15,16). They include:

• IGF (insulin-like growth factor) – produced in the liver; regulates insulin and stimulates muscle protein synthesis (MPS)
• FGF (fibroblast growth factor) – which is released in proportion to the degree of muscle trauma, and promotes proliferation of the satellite cells, leading to hypertrophy
• HGF (hepatocyte growth factor) – which activates satellite cells and may be responsible for them migrating to the affected area.

Hormone Response: hormones are chemical messengers, secreted by our glands to regulate the activity of organs and groups of cells. Your hormone function is directly affected by your nutrition intake, stress levels, sleep quality and quantity, and general state of health.

The following hormones play a specific role in muscle growth (hypertrophy):

Growth Hormone (GH) is a hormone that stimulates IGF in the muscle tissue and helps to activate the satellite cells. Satellite cells function to facilitate growth, maintenance and repair of damaged skeletal muscle tissue. They’re called “satellite cells” because they’re located on the outer surface of the muscle fiber.

Testosterone (which both men and women have, though women have it in smaller amounts) has an “anabolic” or muscle building effect as it increases muscle protein synthesis, which induces hypertrophy. We can’t build muscle if we’re low on testosterone. Women produce testosterone in our ovaries (predominantly), adrenal glands and other peripheral tissues.

While women may have less testosterone than men, it plays a key role in our energy levels and the ability to develop muscle mass, strength, and bone density (17). This is especially important because both bone density and muscle mass tend to decrease with age, and intersects with the approach of menopause when our hormone levels begin to fluctuate and drop down.

Compounding factors like lowered progesterone (progesterone is released with each ovulation) and estrogen fluctuation can impact body fat stores and energy levels, contributing to body composition changes where we lose muscle and gain body fat.

This is far from a hopeless situation however, as I detailed in my women’s hormone health series where I spoke to a variety of female doctors who specialize in supporting women’s hormone health. If this is of interest, please listen to:

Guide to Women’s Hormones Part 1

Guide to Women’s Hormones Part 2

Training with your cycle part 1 with Dr. Stacy Sims

Training with your cycle part 2 with Dr. Stacy Sims

What You Need to Know About Birth Control, The Menstrual Cycle and Your Hormones with Dr Jolene Brighten

If you suspect you may have low testosterone (a blood test is the best way to find out), watch for:

• Overtraining which can decrease testosterone levels. If you’re not exercising much, start.
• Regular, consistent exercise in general has been shown to increase levels of circulating androgens (sex hormones) and positively impact your health (18).
• Resistance training helps stimulate muscle protein synthesis and stronger bones, both of which will help mitigate age-related issues.

Cortisol is a stress hormone that can initiate muscle protein breakdown – catabolism – which inhibits hypertrophy. Cortisol has important jobs that influence your energy, sleep/wake cycle and fat storage. If you train with elevated cortisol it will counter your training efforts.

If you’re under regular or chronic stress, not getting good sleep, or not practicing self care it can really sabotage your training and healthy eating. It’s invisible, like all of these hormones are which can be frustrating to navigate if you’re not aware of what a big impact they can have.

I recommend getting your bloodwork done by a doctor who specializes in women’s hormone health (ideally an MD with functional medicine training) and I recommend developing practices that proactively address stress management like deep breathing, meditation, therapy to address past trauma or unresolved issues, and any self-care practices that bring you into a peaceful state.

VIII. Muscle through our lifespan

In our 20’s and 30’s, it’s easy to take our muscle for granted. It’s easier to build when we’re younger due to our more active lifestyles combined with our hormones being in their peak state.

Once you get into your 30’s and beyond, it’s far easier to start to lose it, due to hormonal changes and a decrease in activity level – but this is not inevitable.

Even if you’re just starting out or rebuilding after having lost some ground, you can still build muscle at any age with regular exercise, healthy eating, good rest and recovery, an active practice of stress reduction, and many of the tips I share on this website.

As we age maintaining (or adding to) our muscular strength is imperative, not only for the metabolism-boosting capabilities but to help prevent many age-related struggles like loss of mobility, poor balance, loss of bone density, and lower energy.

Sarcopenia, also known as “muscle wasting” is primarily associated with the elderly (19). It’s thought to be caused by decreased physical activity with age, and compounding issues like malignancy, rheumatoid arthritis and aging where lean body mass (muscle) is lost – so learning as early as possible about the benefits of carrying and maintaining your muscle mass throughout your life can benefit you in later years.

IX. Training on a strong foundation and keeping your muscles balanced and strong

When a muscle contracts, it pulls the bones it’s connected to closer together.  Many muscles come in “pairs” and act to create and stabilize movement around your joints.

You can see this concept with the biceps and triceps muscles that act in opposite ways on the shoulder and elbow joint. When you flex your arm, your biceps contract (shorten) and your triceps extend (lengthen). When you straighten your arm, your triceps contract and your biceps extend.

Keeping these two opposing muscles evenly balanced helps stabilize the two joints they cross, the shoulder and the elbow.

When one side of a pair of muscles becomes stronger and the other side weaker, it can negatively impact the stability of the joint, and “pull” the bones the muscle attaches to in the direction of the stronger muscle.

Exercising on a body that’s not properly aligned or with poor form can create muscle imbalance, lead to overuse injury and pain. Always use modifications while building your strength, and pay attention to form cues.

You can take my free Foundations of Functional Fitness Workshop for daily lessons that will teach you movement patterns and help you build a strong, balanced foundation you can apply to any workout that you do.

Caring for your muscles

Stretching improves flexibility, helps prevent muscle cramps and injuries, ensures you reach a full range of motion, promotes better balance, and guarantees you get the most out of your workout. I like adding in dedicated yoga days to my weekly workout plans, because this flexibility really allows me full range of motion and more body awareness in my other types of workouts.

It can also be advisable to get the hands-on care of a physical therapist or in-person trainer who can correct your form, treat postural imbalances and alignment issues so that you aren’t adding resistance or impact to an imbalanced body. This is especially important if you have pain anywhere when you exercise or have had injuries or accidents in the past.

Some of the therapies I have used include: myofascial release (MFR – a type of soft tissue therapy), trigger point therapy (small irritated nodules in the muscle tissue are released, bringing balance back to the body), chiropractic care, and physical therapy.

I’ve also used self-care tools like a foam roller, a self-massage tool called “the stick,” a theragun, and a foot roller – all of which can aid in circulation and ease muscular soreness.

Use a well-balanced training program to ensure that you’re strengthening your muscles in balance around your joints, and throughout your entire body as well.

In Rock Your Life, my online home workout studio and most versatile and comprehensive training platform, we offer hundreds of workout classes that can be done from home with just your own bodyweight, or with resistance equipment. Every class includes reinforcement of good form, and options for all fitness levels.

We provide support and coaching in our private women’s fitness community, and offer dozens of 30-day Challenges, which are comprehensive workout plans. You can start a new one every month if you like, or choose from the variety of classes in the home workout class library.

With options like HIIT circuits, strength training, barre, yoga, mobility and more, there’s something to suit your needs any day of the week – with plenty of support and resources to empower your fitness journey.

Get a 30 day trial to ROCK YOUR LIFE and check out all the opportunities that are just waiting for you inside!

The post Sculpted and Strong: How Muscle Works appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

In this post:

• Why is cardio valuable to include in training?
• 2 Types of cardio training
• Is one type better than the other?
• Resting Heart Rate
• Target heart rate zones while exercising
• The importance of Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

In a nutshell, why is cardio valuable to include in training?

The stronger your heart, the stronger your cardiovascular system, and the better your body functions (1) overall – making this a valuable part of your training regimen that can prolong and improve your life.

Our cardiovascular system (the heart, blood vessels, and blood) supplies our organs and tissues with oxygen and nutrients, transport hormones through the body, and is responsible for ridding the body of waste.

Like any muscle, the heart gets stronger and healthier the more regularly you work it. And as the name describes, cardiovascular training (cardio) is a great way to strengthen the cardiovascular system.

Here are just a few of the benefits you can experience from including cardiovascular training…

• strengthens both your lungs and heart (2)
• increases bone density (3) and (aerobic cardio) preserves muscle mass (4)
• improves your body’s metabolism (5)
• improves mitochondrial function (6)
• improves the flow of oxygen through your entire body, and improves VO2 max (the maximum amount of oxygen your body can process)
• strengthens your heart and blood vessels (5)
• improves your resilience to stress
• aids in fat loss (7)
• decreases the risk of chronic ailments like diabetes and heart disease (8)
• elevates your mood (9)

The 2 Types of Cardiovascular Training

Cardiovascular training is exercise that raises your heart rate. There are 2 types of exercise that can contribute to cardiovascular health, and each has different benefits. One is not “better” than the other – both should be practiced for good health.

Aerobic Exercise

Aerobic exercise (“with oxygen”) is exercise that can be sustained for longer than 10 minutes. There is plenty of oxygen flowing through your body to support your muscles and sustain the energy you need to keep going.

Many of our daily activities (from digestion to breathing to standing and sleeping) are supported by the aerobic system – and the health of this foundational supportive system can be enhanced by training within the aerobic zone.

An example of aerobic exercise is “steady-state cardio,” which is exactly what it sounds like – your level of intensity (60-70% of your maximum capacity) doesn’t really fluctuate for 20 minutes or more.

There are many aerobic fitness activities to enjoy, like cycling, jogging, swimming, hiking, walking, or any activity that you can sustain while elevating your heart rate (around 120-150 beats per minute). Low impact training is in the aerobic “zone” as well.

It’s fun and feels great!

The benefits are more than just physical – it feels good to be outside running or hiking, breathing fresh air, getting sunshine, and seeing new sights.

It lowers your heart rate and improves your ability to handle stress

Steady state cardio also helps create positive adaptations in the heart that impact our ability to handle stress; its ability to pump more blood with each contraction over time lowers your heart rate during activity and during rest.

A lower heart rate is indicative of a healthy cardiovascular system, and good “parasympathetic tone” in the nervous system, increasing your ability to relax, focus, and recover from stress – including the positive stress of intense exercise (next section on anaerobic exercise).

• Read more about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system in“Top 5 Ways to Beat Stress and Get More From Your Workouts”

It positively impacts your muscle tissue

Steady state cardio has also been shown to preserve muscle mass (4), and even increase hypertrophy (muscle growth) over time, making it a valuable contributor to the prevention of sarcopenia (muscle wasting).

Exercising in the aerobic zone “with oxygen” results in the production of more blood vessels (to carry the oxygen), and increases the size of the blood vessels. More nutrients and oxygen can get to your muscle tissue, and there’s more support for waste removal – which all adds up to better recovery and support for healthy muscle tissue.

It increases your endurance and boosts your energy

Speaking of your muscle tissue, aerobic exercise relies on mostly your slow-twitch muscle fibers, which are the fibers that are built for endurance. These fibers contract slower and at a lower intensity than fast-twitch muscle fibers. These changes to the composition of your muscle fibers add up to increased endurance.

Aerobic workouts also increase the density of mitochondria and the protein myoglobin in your muscle tissue. The mitochondria, or the powerhouse of the cells, are how your body makes energy in the form of ATP, and myoglobin brings oxygen to the cell – which is necessary for the production of ATP. This adds up to more energy for you.

Anaerobic Exercise

Anaerobic exercise (“without oxygen”) is shorter duration exercise (usually 2 minutes or less) that requires more oxygen supply than the body can support.

You may see terms like “interval training,” “plyometrics,”“high intensity interval training” or “HIIT” for short, “tabatas” (a specific 4 minute interval training style) – these can all be types of anaerobic training. Sprints – on a bike or while running for instance – are also anaerobic.

All forms of HIIT fluctuates between short bursts of intense activity and “recovery” periods of less intense activity. The workouts are fueled by stored carbohydrates, but make you breathe harder meaning you will burn more fat than during steady state cardio (10).

HIIT gets your heart working harder for a short period of time, and because it’s working without oxygen, it has to take in more oxygen after the workout. This is the “exercise post-oxygen consumption” or EPOC effect you may hear about in relation to the impact HIIT has on fat loss for a period of time after the workout.

Because of its shorter duration and lack of oxygen, lactic acid is produced which is what creates fatigue. But practicing regularly will boost the size and quantity of the fast-twitch muscle fibers, giving you more power, strength and endurance.

Anaerobic exercise can also increase the breakdown of glucose (also known as glycolosis). It can also boost ATP levels, which are the primary energy source in muscles, as well as creatine phosphate which can be converted to ATP and used for energy. Creatine levels increase, which helps supply energy for muscle contractions. HIIT training can also boost testosterone and growth hormone, both of which impact muscle growth.

Is one type better than the other?

Both aerobic and anaerobic training are beneficial, and measurably improve many important indicators of health and fitness. Blood pressure drops, metabolism improves and VO2 max (which measures the maximum amount of oxygen your body can process) goes up. Studies show that combining both of these types in your exercise regimen is the best way to get maximum benefits out of your workouts (11).

Depending on your life and the demands on your time, you may find that HIIT training is the time-saver you need, and you can more easily fit it in – or you may be someone who enjoys long runs in nature. Both give you great benefits and increase your energy and muscle health.

You may choose to cycle them both into your training at the same time, or do focused periods of training (say 3 months) where HIIT is a primary focus, and then another cycle where steady state cardio is a focus. This can be a fun way to enjoy variety and challenge yourself in different ways.

Many of my workouts and circuits combine both aerobic and anaerobic training – with slower, low impact strength moves paired with explosive bursts. I enjoy this style of training and implement it frequently to save time and get the benefits of both endurance and explosive strength.

Your anaerobic capacity is influenced by your aerobic capacity, meaning without a foundation of aerobic fitness, you won’t be able to push as hard in those HIIT circuits. You want the capacity for both endurance and strength and power – so combining aerobic and anaerobic activities is a great way to really create healthy and strong muscle tissue.

All of the body’s systems impact each other tremendously. Increasing your resilience to stress has a major impact on decreasing your risk to many diseases, and high stress and chronic stress are directly correlated to increased fat storage. There is an important place for both aerobic and anaerobic exercise in your training – regardless of your goals.

While you may burn more fat in less time with HIIT training than you do with steady state cardio, both will impact fat loss. In my mind, what’s more important than fat loss is a focus on preserving and gaining lean muscle – especially as we age. While it’s easy to get overly focused on fat loss, one of the mechanisms by which we become more efficient fat burners is by increasing our lean muscle mass.

Gaining and preserving muscle (as well as increasing your aerobic and anaerobic capacity) should be a lifelong goal to mitigate many of the impacts of the “aging process” including sarcopenia, which is muscle wasting.  Muscle burns more calories at rest, supports your joints, and serves as an important endocrine organ, meaning it impacts hormone function and metabolism.

• Read How Muscle Works
• Listen to Muscle is Key to Longevity with Dr Gabrielle Lyon

Diversity in your fitness routine will train your cardiovascular system to perform well at different levels of intensity and increase the overall function of your body.

Resting Heart Rate (RHR)

Resting heart rate is the number of beats per minute your heart beats while you’re at rest, and is an important health indicator. The RHR range for adults falls between 60-100 beats per minute (12), and “normal” varies from person to person, though in athletic people a lower number is generally an indicator of fitness. Some athletes may be in an even lower range.

To check your RHR manually on yourself, you can either use the side of your wrist, or the side of your neck. A great time to measure is first thing in the morning after waking up, before you have coffee.

• At the wrist: find the tendons that runs down the center of your inner arm, just below your palm. Take your pulse using your index and middle fingers gently pressing into the thumb side of the skin beside the tendons.
• At the neck: place your index and middle fingers lightly on either side of your neck, just beside where your Adam’s apple would be (women).
• Using a timer, count the number of beats in 15 seconds, then multiply that number by 4. You may want to repeat this a couple of times, taking the average of the values you get.
• Don’t take a measurement just after exercising or after a stressful event. Wait up to 2 hours, as your heart rate can remain elevated for some time.
• Wait for at least an hour after consuming caffeine.

Target Heart Rate Zones

It can be useful to follow heart rate training zone guidelines when exercising, comparing workout intensity to your maximum heart rate. Your maximum heart rate is considered the highest amount your heart can sustain during cardio training. You can get this number by subtracting your age from 220. Most athletes train at between 50-70% of their maximum heart rate.

Using the chart below, find the age category closest to yours and use that to find your target heart rates. Moderate intensity (steady state cardio for instance) has a target heart rate of around 50-70% of your maximum heart rate, while high intensity exercise is about 70-85% of your maximum.

This chart can also be useful based on your fitness level. If you’re a beginner, aim for the lower range of your target zone (more like 50%) and gradually build up. If you’re more advanced, you can more easily push to the higher range.

These numbers are just general guidelines. To manually check your heart rate while exercising, keep moving – your heart rate will drop when you stop.

The importance of Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

Heart rate variability measures the variation in time between heart beats. This variation is controlled by your autonomic nervous system, which runs both your sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous systems. Your brain constantly processes all kinds of information, and your responses to it activate these pathways.

If your system is constantly under stress from a poor diet, lack of sleep, overtraining (or lack of exercise), anxiety, isolation or other health disruptors, your fight or flight mechanism can shift into overdrive causing the variation between heartbeats to be low. Conversely, the more relaxed we are, the higher the variability between heart beats.

The significance of your HRV is that it can really show you how your nervous system is responding to both the external environment and also your inner thoughts, feelings and emotions.

A lower HRV can correlate to an inflamed system, worsening depression and anxiety, and an increased risk of death and cardiovascular disease (13).

A higher HRV is indicative of resilience to stress, and often indicates physical fitness. One of the reasons I am a proponent of mindful breathing exercises, meditation, therapy and other forms of self care and personal development is because of the impact it can have on your responses to stress and your heightened self-awareness in being able to care for yourself in a balanced way. This can raise your HRV, and increase your resilience.

Measuring RHR and HRV

A chest strap monitor is a great way to determine all kinds of indicators, including RHR and HRV, and you can also get readings from other wearables for your wrist, or even finger. I personally keep track of my HRV – as well as RHR and many sleep and activity indicators with an Oura Ring.

To sum it all up, your cardiovascular fitness can be impacted by all the choices you make about how to take care of yourself – not only with your workouts but with the way you eat, think, and practice self care.

Be sure to check in below and let me know what insights you got, and let me know if you have any questions!

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The post Cardio 101: How to Use Cardio to Meet Your Goals appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that you feel really good when you exercise. Not only that physical feeling of accomplishment where you’re sweaty and slightly sore after it’s done, but the mental satisfaction of doing what you set out to do.

Regular, consistent and balanced exercise has so many health benefits that go beyond our appearance, though that’s definitely a nice bonus.

Feeling strong and capable boosts our confidence, and taking action toward supporting our long-term health can foster a deep sense of personal pride and self love.

The strength and endurance we gain from training regularly make us more resilient in the face of challenges – both physical and mental –  and make big gains in lowering our stress.

There are many different types of exercise, all with complementary health benefits. Here are some examples:

• Aerobic (cardio) exercise: examples include walking, running, cycling, swimming and activities that involve movements of the large muscles of the body for sustained periods of time which improves cardiovascular health.
• Muscle-strengthening/resistance training exercise: like resistance training against gravity with your own bodyweight or using bands, weights or machines improves muscle strength, endurance, power, and mass.
• Bone-strengthening exercise: like running, playing sports like basketball, resistance training, or jumping rope, improves bone health and strength.
• Balancing exercise: like walking backwards, standing on one leg, yoga, and tai chi strengthen intrinsic stabilizing muscles, and limit your risk of falling.
• “Multicomponent” exercise: like running, dancing, or playing sports like tennis includes at least two of the above types of activity.

Exercise intensity can be rated by the following:

• Light activity: you don’t feel like you’re exerting yourself
• Moderate activity: you can talk comfortably, but not sing
• Intense activity: you can say a few words, but not full sentences (1 minute of intense activity is the approximate equivalent to 2 minutes of moderate activity)

Here are just 7 great reasons to make exercise a regular part of your life.

1. Exercise increases your resilience and lowers stress

One of the biggest gains we make from challenging our bodies with everything from weights, to sustained cardio training, to HIIT circuits is that it forces us to overcome our own mental resistance – helping build our perseverance, patience and resilience – aka our “mental toughness.”

We get more mentally tough as we overcome our internal resistance to push through difficult things, and we get some pretty great physical benefits as well.

Exercise itself is actually a form of stress, but when a healthy person trains regularly their system gets stronger by virtue of handling that exercise induced stress over time.

Cardiovascular exercise creates positive adaptations in the heart and its ability to pump more blood with each contraction over time, which lowers your heart rate during activity and during rest.

A lower heart rate is a sign of a healthy cardiovascular system, and good “parasympathetic tone” in the nervous system, increasing your ability to relax, focus, and recover from stress – including the positive stress of intense exercise.

Exercise also releases feel-good chemicals that flood the brain – elevating your mood, and making you feel happier. This is a powerful and natural mood enhancer, especially for people who suffer from anxiety and depression(1). Exercise has helped me personally my entire life, from back when I started running in high school and it helped manage my depression. I’ve also found great benefit in having personal goals to focus on physically that gave me an outlet to manage difficult feelings like anxiety and negative thinking.

2. Exercise helps you build and maintain lean muscle

Not only does exercise strengthen your heart, it strengthens all the other muscles in your body as well. And muscle tissue is one of your greatest assets – especially as you go through time. Muscle surrounds and protects your joints, and provides you with the strength and endurance to get through not only a workout, but through daily life.

Muscle is also an important regulator of your body composition. With every pound of muscle you build, you will burn 35-50 more calories a day. So, if you gain 4.5 pounds of muscle, you will burn 150 additional calories per day, or 4500 additional calories per month, for a loss of around 15 pounds a year.

Now think of the inverse of that. If you stop exercising, a smaller muscle mass coupled with a more sedentary lifestyle means you will burn less calories every day even though you probably would still consume the same amount of food. So your body fat would likely increase as a result.

Muscle is also an endocrine organ. It secretes hormones on contraction which may play important roles in the protection against diseases associated with low-grade inflammation, insulin resistance, hyperlipidemia (such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer). (2)

Gaining, and preserving healthy muscle tissue should be a goal with your training, and you can accomplish it with regular exercise, including resistance training where you’re working against resistance (either gravity and your own bodyweight, or resistance equipment like weights, bands or machines) and with cardiovascular exercise.

3. Exercise boosts your immune system

When you exercise, small micro tears are created in the muscle tissue causing inflammation. That might sound counterintuitive to boosting your immune system, but actually in a healthy body that is able to repair the micro tears, this actually helps build the resilience and strength of both the tissue and your body’s ability to handle inflammation.

Systemic, low-level inflammation (caused by lifestyle habits, chronic stress, poor diet, etc) is a consistent predictor of disease. Exercise increases levels of cytokines (cell-signaling molecules that aid communication between cells) with anti-inflammatory properties.

This is also one of the reasons you shouldn’t train when you’re sick, as your immune system is already working to resolve something else, and taxing it to come repair muscle tissue can slow down your recovery process (and doesn’t really give you much in the way of strength gains either) (3).

4. Exercise Extends Your Life Expectancy

Our chromosomes have little “caps” on them called telomeres which protect the integrity of our DNA. The length of your telomeres is indicative of your health and longevity. Their length decreases with age as well as stressors like trauma, inflammation and other lifestyle factors, but they can be positively influenced by exercise.

Higher levels of exercise are related to longer telomere length, with athletes tending to have longer telomeres than non-athletes (4)

Regular physical activity substantially reduces your risk of developing coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, hypertension, maturity onset diabetes, becoming overweight or obese, and osteoporosis (5).

Exercising regularly also helps to ensure you’re able to function well as you age, increasing bone density and muscle strength so you can reap the rewards of some of the aforementioned benefits.

5. Exercise improves sleep quality

Sleep is where we get to recover and restore our bodies from all of the day’s events. It’s essential for health – in fact it’s #1 on my 4 Pillars of Health (Sleep, Nutrition, Stress Management, Exercise) for a good reason – nothing else works when you’re not rested.

Regular exercise has been shown to positively impact sleep quality (6). This is not the equivalent as taking a “sleeping pill” so just because you do a workout one day doesn’t mean you’ll sleep like a baby. The benefits really kick in when you exercise regularly.

Cardiovascular exercise can release endorphins (feel good chemicals) that improve your mood. Enjoying the benefits of this regularly can help you transition into a more relaxed state and stabilize your mood, making it easier to fall asleep faster and enjoy deeper sleep.

Don’t exercise too close to bedtime however, as the brain needs time to wind down after these chemicals are released.  When we exercise, our core temperature rises, and then begins to fall again after 30-90 minutes. As the body cools, we feel relaxed. Be sure to give your body a nice window (of 1-2 hours) to cool down after exercise before bedtime if you’re training at night.

6. Exercise Boosts Your Brainpower

Exercise supports brain health in many ways. As our heart rate increases and pumps more blood, more oxygen circulates throughout the entire body, including the brain. A recent study showed that adults who exercise moderately had more gray matter in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, helping to reduce memory loss and cognitive decline (7). 

More hormones are released during exercise, which create a nourishing environment for our brain cells. For instance the reduction of stress hormones from the effects of the “runners high” are associated with cell growth in the hippocampus, the region of the brain responsible for memory and learning (8).

Exercise stimulates brain plasticity (an important factor behind learning) by stimulating the growth of new connections between cells. It can improve our IQ and fuels our higher level thinking skills–making it easier for us to problem-solve, plan, organize and multi-task.

7. Exercise Supports Healthy Skin

Your skin is your body’s largest organ, and provides an essential protective barrier to disease and infection. Aging results in deteriorating skin quality from reduced cell proliferation and collagen reduction.

Exercise increases blood flow through the entire body, including the skin – carrying fresh oxygen and nutrients to cells, and removes waste products that can positively impact skin cell health.

Exercise also positively impacts our stress response. One of the hormones commonly associated with stress is cortisol, which breaks down collagen, making your skin age faster. While many methods of stress reduction can effectively guard against this, regular exercise can also help moderate cortisol through its stress reducing mechanism.

To sum it up, making exercise a regular part of your life is totally worth it, and adds so much positive potential for your body – and your long-term health. 

The only question I have is, what workout are you going to do next?

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Hope (pictured below) is one of our longtime Rock Your Life members and her testimonial reflects the benefit of consistent, regular training!

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The post 7 Reasons Exercise Rocks Your Body and Your Life appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

Our bodies are composed of many supporting systems, but the two we think of the most when it comes to training are the muscular and skeletal systems.

Intrinsically connected by tendons, your muscles attach to various bony landmarks, cross specific joints and define the form and structure you have below your skin. We can have an enormous influence on how these two systems interact by using our body awareness in our movements (and workouts) so we can get stronger safely and enjoy a balanced physique for years to come.

In my classes you’ll hear me stressing the importance of form during movement, and that’s because the alignment of your skeleton and the way you line yourself up when performing movement will determine not only how efficiently and effectively you call on the power of your muscles, but how well you can protect your joints.

In my previous career, I worked with athletes as a “structural integrationist,” practicing neuromuscular therapy, soft tissue release with techniques like trigger point therapy, myofascial release, corrective exercises and other forms of therapy that addressed postural imbalances and helped each individual develop more body awareness and better alignment.

I’ve brought a lot of that knowledge into my work as a trainer and when I write workout programs and teach classes, this is always on my mind.

I want to give you some foundation basics so you can think about your body the way I do, from that perspective of balance and alignment. Take my free 14-day Foundations of Functional Fitness Workshop for an awesome baseline of the knowledge I would teach you if we were working together one on one.

Our bodies were designed for function. Similar to a building, your body is made up of interlocking support structures that rely on the balance of each other to hold the whole thing together and allow for stressors (like resistance or impact) to be added.

When a muscle works, it contracts. Imagine your bicep doing a curl, every time you flex your arm, it contracts and activates.  The woman on the left is doing a bicep curl. The muscle on the opposite side of your arm, your triceps, activates when you extend your arm back. You can perform triceps extensions in several positions – the woman on the right is doing an overhead tricep extension – when she presses the weight up, her arms straighten (extend) and that’s what works the triceps.

If you only did bicep curls when you worked out and never did triceps extensions, you would create an imbalance between the front and back of your arm. This would also create instability across the 2 joints the bicep and triceps cross over – your shoulder and elbow joints. 

Balancing your training means you think about working muscles all the way around a joint.

This is just one example, but it’s easy to imagine how overdevelopment of one side of the body in specific muscles can actually pulls a joint out of alignment. In this case, if your biceps were overdeveloped, they could pull elbow joint into extension and the shoulder joint into forward rotation. You might be getting stuck in a position due to overuse at your job or sport, and not even realize it.

But what happens when your shoulder is not properly aligned going into these resistance activities – where you’re adding load (from the dumbbell in this case) hoping to strengthen your muscles? You can actually get injured training when you’re not properly aligned. Your quads and hamstrings are another example of this. Both attach to your pelvis, and cross over your knee. They do opposite actions, and when they become imbalanced, they can pull your pelvis forward or back, and impact the alignment of the knee.

Modern life subjects us to many misalignment issues, repetitive motion injuries and stress around joints that we don’t realize is happening until something starts to hurt. This is because in daily life, we don’t always use opposing muscles in a balanced way.

One of the common ways we get “misaligned” without realizing it is the repetitive daily activities that put us into postures that end up recruiting specific muscles over and over. 

Often some muscles get overused, and others underused leading to strained backs, unsteady knees and other types of joint pain that over time can cause big problems. With awareness of this, you can begin to start training some of those underused muscles and bringing balance back into your body naturally.

Think about this: we see in front of ourselves and therefore most of the movements we make in our daily lives are in a forward direction.

There are specific muscles that work over and over in your daily activities that end up working more than their opposites – creating imbalances that can really impact your posture – and set you up to be training with poor form.

Think about how you sit at the computer, how you sit to eat, how you drive, that you walk and bicycle forward and on and on.

There is nothing wrong with any of the above activities – in fact, I want you to be able to enjoy every single one of them in abundance.

What I want you to notice is the similarity in each of those common postures – the neck is bent forward, the shoulders are rounded forward, and our back may be slightly slouched as we are in a seated position.

Over time repetitive motion takes its toll. We’ve all seen the propensity many elderly people have to lean forward, hunch over and have a head way forward from their center of gravity. This is because they have been using the SAME muscles so much without the balance of using the opposite muscles, their overworking muscles are literally pulling their bones forward.

What we may not realize is that most of us are part of the way towards that already. We don’t spend nearly as much time in our daily lives pulling things, leaning back, and standing up as we do working with your hands in front of us, leaning forward, and sitting down.

And this is one of the big contributing factors to upper back pain, neck pain and poor posture. While you may “feel pain” in your back if this imbalance describes you, the tightness is actually in the overworked chest and front body muscles. A workout that incorporates too many of these already overworked muscle groups is like adding insult to injury.

So what is the answer? How do we solve this problem without having to take medication for pain (which I personally think simply addresses the symptom, and doesn’t fix the problem)?

The simplest thing you can do RIGHT NOW is to become aware of your body postures and daily activity positions and notice where you’re doing repetitive tasks and sitting or working in similar positions over and over.

Think about sitting upright and engaging your core and back muscles while you’re sitting all day. Make sure you adjust your desk so the height allows your head to view the computer screen without having to tilt forward.

The next thing for many people is to focus on strengthening the muscles that aren’t activating as often. For many people, it’s about deliberately strengthening the back body muscles, and stretching the front body muscles more so you can bring the body into balance.

Here’s my posterior chain training series – you could do one of these workouts every week in the mix with your other training to help strengthen that backside of your body:

Posterior Chain I

Posterior Chain II

Posterior Chain III

Posterior Chain IV

When you train for a specific activity you enjoy, consider cross training the muscles that you don’t use as much for your sport.

If you’re a cyclist, think about what muscles you use to perform that repetitive exercise day after day. It’s a lot more quad than it is hamstring. Do some exercises that engage your hamstrings on your days off. Unless you’re competing and under the care of a coach, I’d highly recommend you train for balance in your legs as well as performance in your rides. Your body will thank you in the long run.

 If you’re a runner, consider cross training with deadlifts, lunges and squats – as well as core and upper body workouts to bring balance and strength to your entire body.

Sometimes you do need an outside resource like a trainer to watch your form, or a physical therapist to help you re-pattern imbalances in your musculoskeletal system. Don’t hesitate to resource yourself in this way if you’re experiencing pain or discomfort while training, and get someone to manually assess you and provide you with care and guidance. Doing this early can make the difference in how long and effectively you train.

The bottom line is that training on poorly balanced and poorly aligned joints will inevitably lead to injury. Train for balance, and strength will be inevitable.

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The post Building a Balanced Physique and Protecting Your Joints appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

Have you ever gotten sick and just been totally out of commission, not able to exercise?

That was me a week ago after way too much traveling and being around a LOT of germs. I was totally wrecked, in bed, fever, cough, throwing up, the works for days. Ugh.

I rarely get sick, so when I do it really throws a monkey wrench into my training and routine – not to mention my work!

It’s a lot like what happens when you’ve just had an injury, or are recovering from surgery.

While you’re not “sick” per se, your body is in a state that needs a lot of immune system support – and knowing what to do – and what NOT to do – can mean the difference between a speedy recovery that has you back on your feet with minimal downtime and a long, drawn out process that you’re forever backsliding within.

Actually, one of the most common requests I get from my readers who have suffered an injury or recently had surgery and are recovering is, “can you send me a workout for just my upper body” or “can you send me just a leg workout?”

While I would LOVE to be able to send you a customized plan while you’re recovering I should clarify – neither I, nor anyone else on the internet who is not directly involved in your recovery process, has knowledge of your health history or is working in some one-on-one capacity with you – is qualified to prescribe exercises to you.

That aside, I want you to really think about something else – training just your upper body while recovering from a knee surgery for example might not be a great idea.

Training and exercise put a certain amount of stress on our system. That’s a good thing, because under normal circumstances, it forces a breakdown and repair process, creates an adaptogenic response and we get stronger.

But you can’t just isolate the experience of exercise to that part of your body you’re training. It’s inevitable. Your body is an interconnected system and it gets fully involved when we’re training any part.

Now I know that there can be some real anxiety about missing a day, a week or even a month of exercise – like it’s going to turn us into a total lump of fat, or reduce all of our gains – and that to maintain our physique we MUST find a way to exercise some part of their body so we can minimize the “damage” to our appearance that must surely happen as a result of NOT EXERCISING.

That anxiety is pervasive when we’re sick, and it’s pervasive when we’re injured. It’s understandable – I mean, for one we’re a slightly aesthetic-obsessed culture (and there’s nothing wrong with taking pride in your appearance and working to be your strongest, fittest personal best!), but more importantly nobody wants to feel like they’re backsliding after putting a lot of time and energy into a training program.

I mean, last week I was totally bummed that I had to take a break from the challenge (I was on Day 5, I had just started it) and I really wanted to get back on track because I felt like I had just gotten into a good routine!

But instead of trying to push myself to do a workout anyway, I focused on the two most important things that actually shortened my downtime: nutrients and rest.

I know, I know – not some big revelation, right? haha. But doing this right is often overlooked, and is one of the biggest causes of extended illness, extended recovery time (for injuries) and a real decrease in your ability to come back 100%.

This was an important shift I had to make myself around training and recovery, and I want to share what I know with you so you can get better faster, reduce your recovery time, and come back to your peak state stronger than ever.

When you’re sick, your body is fighting off an infection of some kind. It is using the resources it has at its disposal to bring you back to your normal state as quickly as possible. The absolute worst thing you could do is try to allocate some of that energy towards something else (a workout) and not let your body heal first.

Consider this: if you had just driven your car off a cliff and were stuck in a ravine 50 feet down and an all-star rescue team was working non-stop to help haul you up, you’d really hope those guys were well-rested, focused on your situation the entire time and totally dedicated.

If they were constantly getting sidetracked checking their phones, taking hour long lunch breaks or napping on the job, it would take them a lot longer to rescue you!

And that’s exactly how you have to think about the way you treat your body. It contains your own personal rescue team, ready to jump into action and work nonstop, 24/7, until you feel better. 

Remember what I was saying earlier about how exercise creates stress – actually an inflammatory response – in the muscles?

When we train, we create micro tears that the body then heals and rebuilds as muscle. It’s a kind of stress that the body responds to and deals with, in optimal conditions.

When you’re sick, your body needs its resources to dig you out of the ravine. Adding additional stress is like taking half that rescue crew and asking them to go work another job.

You’re going to be stuck longer, and you’ve only got a skeleton crew on the other job, so chances are it’s not going to be nearly as effective. As in, your workout won’t really make much of an impact. You’re not doing yourself any favors forcing a workout when your immune system is compromised.

It’s a similar situation with recovery. When you’re injured or recovering from an injury, you want to think of your body’s defense and restoration system as a team that is working for you. Training your upper body while your lower body is in a state of repair may not be an ideal allocation of resources, as you’re going to be effecting the repair process.

That doesn’t mean you’re not supposed to move at all. In fact, the body’s primary immune response system DEPENDS on you to move so it can circulate.

Your lymph system doesn’t have a pump like the circulatory system has your heart to circulate the blood. It relies on movement to get around your body. That’s one reason why after surgery your primary care team will try to get you up and moving sooner than later, rather than keeping you on bed rest as long as possible.

It’s vital that you follow the instructions of your primary caregiver and anyone you’re working with. Why am I not qualified to give blanket advice about your situation? Not just because I’m not a doctor! Because I don’t know YOUR health history.

Even if I was working one-on-one with you as your personal trainer, in person, I’d be talking to your doctor and getting clearance from them on what would support your body the most during the healing process.

So I strongly advise you NOT to go outside of this thinking that just because you can’t do any jumping moves you should start doing everything else that stresses your system out. That’s the real issue – creating more stress in your body when you’re trying to get better is the opposite of healing.

I’m not telling you that you can’t exercise or move, or walk, do water aerobics or yoga or spinning – I’m saying if you’re doing anything while recovering from an injury, be sure it’s with your doctor’s blessing and that it’s appropriate for where you’re at. And if you’re taking care of yourself after a non-surgical procedure and aren’t working with a doctor, be extremely circumspect in your choice to do too much.

Think about the team of immune defenders and repair and restoration tissues and fluids working 24/7 inside your body on your behalf and think about what you can do to SUPPORT that process.

The #1 think you CAN do while you’re healing from anything – from a cold to knee surgery is DIAL IN YOUR NUTRITION.

Okay, let’s go back to that all-star rescue team working overtime to dig you out of the ravine you drove off into. What are those guys eating to sustain them for this around the clock work schedule?

If it were me, I’d really hope they were eating the best possible food so they had consistent energy, were sharp and alert, and had the stamina to help me for as long as I needed them. You picking up what I’m putting down here?

Feed your body junk or starve it when you’re recovering, those guys – your immune defenders – aren’t going to have the energy they need to haul your ass out of the ravine.

I know it’s tempting to think that because you’re not exercising you shouldn’t eat as much – and you should definitely allow your appetite to dictate how much food you eat.

Just don’t fall into the trap of eating junk or convenience food – this is THE time to eat the best foods possible. This is not the time to take an NSA day.

Focus on anti inflammatory foods, on foods rich in antioxidants and micronutrients that support everything that happens on a cellular level, from tissue repair to hormone production.

Focus on the macronutrients, getting in unprocessed carbohydrates like fruit and sprouted, soaked or fermented grains, eat lean, complete protein-rich foods, eat good healthy fats and greens.

You can take a proactive approach with your nutrition too if you have an upcoming surgery like my aunt just did on her lung.  I’d recommend really focusing your nutrient intake on healthy superfoods rich in the nutrients that will support you going into the process.

Taking antibiotics and prescription medications can wreak havoc on your digestive system – so why not go in armed with good fuel and a solid base? I’m happy to report she’s having a super speedy recovery, and while I can’t attribute her fast bounce back to just her food alone, that certainly was a contributing factor in her energy.

Not to mention, going into a surgery is always really fraught with unknowns, and your food intake before and after you go in is something you CAN control – so why not do it?

I know recovery is frustrating. I know it’s easy to feel like you want to exercise and do something.

But you CAN do something – you can focus on what you’re putting in your body.

Give yourself this opportunity to feed yourself the best food and avoid anything that will cause additional stress and work to your system. Stay away from processed foods, added sugar and excess caffeine.

Everything in your body, from the tissue that supports your skeleton to the neurons that fire signals from your brain to your feet run on the energy that’s created by the food we eat, and I personally would prefer to have body tissue made from real, whole foods than tissue constantly bombarded by chemical byproducts of food processing from something that came out of a box and went through a factory full of chemicals and processes I’d never even see or hear about.

Think about your liver, working hard all day for you to regulate your blood sugar levels, metabolize fat, and regulate your protein levels – or the small intestines working hard to absorb the available nutrients in your food so you have the necessary building blocks for tissue, growth and energy.

Your body exists in a constant state of energy balancing, and it is depending on what you feed it and how you treat it to be able to perform its functions optimally.

A lot of the time, we GET sick because we’re carelessly overindulging in too much of certain substances and not giving our body the nutrients it needs to do its important jobs.

But when you know you’re going to be down for the count for a few weeks or longer, or you end up getting sick, why not use it as the perfect opportunity to FOCUS on your nutrition and give your immune system team the support it needs to get you back in the clear as soon as possible?

When I’m sick, I make a tea with some to all of the following:

• Sliced lemon
• Slivered ginger root – I peel the bark and mince it, about a 1/4-1/2 tsp worth. Dried ginger is fine too, a pinch in hot water works.
• Slivered turmeric – same process as the ginger. I haven’t tried dried turmeric but it would be great.
• Slivered garlic. just a couple slivers. Might sound weird, but garlic contains some mighty excellent nutrients for the body.

I also stay super focused on nourishing my body with greens and optimal foods.

Here’s a great 5-step food prep and recipes guide that can help you with some nutrient-dense meals and great recipe ideas.

If you feel like you need to really give your body some extra support, try the cleansing, immune boosting smoothies and tea mentioned in my Easy 1-day “Detox” post which is more about restoring your system, and supporting the body’s natural detoxification pathways.

I recommend following a balanced eating approach and getting your body fueled with the best food available – not just when you’re sick or injured, but as often as you can.

This page contains links to my meal plans that all have wonderful, healthy and balanced recipes, weekly shopping lists, daily menus, food prep steps – and are gluten and dairy free, as well as contain Vegetarian options for my non-meat/fish eaters.

If you’re proactive in supporting your body when it’s sick or injured you’ll be able to heal more quickly, and set yourself up for far greater success in your upcoming workouts than you would if you force yourself to work out when you’re sick or injured.

Fueling your body with the nutrients it needs to recover will make for a speedy recovery – and you’ll have more energy when you are ready to get back to regular exercise!

Please leave me your comments below, as I’m always interested in what you think! Have you been sick recently or had an injury? Tell me about your recovery!

And if you like this post, please share it with a friend and give someone else a chance to get better more quickly when they’re down for the count.

Thank you for reading! You’re the reason I’m here.

Let me make healthy eating easy for you! Take my Eating Type Quiz!

The post How to Train When You’re Sick or Injured appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

Betty Rocker’s home gym created by Rep Fitness 

What’s up ROCKSTAR! Today I’m joined by 2 of my friends who are also trainers to answer the Top 7 Questions Women Ask About Weight Training.

Since so many of you are using the new Lioness Strength Training Program, I wanted to take a few minutes to answer the most common questions I get – from women of all fitness levels.

Coach Maddie Berky and WBFF Pro Jessica Williams are here to add their perspective and experience to the discussion and to help you get the best information.

• Bree Argetsinger, CHEK certified Exercise Coach, ISSA Nutrition Coach
• Coach Maddie Berky CPT, specializing in Crossfit and Olympic Lifting
• Coach Jessica Williams, CPT and WBFF Competitor

Get your hands on the Lioness Strength Training Program for the Absolute Best Guidance and Complete Plan to follow!

The post The Top 7 Questions Women Ask About Weight Training appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

Buns, glutes, booty, butt, behind, caboose – whatever you call it, it’s an important part of your posterior chain!

Strengthening your booty is always a good idea – it can improve your posture, and make everyday things like sitting down, standing up, lifting heavy objects, and even climbing the stairs easier.

Not only that, strong glutes can also protect you from injury, improve your athletic performance, and they look nice.

There’s more to sculpting a butt than squats, so let’s talk about the important elements that go into the glutes!

1. Get to know your muscles

The muscles that form the shape of your glutes are the gluteus maximus, medius and minimus.

There are also a deep layer of muscles (called the “deep 6”) that stabilize and support us while walking – but aren’t apparent on the surface.

But it’s not just your BUTT muscles that give you that defined and lifted shape….

It’s also the muscles and connective tissue that attach to your pelvis that affect the shape of your butt. Like the erector spinae column (the skinny muscles that run up and down next to your spine), your lower back muscles, and your hamstrings.

So in addition to doing all the obvious booty builders like bridge lifts and squats, you also want to add in workout moves that activate the back and hamstrings, like deadlifts, superwoman lifts, and hamstring curls.

The body always seeks balance.

For example, to get truly strong abs we can’t just do front ab exercises alone. We also have to focus on strengthening the lower back muscles.

That’s because without the support of your back, your core won’t function as well – and your body will actually resist excessive imbalanced muscle growth.

Apply that same principle to developing truly well-defined glutes, and focus your sessions on the surrounding muscles as well as targeting the glutes themselves.

Speaking of balance…muscle grows when we rest it, NOT when we train it.

I worked with a woman a few years ago who was really frustrated with how flat her butt was…and she worked out all the time.

It turned out she was overly focused on moves that just targeted her glutes – and not only that, she trained them almost 5 times a week!

We have to give our muscles a break – or they won’t develop. So be sure to intersperse your booty sculpting with other workouts, and take rest days.

2. Try these Posterior Chain Workouts

The posterior chain refers to the muscles along the backside (posterior) of your body. Doing workouts that focus on strengthening these muscles will support your glutes tremendously.

Posterior Chain 1

Posterior Chain 2

Posterior Chain 3

Posterior Chain 4

I recommend doing one of these each week in the mix with your other workouts.

3. Eat Smart

I’m a woman, and trust me I’ve seen the ripples in my skin on the back of my legs and around my hips. For starters, that’s a tough area for us ladies, as we’re genetically designed to store fat in those areas. It’s also perfectly natural to have some fat there, so don’t beat yourself up because your body doesn’t look airbrushed – that’s so unrealistic!

HOWEVER.

A balanced diet made of whole foods with all the nutrients you need goes a LONG way.

The refined sugar and flour, processed foods and their additives and the excessive amounts of them we consume will absolutely give you the look you don’t want.

Those foods create inflammation in your cells and tissue, cause bloating (as your body retains water trying to process them out of your system) and get stored as fat.

Try filling up your grocery cart with veggies, greens, proteins, complex carbs (quinoa and steel cut oatmeal) and fruits. I do a green smoothie daily.

These resources will help guide you on what I put on my grocery list.

1: Start with PROTEIN

When creating any meal (from breakfast to smoothies to snacks and everything in between), protein is at the top of my list!

Protein is a major player when it comes to the way your body looks on the outside AND how it functions on the inside. It’s found in every cell, and plays a part in thousands of essential chemical reactions.

It’s needed for everything from hormone regulation and enzyme production to the regulation of muscle mass and body fat levels.

Eating a variety of protein-rich foods can help to support your ability to metabolize fat while supporting structural tissue (AKA muscle) production that can help sculpt a lean, fit physique.  

You can definitely supplement your whole food eating with a quality organic whole food based protein powder like I Vanilla Protein, made by my brand Whole Betty.

Protein is also important for healthy and vibrant skin, hair, and nails, as well as a healthy immune system and metabolism that can efficiently burn fat and keep you energized!

For how much protein to eat, best sources of it and how it benefits your body, read Protein 101:

2: Add Fiber-Rich Carbs

Carbohydrates, when they come from whole food sources and are prepared as close to the way  they came from Mother Nature as possible, are an excellent energy source that will support your healthy, fit body goals – not take away from them.

The best way  to get into optimal “fat burn” mode is actually to have enough energy to show up to your  workouts, think clearly and power through your day. Fiber is essential to a healthy gut and digestive flow, and carbs are your brain’s preferred energy source for focus and concentration.

Some examples of fiber-rich, nutrient dense whole food carbohydrates are….

• Grains*: Quinoa, rice (all varieties, but especially wild, long-grain, and brown) and oats.
• Legumes*: Beans (all kinds), lentils and peas.
• Starchy Vegetables: Sweet potatoes, beets, parsnips, pumpkin, squash and yams.

I would limit processed and pre-made carbohydrates. If you opt instead for the whole food sources, you’ll be more full and satisfied and not reaching for the other stuff.

*I recommend traditional grain and legume preparation, like soaking, sprouting and fermenting to ensure you’re getting the benefits of these nourishing and fiber-rich energy sources without irritation. There are many savvy brands these days that have done that work for you, so look for “sprouted quinoa” “germinated rice” etc. to save time. 

For the Best Carbs to Eat, good vs bad carbs, and more, reference my Carbs 101 Post!

3. Include Healthy Fats

When it comes to fat, we want to eat nutrient-dense whole food sources of it in order to reap the benefits. Here are some of my favorites:

• Gives you long lasting energy – so you can think better, work harder and live life to the fullest!
• Stabilizes blood sugar – which can prevent insulin spikes that trigger fat storage.
• Feel full longer – which promotes satiety and reduces cravings.
• Reduces inflammation – Omega 3 fats are especially beneficial in this regard.
• Produces and regulates hormones – for example eating healthy fat stimulates the production and secretion of leptin, the hormone that helps regulate food intake, maintain a healthy body weight, and ensure your metabolism is in working order.

The amount you take in daily is really dependent on the dietary strategy you follow, just be sure you’re making your choices from whole food sources.

For the best fat sources, how much fat you should eat, and how fat keeps you lean,
read Healthy Fat 101!

4: Focus on Greens and Veggies

Greens and veggies play an important role in supporting our health. They include vital micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) that aid your body in many processes and enhance the actions of your protein, carbohydrates and healthy fats – plus often contain digestive-healthy fiber.

Eating more of them – and a VARIETY of them can support your immune system, help you thrive, and protect against heart disease, osteoporosis, cancer, diabetes and much more.

Even with so many great options out there, it can still be tough to find creative ways to include enough of them each and every day which is why I cover my protein AND green bases with Berry Green Protein like I mentioned before.

It’s just so convenient – and you get 18 grams of plant protein, plus 15 total organic greens, veggies and fruits

You can shake it up in water alone, you can blend it in a smoothie, or you can even bake with it.

I mentioned how important it is to have variety in your greens – making a smoothie is a great way to vary the greens you get, and adding a bonus scoop of Berry Green Protein can help boost the overall nutrient content to get the full spectrum.

Here are 2 of my favorite easy smoothie recipes (and you’ll find many more recipes on the blog as well to make things that represent ALL of these nutrients):

• Colorado Green Machine
• Berry Blast Smoothie

Best greens and veggies, how they boost your immune system, make your skin glow and help beat body fat – read Greens 101

I don’t eat like this every day – I take an NSA approach to my eating at least once a week…that’s “no strings attached” – so be sure to let yourself have dessert, a treat, cocktails or something outside of the norm – balance is important!

So to recap, we are going to target our glutes and the surrounding muscles to strengthen and sculpt their shape with the right workouts. We are going to eat the right foods that support lean muscle and help us naturally burn fat. And finally, we are going to say nice things to OURSELVES about our bodies, and our booties during the entire process.

Want more Abs and Booty workouts?

Check out the 30-day Booty and Abs Challenge! It will give you a total body program, with a special focus on these 2 key areas!

The post Top 3 Booty Sculpting Secrets appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

You might be able to do this right away, but if not, it’s important to learn the progression so you can teach your body what to do and develop the strength in your lower abdominals to really make it happen.

ALL of the moves I’m showing you in this little demo are amazing for your lower abs, so take your time, don’t force yourself to learn it in one day, protect your knees and DON’T do this if you have any injuries or pre-existing conditions that cause you pain.

This is not a good move for everyone – and I expect you to NOT do this if you have any trouble with your knees!

If this isn’t a good move for you, there are plenty of other great ab workouts here on the blog! 

1. Kneeling, hop yourself forward.
2. Kneeling, hop forward and up at the same time.
3. Kneeling, and holding onto a chair or couch hop up, one leg at a time. Remind yourself of how to do this by standing one leg at a time.
4. Try the pop up. I fall down sometimes Be sure to do this on a soft surface.
5. Try the advanced version if you master the pop up – add a tuck jump or jump onto a bench or step. SUPER CRAZY!

Want more Abs focused training?

Check out the Hot Abs and Booty Challenge so you have fresh ab and booty workouts every week to sculpt your abs!

Video Demos, Printable Follow-Along Guides, Form Notes, Modifications and More!

CLICK HERE to Get the 30-Day Abs and Booty Challenge!

The post Ninja Pop Ups Progression Tutorial appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

#1: Never go 3 days without exercise.

Staying consistent with your fitness program is KEY in getting results – and keeping them.

This applies to eating as much as it does to working out.

It is less important what kind of exercise you do – what matters is that you get your body moving.

#2: Work out at least 3 days a week.

This goes hand in hand with rule #1. Aim for at least 2 days of strength training per week, and 1-2 days of fast-paced interval training – body weight circuits, sprints, swimming, cycling – whatever gets you moving.

I know it’s easy to get off track with this – thinking you need to get dressed, drive to the gym, work out for an hour or you didn’t get a good workout is a total trap that often makes us MISS our workout entirely because we feel so pressed for time.

If you can’t make it to the gym there is nothing stopping you from getting a massively effective workout in at home in a short amount of time – here’s a link to ALL of my home workouts here on the blog that you can do from anywhere!

#3: Never miss a Monday.

This is a great rule to follow. Getting your week started off on the right foot helps set you up for success all week.

Wake up excited for Monday!

It’s the start of a new week, full of possibilities – a new opportunity for you to work for your goals and feel great in your body.

#4: Never give up!

Injuries, pain, traveling, unexpected events – many things can upset our routine and throw us off course temporarily.

Getting sidetracked doesn’t mean you’re derailed. It’s temporary.

Focus on your healthy, nutrient-dense eating as much as you can in times when you can’t exercise – and check out How to Train When You’re Sick or Injured.

If everything falls apart, know that you are a healthy and fit person, and that your LIFESTYLE doesn’t change just because you circumstances temporarily need to.

Stay focused and be patient – do the best you can and don’t lose sight of what you want.

#5: Work your ENTIRE body with a variety of training styles throughout the year.

Variety is key: mix it up!

I cycle through a variety of training styles and programs throughout the year. You do not have to be in the gym 5 days a week 365 days a year to be making massive progress.

The most effective type of training is the training you DO. It’s training that fits into your life, and that you can do consistently. Just like there isn’t one “perfect” diet that works for everyone, different types of training are incredibly effective for different people.

Take my workout system quiz to find the sweet spot for you!

In all of my workouts, I really focus on my form, reducing the load on my joints and giving 100% – whether it’s a 10 minute workout or a 45 minute workout!

#6: Take REST DAYS.

Contrary to popular belief, muscle doesn’t grow when you work it. It grows when you rest it.

Cycling through different body parts in your workouts, especially those of you who train 5-6 days a week – is super important.

I’ve personally experienced adrenal fatigue from overtraining, and have seen many clients who made the same mistake.

Give yourself full rest days every week. There’s more to life than working out!

• More about how to rest and how much RIGHT HERE.

#7: Learn from EXPERTS, and do your due diligence.

If you’re learning new moves on your own, don’t rely on your friends or just a magazine.

Look up the moves from multiple sources, and pay attention to the cues.

If you’re using YouTube videos, make sure the person demonstrating to you is knowledgable about the body’s function and form, and has certifications that are searchable and verifiable.

Just because some girl or guy online has a body that looks good in workout clothes doesn’t mean they are using the supplements they’re promoting, knows what they are talking about when it comes to exercise, or is demonstrating moves that are appropriate for everyone.

Form is key, whether you’re doing a body weight workout or resistance training – be discerning about who you learn from.

I invite you to take my FREE 14-Day Foundations of Functional Fitness Workshop to make the most of every training session you do!

#8: Hydrate before you’re thirsty!

Staying hydrated is a key factor in every body function. In order for your cells to perform all of their amazing tasks every second and every hour of the day, they need an aqueous environment.

Help your body help you by keeping a water bottle with you at all times.

I also use an app on my phone called Water Minder, that pings me at a set time throughout the day, reminding me to drink water!

#9: Prevent injury by starting off SLOW.

Don’t rush into your workout on cold muscles.  Some of the most flexible and agile people you’ll ever meet are gymnasts, and a huge part of their training involves warming up before they do any kind of dynamic weight-bearing movement.

Active stretching is the most effective way to warm up your ligaments and joints for a workout.

In many of the bodyweight workouts you’ll find on my site, the first round is used as our warmup. We practice lower impact variations, go at a warmup pace, and ease our bodies into the more intense following rounds. If you feel like you’d like more warming up, take a few minutes to do some light movement prior to starting your workout video 10-20 body squats or leg swings.

For a heavier weight training session, it’s essential to do some mobility drills and to do your first couple sets with a lighter amount of weight than your main working sets. This primes the tissue and ensures there is plenty of blood flow so you can fully activate and push heavy reps.

#10: None of this makes much difference if you’re not dialing in your eating….

You can approach it many different ways, the right way being the one YOU ENJOY STICKING TO WEEK AFTER WEEK.

It’s about consistency AND happiness – otherwise you’ll go bananas!

All of the plans I write incorporate balancing the key nutrients – protein, carbs, and fat – into delicious, easy to prepare recipes that combine to make a complete weekly plan.

• Here’s a great resource to give you the blueprint I use and help you get started: 5-Step Food Prep and Recipes Guide

Start where you are, do what you can, and know that you are exactly where you are supposed to be.

Looking for some help making healthy eating easy? 

Take the quiz and find out your eating type!

The post 10 Simple Rules of Fitness appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

(for help with form, take my free 14-day Foundations of Functional Fitness Workshop)

You’ve probably heard the saying “abs are made in the kitchen” – the reason for that is because showing your abs is about fat loss and body composition more than it is about exercising your stomach.

There’s a little more to it than that, so today let’s take a look at 3 important factors in seeing the abs so you can approach this with the right mindset.

Overall fat loss is the only way to reduce abdominal fat. Plain and simple, we can’t spot reduce fat.

Fat comes off our body in the same order it came on, which is a little different for everyone. Some people struggle the most to lose the fat on their thighs, others their stomach. This is all to do with your genetics, and there’s no changing it. Since belly fat is often one of the last areas to go, overall fat loss is the only way to get to that point.

So when you start burning fat, it’s not guaranteed to come right off your abs just because you’re exercising your stomach.

There are a few great ways to target overall fat loss…

1: NUTRITION

One of course is with your diet, and I don’t mean “go on a diet.” I mean support your body with enough food for your energy needs, and choose from wholesome sources of protein, carbohydrates and fats – with plenty of green foods in the mix.

Take my eating type quiz for support with healthy eating to burn fat naturally and sustainably!

2: HIIT Training

The second supporter of fat loss is to perform HIIT workouts – which stands for “high intensity interval training.” HIIT training has been shown to be more effective for fat loss than aerobic training (think steady state cardio).

HIIT workouts combine short bursts of high output with lower output exercise. One example is a “tabata” style workout, where you go all out for 0:20 intervals, followed by short rest periods of 0:10 and continue this for 4:00 total.

Check out Full Body Tabatas with Bonus Abs right here!

3: Resistance Training

Another component in reducing body fat overall (with the goal to see your abs) is to strength train. Resistance training helps build lean muscle (when accompanied by healthy eating – and by that I don’t mean eating salads).

You can get an amazing strength-training workout using your own bodyweight against gravity, or you can add equipment like dumbbells, stretchy bands or machines.

The more lean muscle you have on your body, the more calories you can burn at rest. So you will be a more efficient fat burner by carrying more muscle.

Muscle takes up 4 times less volume than fat, which is why when you add muscle and lose body fat you look and feel more compact — even if the number on the scale doesn’t move.

What’s the workout system that will be the right fit for you? Take the quiz and find out!

So we’ve established that in order to see the abdominals, we need to burn off the fat. But as far as the underlying STRENGTH of your abdominal muscles are concerned, remember to focus on strengthening the ENTIRE core for a balanced and supportive center.

While we see the “abs” because they’re in the front of our body, our CORE is made up of the entire section of our torso that wraps around from the front to the back. So to really create a strong and balanced base, you want to think about targeting that area 360 degrees around.

That means doing moves that activate your lower back muscles, your deep core stabilizers and side abs – as well as your lower and upper front abdominals. Interestingly, it’s harder to build abdominal muscle to its full capacity without focusing on the muscles that frame it.

The body is super smart and when you are building muscle on only one side of your body for example, you actually will hit a wall in the amount you’re able to develop. This is your body protecting you, as too much muscle on one side will put undue stress on your underlying bones and pull you out of alignment.

So be sure you’re adding moves that target your lower back as well as the different layers of abdominal muscle too!

Being consistent is key. If you’re training smart, you’ll be activating your core in almost all the activities you do.

Your NEXT 30-day CHALLENGE is on deck! It’s ABS and BOOTY!

 The Booty and Abs 30-day Challenge will work your body head to toe, with a special emphasis on sculpting and defining your abs, booty and legs! 

The post The 3 Fastest Ways to Make Your Abs POP! appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

One of the most common issues I see in my amazing, athletic-minded clients is not lack of throttle, but lack of clutch.

Our body-conscious minds continually tell us that we must work out as much as possible to look our best. While everyone has a different standard for what their personal best is, I think we all hope to have the muscular strength that allows us to feel our most capable, and a body composition that keeps our hearts, organs, joints and body systems functioning at their best.

Don’t allow your internal dialogue to dictate that if you don’t work out every single day you’re going to look different or lose ground. We are all our own worst critic. Before you get hard on yourself, know the facts.

• FACT: Muscle is NOT growing while you’re working out. During a workout, your muscle fibers are actually going through a tear down, and your body is using the nutrients you’ve consumed to provide you with energy for your workout.
• FACT: Muscle building occurs when you stop working out, rest, and allow your body to enter protein synthesis: utilizing the nutrients you’ve consumed to repair and build new muscle.

Listen to your body.

Aside from fatigue, a sure sign of overtraining is hitting a plateau; or not seeing significant gains.

Everyone has different rest requirements, based on a variety of factors not in the least of which is energy expenditure.

So pay attention to your progress, and be sure to cycle through each part of your body when planning your exercise routine for the week to maximize the benefit of recovery time.

Don’t compare yourself to other people’s training program.

The gym is an amazing place, and we all get inspired by the people around us. But those same people are all telling themselves to do a variety of things, that may or may not be right for YOU.

If someone talks about how many calories they’ve burned that day or how many classes they’ve taken, don’t assume that you need to do the same thing. They may be overtrained and not realize it.

Many people are overtrained and may maintain their level of fitness – for a while. But they will crash eventually, and worse their system is constantly under stress.

The healthiest way to maintain your weight and continuously build and sustain muscle is to maintain a steady program that alternates high energy workouts with strength training and REST DAYS.

Engaging your mind and body in an enjoyable activity where the focus isn’t on burning calories is the best thing you can do for yourself on your days off.

Work out for quality, not quantity.

Plan your workout strategy at the beginning of every week, with an overview of your monthly goals.

Give your workouts 100% and think of your rest time as an opportunity to strengthen the internal processes that support your goals, like learning new recipes and making time to prepare meals in advance.

Remember that the protein synthesis that has to occur to repair and grow muscle depends on your intake of appropriately balanced meals. So make your meal planning as important a part of your week as your workout schedule.

 Browse my Workout Plans:

The post #1 Muscle Building Secret: REST appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

You can’t add this into your pre or post workout routine too much – it’s great combined with stretching or on its own.

Rolling over your muscle tissue smooths out and lengthens the underlying connective tissue that surrounds your muscles – your fascia – and if you have one – or have access to one it’s a great tool to use regularly.

When using it, remember to stay aligned, keeping your body straight in a plank position either on your hands or forearms. Stabilize with your other foot and hands.

Always relax the limb or muscle you’re applying pressure to. You don’t want pressure on a contracted muscle, it’s just painful and also decreases the amount of release that’s possible. If you find an especially tight or sore area, hang out on it until it’s more tolerable to continue rolling.

Foam Rollers

Beginner Foam Roller: this roller is a little softer, and will still give you a great result but be a little gentler on your body from a pressure standpoint. This is a great roller to get if you use it sporadically or are new to foam rolling.

Higher density foam roller: this is a good roller if you use the roller regularly, are used to applying pressure and are comfortable with the positioning.

Textured Roller: this roller has knobs on it that can make it the most uncomfortable roller out there – but it is really effective for digging into trigger points and releasing stuck fascia. Not for beginners.

MORE TOOLS and RESOURCES:

Stretching Guide

This guide has individual stretching videos for each of your body areas. It’s a great resource.

Full Body Stretching Flow

This post has a full body stretching sequence you can follow along with.

Thinking about what workout program would suit you best? 

Take my workout quiz and find out!

The post Full Body Foam Roller Demo appeared first on The Betty Rocker.

How often do you think about how you walk?

Many people I’ve worked with had ankle, knee and/or back pain. Many of these problems come from the body’s center: the pelvis. If the pelvis is rotated more to one side than the other, or up higher on one side than the other it will affect the way you put pressure on the joints below the hips: as in your knees and ankles.

Everyone has a dominant side, and even people who have never had an accident or injury sometimes experience some imbalance due to one side of their body being more developed than the other.

Totally normal, but again something you can figure out yourself by looking at your shoes.Other problems that cause pain can be from old injuries, surgeries and overuse. You can discover a lot about you own imbalances just by tuning into your gait and noticing how you apply pressure in each of your feet.

If you follow my blog, you know I often work out barefoot or wear barefoot style shoes because they separate the toes (allowing for natural shock absorption to occur in the feet between the metatarsals, or foot bones) and develop the muscles in your feet that help you balance and align your body.

It’s much easier to tune into correct and even alignment when you’re barefoot… and I want you to take a minute right now to slip off your socks and shoes and take a walk down the hall in your bare feet. Watch and feel your feet and pay attention to how much weight you put on your heel and then your toes as you step forward. Also notice if you’re walking more on the outside or inside of both feet, or just one foot.

What did you notice? And if you noticed that you weren’t walking evenly on both feet, were you able to catch yourself and correct it?

Now I want you to put your shoes back on and do the same walk. Notice how you have trained yourself to walk a certain way in your shoes, almost without thinking about it. If you were able to tune into your imbalances and notice them when you were barefoot, I bet it’s going to feel a little funny when you put your shoes back on.

The barefoot toe shoes aren’t for everyone, but they really do allow for more proprioceptive awareness in your gait, just like walking barefoot. Sneakers, with their arch support and cushioning won’t always allow you to feel that you’re walking/running unevenly and not distributing your weight the same on both feet.

Imbalance in the feet can be caused by many different things, and you may need some resources to get yourself in balance. But you can help yourself by bringing awareness to the way your feet move and carry you around on a daily basis.

Remember, they are the foundation your entire structure rests on, and though we often take them for granted we wouldn’t get very far without them.

Learn more about how your body works and join me for guided workshops in this free Foundations of Functional Fitness Workshop!

The post How Your Feet Can Aid Your Alignment appeared first on The Betty Rocker.