Feb
22
22
GRAVITY Around the World
Tom talks about how GRAVITY Master Trainers will be providing you with great exercise tips from GravityClubhouse.com.
Total Gym InsideLatest Information about Total Gym
Tom talks about how GRAVITY Master Trainers will be providing you with great exercise tips from GravityClubhouse.com.
This post was written by GRAVITY Instructor Suzanne Sweeney. She has 20 years experience in the fitness industry as a Group Fitness Instructor, Personal Trainer and Pilates instructor. She uses a holistic approach, considering health, fitness, nutrition and stress management to design workouts. You can reach her at zenfit@gmail.com.
Hi again! Total Gym enthusiasts and trainers! I’m Suzanne Sweeney, certified Gravity instructor, Pilates and personal trainer. I’d like to share some tips and exercises that are extremely valuable to improving posture. I have observed that aside from the all too common lower back complaints, the shoulder girdle complex can be a problem area for muscular imbalance and postural pain syndromes. When the muscles of the shoulder girdle are imbalanced, the mid back is weak and the chest and shoulder muscles are often too tight. This creates a lack of ability to draw the shoulders back and down while the neck muscles overwork and can create pain and discomfort.
The Total Gym is an invaluable tool to gain back flexibility and strength in just the right spots. Daily activities that contribute to forward posture like desk work, computing and driving make it difficult to achieve upright or neutral posture. Trying to do any kind of exercise with this type of posture can increase the risk of injury to the muscles and connective tissue. The varied angular resistance of the Total Gym glide board allows us to stretch and strengthen the correct muscles to achieve a more neutral, pain free posture.
I’d like to use 2 specific positions and shoulder movements on the Total Gym to help us find this neutral posture. Shoulder retraction and protraction, elevation and depression. We will focus on feeling isolated movement of the shoulder blades, meaning that the rest of the body is stabilized in neutral posture. For these exercises, set up the Total Gym glide board no higher than level 3 (third hole from bottom). In the first pair of pictures I am sitting backward holding the pulley handles. Notice in the first picture you can read the Gravity logo on my shirt and in the second picture the material has been “pinched” together. To achieve this, sit with a “tall” feeling, abdominals in and arms kept straight. Let the weight pull your arms forward without slouching and dropping the chest. Then pull the shoulder blades toward one another so it feels like you are trying to hold an orange between them. Hold this position strongly and try some rowing and bicep exercises. Avoid lifting the shoulders toward the ears. If this is challenging for you or feels like limited movement is available, it will improve with practice.
SHOULDERS PROTRACTED FORWARD
SHOULDERS RETRACTED BACKWARD
In this next pair of pictures, using the wing attachment, I am lying prone holding the handles with arms once again extended. In this position keep legs slightly apart and externally rotated, lengthen the whole body. Press the hips down engaging the thighs and the butt. Keep the abdominals pulled in. Press forward moving the glide board up and feel the shoulders come toward your ears, then let your body weight take the glide board down and your shoulders away from your ears. Try to hold this position while doing some shoulder presses. Again there may not be a lot of movement at first but add these little exercises in during your workout and you’ll be feeling taller and stronger. Keep up the good work!
SHOULDER BLADES DEPRESSED DOWNWARD
SHOULDER BLADES ELEVATED UPWARD
It is important to train your abs the same way you would train your other muscles. Try a triple set, a super set, a quadruple set, etc. Try to focus on time under tension, different angles, and stimulus to keep your body guessing.
Many people do one abs exercise, and then rest. Try hitting all areas of your abs in the below sequence and you will see amazing results. Here is an excellent routine I designed on The Total gym that will target just about every area of your abs using the above principles. It will leave you sore for days!
The workout:
Lay on your back on the Total Gym and adjust the metal handles upward so that they are upright in a field goal position. Now go into a set of crunches with each hand holding onto one of the handles and aligned directly over your chest.
When you crunch the board will move but the handles should remain over your chest the whole time moving only slightly. Crunch up, hold and return to the starting position. Try twenty reps.
Then, without resting, hold the handles over your chest, head flat and press your back into the bench and drive both of your knees toward your chest. Straighten your legs out to a locked position hold and repeat. Try twenty reps.
Again, without resting, stay flat and lower your arms to your sides (still with handles in each hand) and begin to do heel touches. Alternating side to side reach one handle toward one heel sliding it along the bench and repeat side to side. After twenty reps immediately crunch up, (bring your legs up in the air to the point where you can keep your back flat) and go right into a set of Pilate’s 100’s. Bring your arms to your sides, about 2 inches off of the bench, and pump up and down for a total of 100 reps.
For the more advanced abs connoisseur, after you’ve completed your 100’s, go right to the end of the Total Gym, put your toes on the edge of the bench, and raise yourself up into a plank position and rock yourself back and forth for a total of 50 reps. When you are done your abs will be on fire! Use this routine until you are able to complete three sets. Add variables to make it more difficult if it gets too easy.
Variables Example:
On your crunches try crunching and drawing one knee in and then extending the same leg out. Repeat on the other side, then do regular crunches. Ten on one leg, 10 on the other, and then 10 with both feet flat. Then for the leg-ins add a stability ball and hold it between your ankles. Substitute the heel touches For Russian twists (I call them windshield wipers). Lay flat on your back and holding one handle in each hand, rotate side to side like a windshield wiper. Then go into your Pilate’s 100s, but before you do your planks, add twenty pike ups, or jackknifes using the end of the Total Gym board.
The possibilities are endless with the Total gym. Experiment, have fun, your nervous system will be on overload, and force new muscle fibers to be recruited to give you a solid and powerful midsection. Thank You Total Gym!
This post was written by Maria Sollon Scally MS, CSCS. She received a Masters Degree in Performance Enhancement/ Injury Prevention and Kinesiology. She holds numerous certifications in various areas of fitness, including Polestar Pilates and Yoga. She is a GRAVITY MasterTrainer and a national conference presenter. You can find her online at www.groovysweat.com or email her at maria@groovysweat.com.
There are a lot of training modalities out there to enhance your performance levels. But
Maria Scally
what is the best way to achieve the most out of a cardio/strength interval training program? To maximize time and efficiency of your workouts by combining targeted functional training with minimal rest periods! To accomplish this, the Total Gym works wonders. The Total Gym is easy to follow where a specific training workout can be designed by your trainer to blend explosive power moves with variable resistance to raise and control the heart rate and intensity. The intense workout can be followed by an active recovery of strength moves performed on the Total Gym.
The cardio movements can vary from plyometrics, drills on the floor, to sprints on a machine. While doing an interval of power, your trainer is able to set up a strength segment on the Total Gym for your very next routine. Each interval can be prepared several times or changed each time through. The versatility of the Total Gym is so dynamic that the whole body is working in all ranges of motion. It’s a quick and effective way to change up the routine and challenge the entire body.
Interval Training needs to be challenging- but fun. There are fun fat blasting, cardio vascular and strength movements that your trainer can provide a few times a week. You will be amazed how fast time goes when you perform workouts utilizing the Total Gym… all you have to do is loose the weight!
