#StrongerEveryDay When I started this round of Insanity I had a complete mental block, I have owned it for more years than I can remember and started without finishing it multiple times. So yes, I was excited to learn that day 1 was the fit …
The more I learn about the core, the more I realize when I’m using it. Or maybe it’s just that the trainer in my current workout program is big on working the core this week? Seems to me that God likes to put all of …
I hope you are returning for more! If you are new, please visit my Part 1 and check out the exercises I shared first. You wouldn’t jump into the ocean without first learning to swim right? Well, I want you to follow the same principles here. Hopefully after a bit of time strengthening your Local Stabilization System, you are ready to work on your Global Stabilization System.
These muscles connect your pelvis to the spine. There are bunch of muscles that do this job, that quite honestly, I had to look up to figure out where exactly they were located. I was going to spare you the boring details but maybe you want to look up the different muscle groups and expand your expertise. The muscles included in this group are the quadratus lumborum, psoas major, external oblique, parts of the internal oblique, rectus abdominus, gluteus medius and the adductor complex(adductor magnus, adductor longus , adductor brevis, gracilis and pectineus.) I’m going to focus on one specific muscle because I know it is my weak point. That is the Psoas.
The psoas actually has two components, the psoas major (spine to legs) and the psoas minor (spine to pelvis.) I’m going to focus on the major because working on that part will also strengthen the minor. Did you know the psoas is the ONLY muscle that connects the spine to the legs? Never really thought about that before, makes me curious to learn more about different muscles.Think of your psoas as your hip flexor. If you look at the picture below, you’ll see what I mean.
I’m not for sure, so don’t quote me, but I imagine a lot of women are weak in this area too. While apparently I’ve been “blessed” in the area of my tush and it’s all the rage to have a big bum, I have a tendency to push out my assets. Bigger is better. I’m not alone right? I didn’t realize it until I started focusing on my posture during the Three Week Yoga Retreat. Think about your posture, do you keep your hips tucked in line with your back when you are standing? How about when you are sitting? I used to think that I had really tight hamstrings but it’s actually my hip flexors causing the problems. They aren’t naturally supporting my spine/hip/leg connection because I’ve been too focused on making my booty go pop! I found this video on YouTube that really breaks down how our hip flexors work in a simple way, plus, bonus, he reinforces my dislike of crunches!
I want to share with you one of the most important keys to keeping your core/hip flexors with optimal function. It doesn’t really require “exercise,” it requires you to get up and move. There are all sorts of gadgets now that shows how active you are, your phone, Fitbit, etc. Getting your workout in is great but if all you do the rest of the day is sit on the couch or sit at a desk, you are training those flexors to be tight. Get up and walk around as often as you can. Fill up that water bottle and drink it, that will help you get in to the habit of moving by making you go to the restroom!
The exercises I’m providing below still aren’t sit ups. Can you tell those aren’t my favorite move? I’ve even given the option to do one of the exercises with a buddy because having a partner in crime makes the hard work seem a little more tolerable or maybe it’s that misery loves company? The first 3 exercises focus on the psoas. The following will be different parts of the global stabilization system.
You could try adding this into your already established Local Stabilizer System movements. Remember, if you don’t use it you lose it, you want to continue doing the previous routines. Maybe do two of those and two to four of these a day to start. Try doing 1 exercise, resting for 30-60 seconds and doing another, repeat each circuit 2-3 times. I recommend you starting small and working your way up to they higher reps. Overexerting yourself can result in injury, even if you feel good, you could be doing more than your body is ready for. Mix and match them how you please, but remember to use your best judgement and don’t over do it.
Disclaimer {{If you have any unique or special medical conditions, such as if you’re pregnant, or if you have a history of knee, ankle, shoulder or spinal (back or neck) problems, you must consult with a competent and reliable physician to understand all risks, contraindications and complications of starting this exercise list, and receive authorization from them before beginning. Failure to do so could result in significant injury to you and others (including, if applicable, your unborn child). By using this program, you assume all dangers, hazards and risks of injury in the use of this program.}}
This move is more of a stretch than anything, you will be strengthening but also working on your range of motion.
Raises by yourself
Throws with a partner
(If you are a beginner to exercise or core work, I’d say this is more of an advanced move.)
Equipment needed: Pull-up bar, monkey bars or any bar that will hold your body weight so your feet can’t touch the ground. Sorry I didn’t get a picture for this one, the weather outside is frightful! If you have any questions, just shoot me a message and I will help you as best as I can.
This move actually works more than those two muscles but they are the ones I want you to be focused on.
Lying Twist
Don’t forget that you want to keep your shoulders on the ground. If you are raising them up in the twist you are taking away from the workout you could be giving your core.
You may need a chair for this move if your balance isn’t strong. Trying to hold my leg up while my son took the picture, yowza!
Swinging Leg Raise
Lateral Band Walk
This is one of my favorite moves, it seems so simple but you will be feeling the burn! This was probably my most favorite move in The Master’s Hammer and Chisel. (You can see my awkward attempt at a how to video here.) This requires a resistance band. You can make the intensity harder or easier depending on how tight you hold the band.
I’m ready to get part three done so we can start talking about another target area. Check back in a couple weeks to see even more core moves, but until then can you do me a favor? Send me a note with the area you’d like to learn about next!
So I haven’t finished yet. I actually just started but this goal setting stuff I’ve been doing lately has got me pumped on positives! Say it’s happening and it will. Leave no wiggle room! Let me give you a little back story as to why …
The area I hear people complain about the most is their back, and I’m not just saying that because my husband has degenerative disc disease. Second is probably the knees (my biggest struggle), but that’s a topic for another day. Did you know that approximately …
Not only is my health important but so is the health of my family. My pups are included in that. I actually had to put my girls on doggie diet food because they were putting on too much weight. (Yes, I know we need to go on walks more often.) Since I’ve become a stay at home mom, they are exposed to more food droppings in the kitchen. (I’m a messy cook!) I’ve since discovered that they love broccoli as much as I do. 😍
But the whole point to this is that my girls have become a little spoiled with the boys and I being home all the time. We are going to be working on some behavior issues. They are food motivated dogs, so it shouldn’t be hard to break these bad habits. Although, keeping them out of the kitchen might mean I have to sweep more often.
I used to buy treats at the store and cut them up into small pieces for training. I don’t like buying the store bought dog treats anymore because I learned that they have a lot of unnecessary filler and stuff that isn’t necessarily good for dogs. A friend of mine gave me a recipe for treats a while back and I decided to tweak it for a couple of reasons. Reason number one, wheat doesn’t agree with my girls, it tends to make them gassy. And number two, since my diet is vegan, not saying my dogs are vegan, I just don’t keep cow milk in my fridge. So tweaking was done and my pups seem to approve. Dogs love coconut so I figured why not use coconut flour and coconut milk to give them an extra dose of love?!?
Ingredients:
First step: Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Mix all ingredients. Add a little more milk if mixture is too dry. Next time I’ll probably add a little more milk.
Cut into little treats for training purposes or big ones just for puppy lovins, or you could roll them into small balls and smoosh with a fork. They don’t spread out much when the baked so you can space them pretty closely together on the cookie sheet.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes and let cool. Store excess treats in an airtight container in the freezer until ready to use. Otherwise keep in an airtight jar in a cool place for easy access. All good girls deserve treats!
I think the best part about these treats is there are only 4 ingredients and super fast and easy to make. The amount of treats I got out of this batch should last for a couple of months without having to make more. Plus my girls seem to like them. After they ate their man cookies they were licking the floor for every crumb they could find! Hope your pups like them as much as mine do. <3
There are 3 core reasons for what made me change my mind about eating animal products. If you’ve known me for a long time, you have seen me go from vegetarian as a teenager, back to meat eater, then to vegetarian/vegan in my mid 20s, …
Yes, I still am missing the pumpkin spice latte that I enjoyed at least once a week last year. So on a mission to add more pumpkin to my life I decided to quit the carving and paint our pumpkins this year. It may have …
Growing up I remember Hood River doing lots of fund raising to have a skate park. I remember all the wooden ramps and boxes and everything being made as cheap as they could but I always thought it was an awesome place to be during my teen years. Now I look at the parks here and think, WOW! They have since upgraded the Hood River park and it’s super nice, I’ll have to take my boys there some time. No I didn’t skateboard, I wasn’t that cool, I loved my roller blades though. I actually still have them in my closet now. Maybe I’ll bust them out and take them to the park with the boys, after I buy knee, elbow and any other pad I can find along with a helmet. Getting hurt sucks but the healing process is worse now that I’m older.
My boys, mostly Damien at the moment is obsessed with riding his scooter at the skate park. So much so that he is now on his third and most expensive one. This summer we decided that we would try out as many different parks as we could and while we only ended up making it to 6 new ones, I think they had a lot of fun exploring the new places. Google didn’t give us a lot of new places. I think only two popped up in our search and one wasn’t even a skate park lol. This is what made me decide to write about our local parks. I know there’s got to be other Moms and Dads who want to take their kids to the parks but want to make sure they are 1) safe and 2) have a bathroom, or maybe that they are big enough their kids won’t get bored in 5 minutes.
Here’s what I found. Hope it helps someone out. Plus I enjoy sharing pictures and videos of my handsome dudes 😉
Address: 1000 E 4th Street, La Center, WA 98629
Bathroom: Yes
Water Fountain: Yes
Other Amenities: Yes, playground, picnic tables, splash pad (seasonal), baseball fields, paved walking path.
Our home park, I may be a little partial to this one because it’s so close. All in all it’s got a table top, steps, grinding rails, a gap and a 1/4 pipe. This park isn’t really big, it’s actually more of a strip, sometimes it gets a little crowded. But if you have smaller kids there are other activities to keep the little ones busy with. Since my boys are older I like to take advantage of the walking path and either running or taking my pups on a walk.
Address: 912 E. Main Street, Battle Ground, WA 98604
Bathroom: Yes
Water Fountain: Yes
This park is my boy’s favorite! If there’s one they ask to go to it’s this. This park has many ramps, rails, bowls, a dome? looks like a bowl on it’s side (like I said, I’m not the cool kid who knows all the tech stuff,) boxes, stair sets. It’s a good sized park. We’ve only been a few times and it hasn’t been overly crowded. Lots of seating. One thing I’d like to point out is that there isn’t any shade. Which I consider to be a good thing because it’s an open space. Seems like the shaded parks are “shady” and I’m not keen on going to those ones.
Sadly I can’t find the pictures or video I took here. I’ll work on getting some again. Until then, this is a picture that I found on Google maps taken by Nick Williams.
Address: Rolling Freedom Skatepark, Lakeshore Dr, Woodland, WA 98674, located on the corner of Park Rd and Lakeshore Dr.
Bathroom: Port-potty
Water Fountain: Not by skate park but near playground.
Other Amenities: Park is located right next to Horseshoe lake, paved walking path, playground within walking distance, covered picnic areas, plumed toilets at park.
This would be my boy’s second favorite park. Could be because it’s only a 6 minute drive from our house. I see us spending more time here next summer. This park has a large bowl, multiple boxes, a step set, rails and a few ramps. They even have a few benches to sit on instead of sitting in your car, although, you could sit in you car and watch from there because the parking is right next to it, which will be good for colder dry days.
Address: 108 N 3rd Ave, Ridgefield, Wa 98642
Bathroom: No
Water Fountain: No
Other Amenities: Basketball hoop, gazebo, picnic table and benches.
This is a small park. It’s a fairly blank slate with only a small grinding box, one set of stairs and a few small ramps. There is lots of room for kids to scooter around on the pavement though. Probably not for kids looking to bust out big tricks. One thing I forgot until I watched this video, it’s very loud! Lol.
We visited a few different parks in Vancouver. I figured there would be a park closer to down town Vancouver but I still haven’t found one. Seems like a logical place for one but I guess not.
Address: Swift Skate Park, 2361 E 4th Plain Blvd, Vancouver, WA 98663
Bathroom: Possibly but we didn’t need one.
Water Fountain: No
Other Amenities: Paved walking paths, picnic tables.
Typical skate park, lots of graffiti and the people were hanging out smoking cigarettes. Wasn’t very clean. Thankfully the day we went there were only a few people there. My boys were the only ones using the park. Has a few stair sets, 2 bowls, table tops and lots of ramps. There was one short rail my son could use, I believe there is a hand rail to use too, but I can’t remember for sure.
Address: Park at Endeavor Elementary School, 2701 NE Four Seasons Ln, Vancouver, WA 98684
Bathroom: No
Water Fountain: Yes, but it wasn’t working when we were there.
Other Amenities: Small playground, soccer field, paved walking path, picnic tables.
This park was SUPER small! It was nice pit stop before we went to get groceries. There was a small rail, and two boxes with a small ramp to table top in between. Definitely nothing to write home about.
Address: Pacific Community Park, 1501 Ne 164th Ave, Vancouver, WA 98684
Bathroom: Yes
Water Fountain: Not sure
Other Amenities: Playground, soccer field, basketball court, covered picnic area, dog park across the parking lot.
The boys really liked this park, they had some really big drop ins but I didn’t like all the language and the kids smoking cigarettes next to me. One little boy, between the boys ages was swearing while talking to me, who does that? We went there during a peak time I think but all in all the park was really neat. Big bowl and a small course with steps, rails and ramps. James jumped his first stair set here. I think next time we come here it will be during school hours, one of the many benefits of homeschooling.
If you live in the Vancouver area and know of a park that we haven’t been to yet, get in touch with me here or on Facebook. I’d love for you to share. If you see that there is some equipment I forgot to mention at any of the places I shared, let me know, like I said I’m not a pro. Just a mom excited to see her kiddos conquer new things!
No Latte??? I’ve recently decided to cut coffee out of my life, again… I can honestly say I hadn’t missed it until all of the pumpkin spice latte talk recently! Why have I decided to quit coffee again? There are a couple reasons, the biggest …