The Deadlift

At the beginning of this year, I began dead lifting.  If you are unfamiliar with this move, I will explain. It’s deceptively simple: you grab a heavy weight on the ground and stand up.  When done correctly, it works nearly every major muscle in your body.  It lets you function with bad knees, a bad [...]

Oh my aching Glutes!

Because I’ve been ill lately- a bacterial sinus/lung infection that left me plagued with fatigue and a general sense that I couldn’t breathe well – I have not been going to the gym.  I know I’m really sick when the idea of hitting the gym feels like a major mistake.
Fortunately, the meds have kicked in, [...]

Define a Strong Woman

(crossposted at BlogHer)
I’ll let you in a (not so little) secret: I Strength Train.
Five to six days a week I throw a large gym bag into my car and drive 4 miles to my local gym. After a 10 minutes warm-up on the cardio machines, where I am surrounded by other women, I head [...]

Painfree Crafting

When I’m not playing “gym rat” I’m writing and doing crafts.  The other activities in our lives all add to the possibility of increasing the tension, stress and pain in our bodies.  This post -crossposted from BlogHer- is all about eleviating that when crafting -but it works equally as well if [...]

Friday’s Circuit Workout

Because I believe in functional workouts and making sure that I develop real world function strength, I normally alternate my strength workouts with what I call stability/function circuit workouts.  I have a big list of moves that I pull from for these – individual actions and combinations that challenge me and keep me fresh.
Because I’m [...]

Working Out When Sick

With the cooler months in North America approaching, more of us will be spending time indoors in the presence of others.  This dramatically increases the chances of getting a virus or infection.  And the big question every winter is: when is it OK to workout if you’re sick.
I think it’s almost easier to say when [...]

Admitting

This week, I’ve been sleeping 9.5 hours a night, and waking up still feeling tired. Having trouble concentrating, too.
My lungs still feel “wet” from my virus last week, and I’m just not able to do a hard cardio workout because of the trouble sucking in enough wind.
So I’m admitting I’m still a [...]