Healthful Bites

Today’s workout is like patting your head and rubbing your tummy—the opposite sides of your body move in different ways during each of the three exercises to challenge your brain and your muscles at the same time. Who doesn’t love to mix it up?

You’ll need a little open space, a medium-weight pair of dumbbells and a stability ball (you can also substitute in a bench or even the floor) for these biceps, back and chest moves. And perhaps a little extra concentration!

Do you have any tricks for keeping your head in the game during a workout?

I’ve been noticing lately that my shoulders and arms are getting a pretty good workout lugging around the big bags that I amass from a day of work, errands and exercise. But I still squeeze in a regular upper body strength workout a couple times each week because I don’t mind the “good burn” that comes from challenging my chest, back, shoulders and arms. Plus, giving your upper body a hard workout doesn’t affect your ability to climb stairs like some other exercises do :)

For this routine, you’ll need a weighted ball like a medicine ball (a basketball or even a dumbbell would do in a pinch), a stability ball or bench to lie on and a light-to-medium pair of dumbbells. Try to keep your butt up in line with your knees and shoulders during the chest ball pass and keep your back straight and shoulders down during the wrist rotation (apparently I need to work on my posture a bit too! What’s with that leaning back business?).

Do any of your daily activities give you a good workout?

After perusing about eight months of Healthful Bites archived videos, I just discovered another shocker: we have yet to dedicate one video solely to the chest muscles! Our poor pectorals :) 

You probably know that a bench press or push up will strengthen your chest, but I have some variations of more common exercises to perk things up. In this video, you will focus on your left and right pec muscles separately. This is a great way to challenge each side of your body at its own level—since the halves of the body may have uneven strength levels. (Of course, by doing these separately, the goal is to eventually balance out the left and right sides). 

For this workout, you will need one medium to medium-heavy pair of dumbbells and an elevated surface such as a step bench, a small stair, a street curb, a large book or “The September Issue.” ;) (a great movie by the way)!

These are a few of my favorite chest workouts so that I don’t have to do dozens of straight push ups everyday. Do you have any fun ways to make strength routines more exciting?

Circuit training is a fabulous, quick way to build an effective workout. Move through several exercises in a row to keep your heart rate up and your body working, but without exhausting one muscle group. You’re rotating through muscle groups and targeting different areas, so while your triceps are working, your abs, chest and back are mainly resting; while your abs are feeling the burn, your triceps, back and chest chill out.

This routine requires no extra equipment—besides a chair, bed or bench—so there are no excuses to skip it! (This also makes this program ideal for a hotel or dorm room). Feel free to include some jumping jacks, jogging in place or jumping rope in between each routine: try the four strength exercises, do one to two minutes of cardio, repeat the strength moves again, pick a different cardio for one to two minutes and finish off with one more strength rotation.

So throw on your workout shoes and join me!