A Healthy You: Strengthen the upper back

Friday, September 23, 2011

Strengthen the upper back

Rear lateral raise helps to strengthen the muscles of your middle and upper back. Grab a pair of dumbbells and bend foward at your hips until your torso is nearly parallel to the floor. Let the dumbbells hang straight down from your shoulders, your palms facing each other. Without moving your torso, raise your arms straight out to your sides until they are in line with your body. Pause, then slowly return to the starting position.

A strong back is so very important in our everyday life. Our back is what supports us and we need to take care of it. Keeping your back flexible yet strong will make your day to day functions much easier.

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Important!

Before starting any exercise or fitness routine (especially for those who have never exercised or who have not in a long, long time), it is recommended that you have a physical exam to make sure your blood pressure, heart rate and everything else checks out okay. Make sure you talk to your physician about your fitness plan.

Fitness Plan Components

1. a nice light warm up (8-10 minutes), this could include light jogging or marching in place, loosening up back muscles, rotating arms to loosen shoulder joints etc. You want to warm up muscles before any exercise.

2. your cardio could include: walking, running, hiking, cycling, dancing, rowing (anything that can get your heart rate up). Cardio can be done everyday of the week if you have the time if time is limited try to work in a cardio routine at least 3-5 days a week. (30-40 minutes is recommended by ACSM) but I feel whatever you can do is better than nothing at all.

3. strength and resistance: machines at the gym, using your own body weight, free weights, weighted balls etc. Very important to build and keep muscle. Muscle helps strengthen and maintain the bone's quality. Ladies you won't bulk up (unless you are using steroids), you will get better definition and keep bones strong.
Try to do at least 2 days a week of resistance work. Working your muscle to fatigue is best. By that I mean using a weight you can handle and try to do 2 sets of at least 10-12 reps. If you feel the weight is too light and you can do way more...then you know you need to increase the weight.

4. stretching: at the end of any work out it feels great to do some stretching of the muscles. This should only take you about 10 minutes to do. Hold each stretch for about 10 seconds. No bouncing movements, a static stretch is best.

I will be posting weekly exercise moves as well as stretches.

thank you!

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