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The High Heel Workout

When we wear high heels regularly it makes permanent changes to our muscles and tendons.  The calf muscle and Achilles tendon get shorter.  Tight, short muscles and tendons can impact the rest of our body in negative ways, so it’s important to incorporate a few moves if you love your high heels and want to keep them in your wardrobe rotation.

 

Think STAND (Stretch, Tone, Ankle, Nourish, Doggie)

 

1.Calf Stretch:

You can do the calf stretch in so many ways.  You can face a wall and step one foot back pushing down into your back heel.  You can stretch your calves using a BOSU or a flex band.  You can use a set of stairs and let your heel hang off the bottom.  You can also use a half-foam roller and place the ball of your foot on the top.  Heels stay on the floor.  As you gain flexibility you can creep the foot that isn’t on the foam roller forward.

 

2.Tone Shins

We don’t think about our shins much when we exercise (unless, of course, they hurt), but keeping the shins strong can help combat the tightening of the claves.

Lean against a wall.  Walk your feet about 1 foot forward and then try to […]

The High Heel Workout2024-04-23T17:13:43-04:00

Spring Cleaning Safety Tips

The days are longer. The sun fuels our soul.  And for some reason, we feel motivated to clean.  There are a few theories as to why we clean this time of year:

The Practical:

Historically when we heated with coal and whale oil through the winter, it made things messy and homes needed a good cleaning.

The Religious:

Many religious traditions have a concept of cleaning out around springtime.  Passover involves purging, cleaning, and renewal.  There are indications spring cleaning is linked to Zoroastrianism and a Persian relationship to the spring equinox.

The Physical:

The longer days and added sunlight of spring may motivate us to move more and cleaning is a good, productive outlet.

Whatever our motivation is to spring clean, it is a great form of physical activity.  A good spring clean can serve as your workout for the day.  But it’s also easy to get injured.  Injuries are usually caused by repetitive movement that strains a part of the body, falls, and lifting heavy objects.

Here are some tips to help prevent injury while you get your house (inside and out) in order:

Warm-Up:

I know this is a hard sell.  But if you are about to clean […]

Spring Cleaning Safety Tips2024-03-21T23:04:35-04:00

Help!!! I’m Losing Muscle!!!

Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle tone that happens as we age.  It can be seen in lack of strength, balance, and speed—though there are currently no definitive measures for practitioners to look at when diagnosing sarcopenia.  That might be changing as sarcopenia became an official disease in 2016.  It’s considered a treatable disease.

New research indicates it also might not be inevitable.  Humans may not just lose 3-8% of our muscle mass each decade starting in our thirties (that’s the actual data).  It could be that each decade we move less and therefore lose muscle.  That makes the answer simple: move more and keep your muscles.  It also implies you aren’t fighting an uphill battle.  So how do we keep as much of our muscle tone as possible?

Keep Moving and use the acronym MOVE:

Movement Awareness:

Notice anything you’ve lost.  Is it harder to balance? Can you no longer get up and down off the floor.  When you pick something up do you no longer squat and instead hinge from the back? Is it hard to lift a heavy pot suddenly?

Objective:

Set an objective.  What do you need to train to help rebuild what you’ve lost? Who can help and is there anything […]

Help!!! I’m Losing Muscle!!!2024-01-26T12:07:20-05:00

Mindful Eating February

We pick February for our Mindful Eating Challenge because it’s the shortest month of the year.  We are not ashamed to admit it.  Dry January.  Veganuary (being vegan for the month of January).  They got it all wrong with a month with 31 days when they could pick a month with 29.

Food challenges are hard.  At Personal Euphoria, we are all about fitness, not typically food.  But what we put in our bodies matters.  It impacts how we feel.  It is helpful to take a window of time and try to consider food.  Food fuels us and when we exercise how we refuel matters.  Sometimes, once I get started, I actually continue for more than 29 days.

Here’s the challenge if you choose to accept it:

You pick any food-related challenge you want—big or small.  I usually give up sugar.  I still eat fruit and a piece of toast if it has sugar.  But I cut out all desserts and snacks with processed sugar.  Sometimes I make an exception with honey.  I am a beekeeper, after all.

You don’t have to give up sugar.  Here are examples of ways others have participated before:

  • Give […]
Mindful Eating February2024-01-19T12:48:34-05:00

Grip Strength

Multiple research shows a correlation between overall health markers and grip strength.  There seems to be a particular correlation with cardiovascular health (based on a study of 140,000 people over 4 years).  Some researchers think testing grip strength might be a cheap, easy way to assess general heart health.

This matters because grip strength often starts to diminish between the age of 50-55 (I don’t know about you, but that sounds young to me).  And Millennials have lost grip strength compared to their adult counterparts from the 1980s.  This loss is more pronounced in men than women, but both have lost their grip.  (Note: the research on this did not indicate they are concerned this is causing heart issues in adults today, more just that as a population we do less manual labor.)

The real issue is that grip strength has such practical applications in life, so if and when you lose it, you notice it daily.  If your grip strength is still good you might take for granted using a fork, pumping gas, vacuuming, lifting a water jug, or opening a jar of pickles, but all these tasks require grip strength.

Grip strength is interconnected with wrist health and forearm strength.  So […]

Grip Strength2023-09-28T12:46:41-04:00
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