Hydration

by Molly Rausch L1 Personal Trainer and Certified Athletic Trainer

Hello everyone! This week’s “Fitness Tip of the Week” is about hydration. Our bodies are about 60% water, which is why it’s so vital for survival. You need to hydrate throughout your entire day, regardless of your activities. Without adding in sweat loss from hot temperatures or exercise, you should be drinking at least half your body weight in ounces. When you start sweating, you need to drink even more. For every pound lost from sweat, you need to be drinking 16 oz of water to replace it. This is why it’s so important to stay on top of hydration. If you go into your workout behind, it is very hard to catch up. You can’t go based on whether you feel thirsty either. If you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. 

Benefits of hydration

Because we are composed of a majority water, it should be no shock hearing how beneficial water is for our bodies. Every system needs it to function optimally. Here is a list of some of great things water does for our body:

  • Helps maintains temperature
  • Removes wastes
  • Lubricants joints
  • Prevents constipation
  • Carries nutrients to cells
  • Helps the heart pumps blood more easily
  • Helps muscle function 
  • Improves brain function and concentration 

Signs of dehydration 

As important as knowing how much water you need to be drinking on a daily basis is, it’s just as important to know when you body is telling you it doesn’t have enough water. Some signs you may be dehydrated are little to no urination, dark colored urine, dry skin, feeling thirsty, dry mouth, feeling dizzy, rapid heartbeat, fainting, rapid breathing, fatigue, or headache. 

Tips on staying hydrated 

  1. Keep a water bottle with you all day
  2. If you feel hungry, drink some water
  3. Add fruit for flavor or mix in some seltzer water for variety
  4. Set a timer, schedule, reminder to drink throughout your day 
  5. Drink a glass every time you use the restroom 

If you have any questions on this topic, please feel free to contact me at mrausch@healthworksfitness.com

Reversing Desk Posture

by Molly Rausch L1 Personal Trainer and Certified Athletic Trainer

Hello everyone! This week’s “Fitness Tip of the Week” is reversing desk posture. Whether you are sitting at work, listening to a lecture, or traveling, being in the seated position for a majority of your day is hard on your body. Why? Well, there are two main reasons. First, most of us don’t sit up straight while we are sitting. We spend all this time in a position that puts extra stress on our body, which leads to aches, pains, and injuries. The second reason is that our bodies are made to move. Sitting is the hardest position for our back and neck, especially when we aren’t sitting up straight. We sit all day and then try and move at the gym and develop knee, back, or neck pain. We can’t always avoid sitting, but we can help break the pain cycle. How? We need to reset our bodies from a sitting position to standing.

Tips on what to stretch:

When you sit, there are muscles that will be shortened and others that will put on a stretch. In order to reset your body in preparation for a workout, you need to reverse the desk posture by stretching out the muscles that have been shortened all day. Let’s break it down on what gets tight and how to reverse it:

Upper Trap: Neck Stretch
Chest: Doorway Stretch
Low Back: Child’s Pose
Hip Flexors: Couch Stretch
Quads: Standing Quad Stretch
Calf: Slant Board Stretch

Tips on what to strengthen:

Muscles that have been put on a stretch all day become weak. Think of it as a hair elastic: when you stretch it out over and over again, it gets stretched out and eventually breaks. Luckily for your body, we can prevent damage with strength training to get those weak muscles active again. 

Core: Core activation, Planks, Side Plank
Rhomboids: Standing Rows
Glutes: Clam Shells

Serratus: Scapular Punches
Lower Trap: Y’s
Image result for low trap exercises
Neck: Chin Tucks

If you have any questions on this topic, please feel free to contact me at mrausch@healthworksfitness.com

Proper Squat Form

by Molly Rausch L1 Personal Trainer and Certified Athletic Trainer

Hello everyone! This week’s “Fitness Tip of the Week” is about proper squat form. You may or may not realize this, but you squat so much throughout your day. In order to sit down, you have to squat to get to the chair. Getting into a chair without squatting is just falling. Unfortunately with the human body, doing a movement frequently does not guarantee you are moving correctly. A squat, although frequently used, is a very complex movement pattern. There are a lot of moving parts involved during a squat. So let’s break it down starting for the toes and working our way up. 

Tips for your Squat:

  1. Feet: Flat on the ground. Body weight in your heels. Toes slightly turned out. Stance can be hip width or a little wider depending on what is comfortable for you.
  1. Knees: Should be in line with your toes. Knees should not cave in toward each other. If you are squatting to 90 degrees or above, knees should stay behind toes. 
  1. Hips: Move hips backward as your knees bend. Keep natural curve in low back and do not over arch your lower back.
  1. Core: Keep core activated or braced.
  1. Chest and Shoulders: Chest should be up. Shoulders should be pulled back and down away from your ears. 
  1. Head: Should remain in line with your spine. Don’t look down or crank your head back. Gaze should be forward.

If you have any questions on this topic, please feel free to contact me at mrausch@healthworksfitness.com

Active Recovery

by Molly Rausch L1 Personal Trainer and Certified Athletic Trainer

Hello everyone! This week’s “Fitness Tip of the Week” is active recovery. Active recovery is a lower intensity exercise usually incorporated the day after heavy or hard exercise session. Everyone needs an off day from their training programs, but that doesn’t mean you need to sitting on the couch all day. Having an “active recovery” day helps muscles repair, prevents injuries from overuse, and speeds up recovery time. Everyone’s active recovery session will be personalized to you and your training program. If you are new to exercise, a foam rolling and stretch session may be all you do. Regardless of where you are on your fitness journey, you should always leave an active recovery session feeling better than you did before you started.

Active recovery versus rest days?

The biggest difference between a rest day and an active recovery day is movement. On a rest day, you don’t do any workout or activity apart from normal day to day things (i.e. work, running errands). On an active recovery day, you do get a workout in, it’s just very low key and low volume. 

Ideas for your next recovery day:

  1. Tai Chi- involve slow, flowing movements to help with balance and strength
  2. Yoga- helps with mind and body recovery
  3. Self Myofascial Release- uses a foam roller, massage stick, lacrosse ball to help improve range of motion and reduce muscle soreness
  4. Pilates- light strength training which teaches proper breathing techniques 
  5. Light Cardio- walking, swimming, hiking, etc.
  6. Form Work- going through strength movements without incorporating weights
  7. Meditation

If you have any questions on this topic, please feel free to contact me at mrausch@healthworksfitness.com

Importance of Warming Up

by Molly Rausch L1 Personal Trainer and Certified Athletic Trainer

Hello everyone! This week’s “Fitness Tip of the Week” is about the importance of warming up before exercise. Although easy to skip, this part of your fitness routine is vital in getting your body ready to perform. Just like you prepare yourself to go outside in this cold weather by bundling up, you need to prepare your body to move and prevent injuries by warming up. Your warm up should be viewed as your first exercise instead of a delay to begin exercising.

What should be in your warm up?

The first thing you want to do in your warm up is get your heart rate up. A few minutes walking on the treadmill or stationary bike is all that is needed. This helps warm up your body and get blood flowing to your muscles. 

The next step is to perform dynamic stretches. These stretches lengthen your muscles through movement. Examples include inchworms, walking lunges, arm circles, spiderman, etc. With each rep, your movement and flexibility should get a little more fluid. Address any lingering tightness with specific static stretches or foam rolling to really get your body ready for your workout.

The final part of your warm up should incorporate corrective or muscle activation exercises specific to you. An example of this is if you have been sitting at a desk all day, activating your glute and core muscles to reverse your desk posture. Activation exercises help ensure that the proper muscles are being used during different exercises. 

Final Tips for your warm up

Remember, your warm up needs to be specific to you AND your workout. If you are doing an upper body lift, make sure your upper body is warm and loose. If you do a different workout every single day, your warm up should be a little different everyday as well. 

It also shouldn’t take very long to get warm. A proper warm up can be completed in 5 to 10 minutes. That is a lot less time than an injury would take from your fitness routine. 


If you have any questions on this topic, please feel free to contact me at mrausch@healthworksfitness.com

What Better Time Than Now

The Return

Hello Everyone!

I had taken a break from my weekly fitness tips to try launching on a new platform and take some much needed personal time. With our whole day-to-day routines drastically changed, I thought returning some familiarity is needed. What better time to start up with the weekly fitness tips again than now?!

One reason I wanted to switch to an online platform was so I can upload all of the past fitness tips. I want to provide easier assess for you to reference past tips; as well as, allowing new members an opportunity to see all topics. It will take a little bit of time to do this, so keep a lookout for those.

I will also be focusing the first few weekly tips on helping everyone stay active and healthy during this pandemic. I want to help all of you in whatever ways I can. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly about topics you may want more information on.

One last point, if you are having a hard time motivating yourself and keeping with your workout routine, there are a lot of resources out there. Please email me with inquiries on remote training and I can give you more information.

mrausch@healthworksfitness.com
325 Harvard Ave
Brookline, MA 02446
USA

Know Your Core

by Molly Rausch Certified Personal Trainer and Athletic Trainer

Hello everyone and welcome! This week’s “Fitness Tip of the Week” is all about your core! Your core is your number one supporter when it comes to everything you do, literally! Whether you are loading up the squat rack, running on the treadmill, or sitting at your desk, your core is supporting you to keep you upright and protect you. Without the core and proper engagement, injuries are very likely to occur.

What is your core?

The core is so much more than your abs. Think of your core as a protective box around your torso. The top of the box is your diaphragm. You never want to hold your breath while exercising. Practicing the timing of when you breath is critical. A tip to get in a good rhyme is exhale when you contraction a muscle and inhale while it’s being lengthened.

The sides of the box are made of your abdominal and back muscles. This part of your core is most commonly referred to when instructions on proper lifting or exercise positions are given. 

And finally, we don’t want to forget about the bottom of the box. This is your pelvic floor. Engaging this apart of your core helps close out the box and support everything on the inside while you exercise.

Tips for activating my core

Whether you hear the words bracing, engaging, or activating, they are all referring to the same action of using your core to help support and protect you as you exercise. Here are some tips on activating your core:

  1. Start by laying on your back with your knees bent and feet on the floor (like the picture on the top of the page).
  2. Place both hands a couple inches away and on either side of your belly button.
  3. Draw your belly button toward your spine (you should feel the ab muscles under your hands contract). Tilt your pelvis so your low back is pressed against the floor. And finally, do a kegel!