Friday Fix: The Forward Lunge

A lunge is one of those fundamental movements that you’d think everyone has down PAT, but is often poorly performed. 

One of the common mistakes I see is overstriding. When this happens, the front leg gets out too far in front to control. Sometimes I see this as a really deep lunge like you’d see in a yoga pose, with the torso VERY upright (re: extended through the back); sometimes I see this as getting stuck in the lunge (they have trouble coming back up and push off their toes AND extend through their backs to get back up). 

Yes, I made my fiancé take pictures for me today while we wandered around Nashville. He’s very patient. And we only got a half dozen weird looks. 

Anyways, this is an overextended position. I MOSTLY feel this as a stretch through my down leg and a lot of pressure through my front knee (and I’ve had multiple knee surgeries so trust me when I say it is WILDLY uncomfortable). 

And here is an example of misplacing my weight into my toe, which often happens when people aren’t quite sure where their weight should be in a lunge. I also see this, like I said, when people who have lunged TOO FAR forward try to use their toe to push the ground away and come back up. You can OFTEN see both of these in the same movement. 

And this is what a lunge should look like: 

My spine is in a neutral position, I have my weight distributed on my front foot in a way that I can push through my heel AND big toe, and my back leg is not overly stretched behind me. I can keep my core engaged and my cranky knees LOVE this position (versus the earlier two). 

I often like to start people in split squats to re-pattern (or teach) this movement. In a split squat, I’ll often start people in the half kneeling position, kneeling on the back leg, with a 90 degree angle at each of the knees and at the hips. 

From there, I’ll tell them to pick a spot on the floor ten feet in front of them to focus on, pretend they’re about to be punched in the stomach, and then come STRAIGHT up, as though an invisible string attached to their head was pulling them up. 

That often will clean up the moment by itself. (Sometimes I have to remind people to push through their heel more, or to keep their front toe down if they over-correct). 

Find this helpful? Let me know! And let me know any other things you’d like to see ☺

I hate packing, but…

The last two weeks, I’ve been packing and cleaning in preparation for our sixth move in the past two years. 
It’s no secret that I despise packing. I don’t mind unpacking and settling in, because it means we’ll be stationary for long enough that yes, I do in fact want to hang some pictures on our walls, and it’s a new beginning. But packing? Packing is another story. Packing is a headache, and I don’t know many people who would disagree with that. 

There is a silver lining in all of the packing, though, that I have to admit I do love. 

Every time we move, rather than pack up and move EVERYTHING, we go through all of our stuff and purge unused items. Old scrap papers that I’ve kept around? Gone, unless they are, in fact, important. Costume jewelry? (Waves bye). And clothing? Yup, if it hasn’t been worn, it either gets tossed or donated (depending on condition). 

Packing and moving is a really good time to decide what belongs in your life still and what is very literally unnecessary weight. It’s a very physical representation of something we should do in every aspect of our lives–learning what to let go of so we can move forward onto the next stage of our lives. 

Maybe it’s a toxic relationship that you need to move on from. Maybe it’s a job that doesn’t offer you much potential for growth that you need to leave to in order to expand your career. Maybe it’s negative thoughts towards yourself that are holding you back from being your best version of yourself. Maybe it’s expectations of what life should be, that are preventing you from appreciating what life is. 

Whatever the case is, maybe it’s time to stop holding onto things that are holding you back, and decide on what’s really worth keeping…even if it takes you two weeks of moving things from one pile to the next before you make that decision. 

Friday Fix: (Upper body) Tension in a deadlift

Have you ever seen an ugly deadlift? Do you remember what made it so ugly? 

Chances are, it was a rounded back. It’s true that on a truly HEAVY deadlift (like 600+ pounds) you’re probably going to get a little rounding no matter what you do (you animal you! 600?!). 

But unless you are a power lifter in a competition, chances are you don’t need to be pulling at a weight that wrecks your form (I’m looking at a few athletes out there deadlifting with bad form and the coaches who allow for that to happen; shame on all y’all). 
Here’s what I’m talking about today: no upper body tension. I’m talking rounded upper backs with no lat engagement. In short, this: 

This was painful to take. Don’t do this.

I see this with a lot of new lifters, who don’t know better, and people whose egos get in the way. 

I’m looking for something more like this: 

Do this one. Not the other one.

My back is flat, my lats are engaged, and my back is protected (which is a huge deal for me, because I HAVE a bad back from deadlifting improperly when I was younger and dumber). 

So how do we go about teaching tension in the upper body for the deadlift? 

One of the first cues I’ll use is “hold a clutch purse (or towel/newspaper/wallet) under your armpit like someone’s trying to steal it.” Or, you can physically place a towel or your hands under their armpit and tell them to squeeze. 

That right there will often clean the entire thing up. If it doesn’t, step number two is to ask them to show me the logo on their shirt. They lift their chest slightly, taking slack out of the bar/kettlebell. 

If they haven’t quite learned to take the slack out of the bar, step three is to tell them to pretend they are going to lift the bell/bar off the ground but stop before it comes off the ground. 

I will often have clients re-set between each deadlift, or take a page out of Tony Gentilcore’s book and have them do light hover deadlifts to teach tension (stopping just shy of the ground on each rep and holding it for a moment before moving to the next rep). 

Give it a shot! 

Quick Power Breakfast (on the go!): The Frittata

I don’t know about you, but my mornings usually start way too early and always in a rush. That doesn’t change the fact that I NEED a power-packed breakfast to get me through my first five hours of coaching and lifting before I have a moment to breathe/eat. 

My ABSOLUTE favorite fast, easy, can-take-it-on-the-go breakfast is one I’ve been making for years (since grad school, when it was my go to for how CHEAP it is too). It’s the humble frittata!

A frittata is sort of like a crustless quiche or an omelette in nature, is INSANELY easy to make, and you can re-heat it in about a minute in the mornings. It’s filled with vegetables, protein, it’s LEAN, it’s filling, and have I mentioned it’s easy?

The basic recipe

• Preheat oven to 350.
• Crack open 6-8 eggs and whisk them.
• Pick your add ins (spinach, onion, mushroom, carrots, zucchini, feta, chicken, cheddar, salt, pepper, WHATEVER YOU WANT OR LIKE). Cut em up small (big fan of grating things like zucchini into mine). Mix them together. 
• Coat a muffin tin with spray/butter and fill the cups up halfway. 
• Bake for 20-25 minutes (you know they’re done when you can stick a fork in the middle and it comes out cleanly). Let cool for a bit. 
• Eat hot, or refrigerate them in a sealed container (heyo, Tupperware for days). You can even freeze these for up to three months (why you would, I don’t know…I eat mine too fast!)
• I love throwing mine on a whole wheat English muffin to make it portable but you do you. 

There’s really no wrong way to do this (besides forgetting to spray the muffin tin, don’t forget that, it’s no fun). I mean, you could even do this with egg whites (although I don’t know why you’d ignore the yolk like that with all the goodness it holds, but I won’t hold that against you). 

Give it a try, save yourself some time in the mornings. And if you have kids who were like me growing up and ALWAYS late out the door, it saves you some time there too (and THEY can even learn how to make these and come up with their own favorite recipes).