How To Workout Without Using Shoulders
If you’ve had an injury to the area, but still want to stay fit, you need workout without using shoulders. The shoulder area seems quite vulnerable when moved wrong. It’s quite complex. It was created to move in a number of ways from rotation to lifting. It has three bones, four muscles and loads of tendons that have to work together to get the movements you want. One injury can hamper movement completely. Pain and limitation of movement can be a rotary cuff injury, impingement, tendinitis, bursitis, dislocation or separation.
In some cases, exercising the area properly can help reduce the pain.
Before you do any stretches that can help with impingement, make sure you don’t have a more serious problem. If your shoulder looks deformed, you can’t use it at all, is swelling, have intense pain or you can’t use your arm or hand because it’s numb or weak, call a health care professional. You posture can affect shoulder pain, so work on sitting and standing straight. There are stretches you can do to loosen your shoulders.
Find exercises that don’t hurt.
You can substitute some exercises for others, which don’t involve as much pressure on the shoulders. For instance, if lifting your hands over your head hurts or if your doctor recommends against it, replace any overhead exercises with ones that don’t affect the shoulders. In fact, overhead presses can actually aggravate impingement issues. Switch to front raises instead. Focus on your posture and if it hurts either stop or use a lighter weight or kettlebell.
One of the simplest exercises can help relieve shoulder pain.
If you have impingement or an injury, building back strength is important. Start slowly. Do a pendulum. It can help you get back function and heal faster. Lean forward and hold on to a table or counter with one hand and let your other arm swing freely. Rotate your body if you need to let it swing in all directions, side to side, back and forth and in circles.
- Loosen your shoulders with a stretch if you have an impingement. Lift your arms at your side, bent at the elbow like a goal post and attempt to stretch your arms back and touch elbows together behind your back.
- Just walking or running doesn’t require any effort from your shoulders and is good for endurance. Increase your walking time to stay in shape.
- Work your lower body. There’s nothing to stop you from doing leg day exercises, those for your abs or core. Just avoid ones that put pressure on your shoulder. If you’re at the gym, a stationary bike is good.
- A yardstick is a good tool for working the shoulders. Hold it with one hand at each end and push the stick in one direction horizontally, stretching and then to the other side. Keeping your elbows at your side, do it again, holding 30 seconds in each direction.
For more information, contact us at 180 Fitness
If you want to supplement your online or in gym program, I applaud you. Any type of exercise that gets you moving and burns fat is excellent. One client wanted to try yoga as a supplement and wanted to know if one is better than another for weight loss. One of the features or benefits from yoga of any kind is its ability to increase your mindfulness, which also extends to your eating patterns. Mindful eating can help you lose weight because it makes you think about whether you’re hungry or if something else is making you eat. Any type of yoga is good for that.
Whether you’re working out at home with 180 Fitness in Gloucester, ON, or in the gym, you know that we encourage any type of fitness activity, even running. It’s something you can do on your own, isolated from others and in a safe manner. Running is an aerobic activity that builds your endurance, provides heart healthy exercises and boosts your immune system. It’s all about getting healthier, fitter and stronger so you can avoid illness and be the best you that you can be.
At 180 Fitness in Gloucester, ON, we focus a lot on healthy eating, particularly for those who want to lose weight. The saying that you can’t out-exercise a bad diet is true. Good nutrition is an important part of a healthy lifestyle and definitely necessary for weight loss. However, healthy eating is also important to maximize your performance both in the gym and at work. It boosts both your mental and physical abilities. There are important reasons why nutrition and performance are so closely linked.
The recent isolation and potential of another has made everyone that takes fitness seriously that you need a collection of “at home” exercises. We tried to keep you posted throughout the days of lockdown, even developing an alliance with a chef for delivery of healthy meals. Here are a few of the exercises you can do, whether you’re stuck at home for personal reasons or due to a situation that’s completely out of your control.
Most people are more aware than ever how having a wealth of no-equipment workouts can help you stay fit at home. We do plenty of them at 180 Fitness, because they work. Bodyweight exercises are great strength builders. What you’re lifting is the weight of your body, and you have that with you at all times. You can begin immediately with squats, push-ups and planks. There is a lot of variety with each of these. If you’re out of shape, you may want to start with a knee bent push-up until you get stronger. For planks, there are also wide variety of ways to do them, but as you get stronger, hold the plank longer.
Many clients come to Gloucester, ON, to lose weight. Some have heard of the benefits of several different kinds of diets and many are keto-curious. I’m a proponent of healthy eating, which helps you shed extra pounds without actual dieting. The key to a standard keto diet is lowering the amount of calories from carbohydrates to 5%, increasing the amount of calories from fat to 70% and eating a moderate amount of calories, 25%, from protein. There are other versions that increase protein intake, cycling a keto diet with a high carb diet and blending a keto diet with your workout.
One of the complaints I sometimes hear when people first workout is that they’ve gained weight, not lost it. There are a few reasons your workout causing you to gain weight. A few of those reasons are healthy ones and indicate you’re getting stronger and fitter. However, there are also reasons that simply means you’re putting on extra pounds and not in a good way. Let’s start with the good news, it might be that you’re gaining muscle tissue.
One of the biggest problems that came from the lockdown is the quarantine 15. Those extra pounds gained from boredom and easy access to the refrigerator. With gyms being closed and most active pastimes discouraged or limited, it’s hard not to eat your way through this time of crisis. That’s why it’s important to stay in touch with your fitness community and find ways to share workout options and encouragement online. You can also do it with social distancing.