Squeeze and crunch

[cjsmith]

If you're a computer programmer, your livelihood depends in large part on your hands and on the health of their flexor tendons. If you have foot or leg problems, your ability to exercise (and thus your cardiovascular health) depends in large part on your hands and on the health of their flexor tendons. In other words, I now have a grip squeezie.

Got a question for all you fitness buffs out there. How do you work the abdominal muscles that AREN'T the basic six-pack rectus abdominis? How about those obliques and that deep transverse one?

Comments

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Awesome.

Something I do with squeezy exercises is this... do the squeeze and release with the whole hand. The make a fist and release thing, right.

Now, go back and do the squeeze and release with one finger at a time. It's much tougher working the muscles in isolation, and I can sure feel the effort in the pinky and ring fingers.

Getting yourself a rubber band is also fun if you want to practice opening the hand against resistance, the flip side of the grippy ball exercise.

Not sure about the abs, I can ask at yoga class sometime, I think that some of the (far too many) leg lifts we do when lying on the floor might target this area.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the one-finger-at-a-time idea! Nifty.

I bet yoga has some cool stuff for the abs, but I am currently coming up with only the standing stuff like Triangle Pose. Is there a sideways version of the Cobra pose?

[sharya.livejournal.com]

Pilates, pilates, pilates.

That has changed my life and given me the biggest boost in core strength that I've ever had.

Since most of it is either on a mat class (sitting/lying down) or on equipment (sitting/lying down), I expect that you could get involved in classes with minimal discomfort. :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I bet I could. Looking at pictures of classes, pilates seems like it was invented by somebody who didn't want to stand up. :-)

[sharya.livejournal.com]

Hehe, actually, it was invented for the purpose of rehabilitating injured dancers.

[warlord-mit.livejournal.com]

Got a question for all you fitness buffs out there. How do you work the abdominal muscles that AREN'T the basic six-pack rectus abdominis? How about those obliques and that deep transverse one?

8 minute abs. Seriously.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

If it really takes only 8 minutes, I'm there. (Especially if it doesn't require video display equipment, 'cause I don't have any of that handy.) I'm thinking of creating lots of different exercise things to do, and mixing them up a bit, just to avoid boredom. Something like an 8-minute-abs routine could be a good addition.

[warlord-mit.livejournal.com]

It really only takes 8 minutes (per day), and it's a video you could download from YouTube and play on your computer if you want.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Excellent. I won't do it daily (I'll have other stuff in the rotation) but doing it every few is better than nothing.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendation! I did a round of this this morning. (Turns out YouTube has quite a few of these, so I picked one with good crisp sound and not a lot of wasted time in the intro.)

[bigredpaul.livejournal.com]

the obliques have two actions:

the rotate the torso, and they help laterally flex the vertebral column. well, ok, techincally they have a third action of compressing the abdominal contents (sucking in your gut, as it were).

So, with that in mind, any action that brings your shoulder to its opposite knee will recruit those muscles - crossways crunching, as it were. side bends are good, too. but those exercises are boring, and i'm sure that some personal trainer would be more help than me!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Boring is okay to start with. So I could do the twisty style of crunches, and I could lie on my side and try to lift my torso without using my arms much?

[racerxmachina.livejournal.com]

Cross crunches are great. A lot of my ab work requires a ball, which requires feet to brace with, so any ab work than can be done simply on the floor is the way to go.

[allanh.livejournal.com]

All I could think of after reading this entry was:

"Hey, Beavis ... she said `rectus'."

*sigh*

Despite this, I'm pleased that you're taking steps to protect your hands!

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

No wonder you're on CJ's friends list.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

*beam* My friends do tend to self-select.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Now if only I were happy with the spelling of the other half of that phrase. I always thought it was either "rectus abdominus" or "rectus abdominii" depending on whether you wanted to pluralize it, but Google and Wikipedia and the like seem to merge the two together and go with "abdominis." That doesn't look right at ALL.

You wouldn't believe, or maybe you would, what a good heart-pounding sprint on a water rower can do to those grip tendons. Realizing that both my livelihood and my future health were threatened in one swoop was scary.

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

The important thing is that you're still thinking of it.

My only objection to her post is that there weren't enough mentions of boogers. I feel that boogers have been neglected recently.

[eveningscribe.livejournal.com]

Kegel exercises? How deep in the core are we talking?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Heh! The external and internal obliques and the transverse abdominis were all I had in mind. But I'm sure I could recruit my hubby for a little exercise outside the standard routine. ;-)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning for ages to get a grip squeezie, or even a tennis ball, but I'm dead azy when it comes to exercise of any sort. And yes, I've had the odd ominous twinge in my wrists.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Those ominous twinges are awful. If you don't look out I'll show up at Joe's with a grip squeezie for you.

[mithriltabby]

The ab workout on Eyetoy: Kinetic has several, including doing crunches with the legs crossed, lying on the back and pulling the knees up and then rotating them to the sides, and more. If you want to drop by Maine Coon Manor sometime, I could show you that segment of the game.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

These are a lot like the crunches I did in PT for recovery from a major back injury.

CJ: If you want, I can show you at Joe's.

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

I know of one, but I also know you hate it...

Swimmin'.

Thing is, anything twisty and bendy will work.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Maybe if I ever got good at swimming. *sigh* I used to climb out of the pool with nothing but the upper arms feeling like it had done a damn thing, including heart and lungs. But if I went any faster I'd need to breathe too frequently. (Well, maybe that was merely a WANT. Hard to tell. Psychological deep dark area there.)

Twisty and bendy it is, then...

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

Well, one of the effects of water is that your heart rate is about 10% slower for the same workout.

When going very hard, I breathe on every stroke or roll over on my back.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I never got the hang of breathing out the other side, but rolling onto my back -- why did I never come up with that?? Sheesh. :-)

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

Cause you didn't swim on a swim team with someone who went on to win the gold in backstroke in Atlanta...

(How was that for convoluted name-dropping *grin*?)

[racerxmachina.livejournal.com]

I didn't think I was getting much of a workout when I swam this summer, either. Then I went back to the gym, and cracked off several sets and reps of a back exercise that used to leave me aching. Swimming doesn't seem like good exercise, since you aren't straining, but done often, and done with attention to form, it can be excellent!

[nosrednayduj]

If you're a computer programmer, your livelihood depends in large part on your hands and on the health of their flexor tendons.

well, or the quality of your voice recognition system. (I don't usually use dragon for short lj posts, but for this one I think it was appropriate :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I know a guy whose voice started having serious problems on dragon, after his hands were having serious problems on keyboard and mouse. I'd certainly go that way if I needed to, but I'm a little too cautious to depend blithely on it! :-)