Sometimes body injuries happen outside our control that come and go. And when you’re slightly injured, say with a common sprain, you can still do light work around home workouts being careful, and then gradually restoring back to regular exercising and good fit health routines.
For a light strain or sprain, you can be out for a few weeks before you’re back to regular activities. If you have a more serious injury, it can be a few months before you’re mobile, and that’s when you may want to come up with a different strategy so the rest of your healthy body doesn’t have to wait. It’s easy to get out of a regular workout routine with a good excuse!
…I want to encourage you to keep doing home exercises year-round no matter what (unless your doctor tells you not to or you’re sick), as your mental health and happiness improve — a fact we all know about the happy hormones and endorphins that release in working out.
As you get the blood circulating into your brain and body, you gain more energy from working out and that can help you sleep and eat healthier. If you have a foot sprain injury, for example, you could still do simple arm exercises to keep moving (a good body goal to maintain).
With common inflammation, you probably know it’s good to rest and ice your injury first, which can take a few days or weeks (everyone is different).
If you’re an athlete, you’re usually less fragile as your body is strong compared to someone who doesn’t work out as often.
In either case, when you’re back on the road to body recovery, you can think about strengthening other body parts. You don’t want to not do any exercise for weeks waiting for your sprain to heal completely if you can, so you can stay strong (and not get weak) both overall mentally and physically.
Physical therapy (exercises) exists, so you can rehabilitate your overall body and health back to your norm or stronger than before your injury.
If you think about it, when you do regular daily activities like brushing your teeth, cooking, or cleaning, you still need miracle muscle strength to do those common tasks. We underestimate the need for muscles unless we don’t have the ability to do what we need to do.
Even though our muscles are adaptable, we want to create progressive muscle growth, especially in our large muscle groups like our legs, buttocks, arms, and upper body so we can be independent to lift, walk, and pull or push even daily light weighted things.
Ok cool.. all makes sense so far, right?
Below I share a few of my favorite exercises, sprain injured or not, for staying toned and getting some cardio in even if you have light limitations, such as a common foot sprain.
We all have some personal fitness goals even if we don’t believe in writing resolutions. One of mine is staying the same consistent size, proportions, and weight. Since I’ve been the same size for years, measuring is not necessary but if I were trying to lose or gain weight, then measuring would be more accurate and a way to determine if what I was doing, was working.
Another goal is staying toned (or sculpted which sounds like a muscular statue). This is good no matter what your weight is… it’s obvious if you’re toned or not from a mirror, so you don’t have to step on a scale.
The tone goal is good for most women because if you’re serious about achieving good tone, you will naturally do the things in between or in the process to make that happen, like eat less and do more pushups.
Remember the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”? – the second habit is “begin with the end in mind,” which is good for any goal setting you do. (I’m having a déjà vu moment right now where I can picture Stephen Covey who wrote the 7 habits. I was in a class of his decades ago where he taught his principles… I digress)…
Without needing breathing exercises, we forget how automatic and important breathing is. Sometimes our breathing pattern or air changes wake us up to get back to our healthy breath awareness in this moment. Our breathing can easily remind us of our precious moments and the finite time we have on earth.
And in healthy reminders, I wanted to breathe some good tips your way!
…Breathing is everything life. It’s how the earth began:
“God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)
With climate change, wildfires, and spring green pollen allergy dust in the air at high levels (over 10), many of us are affected from the lungs and neck up.
I suspected allergies was affecting my sleep as I was clocking in about the same amount of hours from night to morning and not feeling as rested.
I had been documenting a healthy 8 hours of sleep time on my Apple Watch and tracker.
I noticed my body runs best when I have 5 hours of restful sleep that’s also tracked.) And choosing a life with less stress and more balance, 7 hours is a good enough rhythm.
And something for you to clock in because stress and sleep is related.
Observe Your Sleep
While tracking a few nights for awareness, I observed I was getting less restful sleep and more light sleep. Hmmm… I thought, I wonder why that is?
All things being equal, I wanted to test the hypothesis that I had shallow breathing at night.
It dawned on me that my deep rest (restful sleep) may have been lessened by the shallower breathing or less air going into my lungs, as I breathed through my slightly congested nose.
Btw, breathing in air through your nose is a much better way than through your mouth as it is known to help increase memory. You have a filter in your nose that you don’t in your mouth. You can Google that if you want scientific-backed evidence.
Barre class can be a metaphor for what we need to grow ourselves. When you think of a row of ballerinas with their arabesques, port de bras, and extended swan necks, you can be reminded of control and grace–what we all need in life for better performance and balance.
You can also grow strong. When you have control over your body in a certain position, your muscles are flexing to build strength.
Don’t be fooled with thin and dainty ballerinas as they have very strong legs (and toes)! They’re usually slender, have Vata-like bodies where they are aware of every body position from the waist down to the crown of their heads and through their fingertips.
To get in perfect positions, they have concentrated mind-body awareness. If they lose focus then they could soon fall or be out of alignment.
If you aspire to have ballerina moves, that usually requires hours of imperfect practice. A Nutcracker play ballerina has paid their dues.
To start, you can make your life easy and see how the barre concept feels especially if you’re new, by trying a mild, less-strenuous workout in a barre class.
You usually start off standing along a bar as your equipment. And if you’re doing this from home, you can use a chair. It’s that simple!
One of the first things you want to think of is extended height. That requires stamina and strong legs and specifically upper leg strength in your quadricep muscles (quads) that could give you the endurance you need.
That’s not something you develop overnight, but you may be naturally more built out in that area. That’s the opposite of someone who wants to try-out for America’s Ninja Warrior show. There you see athletic men and women alike on the show who have demonstrated strong upper body strength. We’re all given different strengths in comparison.
And ballerinas are athletes, with strong quads. Like everyone else, you can develop your legs in other ways every day. Like, climbing stairs or doing squats in place. And say you want to take an outdoor 20 plus mile bike ride, having strong upper leg muscles will help give you the extra strength and extra oomph to push you over the hills.
A great way to develop your quads is by following a barre class.
If you take a class, that can be just as effective through video, you can lose your inhibition. You’re focused on your screen and mimicking the instructor and not thinking how silly you look with self-consciousness and awkward body movements (that we all have).
Your body doesn’t care how ridiculous you can look to move its joints, muscles, and all the parts gluing your butterfly parts together. It’s just happy you’re moving and that’s what you can positively focus on.
Similar to learning foundational yoga poses for a yoga class, you can learn and focus your attention on ballet positions for a barre class.
You can even find that you’ve known or been doing some of the French named barre positions for years without knowing how that they would be practical in your barre class now.
What I love most about barre class:
I do think barre is a Vata-designed workout. ♥ ♥
A Vata person’s middle name is Variety.
Choosing to take a barre class is a variety from the norm while the type of exercise is growing in popularity. The crux of the class can be ballet moves, but most barre classes incorporate moving to the floor for pilates and yoga poses.
You just never know what kind of journey your barre instructor can take you on and how intense the workout is until you get a sense of the instructor’s style.
If that unknown element of what-happens-next appeals to you, then you may have a ‘lil more Vata in you than you think (we all have some trace).
If in your recreational time, you still like to know every move you’ll be taking and that’s expected, then you could be more Pitta/Kapha dominant or falling into those stronger imbalances.
In any case, life is full of surprises so taking a barre class can help you become flexible.
By the way, do you know what your main dosha is?
If you want to know the reverse, what is not happening the way you want, then you can take the balance restoration, Body Balance Quiz, to find out what you can do to get back to yourself.
If you pay attention and learn to get in awareness of your natural body tendencies, then you can lean into your ways and not be so hard on yourself. We can wonder why we’re different in some ways from our friends and people we admire.
Doshas may be one insightful clue and a more fun way (leaning into your natural strengths) to follow in life.
Be encouraged, many others share your mind-body type. You just have to find your peeps. They’re out there!
But back to barre… whether you’re a natural Vata body-mind type or not, you get a mix of a heart-pumping workout with very few breaks to catch your breath, unlike these peeps just standing around. …sorry, Easter is in a couple weeks, so I couldn’t resist the reference!
One class I went to regularly for a season had exercises where you moved from one end of the room to the other, mimicking a Nutcracker Toy Solder.
Repeating the movement takes body coordination and also self-discipline, as you’re trying to look cookie-cutter mechanical. Concentration is good mind-body health (and can help a Vata-sporadic brain get back in line).
Making even-movements is a talent that I don’t have today (maybe you do and could consider trying-out for the Rockettes!), but whatever the case you still can have your best-attempt version.
In that one class, we learned how to march across a room with our stiff arm and leg movements, and afterward we each picked up a stability ball for an even more energizing workout.
We transformed from gliding Ballerinas to marching Toy Soldiers to Downward-Facing Dogs. …Phew! I was tired.
So next time you’re wondering if you should give barre a try, here are few surprise benefits that can help sway you:
-Increasing mind-body awareness
-Developing grace and better performance
-Building strength and resilience
-Finding self-discipline and self-control (that leads to bigger and better things!)
And if you can’t dance, barre is a good alternative to say Zumba, as you’ll still be on your toes and you may just become a ‘lil more aware which is the right, left foot 😊
And, yoga poses are gradually are becoming creative yoga poses to help restore specific muscles, joints, and get balance in our day.
Evolving into creative yoga poses can be a powerful way to discover how to cure your own body aches and pains.
I didn’t particularly like yoga when I first started. It was intimidating and there was a learning curve to keep looking at specific body parts, making sure that it matched with what the yoga instructor was saying and doing.
Somehow I got myself to go back to class. And I started to learn and get into certain poses that became familiar. Child’s pose and other resting yoga poses were my respite in the beginning.
Gradually with added stamina and skill, I added new poses as my body helped to intuitively remember. The body cells have distinct memory.
Being at home means you still can do yoga poses at home or anywhere, even if you usually relied on attending in-person classes for form and instruction. If you didn’t learn yoga foundations, you can take the extra step and watch YouTube videos or take virtual classes.
Date muffins recipe below that would be good for your yoga days!
Here’s a good way to begin:
Sit on your yoga mat or on a brick with your sit bones (the yoga language for your bottom), and stretch your legs out into a “V.” Reach down on each side of your legs to your feet, or as far down on your legs as you can.
We sit down, lay down, and stand too much in our daily lives. Just by sitting in this unique pose and doing seat yoga poses, allows your legs, back and arms to stretch in a different position than it normally is in.
That’s the name of the game. Our bodies want us to stay limber and stretch other muscles and parts of our body.
I have a kneeling pose that I particularly like that feels good, where I crouch down almost to the floor. I prefer this over bending down. If you like roller skating as I did back in the day, then you know this pose from the game called “shoot the duck” where you crouched down with bent knees as far as you could and extended one leg straight out.
That takes some balancing and flexibility. Usually, one leg was better or stronger than the other on any day. Then you rolled yourself forward using the law of motion and force and tried to make it under the limbo bar without knocking it over.
This can be a metaphor for life in finding balance, as on your yoga mat or floor, you can go from balancing your body from feet on the ground to your tippy toes in this similar duck pose.
In this yoga duck pose (I made up the name so won’t find it researching!), I like to flip through books and recipes, look inside the oven when a bake is completing, or clean floor spots in this familiar pose.
I don’t know why, but it’s a comfortable position for me. It’s a balancing pose that stretches the back, and rounds out the spine. Similarly, you can find the comfortable positions that give yoga a new name (and some of these poses can even cure you of aches and pains).
You may like this crouch (not couch) pose, or make up your own. The point is to try new bends as often as you can remember.
Without weight and while standing, you can observe when you touch your toes, and then try to reach your ankles. You can prefer to bend down with your knees bent or bend at your torso (not everyone can do this). Try attempting both and seeing how that feels.
This torso stretching is particularly good for your back and hamstrings that can get really tight if not used often. Remember in school gym class, how they started out with stretches so you wouldn’t hurt yourself?
Besides our backs and back of legs, another area that often gets ignored is the arms. As much as you can throughout the day, move them back behind you. That also stretches your shoulder muscles that can get sore. If you work on a computer all day, you can find ways to counteract hunching forward with your typing keyboard hands, and arms.
One season I went to physical therapy because I had a daily right arm and shoulder pain that wouldn’t go away. It was nagging for relief from daily right-handed motion overuse, and typing contracts all day.
That’s how voice technology can help our future aging and aching bodies.
Anyway, from my own testing, I figured out which arm stretch would make a difference and correct the pain problem after months and years. That was by self-discovery because no one can pinpoint where your pain actually is, but You, and you alone.
Especially if you didn’t get in an accident or the pain point doesn’t show up as an injury on a scan. Having had multiple x-ray scans reviewed by an orthopedic physician and chiropractor, I felt I went round and round with the same issue and was left to come up with my own solutions.
In hindsight, that’s where I should have started… but when you don’t know, you don’t know.
I found that if I took my right arm out and raised it to shoulder level like an airplane wing, and then I bent my wrist straight down, then that caused tightness and sometimes slight pain that went up to my entire arm through the main radial nerve, and that corrected the problem. ...So simple! All I needed to do was stretch in the right way. I call this Airplane Wing Pose… just kidding!
And then when I took the airplane arm wing back about 45 degrees and bent my wrist straight down, that gave another tight stretch that is what I needed to provide pain relief. Hallelujah!
So my suggestion is if you have any slight aches or pains and there’s no known injury, start with questioning how that could have come about.
If nothing concrete emerges searching your thoughts, then try light and gentle stretches. Moving your body is healing for daily wear and tear symptoms and maybe just what the doctor ordered!
Not moving your body can be just as hurtful to your body, as moving is to an injury.
If you did possibly hurt yourself, that can come from something as simple as bumping a table corner or carrying a bag of groceries too heavy without bending your knees, then that can be a deeper injury like a sprain to the body. Your resilient body will heal over time, but needs rest instead of movement.
An example of this is when you have a swelling inflammation. You could apply ice in a ziplock plastic bag (not a bag of frozen vegetables that isn’t cold enough).
If a body area is sore or has tired muscles, then a heating pad and stretching can help, but that’s if you have determined there’s no inflammation. If you’re not sure, you’re better off trying ice and seeing if it improves over a few days.
Then when you’re getting better, start gradual, light yoga poses and stretching again.
Sensitively figuring out in discernment what your body needs is the healing balance. When or if you should explore medical help over self-diagnosis is an individual question.
Implementing yoga, stretching, and movement is almost always beneficial, as that’s what they have you do in rehabilitation.
With the comfortable yoga poses and stretches you come up with, you can use those as starting points to create other poses that your body will be thankful you did to take care of yourself.
As you become aware, you get to know other parts of your body and that helps you to become more flexible.
If you’re someone who believes you’re not flexible, change that to you are getting flexible every time you stretch. Your body and mind (and mind-body balance) are your most powerful tools and assets to invest in, so you can keep doing all that you do daily.
Glute exercises are the most impactful. Learn why and what you can do about it below…
If you’ve ever been to physical therapy, the approach to restorative body healing uses repetitive movements, such as core, arm, leg, and glute exercises.
Like yoga, physical therapy exercises are healthy and help to increase your flexibility, strength, and balance.
When you’re not healing from an injury, your body is malleable and wants YOU to work out.
That’s our natural way, like horses and greyhound dogs that are born to race.
If they’re not galloping and running, they’ve lost the opportunity to do what they’re happily born to do. We as humans, similarly are naturally meant to think, be and do.
When we take the opportunity to get active and move, we gain energy and better our health, and that makes us feel better.
If your body could speak, it would say, “put me to work.”But your mind shares back, “I don’t feel like it,”…and then that puts an end to your physical activity. Your mind wins and you actually lose in that moment.
But if you could convince your mind that exercise is easy, effortless… oh, and fun! …whoaa, that could be a game-changer, and your mind, body and you could all be on the same page.
I’ve found (and maybe you agree), that if you find an easy, almost effortless, and rewarding routine, then you would continue doing (like your lifelong healthy eating diet plan)…
On that mission, I discovered some arm, leg, and glute exercises (described below), that give our overall delicate bodies, better results with little effort, that never gets old, and help you stay young and ageless.
Not to mention, the benefit of exercising without a gym. You can do these exercises when you just need a break (instead of opening the fridge for a snack or when you want to watch a few minutes of television).
