Stretch and Slim In the Morning

Ease Into Toned Muscles : Wakey Wakey 

 Let me introduce you to stretch and slim in the morning. Here are the first of my toning exercises, the breathing stretch, how to flatten out your back to prevent injury, some abs toning with 'paddling' and 'stepping.' More suggestions follow in future posts, there are too many to include on one page. Enjoy and let me know how you get on.

from freedigitalphotos.net young man relaxing in bed

My toning exercises start when I wake in the morning, unfortunately not with the eye-candy here, but by stretching in bed. I'll explain why he is there in just a minute. 

I am assuming you were like me a few weeks ago, and you have not been doing any form of exercise for a while. So I advocate you start slowly - only do a couple of repeats at a time. If you like, start with one exercise and work up to including more as you progress. 

This is not something that will give you a sylphlike figure fast, it is a start. It will only work if you are taking measures to get rid of the fat underlying the muscles by changing to a healthier diet. You really do need to take in less calories than you burn - there is no getting away from it but it doesn't have to mean starving yourself either. 

That said these exercises are less about burning calories as about toning muscles. That you burn up a few calories is an added bonus.

Like the changes in you diet, starting slow with toning exercises, you are more likely to keep going than if you start with knee jerks and a 30 minute workout that you are not even tempted to repeat more than once.

NOTE: As always - protect your back!

1. These won't work well on a soft mattress - you need to have one that supports your back. Mine is a memory foam one and works fine. 
2. Pay attention to the instructions that tell you to press your lower back into the mattress.

These stretches should give your muscles a bit of an ache but NO pain.

For best effect follow the breathing instructions. If you do the toning in time to your breathing it will be slow and steady - if it isn't, your are hyperventilating!

The resting periods when I ask you to flop are important too - they give your muscles time to recover, you may even find them twitching a little bit when you stop. Rest as long as you like but take at least a minute between each set of stretches.

Do these in no particular order - read them all through several time until you have the idea imprinted in your brain. You will eventually find the order that makes you most comfortable.

Start off doing only a few as described and build up over several weeks until you are doing around 30. As you strengthen the muscles, especially those in your back, you can run all these exercised together to form one unit. Then rest.

See the guy up there - he is lying back relaxing, but note how his stomach muscles are pulled in - he has done that by taking a deep breath in as he pulls in the abdominal muscles, breathing out and letting the abdo muscles flatten, then holding with shallow breaths. Let's try it - it is as good a place to start as any.

Breathing Stretch

1. Stretch out in bed, your whole body in line from top to toe, legs and feet together.
2. Taking a deep breath in - raise your arms and put your hands behind your head pulling in the muscles of your stomach. Smoothly and steadily pull them in, you are not clenching them, just holding them tighter than normal. 
3. Breathe out completely letting your stomach flatten even more.
4. Hold that position for four shallow breaths.
5. Flop - let all your muscles relax completely. If you are going to repeat the stretch, keep your hands behind your head, if not bring your arms down by your side. Let your legs and feet fall apart. Rest for 1 minute before repeating. 
6. Start with one or two of these and build up over the weeks.  

Muscles used
Abdominal – especially the upper portion of the rectus abdominis. This is the big muscle that runs from the ribs to the pubic bone - you might think it is in two pieces, upper and lower but it is only one.	upper back	shoulders	chest	arms

young man stretching from freedigitalphotos.net

Variation: - Follow our young man's example and stretch out. 

1. Keep your back flat on the bed - breathe in and pull in your stomach muscles. Raise your arms above your head.
2. Breath out completely flattening your stomach more.
3. Tighten your hands into fists.
4. Hold the position for three shallow breaths.
5. Flop - let the muscles relax but keep your arms raised.
6. Breathing in, tense arms muscles again, hold for 3 shallow breaths and relax.
7. Repeat 3 times building up over the weeks.
8. All the time you are doing this, keep you stomach muscles tense.

Muscles used
Abdominal muscle	upper back	shoulders	chest	arms

Flatten the Back

By the nature of your spine, your back has a bend that leaves you with a little hollow space between your back and the mattress. To protect your lower back you need to flatten out that hollow and press your back into the bed. Here's how you do that. I recommend you do this before you start any of the stretch and tone exercises.

1. Lie flat in bed.
2. Taking a deep breath in, pull your knees up to your chest.
3. Letting your breath go, put your feet on the bed then slid your legs flat. 
4. This should push your lower back into the mattress. 

muscles from freedigitalphotos.net

Abs Tone

1. Lie flat in bed, legs and feet together, head flat or on one pillow. 
2. Press your lower back into the mattress. 
3. Place your hands on your abdomen so you can feel the muscles moving while you do this. At first it may seem very little is happening but it is. Remember there are deeper layers of muscle you will not feel.
4. Take a deep breath in, pulling your stomach muscles in, breathe out flattening them even more.
5. With your feet together and your heels on the bed, take a slow deep breath in, pull your toes up toward you pulling in your stomach muscles. Again, not clenched to the point of pain, just tightened.
6. Breathing out point your toes downward.
7. Use slow breaths, breathe in and pull your toes up toward you.
8. Breathing out, point your toes downwards. 
9. During your first week, repeat three times and over the weeks build it up to any number you are comfortable with. I usually do 10 because I do other exercises as well.
10. Paddle is a natural progression which brings the oblique abdominal muscles into play. 
11. Continuing with the steady breathing in time to each movement, point the toes of one foot while pulling up the toes of the other. 
12. At first repeat 3 times then build it up over the weeks. 
13. Breathing in, pull both sets of toes up toward you and hold that position for 3 shallow breaths. 
14. Flop - let the muscles go and relax and rest for at least one minute but as long as you need to let the muscles recover. 

Muscles used in this toning exercise
Abs including oblique muscles	lower back	thighs	calves	ankles

Abs Tone Extra - Stepping

Tag this onto the end of the exercise above. At first when you start these, take time to rest in between the different elements.

1. As above - steps 1 to 5.
2. Heels flat on the bed. Breathing in pull your toes toward you, breath out and hold that position for a couple of shallow breaths.
3. Use the rhythm of your breathing alternately lengthen each leg in a sort of lying-down stepping motion. 
4. Repeat 3 times on each side. Build up the repetition over several weeks.
5. Bring both sets of toes up and hold for several shallow breaths.
6. Flop and rest.

This exercise really does use the oblique muscles and more importantly perhaps, the muscles of your lower back. If you are not fit take it easy.

Muscles used in this toning exercise
Oblique abdominal muscles	lower back	thighs	waist	calves	ankles

 

woman with measuring tape from freedigitalphotos.net

So you are on your way! These simple exercises are designed to get you used to toning muscles without hardship. Plenty more to come so be sure to join me on my wellness journey. 

You might like to take measurements of your chest, wrist and hips on your first day - the measure you again one week on. Don't be tempted to measure every day - you only set yourself up for disappointment. 

Introducing Stretch and Slim

Introducing the concept of Stretch and Slim

Middle age woman stretching from freedigitalphotos.net

Everyone likes a good stretch but have you thought about incorporating it into your toning regime?

Fighting fat and fighting flab should go hand in hand.  Over-eating and lack of exercise lays down fat deposits around the organs, round your middle, hips, legs, chest and arms - everywhere really. Muscles become slack and flabby as you probably only well aware.

Changing your eating habits should take care of the fat and that is essential and is discussed elsewhere. There is little point in even trying to tone slack muscles if you continue with the underlying fat. But it can be done gradually and indeed is probably best done slowly. Rapid weight loss isn't that healthy for you and it will leave bags of slack skin behind if you don't do some toning. Aim to lose 1-3 libs per week.

Stretch and Slim

Rather than think you have to start doing jumping jacks to get trim, think about stretching out muscles instead. All you really have to think about is getting muscles moving and you can do that by contracting and relaxing them. Start slow and with only the minimum movement. It will gradually increase as you get fitter. At first it might not feel as if anything is moving at all but you will be surprised.

Every single movement you make uses muscle.  You just need to have more movement in your life and use it to slim, trim and tone. Many of the toning suggestions I make are simply tightening and relaxing muscles. You will see I use the breath as part any exercise I do with the exception of those everyday, everywhere toning opportunities. I really recommend you use my suggestions on breathing for the most effect.

You can try it now to see what I mean.

1. sitting at your desk, feet flat on the ground
2. imagine you have a string pulling at the top of you head to pull you upright
3. hands on your thighs
4. shoulders back
5. take a deep breath in - note how it pulls in your stomach
6. hold that position for several shallow breaths.  

Without that deep breathe in you probably don't pull in your stomach - tighten your abdomen muscles.

Get used to that feeling of holding your stomach in, don't clench it so tightly it is sore and hard to hold, just be aware of tightening your abdomen more than you have been used to. You are retraining your muscles and it gets easier. In time you will find you do it automatically, you sit straighter, stand straighter and taller.

Take every opportunity to stretch or to tighten and relax muscles and I'll give you examples as we go on.  I'll try to give as clear instructions as I can and where possible I will let you know which muscles you are toning.

So... let's get started...


I started yoga years ago with Lyn Marshall's Wake up to Yoga which I still recommend and I trained with Jason Chan in Tai Chi many years ago. It is still one of my favourite forms in Tai Chi.

Wake up to Yoga

Weight Gain and Slack Muscles

Weight Gain and Slack Muscles 

Man with belly fat from freedigitalphotos.net

For me muscle toning is as important as weight loss. I want the weight to go from my problem areas. I want to lose the fat but I also want to tone up my slack muscles as I go along. Right now I look too much like the guy in the picture.

I'm not one for fierce aerobic exercise although I do incorporate mild aerobic exercise like walking, swimming and dancing into my life.

What is working for me is adapting exercises into stretching and slimming exercises that are more suited to my abilities.  There is some Hatha Yoga in there, some Tai Chi, both of which I practiced and taught for many years, plus some fitness exercises culled for various sources.  The aim is to get those slack muscles moving, to tone them up and subsequently get into shape and generally feel better.

The Human Muscular System

Female muscular system from freedigitalphotos.net

Don't panic I am not going into details, there are lots of places on-line you can check out if you want more information - Better Health being one that springs to mind. I just want you to show you the complexity of muscles.  Some are straight, some criss-cross the body and for every muscle you contract you relax another. You can't really isolate just one group of muscles to work at a time because they are so connected. But you can concentrate on certain trouble areas.

Problem Areas 

1. The abdomen. For most of us that first and foremost means in the abdomen. There are two lots of muscles there to think about, the straight muscle that goes from your ribs to your pubis, the rectus adbominus, and the oblique muscles on either side of the body. There are other deeper muscles too that are even more difficult to get moving. Together these form what you are often called the core muscles and they are essential for most of the things you put your body through - for example they support the back and spine with every movement you make and every position you adopt. 
Don't think this is about getting a six-pack - you have to be really thin and really fit for that but honestly do you want one? What it is about is getting rid of belly fat and toning those muscles.

2. The Hips, Thighs and Bottom. I'm not going into details - we all know these are areas we want to work on. Take a look at Wiki or Inner Body - for more information. For our purposes just note how the muscles twist and cross, how some are deeper than others. Once again I am aiming at getting muscles movement if only in a limited fashion - it all counts.

3.  Chest and Arms. You have all heard of pecs - those chest muscles body builders work on to bulk up. We aren't interested in that, we are only interested in toning them to the point where we are comfortable and we help get rid of underlying fat. That goes for the arms too.  More than anything we are aiming of getting rid or at least reducing those butterfly wings we all end up. 

Protect your Back

This is my mantra and it should become yours. As I said before, all muscles depend on others and you cannot move without the muscles in your back being involve. With all your dips and hollows as well as the fact you have probably been inactive for some time, your back is vulnerable. In my toning exercises I take care to ensure my back isn't being strained. You will see I tell you how to do each exercise without strain so pay attention to the advice. We are just moving - not straining, not jerking. Make every move you make slow and smooth and stop at the point when you feel that is the limit of your range of movement. Do not exceed it, that will come on its own as you get better at it. Just be patient. 

My Toning Exercises

I do about 10 minute stretching in the morning in bed - I'll show you that next and I do some yoga at night before bedtime.  But otherwise I incorporate small movements throughout the day. I'll show you some for doing at your desk, while you are waiting in a queue, when you are doing chores. None of them take long, none of them are strenuous but they all move muscles. 

Over the next few weeks I am going to share how to effectively tone and slim with these ways to move muscle:

1. by simple stretching
2. by stretch and hold
3. by small repetitive movements

So - I hope you join me.