3 Methods to Assess Your Leg Power (and why it issues for ladies’s well being)

Betty Rocker (00:16):
What’s up, rock stars Coach Betty Rocker right here. Thanks a lot for spending a while with me at the moment. So final time we talked, we went in depth about one of many essential indicators of our energy, which is after all, grip energy. And simply to recap, grip energy is de facto essential as a result of it’s an excellent indicator of our total energy. So it’s an excellent one to make use of to sort of gauge the place you’re at now. Final time we talked, I went over 5 methods to check your grip energy. And what we checked out had been squeezing a house toilet scale to see what number of kilos of strain you may grip utilizing a dynamometer system, which measures your grip energy hanging from a bar and timing your self doing a farmer’s carry with weights at your sides as you stroll and choosing up weights by the heads utilizing a pinch seize.

(01:05)
So these had been all of our exams, and the rationale it’s an important concept to verify in on it periodically and why we must always care about it’s simply due to the related danger components which are associated to poor grip energy, which are actually all the things from elevated danger of bone breaks to poor immune well being, decrease cognitive perform, and a lot extra. And as we age, hormones like estrogen, progesterone and testosterone begin to decline. We’ve talked rather a lot about this on earlier episodes and the way the lack of these key hormones actually impacts our energy, making us extra susceptible to muscle and bone loss, and actually affecting our flexibility as that ligamentous tissue turns into much less pliable. The excellent news is when you’re utilizing Betty Rocker coaching packages and consuming tips, you have got important instruments to remain forward of loads of the age associated degeneratio the physique is de facto susceptible to. I imply, use it or lose it, proper?

(01:59)
If you happen to’re coaching with me, you’re constantly energy coaching and also you’re working in your explosive energy, you’re consuming sufficient protein on your age group and also you’re prioritizing these fiber wealthy carbs and that wholesome fats. You’re making your self care a precedence like taking the remaining days between your excessive quantity coaching classes, and when you’re in perimenopause or publish menopause, you’ve acquired a extra personalized schedule on your coaching in my packages that basically is gonna profit you probably the most. You’re prioritizing your bedtime and also you’re stretching extra round your coaching. You’re retaining an “all or one thing” mentality in thoughts so to keep constant. And you recognize that our well being and health are this holistic course of that we work on over time, similar to we work on methods to speak to ourselves with kindness the identical approach we might discuss to our associates. And actually, making associates with your self and chatting with your self with kindness is without doubt one of the finest issues you are able to do for your self and your well being.

(02:54)
Typically it’s actually useful to consider the little model of you, and do not forget that while you converse to your self, you’re additionally chatting with her. I do know you have got loads of love to provide, so give that like to your self too, and bear in mind why you’re exhibiting as much as do the stuff I speak about. Like we gotta be exercising and caring about our meals for extra than simply that sizzling bod, proper? I imply, you can nonetheless have that too, however it goes deeper, proper? Lately after I prepare, I take into consideration the one that I’ll be in 30 years and I wanna actually set her up for achievement. The whole lot I do now could be going to assist with that. I wanna maintain on to robust bones and have the muscle in my physique to have the ability to transfer and hike and luxuriate in life, and I wanna keep as versatile as I can.

(03:38)
So actually nowadays I’m taking motion for 2 folks. I’m doing it for the little child model of me. I wanna make her happy with who I’m, and I’m doing it for the older model of me. I would like her to look again and say, rattling woman, you set us as much as be robust and and have a look at how a lot we will do, proper? I simply discovered myself actually impressed with the grip energy check and the way a lot I might do. And also you may suppose, oh, come on Betty Rocker, you’re a coach. After all that was simple for you and usually you’d be proper. However I did have a foul fall about six months in the past now, and I dislocated my elbow. And ever since then I’ve been slowly and methodically rebuilding my energy round that joint. It’s loopy, however it simply modified how I used to be capable of do all types of workouts and I needed to actually take it gradual as I got here again after that damage.

(04:25)
And I used to be simply so glad to have that muscle and energy that I had constructed earlier than to attract on. And I used to be positively thanking my previous self for all her onerous work. Let me let you know, (snigger). So anyway, after I used to be kind of checking in on my energy with the grip energy check, it acquired me fascinated by the opposite issues we wish to verify in with ourselves on periodically in terms of our energy and our mobility, as a result of we additionally wanna have robust legs, a robust core, good flexibility, and a strong potential to steadiness as we age. One well-liked check you might even see on-line that basically targets all of these issues is the sit to face or sit to rise check. A examine revealed within the European Journal of Preventative Cardiology assessed over 2000 adults, over 50 years previous, performing this check, they usually discovered that these with decrease scores had larger mortality charges from any trigger, and other people with larger scores had longer survival charges.

(05:24)
Now, this check actually sizes up the energy in our glutes, our hamstrings, interior and outer thigh muscle mass, plus our mobility, our steadiness, and our coordination and our core. So you are able to do this one proper now if you wish to, and when you’re watching the video model of this podcast on the present notes web page on my weblog or on my YouTube channel, you may see an indication, however you may as well simply pay attention alongside ’trigger I’ll clarify it. There are two elements to this check. One is the sitting down and the second is the standing up. We’ll begin out with 5 factors for every a part of the check for a complete of 10 factors. We’re gonna begin out standing, after which we’re gonna sit down cross-legged on the ground utilizing as few factors of contact with the ground as potential to convey ourselves down, which means your fingers, knees, elbows, or some other a part of your physique utilizing as few of these physique elements as potential to convey your self all the way down to that seated place.

(06:15)
And we begin with these 5 factors and we deduct some extent for each level of contact that we have to use to convey ourselves down into that seated cross-legged place. Now, half two of this check is to face up from that cross-legged place utilizing as little assist as potential from our fingers, knees, elbows, or different factors of contact with the ground. And as soon as once more, you begin with 5 factors and also you deduct some extent for each level of contact you must use that can assist you get up. So when you’re someplace that you are able to do this, go forward and check out it out and make sure that you’re subsequent to some furnishings so to attain out to assist your self. We’re simply assessing the place we’re at. Simply discover if you must put a hand down, if you must use your knees to come back up, or when you felt stiff or had bother being within the cross-legged place and coming into it or out of it, how did you do?

(07:03)
Now you’re gonna take your factors from every half and add them collectively to see the place you fall on that complete one to 10 scale. And when you wanted to make use of some assist to convey your self up, do not forget that’s okay. The purpose of the check is to simply discover out the place we have to focus. We want loads of flexibility in our tissue and mobility round our joints to come back from a seated place to standing or from a standing place again to seated because the legs are bent and the tissue that crosses over the joint areas of our hips, ankles, and knees, all wants to have the ability to transfer freely. We want loads of leg and core energy as all of these muscle teams work collectively to assist us stand up and are available down. And we want steadiness, potential, and coordination, loads of which comes from our core energy to assist us in that in-between part proper of the stand or the sit.

(07:54)
Now, when you discovered that you just struggled with this one, that’s completely regular. It simply could also be that you must work in your flexibility somewhat extra and simply perhaps begin stretching round your exercises extra constantly. As we age, we lose our collagen and our elastin and the issues that assist us be extra limber. Our ligaments develop into much less compliant as our estrogen ranges go down. So getting somewhat extra proactive about your self-care round your exercises, whether or not it’s a 3 minute warmup the place you’re simply transferring dynamically and even doing a number of the strikes out of your exercise with your personal physique weight, otherwise you’re doing say a 5 minute stretch after you prepare with these heat muscle mass, otherwise you’re including somewhat yoga or mobility work on a few of your relaxation days all through the week like we do in all the Betty Rocker packages.

(08:39)
That may be a good way to enhance your joint well being and actually maintain your physique limber and unfastened and together with flexibility, a number of the workouts that may actually enhance all of these areas of your physique that assist with sitting and standing embody strikes just like the it’s, this one’s acquired a few names, the knee drop lunge, which is often known as the prisoner squat. And that’s the place you place your fingers behind your head and also you decrease your self all the way down to a kneeling place and you then step proper again up once more, retaining your fingers again behind your head. And one other nice transfer that I really like to incorporate in my packages is the Turkish getup. That’s the place you begin out mendacity in your again with one arm straight up within the air, you carry your higher physique up virtually coming right into a situp utilizing your core energy, and you then convey your legs beneath you coming into both a kneeling lunge or a low squat, and you then come as much as a standing place holding your arm up overhead your entire time.

(09:35)
This transfer is an excellent spicy transfer, however it actually helps to strengthen all the things out of your rotator cuff to your core, your legs, glutes, and it helps enhance your steadiness and adaptability as you’re getting up from the ground and coming again all the way down to the ground. It’s a featured transfer within the Ripped Rockstar Problem sequence in Rock Your Life over the course of that specific problem sequence in elements one, two, and three, we repeatedly work to enhance our Turkish getup in a single exercise every week. That’s a extremely enjoyable program in Rock Your Life. You need to positively test it out, however one other nice physique weight transfer to enhance your sit to standability and maintain your steadiness flexibility core and legs robust is the burpee (snigger). That’s the place we convey ourselves all the way down to a plank pose, do a pushup, leap to our toes, after which leap up within the air after which we repeat it.

(10:24)
Everybody likes to hate the burpee, however I’ve actually come to like it for the versatile methods we will use it to enhance so many elements of our energy. You’ll see loads of actually enjoyable burpee variations in my challenges and packages. The whole lot from a low influence burpee to uh, one you are able to do along with your fingers elevated that can assist you construct up that energy. You are able to do a double leap burpee. That’s the place you’re gonna do two jumps on the high. You possibly can do a reverse burpee that when there’s no pushup in, however it’s additionally actually powerful to come back down and are available again up. After which there’s even a warrior burpee the place we add a mountain climber on the backside and two kicks on the high, proper. I began sweating simply fascinated by burpees, (snigger), however they’re simply such a tremendous transfer to essentially embody in your coaching commonly that basically helps you preserve so many essential elements of your health.

(11:14)
Now, these strikes I discussed, the prisoner squat, the Turkish getup and the burpee are all going that can assist you enhance your leg and core energy, plus enhance your potential to steadiness. And they’re going to all enable you to with that sit to face check, which isn’t actually why we’re coaching, however it’s a enjoyable strategy to check your self to ensure you’re staying on high of essential elements of your well being. Additionally they recruit loads of your posterior chain musculature when you’ve by no means encountered that time period. It simply refers back to the muscle mass that run up and down the again aspect of your physique, like your again, your glutes, your hamstrings, and your calves. And these muscle mass are all concerned in your potential to leap and steadiness and transfer effectively. And you will discover loads of enjoyable posterior chain particular exercise movies on my weblog on thebettyrocker.com, they usually’re additionally constructed into my Rock Your Life challenges and exercise packages. And leg energy specifically is so essential for us as ladies –

(12:08)
We feature over half of our skeletal muscle in our decrease physique. So actually retaining that a part of our physique robust is enormously essential for us. And do not forget that muscle tissue is what determines our resting metabolic price. AKA what number of energy or how a lot power you’re gonna burn even at relaxation. So the extra muscle we have now, the extra effectively we burn physique fats. And this is without doubt one of the causes it’s simpler to realize weight as we age and begin to lose our muscle tissue if we’re not taking steps to assist holding onto it. So a enjoyable check, you may attempt to assess your leg and core energy is a straightforward wall sit check. That is the place you’re going to brace your self towards the wall and decrease your self down so your knees are bent at a 90 diploma angle and your again is flat towards the wall.

(12:59)
You then’ll simply time your self to see how lengthy you may maintain this place. A fantastic benchmark to purpose for is a full minute, and it’s powerful. Something greater than that’s only a bonus and an indicator that you just’re actually robust. If you happen to’re less than a minute while you do the check, that’s a-okay. If you happen to can maintain it for 45 seconds, that’s nonetheless good. The common is 35 to 45 seconds. So something above common is nice. If you happen to’re under that, it’s simply one thing to work on, proper? There’s so many nice workouts that can assist you construct your leg energy like squats, deadlifts, lunges, and tons of variations of these as effectively. Beginning with physique weight variations all the best way as much as weighted choices, there are leaping and excessive influence workouts too that can strengthen your legs. And talking of leaping, one other actually enjoyable check you may attempt that can assess your leg energy is the standing broad leap check.

(13:52)
You may need executed this again in fitness center class or bear in mind measuring your leap size, however it’s an important evaluation of your energy potential, particularly in your glutes and legs. And it’s one the place we want loads of that posterior chain energy. Now, this check is usually executed for athletes who want their leg energy for his or her sport, however it’s additionally simply nice to verify in on ourselves and see the place we’re at too, as a result of explosive energy signifies that you’ve acquired loads of energy in your legs. So what you are able to do is lay out a tape measure, or you may merely put down markers for a number of toes or meters out and just remember to’re gonna do that on a giving floor like your garden or a mat. Do some warmup like some strolling lunges or some physique squats and a few excessive knees, and lay out your tape measure and are available to the zero finish along with your toes barely aside.

(14:40)
Swing your arms and bend your knees to assist in giving you as a lot ahead drive as you will get. And you then’re simply gonna leap as far ahead as you may and land on each toes with out falling backwards. Your distance is to the place you land in the back of your heels. You’re gonna make three makes an attempt and mark down your distance every time. The common distance for ladies is 5 toes, seven and a half inches to 5 toes 11 inches. Glorious is somewhat over six toes. If you happen to’re under the typical, that is simply an indicator to work on strengthening that posterior chain and the leg muscle mass generally. Among the finest methods to enhance your leg and glute energy are with energy coaching strikes. So you are able to do deadlifts, there are squats, there are hip thrusts, lunges, and people are all of the slower resistance coaching leg and glute strengthening strikes, that are wonderful on your leg energy.

(15:29)
However we will’t overlook the significance of plyometrics or explosive cardio strikes for growing the quick twitch muscle fibers that basically assist you have got the facility for brief, forceful contractions for strikes like a broad leap. So you may as well do strikes like leap squats, leap swap lunges, field jumps, sprints, and naturally, truly simply working towards broad jumps themselves. They’re such an important train, even while you’re not measuring how far you may go! And such a explosive leg energy and the muscle mass that it calls on is without doubt one of the causes we have now loads of plyometric strikes in my packages that basically steadiness out the resistance coaching. We wanna load the joints after which explode, which helps actually enhance our muscular energy. Like we had been saying, it boosts our bone density and it improves our cardiovascular well being. To not point out this type of explosive cardio actually improves our potential to steadiness and our agility and coordination.

(16:25)
Plus, it improves our mind-body connection and our day by day useful motion. So that is why I at all times have it in my packages, until they’re particularly labeled low influence. Like we have now a complete sequence of low influence challenges in Rock Your Life as a result of some folks do have to take the leaping out for various causes, however in any other case we’ve acquired it in there as a result of it’s so helpful. Now in terms of leaping and explosive motion, that is why I’m at all times going over type and alignment and really why I created the Free Foundations of Practical Health workshop sequence that can assist you take note of your physique mechanics. You will get that at thebettyrocker.com/fff/. If you happen to wanna seize that, similar to we don’t wanna load the joints with weight utilizing poor type, we don’t wanna leap or explosively transfer with misaligned hips or knees or ankles. And generally you don’t know you’re not aligned till one thing begins to harm.

(17:21)
However folks typically ignore early warning indicators and simply chalk them as much as being sore from their exercise. However our our bodies are dynamic and life takes a toll, whether or not it’s due to the aspect of your physique that’s dominant, otherwise you’ve had children otherwise you’ve been in a automotive accident or been injured sooner or later and needed to rehab and perhaps your physique developed some compensating kind of patterns. And people key joints can get out of alignment simply, like our hips, our shoulders, our spinal column, our si, and a lot extra. And if in case you have the chance to work with a bodily therapist or a motion practitioner who focuses on issues like gait evaluation or postural alignment, um, or optimization, simply periodically and proactively checking your type and alignment with these hands-on assessments could be actually helpful. And if previously you’ve had somebody provide you with corrective workouts and also you’ve stopped doing them, it could be that you just simply have to begin to convey these again into play to essentially assist your physique.

(18:17)
As a result of patterns are typically caught for a very long time. It actually does take a devoted effort to get the physique to maneuver the best way that we would like it to. Having anyone that can assist you with this type of stuff is like somebody holding up a really specialised mirror to your physique, and this can 100% enable you to keep away from damage and actually prepare safely over time. As a result of I’d say that in all probability one of the vital widespread causes folks really feel hesitant about leaping and doing explosive strikes as they age is as a result of both they’re nervous they’re gonna get harm or as a result of they’re having achy joints or aches and pains. And after we’re coaching, we at all times wanna respect the physique and never push it to a painful place, proper? We wanna take heed to these cues and again off if one thing hurts. Now, some nice methods to stop these points could be coaching on a extra aligned physique and staying extra versatile.

(19:11)
And this stuff may want somewhat extra consideration as we age, proper? It is perhaps that some hands-on care is required from a practitioner, or we have to dial in our type a bit extra in our coaching, or that perhaps somewhat extra stretching is required round our exercises, like we had been speaking about earlier than, is that may simply actually assist maintain the tissue round your joints extra pliable, enable you to along with your mobility and your flexibility. Typically folks ask me about cardio and peri or publish menopause as a result of they’ve heard that cardio is dangerous for us presently in our lives as a result of it elevates our cortisol. It is a nice query, and the reply is de facto essential to listen to if that is you. So primary, any kind of exercise that basically taxes your physique will elevate your cortisol and trigger a stress response in your physique.

(20:00)
That’s a extremely pure course of, and it’s why I speak about train being a wholesome stress. After we are wholesome, we problem the physique towards a load and it struggles proper? Then it will get stronger. Our cortisol goes up, whether or not we’re doing a tough resistance coaching exercise or a tough cardio exercise, the factor that adjustments within the menopause years is that we simply develop into extra delicate to the cortisol due to decrease hormone ranges. This is the reason all of my packages have customized coaching schedules for ladies in these life levels since you merely want somewhat extra restoration round your excessive quantity coaching so your physique can come again robust once more. In our biking years, these larger ranges of hormones give us extra resilience. Would we additionally profit from a extra balanced coaching schedule then too? Completely. We don’t wanna be driving ourselves into the bottom at any age, however we additionally get well quicker in our biking years.

(20:56)
So again to menopause and cardio. What actually wants to vary is the best way we use cardio. So primary, we wanna be sure we’ve acquired the resistance coaching as a foundational piece of our exercise programming, after which we’re including within the explosive cardio that has so many advantages for us. A wonderful thing about that explosive motion or plyometric coaching is that it’s quick in length usually. So you’re employed on it in brief intervals or bursts. This fashion, you get all these advantages with out straining your self. And we take applicable restoration round our excessive quantity coaching, whether or not it’s our cardio or our resistance coaching, and that is how you retain the stress to a stage you could successfully handle and also you get all the advantages that these explosive actions convey us. So to recap, on our leg energy assessments at the moment, we’ve gone over the sit to face check or sit to rise check.

(21:50)
We’ve coated the wall sit check, and we’ve coated the standing broad leap check. And all of those are going to evaluate your leg energy and energy in numerous methods, and likewise actually enable you to verify in with different essential well being markers which are important to our energy, like our flexibility and our steadiness and coordination. These are all nice to verify in with your self on periodically, and I’d after all love to listen to what you uncover and what you’re engaged on consequently. So you’ll want to drop me a line both on my weblog or on social media, on the present notes web page we’re, you recognize, we’re all works in progress and we have now our ups and downs in terms of getting robust and staying that approach. I’m no exception. I discussed earlier that my accident actually set me again and that it was nice to have the grip energy check as I used to be getting myself again and rebuilding my energy.

(22:39)
So it’s actually enjoyable to to check this stuff out and see the place we’re at and know that we will at all times get stronger if we do it safely, if we do it mindfully. So I actually sit up for listening to from you about no matter you study and any questions that you’ve got. And you will get all of the notes from at the moment’s episode over on the present notes web page on thebettyrocker.com, which incorporates the transcript and hyperlinks to something I’ve talked about and a video model of this episode. So thanks once more a lot for spending a while with me at the moment, and I sit up for persevering with this dialog. So until subsequent time, Rockstar, I’m Betty Rocker, and you’re so superior, flawsome and wonderful. I’ll discuss to you once more actual quickly. Bye for now.