Meal Prep | Health and Fitness Beaufort

Meal Prep | Health and Fitness Beaufort

Published by on October 23, 2021 | Leave a response

What’s up EarthFIT fam? It’s Eli back with another nutrition video for you. And we’re covering a really fun topic today, one that’s very creative, one that I have a lot of passion for and you guys I think can get behind too. Today, we are talking about meal prep. Gonna talk, start off by talking about some of the misconceptions about meal prep. There’s three main ones, we’re gonna conquer those and then give you guys a good foundation in order to begin meal prepping yourself.

So the three common misconceptions, (1) the first one most commonly heard is eating the same meal four to five days in a row. We see it all over the internet, how easy it is, you know, you make your chicken, you put it in this side of the container. You make your rice, it goes in that little divider of the container, and then you make your broccoli and it goes in that side of the container. And then you get to eat that meal five more times that week. It’s pretty tough. That works for some people but that isn’t all meal prep is, it goes further than that. 

(2) The second misconception is that it’s bland and you get over the food quickly. That might not actually be a misconception. That might be the truth, because I would, if I’m the same way, if I had to eat chicken, rice and broccoli for five to six meals a week, I promise I would get tired of it too. So you can get creative with your meal prep. I promise…

(3) The third and final misconception is that meal prepping is expensive because you have to buy a lot of food in order to prepare for the remainder of the week, or you’re buying all that food. You’re making those four or five meals. You are eating those four or five meals only two or three times, and then it gets bland. You get over it, you toss some in the trash, it gets wasted and all you can think about is the expense. So those are the misconceptions. 

What meal prep really is. Let’s break that down. This is the fun stuff here. Meal prep is meal preparation. You are preparing your meals to push you towards your goals. Okay? So the reason why preparation follows meal is because we need to be prepared before we eat. If we are finding ourselves where we’re having to make split-second decisions on what meal we’re gonna have or what we’re gonna eat, there’s oftentimes we do not choose what is gonna push us towards our goal. Oftentimes we choose what is quick, convenient, and inexpensive. Unfortunately, that’s not a good plan to follow for longevity for sustainability. 

So preparation – meal prep, we just need to be in the mindset of that we are preparing a meal in advance to shoot us towards our goals, okay? So that we know what we need to eat when we need to eat it, to put towards the goal. So the other word that I like to follow with meal prep is we are meal prepping with a purpose. There is a purpose behind every meal that we eat. Oftentimes again, we are just looking for meals, making split second decisions and not thinking about the purpose. The fuel talks about balance in the last video. It’s very important if you miss so, I would love for you to go back and watch it, making sure that we’re hitting that balance, being making sure that that meal has a purpose and is serving a purpose that is pushing us towards that goal. 

So meal prep, meal prep with a purpose. What that looks like in my household? My meal prep is I sit down before I walk into the grocery store and I write down each meal, I’m going to eat. I am that kind of person. I can only eat leftovers for two maybe three meals after four, I’m done with it. I don’t want it anymore.Trust me, I’m right there with you. So what that looks like is Sunday night planning, Monday dinner, Tuesday dinner, Wednesday dinner, Thursday dinner for the rest of the week. The importance in this planning is that I’m planning my leftovers also. I know meals that make a lot. So what’ll happen is Monday night, I will plan a single night meal. Tuesday, Wednesday might be a leftover meal. Thursday, Friday might be a leftover meal right there. You just covered five days and you only making three meals, get creative with this. 

If making one meal, eating it four or five times throughout the week is your best option and your most consistent option, run with it. The most important part of meal preparation is that it is geared towards what works for you and that ranges for everybody. It’s different for everybody. So what I would love for you to do today is think about ways that you can meal prep for the following week. We’re looking for preparation and we’re looking for purpose behind our meals. So try to eliminate those split-second decisions. Try to plan ahead. Let’s prepare for meals that are gonna push us to a purpose of our goals.

Thank you guys for checking in today. If you have any more questions again, please ask ’em in the comments. Any more questions, please shoot me an email. Ask another coach around EarthFIT they would love to help you guys out. Thank you guys for tuning in today. We appreciate your time. Hope you guys have a wonderful rest of your day. Thank you.

-EarthFIT Coach Eli

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Nutrition: Why It's Important To Balance | Beaufort

Nutrition: Why It’s Important To Balance | Beaufort

Published by on October 22, 2021 | Leave a response

What’s up EarthFIT fam my name is Eli. If we haven’t formally met already, I’m one of the newest coaches here at EarthFIT. I studied nutrition and dietetics at Appalachian State University back home in North Carolina. I love food. I love fitness. I love that I’m very competitive in nature… that’s just a little bit of background about me. If we haven’t formally met, I would love to meet you further. Get your story in training.

While I’m standing in front of you today, we are rolling out a new nutrition series. So what I’m going to be doing is answering your nutrition questions. Whatever you have, whatever you need… If you hear something in one of these videos, if you need something from us, please drop your questions in the comments. Shoot me an email at eli@earthfittraining.com, ask Sam, ask your other trainers, but please make sure your questions get asked because there’s a very good chance that someone else has a very similar question to you or simply shares your question also.

So what we’re going to do today is we’re going to dive into a little bit of nutrition and dietetics. Just get our toes wet. If you hear something again today, please drop the questions, shoot me an email, and we will cover it in some of the remaining videos. So today what we’re going to talk about is simply balance – Nutrition Balance. The important part of balancing your nutrition with your lifestyle. We balance everything. We balance our checkbooks. We balance scales. We balance everything, but oftentimes the balance of our nutrition gets lost in our everyday lives. So I’m going to talk about three main points here. I would love for you to pick out one of these points and figure out which one maybe you should work on within the next week. The first point of balance for your nutrition is simply your ins and your outs, your calorie intake. 

Are you consuming enough calories? Are you over consuming calories? What happens is a lot of times you come into EarthFIT, you burn a lot of calories, pay attention to your MyZone, your Apple watch, your Fitbit, whatever tool you are using, pay attention to how many calories you burn during your workout. This is very important because it’s also important to remember an EarthFIT workout.

A training session in here is only 30 minutes, 45 (minutes) if you count the stretching. So if you think about it, if you burned 500 calories in 30 minutes and you came to the 5:30 AM class, you still have a whole day’s worth ahead of you, of energy that your body needs. So what happens is a lot of times we get caught in these calorie deficits. Deficits are good if you’re trying to lose weight, getting caught in a bad calorie deficit where you’re missing 5, 6, 700 calories a day is oftentimes where we see people plateau with their goals.

If you want to lose a little extra weight, if you want to get a little closer to your goal, a lot of times what’s happening is we just can’t get out of that calorie deficit. So pay attention to that. Look at it. I’m not asking you to count your calories down to the single one, but get a good estimate of what you’re taking in on a daily basis versus what you’re burning. How was it matching up? Are you replenishing enough fuel? Second aspect of balancing, balancing your macros. This can be a little bit more complicated and this pertains more particular to your goal. If you have a goal to gain muscle, you’re going to be balancing your macros, but you’re going to consume a little bit more protein. If your goal is just more energy throughout the day, good health might be very well balanced between carbs, fat and protein. 

The biggest thing to understand is that carbs, fat and protein are used from your body, from your head to your toes, in all kinds of bodily processes. If we chop one of those out and say, we’re no longer consuming fat, we are taking away a good aspect of things that occur within the body. And I can go over some of these things. If that’s a question, if you would like to ask, please drop it in the comments. Think about if you were to choose to not carbs completely out of your diet and that was lacking. Glucose – which is a simplest form of carbohydrate is your brain’s number one source of food. So this is why it’s important to balance because if you just decided to cut all carbs, no more carbs, your brain is going to be hungry. You might find yourself a little foggy headed. 

That’s why it’s important to balance. There are other bodily things that are happening throughout the day that use fat, protein, carbs. And it’s very important to keep them balanced so that you have enough energy and feel well throughout the day. The last and final thing about is making sure that you’re eating a balanced diet that you enjoy – a balance of good food, tasting food that you enjoy. We’re talking about taste and enjoyment, sustainability and longevity. I want you guys to be consuming food that you can continue to eat for a long time. I do not want anyone to be eating foods that they don’t like. We can find food that you do like healthy food that you do like, balancing that so that you’re not just eating sweets. You’re also finding a way to eat those healthy foods in the proper way. We want to make sure that everyone is balanced. Everyone is fueled. Everyone is properly ready to attain their goals here at EarthFIT. Thank you guys so much for your time. Again, most importantly, if you have any questions, please drop them in the comments. I want you guys to think about those three things as we move forward this week. Thank you guys so much for your time. Hope you guys have an awesome day.

-EarthFIT Coach Eli

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Core Engagement | Beaufort Fitness

Core Engagement | Beaufort Fitness

Published by on October 21, 2021 | Leave a response

Core Engagement | Beaufort Fitness

You’ve got questions? Hopefully I have the answer. In today’s Q and A. I’m gonna go over how to engage your core while you’re exercising. So a question was asked in the group, Sam, how do I engage my core while I’m lifting while I’m actually working out. I always hear you guys say engage your core, but how do I actually do it? So I’m gonna go through really two ways that we could do this. So first thing, the easiest way that I have clients get active to their core. Cause I always hear Sam I don’t, I don’t even have core muscles I don’t have any connection to ’em. How, how can I brace them? So I’m gonna show you that you guys do. So. I want everybody to follow along with me at home. Take your hand, put it on your stomach here. Cough. Make yourself force out a cough.

As you cough at the end of that cough, you’re gonna feel your belly get a little bit harder. The abs are gonna come out. So we want to do that. Okay. Now we want to practice taking a big breath in, pushing out without coughing. Now some of you are holding your breath, but you will have to learn over time. How to like right now I’m bracing my core and I’m talking to you guys really fast. You guys are gonna wanna learn over time, how to talk and breathe actually with your core brace, but for now big breath in keep those lips tight, push out. You give up the air out too and practice pushing right there. Okay. So that is actually how you’re gonna get your core fired up. Now, when we’re exercising, there’s really, we’re separated by lower body and upper body. We’re gonna start with the lower body first. 

So let’s say we’re doing a squat or a deadlift. How do we engage our core in those exercises? Again, you’re gonna go through that kind of make yourself cough, right? So you feel that get hard. Then you want to get practice beforehand. It’s good. If you get in and warm up and actually practice this a little bit. The other thing you can do is just put your hand on your belly, go in and out. Okay? So we’re getting lower body movement. Okay. We know how to push it out. Let’s say we unrack that bar or we pull up a dumbbell and we’re getting ready to goblet squat. As soon as I have this weight and about to go down, I’m gonna take a big breath in. I’m gonna push out. I’m gonna sit down nice and tight here, and then I’m gonna exhale. As I exhale, I’m still pushing my abs out and standing up.

That is how you would perform a lower body movement. If we were doing a deadlift, for example, big breath in, we wanna fill that belly up with air. That’s called a 360 breath. So as you breathe in, think about breathing through your belly, push out, roll it down, exhale, stand up. So that is how you kind of do it with lower body movements. 

Now, upper body movements. It actually starts in the feet. A lot of people will get this wrong because they’re feeling shoulder press or things like that in your back. You should not, you’re gonna go tripod foot. What does that mean? We hook our big toe into the ground. We actually try to hook it. Again if you’re at home, try to follow along with this… hook your big toe into the ground, and we’re gonna hook our pinky toe into the ground. 

So we should have both toes, those toes grabbing the ground which our heel should stay flat here. Okay. Bend our knees a little bit. Okay. And this is kind of the basis of how you’re gonna start for any overhead presses or upper body movements. Even if you’re benching, you’re laying back flat and you can do the same thing here. After we got that lower body, nice and stable, big breath in push the abs out right there. And then we’ll exhale, press up, inhale the way down, exhale, press up.

The entire time we’re trying to take our belly button we’re pushing it out and kind of down. So you want to think about tucking your ribcage down and pushing your belly button out. And that’s gonna be the best way to engage your core to keep you safe while you’re lifting, give you a couple bonus things you could do at home.

If you’re somebody that is a mom that has had children, you have really trouble kind of connecting to your core. You can do this exercise to work on kind of just connecting your core. So let’s just say you have a… I’m gonna bring my back up a little bit here. You have a nice arch here in your back. You fit your hand under it. All you want to do is practice pulling everything down.

So you wanna pull your belly button into the floor, just like that. And that’s gonna start the process of you actually getting into some of those deeper core muscles. So when you’re standing up doing those squats or overhead presses, you can actually connect your core. So a good recommendation for that would be like, do like three sets of 20 reps of pulling your belly button down to start to get that work in. All right. I threw a lot at you guys today. If you have any questions about that, drop it in the comments. If you’d like this video, gimme a thumbs up. If you loved it, gimme a heart and as always stay strong.

-EarthFIT Coach Sam

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Breakfast On The Go | Beaufort Fitness

Breakfast On The Go | Beaufort Fitness

Published by on October 14, 2021 | Leave a response

Hey EarthFIT fam! You have questions? Hopefully I have the answer. In today’s Q and A, we’re going to talk about getting breakfast on the go. What are some good options and what to look for? All right, let’s get right into it. So this question was asked by a client. They want to know what specifically they should be eating when they have to run, maybe they don’t have a lot of time to prepare ahead of time. It’s breakfast in the morning and they’re running out the door, they’re rushing out the door. What is a good go-to in that circumstance? So I’m going to start out by giving you my favorite answer to everything. It really depends. It depends on what your goals are, where you’re at in your fitness, what activity you’re going to do plays a big factor. So these are things you want to consider. 

For example, if you’re going to go and have a rigorous training session, it’s going to be a little bit different. What you’re going to want to grab on the go, as opposed to, if you’re going to sit on a couch for eight hours right after you leave the house, right? So it’s going to kind of depend, but for the sake of this video today, we’re going to talk about a standard client, just looking to lose body fat, trying to stick with their nutrition, going to work after they wake up in the morning, what would a good option be then running out the door. So really whenever we’re thinking about that, I like to narrow it down. I don’t want generally yes – Balanced meal. If you can get that and you have some options on the go, that would be perfect, but that’s not always feasible. 

So I really like to narrow it down to two macronutrients. That would be (1) protein and (2) fat. Why fat? Because if you’re just going to work, it’s going to keep you satiated throughout. It also has a lot of good things for your brain to help you focus. Protein is very important for building muscle supporting muscle growth. And both of them tend to satiate you more, which means you’re not going to be as hungry throughout your workday.

Breakfast On The Go | Beaufort Fitness

So what are some good, protein, fat options when you’re rushing out the door? I like Greek yogurt number one, very simple, simple, and easy to eat.

Protein powder strongly recommends having that in the house. That is a great option as well. If we’re looking at kind of fats and proteins combined, we’d be looking at things like eggs. You can make egg bites night before a little preparation here is going to go a long way, but let’s say you didn’t do that. Maybe you didn’t prepare those eggs. What can you do again? Greek yogurt is probably my favorite, protein powder. And really it doesn’t have to be just those breakfast foods, because if we think about it, breakfast is just another meal. So anything else that you have leftovers from the night before are perfect. Anything… don’t get stuck in this breakfast type of mode, especially if we’re out on the run. If you have things in your fridge already ready to go eat them.

So really it comes down to, try to prepare a little bit ahead of time. If you have any Greek yogurt, some protein powder, even like a protein shake is a good thing to grab on the go, it really gets you started out on the right foot in the morning, or just leftovers from the night before are probably going to be your easiest bet. 

No need to overcomplicate this one. Stick to a good protein source. I’ve made a lot of videos on what are good protein sources. Find one of those that’s easy, ready to grab and then head out the door, get ready to start your day. One other thing I would recommend with your go-to meal – drink a lot of water. A lot of people aren’t hitting their daily water requirements. A good little tactic that I like to use for clients is to set a daily water minimum. And this starts right at the first thing in the morning. So you’re rushing out that door, bare minimum, grab a you know, a big thing of water and have that to start your day. Nothing if all else fails. All right, that is all I have for you today. If you guys have any other questions, make sure you drop in the comments below. If you liked this video, give me a thumbs up. If you love it, give me a heart. And that is all I have as always stay strong.

-EarthFIT Coach Sam

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Neck Stretches | At Home Stretching Series

Neck Stretches | At Home Stretching Series

Published by on September 9, 2021 | Leave a response

Hey folks, Andrew here from EarthFIT wanted to bring you your neck stretches for at home. Amazing people who have migraines, neck pain in general, forward head lean things like that. This is part of the process for kind of rehabbing, but also helping yourself out a little bit.

Neck Stretches | At Home Stretching Series

What we’re gonna do is we’re actually gonna take one hand, place it underneath our butt and sit on it. The opposite hand goes up slowly, pulls our head down the side, nose forward, nose forward, head down to the side, to the same side here. This is the scalene were stretching, hold for 30 seconds. Deep breaths, and go a little bit more, but don’t try to crank your head downward, right? A light stretch is sufficient and we’ll get you good results. Then you switch sides both for 30 seconds. Do that morning and evening. And throughout your day, especially you computer workers and you drivers who had your head down and shoulders up and whatnot. 

Neck Stretches | At Home Stretching Series

Great for you to do your stretch that way. Obviously you want to hit the other side, the levator scapula, right? That’s going to be like this same exact positioning.

Neck Stretches | At Home Stretching Series

You’re going to turn your head to the opposite armpit or opposite shoulder, and then bring your head downward like this. You’re gonna feel kinda more of that back side of your neck. Amazing. If probably relieving right away when you do it, it’s an amazing stretch. Do that again. 30 seconds. Hold each side twice a day. And throughout your day, as you feel your neck pain, and then the bonus is neck rotation. I’m going to fast go, go nice and slow for neck rotations. And I’ll give you guys a lot more neck stretches along with shoulders and chest and lats and QL at the thoracic and lumbar and hips and knees and feet and ankles and calves. So much more to learn. I’ll see you guys on the other side.

-EarthFIT Coach Andrew

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QL Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

QL Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

Published by on September 8, 2021 | Leave a response

QL Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

Hey everybody! Andrew here, coach at EarthFIT. Welcome to another series of stretches. This one’s going to focus on our Quadratus Lumborum and our Lats.

QL Stretch | At Home Stretching Series
QL Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

A Lot of people who sit all day long with bad posture, but also who are active all day long or are golfers, are tennis players who rotate right a lot, runners who rotate those hips, move those hips for running and things like that. The lats and the QL are going to be very tight for us, causing a lot of issues.

QL Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

So what we’re going to do is take one hand placed on top of our head, right? Just like this. Then the opposite hand reaches across our body and holds on to our thigh. And we’re going to lean towards that one side, which is opposite of our elbow that’s up here and we’re going to hold on to our thigh here as we lean to the opposite side, you need to feel that stretch all the way down here. Now for me, I want to get an extra lats stretch.

So I only bring my shoulder and my hand all the way back behind here. As you can see for that extra lat stretch, as it leans to that one side and do 30 seconds, maybe three rounds of that on one side, 30 seconds, three rounds of that on the opposite side for those extra stretches. Do that night and day, you’ll feel amazing and a lot better off.

-EarthFIT Coach Andrew

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Chest Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

Chest Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

Published by on September 1, 2021 | Leave a response

Chest Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

Hey everybody! Coach Andrew here, coming at you with another amazing at home stretch video. We’re focusing here today – chest and anterior delts anterior shoulder.

Chest Stretch | At Home Stretching Series
Chest Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

This is huge for posture bringing the shoulders down and back. We harp on it in our sessions all of the time, tight chest, tight shoulders cause a lot of pain, even in the lower back, the mid back and the upper back lot of neck issues too as well. I can go on forever, but if we have better posture and better positioning, our joint actions will become a lot easier, a lot better, a lot less painful. So chest, very important to stretch out. 

You’re going to get into a half kneeling position next to a bed or a couch, or even a chair you’re going to hinge at the hips, put your elbow, the closest elbow down on that surface. And you’re going to thoracically rotate, which is rotating upper body-wise outward away from the surface, keeping that elbow on the surface as an anchor so that you can actually stretch that same side chest and shoulder. I’ll show you another side too, as well.

Chest Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

We’re going to hold this for 30 seconds. Hold that stretch for 30 seconds, a maximum of two minutes per side night and day. And you’ll be well on your way for a lot of pain relief and a lot of better posture along with other things. So see you guys.

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Quad and TFL Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

Quad and TFL Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

Published by on August 31, 2021 | Leave a response

Quad and TFL Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

Hey everybody, coach Andrew here at EarthFIT bringing you another amazing stretch. This time it’s for your quads and some of the other deeper quad muscles that we have going on in our bodies.        

This is how we set this up, right? So we take a pillow for at home, of course, and a couch or the side of the bed. If you’re okay with this, you’re gonna first get into this kneeling position. 

Quad and TFL Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

And then I’m going to bend over, put my hands on the floor and put my foot up on the edge of that couch. Now I’m in this position, half kneeling, knee on a pillow and my ankle resting on the edge. So in order to get the quad to stretch out a little bit, all you have to do I mean, nice tall chest, right? Lean your hips back. But then you’re just going to slowly sit those hips or bring those hips backward towards your heel. You can definitely feel that quad stretch right there.

Quad and TFL Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

And then for a little, little extra bonus, all you have to do is bring the same side, arm straight up to the ceiling, and then you’re going to lunge/ lean forward. Don’t lean at the hips or the back, right? You’re just going to shift your weight forward, keeping your upper body straight upward until you feel the TFL (Tensor Fascia Latae), that hip flexor stretch in the front. So you kind of get in a double whammy feeling so you can do your quad stretch like this. Your hip flexor stretch like that for the interior side of your lower extremities. I’ll see you guys soon in the next video.

-EarthFIT Coach Andrew

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Piriformis Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

Piriformis Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

Published by on August 30, 2021 | Leave a response

Hey everybody! Andrew here, coach at EarthFIT bringing you amazing stretch at home series for your pesky piriformis, this muscle group attaches to the hip and the back. It does a lot of the work the glutes should be doing for you. If you have weak glutes, your piriformis is going to be very overactive, almost guaranteed, right? So this also caused a lot of pressure in the SI joint and hips, allowing sciatica to take place and lower back pain. So this is crucial for you to learn here.

Piriformis Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

What we’re going to do is you can grab a bed, a bench and couch, and you’re going to simply start out with putting an ankle in front of you, perpendicular to your body, and slowly bend that back knee dipping the hips straight down to the floor. This knee is going to start to lower towards the surface, and you’re going to feel that back, right, right about here in the piriformis, you want to hip hinge forward. You don’t want to round the shoulders. Again, you’re trying to protect that low back and have better posture here.

Piriformis Stretch | At Home Stretching Series

Now, if you’re not comfortable standing like that, because it doesn’t require a lot of strength and stability, then we’re going to lay on our back, ankle on top of our opposite knee, pulling the bottom of our opposite knee towards our chest. We’re using this leg here. That’s 90 degrees as leverage, pulling this knee backward, this shin backward towards my body. So I can feel the piriformis on the opposite side, right?

Here’s another variation to prone position. Some people like it, they do it a lot in Yoga. You’re going to bring that ankle right up the perpendicular. And then you’re slowly going to hip hinge and put pressure on the ankle a little bit, put pressure downward, at least until you feel that piriformis stretch kind of how to maybe finagle a little bit…

Now, find that kind of causing some knee pain, especially if you have an ACL or MCL issues and things like that, or just very tight calves, right? And we just kind of causes some knee pains. So you, you don’t have to do the pigeon pose, but also it causes a little too much of a stress sometimes. But anyway, hold each one of those for 30 seconds, two minutes max – morning and evening, you’ll be well on your way to alleviating some of those issues or just bettering your hip movements. See you later.

-EarthFIT Coach Andrew

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Hamstring Stretches | At Home Stretching Series

Hamstring Stretches | At Home Stretching Series

Published by on August 24, 2021 | Leave a response

Hamstring Stretches

Hey Everybody! Andrew here, coach at EarthFIT, bringing you your amazing hamstring stretch, done the right way. This is a technique that I use to get my hamstrings stretched out.

Hamstring Stretches | At Home Stretching Series

I use them a lot. We all do. They’re responsible for a lot of hip movement, knee extension. If you have tight hamstrings, a lot of people have poor knee extension. Like things like that. We don’t want that. We would use them in squatting, deadlifting, right? All that stuff.

So here’s how we do it. Grab a couch or a chair that’s stable, sturdy. We’re going to get a nice base of support here. We’re not going to be wobbly off balance or have something underneath our feet or anything like that. You’re going to bring your heel up on that surface, toes up to the ceiling to start with, you’re going to have a slight bend in your knee, but if you don’t have any knee issues and you’re okay with straightening out your knee all the way, please do that. It’s going to be a little bit easier to get into the stretch. You’re then tall chest, shoulders back. You’re going to hinge forward until you feel a 4/5 out of 10. In terms of that stretch in the hamstrings, the back of the legs. You’re not going to round your shoulders and bend over to try to touch your toes. That’s the wrong way, the wrong way to stretch your hamstrings. So many people do this. It’s not going to not work on your low back. 

Hamstring Stretches | At Home Stretching Series

Okay? So hinge forward. Feel that stretch then for the second stretch, all you’re going to do is externally rotate your hips. Your foot goes out meaning. Then you hinge, this is to get your semitendinosus and semimembranosus, the semi sisters. Those are the medial hamstring complex. Hold that, relax and breathe. And then you’re going to internally rotate your hip. Your foot is going to go inside, hinge forward again. I’m going to feel more of that lateral outside of the hamstring, which is your biceps femoris. You got to hit all three cause there’s three hamstring muscle complexes, right? You got to stretch all three of them. Hold for 30 seconds. Do not just do a quick boom boom, in and out. It’s not gonna work. It’s not going to help. You’re not gonna get the results you’re looking for. And then hold for a maximum two minutes per side in, and in the middle so you can get your hamstrings stretched out. I’ll see you in the next video, for your next stretch.

-EarthFIT Coach Andrew

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