I’ve been busy enough in the past few years and utilized practicing yoga at home, walking outside as my main source of exercise. However, my ribs keep popping out which creates a lot of pain. I mean PAIN. I know there are worse pain in the world but there are mornings I feel like my neck is going to snap, days where I hope I don’t sneeze, days where I can’t sit or stand and be run away from the shooting pain in my neck and shoulder.
Working all my back muscles will help, along with regular stretching throughout the day. I’ve had bad posture as a child and as much as I thought yoga would help, it hasn’t mainly because I don’t work the back muscles as much as I should during my practice. It also doesn’t help that I’m on a computer for most of my day.
I don’t like the gym because there are a ton of people, I feel stupid trying to use the weight machines and even free weights so I usually end up on a treadmill. Cardio, that’s it. Sometimes fitness classes but probably just yoga classes if that. I don’t feel like I fit in. After several visits to the chiropractor and asking a bunch of questions on what I am doing wrong, it all came down to building the muscles in the back, specifically the rhomboids. I looked up a few things on the internet, home exercises etc… and decided it was time to join a gym.
After joining the gym, they offered two free personal training sessions so I utilized this time to learn about exercises to work the back and use some of the machines properly. Kevin at Equinox was great in introducing me to some of the machines and exercises I could do to work the back and core (they kinda go hand in hand). I went home from my second session last night and started to research the internet looking for a plan for the next few weeks. A general plan to lean out for women. I couldn’t find an example that used machines. All I found were mat exercises that were high intensity which I could do at home. No thanks!
I wrote down the few exercises I learned from Kevin and the repetitions and weight it was set on. I’ll expand from there. He gave me a good amount of tips to work on pulling rather than pushing at this time. I know the lat pull down machine and I will become great friends. So cheers to no more weak sauce back for me!~
P.S. before the gym I had woken up every day very sore and cramped in my neck and shoulder. The day after the 2nd gym sesh with Kevin and working on my back and core a bit, I woke up this morning feeling no pain! Amen to that~
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