Exercise Program

Jul 31 2018

Personal Training Success In Santa Fe – Emilah

Personal Training Success Story

My name is Emilah DeToro, and I started with Solcore Fitness about 16 months ago, and I chose to work with Ekemba at Solcore because I was hindering myself in my daily life and in my yoga practice. And I really wanted to not be doing that anymore, I wanted to feel strong. I was in quite a bit of pain in my shoulders and neck, and so I thought that the ELDOA program and the work that Ekemba does really support strengthen my core and reducing the pain in my neck and shoulders.

So, I attended classes for all that 16 months…. 8 o’clock in the morning, and from that, it worked. I stopped injuring myself, I had a lot more strength. I often told the story of going out and using lemming saw to trim my trees about 8 months in and how much stronger my body felt. And so I found that I was more sturdy as I wanted to walk my dog and lot more often. And I just have a lot more energy to be in the world and to be physically active. And so, those were really the benefits for me. It just really woke me up and my body and my spirit too.

Why would you recommend us? Why would you recommend me?

I’d recommend Ekemba just to kind of… just strengthen your core as well as get your posture more aligned so that your body has more fluidity. So, if you are in pain, I think for me that was the big piece. I kept injuring myself, so if you want a more stable frame and to have less pain in your daily movements, that’s what I would recommend. People I would recommend to come here.

Great! Thank you Emilah. I appreciate it.

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Jun 21 2018

The Key To A Successful Health And Fitness Program

Are You Health And Fitness Pilars Balanced?

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Feb 14 2018

Pelvic Floor NOT Pelvic Door

Why Strengthening Your Pelvis Is A Really Good Idea

What do you think would happen to your house if your foundation was fragile and out of place? Everything above it would also fall. Your entire house would come tumbling down upon itself. To have a proper house you need a good foundation so that it doesn’t come tumbling down.

Then why wouldn’t you treat your body the same way? Why would you ignore your pelvic floor? The answer to this rhetorical question is that you should not ignore it. If you have any desire to have a balanced, strong body then training your pelvic floor is A MUST!

Unfortunately, there is information out there that says it is not that important. I whole-heartedly disagree. Take a look at the picture below. It is of a woman’s pelvis. I am using a woman’s pelvis because it is even more important for them to make sure their pelvis is balanced and strong.

Where it says “pubic symphysis” is the front of the body. And where it says Sacral Promontory this is the back of the body. You are looking from above down. Look at all the important contents in there. Gynecological system(part pictured, part not), rectum, bladder (not pictured). All these things are within the pelvis and need to be in the proper place to work correctly. If for example the pelvis is out of balance and the bladder gets twisted this could lead to the inability to fully expel all the urine and lead to a bladder infection.

What you don’t see is the contents above. GI tract, liver, stomach, spleen, heart, lungs, bla, bla, bla…. A lot! They all depend on the pelvic floor being in a good place and strong so as to not allow everything to fall down and in some cases out. It’s called a prolapse and it does not sound fun.

So How Do You Train the Pelvic Floor?

The first and easiest thing you can do is to do Kegel exercises throughout the day. Simply contract your perineum (like your holding your pee for women and men like your taking in a suppository) hold for a couple of beats then release. Do this as much as you can throughout the day.

Problem is this is where most programs stop. This is the incy wincy beginning of your program. This exercise will bring you good awareness and a little bit of strength to your perineum. This won’t develop a lot of strength, it won’t allow you to differentiate it with all the different muscles that work with it, it won’t strengthen the other muscles that are part of the pelvic floor and it won’t keep it balanced.

What Else Works with the Pelvic Floor?

The obturator internus and the Piriformis are both part of the pelvic floor and need to be strengthened as well. The 10 adductor muscles: inner thigh, 3 glutes, 4 layers of abs, the 4 different parts of the Psosas, and the diaphragm all have symbiotic relationships to the pelvic floor. They need to be trained to be able to work in harmony with the pelvic floor. ALL OF IT needs to have the proper amount of stretching so that they stay balanced and mobile.

Here are a couple of images to get you an idea of all the other muscles (not all pictured) that ALSO need to be trained:

If this sounds complex that is because the body is complex. There is no “do these 3 things and all is fixed.” But keep it simple at the start and do the Kegels. Then start to contract the muscles listed above that have a symbiotic relationship with it in sequence with the perineum. Learn to work the perineum independently of them. And learn what each feels like.

The main action point here is to realize that it is important and to start doing something about. You want your pelvic floor to be a floor not open like a door.

If you have any questions please reach out to us at info@solcorefitness.com or call us at 505-577-2171. Remember it’s not just working out. It’s building the foundation for a better life.

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Jan 29 2018

How to Sit Ergonomically and an Exercise to Help Your Shoulders

Sitting At Your Desk Like This Will Help Your Back and Neck Pain

How’s it going? It’s Ekemba from SolCore Fitness again, and I’ve gotten some questions about best posture for sitting. This could be in a desk or in a car. So there are some things you can do to have good posture. I start by saying that sitting, in general, is terrible, anything stagnant on your body is not good, it wants to move around, so that’s why this big shift towards standing desks has been okay, but now you have different problems. So instead of back problems, you have foot problems. Instead of hip problems, you have circulation problems.

Your body wants to move, so get up and move around a lot. Take a walk around the block, do some jumping jacks, move your body around a little bit, break up the time in between sitting down. When you are sitting, you have three main points. First and foremost, you want to look at the top third of the screen, that way then your neck doesn’t go to too much extension or flexion and throws your posture off and throws you spine off. The other two is you want your elbows and hips approximately 90 degrees, that way you don’t have too much compression at the hip and the elbow. And you can see this is a little bad for me, but again, I want to look at the top of the screen, so I’ll sacrifice that a little bit.

Use this Exercise to Open Up Your Shoulders

While you’re sitting there, you can move too. So in this posture, everything rounds, so I can open up my shoulder girdle with what’s called a five-part shoulder. It’s a movement to generally open up the whole shoulder girdle. You start by sitting forward in your chair, getting as tall as possible, reach your arms out to the side and try and push your arms away and try and touch either wall. Staying tall as you push your arms away from your body, you lift up to the ceiling and trying touch the ceiling. You push your arms forward in front of you allowing your shoulders to come down with you, and once they’re parallel, you do a row. You keep your upper arms by your side and you stay tall, you open the doors and close the doors, and you do one arm at a time, try to point towards your opposite shoulder blade, and then you go back out to the other side. So, here’s how it looks all together. Push lift, forward, down, row, open close, one arm at a time, reach and repeat.

Do it you know five to ten times provide periodically throughout the day, and you’ll notice, there are certain parts that are difficult, so opening up or bring your arm behind you, that says to you that you have specific areas you need to stretch. So the best thing I know is myofascial stretching ELDOA to open up different chains of muscles at different joints in your spine, so you sit with a little bit more with better posture. So try that five-part shoulder and good luck to you.

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Jan 22 2018

How Posture Effects Your Life

Structure Dictates Function

Hey Guys, This is Ekemba from Solcore Fitness again. Here to talk to you about how structure dictates function. So, we all think about having bad positions in our body, bad posture as having bad movements, and I tell you you’re only partially correct. Structure dictates all function. So, function has to do with how I move, how I feel, my hormones, my digestion, how I sleep.

Imagine a house, I want my house to be nice and good in structure. So, with that good structure, my house holds up the walls and the ceilings and it protects my family, and it seems to also lets my pipes run properly. It allows the heat to come in properly, allows everything to stay nice and balanced and a good homeostasis environment. It’s the same thing with your body. So, giving the example – we have what’s called kyphotic head forward posture – that right there, right? Now we can see that all the time because of our modern lifestyle, so with that posture, you can have issues with, of course, movements, right? I can’t lift my arm all the way up, right? I can’t look up without neck pain, back pain. If I have knee pain where the case is going to be, but at the same time, you have problems with your heart, your lungs, potentially your thyroid, blood flow that goes to your brain, all because of a bad posture.

Balance Your Structure to Have the Best Functioning Body

So, you know when looking for a workout program, if your goal is to be as balanced as possible to have a fully functioning body, then choose something that addresses all these different areas. There’s no easy fix, there’s no do these three things and you’ll achieve total success. You want to really dig in there and make sure everything is doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

So, good luck to you. Reach out for any more questions, and thanks again. Bye!

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