Sometimes you feels inspired and creative and can’t wait to rock your workout. And sometimes you just want someone to tell you what to do. This workout was inspired by a beautiful morning when I couldn’t stand the thought of going to the gym. Instead I hit the beautiful Cedervale Ravine and along the way I designed this workout for you. It’s got: Continue reading The Cedarvale Ravine Challenge
Tag: workout
Exercises for Better Sex
Most of you know that I have the very fun job of being a Fitness Expert on the Steven and Chris show. As you will see in the video below, I absolutely love it. The silliness of the show is totally my vibe and Steven and Chris are just as hilarious to work with as you’d imagine.
So the way it works is that the producer will call me and say “Oonagh, we’re doing on show on stress reduction. Can you do a segment on exercises that help with stress?” And I’ll say sure and send the producer a few ideas. We’ll work together to come up with content that is entertaining enough for viewers to sit and watch on their couch but also gives them very practical and usable fitness tips. I’ll memorize a loose script, get my hair and makeup done and then then a couple of months later, my aunts who live in the prairies will be excited because they saw me on TV and I pretend to be all cool about it.
But I’ll be honest; when the producer called me and asked me to do an segment on exercises for better sex, I was immediately struck by a horrific premonition of me doing Happy Baby Pose on international TV.
Not to diss the producer’s idea; exercise in general is actually awesome for your sex life. Like, for example, committing to one of my awesome programs.Check it out:
- Regular exercise creates lean muscle, increasing your testosterone and therefore your libido
- Exercise can help prep you for the physical demands of sex. For 180lb man, 1 hour of sex is equal energy expenditure to 21 mins of boxing
- Activity improves blood circulation to ALL areas of the body
- Exercise reduces your ‘sexual age’. Sixty-year-olds who exercise frequently report having the same amount of sex and sexual pleasure as people decades younger.
- Being fit increases confidence
- Exercise itself can be very sexy. It’s thought that 5% of women orgasm during exercise. Sometimes called ‘coregasms’ (clever), most of these women report it happening during abdominal exercises. Like this:
I wasn’t super keen on demonstrating the coregasm on Steven and Chris. Instead, we went for an approach of specific exercises that would train the muscles primarily working during sex. Obviously, it got goofy…
(Let me know what you think in the comments below and feel free to share with all your sexy friends!)
Meet your Glutes!
Meet your Glutes!
Welcome to our first post in the ‘Meet a Muscle’ series! In this series, you can expect to be introduced to one of your muscle groups. You will learn:
- Where the muscle is
- What it does
- Why you should CARE
- How to train it
Why? Because knowledge is POWER.
And studies show that:
the more educated you are about exercise,
the more likely you are to adhere to exercise throughout your life.
So we are starting with that most trendy of muscle groups, our glutes!
What is it?
Your ‘glutes’ are actually a group of muscles; gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and the gluteus minimus. The glute maximus is the largest muscle in your body and the primary player here.
Here’s the anatomy:
And here’s the porn fitspo:
What do the the glutes actually do?
Your glutes are responsible for hip extension (ie. standing up, deadlifts), hyperextension (ie. kick your leg backwards, supermans) and abduction (ie. kicking out to the side, clamshells).
Why you should care
Many people don’t realize it but your glutes are considered part of your ‘core’ (pretty much anything that isn’t an appendage is part of your core). As such, they help balance and stabilize the body during almost every activity you do. At least, they should….
….But alot of people are suffering from ‘gluteal amnesia’
Wait…WHAT!?!
The term gluteal amnesia was coined by my favourite core training expert, Dr. Stuart McGill (he’s the reason we don’t bother with sit ups at our Bootcamps). It basically means your glutes have forgotten how to activate due to lack of use. Because we spend so much time sitting on our bums and not enough time walking and climbing stairs, our brains – those amazing computers of efficiency – decide to let those huge glute muscles go dormant. Which means that our hamstrings and lower back take over the job of extending the hip and stabilizing the pelvis. Which can lead to:
- lower back issues, ( including Disc Herniation)
- knee issues (including Patellofemoral pain Syndrome, IT Band Syndrome)
- hip pain (including Piriformis Syndrome)
- a challenge in pulling off the short shorts trend with dignity and grace:
I think I have gluteal amnesia! What do I do?
To address gluteal amnesia, we want to wake that lazy ass UP.
We do that through isolated glute activation exercises. These will remind our brains to fire off those awesome powerful muscles and reinforce the neuromuscular pathways that activate the glutes. The idea is to do these exercises before you train and really focus on how it feels to actively engage through the glutes. This way they get ‘switched on’ for the remainder of your workout. Here are a few exercises that will do the trick. Try 20 reps on each side for 2-3 sets as part of your warm up routine.
Then once you’ve activated the glutes, you can move on to more compound lower body movements (like squats and lunges and deadlifts, oh my!) and your glutes will be firing off like the fourth of July.
You’ll be all like
And if you really want to work your butt off (or, um, on) check out my signature GLUTE CHALLENGE. It’s a Fit Feels Good Bootcamp favourite!