George is Back!
George is back!
George is our clinical specialist here at Marylebone Physiotherapy and Sports Medicine and he has just returned from travelling in Central America.
We often struggle to maintain good health practices when travelling, particularly in planes, trains and automobiles. We might be in hotels or bed & breakfast places that do not have a Gym or an open space in which to exercise.
So how did George maintain his Fitness whilst travelling?
George’s top 5 tips for travelling and staying healthy:
- Get up and move! – whether on planes, trains or automobiles the key is movement to avoid becoming chair-shaped
- Strength Exercises (when on the go) – Maintain your gains
- Movement practice – Think Movement NOT Muscles
- Plan & Prepare For Your Activity – From Sedentary to Athletic
- Fitness Testing on the Move – If you’re not assessing you’re guessing
Get up and move!:
The body is not meant to be in static positrons for longer than 30 minutes, so armed with this knowledge, George made sure to get up and move every 30 minutes in order to break the sitting habit and avoid tired, achy muscles.
Strength Exercises (when on the go) – Maintain your gains
In order to maintain his strength whilst travelling George used a series of simple but effective “Muscle Maintainers”
- Pyramid Press Ups
George performed this by Doing 1 Press up, then holding at the top of the movement for 1 second, (in order to challenge his stability) and this progressed to 2 press ups with a 2 second hold and so on. George normally gets up to 10 reps before he finds it challenging.
Movement Practice
When you’re on holiday you can go from lying on the beach to doing athletic activities like Surfing in a short space of time.
If you know you are going to do an activity later in the day then its worth practicing the movement a couple of times so you don’t have to go from zero to hero too quickly.
George would practice, “Popping up” on his Surf board on the beach before going into the water. This can also be performed as an exercise that is suitably named, “Surfers”
To perform a Surfer, you do a burpee, but rather than come up into the Squat position, you jump up as if on a Surfboard at a side angle, make sure to do both left and right sides.
Plan & Prepare For Your Activity
When George would go Surfing he made sure that he warmed up his body before the event. He analysed the task of Surfing and broke the movements down into their component parts.
The swimming, Popping up on the board and riding the waves.
Swimming requires upper body strength and endurance, especially of the shoulders, so, some simple arm circles and activation of the rotator cuff are a good idea before you hit the water and paddle like mad to catch that wave.
Fitness Testing on the Move
The Static Wall Sit is not only a great way of maintaining Quadriceps Strength/Endurance, but it is also a great physical test.
George would test himself by simply sitting against a wall with his knees at 90 degrees. He always aimed for 2 minutes which is quite the Quads burn!
The Plank is always a favourite for mid-line stabilisation. George would normally hold the Plank for 2 minutes.
How many Press Ups can you do in a minute?
This is a great test of upper body endurance.
About George
George is our resident expert for using objective markers to demonstrate success in his treatments. He is a results-driven Physiotherapist
His three tenants are Communication, Manual Therapy & Exercise.
George’s favourite is the VALD suite of measures. These consist of Force Platforms, Blood-Flow Restriction and Pressure Dyno-monitory.
If you would like to know more about how the VALD Products work book in with George at Marylebone or East London Physiotherapy & Sports Medicine