Tail tucked

I have been dreadfully reticent in posting here lately, and for that I apologize. As I continue to slog through a very thankless job and contemplate near-future plans, most of my brain cells have been employed in getting caught up with profession-related literature and scheaming about how to inch my way towards newfound goals.

I was sick for the past couple of weeks. Mostly, my body was just flirting with illness, and then I spent two days in bed and was wrecked for a few days more after that. There wasn't much working out at that point. However, a dear friend of mine (who had the gall to move away because of "life" - pah!) would like me to put together a strength training routine for her to help with her running. This is a good thing, as it will get me researching weight training and coming up with fitness soloutions again.

Nutrition-wise, I've been both good and bad. Due to some unwise reading of bread bag labels, I've realized how horrendously our bread is packed with preservatives. the upshot of it is that I've started baking my own bread. 100% whole grainy goodness, fresh from the oven. I do it all by hand, no bread machine involved, as the end product is tastier and more attractive. Besides, kneading dough is both fun and cathartic. My condo smells like a bakery, and my husband is well pleased. Unfortunately, I've also succumbed to the delights of my freshly-baked bread and have been eating a little too much of it. After last night's batch, I packed back three good-sized slices slathered in honey with a bit of butter. It was heavenly. It was also a gigantic heap of carbs, which I didn't exactly need especially as I had just drunk two glasses of wine. I'm going to practice more self-restraint in the future. Happily, I've been getting accustomed to the bread baking, and slip-ups like this don't happen often.

That is all for now. I'm in a conference today, much to my delight, and only have a few more minutes before I need to dash to my Friday afternoon circuit training session (I missed the last two, thank-you-very-much worthless job) and then back to the conference.

Good idea: Freeweights and tubing

While perusing my usual morning watered-down-news-and-trashy-info website (also known as msn.ca), I came across a very interesting article about freeweight use. The article suggests using exercise tubing – also known as medical tubing – to enhance strength workouts that use dumbbells. How so? Simply by tying one end of the tubing to the dumbbell and the other end to something heavy and sturdy near the floor, like a couch leg.

What the tubing does is not only create additional resistance, but also create a line of tension and imbalance which you need to work against. In order to keep the dumbbell moving in a straight and smooth line, you need to engage a whole lot of muscles including deep stabilizers that you otherwise would not be working (or not working as hard). The end result is a harder workout that will tone more muscles. The full article and instructions is here:
Twice the Workout, Half the Time

I will definitely be giving this a try. It sounds like a sensible sort of twist on my usual strength training, and certainly will not require any extra time or effort on my part. What I also like about it is that it’s cheap, both in terms of money and time. As I’ve said many times, I dislike spending money on equipment and membership fees, and will rarely drop a dime on exercise outside of dance classes and the occasional practice DVD. I also dislike the cost in time that it takes to commute to gyms to use their equipment. But I do believe that a good pair or set of dumbbells is an excellent and cost-effective addition to any fitness budget. I use mine all the time, and they need not be fancy or expensive. And the tubing is incredibly inexpensive! The article suggests purchasing tubing from j/Fit fitness product supplier. Their tubes (with or without handles) are certainly inexpensive, but for even cheaper tubing without shipping cost, just trot down to a medical supply store and get a length of stretchy surgical or rehab tubing. I got some a few years ago when I was in physio for wonky shoulders, and it cost me something like $2 for a good two meters. I just tied loops on either end for handles, and it works exactly the same as those pricier fitness tubes and handles.

More On Feet: Strength and Flexibility

The previous post dealt with feet, and so shall this one. Moving from the technical and aesthetic to the practical, I've dug up some resources on how to improve your foot's strength and flexibility.

But first, a photo of the feet of yours truly:



I have to say, I've always rather liked my feet! But I digress...

Foot muscles aren't exactly the focus of most strength training programs. Why would they be? They just sort of...exist, somewhere at the bottom of our legs. You can't see the plantar muscles rippling with power, not like you can with a well-toned set of quads. You stand on them, you walk around on them, you tiptoe on them in releve while drawing attention to your pistoning hips. Poor little neglected feet!

Strengthening your feet

Standing on the balls of your feet requires quite a lot of strength, and not just from your calf and leg muscles. Look back to the anatomy pictures linked in my previous post and gander at the network of muscles running around that bony framework and up the ankle. You want to be able to dance in releve for extended periods? Better start training that foot - your extensor muscles must pull your toes back while the pereonial tibial helps stabilize the ankle so you don't roll. You want to execute moves with a lovely balletic point? Start building up your flexors so you can strongly pull your toes and arch your foot. There's a lot more happening in those two moves with a cohort of smaller muscles too.

Plies, releves, and all sorts of movements requiring you to raise and lower your body using your feet are excellent for developing foot strength. Should you wish to work on more explosive power, you may wish to practice springing and hopping moves wherein you focus on using your feet and ankles (as opposed to your knees and thighs) to power the jumps.

If you would like a bit of extra assistance with your foot strengthening routine, you may wish to invest in a chunk of rubber tubing or rubber sheeting (such as a theraband) to give you some resistance training. These sorts of materials are available very cheaply from medical supply stores. An excellent set of foot strengthening exercises using a theraband are detailed in the following articls:

Theraband Exercises: Three for your Feet"

Developing flexibility

Proper flexibility will help prevent painful injuries. While you want your muscles to be nice and stable to minimize the potential for rolling, you also want them to be supple enough to allow your feet to bobble and roll properly without pulling muscles or tearing tendons.

It is very likely that your dance and exercise activities, along with many daily activities, provide most of the foot flexibility you need. If you think your muscles are a bit tight, though, this YouTube video will give you some ideas for additional stretches. You can practice these with tennis balls or any surface that allows you to deeply stretch your feet. The individual in the video is using a more specialized type of equipment for her foot stretches, but anything that allows you to do that sort of exercise is just fine.



I also managed to dig up a very entertaining medical article admonishing tight-fitting shoes and their impact on foot flexibility. The article dates back to 1898, thus reinforcing the notion that the more things change, the more they stay the same!

The Flexibility of the Human Foot

Recently, I've noticed a reduction in the flexibility of my right big toe. For reasons that the folks at a local rehab and therapy clinic could not determine, my mobility in my right big toe is about 10 degrees less than in my left big toe. This makes training for Turkish drops rather difficult, as I simply can't bend my big toe far enough to make it all the way to the floor without snapping the wretched thing off. The occupational therapist who was examining my feet understood why I wanted to regain some flexibility in that joint, so he gave me this nifty looking contraption:



Because foot muscles and tendons are very, very tight and strong, I need to keep my toe in that flexed position for a very long time. Actually, I need to keep it like that for hours. This means I have to wear the splint to bed. Sexy! It doesn't really feel like it's doing anything when I'm wearing it, but we will see what the results are like in a few weeks. I can sleep through anything, so I'm certainly willing to give it a try.

More foot injuries, specifically for dancers!

I provided links to info about foot injuries in my last post, but I am a sucker for this sort of information. I came across a particularly good article that is geared towards us prancers, and it would be a shame not to share this gem:

Common Dance Injuries: The Foot and Ankle

Dance Legs

Ahh, the legs. Those marvellous stilts upon which we totter around, those pegs which are celebrated in paintings and porn; those poor things that are supposed to be sculpted out of creamy marble, waxed smooth, and bronzed to a lustrous sheen.

Ha! It’ll be a frosty day in hell before a waxing strip or a tanning bed comes close to my thighs, but I will boast to you all that I’ve got a lovely set of legs. What’s more, I only partially have genetics to thank for that.

I’ve got fabulous legs because, to be blunt, I need them to be that way for dance. It isn’t the need to have a lovely, well-shaped leg peeking out of the slit in my chiffon skirt that drives me to work on them. A dancer must have powerful legs if they: expect to have a smooth and effortless shimmy, wish to glide across the stage in relevé for five straight minutes, to do flawless standing-to-crouching-and-back level changes, or to (may the gods have mercy) draw themselves out of that Turkish Fold as though lifted by strings. These things take raw lower-body power, girls, and more than just a small amount of it.
So what sort of things should a belly dancer do in addition to her regular practice to whip those legs – and by extension, the glutes - into shape?

Well, you could follow Arnold’s example:


Arnold Schwarzenegger Legs Training - Watch the best video clips here

I, however, am both lazy and very selfish with my time. Thus, I have no intention on slaving away at a gym when I could slave away in the comfort of my own home with the company of my husband and his computer game related antics. So here is a series of targeted leg strength moves I use:

1. Bulgarian Split Squats
There are loads of squats you can do, from your regular standing squat where you move up and down, to you junior-high gymclass nightmare squat where you hold your back against the wall and come down to a sitting-in-a-chair position, and many, many more. I don’t usually do these squats. My personal favourite is the Bulgarian Split Squat.

This move is the granddaddy of all my leg workouts. They will blast your quads and glutes into shape like nothing else. First, find a couch, chair, bench, or something sturty of around seat-height. Stand with it behind you, close enough that you can rest one foot on it with your instep resting against the seat and your raised leg bent 90 degrees at the knee. Your supporting leg should be slightly in front of your body so that when you squat down it also bends at a 90 degree angle at the knee. To do the squat, bend until your front leg forms that 90 degree angle, then straighten back up. Do not bend your back. Do 3 sets of between 8 and 12 reps, depending on what you can handle.

For an easier squat, leave your arms by your sides or resting lightly on an object to help with your balance. When I first started doing these, I needed to use a dresser for balance, otherwise I’d fall over. To increase the strength workout, place your hands on top of your head (keeping your balance, of course!). To go even further, hold a pair of dumbbells/free-weights at your hips or – if you have one – a weight bar across your shoulders. To really pump things up, do the squats slowly: 3 counts down, hold for 2 counts, 3 counts up.

Here are some handy-dandy illustrations, courtesy of the Men’s Health website:
Bulgarian Split Squats Explained.

2. Pliés and relevés
These are a basic mainstay for dance training for a good reason. They work your quads like squats, but with proper posture and non-exaggerated turnout, also work the complex clot of muscles around your hips, glutes, inner thighs, and as an added bonus, your calves.

If you are uncertain what a plié or relevé is, check out the following website and video. It gives a pretty good run-down and demonstration of the move:
A Dancer’s Legs.

Lots of benefit can be gained from practicing pliés and relevés with varying stance widths. Widening your stance from heels together to shoulder width, to one-and-a-half shoulder widths and completing sets of repetitions in each is very beneficial and will target different areas in your leg. Always maintain correct posture: glutes and abs strong and engaged, back straight, shoulders down, knees bending over the centre of the toes. Like the squats, you can increase the difficulty of the move by changing arm positions, adding hand weights, and slowing down the movement.

3. Cycling
Okay, so this isn’t an at-home type of exercise. But part of the reason why I love it is that it turns my daily commute into a great cardio and leg-targeted workout.* Multitasking commutes and workouts is fantastic, and due to traffic I actually get to work faster by cycling than by driving.** Plus, it doesn’t involve going to the gym, unless you cycle there, and there’s a whole lot of people with an bike rusting away in their garage, lamenting its lack of use.

4. Sitting to Kneeling Rises

There must be a better name for these, but I don’t know what it is. Essentially, you start by kneeling on the floor with your legs spread apart a bit and sitting on your heels. Then, with your back very straight and still and your arms out at shoulder level, you rise from sitting to kneeling, then lower back down again. Do this slowly, and do it many, many times. This is the single best move to building up enough strength to lower into and rise out of Turkish Folds.

Once you build up some strength, you can change from lowering into a sitting position to holding your back in line with your hips, and your hips in line with your knees, and lowering your entire torso into a backwards lean (like a plank that’s hinged to the floor), and then rising up out of it. If you have knee problems, be very careful – there is no pretending that this isn’t hard on the knees.

So there you have it: a toolkit to lead you towards marble-sculpted legs and improved strength for dance. Don’t forget to stretch afterwards, kids: it’s hard to shimmy when your hips and knees have fused to your femurs!


*Okay, I admit that I don’t cycle every day. If I have an appointment to run to after work or if I’m not feeling well I will drive in and walk the 8 blocks from the closest free parking spot to my office. Once the snow flies, that’ll be the end of cycling until the ice melts, so I’ll have to bus in earlier and make up for the lost exercise by going to the campus gym (membership fees are mandatory through our union dues, so I might as well use ‘em).

**I also feel as though I’m doing the morning commuters a favour by providing roadside entertainment. I’m a phenomenally clumsy cyclist and the results of my efforts are akin to a moving sideshow. I’ll tell you about it in a future post.