Old Fashioned On Purpose

S16: E2: Fit for the Farm: Practical Fitness Tips for Homesteaders

• Season 16 • Episode 2

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We homesteaders often joke about our farms being our gym, but what do you do when homestead chores are causing you pain? And how can we ensure that we stay physically fit as long as possible to keep pursuing this lifestyle we love so much?

Functional Strength and Fitness Coach Rory O'Brien is joining me today to answer these questions and more. We talk about how our modern muscles can suffer from "amnesia," a 10-15 minute routine you can weave into your busy days, how to build a minimalist home gym, and lots more!

Podcast Episode Highlights

  • Rory O'Brien's background and interest in functional fitness
  • Pros and cons in the physical aspects of the homestead lifestyle
  • Issues that modern life can put on our bodies
  • How to eliminate "modern amnesia" in our bodies
  • How to add exercises to your day
  • Benefits of functional fitness for homesteaders
  • Myths and reality about movement
  • Examples of practical routines for homesteaders to add to their daily lives
  • How to build a minimalist home gym
  • How to reduce specific injuries from happening

Resources Mentioned in This Podcast Episode:

Learn more about Rory O'Brien here: www.iamguardianstrong.com and https://www.instagram.com/guardianstrongfitness/

Learn more about Air Doctor here: airdoctorpro.com

  • Use code HOMESTEAD to save up to $300 on your air doctor system

OTHER HELPFUL RESOURCES FOR YOUR HOMESTEAD:


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Jill Winger:

So there's a common phrase that I hear floating around the homestead world quite frequently, and I've said it myself, and it goes something along the lines of, Oh my goodness, I don't need a gym. I have a farm. That's all I need. I do the farm workout. And a lot of the times I think that is absolutely true. When you are hauling water or bucking hay or planting your garden, there's a good amount of physicality involved in this old fashioned life that we all are chasing. But I've really become interested the last few years, especially in expanding my movement, especially when we think about how sedentary we are as a culture and how the industrialization that we talk so much about on this show has really set us up for failure in that regard. We don't have movement built into our days like we used to, and that creates a lot of problems for us, especially as we age or we're trying to bring some of those functional movements back into our life. It can cause injuries and problems. And when we start to do the farm chores after maybe some sedentary lifestyle prior to that sometimes we just run into some roadblocks. And so I'm really excited to be tackling this topic today. Something I've been wanting to talk about for a while. And I have. The perfect guest to chat about it with me, Rory O'Brien is a strength and conditioning specialist. He's the founder of Guardian Strength and Conditioning. He holds multiple fitness certificates and he also does a little bit of homesteading. So he understands the lifestyle. He understands what we're up against, and he has a lot of good advice on this topic. So welcome Rory.

Guest:

Thank you. Very happy to be here.

Jill Winger:

Yeah. Give us a little bit of your background and why you're interested in this world, especially because when you reached out to me, you really were talking about that functional fitness, which is really got my attention to speak in my language. So I'd love to hear just a little bit of your background here.

Guest:

Absolutely. Yeah. So I born and raised in the Pacific Northwest in Oregon. For those of you who haven't ever been this way outside of the big cities, and we consider 150, 000 a big city it's pretty much country pretty rural small towns, things like that and so I was fortunate enough to grow up around a lot of nature. And that kind of instilled a love just for both the outdoors and an old fashioned kind of approach to life. I've never really been a fan of the, hustle and bustle of modern life. I'm much more comfortable In a small town, medium sized town out in the country than in a big city like Portland or Seattle. And so that's something that's always been a big part of my life is looking at looking up at the mountains and just thinking, wow this is where I want to be being able to really coat the coast. And our beaches are very unpopulated and things like that here. So we really just do get to enjoy a lot of. A lot of slow paced nature. And that combined with my love of exercise, of sports, strength and conditioning. Those two things have been two of the biggest loves biggest passions in my life. And incredibly excited to, to be talking with you about this today. Because it's bringing together two passions and Been able to work in the strength and condition world a lot and work with law enforcement now and things like that. And so being able to help people maximize their ability just to move well, to feel well that's something I'm really passionate about, so I'm really excited to talk to you about this today.

Jill Winger:

Yeah, me too. Me too. I think your perspective is really valuable from having a foot in both worlds. So from your experience in the homestead lifestyle and what you know about it and what you've, how you've participated in it, what are some of the pros and cons that you see when it comes to the physical activity and the physicality that's associated with this lifestyle?

Guest:

Absolutely. And like you mentioned, there, there's a, Automatic benefit in just carrying heavy things around all day just moving. And that's something that we don't often get in, the busyness of everyday life in a bigger town, a bigger city. And so that's definitely a huge benefit. But something that we always look at in, in the exercise science world is if we're doing a repetitive task all the time, sometimes we can set ourselves up for. Overuse injuries. For example, if I'm always bending down, weeding my garden, things like that I can put my back in some compromised positions in a repeated fashion and so I might need to do some things in terms of corrective exercise some functional corrective exercise that can help reduce the risk of straining my back and things like that. And then also, like you mentioned especially if we come from a very sedentary lifestyle and then go into the homestead world all of a sudden, you've got this little mini farm that you're working but you had an office job for the last 20 years and sat a lot that can create a lot of issues for my body that right away. I'm thinking my body's kind of thinking, Oh, what do I do with all this movement? There's bending. I'm used to sitting all the time. And so certain muscles are tight. Certain muscles are too loose, that kind of thing. And so we can do a lot of. Preventative measures if we have a functional fitness, intentional fitness approach that's going to look at, for example, if I'm sitting all the time, my hip flexor muscles in the front of my hip, probably super, super tight my glutes probably forgot what, how to do their job. And so whenever I'm hinging up and down, bending at the waist I might be using my low back instead of my glutes. And something we see a lot is. back injuries when that happens. And I think one of the biggest benefits just for kind of an intentional approach to fitness would simply be that we're going to help alleviate a lot of the overuse injuries and a lot of the injuries that we might get because of a former sedentary lifestyle.

Jill Winger:

Yes, absolutely. So I love what you're saying. Like you mentioned the type. Tight hip flexors, the glutes, you might be feeling some of that. Just to drill down into that a little bit more, let's say someone is coming from pretty normal modern sedentary life. They've had an office job and now all of a sudden they are with, they have a mini farm, they're hauling water, they're moving hay. What are some of the Places in their body where they're going to be feeling that the most like potentially where that modern life has set them up for failure as they make that transition.

Guest:

Yeah, so I think the main two things that stick out to me looking at that would be really tight hip flexors and the low back taking on a lot more load than it's designed to do. We actually have a term in the strength and conditioning physical therapy world called gluteal amnesia. And it sounds like a silly phrase but it's actually like our glutes have forgotten what to do. And that's strongest, strongest skeletal muscle in the body. It's supposed to, hinge and extend the hip. But when we sit for so long, those muscles turn off. And then we spend a lot of time bending and picking things up off the ground. And the low back muscles, which are just meant to be stabilizers, they try to be the main movers and they get really strained because they're just not made for that heavy of a load. And so that's the, one of the main things that I think we would probably run into would be trying to loosen those hip flexors up for someone. and then get the glutes to wake up and remember their role so that when I'm picking things up off the ground or bending down I'm not straining my low back.

Jill Winger:

Okay. Yeah. That's interesting. That gluteal amnesia. That makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. First

Guest:

time I saw that term, I was like, wait, are they just kidding around? And then you hear it a lot in this world and. And so I'm like, all right, this is a real thing.

Jill Winger:

I feel like we have amnesia a lot with our, in our bodies and our relation to our bodies. And when we look at industrialization and we've lost a lot of that. So that's an interesting piece. I think I haven't thought about before. Okay. Awesome. So I would love, let's just get right into the details here. Like in that case, in particular, since we're talking about it, how do we wake it back up? How do we eliminate that amnesia? How do we start getting those muscles to be like, Hey, we need you.

Guest:

Absolutely. Yeah. So there, there are a lot of really good kind of glute activation drills that that people use in low back rehab, especially that we can utilize in this sphere as well. Of the, one of the main things we can do is literally just teach the glutes to function again. And so the thing I always go back to if I determine somebody needs to wake those glutes up is usually just a hip bridge on the ground. So I'm laying on my back, knees are bent, feet flat on the ground. And then basically hinging my body up into a straight kind of straight diagonal line from my knees down to my shoulder blades, which are on the ground and really focusing intentionally on activating the glutes to do that hinge motion up. Because what we see a lot is in that type of movement, which is, and that's actually the same movement pattern as a deadlift, picking something up off the ground, whether it's a hay bale or whatever it might be. The low back muscles. Often will turn on before the glutes. And that's where we get a lot of that strain going on. And doing a simple little drill, like a hip lift off the ground really intentionally using the glutes, squeezing the glutes, activating those glutes and, maybe holding for a couple of seconds at the top. Coming back down to the ground going back up at each time. I'm driving up into a diagonal straight line I'm really focusing on using those glutes That's one of the kind of the awkward things that I've got to say as a strength coach often is you just got to use your glutes that's what it comes down to a lot in terms of reteaching the body how to move correctly without putting a lot of strain on the low back. So that would be, that's one of the things I like to use a lot with people. It's just that simple hip lift exercise off the ground. And then also stretching the hip flexors out. And so an easy one that we can do to stretch those out is to just get into a half kneeling position. One knee up, one knee on the ground, and then basically hit, bend the whole body forward torso as well, so I'm not arching the low back and just hold it there, in a good little stretch for about 30, 45 seconds. And if I do that often enough in combination with those glute activation hip lifts. I can start to turn the tables on that kind of dysfunction there when it comes to hip flexors and glutes.

Jill Winger:

So I love the idea of the hip bridge and the hip flexor exercise that you mentioned. So We can do those exercises. Is this also something we just, as much as possible, need to be thinking about during the day as we're, cleaning the house and doing the chores, just like thinking about those muscles. We have that mind and muscle connection, or is it really important to just focus on mostly the exercises primarily?

Guest:

It's a that's a great point is definitely both. And so really intentionally using those exercises to really teach the body in that moment to repattern things. But then also I'm going about my day, picking up my kids, picking something up off the ground thinking about using the glutes to power that, that hinge motion of the hips. When I'm, I always think about that cause I've been battling a lot of back injuries and things like that. And so whenever I'm picking up my two year old I really think I've got to still think about it. And so I just bend down, think about glute activation as I come up, hold him. And then when I'm holding and walking around, I'm thinking about keeping my core not super flexed and tense, but I'm thinking about keeping my core just mildly activated just so that I'm not starting to arch my back, put my back in some compromised positions. So that's a absolutely great point you bring up. Thinking about that throughout the day, especially that glute activation, as I'm picking something up off the ground that can really do a lot of wonders in terms of preventing some of those muscle strains in the low back.

Jill Winger:

Yeah. And I can, I'm just picturing chores or gardening and how many times we've been over to pick something up. So that's a lot of opportunities. If you can get that mode. I'm going to be thinking about that. A lot of opportunity there. So since we're on the topic of glutes, what about squats? How do you feel like that? Is that going to help with the amnesia or is that just something that's going to build as we, once we already have those muscles activated?

Guest:

That can definitely help with the amnesia. I think probably most beneficial usually to start with the hip lifts in terms of not necessarily doing those for two weeks before you go to squats, but even just doing a set of those. Before you move on to the squats, it's a little easier to if you're having trouble activating the glutes, it's a little easier to start with a more of a basic. Movement like a hip lift. And then to go to a squat because then the glutes are starting to wake up and then it's a little easier to think about that as I'm squatting down. When I come back up out of that squat, I'm using the glutes to drive that upward motion of my body. And so that can be a great. Combo there. Because we use a squat motion all the time. Something that we're always were great out when we're one years old. But then we lose it over time. And so getting that back if we've lost it or keeping it there. If we've been able to maintain it, it is definitely very important.

Jill Winger:

Yes, absolutely. Okay. I love that. What are some other examples of how functional fitness may be benefiting someone who's engaged in homesitting? I'm just trying to, if we're, if I'm trying, I'm thinking, I'm trying to convince somebody that this is worth their time to dig into what, how can we pitch this to them? How can we sell them?

Guest:

For sure. For sure. So one of the main things I think about a lot with with household chores, farm chores, things like that is that. If I don't prepare my body for these types of repetitive movements unfortunately I'm setting myself up for a lot of injuries. Whether it's the shoulder, whether it's the low back knees can't tell you how many people I've talked to who have sore knees, sore backs, just all throughout society. And so if we want to reduce the likelihood of these or to reduce the severity of these, if we struggle with these to begin with. It's going to make everything we do tour wise 10 times easier. Because how great would it be to be able to go throughout our day instead of a 6 out of 10 on a pain scale with my knees, let's bump it down to a 3 or even a 2. Let's try to eliminate that as much as we can, if not all together. And so one of the main things I think is really important is we can reduce a lot of chronic pain. Simply through using good, corrective, functional exercise. And then we can also reduce the risk of more injuries. The last thing someone who is involved in homesteading wants is an injury that's going to lay them up and not allow them to do, to go about their work. And so injury prevention, injury reduction is one of the best benefits of functional training. We always talk about that in the The sport world and the kind of the tactical world is that yes, this is performance enhancing. It's going to help me run faster, jump higher, things like that, but it's also going to help me reduce the risk of injuries. And wanting to be able to keep living your lifestyle the way that you would like to with less pain and less injuries, I think, is a main one of the main benefits of getting even 2 or 3 times a week. Just getting some intentional exercise. Workouts in and that can really make a huge difference in terms of longevity of how long I'm able to do this. How long do I want to be able to carry my kids or my grandkids? Do I want my back to always hurt whenever I am carrying something heavy from, the barn to the house, that type of thing. And so we can really reduce a lot of the risk of injury, but just. Make ourselves more functional and be able to perform better, get less tired. There's a whole laundry list, I think of benefits to some, to intentional working out and to intentional fitness. And I think those would be a few of them.

Jill Winger:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like there's a little bit of a, shift, which is what this whole podcast is about. So I love this, but when I hear, when I talk to a lot of folks and I have to give a little bit of a caveat, because I know if you have an injury, let's say you have a, you've had a knee replacement, you're going to be, you're going to have to be mindful and careful with that. So you're going to be, taking that into consideration. But I see a lot with folks of all ages older folks, also middle aged that there's this idea that I need to not move or I need to not do certain exercises or certain movements because I'm preserving my body. And the more I understand, I feel like okay, I understand. We don't want to do stupid things like, use our back to lift something super heavy. But I'm also like, I feel like the movement is what keeps everything greased if you're moving in the right way. And that's how we actually preserve is through the movement and through the exercise versus I just hear so much of the mindset that, Oh don't carry that. Use the wheelbarrow or use the bucket, even if we're perfectly physically capable of carrying it because it's almost Oh, you don't want to use the muscles because we're trying to save them. I'm like no, we have to use the muscles to save them. So what are your thoughts on that perspective in our modern culture?

Guest:

Yeah, and I think that's very common. And that's why so often, I'll get all sorts of, newsletters from strength coaches and chiropractors and things like that. And one of the main themes constantly is movement is medicine. And we think of, I think, an extreme example. Of, not moving and losing our ability, our muscle, we look at when astronauts spend any decent amount of time up in space what happens, they lose their bone mass, they lose their muscle mass and when one of our astronauts, Kelly when he's, he spent, I think, over a year up on the space station, when he got back, I remember I was listening to his book, and he was describing how he could just barely walk when he got back And obviously that's an extreme example. But it does illustrate how if we don't use it, we end up losing it. And so that's something we were really, I think, pushing in the fitness world right now is movement is medicine. And the more that I'd move and again, safely, like you said, if someone's got a knee injury, we can work around that. There's lots of ways we can adapt things, adapt exercises, adapt chores, even to help not strain a certain part of the body. But we're really pushing that right now in the exercise and fitness world is if we want to stay healthy, we've got to move. And if muscles don't work they just get weak. They get tight, they get weak, we get muscular imbalances and those just lead to more injury. And so personally for me, like I've been battling joint disease for a decade and a half. And coming off a pretty, pretty bad back injury myself. And something that I have to always remember is even I wake up, usually I wake up with things hurting pretty bad. But I've just got to remind myself like laying down and staying in bed is literally the worst thing I can do for my body. And so I've got to get up. Usually I'll just get up, throw the tens unit on for 15 minutes, get that pain level down a little bit and then get to my physical therapy. because that's the thing that's going to help set me up for success throughout the rest of the day, loosening muscles that need to be loose, activating the ones that might've been underused. While injured that's the best thing I can do. And the worst thing I can do, and I've had physical therapists and chiropractors remind me this. The worst thing you can do, Rory is stop moving. Yeah. What's going to keep you moving and keep, you. Literally keep you moving and able to, do your job and care for your kids. Things like that is, is just keep moving. And so I think just thinking about that theme of movement is medicine and as you're able as you're able, if you've got an injury maybe going on a 15 minute walk is all you can manage right now, but that's awesome. And that's okay. And so we're always starting where we're at. But inserting some movement into whatever we're doing and that's going to be liver lubricant. It's going to lubricate our joints. It's going to get our muscles awake. It's going to keep our muscles from starting to atrophy. So I think just focusing on that movement is medicine can really help people just to get up and start going. Whatever you're able to do is going to be a benefit.

Jill Winger:

Absolutely. I'm just continually amazed. I'm really fascinated with aging right now and just watching the differences in aging and the 70 and 80 year olds who have always continued that movement, even with different injuries or back problems or whatever, they've just always, the ranchers are farmers and they're outside every day and they have to keep moving. Like they age so much differently. I'm just so fascinated by that. Just it's incredible. Yeah, absolutely. So we talked about the hip bridge and we talked about the hip flexor exercises. Can you give us a few more examples of some practical routines or exercises that homesteaders could weave into their daily lives to help with this?

Guest:

Absolutely. And I, maybe it might be helpful if I just give an example of a short little 10, 15 minute. Yeah. That somebody could do. So always important to warm up, right? And that warmup could involve, a brisk walk. It could be walking for 30 seconds, doing 10 jumping jacks, walking 30 seconds, doing that for three or four minutes to get the muscles loose, get some blood flowing and going through the body. So getting a little, at least a, two, three, four minute warmup in that can be really helpful. Things I really like for that are, even walking high knees just a brisk walk, jumping jacks. You can even do just a half jumping jack where you're moving one foot out and back in if jumping isn't quite, if you're not quite ready for a full full jumping jack yet. So after that warm up moving into some stabilization work can be really helpful. So maybe after that warm up I stand on my right leg for 30 seconds, left leg for 30 seconds. And if that's tough, we can bring it down to 15. We can have our hand against a wall just to. Guide myself on that. But waking up those stabilizer muscles can be really important. After getting the stabilizers awake. I like to move into some strength movements and we're at about, we're probably at only at about 5 minutes right now. And so even just that in and of itself would be a huge benefit to people. But we add something onto that warm up and we could go from a set of 10 hip lifts where I'm holding it two seconds with my glutes activated at the top for each one. I do a set of 10 of those. And then I do a 32nd front plank. And I do that two or three times back and forth from hip lift to plank, hip lift to plank. That way one side of the body gets to rest as the other one is working. And then after that I could go into some more strength exercises. So I could do squats. And if body weight squats are all I'm ready for right now, that's totally fine. Gonna do two or three sets of those sets of 10. And I can pair those with sets of 10 pushups. And something I like to remind people all the time if they struggle with normal pushups on the ground go ahead and bring those hands up on a counter or something like that, the back of a couch, the counter because that's gonna have the same effect as doing pushups on the knees. It's gonna make it a little easier. It allows my body to stay in a full line and to get a core activation as well. So just to recap, I could do quick little three, four minute warmup, jumping jacks and brisk walking. Then I can move into some balance stands on a single leg. And then after that, I could pair a couple sets of hip lifts with front planks and then go to some squats and pushups after that paired that same way. So that the lower body is resting. The upper body is working and vice versa on even just that quick little 12 15 minute workout. If we did that three times a week we'd start seeing some huge benefits right away in the first couple of weeks. And then that's something we can just build on intensity wise or duration wise, add some more reps, add some more sets, things like that. So that could be a good starting point, I think, for a lot of people especially if they're. They haven't worked out for a long time or they haven't really worked out much in general. That could be a good starting point, I think, for a lot of people.

Jill Winger:

Hey friends, so I'm interrupting this episode for just a second. to share something pretty cool with you. So I'll never forget the time many years ago when we visited a naturopathic doctor to talk about my husband Christian's allergies. He's dealt with them since he was a kid and he's kind of just one of those people who tends to be allergic to pretty much everything. And the doctor's recommendations was to put in a air filtration system in our house to stop working in dusty barns or outbuildings and to stop being around animals. And I walked away super frustrated because obviously If you know us, that's just not an option. We're going to have the animals, we're going to have the barns, we're not going to go live in a sterile house somewhere in a big city. So I kind of ignored those recommendations, but over the years since then, I've heard a lot of other naturopathic doctors and people in that space talk about the importance of having some sort of air filtration in your home. I just didn't really know how to do that, and I didn't like the thoughts of putting in a ginormous system that sounded really complicated and super expensive. So So I was really excited to come across AirDoctor. AirDoctor is a air filtration system that captures all of those super tiny contaminants that you can't see. Think things like dust, pollen, mold spores, pet dander, bacteria, viruses, and even things like ozone, gases, and VOCs. It's this little unit. You don't have to like hire an HVAC company to put it in. You just take it out of the box, plug it in, and off you go. And it has this thing called an Ultra HEPA filter that is proven to filter particles that are a hundred times smaller than a typical HEPA filter. So it's kind of like a HEPA on steroids. So we have ours in our bedroom because we spend more time there than any other room in the house. And I love knowing that at least for that period of time, especially during these summer months, our body is getting a break from the constant pollens and histamines and everything else that's floating around outside. And quite honestly, it's making us a little bit miserable, itchy eyes, runny nose, you know, the whole nine yards. So I'm excited for you to give it a try. If this is something you've been struggling with as well, AirDoctor comes with a 30 day money back guarantee. So if you don't love it, you just send it back for a refund minus shipping. And I have a promo code for you. If you use the code Homestead, you can save up to 300 on your AirDoctor system. So head on over to AirDoctorPro. com. That's A I R D O C. T O R P R O, airdoctorpro. com, and use the promo code homestead to give it a try. Now back to our episode. So I love that. And I'm curious, let's say if someone they're doing body weight to start and then if they want to start increasing I think that there's a perception that you have to have a gym membership to, to work out. And home gyms are more popular since the COVID era, but in your opinion, do you feel like. You, if you get a set of dumbbells, can you get what you need to get done at home if you're doing it properly and strategically what are your thoughts on that? Cause I know for me, the gym is a long ways away and for most, a lot of homesteaders, like we don't like to go to town, going to town gym's a huge deterrent. So what are your thoughts on that?

Guest:

Yeah, absolutely. That's, and that's a great point. Driving 35 minutes to get to the gym, working out and then sitting in the car for 35 minutes. Without getting stretched out or anything like that can it's a lot of time, but it's just also tough on the body to have to sit that long. So my kind of go to is for home gyms. If people want us, spend a few bucks on weights, and it doesn't have to get really expensive. But we could get 1 kettlebells are amazing implements. I can use that. I can hold them in front as like a goblet squat and do squats with those. I can hold them that way and do, I can do lunges, split squats. I can do overhead press with those. I can do bent over rows. I got, one hand on the back of the couch. I'm hinged real stable core glutes activated. I'm doing a single arm row with those kettlebells. Suitcase carries where you're just carrying one kettlebell back and forth and back and forth, which is, That's my favorite core exercise. I think I'd have to say so one or two kettlebells you can get just about every exercise in the book done with just a couple of kettlebells. And we could add some mini bands to that. Those thick bands that, you'll see people use a lot in physical therapy, put them around above their ankles and do those mini band walks back and forth. Those are great exercise for anyone to do, whether or not they're in physical therapy or whether or not they have any injuries. So even just having a few implements like kettlebells, a few dumbbells. Some bands. We can do just about everything we need to with those. But even without those, there's a lot of ways we can just use what we have around the house for to add extra weight. For example that exercise called the suitcase carry, where I've just got a dumbbell or kettlebell in one hand. We could literally fill a suitcase and just walk up and down the hallway or up and down the sidewalk. That type of thing could fill a backpack with books and hold it out in front of me and do squats. That way. I could, I could even hold that backpack and do overhead press. Something that if you've got toddlers, they will get an absolute kick out of is hold them and do squats with them. Or, squat to overhead throw and you're throwing them up and they get a squeal of delight and that's fun time and you don't have to even sacrifice working out time for playing with the kids so a lot of ways we can even just improvise Things at home. We just got to get creative and see what we can do but keeping That framework of what's something I can do to push a weight with my upper body. What's something I can do to pull away with my upper body. What's a squatting type movement I can do with my lower body a hip lift, deadlift type movement with my lower body. And then some stabilization work for my core. And we can work around that model right there, that push pull and stabilization. And get pretty inventive in terms of what we can use even if we don't have weights or bands or something like that.

Jill Winger:

Yeah. I hope that's encouraging to folks listening because. If I had to go to a gym to work out, I would not go. I just physically can't don't want to. It's it's too far. I'm driving too long and I cannot, I physically cannot fit that in where I live. So yeah, I think that's really encouraging. You get a couple of kettlebells or use what you have around the house. If you're on a home set of any size, you probably have heavy things outside. You have buckets of water. You could do your suitcase carry with yeah, I remember one year I had a bunch of baby trees who, which are now dead, but we won't talk about that, but I was watering these baby trees and I chose. To not use a hose that I think I was doing like five gallons per tree, every other day. And I just would carry the buckets and I'm like this, cause I'm like, I could use the hose, I need to work out anyway if I don't do this now, I'm gonna go do it in the gym. So why not get two things done at once? And I just, yeah, thinking about that kind of stuff, but I think that's fun and interesting and we can weave it all together.

Guest:

And I was actually just listening to your episode about the TV fast the other day. Your family's TV fast. And I was thinking, how cool would it be to for, a family to be able to insert something like fitness together in that time that might be otherwise taken up watching TV or something like that. And just thinking that we can think of it too, as like a family thing. Especially with little kids, they will have a blast. Just put on Disney music and let them dance around. You can get your pushups in your squats in and they'll be happy as a clam. You don't have to worry about. Again, separating that workout time from family time. So that's something that was a really encouraging thought when I was listening to that episode. Just thought, Hey, that would be a cool thing to do fitness wise as a family as well.

Jill Winger:

And I think for those who are listening and have kids, I think one of the best things that your kids can see you do is be thinking about the physical movement. Cause it's not common in our culture. It's not necessarily always prized. And you don't have to be like a gym rat to do this. My husband and I are not, but as our kids have grown up, seeing us go work out at night, because we have a little home gym, I go come to the gym. Like they're curious. Like you said, they want to be there. They want to be, we have music going. They want to, they'll play on the stuff. They'll do some practice pushups and some pull ups. And they're seeing it, it's fun. It's not a bad thing. This is what mom and dad do. This is normal. And I think that's so crucial just to be planting those seeds that movement is good, movement is healthy. It's not, A horrible thing you have to do because you're punishing your body. It's it's good. It's. And I think that's absolutely for these kids. Yeah.

Guest:

Yeah. I think that's every bit as important as. Our kids seeing us eat healthy food and enjoying it or, just listening to the way we interact with other people. It's just setting a good example. And like you said, it's making it normal, right?

Yeah. Oh,

Guest:

cool. This is something I can do. I can have fun doing this. It's not a punishment, that type of thing. I think that's really important.

Jill Winger:

Yeah, totally. Totally. Okay. So a really niche question here, cause I've been thinking about this a lot. Can you speak to knees for a second? Absolutely.

Okay.

Jill Winger:

I hear a lot of my older friends talk about their knees. My knees don't hurt. I'm 39, but I don't, I want to preserve them because I'm, I ride horses. You need knees to get on colts and get on your horse and I want to do that as long as I can. So what can someone like me, or maybe, someone older even, what can we do to strengthen our knees to prevent knee injuries and make sure as we age, our knees are going to hold up?

Guest:

With knees and I guess just in general with injury reduction and I'm reluctant to just say injury prevention because. I wish I could prevent injuries for everybody, but unfortunately things happen. But in terms of reducing the risk of injuries and just chronic pain in those knees we can learn a lot from what what they do in physical therapy for people with A. C. L. Tears and meniscus tears. So I always like to look at what is the rehab cycle like? And how can I make this just a prehab or corrective exercise strategy for somebody? And so there's a few things that for the knees specifically we can work on and one of those is is hip strength. And so on the kind of the side of the hip, there's a small glute muscle called the gluteus medius. And that actually plays a big role in keeping the thigh bone, the femur from diving inward. So keep the knees, it helps keep the knees from diving inward toward each other. And whenever we get that repeated inward motion at the knee joint. we put a lot more stress on the knee itself. And so strengthening that glute medius muscle can be really important. And so one of the best things to do for that is those little mini bands, the two inch thick ones put those around about a inch or so above the ankles and get into a little quarter squat position. And I'm taking tiny little choppy steps. 10 to the left, 10 forward, 10 to the right, 10 backwards. And I like doing that little box because that allows me to move every direction and strengthen those muscles from each direction. So that's one of the go tos is strengthening that gluteus medius muscle. And I'm glad you asked that cause that makes me think like I should. Got to make an Instagram video about this just for people. There's five things you can do, to help your knees. So that's one of them. So I'll make sure I remember to do that. Another one is just sideline leg lifts. So if I lay on my side the knee the leg that's on the floor, I just bend that back to 90 degrees, keep everything level. And then I just lift the top leg in a straight just keep that straight and lift it. Back at about a 20 degree angle, just slightly backwards. And I can do holds up there and you'll feel that side. that side of your glute really burning on those ones. And that means I'm working that gluteus medius. So there's a few little exercises like that we can do. And those are great to throw in at the beginning of a workout. Or before, you've got three hours worth of chores to really activate that muscle that way during the workout, during your chores the knee is going to be a little bit more supportive. Those muscles are more awake so that they can keep that, that femur in the right position. And. Along with those, I love stabilization exercises so I mentioned that little sample workout just standing on one leg. That in and of itself does wonders for the knee stabilizers hip stabilizers and the knee stabilizers both. And so standing there, I always tell our recruits they're struggling with balance on the BOSU ball. I'll just tell them, hey start brushing your teeth on one foot, put something in the microwave, wait for the microwave on one foot. Wherever you can insert just some balance in your day, standing on one foot even for 10 seconds at a time, that's going to really help those knee stabilizers a lot. And so on top of the the glute medius activation and knee stabilization work just also making sure whatever lower body exercises I am doing whether it's lunges or squats I might need to just modify those a little bit to make sure that it's not aggravating my knee. So some of the time we'll get we'll have someone, squatting at a pretty deep depth and their knees start hurting. But they don't start hurting until they're about 90 degrees. And so I'll just stop people above that. Hey, do your knees hurt right here? No, they're good. All right. So we're only going to go down that far right now. We're still getting a good squat motion in, even if I'm not going to full, parallel to the ground. I can modify those to just to make sure that I'm not putting extra strain on the knee, but at the same time I'm strengthening my quad muscles just to support the knee. And then also just using a balance, a good balance of those more quad dominant exercises with hamstring dominant exercises. So getting my squats and lunges, step ups, those are all in one category as more neat, knee dominant. And then the hip lifts. Off the ground that we talked about earlier. The deadlift variations. Those are all more hip dominant and work the hamstrings more. And so making sure I've got a good balance between the squat type movements and the, hip lift deadlift type movements that can just help make sure that there's balanced musculature from the front of my knee and my quads to the back of my knee and my hamstrings. And so that can be really helpful as well.

Jill Winger:

Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. That was a good visual. And I hadn't really thought about the How the hips are helping with that knee stabilization. So that's

Guest:

really, that's a huge part of knee rehab. And so I always try to think of it like what are people doing to rehab this part of the body and how can we put that into a warmup or a workout routine to. Just bulletproof that part of the body a little bit more so it can reduce injury.

Jill Winger:

Yeah, awesome We could talk a lot more because this is so helpful and so enlightening and you're giving me ideas. I know you have a hard stop. So before you need to head off to do your other things, can you just tell everybody where they can find you, where they can find that Instagram video that you've now promised to the world and all that good stuff?

Guest:

Absolutely. My website is, I am guardian strong. com. And that's not a statement about me. I'm just trying to encourage people like, Hey, realize that you are strong. So I am guardian strong. com. And that's got information about just my approach to functional training. If people are interested in, in, troubleshooting with me, that kind of thing or even training with me online that's something that they can go to for that as well as the blog. And with the blog, I try to have things from all facets of just help, not just specifically fitness, but just even just health stuff about sleep healthy food options, that type of thing. And then Instagram is also best way coming off, like I said, coming off those injuries and finally getting moving on the Instagram again. So that's Guardian Strong Fitness is where you can find me on Instagram and gonna be just sharing a lot more things just try to encourage people to get moving and especially encourage people that are maybe in the same boat as me in terms of, maybe you're battling a a chronic illness, maybe you're battling some injuries but would love to just help encourage people to do whatever they can to get better. To get moving and to get as healthy as possible.

Jill Winger:

Yes. And we didn't get to talk about that part much of your story, but I think that's especially encouraging because there's a lot of folks who just don't have a blank slate for the fitness. They're dealing with some other issues. So I love that you have that perspective. So go follow Rory, you guys check out what he has to offer. It's really good. Thank you so much for coming on. This was fabulous. And yeah, I look forward to following you more online.

Guest:

So sounds great. All right. Thank you.