Getting A Full Range Of Motion Working Out At Home - By: Will Nelson

Want a simple way to work out at home and still get a full range of motion for your body? Take a couple of light-weight dumbbells and start randomly moving them around. It really is that easy. By keeping the weight light, you can somewhat exaggerate the movements, thus ensuring you are getting a full range of motion. By using dumbbells in this way, you are getting additional cardiovascular and strength training work, and having some fun doing it.

And working out at home this way is totally adaptable to your ability level and your schedule. As you improve, simply increase the amount of weight while you move your body around and move faster as you warm up. This exemplifies the three qualities of movement; distance, direction, and velocity, and how you can effectively increase all three. This is the Vitalogy style of movement and it is recommended that you play some of your favorite music while doing it.

Life is all about getting a full range of motion; it determines your ability to function and express all your senses. Strength training and cardiovascular means putting your muscles, heart, and lungs through a range of motion. Whispering or shouting, opening or closing your eyes, listening to quiet or loud sounds are other examples of range of motion. Maintaining your range of motion is what keeps you young because it facilitates your human instinct to stretch. This is how a lot of daily stiffness can be taken out of the body without having to resort to taking pills or having to compromise your daily experience.

Now, when working with dumbbells, as an excellent variation, put your body into temporary poses, becoming stationary a moment or two, then switching to another position and holding that one a few moments. This helps vary your routine and works on maintaining your balance and coordination too. More range of motion means less pain and stiffness, added flexibility, and a greater, more thorough use of your muscles. It will improve your overall posture, which gives you more efficient use of your energy.

By using light weight, you can easily and safely put your body into positions that give it a great stretch and work muscles you don’t ordinarily use in daily life. Working out the Vitalogy way a few minutes here and there will expand your range of motion by creating a lot of movement in a short amount of time. This is how you work smart instead of hard.

If you go to a gym, use the cables and vary the movement incrementally while using light weight; it’s exceptional for making your whole body work as a unit, which it must do in daily life all the time; instead of exclusively isolating specific muscle groups. Unless you are specifically training for an athletic event, say like running a 10K, it frankly makes no sense to work out exclusively isolating specific muscle groups. Nothing in daily life works like this. Think about it. Just to lift a simple object and place it somewhere else requires many different muscles to work together, so train and exercise your body the same way.

As a personal fitness trainer who has worked on Olympic and professional athletes, I want to emphasize the distinction between being athletic, which refers to someone in good shape and active with their body, say a recreational runner, and an athlete, say a football player, for example: Someone engaged in ultra high intensity and long duration physical activity every day. Being athletic is something that is part of your lifestyle; being an athlete is a total way of life.

Another difference between athletes and the rest of us is that they are much more efficient when they move their bodies. Little if any energy is wasted. This is precisely the same thing that happens to the rest of us when we walk and sit properly and pay attention to our posture. Why waste energy if you don’t have to? In the gym, adjustments must be made for age and the reality that some of us may be athletic, but that is a far cry from being an athlete. Most of the troubles involve enough time spent warming up, stretching, and properly cooling the body down. Also the weights are often too heavy, and the movements are routinely habitual (the same ones over and over).

Youth presents the opportunity to explore life through the use of the body; to go camping and sleep on the ground, or play basketball and jump up in the air. After age 35 or so most of us, beyond looking good, want our body to be pain-free, and this requires we maintain our physical capacity through non-habitual movement that allows us to keep our bodies released, lengthened, and realigned – the three outcomes of the Vitalogy style of movement. You spend a lifetime in your body - why not enjoy it?

About the Author

Will Nelson is an author, public speaker, teacher, personal trainer, massage therapist, and life coach. He has authored two books, created an on-line 7-day and membership program, and develop two courses, the VitalBody and the VitalMind. His company, Vitalogy, teaches personal empowerment through lifestyle management. http://www.vitalogy.com He can be reached at http://www.WillNelsonVitalogy.com E-mail him: Will@Vitalogy.com. Copyright Will Nelson 2009. All Rights Reserved.

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