's motd Friday December 3, 2010 - Leg Lifts

[Guest guest]

"I DID IT!"

Friday, 03 December 2010

Last night, I got to teach at

Slimmons and you all know how excited I get about

teaching my classes. What I've loved about Slimmons

all of these years is seeing people make positive

changes by making exercise a daily part of their

lives. And that leads to a little story about one of

my students.

She takes class regularly and is

in her early 70's. She usually does her workouts from

a sitting position right along with the rest of us.

The last few months, I noticed she'd been standing

while doing part of the class and I was impressed to

see the effort she was putting into her workouts. But

I also noticed that when we did our leg-lifts, she'd

sit back down and work only her arms.

Now anyone who's taken one of my classes knows how

much I love doing those leg-lifts. After stretching

in the mornings at home, I then do my leg-lifts. And

what are leg-lifts? Well, they're about as simple as

they sound. But boy, they are a lotta work!

Leg-lifts are an exercise where

you lift your legs up and down while doing arm

movements as well. Yep, they may be a little tough

but they're relatively simple movements. You bend each

knee, bring your leg up...then put it back down

a-n-n-nd...repeat. (See, how simple is

that?) But, thing is, you're lifting what is the heaviest

part of your body. So, when you do them

repititively, you're really working your legs and

heart.

When you're lifting your

legs, you're lifting your quads, hamstrings, shin and,

along with all that, you're really working your tush,

too. During class, I always do a lot of leg-lifts and

everyone does them the best they can.

One day after class, I went up to this sweet lady who

didn't join us with the leg-lifts and asked why she

didn't do them. ", at my age," she

answered, "I'm just afraid of hurting myself."

Well, after everyone else left class,. I asked her to

stay with me for a few minutes. I walked her over to

the studio's ballet bar and told her to hold on to the

bar as she did her leg-lifts. I asked her to try ten,

with each leg. She tried it and I think she even

surprised herself that she was able to do them. A

smile came across her face as she continued and when

she finished, she looked at me and said, "Let me

try ten more, that felt great!" I told her

to go for it and sure enough, she did

another ten...with each leg! This time, she wrapped

her arms around me, gave me a big hig and said, "Thank

You, !"

Ever since then, she now stands

during class, holds on to the ballet bar and does

those leg-lifts right along with the rest of us. The

other night at Slimmons, she even demanded that I do

more leg-lifts. We both broke out in a big

laugh. But boy, talk about overcoming her fear and

getting into those leg-lifts!

If you let it, fear can paralyze you. None of us want

to fall and hurt ourselves...at any age. So it's

important for you to do your workouts and adapt the

movements for your age, activity level and physical

ability.

Now, whenever I do my morning leg-lifts at home, that

sweet lady from Slimmons enters my mind. I also think

of all the many people who've worked out

faithfully, lost weight and have seen the results of

their hard work. They're amazed at all of the things

they're now able to do. I just love it!

And I hope you're seeing good

results with your own workouts, Like I said on the

1st of this month, don't you dare miss one day of

working out here in December. And by the way, I hope

that, one day, you'll be able to join

us at Slimmons and do a few leg-lifts with me,

too!

Love,