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14 Street Y, New York, NY (2025)

09/02/2016

What Exercise Works Your Tibialias Anterior?

If you’re walking, the tibialis anterior allows you to raise your foot off the ground as you swing your leg forward and prevents you from smacking your foot on the ground after your leading heel makes contact. As a thick band of muscle that runs long the front of your shin bone, the tibialis anterior is responsible for extending and inverting your foot. Strengthen your shins by doing exercises that work ankle flexion in which your toes point up.

Move on Heels
When you walk on your heels, you have to flex your feet toward your shins, which works the tibialis anterior. Perform an exercise by walking with a slow rhythm and small steps, focusing on drawing your toes up as high off the ground as possible. Change the direction, such as walking forward or backward, to put stress on the tibialis anterior from different angles. Walk for about 16 yards and then take a pause. Repeat the heel walk three times. Because the exercise requires no equipment or work-out space, you can do this exercise often during the course of your day.

Tap the Toes
The movement of flexing and point your feet, such as tapping, will condition the tibialis anterior. A simple exercise is toe taps in which you begin by sitting erect with your feet flat on the floor. Lift and lower your toes, tapping the floor with your foot. Another exercise begins by standing on your heels on a stair with your toes hanging as far down and over the edge of the stair as possible. Put one hand on a wall or banister to maintain balance. Flex your feet, drawing your toes toward your shins. Hold the peak position for few seconds, feeling the muscles in your shins contract. Slowly lower your toes to starting position. Perform 15 reps for three sets. To boost the difficulty, perform this exercise 0with one foot at a time.

Push the Band
By adding resistance in an exercise involving ankle flexion, you can strengthen the muscles in your shins. For example, begin by sitting on the ground with your legs extended in front of you. Loop one end of an elastic band around the ball of your foot. Attach the other end of the band to a stationary object, such as a sofa or chair leg. Facing the anchor point, sit far enough away so the band becomes taut. Slowly flex and point your working foot 15 to 20 times, keeping both knees slightly bent. Perform reps in which you move your toes to the right or left before returning to the pointed position.

Reverse the Raise
Performing reverse calf raises with different types of weights -- barbell, cable, dumbbell or machine -- can build the tibialis anterior. Some gyms also have specialized dorsiflexion machines for reverse calf raises. For example, stand on the platform of a Smith Machine with knees slightly bent. Position the barbell behind your shoulders and just below your neck. Inch your toes off the platform but keep the balls of your feet on the platform. Release the weight to assume starting position. Exhale and lift your toes up as high as possible. Hold the peak position for a count of one, inhale and return to starting position. Perform 12 to 15 reps for three sets.

08/30/2016

Arm & Shoulder Strengtheners

Strengthen your arms and shoulders with a variety of body-weight and weight-training exercises. Using a combination of the two prevents limit your training to equipment-only workouts. Your workouts are twice weekly with at least a day of rest in between and contain various exercises to target your deltoids, biceps, triceps and forearms. Aim to complete one to three sets with a weight that causes fatigue within eight to 12 repetitions.

Top Down
The deltoids are a three-headed muscle with an anterior, lateral and posterior head. Your workout uses exercises that target the three heads. For example, do movements that focus on the anterior deltoids such as the shoulder press, front raise or handstand press. Select exercises for the lateral deltoids such as the upright row, lateral raise or a side plank. Also, perform exercises for the posterior head such as rear-delt dumbbell raises, reverse pec deck or an inverted row, which is similar to a modified pullup.

Armed and Ready
The biceps, also known as the guns, are two-headed muscles on the fronts of your upper arms. Your exercise routine includes movements that target each of the heads, which change when you switch hand positions. For example, perform dumbbell arm curls with your palms facing up, or hammer curls with your palms facing in to switch the focus on the biceps. You can do preacher curls, concentration curls or bicep curls on a machine. If you prefer, you can use an exercise band as resistance. A body-weight option to target the biceps is a chinup, in which your palms face you and you pull up your weight.

Triceratops
The triceps sound like a dinosaur when you refer to it as a three-headed muscle. You change the focus on the heads when you switch hand positions. Include an exercise with each hand position into your workout routine. For example, perform triceps kickbacks, overhead extensions or rope pull-downs with your palms facing in. Position your palms down to perform dips, bar push-downs or a lying barbell triceps extensions. Your palms face up for exercises such as bar pull-downs, resistance band extensions, or single-arm cable pull-downs.

Popeye Arms
The first things you notice about Popeye are his tremendous forearms. Although you may not reach the cartoon standards, you can strengthen your forearms and your wrists with a few precise exercises. Perform wrist curls including flexion and extension using a dumbbell or barbell. Also, include wrist supination and pronation exercises, in which you hold onto a dumbbell and rotate your palm from a face-up to a face-down position. The forearms are strengthened with hanging exercises also such as the pullup and chinup.

08/25/2016

Do Compression Shorts Really Make You Run Faster?

Compression shorts do more than show off your every curve; these tight-fitting spandex garments are specifically designed to improve circulation, giving you a small boost during your running workout. While compression shorts may not be the holy grail of performance increases, they do give runners a slight edge in speed and recovery.

Stretched to Fit
Compression shorts and other compression gear like socks and tops use spandex to tightly wrap across the surface of your skin. Spandex is a flexible and elastic fabric that pulls the rest of the garment tight. The remaining fabric is often a synthetic-like polyester or nylon and can be treated with an antimicrobial compound to prevent odor. Compression shorts can be designed as a simple short or a bib for stability and can even be integrated into a pair of traditional-looking running shorts for runners who prefer that style.

Science or Myth?
Compression shorts were first marketed as offering a huge increase in muscle performance, but independent scientific research tempered the initial buzz that spurred the mass adoption of compression clothing across a range of disciplines, including running. The proposed benefits included an increase in your VO2 max, a measure of cardiovascular performance. With a higher VO2 max, you'd increase the uptake of oxygen to your muscles, extending your ability to run harder and faster. Manufacturers also claimed that compression shorts aided in the clearing of lactic acid from muscles, which would give runners a quicker recovery time.

Show Me the Data
The research does partially back up the claims made by manufacturers. In a study of 21 moderately trained athletes, there was a 2.1 to 6.2 percent increase in each individual's aerobic and anaerobic thresholds, which serves as a good measure of performance. With an increase in blood flow from the restrictive pressure of compression clothing, more oxygenated blood is able to reach the muscles you're using during a run, which allows you to run for longer without extending above your VO2 max and exhausting yourself.

Recovering Strong
Unfortunately, the idea that compression clothing aids in muscle recovery didn't hold up to scientific scrutiny. Claims that running shorts helped to flush lactate from active muscles were debunked; studies actually measured an increase in lactic acid accumulation, likely derived from the increase in aerobic activity. The benefits to performance still make compression clothing a worthwhile investment for runners since a small increase in performance can make a big difference in longer races. There may be a psychological benefit to compression shorts; runners anecdotally reported less soreness during recovery when wearing compression clothing.

08/22/2016

PNF-Style Stretches for Quads and Hip Flexors

Your quads and hip flexors share some overlapping responsibilities during activities such as running and jumping. As you'd expect, your hip flexors take the lead in flexing your hips -- moving your thighs up toward your torso. But one of your quad muscles, the re**us femoris, also helps flex your hips. The quads as a whole are responsible for extending your knees. Stretching these muscles using PNF techniques can help keep you flexible and improve your range of motion.

What PNF Stretching is All About
PNF, or proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, involves a training partner or therapist helping you stretch your muscles, providing a deeper stretch than you can accomplish by yourself. PNF stretches involve both muscles in a paired muscle group, including the contracting, or agonist, muscle and the opposite, or antagonist, muscle, which relaxes when the agonist contracts.

Performing PNF Stretches
You can try different PNF techniques but never stretch your muscles when they're cold, no matter which technique you choose. Warm up with at least 10 minutes of light cardio activity, such as jogging. In general, a two-part PNF stretch involves pushing actively with the target muscles for about six seconds, then stretching in the opposite direction for approximately 30 seconds. Perform four to five repetitions with each leg.

Lying Quadriceps Stretch
The PNF version of the quad stretch mimics solo stretches in which you bend at the knee to stretch your quads. Lie face down on the floor while the therapist squats with one leg on either side of your abdomen and faces your feet. Bend your knee to bring your heel toward your butt. Have the therapist place one hand on your lower thigh, next to your knee, and the other on top of your raised foot. Push down with your thigh against the therapists' resistance in the first part of the stretch and then have the therapist raise your knee in the second part. To involve the hip flexors and quads in the same stretch, lie face down on a table with the therapist standing to one side. The therapist lifts your knee while simultaneously pressing gently on your lower back, just above the hips toward the side that's being stretched. Again, push down with your thigh for about six seconds and then relax your muscles as the therapist raises your knee.

Hamstring-Hip Flexor Stretch
To stretch the hamstrings in the back of each thigh and the hip flexors in your upper thighs and lower back, lie face up with one leg flat on the table or floor and the other leg raised and perpendicular to the floor. Try to press your raised leg back down as your training partner pushes against the leg to provide resistance. Push for six seconds and then raise your leg as high as possible and hold the new position for 10 to 30 seconds. Alternatively, instead of raising your leg after pushing forward, have your partner press your raised leg toward your torso and hold this deep stretch for about 30 seconds.

08/16/2016

Work it out! :)

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Monday	8am - 10pm
Tuesday	8am - 10pm
Wednesday	8am - 10pm
Thursday	8am - 10pm
Friday	8am - 10pm
Saturday	9am - 5pm
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