This morning I tried out the Chuck Norris "hand stand" - that is supine - on the Total Gym. I did a blog post on that exercise shown in a 1981 Chuck Norris film featuring the Total Gym! Wow - I had not seen that exercise on Total Gym anywhere else!!
I am still fascinated by the variety of exercises on the Total Gym - Chuck first used it for shoulder rehab and that's what he is doing in the film by doing that exercise. I used the "dip bars lat press" accessory to get into position since I tried it more inclined and I also tried it with the resistance band on - the way Chuck did it was definitely hard enough to do!!
Then I used the "wing bar" attachment for the Hamstring leg pulls - the image showed the incline low and surprisingly this worked great since it doesn't put too much pressure on the feet when pulling. It doesn't take much incline to work your hamstrings as they are pulling your body weight up. Wow - very cool exercise because otherwise the hamstrings don't get isolated in exercise. Very impressive and glad I got that attachment (from a garage sale - along with the dip bars lat press attachment)....
OK moving right along - the pilates attachment with the foot straps were required and sure enough I was repeating my "side splits" or "middle splits" stretching machine that I use each week during the football game! Wow - great to keep that groin tendon stretched out between the machine/strap exercise. Very exciting. Took me a long time to get it set up but it really stretches the leg muscles and strengthens.
As was pointed out by a professional Baseball player about 15 years ago - the Total Gym increases both strength and flexibility!!
So the set has "one leg" squats and I used one resistance band. But then I ended the set with both resistance bands for two leg squats - I did about 27 reps - feels great because I get probably 300 lbs of resistance.
what else? There is a "side bend" exercise that I could not feel at all and I've never seen it done on youtube that I can recall. I'll try to find that on vid to see if there is some secret to it. It's a variant on the "twist" of the lat abdominal obliques.
I also did the toe pushes and I've never done those before on the Total Gym - felt great. Not as good as just standing up as you get more resistance being vertical. But you can stretch a bit more with your feet against the squat board.
There was another stretching exercise that works the triceps but also the upper back - and you sit on your knees and bend over as far as possible with your arms stretched out. I couldn't feel it a lot but still very interesting - it stretches the hip flexors. The LUNGE exercise is also really great for the hip flexors - standing with one foot on the board.
this set took me a lot longer as I had to switch around the attachments a lot but that kept it very interesting and exciting - definitely felt like I stretched my muscles and tendons in new ways....
there was also a Triceps Bar over the head and this one felt really great. I used the PVC bar and the resistance band.
No comments:
Post a Comment