Did you know that it was Weed your Garden Day on Monday the 13th? In honor of that, I am providing you with two positions that you may find yourself in a lot while gardening and things you can do to help strengthen and create more mobility in your hips and ankles.
It is always my goal to help you and your family move more. So every Thursday, I am dropping a movement snack into your ears to help you and your family move more. Did you know that Monday was weed your garden day? Well, this made me get to thinking about two positions that we tend to be in if we are gardening, and I wanted to go through them both with you. The first one was one we touched on back in episode 13.2. It was called movement step tabletop position. And this is where you are going to stand up nice and tall, you are going to push your hips back. So we are hinging at our hip, thinking about our hips moving back towards the wall behind us. As we do this, you're going to feel a lengthening in your hamstrings, so the back of your legs. The other thing you need to pay attention to is what is happening in your back. This is not a rounding position. This is a hinging position. So if I were to put a dowel or like a broomstick, from your back of your head to your bottom, your body would stay touching that bending forward, the back of your head and your bottom would continue to touch that stick. So you would be moving forward, no rounding of the back, your head would not pull away, you would not round forward. When you do this, this is called a tabletop position. This is a position that we don't see here in the Western world a lot anymore. And it is a movement that is key for healthy hips and healthy movement. So that is one that you can practice while you go out and weed in your garden or your driveway or your back porch, wherever you might need to weed. And that is the first one. And you can listen to the full episode in 13.2. I'll put the information in the show notes if you want to listen to that. The other one is a full squat. And I've spoken about this before, but I'm going to take it to the next level. So a full squat is where if you're standing up nice and tall, you start bringing your bottom down towards the ground, trying to keep the heels down if you can, working all the way down to where you're in a deep squat position. So think about if you were to go out in the woods and camping and you had to find a place to pop a squat, so to speak, you would you know to go to the bathroom. That is the position. But the goal is to get your bottom way down near your heels. Not popping a squat. Obviously, when you're practicing the practicing the deep squat, that's when you want to get your heels down towards I'm sorry, your hips down to your heels, I shouldn't be joking around. So that is the exercise. But we're going to add on because we've already practiced this one. And if you practice daily, you will get better at this. So just keep working on it work on seeing how low you can go. If you can't get all the way down, then maybe find a stool or stack some pillows to help you get down into that position. And then slowly take one pillow away and see if you can get a little bit further it is uncomfortable in the beginning if you're not in this position a lot. But the longer you practice it, the better you will get because this is hip and ankle mobility. Okay, so we're going to take this to the next level. And what you're going to do is when you are in that deep squat, you are now going to try to bring one knee forward and the knee is going to touch the ground. So you are twisting at your hips. I do want to say that you're not just trying to bring one knee straight forward. So in the squat position, I'm going to kind of turn towards one knee and I'm going to drop one knee down to the floor. I'm going to come back up to neutral and do what feels comfortable for you when you do this movement. And then I'm going to do the other side. Then you can also go up onto your mid foot, your toes and you're going to try to bring both knees down to the mat. See if you can do that without touching the ground. At the same time, you may have to this takes a lot of coordination and strength. And then you can go from that knee position so your knees and your toes are on the floor, and then you can push back up into a deep squat position. So bringing those knees from the floor back up. And that is also an exercise that you can work on. So that works on some deep strength. These are positions that I would assume if you're out waiting, you might be in that low squat, you might need to be able to move kind of the knee down towards the ground as you're kind of, I feel like you kind of like walk low, so that you're not constantly up and down with your back. So that is your movement snack of the week in honor of Monday, the 13th. Weed your garden DAG. So you can spend this weekend practicing these movements, go out and weed your garden to help celebrate the day that you may have missed already. So I will make sure to a post a video for you for both of these exercises. And feel free to join us in our forum fitmom community where we are always doing something in the way of movement challenges or things like that. So I would love for you to join me over there. And then I hope you all have a wonderful week and make sure to keep moving thank you so much for joining us today. If you could do me a favor if you like what you hear. Could you leave us a review or take a screenshot and share your favorite takeaway on social media. And make sure to tag us over at raising underscore healthy humans. Now go out and enjoy more movements throughout your neck