Health by Heidi

 Bonking.  Hitting the wall.  Lead legs.  Crashing.  Running out of gas.  So many names.  One simple thing.  Most of us have heard of it.  Several of us have experienced it.  It’s that thing that happens when you don’t fuel enough during a sporting event, and suddenly your body begins to betray you.  Everything feels harder than it should. Then things start to feel impossible, and only get worse.  You may know the feeling intimately.  For me, the initial stages of a bonk vary depending on what activity I’m engaged in, but generally it starts with a massive case of grumpy.  If I’m on my bike, I start to get really mad at my hair.  More specifically, I start to hate my braid.  REALLY HATE my braid.   Why won’t this fucking braid stay off my shoulder.  Just stay in the middle of my back.  Why is that stupid braid hanging down my back.   I HATE my braid.   And on and on it goes.  If...

 Any outdoor enthusiast has that one special place.  Whether it’s that certain mountain or special trail or specific piece of road, it becomes the favorite.  We may have other spots that we run or hike or bike more, but this one is the ONE.  We’ve been on it enough to know all its subtleties. There’s that big ponderosa at mile one that I can’t walk by without stopping and pressing my face to its bark, inhaling its spicy vanilla scent.  There’s that bush just beyond the last corner that tells me I’m almost to the top. The rock on the left just fell a few years ago after a heavy rainstorm.  You know that place.  It starts to feel like an old friend. That place for me on my bike is the double pass ride from Sula to North Fork and back.  I summit Lost Trail pass two times.  I love climbing.  Put me on a high mountain pass and my heart soars. Every spring, I wait anxiously for the roads to clear of snow and the road crews to go through and sw...

 "We were going through everything this past weekend, and Kim and I think it would work best if you and I take Ernie if anything happens to Mom."  My husband, Scott, had called me from Oregon where he was visiting his family.  His mom was sorting through all of her things, downsizing and moving into a smaller place.  In the process, she was also updating her will and all that went along with it.  Ernie was her three year old Yorkie dog. "Yeah, that makes sense," I replied, thinking that if we ever did end up with Ernie, it would be years away.  At the time of the phone call, we already had three cats and a seven month old yellow lab named Juno. Fast forward five months.  "I'll be home this weekend with Ernie."  Scott was once again calling me from Oregon.  Several events had transpired, and we now were the new parents of Ernie.   I grew up with cats.  I never had a dog until I met Scott.  I like dogs, but I am a cat person...

Got five minutes?  Got a band?  Try adding these five core exercises to your next workout.  You will want a band that is challenging but not so tight that it restricts your range of motion.  Perform 2-3 sets of 12-15 reps of each exercise. Banded Bicycle Crunch This is a great variation of the standard bicycle crunch.  Adding the band increases the challenge for the hip stabilizers.  Keep your knees separated through the entire movement to add extra challenge to the gluteus medius. Banded Dead Bug Similar to the bicycle crunch, adding the band encourages extra activity in the hip stabilizers.  Keep your knees separated throughout the movement, and make sure your lower back stays softly connected to the mat. Banded Side Plank with Abduction This is a great exercises for the side body.  It works shoulder stability, obliques, and gluteus medius on both legs.   Banded Bridge with Abduction Make sure you keep your hips lifted when you abduct the t...

“How in the world am I gonna get through this day?” “Ugh.  Slept like shit.  Tired and cranky.” “I hate everything.” And my favorite: “It’s easy to get buried under the asshole parts of the day.” These are a minuscule sampling of some of my journal entries from the past several months.  Without realizing it, perimenopause had slowly dropped its veil over my eyes.  While I am not yet experiencing the physical symptoms, I have every single one of the mental and emotional symptoms.  It happened so slowly I didn’t notice. It crept up steathily, like a burglar in the night.  My mood worsened in increments.  My tolerance for people dripped away like a slow leaking bucket.  My sleep became more and more interrupted, resulting in me lying awake for hours during the night. I would wake up exhausted, wondering how I could possibly get through the day when the simple act of speaking seemed monumental. I noticed that I was losing interest in my favorite hobbi...

 "Do you do breath work every day?"   I had just finished a breath work session with a client, and as we were recapping his experience, he asked me that question.   "No," I answered.  Then I smiled, realizing that breath work had become such a habit in my daily routine that I forgot I was even doing it.  It had just become the way.  “Actually, yes I do.”  I proceeded to give him the run down of the various types of breath work that I do, including the one I do daily without thinking about it now.  We will get to that in a moment. Breath work has been making headlines in the mainstream media recently, although it has been practiced for centuries or longer by cultures around the world.  I believe that what finally brought it to the forefront here in the US is the rise in awareness about anxiety, depression, and mental illness.  People have been suffering silently for years with mental illness disorders, but only recently has soci...

With tight schedules to work around, sometimes we feel lucky to get a quick workout between work and home and school and whatever else life has us doing.  It's tempting to jump on the bike and start hammering to get it done, or throw on the running shoes and race up the nearest hill, all the while hearing the clock ticking in the background to hurry hurry hurry get to the next thing.  We wonder why we feel tired and sore, tight and stiff during our activity of choice.   Try taking five minutes before your next workout for these simple movements.  A few of the movements focus more on joint mobility, while others are more for muscle activation.  Combined, they help to prepare the lower body for whatever activity you choose.  Before your next ride, run, hike, or lifting session, give them a try and see if you feel the difference. Exercise 1 - Banded Donkey Kicks Purpose: Glute activation, core activation -Your choice of band will depend on your personal s...