A Little Heavy? How to Modify Exercises

I’m all about a challenge…but to everyone that means something a little different.

Are you carrying a little extra weight? I wanted to get a feel for what YOUR challenge would be like so I’ve been working out with a weight vest. I feel for anyone that has a bit of weight to lose. This was a 20 lb vest and did I ever feel it.
I want to encourage you keep at your workouts, even if you have a bit of weight to lose.  Adding exercise is the BEST way to drop the weight. Of course you’ll need to maintain solid nutrition as well since you can never out train a bad diet.

Here are some ways to modify exercises so that you train safely:

Swap out impact exercises for non-impact ones to protect the feet, knees, hips and lower back. I tried jumping rope and my knees told me to go jump in the lake. I opted out of the jump rope right away. You can do a phantom skip: pretend to jump rope but always have one foot on the ground. Full body extensions are a great option to anything impact as well.

Drop to the knees for push ups and planks. My lower back was ready to have a stern talk with me, so to protect it when I got tired, the modified position was really helpful.

Step up on a box that’s lower, avoid box jumps.

Abdominal moves – I prefer to do more planking exercises for the core versus doing any kind of crunches.

Dizziness – I didn’t feel light-headed or dizzy, but many of my clients feel this way. Part of the reason for this is the circulatory system is working extra hard and needs to get fit too. Your blood vessels will adapt and improve to pump blood back from your muscles to your heart and brain. In the meantime, if you’re light-headed or nauseous try to keep your head up, stay in upright positions as much as possible. Avoid head down positions, do incline push ups, avoid burpees and do a full body extension, do jumping or step jacks instead of mountain climbers.

Here are some reminders in a video I did for you: