The Greater The Challenge, The Greater The Reward and Michelle Obama’s Starbuck’s Posture
January 21, 2009
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. You have to lift weights. And they have to be heavy. As a personal trainer, this is called conditioning for acute and temporary muscle failure and fatigue. Meaning I push you to lift such a heavy enough weight that you can’t do one more perfect rep. Then you briefly rest until you are ready to do it two more times. At which point you should be pooped.
The harder this is for you to do, the greater the gains in strength and conditioning. Meaning, as in most of life, the challenge equals the reward.. And the greater the challenge, the bigger the reward.
If I am in a particularly giving mood, I offer people in my indoor cycling class the option to get off their bikes at the end of class and do twenty push-ups. Many say no thank you meaning fat chance, which I accept if they have a doctor’s note. But otherwise, I really want them to try it. The harder it is for them, the more strength they lack and the more vital this type of work becomes. Often in class, women don’t want to do their push-ups for fear of someone looking at their backside. Which is a whole ‘nother blog post but I can only say there ain’t no men worrying about us looking at their derrieres, so ladies, get over worrying about what other people think. I tell my kids, the good opinions of other people are none of our business.
Anyway, back to weight-lifting.
For most exercisers, aerobic work is the easiest. You don’t need an expert to tell you to get cardio. You do need a drill sergeant to make you lift to muscle failure.
It is hard but the rewards are mighty.
Moving on from weight-lifting, I have to mention before I forget: Did you notice Michelle Obama’s intermittent poor posture? When she remembers, she stands up to her true height but most of the time she has what posture pros describe as SWAY posture or what I call Starbucks Posture, which refers to the way people walk out of Starbucks when they are rounded down over their four dollar cup of coffee.
I’m guessing the First Lady has always been self-conscious about her height (and I bet we couldn’t get her down on the floor for push-ups either.) Because she is exactly the president’s height and out of modesty, I think she has always slumped forward. This is just what I spy with my fitness eye, no more.
You may think I am being overly critical or superfluous, but there are several studies which show that this posture (which is technically called a forward head carriage and a dropped front panel with rounded shoulders) contributes to decreased performance. Look at all fast runners, they have a forward tilt to the entire spine but they are never rounded at the shoulders and their chins are straight ahead, not down.
Not only that, the Starbucks posture limits respiratory patterns, making breathing less efficient.
My advice to the First Lady? Stand up tall, no matter who you are tower over, even if it’s the president of the United States.
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