The Get Micah Ready For Hawaii Project: Week 2 Recap

This week, we continued on with building the base of muscular endurance, core stability and doing circuits filled with cardio blasts and plyometrics.

We started Week 2 with a few exercises I believe are absolutely essential to anyone who wants to move and feel better.  

The dead bugs and birddogs are two core exercises are a few of the "building blocks" to get a strong core that can support your spine. When I talk about the "core", I'm not just talking about abs. I'm talking about the torso from C1 all the way down to your pelvis to your booty. The spine is your most important asset; it houses your central nervous system! You want to do everything you can to protect it. No matter what your goal is, if you don't have a strong core, you're asking for injury. This is why I spend so much time at the start of any training program on core stability.

Micah injured one of his rotator cuff muscles years ago. Rotator cuff injuries and tears are very common and the causes vary greatly. Since Micah's goals are to gain more lean muscle mass in his upper body, I need to make sure his shoulders stay really healthy as training gets harder. The tube external rotation exercise (2 sets of 15-20 reps) and the hitch-hikers (also 2 sets of 15-20 reps) are two of many excellent exercises you can do to get those muscles and tendons ready to bear more weight in the future. Micah has rounded shoulders so those two specific exercises will help counteract that and help to open up his chest.

The rest of the resistance exercises were also done for 2 sets of 15 reps. Micah recently suffered an ankle injury so adding in some single leg exercises really helps his foot stabilizers work. Research has shown that balance work like this reduces the likelihood for future ankle injuries. Plus, it makes the exercise he's doing more challenging :) You can try this when you do any upper body excises!

The rest of Week 2 centered around quick bursts of cardio and plyometric exercises. Plyometrics are tricky to work into training programs because a good base of strength needs to exist. Micah has a lot of lower body strength already so I felt confident about adding these exercises in. Research has shown that plyometrics aid in helping the ankle get stronger so this is not only giving him tremendous calorie burn but it's going to help him not re-injure his ankle. These exercises were done in a circuit two times for 45-60 seconds each with about a 60-second break between circuits. Whew!

So that was Week 2! Enjoy the video!