Whole Body - Downward Elbow with Squat (with New Year's resolution tip)

It’s week four of 2013 and you are well on your way to making your New Year’s resolution a new habit.  But, to fully develop a new habit takes time and perseverance.  An article from the European Journal of Social Psychology showed that the more complex the habit you are trying to form (work out for 30 minutes every day versus just getting yourself to eat breakfast in the morning), the longer it will take to do the activity more automatically.  For more information on this, check out http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/how-long-to-form-a-habit.php. 

To me however, the four week mark marks the point where you should start to notice the rewards of your new “habit”.  If you are working out, you should start to notice it being easier to walk up stairs, do more push-ups, a little bit of toning (or thinning), etc.  If you are eating breakfast now, maybe you are noticing more energy or decreased cravings throughout the day.  Whatever your New Year’s goal and game plan, look for how it has already helped you and your life.

The point here is to celebrate your successes; this will give you the self-encouragement to keep you moving forward in the right direction.

Let’s get started on our exercise of the week. 

Downward Elbow with Squat

Begin with feet past shoulder width apart and your hands pulled up by your armpits.  Pull your belly in toward your spine, open your chest and relax your shoulders.  Keeping your arm bent, circle your arm behind you, then up and around until your elbow is pointing forward.  If you do a full, big rotation you will work your chest, back, shoulder, and all of your arm muscles.  Now comes the leg part.  At the same time as you drop your elbow down, drop into a low squat position, pressing your knees out to engage your inner thigh muscles.  Make sure your knees stay over your ankles (not past or buckling in).  Press out of your squat (keeping your belly in and chest up) and repeat on the other arm.

Going for strength building?  Add hand weights and hold your squat for 5-10 seconds before exploding up to repeat on the other side.  Do 3 rounds of 30.

Going for cardio?  Do as many of these as you can in 3 1-2 minute rounds.