Gliding Exercises for Lower Body Strength TrainingGliding exercises are a fascinating new way to strengthen and tone your entire body. This article focuses on lower body strength training, but you will see from the video below (scroll down to jump to the video) that by using gliding discs for exercises that you will also work your core and your upper body. The distinction in this article for lower body strength training is to help me organize my articles for gliding exercises, to give you a place to start. To get you started using gliding discs you may wish to read my introductory article on the body-mind-soul benefits of doing gliding exercises. I call it "Using Gliding Discs to Transform Your Habits." If you meditate on gliding and flowing, you begin by using your physical energy to move your emotional and mental energy to become unstuck. Your body can be used as a tool to transform all aspects of your life! Gliding exercises can be very difficult or they can be very easy. It is what you choose to make of them. The exercises I show in this article are moderate to difficult. However, they can be adapted for seniors, as my article on Gliding Exercises for Seniors show. As always, others before me have said it better than I. Ponder this quote to put your body-mind-soul in the proper frame and to enhance your body-mind connection: 'All things change, nothing is extinguished. There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature; the ages themselves glide by in constant movement.' ~ Ovid, (Ancient Roman classical Poet and Author of Metamorphoses, 43 BC-17) Start out slow and work up to your skill level. Then keep pushing your edge and improve. Keep that changing nature as quoted above. Change is really the only constant in our lives! So go with the flow and glide forward! Use your body to transform the rest of your life. Transformation must begin somewhere, so why not start today with your body? Gliding discs can help you! Breathe and Glide! Gliding Into YourselfAs I suggested in my introductory article on gliding discs, that you can make gliding exercises an intuitive movement exercise. Go where your body wants to go and use my videos as a starting point only. Focus on your range of motion to see where you are stuck, where you need transforming. When you find where you are stuck, slow down, breathe and with the exhale try to sink or move deeper. Feel the movement and feel the flow. Go inward and focus on becoming unstuck. Meditate on the metaphor for your life. While you are doing your lower body strength training, if your hips are stiff and stuck, meditate on what it is that is keeping you from moving forward? Say, "I am gliding forward with grace and ease." "My body-mind-soul glides and flows with ease." "I am fluid and free!" To see more articles on how your energy becomes stuck in certain parts of your body, see my foam rolling articles. I won’t repeat this information here. Gliding Exercise VideoThe first clip in the video shows me doing standing exercises. Back lunges and side lunges, then circles. It is best to do your leg lunges toward the back to keep the best form and maintain your balance. The gliding discs take a bit of getting used to, so you may want to study and follow the video closely at first. The balance required to do the leg circles is very difficult, so be careful! The next clip shows me gliding for my lower body strength training inside on the floor. I used a carpet, only because my tile floor feels cold. I could have just as easily used the gliding discs on the tile floor. Or I could have taken it outside on the deck like the previous clip. I filmed this in the Fall, and you never know at 8000 feet, what the weather will be like in October! A few days went by in-between filming, and it went from warm, sunny and mild (filmed outdoors) to quite cool (filmed indoors by the fire!). Indoors on the tile floor, I also used a folded yoga mat for my hands, so it wouldn’t be so hard on my hands. You may not need that if you are doing this exercise on the carpet alone. If you do need cushioning, a rolled up blanket will work just fine. When you do your gliding, just make sure you choose the right type of gliding discs for the flooring you have in your home. If you click the link in this paragraph, you will see that fabric ones are for hardwood and tile floors and the plastic ones are for use on carpet. In the 2nd clip, I do the exercises from the plank position, on my hands. If you do the same exercises resting on your entire forearms, it increases the difficulty by requiring more core strength. I show this in my video for gliding exercises for a core workout (see my complete list of gliding exercise videos at the bottom of the page). Then in the final clip I show myself outside again, doing the "Spiderman crawl." This is a very easy and very fun move. If you do it for a while, though, the strength required to do it is substantial! All these moves will get your heart going for a great cardio work-out as well. Continue your gliding exercises and learn to become unstuck, in your body, your spirit and your life! I hope you enjoy the video and that it will help you transform your life by gliding into yourself! Note: I do not use any voice-over, to help you learn to use your feeling, sensing, right brain, instead of your overactive, rational, thinking, left brain!
My Series of Gliding Exercises:
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