Transcript:
Ready? Are you ready? You're getting
excited? You're ready to show these
people how to workout with your baby?
Hi Nick Ortego here. I'm going to show
you how to do squats with a baby. Good
way to get a workout in, playtime in at
the same time. So what you want to do is
just grab your baby. One hand goes
underneath the bottom. Other hand goes in
front of the belly. Then breathe in and
go down and down and up down and up down
and up. From the side it looks like this.
See my feet stay flat, my hips go back.
You want to be able to do basic
bodyweight squat before you do with the
baby. I'm going to link to to a video
that shows you how to do that. But it's
tons of fun. Babies love it. Tell them how
much you love it baby girl. So if you got
any benefit from this video and you want
to get extra content not available on
the video, then click the link that's
connected to this video you'll have a
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a complete dynamic mobility warm up routine for any workout or training session.
Video Transcript:
Hey it's Nick Ortego here. I'm gonna
take you through a complete body dynamic
mobility warm-up routine. This can be
used before a workout or a run to get
your body ready. I'm a big fan of doing
mobility work for the warm up. When
you're constantly moving, you get your
heart rate up you get your body heat up
We're also moving joints to their full
range of motion and providing a little
bit of flexibility work before a workout.
Not a big fan of static stretching
before a workout. Tends to undermine your
power output so dynamic mobility is
where it's at as far as I'm concerned. We're
gonna start off with four drills where
you're basically just walking back and
forth.
The first one is knee to chest. Basically
walk when you take one knee, opposite
hand and pull that knee up. Boom here. So
the reason I like to use the opposite
hand is because it replicates natural
movement pattern. It gets me extending
one hip and extending the opposite
shoulder. Gets me flexing one shoulder
and flexing the opposite hip, just like
you do when you're walking or running. So
you can do a certain count here like 20.
10 or 20 each side or you can just go for a
certain distance. This one is really good
if you're actually going for a walk or a
run, you can just work it into your
bipedal locomotion. So knee to chest. Next
one is heel to butt. Here I want to be
sure you can grab your ankle. Pull this
knee back. When you pull that knee back,
activate the glute, boom. That's a key part
of it. Stretching the quad. Activating the glute, knee back, knee back. Same as the
previous drill. 10 each side, 20 each
side. Or just a certain distance. The
next one is the heel crossover. So you
want to be sure here that you're
bringing the knee up and rotating the
hip to get the foot to the hand. I don't
want to be bending my spine to reach
down to my foot. This is not what it's
supposed to look like. It's supposed to
look like this: torso stays upright, the
hands just reach down, and the foot comes
up to the hand. The hand doesn't go down
to the foot. Same as the previous drill -
10 or 20 reps each side or a certain
distance. The next one is the gorilla
walk and on this one I step forward, hinge at
the hips, reach down and touch the ground.
I may not be able to reach the ground if
my hamstrings are really tight. In that
case you just reach and tap your shin.
Hip hinge not spine rounding. Same as the
previous 10 or 20 reps each side. Be sure
you come up tall at the top, finish the
motion. Bend forward, come up tall
When I come up tall and bring this other
foot forward I'm getting a little bit of
mobility here in these hip flexors. Those
are the four traveling drills. Next
couple are basically just finding a wall,
or something that you can hold
one hand onto. You could potentially do
these drills without holding on if your
balance is good enough, but I like to
hold on because it lets me get a little
bit of velocity and power into these range
of motion
dynamic mobility drills. So grab a fence,
pole, or wall with one hand. So if I'm
holding with my right hand I'm gonna
swing my right leg. I like to do about 15
on each side. You can see that my arm, my
opposite arm, swings with it. What I'm
trying to do is swing the leg back as
far as I can and forward as far as I
can. What I want to try to do as well is
not let my leg wag my torso. So I don't
want to be doing this. If my torso is
moving in order to get my leg higher,
that's too much. What I want to do is
hold the torso upright, relatively stable.
There may be a little bit of rotating and
movement going on, but I'm not letting it
deviate from vertical. And it looks like
this. And on the other side left hand on
the fence or wall, or pole. Left leg
swings. And again you can see if I overdo
it my torso starts swinging around. I
don't want to do that. I'll keep the
torso relatively upright and swing the
leg. Next is the side leg swing. It's pretty
much the same thing except I'm going to
be swinging my legs out to the side. So
if my left foot's on the ground. My right
hand goes on the wall, pole, or fence. And
the key here is that I'm emphasizing the
lateral swing. The stance leg firing up
the glute. There is a little bit of the
tilt in the pelvis when I do this. I'm
trying to get that leg as far out as I
can. I'm letting gravity take care of the
medial swing. my leg comes across the
body. I'm not trying to get farther up
here.
Don't really have too much motion in the
hip there. I'm just letting gravity and
momentum take it that way. So it looks
like this, and once again ten to fifteen
each side.
I like 15. When the right foot is on the
ground I'm swinging my left leg, my left
hand on avstable object. There you go. That's
the lower body portion. So for the upper
body, I like to do this flye exercise.
Where left goes over right, and right
goes over left. One thing that I like to
emphasize is that when my arms come
across the body my thumbs turn this way.
As I go out I'm turning the thumbs back.
That's engaging the external rotators at
the shoulder, the retractors at the
shoulder blades. So we're activating
those muscles that tend to lie dormant
and we're stretching, dynamically
stretching, the muscles that tend to be
tight for most people, the pecs. Thumbs go
in and thumbs go out. and I use momentum
here in a controlling way. Thumbs out.
Comes in, comes out. I like to do about
twenty to thirty of these. Once I've done
those I go into arm circles, really big
high range of motion arm circles like
this. I create a little bit of momentum
so I go with 20 forward and 20 backwards.
Give that a try and if you got any
benefit from this video, then leave a
comment below. If you'd like to get more
content not available on the blog or the
regular YouTube channel, then click the
link connected to this video, you'll
have a chance to sign up for the Run
Better Now VIP club.
Key Points For Pilates Roll Up Exercise With A Baby
Be sure you have adequate shoulder mobility and stability before doing any overhead lifting movement. I like to do the shoulder wall test to determine if a client is ready.
Be sure you can activate and use your lower abs before trying this. I like to use the lower ab progression before this exercise or any similar exercise. It help ensure that your core is strong enough to not overuse your hip flexors.
Video Transcript:
Are you stoked? Ready to show these people how to
work their abs with a baby?
Nick Ortego here. I'll show you how to
work your abdominals with a baby. This
is what you want to do start off. Seated.
Sit up tall. Raise that baby up, but
sometimes they prefer to be looking at
you. Looking at daddy. She
wants to look over there. She has a mind
of her own. Raise her up,
and then go down. Slowly inhale up, exhale down, inhale up, exhale roll down one
vertebra at a time. Pilates roll up.
Inhale up, exhale down, inhale up, exhale
roll down. Now if you have trouble coming
up, you can start with your knees lifted
and on the inhale roll up. You use the
momentum from your legs to create a
little bit of roll in the pelvis. That's
how you do Pilates roll up with a baby
for fun and for a little extra
resistance. Do you like that? Do you have
fun? Do you have fun? You got any benefit
from this little video leave a comment
below. If you like to get content not
available on the blog or the regular
YouTube channel, then click the link
connected to this video you'll have a
chance to sign up for the Run Better Now
VIP club.
ensure proper range of motion before using a baby for resistance.
Key Points For Doing Shoulder Presses With A Baby
Ensure that your shoulders can handle overhead pressing before doing shoulder presses with a baby. I recommend the wall test for shoulder mobility. If you fail this test, then go to work on corrective exercises before any overhead pressing movements.
If you have trouble maintaining a straight, upright spine while seated on the floor then sit on a chair or bench. This will put some slack in your hamstrings and allow your pelvis to attain a neutral position. Then you’ll be able to more easily stack the rest of your spine in a neutral position.
Transcript:
H,i this is my little baby girl Liliana.
Say hello baby girl. We're gonna, we're
gonna exercise with Daddy today. This is
what you want to do. Start off
with your feet spread like this. Sit up
tall, grab that baby take a breath in
Exhale and lift the baby up. Inhale.
Exhale lift the baby up.
She loves it. Inhale, exhale lift the baby
up.
You having fun baby girl? You wanna do
more? "Ten more daddy!" What you want to
do is be sure that you can sit up nice
and tall. Now if you're having trouble
keeping your spine from rounding what
you may want to do is put a couple of
yoga blocks or 4 inch 6 inch or 8 inch
step underneath your butt.
It'll allow you to keep your spine nice
and long.
Be sure your range of motion at your
shoulder is full you can get your arm
all the way up here. You don't want to be
lifting a baby if your range is here. If
you're putting a load on it in this position,
gonna be really tough on your shoulders.
So be careful you got any benefit from
this video, leave a comment below. If you'd
like to get more content not available
on the blog or the regular YouTube
channel then click the link connected
to this video you have a chance to sign
up for the Run Better Now VIP Club.
Transcript:
Hey it's Nick Ortego here. I'm
going to show you how to do an exercise
for your hips, a hip mobility exercise. It
warms up the hips. It gets blood flowing
into the muscles around that area. It
gets synovial fluid flowing into the
joints to help to lubricate the joints.
Basically going to be on your stomach,
prone position, and then bend both knees
and then cross your legs over so the
lower legs are crossing over. We're doing
the internal and external rotation at
the hips here. It looks like that. From
back just like this.
I'll cross one in front of the other and
then switch sides so I'm always
switching sides because the movement is
slightly different. It's slightly
different when the leg goes in front and
behind. Do that for a few minutes.
Give that a try just to warm up
your hips, get your hips more mobile. Got
any benefit from that? Then give me a
comment below. If you'd like to get more
content that's not available on the blog
or the regular YouTube channel, then
click the link that's connected to this
video, you'll have a chance to sign up for
the Run Better Now VIP club. Thank you.
Transcript:
Hey it’s Nick Ortego here. I’m going to
show you how to use PVC to make
parallettes for gymnastic strength
training. One thing you’re going to need
is one of these PVC cutters. The way it works
is like a ratchet. See the way to open it
up, put it on a piece of PVC. It’s
just a matter of doing that. I don’t want
to cut this one because I would mess up
my parallette that I’ve already made. So
once you mark the PVC pipes. These
pipes that I’ve used are 1 and 1/2 inch
diameter pipes. I’ve cut 4
24 inch pieces, that’s this part. I’ve got
4 of these pieces right here. Where
there’s a T both sides, so there are
four outlets for the pipe. I’ve got eight of
these little end caps. And then four of
these 90 degree pieces right here.
Basically what you do is put it together
like this there’s a 24 inch piece at the
bottom, the 4 outlet connector on one
side, There’s an 8 inch piece right here
and then the elbow make two of those and then,
put them together like this. Once they’re
together, you really want to do just put
a little gravity by pushing down, pushing
all the directions. You can get these
little, not necessary but helpful, these
little end caps and press those on as
well. The pieces fit together like
that. I like this design a lot better.
I’ve seen some where it’s lacking this
bottom piece and it’s only a T on each
side where I have these so there’s no
solidification of the base of the
parallette and those seem a little
unstable to me. So I really like this
design where there’s a 24 inch piece in
the bottom and the top of the parallette.
So make those give that a try you can
make two of them with the amount of
material that I mentioned earlier and
there are a ton of upper body and core
exercises that you can do with these
parallettes and I will have those videos
coming up. Got any benefit from this
video leave a comment below. If you’d
like to get more content that’s not
available on the blog or the regular
YouTube channel, then click the link
that’s connected to this video you’ll
have a chance to sign up for the Run
Better Now VIP club. Thank you.
Transcript:
Hey it’s Nick Ortego here. I’m gonna
show you how to use parallettes. These
are parallettes that I’ve made
myself with PVC. they’re roughly nine or
10 inches high, made them with one and a half-inch PVC pipes. I’ve got another video showing
you how to make these that I will link
to in the description of this video. I’ll
teach you how to do push-ups with these parallettes. What
you want to do is place them parallel
with each other like this. Your width can
vary from right at shoulder width to a
little wider. From there place your hands
on the bars, go into the top of a push-up
position. Be sure that your your hips,
shoulders and knees are lined up. So you
don’t want your hips to sag like this and
you don’t want your hips higher than the
line between the shoulders and knees.
Just like that, take a big breath in on
the way down and then exhale and push up.
This allows you to get a greater range
of motion going into some shoulder
extension here. Just be sure that you can
move your shoulder blades back with your
arms. Be sure that you have the range of
motion so that you’re not trying to push
the elbows back while the shoulder goes
forward. So it should look like this
where the shoulder blade comes back as
well, and not like this where the
shoulder blade goes forward and the
elbow goes back like this. Here’s the
critical point my shoulder blades go
back. If I don’t have the flexibility to
do that my shoulder blades start to roll
forward which is not good for the
shoulder mechanics. So really work on
your pectoral muscle flexibility. If
going with the full push up position
a little too hard now you can go from
the knees and that looks like this.
Breathe in on the way down, exhale on the
way up and just be sure you have the
range of motion. Be sure that you’re
you’re using the shoulder blades coming
back to extend your range of motion and
not going into kind of a hunched forward
and shoulder blade rolling forward when
your elbows go back elbows back. But the
shoulders go back as well really
stretching the pecs out. You got any
benefit from this video? Then leave a comment below. If you’d like to
get content not available on the
blog or the regular YouTube channel, you
can click the link that is connected to
this video you will have a chance to
sign up for the Run Better Now VIP
Club.
Video Transcript:
Hey it’s Nick Ortego here. I’m going to
show you how to use this little device.
It’s called the pelvic clock and it’s
made to do pelvic motions in a nice easy
gentle restorative way. But I’m going to
show you how to use it to really work
the abdominal muscles with some
intensity. So what you do is you place
the pelvic clock right underneath your
sacrum. That’s the bone that’s at the
base of the spine. It’s part of the
pelvis. You can see this part is shaped
like a sacrum and the 12 o’clock marking
is gonna go top, six o’clock goes at the
bottom. So just lie down on my back like
this and then lift the hips up find the
proper placing. Then just to get a
feel for it, tilt the pelvis around a
little bit: 12 o’clock, 6 o’clock, 9 o’clock, then I’m
going to lift my knees up now. There’s a
lot of freedom of motion at the pelvis.
For this exercise what we’re gonna do is
tilt the pelvis into the 12 o’clock
position, so there’s a little bit of a
posterior pelvic tilt that will activate
my abdominal muscles. I’m gonna keep the
pelvis in that posterior tilt as I let
one foot touch the ground and come back
up and then the other foot touch the
ground. And come back up if that’s really
easy I’m gonna extend the foot out.
The best way to breathe here: let’s
take a nice inhale and then exhale let
the air seep out when the foot is as far
out as you can get it. We want to be
mindful of is that you keep the pelvis
and a posterior tilt that keeps the
abdominals engaged. As I extend my leg
out but pelvis is gonna want
to tilt this way, anterior tilt. It’s
gonna want to go to the six o’clock
position on the pelvic clock and my job
is to keep it tilted back in the 12
o’clock position as I alternate
extending legs out. Breathe in, breathe
out. Farther I extend my leg the more
work I’m gonna give the abdominals. What
I want to be sure that’s happening is
that my abs are holding the pelvis is
place in that posterior tilt even as my
leg goes out. If I start to tilt the
other way, like that, that’s an indicator
to not push my leg out so far. Try a few
repetitions on each side first.
Give that try and maybe even work up to
20 or 30 repetitions. starting with maybe
six to eight on each side. If you got
any benefit from this video, leave a
comment below. If you’d like to get more
content that’s not available on the blog
or the regular YouTube channel, then click
the link that’s connected to this video
you’ll have a chance to sign up for the Run Better Now VIP club.
Video Transcript:
Hey it’s Nick Ortego here. I’m gonna
show you how to use this ball to do an abdominal exercise. It’s called the
reverse crunch it’s mainly the rectus
abdominus and some of the oblique
muscles. What I like about the reverse
crunches it hits all those muscles. It
gets you moving the pelvis rather than
the thoracic spine. So many people are
already stuck in a position for too many
hours of thoracic flexion, whether
they’re sitting and driving or sitting
at work, doing desk work. So I always like
to avoid reinforcing that for a lot of
people when I can. This is what I like to
do. Pop the legs up on the ball and then
press the heels into the ball. Squeeze the ball between the heels and
the butt like this. So that you can
actually pick up the ball. Arms down
by the sides.
Take a breath in. Exhale and then curl
the pelvis under. What the ball does is
it locks the legs in place. This keeps you
from doing a leg swing where you’re
accomplishing the movement by the
momentum of the hip flexors. Give that a
try it will activate the hamstring, which
can potentially shut the hip flexors off
a little bit more getting you to work on
the ABS a lot more with that reverse
crunch movement. If you got any benefit
from this, leave a comment below. And if
you’d like to get more content that’s
not available on the blog or the regular
youtube channel then click the link
that’s connected to this video you’ll have
a chance to sign up for the Run Better
Now VIP club.
Video Transcript:
Hey it’s Nick Ortego here. I’m going to
show you how to do a reverse lunge with
the sandbag. This is an ultimate sandbag.
It comes with some inner bags that you
can fill up with sand at different
amounts. You choose the amounts.
I have about 20 pounds in here just to
kind of show you how to use it. What I
like about this one is that it’s got
handles on it, but it’s also got these
flaps on the outside edge. So that if you
want to get grip work, if you want to
get that grip strength, any work that
comes with sandbags you can get that. Or
you could have the built-in handles that
give you an easier grip so they can
overload the other muscles. We’re
going to start with just finding a place
to hold the sandbag while you do a
reverse lunge. The way I like to hold it is
like this. Front of my chest in the
elbow crease. From there go down until
the knee almost touches or barely
touches the ground. Then come up. In the
bottom position what you want to see is this
knee can go a little bit forward but you
want to keep the heel grounded. And you
don’t want it to go too far forward. What
you want is the knee barely going
forward the heel is grounded. The leg
that’s in front, that’s where you’re
gonna put most of the weight. This is my
right leg that’s doing most of the work.
I’m gonna step back with my left foot
keep the right heel really grounded and
come up. That way I can do one set on one
leg and then switch over the other leg.
Or I can alternate legs doing the left
leg forward, right leg forward in that
manner. It’s an exercise you want to do
higher repetitions.
It’s not something you want to overload
with like less than eight reps. If
you found any benefit from this video
leave a comment below.
If you’d like to get more access to
content not available on the blog or the
regular YouTube channel, then click the
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