Are you hitting the slopes this winter?

Then you better start getting your body prepared for the burning thighs, cold noses and adrenalin hits!

Melanie shares her favourite exercises to get your legs and buttock strong so you aren’t in pain and ice baths after your skiing adventure.

Lunge. Another great leg exercise to strengthen the thighs and buttocks. Using a Swiss ball against a wall put the ball in the small of your back. Have your feet hip width apart and take your left foot behind you so when you lower yourself down on your left leg your knee is in line with your hip and shoulder. The trunk and neck should stay tall. The front or right knee should be over your ankle. Take your left leg slowly down towards the ground without touching the ground then slowly back to the start position. This is one. Try 10 on each side, you should feel the quads muscle in the back leg working. Use the mirror to help you stay in the correct alignment.

Sustained Wall Squat. Put a Swiss ball in the small of your back lean up against a wall. Have your feet hip width apart, take your feet away from the wall and squatting down so your knees are over your ankles and your hips make a right angle. Your trunk should be tall and your ribs tucked in. Hold here for one minute. If you don’t have a Swiss ball you can lean up against a wall keeping a neutral pelvis and spine.

Single Leg Squat. A great exercise for targeting your buttock and your VMO (the small stabilising muscle of the knee and knee cap on your inner thigh near your knee). Standing on your right leg hold onto something with your left hand. Make sure your right knee is in line with your 2nd/3rd toe, your hip and your shoulder. Feel your right buttock activate as you slowly bend your right knee to about 45 deg keeping your trunk tall and your pelvis aligned. Your waist band should stay level on each side so there is no dropping or hitching of your left hip. Try 10 on each side. You should be feeling it in your buttock and your inner knee.

To make all of the above exercises harder add some weights to your hands and do a small bicep curl.

Remember to stretch your quads and buttock after your skiing day and use ice if you are in pain or see your Physiotherapist.

Fat seems to be genetically pre-programmed to its final destination

I often get asked whether Pilates will help to lose abdominal fat. I usually answer ‘no’, as fat must be burned away through cardio-vascular exercise that really gets our hearts pumping. Pilates can, however, definitely tone the abdominal region, giving you a shapelier waist line.

Perhaps the true secret to a flatter tummy is all in our genes?

I recently stumbled across a short but very interesting article about fat cells. The article made frequent reference to ‘bad’ belly fat that causes cardiac disease. It compared this fat to the ‘heart-friendly’ less dangerous fat of the lower body, or thigh and hip fat.

As we would all be aware, men seem to deposit their fat stores around their middle, while women tend to be more pear-shaped, with higher fat deposits around their hips and thighs when compared to their tummies. Research also seems to point to the belly fat as a greater predictor of heart and cardiovascular disease and diabetes, when compared to thigh fat.

A recent study in 2012 published in the ‘Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism’ concluded that fat cells are ‘pre-programmed’ genetically to land either in your belly or thighs. In this research, genes were expressed very differently in the same individual’s belly and thigh fat cell samples. This possibly dictated where each fat was to be deposited. These same fat cells (grown from the fat stem cells in a petri dish) showed the same differing gene expression, further supporting the thoughts that all fat cells are genetically destined to their final location, even when not in the body and grown in a laboratory.

Further research is needed, but it is thought that this will bring a shift in the thinking and management of obesity and its relationship to heart disease and diabetes. Perhaps finding a way to change the gene expression of our fat cells will allow for a redistribution of our fat away from the tummy and into the thighs.

We may one day all look very pear-shaped in our figures- both men and women alike. My advice? Low fat diet and exercise. All ‘fatty’ food and drink in moderation to lower your fat cell count and of course, Pilates to stay shapely and strong.

Sydney CBD Timetable Term 3 2013