Bav­ina Sookdeo

You've gone from be­ing the 20-some­thing-year-old whose life was packed with par­ties, ex­er­cise and noth­ing but liv­ing for your­self, to the hec­tic moth­er, wife and work­er. To put things sim­ply, you have lost your­self and that means you have no time to take care of your body. Your weight is no longer what it used to be, the scale read­ing is way high­er than you would have imag­ined, your tum­my seems to have a mind of its own and your arms? Well, let's just say your tri­ceps wave good­bye when you do. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Fit­ness In­struc­tor, Ravi Maraj, "There is still hope." In an in­ter­view with Wom­an­Wise, the en­er­getic fit­ness in­struc­tor gave some help­ful hints and ex­er­cis­es per­fect­ly suit­ed for the on-the-go woman. These ex­er­cis­es can be done at home with very lit­tle equip­ment and is aimed at those com­ing from a de-con­di­tioned state (ba­si­cal­ly, they are for those of you who have not ex­er­cised in years). Maraj, who works at 'The Shape Shop' lo­cat­ed in Mara­bel­la, has been a fit­ness in­struc­tor for over 14 years. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he has been a tri-ath­lete for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 years and a com­pet­i­tive swim­mer since the age of sev­en. Com­pe­ti­tions and tro­phies won by this fit­ness fan are in­nu­mer­able. With his wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence and knowl­edge, the 40-year-old's quick, easy and in­ex­pen­sive ex­er­cis­es will prove ef­fec­tive to any woman who is per­sis­tent.

How­ev­er Maraj warns, "Be­fore start­ing any pro­gramme of re­sis­tance and ton­ing, one must a build a prop­er car­dio base which takes ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12 weeks to build. Get­ting the heart and lungs in shape re­quires some type of aer­o­bic ac­tiv­i­ty (such as walk­ing, jog­ging or run­ning). Your ex­er­tion lev­el must be 80 per­cent of what you per­ceive as be­ing your max­i­mum lev­el." (To check your ex­er­tion lev­el, Maraj said that if you're not us­ing a heart rate mon­i­tor, use speech per­cep­tion - if you can rat­tle off the al­pha­bet or a con­tin­u­ous sen­tence flu­ent­ly, then your ex­er­tion lev­el is not enough.) Af­ter your 12-week car­dio base and as long as hip, knees, legs, back, heart and lungs are in good shape, then you're ready to start a pro­gramme or rou­tine of re­sis­tance train­ing. If pos­si­ble, and your fi­nances al­low it, get your­self a bench, re­sis­tance bands, a light pair of dumb­bells (10lbs max) or sur­gi­cal bands (avail­able at the phar­ma­cy) and a ball. "Your child's beach ball could work as well," Maraj ad­vis­es. One should start work­ing on ma­jor mus­cle groups first be­cause they are clos­er to the heart and can with­stand greater loads. "If we tar­get the small­er mus­cle groups ear­ly in the pro­gramme, due to fa­tigue, it may not be ef­fec­tive and can cause in­jury. Start with mus­cles in the chest, back, rhom­boids (the very thin mus­cles lo­cat­ed in your up­per back be­tween the shoul­der blades), hips and legs." Do the ex­er­cis­es three times a week for an hour (min­i­mum) or a con­densed 45 minute ses­sion; how­ev­er, the lat­ter would ne­ces­si­tate an in­crease in the in­ten­si­ty of the work­out. Maraj ex­plains, "In­creas­ing the in­ten­si­ty does not mean hard­er work or in­creas­ing the load. It means less­en­ing your rest pe­ri­od or in­creas­ing reps. From a de-con­di­tioned state, one would re­quire a longer rest pe­ri­od, but the av­er­age is 30 min­utes for a work­out of one hour."

Here are some ex­er­cis­es which Maraj rec­om­mends, demon­strat­ed by Sandy Hen­ry as she works with the in­struc­tions of train­er Zephyrine 'Zu­lu' Smith at 'The Shape Shop' in Mara­bel­la.

FOR THE SPINE:

Stand­ing Hy­per-ex­ten­sion

(This ex­er­cise will tar­get the spine, specif­i­cal­ly the low­er back" the tri-ath­lete dis­closed.)

In­struc­tions: Lean­ing on the bed place the feet un­der the bed and clutch a di­rec­to­ry or heavy book to­ward the chest. Lean for­ward slight­ly and slow­ly from the hips then bring the body back up to the stand­ing po­si­tion. Feet should re­main plant­ed firm­ly on the floor. The move­ments are to be slow and con­trolled.

Time: Do three sets of 10 reps for 30 to 45 sec­onds.

FOR THE LEGS:

• Sim­ple Sta­t­ic Wall Squat

In­struc­tions: Lean­ing on a wall or post, place feet a short dis­tance away from post, slide the body halfway down and main­tain po­si­tion for as long as you can hold it.

Time: Do three sets of 10 reps for 30 to 45 sec­onds.

• Leg Ex­ten­sions

(These can be done with or with­out elas­tic bands.)

In­struc­tions: Sit on the edge of a chair or bench. Us­ing slow con­trolled move­ment, raise the low­er end of the legs and bring it in to­ward the stom­ach. Hold the head steady. Re­turn legs to rest­ing po­si­tion and re­peat.

Time: Do three sets of 10 reps for 30 to 45 sec­onds.

• Nor­mal Free Stand­ing Squats

(When do­ing these squats, en­sure that thighs are par­al­lel to the floor and al­ways keep the tip of your sneak­er in sight to min­imise the risk of knee in­jury.)

In­struc­tions: Stand firm­ly on the ground with feet a short dis­tance apart. Stoop as if you're about to sit on a chair push­ing the but­tocks out. Hold and count to 10, then bring body back up to stand­ing po­si­tion. Re­peat.

Time: Do three sets of 10 reps for 30 to 45 sec­onds.

• Ball Squat

In­struc­tions: Us­ing a beach ball and fol­low­ing the tech­nique for Sim­ple Sta­t­ic Wall Squat, place the ball just above the but­tocks and slide the body down un­til the ball gets to the shoul­der blade. Hold the po­si­tion and then press back up re­turn­ing to the orig­i­nal stand­ing po­si­tion.

Time: Do three sets of 10 reps for 30 to 45 sec­onds.

FOR THE GUT:

Sit Ups

(There is a spe­cif­ic breath­ing pat­tern in­volved in or­der to get the stom­ach flat. On the way up when we have spinal flex­ion, the ab­domen should be pulled in and one should ex­hale. On the way down, the ab­domen should be re­laxed and one should in­hale.)

In­struc­tions: Lay flat on the ground. Bend knees and place balls of your feet and heels flat on the ground. Place hands out in front of you. Tight­en ab­dom­i­nal mus­cles and ex­hale while slow­ly and gen­tly lift­ing the body (keep­ing head steady) to­wards the knee un­til you are at a 90 de­gree an­gle. By this time hands should be above your head. Hold the po­si­tion for a sec­ond. Re­turn to rest­ing po­si­tion or stay slight­ly above the floor and re­peat.

Time: Do three sets of 15 reps. Rest pe­ri­od should be 30 sec­onds.

FOR THE OBLIQUES:

(En­sure that your spine is healthy

when do­ing these ex­er­cis­es.)

• Dumb­bell Ma­son Twist - This ex­er­cise slims the sides and it is easy and ef­fec­tive.

In­struc­tions: Sit on a chair or bench hold­ing dumb­bell. Twist the body and touch the left side of the chair then twist the body again (briefly re­turn­ing to orig­i­nal po­si­tion on the way back) and touch the right side of the chair. The hips are to re­main sta­tion­ary.

Time: Do three sets of 15 reps. Rest: 30 to 45 sec­onds.

• Ba­sic Jack Knife:

In­struc­tions: Sit on the side of the bench with feet ex­tend­ed. Bring knees up to a 90 de­gree flex­ion point at knees and hips or high­er. As you bring the knee up you ex­hale, keep­ing the stom­ach held in tight­ly.

Time: Do three sets of 15 to 20 reps. Rest: 30 to 45 sec­onds.

Maraj then in­sist­ed: "It is es­sen­tial that these rep ranges are kept man­age­able in the be­gin­ning and are in­creased as fit­ness im­proves. High­er rep ranges al­low for prop­er mus­cle con­di­tion­ing and mus­cle pro­gram­ming and that al­lows for prop­er dai­ly func­tion­ing".