Ed Tech Fitness

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challenge of the week

Ed Tech Fitness Challenge of the Week – Hydrate!

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The school day gets busy and before you realize it, you’ve gone three hours without drinking anything. Or worse, the only thing you’ve had to drink is that cup of lukewarm coffee. This week’s challenge is to remember to drink water throughout the day.

Benefits of Proper Hydration

Drinking water throughout the day has lots of benefits. It helps your skin, it helps your brain function better, it can keep you from snacking (that’s a huge one for me), and it will help perform better when go to exercise.

I have an app on my phone called Watermaniac (Android only) that helps me remember to drink water during the day. iPhone users can use apps like WaterMinder for the same purpose. Of course, you could also just use Google Keep or your phone’s alarm function to set repeating reminders to drink water during the day.

How to Use Google Keep to Set Recurring Reminders

Google Keep is a versatile app that you can use on your desktop, on an Android phone, or on an iPhone. One of it’s many functions lets you create time-based and location-based reminders. Watch the following video to learn how to do both of those things.

Fancy Water Bottles!

You don’t need a fancy water bottle in order to stay hydrated, but having one will make you look like you’re on-trend. My partner has a fancy Hydro Flask water canteen that keeps water cold for hours or days or possibly months depending upon the hype that you read.

The Hydro Flask is way too pricey for this frugal New Englander so I just use the standard red Nalgeen bottle that I’ve had for years. The only thing fancy about my water bottle is the Ed Tech Fitness sticker that I slapped on it in the spring. If you want one of the stickers, send me an email with your address and I’ll send you one.

Ed Tech Fitness Challenge of the Week – Mountain Climber

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Good evening from Maine where it’s 42F and raining, again. That means that today was another day on the indoor spin bike and a few sets of mountain climbers. The mountain climber exercise is the last one in this month’s series of core strengthening exercises.

Mountain climber is an exercise in which you start in a plank-like position on your hands and feet then pull your knees to your chest one at a time before returning to the starting position and repeating. You can do these at any pace you choose. If you do them in rapid succession it can provide a nice cardio workout. This video provides a perfect demonstration of the mountain climber exercise.

Calendar of Ed Tech Fitness Challenges

The calendar of Ed Tech Fitness challenges seemed to be popular this month. I’m going to put together another calendar for June. If you have suggestions that you’d like to make to be included in the calendar, please let me know.

Good luck this week!

Requisite disclaimer: I am not a medical professional or personal trainer. Please consult your physician or personal trainer if you have any questions about your ability to complete these exercises.

Ed Tech Fitness Challenge of the Week – Bird Dog

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What a difference a week makes! At this time last week everyone in Maine was grumbling about the possibility of more snow. Today, we’re grumbling about humidity and thunderstorms in the forecast. Over the weekend it was nice enough to get outside to play. I got in a 62 mile bike ride on Saturday as part of my training for a 200 miler at the end of June. How was your weekend?

The top of Evans Notch in the White Mountain National Forest. Beautiful place for a bike ride.

Challenge of the Week!

This week’s challenge is a fun one! This week we’re doing a core strengthening exercise called bird dogs. This exercise looks kind of funny and it is actually fun to do. When done properly, bird dogs will improve your balance and core strength.

You do this exercise starting on your hands and knees then lift your right arm and left leg, then switch. Watch the following video starting at the 5:09 mark to see a demonstration.

Calendar of Ed Tech Fitness Challenges

The calendar of May’s previous challenges and the upcoming challenges is available right here.

Good luck this week!

Requisite disclaimer: I am not a medical professional or personal trainer. Please consult your physician or personal trainer if you have any questions about your ability to complete these exercises.

Ed Tech Fitness Challenge of the Week – Half Kneel Chops

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Hello from Maine where over the weekend we had beautiful weather for playing outside. It is supposed to snow here tonight so it was good to get outside for exercise while we could. I hope that wherever you are, you got to play outside too.

Challenge of the Week

If you’re following along on the Ed Tech Fitness Challenge calendar, you probably noticed that this week’s challenge is to complete balanced sets of half-kneel chops. This might be a new exercise for you. In fact, it’s a relatively new exercise to me as it was just introduced to me in March.

Half-kneel chops can be completed with a dumbbell, a medicine ball, at a pull-down cable machine, or without any weight at all. The purpose of the exercise is to stretch and strengthen your core. This is an exercise that you don’t want to do unless you have sufficiently stretched and warmed up. You can see a GIF of the exercise here or watch the short videos here or here for demonstrations of how to do half-kneel chops.

Good luck! Have a great week!

Requisite disclaimer: I am not a medical professional or personal trainer. Please consult your physician or personal trainer if you have any questions about your ability to complete these exercises.

A Calendar of Ed Tech Fitness Challenges

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A handful of people on the Ed Tech Fitness weekly mailing list suggested that I make a calendar of challenges rather than just sending one out at the beginning of every week. I thought that was a good idea so I went with it and made this calendar of challenges for the month of May and last two days of April.

As you can see in the calendar, the month of May is all about core strengthening exercises. Yes, planking is one of the challenges but the rest are kind of fun exercises that you can do in your living room or anywhere else that you have a little bit of space. Now that spring has finally arrived here in Maine, I’ll be doing these outside before I hop on my bike or go for a run.

Challenge of the Week

This week’s challenge is just to work on improving our flexibility by spending a little more time stretching in anticipation of a month of doing core strengthening exercises. Here’s a simple stretching routine that you can work into your day (I like to do these in the morning as well as the evening). A side benefit of stretching in the morning, for me anyway, is clearing my mind and just relaxing before the craziness of my day with toddlers begins.

Ed Tech Fitness Challenge of the Week – HIIT It!

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Good evening from snowy Maine. Yes, on April 8th we have a coating of 4″ of new snow with more in the forecast. I had hoped to be riding my bike outside by now. Mother nature had other plans so once again I did a HIIT workout on my stationary bike. HIIT is this week’s Ed Tech Fitness challenge.

Challenge of the Week

This week’s challenge is to complete HIIT workouts. For those not familiar with HIIT, it’s high intensity interval training. HIIT workouts have been proven to burn more calories in the same amount of time as steady, moderate exercise. In other words 20-30 minutes spent alternating between sprinting and recovering will burn more calories than a steady 20-30 minute run or bike ride. I wrote more about HIIT here earlier this year.

If you have never tried a HIIT workout, try one this week. If you haven’t done one for a while, add one back into your routine. Even 20 minutes is sufficient if you do it right. You’ll find lots of YouTube videos featuring free HIIT workout videos for running, cycling, and calisthenic exercise.

As always, I’d love to see how you’re doing on your fitness journey. Use the hashtag #edtechfitness on Instagram or Twitter to share your success.

Requisite disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. Please consult your physician if you have questions about your ability to participate in any new fitness regimen.

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