Fitness & Failure: Why Failure is a Good Thing

(Lynda, at home "in" her gym)
Failure!
That’s me. That is, if I try hard enough..and it’s a good thing.  
You see, I’ve been working out at home for three months now and quite frankly I don’t know when I’ll get back to the gym. So, I need to push myself on the lifts, ie: go to failure.
My weights aren’t heavy enough at home so I gotta go for those extra reps. You know what I’m talking about—just when I *think* I can’t do another squat, I go for it, anyway. This is important—for all of us—in order to grow those muscles.
If you never lifted weights, you might be rolling your eyes—thinking—what is she doing? Why does she want to build muscle? To enter an arm-wrestling contest; power lifting because she’s into grunting & spitting; or maybe it’s Sumo wrestling she’s into? Well, it’s none of the above.
I just want to age gracefully, and one of the best ways to do that is to build muscle. In fact, the older we get the more muscle we should try and build.
Sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss) is coming for you and it’s coming for me. So, like a garlic necklace repels a vampire, pick up a weight to ward off the big scary Sarcopenia.
Here are some of the moves I try to do 3-4 times a week.
Fight Sarcopenia

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​1/Body Parts-Legs are my favorite to work out—hard! I’ve suffered chronic back pain for almost 30 years. It seems the better & tougher my leg work-out, the more it eases my pain. Our legs contain the biggest muscles and are responsible for stability & more. So, learn how to do squats. And make sure you change it up—vary your moves. There are a lot of squat variations, like in that picture, I’m doing side-to-side squat lunges. Click here for some other good ones.
2/Booty-It also helps me a lot to focus on building the glute muscles. I know what you may be thinking—oh, what’s the use—that went away a long time ago. But you CAN get it back. And again, the more muscle we build the better off we will feel and remember—gotta fight that Sarcopenia. Click here for some good moves for glutes that you can do with no equipment.
3/Quads-This is the front upper part of the leg. Click here for some great exercises that fire up your quadriceps & build muscle. This way you’ll look good coming.
4/Hamstrings-And so you’ll look good going---work the back of the upper legs too. Click here to see some solid moves for your hammies.
Remember, work at your own level & pace. If you’re a beginner—learn correct form first. As you progress, begin adding a 2 lbs. dumbbell in each hand, then 5 lbs. then 8 and so on. You can easily purchase small dumbbells here.
But whatever level you do, remember to push it a little, go to failure until you don't think you can do one more. That's where the muscle grows!
​Let me know if you have any questions. I’d love to help you with YOUR work out!
Make it a great day!
Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, Polish Poet, 1909-1966

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