25 | September | 2012 | Fitness & Feta

Time for this week’s Move of the Week post!

Move of the Week: Dumbbell Pullovers

This exercise works your chest, but the shoulders are also doing a lot of work to stabilize all your muscles throughout.

Step 1
Lie upper back on a stability ball. This can also be done by lying the upper back perpendicular on a bench. Flex your hips slightly. Grasp one dumbbell with both hands and hold it over your chest with your elbows slightly bent.

Step 2
Keeping your elbows slightly bent throughout the movement, lower the dumbbell over and beyond your head. Do this until your upper arms are in line with your torso. Make sure you do not drop the hips down.

*Note: In the above picture my arms are on the way down – I’m almost there! Everyone will have a slightly different range of motion here depending on shoulder flexibility.

Step 3
Squeeze, then pull the dumbbell back up and over your chest. That’s one rep.

Go for 10-12 reps and repeat for 2-3 sets to start, then build from there. Just be careful not to confuse this move with a triceps extension! I see that mistake a lot.

One of my favorite workouts that uses this exercise is one I did on Saturday for upper body work, from BBB. The workout is composed of three different supersets. Each superset consists of one “pre-exhaustion” exercise and one “main strength” exercise. Basically you do the first move in each superset for as long as you can until you are fatigued, then you do 12 reps of the main strength exercise. Then repeat for a total of two times before moving on to the next superset.

Pre-Exhaustion / Main Strength Upper Body Supersets

Superset 1

Pushups
Incline Dumbbell Chest Press on Stability Ball

Superset 2

Inverted Row
Dumbbell Pullovers

Superset 3

Pulsing Lateral Raises
Overhead Shoulder Presses

This workout doesn’t take very long (I would say 20-30 minutes tops), but it’s a good one to pair with cardio on a day you don’t feel like doing a long cardio sesh. I’m always sore after this one too, and it’s a good one to keep in your back pocket for monitoring progress with increasing your weights.

Ever done dumbbell pullovers before?

If not, it’s a different way to switch up your chest exercises! Go try it!

How many of you work a corporate office job?

If you just nodded yes to yourself, you must know what it’s like to deal with birthday cakes for co-workers, the office candy jar, and fattening food options in the café. Throw in some stress, sitting hunched over at your computer for eight hours a day, and countless caffeine pick me ups and you’ve got a surefire recipe for weight gain under your belt. I know I have several friends whose groups have “bagel Fridays” or take turns hosting breakfast clubs. Any of you guys have something like this where you work? If so, I’m sure you can sympathize at how hard it can be to “be good” when there are so many delicious food options right in front of you, right?

Well, my friends, I am encouraging you to be bold and start something different.

Something healthy, and gasp… maybe even still fun!

Start a salad club!

I got this idea while reading A Better Bag of Groceries, and I thought to myself, “Um… how brilliant is this.”

Basically, once a week (or once a month, or for a weekly team meeting, etc.) each person in the group brings something (or more than one thing!) that you would find at a salad bar, making sure to focus on having enough protein and enough greens. I told my new supervisor about this idea when we were brainstorming about some health and wellness related activities, and my new group actually did this as a “welcome to the group” for me last week. How awesome is that?!

Obviously, I was super excited.

Everyone brought in some great things!

How cute is that watermelon bowl by the way?

There were also pita pockets, croutons, salmon, chicken, olives, apple slices, shredded carrots, lots of dressings, and more!

One of my favorite parts was Dawn’s tuna salad:

She shared the recipe with us, so I’m going to share it with you guys. It’s just 2 or 3 cans of solid white tuna in water, 1 can of drained cannellini beans, 1/3 chopped cucumber, the zest and juice of two lemons, a splash of white balsamic, about 4 teaspoons of capers, fresh parsley, and sea salt.

I ended up making myself a little tuna pita pocket to have along with my salad and pepperjack cheese slices. So yummy!

I love how everyone’s plate can look different based on which ingredients they choose. That’s the beauty of the “bar!”

Going out to lunch or buying lunch can really add up, so starting a salad club can actually save you a lot of money too.

So! I highly urge you guys to promote wellness at work and encourage your own co-workers to start a salad club. Even if it’s just for one team-building event (start small) to test the waters. You may be surprised at how many people get excited about the idea and would rather participate in something like this over donuts in the break room.