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The Marching in Place exercise is the last of three Beginner and Active level warmup exercises in the Exercise for Better Bones program. You should do the marching in place exercise before you start your Strength exercises and remember to enjoy this, think positive thoughts and use the opportunity to get your training off to a great start.
I demonstrate the Marching in Place exercise and also have a short video with a tip for Health Professionals.
Enjoy!
Marching in Place Exercise • Video Demonstration
Marching in Place Exercise
Beginner and active level warm up marching in place exercise.
With marching in place, you want to alternate your arms and your leg motion so that you’re getting your knees going as high as you’re comfortable towards the ceiling and your hands as high as comfortable towards the ceiling, as well.
With the motion, we want to be thinking about keeping your arms in the straight plane and not going across your body.
Marching in Place • Pay Attention to Knee and Hip Control
Pay attention to what your knees or your hip control is doing.
Often times with marching in place, I’ll see people stepping almost across their body, and this is something they end up doing without realizing it.
They’re doing it when they go for walks, doing it when they go up stairs, and they start wondering why they have so many knee issues is that if you march like this or step up like this, your knees are always at a bit of an angle, and so they are compromised when you’re going to be stepping up stairs or even walking.
Try to get into a good habit of stepping in a straight plane with the knees over your second toe and your hands reaching up to the ceiling, and just stand long and tall through the back.
That’s it for the marching in place exercise.
Marching in Place Exercise • Health Professional Tip
Form is really important. You know you think something like marching in place is so basic, but it can give you a lot of information. Any motion that are client does gives you a lot of information.
Marching in Place Exercise • Patient with Thoracic Pain
I’m going to give you an example here of a client who is coming to see me with thoracic pain. This is how she marched.
She didn’t have any idea that’s how she marched. I would ask her how her week was as she’s marching along. It wasn’t until I put her in front of a mirror that she found it was really peculiar how she was moving.
She was an office worker and sat behind a desk all day long, and so my question to you is, can you kind of guess what she did outside of her work time? When I give my seminars, often people more in-shape plays tennis, and does a lot of backhand. What is it that she does?
Nobody has guessed it so far, and what she does do is she’s a dog trainer. When she’s training the dogs, she’s running with the dogs on her left side, the entire time, running. That’s how she, the movement pattern, she’s trained her body in doing.
It wasn’t until she actually started running with the dogs on her right side that she started getting less thoracic pain. All the modes or treatments I could have intervened with might have helped things along a little bit.
It wasn’t until you looked at someone’s movement patterns and start making them aware of it that you’ll actually enhance their movements overall.
Is Marching in Place Good Exercise?
Is marching in place good exercise? You should know from the demonstrations and discussions above that it is a good warm up exercise and for many it constitutes a workout. It is also a good way to notice movement patterns and make adjustments.
Osteoporosis Exercise Plan
Visit my Osteoporosis Exercise Plan page for more information on this topic.
Comments
August 5, 2016 at 5:59pm
Dee
How does marching and lifting up the legs improve the
bones....is it the weight of your body on the way down....
and is it more beneficial than just regular walking ???
Thanks
January 1, 2019 at 1:32pm
M
How long for this warm up and how many reps or how long for other warm ups?
January 2, 2019 at 9:32pm
Margaret Martin replies
Hi M, Depending if you have just come back form a walk you can keep it to 20 seconds otherwise I would encourage 1 minute. You can add high knees as you are able. The energy tree is 10 - 15 reps and the curtsey is 5 to each side. Happy working out.
All the best in 2019.
January 6, 2019 at 9:31pm
M
Excellent and thank you! I'm very excited and motivated about your program! I've already started the exercises and am feeling a good difference already. Thanks for your expertise! I will pass along your website. Thanks for your prompt response too! I am a dentist and our all day posture is flexing our spines. This is a great remedy and I'm hopeful this will change things for me.