As women, most of us are raised to not take up space. To be demure and submissive. As a woman who’s had to fend for herself most of my adult life, I quickly realized I had to toss all those ideas if I wanted to survive. Most guys at my gym are polite and respectful. But once in a while I run across a guy who wants to try to push me around. Ha! Good luck with that! 😉 Respect is a two-way street and I’m not going to take any crap. Any man that belittles women has a serious self-confidence issue with himself .
I’ve been adding more unilateral work and mobility drills to my workouts lately. I love single-leg Romanian deadlifts, but I struggle with balance. I’ve tried holding onto a bench or wall for assistance, but the problem there is that I tend to lean too heavily on the bench and use way too much assistance, so the bench becomes a crutch as opposed to a teaching tool. I’ve recently discovered using a foam roller instead of a bench or wall.
The foam roller works great because it provides some assistance for your balance, but you can’t put too much of your weight on it like you can with a bench or a wall because it will just tip over. It forces you to keep your weight centered over your hips as opposed to moving forward, so it ensures that you’re doing the exercise correctly and hinging at the hips as opposed to shifting your weight forward to doing more of a single leg squat type movement. Lower the weight in line with the foam roller; this helps prevent against reaching forward.
My feet/ankles are a weak link, so I’ve been doing some single leg swaps.
Dr. Joel Seedman has some great stuff on foot/ankle biomechanics, so I highly recommend you check him out.
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