#1 - Happy Feet with Active Recovery Intervals
Hey Total Gym team! It’s Master Trainer JayDee back to spread some love for my Total Gym PickleBall Peeps. Hey, if you haven’t joined the pickleball craze, you will still love this dynamic, heart-pumpin’, serious leg workout.
I’m delighted to say that this is my first installment of a series of blogs/vlogs to show you how you can use your awesome Total Gym to drastically improve your pickleball game. As I tell all my clients, the most important piece of equipment in pickleball – or any sport for that matter – is your body! So invest wisely 🙂
Confession time: I am totally addicted to this crazy sport! I’ve been a fiercely competitive athlete my whole life. But between ice hockey, football, golf, tennis, years of running every day, beach volleyball, and then a career of teaching high-impact fitness classes – I wore my hips out. Although the discipline of Pilates rebalanced my jacked-up body, I eventually had to trade in my original hip joint models for some shiny new ceramic upgrades.
I sheepishly asked my surgeon what my restrictions would be. To my surprise, he said I could do whatever I wanted! But, he told me if I continued to pound my joints with high-impact exercise, I would just wear them out prematurely as I did with my God-given hips. Thus, I disappointedly shunned all high-impact exercise, and I sadly decided to part ways with my love of tennis. Boy, did I miss it! Especially the competition aspect.
Then, in 2016, while teaching meditation at Rancho La Puerta Spa in Mexico, it was PickleBall week. The visiting pro said it was the fastest-growing sport in the U.S.! I thought that to be a bit far-fetched, but I was quickly hooked! Yes, there is still impact, but not nearly as much as the pounding in a typical tennis match.
Today, 10 years later, I play as much as I possibly can, and I just got certified to be a PPR Teaching Coach! Now I’m delighted to combine my passion for fitness and my love of this wonderful sport to help people play their best, reduce their incidence of injury, and improve their physical health.
OK, enough babbling JayDee – let’s get right to improving our game! It’s time to check out the Happy Feet Workout video above.
A couple of tips to get the most out of this workout:
• Get your caffeine on! This is an high-energy workout so bring your A-game
• Put on your favorite motivating music and have some FUN!
• Treat yourself and buy the Total Gym Extra Large Squat Stand. If you like a great leg workout, especially plyometric jumps which are so fun and awesome for your body, it’s a must have Total Gym accessory.
• Use an interval timer app on your phone. I love the Tabata Pro app and most are free.
The average point time during a match around 10 to 15 seconds. The average recovery time between points while you’re switching serving sides, retrieving the ball, etc. is about 15 to 20 seconds. Thus, I recommend you set your “workout” interval for 15 seconds and your recovery interval for 20 seconds to train your real game endurance.
Work your buns off during the 15 second “Happy Feet” interval. Keep moving during the 20 second Active Recovery Time (A.R.T.) as your heart rate will be pumpin’. I gave you 6 ideas of what to do during your A.R.T. but be creative and mix it up!
If you haven’t tried pickelball yet, do it! It’s a blast, great exercise, and the social aspect is wonderful. My wife and I used to be happy home bodies. Thanks to pickleball, in just the past 3 years we now have over 60 new friends and our social life is robust! So go find a court and try it. I know you’ll thank me down the road.
Thanks TG Team!
