Step-ups.... how not to cheat

[missjane]

Your working leg stays on the step, while your non-working leg just brushes the ground. Up and down and up and down you go for your prescribed number of reps (say 15) You aren't using that non-working leg to help you.

Then, you switch and put your previously non-working leg on the step and repeat for 15 reps.

[Gayle]

Brilliant! Thank you so much Jane . . . guess I'll start doing them correctly tomorrow.

[Nikster]

Originally Posted by J Stankowski

I have a couple ideas on this:

1) by connecting your shoulder to your knee (via your arm), you create a stronger structure - much like a bridge or the Eiffel tower. The stronger the structure, the more it can withstand (or in this case, produce) force. Just be sure you're not using that hand to push off.

2) by touching the muscle(s) you intend to use, you provide an additional means of feedback to your CNS so your body knows what's going on. Meaning, if your muscles/connex tissue aren't providing enough 'internal' information that you can make sense of, the sensitivity of your hands/fingers can 'pick up the slack'. Does that make sense?

I don't have the book right in front of me, but I'm pretty sure AC includes partial co-contraction lunges, in which you work only through the range you feel specific muscles contracting.

-JS-

I do remember something like that in AC's Afterburn.....he had us touch that "teardrop muscle" on the inside of the leg (right above the knee) to feel the co-contraction while doing split squat or lunge? one or the other...but it really helped to give "feedback" to see if I was using the right muscle AND to stop when I was not feeling it contract....thanks for bringing that up, I had forgotten about that.

It was very cool too since I had not ever developed that muscle before (or noticed it?) so it definitely can work to lightly touch that muscle to help give focus to it....and yet not use it to cheat with.

[A H]

I put the working leg on the step, just barely start to step -- just enough to put pressure on that working heal that's on the step, then pause for a tiny split second to let the back leg go slack, then resume the stepping. It's taking some major brain power to focus on all of that through each step. LOL The pause is VERY tiny, no more than one second, but it worked for me anyway.

I tried this last time and it worked for me. After I put pressure on the working leg I paused at the bottom to allow my working leg to really engage then I continued to step up. Thanks for the advice