Get Fit Wednesday: Fitness tips from The Sporting Club La Jolla — Toning the upper body

Summer-like weather has begun and we have all been dreaming about a day at the beach. The San Diego Entertainer is the sponsor a popular segment on San Diego Living, Channel 6’s morning show on The CW, called “Get Fit Wednesday” which is aimed at helping our readers and fans get in shape and live a healthy lifestyle. The segment provides instruction on how to get your body ready for those beach days that are well on their way.

This Wednesday we bring you fitness expert Kris Machain from The Sporting Club in La Jolla with some tips and tricks just for you.

This week the goal of the exercises are to strengthen and tone the arms, back and shoulders. With the help of his assistant, Kris demonstrated a simple exercise and a few variations that are sure to work all of those hard to target muscles.

He instructed his assistant, who is already holding manageable weights to get into a squatting stance, with feet fairly wide apart. He then instructed her to bend her knees and lean forward while stretching her spine allowing her body to focus entirely on those target groups. Once in that position he had her hang her arms straight to the ground. This is the starting position.

Exercise one:
Kris instructed his assistant in raising her arms by bringing her elbows upward, but keeping her hands pointed down. Her elbow remained tight to her body the entire exercise, never going wider than her shoulders. He made sure that when she returned her arms into the starting position that she maintained a controlled pace.

Exercise two:
The next step was to change the focus of the exercise to a different part of the shoulders. This is achieved by rotating the arm so that when raised the upper arms would create a straight line with the shoulders. The same exercise is performed by bringing the elbows upward but allowing the hands to stay pointing downward.

Exercise three:
This last and most challenging variation is performed almost exactly like exercise two, except for one key element. At the point when the arms are raised to their highest point, instead of returning to the starting position Kris’s assistant then rotated her arms forward so that she was lifting her hands almost up to her head.

The Sporting Club is dedicated to providing resources for you to create the very best you. For answers to all your questions visit The Sporting Club atwww.thesportingclub.com or call them at (858) 552-8000.