Hi Venus! First of all, welcome to Cathe's forums, and HOLY COW, congratulations on those weight loss statistics!
What an accomplishment -- you must feel SO proud of yourself for such an amazing success!
A little more info on you might help Cathe and the rest of us here counsel you on getting best results without injury or excessive soreness. How would you rank your general level of fitness? Are you a beginner, intermediate or advanced? How long have you been working out regularly? Are you accustomed to doing core work, or is that fairly new to you?
Not knowing how new you are to all this stuff, I will venture a few ideas for you and I hope you'll excuse me if these recommendations are too "beginner" for you! ;-)
On the glute raises, it sounds like you may be leaning too far forward into the working leg and/or bending the back leg when you dip so that the motion is more like a lunge. Maybe that would explain your feeling this in your quad so much. Couple of ideas for practicing the glute raises before you do ME again. First, try doing them standing next to your step/High Step, first of all, and I'll tell you in a minute why. Another idea -- if your hip flexors and/or hamstrings are tight, you will have a little trouble with the correct rear leg position and with the correct "pushing up" leg-straightening position in the front leg. Before you practice, get your legs warm, then stretch hammies and hip flexors. Even while you're doing ME, pausing for a little stretch before the glute raises may benefit you for a while -- it will help you avoid injury and help you create the range of motion you need to do this exercise in proper stance.
When you're ready to try the glute raises, get the stance in place first. Stand upright with both legs split evenly front to back, with your working leg (front leg) closest to the step. Then slide the rear leg back while easing down into the proper bend in the front leg. The idea is to create a 90-degree angle in the thigh and shin of the front leg while keeping the back leg as straight as possible. You should feel a pleasant little stretch in the rear hip flexor, and you want to be sure that your front knee does not extend out over your toes and will not do so even when you push up. Keep your upper body aligned with your back leg -- you want one long clean line from your rear leg up to your head and neck, which are neutral. You're not leaning forward much at all -- it feels that way because your rear leg is back, but if you can see yourself in a mirror you really shouldn't be "tipped" forward much, or you'll break that nice long clean line!
Now, once you've got that stance in place, LIGHTLY place just the fingertips of the hand closest to the step onto the step, and place your other hand behind your back as Cathe and crew do. Then, using your lightly-placed fingertips for balance (don't lean on that hand!}(), practice a few reps at slow speed, concentrating on keeping that head-neck-back-rear-leg line nice and straight, and concentrating on pushing up hard through the heel of the front leg. Squeeze the front leg's glute as you push up slowly, just going to the point of comfort where you feel work in the front glute and hamstring. You will feel this in your rear leg, too, but it will help if you think about relaxing that leg as much as possible. Your long clean line never changes here. Your rear leg really does need to stay back and as straight as possible. Don't worry if your range of motion isn't where Cathe and crew are -- this is a deceptively tough exercise to do correctly.
On the side planks with med ball, I hear you on those! Couple of ideas: First, try practicing these all by themselves, right after a warm-up before your core or lower back are fatigued from other work, and practice them with no ball. It helps to do these in front of a mirror to watch your form, and it also helps to learn them with your legs in a split stance for extra support and balance, instead of with one foot on top of the other. Be very aware of your abdomen -- it should not tip forward at all when you dip down or that WILL stress your lower back. Start out with a limited range of motion when you raise and lower, and gradually dip a little lower as you feel stronger. When you come back up, don't elevate the top hip -- you're starting out with your body in a straight line and only coming back up into a straight line. I wouldn't add any weight to your side like Cathe does until you've mastered the posture for this movement, and then I'd add weight very slowly and only do as many reps as you can do with perfect form. I find that if I've done more traditional ab work for a while and then come back to the ab/core work like ME, I have to drop back from the 8-lb med ball on these side planks. They are very tough!
Hope this helps!!
http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/sport/sport-smiley-003.gif Kathy S.
http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/spezial/spudniks/spudniklifter.gif
