Whether you are suffering from shoulder pain, recurring tension headaches or neck tightness, you can still do something about it. All 3 of these things are often linked to poor posture (spending time seated with your head 6-inches out in front of you?), bad habits or upstream/downstream "tightness". Here is a shocker for you: I am a chiropractic student, and I still recommend you take a crack at solving your pain yourself (pun intended, but don't literally CRACK anything. That's MY job).
Below are my favorite exercises to help address something called 'upper-cross syndrome', which is a fancy way to say rounded shoulders and poor posture. Give them a shot, pick your favorites, and GET OUT OF PAIN.
Your ankles are our connection with our foundation, which is our feet.
The feet are our connection to the ground and responsible for every athletic movement we perform. All of the transfer of forces happens through the feet. Bullet Proof Ankles are essential to be able to run, jump, cut, kick, punch, squat, lunge.... you name it. The mobility-stability balance is the name of the game, and with a little bit of work and a lot of consistency you can increase your deadlift weight, decrease your 100m time and maximize your vertical all by taking care of your ankles.
Here are the key notes:
maintain your arch
walk and stand with your feet straight
choose minimal footwear when you can. When you can't, take off the restrictive footwear periodically and stretch/mobilize
Mobilize and work on your ankles/shins daily
If you follow those steps I guarantee that you will increase your ankle mobility, decrease foot pain, and your improve your injury resilience. You will feel better, move better, and perform better.
Periodically I get a client who has trained their butt off and is ready to smash the POPAT. Their numbers are good. They're strong enough and fit enough. Then they go to take the POPAT.... and they fall short. Time, after time.
So what's the deal?
GENERALLY, I FIND 3 MAIN REASONS WHY SOMEONE WILL FAIL THE POPAT, EVEN IF THEY ARE FIT ENOUGH.
These reasons are: 1. Pacing, 2. Timidness, 3. No warm-up...
Mobility is important. Like, super important. It might even be more important than strength training... I tend to like my toys, which means I spend a lot of time testing out mobility tools. Below I is a list of my favorite/most used tools.
This week we talk about creating the ideal sleeping environment. There are many details to consider in this regard, but these little details can make all the difference.
In keeping with the Paleo/Primal theme, before we discuss our bed and bedroom we must consider how we have evolved as humans. We have been genetically programmed to produce melatonin for 12 hours a day. Melatonin is the chemical signal for our body to induce sleep. Therefore we require darkness or very dim light devoid of blue light for that amount of time. In today's day and age, that is not so. Starting work so early, an extended evening full of artificial light, TVs, iPads, computers, nightclubs, and nighttime driving all create a spike in cortisol (the bodies primary stress hormone)...
Getting a good quality sleep starts from the moment you wake up. If you have sleep issues, wake up feeling tired, lethargic or headachy, or just want to improve the overall quality of your sleep, then you need to read on. In this day and age of working long hours, TV until midnight, Facebook, computers, phones, shiftwork, and parties, we are constantly bombarded by fake light. A fascinating study showed that one small beam of light shining on a person’s leg while they slept spiked the stress hormone cortisol! This leads to unrestful sleep...
Today we tackle the most complex, yet the most underappreciated category of the fundamental movement patterns. Today we talk about Gait, or in other words, Running. The unfortunate reality is most people suck at running. This is surprising because it is fundamental to human performance. If you look at the stats, running is the most dangerous sport with over 75% of runners suffering some sort of injury annually. But this doesn't need to be the case.
