Improving Posture with Exercise Takes a Targeted Approach Having great posture requires optimal strength in relative muscles. More specifically, this means that a muscle must have an optimal strength compared to its opposing muscle (antagonist). You can be very strong, but it doesn’t always equate to good posture, nor does being extremely flexible. Good posture requires a balance of strength and flexibility in muscles in relation to each other.
So let’s take a quick look at good posture and compare it to some of the most commonly seen postures that can cause pain or injury.
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Did I just post a Holiday picture pre-Halloween? I sure did! This is the time of year where my clients and I discuss dropping extra pounds before all the Holiday madness starts. As we know all too well, the Holiday season is shoved in our faces along with all the cookies, cakes, and rich foods. Families visit, companies have parties, and all hope of losing weight goes out the window. But there is always next year right? You mean January?? As in 3 months from now?? This actually turns into 4 months from now as many people “need” time to catch up on life before returning to the gym. Sounds like a lot of excuses doesn’t it? YES. There are always excuses not go to the gym or eat right, but the Holiday Season is a tough time to drop weight. It’s best to just focus on maintaining your fitness during the Holidays, but now is the time to get working on losing that 10lbs you’ve always wanted to lose. 10 pounds in 2 months Can more be lost? Yes, but this is a better and attainable goal that can be maintained. Hit the weights hard for 30 mins, 2-3x/week: A quick, hard weight training workout can provide accelerated fat loss with minimal stress to the body. This will help you add or preserve precious muscle so you look lean versus skinny and flabby. In 30 minutes you can hit all the basic movements or focus on a set of muscles. Simple and Intense
I have always been a huge fan of using “simple” exercises and modifying the acute variables to achieve a client’s goals. These are your “basic” squats, rows, deadlifts, presses, pullups, curls, and tricep extensions. They are demanding exercises that burn calories, build muscle, stimulate a favorable hormonal response, and many are complex exercises to master. Exercises like the squat and deadlift can take years for many people to get comfortable with, so they are not as “simple” as many think. They may not look as fancy and “complex” as say a Turkish Get Up, but I guarantee you will be much more exhausted after a hard leg day that includes big lifts like squats than a kettle bell workout. This is not to say I don’t use kettlebells or “functional” exercises in my programs. I quite frequently include them, but 50-90% of the exercises I choose for my clients are the basic tried and true ones. An update from my blog written on Jan 2011
This is a follow up on my blog written some 2 years ago explaining my experience with nerve entrapment by the illio-psoas muscle. At the time I was uncertain what exactly the cause of my symptoms were. I was just very pleased they were going away. After doing some research and talking to other medical professionals, my experience describes the onset, symptoms, and recovery of a illio-psoas muscle strain and nerve entrapment. Many of the replies to the previous blog appear to be suffering from the same condition. Some however appear to not quite line up with this exact condition. Again I am a personal trainer, not a doctor or physical therapist so I could never give a diagnosis based on a blog reply nor could any medical professional. Most people have the same needs when it comes to strengthening back muscles. These muscles are typically weak compared to the muscles on the front side of our upper body. This is caused by daily activities that involve a hunched forward position (classic computer posture and almost any seated posture). In addition to consistent poor posture, most of us rarely do a considerable amount of pulling on a regular basis. This calls for the need to implement a back intensive program to your normal workout. The commonly weak back muscles include the rhomboids, as well as the middle and lower trapezius. In general these muscles are responsible for keeping your shoulders back, down, and/or shoulder blades in proper position. This workout is focused around these muscles to help you become more proportional, symmetric, and have a confident posture. Exercises and Rationale Pullups Pullups are one of the best exercises because they are very demanding and make for a great general upper body exercise. The latissimus dorsi or “lats“ is the main muscle being worked here. Having strong lats is important, but many people tend to be tight in this muscle. One exercise targeting the lats is enough for most people to keep them strong, while not over working them to where they can become tight. Be sure to stretch your lats as most people are unaware how overly tight they are in this muscle. It is estimated that 80% of all adults experience low-back pain.(1) For many people poor posture is to blame which can be alleviated with a proper exercise and stretching routine. Even those with intervertebral disk injuries or other diagnosed back conditions will benefit from properly chosen exercises when done correctly. You may have heard that the gluteus maximus is the largest muscle in the body, but you may not know that it is also one of the most underused muscles. Having strong, well-functioning gluteal muscles (commonly mentioned as “glutes”) is crucial for good posture and those with low back pain. In fact many PROPER injury rehabilitation programs include strengthening the gluteus maximus as well as the other gluteal muscles. Have a bad ankle? Strengthen the glutes. Bad knees? Strengthen the glutes. Bad back? Definitely strengthen the glutes. Many people have underactive gluteus maximus muscles due to our constant sitting lifestyle. When seated they are placed in a lengthened position. Being that most Americans spend the majority of the day sitting, our glutes are constantly in this lengthened position. This can lead to the glutes being underactive when performing daily activities like walking, squatting, or kneeling to the ground. As a consequence, other muscles will compensate for “lazy” glutes. This along with other compensations can ultimately lead to low back pain. Gluteus Maximus activation exercise: Floor Bridge I recently gave a talk to a youth sports team on basic nutrition and these are the main points that all people should know regarding healthy nutrition. These are the most important items to focus on when improving your nutrition.
We all have a good idea of what’s healthy and what’s not. You should stay away from the obvious junk foods like fast food, sugary drinks, and desserts. They should only be consumed on occasion if at all. Very healthy foods like vegetables, fruits, and lean meats can be eaten multiple times a day. The cold season is near! Every year a few weeks after the kids begin school, people start getting sick. Another wave happens as the cooler weather and winter arrives. With winter, comes the cold season. Here is my favorite stack of supplements to help with the common cold. Great for preventing, reducing symptoms, and duration of the common cold
Cortisone injections and body fat gain Body fat or weight gain is a common side effect of taking systemic cortisone. I want to share with you my experience with taking intramuscular corticosteroid injections and the negative effects it has on body composition. I did have other unpleasant side effects, but nothing alarming where I needed additional medical attention. I began taking the injections as treatment for Alopecia Areata on my beard. This is an autoimmune disease which causes bald spots in a particular region. My doctor gave me 40mg monthly intramuscular injections of a corticosteroid for 4 months. A few months after treatment, I did some research and as expected I found many health networks saying it to be an aggressive and uncommon treatment due to possible severe side effects. He also gave me a topical cream to be used daily. Muscle gain does not always come automatically with simply lifting weights. If you are a novice, any lifting will result in muscle gain, but after weeks of training your body will adapt and muscle gain will cease. Over the last 10 years of training various physiques for gaining muscle, I have decided these are the top 5 points you must cover. #1 Hypertrophy workouts Hypertrophy means growth in size. In our case, we are interested in muscle hypertrophy which specifically means growth in muscle cell size. The easiest way to define hypertrophy workouts is to lift from a 6 to 12 rep range or with sets that last 20 to 70 seconds. The latter is actually more important because it is time under tension that dictates which muscle fibers are predominantly worked. The muscle fibers we are primarily interested in are type IIa fibers. They are fast twitch muscle fibers that grow in size after a hard workout. Other fibers will not grow in size as much and since gaining muscle is our goal, you should stick to the 6 to 12 rep range. #2 Choose lifts that are neurologically demanding Simply put, the harder the lift, the more muscle you will gain. Your workouts should be centered around deadlifts, squats, bench presses, pull-ups, and rows. These are all very neurologically demanding exercises and take a considerable amount of effort. The intense nature of these exercises will cause a greater increase in growth hormone and testosterone, both powerful hormones that increase muscle mass. |
AuthorJerry Yuhara, CPT, CSCS, CMT #75123 Categories
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