Without a doubt the single leg squat would be my number one choice for building strength and power for people playing sports. This one movement does so many great things for your body it is incredible. The best part is that it shares the exact timings with other joints and muscles in activities we use in everyday life. Meaning that if you improve this at the fundamental level you can also enhance these other activities too! As much as it is a great exercise, it is a very useful assessment tool we use extensively in our rehabilitation programs for all types of injuries from knee injuries like ACL tears, to lower back injuries like bulging discs. This one movement can very easily reveal stability and mobility weaknesses in your body. Where you do look? And more importantly what are you looking for? In this article I am going to answer these questions and show you how to use this movement to find energy leaks that cause pain or hinder sporting performance.

Along with saturated fat, cholesterol would be the word that is only ever talked about in a bad way. I don't know when and where it started, but cholesterol has became a household word and something that you must keep as low as possible, or suffer the consequences. As part of our Lift For Life program where we regularly see clients with diabetes, cancer and heart disease, questions about cholesterol like "what is the best foods to lower my cholesterol" or "I have been told I cannot eat eggs for breakfast anymore as my cholesterol is too high, what other foods can I eat" are a common occurrence. I think most of us are aware now that saturated fats are not as bad as we were once led to believe. Well the same confusion we see with saturated fats, also exists with cholesterol. Not only is cholesterol not going to destroy your health (as you have been led to believe), but it is not the cause of heart disease. Anyone dealing with injury, health problems, weight gain or feels they have too much stress in their life, will find this article very enlightening as it explains the role of inflammation, and how it relates to cholesterol.

The winged scapula is one of the most common postural faults we see today. And even though we are talking about winged scapula in this article the information and exercises provided will relate to ALL shoulder injuries. The term winged scapula gets its name from its appearance, a wing-like resemblance, due to the medial border of the scapula sticking straight out from the back. As I mentioned at the start this is a postural fault that can greatly affect a person’s ability to lift, pull, and push weighty objects and can cause pain and discomfort with simple daily activities such as taking your shirt off or playing a sport. When pain sets in people resort to the treatment of trigger point massage, stretching, and acupuncture which all may help in some way but the real answer lies in providing stability. Why? The shoulder is such an amazing joint in that it has an incredible amount of mobility and is able to perform some incredibly powerful and dynamic movements like serving in tennis or simply throwing a ball. But this awesome mobility comes at a cost, as the stability of the shoulder can be very easily compromised. And when this happens is when injury and pain takes over. If we lose that stability, we get some extra mobility of the humeral head within the joint, and that begins to pinch some of the structures around it and you eventually end up with common postural problems like the winged scapula that progress to much worse problems such as injuries like a shoulder impingement or rotator cuff tears. This article we provide you with 5 of the most effective and simple to do stability exercises that you can begin using to improve your posture and get your shoulder movement back, without pain and compensation.