Stretching is an ancient form of exercise that goes deeper into evolution than man himself . For example my bulldog Mack, every day after having a snooze, gets up and does a series of stretches to loosen up before his walk! Most martial arts and athlete training programs for weightlifters, gymnasts, sprinters incorporate stretching as an integral part of their development. Stretching has also been part of healing practices for thousands of years, Tai Chi used in Chinese medicine is common practice as a form of healing. Yet for many people today it is often ignored, overlooked, misunderstood and even abused. So does that mean everyone should start stretching all the time. Well, not exactly. This article will help you to understand stretching better and how it applies to you. 

The benefits of saturated fats, along with abuse of cardio training I would say are the two most misunderstood and controversial health and fitness concepts we talk about with our clients. Conventional medical authorities say that consumption of saturated animal fats is bad for you and causes heart disease. We are told “If you eat too much fat you will get fat”. But a hundred years ago, fewer than one in one hundred Australians were obese, and coronary heart disease was virtually unknown, and the typical diet consisted of butter, full fat milk, bacon and eggs for breakfast with meat and lunch and dinner. We still regularly get clients who have told us they are on a low fat diet because they were told to do this to reduce blood pressure, cholesterol, lose weight etc. We then ask them has this been working for you so far and how long have you been doing this? In some cases they have been doing this for over 10 years! And still persisting with something that does not work, but if anything making them worse! I believe this is called the definition of insanity. But why are people so confused? Where did all this confusion come from anyway and how do can you find the correct research to give you the right information. In many cases clever marketing has fooled us but even our so called Government standards have also been tricked. No wonder we are so confused.

Knee pain is one of the most common injuries affecting people of all ages. It can cut down many young sporting athletes suffering with patella-femoral problems and more severe ACL injuries and it can greatly affect adults and people with a more sedentary lifestyle. If the cause of the problem is left unchecked it will develop into a much bigger problem and eventually begin to create injuries at other joints of the body. According to latest research, frequent knee pain affects 25% of adults, and osteoarthritis is the most common cause of knee pain in adults 50 years and older. Rates of knee replacements have tripled in women in the United Kingdom and have increased 8 times in the United States among those 65 years and older. In the early stages of treatment people are often told they have a weak vastus medialis muscle (VMO) that needs to be strengthened and it will make their pain go away. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as that as there are many factors you need to consider with correcting knee pain. While it is true that the VMO plays a massive role in stabilizing the knee, the methods you use to strengthen this muscle is the secret to finding the solution to your knee pain. In this article I explain the 5 steps you need to follow to get this right.