If ever there was a time to place a big importance on our health it is right now! 2020 has seen massive changes with the way we look at our health, and has been a big wake-up call for many people. The fear of Covid-19 has exposed how vulnerable their health really is, in particular their cardiovascular and respiratory health. The best way to improve your heart and lung health is via exercise in combination with healthy eating and keeping your stress levels in check. However, before you start pounding the pavement it is wise to have a baseline measurement of your current fitness levels. This is critical to do before you get started with any exercise program as it achieves two things. Firstly it will also give you a way to measure your improvement as you progress with your program, but more importantly it helps you to understand the different exercise intensities to find what level is best for you. Exercising too intensely too soon can cause more harm than good and having a clear understanding of what intensity is right for you will help to keep your exercise efforts safe, but effective. In this article I show you three different tests I use that vary in difficulty so I can pick the best test for people of different ages and needs.

One of the most controversial and confusing muscles to discuss is the vastus medialis oblique, otherwise known as the VMO. We know that this muscle plays a critical role in providing stability of the knee and prevents the onset of patella tracking problems that are so common among people of all ages. However, there is so much conflicting research and information about the best way to strengthen this muscle that many people are confused as to where to start. The problem with most of the research is that it looks at strengthening the muscle in isolation, ignoring the role of other anatomical factors contributing to the VMO weakness. Factors such as tibial torsion, valgus knee collapse due to poor hip muscle control, poor foot stability creating over-pronation, and ankle stiffness inhibiting quadriceps strength need to be addressed if you truly want to strengthen the VMO and stabilize the knee. And arguably the best way to do this is using what are referred to as “iso-integration” exercises, where you use creative methods to isolate a specific muscle within an integrated movement. It sounds complicated, but really it is very simple when you understand how the body uses compensation to avoid pain. In this article I will show you several versions of how to do this.

The wood-chop is an amazing exercise for improving athletic performance, core strength and rotational power as seen in sports like golf and tennis.  However, its value is not limited to those who play sports, for rotational movement is a critical part of daily life and something we should be trying to maintain and improve. Learning rotational exercises can be difficult for it is one of the movements that must be trained at a relatively high speed in order to get it right, and with so many moving parts it is easy to make a real mess of it. In this article I show you how to break this down with very easy exercises and gradually build up to the more complex and functional exercises that produce great results.