CategoriesMaster Functional Movement Patterns Strength Training Methods

Why I Like To Use Farmers Walks & Turkish Get Ups In Workouts

On this blog I regularly cover articles and videos about various methods and exercises you can use to strengthen the body to either correct muscle imbalances and injury, or improve overall movement performance for life and sports. Rarely do I provide you with a set workout to follow for it is impossible for me to know exactly what your body needs. We are all unique in the way our bodies move and the best workout is the one that is tailored specifically to your needs, instead of following someone else’s training program which may not be best for you. This is what you see all the time in magazines and social media. Having said all that, I am going to share with you today a workout I have used a lot for myself over the years and why I rate this as one of my best workout of all time. Some of the exercises I substitute for similar ones so don’t get hung up on the specifics of each exercise, instead pay attention to the logic behind the overall structure of the method that is used. Enjoy.

CategoriesCore Strengthening Stability

Stability Training – What Is It Really & Why Is It So Important?

Stability training is one of those terms I regularly use when talking about injury management or injury prevention. When most of us think of the term stability, we think of exercises like planks to challenge the core or balance exercises to challenge our balance. While both of these examples are to some extent stability training it is so much more than that. True stability is all about being able to react with perfect reflexes to be able to maintain joint alignment ready for efficient and smooth movement. Also stability training is not just limited to the core, for all joints require stability, with some requiring more than others! In this article, I will discuss what stability really means, and how you can use it to enhance your training and performance.

CategoriesMaster Functional Movement Patterns

Train Movement Not Muscle If You Want A Strong Body Free Of Pain

This is quite a controversial subject for many people, especially people in the body building scene. And I would like to start off by saying I have nothing against body building if that is your passion and that is what you like to do. I just have a problem with people adopting body building techniques who are not body builders and want to become fit and healthy. And especially people who go to someone for a rehabilitation or injury prevention training program and think they are doing “functional training” or “core training” but are really using a muscle based approach no different to body building. This type of training has taken over almost all of the gyms you go into these days, and even in the rehab world itself with physiotherapists, specialists, Pilates even, there is still a real emphasis on muscle based training. I myself used this approach early in my career as a personal trainer 20 years ago. And although some people recovered well from some injury or pain, there were many people that never really improved or seemed to be continually re-injuring themselves, myself included.

CategoriesSports Strength Strength & Conditioning For Sports

8 Key Abilities You Must Use In Your Training If You Play Sports

One of the misconceptions in the sports world is that to become great, all you need to do is devote endless hours of playing your chosen sport. While it is true you need to put in lots of practice and dedication to learning the skills needed to excel at your sport, just playing the sport and not working on the finer principles of movement will not take you to your full potential. All of the greatest athletes from every sport, even golf (Tiger Woods) attribute their conditioning as a key part of their success. If you just want an average level of performance, and be good at completing a few limited skills, then just playing your sport will achieve that. However, if you want to be the best you could possibly be as an athlete and become great, then you need to design and implement a “specific to you” conditioning program. This requires more than training strength and aerobic fitness and in some cases you may not need to be all that strong! In this article, I will explain the 8 key abilities you need to consider and help you understand what sports conditioning really means.

CategoriesExercise Technique Master Functional Movement Patterns

Why It Is So Important To Learn Good Exercise Technique In The Gym

When it comes to learning a musical instrument we know that technique is everything and coaching will make it so much easier to learn the necessary skills required. The learning process is simple in the beginning before gradually progressing to more complex skills as you improve. Simply practicing more with poor technique will not make you a better guitar player. This is same principle is linked to exercise, yet many ignore the need for learning technique in the sake of getting more done. This is a dangerous road to head down for if we lack fundamental movement skills and place more emphasis on quantity instead of quality we are now building fitness on a dysfunctional body. Unlike the musical instrument where poor technique just sounds bad, poor technique with exercise over a period of time inevitably leads to poor performance, injury and pain. Today’s society tend to treat exercise like going to war with their body, instead of trying to gradually challenge and allow the body to adapt. We forget there must be a balance between quality work and rest to ensure we move well. In this article we take a close look at everything to do with exercise technique and why quality beats quantity every time.