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.
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.
How To Use The Joint By Joint Approach To Improve Your Functional Movement Skill
One of the best changes I ever added to my assessments, thought process, and training methods was incorporating the “joint by joint approach” invented by physical therapist Gray Cook and strength coach Mike Boyle. When working with new clients and especially those with injuries or chronic pain it can be very difficult to know where to start, what to look for, and more importantly what to do to restore pain free movement. I was never taught this concept at any point in my first 5-6 years of personal training and I completed many advanced courses in rehabilitation and worked with many experienced therapists and specialists. I used to rely on postural corrections based around muscle imbalances and would drill down to specific areas with isolated exercises and stretches. While I had some success doing this I regularly would get very frustrated with poor results with transferring isolated exercises to full body movement. Then one day I read the book Movement by Gray Cook and came across the joint by joint approach something clicked in my mind that helped me join the dots together with what I had been doing. Everything seemed to make a lot of sense looking at the body in this way and enabled me to make some big changes that worked much better than anything I had been using previously. In this article, I will explain how I use this method right now and why I believe everyone should be taught this concept.
Why The Turkish Get Up Is Such A Great Exercise For Shoulder Stability & Core Strength
Out of all the exercises that people use to improve core stability or functional movement it is hard to beat the Turkish Get Up for overall toughness and the benefits it can provide to your body in so many ways. I myself have always enjoyed doing this exercise but I find many people hate it, they find it very difficult to coordinate, and they would rather do some bench presses, deadlifts, or something with big weight and much less coordination requirements. As with most exercises, if you struggle to do this it is telling you that this is where you have a weakness. Your weakness is often not strength, but more stability, mobility and overall coordination of the entire body. I have seen some guys who can squat and deadlift over 100kg struggle to get up off the floor with a 15kg dumbbell due to the fact they lack the skills and stability to perform this movement. And it should be noted that this is not really even an exercise but a life movement of getting off the ground. We have worked with countless people struggling with hip mobility unable to get themselves onto the floor, or off it without assistance or dragging their body up on a chair! If these people had practiced the Turkish Get Up regularly throughout their life, it is fair to say they would never have lost this skill! In this article, we look closely at this exercise’s benefits and exactly how to do it, so you can get it right every time.