How to Challenge your Balance to Train it

How the Body’s Balance System works: Balance relies on three distinct systems to come together: your eyes for sight, your inner ear for vestibular input, and then the bottom of your feet for proprioception. Your brain takes all the sensory input from these three areas of the body, and with that information tells your muscles…

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The Strategies to Maintain Balance

What are strategies for balance? As humans, we have evolved methods to take in order to preserve our bodies to the best of our abilities. One of these remarkable mechanisms is how we maintain our balance as a bi-pedal (two-legged) species. It important that we have strategies for balance. It’s our bodies very own unconscious…

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Why is Hip Mobility so important?

Why is Hip Mobility Important? Hip mobility is essential to the proper full functioning of the hip joint. While the hip joint is meant to be more stable and less mobile than the shoulder joint, it can still be extremely limiting and even harmful if the hip joint lacks its full mobility.  There are many…

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3 Reasons Strong Glutes are Important

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What do your glutes do? There are different glutes; three to be exact: gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus. Together, these muscles are responsible for hip extension, internal rotation, and abduction of the hip. The glute medius and minimus work together to promote hip abduction and prevent hip adduction. These muscle come in most handy when…

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What is Contract-Relax Stretching?

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What is Contract-Relax Stretching? Contract-relax stretching is a form of PNF stretching. PNF stands for proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. What does that mean? It means that it uses natural reflexes to further the stretching response. In contract-relax stretching, you must first isometrically contract the opposite muscle. Then after contracting, try to further stretch the intended target. For…

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Front Squat Vs. Back Squat: How do they differ?

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So many people at the gym are performing both front squats and back squats, without ever really understanding the difference. How are they different? What muscles do they elicit? While all squats generally elicit the same muscles, the different lies in which are fired more during which movement. The muscles of squat we will investigate…

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Why Should I Train in Quadruped?

WHAT IS QUADRUPED? Quadruped is the position where both hands and knees are on the ground. It is the starting position of crawling that all children do. When young babies are learning to walk, quadruped helps them develop curves in their spine and core strength. For adults, there are so many more reasons to add…

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“Good Form”: What does that really mean?

WHAT IS GOOD FORM? Many people try to tell you what good form is by nit-picking exercises. To execute an exercise safely and get the most of it, there are aspects that must be performed. While trying to perform an exercise with “good form”, it is important to remember that everyone’s body is different. Not everyone’s exercise…

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3 Causes of Hamstring Tightness

Before we can dive into what may cause hamstring tightness, it is important to understand exactly what the hamstring muscle group does for the body. HAMSTRING ANATOMY: The “Hamstring” is actually a group of three muscles on the back of the leg. These hamstring muscles work together to collectively perform hip extension (lifting your leg…

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The Difference between Exercise Variation and Movement Variation

This piece explains what exercise variation and movement variation are, and how they can help or hurt your training if not implemented appropriately. WHAT IS EXERCISE VARIATION? Exercise variation is exactly what it sounds like. It means you do a bunch of different kinds of exercises. Exercise variation can be in reference to one workout, or…

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