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How Strong Is Your Mind Muscle Connection? (Take This Test)

How Strong Is Your Mind Muscle Connection? (Take This Test)

by | Dec 10, 2023 | Blog, Exercises, Functional Fitness, Pain Relief

How aware of your body are you?

Do you think you have an amazing mind-body connection?

Well…here’s a test to find out!

I mention this because too often we’re doing the right moves yet not seeing the results we want.

And it’s because we’re going through the motions with our training, mimicking proper form.

But proper form doesn’t guarantee proper recruitment patterns.

Aka just because a move looks pretty doesn’t mean we’re using the right muscles or seeking out mobility from the correct joints.

And the more advanced an exerciser you are, the more you can easily cheat and compensate.

But this can lead to overload and injury and you not seeing the results of your training you want.

That’s why in this video, I want to take you through a quick test to assess your mind-body connection.

And I want to do this test for an area many of us actually struggle to activate correctly…

OUR GLUTES!

To do this test, you’ll just be performing what seems like an oh so simple move and is an essential basic…

The Bodyweight Glute Bridge.

To do this glute bridge assessment…

I recommend setting up your phone camera to film yourself from the side and even from the knees up on a second round through. 

This external feedback can then help you adjust form if you need to tweak things to get the correct muscles working.

As you perform this move, you are going to ask yourself 4 key questions at different points of the move to assess different muscles and even imbalances between both sides. 

If you have the camera running, you can verbally answer.

Otherwise you may want a piece of paper next to you to make notes on! 

Then set up as you normally would for the glute bridge.

I like to have clients place their feet flat on the ground at a comfortable distance from their glutes and bend their elbows to drive their upper arms down into the ground. 

Then you want to bridge up.

Pausing at the top of the bridge, ask yourself…What do I feel working the most? 

Lower Back – Yes or No?

Glutes – Yes or No?

Hamstrings – Yes or No?

Quads – Yes or No?

Relax back down.

Repeat the move a couple more times pausing to assess. Then record what you felt.

Then next, AS you bridge up, ask yourself…

What do I feel working FIRST?

Is it your hamstrings, glutes, quads or lower back? 

Write down which muscle you feel engage FIRST.

Next, as you repeat the bridge, assess both on the way up AND as you pause for a second or two at the top, to ask yourself…

Do I feel one side working more?

Yes or No?

And if yes, which side?

Even make note of whether or not you just feel one side MORE or if you ONLY feel one side truly engaging.

The final assessment you want to do, is focusing on WHERE you truly feel your lower back, glutes or hamstrings working especially.

Do you feel the top of your butt under your SI joint working?

Yes or No?

Do you feel in the meat of your glute working?

Yes or No?

Do you feel right under your butt working?

Yes or No?

Or do you feel the middle of your hamstring working?

Yes or No?

Make a note, yes or no for each.

Now let’s break down what this information helps you understand about your glute engagement…

This may come as no surprise, but what you should have felt driving this movement is your GLUTES.

However, many of us do feel our lower back or hamstrings working and even taking over for our glutes during this move. 

We even sometimes feel our quads trying to engage although we can also feel them stretching as the glute bridge IS a hip flexor stretch. 

But often we don’t fully realize what is driving the movement when we get caught up only trying to focus on form.

We even simply think, “Oh my lower back is just weak and needs to get stronger.”

But really this shows that other moves are taking over when our glutes should be engaging.

This means we need to address our mind-body connection.

So if you found your lower back, quads or hamstrings compensating, I want to share some tweaks to your glute bridge form you may want to consider. 

Especially if you felt under your butt or your hamstrings working, this can mean your hamstrings are synergistically dominant.

Yes…under your butt is often that hamstring origin area becoming overworked.

And sometimes it is us not realizing that it is NOT our glutes but actually our hamstrings working right there that can lead to hamstring tendinopathy or tendinitis. 

Not to mention our hamstrings constantly being overworked is why they perpetually feeling tight no matter how much we stretch.

And when they are constantly overworked this can lead to knee pain, hamstrings strains and pulls and even perpetuate your lower back issues. 

So making sure the correct muscles are working during a fundamental more focused movement is key so we can lift more and run faster and avoid injuries with more complex movement patterns.

I will also share some tips as well if you found that you had an imbalance between both sides. Sometimes this can mean we feel only one side working or that we feel our glute on one side but actually our hamstring on the other!

But first, how can you adjust your form if you don’t feel your glutes working like they should?

Here are 5 quick tips…

#1: Focus on maintaining that posterior pelvic tilt from the start and don’t get caught up in bridging higher.

This can help you make sure you’re using your abs to protect your lower back AND the posterior pelvic tilt engages the glute max.

Also, often in an attempt to bridge up higher, we arch our back at the top over extending our hips further, which overloads our lower back and can engage our hamstrings.

#2: Drive your knees toward your toes.

Focus on pressing through your entire foot and as you bridge up driving your upper arms into the ground, don’t push yourself backward.

Focus on driving those knees forward to help you avoid overusing your hamstrings.

This can even help if you tend to feel your quads working too.

#3: Focus on STOPPING the lift with your glutes.

So often in trying to work through a full range of motion, we stop engaging muscles to power the move.

Instead of trying to get a bigger movement, try and really squeeze your glutes hard to prevent yourself from being able to lift any higher. This focus on that activation of the glutes will make sure you’re driving true hip extension while avoiding anything else compensating!

#4: Pause and adjust.

At the top of the bridge, pause and then try little adjustments. If you move your feet in closer to your butt does that help? Or does moving them further away help you engage your glutes better? 

While technically moving our heels further away toward a straight leg glute bridge engages more hamstrings, you may find, due to hip tightness that having your heels in too close to your butt engages the hamstrings more or makes you arch your back or even feel your quads.

So as you hold at the top, assess what you feel working and play around with even your posterior pelvic tilt or trying to engage each side. 

Even put a hand on your glutes to try and give that tactile cue to feel them working to make that mind-body connection! 

That can allow us to get the positioning we need!

#5: Try other bridge variations.

Sometimes we need to first adjust the variation we use to recruit the correct muscles. Slight changes to our posture and positioning can really impact things and even tools can provide an extra stimulus to improve our mind-body connection.

Even doing a move we feel working our glutes correctly prior to the one we struggle with can help us established the mind-body connection in that second move.

Two great variations to try if you’re struggling to engage your glutes can be the frog bridge as the external hip rotation can often help. 

Or the mini band glute bridge. Pushing out on the band can help engage our glute medius which can help us better engage our glute max. 

The band can also sometimes help if you struggle to get both sides working together!

Now To Address An Imbalance Between Sides… 

I do want to note we will NEVER be perfectly evenly BUT we do want to note when one side isn’t pulling it’s weight.

When we have an imbalance this can lead to our stronger side taking over during other moves. This can lead to injury on that dominant side.

It can also mean that we risk injury on our weaker side if it is fighting to keep up. 

So we want to address imbalances as much as possible and be conscious of them.

This is where unilateral glute activation may be key. 

You may consider extra work for that weaker side, even swapping in something like the single leg reverse hyper to get that glute working. 

Or you may use something like the 80/20 glute bridge to help you focus on each side more independently. 

We have to recognize how challenging the full unilateral or single leg glute bridge is, which is why I recommend the 80/20 version instead.

If you can’t control the two-leg bodyweight bridge, there is a good chance your weaker side will continue to struggle with a full single leg variation.

But modify the move or even add in unilateral work to make sure you aren’t feeling other muscles take over for that weaker glute!

Bonus Tip:

And a final bonus tip, which can be helpful whether you’re addressing an imbalance or even just your hamstrings, lower back or quads engaging when they shouldn’t…

Foam Roll those overactive muscles PRIOR! 

The impact of foam rolling is short-lived, but by rolling that muscle that wants to compensate before you then do the exercise, you can help interrupt that mind-body connection so you can better engage the proper muscles.

Especially if you feel only the hamstring on one side, trying rolling that muscle prior to the glute bridge to relax it to make it easier to establish that mind-body connection to your glutes!

Just remember, changes to our mind-body connection and recruitment patterns won’t happen overnight.

Our mind and body will want to default back into patterns we’ve created over time that now feel natural.

But if we don’t work to address them in fundamental moves like this, we put ourselves at greater risk for injury when we lift heavy, run or cycle.

Not to mention we may not be seeing the improvements in our other training that we want because we aren’t using muscles as efficiently to power our training!

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The Best Leg Exercise (You’re Not Doing)

The Best Leg Exercise (You’re Not Doing)

by | Nov 21, 2023 | Blog, Exercises, Functional Fitness

This squat is NOT for everyone.

Even modified it is a challenging movement.

But it is also an amazing unilaterally focused exercise and lateral movement that can improve your ankle and hip mobility and stability while helping you improve your leg strength.

It is a great accessory move to help you really improve your single leg squats!

This amazing and often underutilized exercise is the Cossacks Squats!

In this video I’m going to break down how to do it as well as ways to modify it.

But just remember to regress to progress if you haven’t done this before.

And just because this is an amazing move, it doesn’t mean every version of it will be right for you!

How To Do The Cossack Squat:

To do the Cossack Squat, stand with your feet wider than shoulder-width.

Then shift your weight to one side, bending that knee as you keep the other leg straight and rotate that toe up toward the ceiling.

You’re pivoting on that one heel as you transfer your weight more to the side you’re squatting down on.

Sit your butt down toward your heel, still driving down into the ground through your other leg out straight.

Sink as low to that side as you can.

You aren’t sitting back like a hip hinge or traditional side lunge but sinking into a squat which means your knee will travel forward over your toe. Just make sure that heel doesn’t come up.

Then drive back up, pushing through that full foot down and the heel of your other leg. Come back center with both legs straight then repeat, sinking to the other side.

To progress the basic bodyweight, you can hold a weight up at your chest. This, while making the move more challenging, can also help you better brace your core!

This move is HARD.

It is an advanced move that requires a good deal of mobility and strength.

And if you’re just starting out with it, you want to be conscious of those mobility and stability demands.

So I wanted to share some different ways to modify this movement to match your needs!

The first way to modify is to – Limit The Range Of Motion 

We always only want to work through the range of motion we can control.

Be conscious though as you limit how deep you sink into a squat that you don’t end up turning this into a hip hinge.

To even help give you a target, consider sitting to a bench, chair or box!

The second way to modify is to – Hold On For Assistance. 

Sometimes part of what limits our ability to sink lower isn’t just the strength of our legs or the mobility of our hips and ankles.

It’s even our core stability.

Holding on to a suspension trainer, doorway or pole, can help us brace that core better and reduce the resistance on our legs just a bit.

This can help us work through a bigger range of motion at times than we would be able to otherwise.

As you progress, hold on with even just one hand or a lighter touch before progressing to the third modification option.

The third way I like to modify is to – Use A Weight To Counterbalance. 

Often we think that holding a weight just makes the move harder.

But there is a difference between pressing the weight out as we sink to help stabilize our core and counterbalance ourselves and holding the weight in at our chest to load the move down.

By pressing a weight out as you sink, you can help yourself stay more stable and engage your core better.

This is a great final progression if you are able to work through a full range of motion but can’t yet fully do it with just your own bodyweight.

Now I just wanted to share a few key reminders so you can get the most out of this movement.

First…The Cossack squat is a SQUAT not a side lunge. 

This means you want to focus on squatting down not hinging over like we often do to load our glutes with the traditional side lunge.

You also want to make sure you do drive off that heel of the foot that is turned up to push back center.

And you are pivoting that foot up unlike a traditional side lunge.

Second…If you can’t keep your heel down, include some ankle mobility work in your warm up and only go as low as you can control.

While our hip mobility may be a limiting factor at times, too often we ignore the importance of our ankle mobility to sink deep and even avoid our knees from becoming overloaded.

Doing a calf foam rolling move,stretch like the single leg foot and ankle stretch and even an activation move like the plate weight calf raise, could all be great exercises to include in your warm up to help!

The final note I wanted to make is for those with knee pain.

This move may NOT be right for you although we do always want to build back to as many movements as possible.

If you do have knee pain and struggle with controlling active knee flexion currently, consider a side lunge with a hip hinge instead to still work on lateral movements and still strengthen your body in different plans of motion! 

If you’re looking for an advanced bodyweight exercise to challenge yourself at home or simply want to improve your mobility and strengthen through a full range of motion to even build up your pistol squats, try including the Cossack Squat in your workout routine!

5 Mistakes That Got Me INJURED (Avoid These!)

5 Mistakes That Got Me INJURED (Avoid These!)

by | Oct 22, 2023 | Blog, Exercises, Foam Rolling, Functional Fitness, Pain Relief

Injuries suck.

No one likes them. No one wants them.

And they only seem to add up more and more the older we get.

I’ve personally suffered from far too many of them because of ego and stupid mistakes.

Mistakes I want to help you avoid.

That’s why in this video I’m going to go over 5 training mistakes I made that lead to injury to help you avoid making the same mistakes and even come back stronger than ever no matter your age!

By learning from my own mistakes, I now feel stronger and move better than ever before and have helped many of my clients overcome chronic aches and pains to move and feel their best as well!

So let’s jump right in with mistake #1….

Mistake #1: Just resting an injury.

Rest can be a key component of recovery. 

But far too often we just rest it then go right back to what we were doing that lead to the injury in the first place.

We never actually correct the underlying cause or problem.

We never address the movement compensation causing overload.

And then we wonder why a few months later we are sidelined with the same issue or another injury even on that same side of our body. 

Resting it doesn’t fix the problem!

If you have an injury, you need to assess what lead to the overload of that area in the first place.

Because often the point of pain, the place that got injured, isn’t even where the problem started. 

Even previous injuries may have resulted in changes to our movement patterns leading to the issues we now have.

Like that ankle sprain you got years ago you never rehabbed may be why you have hip or lower back aches and pains now. 

So instead of just resting an area, or even if you do need to rest to recover to start, focus on taking things back to basics and doing that rehab work to improve your mind-body connection and make sure you are performing exercises correctly. 

You want to come back to training and work on improving and retraining proper movements over just going back to what you were doing.

And regress to progress. Start back slowly to make sure you’re building up using the correct muscles to power moves! 

Which brings me to Mistake #2: Focusing only on proper form.

The more advanced an exerciser you are, the more you know what proper form should be…

And the more you can also CHEAT and compensate.

So picture perfect form doesn’t always mean we’re using the correct muscles. 

And this ability to mimic proper form is also why you can get injured while saying, “I have great form with moves! I know what I’m doing!”

Too often we force a movement pattern we can’t fully control, which leads to us overusing muscles not meant to handle the load or seeking out mobility from joints that aren’t meant to help us get that range of motion and movement. 

It’s why we may feel our lower backs as we try to extend our spine to perform the bent over row with a straight back. 

If we have limited thoracic mobility, due to hunching over a computer, we may end up overarching our lower back to compensate.

This can then lead to us overusing our lower back and ending up with back pain while our row form looks good.

We also have to remember that proper form isn’t a one size fits all thing. There are variations to what is perfect.

Like with the squat….

Social media may show you this one version of a picture perfect squat with super upright torso, feet hip width and completely straight ahead as the person squats ass to grass… 

But if you have a shorter torso and longer femurs or a different hip socket shape and depth, you may need a different stance or have more of a forward lean.

We don’t want to just ignore the importance of form, but we do want to recognize that there are acceptable variations we may each need based on build or even previous injuries or even mobility restrictions. 

If we try to force our body into a form mold that doesn’t fit, if we try to do a move we can’t control using the correct muscles, we are going to end up injured.

So focus not only on the movement pattern itself, but what you actually feel working to power the move.

And don’t be afraid to use variations or tweaks to movements to fit what you need!

Next Mistake #3: Not keeping in rehab as prehab.

You can NEVER stop doing what makes you better. 

And so often future injuries are a result of PREVIOUS aches and pains we didn’t fully address or keep addressing. 

How many of us have had an injury, done some rehab, had it go away, stopped the rehab then been frustrated when it seems like the injury keeps flaring back up?

It’s because we stopped doing the rehab that improved our mobility and built up strength in underactive and weak muscles! 

And the second we stop doing what made us better, we start to fall back into old postures, movements and recruitment patterns, overusing muscles not meant to carry the load.

Often we want to default back into movement patterns we did for a long time that have become natural. 

Movement patterns and postures we constantly have to fight against to ingrain new ones that will become natural only with time.

Time we don’t often truly dedicate to the changes!

So once you finish up rehab and start feeling good, you need to turn that rehab into prehab. 

You can’t just stop it at the first sign of feeling better and go back to what you were doing!

Include that prehab as part of your warm up or on recovery days BEFORE anything adds up! 

This helps ensure you’re using the correct muscles in movements and have mobilized joints to work through a full range of motion.

And if you do feel any aches starting to slightly reappear, whether you’ve spent longer hours at your desk or have been traveling and got a bit lax on your prehab, step up that mobility and stability work and assess what other moves in your workouts you may need to modify to address what is going on! 

But don’t think just because you did some physio or rehab for a bit the issue is magically solved forever!

We get good at what we consistently do and we need to keep doing those boring basics to maintain the foundation we built!

And while prehab and mobility work is key…

We can’t out rehab our daily movements and the way we then train in our workouts… 

This is why you have to be conscious of Mistake #4: Not checking your ego at the gym door.

Trust me…I want to push hard in my training sessions. 

And I know ego can push me to want to eek out an extra rep or use a heavier weight even as my form breaks down. 

There are definitely those workouts where I finish a set and know I wasn’t engaging the correct muscles as I got tired…yet I pushed through anyway.

This happens because we want to see results and we want to see them now.

But there is a fine line we have to tread when it comes to pushing hard and pushing to a point where we are ultimately creating overload and pain. 

We need to focus on being intentional with our workouts and making each rep quality.

We need to realize when our ego needs to be put in check.

We also need to embrace MODIFYING at times to get more out of moves. 

Sometimes we advance to a movement we haven’t earned, thinking if the exercise is technically harder it will help us see better results faster.

But since we haven’t earned the move, we compensate. We don’t actually work the muscles fully that we want to target. 

Not only does this not get us the full benefit of the move, so we’re wasting effort and time, but it can lead to injury.

If we instead had modified and regressed to progress, we could have made the move harder for ourselves because we were actually able to use the correct muscles. 

So as much as you may want to do that push up from your toes, check your ego. 

If your hips are sagging, your head is jutting forward or your form is just fugly, modify it to make it picture perfect.

That tweak can actually make the move HARDER because you’re able to use the correct muscles. And you’ll see better results because of it. 

Modifying doesn’t mean making a move easier. It means making a move match what you need.

And this can help you train harder without creating aches and pains!

And this final mistake is one we so often make and think we could “get away with” when we were younger…Only to now realize “getting away with it” may be why we have more aches and pains…

Mistake #5: Not doing a proper warm up.

Ever go into a workout without doing a warm up because you’re short on time and feel like it takes multiple rounds of your training session or even half your workout before you’re feeling warm and squatting as low as you’d like? 

Well not only did you end up wasting half your workout time by not “wasting time” warming up, but you also put yourself at greater risk for overload and injury.

We have to recognize that our bodies aren’t primed for the movements we are about to do because we’ve spent our day driving in a car or hunched over a computer or doing other repetitive movements and suboptimal postures. 

So that heavy overhead press you want to perform that keeps hurting your shoulder or neck or back, may be because you aren’t addressing your hunched over desk posture and first working on your thoracic extension.

You aren’t doing the mobility work to properly press overhead and engage your upper back while having proper scapular control. 

But all you need to do to fix this is include foam rolling, stretching and activation in your warm up prior! And do so CONSISTENTLY!

Your warm up is the time you address daily postures and ready your body for the movements you are going to do. 

It is the time you can address past aches and pains to make sure you’re not creating the same overload that can lead to injury.

This prehab work done just even for 5-10 minutes in your warm up CONSISTENTLY can add up more than a once a week recovery session. 

So in your warm up…

Foam roll to relax tight and overactive muscles… 

Perform dynamic stretches to warm up your body and mobilize your joints… 

Then include activation moves to engage those underactive muscles while improving your mobility and stability. 

Through this 3-part prehab process, you can ready your body to put in some quality work during your workout. 

You can help prevent your desk job posture and lack of activity during the day from impacting how you train!

If you want to avoid aches and pains from getting worse and adding up more and more over the decades, focus on truly addressing what caused the pain in the first place. 

Don’t push through it. Don’t skip your prehab.

Focus on what you feel working in movements and never stop doing what made you feel better! 

For more injury resources, CLICK HERE.

7 Big LIES About Exercise and Aging

7 Big LIES About Exercise and Aging

by | Oct 9, 2023 | Blog, Exercises, Functional Fitness, Mindset, Workouts

The best way to feel and look old really quickly is to stop doing all the things that kept you healthy.

Too often we hit an age that we deem “old” and stop pushing ourselves the way we used to in our training.

Heck I even found an article on WebMD about exercises to avoid after 50 and it said…

“Lifting weights is a great way to build muscle strength, but when you’re over 50 there is no reason to push yourself too hard.”

I’m sorry….NO.

While we can’t change our age, at any time we can make changes to move and feel our best.

And the best way NOT to see results is NOT to challenge yourself.

Use it or lose it.

Getting older doesn’t mean you now should stop pushing yourself to conquer new challenges or step outside your comfort zone.

Getting older actually makes it even more important that you do so that you stay healthy and strong till your final day on this planet!

That’s why in this video I want to refute 7 reasons I often hear people use as excuses not to push themselves outside their comfort zones when it comes to their strength training once they hit whatever age they believe to be “old.”

Myth #1: I shouldn’t push myself too hard. 

I can’t even describe the spasms my face wants to go into stating that myth even for the 100th time.

No wonder we’re seeing more injuries, more cognitive decline…

No wonder we think aging just means gaining weight and getting out of shape?! 

We’re promoting attitudes that perpetuate that!

I don’t care if you’re 20 or 90, you need to CHALLENGE yourself with your training to keep pushing your body to adapt and grow stronger and MAINTAIN your strength. 

Sarcopenia, or muscle loss, is so prevalent because we’ve too easily adopted the belief that we don’t need to push ourselves with our training. That with age we deserve to be lazy.

But if you want to stay strong and fit and even mentally with it till your final day on this planet, you NEED to push yourself to feel worked in your workouts. 

This doesn’t mean every session should slaughter you. But it shouldn’t be that way at any age. 

But every single workout you do want to create that progressive overload and do something hard.

We build and retain lean muscle through pushing our bodies to do more than they could the previous session!

Myth #2: X Move Is Bad And Dangerous. 

You can get hurt training at any age.

And as someone who has learned a lot since their early meathead days, I would say we actually end up being smarter in our training as we get older as we often appreciate the value of just moving well over letting ego dictate what we do. 

BUT no matter our age we have to stop just demonizing exercises. Or blaming exercises for aches and pains.

Squats don’t hurt your knees.

Bad squats or recruitment patterns with loads you haven’t earned do. 

And unless you don’t ever plan to sit down to a toilet again, it would be in your best interest to learn to really control and retrain that squat movement pattern as much as you can!

If you want to be able to do a movement or maintain your mobility, you need to train that movement pattern in the gym!

Regress to progress.

Training only leads to injury when we haven’t earned a move or misuse a move. 

By doing a move that doesn’t match your needs and goals, you can get injured at ANY age. 

Often the fact that we even did moves with ego when we were younger, is what has now led to the aches and pains we even have.

But training isn’t dangerous.

We need to even see the gym as an opportunity to PRACTICE proper movements so that we are at less risk for injury in everyday life. 

The gym is a perfect place to learn to move well. 

Just don’t be afraid to regress to progress and focus on intentionality with your movement to earn those advancements! 

Because if you train smarter and not just harder, you put yourself at less risk for injury getting up and down of the ground or lifting that box!

Myth #3: I shouldn’t lift too heavy.

First off, what is too heavy?

A weight you can’t lift?

Something you can’t lift with proper form?

If that’s the case, you shouldn’t EVER lift too heavy.

But if you don’t challenge your muscles, you won’t create that stimulus for muscle growth. 

And we want to do everything we can to promote that environment for growth as we will find it gets harder and harder to build muscle the older we get!

But especially as we get older we need to focus on maintaining maximal strength. 

That means NOT shying away from lower rep, heavy weight work in our training.

Maximal strength work means we are better able to prevent falls and fractures and are not only stronger, but have more lean muscle mass which keeps our bones healthy and helps us look leaner. 

So lift heavy for strong bones and a lean physique! 

Stop defaulting to only doing 15-20 rep work with lighter loads.

Push those heavy weights as you earn them and build up to keep yourself strong and your metabolic rate higher! 

Myth #4: I have (insert health concerns here). 

We always want to address injuries and health concerns with our training routines.

But this should be the case at any age.

However, too often, as we get older and more health concerns may pop up, we see this as a reason to stop pushing hard in our workouts or train at all. 

When often training will help us improve our health and can even combat many of our symptoms!

Strength work can help reduce chronic inflammation. It can reduce our risk for osteoporosis. It can improve our cognitive functioning.

It can help us sleep better to recover from illness faster.

It can help us maintain our bone health. 

It can even help us retrain movements and strengthen muscles to overcome injuries. 

It can help us move and feel a whole heck of a lot younger. 

Overall, strength training is linked with a 10%–17% lower risk of heart disease, total cancer, diabetes, lung cancer and death from any cause. (According to a review study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (2022; 56 [13])) 

Yet so often we let health concerns stop us instead of finding a way to strengthen around them. And THAT is what makes us feel older so much faster!

Find ways to regress moves and address what you need to focus on feeling the correct muscles work.

Design workouts around your schedule based on the intensity you need. And start back slow. 

But the key is to START and to focus on building, meeting yourself where you are at!

Myth #5: I shouldn’t do awkward moves. 

As we get older, we are less willing to make ourselves feel uncomfortable or awkward or even bad at something.

When we’re young, we embrace it more as we encounter new things on almost a daily basis even. 

But as we get older, we don’t like to push to do new things that feel awkward and uncomfortable. 

The thing is…we need to.

Those awkward moves improve our mental health.

They also keep our mind-body connection strong which allows us to react more quickly in everyday life. 

Many even improve our balance and core strength, especially if they are single sided moves! 

And these moves help us even build muscle, creating progression in different ways, changing the range of motion, stability and even tempos.

They challenge not only our body but even our mind to keep us younger and healthy!

And ladies, studies have shown even greater benefits from physical activity in terms of our thinking speed as we get older! 

Myth #6: I can’t build muscle. 

Yup. It does get harder to build and retain lean muscle as we get older.

But trying to use this as an excuse to not even try?

NOPE!

It is even more reason to push hard and lift heavier! 

It’s also a reason to cut back on the chronic cardio, which can not only cause more inflammation and joint issues, but lead to us struggling even more to build and retain lean muscle. 

Instead we need to do everything we can to combat the fact that we don’t have the optimal hormone levels for muscle growth Any exercise we once did and we don’t utilize protein as efficiently. 

We need to do everything we can to focus on lifting heavy, challenging ourselves and pushing hard in our training while including adequate recovery. 

This is the only way we can build muscle and at least make sure we maintain what we already have as the more we lose through inactivity, the more we will struggle to get it back the older we get!

Myth #7: I can’t recover as quickly so I shouldn’t do as much. 

We may find that our recovery does change as we get older, especially even during menopause when our sleep may be impacted more.

But this is all the more reason to train with purpose and design intentional workouts that we can be CONSISTENT with. 

Because the more inconsistent we are, the harder we make it on ourselves to recover.

We don’t often realize that, as we’ve gotten older, we actually are less consistent in having that set gym training routine.

And that inconsistency can make every workout feel new to our body, so we are constantly getting sore.

Make sure to set a schedule you can be consistent with. 

Then don’t randomly string together moves or workouts without a plan.

Create a set schedule you repeat for a few weeks so you can slowly progress and build each week.

This will help improve your recovery over always feeling beat down.

Plus, including mobility work and not feeling pressure to do wasted volume may not only help you recover faster but even build strength more efficiently from your training. 

Often less is more and too often, when we’re younger, we do more just because we can or because we’re trying to out exercise our diet.

So see this as an opportunity to make some changes that lead to even better gains!

Define aging on your own terms.

Stay strong till your final day on this planet by never stopping to push yourself and challenge yourself. 

Include those strength workouts that make you uncomfortable but that meet you where you are at to see fabulous muscle and strength gains at any and every age! 

For an amazing community of women building their leanest, strongest bodies at any and EVERY age, join my Free Facebook Group! 

The Best Push Up Exercise (You Aren’t Doing)

The Best Push Up Exercise (You Aren’t Doing)

by | Aug 13, 2023 | Blog, Bodyweight, Exercises, Functional Fitness, Push Ups

No matter how much equipment I have available, I still love including a push up variation in my upper body workouts.

They are an amazing move to target your chest, shoulders, triceps and core.

And not only are they an amazing way to build strength and muscle, but there are so many push up variations you can include to target different muscles more or less based on your needs and goals.

Want to work on shoulder stability or anti-rotational core strength?

Try the push up with shoulder tap.

Want to target your triceps more?

Include a close grip variation.

Want to work your upper pecs extra?

Try a decline variation.

But in thinking through all the different options out there, there was one variation that came to mind as often being underutilized…

The push up plus!

In this video, I want to go over how to do this essential push up variation and ways to modify the move if you can’t do a push up from your toes on the ground. 

But first I want to explain why I think this variation is so important to include….

This push up isn’t the fanciest variation out there, but it is one of the most essential to include if you want to be a push up rockstar, improve your overhead press or bench press weights or even avoid neck, shoulder or upper back aches and pains.

It is so important to include because of that simple rounding and scapular protraction at the top of the push up.

This seemingly simple extra movement added on to the basic push up works an often overlooked muscle – the serratus anterior.

The serratus anterior is an essential muscle when it comes to keeping your shoulder blades, shoulders, neck and upper back healthy and happy and functioning correctly! 

And the push up plus is an amazing move to work this muscle as it is easier often to target this muscle without letting your upper traps compensate.

Too often our upper traps take over in movements meant to work our serratus anterior, which only perpetuates the aches and pains we have.

This scapular control, and serratus anterior strength, will also translate to better movement of your shoulder blades during overhead pressing and even a better ability to support your shoulders during bench press. 

This push up variation is a great way to keep everything healthy and strong as you include more pressing!

So how do you do the push up plus? 

While you will be performing almost just a basic push up, you want to give extra attention to the movement of your shoulder blades and even your hands pressure down into the ground.

Our hands are our foundation and better tension through them into the ground can increase muscle activation of our upper body. And by also being conscious of fully gripping the ground with our entire hand we can help avoid wrist, elbow and even shoulder aches and pains.

To do this push up, set up with your feet together and hands just outside your chest. Spread your fingers and flex your quads as you drive back through your heels.

You may even find it helpful to ever so slightly turn your hands out. This can even further help you engage your serratus anterior.

Then pull your shoulders down feeling them unshrug as you engage your back.

With your body in a nice straight line, lower down keeping tension.

Feel your shoulder blades draw toward your spine.

Then at the bottom, push the ground away and feel your shoulder blades move away from your spine.

As you reach the top of the push up, push the ground away a bit extra as if pulling your shoulders forward.

Feel your thoracic spine round up as you try to pull your shoulder blades around your ribs.

You may tuck your chin as you round up to go with the natural spinal flexion.

But do not let your butt go up in the air. You may slightly tilt your pelvis under instead to engage your abs more with the posterior pelvic tilt.

But you really want to focus on pulling your shoulder blades around your rib cage as you push that ground away.

This action really works that serratus anterior.

You’ll then move back into that full plank position and perform the push up again.

Working your press with the freedom to move your shoulder blades and be able to control that full range of motion is what makes this move so amazing for your upper body.

Not to mention you get that little extra core work with the pelvic tilt on top of the fact that the push up is a moving plank!

Now what if you can’t do a full push up from your toes? How can you modify this move?

An incline variation is always a great way to modify while allowing you to train that full push up plank position. 

Too often we do turn to knee push ups but this doesn’t teach us to properly engage our legs and drive back through our heels. It can keep us stuck getting stronger at only a modified variation.

It’s why that incline and working down in reps as you lower the incline is so key. 

You can use a rack, adjusting the barbell height or even boxes, lowering them down as you progress. 

If you are limited on incline options, you can select one that is a bit too high and slow down the tempo.

If you only have one that is too low, consider just the eccentric portion of the movement and start with the “plus” BEFORE you lower down for the rep. 

A final tip to modify if you need to work around wrist pain, is to put a mat folded up under the heel of your palm. This reduces the wrist extension demands to make it easier on your wrist. 

Bonus Tip:

And one bonus tip if you’re ready for a bit more of a challenge with this move and to test your core strength and stability, try including a dead stop or even hand release at the bottom.

This forces you to really engage prior to pressing back up and even makes sure you work through the fullest range of motion possible without using any momentum! 

That press back up from a dead stop is harder than we give it credit for, especially if we are super conscious that everything moves together as if our body were a solid board.

But even as you add in this dead stop or hand lift, don’t rush through the protraction at the top of the push up. Really focus on feeling around your rib cage even working!

So whether you’re looking to mix up your push up work, improve your upper body strength and stability to lift more while avoiding injury or just want to build up to that first full push up from your toes, this is an amazing push up variation to include in your workout routine!

And for more tips to improve your push ups, here are two videos to help!

10 Tips to Increase Your Push Ups (in 7 Minutes) 

Things No One Tells You About Push Ups 

3 Workout Tips To Lose Fat Faster

3 Workout Tips To Lose Fat Faster

by | Jul 17, 2023 | Blog, Exercises, Functional Fitness, Workouts

You want to lose fat and actually keep it off?

Stop thinking of your training as a chance to burn more calories.

The benefits of working out for fat loss aren’t in the calories burned during our training sessions.

Training helps us see better results faster through building muscle, improving our movements and increasing our resting metabolic rate.

Because the calories burned from our training sessions are minimal compared to the calories we burn over the course of the day.

That’s why I wanted to share 3 tips to help you get better results from your workouts and see those fat loss results build faster!

To start off – Don’t Repeat Movements Over The Week.

Your workouts don’t need to be boring to get results.

While there are some fundamental movement patterns you want to include in your training, you shouldn’t be so married to only one form of a movement that you only use the same exercise over and over again.

You should include a diversity of movements over the course of your weekly progression but repeat those same workouts for 2-4 weeks at least.

That repetition of the same workouts allows you to see growth in the movements.

But it’s key you include a diversity of movements during the week to create progression through the same but different and avoid your ego getting in the way.

Like including not only the barbell hip thruster but also the single leg foot raised variation as well.

This diversity in the exact form of a movement pattern you include allows you to target and work all aspects of a muscle and in different ways.

It also allows you to use the same movement pattern both as a primary heavy lift and even an accessory move.

You can even change up the types of resistances you use or the exact range of motion and tempos on a movement to drive muscle growth more efficiently over the week.

And this will allow you to see progression each week in these different ways and address any weak links you may have.

If you instead repeated the same barbell back row twice in a week, you may find your ego pushes you to try to lift more each workout, when you can’t. 

That second time using the row, your back may be fatigued from previous workouts. So you need to use less weight. But it can be hard to go lighter on the same move you did earlier with more.

By simply even using a single arm dumbbell row as that second row variation in the week, you now won’t force out more weight than you can control AND you’ll get the benefits of a unilateral move.

You’ll allow yourself to use more ways of creating progression to drive muscle growth while keeping your workouts fun and challenging.

You’ll see quicker gains in strength and even feel functionally more fit from your workouts! 

The second tip is – Start Global. Go Local.

In other words go big to small.

When you’re looking to include a variety of movement variations over the course of the week, you don’t want to just think about different tools or tempos or postures. 

You also want to think about how many muscles and joints are involved in the movement.

Include heavy compound lifts, like the deadlift, but also more isolated movements, especially to target those more stubborn areas, like the bicep curl. 

This combination of both types of movements leads to the best muscle gains.

While compound movements are more time-efficient and should be our focus when we have less time to train, isolation exercises help us work a muscle closer to failure to promote optimal growth. 

You want to be strategic in how you combine these movements over the course of your workout to get the best results from each type.

Generally, you want to start with big, heavy compound lifts, more global movements before you progress on to smaller, more isolation exercises to work local muscles. 

This way you are fresher to maximize those big lifts and lift heavier weights before you push a muscle to full fatigue and create a bigger volume of work with the isolation focus. 

Movements like the bench press are a great option to start your training.

Because you are fresh for this lift by including it at the start of your workout, you’ll be able to work more at your true 100% intensity and lift heavier for quality reps. 

Exercises that allow you to lift heavier weights build strength which allows you to move more weight not only over the single session but also the weeks and months.

By working from heavier compound lifts toward more accessory moves and isolation exercises, you can fully fatigue the muscles worked during that primary exercise and use all 3 drivers of muscle growth. 

With isolation moves, you aren’t focused on low reps and maxing out on loads, but instead of creating more of a pump or burn in the muscles through higher reps with loads that make you want to stop 5 short of where you do. 

These weights shouldn’t feel light for the reps you perform even though the loads will be lighter than you may use for a compound exercise.

Moves like the leg extension done later in your workout should fully fatigue your quads after you’ve done other exercises like squats and front lunges earlier on. 

Even if you’re short on time or only training 3 times a week, consider adding in a finisher to your workout with an isolation exercise or two to target your stubborn muscle groups! 

The third tip is – Don’t Turn Your Strength Workouts Into Cardio

Stop trying just to feel tired and out of breath from your workouts. Don’t just seek to feel the burn every training session. 

Too often to burn more calories and feel more worked, we end up turning our strength workouts into cardio sessions. 

We cut out all rest. We rush through movements. We add more volume or more reps and sets.

And I know this makes us feel like we’re working harder, which makes us believe we’re going to see better results faster, but ultimately this is what holds us back.

By turning our strength sessions into cardio workouts, we aren’t going to see the muscle growth we want to improve our metabolic health and lose fat faster. 

We can even end up losing muscle by doing this and find it harder to keep our nutrition dialed in and our calories in check.

Muscle growth is dependent on a stimulus that challenges the muscle and forces it to grow and adapt. 

These sessions may feel hard but they aren’t tearing down your muscle so that it has to regrow stronger. 

As you rest less, rush through moves and add more and more volume, your intensity drops.

What “feels” like you giving 100% isn’t a true 100% for very long.

This means you aren’t able to lift as heavy or do the quality repetitions you need to create that progression in your training to create those muscle gains. 

And often in making our sessions more cardio, we deplete our glycogen stores more and simply make ourselves hungrier. This can then make it more of a mental battle to keep our nutrition in check!

Don’t cut out rest. Don’t just add in more reps. Slow down your movements even. 

But stop seeking to just feel out of breath from your training and like you’re exhausted each and every session.

Realize that resting between rounds so you feel ready to go to work at a true 100% intensity for longer, and even like you’ve EARNED the rest from lifting heavy the round before, is what you need to build that lean muscle!

Be strategic in how you design your workouts to build muscle and help you burn more calories even at rest. This will help you see better fat loss results and maintain them long term.

We have to remember that systems work together to produce results which is why we can’t just randomly string “good moves” that “feel hard” together without a purpose!

 For workouts to help you reach your goals, check out my Dynamic Strength program!