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Can’t Do Push ups? Try These 2 Tips

Can’t Do Push ups? Try These 2 Tips

by | Nov 20, 2022 | Blog, Bodyweight, Exercises

Often when we can’t do a move like push ups, we think that there is just muscle weakness we need to address.

So we start doing more strength work for those muscles like our chest or maybe shoulders or triceps.

But even doing this strength work, we can feel like we’re getting no where.

It’s because bodyweight exercises like the push ups are about muscular coordination not just strength. It’s about that mind-body connection.

The correct muscles, recruited in the correct order, to the correct extents.

It’s like an orchestra playing together…you don’t want one instrument playing too fast or too loud. Everything has to work together to make the song sound fabulous.

This is why improving your push ups is about more than just strength. You need not only your chest, shoulders and triceps working together but also your abs engaged correctly so you move efficiently as one unit and even your quads and glutes engaged to create that tension through your body.

It’s full body control and coordination.

Which is why I mentioned the importance of your BACK when it comes to push ups.

I’ve had clients with killer bench presses that can’t bust out 5 push ups in a row.

And I found out this “secret” when actually retraining myself to do push ups properly years ago.

I thought I rocked at push ups. I could bust out 20 easily from my toes.

And then…I saw a video of myself actually doing them.

I realized my push ups were FUUUUGLY.

So I put my ego away and regressed them till I could perform them with perfect form.

I had to modify off an incline to start to feel the correct muscles working, otherwise other areas would compensate.

No wonder I’d had some shoulder and neck aches over the last few months! I was overusing muscles not meant to carry the load.

And what hurt my ego even worse than modifying was the fact that push ups now felt HARDER! I couldn’t do near as many in a row!

It’s because the correct muscles were actually working.

When we first get everything engaged and working correctly, moves can actually feel HARDER as we retrain those movement and recruitment patterns.

As I built back I then realized the missing piece to a powerful press up was my upper back and scapular control.

Yes.

Core strength is key – the push up is a moving plank.

But the often overlooked area of our body that is so essential to that powerful push is our upper back and the ability for our shoulder blades to move correctly.

When you set up for a push up, you should be engaging your back to unshrug your shoulders with your hands outside your chest. You will even feel your shoulder blades slightly pulled forward as you press the ground away.

Then as you lower down in the push up, your shoulder blades should draw together toward your spine, engaging your upper back. This allows you to efficiently load your chest and support your shoulders to then power the press back up while maintaining that perfectly straight line with your body.

As you press back up, your shoulder blades should move away from your spine.

This movement of those shoulder blades is key to help you achieve that full push up from your toes while also helping you avoid neck, upper back and shoulder aches and pains.

Here are the two moves I’ve found so essential to activate your upper back to improve your muscle coordination and movement efficiency so you CAN do push ups.

First is the Scapular Wall Hold.

Honestly, this move is a must do whether you want to improve your push ups or simply your posture.

This isometric is a great way to learn how to engage your upper back to support and stabilize your shoulders while even stretching out your chest.

It’s key to include simply because you’re doing a ton of pressing work even as you’re building up those push ups.

With this move you’re using the resistance of leaning back into the wall to challenge you to engage your upper back.

But you want to think about keeping your shoulders locked down with the sides of your back as you draw your shoulder blades toward your spine to open up your chest.

Don’t arch your lower back or try to walk out further from the wall to try to advance it.

Really just focus on the engagement of your upper back coming from you mentally trying to engage those muscles harder as you draw your shoulder blades together.

Just be conscious your shoulders don’t elevate as you do.

But this stabilized position is a great way to learn how to engage that upper back to power your press.

It will even help you learn how to get that proper engagement to start the push up at the top so your shoulders aren’t shrugged and your elbows don’t want to flare out into that T position during the press back up. 

Second is the Scapular Push Up To Dolphin.

By doing this scapular stability work from a plank position, you get the added benefit of core work, which is so key for the push up from your toes as well.

This is the perfect time to train that set up in the plank, driving back through your heels to create the tension up your legs.

Like you would for the push up, you want to unshrug your shoulders when you set up from the plank off your forearms, pressing to even almost drive the ground away with your elbows.

Holding that straight line with your body, you’ll pinch your shoulder blades together without shrugging.

This is the same movement of those shoulder blades as when you lower down in the push up. You’ll then press the ground away to separate your shoulders kind of like they would separate as you push back up in the push up.

Then at the top, lift your butt up and extend your shoulders to push back into almost a downward dog position from your forearms. This is a great spinal mobility drill, but the real bonus is learning how to re-engage your upper back when moving back into plank for the scapular push up.

This engagement helps you learn to really support your shoulders with your back to power your push ups!

If you find you struggle with this move to start as it is easy to try and cheat and drop your hips to think you’re making the scapular movement bigger than it is, you may want to modify off an incline.

Like I had to, you sometimes need to regress to progress and take ego out of it.

If you’re still finding yourself not able to engage things optimally from an incline, you may even want to perform a single arm scapular push up off the wall to start.

This does take some of the core work out of it, but it can be key if you do have any imbalances or a previous injury on one side. It makes sure both sides are working correctly without one taking over.

It can even be a great variation to mix things up in your activation work!

I recommend including both of these moves as part of your activation series in your warm up before any push up work or even your upper body workouts that include pressing.

Include them for 1-2 rounds of 10-15 reps each.

They help you make sure you’re able to engage your chest, shoulders and triceps efficiently.

And for not only form cues, but how I modified the push up to rebuild for picture perfect push ups, check out my Can’t Do Push Ups, Just Do This video.

How To Build Muscle Faster Without Weights

How To Build Muscle Faster Without Weights

by | Nov 13, 2022 | Blog, Bodyweight, Diet, Exercises

You need weights to build muscle.

False.

You don’t.

While adding heavier loads can make it easy to create that progression and challenge your muscles to improve your muscle hypertrophy or muscle gains, you don’t need weights to build some killer functional strength and get lean and strong.

As long as you create that challenge in your workouts so your muscles have to adapt and grow to conquer what you’re asking them to do, you’re going to see results – whether that challenge involves adding weight or not.

I bring this up because I got a number of questions on my Weight Training For Fat Loss video about whether or not it was possible to see amazing results from your training using just bodyweight moves.

And the answer is yes!

You can see amazing results and build muscle using only your own bodyweight.

Whether you want to gain muscle just to gain muscle and strength or you want to gain muscle to help with the fat loss process, increasing your metabolic rate, you can adjust other training variables and strategically design your bodyweight workouts to create progression.

That’s why I wanted to share some amazing ways to design your bodyweight workouts and use bodyweight moves to help you build muscle efficiently whether you’re training at home, training while on the road traveling or even just looking for a way to stay on track with your workouts and goals during the holidays!

Just remember with all of these you want to design a clear progression you repeat for a few weeks in a row.

Randomly stringing things together won’t help you create that clear progression and build you need to see results.

While you may get sore from constantly doing new things, and I know that can make you FEEL like you’re getting results, you aren’t creating that challenge that builds upon previous weeks to truly create that muscle growth!

Soreness truly isn’t an indicator that we worked hard enough or that we are going to get better results faster.

Honestly seeking to constantly be sore may be holding you back from actually achieving the muscle gains you want…and may actually mean that something is off in your recovery and nutrition.

Once we start focusing instead on tracking our progress in our workout routines to see increases in our performance each session, we ultimately will see better muscle gains, be sore less and even see our body composition improve overall.

So if you are training with just bodyweight and want to gain more muscle, one great way to start improving your results is to increase your training density.

(Want a workout program designed for the tools you have and goals you want to hit? Check out my Dynamic Strength App!)

Using Density Training Workout Designs can help you get better results and actually spend less time training to fit your busy schedule.

#1: Use Density Training Workout Designs.

Now you may be thinking what is training density even?

Training density is the volume of work in a specific time frame.

You can change training density by adding in more volume (so more reps and sets of moves) or by adjusting the time frame for the work you have planned out.

Too often though, especially when we don’t have weights to challenge us, we simply do MORE. We add in more moves, more reps and sets.

But this can lead to wasted volume and very inefficient and long workouts.

Because it isn’t just the volume, but the quality of that volume that matters.

Instead of doing more, we can adjust the timeframe we have to complete a certain amount of work, even trying to increase volume within those time limits so it doesn’t just get out of control.

That’s where Density Intervals and Density Sets can be great designs to use for bodyweight training.

Both of these have time limits where your goal is to increase volume within those boundaries, doing more reps and sets, while also using more challenging movements.

Density Intervals are work intervals under 1 minute that can be laid out as compound sets, so moves back to back for a single muscle group or area, trisets (3 moves done back to back before any rest) or circuits.

With Density intervals, especially when using bodyweight, you often want to work the same area in back to back intervals either adjusting tempos, types of movements or even ranges of motion, before moving on to a different muscle group.

You may do something like a bodyweight squat followed by squat pulses. Or a wall sit followed by bodyweight squats. Or bodyweight squats followed by front lunges.

But you are creating more training density by increasing the amount of work you’re doing for an area in a set amount of time while even using other training variables to create that challenge.

Density Sets also are about increasing the volume of work done in a set amount of time while progressing moves in other ways.

With this design, you may set a timeframe of work from 5-25 minutes and cycle through different moves in that time, either focusing in on one area of the body or even alternating upper and lower or anterior/posterior movements based on your progression and specific goals for the workout.

When using 5-15 minutes, often 1-3 moves works best per set. With 20+ timed sets, you can consider even 4-5 done back to back.

When you do moves that work the same area back to back, you will find that area will become more fatigued more quickly and cause you to have to modify as you go through over resting.

If you alternate areas worked, you will find that allows you to rest without actually resting. Pairing a push up with a single leg deadlift, allows your chest, shoulders and triceps to rest as your hamstring and glutes work.

With Density Sets, you want to think fewer reps per round but increasing the amount of work done by performing more rounds in the time.

The reason you want to think even just 5 reps per move before moving to the next exercise is so that you can use harder variations while making sure each rep is quality.

You can actually end up doing more reps with the harder variation during your workout this way than if you tried to do more reps in a row!

And that training volume with a harder variation means you’re challenging your muscles even more!

We have to remember that as much as increasing our training density can be a great way to create the challenge we need, and volume we need to build muscle, we want each rep to be quality to also get better results faster!

#2: Consider Other Training Variables.

Then whether you use a Density Training Design or even strategically use circuits or compound sets or any other workout design, you don’t want to ignore the importance of adjusting other training variables to make moves challenging.

Adding weights is such an easy training variable to adjust, which is so often why we default back to it.

But when you have your own bodyweight, you can be creative with how you design progression.

You can play with tempos of moves, slowing down moves, speeding them up or even performing isometrics or holds. You can even use more than one tempo with a single move.

You can slow down the lower down of a push up, add in a push up hold at the mid-point of a push up, speed up the movement making it explosive even leaving the ground. Or you could combine a slow lower down, hold and then quick press back up!

You can change your base of support or the stability of a move, trying a unilateral variation, or single sided variation, of a basic bilateral, or two-sided, move – like a single arm plank over a basic high plank.

You could even take this a step further and instead of staying on one side in the unilateral move, alternate sides. You could take that single arm plank hold and turn it into a plank with punch so you’re having to avoid rotation now with movement!

Even slight adjustments in that base of support can impact things, going from a basic bodyweight squat to a split squat.

And from there you can adjust the challenge by adding in even more movement going to that full front lunge.

You could even vary the range of motion on that, limiting the range of motion with pulses in that split squat position or placing that back foot up on a bench for a balance lunge. You can even change how you increase the range of motion by instead putting your front foot up on a step over raising the back leg.

And there are more training variables you can adjust on top of adjusting how you include these in your workouts.

Even going back to those density intervals, you could do an interval of split squats followed by split squat pulses.

Or do a fast split squat followed by a slow split squat with a hold.

The great part is all of these can change how you’re challenging your body to build that lean muscle!

Because progression can be even implementing the same but different at times!

To get those creative juices flowing so you get out of only thinking about challenging yourself by adding weight, it can be fun to play a game where you take one basic move, say a squat, and run through all of the options available.

You can then select the movement variation that matches your needs and goals for that workout and progression, saving the others to even use in your next workout series to keep creating a challenge for your body in new ways…

But you’ll be amazed by how many ways you can actually challenge yourself with those basic bodyweight exercises and even have fun and keep your training fresh while doing so!

And with playing this game with movements to see how you can manipulate training variables to create that progression, you not only want to consider compound and hybrid exercises you can include that work more muscle groups at once, but also how you can better use isolation exercises in your training routines.

#3: Use Isolation Moves Strategically.

Studies have shown that, especially for stubborn muscles, isolation exercises or exercises that really focus in on one specific muscle, can be so key.

With compound moves, you are only as strong as your weakest link, which may prevent you from fully working an area as much as needed.

With isolation moves, there is really only one link working so you can make sure it is working to the max.

But, especially when we don’t have loads to progress things, or target those muscles, it can be hard to find a way to use isolation moves that is also time efficient.

Yet also because we don’t have loads, isolation moves can be even more key to include.

They can help us fully fatigue areas, and create more time under tension even for those muscles during our training, to make sure we’re challenging our body in ways that our muscles are forced to adapt.

That is why pairing an isolation move right AFTER a compound exercise can be super helpful when training with only bodyweight.

While you’ve targeted those large muscle groups and more muscles with a more challenging compound move first, you can then hone in on any stubborn areas right after to fully fatigue the muscle with that more isolated exercise.

Try a get up lunge to work your legs then further target your quads and isolate them with a lean back.

Or do a regular push up followed by a Tricep Push Up or dip off a bench to then isolate and further fatigue those triceps.

You will even find doing this changes how you feel that more compound exercise in subsequent rounds of your workout!

But instead of just putting a burner at the end or some isolation work set out in your workout like you may do with weights, use those isolation moves as almost a way to post-exhaust an area.

Or potentially for a larger, stronger muscle like your glutes, even consider some pre-fatigue work, including isolation exercises before the compound move so you better feel that muscle engaging and fully working.

The more we feel a muscle activate and work, the more we are truly able to improve the muscle gains for that muscle!

These 3 tips are a great place to start adjusting your bodyweight training to see results. And while we need to challenge our muscles if we want to create adaptation and growth, we can’t ignore the importance of also adjusting our diet to match!

Don’t forget the importance of your nutrition!

Especially if we want to avoid gaining a ton of unwanted fat in the process of gaining muscle, we need to dial in our macros and calories to complement our training. Check out my video about building muscle and losing fat at the same time. I’ve included the link in the video description as a great next video to watch.

Because, while many of us have been told it isn’t possible, we can achieve amazing body recomp if we dial in our macros to match our workouts and embrace that results take time!

–> Gain Muscle Without Gaining Fat

Can’t Lose Fat? 4 Tips To Boost Your METABOLISM

Can’t Lose Fat? 4 Tips To Boost Your METABOLISM

by | Nov 6, 2022 | Blog, Diet, Exercises, menopause-featured

Are you slashing your calories super low, training harder and longer only to ultimately see your weight INCREASE?

Are you worried your previous dieting efforts have damaged your metabolism?

Are you ready to give up because you feel like nothing is going to work, you’ve tried everything and just end up working hard to go backward?

You’re not alone in your frustration. It sucks when we’re working hard to not see the results we feel we deserve!

But the good part is your metabolism isn’t broken.

The bad part is, everything you’ve done in the past, all those quick fixes and restrictive diets and marathon gym sessions, are now sabotaging your results.

I know it can feel like if we just look at a cookie we gain weight.

But the metabolic adaptations you’re now suffering from aren’t permanent!

And as much as it feels like nothing will work, you can make some small changes that will truly help you lose the weight.

But you’ve got to embrace the hard but simple truth…

Change requires change.

You’re going to need to flip your thinking on how you approach your diet and exercise routine if you want to get your leanest, strongest body as you get older.

You’re going to have to go against what you’ve always done.

Because our body wants to fight the weight loss process.

This is because our body sees a calorie deficit as a threat to survival.

And this is why we see our metabolic rate decrease as we cut our calories lower, try to train longer and harder and even give ourselves less recovery time.

Our body tries to survive based on what we are giving it. This means burning fewer calories at rest to conserve energy. It may mean we see decreases in our performance or even want to move and fidget less.

It is even why we can lose more muscle mass during more extreme diets because our body will utilize what it can for fuel. And muscle is metabolically costly.

We want to keep on muscle for this exact reason. It keeps our metabolic rate higher so we burn more calories at rest.

But when your body feels threatened, and worries you won’t have enough fuel, it is going to catabolize your muscle so you aren’t expending as much energy.

All of this is what can make you feel like your metabolism is broken.

It can lead to you gaining weight as you do more and eat less!

But your metabolism is NOT broken.

It’s just adapted.

So STOP doing more.

Here are 4 tips to help you improve your metabolic health and stop the weight gain frustration as well as where to start today!

4 Tips To Improve Your Metabolic Health:

#1:AVOID Fat Burners.

Trust me, if there was a magic fat burning food or supplement that truly worked…I’d be sharing it with you right now. Because then my clients would love me forever and I’d be able to guarantee a quick fix for fat results!

But there isn’t.

And not only is there no magic food or supplement, but most fat burning supplements on the market are…well..dangerous.

I personally will NEVER use one nor ever recommend them to a client.

And even those fat burning foods and supplements that do work initially work will hit a point of diminishing returns.

Take for instance anything with caffeine.

While it can potentially have an impact on our metabolism to start, and studies have even shown an elevation in fat burning and fat oxidation in leaner individuals more so than obese individuals, our body adapts, and adapts very quickly.

We build up a caffeine tolerance.

So unless you keep guzzling down more and more, you won’t see the same benefits you did initially.

Not to mention as we get older the impact seems to decrease as well.

And often the more you start to rely on these things, the more you sabotage your recovery which can lead to hormonal imbalances that end up holding you back.

We become dependent on it even to maintain our current weight.

And often our sleep suffers, which can be detrimental to your metabolic health.

So STOP searching for a fat burning food to boost your metabolic rate.

Instead focus on whole natural foods and a balanced diet high in protein with a diversity of foods included. This can help you promote optimal hormone levels and metabolic health.

Plus, the thermic effect of protein will boost your metabolic rate as your body has to expend more energy to process and digest protein to use.

Same goes for more quality, whole natural foods. They have a higher thermic effect than more processed, less nutrient dense foods.

So the best way to boost your metabolic rate from foods is to dial in your macros and micronutrients.

By even tracking our food and including that diversity we can make sure to get plenty of vitamins and minerals which will ultimately lead to a healthy metabolism.

Focusing on making sure your levels of Magnesium, Calcium, Vitamin D and B complex and Iron, especially for women and those going through menopause, are optimal will help you improve your metabolic health. So including foods high in these things, or even the occasional supplement, is the best “fat burner” you can get.

#2: Avoid Extended Large Deficits.

Our body fights the weight loss process. It also doesn’t like change.

Our body wants to maintain balance and what it believes to be normal and safe – which is generally where you’ve been maintaining for awhile.

So if you dramatically slash your calories lower, while even increasing your deficit through training harder and longer, your body feels threatened and does what it can to not use up your stored energy, your fat, faster than it needs to.

It doesn’t know when the next meal is coming!

Like everything, we get good at and adapt to what we consistently do. Consistently eat very little and your body gets good at functioning off less!

To avoid creating quick and extreme metabolic adaptations so your body gets used to surviving off of a super low calorie intake, don’t slash your calories super low.

Instead create a deficit of only 100-200 calories.

And at times, give yourself a dieting break especially if you’ve been in a deficit for longer or you’re within 10lbs of your ultimate goal.

This diet break may be one day a week of higher calories. Or it may be a 10-14 day stretch even of eating at maintenance.

Especially if your calories are super low currently and your gaining, this break may be even more essential.

I know the idea of eating more can be scary when we’re already gaining eating so little, BUT eating more can help increase your metabolic rate, help you gain muscle to burn more calories at rest AND restore proper hormonal balance.

You’ll also often find you sleep better, want to move more and even see your performance in your training improve.

All of these things are what ultimately lead to better fat loss results and your ability to have a healthy metabolic rate to MAINTAIN your results long-term!

#3: Challenge Yourself Don’t Slaughter Yourself.

If it challenges you, it will change you.

Whether you use loads, tempos, volume, instability or adjust so many other training variables, results happen because we’ve challenged our body to adapt and grow stronger.

HOWEVER, challenging yourself doesn’t mean causing yourself to feel like death after each and every workout.

It doesn’t mean dying on the ground feeling like you’re going to vomit.

It doesn’t mean being so sore you can’t move the next day.

Too often destroying ourselves with each and every session, doing wasted volume and constantly including new moves that makes us sore, actually leads to us NOT seeing the results we want while working really hard.

Challenging yourself is about clear and consistent progression.

It is about designing a weekly workout schedule you repeat for a few weeks to see growth in moves.

It is about doing one more rep, adding a bit more weight slowly even just on one round, doing a slightly more advanced variation of a move.

Even FEELING muscles better engage in a movement as you increase the range of motion can be the challenge you need.

But challenging yourself in a productive way means having that clear plan in place to make those incremental adjustments and see growth.

Stop focusing on just feeling super worked and start really tracking your workouts to push a bit more each and every week.

This will also ensure you’re truly doing enough over leaving more than you should in the tank!

#4: Don’t Ignore The Importance Of Sleep.

Most of us know how important sleep is…

But it’s a harder one to change and control.

So we often acknowledge it but then never really change it.

We simply feel we don’t have time to sleep more or we can’t fall asleep or stay asleep.

And while, yes, you can’t “force” yourself to sleep like you can to eat a certain way or train, you can create different habits and routines to make getting quality sleep easier.

Which often starts with first noticing what your current habits are that aren’t leading to results.

Are you consuming caffeine later in the day?

Are you doing a workout right before bed?

Are you giving yourself time to actually unwind and relax before going to sleep?

Note the habits you are currently doing and then make small adjustments creating a set pre-bed routine.

Often having this set pre-bed routine can help us mentally relax and be prepared to sleep.

It makes that connection so we are ready and relaxed before bed vs our body and mind not really knowing that it is time to go to bed.

I love including a little mobility work right before bed to even do some deep breathing and allow both my body and mind to unwind before bed! I also take my Immunity for the zinc and magnesium sleep benefits.

But more than what I’m doing is the fact that I know I’m doing this to sleep!

Puts my in a relaxed state to sleep better!

Now…Where Do You Start With All Of This?

The most sustainable changes are based off our current lifestyle.

We need to meet ourselves where we are at.

And one off the hardest, but most essential first changes to often make if we do feel we need to fix our metabolism is to EAT MORE!

But embracing eating more to lose fat can be hard.

That’s why I want you to check out my Eat More To Lose Fat video next. These tips will help you start fueling to increase your metabolic rate and ultimately lose fat faster!

–> Eat More To Lose Fat

STUDIES:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7485480/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7611396/

Flexibility Secrets To Make You Feel Younger

Flexibility Secrets To Make You Feel Younger

by | Oct 30, 2022 | Blog, Exercises, Foam Rolling, Functional Fitness, Stretches, Workouts

Ever feel like you wake up and everything is more sore tired and achy than it used to be after your hardest workout?

Like you aged even a decade overnight?

Feel like your flexibility just POOF, disappeared?

What if I told you that to get it back there was one simple solution….

Stop just stretching more.

Because while most of us think we want to be more flexible, what we actually want is more than that.

We want to improve not only our flexibility but also our mobility and stability.

We don’t want to get up out of bed and feel like everything is in need of oil.

We don’t want to struggling with aches and pains going up and down stairs or getting up and down off the ground.

We want to feel like we can take on any hiking, biking or fitness challenge that comes our way.

That’s why I want to share 4 common reasons why our flexibility work isn’t often paying off the way we’d like and how we can get better results faster.

 

But first I want to clarify what the heck these three terms – flexibility, mobility and stability really mean.

Flexibility is really the ability of a muscle, or muscle group, to lengthen and stretch.

Mobility is the ability of joints to move through a full range of motion.

Stability is the ability to control and maintain joint movement and position.

All three of these things are linked. If you don’t work on all three components ultimately you won’t see the results you’re really after.

Without proper muscle flexibility, you will have restricted joint range of motion and stability.

Without proper joint range of motion, you’ll have restricted muscle flexibility and joint stability.

Without proper joint stability, you’ll have restriction joint mobility and muscle flexibility.

When we realize how much each component impacts the other, we can adjust our training to address all three components together to see better results faster.

And often not seeing these 3 components as linked is why our flexibility training is getting us the benefits we’d like.

Now how can you make changes that don’t waste your time and have you feeling like you’re moving better than you did a decade ago?

#1: We’re spending time stretching muscles we shouldn’t.

If a muscle feels tight, we often think we need to stretch it.

And while many muscles that feel tight can actually be shortened and in need of stretching, we have to realize that this isn’t always the case.

When this isn’t the case, stretching can actually make matters worse.

So it’s key we are able to determine the underlying cause of tightness first.

A muscle can become tight because of a lack of joint stability or even improper joint mobility or alignment.

Our body wants to protect itself.

If a joint is unstable, it will do what it can to create stability, which means potentially creating muscular tension.

It may mean we create tension in a muscle that really shouldn’t be working that hard to provide that stability.

Until you actually address the muscle that is weak and underactive not supporting the joint the way it should, this muscle will keep becoming tight no matter how much you stretch it.

And even stretching it may perpetuate the instability already there or make it harder to activate the underactive muscle.

Stretching may also make matters worse if a muscle becomes tight because of joint alignment or restricted joint mobility.

Muscles can feel tight because they are actually overstretched.

Take for instance our hamstrings.

They are actually a great example often of a lack of joint stability and joint alignment or positioning causing tightness over a muscle actually being shortened.

So many of us have thought to ourselves “I need to stretch my hamstrings more. They feel so tight!”

But often in the case of our hamstrings, they are actually overstretched due to tight hip flexors from sitting far too long at our computers or traveling in our car.

They may also be tight because of underactive glutes not doing their part to help with pelvic alignment and hip stability so tension is created to help provide stability where it is lacking.

Because of this, while it may feel like you should stretch your hamstrings, stretching actually makes matters worse.

Instead you’d be better served by doing activation work for your glutes and stretching of your hip flexors to restore proper joint mobility and stability.

This correction of postural distortions will ultimately actually HELP your hamstring flexibility without stretching them!

Which leads me to reason #2 we often aren’t seeing the results we’d like from our flexibility work…

#2: We’re not focusing on engaging the opposing muscle group during stretches.

How many times have you done a stretch and just tried to feel the muscle stretching?

Most of us have done this.

And sometimes you even do a stretch and think, “I don’t really feel this that much.” Priding yourself on how flexible you even are in that position.

Or…

“I stretch this all of the time, why isn’t it helping!?”

I see this often with hip stretches.

People supposed stretch their hip flexors a ton, but they never see improvements in their hip mobility.

But it’s because they actually aren’t really stretching the muscles they think they are in the movements.

Too often with moves we go through the motions, mimicking the movements.

And our body takes the path of least resistance, often finding mobility or flexibility from the easiest areas…often the areas that aren’t even tight.

So we end up doing a hip flexor stretch to arch our lower backs or not engage our glutes.

Instead of just mimicking a movement pattern or even thinking about the muscle we want to stretch, we need to focus on engaging the opposing muscle group.

The muscle driving the stretch.

If you want to stretch your hips, focus on squeezing your glutes to drive the hip extension.

If you want to stretch your chest to prevent those rounded shoulders, focus on engaging your upper back to open up your chest.

Not only does engaging the opposing muscle group stretch what you’re trying to stretch, but it can also improve your mind-body connection to activate underactive muscle groups which will also improve your joint mobility and stability as well!

If you’re looking to learn more about specifically improving your hip stretches, check out the video HERE.

#3: We’re sabotaging our flexibility gains with our strength workouts.

Strength work is essential if you want to maintain your flexibility, mobility and stability.

However, too often we do our strength training only working in one plane of motion or not through the fullest range of motion we truly can.

If we want to be more flexible, more mobile and more stabile, we need to build strength through a full range of motion.

This takes what we may passively be able to move through and makes it an active movement we can control.

Only when you do your strength work through a bigger range of motion do you keep the flexibility of muscles you worked hard to create.

If you do your strength work in a small range of motion, you will keep just tightening muscles back up!

So if you’ve worked to improve your hip flexor flexibility and hip mobility, make sure your strength workouts do include movements to go through this full range of motion even if it means going lighter to start.

Lunge lowering your knee to the ground.

Perform step ups from a higher box.

But strength through that full range of motion to maintain it!

Otherwise your flexibility and mobility work will constantly be negated by your other training and you won’t then improve your joint stability through that full range of movement!

#4: Stop just including a “recovery” or flexibility workout.

While having a day set aside each week to specifically and solely work on your flexibility, mobility and even stability is amazing, you need to address these components every single workout to see the best results as fast as possible.

We get good at what we consistently do.

And most of us aren’t truly patient enough for a single weekly session to add up over time.

Not to mention so much of the postures and positions we put ourselves in on a daily basis work against what we’re trying to accomplish.

So if we want the best results possible, every warm up should include this flexibility, mobility and stability work.

And this is why that 3-Part Prehab Process is so key!

By including foam rolling, stretching and activation exercises every single warm up, we can consistently be doing small amounts of the mobility work we need more often, especially to reverse our daily postures.

And not only that, we can prep our body to move better during our training so we can strengthen through that fuller range of motion, maintaining the muscle flexibility we’ve worked hard to create.

Doing this mobility, flexibility and stability work in our warm up also allows us to make sure the correct muscles are working so we don’t perpetuate muscles being overused and becoming tight due to improper joint alignment or instability.

Instead of stressing a super long flexibility workout, try just even 10 minutes as a warm up before every workout! Those small consistent sessions done to help you get more out of your workouts will add up more than you realize!

For my full podcast on the 3-Step Prehab process, click HERE.

Just remember if you want to improve your flexibility, you can’t ignore the importance of also working on your joint mobility and stability.

Be intentional with your training and realize that you want to always include things with a purpose while you focus on what you truly feel working!

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Weight Training For Fat Loss (5 Simple Tips)

Weight Training For Fat Loss (5 Simple Tips)

by | Oct 23, 2022 | Blog, Exercises, Workouts

Don’t waste your time commenting that diet is key for fat loss.

Yup. 100% it is.

BUT the best results always come when we dial in our overall lifestyle as a system to work together.

And too often we turn to cardio when we want to lose fat.

We think we even need MORE cardio to improve our results.

But not only do workouts NOT have to be just cardio or just strength, but you could technically see BETTER results by dialing in your strength training over simply adding in more cardio type workouts.

That’s why I wanted to share 5 tips to get better fat loss results from your strength workouts.

But before I do, I want to highlight why strength training and building muscle is so key if we want to look leaner and KEEP the fat off…

Why Strength Training Is Key:

 

To build muscle, we need to challenge our body to grow stronger.

While you can 100% lose weight without working out by just adjusting your diet, you need the challenge of training to help you build that muscle.

Not to mention a consistent workout routine can make it so much easier to lose fat faster and maintain those results long term.

Working out though isn’t just about burning more calories. And weight training especially improves your hormone levels for easier fat loss and a better body composition. 

Weight training, and increasing muscle mass, can even increase insulin sensitivity for better fat burning benefits and a higher metabolic rate.

And that is why paying attention to your workouts and not just your diet is so key.

Through your strength training, and creating progression in your workouts, you can build lean muscle.

While we often think about creating progression through using heavier loads, progression can also occur by adding in instability, using variations of movements, changes in tempos and even changing up the range of motion you’re performing during movements.

But we need that clear challenge to create the change no matter how we create it.

We can’t just see our workouts as a time to burn more calories, and do MORE, which is why we often turn to cardio.

We have to also recognize that cardio can be catabolic to muscle tissue and, when combined with a calorie deficit for fat loss, can actually lead to us losing more muscle mass over the course of our weight loss journey.

It’s why strength training is so key.

It helps us do what we can to increase lean muscle mass and at least preserve even the muscle we have.

And we want to do everything in our power to preserve our lean muscle mass to make sure the weight we are losing is as much fat as possible to look our leanest.

While, especially if we have more weight to lose, some muscle mass loss will occur, the leaner we get, the more we want to do what we can to avoid more muscle loss than necessary.

Because muscle is metabolically costly.

What this means is it requires more calories to maintain more muscle on your body.

More muscle therefore means a higher metabolic rate and more calories burned at rest.

So if you’re looking to lose more fat faster, you want to retain and even add muscle.

Focusing on strength training to build and retain lean muscle will help you avoid some of the metabolic adaptations that often occur with weight loss and allow you to eat more as you lean down.

Muscle will then make it easier to maintain your weight loss long term not to mention actually LOOK LEANER because you truly will have lost fat in the process!

Now…What Are 5 Tips To Help You Dial In Your Strength Training For Better Fat Loss Results?

#1: Focus on compound moves.

Compound moves or moves that work multiple joints and muscle groups at once allow you to move heavy loads and build lean muscle efficiently.

They are a perfect way to work more areas in less time, which is key if you are trying to create efficient workouts to match your busy schedule.

And while we don’t want our training to just be about burning calories, compound moves will help you burn more calories during your sessions than isolation exercises will.

You are working large muscle groups and more muscles at once, which means your body needs to utilize more energy to perform these lifts.

You may find you get more out of breath and see your heart rate increase more when focusing your workouts on compound movements, especially when you challenge yourself with heavy loads.

Working muscles require increased blood flow to deliver glucose, oxygen and other nutrients to muscles, which will increase your heart rate to match these demands aka you’ll burn more calories.

And not only will you burn more calories during your sessions but these muscles that have been worked during your session will require more energy to support the healing process so they can grow stronger.

Especially if you are in a slight calorie deficit, your body will need to utilize stored energy to fuel the repair and growth!

#2: Avoid body part splits.

You’ll see many bodybuilding splits working very focused areas of the body each session.

This often limits the large muscles you are actually targeting per session and decreases your training frequency for areas over the week.

Especially for stubborn areas, increasing training frequency may be helpful so you can more efficiently build that lean muscle.

This may mean full-body, anterior-posterior or even hemisphere splits may be more beneficial so you can target muscle groups more than once a week easily.

This will also allow you to hit more large muscle groups each and every session to more efficiently build strength and muscle.

Targeting more large muscle groups each and every session also allows you to ultimately create a more anabolic hormonal environment which can also assist you in burning more fat even at rest.

With these harder training sessions that focus on more large muscle groups each and every session you can elevate levels of growth hormone and testosterone and reap their fat burning benefits.

Besides initiating fat burning, growth hormone also facilitates protein synthesis for faster recovery and greater muscular development. 

Testosterone also is key to creating that anabolic environment which not only promotes fats burning but the development of lean mass.

Not to mention, again working those large muscle groups leads to more calories being burned not only during your sessions but even in the follow time as your body repairs and rebuilds!

#3: Use fewer single lift workout designs.

While you don’t want to turn every strength workout into a cardio session or that will fight against your muscle gains, you do want to use the cardio-strength spectrum to your advantage.

While single heavy lifts with longer rest periods can and should be included strategically, especially to build strength, they aren’t necessarily the most efficient for muscle hypertrophy.

Intense heavy lifting sessions with at times shorter rest periods, not no rest periods, can even better optimize those hormone levels.

By using more supersets, trisets and circuit type workout designs, you can allow areas to rest while still working other areas.

This often allows you to work more muscle groups in a shorter time frame and keep your body having to work harder to again, burn more calories to rebuild stronger.

The metabolic element to these sessions can also help you get cardiovascular benefits and stay in great conditioning shape, even improving your lifting.

Plus, by alternating areas worked, you can still get adequate rest to keep using those heavy loads to encourage muscle hypertrophy or growth!

#4: Mix up the tools you use.

Often when we think about building muscle, we think about lifting heavier and getting super sore.

While you may find at times during your fat loss phase, you do get more sore as you are in a slight calorie deficit, you also don’t want to try to make yourself sore after every session.

Soreness isn’t an indicator you worked hard enough. And it isn’t needed to build muscle.

While muscle tissue damage can lead to soreness, it isn’t the only driver of muscle growth either – there is also mechanical tension and metabolic stress.

That is why you want to consider not only adding heavier loads but different types of moves and resistances to your training routine!

Consider a barbell hip thruster but add in a mini band around your legs. Or even test out a double banded variation.

Don’t be afraid to use banded moves that change where and how tension is applied during a movement.

Don’t even avoid including some isolation work that does use bands to create that pump and burn to really target those stubborn areas!

These different tools and different moves help you use all three drivers of muscle growth to get the best results possible and even increase your training frequency over the week.

Not to mention they can make training fun, especially if you are finding your motivation at times fading. It can be fatiguing at times to keep trying to drive to lift more or do another rep.

And that is also why including progression through different tools and even the same but different can give you another way of progressing that mentally may be more fun and motivating!

#5: Do a proper warm up – Don’t skip the activation!

This tip is extremely unsexy but the one so many of us are guilty of doing…Especially when we think about designing workouts for weight loss and we’re short on time.

Our warm up is the first thing to go in our workouts so we can “get to the good stuff” and burn a ton of calories.

But if you want to get the most benefit from every training session and really make sure the correct muscles are working, you don’t want to skip your warm up, especially the activation.

Activation exercises not only create metabolic stress to drive muscle growth, but they can be used to establish that mind-body connection.

Through focused activation of one muscle they do also stretch the opposing muscle group as you go through the movement. A glute bridge, where you focus on those glutes will in turn stretch out those hip flexors!

And the more we are able to FEEL those correct muscles working in our training, the more those muscles are truly benefiting.

That ability to recruit muscles and feel them working, that activation, can improve our muscle hypertrophy.

For example, if you feel only your quads or hamstrings during a weighted glute bridge, your glutes aren’t getting the benefit they should. You want to feel them as the prime mover.

Doing glute activation in your warm up can help you establish that mind-body connection so you can better engage those glutes during your workout.

That way you’re not overloading muscles, which can lead to injury AND you’re also really truly using those muscles correctly so they get the full benefit of the workout lifts you’re including!

SUMMARY:

We want to be intentional with our training to get the best results possible.

The more we can use every tool in our toolbox to get results, the better and faster our results will be.

So if you’re really working to lose fat and have your diet dialed in, don’t ignore how beneficial strength training can be to building that lean, strong physique and even maintaining your results long-term!

Learn more about my 3-Step Recipe For Results…

How to Build Muscle At Any Age (7 TIPS!)

How to Build Muscle At Any Age (7 TIPS!)

by | Oct 16, 2022 | Blog, Diet, Exercises, Functional Fitness, menopause-featured, Pain Relief

“I’m too old to gain muscle.”

Stop lying to yourself. Stop giving yourself an excuse to not work hard and move forward.

Because while our body, needs and goals do change as we get older, and yes it 100% becomes harder to build and retain lean muscle, we can achieve fabulous results and build muscle at any and every age.

And honestly, often the reason we don’t see the results we want as we get older is because we cling to improper dieting and workout practices that we may have “gotten away with” when we were younger.

But at every stage of life, we need to be adjusting our training and fueling. Nothing works forever.

Our body and lifestyle are constantly evolving and so should our diet and training habits to meet us where we are at currently so we can always move forward and be functional strong till our final day on this planet!

That’s why I want to share 7 tips to help you not only maintain your muscle mass but gain muscle as you get older.

Tip #1: Use It Or Lose It.

So often the reason we see more dramatic shifts in body composition and lose more muscle mass as we get older is because we’ve STOPPED doing what makes us fitter and stronger.

We accept decline and use age as an excuse instead of finding ways to really challenge ourselves.

Things do get harder. We may feel more awkward with balance moves. We may feel like we recover slower.

We may even dislike coordination moves because they are uncomfortable.

Even mainstream media tells people to stop doing what once kept them strong.

But if you don’t use it, you lose it.

If you want to maintain your muscle, you’ve got to challenge your body.

If you want to keep your mind-body connection strong, which can lead to better muscle hypertrophy as well, you’ve got to do moves that challenge your coordination.

And if you not only want to gain muscle but stay functionally strong and avoid falls, you’ve got to do those awkward balance moves.

Use it or lose it. Keep challenging yourself and training those movement patterns in the gym so you move better in every day life!

Tip #2: Stop Dieting.

Muscle helps keep our metabolic rate higher. It helps us burn more calories at rest and stay leaner.

And we get older we become less able to utilize protein as efficiently making it even harder to build and retain lean muscle mass.

But this is why it is even more key we stop the dieting and extreme deficits.

While it can feel harder and harder to lose any weight we’ve gained so we feel we need to turn to larger and larger calorie deficits, this ultimately sabotages our results.

It leads to more muscle being lost in the process of us trying to lose weight which only leads to metabolic adaptations and worse body composition.

It leads to us actually making it harder on ourselves to lose the weight and keep it off. Plus the metabolic adaptations mean we burn fewer calories at rest.

This leads to us then slashing our calories lower and lower to try to keep losing, perpetuating the horrible weight gaining cycle as we get older.

Instead we need to FUEL that lean muscle.

We need to focus on macros first and a very slight calorie deficit so we can help ourselves retain that lean muscle even as we want to lose fat.

Or we maybe even need to first retrain our body to eat more so we can build lean muscle with a small calorie surplus before we consider a slight deficit to lose!

Tip #3: Do Moves That Challenge You.

Many of us have heard that strength training is key to gaining muscle especially as we get older.

And it is.

By challenging our muscles, we force them to rebuild and grow stronger.

It’s why we don’t want to fear lifting heavy as we get older.

The key is recognizing what lifting heavy is for us.

It may mean bodyweight training starting out, especially if you haven’t trained before or trained consistently in awhile.

Or it may be using resistance bands or dumbbells over barbells.

The key is not fearing loads and truly challenging yourself instead of going lighter just because you’ve hit a certain age.

Fitness is about ability PERIOD.

We always have to meet ourselves where we are at.

This also means we can’t avoid awkward and uncomfortable moves that challenge our mind-body connection.

Neuromuscular efficiency, or the ability to recruit muscles quickly and in the right sequences to perform movements properly, is key to us moving well and even improving our reaction times and coordination in every day life.

Not to mention that ability to recruit muscles quickly, that muscle activation, will also IMPROVE our muscle hypertrophy.

So if you want to be able to gain more muscle, you want to improve that mind-body connection with moves that challenge your balance and your coordination while also challenging yourself with loads!

Tip #4: Increase Protein Portions Per Meal.

As we get older we can develop anabolic resistance and we are less able to utilize protein as efficiently.

This means we actually need to increase our protein intake, especially when we’re training hard and lifting to build muscle.

Because our muscles don’t respond by increasing muscle protein synthesis in the same way as when we were younger, increasing a portion of 20 grams of protein to 30 may be super key.

And if we’re training harder, you may see an even better benefit from 40 grams, especially after a hard training session.

However, the reason I don’t just say increase protein intake overall is because, as we get older, we can also often see a decline in our appetite.

This decline can be purely age related but also based on how we’ve trained our body to fuel when trying to lose weight in a more extreme deficit, which can make it hard to eat a ton of protein in one sitting, especially because it is so satiating and can make us feel fuller.

By increasing each meal over trying to get in a ton extra at one meal, and even adding in a pre and post workout snack that is protein-centric, we can break up our protein intake to see results.

You may even find that you can see added benefits from a BCAA supplement consumed DURING your workout as Leucine especially is so critical to stimulate muscle protein synthesis.

There can also be some benefits of breaking up your protein to keep a positive protein balance at multiple times a day to promote better muscle growth!

Tip #5: Do Your Mobility Work.

We can see changes in our recovery and aches and pains can feel like they’re adding up as we get older.

Too often we simply blame our age over recognizing the movement compensations, imbalances, overuse and overload that have been occurring for years that we haven’t addressed.

But whatever the reason, we can’t ignore these issues if we want to be able to train hard consistently to see results.

It’s why mobility work is so key.

It can help us move better and recover faster, even helping us better manage chronic inflammatory conditions that could fight our muscle gains, so we can train consistently and challenge ourselves to build that lean muscle.

Without proper recovery, we end up training to a point of diminishing returns where we are just constantly beating our body down over allowing for proper recovery and growth.

When we rest, we rebuild!

Here is a full body mobility routine with the complete 3-step prehab process to address common aches and pains.

But it is key we do this mobility work in every warm up so we can train to build that lean muscle more efficiently!

You’ll be surprised by how much even just 5-10 minutes of mobility work a day helps you train harder without needing extra days off to recover!

Tip #6: Be Strategic In Your Meal Timing.

I say this as a person who personally loves intermittent fasting as a meal timing…

Fasting can backfire when gaining muscle is your goal – especially if you are a hardgainer.

And as we get older, we have to realize that fasting and fasted training may hinder us from gaining muscle, as in a fasted state, your muscle protein balance is negative.

Basically you break down more muscle than you build.

So we put ourselves at greater risk for losing muscle the more we put ourselves in this negative protein balance.

Not to mention, when you train fasted, you don’t necessarily have the readily available stored fuel you need to truly push through a hard session or rebuild from the damage you’ve created.

So consider including a pre-workout meal with protein to have amino acids readily available in your system and even a carb source for immediate fuel to allow you to push harder in your session without fatigue.

This meal will help create a positive protein balance even before your session.

Then post workout, consider consuming another 40grams even of protein.

Studies have found that resistance exercise combined with amino acid ingestion elicits the greatest anabolic response and may assist the “elderly” in producing a ‘youthful’ muscle protein synthetic response provided sufficient protein is ingested following exercise.

This post workout protein consumption can also even help you improve your recovery so you can include more hard training sessions over the week.

Tip #7: Stay Active On Days Off.

Recovery and rest days don’t have to be “do nothing days.”

And the more we can actually use these days to prep our body to move better during our training sessions, the better off we will be.

Include 5-10 minute mobility routines.

Go for a long walk.

Honestly, walking is one of the most underutilized tools we have to stay functionally stronger and improve our body composition even as we get older.

Walking can help us avoid unwanted fat gain, keep our aerobic base strong and even recover from previous training sessions without being catabolic to our muscle mass unlike more intense forms of steady state cardio.

Walking can also be a great way to destress and help our body, and mind, rest!

So as much as it can be hard to take a day off, your body needs it. Your muscles repair and rebuild when you give them time to recover.

But to stay active, don’t be afraid to include light movement and mobility work on those days off!

You may be surprised by how much even this light activity helps you sleep better!

SUMMARY:

We can, and should, focus on building muscle at any and every age.

We are NEVER too old to see results.

And our workout routine and diet should always be based on our needs and goals, meeting us where we are at. But our age, that simple number, should never determine what we can or can’t do.

We have to remember that if we want to stay strong, it really is a case of use it or lose it.

So use these 7 tips to help you feel lean, strong and fabulous till your final day on this planet!

And for even more motivation to never say you’re too old, check out the Fitness Hacks Podcasts I’ve linked to below.

FHP S2:E7 – Can You Gain Muscle As You Get Older? If So, How!?

FHP S2: E46 – I’m too OLD!

MORE STUDIES:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22313809/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6582369/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15438627.2020.1770251
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jappl.2000.88.2.386
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpendo.00488.2005