Live Free, Laugh Hard

This morning, while training a client, I was reminded how language can mislead us or play tricks on our mental image of something we don't quite understand. As I was leading my client through stretches, I explained that the movements we were doing targeted our hip flexors and hamstrings and that ultimately the stretches could be used to gain flexibility to do the splits. She smiled and said, "Oh! I would love to learn how to do the splits" and I replied, "Well, these stretches are a great start. Just keep at it and do these several times a week." Her statement left me thinking about how often I hear people say, "I want to learn how to..." when the skill they are looking to learn isn't so much a matter of learning "how" but rather something that can only be gained by persistent training that develops the body.  Recently, at a consultation, a prospective student told me, "I want to learn how to do pull ups. I've tr...

Have you ever seen someone fit in the gym, who despite all those muscles and their ability to stay on the treadmill running for hours on end, still look a little "off."  Maybe their posture is bad or their legs look skinny or they have a bird chest despite all that bench pressing. This is where proper form, muscle balance, and activation of the correct muscles for a specific movement come to play. All too often, I see someone doing a movement wrong. Some of them use tons of momentum to lift a weight too heavy for the muscles that exercise was intended to target. Others use their major muscle groups to plow through a movement that was intended to develop the finer, supporting muscles. I've heard the excuse, "I'm bulking up right now, so it's OK to sacrifice form a little. I'll work on that later."  What they may not realize is that muscles are highly specific in their action and range of motion. If you train in the wrong position or usi...

In this culture of body acceptance, I find that a slim or fit person now gets pointed at for not being normal or judged as not having a "desirable human form." In the current social climate on fitness, it no longer takes an underweight physique for someone to be judged as being "too skinny" because the world's reference point, the so-called "average person" is now clinically overweight. Being called "too skinny" or to "go eat a sandwich", can creep into the psyche of even the most athletic, health conscious person. Unfortunately, in the back of their mind, this negative message can make one feel unattractive and persuade someone to begin overeating to "fix" this suddenly perceived lack in one's external beauty. This pressure to have a fuller body or to "not look like a boy" can occur despite our knowledge that being overweight, along with the lifestyle factors that lead to being overweight i...