If you have a stiff/tight mid to upper back give these two thoracic mobility exercises a go!

If you have a stiff/tight mid to upper back give these two thoracic mobility exercises a go! They feel amazing, and will have you feeling like a new person! ⠀ 

As always, if you have a serious medical issue or chronic pain, seek help from a medical professional before trying anything! ⠀ 

These can be done separately, by themselves if you’d like, but I really would recommend you pair them together, as they’re very synergistic. Start with the extensions first and then onto the side lying rotations! These are the best! ⠀

Total body strength, endurance, and conditioning workout. All you need is 1 pair of dumbbells! ⠀

Total body strength, endurance, and conditioning workout. All you need is 1 pair of dumbbells! ⠀

 I’m not normally an advocate of throwing out random workouts and expecting people to fit to them. That being said this is a very accessible workout for just about any fitness level. Gyms are also most likely closing unfortunately, and a ton of people are too scared to even step foot into a gym. So this can be done at home if needed! 💪 🏠 ⠀

 If you need help choosing a weight to use, I recommend starting with a weight that you can safely, yet still a challenge to press overhead for 10-12 reps. Increase or decrease the weight depending on the difficulty. ⠀

         The Exercises

1) Goblet Squat 

2) Single Leg RDL w/balance support 

3)Push Press 

4)Single Arm Row 

5)Hammer Curl 

6)Overhead Tricep Extensions 

7)Floor Press or Bench Press if you have⠀

 -Do 10 reps of each exercise *15 reps if you’re using a lighter weight. 

-Take minimal to no rest in between each one.

 -After you complete all 7 exercises, you can then rest for 2-3 minutes before restarting.

 -We want a total of 3-5 rounds. ⠀ 

Let me know if you have any questions or need a modification! 🙌 SONG: FADED by ZHU Awesome videographer: @theelbryan 

The Gym Alone Isn't Enough...

Gray Cook says it best... 

“We can’t fix everything with corrective exercise. If somebody’s sleeping 2 hours a night, if they’re dehydrated, or only getting half the protein of their dietary needs, then the things we do in exercise or movement correction probably won’t have the fertile soil to grow anywhere.”

 ⠀ The same goes for regular exercise and with the goal of changing body composition, getting stronger, dropping body fat etc. ⠀ 

    You can’t just put all your eggs in the workout basket and think that’s enough. Exercise alone is amazing for you, but it’s only a very small percentage of the bigger picture. Optimize the rest your lifestyle and reap the benefits. 

⠀ If you’ve been struggling to lose weight, if you’ve been struggling to get lean, build muscle, if you’ve been dealing with nagging injuries or pain then don’t just look at your exercise or rehab alone as the fix. Hit your nutrition targets, your rest targets, and your hydration targets and watch just how great you feel and perform! ⠀

 SOURCE: FMS Level 1 Course Curriculum. 

Is Working Out 3-5 Hours a Week Enough To Lose Weight

Hint... It’s a rhetorical question. 

You have a far bigger opportunity to burn a ton of calories throughout the entirety of your day than you do with just 1 hour of exercise alone. 

This gives you the chance to further boost, or destroy, your attempts at hitting a certain goal.

 -Keep it moving, go for a stroll at least a couple of times a day. Aim for 10k steps a day. Use your phones “health” app ❤️ to start tracking your steps.

 -Walk, run, or ride 🚴 to places when you can. ⠀ -Take the stairs. ⠀ -Plan and prep those meals out! We have all heard it so many times, diet is 80% of the equation.

 -Prioritize your sleep! Good sleep is your magic fat-loss pill! 💊

 -Do micro doses of exercise throughout the day. Ex. Set out a few “trigger” objects (dumbbells, kettlebells, bands etc). Every time you pass an item do a few reps of an exercise with it, 10-20 curls, squats etc.

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What is RPE? ⠀

What is RPE? ⠀

RPE stands for Rating of Perceived Exertion. In other words how subjectively hard an exercise or workout is relative to the person doing it. 

Trainers/Coaches use RPE with clients to help with programming or making exercises easier or harder. 

0 - 3) Nothing at all, light/easy. 

4) Recovery, not hard, high rep sets. *RPE below four isn't important. (1) 

5 - 6) Moderate intensity. Most warm-up weights.

7) Hard, but maintainable, 70% intensity/capacity. 

8) Heavy/Hard intensity, but 2–4 reps left in the tank, 80%. 

9) harder, but still one rep, or a little gas left in the tank. 

10) Very hard, maximum intensity nothing left. 100% effort.

A simple scale of 1-10 is used, with 1 being easy, think sitting down relaxing. Whereas a 10 means you’re going to pass out, vomit crap your pants and/or both. A level of activity/exercise that is extremely intense and that you can’t keep up. Think maximal effort sprinting/exercise or weight lifting. 

In order to elicit specific adaptations to be made, like strength or positive body composition changes (like more muscle) you generally want things to be on the higher end of the RPE scale for some, but not all of your workout. 

Being that the basis for the RPE scale is perception, this generally means that the person should have a decent level of self-awareness related to exercise, rather than someone totally new to it. Though I still love to use it with beginners and or people who tend to surrender too early in a set. Why?...

Because good programming has slow, adaptable, forced progression in it. So even if a person cries out that an exercise was super hard, 10/10 difficulty, we slowly and safely progress them 1 rep or weight over time to the point where it is no longer difficult. ⠀ 

*SOURCE: (1) Tuchscherer, Michael "The Reactive Training Manual: Developing Your Own Custom Training Program for Powerlifting." c. 2009

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Should you eat before you workout? ⠀

Should you eat before you workout? 

The short answer: In most cases, yes. 

The long answer: There are a lot of dependent variables such as:

 -Your planned workout intensity 

-Workout duration -Time of your workout 

-If it's been longer than 2-3 hours since your last meal 

-If you are working out hard to try and make changes to your body to name just a few. ⠀ 

No matter your goal, even if it's weight loss/fat loss, having a balanced meal of quality protein, quality carbohydrates and healthy fats 1-3 hours before your workout has been shown to: 

-Boost performance 

-Allow you to workout harder 

-Reduce muscle breakdown/preserve muscle 

-Reduce soreness after a workout 

-Speed recovery ⠀

 The notion that when you workout in a fasted state you'll burn and lose more fat is somewhat flawed, and the few studies on the subject show mixed results at best. Ultimately, if your goal is weight/fat loss, the biggest determining factor is that you remain in a calorie deficit regardless if you train on an empty stomach or not. 

Everyone is different, and what works well for someone might not be very effective for someone else. In my personal opinion/experience, I always perform and feel better with something good in the tank before a workout. I consider Pre and post workout meals the two most important meals of the day. ⠀ ⠀ 
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Progress - Just One Of The Many Reasons Why You Should Train!

One of the many benefits of working with a good trainer is that they’ll help you to set certain goals; both for the long term and short term. I really like to give my clients monthly goals that are related to their wants and needs, but that also definitely push their boundaries of they ever thought they could accomplish. When done in safe, properly planned and timed manner it can really yield amazing results and outcomes both for the trainer and the client!

It is an amazing feeling to see how empowered you can make someone feel when they thought they could never do a full body-weight pull-up, or a push-up let alone 5 or 10 and even more! I usually like to have big goals for my clients set every 3-6 months, and we will slowly chip away at accomplishing it by tackling smaller progressive goals on a monthly basis.

The biggest and most important aspect of these goals is that they are always progressing in difficulty and intensity on a weekly basis, albeit in a safe, efficient, attainable matter to reduce the risk of injury. A perfect example and a client I wanted to shine the spotlight on is my client Em! She is a busy 37 year-old wife, and mother of 3, but you’d never know that because she never makes excuses and she always comes in ready to work! Even still had you asked her when we first started training if she thought she’d ever get to the level of strength that she has now, she would have said a big “NO!”.

She has always been active and healthy in some shape or form for her whole life, but she had never lifting or trained with weights, never thought she’d ever be able to do pull-ups, or push-ups etc. She also thought that type of training would make her big, hulky and muscular looking, which is the farthest from the truth. Also, as a trainer that is the last thing I’d want for any of my female clients looking to lose body-fat, trim down, and look better!

I’m very proud of Em’s performance and would like to highlight her Barbell Squat progression over an 8-month period. When we first had her start 65lbs seemed very heavy for her and we definitely needed to work out some kinks in her squat pattern. Now she just recently broke her personal record and squatted 165lbs for 3 sets of 5 reps!!! See the videos for yourself!