If you work out in a gym you've probably seen someone doing an exercise with short quick movements, perhaps with too much weight. This is a common mistake that can limit your range of motion and lead to injury. Range of motion (ROM) is the amount of movement around a joint. Our bodies are constantly adjusting to our activities, so if you do an exercise like a squat or bicep curl but are not moving through the full range of motion of your hips, knees or elbows you are shorteni

Sometimes, we hear a story from a patient that goes something like this: "I was doing an exercise at the gym and I felt a sharp pain, but I kept going" Pain is your body's way of telling you something is wrong. Other than the usual muscle burn you feel while working out and mild soreness after, you should not be experiencing sharp pains during your workouts. If you are, you should stop and try to figure out what's wrong. Sometimes people mistake stopping an activity because o

If you've spent enough time at a gym, you've probably seen a weightlifter use the item pictured above. Its a wrist strap which some people use to aid in doing pullups because their grip isn't strong enough. You might have also seen people use a weightlifting belt that providers lower back support or stacking tons of weight on a machine that only moves in one dimension. All are good examples of what not to do. If a certain body part is the weak link in your kinetic chain then

Pattern overload is the overuse of certain muscles by performing the same motion repetitively, usually in a manner that isolates some body parts while neglecting others. Its common among athletes who perform the same movements often (like a pitcher throwing a baseball) but also workers performing some sort of manual labor. Soft tissue like muscles and tendons that are overused begin to breakdown, causing inflammation and pain. To compensate your body starts recruiting other s

Last week we discussed the importance of changing your routine to shock your body to get better cardio results. This week we want to extend the concept to strenght training. Many of us have at some point fallen into a routine where we go to the gym on a regular basis and do the same exercises, hitting the same body parts, all with the same number of sets and reps. The only thing that changed was the amount of weight we used, but even that probably plateued at some point. That

With the holiday season coming to an end, many of you are making plans to shed some pounds in the new year. When you are trying to lose weight, the first thing you should know is that it's a lot easier to consume a calorie than to burn it off. So your first priority should be your diet - as in staying away from meals like these. Once you have a proper diet, the next step is exercise. Most people assume that the best way to burn calories is to do lots of cardio. But you might

Breathing is an important part of exercising. Although how you should breathe is somewhat dependent on the type of activity, when it comes to anaerobic strength training the rule of thumb we always follow is to exhale on the exertion. Put more simply, breathe out while your muscles are contracting and breathe in when they are relaxing. When you inhale, your muscles tend to relax, which is why your massage therapist or trainer tells you to take deep breaths when they are massa

With the never-ending demands of modern life, many find it hard to allocate time to physical activity during the work day. But because they love a particular sport or are trying to stay in shape they try to make up for this deficiency on the weekends, going hard for hours at a time. The more you sit during the week, the longer you have to exercise on the weekends, or so the Weekend Warrior mentality goes. This approach is dangerous, as we are subjecting our body to 2 diffe

Last week we discussed the importance for marathoners to also do strength training for their legs. This advice applies to everyone, as our lower body, often neglected in the gym when we mistake looking strong for being strong, is an important source of strength in many activities. One of the most important lower body exercises you can do is your basic squat. Squats make up a key component of our Fitness For Life philosophy as they hit many major muscles and can be combined wi

A common question patients and clients ask us is what's the best order for working out: cardio first or weight training? and can one do both in the same session? A common myth that gets passed around gyms is that doing both at the same time interrupts your results. On that question, the research is consistent: You can do both cardio and strength training in the same session without any interference in the outcome of either or your recovery. Then there is the question of which