Community Blog
-
Strong Spine, Young Spine
An old yoga adage states: “You are only as young as your spine is flexible”. There is a good amount of wisdom in this statement, but to have a healthy spine through your life, there is more to the equation than just flexibility. For injury prevention, recent research has shown that balance of muscular endurance…
-
Children and Exercise: A Physical Therapist’s Perspective
As a parent and a Physical Therapist working with Sports Medicine for the last 16 years, I have had the opportunity to develop some strong opinions related to youth and exercise. In today’s society, we seem to be battling inactivity in our children. We worry about them sitting in front of the television, playing video…
-
The Multi-Tasking IT Band
In our busy culture focused on productivity, multi-tasking has become a common theme as a method to accomplish more in a given amount of time. However, productivity and performance studies indicate that multi-tasking is detrimental to performance quality to such an extent that productivity is actually better if you simply focus on the current task,…
-
Where Is Your Core Today?
Anyone who has been paying attention to exercise theory and practice recently has heard of the terms core, core strength, and core stability. But do you really know what they mean relative to what you favorite activity may be? Lots of folks still think that core is synonymous with abdominal muscles. Abdominal muscles are only…
-
Strengthening the Swimmer’s Line
What is it that makes a swimmer look so smooth in the water? A great swimmer looks like he/she is gliding over the top of the water, while their arms and legs do all the work. As the summer month descend upon us, and the competition season is here, swimmers look to spend more time…
-
Sustain Yourself
One of the great benefits of doing endurance activities is developing the discipline of working towards a goal. Having an event goal focuses the efforts and provides the motivation to put time for yourself and your health into a busy life. However, if the drive to the goal begins to imbalance your life or impair…
-
Maintaining Strength in Season
The general wisdom for endurance athletes has been to build strength during the off-season and then try to maintain those strength gains as one enters into the event season. An inherent challenge to this strategy is that the off-season is short and the in-season / competitive season is long. It is important to note that…
-
Are You at Risk for a Lower Extremity Injury?
Brian Beatty & Rob Schneider It is difficult to perform and enjoy endurance exercise when any part of the lower extremity is not functioning at its best. The following quick and easy test can help determine if you are at risk for a lower extremity injury. This simple single leg standing reach test is derived…
-
The Purpose of Periodization
Periodization is a popular term today, and used in many ways. Basically periodization is a term to refer to a strategy for designing a program focusing on differing short-term goals to achieve the long-term goal of optimal performance and health. Understanding the concepts behind the philosophy of periodization can help anyone maximize the benefits they…
-
Getting Better with a Little Help From a Friend
By now a lot of us have set our goals and targeted some activities and events for the coming year. This is good, since goals turn intention into action. Once some goals are set, then the plan has to be made for doing the work to achieve the goals. For many of us, the goals…
ankle mobility ankle sprain rehab Back Pain balance beginnerendurance body checklist body scan cool down core corner core stability core strength cross training cycling cycling strength dance Endurance nutrition feldenkrais inner tube inspiration jump training Mountain bike strength Mountain Biking nia periodization plantar fascitis Plyometrics for Running preventative Real Food recipes recovery running running cool down running core Running exercise running speed running strength running stretch self mobilization spine strength strength for endurance athletes stretching swimming Trail Running triathlon