You Don’t Need To Be An Athlete To Get Out of Bed
Not everyone’s fitness goals need to be about perfection, world record breaking, or that of a high performance athlete. Most people really only need a moderate and consistent movement practice in order to live their life, maintain good health, and prevent injury. Coaches and trainers may be doing a disservice to their clients by overempasizing “perfect” form and reach goals that may be either uninteresting or not doable for them. It can also create fear in people that getting injured doing any kind of exercise will cause injury.
Training For The Hypermobile
Hypermobility is a condition where joints are unusually loose or unstable and often presents itself in people as excessively flexible bodies with poor proprioception (the sense of knowing what space your body is taking up and what it’s doing). The risk of injury that comes with hypermobility means that clients should focus on stability rather than flexibility, avoid extreme ranges of motion, be careful with controlling movement and form, and be aware that their strength will grow slowly. Personal trainers should familiarize themselves with common conditions like hypermobility in order to best support the wide range of individualization their clientele will need.
The Overlooked Role of the Calf Muscles in the Squat
We rarely appreciate the role of the calf muscles when training for strength. The reality is that the calves have a huge impact on our squat form and depth, and certain kinds of calf training will improve our squats.
Extreme Stretching For Size and Flexibility
Stretching has recently fallen out of favor as research has shown that it doesn't do what many people claim it does. But at the same time, more extreme stretching methods like weighted stretching may provide the missing link.