Category: athletic performance

CLAMSHELL EXERCISE: IT MAKES LATERAL HIP PAIN WORSE

Lateral hip pain is a fairly common ailment and more often than not, people are resorting to clamshells and glute stretches to deal with it. Sound familiar? But what if these common fixes for lateral hip pain can actually make it worse? Lateral hip pain is often associated with poor lateral stability of the pelvis…

Should You Supplement With Leucine?

Leucine has been called the “most important” amino acid because it promotes muscle growth and recovery. As an essential amino acid (EAA), leucine must be supplied through diet or supplements. Consuming a balanced ratio of EAA stimulates protein synthesis—adequate leucine intake maximizes this effect. Here are the science based best practices for integrating leucine into…

Is a Plant-Based Diet Good or Bad For You?

1.WHAT’S A PLANT-BASED DIET? As the name suggests, a plant-based diet refers to any diet that centers around food, especially protein, that is sourced from plant sources. This can include fruit, grains, vegetables, legumes, peas, nuts, seeds and substitutes for meat such as soy products. Ideally, a healthy plant-based diet should consist primarily of nutrient-dense…

The Latest Research on Training to Failure

  Training to “failure” has always been a hot topic in the fitness industry, with many diverging opinions and ideas that can make it hard to clarify how one should approach their training. For this reason, one of the goals of my PhD research is to help elucidate the influence of “proximity-to-failure” on muscle hypertrophy….

The Rep Theory

One of the most frequently asked questions in the fitness industry is: “How many repetitions should I perform for any given exercise?” If you are expecting a simple, straight-forward answer, forget it. Bodybuilding great Mike Mentzer was an advocate of performing one to two well-performed sets to failure for a given exercise, and kept his…

The Importance of Knowing your Clients’ Motivations. Part 2 of 2.

By Andrew Telfer International Educator for upcoming NSCA Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist Course We finished part one’s article by introducing the concept of internal and external motivation in clients.  We discussed how some people are motivated by external (extrinsic) factors like fame, parental expectations or money while others are motivated by internal (intrinsic) factors…