Category: strength

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…

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 Brain, Chronic Pain & Yoga

Claudia Micco, YogaFit Senior Mastertrainer Can an ancient mind-body and exercise practice that combines movement, meditation, and breathing help our clients with chronic pain? Yes! There is evidence that Yoga can be a helpful tool to cope with the day to day realities of chronic pain. Yoga, not unlike many exercise programs, places its emphasis…

Global Obesity Epidemic: The Crucial Role of Fitness Professionals

Alexis Batrakoulis, PhD(c), MS, CSCS, CSPS, NSCA-CPT, RCPT*E; ACSM–EP, CPT, EIM II; ACE-CMES, CHC, CPT; NASM-CES, PES It is well known and evidence-based that epidemic of obesity has grown at an alarming rate among adults and children, both at Asian and worldwide level (1). If we realize the fact that this epidemic is highly associated with…

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…

Get a grip!

Chris Mallac, Tarek Taz Chouja and Nathan Quinn discuss the fundamental concepts of grip strength training and the benefits of improving grip strength – both for improving athletic performance and also developing proximal shoulder strength In the context of athletic performance, grip strength is a fundamental prerequisite in many sports that require aggressive ‘crushing grip’…