Balance training is something a lot of people overlook while they’re at the gym. It is a skill we take for granted until we realize that we’ve lost it. It isn’t until then that we actually appreciate how important balance is to activities of daily living.

As we get older, our balance diminishes. It’s not just you, it’s everybody. That’s just the way the body works. Balance can be viewed through the lens of – use it or lose it. Generally, as we get older, our need to work on balance activities becomes increasingly important.

The take-home point here is to make sure you work on your balance because it doesn’t just hang around forever for when you do need it. Use it now and use it often.

The video below offers some suggestions on how to integrate balance training into your work out. Enjoy!

About the Author:  Eric Noyes BHSc (Kin), CSEP-CPT

Eric is  Kinesiology Graduate from The University of Ontario and holds his Training Certification with the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology.  He has been training general population and sport specific clients at Body Fit since 2013 and is currently the Lead Trainer.  He can be reached at eric@bodyfit.ca for advice and consultation.

If you are 40 or older, it’s quite likely that you or someone you know has suffered through the excruciating pain associated with Sciatica.  I can’t count the number of times that we have had people put their membership on hold because they were unable to function due to Sciatica.  Knock on wood, I haven’t experienced it, but seeing the pain in the faces of those that have I would say it really sucks.

And that brings me to my story.  Tom is a member and like most,  he took the summer off.  4 days after his membership was up…bam!  Working in his garden one day then unable to the next.  Whether he bent the wrong way or didn’t bend his knees when lifting or maybe it was a sneeze?  He has no recollection of any single movement but he sure recalls the pain.

I was just checking in with Tom towards the end off summer when he shared his news.  He had been to the Chiropractor, the Physiotherapist from the Physical Therapy Clinic, the Massage therapist, Osteopath, had acupuncture and nothing was helping.  His Doctor sent him for an MRI to see if it was a structural issue…nope.  I could tell by his voice he was frustrated and felt helpless.  He had been dealing with this for 4 months.  I knew how he felt because I know so many others that have gone through the same thing.

Enter TMR.  I love to learn more. If you know me, you know I love coaching baseball.  I have studied the mechanics and subtleties of pitching and the strength and conditioning that goes with it from the very best in the industry.  Yes this has to do with Sciatica.  I was reading a study that Mike Reinhold (former Red Sox Physical Therapist) put up on his blog.  A method called TMR (Total Motion Release) was being researched.  More particularly, how TMR increased both internal and external rotation of a pitchers arm by doing a trunk twist and and arm raise with the opposite arm.   It wasn’t just a couple degrees, it was visible to the eye! I mean it was like over 13 degrees of external and 19 of internal!. (increased external rotation is directly associated to an increase in pitching velocity and insufficient internal rotation is directly related to increased risk of shoulder injuries..that’s why it was significant)  It seemed bogus but the research was peer reviewed.  So I dug a little deeper.  What the heck was TMR? (here is the study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4127513/)

Well I found the source, read up on it and signed on the dotted line.  There are 3 levels of TMR certification.  I am just finishing level 2.  I’m not going to get into detail about the method but I can tell you it’s unlike anything else.  You never treat or work on the injured side or body part.   Many times, “the fix”,  is no where near the site of pain AND I don’t touch you.  You just do some movements or stretches and almost immediately the client experiences really great results.  By Christmas I will be level 3 certified (The only one in Canada).

Back to poor Tom.

Yesterday, October 3rd, 2018, Tom came to see me.  I’ll let the video below tell the rest of the story.  Keep in mind..4 months of chronic pain, treated by traditional methods with no relief..except some from the massage therapist.  Listen to what Tom tells me when I ask where the massage therapist treated him and that is how the concept of TMR works(2:35min).  The video is 6 minutes or so but you need to hear Tom’s story.  That takes up about half of the video.  The treatment was less than 10 minutes total time but condensed for the video (less than 3 minutes).

Over the past several weeks I have been trying to help one of our members, Kim, with her shoulder pain issues.  She is a fit and active 50 something, that rivals many 30 year olds I have seen.  However, she has had a cranky shoulder for some time now.  Without checking my notes, I’d say she has been complaining about shoulder pain for almost a year now.  Like many, she felt that if she stayed active and didn’t push it, the pain would go away and she’d be back to normal.

Well, that hasn’t happened and now the simplest of daily things like reaching for the milk in the back of the fringe can cause debilitating pain.  Normally I would not work with a person in pain until they have seen their Doctor, Physio or Chiro.  Pain during normal movement is the cue for us to refer out to get some sort of diagnosis or professional opinion.  However, there are many times when a person just doesn’t take our advice.

I hate seeing people in pain; particularly shoulder pain because it’s so common.  It actually frustrates me when I can’t help.  As a result I’ll reach out to my network of professionals to see if there is anything I can do that won’t get me in hot water and make their situation worse.  The situation with Kim was no different.  I had gone through a modified version of our Functional Movement Assessment with her (I just worked on her upper half) and based on her history, presentation, movement quality and results from common impingement tests I could isolate the mechanical break down that was more than likely a large contributor to her shoulder pain problem.  It’s referred to as Scapular Dyskinesis.

Kim’s shoulder blade does not move the way it should in order to make room for the head of her arm bone to rotate while she lifts her arm up and over her head or to the side.  The shoulder blade (scapula) forms the socket part of the ball and socket shoulder joint.  At the top of that socket is a bony process called the acromion.  There are some soft tissues that run through that space between the head of the arm bone and the acromion;  namely a bursa and the tendon of the supraspinatus muscle (one of the rotator cuff muscles) If the muscles that move the shoulder blade don’t do their job either at the right time or at all, the shoulder blade won’t rotate up and tip backwards to make room for the arm bone as it goes up and consequently, those soft tissues will get pinched.  This is referred to as subacromial impingement which is the most common type of shoulder impingement.  The image below illustrates the scenario.

I had just read a study that yielded impressive results from doing a modified version of a yoga based pose they called triangular forearm support.  You can read the study abstract here: https://journals.lww.com/topicsingeriatricrehabilitation/Abstract/2011/04000/Yoga_Based_Maneuver_Effectively_Treats_Rotator.10.aspx.  This intervention allows me to help without manually (me actually adjusting or manipulating) treating Kim, as that is beyond my scope.  It’s basically an isometric hold done with specific cuing.  If anything I thought it would activate one of the muscles responsible for articulating the shoulder blade which would create more space for her arm to move.  At best it would improve pain free range of motion and at worst, nothing would change.

Well, if I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I would not have believed how successful just two minutes and one exercise could be.  Kim’s range increased by at least 25 degrees and that extra 25 degrees was pain free!  Yes she experienced the pinch at her new end range but I’m excited to see how far we’ll get in a few weeks of supplemental work.  I’ll keep you posted with her results.  Checkout the video below and if you or anyone you know could benefit, come see me for an evaluation.

Every summer we have our VIP Personal Training Sale and it comes with the best discounts of the year.  Whether you are new to training or a current client looking to top up, now is the best time to save some serious money!  Training at Body Fit is unlike any other place because we do things very differently and in our humble opinion, it’s the way it should be done.

VIP Personal Training is our highest level package and is for the the person that wants it all and understands that training is an investment in themselves.  You want a professional to do the work that will get you the best results possible without wasting time and money and …without hurting you.  You can identify with the phrase, “If You Could Do It Alone, You Would Have Done It Already!”  With built in motivation, accountability and tracking, we offer the very best that your hard earned money can buy and during the month of August, you can get more for less!

To learn more about our VIP Training Services just click here: VIP Training.  For info on the best prices of the year, click here: VIP Personal Training Summer Sale.

If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it!

What exactly is range of motion? And why is it important? This is a topic that has been puzzling people for years. Every time I evaluate a person’s movement, and examine their range of motion, I usually have them tell me something along the lines of: “well I’m pretty flexible”, yet they can’t perform a proper squat. Well how is it that a person can be flexible and not be able to perform a squat correctly?

I bet a lot of people reading this, would probably say that they stretch multiple times a week. And I would be willing to bet that those people likely have less than ideal range of motion performing basic fundamental movements. The point being here, that there is a significant difference between static stretching, and active range of motion. I know from experience that many of you reading this know a lot of the benefits of stretching. Firstly, because I see a lot of people stretching, and secondly, I know most of you tell me you stretch semi-regularly (3-5x/week.) This leads to the conundrum of why I see such poor movement quality from most people in the gym.

Let’s start by digging in a little further here……..

Let’s first talk about static stretching. Static stretching is the temporary lengthening of a muscle. This is done by holding a muscle in a lengthened position for a period of time. This is the type of stretching that most people perform either before a workout, after a workout, or both. If you see people either laying on the floor or standing in an awkward looking position without moving for a period of time, more than likely, they are attempting their best version of a static stretch.

Next, let’s go over what exactly active range of motion is. Think of active range of motion as movement. When you wish to perform any physical movement, your muscles contract and act on bones which move about a joint which then produce mechanical movement and that’s what allows us to move.

Lastly, let’s quickly go over what fundamental movements are. Fundamental movements are movements that involve multiple body parts and are the basis of physical literacy. The example I will be using moving forward will be a squat.

So, if we think about those three concepts for a second; why is it that lots of people, in their own opinion, have great flexibility and yet can’t perform a squat correctly?

Essentially, these people have trained their body to not be able to perform a squat. Babies have some of the best squat form you’ll ever see. Go to Google and type in “Squatting baby” and look at images. Babies have picture perfect squat form. Just look at when they bend down to pick something off of the floor, the drop right into a perfect squat. They utilize a full range of motion in their hips, knees, and ankles to achieve the movement.

Obviously, many things change from infancy to adulthood in a human body. However, the fact remains that babies can squat perfectly, and adults, for the most part cannot. What happens is over time, we train our bodies into a restricted range of motion. Babies, when they’re first exploring the world, explore what’s closest to them first, the floor. As we get older and our bodies and brains develop, we become more efficient and don’t spend as much time on or near the floor. We begin sitting on couches, chairs, benches, and beds that don’t allow us to explore the end ranges of motion of our lower body joints.

Let’s take a hypothetical example that I know is accurate for a lot of people. Jill lives in Uxbridge and works in Downtown Toronto. She has a 90 minute commute to work and then spends 7 hours a day sitting at a desk. Conservatively, that’s 10 hours out of her day that she is sitting down. Presumably, she is sitting at about a 90 degree angle for those 10 hours. When Jill gets to the gym she does a few sets of back squats and can only squat to 90 degrees.

Now to look at this situation, let’s assume that Jill is not using a weight that is too heavy for her to lift, why is she not performing a full squat? The answer is simple; Jill has trained her body into a reduced range of motion from all the sitting she does. Unless Jill has suffered a lower body injury at some point in time, her body should be able to achieve a full squat, and yet, she appears as though she can’t.

By training your body into a reduced range of motion, you’re putting limitations on your body that may one day end in serious injury. If you’re body is trained to only be strong in a specific range of motion, instead of its full range, if there is ever a time when your body must tap into its full range to prevent you from falling, your body will not be strong enough to protect you from the fall. This could result in a torn muscle, torn tendon and/or ligament, or a broken bone.

Good quality movement with emphasis placed on full range of motion should always be the foundation of any training program.

If you wish to learn more about the benefits of good quality movement and how you can integrate it into your training, please join us this fall for a special presentation.  (Date TBA.)

About the Author:  Eric Noyes BHSc (Kin), CSEP-CPT

Eric is  Kinesiology Graduate from The University of Ontario and holds his Training Certification with the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology.  He has been training general population and sport specific clients at Body Fit since 2013 and is currently the Lead Trainer.  He can be reached at eric@bodyfit.ca for advice and consultation.

A couple years ago we changed our minimum age for kids to come to the gym.  It was solely based on insurance and liability.  For years we could only permit youth aged 12 and 13 to use the gym while supervised by an adult.  Then when we lowered it to 9 it raised some eye brows.  I would field the same question over and over again, “Is it safe for kids to lift weight at such a young age?”  That was usually followed by the comment, “I heard it could stunt their growth.”

I would ask them, “where did you hear that?”  and nobody could recall the source.  But clearly, the myth has made parents really nervous about getting their kids involved with any kind of strength training that involved weights which is really unfortunate because the benefits of a supervised and well-designed program for kids are numerous.

A 2009 study by Dahab KS et Al entitled, “Strength Training in Children and Adolescents: Raising the Bar for Young Athletes?” reviewed recent published research and scholarly articles to clarify the myths and to outline recommendations when considering a strength training program for kids.  They concluded that after reviewing over 40 relevant studies, “children can improve strength by 30% to 50% after just 8 to 12 weeks of a well-designed strength training program. Youth need to continue to train at least 2 times per week to maintain strength. The case reports of injuries related to strength training, including epiphyseal plate fractures and lower back injuries, are primarily attributed to the misuse of equipment, inappropriate weight, improper technique, or lack of qualified adult supervision.”

Looking at the last sentence, I believe that the first three attributes to injury can be eliminated by addressing the last one… lack of qualified adult supervision.  Did you know that the Personal Training industry is not regulated?  Well, it’s not.  Anyone can take an online course and call themselves a trainer.  I have researched most of the more credible certifying bodies and there is only one that I would consider recommending that focuses on youth fitness.  Why is this important?

In the study “Strength training effects in prepubescent boys.” Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1990;22:605-614 by Ramsay JA, Blimkie CJ, Smith K, et al. they concluded that pre-pubescent children gain strength through neural adaptations, not muscle hypertrophy.  That means you can’t take an adult training program and water it down for kids.  Kids get stronger by learning to move more efficiently after being taught how to move properly and then you can start adding a load.  Most trainers and coaches that I have seen work with kids, either don’t know this or don’t understand it.  You don’t know what you don’t know so the word “qualified” should mean that the person working with kids should know how kids are different and the above-mentioned injuries would be avoided.

I know that there are a lot of kids that don’t play organized sports and most parents tend to look at the benefits of strength training as it pertains to either injury prevention or furthering their success in sports.  However, there is a whole world of benefit that is universal to every kid that is involved in regular physical activity even if it’s not a sport.  Think of strength training as a physical activity.  In addition to the recommended 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per day, the World Health Organization states that “vigorous-intensity activities should be incorporated, including those that strengthen muscle and bone, at least 3 times per week.”  This doesn’t mean that kids need to be lifting weights in some sort of circuit at a gym but rather incorporating exercises that build muscle and strengthen bones into games or activities that involve running, jumping and throwing.

It gets even better!  Physical benefits aside, there are a ton of other benefits that can be directly correlated to regular physical activity in children with cognitive performance and academic achievement being one of the most significant.  A 2011 study entitled, The Effects of Physical Activity and Physical Fitness on Children’s Achievement and Cognitive Outcomes by Fedewa and Ahn looked at 59 published papers between 1947 and 2009. Through a comprehensive analysis of the data the results indicated, “a significant and positive effect of physical activity on children’s achievement and cognitive outcomes, with aerobic exercise having the greatest effect.”  Moreover, this study revealed that the strongest relationships were found between aerobic fitness and achievement in mathematics, followed by IQ and reading performance.  The most significant gains in academic performance were found when the physical activity was performed in smaller groups of less than 10 children.  Interestingly, individualized activity interventions showed no impact on cognitive outcomes or academic achievement.

So, what’s the point of this post??  A few weeks ago this very discussion came up on talk radio (yes I listen to talk radio) when a new study around childhood obesity was released.  Despite the fact it was agreed by all involved in the conversation that kids could use more physical activity, it was apparent by callers that there are not a lot of programs for kids that aren’t organized sports.  Then the light bulb went on!

Small Group Boot Camp for Kids that is affordably priced and at convenient times. Taking kids to a gym is probably the last thing that comes to mind even if the parents happen to go to a gym. But if it’s to participate in a program organized specifically for kids, it makes perfect sense.   So, my trainers and I have put our collective heads together and starting on Tuesday July 10^th we will be starting a 4-week Boot Camp for Kids. The group size will be limited to 8 and there will be 2 groups; 9-11years and 12-13 years.  The 9-11yr group will start at 7:00pm and run for 30 min sessions and the 12-13 group will start at 7:45pm and run for 45-minute sessions.  All sessions will run on Tuesday evenings for 4 consecutive weeks.

Special Introductory Pricing:

9-11 year group – 4 sessions $52 tax included

12-13 year group – 4 sessions $60 tax include

To register, please download and complete the attached Informed Consent and bring it in to the gym.  Download the Consent form here:  Guardian and Informed Consent