If you’ve ever taken a golf lesson, you’ve probably been told to rotate through your hips and shoulders. It’s great advice. It’s also not specific to golf. As I discussed in one of my earlier posts (Get Your Diagonal On), on the whole your body is meant to move largely by rotation. And the truth is, that […]
So…speaking of pre-programmed body movements (seriously, I actually was in this last post on Engrams), there is one engram worthy of its own blog post. More accurately, it’s a component of a larger engram–of most engrams really. That alone is a large part of why it is so important. What I’m referring to is the […]
Have a muscle that just won’t loosen up no matter how often you stretch it? After all, the way to loosen a tight muscle is to stretch it, right? Wellllll……not necessarily. Not all muscles that are tight need to be–or even should be–stretched. It all depends on why it’s tight in the first place. Contrary […]
Functional Health is about using your body’s design to your advantage, and stretching should be no exception. There’s nothing wrong with the tried and true method of holding a muscle in a stretched position for a sustained period of time (generally 30 seconds). But one way to get a more effective stretch is by doing […]
Have you ever strained or even torn your calf muscle? And then, just when you thought you were all healed…it happened again? While there are several possible reasons for such a recurrence, one lesser known factor has to do with the anatomy of the calf. As you may know, the “calf muscle” is really a […]
By now, most of us have heard that we need to “engage the core” for better stability and function. But people often interpret “engage” to mean “suck in”…. So they proceed to suck in their belly buttons while exercising. Unfortunately that is the exact opposite of how you should engage the core as it actually […]
Standing up from a seated position requires good strength of your proximal muscles, i.e. muscles close to your core, especially your glutes (butt muscles). If you don’t have good strength there you will need to use your arms to help push you up. Without thinking, many people have just settled into easy patterns and use […]
