Instead of having muscles that are too tight, people with hypermobility syndrome are often too flexible. They are able to extend their joints and flex their muscles beyond the normal range. Although this increased range of motion can serve as an advantage in activities such as gymnastics, dancing and swimming, hypermobility can cause numerous problems, particularly with […]
At the risk of contradicting weight room dogma, I’m going to boldly assert that not a single muscle is there to make us look better at the beach. While that may be the motivation to exercise for a lot of people, cosmetic workouts don’t, on their own, get you very far functionally and can even […]
If you’ve had the misfortune to need any significant physical therapy, you may have caught your therapist lightly jabbing or poking at a muscle that just wasn’t cooperating. Despite its amateurish appearance, it’s actually a bona fide technique to jump-start muscles that have shut down for one reason or another. And used appropriately, it can […]
“The body is a bundle of careful compromises” ~R. Nesse & G. Williams, Why We Get Sick Nothing exemplifies that statement better than your joints, the designs of which boil down to exactly that: a compromise. It’s an issue of stability versus mobility– each joint a trade-off between structural sturdiness and maneuverability. And […]
If I were a betting woman, I’d bet a pretty good sum that you’ve never heard anyone complain that their butt muscles were too tight. Or that their back muscles were just too darn loose. Coincidence? Au contraire, mon frere. It’s by design. While the broader concept of muscle imbalances certainly generates a lot of buzz these days [even in the YFH Blog: […]