Body Architecture Fitness

I added a new tool to help objectively measure strength output of various muscle groups and identify potential asymmetries. This will help me make better strategic decisions with clients, whether they are seeking to regain strength after an injury or surgery or an athlete looking to improve sports performance. I always think more clear information and data is better.

Are you actively strengthening your back? Back pain is one of the leading causes of doctor and ER visits, and over 46% of people over 45 live with chronic back pain.
When I ask clients with back problems if they are doing anything to strengthen their back/trunk, most say they are not.
If you want to effectively address the muscles of the trunk and back, you need to challenge flexion & extension, rotation and side bend, as well as combinations of those.

Start with what you can do and what you can tolerate, and strategically challenge various positions. Isometrics are also a great option for many people. It’s more complex than that, but avoiding strengthening the spine will end up compounding back issues long term. If you are looking for help with back strengthening, I am happy to see if I can help.

Most people cannot believe I haven’t done any form of passive stretching for the last 26 years, and that includes foam rolling, Theragun devices, etc. I also don’t want to stretch, and I will tell you why.
•Tightness is our body’s natural protective mechanism, and a signaling mechanism that other muscles are not contracting optimally to do their job.
• You cannot selectively stretch certain tissues and not others. There are a multitude of different tissues under the skin: ligaments, tendons, connective tissue, arteries, veins, etc. you cannot pick one and not the others, and you could be creating other issues. Some tissues do not have elasticity and will deform permanently.
•muscle has the tensile strength of steel, so foam rolling is not loosening muscle. Fascia is like Kevlar so good luck with that.
•I want my joints to be tighter, not looser, when working out and performing sports. Loosening the bolts on my car before I drive fast doesn’t make a lot of sense.
• opening a joint to more range of motion could be creating more problems: opening up an unstable range of motion, ripping cross bridging of muscle contractile tissues and creating more weakness.
Those are just a few of many reasons, but know that our nervous system is purposeful in what it does. Respect the signals it gives you and find ways to work with your body to restore stability. My go to strategies are contracting muscles strategically and intentionally, as well as Muscle Activation Techniques to restore communication to muscle tissues and bring stability back to the body.
When there is stability, your body will give you all the range of motion it has available.

Competing at the highest level in sports takes its toll on the body. You can’t just keep pushing harder without spending more time maintaining the system. Tightness and pain are symptoms that the neuromuscular system has been impacted. Muscle inhibition will result in compensations and over time will put much more stress on passive structures, potentially affecting alignment and breakdown of those structures.
It’s not an age issue, it’s a tolerance issue. To keep tolerance levels high, one of the best things you can do is Muscle Activation Techniques. It allows me to identify and address neuromuscular inhibitions that contribute to tightness, pain and decreased performance levels in the clients I see.
There are no instant fixes for anything , but there definitely are smarter ways to keep the body functioning at optimal levels!