Functional Lifestyles

Don't be one dimensional. Train both sides to not just improve coordination, but to enhance your overall fitness and elevate your personal ceiling.

Episode 46 drop incoming 🎙️

The final piece of this week's knee rehab series covers what you should be adding to your warm-up and your cool down!

🚶‍♂️ The Best Warm-Up
The best warm-up drill you can be doing is backward walking.
Getting your foot behind your body allows you to get some terminal knee extension.
This backward walking movement adds beneficial blood flow to the knees.
🧘‍♂️ Essential Cool Down Stretches
One of the best cool down stretches is a toe touch using a slant board.
The angle of the slant board will give you a lot more of a stretch behind the knee.
Go into a typical toe touch and hold the position, ideally with your knees locked out.
The final cool down movement is getting into the couch stretch.
Lacking range of motion in the quad or hip flexor adds more tension to the knees.
To perform the couch stretch, extend your hips forward while pulling your rib cage down.
Once in position, focus on relaxing and your breathing.
Hope this helps!

No wonder the Swiss ball felt heavy 🔴

Confirmed ✅ Not AI this is real life 🦾

Keep dreaming, keep doing, keep being you 🖤🤍❤️

Ready for the final steps of your knee rehab journey? 🦵💥

Today we are focusing on building strength for the tibialis and introducing plyometrics.

The Role of the Tibialis
This crucial muscle is responsible for catching us during runs.
It also handles decelerating our bodies during movements like squats and jumps.
Tools & Exercises
If you have access to a Tib Bar, use it to pull your toes back toward your shins to add strength to that muscle.
For plyometrics, you can start with jump roping or basic plyo jumps.
If standard plyometrics feel too intense, attach a band to a rig and hold onto it to reduce the load on your knee and the tibialis.
The primary goal during these jumps is to immediately pull your toe back up to your shin every time you jump.
The Ultimate Knee Rehab Progression
Step 1: Isometrics.
Step 2: Eccentrics.
Step 3: Strength development and plyometric reintroduction.

Chaos everywhere else. Absolute clarity right here ⎈

What does "functional" fitness actually mean? It means training your body to handle the demands of your everyday life. Whether it's hauling all the groceries in one trip, moving furniture, or picking up dog food, we’re training to make life easier 🏋️‍♀️➡️🏠

Ready to level up your knee rehab? 🦵 Let's talk about Step-Downs.

If you've mastered the wall sit, it's time to introduce some dynamic movement. Step-downs are the perfect progression to train your knees for deceleration and proper tracking.

Here are three variations of the Patrick Step-Down to work into your routine:
Flat-Footed Patrick Step-Down: The standard starting point. Focuses on learning how to absorb the bend and track the knee properly. Aim for 15 to 30 reps per leg.
Raised-Heel Step-Down: Want to make it spicier? Raising the heel changes the angle and increases the intensity on your quads and knees.
Heel-Off Step-Down: Step off from the heel and return flat-footed. This variation is fantastic for building forefoot control.
Pro Tip: Make sure you are hitting enough volume! You need those higher rep ranges to drive vital blood flow to the tendons for recovery. 🩸
Have you tried these yet? Let's get those knees bulletproof! 💥👇

Why we really show up to the gym:
To silence the noise 🤫
To leave the past behind 🏃‍♂️💨
To build strength, inside and out 💪
To finally find some calm 🧘‍♂️
To find connection and balance ⚖️
What does your time in the gym mean to you? Let us know in the comments!

You might not understand why you need some form of athletic training if you aren't even an athlete, but in reality everything feeds into each other.

Build the foundational pieces, stay efficient, trust the professionals to guide in the right direction ♾️