Foundation to your health starts with the basics both physically and nutritionally.
Personal Training for strength and endurance, starts with a solid foundation. We start with flexibility and stability movements. These movements may seem almost pointless if you’ve been working out, or consider yourself an active individual. However, from what I have learned, not having a solid foundation, is when people end up with lower back pain, poor posture and bad knees. Bottom line increased flexibility and stabilization reduces injuries.
How many times do you skip stretching? I know I have been guilty of this in the past. By skipping this very important step, it creates an environment for muscles to tighten and cause an imbalance in the muscle joint relationships. Stretching your over active muscles on a regular basis, for a duration of 30 seconds can work toward improving these imbalances, reducing the chance of injury. It is important each stretch should be held for 20 – 30 seconds, in order to allow the body to recognize the need to release the muscle spindles and giving you the full benefit of the stretch.
The next step in your physical training is stabilization. You may not believe this but, these movements can be as challenging even to the most active athletes as they are to someone beginning their fitness journey. This training will focus on improving your core and balance. We may begin training by simply standing while performing weighted exercises. Standing in a neutral position and maintaining stability while lifting weights is a simple way to strengthen your core and balance, for more advanced clients we can move to standing on one leg while lifting weights, or even moving to a balance board. Try standing on one leg in a safe area- are you stable? Then try closing your eyes, I bet you feel the difference in your stability. Just by adjusting a few variables this training can be challenging and beneficial to even the most advanced athlete and should be part of your regular training program.
The same concept is applied to nutrition, without a strong foundation your body does not process normal every day function to the best of its abilities.
