Category: featured

Our Top 5 Health Hacks

Posted on by Michael Devon

Good health is something most of us strive for and, if you want to take your health to the next level, it goes deeper than nutrition and exercise. These tips, as simple as they sound, will elevate your health and enhance your overall quality of life. They manage issues like stress and anxiety, illness and depression, energy and recovery, and pain and wellbeing. You can combine some of these health hacks or just implement one at a time!

  • Breathing is a critical foundation of health, if you can’t breath you won’t live for very long. Breathing properly will ensure you send oxygen to all the cells in your body and help remove carbon dioxide buildup. This exchange of air will help regulate physiological functions like heart beat and blood pressure, as well as reduce stress and manage anxiety. The best way to achieve this is to practice diaphragmatic breathing, or belly breathing- specifically The Wim Hof Method. This can be done with zero equipment, all you need is your lungs! You’ll perform a few rounds of belly breathing and retention that will help supply oxygen to your body and brain. If you do this right, then it’s like “getting high on your own supply.” Check out the link to see the full break down on how to perform this breathing exercise properly.
  • Sunlight helps regulate our body’s biological clock, which is responsible for regulating sleep and energy. When we’re outside during the day our eyes are constantly absorbing natural light from the sun, telling us that we should be up and working. Bright light before bed will trick the body into thinking that it’s still day time and that we should be awake and functioning. When the body gets tricked then it won’t secrete the hormones necessary to induce a deep, restful sleep. As a rule of thumb; get outside during the day (morning/evening are best), without sunglasses, because they block our eyes from absorbing the natural light (unless you are being blinded by the sun when you’re driving), and minimize exposure to artificial light at night (phone, computer, and tv screens, especially before bed).
  • Grounding or “earthing” is when your body connects with the Earth’s natural energy for an easy health boost. Walking or standing outside barefoot (or with socks) allows us to receive a charge of energy that makes us feel better. Connecting with the Earth can mean the difference between feeling good and not so good, having a little energy and a lot of energy, or sleeping well and not so well. Shoes can block our connection with the Earth’s energy, so walking around your home barefoot or standing outside without shoes is something that requires little effort and offers a huge benefit to your health. Try standing barefoot in a soft patch of grass or cool sand!
  • Cold Therapy is a healing technique that has been proven to reduce inflammation, speed up recovery, improve your immune response, promote better sleep, and help with focus. It’s as simple as it sounds, just like icing a sprained ankle, except you’re “icing” your entire body. Rather than taking an ice bath, we recommend starting off with a cold shower. Start by taking a regular shower, soap up, wash off. But before you get out, turn the water to the coldest setting. Keep breathing and slowly introduce your body to the cold water. Start with your arms and your legs, then let the water run over your back and shoulders, and finally on your head. Begin gradually and stay under the cold water for around 15 seconds, and slowly increase your time up to a few minutes. Eventually you can turn your cold shower into an “ice bath” by getting into the shower first and then turning the water to cold right away. Most importantly, make sure that you continue to breath while you’re exposing yourself to colder temperatures. You’ll find cold therapy to be very stimulating for your nervous system, like a natural cup of coffee.
  • Myofascial Release is like a deep tissue massage that you do yourself and is the best way to manage pain, improve mobility, and help with recovery. It’s like foam rolling but more intense and intentional. For example, the source of lower back pain may be the result of “tight” hip flexors. Rolling out the front and sides of your thighs could provide more relief for your lower back than constantly massaging or stretching the area that’s in pain. Too much stretching causes our muscles to loose their elasticity, leading to poor function in the long run. Instead, the release will hydrate the muscle tissue and help dissolve any fascial adhesions (“knots”) to promote mobility in that area of the body. Here are some videos discussing the best way to perform the releases that have the biggest carry over into mobilizing your muscles and managing your pain. When done properly, MFR can equip the body to respond better to stress. When you roll across a tender spot on your body the tendency is to tense up and stop breathing, so it’s important to breathe until the uncomfortable sensation (physical stress) dissipates. Over time this will train your body to breathe when it encounters stressful situations, rather than shutting down and letting the stress overwhelm you.

Following these tips as part of a healthy lifestyle will improve your physiological function, especially when used in conjunction with correct exercise and proper nutrition. All of these tips can be used on a daily basis to enhance aspects of your health, from mental to physical, whether you have time to workout and eat well or not. The best part is that you don’t need a bunch of fancy equipment so you can implement these health hacks anywhere, anytime. Obviously for the cold therapy you’ll need a shower or some ice and for the myofascial release you’ll need a tool like a lacrosse ball or foam roller. But you don’t need access to a gym or have to be physically fit to practice these healthy habits. If you’re really efficient you can spend your time outside, barefoot, breathing, doing MFR, and then coming inside to take a cold shower 🙂 New morning routine? Do it!

Exercise for Health, Not Appearance

Posted on by Michael Devon

Exercise motives that are based strictly on looking good or losing weight negatively affect our health. Everybody has a different idea about what they believe to be a healthy looking body, but if looks are the only reason for exercising, that can limit the potential for progress in other aspects of our health. Exercise is a great tool for physical strength, mental well-being, managing pain, improving our quality of life, and preventative healthcare.

When our only objective is to lose weight when we exercise this can lead us on a path of body destruction by doing whatever it takes to lose that last 5 pounds. This can lead to overtraining, poor form, building bad habits, and crash dieting. It really is true that “slow and steady” wins the race. We have to think of our health as something long term and not something that is going to be fixed overnight or maintained without continuous effort.

The quick fix is enticing for everyone because we want our efforts to pay off immediately. When all of our hard work doesn’t illicit results right away we start getting frustrated and turn to magic pills, not eating enough, and then eating too much, exercising so intensely that our form turns poor and our chance of injury increases, or we just get fed up and throw in the towel all together. Instead of eating a little less at each meal and exercising a little more at each workout and building habits that we can maintain, we sabotage our success by trying to change everything at once and then expecting that change to manifest into accomplishing our goals right then and there.

Instead of having goals based only on physical aspects of health, like trying to look like the fitness models in magazines. Create goals that enhance other aspects of your health. Start off small, like trading french fries for a salad, and do it for the benefit of adding more veggies to your diet instead of doing it because it’s less calories so you know you’ll lose weight. If your goals change from losing weight to eating more vegetables you’re more likely to choose meals that are lower in calories anyway, so you’re still likely to lose weight but that’s not your only focus and therefore not the only benefit. By eating more vegetables you can experience natural energy through the day instead of feeling run down, with the new energy you don’t have to wire yourself with caffeine, and so you don’t get dehydrated as often. So now instead of beating your body up to lose a few pounds, you’re building your body up by fueling it with good food and staying hydrated. Habits like these will inevitably lead to healthy weight loss, one of your goals, but not the only one.

If you prioritize other aspects of your health as your motivation for exercising then it’s more likely that you’ll accomplish your goals. From losing weight and getting stronger to managing anxiety and living a fit and healthy lifestyle. Life is short but if your health is compromised then the days drag on and quality of life starts to suffer. Exercising with the right intent will sustain your body and your health to enjoy everything life has to offer for years to come. Keep yourself in the game and take care of your body to promote longevity and function. The days of exercising to look good are fading and the era of exercising to look and feel HEALTHY is in demand!

 

Pull-Ups vs. Push-Ups

Posted on by Michael Devon

Every time we think of fitness it’s hard not to think of pull ups and push ups as measures of strength. While there is some truth to that, we consider strength to reflect how well you can function in the real world. So we exercise your body the way it was designed to operate. Very seldom when you’re walking through life will you be forced to drop down and knock out 50 push ups or jump up and pull yourself up 20 times. While a push up or pull up can be useful for certain life adventures, if you’re prioritizing these movements as foundations of your workout routine then you could potentially be creating poor muscle function for walking, running, and throwing.

The human body is connected through a web of fascia that houses multiple muscles, these muscles all work in harmony to facilitate movement, specifically walking, running, and throwing. Since walking is a fundamental movement for humans, it’s important to train our body for the purpose of enhancing our gait cycle. In other words the muscle contractions that are utilized during a traditional pull up and push up don’t train the muscles to help us walk, run, or throw more efficiently. Since majority of us walk on a daily basis it would make sense to get better at this fundamental movement. In fact, during a pull up the lats pull downward towards the glutes and through repetition this trains the muscles to pull downward through day to day function. This can cause compression of the lower back muscles and lead to pain and stiffness when you’re walking, exercising, or just moving through the day.

On another note, if you’re constantly bombarding your chest with push ups because you believe it’s a more functional movement than a bench press, that’s not the case. You have to think of the function that your pecs are performing during the gait cycle. The pecs play a huge role in shoulder health, especially during throwing or punching movements, and they also work with your obliques to rotate the trunk, whether you’re walking, running, or throwing. So in the case of both, the pushup and bench press, the pecs are working through a movement that they weren’t designed to do. The lack of trunk rotation leaves the obliques out of the picture and places more strain on the shoulder because you’re isolating more of the force to the pec muscle and using the shoulder joint as a lever. Hello, joint pain. Additionally both exercises are training the pec muscles to cave the chest inward and exacerbate kyphotic posture, aka that hunched over look, like you’ve been sitting behind a computer desk all day. If your goal is to workout for enhanced function then pull ups and push ups aren’t the best option.

We have to consider what true function on a human looks like, which is the ability to primarily walk, run, and throw without pain. In order to do that, the lats and pecs have to have a reciprocal relationship, meaning if your left lat is engaging your right pec should be engaging at the same time. Our lats are meant to help rotate the ribcage and elevate the scapula to allow the ribcage to lift off of the lumbar spine, resulting in spinal decompression and enhanced trunk rotation. If we train the lats to pull downward, like during pull-ups, this leads to compression of our lumbar spine and the inability to rotate our torso. Our pecs are also meant to rotate the trunk and engage through a horizontal force rather than a vertical force transmission, like whipping us forward when we run instead of the up and down of a push up. So one of the keys to better movement is the ability to properly rotate your trunk when you move, so if your exercises don’t account for this fact then you’re limiting your functional potential in the long run.

If you observe the human gait cycle (walking, running, throwing) you will see how the legs move forward and backward as the torso rotates to counter the motion of the legs and help propel the arms back and forth. If you want to restore function to your body and have it perform well in any scenario then you should prioritize exercises that mirror the patterns of the human gait cycle. Exercises that engage the muscles the way they connect during the gait cycle will have the biggest carry over to how well you can move in life outside of the gym. Since the gait cycle is a fundamental movement, once it is wired in correctly, other movements are enhanced automatically.

We Expanded!!!

Posted on by Michael Devon

If you follow us on Social Media you know that we have recently been under construction and added additional space to our workout area! The extra space allows us to see additional clients and add small group personal training classes in the near future… so stay tuned by subscribing to our email list!

We’ve added a new cable machine with adjustable arms to expand the number of exercises that we can do compared to a traditional cable machine. But, our favorite addition to the extra space is a medicine ball slam wall!! Allowing you to combine core exercises with the rest of your body and really get the heart rate up and get the sweat pouring! Talk about killing two birds with one stone- core and cardio all at the same time!

Our group personal training classes will remain relatively small so that each individual gets the attention they need in a small group setting to ensure they don’t injure themselves or get lost in the crowd. Make sure you contact us if you’re interested in small group personal training so we can reserve a spot for you! The group classes will take a holistic approach to health and fitness and involve functional movements integrating the entire body, myofascial release for recovery, and posture enhancement to move better and live life pain free.

Our small group personal training classes are going to be great for you if you are worried about hurting yourself in a big box gym or Crossfit type of group class, if you’re looking to enhance your body awareness and restore your ability to move well, and if you want exercise that translates to real function and prepares your body for life outside of the gym.

Check out our Social Media to get an idea of our training style and why it is important for the body. At SA Functional Fitness, we exercise with the purpose to enhance every aspect of the body and the way it functions instead of exercising for the sake of exercising without any carry over to improving your quality of life.

Contact us if you’d like more information about our small group personal training classes and how you can benefit! Come check us out and get in the best shape of your life, physically and mentally!

 

Pain

Posted on by Michael Devon

Most of us are accustomed to pain at some level, whether it’s a dull ache or a sharp debilitating pain. Sometimes we feel it during day to day activity, specific exercises, or worse, it keeps us up at night. We seek relief from our doctor and they usually refer us to a physical therapist and we get some relief but as time goes on we find out that the relief is only temporary. We begin battling the same pain and discomfort, so we start reaching for the Advil or the Extra Strength Tylenol even though we know that’s like putting a Band Aid on a broken finger, and our problem doesn’t get fixed. The good news is that we have a solution to chronic problems like lower back pain, knee pain, and shoulder pain.

What sets us apart from traditional remedies like physical therapy, massage, chiropractic, and other methods of personal training is that we implement exercise according to how individual muscles work in harmony with the other muscles in your body and the requirements necessary to translate those exercises to sustain pain-free movement in life outside of the gym. We aren’t saying that those other remedies don’t work or that you shouldn’t try them but if you have tried them and haven’t had any long term relief then you should consider implementing our practices. We aren’t like most gyms, we spend our first few sessions drilling in the basics to establish a firm foundation to operate from. “Basics” meaning, breathing, posture, and proper body mechanics to enhance the way we exercise and improve the way we live.

While other methods look to the area that’s feeling pain to fix the problem sometimes that’s not looking deep enough. By understanding how the muscles in your body connect and what optimal movement should look like we can decode why you experience knee pain every time you take a step. For example, when we walk our torso should rotate to connect our upper body to our lower body, if we aren’t rotating the trunk when we walk then our body compensates in the hip, knee, or ankle joint down the kinetic chain, or into the shoulder joint up the kinetic chain. We analyze the way you walk and move to determine if your body is compensating in one area resulting in pain in another area. Our goal is to get to the source of your pain not simply treat the symptom because that may not be the cause, and if you never get to the real cause you never find long term relief.

Our methods don’t stop there, once we have your pain managed and your foundation established we begin to introduce exercises to retrain your body to hold proper muscle activations. That way when you move your muscles are doing the work and not your joints, so the pain you once experienced doesn’t return.

We’re here to tell you that you don’t have to live with your pain! If you’d like to learn more about how we do what we do and specifics about how we can help your individual needs then please contact us to set up a free phone consultation!

 

 

Muscle Isolation vs. Integration

Posted on by Michael Devon

Exercises should connect muscles in the body the way muscles connect the body in the real world, in order to program proper movement. Primarily when we walk, run, and throw but also any type of athletic movement or daily function. If your body’s hurting, you can’t move as well as you used to, or your quality of life is limited then your body may be disconnected. Possibly from lack of exercise, prioritizing the wrong kinds of exercises, or old injuries that need to be rehabilitated with the correct kinds of exercises. Exercises that train your body for a specific purpose… not just to chase after that pump.

Muscles in our body connect and work together with other muscles to coordinate movement. If we only isolate muscles when we workout then we are “disconnecting” their coordination ability with other muscles. This sends the wrong signal to the brain, that it’s okay to use this muscle independently and then our body adapts to complete a movement with the wrong muscles. These adaptations throw off our alignment and we start to create imbalances that manifest as an ache, pain, or injury because are muscles no longer work in harmony with each other.

In the real world our body in connected from head to toe every time it moves. For example, we can’t use our glute to take a step without the hamstring and calf participating in the movement. Exercise should replicate as much of a real world scenario as it can, in order to be as effective as it can at improving ones ability to function. Specifically, creating muscle activation in multiple muscles at once in a way that the muscles are utilized in reality- back to the glute, hamstring, and calf example when we walk. We should concern ourselves with how the calf functions every time we take a step, rather than how big our calf looks, and how the calf synchronizes with the rest of the muscles to properly move our body. Therefore, true functional fitness isn’t as simple as using kettle bells instead of a machine when you workout, but how that workout is going to strategically make your body function better, in scenarios your body encounters in life outside of the gym.

If you want to move well, perform better, improve your posture, limit joint pain, and take control of your life then send us an email with any questions or concerns and find out how we’re here to help!

Body Connections

Posted on by Michael Devon

Did you know that in order to rotate your trunk safely, you must use your obliques so your lower back does not compensate?

Did you know that in order to use your obliques, you must utilize your pec muscles and lat muscles to facilitate proper trunk rotation?

Did you know that when you do trunk rotations your hips should not be moving, but only your ribcage?

If you do a lot of russian twists, cable rotations, boxing exercises, and other core exercises to work your obliques, but you always end up with a tight lower back, this is to help you.  We have to recognize that our body is connected from head to toe, one muscle can’t work without the rest of the body getting involved. If we stand in the way of total body integration then our body compensates and the wrong muscles start to assist the movement.

If we are setting out to exercise our obliques but we leave the pecs and lats out of the equation then the lower back does the job. In the same scenario, if we set out to rotate our core but leave the glutes and hip flexors out of the equation, again, the lower back takes the brunt of the force.

All of the muscles in our body have to work in harmony at the right time to facilitate a proper function. If one muscle activates at the wrong time, or doesn’t activate at all, our body will still let us manage to perform the movement. However, more than likely our form will be wrong and this will lead to the wrong muscles doing the job. If we repeat the movement in the wrong way over and over again, this eventually becomes engrained in the brain as normal and our ability to function maximally declines.

If you want to function better, when you play sports, when you exercise, or when you’re living life day to day, your muscles must work together in the right way to support your body properly. The right support ensures better posture during movement and the ability to move pain-free. If you want to learn more about proper body movement to enhance your ability to function, then book an appointment with us!

Tight Neck? Try This!

Posted on by Michael Devon

There’s more than one way to use a Theracane ??
Marianne came in complaining of a stiff neck and shoulders from sitting behind a computer ? all day so we implemented myofascial release on her pecs, with special attention to her pec minor. Rather than treating the symptoms of tension we went right to the source and in this case her stiff neck and shoulders felt relaxed after we released her pecs ?
The pecs tend to get locked in a shortened position when we sit for multiple hours a day staring at a phone or computer, then the muscles in the back reciprocate and get locked in a lengthened position leading to stiffness, tightness, throbbing, or even a dull ache ?
Sure you can live with it but you don’t have to ??‍♀️ Knowing what on your body is hurting or “tight” and calculating which muscles to release to make that area feel better is what it takes to decrease and manage those common aches and pains ? Start by massaging the muscle fibers below your collar bone with your fingers with firm pressure, until you find a trigger point. Then, keeping firm pressure, breath into that area until you feel the muscle tissue start to relax. You may even feel tension radiating into the shoulder blades, neck, or upper traps, that’s when you know you’re on a good spot. If you have a Theracane (like the one pictured) you can use it to apply pressure to the area once you’ve located a trigger point, the same application can be done with a tennis or lacrosse ball leaning against a wall. Start by spending 2-3 minutes on the tender area on each pec, not forgetting to breath, and see how you feel after! We’re not here to waste your time, if you want to take the next step toward improving your quality of life we’re here to guide you in the optimal direction ?

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Posted on by Michael Devon

Get comfortable being uncomfortable ?? you can’t wait until you feel like doing something because that time may never come, the mood may never be just right. If you want to lose weight, control your health, and manage your pain then it’s going to take some work, unfortunately there’s not a magic pill to fix everything. ?? Spend some time in the kitchen cooking real food instead of going through a drive through. Start waking up 30 minutes earlier and going on a walk or performing a strength training circuit.

You are a reflection of your habits ? If you’re over weight and you don’t want to be, take a step back and take a look at how your spending your time ??‍♀️ it’s not rocket science, what do you want and what are you doing to get you there? If you’re spending time after work binge watching Netflix every night then obviously your habits aren’t aligning with your goals. After a long day, relaxing on the couch watching tv seems like the only thing you have energy for and you’re comfortable doing it. We challenge you to step out of your comfort zone and change up your routine, build a routine that supports healthy habits, like joining a group exercise class or a walking group, and going grocery shopping for healthy food choices or spend time looking up healthy recipes to make for dinner, instead of coming home and sitting your butt on the couch. 

Start making small changes, if you watch Netflix every night then start by dedicating one night a week to exercise or healthy food preparation. If you can’t part ways with Netflix for one night then don’t worry, start even smaller, instead of binge watching 6 episodes of Netflix cut it down to 5 episodes and use the extra time to go for a quick 30 minute walk instead, then reward yourself by coming home and watching your favorite show! At the very least, turn Netflix on in the back ground and spend some time in the kitchen cooking while you’re watching your show, instead of just sitting on the couch.

The point here is that you’re getting out of your routine and your body and mind are going to resist because they’re comfortable with the choices you’ve made up to this point, but you want more so you have to do more. Prepare to get a little uncomfortable with your new routine when you’re first starting out but remember that it’s for a long term result and the uncomfortable feeling is only temporary until your new habits become second nature!

Weight Loss Transformation

Posted on by Michael Devon

Deb’s 30 day “Before and After” weight loss transformation. Deb has been a client of ours since we opened and comes to workout twice a week for functional strength and conditioning training. In addition to that she walks 3-4 times a week on her own and consistently eats a Whole 30 based diet.

While it’s nice to see the changes in only 30 days, it’s important that she continue the habits of exercise and healthy eating or it will be very easy to gain back the weight that she lost. It’s goes deeper than 30 days because it’s about establishing the habits of a healthy lifestyle to keep your body fit and healthy in the long run.

Noticeable changes include less fat around the abdominals, arms, and face. In addition to the decrease in body fat, Deb reported that her energy increased, she slept better, her joints hurt less, and she had more mental clarity and focus. Eating healthy isn’t just for looks it’s also about making you feel better, and that’s the true definition of health!

In the course of 30 days, following a consistent exercise routine and Whole 30 nutrition principles, Deb was able to lose 12 pounds! That’s not her end goal but it’s a starting point to show her that with a lot of dedication it is possible. Now it’s time to continue the habits she’s created these last 30 days to promote steady weight loss and not get caught up in trying to lose weight fast. If we try to lose too much too fast we end up crash dieting and no healthy habits are built during the process to maintain the weight loss and continue to lose weight in the future. When it comes to weight loss it’s important to remember that slow and steady wins the race. It’s not just 30 days, it’s a lifestyle!

If you need help creating healthier habits to promote a healthy lifestyle we are here to help guide you in the right direction and make sure you establish consistency with your habits to obtain the results you’re looking for!