Strength Conditioning and Nutrition 101

Written By Assistant Professor Andrew Heming

Unfortunately, the people who are most interested in strength training are the ones who need it the least. Gyms have tons of young people slaving away to attain their beach body or improve sport performance reasons. However, there are often a smaller handful of wise 50+’ers who realize they need resistance training  more than ever!

Another Study came out demonstrating the incredible effect that High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) can have on your overall health. As you all know, I have become an increasingly strong supporter of HIIT training over the course of the blog. The research has been speaking for itself, stronger than ever, as it continues to come out in support for HIIT training. However, a river of research has been coming out to show the negatives of long distance running (cardio).

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Traditionally, when a woman becomes pregnant, it seems like their freedom for the nine months of pregnancy has disappeared. However, this old school thought should be thrown out the window. No more locking yourself up in the house and trying to avoid all forms of labour.


Since 2002 the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has been in support of regular exercise during and after pregnancy for both healthy and sedentary women. It is time for the public to throw out their out beliefs and see what the research is telling them.  The changes that women experiences during her pregnancy should not be viewed as a limitation. Instead we should all be encouraging them to participate in exercise and practice healthy habits.

Pregnancy is a beautiful time in a woman’s life. But, pregnancy does not come without its issues. One of the  most common problems that women experience is lower back pain.


In order to deal with this issue very few exercise recommendations have been offer to those who suffer from it.


On top of this every mother is worried about maintaining their figure as close as possible during the pregnancy and returning to their sexy body as quickly as possible.


All of these issues can simply be resolved by training the core.  Currently there is very little information available to personal trainers and pregnant mothers on how to safely and appropriately train the core.

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If you only had enough time to do a few exercises, these would be the go to exercises.
There are no better exercises then these for building muscle, strength, and losing weight!
As you know, I am a massive advocate for exercises that involve free weights and moving your body through space.

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Whey protein is probably the biggest supplement purchased.  Most people go to the supplement store and purchase whey because that’s what everyone does. But, is it the right choice and are you using it properly? Could you be using your protein more effectively and see significant improvements?

Written By Vincent St. Pierre
Hypermobility screen


Almost everyone today is extremely inflexible. With all the desk jobs today, it can sure cause your muscles to shorten and tighten. Research has shown that from holding a position for 20 minutes can cause your muscles to begin shortening and we sit around at work for 8 hours.

Before assessing ones shortened muscles and lack of flexibility, we first need to check areas of too much flexibility and double joint. You may be thinking, how can you be too flexible? How can being overly flexible be a problem?

Written by Martin Ng

Introduction
Running barefoot has recently become increasingly popular.  In the United States, there is a Barefoot Runners Society consisting of 2000 international members and growing.  Some believe that barefoot running decreases injuries compared to shod (wearing shoes) running, but is this really the case?

All personal trainers and strength coaches should put their clients through the FMS prior to training in my opinion. If you have a personal trainer or strength coach who does not know what the FMS Test is, run away. Your coach clearly does no additional reading and is far behind the times, since this has been around for a significant amount of time and is considered the gold standard.

Written By Vincent St. Pierre

Intro
When you think weight training, power lifting, or hardcore meat heads, someone squatting with hundreds of pounds on their back probably comes to mind.

Squats in there variety of styles (back, front, dumbbell, goblet, jump, split) are commonly used in every gym as a viable form of training. I myself view this as one of the big 6 exercises (great idea for a future post). The squat is used from your athletic to your everyday meat head, to the general public and the elderly to build strength, balance, functionality, hypertrophy, and bone density. However, in the training community there is a great deal of debate on how low you should go.

Athletes, especially high level athletes often have played their sport as the sole form of exercise. They train, train, and train. However, they forget to hit the gym; the weight room. This ends up creating athletes who are very skilled at their sport, but don't have any foundation.

Written By Vincent St. Pierre

After learning about how to do a proper chin-up /pull-up in the last post, I am sure many of you are at the point where I can’t do any or only 1. This post is meant to teach how to progress to a proper chin-up.

As I have stated many times, any form of training that involves your body moving through space is a superior form of training. Since this is the case, I am going to work backwards through the progression. Basically, you should only go down the progression if you truly can’t maintain proper form at least three chin-ups using the suggested alternative.

The greatest training exercises involve moving the body through space. The exercise that may be the single greatest exercise for measuring upper body strength is the pull up.

Beyond this, it is an incredible exercise for developing your muscles and creating wings that you could fly with. It is such an incredible exercise that it is commonly known as the upper body squat. The US military service academies have traditionally used the pull-up to assess the degree of physical fitness. Further, in terms of rehabilitation and the avoidance of injuries, it is so important to balance in push and pull exercises.

Today, people tend to be mirror trainers and forget completely about the back side of the body and become extremely disproportionate in strength. When ones upper body push and pull strength is disproportionate it has been found to increase the likelihood of shoulder complex trauma such as rotator cuff injury or strain.

When I am training athletes and the general public, I ask them if they know how to do a chin-up, they laugh and always say “yes!” However, on only one occasion have I ever worked with an athlete who knew how to truly perform a proper chin-up.

How this all comes together will be shown in a video at the end of the post 

There is an optimal bodyweight for every position and athlete. A great way to improve your performance on the field is by reducing your body fat and increasing your muscle mass, it does not stop at just improving performance, but also your general health. Having a consistent lower body while improving strength leads to a longer and healthier life. For all those looking to improve their performance and/or general health, here are some tips to help you lose that unwanted fat:

The Immune System

• Intense & prolonged training/competition event inhibit immune status for up to 6hrs
• During these 6 hrs athlete are most susceptible to attacks on the lymphocytes from a variety of immune infections
• Most common in athletes competing and training in endurance exercises
• Increase susceptibility to URTI’s that usually lead to ear infections and colds for prolonged periods of time

pH scale:
            
The acidity and alkalinity of a solution is represented through a scale, which extends form 0-14. The scale is based upon the concentration of H+ in moles per liter. The midpoint of the scale is 7 where the concentrations of H+ and OH- are equal (pure water). When a solution has a greater amount of H+ then OH- it is an acidic solution with the pH being below 7. When a solution has less H+ then OH- it is an alkaline solution with the pH being above 7.