wellness - The Fit Ethos

Don’t Give Up On Your New Years Resolutions. Yet.

It’s about that time of the year. Gyms will slowly become less crowded. Lines at fast food chains become longer. The highway is riddled with the mangled remains of New Years Resolutions that got tossed aside for an easier life.

I can’t fault people for this. Change is hard.

But I know that you don’t want to stay the same. You don’t want to be the same collection of bad habits, so something needs to change for the better. How do we stay on the path? How can we keep from straying from the Way?

Want to know the secret?

Weekly Roundup: The Best Articles On Strength and Fitness

Here are the top 10 research articles, blog posts, or books on strength and fitness that I’ve found value in recently. (All links open in a new tab).

Men’s Health: Research Has Unveiled How Many Sets You Need to Do to Build Muscle
Tony Gentilcore: “DEADLIFTS ARE ONE OF THE WORST THINGS YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR SPINE” (not actually. Read the article)
The Muscle PhD: Are Deadlifts Dangerous?
Journal of Human Kinetics: A Systematic Review of The Effects of Different Resistance Training Volumes on Muscle Hypertrophy
Frontiers in Physiology: Comparing Time Efficiency of Sprint vs. High-Intensity Interval Training in Reducing Abdominal Visceral Fat in Obese Young Women: A Randomized, Controlled Trial
Mike Reinold: Ultimate Guide to Blood Flow Restriction Training
Eric Cressey: So You Can’t Squat?
Juggernaut Training Systems: 5 Common Mistakes in the Bench Press
Nerd Fitness: Strength Training For Women: 7 Things You Should Know First!
Born Fitness: Sentenced To Life

If you have any blogs or articles you enjoy reading, please let me know in the comments! Let’s gather some good information!

3 New Ways to Progressive Overload

Progressive overload is the foundational basis of strength training. It means that you need to gradually increase the intensity of your training over time. Essentially, make sure that you’re doing more now than you did in the past.

The most common strategy to achieve progressive overload is to increase the weight that you are lifting by a few pounds. The problem is that most advice ends there. If it was that simple, the world will be filled with 1000 pound squatters and 500 pound bench pressers.

Simply adding weight to the bar is a finite strategy. Since we tend to grow muscle and increase strength at a relatively slow rate, just adding weight to the bar will cause us to progress too quickly and hit a plateau.

We must expand our strategies to achieve progressive overload. Here are 3 ways to progressively overload your training that does not involve adding weight.

1. Increase training volume

Training volume is essentially the total amount of work you are doing. While there are multiple ways to determine training volume, it is often calculated by looking at the total number of sets and reps you are performing.

For example, if you are doing 5 sets of 5 reps of a particular exercise (5×5), your total volume will be 25 reps.

If you wanted to calculate the total work of a particular exercise, you will determine how many times you are lifting a particular weight. This is often unnecessary but provides insight about the intensities that are being achieved with certain exercises.

For example, if you lift 200 pounds on the squat for 5×5, you will calculate 5x5x200. This is 5000 pounds of total work.

Increasing your total training volume or work performed is one of the best ways to achieve progressive overload. Simply adding a rep to each set will drastically increase training volume.

In our first example, if you did one extra rep per set, your training volume will be 5×6=30 total reps.

In the second example, your total work will be 200x5x6=6000 pounds of total work.

To implement this strategy, aim to increase your reps per set by one rep for a few weeks. Depending on the set/rep scheme, you may need to climb up to 8 or 10 reps per set. Once you can do the prescribed number of reps for all sets, then you will add some weight to the bar and begin the progression all over again.

Remember that adding weight isn’t the only way to become stronger. Doing more total work is more important. The added benefit is this will force you to slow down your progress to prevent hitting plateaus.

2. Increase training density

Training density is how much time it takes to perform a certain amount of work.

Imagine your typical leg workout session. How long does it take to perform? 45 minutes? 60 minutes? Now imagine if you deliberately took 3 hours to perform the same exact workout. No extra sets or exercises. How easy would that be? This is very LOW training density. Same workout, just performed over a very long period of time.

Now take the same exact workout and imagine trying to do it 10 minutes faster than before. You will be hustling and probably straining hard to get through all of the work. This is an example of HIGH training density.

If you are able to perform the same amount of work in less time, something about your fitness has to have improved.

Of course, this is another finite strategy to implement before it becomes impractical and possibly dangerous, but the point is to perform your training at a challenging pace.

3. Increase tension and improve technique

One of the critical principles of strength training is something called time under tension. It is essentially the total amount of time that a muscle is activated and creating tension. Muscle growth and strength is a direct consequence of time under tension. In general, longer bouts of time under tension tend to yield greater gains in muscle and strength (although this is a great generalization).

One overlooked part of time under tension is the amount of tension being produced. Lifting a heavier weight will naturally cause a muscle to create more tension. However, we can deliberately create more tension during an exercise by consciously tightening the working and stabilizing muscles.

Imagine performing a biceps curl with 20 pound dumbbells. Imagine casually curling them up and trying to expend as little energy on the movement as possible.

Now imagine curling the same 20 pound dumbbell but now brace your abs, squeeze your glutes, and stand tall. Pull your shoulders back. Grip the weights as hard as you can. Slow down the movement and try and actively flex the muscles harder as you lift the weights. In essence, try and make 20 pounds feel as difficult as possible.

This is a technique often employed by bodybuilders to maximize the amount of tension they are creating during any given exercise. Usually when we do this, we need to use impeccable technique to properly control the weights.

When we are intensionally increasing the amount of tension and improving technique, we naturally work harder during the exercise. This is another variation of progressive overload.

Expanding your toolkit

Never rely on just a single parameter to force progressive overload. The three strategies discussed here are simple to implement during every workout.

The pursuit of strength is a long journey. Slow but consistent progress is always favorable to rapid and unsustainable progress. Just focus on doing a little more each time you go into the gym.

Less Is More: Applying Minimalism to Fitness

I love minimalism. Less is more. Have less stuff. Embrace simplicity. So how do minimalists approach fitness?

Some people don’t want to think too hard about things. They want to get as much out of as little as possible, and I admire that. Work smarter, not harder. In fitness, there are some things that will yield greater results than others.

Let’s apply some lessons from minimalism to fitness. Here are 3 strategies to approach fitness as a minimalist.

Audit every exercise in your workout

Your body has a limited amount of resources to perform and recover from a workout. This is the basis of training economy. It bodes well to spend your time and energy intelligently.

The first thing you need to do is to establish some goals of your training. What are you trying to achieve with your program? Once you establish your goal, make sure that everything you do while you’re in the gym serves that goal and get rid of everything that doesn’t.

For example, if you are trying to increase your max squat, everything you do during a squat, lower body, or leg workout should somehow support your goal. Ask yourself if each of the exercises you do serves the goal of increasing your squat.

Will jumping and doing power exercises improve your squat? Yes. This stays.

Will squatting improve your squat? Yes, of course. This stays.

Will having a stronger posterior chain (low back, glutes, hamstrings) improve your squat? Yes. RDLs, back raises, good mornings, hip thrusts, glute ham raises, etc all stay.

Will having stronger quads improve the squat? Yes. Bulgarian split squats, lunges, step ups, etc all stay.

Will doing 20 sets of calf raises improve your squat? Probably not. Get rid of it. Plus, isolation work for the calf only improves aesthetics and not performance (unless it’s for rehab purposes).

Will doing those awkward glute kick backs in a leotard with 2 pound ankle weights while climbing up a stair master improve your squat? Nope. Get rid of it. But make sure you do it for the ‘Gram.

When you start auditing your training methods in this way, it’s easy to cut out a ton of useless fluff. Only the important things will remain.

Use the minimum effective dose

Louie Simmons always said it best. You don’t train minimally. You don’t train maximally. You train optimally.

May he lift in peace.

You should not be using absolute maximal intensities every training session. This will lead to burnout, overtraining, injuries, and just isn’t strategic and optimal.

The minimum effective dose is the least amount of exercise that is required to elicit a training effect. Any amount of stimulus under this will not elicit an adaptation or training effect. Any amount of stimulus past this may or may not elicit a greater training effect. There will be a point of diminishing returns for increasing your given intensity past the minimum effective dose.

All of this to say: don’t progress too quickly. If you’re squatting 225 for sets today, do 230 or 235 next time. Don’t make unnecessarily large jumps. Get as much out of 225, 230, and 235 as you can. You’ll be regretting that you didn’t when you inevitably hit a wall in a few weeks.

Many coaches will advocate for a slow but steady progression over the long term. This will not only help to minimize plateaus but ensure that you are getting the most out of any given combination of weight, sets, and reps.

Eliminate supplements and focus on eating real food

I’ve said this many times and I’ll say it again: Supplements don’t do jack s*** if you don’t have your basic nutrition dialed in.

Trying to make up for a bad diet with supplements is like using duct tape to save a sinking ship (Unless it’s that flex tape stuff. That stuff is magic).

Supplements should be accounting for less than 5% of your total progress coming from your diet. The other 95% comes from an educated approach to nutrition. Real food will always be superior to supplements, so put forth your effort into the items that are going to yield the majority of results and stop worrying about the rest. The supplement industry is honestly way too big for what it actually offers.

Let me repeat a sentence to make sure I made my point. Real food will ALWAYS be superior to supplements!

If you are adamant about having some supplements to either supplement your nutrition or to have a pre-training ritual, look into creatine, vitamin D, EPA/DHA, and good quality protein. The only supplement companies I really buy from these days are Thorne and Boba Tea Protein. Both companies are incredible.

Go forth and approach your fitness like a minimalist

Minimalism is all about cutting out the unnecessary fluff from your life. When you apply the three of these strategies, you are eliminating unnecessary exercises, volume, and supplements from your fitness journey. When you have less to distract you, you will be able to put forth your energy and effort into the things that truly yield the greatest results.

So here’s my permission for you to do less to get more.

5 Daily Habits To Upgrade Your Life This Week

‘Tis another week. Did you jump out of bed this morning, excited for Monday? Are you ready to tackle another week, or did you dread the alarm? Did you daily routine go smoothly or are you scrambling to get out the door in a frenzy?

I get it. I don’t have my shit together every single day of the year. Things can get out of hand and chaotic if we don’t have good systems and habits in place. Here are 5 things you can do everyday to upgrade your daily living this week.

Start each day with a tall glass of water

We all need to drink more water. Hydration affects every process in our body. Everything will get better or worse with hydration. Dehydration can cause brain fog, headaches, decrease our alertness, make us tired, and decrease our physical performance in the gym by up to 20%! This means that if you are supposed to hit a 200 lbs overhead press, you may only get up to 160 lbs!

I relearn this lesson every time I work with one of my elderly patients. Any day that one of these individuals is dehydrated, their balance, cognition, memory, alertness, and physical performance suffers. What’s more, I can almost immediately tell if they are dehydrated upon meeting them.

We are usually dehydrated upon waking. Make it a part of your normal routine to have at least 8 ounces of water or more as soon as you can. Add a pinch of salt or a squeeze of lemon to help your body absorb it. We tend to better absorb fluids that have some sort of solute in it. I like having a small serving of creatine and a pack of Liquid IV in my water (not an endorsement, I just like their stuff). Ever since I started every morning with a big Mason jar of water, my mental clarity and focus has skyrocketed.

Upgrade your brain with books

One of my buddies said it best: reading is like a cheat code to life. Good books are jam-packed with information, actionable strategies, and experience. Why try and relearn every mistake and lesson that other people have already worked through?

It’s no accident that most successful people spend a lot of time reading books. It’s like installing new software into your brain. You will think differently and just know more when you spend time reading.

Set aside some time everyday to read at least for 30 minutes. I’ve been trying my best to get an hour of reading everyday. Replace the endless scrolling of low-quality content on your phone with a good book. You’ll be surprised at how many books you can finish when you consistently read everyday.

Get outside into the sun

Our bodies are governed by the circadian rhythm. The morning sun is one of the most powerful signals that resets our internal clock. This is vital to maintain a healthy sleep-wake cycle.

Getting outside during the morning to get some sunlight will make our brains wake up and be ready for the rest of the day. The sunlight entering our eyes sets off an abundance of processes that prime our mind and body for increased activity. This will also improve mood and sleep quality later in the day.

The best way to do this is to get outside before 9am and face your body towards the sun (obviously, don’t look directly into the sun). Depending on how bright it is, staying outside for 5-20 minutes on a sunny day and up to 30 minutes on an overcast day will work wonders for your health and mood.

For more on the benefits of morning sunlight, read this.

Set down your phone

You’ll be surprised at how much your brain craves silence. It’s unsettling at first. Some may even panic at the thought of not being stimulated for a brief moment.

When we let go of the chaos of the modern world, our brains will finally settle down. The fog and anxiety will lift. Our focus will sharpen. We might even become happy.

The main culprit of this modern overstimulation and overconsumption is our smartphone. Although a marvel in convenience and making our world more connected than ever, it also steals our attention and cognitive resources from more important things.

How many hours of your life has been hijacked by screen time? It’s scary. Some days I look at my screen metrics and see that 5-8 hours of my time was wasted on TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram.

What’s worse is that all of that content and consumption is usually completely devoid of any meaning or quality.

Fight back. Don’t let the Matrix steal away your life and energy. Create a dedicated spot for your phone when you get home and keep it there. Silence any notifications that aren’t important. You’ll still hear if you’re getting a call or text, but otherwise, let it be.

Do one thing everyday that will move you towards your goals

It’s one thing to have goals. It’s a completely different thing to have goals and consciously execute a plan.

What are your aspirations and what are you doing to move towards them? Perhaps it’s to start a business, learn a musical instrument, or organize your finances. What’s the one thing you can do today to move towards that goal?

Maybe you can set up a meeting with a mentor, set up a business checking account, or get a business license.

You can find a music teacher or enroll in a class.

You can find a financial advisor or set up an investment portfolio.

But nothing will actually set you on the right path unless you take action.

No matter how small, if do one thing everyday, you will build the momentum to get to where you want to be.

Maybe your goal is to lose weight or bench 315 lbs. What do you need to do to get there?

You can dial in your nutrition and set up a consistent meal plan. Maybe you need to start getting to bed a normal time so you optimize your recovery.

Maybe you just need to get up and start.

Imagine the possibility of a future where anything is possible. The only thing standing in your way is action.

Nothing will change unless you do.

And maybe that’s just what you need to get excited for a new week.

1 Exercise That Will Bulletproof Your Hamstrings

The best way to treat a hamstring injury is to prevent it from happening. Once they happen, they become a real b**ch to rehabilitate. The best way to prevent injury is to make the muscle as strong as possible but adequately loading the hamstrings can be cumbersome and challenging if you don’t have regular access to a gym. This is where Nordic Hamstring Curls save the day. By their nature, they’re tremendously difficult and require no equipment.

Study after study has shown the value of Nordic hamstring curls in decreasing injury to the hamstrings.

This is exercise is so good that it’s consistently been shown to decrease the incidence of hamstring and knee injuries in populations particularly vulnerable to these by half. That is a hugely significant amount!

The Nordic Hamstring Exercise/Curl

The exercise is predominantly an eccentric muscle contraction, which is where most muscle damage and overload takes place.

You will need a partner or a solid place to wedge your foot.

Set up the exercise by kneeling on both knees. Your hips and torso will be upright. Your partner is going to hold down your feet with their hands on the back of your ankles/heels. Your partner should have their shoulders over your feet to make sure enough weight is applied.

Initiate the exercise by slowly lowering yourself to the floor by using your hamstrings. Try to approach the floor as slowly as possible. You will use your hands like a push up to absorb the impact at the floor. You can return to the starting position by either resetting the exercise or doing an explosive push up to hamstring curl your way back up.

Perform 3-5 sets of 5-10 repetitions.

Conclusions

Taking clues from weightlifting and sports medicine, they best way to make a muscle resilient and resistant to injury is to make it as strong as you can and train it with the greatest amount of tension as possible. Then you replicate game time scenarios with various drills.

The studies that showed the value of Nordic hamstring curls used the exercise in isolation with no other exercise program, but of course including the Nordic hamstring curl in a fully comprehensive program is the most optimal approach. However, if you for some reason had to choose just one exercise to do, this is it.

Compare Yourself To Who You Were Yesterday and No One Else

It’s easy to fall victim to comparison. In a world governed by metrics, everyone will compare themselves to someone else at the gym. It’s easy to let the negativity derail your motivation. No matter how strong, fit, and competent you become, there will always be someone with a bigger bench, bigger squat, and better body composition. There will always be someone bigger, fitter, faster, and stronger.

So why bother?

First of all, if you fall into this nihilistic belief, you started this whole journey for the wrong reason. Unless you’re a competitive athlete, the whole point is to improve yourself and your health, not to outdo others in comparison.

Comparison is truly the killer of happiness, and it’s especially apparent in the world of health and fitness. Someone will always have larger pecs or a better looking ass than you but who cares? Don’t let that get to you. The whole purpose of the fitness and strength journey is self-betterment.

The only person to whom you should be comparing yourself is who you were yesterday.

That’s it. Don’t mind the people who’ve been training for years longer than you or the dude who seems to get strong and jacked no matter what kind of jackassery he does. What matters is if you are progressing forward and learning along the way.

When the sole purpose of training is to be better than others, the pursuit becomes a pathetic and egotistical race on a rat wheel. It’s sad how small their world is. No one gives a shit about these dudes except for themselves, so don’t become one of them.

Let me ask you this.

If you do one thing each day to improve yourself, where will you be next week? Next month? In a year? In 5 years? Each milestone you cross is a victory to be celebrated in the context of your personal life. If you finally squat 100 pounds for the first time, that is a great personal achievement!

The victories of others don’t diminish your own. I am always more impressed by individuals who consistently outdo their previous bests, no matter how small, than the strong and arrogant showboats who become complacent in their training.

Don’t compare yourself to others. Are you growing? Growth is the most important victory in the gym and in life.

The chaos of your life is already enough without having to deal with the arbitrary standards set by other people’s accomplishments. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.

The Secret To Longevity: Living a Long and Fulfilled Life

We see these trends everyday. Do this everyday to live longer. The one exercise to ensure your longevity. The one habit to a healthier life. This is the secret to live a long and fulfilled life…

And I get it. Reducing everything down to a single habit or product to ensure our health and longevity is an attractive proposition, but most of these people are just trying to sell something or drive more views to their website.

While I can say that the secret is that there is no single secret, I won’t. We already know from extensive investigations into the Blue Zones of the world that longevity comes down to numerous factors such as nutrition, physical activity, community, and many more.

However, there is one thing that seems to be repeating theme everywhere.

Why do you live?

One of the crucial factors of longevity and satisfaction with quality of life is purpose. Why are you alive? Do you feel like your life has meaning?

This was largely an unsatisfying answer for doctors and scientists for a long time. How is it that something as simple and abstract as life’s purpose can be more important than something like medication? After years of study, there isn’t much argument against this.

Study after study shows that outcomes in nursing homes and assisted living facilities significantly improve when the residents feel like they have a purpose for living.

Think about it. As we grow older and more frail, our independence seems to get taken away from us. This is a common pattern. As our memory fades and our physical abilities lessen, our locus of control contracts. Once safety seems to be compromised our home, privacy, possessions, and purpose get stripped of us as we are placed into the care of an institution.

This isn’t without wholesome intent. We care about our elders, which is why safety is such a paramount concern. However, this makes the sunset years of our lives completely devoid of meaning.

Why do you live? Why do you wake up every morning? A notable study once showed that simply giving a nursing home resident the responsibility of keeping a plant alive can have significant positive impacts on their quality of life.

Lessons from the Blue Zones

For those unfamiliar, blue zones are areas in the world with unusually high concentrations of individuals who live past 100.

Numerous studies have been conducted in these regions to find the “secret” to their longevity. The mistake was that their focus was too narrow. They tried looking for the hidden formula for nutrition or the holy grail of exercise programs. It turns out that there is a large cluster of factors that contribute to their longevity and wellness.

This supercharged wellness extended far beyond the physical. These people were much happier and fulfilled than most around the world. We can easily replicate nutrition and exercise, yet results did not seem to translate very effectively. So what was missing?

Delving deeper into the common themes of these regions, almost every elder in these regions maintained a purpose and meaning for their life. Whether that meant they had a hobby, family, job, or engaged in their community, these people still had a reason to wake up and get out of bed each day.

A lifeless atmosphere

Think about it. If all it took to live a long and fulfilled life was to make sure that our meat suit was well taken care of, longevity would not be a mystery. Imagine a life where your daily living was reduced to eating a square meal, staying hydrated, exercising, and taking medication. Your bed time and wake up time is strictly regulated. You’re prohibited from engaging in anything remotely risky. You no longer have any privacy and can’t even lock the door to your residence.

You only get to keep what can fit into a small dresser and cubby. Entertainment and recreation is determined by a committee that only has a small interest in what you’re interested in. You’re not even sure if you like the people you’re surrounded by.

How long would you last here?

When purpose and meaning are stripped away from our lives, our lives have no meaning. These folks tend to do very poorly in their elder years.

Dr. Bill Thomas came up with a simple but elegant solution: inject life into the lifeless atmosphere of nursing homes. He transformed the entire culture of a nursing home by bringing animals, living plants, a garden, and children into the facility. The change was staggering. The residents who never socialized with anyone started to speak. They volunteered to care for the animals. It seemed as if they had come back to life.

The important part is to not get confused with the deeper principle. It wasn’t that the place became more fun (although we have to admit, that is probably part of it). These residents were given a purpose for their daily life.

Live a life of meaning

This is easier said than done, especially in one’s later years. Most of us have some sort of purpose in our daily lives whether that is a career, caring for family, personal projects, side hustles, or even getting together with friends to engage in a shared hobby.

The secret that we need to put forth more effort into implementing is making sure we don’t strip our elders of their purpose and independence. This can be as simple as letting them stay in their own home. Allow them to engage in hobbies with their community. Let them go to church. Listen, and let them lead their lives.

The Best Workout Split Used By Most Athletes

Workout splits are essentially how you divide and organize a strength training program. What are you going to do each time you go to the gym? How often are you training each muscle group? What’s the best workout split?

There is a lot to consider.

There are an endless number of workout splits from bodybuilding-style splits that emphasize a specific muscle group per day to those that emphasize movements such as push, pull, squat, and hinge. Trainers and coaches will swear by one while slandering others.

Each split has its merits and advantages but there is anything you take from this post, it’s to just stick with one for long enough to make progress instead of hopping from one program to the next every week.

But let’s get to the one favored by athletes.

Mobility vs Stability in Strength and Fitness

People will often get caught up in the difference between mobility vs stability. They’ve become buzzwords in the fitness community, and if you’re not addressing them, then it may feel like something is being neglected.

But what on earth is mobility and what is stability? Most fitness coaches and trainers have a hard time differentiating the two and when they can, they have a hard time explaining why its so important to address.

So if these health nuts can’t even define these two concepts… Why is everyone so obsessed with them?

Let’s take some time to define mobility vs stability and explore the importance of each.

Mobility

Mobility is simply your ability to move.

In the most broad sense, it is an individual’s ability to move themselves through space. An elderly individual who has difficulty with bed mobility, standing, and walking is said to have compromised mobility. An individual who has no difficulties moving is said to have normal mobility.

In the fitness community, mobility has taken on a much more microscopic context. Mobility has become an individual’s range of motion and ability to attain certain positions for exercise or athletics.

Mobility is both active and passive range of motion, for good or for bad. While it is common to have too little mobility, it is also possible to have too much mobility and cross into the space of instability. This can happen when mobility is obsessively chased while strength is neglected. It’s also possible to have more passive range of motion than you can actively control.

mobility vs stability flexible hypermobility girl

Pathological hypermobility is a relatively rare problem that some individuals suffer from.

Two good examples of instability resulting from genetic disorders are Ehlers Danlos syndrome and Marfans syndrome, often characterized by hypermobility and fragility of connective tissue. These individuals can get injured very easily from seemingly trivial trauma due to the decreased strength of their connective tissues.

While most people will not have to worry about this level of hypermobility, it is a good demonstration that there is a limit to our mobility needs.

When it comes to mobility, you simply just need to ask yourself if you have the requisite ability to move to complete the task at hand.

Stability

Stability in the context of human movement is the ability to stop or control any unwanted movement. If you’re doing an overhead press, you don’t want the bar shaking uncontrollably and swaying in all directions. Your ability to control that excessive and unwanted movement is stability.

There are two types of stability, just like mobility. Active stability is the ability of your muscles to actively control and stop unwanted movement. Passive stability is the inherent stability resulting from structures like ligaments, bones, tendons, fascia, etc. We can appreciate how pathology such as Ehlers Danlos and Marfans can cause a massive lack of passive stability.

Truly pathological instability outside of traumatic injury and disease is very rare. When I hear someone say that they have an “unstable spine”, I always ask questions. True spine instability is a serious problem that most people don’t have. A weak set of abs is not an immediate precursor to an unstable spine.

Now, if you have weak abs and try and do heavy lifting, it may very well become the weak link in your lifting, but it doesn’t mean you’re “unstable”. Heavy exercise inherently requires a greater degree of stability to transmit force and control unwanted movements.

When it comes to stability, you need to ask yourself if you have the requisite strength to control your body and any weight you are moving.

Mobility vs stability: A spectrum of movement

Mobility and stability are not mutually exclusive concepts. You cannot work just one end of the spectrum and expect to perform optimally. I have many friends who are fantastic yoga practitioners who only ever did yoga and had a plethora of shoulder, hip, and back problems. Only once they started to incorporate strength training into their exercise regimen did those problems go away.

Tennis player serve stability vs mobility — Most overhead sports will require a high level of stability

A perfect example of mobility and stability working in tandem is in Olympic style weightlifting. These athletes need tremendous levels of mobility to achieve the requisite positions in the clean and jerk and snatch while having superhuman strength and stability to keep the weight under control.

Gymnasts are another great example. Gymnastics requires high levels of mobility and flexibility as well as stability and strength to perfectly control the athletes bodyweight through space. Have you seen how jacked gymnasts are?

We cannot simply pursue one while neglecting the other. Mobility and stability are equally important for any high level athlete.

A practical way to integrate both

I will always come back to lifting weights. Most people associate strength training with bulky, slow, and immobile individuals. This is far from the truth. Proper technique in weightlifting, powerlifting, and bodybuilding requires high levels of mobility. Simply controlling your way through full ranges of motion during most lifting exercises will improve mobility. Overhead presses require good shoulder mobility. Stiff legged deadlifts require great hamstring flexibility. A full squat incorporates full ranges of motion from the hips, knees, and ankles as well as requiring good shoulder mobility.

If you incorporate a few mobility drill during your warm up, you will have a well-rounded plan that tackles both mobility and stability.

So quit freaking out about spending hours and hours on one and stick with an intelligent plan for fitness. Mobility and stability will naturally be addressed.

Tag: wellness