Body Mechanics in Health, Fitness and Performance

 

The body has a very sensitive survival mechanism any threat to survival creates a stress response. Including poor posture and poor body mechanics. Poor body mechanics can mean training with incorrect technique, sitting in the wrong chair, driving in the wrong car, wearing the wrong shoes or using your body in any way that promotes poor mechanics.

Improving posture and body mechanics can be a very powerful step in reducing your bodies stress response and allowing your body to use energy that would otherwise be used to fight stress. Your body’s energy can instead be used towards more important things such as improving health, energy levels, weight loss and body transformation.

 

Sport Nutrition Tip:

Over training raises cortisol and cortisol creates chronic blood sugar imbalances. A fluctuation in blood sugar depletes your nutritional reserve, causing you to crave the wrong types of food such as sugar. You have two choices you can learn how to manage your training, lifestyle and diet or you can try to chase symptoms with supplements, medication and quick fixes. One choice will lead to long time success in your training and the other choice will lead to long term frustration.

Strength Coaches are still crunching the numbers

Crunches greatly hinder athletic performance and should be low on the priority list in a sports specific core-conditioning program. Most injuries occur in the frontal and transverse planes and with the spine behind the midline, therefore an effective core-conditioning program should be designed accordingly. Training the abdominal wall with the spine behind the midline is one of the key training variables that will reduce abdominal wall strains in athletes. ###

In Season vs. Off Season

An athlete’s diet in season and off season can vary just as much as the conditions of their sports vary from in season to off season. The athlete must be aware of their nutritional needs when changing environments, time zones, weather situations and any other stresses that could possibly increase demand in terms of nutritional reserve. By taking a holistic approach to sports performance, athletes will put themselves in the best position to maintain peak performance throughout the entire season and throughout their career.

Conditioning

There is in an important distinction when it comes to the idea of cardio and conditioning. Just because someone can motor on a treadmill or stairmaster for a couple of hours does not mean they have the conditioning to do a specific task such as chopping wood, wrestling or doing something that actually requires dynamic use of the body.

Strength

Strength is a skill and is available to anyone willing to devote their time to focusing on quality of movement rather than simply trying to get a workout and sweat. Technique and the execution of skill is a distant second.  

History Of The Kettlebell

“About the best exercise for strengthening the back and legs, and for teaching them to work together is [the kettlebell swing]. It takes considerable practice to master it; but it is worth all the trouble, because it is one of the fundamentals of super-strength.” Pavel Tsatsouline – An American Iron Game Pioneer On Kettlebell Swings and Super Strength

Kettlebell Workout Tip

When doing your strength exercises, a good general rule is to perform your most complex exercises first. For example Kettlebell swings before Kettlebell military press.

The Holistic Significance Of A Pot Belly

Let’s take the battle of the bulge to the next level. Holding extra weight in the mid-section has far reaching effects. It has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, back pain and more importantly it becomes a headache to find good shirts.

Liz Simpson explanation of the Chakra: “These spinning vortices of energy are a part of the subtle energy system which forms the ancient Indian approach to healing our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual selves”. Each chakra is connected to specific organs in the body.

Going deeper down the rabbit hole, there are also thoughts, emotions and behaviours associated with the chakras. The third chakra is located in the belly. The emotions and thought patterns associated with the third chakra are personal power and self will. These thoughts concern your personal initiative in ALL aspects of your life. Another aspect of personal power and self-will is your level of tolerance for things that are not in harmony with your beliefs. I once heard it called “tolerations” or in other words all that you “put up with”. With that said I must ask you, what are you tolerating in your life? Looking at your waist could give you the answer.

 

Self Balance

“As we learn to balance ourselves from the complexities of everyday society, we begin to understand the reasons for being human and living as happily as possible.” — Michael Thompson

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