We began with the basics of information gathering. Here is a quick synopsis of Holly. I will not put unimportant information on here, just the basics you need to know to understand where she is at in her life.

Holly has just turned the big “40″ although she has the energy still of any twenty year old I know. She works as a Chaplain for a local Fire Department and is very involved with volunteering in her church and kids school. She has two sons, one now in College and another about to graduate from High School. She is on call 3-4 days a week for the Fire Department which can turn into 5 hours of walking or 3 hours of sitting at a time.

She is currently bothered by sciatic pain in her right hip, tightness in her IT bands, and she constantly has a significant amount of tension all across her back and shoulders which causes aching throughout the day. She also notices she is unable to type for long periods at a time without serious discomfort in her wrists.

She has not had any major injuries in the past but was involved in a serious rear-end collision that caused significant whiplash symptoms.

Her goals are to improve her posture, eliminate the pain symptoms in her body, and maintain her ability to move efficiently in an effort to fight aging. She also wants to be able to do a lot of traveling for many years to come.

Below are Holly’s first round of postural photographs.

For the first round I want you to focus on the two pictures from the side. Holly has several postural issues but trust me we all do. This was very brave of her and Dan to do this. It is amazing what you learn about yourself when you get put on the grid. We will dissect a few other issues in the next few posts because I think certain issues will look worse before they look better. From the sides look at the position of her pelvis. There are two issues. The first being that her hips are way out in front of the anatomically correct position.

Look at the picture here of the skeletal system. Notice how each of the structural joints (shoulders, hips, knees, ankles) are all vertically stacked on top of one another. If you compare that to Holly, notice how far out in front of that line her pelvis is. This is what is causing many of her issues. Secondly her pelvis is tilted forward or as we say, she has an anterior tilt. These two things have a drastic impact on the position of her spine which is causing her muscle tension and aching through the shoulders and back. Notice how unlike in the skeletal photo that has a nice “S” curve to the spine, Holly’s forms more of a “C”. This creates a significant amount of muscle tension in her neck as the muscles are trying to hold her head in place. We call this a cable example. The muscles of her upper back and neck are being used as cables to hold her head in place. This is where the tension and tightness that she feels is actually coming from. It has very little to do with her upper back but rather a pelvis that is completely out of position.

The first few exercise routines for Holly will be focused in pulling her pelvis back underneath her as well as leveling it out. This will then correct the exaggerated “C” curve in her back.

Next post we will go over where Dan is starting at.

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We discussed several pieces of equipment of various levels of efficiency. On of the most common and more popular pieces of cardio, the treadmill is the one we received the most response to. This is a great tool for runners to take advantage of if the opportunity to run outdoors or on a track are not readily available.

We also discussed the many negatives associated with the Recumbant bike but also provided you with some examples of how to make it more efficient.

The Stairmaster for all of its calorie burning abilities also comes with a heavy amount of poor posture training and high amounts of muscle imbalance. However, we also gave you a chance to see how to make this machine a little less damaging so you can reap greater rewards from it.

We also went over both rowing machines and elliptical trainers with you. Check each of these links on this post for some great information on each of these machines. Also look in the cardiovascular category for more info on cardiovascular machines.

Finally Train2move also created for you the perfect companion to your cardio workouts. All cardio machines have their strengths and weaknesses. Our goal as always is to provide you with programs to help make your muscular system be at its best. The Cardio Cheat Sheets we designed to compliment each of the cardio machines it available in the store. If you are looking for that extra edge to help make your cardio workouts the most effective they can be, check them out!

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The answer from our perspective may surprise you. I sat down to calculate this out and came up with an amount that has nothing to do with cardiovascular requirements or calorie burning but rather what would it take for us to be able to maintain true physical health. True physical health meaning that our bodies are maintaining a high level of efficiency that allows us to be flexible, strong, have good posture, have high levels of endurance, and high energy levels throughout the day. We all had this at one point, it was called childhood.

Childhood was a time in our lives where physical activity was of premium importance. I am now 35 years old but I can remember how highly it was stressed in my Elementary Schools. Thank you Bear Creek in Lakewood Colorado! We had P.E. everyday along with multiple recesses all the way through 5th grade. Now my son who is in 3rd grade gets one recess if he is lucky and P.E. for 45 minutes 1x per week. So think back to being 6 years old and we begin to get closer to how much time we need to exercise during the week.

The answer is hours, many hours not per week but per day. Our Bodies were designed to be used, not occasionally sitting on a silly little bike reading a book but used, a lot. Playgrounds, fences, trees, and any other obstacle we could find used to be our training equipment. When we used them we were strong, had more energy than our parents could stand, and were as healthy as we will most likely ever be in our lives.

So how do we replicate this as adults now with kids of our own and full time jobs and the many other stresses we deal with on a daily basis? The answer is in smaller amounts. We no longer have the luxury of a 3 hour marathon game of Cops and Robbers. We now are luck to have 30 minutes. One of the many reasons I wanted to create this blog was to give you tools to become as healthy as possible regardless of your current situation. If you have not looked in the Store, go check it out. For the cost of going to a movie you can get some of our programs.

If you work at a desk all day, Purchase our AM/PM routines, the Complete Cubicle Workout Series, and the Abdominal program. You now have the tools you need to get an hour worth of exercise a day without making much of a difference in your current schedule.

Give us some feedback and let us know what other types of products will help you out in your goals to stay fit and healthy. In the meantime make sure you are doing exercise everyday. The ramifications of not doing so go way beyond not burning enough calories or needed to work your cardiovascular system more.

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Time really flies and I just realized that we have surpassed our 300th post. Technically this is post #312 but we were so busy getting everything in order for some very exciting new things approaching. Our next newsletter is just about finished and you should receive it within the next week if you have signed up. If not please do so now, this month we are attaching a great new running Warm-up routine.

As we near the end of the first year of our blog I am excited to see all that we have started and the many exciting things yet to come. Our focus for the next few weeks will be on discussing common training questions and myths. We hope to hear from you on these and if there are some specific ones you are interested in lets us know and we will address them quickly for you.

During the past year we have tried to cover as much information with you as possible. We have introduced to you our store and some of the products that we have provided for you have received very positive feedback from the many people who have been using them. If you have not taken a look at what we have to offer in the store so far I encourage you to do so.

Another new feature we would like to introduce to Train2move is your success stories. This can be as simple or elaborate as you would like. If you have accomplished something in the realm of nutrition or exercise we would love for you to share with us. Your story may be used in a future post! We also would like to start to see some of the interesting places you have or are training at. Own your won gym and want to show it off? Send us a picture. If you just completed a run through a scenic area or maybe participated in a recent local run, let us know and we will try to get you up on the site.

Lastly for now we have some exciting news to share in the coming month. We will keep tight lipped about it for now but we are very excited about the opportunity it will provide for many of you.

Thanks for being a part of the Train2move community. We want to continue to build a site that provides you with intelligent training advice to help you reach your fitness goals.

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I saw Josh today and he is extremely excited for this weekend. We too are excited to see how he does and just to share in the event with him. It is rare to se someone of his age be as focused and dedicated as he is and it seems to carry over into all he does. He is off to a flying start in College and then the sky will be the limit for him when he graduates.

The Marathon will start at 7am pacific standard time so sign up, then keep your phone with you and we will update each chance we get to see him.

Good luck Josh!

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EXERCISE OF THE WEEK WORKOUT #3

STRENGTH TRAINING PROGRAM

Make sure to follow this link to a great warm-up to prepare yourself for the workout.

Chin-ups x 8-12 Use a partner if you need to
Tricep Bridge – 30 seconds
** Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 3 sets

Dumbbell Flies x 8-12
Kneeling Good Morning Stretch x 15
** Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 3 sets

Bent Over Rows x 8-12
Kneeling Bridge – 30 seconds
** Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 3 sets

Kneeling Military Press x 8-12
Kneeling Rollercoasters x 10
** Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 3 sets

Back Foot Elevated Lunges x 12-15
Active Splits x 30
** Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 3 sets

One Leg Squats x 8-12
Spread Foot Glides x 20 each direction
** Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 3 sets

Pendulum Full Situps x 20
Tricep Active Bridge x 30
** Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 3 sets

Elbow Active Bridge x 20 each side
Kneeling Rollercoasters x 10
** Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 3 set

Weighted Lateral Leg Lifts x 12-15
Hero Squats x 20
** Repeat the previous 2 exercises for a total of 3 sets

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So Eric had the brilliant idea of creating simple, easy to use workout program for people who travel. This could be a huge asset for business travelers, vacationers, or even people who have to deal with long commutes. As we have discussed many times, our bodies or in the case of this program, our muscular systems react and change to the stimulus they receive. If the stimulus they receive happens to be nothing due to sitting in awkward tight positions then they respond by tightening and become less efficient.

This leads to postural imbalances that cause our bodies to feel greater amounts of fatigue, higher levels of pain, and ultimately can lessen the enjoyment of travel. When Eric began researching fro a product like this on the internet all he could find was advice telling people to stretch. No actual examples with the exception of one or two stretches. That is where Train2move decided to step up and design a program for you that will help make your travel more enjoyable.

As a part of the program you will receive:
2 pre travel routines to help set your body up for success before you leave.
1 mid-travel with area routine that can be done at a layover spot or anywhere you have a little room.
1 mid travel with limited area routine that can be done in a car or in an airplane seat.
2 post travel routines that will remove the negative side effects of the travel and restore better posture.

If you travel and are tired sacrificing your physical well being, try this program out. You will not be sorry. I’ll be honest the first time you do a few exercises in your seat on a flight from Denver to New York you will get some interesting looks but soon people will ask you if it helps. Keep in mind everyone on the plane is suffering so really the joke is on those who are not willing to do a few simple exercises to combat the issue, not the person doing them.

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Along with this it does not matter what your training goal is, the application is more or less the same. This is the facts when it comes to training the human body. Give it stimulus, it reacts. Therefore you are simply limited by your own or perhaps your trainers ability to give your body the stimulus it needs to be successful. This is where experience and a willingness to believe there is more than one answer to a given problem become great attributes for a trainer to posses.

Specifically regarding the lower back we at Train2move have been willing to look at many possible causes and solutions and I personally have now spent the better part of a decade working through the many complications that can be a potential cause of back pain.

The new “30 Days to a new Back” program we built is a culmination of the thousands of clients we have worked with and the many professionals in the training and medical world. We have found that a huge majority of lower back pain that people suffer from can be attributed to poor muscular efficiency. Weakness in certain muscles, tightness in other muscles, genetics, poor training form, isolated muscle training, and on and on. Remember everything you have done or not done to your muscular system over the course of your life has had an impact on it. Our belief is that too much of this has been a negative impact on you and the result is your back is now in a very compromised position.

So the program we have designed for you is an intelligent system for reintroducing proper muscular efficiency in regards to your bodies ability to not only have better overall posture to take the back out of a potentially bad position but also to ensure that other areas of the body, specifically the hips are functioning properly to help take pressure off the lower back.

If you have been struggling with back tightness and pain that limits you from being able to function at your best, we encourage you to give the program a try. We are very aware that every body is unique as each circumstance that is causing peoples back pain. We are also aware that our program will not help everyone. However, it has helped a huge majority of the clients we have worked with and I think the same will be true for a huge majority of you as well. Like our other products it will be incredibly affordable since it is our goal to try and get this training out to you.

Watch for the newsletter to come out soon with a portion of the program for free as well as a discount on the rest.

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Since we have not covered it in awhile and I know many of you are new to the blog let me go through some basics of the philosophy again with you. The basic fundamentals of our training method are based on the fundamentals of how our body is designed. I will abbreviate a lot of this so again if you want more detail check out the philosophy category.

The human body is designed to respond to stimulus. Simple enough but amazing how the training world understands this but fails to completely utilize it to their advantage. Food, water, sunlight, pain, these are all examples of various types of stimulus our bodies react to. The one we obviously focus on however is demands we place on our muscular system.

I get complaints sometimes when I use the language of stimulus because trainers get overwhelmed by it. If I asked you to get a bigger bicep what would you do? I am guessing you would go do some form of weighted bicep curls. It is that simple, the bicep curls are the stimulus to your muscular system. By doing the curls you are creating the series of events necessary for the breakdown of the muscle tissue which starts the process of the muscle becoming bigger and stronger.

This is how most people understand exercise. We at Train2move believe this as well but we do not limit it to the obvious. The personal training world is very focused on the appearance of the body, toned arms and legs, six pack abs etc. Then to attain these things they use any number of the various exercises they believe to achieve this result. Again, the stimulus necessary to change the look of the body.

We speak frequently to all of you about the importance of muscular efficiency and how this pertains to your ability to train the body properly. Looking at the bicep example we would take the idea of gaining strength and size in your bicep a step farther and first look at the anatomical position your body is in. Lets say you have poor posture and your upper back is rounded (kyphosis) and your scapulas (shoulder blades) do not move through their full range of motion. This in turn has caused your shoulder to be out of alignment. Now since the humerus bone in the upper arm comes out of the shoulder it is quite possible, if not likely that this bone is also a bit out of alignment. All of these things can affect the bicep since its origin in in the shoulder and it inserts in the bones of the forearm.

So we say if your going to really try to get the best version of strength and size in your bicep, fix what may limit your potential as you train so the results are even greater.

Now instead of bigger biceps what if I asked you to change the angle in someone’s pelvis to help alleviate pressure in their lumbar spine? Believe it or not this is just as simple as getting a bigger bicep, you just have to be fully committed to understanding how to truly impact the muscular system for more than just the appearance of the body. Next up I’ll explain how we are able to do this and more importantly how we are making a program for you to be able to do this for your own back health.

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This program we will be designed to create a higher level of muscular efficiency to help reduce the stress into your lower back. I will put up a few posts about this as we finish it so you can see how we might be able to help you reduce your lower back tightness and pain. We will also be including this in the next edition of the newsletter.

The next newsletter will be coming out later this month and if you have not signed up I would again like to encourage you to do so. Each newsletter will include some form of a free exercise routine for you to try out. Last month was the first routine of the  3 step abdominal program. This month we will give away the first phase of the 30 days to a new back program.

The next poll is up and I am curious to see what of the listed addictions would be the hardest for you to give up. We were talking about this the other day in the office and I was curious to get the voice of some others.

We will update you on the back program soon, now its off to build it for you!

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