I love the deadlift. It is my second favourite exercise, behind pullups. Pullups I love because they feel so incredibly amazing. Particularly for women, who tend to find them very difficult. Once you accomplish them, I think the feeling of awesome is increased.

But deadlifts are a different kind of awesome. They are functionally awesome. Everyone deadlifts. In life, that is. And because everyone deadlifts in life, virtually all of my clients deadlift in the gym. Whether you are 16 or 76, if you train with me for long enough, you will deadlift. And odds are, you will probably love it. In fact I have one client who drew a sad face on his workout sheet because there were no deadlifts that day.

Everyone deadlifts in life?
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I am not really a fan of vision/mission/values statements. Maybe it’s because in a previous career, I worked in a big corporation that spent way too much time thinking of these statements in isolation, without any real concern about whether they really reflect what the company is about, or whether the employees and clients relate to them. So when someone suggested on strengthcoach.com that there should be a “principles” statement for the site, I was pretty quick to poo-poo it.

Then Michael Boyle posted his manifesto and I was immediately converted. It was brilliant and I think so important that every trainer and every person who hires a trainer should read it. Read more…

This article is part of my blog-series: My Favourite Training Tools (For my American readers, please excuse the ‘u’ in favourite. It’s a Canadian thing). There are probably thousands of tools out there for fitness. Some are ridiculous fly-by-night items (I’m talking about you, Shaker Weight), others have been mainstays for hundreds of years, and now and then there is a new kid on the block that is clearly here to stay. Through this blog-series, I’ll share with you the tools that I think are worth including in your home or commercial gym. The complete list to date is included at the bottom of this post.

Lucky number 7 on the list is the kettlebell. Truth be told, when I first drafted my list, kettlebells just missed the top 10. I had them as an honourable mention. But their awesomeness is pretty hard to ignore, and I realized they just had to make my list.
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The $99 TRX knock-off seems to be a hot product these days. In fact The sales person at a fitness store that is part of a national chain tried to sell me one, to which I politely declined. I must admit that I thought it was pretty bold to be selling knock-offs in a retail setting next to the real ones. They seem to be more frequently sold by individual trainers, coaches and via websites.

I’m not writing this to pass judgement about whether or not you use or buy knock-off products, but rather to get you to consider whether there are safety implications if you do.
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Corrective exercises have become a popular training tool for many personal trainers in recent years, but do they work?

The corrective exercises are often found in programs in the movement preparation part of the workout, which I like to jokingly say is just a fancy way of saying the warm up. In fact it is a specific warm up, one that literally is intended to get your body prepared for movement. Some of the corrective exercises are basic stretches and activation exercises that manual therapists (I use the term manual therapist to refer to any of athletic therapist, chiropractor, massage therapist, osteopath, or physical therapist) have been using for years. Others are more integrated, born of functional training philosophies, such as the Functional Movement Screen. Read more…

Anyone else snack even when you aren’t hungry? This is the main reason I don’t keep junk food in the house. Be it chips or cookies or ice cream, if it’s in the house, I’m probably going to eat it whether I’m hungry or not. But as it turns out, I still engage in minor mindless snacking even without the crappy food, albeit it less so. I noticed this the other day. I had just eaten a nice lunch and then about 20 minutes later, I popped into the kitchen to grab a little something. But really there was nothing worth grabbing. I went into the cupboard, pulled out the jar of raisins and grabbed a small handful. As I was doing it, I started to think. I wasn’t hungry, and I wasn’t eating anything I particularly craved or cared for. I was just eating for the sake of eating.

Is it habit? Boredom? Filling some psychological void? I have no idea. But it occurred to me that I am probably carrying a few unnecessary pounds as a result of useless and rewardless snacking. Mindless eating at its best.
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Now that we have some snow up here, I thought it would be appropriate to bring this snow shoveling article out to remind everyone that shoveling is actually hard physical work, that really should be done after a warmup, and with some caution about form.

Did you know there is an increase in cardiac incidents following snowfalls?

It turns out that shoveling is both frustrating and dangerous.  This is likely due to otherwise sedentary people heading out and suddenly doing intense exertion – that snow can be heavy!

And did you also know that there is an increase in back injuries following snow storms? 
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Functional training is all the rage (do the kids still use that expression?). It is also often misunderstood. Are squats on a Bosu functional? What about deadlifts? Bicep curls?

I have previously written my take on what functional training is, including a definition and examples of exercises that are functional for different activities like serving beer or tennis balls.

I have also stood on my isoap box on various fitness and skiing forums, sharing my theory about other training approaches that I believe are not functional (dysfunctional even).
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This article is part of my blog-series: My Favourite Training Tools (For my American readers, please excuse the ‘u’ in favourite. It’s a Canadian thing). There are probably thousands of tools out there for fitness. Some are ridiculous fly-by-night items, others have been mainstays for hundreds of years, and now and then there is a new kid on the block that is clearly here to stay. Through this blog-series, I’ll share with you the tools that I think are worth including in your home or commercial gym.

Number three on my list of favourite training tools is a band. I tend to be partial to mini-bands, but I also like therabands and superbands. The mini-bands and therabands are mainstays in the dynamic warmups for most of my clients. Basically everyone who starts training with me gets “mini-band walks” in their phase 1 program. The lateral ones (think crab walk) are a great option for getting the glute medius working, while the forward and backward ones (“monster walks”) can be a nice challenge for the glute max and hip flexors. Simple and effective. And mini-bands only cost a couple of bucks each. Read more…

I realize it’s odd for a personal trainer to suggest you look beyond the gym for fitness. It clearly suggests I don’t have a business coach at the moment, as they would probably encourage me to recommend people come and spend more time in the gym – ideally paying me to help them with their fitness goals.

Don’t get me wrong – I do think everyone should allocate part of their fitness time to the gym, even those who are very active with sports or in their work. Especially those who are very active with sports or in their work, as they expect a lot from their body, and need the gym workouts to make sure the body is up to the challenge. Those of you who are new to fitness can also find tremendous benefit from some professional guidance to make sure you move toward your fitness goals safely and effectively. The regular gym-goer already knows the benefits. Read more…