its a good page you got going here, am going to have to take some time to read through some back posts.

Thanks for the kind words!

As a general rule, most people will have a tight Psoas and weak glutes. This can cause back pain, especially when running. Weak glutes will also lead to bad force transfers, and will put extra stress through your back. Do the stretching and release stuff found on the article, and incorporate the glute exercises.

You may have the opposite problem. To test if your Psoas is strong, stand on one leg, and hold your opposite knee to chest. Let go and try to lower that leg. If you are stable and can do it with no problems, then your psoas is strong, if you cant hold it and control it on the way down, your psoas is probably weak. This works because when the knee is above the hip in this test, your Psoas is in control of it. If it’s weak you will find you activate your back, you tilt forward, sideways, and even try to use your quads. Remember your Psoas can be weak and tight. You may need to release and strengthen.

I am also a big advocate of glute work. Generally peoples glutes aren’t strong enough. Get into some of that and regardless which problem you have, you will find that you transfer force a lot better when running. The bridges and lunges are a good place to start!

Let me know how it goes!

thank you

joe

Results are what matters.

You are right, there is absolutely nothing wrong with training for aesthetic reasons as well. Good point on the posterior chain work, a lot of people lack the ‘core’ strength to perform some of the big lifts.

Cheers

Couldn’t agree more with this piece. Most women lack tricep strength to do decent pressups and lack the arm strength for pullups. There is most certainly a place for isolation work and it isn’t the waste of time that many are espousing.

Sure, I wouldn’t build an entire workout around it, but what’s wrong with wanting to look better in a t-shirt or strapless top in the summer? Can’t see that 10 minutes of arm work a couple of times a week is going to do any harm!

I do a whole heap of posterior chain work particularly with female trainees. Most of them lack initially in the lower back and hamstrings the strength to squat and pull effectively.

As you say, the industry is obsessed with trends and fads and many who write about it seem to jump on each one. As for me I prefer to stick with what gets the results (and the clients) in the gym!

I agree that the industry often is too extreme, and often has a knee jerk reaction when there is some new information put out there.
A good example is stretching. Studies have shown that dynamic warm ups and mobility are superior to static stretching for warm up, but people have gone too extreme and omitted static stretching from lives completely, when it clearly has some benefits.

I guess it is a popular topic! People do tend to jump on and off bandwagons in the fitness industry. We need to slow down and consider things a little better.

Cheers,

Lauren

Funny to see this article here today. I just wrote something that makes the same exact point today and then came here to see this article not very long after I finished (anybody reading who doesn’t know what I’m talking about — I run a little blog of my own). I like the point that you make about extremes- alot of the men’s and women’s magazines hype mostly isolation movements for cutting a little line in the top of your bicep. This doesn’t mean that they are useless… they are just overused by some.

Thanks