Exercise is a common consideration each day for most adults, but immediate and long term life, work, and family barriers routinely block our best intentions. Despite its’ well established benefits, only 1 in 5 Americans meet our national guidelines on exercise each week. Those who do meet these guidelines each week have made exercise a...
The current public health environment, including social distancing, has placed more barriers to exercise including public transportation, gym access, and equipment. In times like this it is helpful to leverage what we do have available including additional time each day and the resources around us and inside of our homes. Many of us are continuing...
The physical benefits of aerobic and resistance exercise are well known and established, but we are learning more about the emotional and mental health benefits of daily exercise. The National Institutes of Health reports 19% of American adults will be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and more than 30% may develop an anxiety disorder in...
You could be forgiven if you felt exercise should involve accessories such as vision altering goggles, balance boards, color coded objects, and other unstable surfaces after watching national sports highlight shows playing videos of professional athletes going through their pre season training. It seemed to be the theme of the year for one professional athlete...
The average adult carves out a 30-60 minute block of time to exercise 2-3 times per week and tries to protect it against infringement from family, work, and life responsibilities. The health benefits of exercise, including strength training, are overwhelmingly in favor of the trained over the sedentary adult. Despite the benefits of exercise life...
Previously it was thought Physical Therapists should withhold strength training from endurance athletes or have athletes perform exercises with high reps (>15) and low weights (30-45% 1 rep max). These incorrect guidelines and prescriptions created insufficient training loads in endurance athletes and even worse led many endurance coaches and athletes to avoid weight training all...
Strength training creates a positive stress on the nervous and musculoskeletal systems leading to well established gains in mental, emotional, and physical health. This stress must be continually progressed in a gradual fashion to ensure these gains do not plateau. It is no surprise many novice exercisers, and some patients in Physical Therapy, quit their...
Exercise selection is one of the most important variables in a weekly strength training program. In general, individuals should look for multi joint (ex. lat pulldown) exercises instead of single joint exercises (barbell curl). At our Boulder Physical Therapy practice we recommend participants select one exercise from each of the following categories: vertical push, vertical...
Isometrics, muscle contractions without movement of a joint, have been utilized for many decades as a form of strength training and performance, but have recently been highlighted as an effective treatment for tendon pain. In our Boulder Physical Therapy practice, isometrics are helpful to initially load a tissue after surgery or injury, as well as,...
It has been said you can tell a person’s priorities by examining their check book and calendar. Tasks and activities which are urgent or important to us are more likely to be done on a busy day, but others like sleep or exercise may be pushed to the back burner. This is despite the overwhelming...