In this one, I’ll play out a different fantasy: what I would do with a high blood pressure client who had no limits.

Make no mistake about it – we work with real-life people, who have real-life limits. And we still see impressive reductions in high blood pressure, like George, Milan and others.

But what if there were no limits?

• They had enough money to exercise with a trainer each workout (the majority of our clients work with their trainer 1-2 times per week, with an additional 1-3 on their own) – 5-6 times per week
• They had enough time to exercise the necessary amount
• They had no problems with nutritional compliance

If all these conditions were true, what kinds of results could someone like this expect? For all intents and purposes, the vast majority of people can normalize their blood pressure in a matter of 1-2 months using a pretty aggressive approach. Even if it’s crazy high to begin with.

In fact, one reader of my blood pressure book from the UK (who I’ve never met, by the way) left an Amazon review, saying that her blood pressure was “crisis high” (her words), and went down to high-normal (that’s around 130-139 over 80-89) in a matter of one week. By following the nutrition side of things only – didn’t even implement the exercise and supplement suggestions.

Most people get great results even if they just implement 40-70% of our advice, but what would I do with a client who had no limits? That’s what we’ll cover in this article. Basically the “Cadillac” version of the high blood pressure reversal program. And if you see yourself in this position, and would like to give it a shot, just email me with the subject line “High Blood Pressure Reversal.”

GET TESTED FIRST

The first thing that I would do with a client who has hypertension is get tested for sleep apnea. Firstly, what’s sleep apnea? It’s a condition where you wake up dozens or hundreds of times per hour each night, gasping for air. Only you wake up so briefly that you go right back to sleep. By the time you wake up in the morning, you have no recollection of waking up (never mind that you did it hundreds of times), and you feel tired. You might have been in bed for 8 hours, but the amount of time spent asleep might only be 5 hours.

So what’s the connection between sleep apnea and high blood pressure?

Well, according to one study, the prevalence of sleep apnea in people without hypertension is about 4%. In people with hypertension, it’s 38%. In people with resistant hypertension, it’s 83%. Resistant hypertension is when someone is already on 3 medications to lower their blood pressure, and it’s still high.

In one study, where people with hypertension finally got treatment for their sleep apnea, their blood pressure dropped by an average of 7.8/5.3 mmHg in 3 weeks… with no direct treatment for hypertension.

So that would be my starting point.

EXERCISE

I’m not going to go into the nitty-gritty of how I would design an exercise program for high blood pressure. I’ve written about that extensively in other articles, including a couple client success stories, and my entire book on that topic.

Rather this is going to be a description of the Cadillac version of that program.

First of all, I would start with cardio about 3-4 days per week, because cardio can drop high blood pressure by about 5-7 mmHg for up to 24 hours after the workout. But it has to be done right. What does that mean?

• It should be done with an intensity of at least 75% of your maximal heart rate
• It has to be done for 30-50 minutes

Second, I would add in strength training 2-3 days per week. But again, it has to be done right. What’s the right way to do strength training for high blood pressure reduction?

• The resistance should be light enough that you can do it at least 5 times, but heavy enough that you can’t do it more than 20 times.
• 2-5 sets per exercise
• 8-10 exercises per workout

The blood pressure reductions from strength training rival those of cardio, but the effects are longer lasting. With cardio, you might have been doing it 5 days a week for 10 years, but the day you stop, your blood pressure goes up.

With strength training, the results stick around even months after you stop. In one study, the blood pressure reduction effects of strength training lasted for at least 14 weeks beyond the cessation of strength training. Not that you should ever stop strength training, but it’s nice to know you have a buffer.

In my book, I do a thorough analysis of different exercise variables (i.e. how is 75% intensity vs. 50%, and vs. 90%? How is 3-5 days per week vs. 1-2, etc.?). For the sake of this article, suffice it to say “take my word for it.”

Yes, we can give exercise prescriptions for clients to follow on their own. And lots of them do, and get great results. But why do I think we can do even better if all of their workouts were with a trainer? A couple of reasons:

APPROPRIATE PROGRESSION

With our hypertensive clients, I find that they are too conservative with their progressions. They are too scared to raise the weight in different exercises. Their muscles and heart can handle it. Their mind can’t.

When you get a diagnosis of hypertension, you’re constantly concerned about doing the wrong thing. But a personal trainer knows when you’re ready to progress to the next weight, and when you’re not (not every personal trainer – just ones who have special training in hypertension). So the difference between doing all the workouts with a trainer vs. 1-2 with a trainer and 1-2 on your own would be as much as missing 20-30% of the blood pressure reduction you could have had if all the workouts were with a trainer.

REP-BY-REP ADJUSTMENTS

Sometimes, you’re doing an exercise, and for whatever reason, it starts to hurt. The trainer can make an adjustment right then and there, and you continue the exercise pain-free.

On your own, a few things can happen:

• You can push through the pain, and make it worse
• You just skip the exercise, and miss out on the benefits
• You can try to modify it yourself, and miss out on the effectiveness

NUTRITION

Fortunately, nutrition for hypertension is a lot easier than nutrition for something like diabetes or weight loss, which involves a lot of removing.

With hypertension, there are only a couple of things to remove:

• Energy drinks
• Other sweet beverages (though 0-calorie sweeteners are fine)

Even coffee is fine. Despite caffeine raising blood pressure for a few hours, it doesn’t raise the risk of heart disease… assuming it’s plain black coffee. Not a super duper creamy Frappuccino that takes 5 minutes to say.

What about sodium, you may ask? Shouldn’t you remove that? While sodium restriction only lowers blood pressure by about 3/2 mmHg (nothing to write home about), adding in foods that lower blood pressure is going to have a much larger impact.

What kinds of things would you add? Here is a list:

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• The obvious – muscle pain
• Weakness
• Lethargy, and low energy levels
• Insomnia

…and others.

Fast forward 11 weeks that we’ve been working together, and her success has been nothing short of monumental. Nowadays, she:

• Has so much energy some days she doesn’t know what to do with herself
• Gets so much more done in her day, from the simple household things, like laundry, to shopping, playing with her cats, and more
• Likes how her legs and waist look.

Not really something she could have imagined just 11 short weeks ago. If you’d like to see Jacqui tell her own story, check out the video here.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• How the fibromyalgia was affecting Jacqui
• What she’s tried in the past to help her with the fibromyalgia
• The physical exercises we used with her, and special adjustments we made for fibromyalgia
• The mental/cognitive exercises we used with her
• Strategies we used to improve her sleep
• The bottom-line results she’s achieved
• How her life is different now

If you have fibromyalgia yourself, we have a special program called “Fibro Fit”, which is specific for people with fibromyalgia. If you’d like to see whether you qualify for this program, just email me with the subject line “Fibro Fit.”

HOW THE FIBROMYALGIA WAS AFFECTING JACQUI

Jacqui originally noticed that she wasn’t herself, when she was working a very stressful job in the mid-90s.

She ended up going to her doctor, who diagnosed her with both fibromyalgia, and to go along with that, insomnia.

She was actually somewhat lucky to get diagnosed with fibromyalgia in the mid-90s, because at that time, a lot of doctors didn’t even believe that diagnosis, and dismissed it either as a person having depression, or just wanting attention. Now, we know better. And with a bad diagnosis, people with fibromyalgia either got a bad treatment, or no treatment whatsoever.

Pretty soon, the fibromyalgia started taking over Jacqui’s life:

• Some days, she had no energy, and was feeling lethargic almost all the time
• She stayed at home, and didn’t feel like going out and being social
• Simple household chores, like laundry and cooking became difficult
• Forget about exercise – she didn’t have the energy to do simple household chores, never mind expending energy at the gym
• Sometimes after a day when she did a bit extra, she “paid the price” the next 1-3 days, by pretty much just staying in bed, because it really knocked her out.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, fibromyalgia frequently comes along with insomnia, and sleep disturbances, which is a double whammy (it sometimes comes with psychiatric issues like anxiety and depression, but fortunately, that wasn’t the case for Jacqui). You’re tired and exhausted from the fibromyalgia, but you can’t sleep well. And you can’t sleep well, so you have even less energy.

What a vicious cycle. That’s been going on since the mid-90s.

WHAT JACQUI TRIED IN THE PAST TO HELP HER WITH THE FIBROMYALGIA

You can imagine that nobody wants to live this kind of life, so she’s tried a bunch of different things to help her with fibromyalgia, pain, and sleep:

• In her words, she’s gone to every clinic you can imagine. Eventually, around 2007, she found a pain clinic, that she’s been going to since, for monthly pain injections. Which helped, but only very slightly.
• Medications galore – from antidepressants, to insomnia medications (some real heavy artillery medications), and others.
• Supplements: the typical ones that are used for sleep – magnesium, melatonin, Valerian root, and others.
• Dietary changes

…and nothing really had a significant effect. The effects were somewhere between “maybe I feel something, but it’s not very pronounced” to “this doesn’t work at all.”

After over 25 years of this, she decided to try something she’s never really tried before in any serious way: exercise and personal training.

Of course, as a fibromyalgia sufferer, she had a lot of doubts and hesitations about exercise:

• What if I can’t do any exercise?
• What if I’m so sore, it’ll put me in bed for days?
• I just don’t know what to do once I’m in the gym. The only thing I’ve ever done is cardio.

She figured she’d be better off if she just started the right way to begin with. So she hired a personal trainer. Me

After reading my newsletters for a few months, she decided to give it a shot. She liked that personal training was well… personal. We don’t have a set “program” that every single client goes through, regardless of who they are. Each program is personalized to the client. The program is meant to fit the client. Not the other way around. The client isn’t meant to fit the program. We are “client-centric”, not “program-centric.”

JACQUI’S EXERCISE PROGRAM

After our initial assessment, where we gather information about Jacqui’s goals, injuries, medical conditions, medications, and more, I put together her exercise program.

The goals of exercise for folks with fibromyalgia are:

• Improve strength, so that the activities of daily living become easier
• Improve endurance, so that they can get more done in their day, without feeling tired the next day
• Decrease muscle pain and tender points
• Change the way they perceive physical exertion

…so we got to work.

An exercise program for someone with fibromyalgia is aimed at making their life outside the gym easier… as opposed to getting “gym strong” – you look strong in the gym, but when you step into the “real world”, the strength you built in the gym doesn’t carry over outside of that.

So we used exercises like:

• One-legged deadlifts, which make it easier to pick up objects off the ground (groceries, pets, furniture, etc.)
• Squats, which make it easier to get off chairs, couches, and well… the toilet
• Overhead presses, which make it easier to put objects in cupboards that are high up
• Seated rows, which make it easier to pull things (like opening doors, etc.)
• Incline pushups, which make it easier to push things (like when shoveling snow, mowing the lawn, etc.)
• Lat pulldowns, which strengthen the back muscles, as well as the arms
• Planks, side planks, and back extensions, which stabilize the spine and core, and make the back much less prone to “going out.”

But if you just read about the exercises, you’d miss the “secret sauce” of the exercise program – the progression model, and the workout-by-workout adjustments that we made based on her progress from the previous workout, energy/fatigue levels, injuries, and more. After all, no exercise program should be a static program, where you’re doing the same exercises for the same weights, sets and reps every single time. An exercise program should be dynamic, intelligently, purposefully, and systematically changing the exercise variables workout-by-workout to move the client forward… as opposed to haphazardly changing the program whenever you feel like it, without rhyme or reason… like a lot of personal trainers do.

At the end of every strength training session, we also do 11 minutes of cardio. How did we do it? We’d warm up for 2 minutes (a short warmup was needed, because she was already warm from strength training), followed by a 1-minute interval, at a speed that would elicit a pulse of 135-145 beats per minute (bpm) by the end of the minute.

Notice that I said the pulse, and not the actual speed in miles per hour. Why did I do that? Because speed is meaningless without knowing the physiological effect of that speed on Jacqui’s body. Furthermore, the speed that used to elicit that pulse after 6 weeks of cardio is not the same speed that used to elicit that pulse at the beginning of her program. As she got in better shape, we raised the speed, because her heart and lungs could handle it. And we used biometrics (her pulse) to figure out when is the appropriate time to raise the speed. We didn’t do it randomly.

After the 1-minute interval, we’d walk at a slower speed for 2 minutes, and then do 2 more intervals, followed by a 2-minute cooldown.

What was the purpose of doing cardio for Jacqui? To boost her capacity to do her activities of daily living (ADLs). If, hypothetically speaking, her maximum capacity is 10 “points”, and her ADLs took 8 points from her, they came pretty close to her maximal capacity. But if we could increase her maximum capacity from 10 to 15, and her ADLs still only take 8 points, that’s now only about half of her capacity. Which explains why she’s able to get so much more done in her day. From just 11 minutes of cardio, twice a week. But it was purposeful, targeted cardio. Not random cardio that pays no attention to the pulse and changes in pulse.

MENTAL/COGNITIVE EXERCISES WE DID WITH JACQUI

In addition to Jacqui’s physical training, I also have her doing mental/cognitive training.

There are many theories about the causes of fibromyalgia, like:

• The serotonin hypothesis: maybe there’s not enough serotonin in the brain
• The emotional trauma hypothesis: maybe emotional pain translates to physical pain
• The muscular glucose hypothesis: maybe there’s not enough sugar reaching the muscles
• The adrenal hypothesis: maybe there’s some sort of dysregulation with what’s called the HPA axis (for the geeks, that’s the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis)

You’ll notice a lot of “maybes”, and that’s partially because for one thing, there’s no certainty about any of these theories. That’s why they’re called theories. For another thing, it may be multi-factorial, so there may be more than 1 right answer.

But one thing that’s true for most people with fibromyalgia is that part of it is neurological (not to be confused with psychological).

There are certain neurological phenomena that happen in people with chronic pain that perpetuate the chronic pain cycle. One of those phenomena is called “central sensitization.” That’s an oversensitivity to stimuli that are not ordinarily painful. For instance, the feeling of silk on the skin isn’t painful to most people, but it could be painful to those with chronic pain.

There are multiple strategies for dealing with central sensitization. Doctors will often use medications (SSRIs), but since I can’t prescribe medications as a personal trainer, there are other effective strategies.

Here are some of the cognitive strategies that I used to help Jacqui with her pain:

STRATEGY 1: SENSORY/VERBAL TRAINING

Jacqui is hypervigilant of any sensations going on in her body. Even insignificant sensations. But each sensation worries her, and she had one word to describe all those sensations: pain. Though it really wasn’t pain that she was feeling. She just had no other words to represent or label those sensations that she was feeling. So part of her improvement came from improving her vocabulary.

When you lift weights, and your muscles start to burn, that’s the discomfort of exertion, as opposed to the pain of injury. Jacqui used the word “pain” for both of them. I gave her a couple of different words to use for the sensation she was feeling while lifting weights: burning (as in “my muscles are burning”) or pump (“I’m feeling the pump”).

Another time, she described the sensation of muscles contracting as stretching. I explained to her that what she’s feeling is not stretching. It’s actually the opposite. Contracting means shortening. It’s literally impossible for her to feel stretching while her muscles are contracting, and in a shortened position.

So I actually had her deliberately stretch the muscle that she thought was being stretched, and notice the difference in sensations between contracting and stretching.

We had to use the right label for the right sensation.

And every time she used the word “pain” or “hurt”, I ask her “is it really pain, or would another word be a more accurate representation of what you’re feeling?” Close to 100% of the time, she thinks about it for a few seconds, and re-labels her sensation. On a rare occasion, after thinking about it, it’s actually pain, in which case, we modify things. But the vast majority of the time, it’s not real pain. It’s a mislabeled sensation.

By changing her words, she changed how she felt pain.

STRATEGY 2: EXPLAINING THE NEUROLOGY OF CHRONIC PAIN

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She then started working with an instructor, and so far, after only six months, she’s:

• 16 pounds lighter
• Wearing clothes that are 4 dress sizes smaller
• Stronger – a lot stronger
• More energetic
• Getting tons of compliments from her coworkers.

How did she do all that? That’s exactly what we’ll cover in this article. We’ll go over things like:

• Naomi’s goals before she started working with us
• What she was doing before to help her reach her goals
• The exercise strategies we used with Naomi to literally double her strength in certain exercises
• The nutrition strategies that we used
• The “real life” challenges that we ran into along the way
• The results she achieved
• How her life is different now that she’s stronger, fitter and wearing smaller dress sizes

If you’d like to hear Naomi tell her own story, you can check out the video below.

Or, if you’re jealous of Naomi, and want to get similar results, we have a special program called “Fit Over 40.” If you want to see whether or not that program is for you, just head on over to our home page, and fill out the application form.

NAOMI’S LIFE BEFORE, AND HER GOALS

After Naomi had her second child, she felt great: strong and energetic. Fast forward a few years, and she had noticed that her weight was increasing, and her energy levels and strength were decreasing. She didn’t like that trend, so she decided to do something about it.

She started going to group fitness classes and bootcamps a few times per week. And while she was happy that she was being active, and engaging in some kind of physical activity, she just wasn’t seeing the fruits of her labour – no more muscle tone than before, no weight loss, no strength improvements.

So she decided to start going to the gym a few times on her own, and do her own routine… which didn’t work. She knew that she wasn’t using the equipment properly, but she didn’t really know what “properly” was.

Fast forward a few more years, and covid comes. Now there are lockdowns, and gyms are closed, but Naomi had a few pieces of equipment at home, so she started doing her own, at-home workouts… which didn’t work (are you noticing a pattern? ). In between lockdowns, when gyms were open, she didn’t feel comfortable going in the gym anyways.

Eventually, she has had enough with spinning her wheels (spending lots of time and effort on exercise, but not getting any more toned or losing weight). She had already been reading my newsletters for 3 years, and decided that maybe it’s time to get some professional help.

After chatting with me over the phone, she mentioned her goal was just toning. She never mentioned weight loss, though that was a nice side effect.

Anyways, after our phone chat, I decided to set her up with her trainer, Davin, who designed her exercise and nutrition programs that led to her incredible transformation.

THE EXERCISE STRATEGIES WE USED WITH NAOMI

As Naomi’s goal was to get toned, Davin had Naomi doing full body resistance training. The goal of strength training for a non-athlete is to make their life outside the “gym” easier. The goal is also not to spend as much time in the “gym” as possible, but rather, as little time in the gym as possible.

And that’s the reason that at first, Davin chose full body workouts – when 1 exercise works 2-3 muscles at the same time, you save a lot of time by not having to do 2-3 different exercises. And you don’t lose effectiveness either.

At first, the only equipment that Naomi had were 5 and 8-pound dumbbells. She outgrew those in about 2 weeks, and ended up buying a pair of adjustable dumbbells that went up to 52.5 pounds. Very nice!

After the first phase of full body workouts, Davin moved her on to a 4-day-a-week workout, where one day is lower body, and one day is upper body. Naomi would train with Davin twice per week, and do an additional 2 workouts on her own.

The reason that Davin moved on from full body workouts in phase 1 to dividing it into upper and lower body workouts is because as Naomi got more advanced, the different body parts needed a bit more focus than full body workouts can provide.

In phase 3 (where Davin and Naomi are right now), they went from 4 days per week, to 3 days per week, where the focus was no longer on body parts, but fundamental lifts. So day 1 was upper body (divided into bench press and rows), day 2 was oriented around deadlifts, and day 3 was oriented around squats.

Again, since the purpose of strength training for a non-athlete was to make life outside the gym easier, the goal behind deadlifts was to make it easier to pick stuff up off the ground (groceries, furniture, kids, etc.). After all, if you can deadlift over 100 pounds in training (or in Naomi’s case, around 160 lbs. as of her last workout), picking up 20 pounds of groceries feels like a feather.

The goal behind squats was to make lower body activities easier, like climbing stairs, and other recreational activities (skiing, walking, etc.).

That was the main focus. In addition to 1-2 major lifts for that day, Davin had Naomi doing “accessory work” – exercises that added strength to other muscles that weren’t the focus that day. The idea was to not interfere with the progress that the main exercise was making.

As for cardio, at first, there wasn’t any – and that’s by design. The more we dump on a person all at once, the less likely they are to stick with it in the long term. If we want exercise to become a lifelong habit, we have to start with baby steps.

After Davin saw Naomi making great progress, and being consistent with her strength training, he started adding in “cardio.” The reason that cardio is in quotation marks is because at first, he just asked Naomi to take the stairs more often at work, do a few extra stairs even if it wasn’t necessary, and walk like she’s angry/in a hurry.      None of these are real cardio in the traditional definition of the word. The intensity, duration and frequency were too low at first to actually have cardiovascular benefits.

But the goal at this point wasn’t cardiovascular benefits. The goal was compliance. The goal was to get Naomi to experience small successes. When you feel a bit of success, you want more success. If the goal of exercise is to get to a point where it’s a lifelong habit and not a chore, it needs to feel enjoyable. The way you make it enjoyable is making your client feel successful.

Once Davin saw that she was ready for it, he upped the ante. Now, he was getting Naomi to get on her elliptical once per week for 10-15 minutes, and go up and down stairs in her home 10-16 times (this typically took 7-10 minutes). While that’s still not exactly the duration that would provide cardiovascular benefits, it’s getting close. But again, the goal isn’t yet effectiveness. The goal is compliance. First worry about compliance and consistency. Then worry about effectiveness. First, just do it. Then, do it right.

THE NUTRITIONAL STRATEGIES WE USED WITH NAOMI

There are a million diets out there, and therefore, a million ways to lose weight. It’s our job to make the complex simple, and condense the mountains of information into the smallest bits relevant to the client in front of us.

And that’s what Davin did with Naomi.

At first, Davin started Naomi off with a simple template:

…..if you want to read the rest of this article, visit HOW NAOMI LOST 16 POUNDS, 4 DRESS SIZES, AND DOUBLED HER STRENGTH

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Fast forward a few months, and she’s achieved all that. How did she do it? That’s what we’ll talk about in this article.

We’re going to cover:

• What Deanna has tried in the past to help her reach her goals
• Why she decided to hire a personal trainer
• The exercise and nutrition strategies that her trainer used with her
• The bottom-line results she achieved
• How her life is different today that she’s curvier, stronger and more energetic.

If you’d like to hear all this straight from Deanna, you can check out her case study here

And if you also want a curvier body, we have a special program called “Build a Booty Program.” If you want to see whether you qualify for that program, just fill out the application form on our home page.

THE BACKGROUND

Deanna was no slouch. For years, she had been trying to get the curvy body that she saw on Instagram, but no luck. The 2 major things she’s tried are:

• Group fitness classes
• Exercise on her own

While the group fitness classes were both difficult and engaging, that difficulty didn’t translate to effectiveness. She sweated a lot, and breathed hard, but… her measurements didn’t change. She didn’t get any curvier.

With exercise on her own, she had problems with:

Consistency – she wouldn’t go to the gym consistently.

Effectiveness – when she was at the gym, she wasn’t totally sure whether what she was doing was correct and safe.

After spinning her wheels for a few years, she decided to take a more direct route – hire a personal trainer. I did a presentation at her mom’s workplace, so her mom had been a client of ours, so it was logical for Deanna to work with us as well.

To her, personal training solved the biggest problems with group fitness classes and working out on her own. Group fitness classes were difficult, but not effective.

• Listen – if she’s going to spend a considerable amount of time and energy exercising, she should get something out of it. Group fitness classes don’t tailor the class to each person’s individual goals. Personal training does. With personal training, the focus is on effectiveness – not difficulty. Difficulty may happen as a side effect of effectiveness, but we’re not chasing it directly.
• Accountability: that’s inherent with personal training, whereas when you’re exercising on your own or in group classes, no one is expecting you, so you can let yourself off the hook.
• Safety: Deanna wanted something that’s effective AND safe. Not something that’s effective, but her joints would pay the price later. She wanted to make sure she was doing everything properly, and her technique was good.

For those reasons, it made sense to her to hire one of my team members.

But that decision was not without hesitations. A lot of people have hesitations before they start personal training.

Deanna was hesitant about the price, and whether she’d get along with her trainer, and whether that trainer was competent to help her with her goals.

On the price side of things, personal training ain’t cheap (especially with us). But Deanna (wisely) thought about price as being not just about money. Something can cost you time and health. She figured if she paid money, she’d save time on doing ineffective things on her own. You can make another dollar. You can’t make another minute. What she was going to spend in money, she would save in time (and frustration). In a lot of respects, time is more valuable than money.

As for whether the trainer was competent to help her with her goals, let me just say this – Igor don’t hire no fools .

So after I did the initial assessment with Deanna, I set her up with her trainer. Her trainer’s name is also Deanna. Confusing, I know. So from this point forward, I’ll refer to the client as Deanna, and the trainer as Dee.

DEANNA’S EXERCISE STRATEGIES

Once Deanna was ready, Dee designed her exercise program, with the goal of making Deanna curvier.

But let’s translate something – what does it mean to be “curvier”? It’s the butt. All about the butt. It just means increasing the size of the gluteal muscles.

Here are some of the highlights from Deanna’s program:

Main Movements

The 2 main movements used were the hip thrust and banded abductions.

One common mistake that people make when trying to work their glutes for the purpose of size is not using all the functions of the glutes. The gluteus maximus has 3 functions:

Hip extension

External rotation of the thigh bone (femur)

Abduction (moving the legs out)

For folks who don’t know their anatomy, they may only use 1 movement – but they’re missing out on 2 other functions of the glutes, and therefore, on some muscle fibres that could stand to grow.

But Dee knows her anatomy, so she didn’t make this mistake.

INTENSITY VARIATIONS

If you just read the above exercises, and thought “that’s it! That’s the secret to a bigger booty – hip thrusts and banded abductions”, then you’d be only partially right. That’s only part of the secret.

As I talk about in my article on the most important factor in an exercise program, the exercises themselves are only the 4th most important variable. It’s not just the exercises – it’s how you do them.

So Dee had Deanna varying the number of repetitions (and therefore, also the weight) she was doing each workout. But not haphazardly in a “what do I feel like doing today” kind of way. Rather, it was in a systematic, thought-out plan.

One third of Deanna’s workouts used high reps (3 sets of over 20). One third of Deanna’s workouts used moderate reps (4 sets of 12-20 reps), and the last third of the workouts used lower reps (6-12 reps).

Why did Dee do it this way? For 2 reasons:

Different rep ranges and weights stimulate different muscle fibres. Lower reps stimulate fast-twitch muscle fibres. High reps stimulate the slow-twitch muscle fibres. Medium reps stimulate the in-between muscle fibres. If you want to maximize the growth of a muscle, you need to work all the muscle fibres. Different repetitions ranges have different benefits.

Different rep ranges induce different types of fatigue (yes, there are different types of fatigue, but that’s a story for another article). So while the fast twitch muscle fibres are recovering, the slow twitch fibres might be ready to go.

If I was to sum up the reason behind intensity variations, it would be “fatigue management”, and “maximal muscle fibre stimulation.”

SORENESS MONITORING

How does Dee know when to increase or decrease the number of sets and reps? Again, this isn’t random.

It’s based on soreness monitoring. Dee would ask Deanna about her levels of soreness. If at the beginning of the workout, the level of soreness was less than 3/10, she would add 1 set. If the level of soreness was between 3-8/10, she would add a few reps. If the level of soreness was more than 8/10 (which was rare), she would reduce the exercise by 1 set.

This is balancing safety with effectiveness, and avoiding burnout.

OTHER MOVEMENTS

While yes, the hip thrusts and banded abductions were the centerpiece of her program, there were other leg/thigh exercises, and upper body exercises.

Dee also added in single leg deadlifts, Bulgarian split squatsandgood mornings for the lower body, and a few other exercises for the upper body.

But only the hip thrusts and banded abductions were varied by their intensity/rep range, and employed soreness monitoring.

DEANNA’S NUTRITION STRATEGIES

...if you want to read the rest of this article, visit HOW DEANNA GREW A BIGGER BOOTY IN 5 MONTHS

The post How Deanna Developed a Bigger Booty in Five Months appeared first on PinkPlayMags.

• Hamstrings
• Glutes
• Back
• Hips
• Core
• and to a lesser extent, the traps

Although this move is generally seen as a no-brainer when it comes to whether or not you should do it, deadlifts may not actually be for everyone.

Maybe you’ve already tried picking some heavy weights up off the floor, and it didn’t work out quite as well as you hoped. Maybe you suffer from things like

• Joint pain
• Back pain
• Mobility issues
• Or you’re recovering from an injury

And you want to get into a workout routine, but you’re worried the deadlift might put you out of commission. Perhaps, you simply just don’t like it!

Well, fear not! There are a plethora of deadlift alternatives that you can do in place of the deadlift that are just as effective at targeting one, some, or all of those muscles.

In this article, I will be sharing a few of exercises that I think are the most effective deadlift alternatives, as well as:

• Exercises that can help strengthen the same muscles the deadlift strengthens
• The benefits of exercises that don’t put as much strain on the lower back
• Exercises that can improve coordination and balance
• Exercises if mobility is an issue
• Deadlift alternatives for a variety of pains such as the back, shoulders, knees, and general joint pain

And, I will also be discussing:

• When you should involve a professional
• Tips for avoiding injury when exercising
• Deadlift alternatives – the bottom line

But, before we get started, let me introduce myself! I’m Igor Klibanov. I am the proud author of 7 different books on exercise and nutrition, as well as a certified personal trainer. I work primarily with clients who have health problems such as osteoporosis, joint pain, high blood pressure, and diabetes, many of whom require alternatives to popular or common exercises such as the deadlift.

So, without further ado, let’s get started with our first topic:

EXERCISES THAT STRENGTHEN THE SAME MUSCLES AS THE DEADLIFT

If you’re here, you clearly would like to replace the deadlift with other exercises due to any of the reasons I listed above. In order to do that effectively, you need to know which exercises would actually be good deadlift alternatives, by knowing which ones work the same muscles.

To recap, the main muscle groups that the deadlift works are the hamstrings, glutes and lower back.

So, those exercises would be:

GOOD MORNINGS

Original source: here

This exercise is done with a barbell that rests on your traps, or just behind your shoulders. With the barbell in place and standing with your feet shoulder width apart, you then hinge forward from your hips, not your waist, keeping your knees ever so slightly bent and your back flat. Stop when you either feel a stretch in your hamstrings, or when you get to about 90 degrees, and then come back into standing position.

As you may be able to tell from that description, this move works almost the entire backside of your body. That being your hamstrings, glutes, and lower back muscles. Plus, they’re really good at replicating the hip-hinging that occurs during a deadlift. I wrote a full article on good mornings here, so I won’t go into too much detail in this article.

SINGLE LEG RDLS (ROMANIAN DEADLIFTS)

Original source: here

Similar to the popular Romanian deadlift, just done a little differently.

This exercise can be done with a dumbbell, or a kettlebell. Your starting position is standing with your feet shoulder-width apart and knees slightly bent, like with regular Romanian deadlifts. Raise a single leg off the floor. Then, keep your back arched as you hinge at the hips and lower your torso until it is almost parallel with the floor. You don’t want to go past parallel. Then, return to the starting position, and make sure you’re not pushing your hips forward when you do so.

This is a great move to replicate the resistance from the classic deadlift on your glutes, hamstrings, and entire posterior chain. These are also great if you want to keep the element of the hip-hinge seen in a traditional deadlift. And yes, I wrote an article about Romanian deadlifts as well. Here it is.

SQUATS

Original source: here

This move can be done with just body weight, dumbbells, or a barbell. I’ll describe how to do a barbell squat, as that is what’s most common.

First, you place the barbell behind you, resting it just above your shoulders. This should be on the muscles of your upper back. If you’re doing this at a rack then make sure to step backwards far enough away from the rack. If you’re nowhere near one, then don’t worry about that step. Then, make sure your feet are slightly wider than hip-width apart, and keep your feet flat.

When you’re ready, start moving down by bending at the hips. You’re trying to bring your butt towards your heels. Once you’ve reached as low as you can go (ideally below parallel), come back up to your starting position.

This is also a really popular move at the gym, and for good reason. It’s a great compound movement that works primarily your quads, glutes, and to a lesser extent, the hamstrings.

KETTLEBELL SWINGS

Original source: here

The kettlebell swing is done with a kettlebell, hence the name. First, lean down to pick up the kettlebell and while keeping your heels planted, push your hips back until your hands reach the handle. Then, you start your swing from behind you, in between your legs. End the swing at chest height while keeping your arms long and loose. Make sure not to push your hips forward as you reach the top, stand nice and straight. As the kettlebell starts to descend, shift your weight back into your heels and repeat. Remember to not use your arms or upper body for anything except keeping the kettlebell in your hands, as that will not help you work the desired muscles.

Kettlebell swings are a great alternative for deadlifts because they mainly target your glutes, hamstrings, and lower back muscles. These are also a fantastic exercise as part of a full body workout.

RACK PULLS

Original source: here

Rack pulls are essentially a conventional deadlift with a partial range of motion. They’re great at replicating the same movement pattern as a conventional deadlift.

To perform this, you’ll need a barbell and a power rack. First, set the height of your rack. The most popular positions tend to be just below the knee, just above it, or halfway up the thigh. The lower the height, the more your glutes and hamstrings will be in focus. The higher the height, the more your back will be used, so choose a height that aligns with whatever your abilities/goals are. When the rack is at the desired height and you’re standing with your feet shoulder width apart, place the bar on it and bend down as you hinge forward at the hips to grasp it. Then hold it with your palms in an overhand grip and your hands also shoulder-width apart. Then, as you pick up the bar, drive your hips forward and straighten your knees. Make sure you don’t make you don’t drive your hip forward too much, as you might lose control and be driven by the momentum of the barbell. Finally, reverse the movement to put the bar back on the rack and repeat.

Since rack pulls are quite similar to conventional barbell deadlifts, they work just about the same muscles such as the hamstrings, glutes, upper back, and your lower back. However, the lower back tends to be the primary muscle targeted with rack pulls. Since it’s very similar to the barbell deadlift, it replicates the hip hinging part of it quite well.

TRAP BAR DEADLIFTS

Original source: here

Another brother to the conventional deadlift that tends to work the same muscle groups as it, except you’re gonna need a special kind of bar called a trap bar (or hex bar) for this one. It’s shaped like a trapezoid (hence the name) and you stand inside of it.

To do a trap bar deadlift, start in a feet hip-width apart stance with toes pointed forward. If it helps, your feet should be aligned with the handles, and so should your shoulders. Hinge down to grab the barbell, and then lift it up off of the floor. At this point, you should pause at the top, your shoulders should be down, your pelvis neutral, and the load dispersed evenly throughout your body. Then, go back down and repeat as needed.

This is a great alternative to the deadlift due to the natural and upright position that can limit stress on your lumbar spine. It also helps beginners learn good form so they can move on to barbell deadlifts. In terms of muscles worked, you will find that this move targets your glutes and hamstrings. However, those looking to build their lower back might want to stay away from the trap bar for now, since it’s not the ideal candidate for that.

REVERSE HYPERS

Original source: here

Now, it’s very possible that you may not have heard of this exercise before, but let me tell you what it is and how you can supplement it for a deadlift.

For this exercise, you’ll need to use a special gym machine called a reverse hyper machine. To start, you’ll want to set yourself up at the machine by hooking your feet and putting your front hip crease against the edge of the pad. Flex your glutes to lift your legs up behind you, then let the weight go back down as you relax them. Make sure your legs are in line with your body when they’re lifted. You will also want to arch your back at the top, and then bring it back down in sync with your leg movement.

This move is great for those looking to decompress their spine, as well as build their back and glute strength.

In addition, all of these exercises will help you build your lower body strength and power, and are hip, elbow, wrist, neck, and abdominal pain friendly. They are also all great at working your posterior chain, and all work the same muscle groups as the traditional deadlift.

Phew! Now that we have all those out of the way, we have a good foundation for knowing which moves can help replicate which parts and muscle groups worked of the deadlift. If you want to hit all the muscles the deadlift hits, you will definitely be better off doing more than one of these to sort of ‘fill in the gaps’ that one exercise leaves in those muscle groups. For example, one exercise might work all the desired muscles except the hips, so you’re going to want to add another exercise to your roster that works your hips.

Now we can talk about:

SOME OF THE BENEFITS OF EXERCISES THAT DON’T PUT A LOT OF STRAIN ON THE LOWER BACK

Now this is a bit of a simple question to answer, at least on the surface.

Obviously, the greatest benefit is that they put less stress on your lower back! This can be very useful if your lower back tends to be a problem area for you, which it does tend to be for some people.

However, everything comes at a price, and the price for exercises not putting as much strain on your posterior chain is that you’ll tend to experience very little strengthening in that area. Of course, since that area will experience little to no strain or resistance, it’s very unlikely that you’ll get significantly stronger in that area over time.

Even though that might be a bit of a con, there is another benefit for those exercises, and that is that they tend to in turn put a greater emphasis on other muscles such as your quads, hamstrings and/or glutes. So, in a way, you’re almost compensating for the strength lost in your lower back by the strength gained in other muscles.

So even though you might be losing out on some lower back strength, you definitely won’t have to worry about your quads, hamstrings, or glutes being weak!

Now, maybe lower back pain isn’t your problem, and you’d rather know,

WHAT ARE SOME EXERCISES THAT CAN IMPROVE COORDINATION AND BALANCE

Balance and coordination can definitely be a problem, and even a roadblock for some people. You’ll need some pretty good balance for single-leg Romanian deadlifts.

However, not all is lost, and you’ll soon be able to improve your balance if you dedicate some time to improving the fundamental way you keep your balance and coordinate your body every day. I wrote an article on how to help you do that that can be found here.

So before you go attempting moves that you’re sure will have you ending up on the floor, you should work on improving your fundamental balancing and coordination skills, rather than putting them to the test and pushing through an exercise. Not only could this result in injury, but it could also compromise the proper form and effectiveness of the exercise you’re doing.

Perhaps you’ve already mastered the art of balance and coordination, and you’re facing another issue:

HOW TO EXERCISE IF MOBILITY IS AN ISSUE

….if you want to read the rest of this article, visit DEADLIFT ALTERNATIVES: WORK THE SAME MUSCLES, AVOID INJURIES

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In this article, I’ll cover everything you need to know about how to do a proper good morning workout, including:

• What is a good morning?
• Benefits of the good morning exercise
• How to do a good morning: proper technique/good form tips
• Avoiding injury
• How to incorporate good mornings into your workouts
• How many sets and reps?
• How much weight should you use?
• Alternatives to good mornings
• What if you don’t have enough mobility to perform good mornings?

Before we jump in, you’re probably wondering what qualifies me to talk about good mornings and exercise tips, so I’d like to introduce myself. Hi.

I’m Igor.

I am a 7-time author on fitness and nutrition, including the book Run Faster, Jump Higher, Go Farther. I am also a personal trainer and have been selected as one of the top 5 personal trainers in Toronto, Ontario.

Now that you know a bit more about me, let’s jump in.

WHAT IS A GOOD MORNING? 

A good morning is an exercise for your lower back, hamstrings and glutes. In a good morning, a bar is placed on your upper back. With it on your back, you push your hips back to bend forward (as close to 90 degrees as you can), and then return to your starting position. Simple.

BENEFITS OF THE GOOD MORNING EXERCISE 

Good mornings are a great exercise because they work a lot of important muscles all over your body. Basically, the more muscles they work, the more benefits it has such as:

• Strengthening your lower back muscles, as well as your glutes and hamstrings. In other words, it will help you develop a strong posterior chain.
• It’s a compound movement/exercise (compound movements/exercises are exercises that work
  multiple muscle groups at once). This means it is a great use of time (since you are working several muscles at once) and is also very effective, as it works muscle groups throughout your whole body.
• Preventing lower back pain by learning the difference between spinal motion and hip motion
• Act as a good carryover to deadlifts(great if you like to deadlift)
• Improves your hip mobility as well as your hamstring flexibility. Great for overall hamstring development.

HOW TO DO A GOOD MORNING: PROPER TECHNIQUE/GOOD FORM TIPS 

There are a few ways that you can approach the good morning exercise, but here are the steps for how to do the most common and proper form (and avoid poor positioning):

• Set up the bar to be about mid-upper chest height
• Set up the pins in the squat rack to be about waist height

• Before getting under the bar, squeeze the shoulder blades together, to create a “shelf” of muscle.
• While maintaining this upper back “shelf”, get under the bar, and place it on the upper back (make sure you don’t place it on your neck).

• With the feet shoulder-width apart, bend forward by moving your hips backward until the bar touches the pins (make sure to maintain a straight/neutral spine, not to put all your weight on one leg, and keep your core engaged).

• Return to starting position
• Repeat

AVOIDING INJURY 

Many people often ask themselves: “are good mornings bad for me?” or “are good mornings dangerous?” The answer is no, if you do them right. Thus, when it comes to a strength training exercise like a good morning, it’s really important for you to know how to avoid getting injured, since the risk can be relatively high if you do it wrong (and low if you do it right). Here are a few easy tips you should use to prevent/avoid injury:

If you want to read the rest of this article, visit: GOOD MORNING WORKOUT: HOW-TO, ALTERNATIVES, AND PROGRESSIONS

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Lourens and I started working about 3 months ago. He was no stranger to physical activity and exercise: he had an in-person personal trainer for some time a decade or so ago, and even after that, he would regularly go to the gym by himself. Lately however, his lifestyle was on a slightly more sedentary side, which took a toll on his well-being:

• His energy levels slumped
• Chronic low back pain plagued his days
• He became unhappy about the weight he was gaining around his midsection.

And these are simply the results of his job change. Never mind the issues that he had going on for a long time. One of the biggest ones is frequent headaches – at times so bad they would decommission him for a whole day! These have been going on since he was a kid.

Oh and did I mention terrible sleep?

In this article, you will learn:

• What his life was like before he started working with us
• What he’s tried before to help him with the weight loss and headaches
• The programs I used with him to help him improve, along with the thought process behind them, and the results
• How his life is different now

WHAT HIS LIFE WAS LIKE BEFORE HE STARTED WORKING WITH US

If you’re wondering about the name, it’s South African. That’s where Lourens is from. He came to Canada in 2013.

Just before he came to Canada, he was working with a personal trainer in South Africa. After arriving in Canada, he’s tried a few different things, like Crossfit, just going to the gym, and so on.

But even when he was in good shape, he was getting headaches and migraines. Very severe ones. Since he was a kid. They came every 2-3 days, and sometimes so bad, he had to take days off work.

He pretty much thought this was his entire life, so he just “learned to live with them.”

Once COVID hit, his regular workouts were halted (for obvious reasons), and he started to:

• Feel depressed
• His clothes weren’t fitting well. This isn’t great for anyone, but especially for Lourens since he came from a fashion background.
• Get lower back pain, as he changed jobs, and became more sedentary.
• Not sleep well.
• Because he wasn’t sleeping well, he started getting up at night to eat… which perpetuated the problem of his clothes not fitting him.

All in all, he wasn’t enjoying every day, and even mentioned that he’s starting to feel his age (50).

He didn’t like where that was going.

WHAT LOURENS HAS TRIED BEFORE

There are a bunch of things that Lourens has tried before working with us:

• Crossfit – a very intense and potentially injurious type of workout
• Going to the gym and doing his workouts on his own
• As far as the headaches are concerned, he’s been to a bunch of  migraine clinics over his life, without much relief.

Eventually, he came across a presentation that Igor was doing, he did an assessment with Igor, and then got partnered up with me

Although it wasn’t totally that simple. Lourens did have certain hesitations about starting to work with an online personal trainer.

After all, I live in BC, and Lourens is in Ontario.

One of his hesitations was whether he could get results through a camera. And another one is whether he would get along with the trainer.

As you can guess from the fact that you’re reading this success story, the answers were “yes” and “yes.”

Even before the pandemic, I was doing some online personal training, and learned that the keys to making it work are twofold:

1. The right camera angles.
2. Precision with verbal instructions.

LOURENS’ GOALS

Based on his situation, you can figure out Lourens’ goals:

• He wanted to lose the weight that he’d gained – he missed wearing fitted shirts.
• He wanted to sleep better.
• He wanted to get rid of lower back pain.

He had pretty much given up on the migraines and headaches, since he thought that that’s just something he lives with, since those have been there his entire life. So that wasn’t even a goal of his.

THE PROGRAMS I USED WITH LOURENS

MONTH 1

Every time I start coaching a new person, my goal is to show them a positive result as soon as physiologically possible.

Most of the fitness objectives we work with take some time (like body composition changes), but if we can boost a client’s daily energy levels or reduce pains, that should boost that person’s motivation, compliance, and most importantly have trust in the program.

Improvement in energy levels and pain relief is a much faster process than fat loss. With fat loss, it’s about 1-2 pounds per week. So if someone wants to lose 20 pounds, that’s a 10-20 week process. Improvement in energy levels can happen in 1-2 weeks. Pain relief can be anywhere from a few days to 1-2 weeks (maybe not complete pain elimination, but certainly relief).

Just like so many people before, Lourens was a bit apprehensive at starting to work with a trainer, especially in an online format that was new to him. I wanted to make sure he felt comfortable that he made the right decision for himself and has faith in the process.

TRAINING

From his initial movement assessment, I determined that we needed to strengthen Lourens’ posterior chain: glutes, hamstrings, lower back.

There was an imbalance in hip strength between his right and left sides, and that will create uneven forces around the hips and lower back. So his hips needed to rebalance their strength each side independently as well, before adding bilateral exercises to his program.

Overall he has developed what we call Lower Cross Syndrome (or what I personally call the “desk job syndrome”): tight hip flexors and low back muscles coupled with weak abs and glutes.

Give it enough time, and it’ll manifest in discomfort or even a dull pain in the lower back, and that’s what I suspected was bothering Lourens.

His warm up consisted of mobility exercises to release his hip flexors, activate glutes and abs, and improve the range of motion in his back and chest.

Here’s an example of one of his first training phase programs:

VMO (vastus medialis) Split Squats

Pushups

Prone Cobra

Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts

Lateral Raises (dumbbell, resistance band)

Side Bridges

Originally he started at 2 sets of 10-12 reps for most of the exercises with 1 min of rest in between, but quickly progressed and by the end of the first month he’d be doing up to 4 sets with 45 seconds of rest in between the exercises, performed as a circuit.

NUTRITION/LIFESTYLE

For Lourens’s diet, my goal was to introduce a nutritional foundation by having a balanced plate of protein, vegetables, carbohydrates and fats, but also to see if we can reduce his headaches.

As a person who grew up with frequent headaches myself, I had a few ideas how I can help him out.

There are many causes for headaches and migraines, and not all of them are well understood by science. Common causes would be constricted blood vessels, chemical change in the brain and muscle tension, and those can be caused by:

• High blood pressure
• Dehydration
• Muscle imbalance
• Low blood sugar or long time without food
• Toxicity
• Vitamin deficiency
• Lack of sleep
• Lack of activity/movement
• People just pissing you off [that was Igor’s edit to this article]

As you can see, it can be anything. So I started him with the basic morning routine:

If you want to read the rest of this article, visit: How Lourens Lost 12 Lbs., And Got Rid Of Lifelong Headaches In 3 Months

If you’d like to see and hear Lourens tell his own story, he does so in a detailed 21-minute interview.

If you’d like to go through the same program as Lourens, but tailored to your body, just fill out the application form on our home page.

The post How Lourens Lost 12 Lbs., And Got Rid Of Lifelong Headaches In 3 Months appeared first on PinkPlayMags.

On the one hand, you don’t want to go under the knife, but on the other, the pain may be tolerable now, but in a few years, you may be a candidate for that surgery, and at that point, the pain may be much worse.

What to do?

That’s what we’ll talk about in this article: exercise for osteoarthritis (both physical and mental).

But first, a little background:

A lot of our clients have OA, so we already had a pretty successful program for OA, with lots of success stories, like Carole, Pat, Anne, and others.

But because of the sheer number of clients that we see with OA, I’m never really satisfied with just “good enough.” The standard recommendation is to just do low impact exercises. And while they avoid making OA worse, they don’t really make it better. I want to know the best possible thing you can do in the shortest period of time.

This led me to hire a scientific researcher to do a very comprehensive review of the science that exists out there that would help my team and I help our clients with OA. He just had one rule: he could only look at scientific/medical journals on this. He couldn’t read mainstream books, he couldn’t read magazines, and he couldn’t watch Youtube videos. These had to be scientific/medical journals.

After a month of research, he came up with pretty much the most comprehensive set of strategies when it comes to dealing with osteoarthritis that are available to a personal trainer (exercise, nutrition and supplements).

It came up to 24 pages of notes, but I won’t make you read all 24 pages. Here, I’ll give you the bullet points – both what we know, as well as what we don’t know (which is important to acknowledge for the sake of scientific and intellectual honesty).

To say that I’m excited about what this research means for our clients with OA would be an understatement. We already had a successful OA program, but with what my team and I have learned from this research, this really supercharges the results that we can get with our arthritic clients. It allows us to write a much better exercise program for any given client. If you want help with your own arthritis, we have created a brand new program, called “Joyous Joints.”

Without further ado, here are some of the most interesting notes from the entire research:

PREDISPOSITION TO OSTEOARTHRITIS

• What are some of the biggest risk factors for osteoarthritis?
• Obesity: this one’s obvious just because there’s more weight compressing the joints
• Knee alignment. According to one study, a valgus knee alignment (being bowlegged) increases the risk of OA
• Sex: women have a 70% higher chance of having OA compared to men, according to this study.
• Job: if your job involves repeated bending you’re at a higher risk of OA.

HOW TO EXERCISE FOR OSTEOARTHRITIS

The “big 4” categories of exercise for arthritis:

STRENGTH TRAINING 

This is pretty much what’s been recommended for OA forever. You ask any physical therapist what to do with osteoarthritis, and the first thing that they’ll tell you is that strength exercise can help with OA by improving muscle strength. And they’re right. But in my opinion, there’s a right way to strength train, and a wrong way to strength train for OA. The wrong way: strengthening exercises for all muscles indiscriminately. The right way: identify which muscles are too weak relative to their opposite muscles (quadriceps and hamstrings; hip flexors and glutes, etc.), and only increase muscle strength in those that are weak. Don’t increase the muscle strength in muscles that are already too strong/dominant, until you’ve brought the ratio back to a more desirable ratio. To identify weak muscles, it’s important to assess, because (say it with me) if you’re not assessing, you are guessing.

Yes, strengthening exercises help, but only if you do them properly. Doing them properly means to strengthen the muscles that are too weak.

And if you want to learn how to strengthen the muscles that are too weak, just check them out on Youtube.

STRETCHING 

One study found stretching to be effective for OA by improving range of motion and decreasing pain. Makes sense, because stretching IS range of motion exercises. Another study found that stretching exercises help to reduce pain by 15.6% in 80 days. Pain was assessed using a questionnaire.

As for which range of motion exercises you should do to help relieve pain in the affected joints really varies joint by joint. But all you have to do is simply go on Google or Youtube and search for “stretches/range of motion exercises for…” followed by the affected joint.

PROPRIOCEPTIVE TRAINING 

You’ve heard of strength training and you’ve heard of stretching. But I’ll bet you’ve never heard of proprioceptive exercises. Just what are those? Proprioceptive exercises are ones that enhance your sense of joint position. An example of a proprioceptive exercise for the knee is to stand on one leg, and pick up something off the ground. That’s one example. There are many other proprioceptive exercises.

• In one study, one group did proprioceptive exercises for 8 weeks, and one group was the control group (they didn’t exercise). After that 8-week period, the joint pain of the proprioceptive group decreased by 53%. In the control group, their pain increased a little bit.
• In another study, participants were divided into 2 groups. The first group just did strength training. The second group did strength training plus proprioceptive exercises. After 8 weeks, the group that did strength training plus proprioceptive exercises had less pain, compared to the strength training-only group, as well as greater improvements in other parameters of function.

TRACTION

What is traction? Traction is gently pulling apart 2 bones from each other. For instance, if the arthritis is in the knee, it’s pulling apart the shin bone and thigh bone. If the arthritis is in the hip, it’s pulling apart the thigh bone from the hip bone/pelvis, etc. This part of the research had me most excited, because of all the exercise methods, this one is the fastest way to help relieve pain in the affected joints.

• In one study, participants were divided into 2 groups. The first group received standard physiotherapy treatment: superficial heat therapy, deep heat therapy, and electric therapy. The second received the same treatment as group 1, but with 20 minutes of traction added to it (the level of tension of the traction exercise was 6% of the participants’ body weight, and it was held for 20 minutes). In the second group, they found that:
• The average joint space went from 2.7 mm to 3.6 mm.
• The minimum joint space went from 1.0 mm, up to 1.9 mm.
• The cartilage thickness improved from 2.4 to 3.0 mm
• Type II collagen increased in the joint space.
• What do all these numbers mean?

If you want to read the rest of this article, visit: Exercise for Osteoarthritis: Strength Training, Stretching, And 2 Surprising Exercises

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