Running is a popular activity; it’s great for your cardiovascular system, but can put a lot of stress on your joints. It’s a repetitive stress due to the long duration; this fatigues muscles and leaves you more prone to injury or pain.

There are a number of reasons why your back hurts after you run, one being, long duration. Others include; disc injury, vertebral fractures or sciatica. The latter are more serious that might effect a small number of the population. In this blog you’ll learn about common problems I find in people that are much more simple to overcome.

• Hip trigger points
• Poor core stability
• Poor core strength
• Training plan

Hip trigger points

Trigger points are small knots in muscles that cause pain elsewhere in the body. Trigger point in your hip can cause pain in your low-back, buttocks and legs.

Causes

Trigger points are caused by muscle injury or overuse, which harks back to the long duration of running. As a general rule I find the glutei medius...

Online training has an advantage over face to face coaching because gives you the opportunity to learn about you. I’ve taught PT’s full-time in the classroom and I’ve taught blended weekend courses. In my experience during full-time courses the student relies more on the tutor, but blended courses encourage the student to work more independently. They also tend to answer their own questions, learn for themselves and ask for confirmation from the tutor and online training offers you this.  

The role of trainers, coaches and therapists

It’s the same story with with PT clients I work with daily, many seek a trainer, coach or therapist to fix them, but only you can fix you. Trainers, coaches or therapists should be facilitators to you fixing you. Online training allows you to think for yourself and gain empowerment of your physical health and fitness.

Teaching, Learning, Education

Teaching basically means to share and to educate is to lead out. If...

A foam roller is becoming an essential piece of kit when it comes to exercise. They can benefit you in many ways, such as reducing muscle tightness, increasing your range of movement and making muscles more supple. As their popularity grows, more are being released into the market. With more choice you can become unclear, which is the best for you?

In this blog you’ll learn…

1. What foam rollers do
2. When do you use a foam roller?
3. About different types of foam roller
4. What effects they can have on your body?

What do foam rollers do?

Foam rollers are a form of self-massage. You apply pressure to a tight area and the movement over the muscle begins to release the muscles tension. As the muscle tension is released your muscles begin to function better, reduce risk of injury and perform better.

When do you use a foam roller?

From the perspective of a workout, it’s good to use a foam roller before a workout because your muscles function better after their use. You can also...

To strengthen your stomach muscles and not wreck your spine means not using traditional exercises like; sit ups and crunches because your core is made in a way that these exercises ineffective. The exercises that strengthen your stomach muscles without wrecking your spine make your stomach muscles contract together.

For more detail about this please watch the tutorial above

4 of the best core exercises to get you started are;

• Plank
• Side Plank
• Shoulder Bridge
• Bird Dog

There are 3 reasons why these exercises are important;

• The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
• Hoop stress
• Muscles are divided into sections with tendons and fascia

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

Many people think a strong muscles makes a strong core, but this is incorrect. Each of these exercises make multiple core muscles contract at the same time. It’s this that makes your stomach muscles stronger.

Hoop Stress

Your core is one unit and muscles are divided into separate units. Imagine...

Online training is a powerful tool that can help you get more from exercise than seeing someone face to face. Possibly a bold statement, but I believe it’s true because you take ownership. Don’t get me wrong, seeing professional face-to-face is valuable. I am one and I know the value people get from seeing me.

However, online training offers you some things you might not have thought about. Below are 7 benefits you gain from one of my online training courses. Please watch the tutorial above for more clarification.

1. You learn how to overcome low-back pain
2. You learn about your body and how it works
3. You learn about your low-back pain
4. You learn more from the course/program
5. You can learn at your pace
6. You don’t become dependent on a Trainer or Physio
7. You become empowered

All 7 of these benefits encourage you to grow, expand your knowledge and skill set. When people work with me face-to-face my goal is to make them independent because that’s where the value is.

If...

Why does my back hurt? Is a common question I’m asked and they want a simple answer with a quick remedy. Unfortunately the answer is rarely simple and there isn’t a quick remedy.

Low Back Pain

Most low back pain is a build up of small “injuries” that go under the radar until they hit a critical mass. As they reach this point they you feel pain but before you thought you were fully fit.

The basic causes of these small “injuries” are small incorrect movements and too little recovery to match your exercise. Your body is working in deficit and not able to catch up and therefore it’ll eventually “fail”

Why does my back hurt? The answer

The first part of the answer is more questions. As a professional I need to find out more about your activities to find out your shortfall. As your shortfall exposes itself you can begin to fill in the gaps. In the video above you’ll what questions to ask to uncover where your lower back pain...

Why does my back hurt? Is a common question I’m asked and they want a simple answer with a quick remedy. Unfortunately the answer is rarely simple and there isn’t a quick remedy.

Low Back Pain

Most low back pain is a build up of small “injuries” that go under the radar until they hit a critical mass. As they reach this point they you feel pain but before you thought you were fully fit.

The basic causes of these small “injuries” are small incorrect movements and too little recovery to match your exercise. Your body is working in deficit and not able to catch up and therefore it’ll eventually “fail”

Why does my back hurt? The answer

The first part of the answer is more questions. As a professional I need to find out more about your activities to find out your shortfall. As your shortfall exposes itself you can begin to fill in the gaps. In the video above you’ll what questions to ask to uncover where your lower back pain...

Exercises for Lumbar Lordosis are simple but not always easy. They need to fulfill a specific criteria and given time. As you know lumbar Lordosis is a condition of the low back. It exaggerates the curve of your spine and comes with muscles imbalances.

Basic signs of Lordosis

Without being scientific, Lordosis commonly protrudes the abdomen and buttocks. A secondary effect can point your knees and toes inward. A tertiary effect can be a rounded upper back. Lumbar Lordosis doesn’t have to include all of these but there could be a combination.

Lordosis Treatment

It’s best to be guided by your combination of basic sign of Lordosis. This will help you select the right stretches and exercises. The primary signs of protruding abdomen and buttocks is the subject of this blog.

Do you want to correct your Lordosis? Click Here to to start my How to Correct Lordosis 12-Week Online Program

Stretches for Lumbar Lordosis

Target the tight muscles of the hip. Stretch in 20s intervals...

Core strengthening exercises follow a particular formula and in this tutorial I’ll help you recognize it. Common exercises people believe to strengthen their core are sit-ups, crunches, back extensions and so on. These exercises might strengthen a muscle but it doesn’t mean they’ll strengthen your core.

Common Core Exercises

These exercises do a few things that will eventually reduce your core strength;

1. They produce movement at the spine
2. They use your spines full range of movement
3. They focus on single muscles

These 3 ingredients are a recipe for injury and something to avoid. That’s not to say your never going to move from your spine or use it’s full range of movement. Everyday life will require it at some point but to proactively do it using exercise is a poor choice. Your speeding up the injury process and making it harder to overcome problems like low-back pain.

Core Strengthening Exercises

You’re better off following these 6 important...

Lower back exercises aren’t what you think they are. Many of them can make your back pain worse without you knowing it. The exercises that make it worse are the more popular and common ones.

Back Extension Exercise

Back extensions are a popular exercise used in rehabilitation but a poor choice because of the high compression put on the spine.  This force comes from muscle contraction around the spine. It can’t be eliminated but it can be reduced.  There are many variations of the back extension. Whether your goal is to overcome back pain or core training all of them should be removed from your workout.

Lower Back Exercises

To overcome low-back pain or increase core fitness these exercises should challenge lower back muscles but reduce compression on the spine. Quality lower back exercise should also focus on the muscles of the hip and override the hamstring muscles.

If you want to find more about these exercises please watch the tutorial above. You’ll...