Four Advantages to Ditching the Straight Bar

1) Better Core Stability, Less Lower Back, Hip & Knee Stress For starters, the safety bar sits a bit higher than a standard bar and the camber pushes you forward, forcing you to fight to stay upright. Therefore, you will be a bit more upright than a high-bar squat and a lot more upright than a low-bar squat. Generally speaking, the more upright your torso is, the less pressure is placed on your lower back. And with the safety bar, the pressure will be displaced more towards your glutes and quads without putting your lower back in a tough spot.

Read More

Ice or Heat?

It’s the classic question.  Something hurts, should I ice it or heat it? Here are some simple ideas to keep in mind to help you make the right choice. If it is a ‘new’ or sudden injury, you will want to ice. If you are treating a long standing injury and or trying to warm up your muscles before your workout/race/game you will want to heat. ICE Ice constricts the blood cells around the damaged area and reduces the flow/amount of blood to the injured muscle. HEAT Heat dilates the blood cells around the damaged area and increases the flow/amount of

Read More

Sleep, Rest & Recovery – What’s The Difference?

Sleep, Rest, Recovery - What's The Difference? By Evan LaBarre, CSC Personal Trainer

Within the realm of exercise and fitness these words and ideas get used interchangeably. So let’s take a quick moment to clarify. SLEEP While we all know what actual sleep is, to be clear rest and recovery are both occurring while we are sleeping. REST Rest is simply not being active or reducing our level of activity. Resting between sets of a strength trainingworkout would be short term rest, sleeping at night is an example of a nightly rest cycle. RECOVERY This describes the actual physical anatomical rebuilding and refueling process that take place while at rest and when while

Read More

Why Walking is Wonderful

Why walking is so wonderful by CSC Personal Trainer Andy Konz

Walking is one of the most overlooked activities you can do to ensure your stress is in check and progress keeps humming along at a good pace. Intense exercise and dieting are both stressors. When added to an already stressful life, this can keep cortisol elevated, causing the body to revolt, thereby making the fat loss more difficult. Adding in lots of slow, leisurely walking will help negate the effects stress and elevated cortisol can have on the body, like fat storage, muscle loss, and sleep disturbances. Walking also increases blood flow to the muscles, which will aid in recovery

Read More

Is breakfast the most important meal of the day?

What should I eat for breakfast by CSC Trainer, Tom Nyilis

It’s a fair enough question and like so many things with nutrition it is a complex one and different for different people. Here is MY personal take on the question. YES, breakfast is the most important meal of the day and a healthy habit for long term health, weight management, athletic performance and cognitive thinking. For example, one 2021 systematic review of 14 observational studies found that those who eat breakfast seven times per week have a reduced risk for: Heart diseaseDiabetesObesityHigh blood pressureStrokeAbdominal obesityCardiovascular-related deathElevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol Weight management---by having breakfast you have more control of your

Read More