Falls are the second-leading cause of unintentional injury deaths worldwide, with people over 60 suffering the highest number. While balance impacts both our longevity and our quality of life, it’s an often-neglected skill. A 2022 study by a team of Brazilian researchers found that 20 percent of the 1,700 older adults they tested couldn’t balance…
Getting clients to train their glutes is pretty easy—after all, everyone wants their butt to look good. But as trainers and instructors, we have an underlying agenda. We know that teaching clients to “recruit the glute” will not only help them produce more power, but will also improve how they move. In fact, strong glutes…
Balance is a vital component of health and physical performance and is essential for activities of daily living like climbing stairs or carrying heavy loads. Balance also improves athletic performance, allowing athletes to move and transfer energy more efficiently. Balance is especially important for older adults hoping to reduce the risk of falls and injuries….
While balance has not traditionally been included in the four major components of health-related fitness—aerobic fitness, muscular fitness, flexibility and body composition—research confirms that both static and dynamic balance play a critical role in keeping us active and injury-free. Static balance is the ability to stand in place on one leg without creating undo biomechanical…
In common usage, “mobility training” has come to mean what “flexibility training” once meant for many of our clients. Whatever we are calling it, it’s a good idea to examine two joints essential for movement. Mobility Gatekeepers: Hips and Shoulders The hips and shoulders provide the most potential mobility in all three planes of movement…
The research is clear—incorporating movement into the workday can positively impact employee health and a company’s bottom line. If you knew employees would be happier, healthier and more productive during the workday if they were more active, wouldn’t you want to get them up and moving? Of course! Savvy, health-minded companies offer onsite workouts like…
There are three components of exercise: resistance training, flexibility (actually, it’s more appropriate to call it “mobility,” but that’s a subject for another blog on another day) and cardiorespiratory training. Resistance-training exercises help improve both muscle strength, which can elevate resting metabolism (the number of calories burned while at rest), and functional performance in a…
ON A WARM September afternoon in subarctic Finland, the architect Laura Mattila kneels in the grass beside a sauna that she and Mikko Merz, her 49-year-old partner in life and work, built eight years ago in the factory town turned artists’ colony of Fiskars, an hour’s drive west from Helsinki. Mattila, 40, doesn’t mention the…
Fifteen years ago, seeking reconnection and to fuel our flames in the bedroom, my husband and I ditched our three kids for a weekend-long couples’ retreat called “Better Communication, Better Sex,” at the Miraval Arizona Resort & Spa in Tucson, Ariz. There were separate workshops for women and men, a detailed anatomy review, exercises to…
