Finals week. The week where time doesn’t exist. The only thing present in a college student’s mind during the last few weeks of school are the insurmountable emotions of anxiety and pressure to complete a ten-thousand-word essay, solving of timed calculus equations, and a few in-class presentations in front of peers enduring the same mental …
Category: Back Pain Napa
Feb 01
Healthy Diet: Processed or The “Real Deal?”
In a world where nutritionists, exercise physiologists, and award-winning biologists have filled our archives of knowledge with countless amounts of valuable dietary and food documents to refer to. It’s challenging to know what decisions to make on choosing foods that best support our quality of life. Scientists have proven that diets consisting predominantly of red …
Jan 24
Gardening and fitness
“Warm-up, proceed to strength training, and then venture to the cardio equipment. Finish up by performing a brief bout of regeneration and restorative working.” During my first days of working at a large local gym, we handed out forms to new gym members containing these instructions as a welcome gift. Each member received two complimentary …
Jan 14
Exercise your way out of stress
“What are the top three stressors throughout your day?” This is a question we include in our introductory paperwork we encourage our new personal training clients to complete. Not only is this topic a great way to develop a productive and growth mindset oriented in an interpersonal coaching relationship, but this also offers valuable information …
Jan 02
Best times to eat
“Weight loss is made in the kitchen, not the treadmill.” I overheard this comment during the start of my personal training career while working at a local gym many moons ago. To a degree, this was an accurate statement. The context of this conversation referred to the logic of consuming foods aiding weight loss by …
Dec 23
Appreciating your shoulders
Throughout our careers, we reserve days of tribute to pay homage to a person or group of people who have positively impacted our lives. Teacher appreciation day, staff appreciation day, Veteran’s day, Mother’s day, and Father’s day. These are residing in our calendar to give thanks to our parents, veterans of the military who risked …
Dec 16
Keep Picking Things Up!
If I were in a room full of thirty-year-old humans and asked the question: “Does anyone’s back hurt?”, at least half of the room would raise their hand. A mentor I followed in my years as a student in the physical therapy field once told me, “Anyone past the age of thirty is diagnosed with …
Dec 10
Stop Light Exercises
Hours at the computer desk tinkering on your keyboard and mousepad. Attending class while listening and take notes at a lecture. Catching up on phone calls and texts at home. Conversations at the coffee shop or on lunch break. These activities are usually followed by a trip to our automobile where we sit down and …
Dec 02
From the ground up
Diving to keep volleyballs from touching the ground; popping upright after sliding to kick out a soccer ball away from an opposing player; springing up off the ground after diving for an infield ground ball and gunning the ball to first base to throw out a runner booking it to first base; in high school, …
Nov 27
Grip strength as we age
Opening jars, turning a set of keys to the deadbolt to our homes, or just picking up bulky items throughout our day; hand movements make our lives functional. The unique organization of fingers and thumbs at the end of our arms gifts us the ability to type, use our phones, drive, and make food. Opposable …