Resistance bands come in many colors, materials, thicknesses, and shapes. Bands can be made of elastic fabric, flat latex, latex tubing with a handle, or the long, thick loops used to assist with difficult exercises in CrossFit.  While bands can be useful for building strength, they are also portable and

Resistance band bars are a type of resistance bands that blend the benefits of elastic training with the firm grip of a barbell. They provide support and stability in the range of motion that sometimes engages more muscles than free weights. You can use them for exercises that are hard

Ket takeaways Lactate is not an end product or waste product) of metabolism. Lactate has now been shown to be able to directly enter the mitochondria—it does not first have to be converted to pyruvate. Lactate does not cause fatigue for many people. Lactate does not cause pain. Lactate is

Dance physical therapy is where a physical therapist treats a dancer’s injuries and helps to improve their performance mostly with exercise and movement. They evaluate the nature of an injury and monitor the progress of their recovery, much like almost any athlete. But don’t get this confused with “dance therapy.” 

Although we still have a lot to learn about how muscles contract, we do understand the basics of how the nervous system initiates a series of actions that contract a muscle. What about muscle movements we don’t consciously decide to make, like breathing, digestion, and heartbeats? And what about muscle

A cooldown is any recovery method that is supposed to help transition your body back to its pre-exercise state. Many people believe that a cooldown has many benefits, such as removing metabolic waste faster, reducing the risk of injuries, improving next-day athletic performance, and reducing muscle soreness and muscle tightness. 

If you have been to a gym in the past decade, you have inevitably seen foam rolling. Foam rollers have evolved from long white cylinders to brightly colored tubes that vary in texture, density and length. The list of proposed benefits of foam rolling is long. Gaiam, one of the

I remember a client from a few years ago who told me that he had chronic hip pain and low back pain for almost a year, and his physical therapist had told him that it’s likely because his left leg is “longer” than the other leg. His previous massage therapist attempted

Hyperbolic Stretching is a rising star in the world of “next best thing” in fitness programming. The gender-specific program is based on the idea that full-body flexibility can be transformed in four weeks (eight minutes per day!) and that men and women need different stretching techniques to achieve their fitness

Active stretching is where you take a muscle group you want to stretch and contract its opposite muscle group without using external support to help you stretch. The objective isn’t necessarily to increase your flexibility; rather, it’s a way to prepare your body and mind for the upcoming activity within

Posture correctors are supposed to help with spinal alignment while also teaching you what “proper” posture feels like. The question of whether posture correctors work may be somewhat related to the goal of the wearer. If the idea is to get you to avoid slouching, sure, they do that. But

Static stretching is a type of stretch where you hold the lengthening position of a joint and muscle for a period of time. Many of us were taught to stretch like this before we run, lift weights, or play a sport, probably since middle school. While we have followed the