The ten most common reasons why people give up on their fitness goals:

1. **Lack of Motivation:** Sometimes, initial enthusiasm fades, and without consistent motivation, people struggle to keep going. A trainer can help solve this issue.

2. **Setting Unrealistic Goals:** Goals that are too ambitious or unattainable within a reasonable timeframe can lead to frustration and giving up. I find most people are like this. They want results and they want them yesterday, so, if they set these lofty goals and hit it hard everyday they will get there quicker. It doesn’t work like that. See next excuse.

3. **Not Seeing Immediate Results:** When the desired results don’t appear quickly, some individuals become discouraged and abandon their efforts.

4. **Overtraining/Burnout:** Pushing too hard or working out excessively without adequate rest can lead to burnout, causing people to lose interest.

5. **Injuries:** Physical setbacks or injuries can impede progress and demotivate individuals, leading them to abandon their fitness routines.

6. **Poor Time Management:** Balancing work, personal life, and fitness can be challenging. When people feel overwhelmed, they might give up on exercising altogether.

7. **Lack of Accountability/Support:** Without a support system or someone to hold them accountable, people might struggle to stay consistent with their fitness goals. Again, this is where a trainer would be so helpful.

8. **Monotonous Routine:** Doing the same exercises repeatedly can become boring, causing people to lose interest and abandon their fitness regimen. The human body is so adaptive to routines. They must be changed often.

9. **Unhealthy Eating Habits:** Poor diet choices can counteract the benefits of exercise, leading to frustration and a lack of progress.

10. **External Stressors:** Life events such as work stress, personal problems, or unexpected changes can divert focus away from fitness goals, making it easier to give up.

These ten reasons are just a small fraction of the reasons people give up on their fitness goals. Using a personal trainer can help alleviate most of these reasons. Keep in mind, please validate your trainer, to confirm they have the credentials needed to safely lead you into reaching your fitness goals.

Recognizing these common obstacles can help individuals prepare strategies to overcome them and stay committed to their fitness journey.

The post Ten Most Common Reasons People Give Up on Their Fitness Goals appeared first on Advanced Muscle Therapy.

This technique involves applying gentle, sustained pressure to specific points on the body to release tension and tightness within the fascia. By targeting areas of restriction, myofascial release aims to restore elasticity and flexibility to the fascia, facilitating better movement and reducing discomfort.

The benefits of myofascial release are manifold. It aids in breaking down scar tissue, enhancing blood flow, and promoting relaxation of the muscles. Many individuals seek this therapy for relief from chronic pain conditions, such as fibromyalgia or lower back pain, finding significant improvements in their symptoms and overall quality of life.

Moreover, myofascial release isn’t confined to physical benefits alone; it can also have a positive impact on one’s mental and emotional state. The release of tension within the fascia can induce a sense of relaxation and well-being, reducing stress and anxiety levels.

In conclusion, myofascial release stands as a valuable therapeutic approach, addressing both physical discomfort and promoting holistic wellness. Its gentle yet effective methodology makes it a promising avenue for those seeking relief from various musculoskeletal issues while enhancing their overall health.

The post Myofascial Release appeared first on Advanced Muscle Therapy.

You may ask, “what does winning like Carlos Alcaraz and Tennis Elbow have in common?”.. Sit back and I will explain! As many times as he pumps his fist during a tournament, he is bound to at some point injure that elbow.

All kidding aside, and the fact I think he pumps his fist too much during a match, what can I do to guard against Tennis Elbow? The diagnosis you will receive from a doctor would be lateral epicondylitis. The over-use of the elbow without sufficient strength is the culprit. Over-use happens when you do too much of one thing without the proper strengthening needed to do the action consistently. Too much tennis, too many days a week, week arms. The pain comes and goes at first, we have all felt it. That’s the point to do something about it. Most folks wait until the elbow hurts so bad that it keeps them awake at night. At that point it takes many more sessions and much more time to clear the problem. So, what can I do to help guard against tennis elbow.

1. After playing, ice if needed. Stretch properly.

2. Limit time playing until a proper strengthening program has been devised.

3. Pay attention to your racket, which could be causing some of the issues

   1. Weight – Don’t use rackets less than 11 oz.

   2. Balance – Don’t use racket that are Head heavy

   3. Stiffness – String your strings properly. Your coach will have a better idea what weight to string your racket

   4. Length – Keep your racket length under 27.5 inches

4. Finally: Do not pump your fist at every point of every game of every set of every match.

A couple of fist pumps a match is sufficient, unless of course you are Carlos Alcaraz!

ADVERTISEMENT: If the pain persists then let Advanced Muscle Therapy have a look at it. We have the tools and knowledge to get you back on the court. Active Release Techniques – a state of the art soft tissue therapy program, Piezo Wave – Our Shock wave machine that blast scar tissue to smithereens, and FaStR – myofascial release with effective stretching to help maintain flexibility and strength however much you want to play.

The post Do you have Tennis Elbow? appeared first on Advanced Muscle Therapy.

We are going to find out the best course of action between all healthcare providers when presented with the idea that we have some sort of muscle or joint pain, let’s say we have low back pain.  

Let’s see, let’s ask your primary care doctor what’s in their bag.  The answer, is…are you ready for this, a script pad.  Yep, about all we get from this line of defense is a script for further tests, more meds or maybe even physical therapy.  Will any of this help.  Let’s dive deeper.  More test, for what reason?  To make your wallet lighter.  How about medications.  Sure these may hide the pain but the problem still exists and the meds usually make you sleepy.  Physical therapy, good referral, however, the PT profession is overworked now and is it really necessary to send someone with tennis elbow, or running injuries or even low back pain.  Don’t get me wrong, someone has to be able to direct the flow of health care and who better than the doctor with many years of education and of course, a script pad.

1. Let’s say you get a script for more tests.  It’s your low back.  80% of the adult population will at some point experience low back pain.  What test, initially, will tell you exactly what’s wrong.  All tests will be inconclusive at this time.

How about medications?  These may work in reducing the level of pain; however, they will not repair or make movement any easier.  Typically, you will get anti-inflammatories and/or muscle relaxers. Short term results along with drowsiness.

You get a script for orthopedic or physical therapy to help decide why your back hurts.  Well, not a totally bad suggestion, but you have to ask yourself, self, do I really need to go to an orthopedist for my back?  The only thing he has in his tool box is maybe a scalpel.  Let’s look at the physical therapist, they are the busiest of all healthcare providers.  Do we really need to tie up their time with low back issues that may clear up in several days?

So, who do we go see?  It has to be someone who has a bag of stuff.  A bag full of things that have been used successfully time and time again.  A chiropractor.  No.  They just crack your bones and hope the muscles listen.  But you are told your vertebrae is out of alignment.  What took it out of alignment, if it can truly be out of alignment?  The muscles.  Great answer.  So why see a chiro for a muscle issue.  You don’t!  You go see the guy who has the big bag.

When I got started in muscle therapy, I realized early on, that one modality does not make me successful, and in order for me to be successful I have to have answers to your pain.  So, I set out to discover all the things that assist me every day in all musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction.  I hope you understand what I am trying to say here today, that, educating yourself of all healthcare types and professions will help you make a better decision when you need it.  I will finish with the things we do at AMT.  You will be glad you called us to help with muscle and joint pain.  I told you I have a “Big Bag”.

Get to know more about our team!

The post What’s In Your Bag? appeared first on Advanced Muscle Therapy.

Surgery in two days, the countdown begins…

The post No Good Deed Goes Unpunished appeared first on Advanced Muscle Therapy.

You know just a few years ago, if you developed low back pain or neck pain or any other musculoskeletal pain your doctor would have you take it easy for a few days or weeks, then you would resume what you do, sometimes with most of the pain gone. He would prescribe muscle relaxers and NSAIDs and life would return to normal. Or would it? What was typical, is the pain would return in the same location and this time would stay longer and the doctor would prescribe the same prescription as before, rest, muscle relaxers and NSAIDs. What we noticed, after that was over, was that the issue was becoming more prevalent and would stay longer each time it occurred. Now flash forward to today. What has changed? Absolutely nothing! Well, maybe this time the doctor will say stay active (great advice by the way), but still provide the muscle relaxers and NSAIDs. Why!

Just 12-15 years ago doctors started looking at a specific structure in the body, a structure that until then was just some kind of useless connective tissue that was sometimes discarded during surgery. That connective tissue, we call fascia. The strongest tissue in the body has a purpose when taken care of and manipulated properly. Stretching, foam rolling (fascial rolling), exercise, massage are the ways to keep our fascial tissue healthy. The reason pain and dysfunction come in and stay is because we are lazy and of course most people still do not understand it. Let me help you understand! ( See Fascia: The Mystery…below)

Go back to our original issue, back pain. Let’s be a little more specific, let’s pick an area where everyone seems to have problems with. This area is between the shoulder blade and spine. Close enough that we can usually grab it with our opposite side hand. We see this every week in my practice. So, why does it seem to affect so many people. Because we sit all day at our work stations, on the phone or computer or in class and our heads begin to lean forward and our shoulders roll toward the desk and we sit in that position for hours. Don’t say you don’t because you do! If you have any musculoskeletal pain it’s because you spend way too much time in that position and you do not move enough to melt the fascial restrictions that are caused by inactivity. Now how do we fix it!

Get up and move! OK, let’s say you have developed trigger points (TP) in a few areas. Massaging those areas help. Using specific Myofascial release techniques can make these areas much better and return the muscles and fascial structures back to homeostasis. Ok, now you have removed those TP’s and you want to keep them from returning, what is a person to do? I’m glad you asked. Quit being lazy! Fascia as a connective tissue is thixatropic, which means to be able to convert to a fluid or gel when manipulated. So when you massage, foam roll, or use any other fascial release type of program you can return the muscles and fascia back to their original no pain relationship. (See The Fuzz, below)

All the muscle relaxers, NSAIDs and other medications you can come up with will not help you to reclaim your no pain status. To help you understand fascia, I am including a couple of videos that may interest you. The best part of this, we have been doing this at Advanced Muscle for over 15 years. Ask your doctor, if seeing one of our Active Release providers would be much better than meds, my guess, he will say yes. Thanks for reading the No Pain Zone blog.

Check out these videos below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v54l3wDTJHg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TwAvT_ucjY

The post Changing What You Do appeared first on Advanced Muscle Therapy.

It wasn’t our governments fault they followed an unethical scientist named Ansel Keyes. A scientist that would deliberately remove data from others research to make his outcomes what he wanted. Our congress believed him and thought they were protecting the American people from metabolic diseases, at least I think they believed him and there wasn’t any conspiracy.

Let’s move on. Now we have the “MyPlate”. A project released my Michelle Obama in 2011. It has equal parts fruit and protein, a little bit more grains and then a large helping of vegetables, with a smidgen of dairy. Fats by themselves are not even near the table.

What did I mean by here we go again? Well for beginners the MyPlate isn’t much different than the Food Pyramid, well one is round and the other a triangle, I see that. I feel what we need is a paradigm shift in how we think about food. With both government recommendations we as Americans have continued to watch the scale numbers rise and rise until we now are the most overweight country in the world. What is a person to do?

First let’s look at all the research we have, not just the ones that have been mainstream for 60 years, but all research. A large amount of new data coming in today states, we have made a very big mistake by cutting out fats from our diets. It’s not as simple as “you are what you eat”. Eating fat does not make you fat, just like eating vegetables and fruit only makes you healthy. Research that I have read says the more fat you eat while reducing complex carbohydrates reduces your chance for heart disease and other metabolic type diseases. Well, that statement definitely is against everything we have been taught.

Following a diet like Adkins, or South Beach, or Paleo may put us in a much better position to live longer and healthier than we first thought. These diets promote more fat consumption with controlled carbohydrate consumption. The metabolic processes of blood pressure, cholesterol, heart disease seem to improve with added fats and carbohydrate control. We are now finding sports dieticians pushing their athletes into a low carb training regimens and the athletes are doing much better without the bloating and discomfort that carb loading does to the human body.

I feel we still may be trying to figure this thing out and what is the best way to provide the necessary nutrients to the body without giving it too much of what it doesn’t need. A couple of quotes come to mind, “Nutrition, it can be the safest and most powerful form of medicine, or, the slowest form of poison”. The second is “everything in moderation” which may serve to do us all well until we figure it out.

Questions about how Advanced Muscle Therapy can help? Visit our FAQ page!

The post What Is A Person To Do? appeared first on Advanced Muscle Therapy.

I have trained lots of people over the last 38 years, this includes men, women, kids, ages 10-25, and seniors over 90. Fitness can mean being able to go up stairs without using the railing to finally being able to do a body weight pull-up. Both of these feats for some people can take months to accomplish, yet both feel just as awesome when the goal has been met.

It’s important to know what fitness means to you. You don’t have to be training for a triathlon, a marathon, or be a body builder to feel fit or have fitness goals.

Over the years I have had different fitness expectations of myself. One of my first goals in college was to not gain my “freshman 15.” I thought, “There is no way I will walk to class everyday up this huge hill to my dorm and still gain weight.” WRONG! I gained fifteen pounds and more. Poor eating and sleeping habits, drinking, and partying took me over the top! One of my next goals down the line was to train for the Gate River Run 15k road race. The goal was just to finish. Once I completed the training and the race, I realized running wasn’t for me. So, I moved on to other types of fitness and now I am hooked on tennis.

You can have so many different types of fitness goals.

I am a personal trainer. I should be “skinny” and muscular. Not everyone fits into the same mold. Not everyone is blessed with great genetics. Not everyone wants to eat perfectly clean all the time and not drink any alcohol to have the “perfect” or “ideal” body. What matters is that you take the best possible care of your body that you can. You only have one body for the rest of your life.

Do you feel great? Are you able to do most of the activities that you want to do in life? Do something physical everyday. Look in the mirror naked and if you aren’t quite sure if you like what you see, do something everyday to better your body or change the way you feel about yourself in a more positive light. Be good to yourself. Be what fitness means to you.

Get more fitness tips by checking out our blog!

The post What Does Fitness Mean to You? appeared first on Advanced Muscle Therapy.

Now is a great time to begin a new fitness conditioning program, seeing as how it is the first of the year and you have made it an unkept resolution for the past twenty or thirty years! This time it needs to happen. Your body is telling you it needs fitness or it will continue to bug you with little nagging injuries until finally you will be in the doctor’s office more than you will be out to dinner. You may have already begun hearing talk of dire ailments that may lurk in your future. Have you noticed each time you and your friends get together the conversation always turns to an illness or injury that someone has experienced lately? Your medicine cabinet is starting to fill up with of all things, medicine? Medicine for all the muscular aches and pains you have been experiencing.

A little understanding about this body you live in is what you need. The human body is made for movement, although we do move, we do not move enough and we move in faulty movement patterns. It is these faulty movement patterns that begin our demise. As Shirley Sahrmann, PT says, “our body follows the laws of physics in that it takes the path of less resistance in movement.” Just simple activities of daily living, like sitting, standing, walking can contribute to our aches and pains, but it is the path of less resistance that gives us a problem. When sitting we slouch, when standing we fidget from side to side, and when we walk, well, everything hurts so we change our walking gait so much it develops other pain syndromes.

It is the poor movement patterns and lack of conditioning that contribute to America’s health care crisis, but that is a story for another day. Today we talking about your resolve to get fit and how not to get injured.

“Repetitive Strain” – you have heard this phrase used with respect to every facet of our lives, from the news, the office, infomercials, late night TV shows. What is it? It is also called “Cumulative Trauma Disorder” (CTD), a major problem in the workforce and in everyday life. CTD refers to injuries to muscles, tendons, bones, blood, vessels, and/or nerves. Your low back did not just get injured spontaneously or your rotator cuff suddenly become painful when raising your arm; odds are it all began years ago with poor posture and faulty movement patterns. With each day bringing new aches and pains, where will you be next year at this time?
Fitness training can provide an answer to that question! Why fitness training? Because training new movement patterns will induce the appropriate muscular and biomechanical adaptations that will reinforce the development of optimal neuromuscular action. However, not just any movement pattern training will do this. The training should be done under professional supervision, using principles that are biomechanically and functionally sound. Just going through the motions by yourself in the gym may not be your best solution. Many a poor movement pattern is created or reinforced in the gym and at this late stage of the game you cannot afford to make any mistakes!

What you may need is a Medical Exercise Specialist (MES) or Corrective Exercise Specialist (CES) who will instruct you in the more biomechanically and functionally correct movement patterns that will not only remove the pain and stiffness you are experiencing every day but also improve your strength, mental clarity, and your total well being. These results are all possible with exercise, but not just any exercise. Functionally correct exercise! So, go ahead and make that New Year’s Resolution and find the Personal Trainer with certifications as a MES or CES who will enable you to get your life back. What can it hurt? You may actually enjoy keeping this resolution!

Larry Ogilvie

Start your new year off right with Advanced Muscle Therapy. Contact us here!

The post A Sound Choice For a New Year’s Resolution appeared first on Advanced Muscle Therapy.

I am thankful for my family, as most of you are thankful for yours. My immediate family consists of my father, who is 90 years old and still as strong as the day he straightened out his jeep bumper by hand when I ran into a tree learning how to drive a stick shift at 12 years old. Then my sisters, different in every way except their love for our family, but that’s ok. We are all different in so many ways. My daughters, and I will include my wife’s daughters in this, are so special when it comes to the empathy and compassion they show to each other, and to all that cross their path. Now the husbands — I must say how thankful I am of them, because without them in my life I would have more people in my house than I need. No joke, these four guys could not have been hand-picked any better for our daughters. Now the little people — grandchildren! The most awesome thing in all God’s creation, grandchildren. These are the typical things to be thankful for. Now for more of the list.

In my muscle therapy practice, I get a chance to see a lot of people who are struggling with pain from sore muscles, painful joints, and such. I am so thankful for our therapists who help them through these issues. I get a chance to see our Parkinson’s clients and witness the positive impact our Rocksteady program has on them not only with their fitness and balance issues but their mental wellbeing as well. I get a chance to see these changes in people’s lives every day. That is what I am so thankful for. “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference” is one of my favorite quotes from Winston Churchill. So today, be thankful for all you have and all you will have. After all, it is about attitude. Change your attitude, and you change your tomorrow!

The post Thanksgiving appeared first on Advanced Muscle Therapy.