It is ordinarly accepted that today’s exercise conditioning is burdened with isolated, sagittal plane exercises that bear little relationship to the integrated and functional movements that resemble human patterns.  Anything outside the realms of weight-lifting clubs, CrossFit facilities or even the local suburban yoga class there seems to be a real dearth of specialist conditioning coaches that train without the use of machines.  Lat-pull downs, pec-decks, leg-press machines and bicep-curls are the dire monotony of the gym-junkies idiom. Equipment manufacturers feed this propaganda to the...

I have written to organisations and Personal Trainers enquiring why they continue to set sub-par programming for women.  In their response, they continue to elude technical analysis and baffle me with programming that is ludicrously perfunctory. I love setting a tone for uneasy interrogation (yeah, I know, I’m a fair dinkum bitch), and enquire as to why they don’t think women should lift heavy.  I have over the months discarded their excuses but an underlying pattern of the word ’risk’ was too bold to ignore.  Mentioning the word ‘risk’ is akin for them...

The Progressions Dynamic Stretching – Touch Toe Squat This stretch teaches the squat from the bottom up. Just like we did when we were babies. Reach for the stars and then flex at the hips, touch the ground with your hands and keep your knees soft (try not to bend them). And yes you will feel that stretch in your hamstrings. Now squat down into a frog-like position using your hands as training wheels. Raise your hands. Chest is up. Now stand up. I get feedback  on how tight those hamstrings are, the shortness of their adductors with respects to knees out over toes or how far they’ve had to...

This month’s hormonal bitch is focused on the blatant sexism that is endemic within the health & fitness environment. There seems to be a set of exercises for females and then there’s a completely different training routine for men. If you want a great case for sexual discrimination in the fitness industry look no further then this latest piece of work. Body n Soul – Sexy Back This article is the classic example that increasingly defends the inequalities by depicting women in passive poses that really do nothing to have a sexy back (to which the article claims) and perpetuates the...

It is all BS The biggest myth in strength training, is related to the concept of getting big. The fear of becoming bulky. The terror of looking like that Bulgarian weight-lifter. These fears are sadly still held true today with media, Hollywood, and women’s health and fitness magazines who continue to perpetuate these fallacies.  Firstly, some anecdotal evidence to prove how rife these misconceptions are held today by educated and intelligent women that I know and train.   A business-woman whispered this to me recently    “I’d love to lift weights, but I don’t want to get...

This is a women’s biophysical look at strength training.  I don’t talk about the repetition continuum, intensity, frequency, or periodisation; they are the technical aspects of resistance and strength training and as such, will be covered in a separate post.  This article discusses strength training at the cellular level and the wonderful biomechanical principles that govern the art of lifting. Strength training remains a standard element of any health-related exercise program. For me, strength is defined as the following: Strength is the ability of skeletal muscle to develop force for...