Why the Front Squat is Your Best Friend: Part 2
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The front squat is so nice, I had to blog about it twice. Here are 3 more reasons to love and adore the all-important front squat.
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Quad Talk with Christye
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Back by popular demand, it’s Body Talk with Christye! This series of posts is dedicated to the unsung heroes of your muscular system. They are the pillars of proper biomechanical movement, the behind-the-scenes champions of pain-free athletic performance – if your body were the Hunger Games, these muscles would volunteer as tribute.
Read MoreWhy the Front Squat is Your Best Friend: Part 1
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Squats are incredible. This is NOT a topic up for debate. Squats are a foundational cog in the human movement machine and are a key element in any athlete's developmental toolbox. Squat properly across the range of squatting movements (i.e. back squats, split squats, etc.), and you will see increases in stability, mobility, strength, and power. No ifs, ands, or butts about it (see what I did there??). But while the back squat gets credited as the King of All Exercises, I believe there's a dark horse of squatting variations that deserves some recognition: the front squat.
Read MoreButt Talk with Christye
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All my clients know I'm obsessed with their butts. Not like THAT, but in a (totally normal) clinical focus on the function of their gluteals. My signature catchphrase in the gym is, "SQUEEZE YOUR BUTT!" or "STICK YOUR BUTT OUT!" or basically anything else involving butts. But I've got a good reason to be obsessed with butts! Your butt muscles are not only SUPER IMPORTANT for your performance as an athlete, but also your ability to function as a human. The buttocks, as we know them, are made up of three different glute muscles: gluteus maximus, gluteus minimus, and the gluteus medius. The glamorous glute max gets a lot of attention (and songs written about it), probably since it's the largest muscle in the entire body, but the glute med often sneaks under the radar -- and I'm here to change that.
Read MoreQuick Fix: Get a Pair of Weightlifting Shoes
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If you do not own a pair of weightlifting shoes, LISTEN UP—because this might just blow your mind. Training on a Volt program means that you will be performing squats (hell yes), Olympic lifts, and a downright plethora of multi-plane, free-weight movements. And believe it or not, standard running or basketball shoes are NOT optimal footwear for this type of training. Do you know what type of footwear IS optimal?
Read MoreFoam Rolling II: Slow Your Roll!
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You are hereby cordially invited to a party in your living room. Or gym. Or office. Or bathroom — hey, I won’t judge! This is a party built for two — you and your trusty foam roller — and THIS PARTY DON’T STOP.
Read MoreTools of the Trade: The GHD
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In this "Tools of the Trade" series, we highlight important pieces of training equipment and how to implement them into a training program. This post will focus on the most important training apparatus your gym is probably missing: a Glute-Ham Developer (or GHD for short).
Read More(Don't) LOSE 10 LBS BY NEXT WEEK!!!!!
/Intriguing title, eh? It's all about "grabbing the reader," apparently...or at least, that's what Coach Dan tells me. Let me assure you, this post has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with helping you lose 10 lbs. It also has nothing to do with some new kale-and-açaí-berry “miracle food” smoothie that might help you LOSE WEIGHT FAST AND KEEP IT OFF? (Raise your hand if you've heard that phrase a thousand times in commercials.) But headlines and promises like that work, and they work by preying upon our collective cultural obsession with weight loss.
Read MoreThe Half Squat is DEAD
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Time to beat a dead horse. Half-squats are bad. If you are serious about training, your squats should be breaking parallel every time . It's a matter of efficiency and even safety. I'm not assaulting your character if you lack the mobility required for the hips to reach necessary depth, but if you aren't taking the steps to improve that mobility then you're probably not invited to my birthday party (it's okay, no one shows up anyway).
Read MoreYour Frenemy, the Foam Roller
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It’s waiting for you. Lurking in the corner of every gym. Watching you from beneath your physical therapist’s desk. Peering up at you from under your chiropractor’s drop table. Hiding in your mom’s basement, between the treadmill and yoga mat.
The foam roller.
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