Before discussing hamstring flexibility, we need to talk about testing hamstring flexibility. Many athletes believe their hamstrings are tight. But, often they have all the hamstring flexibility they need to perform all of their sporting activities. If an athlete passes the following tests, they do NOT need to work on hamstring flexibility. Unless they participate in sports requiring extreme hamstring flexibility...

Note from Zach: Huge thanks to Kelvin King for writing this article. Kelvin has a ton of amazing exercise variations, like the dead bug exercises he shows below. Be sure to follow him! A little rant: I love dead bugs.  However, their relationship to specific sports performance has not been fully tapped into. The transferable skill of dead bug variations will...

Body tempering (BT), invented by power lifter Donnie Thompson, has gained lots of popularity in the fitness world in the last few years. So what is BT? Does it work? How does it work? Let’s discuss…. What Is Body Tempering? Body tempering is a form of soft tissue mobilization performed by rolling weighted cylinders across muscles and joints. Think of...

Want strong legs? A killer back? Improved sprint times and jumping height? Need to rehab lumbar spine pain? Then you need to be doing deadlifts! Want to do deadlifts for a long time? Then you need to avoid these common lifting mistakes and focus on dialing in proper deadlift form.   The Most Common Deadlift Mistakes #1: Squatting The Deadlift A...

Hip impingement is a common complaint that we see in fitness athletes due to the demands of their sport that push the hip joint through full ranges of motion repeatedly. As the sports of CrossFit and weightlifting have become increasingly popular so has the number of athletes suffering from hip impingement.  This condition can be quite difficult to treat and...

Note from Zach: I’m excited to have Meghan Callaway and Sarah Duvall back on TheBarbellPhysio to share this incredible article on training the glutes. These two incredible ladies have teamed up with Kellie Hart Davis to create their “Glutes, Core, and Pelvic Floor Workout System“. This product is amazing and I highly recommend taking a look at it! The glutes, perhaps...

Postpartum Fitness Sarah Duvall At the start of 2018, I asked TheBarbellPhysio followers what they wanted more information on this year. By far the biggest request I had was for Postpartum fitness advice. So, I reached out to my friend Sarah Duvall. We recorded a talk on postpartum issues to give athletes, coaches, and clinicians some guidance on this area....

The pistol squat is a challenging bodyweight strength exercise. It not only requires strength but significant control and mobility. Quite often the extreme mobility demands of the pistol squat are overlooked. So, we will start with the most commonly limited mobility deficits for the squat and then discuss a progression of strength exercises you can use to build up to...

Without question, kipping pull-ups are the most controversial exercise performed in CrossFit. While a regular movement in CrossFit workouts, you won’t see it in the rest of the strength & conditioning world. And many non-CrossFitters will criticize the movement as being a non-functional, injury-causing movement that allows CrossFit athletes to cheat. CrossFit athletes, on the other hand, argue that it allows...