Rib cage flare during overhead lifting is a common movement fault seen in fitness athletes. While it is not always an issue, quite often it needs to be addressed for better positioning as an athlete moves weight overhead. If you aren’t familiar with the term rib cage flare, it is another name for overextension of the spine. This usually occurs...

Deadlifts are unfortunately all too commonly believed to be unsafe exercises for an individual’s low back health. But the research says quite the opposite of what many believe. Crazy right? An exercise known to help make your back and hips STRONGER might also make it HEALTHIER!!! Let’s dive into the research on deadlifts for low back pain. Are Deadlifts Safe?...

No two athletes are the same. And while we believe that in a group training setting all athletes will improve follow the same training, it is important to analyze each athlete individually as well to determine if large individual differences in performance warrants some individualization of programming. For example, if an athlete is working on a goal of performing a...

The push press is a great exercise for improving sports performance, but for a lot of people in the strength conditioning world, it’s a really undervalued exercise in terms of analyzing how an athlete moves and figuring out what they need to work on to improve as on overall athlete.   Push Press Video Transcript: So what’s the Push Press?...

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....

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...

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Without a doubt, the most common complaint I hear from athletes is that they have “tight hip flexors”. Most of the time they’ve spent months stretching and foam rolling with no effect. Most of the time, performing combinations of core strength, hip flexor strength, and loaded mobility drills create far more significant and permanent changes than what they’ve been wasting their...

Good coaches have an excellent eye for watching an athlete move and knowing what needs to be corrected. Excellent coaches take that a step further by then giving that athlete great cues that produce the desired outcome rapidly. We’ve all heard the cues “sit back” and “screw your feet into the ground” but having a more diverse set of cues...