How Well Do You Move?

Everyone undergoes a movement screening process when they sign

up to train with us.

We go through ankle, hip and shoulder movement patterns and branch out from there.

What we find is that a large percentage of individuals present with both poor hip and shoulder mobility.

Why do we address these?

Prevent injury - if you don’t move the way you are designed to, chances are at some point when you load the body there will be a break in the chain somewhere leading to an injury. For athletes, this can mean time out of the gym and off the field. For everyone else, it could mean days off work and a drop in motivation to keep training.

Improve performance - if we look at the hips for example, poor mobility here will be like running with a hand brake on. On the field, this is going to be a big problem.

Reduce expenses - poor mobility can lead to injuries. Injuries require rehabilitation. Rehabilitation costs money. A lot of money.

Reduce time - we’re always told that we need to stretch. Did you know that if you can’t touch your toes it may be a stability issue rather than a mobility issue, and that stretching can make it worse?

We’ve seen individuals who stretch and use the roller for at least an hour a day.

After we screen them we are able to identify the main areas and we can drop the time to 10-15 minutes and achieve better results through an individual corrective program.

To start moving better get yourself a movement screen from us so you can identify your weaknesses and target them with a program specific to your needs.

 

Benefits of Nasal Breathing

To begin nasal breathing, you have to be conscious of it. The easiest way to start nasal breathing is to hold a mouth full of water in your mouth. Once you do this for a while you can then press your tongue flat to the roof of your mouth, relax your jaw (whilst keeping your mouth shut), and breathe through your nose. This is the way we should all breathe.

“An athlete should focus primarily on breathing to improve his/her performance.”

If an athlete does not get enough oxygen into the body, they will quickly reach their physical limits. Nasal breathing allows an athlete to maintain the naturally balanced circulation of air in our body. Providing enough oxygen to our muscles allows us to recover more quickly from an effort and gain endurance.

There are many benefits to Nasal Breathing:

• Sleep: Improved quality of sleep and reduced snoring.

• Performance: Increase in V02Max as you are optimizing nasal breathing.

• Strength: Allowing you to push yourself beyond your comfort zone so that you may benefit from extra repetitions at the end of your workout.

• By nasal breathing you can get 10-20% more oxygen uptake than breathing through the mouth

• Nasal breathing warms and humidifies incoming air. Air coming in through the nose at 6 degrees will be warmed to 30 degrees by the time it touches the back of the throat, and 37 degrees (body temperature), upon reaching the lungs

• Nasal breathing removes a lot of germs and bacteria from the air you breathe in

• Nasal breathing increases the amount of nitric oxide available to the body. Nitric oxide has many benefits to the body such as preventing high blood pressure, lowering cholesterol, keeping the arteries flexible, and preventing clotting of the arteries. These benefits help reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke

Patrick McKeown says that by switching to nasal breathing if you are a mouth breather, you can reduce asthma symptoms by 30% and reverse the habit of over-breathing for improved lifelong health. He also says that by breathing through the nose you can maintain correct breathing volume, reduce allergies and illnesses, improve sleep (as mentioned above), and even aid in weight loss.

This is not a new concept. It has been written about over 100 years ago in yoga books.

References / further reading:

https://oxygenadvantage.com/oxygen-advantage-book/

 

Red Light Therapy Device Now at THP Total Health Performance

Red light therapy panel

Red Light Therapy

We now have red light therapy devices at the gym.

There are many benefits to red light therapy such as reduced inflammation, improved circulation, reduced recovery time, increased cellular function/energy, improvement in skin health, improvement in hormonal health, improvement in gut health, and improvement in cognitive health.

So, you can use red light therapy to recover from sessions, speed up the healing of injuries, and optimize hormonal levels for example.

"Red light therapy, also known as photobiomodulation (PBM), is a natural and non-invasive therapy that uses specific wavelengths of red and near-infrared (NIR) light to deliver beneficial effects to the skin and cells. This therapy involves shining high-quality LED lights on the body to stimulate the mitochondria in the cells. The photons of red and NIR light interact with the mitochondria during cellular respiration, promoting the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), an energy-carrying molecule. This process enhances the body's ability to reduce inflammation and support healing."

20 minutes of red light therapy per day can lead to these benefits. I will go into more detail on each of the benefits in coming weeks. If you want to do a session we have the full body panels up and running and we also have smaller devices to target specific areas. Contact us to book in for a session.