Exercise: Practice

Exercise: Theory to Practice

Exercise is vital – but how much do we need? What questions do we need to ask ourselves to figure out what our fitness journey should look like? We dive into the details here: what your goals are, what your baseline is, what you enjoy doing, and what the opportunity costs of different types of exercise are.

Building your Personalized Training Program

Everyone is unique, but there are some basic themes we tend to see in different types of people. This conversation starts with an emphasis on the importance of humility when it comes to improving your physical fitness, and then goes into the different groups of people we see and how we try to help these groups. Whether you are hardly exercising at all, an avid cyclist, or a powerlifter, there are plenty of ways you can take your exercise to the next level and win the centenarian decathlon.

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Training In the Gym

Here we talk about the importance of being responsible for your workouts and self-auditing, and then demonstrate several different foundational exercises included in our sample programs, all of which can be done with minimal equipment. We hope that these videos can serve as a reference library of sorts as you continue on your training journey. We’ve chapter-marked the individual exercises to help find them quickly in the future.

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Training Outside the Gym

Even the most ardent gym-goer will only spend a couple of hours a day at a gym. But what about the rest of your time? Your fitness journey is not isolated to the relatively little time you spend “exercising.” Here we talk through different ways you can stay active during daily life – everything from taking the stairs instead of the elevator to finding ways to move a little while sitting at a computer all day. We also explain the importance of breathing through your nose, taking off your shoes, and spending time in nature.

Troubleshooting

It has been said that the best-laid workout plans of mice and men often go awry, and chances are you are not immune from the injuries and pain that inevitably happen. Here we are joined by Dr. Kyler Brown, a rehabilitation specialist, to talk about how to be resilient and bounce back when things go wrong. We walk through the different kinds of injuries and introduce the next few videos in this module, looking at the different types of commonly seen injuries and problem areas.

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Troubleshooting Upper Body Issues

In this video, we discuss how to tell an everyday injury from a serious injury that requires medical attention, how to prevent progression from mild pains and aches to serious injuries, and how to understand the body as an integrated and interconnected system. We explain the symptoms and root causes of neck, shoulder, and upper back pain, and take you through some of the basics of posture and breathing form.

As with the previous video where we demonstrated specific exercises, we have provided chapter-markings here to allow you to quickly return to the movements necessary to treat upper body issues.

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Troubleshooting Lower Back Issues

Lower back pain is a near-universal experience, even for younger people. And while there is no magic cure for back pain, there are a lot of things you can do to strengthen and stabilize your back to minimize your chances of new or worsening back pain. Here we take us through the anatomy of back pain, what symptoms to look for, and how to think about the role of pain. We then explain and demonstrate how to breathe, stretch, and strengthen to improve and prevent back pain.

Keep this page bookmarked and refer to the chapter-marked movements the next time you experience lower back issues.

Troubleshooting Lower Body Issues

Almost as common as low back pain are problems with the lower body: knee pain, foot strength, ankle instability. Here you will learn how to think about the nature of lower extremity pain, how the brain compensates for poor form, and how vital training for variability is, especially as you age. You will learn about the foot anatomy and see some exercises that will help you prevent pain and injury.

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Exercise Wrap Up

In this wrap-up video, we discuss the importance of staying active, even when injured. Healing is not a passive process and will require training with discomfort. No matter your fitness level, age, or injury status, there is an enormous amount you can do to improve your fitness and alleviate your pain.

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