Pain Science Education
Are you an athlete?
With the business name, The Pain Free Athlete I often have people commenting that they are not an athlete and therefore do not qualify to work with me. I respectfully disagree. The word athlete in our...
Sports-Specific Training vs Training Function
In case you missed my article in The Weekly Sun of the Wood River Valley (pdf), it is reprinted below. Sports performance is the result of coordinated movement. Pedaling a bicycle, casting a fly rod, swinging a tennis racquet or golf club, and hiking up a mountain all...
9 Tips to Improve Your Strength Training Workout
Strength training is an important component of your fitness program. The resistance that you use can be in the form of machines, free weights, medicine balls, tubing or bands, and body weight. Regardless of how you apply resistance, here are some tips to keep in mind....
Be Still to Improve Your Performance
With the abundance of self-help resources available today (more than at any other time) on so many health and wellness topics, why aren't we thriving as a nation? This is the essence of the question Garret Kramer posed to start his presentation, "Why Stillpower Always...
What Causes Exercise Associated Muscle Cramps?
Although frequent and sometimes debilitating, exercise associated muscle cramps (EAMC) have been poorly understood by the scientific and medical community for years. Many of the theories about EAMC have been from anecdotal evidence, not controlled studies. ...
Flow Experiences, the Zone and Optimal Performance
Flow is the state of optimal experience when the body and mind are pushed to the limit to complete a difficult task. It is these moments that bring us happiness and fulfillment in our lives. Flow is an intrinsic experience of our own making that is not dependent on...
Shin Splints Can Occur in Seasonal Transition
In case you missed my article in The Weekly Sun of the Wood River Valley or the Los Alamos Daily Post it is reprinted below. Transitioning from skis to running shoes can be painful. When skiing our foot is connected to a long board and never makes contact with...
7 Reasons to Try Cross-Country Skiing
1. No Lift Lines and Cheap Trail Passes With multiple trails all accessed though human power there is rarely an opportunity to be slowed down by others. The solitude, beauty, quiet, and undisturbed snow creates a magical environment. Over the holidays several years...
Plan Your Holiday Training Camp
For athletes with a day job the holiday break away from work can provide extra training time. A training camp is simply consecutive days of participating in a sport(s). It is an excellent way for master athletes who generally have limited training time...
Is Strength Training Ruining Your Posture?
If you're lifting weights without addressing postural disparities such as one shoulder higher than the other, a hip that is rotated forward or rounded shoulders then YES your unbalanced posture is becoming stronger and more engrained with every repetition performed....
Why and When to Stretch Your Muscles
I recently met a fit young man who loves to run. A mutual friend brought us together, introducing me as someone who might be able to help with his back pain. He had seen a chiropractor who told him the curve in his lower back had flattened which was probably...
Taming Your Sports Gremlin
As an athlete you are driven, have goals and want to achieve. Many of us are in the habit of pushing our bodies to the brink of collapse, injury or sickness to succeed. Our taskmaster inside, sometimes called our sports gremlin, scares us into making bad choices...
Prevent Injury with Proprioception Training
Proprioception is defined by Mosby's dictionary as “the kinesthetic sense. The sense that deals with sensations of body position, posture, balance, and motion.” Simply put, it is your ability to feel your body's joint positions and movements in space. As your...
Three Strategies to Settle Competition Nerves
1. Embrace Your Competitor When I read about this strategy in Running Within by Jerry Lynch and Warren Scott I was intrigued. I had always seen the other women in my races as rivals to be beaten and crushed, not embraced! Lynch and Scott describe how anger...
Core Training – Are You Doing Enough?
In case you missed my article in the Los Alamos Daily Post it is reprinted below. You have probably heard that having a strong core is important and will help with back pain, athletic performance, injury prevention, posture and the various activities of daily...
Meet Jessica!
I believe we are designed to move and play throughout our entire lives. I don’t buy into the idea that we should slow down with age, or that pain, injury and physical restrictions are unavoidable aspects of growing older. So, here’s my philosophy. Our mental mindset, combined with the physical position and condition of the body that we bring into any activity (from walking to skiing to everything in between), determines our chance of hurting when we move. If we have a positive mindset, and if we have proper positioning and move with correct body biomechanics, all activities should be possible.
This is the goal I have for everyone: to overcome pain and limitations so you can Stay in the Game for Life!
Visit The Pain Free Athlete website for additional resources and opportunities.
