D-BYE Lifts

By Derek Bye | B.S. Exercise Science, ACSM-CPT

Among many different trends in the fitness industry is a term called “intermittent fasting”. Intermittent fasting basically means you go through relatively extended periods of time of not eating (fasting) and then consume all your meals in a shorter eating window.

Let’s not make intermittent fasting more complicated than it needs to be. You actually go through periods of fasting EVERY DAY. Yes, you are technically fasting at any time when you’re not consuming food. If you sleep for eight hours a night (which I hope you do), then you are in a “fasted state” for those eight hours. If you haven’t eaten anything in the past two hours, then you have technically been fasting for two hours. Let’s stop thinking of “intermittent fasting” objectively where we follow a strict guideline as to when we can or cannot eat, and instead take a more subjective holistic approach to get real results.

So why should everybody fast? Well, the answer is actually quite simple. Humans are not designed to be eating food all f!*king day! It astonishes me how simple of a concept this is and how complex we make it. I will go into the science in a little bit but for now consider this. Humans have evolved from hunting/gathering food to sitting on couches and grabbing food from the refrigerator whenever we damn please. At one point in time, food wasn’t readily available 24/7 like it is today. The high availability of food is what’s causing a massive surge of disease within our culture. Have you ever noticed that the United States is the number one leader in preventable diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity? The United States is also one of few places in the world where the food is so easy to come by. I can guarantee that you’ll probably never find a type 2 diabetic in a less developed country. Americans are simply eating too much food and eating it too often.

What are the benefits of fasting?

• Fat loss + muscle maintenance (when done properly)

• Increased growth hormone (will help increase metabolism)

• Balances hormones

• Enhanced brain function (less brain fog, better memory)

Fasting, Backed by Science:

This chart above represents your insulin levels during a typical day of eating versus a day of fasting. The green window represents times of eating where insulin is relatively high, and the red window represents times of fasting where insulin is low. As you can see in the chart, a typical day of eating results in multiple insulin spikes throughout the entire day. This is the primary cause of what is known as “insulin resistance”. Insulin resistance occurs when the cells in your body are so used to insulin being present all the time that they begin to become resistant to it. This results in even more insulin being produced, which enhances the cycle causing the cells to be even more resistant.

The red window represents fasting time, where insulin levels are really low. During this time, the opposite hormone of insulin, called glucagon, is used to pull sugar back out of storage so they can be used for energy. This system is underdeveloped in most people since their body is so used to always having insulin present. Through intermittent fasting, we can train our body release less insulin and lower our insulin resistance.

Why is insulin resistance bad?

Insulin resistance is the cause of many diseases within the body, such as type 2 diabetes, memory loss (brain fog), and fatty liver disease. It essentially prevents your body from being able to actually utilize sugar, and instead it’s stuck floating around in the blood stream rather than actually being used. Insulin resistance at the brain prevents sugar from entering the brain cells and feeding them energy. This results in brain cell degeneration and memory loss over time.

Fasting for Fat Loss and Muscle Maintenance:

Fasting is also highly effective for improving our overall body composition. One of the most beneficial effects from fasting is the surge in natural growth hormone as a result of not eating for a prolonged period of time. When your body is in a fasted state, growth hormone is increased as a result as the body’s natural mechanism to prevent the breakdown of muscle tissue. This response is programmed into our bodies through evolution where we had to hunt and gather for food at one time. When no food is available for a while, your body does it’s best to try to preserve muscle tissue and instead will burn primarily the fat stores for energy. This was once beneficial for humans because it allowed us to maintain the strength needed to continue to hunt/gather food.

We can still take advantage of this evolutionary adaptation but there’s one rule we need to follow. We need to give our body a reason to keep the muscle mass. This means that we should be lifting heavy weights so our body knows that our muscles are being used and it shouldn’t break them down for energy. Intermittent fasting combined with strength training will lead to a massive spike in growth hormone that will help maintain muscle and overall longevity over time.

How to fast:

If you’re new to fasting the first step would be to stop eating snacks between meals throughout the day. Every time you consume something, insulin is triggered. By consuming food less often throughout the day you’ll spike insulin less often, which will help lower insulin resistance.

The next step would be a 12 hour fast. That means that if you ate a 9PM the night before, you won’t eat again until 9AM the next morning. Gradually, you can increase the time from 12 hours to 14 hours, and evenentually an 18 or 20 hour fast. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be eating almost nothing every day. You’re simply condensing your meals into a smaller eating window rather than spreading them all throughout the day. Start trying this out and you’ll be amazed at how good you’ll actually feel once your body has become accustomed to it.

Hour

By Derek Bye | B.S. Exercise Science, ACSM-CPT

Train like an athlete and eat like a bodybuilder. This is the best advice I can give to anyone, and I mean ANYONE looking to get the results they’re really looking for. If this motto seems unpromising to you then I invite you to continue reading to learn more about what I’m talking about.

Train like an athlete:

Functional athletic training should be the basis of any training program, regardless of whether your goal is to burn fat, build muscle, or simply stay in great shape. Very simply put, “functional” athletic training will cover all components of fitness and will deliver both the functionality and aesthetics that you’re looking for.

What is “functional” athletic training?

Functional athletic training is any training regimen that utilizes movements that force you’re body to stabilize itself in order to generate force. This could be anything from a power clean to a simple squat. Functional training IS NOT loading up a bunch of weight on a quad extension machine and doing a bunch of reps until you can “feel the burn”. If your training routine consists of a bunch of isolation exercises (bicep curls, tricep extensions, quad extensions, calf raises), you should look to re-prioritize your exercise selection to make your workouts more effective.

Think about it this way. You could do three sets on a leg press machine to work your legs, and then do three sets of planks to work your core. Or, you could kill two birds with one stone and do a back squat that will hit all muscle groups at the same time. Even better, you could do squats and still have time to do planks later on in your workout! Training like an athlete means that your performing full body movements rather than training specific muscles. By training full-body movements, it’ll guarantee that you’re hitting every single muscle while promoting better performance in terms of balance, strength, power, stability, and coordination.

The basic movements you should be prioritizing in your program:

• Hip-dominant (hip flexion/extension) I.e. hip-hinge/deadlift

• Quad-dominant (knee extension) I.e. squat

• Vertical push (overhead press)

• Horizontal push (chest/bench press)

• Vertical pull (pull-up/lat pulldown)

• Horizontal pull (row)

One thing that each of these movements have in common is that they all require a significant amount of stability in order to perform them correctly. If you’re routine consists primarily of machine exercises that take the stability action out of the exercise, you’re missing out on tons of potential gains and put you at a potential risk for injury. When your muscles don’t know how to all work together to perform a movement, something will give at some point and you’ll end up out of commission. Why do you think athletes like Odell Beckham look the way they do? Yes part of it is genetics, but it’s also the fact that they’re training for performance, and not prioritizing the aesthetics. The aesthetics are a byproduct of a well rounded program and solid eating habits.

Eat like a bodybuilder:

What does it mean to “eat like a bodybuilder”? This does not mean chugging gallons of whole milk and eating Ben & Jerries during “bulking season”. Successful bodybuilders keep a consistent diet all year round. Eating like a bodybuilder means you’re aware of what you’re putting into your body and how much you’re eating. While tracking calories and counting macros is probably the most effective way to reach your results, it’s also a bit tedious and time consuming. My method for tracking my food is simple. If it doesn’t walk or grow from the ground, try not to eat it. From there, look look to consume enough protein on a day to day basis. As you develop consistency within your diet you’ll be able to recognize what works for you and how much you should be eating. As someone who has never counted calories, I can tell you that simply counting just my protein intake and making sure I don’t pig out on bad food has been enough for me. Start utilizing this advice today and I promise you’ll make significant progress in the long-run.

By Derek Bye | B.S. Exercise Science, ACSM-CPT

This workout outline is to help anyone looking to add structure to their program. Each exercise can be replaced with a variation of your choice. This format is best suited for general weight trainers and people looking to build muscle.

Sets x reps

SOD “strength of the day” – Your main lifts, look to go heavy and don’t worry about having perfect form. Just get the weight up.

Accessories= Exercises to help your main lifts. Use a slow eccentric contraction (lower the weight slowly) and a quicker concentric. Use the exercises to add more volume to your workout and develop mind-muscle connection.

Push:

SOD:

Bench press 5×5

Shoulder press 4×6

Accessories:

Machine shoulder press 3×10-12

Incline chest fly w/dumbbells 2×10-12

Regular chest fly w/cables 2×10-12

Superset:

Lat. delt raise 3×10

Triceps extension 3×8-10

Pull:

SOD:

Lat pulldown 4×8

Seated cable row 4×8

Accessories:

Inverted row: 3×10

Straight arm pushdown 3×8-10

Rear delt. Fly 4×12

Hammer curl: 3×8

Barbell Bicep curl 2×10

Legs

SOD:

Squat: 4×6

Reverse lunge: 3×8

Accessories:

Romanian deadlift: 4×10

Hamstring curl: 3×10

Calf raise 4×10

By Derek Bye | B.S. Exercise Science, ACSM-CPT

One of the biggest issues that people face in the gym is deciding how to structure their workout. In this post I’m going to outline the best way to structure your workout so you can get the most out of you’re time in the gym.

A good exercise routine can be broken down into 3 sections.

1. Warm-up

2. Exercise (strength, bodybuilding, cardio, plyo, or whatever else you may be working on)

3. Cool down

1. Warm-up – The warm up is an essential aspect to any training routine. The purpose of a warm-up is to literally warm the body up and supply blood-flow to the working tissue. A dynamic warm-up will also help to loosen up the muscles and tendons prior to exercise.

Warm-up part one: Spend a couple minutes doing some moderate-intensity cardio exercise to get the heart rate up. This could be anything from jogging on a treadmill, jump-roping, or simply doing jumping jacks.

Warm-up part two: Dynamic stretching should be done following the first part of your warm-up. Dynamic stretching, as opposed to static stretching, involves movements that are similar to what you’re going to be training that day. For example if you’re about to squat, you might practice some body weight lunges or lateral lunges to help get your muscles to fire and ready to move.

DO NOT perform static stretching pre-exercise. In rare cases, static stretching is appropriate before exercise but it can actually result in a reduced force production for a given muscle (it will make you temporarily weaker).

2. Exercise – Once again, exercise can be further broken down into subcategories depending on what you plan on training during that particular day. The “order of operations” for your training is as follows.

1. Plyometric/power – Plyometric, or power training, should always be done before any other strength or prolonged cardio is done. Simply put, it just isn’t smart to try and do box jumps after doing 4 sets of heavy squats.

2. Strength/bodybuilding – I’m going to break this down into further subcategories because this is where much of the confusion lies for a lot of trainees.

1. Heavy compound exercise(s)

The first weight training exercise you perform should always be a heavy compound movement. They should address the basic movement patterns and can be paired according to however you’d like to structure your program. Heavier compound exercises are typically performed anywhere from 1-8 repetitions.

–

-overhead press (shoulder press)

-horizontal press (chest press)

–

-vertical pull (pull-ups/lat-pulldown)

-horizontal pull (row)

–

-knee dominant (squat)

-hip dominant (deadlift)

2. Accessory exercise(s)

Accessory exercises are used to compliment your main lift(s) for the day. They are performed at a higher rep-range, typically around 8-12 repetitions. An example of a accessory exercise you you might use is a face-pull. You can also include some core stabilization exercises.

3. Isolation exercise(s)

Isolation exercises should be completed towards the end of your workout if your goal is to build muscle or strengthen specific muscles that may be weak. An isolation exercise only works 1 muscle at a time and would include something like a bicep curl, tricep extension, or a quadriceps extension.

3. Cardiovascular training

Cardio training is best suited for the end of your workout. And no, this isn’t because I hate cardio. This is simply because it wouldn’t make sense to do prolonged cardio and pre-exhaust the muscles you plan on training that day. By putting cardio at the end of our workout, we can make sure that we can get our fullest potential during weight training while still being able to capture the benefits of cardiovascular training at the end.

Cool down: The cool down, which is probably the most ignored aspect of most people’s training program, is always good to include because it will help with the recovery process. During this time, it IS a good idea to do some static stretching and some foam rolling. This will help you recover from an intense workout and may help reduce soreness.

By Derek Bye | B.S. Exercise Science, ACSM-CPT

Flexibility and mobility typically decrease with age. However, it doesn’t have to be like this. Below is a full flexibility/ mobility routine. This routine takes about 45 minutes to complete.

Feel free to break down this routine into chunks, completing some exercises one day and doing the others on another day. The exercises are designed to keep your muscles mobile and strengthen muscles that are important in maintaining strong posture.

Flexibility & Mobility Class

5 minute meditation/diaphragmatic breathing

Mobility exercises:

Circuit: 3 rounds

Inchworm

Spider-Man

T Spine rotations

Circuit 2: 2 rounds

Hip openers

Reverse lunge to knee raise

Transverse lunge/ side lunge

Strength & mobility exercises

2 rounds (3 for advanced)

Glute bridge – 5x 10 sec hold

Fire-hydrant (glute abduction) 5x 5 sec hold

Push-up plus (serratus activation) 5x

Superman 5x

Dead bug 5x

Plank 30 sec ——>side plank 20 sec ——->side plank 20 sec

Stretching: 30-60 sec holds

Neck (side, side, down)

Cobra

Hip flexor

Quads

Glutes

Hamstring

Squat to hamstring stretch

Derek Bye | B.S. Exercise Science, ACSM-CPT

Most fitness enthusiasts dedicate a significant amount of energy and time in keeping themselves as physically fit as possible, but they’re often overlooking an aspect of fitness that’s essential in developing yourself into a complete well-rounded individual both physically and mentally. The most important exercise that you are not doing is meditation. When most people think of mediation, they picture some monk sitting down doing absolutely nothing for hours. The truth is, this Eastern philosophy is actually backed through scientific evidence and it can be done in as little as 10 minutes. The benefits are life changing.

Meditation has been around for centuries and it includes a wide range of benefits from treating anxiety/depression to strengthening the immune system and could possibly even have anti-aging affects at a cellular genetic level. Yet, such a small portion of the population understands or believes in the science of meditation. Why is this so? The answer is simple. You cannot package and sell meditation to someone the same way that a pharmaceutical company can sell drugs for treating many of the issues that can be cured through meditating. Since this is the case, many people fall victim to “treating” themselves through pharmaceutical drugs that are marketed on the television or online. The problem is that these drugs do not really fix any of these symptoms, and they can actually have a negative affect on your overall health and longevity.

How does meditation work? The science that they can’t sell to you.

While there is still much to learn about the effects of meditation, scientific studies have made tremendous progress in understanding how it affects the mind-body connection. During meditation, you are changing your brain wave frequency and allowing yourself to become calm and relaxed. Your brainwave frequency refers to how fast your brain is creating thoughts in your head. Someone with high anxiety is rapidly creating thoughts in their head when the anxiety is triggered (which can be all the time for some people). This means that they are in a very high state of brainwave frequency. Someone in a lower brainwave frequency is more grounded, and can control their thoughts because it is easier to organize them in their mind. They don’t have random thoughts popping up in their mind every second, like somebody with anxiety would have. Brainwaves are organized into five categories:

1.       Gamma 

2.       Beta    

3.       Alpha     

4.       Theta     

5.       Delta      

http://www.brainworksneurotherapy.com/what-are-brainwaves

In case you are interested in learning more about these brainwaves, I have provided a link that talks in-depth about how they work in your brain throughout the day.

On top of influencing brain frequency, scientific studies have also found that meditation influences neuroplasticity in the brain.  Neuroplasticity is the ability for the brain to create new synapses, or connections in the brain and can result in a reshaping of certain structures. Multiple studies have found an association between increased grey matter in the prefrontal lobe due to meditation. This area of the brain is associated with personality development, planning, decision-making, and many functions that allow us to focus on what we are doing. Through meditation, we are training the prefrontal cortex which allows us to return our focus and prevent us from losing it to unnecessary thoughts.

How do I perform Meditation?

Meditation essentially teaches us how to be present in the moment. If switches the focus from the thoughts consuming our minds to what is actually happening around us. Have you ever taken a drive somewhere and completely forgot what you saw on the way? This is because you’re focusing on what’s going on in your head rather than what’s happening right in front of you. Meditating allows us to reteach our mind to recognize what our body is sensing around us. For example, as you walk in the park you may sense the feeling of light hitting your skin, wind traveling across your body, your feet touching the ground, and the sound of birds chirping off in the distance all at the same time. Someone with a high brain frequency is less likely to be able to recognize and appreciate all these senses at once because they are trapped inside of all the thoughts racing through their head. Instead, their mind may be putting far less attention on sensing and living through the body and instead focusing that attention on what’s going on in their head. Below are my two favorite methods that I use daily to retrain my mind and body to live in the present moment and prevent myself from overthinking.

Deep breathing meditation:

During this form of meditation, you are simply going to close your eyes and keep your mind focused on deep breathing. Many of us carry holding patterns within our muscular system that prevent us from taking a full deep breath. As you breath, you want the air to travel into your stomach and pelvic region. For many people, they will find that they’re expanding just their chest to breath. Focus on releasing any muscular tension in your throat and chest. As you release this tension and begin breathing deeper, release any other form of muscular tension within your body. Perhaps you realize your fist is clinched or some muscles in your legs are holding tension. Continue to do this for about 10-20 mins as you continue looking for areas of tension within the body while keeping your focus at taking deep breaths.

Sensory Meditation

This is one of my favorite forms of meditation. During this exercise, pick two things that you can feel and focus your attention on them. These two things could be light hitting your skin & the feeling of your back pressing against your bed/chair. You could also focus on the temperature that you can feel in the room & the subtle sound of trees or wind that you can hear outside. Just like the last exercise, you want to breath deeply and release muscular tension within your body. Try this for about 10-20 mins.

Just like how the nervous system takes time to adapt to the bench press you’ve been working on in the gym, it also has to take time to adapt to the meditation process. Within a few weeks of consistent meditation, you will begin to feel benefits such as having a clearer mind and the ability to learn and remember things faster. Take 10 minutes out of your day to include this exercise and I promise your life will never be the same again. Be prepared to take control of your mind and life like you have never done before!

By Derek Bye | B.S. Exercise Science, ACSM-CPT

For years carbohydrates have been viewed as the plague that has led to an epidemic of people becoming overweight or obese. In some aspect, this is true but it’s likely not for the reasons you’ve previously been taught to believe. Carbohydrates are one of three macronutrients that the body can use to produce energy (carbohydrate, fat, protein). Right now I want to help educate you in understanding what carbohydrates are and how they work. My goal is to give you the information you need so you can make the lifestyle changes necessary to reach your goals.

As stated earlier, a carbohydrate is simply a molecule found in food that our body uses to produce energy. This energy is broken down into glucose (sugar in its most simple form) and is either used right away by the body or it’s stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver (glycogen=stored glucose). So now you may be wondering, how can carbohydrates make us fat? Well, the body will initially store glycogen in the muscle cells because it’s assuming that we’re going to need that energy in the near future. This glycogen will be converted to fat if we don’t end up using it (lack of exercise) or we ate more calories than our body needs to satisfy our energy requirements.

Have you ever wondered why foods that are bad for us taste so good? Well, there’s a reason for that. Many of the foods that we end up overeating are loaded with simple carbohydrates and sugar (I’ll explain the difference shortly). These carbs are very stimulating to our taste buds and they make us crave more of it. The reason for this is that it’s actually an evolutionary adaptation that humans have evolved throughout time. Many years ago, humans had to hunt and gather to receive food. Foods that are high in sugar are typically higher in calories, which means that your body would naturally crave sugar because it knows that it holds a lot of energy and you don’t know when you’re next meal will be. Today, we have the option of walking up to a refrigerator or going out to eat whenever we want and it’s much easier to overfeed ourselves. The sugar that our ancestors once had to gather was typically found in natural foods like fruit, and were not highly condensed in the food that we find today (think pop tarts, cookies, muffins, donuts, etc.). Sugar is just one example of a carbohydrate and it is very easy to come by in today’s society.

Carbohydrates: Simple vs Complex Carbs

Simple carbohydrates – Simple carbohydrates are carbohydrates that are either a sugar or can be very easily converted into sugar. They are digested very quickly by the digestive system, which means that they are not good at keeping us full and satiated. The result of this is that we keep eating more and more, causing us to eat more calories than we desire. Common foods that contain simple carbs are starch foods (pasta, white bread, white rice), and foods that contain sugar (soft drinks, candy, milk).

Complex Carbohydrates: Complex carbohydrates are composed of many glucose molecules bonded together. In chemistry, we would call this a polysaccharide. While simple carbs are either monosaccharides (meaning 1 sugar molecule) or disaccharides (meaning 2 sugar molecules bonded together), a polysaccharide will have many sugar molecules bonded together that need to be broken apart to produce energy. This means that it’s going to take much more time for the digestive system to break these molecules down. Some examples of complex carbohydrates include brown rice, whole grains, and vegetables. These carbohydrates contain much more nutrients including vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

Now that we understand the difference between different types of carbohydrates, I want to explain how you can use this information to make better nutritional decisions. As I said earlier, simple carbs are digested rapidly and will leave you hungry after. Imagine if you decided to have lunch and all you did was drink a large Coke. Well, you probably consumed nearly 400 calories but you’re still going to be starving. You’re going to end up eating more until you feel full. This is where complex carbohydrates play a vital role in helping us lose weight. By eating these carbs, we can slow down the digestive process and prevent us from wanting to keep eating more food. I can guarantee you that eating 400 calories worth of brown rice (which is probably close to 2 or 3 bowls) will fill you up much longer than one large soda.

Now that we understand what carbohydrates are and how they work, let’s summarize the things we talked about so we can apply this information and get the results we’re looking for. The key to preventing the overconsumption of carbs is to eat carbohydrates that are slow to digest. This prevents you from getting hungry and eating more carbs. You’ll also want to look to cut out any types of juice and soda from your diet. These carbs are unnecessary and will keep you hungry and wanting to eat more food. Foods that are slower in digestion will have more complex carbs and/or more fat and protein. Healthy fats are a great alternative to eating carbs because they take very long to digest and don’t result in a spike of insulin. While carbs typically get a bad rep amongst fitness advocates, it’s actually okay to consume them. Take small steps to find foods you like that are whole grain/complex carbohydrates and replace them with other options that aren’t as healthy for you. It’s okay to consume sugar and other types of simple carbs, but we don’t want to have them with every single meal and we definitely don’t want to snack on them all throughout the day. I hope you found this helpful and I’d love to hear any feedback or questions on this topic!

By Derek Bye | B.S. Exercise Science, ACSM-CPT

Just about anyone I know has had the feeling of being “anxious” at a given time, or experiences this feeling of anxiety on a consistent basis. Today I want to reveal some insight that will hopefully allow you to better understand anxiety and what you can do to control it.

Anxiety is an increasingly common disorder among many people, and it can have a significant impact on your quality of life. Anxiety is a natural part of being human, but when it begins to affect your everyday life activities it’s time to do something to control it. If you experience difficulty communicating/expressing yourself or developing and maintaining relationships, this post should be helpful for you.

A look into the physiology behind anxiety:

Our nervous system plays a huge role in controlling our anxiety. After all, the spinal chord is literally an extension of the brain. This means that there is a mind-body connection, meaning that whatever is happening in your mind is having an effect on how your body is acting. Our autonomic nervous system (the division of our nervous system that is not consciously controlled) is divided into two categories. 1. The Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and 2. The Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS)

1. Sympathetic Nervous System– the SNS is a division of the nervous system that creates a “fight or flight” response from the body. This occurs when there is a perceived threat from the individual, and they need to be able to deal with it right away. Physiological changes that occur during this response include an increase in heart rate, increase in adrenaline (hormone), rapid breathing, and feeling more alert (caused by increased cortisol). During this time, blood will also be moved away from the digestive system to fuel the muscles. This will most often result in tense muscles and sweating.

2. Parasympathetic nervous system– the PNS is a division of the nervous system that’s responsible for “rest and digest” actions in the body. This includes lowering the heart rate, slowed breathing, and returning blood towards the digestive system. During a state of “rest and digest”, you are in a state of relaxation.

Now that we understand the two different divisions of the autonomic nervous system, can you tell which one causes us to feel anxious? That’s right, it’s an overdevelopment of the sympathetic nervous system that creates the physiological feeling of being anxious.

The nervous system works by looking for patterns that occur frequently within the body and becoming more efficient at it. This is why when you lift weights frequently, your nervous system adapts by making you stronger. It’s recognizing the pattern, and it’s becoming more efficient at sending electrical impulses to recruit muscle fibers to contract stronger. This is one example of how our nervous system responds (adapts) to patterns in our body.

This same concept can be applied to how anxiety works in our body. As I stated earlier, anxiety is an OVERDEVELOPMENT of the sympathetic nervous system. This division of the nervous system puts you into “fight or flight” mode because you have a perceived threat. Some of these perceived threats may include being judged by others, messing something up, or fear from a past traumatic event/experience. Whatever it may be, it is stored into the subconscious mind and is the root cause of your anxiety. Typically, someone with an anxiety disorder has multiple anxiety triggers so it’s important to become conscious of what it is that makes you feel uncomfortable. This is what we can refer to as your ability to develop emotional intelligence (EQ).

Exercise your brain: Send your anxiety for a run

Meditation is the best method to combat anxiety. Meditation is a scientifically proven approach that allows us to train the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), and relax the SNS. The more consistent you are with meditation, the less generalized anxiety you’ll experience. Your body will be much more relaxed and you won’t have random spikes of adrenalin hormone for no apparent reason. Your mood will become much more consistent and best of all, you’ll develop emotional intelligence. Meditation allows us to get in touch with our subconscious mind and find out what kind of thoughts are going through our head. Then, we can identify the negative thoughts and work towards replacing them with positive ones.

By Derek Bye | B.S. Exercise Science, ACSM-CPT

For years we have been taught that stretching is the key to having Gumby-like flexibility. Many people spend way too much time in the gym holding painful stretches with limited improvement in their overall flexibility. I’m not here to say that stretching is bad or useless, but I do want to shed some light on how flexibility works so we can train smarter and get the results we’re looking for.

I’m going to be honest right off the bat. Flexibility, or range of motion (ROM), is a complex system that is largely controlled by our nervous system. Muscle tonicity (the continuous partial contraction of muscles to maintain posture) is controlled through nerve innervation and can be influenced through a variety of factors. These factors include (and are not limited to)…

1. Lack of strength in the muscle through full ROM

This is a concept that has very little research behind it despite being a more than likely cause for people that have lost significant amounts of mobility. There’s an old saying that says “use it or lose it” which is 100% true, meaning if you’re not moving through full range of motion on a consistent basis, you’ll lose your mobility over time.

The theory behind this idea is that the pain you feel (for example when stretching your hamstrings) are pain signals to signify that you are moving into a position that is unsafe for your body to move in. Why is this position unsafe? Because you are lacking the strength and stability to hold that position without damaging the muscle. This is why it’s essential to always use a full range of motion when exercising. Even better, we can try to increase our flexibility by lowering the weight until the muscle is being slightly stretched, and then contracting the muscle. If our theory is correct (which I’m nearly 100% positive that it is) we will increase our flexibility because we’ll be strengthening the muscle through an increased range of motion.

A great exercise to try this out on is a Romanian deadlift. In this exercise, lower the weight until you can feel a slight stretch in your hamstrings, and then contract the muscle and bring the weight back up. Here we’re applying our theory of increasing strength through ROM in order to increase our flexibility. Another great exercise to try this out on is a pull-up/lat-pulldown. Lower your weight until you can feel a stretch through your shoulders and lats, then contract and pull the weight. You’re going to have to put your ego aside and do less weight on these exercises at first, but I can guarantee that this will leave your muscles sore while hitting every last muscle fiber you have.

2. Weakness in an agonist muscle

Weakness in an agonist muscle is another common cause of muscle tightness. Again, I’ll use the hamstrings as an example. One of the primary functions of the hamstrings is to extend the hip. This muscle shares a job with the gluteus maximus, which is also responsible for extension at the hips. If your glutes are weak and not doing their job correctly, the hamstrings may shorten and lose their pliability because they need to compensate for the lack of activation from the glutes. In this scenario, strengthening the glutes may result in the ability for the hamstrings to release and become more flexible.

3. Subconscious thinking (muscular holding patterns)

Many of our muscles (especially our postural muscles) are controlled through our subconscious mind and we have very limited ability to control them.

However, a lot of times there is an emotional component to our muscular system that is overlooked. This emotional connection can be referred to as a “muscular holding pattern”, which means that what we’re thinking in our head is being expressed through the muscles in our body. Most of the time, we’re unaware of this type of muscle activation since it’s simply the bodies response to an emotional stimulus. Here’s a scenario to help make this more simple..

Imagine you are sitting at home and you hear a huge “bang” during a thunderstorm. You’ll likely become startled by the noise, and you may end up hiking your shoulders up as a response to being scared. This hiking of the shoulders is done subconsciously and results in the contraction of certain muscles in the shoulder region (trapezius, levator scapulae). This reaction to being scared is naturally engrained in your body as a response to fear. For some people, they may hold this type of tension 24/7 without even realizing it. This is what we refer to as a muscular holding pattern. Someone working a stressful job may hold a lot of tightness around their neck and upper back as a response to being heavily stressed. This can lead to issues such as poor posture, shoulder pain, and neck pain. The best way to relieve muscular holding patterns that are causing pain or decreasing your flexibility is to massage the muscle, meditate, and determine what emotional connection you have to a particular holding pattern (oftentimes an anxiety response) so that you can relieve it.

As you can tell, flexibility is much more complicated than simply stretching the sh!t out of our muscles. Next time you go to the gym, don’t feel bad that you didn’t stretch because it may not be all that important after all.

In order to maintain your mobility/flexibility make sure you’re always..

1. Exercising through full range of motion

2. Exercising all muscle groups within the body with proper form (developing muscle balance)

3. Keeping stress/anxiety low

If you found this information interesting please share with someone!

Once again, I’m not here to say that stretching is bad by any means. Stretching does help stretch out the fascia (imagine Saran Wrap covering your muscles) and tendons. Muscle pliability itself is most-likely not hugely influenced by stretching in the long-term, and these other options should be much more helpful for you to improve your mobility and flexibility in the long-term.

Any questions email me at dbye1023@gmail.com

Share your thoughts in a comment!

By Derek Bye | B.S. Exercise Science, ACSM-CPT

I have always been a huge advocate of making smart lifestyle choices, rather than relying on medication, to help people create the healthy life they are looking to live. In this article, I’m going to explain three things that you can do everyday to slow down the aging process while costing you no money.

It’s no secret that we live in the world of “instant gratification”. This especially applies to what many people are looking for when it comes to improving their health. We are constantly bombarded with different tricks and techniques that will rapidly get you the results you’re looking for. Many people spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars purchasing different gimmicks in search of the results they’re looking for. Feeling good and having a good looking body can not be bought and sold despite how much different marketing schemes want you to believe that’s the case. Here are three things you can start working on today to slow down the aging process and help you obtain the results you’re working for.

1. Slow down the decaying of you’re DNA

As many of us have learned at one point or another, DNA is responsible for our genetic makeup and developing us into who we are. What you might not have known is that DNA is composed of chromosomes that are protected by strands of protective proteins called telomeres. As we age, these protective structures get shorter and make the chromosome more susceptible to damage, resulting in aging. It’s pretty much inevitable that everyone’s telomeres will shorten over time, but what we can do is slow down the rate at which these protective structures shorten.

It’s been shown through multiple research publications that exercise is a key component to keeping our DNA as healthy as possible as we get older. More specifically, studies are beginning to show that aerobic training (cardio) is most effective in preventing the shortening of telomeres to help us slow down the aging process. Other factors that will also help keep your telomeres long and strong are keeping your stress levels low (try meditation/prayer) and getting quality sleep every single night. If you’re someone looking to stay young and vibrant (which is probably everyone, I don’t think anyone is excited about growing old) then performing longer bouts of cardio and making sure you get quality sleep every night are going to be very resourceful for you.

2. Increase your natural production of growth hormone (GH)

I could make an entire different article describing what we can do to increase growth hormone (naturally), but for the sake of this article I want to make this short and sweet. Growth hormone is responsible for stimulating the growth of new cells in your body, making it an essential component in slowing the aging process. Here are three ways we can increase GH naturally.

1) Lift weights – relatively heavy compound lifting (full body movements such as a squat, lunge, press, etc.) stimulate the natural production of growth hormone.

2) Intermittent fasting – intermittent fasting is a popular, but very misunderstood trend in the fitness industry. Intermittent fasting (prolonged time with no food) triggers the release of growth hormone because our bodies have a built-in evolutionary response to release GH and preserve muscle mass when food was not readily available all the time like it is today.

3) Get more quality sleep – our bodies actually produce the most amount of GH during our sleep. If you’re someone who misses out on those quality hours of sleep every night, you are doing yourself a disservice because your body is missing out on its prime opportunity to release GH and repair your body.

3. Keep your stress low (decrease cortisol)

This is easier said than done, but high stress will break you’re body down faster than you can imagine. The physiological response to stress is the release of a hormone called cortisol. Although stress is important, we live in a society that triggers stress far to often for many people.

One of the best methods to deal with stress is to meditate/pray on a daily basis. For many, this seems counterintuitive because you feel that you should be working to decrease your stress. Meditation is a proved method that has a physiological effect on the body that lowers stress and has many other benefits for mental health. Try practicing meditation for 10 minutes a day (in the morning/before bed) and you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor. If you can feel your heart rate decrease and your taking long, deep breaths you’re doing it correctly.

To summarize everything we just discussed, I’m going to make a list of things that you can start doing today to keep yourself feeling young, healthy, and vibrant.

• Perform long bouts of cardio 2+ times/week

• Perform relatively heavy compound lifts at least 2 times/week

• Get quality sleep (8-10 hours) every night

• Meditate for 10 mins daily

• intermittent fast (please research before jumping into this!)