Goal Driven Habits
Nearby clinics
Presidential Boulevard, Bala Cynwyd
Elizabeth
New Philadelphia
Services Available In:
19147
John F Kennedy Boulevard
Avenue of The Arts
This community focuses on best practices for living a healthy and pain-free life
Goal Driven Habits focuses on 1-on-1 personal training specializing in individuals who have had a history of chronic and acute pain and helping them achieve a pain-free life.
01/01/2024
Happy New Year everyone! I am looking forward to this coming year at GDH. There are several exciting events and programs already planned for the coming year that I am eager to begin. Updates to come!!
Thank you all for training with Goal Driven Habits and I’m excited to have you all along for the next step in our journey!
Return of another great mobility piece, the 1/2 kneeling frog stretch. This one is a particular favorite of mine for opening up the adductors (inner thigh muscles).
Sometimes if you’re having difficulty getting into deep hip flexion, such as in a squat or lunge, the adductors could be restricting pelvic movement which will limit how close those thighs can get to your chest.
Questions on how to incorporate this movement into your own works out? Ask me!
Bringing back a favorite of mine, the worlds greatest stretch. Great for hip, thoracic, and shoulder mobility. Challenges your stability and even upper body strength, holding the push up position.
A ton of benefits to this movement, easily modify able to suit your needs!
Not enough hip mobility? -> do it with the knees on the floor.
Tight or painful shoulder? -> try reaching forward instead of up when you rotate.
Hamstrings super tight? -> drop the back knee when you rock back.
Don’t forget to breathe through the movement. If you find yourself holding your breath, stay in each position for 2 full inhale/exhales to help keep the breathing consistent and focused.
We back! Starting with some mobility work! Cat/cow is a great one for moving through full extension and flexion of the spinal column and noticing where you have restrictions. Rotational work, ie tspine rotations, storybooks, windmills, etc are great for creating more space at restriction points as is trigger point work with a ball or peanut.
As you can see with me, I’m pretty restricted through the thoracic spine in extension, so I know what I’m working on.
Move of the week: Split Stance Landmine Press
I am a fan of this strength exercise for a few reasons. The first being the alternating motion of the upper body and the split stance of the legs. Few movements in the world have our feet parallel, under the shoulders, and static. A split stance is closer to what you might see from walking, running, throwing, etc.
And with the opposite arm movement going in time with the press, you are helping drive thoracic rotation in this exercise too, a key to walking/running/moving effectively.
I also think this is a great alternative for someone with limited shoulder mobility to effectively press overhead. The scapula can move through upward rotation and protraction. Adding in the dynamic motion of the rib cage will help to improve and reinforce this pattern better than if the upper body was static.
Training questions? Drop me a message.
Move of the Week: High Plank Birddog. This is going to be a more advanced stabilisation exercise.
Just like in a 3 point plank where you want to minimize hip movement as you lift a hand/foot, same thing here, it will just be harder on 2 points of contact.
Focus on maintaining that core strength and pushing through the floor.
Creating the tension in your arm and leg by imagining a push through the floor will make this exercise a lot easier to manage.
I generally have people do 5-8 reps on each side, holding for 5 seconds each time.
Move of the week: the Kickstand Squat. I really like this exercise as an alternative or first step to pistol squats, especially for people who don’t have great flexibility and/or stability. With this variation, the body is in a more comfortable position to work on single leg strength and stability. As proficiency is gained with this exercise, beginning to introduce pistol squats from a box or a plate would be the next step, and with the stability gained from this exercise, progress should be seen much quicker and easier.
If you’re practicing on your own, use a mirror and check the following:
🔸 chest up - you don’t want rounded and elevated shoulders
🔹 neutral pelvis - your hips will likely drop on the unsupported side, work to keep the hips level
🔸 knees tracking over toes - make sure your knee is staying inline with your foot. If the knee moves in towards your midline, that can cause knee pain and it will make you feel less stable.
Feeling stuck with your rehab process or tired of working through pain? Send me a DM and let’s talk about a plan to help!
05/20/2021
A huge shout out to my client for finishing nurse practitioner school!! Glad I could help keep you motivated through the last few years!
with
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Move of the week: Shin Box. I’ll be honest, I hate this one. And if you have tight hips or poor hip rotation you will hate this too. But it’s going to work wonders.
In the seated 90/90 position we are working internal and external rotation of the femur. The key here is to move slowly and controlled from side to side. Create space between the knees as you move. The taller you can sit during the movement the more potent the effect will be.
Pre-workout or post-workout; or as part of a daily routine, this is a phenomenal exercise to implement.
Move of the week: 1/2 kneeling frog or adductor stretch. Tight adductors can limit squat depth and hip flexion, usually resulting in a chest dropping or butt winking at the bottom of a squat. This is a great drill for lengthening the adductors while also practicing the movement pattern of a squat. To get the most out of this exercise, take it slow. Feel when your hips want to tuck underneath you and when your chest starts to drop, maintain your posture and move through those points with control. You will feel an increased ease of deep hip flexion practicing these.
05/08/2021
READ FOR FULL STORY:
When it comes to recovery modalities, there are a few things that everyone agrees on that work well and things that some athletes swear by but science is inconclusive. Ice bathing and cold water plunges on recovery are two such modalities.
The authors of this study took 9 recreational athletes and put them through an intermittent running working to develop muscle damage, then compared cold bathing post workout to no recovery work post workout to see what happened.
The major results from this study were that both cold and ice water had minimal effect on either preventing inflammation or greatly reducing its effects compared to levels immediately post workout. Though compared to control, Aka nothing, cold water bathing actually had a small positive outcome in most biomarkers and on peak power output and mean power output.
So in practical application, this study indicates that doing a cold (but not too cold) shower or bath is going to lower your ability to produce both peak and sustained power, so if you’re competing in a tournament with multiple games a day, save the cold shower until AFTER your last game of the day to start your recovery process.
Disclaimer: I personally am a fan of ice baths. There is plenty of value I think they add from a recovery standpoint but also from a mental and physiological standpoint. This is just one study, and the question around best recovery practices is far from answered.
A phenomenal way to end the mobility and warm up portion of a workout. Integrating mobility, flexibility, and stability into a fairly dense flow. This is a great exercise to use when tracking progress and improvements in stability and thoracic mobility, the easier the flow, the longer you can get the arms when rotating, the more stability and control you are demonstrating. An easy way to incorporate assessment into your program.
Move of the week: 3 point row. The row is a staple movement for upper body pulling activities. This variation is good for continuing to practice correctly hip hinging while controlling a load, just like we would do in a deadlift.
Progression: An unsupported bent over row w/ 2 DBs or a barbell
Regression: single arm DB row (contralateral hand and knee on a bench, same side foot on the ground)
11/17/2020
Article Review: This one is a 2017 study from the Journal of Nutrition, looking at the effects of protein before sleep on muscle protein synthesis rates.
🔹Purpose: To see if ingesting (drinking in this case) supplemental casein protein before bed led to increased muscle protein synthesis. If it help improve muscle repair and growth or not.
🔸 Participants: 48 healthy older (70+) men. They had no pre-existing conditions that would affect their diet, had not had any recent rapid weight loss, and were not on a current exercise/muscle building program. (This makes them a very specific group and one that doesn’t include a lot of the general pop. This was done to eliminate confounding factors)
🔹 Intervention: Participants were given a randomly assigned drink containing either 0g, 20g, or 40g of casein or 20g + 1.5g of leucine before bed. Blood and muscle samples taken during the night.
🔸 Takeaways: Protein ingestion before bed, specifically 40g but even 20g led to increased synthesis rates during the night. This means that taking protein before bed could be a good way to reduce muscle loss and even increase muscle gain in older men.
This study explored a very specific group of men and limited the variables that could affect the outcome of their study. Because of that, this should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, the fact that 40g of protein was enough to increase muscle protein synthesis during the night by 33% is huge. For older individuals or those experiencing loss of function or strength, supplemental protein has been shown to be a supportive intervention. This is not to say that it is at the exclusion of things like exercise, healthy lifestyle, good sleep and nutrition habits, etc. These will always be the best interventions for most chronic illnesses or failing strength. But if you need the extra boost, here is a potentially great one.
The protein used is called casein, most supplement companies carry it but some good ones are and
Move of the Week! Rather than a move, I want to go over a position. The 1/2 kneeling position. This is something I use with clients and athletes when I want to simplify the focus of an exercise. When you’re standing, there are a lot more pieces to stabilize and control compared to sitting, kneeling, or on all fours. From this position, for a landmine press for example, it’s much easier for a client to focus on maintaining a neutral spine and pressing through the shoulder than if they were standing or in a split stance position. Less opportunity for an extended spine and a higher likelihood of achieving the adaptation I’m after.
Move of the week is the Bear Crawl. Any time we run, walk, skip, throw, etc, there is a reciprocal (opposite sides move together) motion that happens. Crawling is where this pattern is first ingrained in us and it’s a move we can come back to to retrain and refine that motion. The Bear Crawl is great at demanding core stability while having this reciprocal motion taking place. If you’re a runner who is recovering from injury or working on their form, this is one for you. Mix it into a lift or as part of a pre-run routine.
10/26/2020
Article Review: This one is a 2018 study from the Journal of Motor Behavior, exploring the effects of deep muscles on posture and breathing.
🔹Purpose: To see if training deep core musculature, specifically the multifidus, internal obliques, and transverse abdominis, would have a positive effect on posture and breathing.
🔸 Participants: 18 participants between ages 20 and 30.
🔹 Intervention: Participants were given 5 exercises to complete 3 times each week for 4 weeks. The five exercises were specifically to target the deep core musculature.
🔸 Takeaways: Posture improvements were seen following the four week intervention. Breathing also improved, specifically the depth of the breathe. Movement of the chest and stomach were recorded for each participant to measure the depth of the breath being taken.
This study explored what the effect deep core training would have on posture and breathing. Improvements in posture were seen following the 4 week intervention. The researchers only had a proxy measure for breathing quality, that being the movement of the chest and abdomen during the breathe cycle. Because the amplitude of these measurements increased (there was more movement during the breathe cycle) they suspected that breathing improved. However, because they were not measuring cadence, concentration of exhaled gases, or any of the other markers normally used when measuring respiratory function, it’s hard to say if breathing REALLY did improve, but the indication seems to be that there was some improvement.
Move of the week this week is the deadbug. Another exercise for the anterior core, this one is a bit more challenging than a plank as you are now moving through a range of motion while maintaining integrity though your core.
A progression I did not post in this video would be a band resisted Deadbug. In this iteration, a band would be put around the feet, so you are now applying force as you work to keep stability. There are several further additional variations to this exercise but being able to do this basic version well is a good place to start.
10/16/2020
Article Review. Looking at this one I came across out of Italy in 2009 where they were exploring the effects of diaphragmatic breathing on stress related biomarkers.
🔹Purpose: Melatonin 💤, the sleep hormone, plays a role in reducing or buffering the effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS, the things that antioxidants fight) in the body post intense exercise.
🔸 Participants: 16 amateur cyclists 🚴♂️ who competed in 24 hour races.
🔹 Intervention: The researchers had half the group practice diaphragmatic breathing (DB Group) for 1 hr post-exercise while the other half (Control Group) sat and read then they measured ROS and cortisol levels over the next 24 hours.
🔸 Takeaways: DB = ⬆️ melatonin, which correlated with reduced ROS and cortisol levels in the DB group compared to the control group at ALL TIME POINTS! Melatonin was significantly elevated in the DB group, suggesting improved and deeper sleep (which is related to improved recovery).
This study was exploring the role of melatonin in recovery and they were able to find correlations between ⬆️ melatonin levels and ⬆️ recovery. But before you go off and start popping melatonin supplements, this is just a CORRELATION not a CAUSATION (meaning melatonin might not actually be the thing affecting this). DB as a practice is related to improved sleep, reduced stress, and better health. Better long term benefits will come from practicing DB rather than short cutting with a supplement.
10/13/2020
Back at it in Naval Square. As long as the weather is nice we’ll be getting after it. 1-on-1 and semi private session times still available! Shoot a DM or an email to schedule a session today!
Move of the week is the forearm plank. Beyond being a great core exercise, it’s also super important position to master if you want to do quality push ups and have a strong and supported spine for deadlifting or other lower body pulls. Also, KB work. The top of the swing is essentially a standing plank, with your core engaged and braced against the KB’s momentum.
If you have issues with swings or you’re feeling you lumbar spine as you are playing with a KB, try mixing in some planks and plank variations into your lift to keep reinforcing the brace you need to have through your anterior core as you work.
10/09/2020
Article Review time. Each week I’ll post a short summary of an article I have read this week or one that has been impactful on training and wellness. To start off, we’ll look at the 2011 sleep extension study from Stanford.
🔸Purpose: to see what performance benefits, if any, would be gained from extending time asleep.
🔹Participants: 11 members of the Stanford Men’s Basketball team ⛹🏽♂️
🔸Important takeaways: Free throw and 3-point shooting improved by 9% each, their sprint times got quicker, and the players felt better physically and mentally during practices and the rest of the day.
Players increased their time in bed to 10+ hours a night! 😴😴 That is a lot for anyone, especially a college athlete. Although this study found huge benefits when participants slept more, this is an extreme amount of sleep for most people. Subsequent research has found that 9 hours of time in bed (which will usually equate to ~8 hours of sleep) has been correlated with improvements in athletic and academic performance.
As important as sleep time is, having a consistent sleep schedule (bedtime/wake time), pre-bed routine, and getting exposed to natural light during the day is just as important. So before you go and try to start sleeping 10 hours a night, make sure the habits around your sleep are solid. If you have questions about sleep or need help with improving your sleep, drop me a line!
BTW this article is free on PubMed if you want to read it.
Beginning our weekly movement series with a good way to begin a workout, the worlds greatest stretch. It will hit hip mobility, thoracic spine rotation, shoulder mobility and stability, as well as some hamstring flexibility. This is a great way to begin creating ease of movement as you start elevating the heart rate into workout.
09/04/2020
Read an article today in the about the increasing incidence of insomnia and disrupted sleep around the world due to the pandemic.
This was a topic we discussed earlier this year but as the situation drags, it seems like a good topic to revisit. Researchers are finding increased worry about the future, using bedrooms for offices, not visiting/seeing friends and family, staying inside and not leaving the house all seem to be linked to this sleep epidemic.
Despite this, there are some habits you can employ to help keep your nights restful and your sleep sound..
🔹Get outside during the day. This helps stabilize your circadian rhythm
🔸Minimize electronic use before bed and switch devices to “night mode”
🔹Go to bed early rather than late to maximize your time in deep sleep
🔸Use breathwork before bed to relax and destress
If you or someone you know is struggling with their sleep, please share this info with them.
If you have any questions shoot me a DM.
Testing out the new squat rack. A little on the short side for me at 6’4” but it’s a good height for most of my clients.
It’s my first time squatting in a while and it felt halfway decent. But you can tell the compression strategy (keeping a solid hip position on the transition from eccentric to concentric) needs some work..
PS - the rack works
08/24/2020
We built a thing.
Added a new piece of equipment to the home gym this weekend. Can not wait to start using this with clients! (Yes, I am back to training in person).
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