TEACHING MENS FITNESS

“WAKE UP BEAUTY IT’S TIME TO BEAST”

You wake up with tight, stiff muscles and wish there was a single simple stretch you could do that would make you feel amazing?

Guess what? you’ve come to the right blog post!

Here I’m going to tell you one simple stretch to do the first thing every single morning to loosen up your back, shoulder and hips that anyone can perform in just seconds.

First things First

The key to understanding the benefits of this morning stretch is to first take a look at what it is we are trying to undo from sleeping. In general, people sleep with their arms down at their sides all night. This will lead to tightness in the lat muscles that can only be relieved with a raising of the arms up overhead and out in front of the body.

The hip flexors tend to get very stiff and tight as well. This is because, as we sleep, the pelvis sinks into the soft mattress bringing our hips into slight flexion. At no point will the hips reach full extension let alone slight hyperextension, and therefore the need to really bend backwards and get that motion is extremely present when you first jump out of bed.

The next spot up the kinetic chain, the thoracic spine, is another place that tends to get stuck in a flexed position from the soft mattress. This is called kyphosis. Not a permanent one mind you, but one that is induced by sleeping on your back for 6, 8, 10 or even 12 hours a night. Spending too much time in this position is sure to create adaptive tightnesses that need to be addressed if you want to feel amazing within the first few minutes of waking.

Sleeping on your side does not fix this issue. In general, when you sleep on your side you bring your hips along with you. This lack of differential between the hips and shoulders will do nothing to promote the healthy rotation through the thoracic spine that is needed to keep you feeling fully mobile and loose.

So what to you?

One simple morning stretch that is going to promote proper motion of all the joints mentioned above, that can be done by anyone no matter what their age, strength or ability level.

All you have to do is lay on the ground and do what is called a bridge reach over.

To perform the bridge reach over, bend the knees to about 90 degrees and dig your heels into the ground. Lift your butt up in a normal bridging motion and as you do, reach your right arm up and over your left shoulder (attempting to touch the ground with your hand). You will need to drive extra hard with the glute on the right leg to help you do this. By doing so however, you will find that you reach a level of full hip extension that you simply cannot achieve with a normal hip bridge.

Lower the hips and bring the arm back down to your side and immediately alternate to the opposite arm. Continue alternating reps, 5 to each side for 1-2 sets, and you will feel an immediate difference in how loose your joints and muscles feel. The bridge, as mentioned, will not only activate the glutes and get them to work in concert with the hamstrings but their activation will help you to reach further overhead to promote a better hip extension mobilization.

The thoracic spine extension and rotation is going to be assisted by the distance of your reach. Push up harder with the glutes, reach further with the hand, promote more thoracic extension and rotation of the mid and upper back.

Throw in the extra stretch that you’re getting on your lats by the forward and elevated reach of the arm and you’ve got an incredible stretch that you can do every morning that will provide instant relief of stiff, tight muscles.

So that’s it for today, If you are looking for a complete program that approaches all elements of your training (stretching, training, nutrition, and supplementation) with the same science based approach and want to be able to do it at home without any equipment at all then follow my blog because i post new blog every Monday and Thursday.

Hey you made it to the end, I appreciate u bro, a like would be amazing! Follow my blog for a complete step by step workout and nutrition plan that puts the science back in strength and helps you to build muscle.

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SORED? TIRED? OUT OF BREATH? SWEATY? GOOD ITS WORKING!

Muscle soreness and delayed onset muscle soreness from working out is one of the most misunderstood and debated elements of training. Are you supposed to be sore after your workouts or is it something that is getting in the way of your muscle growth?

In this post, I’ll discuss the most effective way to create muscle soreness in your workouts and more importantly help you to determine whether this is something you should be chasing in order to grow.

We’ll start the concept of muscle soreness, generally this is something you should feel within the belly of the muscle and not necessarily only at the tendinous attachments of the muscle across a joint or joints. When your tendons are sore and achy and the muscles themselves are not, this is a pretty good indication that you did not necessarily do a good thing for your body with your training. You may have inflamed the joint rather than positively stimulated the muscle.

That said, assuming you have properly targeted the muscle you have to understand what you did to cause this.

Eccentric or negative training is the most effective way to elicit muscle soreness and post workout soreness because of the mechanical damage you are doing to the muscle when you use it. For instance, concentric training is the portion of the rep in which you place tension on a muscle but do so while shortening the muscle.

With an absence of elongation of the muscle (combined with the tension) you are omitting a large contributor to muscle soreness and breakdown. In fact, with a complete absence of eccentric load, it is feasible that you could perform a workout on back to back days for the same muscle group because the positive focused workout will not leave you too sore to do the workout on the next day.

Understanding this however is a key to maximizing your muscle growth. You cannot just swing the weights around and hope to get enough mechanical stress and damage that would cause your muscles to have to grow back bigger and stronger. You have to slow down your eccentric contraction on every rep if you want to overload the muscles and subject them to a stimulus strong enough to cause reactive muscle growth.

That being said, even if you do perform your workout in the proper fashion and are left feeling sore the next day or days, if you do not support your efforts in the gym with a dedication to proper nutrition, supplementation and rest or sleep you will not grow.

It’s as simple as that. Rest and recovery are paramount to a natural lifters ability to grow muscles from their workouts. If you are not paying attention to these aspects of your training and day (often accountable to up to 23 hours in a day) you will not see the muscle growth you should be seeing from your workouts.

TEACHING MENS FITNESS

Do This Stretch First Thing EVERY Morning (INSTANT RELIEF!) sounds interesting? let’s hop into it!

You wake up with tight, stiff muscles and wish there was a single simple stretch you could do that would make you feel amazing?

Guess what? you’ve come to the right blog post!

First things First

So what to you?

New post every Monday and Thursday

Found this post interesting?

Let’s stay in touch?

Muscle Soreness (IS IT GOOD?) Sounds Interesting? Let’s hop into it!

Muscle soreness and delayed onset muscle soreness from working out is one of the most misunderstood and debated elements of training. Are you supposed to be sore after your workouts or is it something that is getting in the way of your muscle growth?

New post every Monday and Thursday

Found this post Interesting?

Let’s stay in touch!

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