ForeverStrong® Fitness

Core Strength: What are the Benefits of Strong Core Muscles and How Do I Get Them!?

Enhance Your Whole Body Health with Core Strength

Improving Core Strength has so many great benefits for your health! Great abs look good and building your core will contribute to your body’s overall strength and endurance, as well as balance and coordination. Strong core muscles allow your

spine to bear more weight which decrease your chances of injury while participating in sports or doing daily tasks. This leads to less lower back pain, which is something we love! And core strength helps keep other muscle groups from getting weak because of overcompensating for disengaged core muscles.

The Safest Way to Strengthen Your Core

While many exercises will strengthen your core, some are more or less likely to cause injury than others. The safest and most effective types of exercises that strengthen the core muscles are Isometric Exercises. Isometric training lowers the chance of injury which will keep you moving your body and building your overall fitness level. These types of movements also increase your core strength quickly and effectively.

Some examples of Isometric core strength building exercises include the Curl Up, RKC or Hardstyle Plank, Pallof press, Bird-dog or cross-crawl, Dead bug. Check out the videos at the end of this article for a demonstration. 

On the other hand, popular Exercises to Avoid are those that require repeated flexion and extension of the spine – especially with load. Crunches, Russian Twists, Abdominal Side Bend, Decline Sit Ups, Back Extension. There is a high risk of herniation with these exercises*. 

Most small group training, group workouts, fitness classes and group exercise programs don’t spend much time on form. It’s important to be properly educated on the perfect technique for each movement in your core strength training program. Whether you use traditional free weights, or kettlebells be sure to work with a personal trainer who is certified with the tools they are using and is staying current with exercise science research.

8-Week Core Strength Program begins February 4, 2018

Over the next 8 weeks, will be utilizing the isometric core strength movements that have been proven to have the greatest core strength improvement based on the research from the leading back health researcher Dr. Stuart M. McGill*. We invite you to join!

If you are interested in learning more about our 8-Week Core Cure Program or ForeverStrong, call us at 301-452-5547 or email kelly@trainforeverstrong.com.

ForeverStrong Personal Trainers have helped hundreds of people in Howard County and the surrounding areas lose weight, tone up, and get real core strength. Our neighbors in Highland, Clarksville, Columbia, Burtonsville, Olney, Ashton and Silver Spring love their personalized training program. Unlike group fitness classes, each client receives a personal training program here.

We’d love to help you too!

Dr. Wiji Jones of Morrison Chiropractic in Clarksville, MD demonstrates proper form for the following Isometric Core Strength Training Exercises:

Hard Style Plank, Bird Dog, and Side Plank

Torsional Buttress

Suitcase Hold, Stir the Pot, Inverted Row, Rack Walk, and Palloff Press

*Research References:

Effect of Long-Term Isometric Training on Core/Torso Stiffness; Lee, McGill,
2015.

Intervertebral disc herniation: studies on a porcine model exposed to highly repetitive flexion/extension motion with compressive force; Callahan, McGill 2001

Increase Strength Instead Of Focusing On Gaining Muscle Mass

For a proper full body workout, strength training is just as important as getting in a balanced mix of cardio. While running and other aerobic activities are a good way to build muscle, especially leg muscle, your upper body and core need just as much stress and resistance training in order to strengthen your whole body. At Forever Strong®, we want everyone that comes to our small group training gym to achieve their own desired results when it comes to transforming their body, and ultimately their way of life. So, we’ll help you safely train until you’re at a point of fitness that you’re happy with, but our Fulton gym also believes that strength training and fitness should be approached holistically.

We Care How You Feel

In this sense, we mean that the entire body should be considered when you’re working out and getting in shape, as well as how getting fit can positively impact your day-to-day life when you’re not at our strength training gym. We want you to feel your very best and get the most out of your life, and in today’s blog post, we’re going to cover why it’s smart to emphasize overall strength training as opposed to gaining visible muscle mass. Let’s discover why the way you feel is just as, if not more important, than the way you look.

Growing Your Muscles

Note that making a muscle grow requires a slightly altered approach than it does to make a muscle stronger. This is where the distinction between your weight lifting performance versus your training effect comes into play. For those training up a muscle or muscle group specifically for cosmetic benefits (to make the muscle larger), the training effects that your workouts have on your muscles should be your area of concern. In other words, the volume of exercise and completeness of muscle fiber breakdown or directly related to the results that you’ll see in the mirror.

The idea with cosmetic muscle gain is to work your muscles to full exhaustion, which should be approached with caution. In many cases, this doesn’t necessarily take much weight in a well-planned isolation workout – rather, the cumulative effect that the workout has on your muscle tissue will translate to quicker gains in muscle mass.

Strength Training Your Muscles

Adding strength, on the other hand, comes through making the ‘base’ of your exercise routine consist of larger movement. So, compound-style exercises like squatting, deadlifting and bench pressing are great choices that allow the body to recruit many muscle fibers in one shot. This total body exertion, especially under heavy loads, will encourage greater hormone release and train your fast-twitch fibers to be more responsive and fire harder. Simply put, this is the formula to build strength in your muscles and in your body.

Comparing The Two

Due to the large impact on your hormones in addition to heavy lifting and compound movements, strength training generally has a greater impact on your central nervous system. Your body truly takes a beating with repeated maximal efforts, so rest time between sets and even rest time between training days as a whole should be closely monitored to avoid injury or any adverse effects.

All things considered, with size comes strength – the larger the surface area of the unit, the more force that unit will be able to apply against a resistance. That’s why massive bodybuilders wouldn’t be able to bench 700+ pounds if they only weighed 175. So, building the size of your muscles and gaining strength can go hand in hand if you train smart. Just remember, though, that your journey to fitness is often based on how you feel, what your daily energy levels are like, how your clothes fit, and so forth. Don’t get too consumed with that reflection in the mirror!

Learn More About What Forever Strong® Can Do For You

Ready to take the next step to more strength and a healthier life? Our Fulton gym is excited to work with you. Get in touch with us now!

Did You Know That Strength Training Can Help Treat Osteopenia?

Osteopenia is a very common condition that affects millions of Americans each year. If you’re not familiar with osteopenia or bone loss, it refers to a condition that occurs when the body doesn’t make new bone as quickly as it absorbs old bone. This weak bone condition can lead to osteoporosis if it worsens, but fortunately, there are ways to help fight weak bone generation!

ForeverStrong® Is Here To Help You

If you read the title of this blog post, then you might be intrigued to know that active exercise and strength training at our Fulton training gym might be able to help strengthen your bones and fight osteopenia. At ForeverStrong®, we’re proud to help our valued clients by doing more for them than just burning fat and building muscle. Our goal at ForeverStrong is to improve the overall quality of life for everyone, and we think that goes well beyond strength training and improving your cardiovascular fitness (though those are still important aspects of our group training services!).

Let’s take a good at a few reasons at why strength training exercises will help you deal with bone loss:

Osteopenia Exercise Treatment

The main point of strength training and exercise for osteopenia is to do the following:

  • Prevent bone fractures
  • Stop or significantly slow down bone loss
  • Increase your bone density

By doing both balance and weight-bearing exercises, you’ll prevent your chances of falling as well as stimulate your cells that promote new bone growth. While preventing your chances of randomly falling over sounds rather silly, aging can result in a gradual loss of balance. If you do not fall because you’re doing balance exercises, then you are far less likely to suffer from a bone fracture.

Plus, with weight-bearing exercises, you’ll promote what are known as ‘osteoblasts,’ or cells that help your body build new bone. Without going into more science-related details, you’ll be doing your bones a favor by preventing them from getting damaged and promoting healthy, strong growth. With our training exercises at ForeverStrong®, it’s a win-win for you and your bones.

Now You Have Yet Another Reason To Come Train With Us!

Do you want to get strong…forever? We believe that you should live your life to the fullest and get the best quality out of your experience as possible. So don’t let something like bone loss hold you back from doing the things that you enjoy and living a rich, fulfilled life. Instead, get in touch with the full body strength training professionals here at ForeverStrong®. With your personal fitness goals in mind and our powerful, structured training programs, we’ll work together toward a life of better health and happiness. Questions? Learn more by getting in touch with our Fulton strength training gym today!

Strength Training Is Great, But So Is Injury Prevention

We’re not sure who originally said it, but good habits are as addictive as bad habits, and they’re a lot more rewarding, too. Naturally, exercise is a prime example when it comes to a positive habit with a high potential for reward. At Train Forever Strong, our strength training gym in Maryland is dedicated to providing you with personalized training and group training services that will progressively help work your way to achieving and mastering your fitness goals.

While exercise is a healthy habit, it is crucially important to train safely and prevent any injuries from occurring. That’s why our strength training gym wants to make sure that you know some of the basic ins and outs of exercise and strength training, and how they relate to injury prevention. Check it out!

Two Classes of Injuries

Essentially, there are two basic classes of injuries that we’re concerned about: traumatic injuries and cumulative injuries. Traumatic injuries are freak accidents that occur through sports activities, fitness, or even general daily life, like twisting your ankle getting off the bus or getting into a car wreck.

Cumulative injuries, as the name suggests, occur over time. Cumulative injuries are related to tissue damage that occurs as a result of repetitive strain over a given period of time, such as through running, biking, or other activities that repetitively use the same muscle groups over and over again. Cumulative injuries can creep up without you noticing them, and also may be related to poor posture, faulty movement patterns, improper training, improper gear, and so forth.

General Physical Preparedness

To successfully prevent or at least mitigate any chances of physical or sports-related injury, maintaining general physical preparedness is necessary. What this refers to is maintaining a baseline level of fitness so that you can respond to physical challenges without any harm. Let’s take a quick look at some parts of general physical preparedness.

Flexibility

Seriously, don’t run or exercise without stretching before and after! To avoid any injuries, you’ll want to make sure that all major joints, including your spine, have a full range of motion and sufficient muscle length.

Proper Form

If you’re unsure about how to use a piece of equipment or execute a certain technique correctly, please don’t be bashful. Improperly exercising is what commonly leads to traumatic or cumulative injuries for many people. Sure, you might feel a little embarrassed asking, but we guarantee that it’s much better than hurting yourself.

Use The Right Intended Equipment

This might sound silly, but make sure that the things you’re using to work out with are actually intended for what you’re using them for. Save your stylish shoes for a nice occasion or for work, and use cushioned, high-impact athletic shoes for those cardio activities.

Pushing and Exceeding Your Limits

Exercise is addictive for many people, and sometimes that addiction leads to over ambition. Don’t continue running or putting weight on muscles that clearly already hurt. While it’s good to hurt and and be sore to a healthy extent, putting excess stress on hurting muscles can lead to deep bruises and breaks that may or may not heal.

Do It Right at Our Strength Training Gym

With Train Forever Strong’s team of seasoned, knowledgeable fitness professionals, we’re here to make sure that you’re on a safe, incremental fitness path. We know that increasing your cardiovascular endurance, core strength and overall strength takes time and should not be rushed to allow your body to rest and recover. Why risk any chance of sports or fitness-related injury? Contact the strength workout experts at Train Forever Strong today!

An Incredibly Easy Strength Training Method That Works For Busy People

If you want to tone up, trim your waistline, strengthen your core and become stronger while burning off fat, this strength training article is for you.

If you aren’t 100% certain that lifting weights is helping you get the body you want, then you should definitely read this article.

If you need to get in shape in the fastest time possible but your strength training workout consists mostly of training specific body parts i.e. arms and core, then you NEED to read this article.

This article will teach you the difference between Body Part Strength Training and Full Body Strength Training.

Learning how to do full body strength training will be the most significant change that you can make to your workout programs to get you the fastest results in the shortest time possible.

What is Body Part Strength Training?

If your lifting sessions target just one or two specific muscle groups each session, then you are doing body part strength training.

Examples of Body Part Strength Routines:

Example #1

After your cardio, you hit the weight room to work “arms” and “core”.

Example #2

an example of body part strength training

This typical strength training session could look something like this:

Lat Pull Down Machine: 3 Sets of 15

Bicep Curls: 3 Sets of 15

Chest Fly Machine: 3 Sets of 15

Triceps Kickbacks: 3 Sets of 15

Crunches: 3 Sets of 15

Bicycle Crunches: 3 Sets of 15

Example #3

If you are a more experienced gym goer, it might look something like this:

Monday: Back and Biceps Day

Tuesday: Cardio & Core

Wednesday: Chest and Triceps Day

Thursday: Cardio and Core

Friday: Leg Day

Saturday: Cardio & Core

Although body part focused weightlifting is common,  it’s a time-waster for most of the people I meet. Like you, the people who are attracted to my program are very busy and don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to exercise. Yet, you still want to get remarkable results from the time you invest in training, right? 

Here are a few reasons why body part training isn’t working for you:

First, it’s very time-consuming to do: it requires 3-5 days a week of strength training plus another 2-3 days a week of cardio. To get the benefits of this type of workout program you would need to spend a minimum of 10 hours a week in the gym.

Second, it’s not making a significant contribution to fat loss. Single joint movements, like bicep curls, won’t create a great enough energy expenditure to help you burn stubborn body fat. Simply put, you could spend an hour in the gym doing body part strength training and not see any body fat reduction.

Third, it creates excessive soreness that can make it very hard to get through daily tasks. This is because in order to stimulate the individual muscle group to grow, you have to train it to failure. This “failure” goal of training creates a great deal of isolated muscle soreness and stiffness for 2-3 days after each workout. Being stiff or sore all the time will make you more likely to skip workouts or just give up altogether.

There is a better way to use weights to help you burn fat, tone up, become stronger, flatten your tummy, and get the body you want. It’s full body strength training. I’ve been using the ‘Full-Body-Five’ with my clients successfully for years and the results are amazing!

The ForeverStrong Guide to Full Body Strength Training

Instead of working out individual muscle groups, we strategically use exercises that require as many muscles as possible to work together to lift the weight. This means that we design a workout based on movement, not muscles. This results in an incredibly easy weight lifting method that works for busy people.

Compound exercises like squats, deadlifts and pull-ups require more muscle groups to engage and work together in order to perform the lift. This requires a greater amount of effort to execute the lift and results in an increased amount of work performed during the workout.

A full body strength training workout utilizes many muscle groups at a time to perform ALL 5 of the following functional movements EVERY session. Use this list as your workout guide:

Kelly Scott Performing Full Body Strength Training Methods
(image: Kelly Scott Performing Full Body Strength Training Methods)

1.) An Upper Body Push

(Examples: Kettlebell Overhead Press, Bench Press, Pushups)

2.) A Upper Body Pull

(Examples: Chin-ups, Bent Row, Inverted or Suspended Row)

3.) A Lower Body Pull (or hinge)

(Examples: Deadlift, Hip-Bridges or Thrusters, Kettlebell Swing)

4.) A Lower Body Push

(Examples: Squats, Step Ups, Lunges)

5.) A Tension Drill or Carry

(Examples: Hard-style Planks, Farmer’s Walks, Turkish Getups)

If your workout included one exercise from each category above, you have a complete full body strength training workout. At ForeverStrong, we call this the ‘Full-Body-Five’.

7 Surprising Benefits of Full Body Strength Training:Cheat Time with this strength training timesaver

  1. Fewer individual exercises means shorter workouts. When you’re short on time, you can get more work done in less time, because you’re multi-tasking your workout instead of single-tasking.
  2. Create lean body mass faster. Full body workouts can build more muscle by targeting any given muscle group at almost every workout. This creates a greater demand on the muscles to repair, rebuild and improve more frequently than body part workouts.
  3. Become stronger. If your goal is to become functionally stronger, movements that require you to use more weight will help you get stronger. Compound movements that are “heavy” require more major muscle groups to execute. After just a few weeks of full body workouts, everyday tasks like picking up heavy items from the ground and carrying them will become easier.
  4. Burn more calories in less time. When major muscle groups work together in compound exercises, like swings and squats, a greater energy demand is placed on your metabolism than isolation exercises like bicep curls.  Simply put, it takes more energy to require lots of big muscles to work together than it does to work smaller muscles isolated in one location. More energy expended equals more calories burned.
  5. Reduce risk of straining muscles and/or becoming excessively sore. With body part training, in order to get enough work to stimulate the muscle to grow, you need to train the muscle to failure. This causes severe microtrauma to the muscle and results in extreme post-workout soreness. You will not have time to do as many repetitions of each exercise during a full body body workout as you do during a body part workout, so you are less likely to over-train muscles. This also prevents repetitive stress injuries that can occur when you only work one area of the body over and over.
  6. Strengthen your core. Performing full body movements requires core engagement during every lift. This means that each and every movement you do is activating your abs, glutes, pelvic floor muscles and helping them get stronger.  Your entire core is being worked without having to do extra crunches.

Before You Begin

Ready to get started? There are a few considerations when beginning a full-body strength program.

Make sure you invest time in learning the proper form. Lifting heavier weights requires skill and takes time for you to become proficient. Look for a coach who focuses on technique, not just hard work.

The process of learning compound movements could expose dysfunctional movement patterns. This sounds bad, but it’s actually a good thing. If you have limited range of motion in some joints, undiscovered orthopedic issues, or your strength is not balanced, compound movements will expose these deficiencies. In these cases, a corrective movement strategy can supplement your workout routine to help you improve the quality of your movements, reduce your risk of injury and help you reach your goals faster.

Want More Results in Less Time? Use the ForeverStrong Full-Body-Five Method, an Incredibly Easy Weight Lifting Method That Works

If you need to get into shape, become stronger, fitter, have more muscle tone, trim inches from your waistline and strengthen your core in the fastest time possible but don’t have a lot of time in your schedule for exercise, start a full body workout program.

Learn how to safely perform compound movements with weights like Deadlifts, Goblet Squats, Inverted Rows, Pushups, and Turkish Getups.

Design your workouts with big movements and forget about which muscle group you are working. Create every workout using the ForeverStrong Full-Body-Five method: an upper body “push”, an upper body “pull”, a lower body “push”, a lower body “pull” and a tension drill or carry.

The ForeverStrong Full-Body Five method is one of three breakthrough components of the ForeverStrong Fitness Formula. For more information about how to finally achieve the body you’ve always wanted with ForeverStrong call us at 301-452-5547 to schedule a complimentary consultation. We’ve helped hundreds of people in Marriottsville, Turf Valley, Waverly Woods, Woodmark, West Friendship, Eldersburg, Sykesville,  Woodstock,  Cooksville, Ellicott City, Mt. Hebron, Clarksville, Fulton, Laurel, Burtonsville, Highland, Silver Spring, Columbia, Ellicott City, Glen Elg, and we’d love to help you too.