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Knee stability exercises progression – Video

March 10, 2013 by admin

Knee strengthening exercise or Knee stability exercises are to help your knees be as stable as possible in all three planes of motion (frontal, saggital, transverse), do these progressions. Each video from top to bottom goes from easy to hard. You must master each with perfect form and without joint pain to progress onto the next one below.

 

The knee stabilization exercises videos will be broken down into group 1,2,3,4. Try to progress in ascending order. To be safe start at Group 1. If you can do all the exercises without pain, with perfect form, and for 2-3 sets of 20, then progress to group 2. Repeat that process.

Knee stability exercises to build strength

 

This knee stability exercise program is not just about build strength. Strength is just one third of knee health. There is flexibility (see the very bottom) and propriocepetion (stability skill). This program will enhance all three aspects of your knee.

 

Like martial arts, you must master the basics first. That is how this knee stability exercises program works. You go back to the beginning and master the basics. Then you “rebuild” the knee from the ground up to teach it new stability skills.  Good luck and fill out the survey at the bottom for more help!

 

Videos:

Group 1 exercises for knee stability

 

For this knee stability exercise we will start with bending one knee, knee towards your chest bring your foot flat on the table. You are going to keep your stomach tight throughout the exercise. You will need to keep this knee totally straight and locked out point your toes towards your shin.

 

I want you to raise this knee off the table and raise to the height of your opposite knee and you slowly lower it down, its very important to keep that abs down. So this is position one for the hip 4 way.

 

So position 2 after you repeat the number of repetitions on this side you would come over and do the opposite leg, same thing. So position 2 you will roll around to your side so keeping your bottom knee bent. This knee is going to be straight. I want you to grab on to the edge of the table to kind of support and stabilize yourself and your hips need to stay forward towards the stabilization exercise.

 

People have kind of tendency to roll their hip backward. For this exercise you will maintain your body alignment with the hips forward. And this top leg should be back, you are going to be lowering the leg towards the floor and raising it up. That would be the position 2 for the hip4 way.

 

Now position 3, cross over your knee and plating the foot on the table like this, the bottom knee is gonna go straight. And you going to bring this bottom leg back behind your body. You are going to need to maintain a straight line and torso. Everything should make one straight line.

 

Again you will be pulling toes up towards the shin and you will be contracting the muscles in your inner thigh and raising your leg off the table, just few inches. This would be the position 3 for the hip 4 way.

 

Final position, position 4 would be laying on your stomach and you want your feet’s to be hanging over to the edge of the table. For this exercise again you want to maintain your stomach tight. You do not want to allow your body or torso to rotate.

 

So stomach tight, legs again locked out straight. You will be contracting your gluten muscles, lifting your leg above the table. You will lift your leg very few inches. Very common mistake is that people wanna lift the leg too far. What happens is that they end up compensating rotating their waists.

 

You want to avoid that you want to hold everything down and yo only going to lift my hand till you feel my hand and then lower down slowly.

 

And that would be the Hip 4 way, one of the first knee stability exercises that you would be doing.

 

There are great ways to improve posture for doing squat!

 

This is called the stick squat, basically its for the people who are having hard time controlling proper posture as you are squatting. The goal of this exercise is to teach you how to hold your spine in the perfect alignment. A overall knee stability exercises to build strength and to increase knee strength.

 

It is extremely important because if you are not in direct alignment with your spine as you are squatting and round your chest forward. Its adds to the compression of your lower back and it can damage in the long run.

 

You want to get a broom stick or any kind of stick. You are going to put it behind your lower back. Basically the back of your wrist is across your lower back and the bottom of the stick is going to touch your tail bone. The middle of the stick is going to touch your mid back and your back of the head also gets the stick.

 

This is the starting position, from this position you want to lean how to go down and squat keeping those three points of contact always together. Your tail bone, the mid back and the head. So you wanna go down into the squat position and not round your back so the point of contact are broken. Maintain those points of contact and come back up.

 

You would do this for specified number of repetitions that your therapist recommends. You want to make sure that as you are doing this your stomach tight and braced and your posture perfect.

 

 

The next knee stability exercise or knee strengthening exercises we are going to use a cord and do side to side walk. For this particular knee rehab exercises you are going to be assuming a squat position or athletic stand. You are going to be standing knees bend, your hips are going to be out behind you, your butt up behind you.

 

Your chest would be up, your back maintaining a neutral position of the spine. Your abs will be tight the entire time.

 

You will take four steps out to side while maintain this pose. So step out to the side 4 times, and you are slowly controlling the resistance. Now on the way back, you got to fight the way back don’t let it pull you in.

 

So you will slowly walk back in 4 steps, and you are making sure that you are not twisting or rotating your torso. You do not want to be rotating, all the things would be tight at the stomach maintain the curve in your lower back.

 

Stiff leg dead lift with better posture for knee

 

Stiff leg dead lift with a stick across the back, it’s a great beginner core exercise to teach you how to hold your spine in the right position as you learn to hinge forward, bend forward through your hip joint. You just need a broom stick of some sort, you wanna put the stick across the lower back. Basically want to maintain points of contact. This core exercise also help you stabilize and strengthen your knees.

 

Your tail bone, your wrist, your mid back and your head should always be against the stick. Now first thing you are going to do is keep your knees soft, slightly bent. Have your core sucked in and braced maintain those points of contact and then learn how to bend forward maintaining those contact. You don’t wanna drop your chest or round your lower back to the points of contact would be broken.

 

You want to maintain those contact and feel your hamstring flexibility. One you feel a good stretch on your hamstring, you can stop there and come back up.

 

It’s a great knee stability exercise and overall awesome leg exercise and a pre requisite for you to be able to do anything where you are bent over, picking up things rolling things or exercise. It teaches you how to hold your spine in proper alignment to minimize the pressure throughout your spine.

We will demonstrate a unilateral or one legged stool bridge. For this exercise your legs will be elevated on a stool on a mat. Doing it at home you can use a piece of furniture such as a low chair. Your arms will be at your side, you will be pushing your body all through the table on one leg.

 

So one leg will be raised up in air like this, now you will push your body off the table maintain your stomach tight. The entire time you will not let any movement go through your trunk, your pelvis, you are keeping a neutral spine curve.
So no rotation through the hip and pushing on one le. Most commonly you will hold this position for 5 seconds.

 

 

Group 2 of Knee stability exercises

 

In single leg squat or unilateral squat you will stand on one foot with your knee bent behind your sort of like this so the foot comes behind you. You gonna reach down to your opposite foot with your opposite hand. So you will go down in a squat position, you are going to touch mid shin and come back up.

 

So like a regular squat you are making sure that your chest and shoulder up. You are going to drop down not going to roundup your lower back so you are not gonna do this. You maintain that curve in your lower back.

 

Few other things to look for and make sure that going into your squat your knee isn’t traveling forward past your toes so the knee won’t be going in forward. Its just going to stay on top your toes or behind your toes. You gonna have to bend from your butt, your butt up behind you.

We will do through the unilateral stiff legged deadlift or aeroplanes but with a trunk rotation. A slandered one legged dead lift you balance on one leg, keep this leg straight back keeping that gluten muscles tight. Then keeping your chest up you would bent forward. Now the version of this is the twist.

 

You are going to open up this hip, keeping your balance. Close the hip and then come back up. I will give you a side view of this. Balance on one leg, glut tight, good posture. You are going to go forward and opening up the hips.

 

As I am opening up my spine and my pelvis stay together, you do not want to twist your spine. So with every degree my chest is turning my pelvis stays together and turns at the same time. What I mean by that is you do not want to have your pelvis down here and your chest rotating.

 

You want your spine and your pelvis to rotate together. If you have the skills you can have your hands apart it will be easier to balance like this and then open and close.

 

*Lateral Lunge (no video yet). Lunge to the side and keep core in line over the pelvis as if you are squatting with the stick down the back)

 

Knee stability exercises featuring the Bosu ball. Yes, we will demonstrate to lunge on the bosu ball. You will stand with your feet even with your hip. So you try and maintain this distance for your feet when you do your lunge. So you are going to do one foot at a time. You will go into the lunge position, plant your foot right into the ball. You want to drop your weight down, your back knee bent and you are gonna come up.

 

So, few things to look for when you do this lunge. You want to make sure your knee traveling forward as your toes. You are going to drop your back knee straight down, lower your weight down so your knee won’t travel past your toes.

 

You also want to make sure that when you lunge you are not dropping your body weight forward. You are not rounding your lower back. So you are not going to do this. You will keep your chest up and in line with your body.

The premise of this knee stability exercise is not to see how high you can jump but how well you can decelerate or absorb the forces, the shock impact forces of the jump. When you first do this exercise you will only really jumping about an inch high and it’s all about how you land.

 

First I will demonstrate the typical wrong way of jump and there is a loud thump and your joints are really bending and absorbs the forces. The correct way to do is nice and soft. If you notice when I go down my feet, my toes come in contact with the ground and then my heels hit, nice and soft. When you do it right, you don’t hear yourself landing at all.

 

This way you are using your muscles to absorb the forces of gravity landings in your joints skips spare the excessive rubbing and stress. Again if you wanna jump land in a perfect squat position and avoid that hard something giant landing sound.

 

The right proper deceleration jump is about again declaration and absorbing the forces when you land. When you land you wanna make sure look at your knees don’t let your knee buckle in. if your hips are weak you knees will have a tendency to buckle in. so you can actually look down to prevent that. You want to keep your knees right over your toes.

 

In a side view you will see my butt immediately sits back down. You don’t want your knees to go forward so if your upper body is too upright. If you land sort of like this and your knees go forward, that’s wrong. You want your weight to shift onto your heel in a very progressive and gradual fashion as you absorb the forces.

 

The reason your want that is you are now using your hip muscles to help decelerate and not your knee or quad muscles like this. That will minimize sheering, sliding, rubbing forces in your knee. So the proper technique when you land from a deceleration jump again is a same as a good squat position.

 

Where your chest is over your knee, which is over your ankle. Like if I draw straight line down from my shoulder in my chest. Its intersecting connects to the knee and ankle, that’s perfect alignment. And when you go down you want to make sure your back round forward. You keep the neutral spine or your back doesn’t move.

 

Make sure your core is braced and that’s the deceleration squat jump.

Group 3: Knee exercise

 

For this knee exercise the progression of the stool cap, this is a stool cap with a twist. You will balance on one leg and take and basically tap the object that is on the opposite side. Going down and when you tap you wanna make sure don’t just bend your spine and twist.

 

To avoid that you want to keep your chest up and tapping by shipping and turning with your hip. This is the right way. Wrong way is twisting with your spine like this. So one rep to one side then switch hand and tap to this side. You see I am tapping with my hips facing it not twisting this spine and bending over like this.

 

In side view you can see, when I go down the small of my back, the lower back stays arched and I shift, I don’t round and twist. Okay?

In this knee exercise tutorial video we are going to go over the rotation deceleration jump. This adds one other aspect of dynamic hip stability to this, because when you turn and jump your momentum of your body wants to keep turning and your hip rotator and your core have to help contract and stabilize so your body does not twist when you land.

 

Just like the regular up and down deceleration jump you want to make sure you land softly. You want to make sire when you land your shoulder, chest is directly above your knee and your ankle based upon in a perfect squat position. Your back is not rounded nor it is too upright which allows your knees to go forward. You want to land in a perfect squat position.

 

First time you do it, may be just turn 30 degrees and jump back and as you get more progressive, better, stabilizing you can turn 90 degrees, 120, eventually 190 degrees.

 

In this example I will demonstrate a 90 degree turn landing and stabilizing the knee not letting the knees buckle.
You can recommend that frequency that we write for you and this will help train stabilizing your hi and knee so you avoid excessive motions like this. So controlling multiple planes of motion of your knee, ankle, shoulder, back stabilized during any kind of dynamic movements

We are going to go over the squat jump side to side, a great  knee stabilization exercise. Once you have mastered the proper squat jump deceleration technique you can now progress to more dynamic movements jumping side to side.

 

Same as the regular squat jump, you want to make sure three key things from happening when you land your knees don’t buckle in. Second when you land you don’t wanna keep your upper body too upright so bend forward. If you draw a line from your shoulder it will intersect your knee and ankle,. So when you land in the position (in side view) and not in that position.

 

And lastly you want to make sure that as you land your ankle land softly so tis toe -> heel. So from a side view if you look at my foot, this toe then heel. So you are using all of your joints like a spring loaded absorb the forces so you can explode out of that position again. Your hand placement should be in the front, keeping your knees wide. Don’t buckle in, don’t round your back and don’t be too upright either.

 

So when you land, perfect technique like this. Your shoulder is over the knees, over the ankle. Landing soft, when you do this correctly you should not hear your body thump like that. It should be almost no noise, that’s when you know you are decelerating perfectly absorbing those forces and not letting the forces travel up your body through your joints and rubbing and putting stress through your joints.

 

Group 4: Knee Stability Exercises – the rough ones

 

In this video we will show you the one legged deceleration jump as a knee stability exercise. Once you have mastered bi-lateral jump progression of static, side to side and rotation now you can progress to one legged deceleration jump.

 

Balance on one leg, squat down slightly in a proper mechanics where your chest bents forward and your butt goes back. In a side view, you are going into a proper squat position hands on your hips, jumps off and lands and often stick to landing.

 

Now when you land, if your hip is weak then if you look down your knee wants to buckle and ends like this. So you want to make sure that you keep your knee over your ankle. Don’t let the knee buckle in and try to decelerate the ankle and land soft.

 

Avoid landing hard where forces travel up the body and its harmful for your knees, for your hips and as well as your back. Do not get concern with how high you jump, first master your technique of absorbing the forces, landing soft getting the weight back on to your heels.

 

Once you master that 10, 15, 20 in a row then you can work on more height. For now the first couple of repetitions to just get the technique down. May be just jump an inch and nail that down before increasing the distance or height.

In this video I will teach you how to do one legged jump rotation. Basically you will jump on one leg and like the bi-lateral squat jump, you will decelerate het forces, getting your chest over your ankle and knee land in this position the except you are going to twist.

 

You are going to squat down and I will twist 90 degrees and stick the landing. And when you stick the landing make sure you knee doesn’t buckle in, it stays right over your ankle. Your chest is up don’t let your lower back round.

 

Its all about landing soft, try to avoid landing hard this way your muscles absorb the forces not your joints thus eliminating or recuing injury to your hip or knee or back, remember it for this knee stability exercises.

Welcome, in this video I will show you alternative one legged hops. If you have mastered the previous knee stability exercises like the one legged jump just statically and going from side to side. Then you can now do a more dynamic movement where you jump stick to landing and stick to landing. Basically alternating legs and absorbing the forces. Its really not that how far you are jumping its more about how you are absorbing the forces.

 

Some key pointers while doing this knee stabilization exercise – you wanna make sure your chest when you go down, bends forward and sticks forward and sticks and stays over your knees, your butt goes back. You wanna make sure that your core is tight, you wanna make sure when you land your knee does not buckle in it stays over your ankle. That’s extremely important.

 

And lastly the leg that’s in air, you want to make sure that it doesn’t swing through like this, when you jump out this leg should still stay bent like this. The reason is when you do sports movement, the leg that’s is in the air needs to be hop out again.

 

So when you are doing movements it is very unnatural for the other leg to swing behind the leg that you are landing. As you get more proficient at absorbing the forces, not landing hard you can then and only then work on jumping further and further.

 

Stretches for knee pain

 

Now Below are common stretches to keep you knee and hip mobile so the tracking of your knee joint is happening correctly. For the stretches the idea hold duration is 30 seconds (confirmed by scientific studies) and do 5 reps for each side.

Know how to stretch your knee from these videos

 

In this video we are going to go over with hip standing external rotator stretch.

 

You need a surface around this height, it could be little bit lower, little bit higher. If the height that you are using is too high, you can just stand on a stool or couple of books.

 

So we are going to use this surface, I wanna stretch my right leg, you wanna bring that leg on right on top of the table. You wanna make sure you get your leg from the inside not outside. It is much harder from the outside than to in.
You wanna place your hips square to the table, your knee should be right in front of the hip. It should not be angled out like this. It should be angled forward.

 

Now couple of things if your hips is tight, this knee will be sort of up like this, that’s okay. You want to relax, you do not want push the knee down. You always want ot make sure that your hips stay square because if you are tight your body wants to turn away from the side that you are stretching.

 

In this position you should feel light stretch here. Now if you are very flexible and do not feel stretch in this position then you want to make sure your chest forward and bow forward.do not round yoru chest to bow forward, keep your chest up and bow forward. That will give you a stronger stretch.

 

Now if you are very flexible you still don’t feel the stretch, you can drop the other foot further back away. That will basically lower your body, increasing the height of this and places a stringer stretch on the hips.

 

I will show you from the side view to show you what I mean by that. So in this position you will bow forward keeping your back flat to get that stretch. You can also drop your other leg back to get a stronger stretch.

 

You wanna make sure the intensity of the hip stretch here is not too strong, it should be medium, medium to strong stretch. Ideally you want to hold for 30 seconds and it should not be painful.

We are going to demonstrate the Super Stretch. Another full body workout which works as a knee stability exercixse and also works as knee strengthening exercises. For the Super Stretch you are going to be lying on your stomach with one leg hanging off the table. So the first thing you are going to do is walk the foot forward on to the floor until you feel a stretch on the back of your thigh, hamstring area.

 

Once you get the stretch on to the back of your thigh on this leg you are going to be using green strap or dog leash, hooked over to the opposite foot, we will give it over to the shoulder and you are going to pull this with both hands and you will bring this leg upfront until a stretch is felt on the front of your thigh. So typically we hold the stretch most commonly for 30 seconds. And this is the Super Stretch.

We are going to demonstrate the Box IT bench stretch, for this exercise we will demonstrate on two inch box. This stretches your IT band as well as works as a knee strengthening and knee stability exercises. So while doing this at home if you do not have a small box you can use phone book. Phone book works excellent.

 

So you are going to start up standing on a leg that you are going to stretch. So if you want to stretch your left IT band that is running from your hip down to your knee, you will be standing on your left leg.

 

First thing you will do, your foot will not be totally straight forward, it will be rotated turned out slightly about 10-15 degrees. The next thing you will do is stand up tall and you will shift your left hip to the left. So your hips are both kind of shift to the left and the right leg that you are standing on is going to be straight at the knee. Just trying to slowly lower yourself down until your foot, your heel touch.

 

Again you are emphasizing standing up tall not bending forward.

 

Read More: Detect pain

Filed Under: physical therapy and injuries

Prevent joint pain by early detection and get relief

February 25, 2013 by admin

Here you will learn:

How to prevent knee injuries

How to relieve shoulder joint pain

How to treat elbow pain

How to detect back of knee pain

How to get achilles tendon pain relief

 

Hey! Welcome to this video, this is Doctor Steve and I am going to show you what I call is the best prevention technique available for all injuries. You see a lot of time before you have major injury or chronic injury that’s build up, there is only slight amount of information going in that body part and that slight amount of information you never noticed functionally.

 

You don’t have joint pain or muscle pain but when you push on it there is already pain. So what you are going to do is go over a checklist of spot that I call hotspots that you most likely have either tendinitis or bursitis. And when you push on it, its painful more so than usual, you want to start preventative treatment for it.

 

Detect shoulder pain or shoulder joint pain

 

So we are going to start from the top and work our way down, most slightly place in the shoulder is right in front of the shoulder. Now how you know one side is different from the other as you push on both sides. So if you find your front of the shoulder dig in and push down and just compare it to the other side. With even press you should feel the same.

 

One side of front of your shoulder is tenderer than the other side then you might have ongoing shoulder inflammation already. Again you may not feel that while moving but you have that inflammation.

 

Another spot is the side of the shoulder right here, start pushing around and kind of dig in your finger and wiggle and compare to the other side. Same thing, one side is tender than the other that’s is going to be the rotator cuff. Some of the rotator cuff tendons are already inflamed. They are the muscles that stabilize your shoulder.

Detect elbow tendon pain and know how to treat elbow pain

 

2nd hot spot, let’s work our way to the third. Inside of the elbow, if you bend your arm you will see some sort of pointy bone right there. Straight it, just going to push the sided bone right there, may be half a centimeter down. Wiggle the tendons right there, just push on that area. They call it the golfer’s elbow or medial epicondyle and find the same on on the other side.

 

They should feel even, if both are painful then you have inflammation in both.

Know if you have elbow tendon pain

 

Next is the lateral part, bend your elbow, you will find the pointy bone straighten out little bit. Just push it half a centimeter down from that bone, wiggle. Find the other side, compare and push. Something, if one side or both side are tendered you already have some inflammation on the tendons.

 

And you going to want to start some kind of treatment. Do not confuse yourself with other videos that you will see that I will give you for what you need to do for those areas.

Prevent chronic hip pain by detecting hip pain early

 

Next is going to be your hip, if you turn to the side here and push on to the hip joint you will see and feel kind of a bony lump over right here. That is call the greater trocantra. You just want a little bit behind of that area and start pushing that area. If that is tender then there are few structures that can cause that tenderness.

 

It almost like a water balloon underneath that pushing, there is also tendons for piriformis muscles right there that could be tendered. You want to push that area and say hmm, is that painful? And then compare to the other side, right there finding the bone and little behind, push and wiggle.

 

Another spot, you can actually push on this. Find the crest of your pelvis right here okay? Go down about an inch or two and start pushing and woggle the muscles right there and compare to the other side. If this is bad, you can go down straight from the crest of your pelvis to the mid thigh.

 

Start pushing on what we called a IT band right here, and compare it to the other side and see if one side is tender than the other side. If it is, both side is tendered then you have inflammation in the IT band.

 

Another area that is very common is the rear aspect of the knee, if you go down you will see inside of the knee there is bony structure. Go a little bit lower, little anterior and push on that spot. It is also where all the tendons where inner thigh muscles are connected. You would push on that area, you would do it from down here. Just put your foot on the floor and see if that’s painful. If it is painful then you have some inflammation in ta area.

 

The last few parts you can push on is the right on the lower leg, there is a muscle called tibias bursitis. One of the muscle that helps support your arch. So you want to push ta muscle right here and trace that down all the way it may not hurt until you get to the tendon right here.

 

Push down the muscle all the way down sliding from the inside, see if there is any muscle pain, and wiggle the tendon around. If there is pain it is already inflamed, compare to the other side.

 

And the last spot is (you need your shoe off for this) your arch, if you have muscle pain in the arch side of your foot. Just push around here right so your planter fascia could already be inflamed. It is another structure that puts your arch.

 

 

You do not want to wait till its painful, you push on it compare it to the other side on the other foot. And once that is more painful, you want to do some type of treatment for that before it gets so inflamed it limiting your function.

Achilles tendon pain relief

 

The last one is going to be the Achilles tendon, it is back here. It is where your calf muscles go inside your ankle. You just want to push on a tendon, squeeze it like this, wiggle it see if that is painful and compare to the other side.

 

So if any of the spots are positive you are going to want to start some kind of program for them. Again there is plenty of videos in this section and I will show you how to get rid of those pain before they turn into a major injury.

Filed Under: physical therapy and injuries

Best Full Body Workout routine For Fat Loss

February 21, 2013 by admin

I am going to show you the most efficient best full body workout routine to do.

 

This full body work out plan for fat loss is much better than typical boy building routines which isolates muscles.

 

In this fat loss work out, you will work on every muscles in one full body workout. There is three main advantages to that 1) More efficient, you are using a lot of muscles at one time 2) because you are using a lot of muscles at the same time you are expand the most amount of calories. Those of you there who are working out to tone your body to lose body fat, this will burn the most amount of calories as compared to chest and triceps, back and bi split routines. 3) When you work all of your muscles, all of your body at once it not only releases the most favorable hormones to help with fat loss but it can speed up your metabolism for next 48 hours.

 

After doing this full body exercise for fat loss for 2 days you actually burn more calories sitting, watching TV, being lazy, you burn more calories. And you do not get that effect by doing back and bi, chest and tri, the typical routines. Let’s get started, you are going to do this in circuit training fashion with very little rest, this will allow you get through this workout 15-25 minutes depending upon if you are beginner or advance.

 

Read More: Easy to do Gym Workouts

 

How many sets you want to do. Let’s get to the first exercise, so the first exercise you are going to do is work and emphasizes your biceps, your arms, back and your legs and work on your balance all at once. This is a lunge and row.
You want to hold a resistance bands or one of those free motion machines with a weight stack. You will have both handles at each hands, you want to have good postures, shoulder blades back. You are going to lunge down as you row.

 

You want to keep a constant tempo, you do not want to accelerate and go fast, because you actually burn more calories work your muscles better this way.

 

You can do about 10-15 repetitions each leg and switch, so this is a first full body fat loss exercise. Note we are not leaning back too much, I am keeping my body perfectly upright and very important your shoulder blades squeezes back at the very end. You do not want your shoulder blades to round forward like this. You want to keep your chest forward and shoulder blades back like this.

 

So 10-15 repetitions on each leg depending on how advance you are and we will go on to the next fat loss exercise. You want to grab your resistant band that is coming from the lower level. This time I will stand kind of perpendicular towards the band is coming from. You are going to hold the band in both hands, you are going to squat down. Your hands will start on the front of the inside knee and as you stand up your arms stay straight and ends up in the front of the outside shoulder.

 

No acceleration, constant tempo, do not jerk up to motion. Also you want to keep the range from knee to shoulder if you go too far, you twist your spine. This exercise works your core tremendously because the band once its turn it flex my body and works on my entire abdominal, oblique region, lower back to maintain good position.

 

It also works your leg the same time, works your shoulder the both sides, and works your chest inside. So after about 15-20 repetitions you would turn around and do the other side for 15-20.

 

When you are done with that we are going to the next exercise in this workout routine, take one band and if you are strong enough you can take one in each hand. For this I am going to hold one, same exercise instead of chopping up, this resistance is coming from the top you are going to chop down. Same thing, do not twist your spine, nice and stable.

 

It goes from the inside shoulder down to the outside knee. Keep your posture up, to give you a side view when I go down. It is like a squat, you should go too upright, your chest should go over your knees. Your trunk is going forward, you should not squat like this. Your butt goes back when you squat down.

 

Your weight should always be on your heels, you do not want to shift weight to the front of your feet. Constant tension like this 15 to 20 repetitions and again you repeat by doing the other side. When you are done with that, we are going to do pushes.

No full body workout routine can go without this:

 

Fullbody workout for weight lossIf you cannot do push ups on the floor, not strong enough you can do it one some incline surface. I am going to demonstrate on this bench right here. Chest position up, shoulder blades squeezed back. The key to the push ups that most people do wrong is when they come up their shoulder blades round forward.

 

When following this full body workout routine you want to keep your shoulder blades squeezed back the whole time. So that’s your smaller motion than that, so keep your motion small. Same thing no pause, keep your core tight, you do not want your back to arch. 10- 15 repetitions in this circuit that’s going to really emphasizes abdominal, chest, triceps, shoulders. If you know none of these exercises you are not going to lie down on the floor because that does not burn any calories.

 

So you are always weight bearing, getting your heart rate up, burning a lot of calories. Okay next movement, I am going to go back to the bands at the bottom. We are going to stay in the squat position, and when you come up you are going to do a motion like you are doing a double back fist.

 

This is a great motion and not a common one that you see in the gym, because if people say what muscles are you working? It is emphasizing, when I rotate back its working the rotator cuff muscles on the shoulder, which is great to help you stabilize the shoulder. It helps improve the health of your shoulder.

 

It is a full body workout routine for fat loss so you are also working on all the muscles on the back. So back, rotator cuff, lower back, core and legs at the same time. So both bands come up and squat. Make sure when you go back you do not over arch your back. You still keep your knee soft and keep your posture perfect, do not arch your back too much or round your back at the bottom.

 

Keep your chest up the whole time. The last movement grab the bands, not by the handles. Grab the cords itself the reason is you are going to stay in the lunge position this time. Your palm facing up and as you lunge down, your palms will rotate and at the very end they will face away.

 

So this fat loss exercise when you go down, it is very important to keep your shoulder blades not doing this rounding forward. You want to go and have your shoulder blades go back. Again this rotation, this diagonal type movements are much more functional for your body. You should do 10-15 each leg and then switch.

 

The reason why I incorporate this diagonal patterns is that’s how our body moves throughout the day. We do not move in straight lines, if you do bench press, lat pull down, shoulder presses, side lateral raises. Our body just don’t move that during the day. When you go to pull your seatbelt, when you go to reach a cup/plate over head when you go to grab things.

 

We typically reach and move in this diagonal patterns, so in your workouts you want to incorporate this diagonal workouts because it will help your muscles be strong in a motion, a skill or pattern that matches life. This full body workout becomes functional or in other way it helps you be less injury prone from this fat loss workout or weight loss workout.

You will go out of breath doing this full body workout for fat loss

 

And you can see I am little out of breath, it works a lot of muscles at once if you do this. So that was a circuit, I would recommend 2 circuits. Unless you have been working out for a long time you can start with 3 circuits. If you are pretty advance you can do 4 circuits but I would start with 2 circuits. You can do this 3 days/week, Mondays, Wednesday and Friday.

 

It only takes 15-25 minutes and you burn a crab load of calories. This is all you need, this is the most efficient. Now in our ranking system this is a level 4 skill level exercise. There are easy level exercises I just showed you a level 4 so just you can see what advance movements can do to your body.

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me and i will walk you through and shoot lower level fat loss exercises. If you just feel you cannot get this movements down, they are just too difficult I can break it down and shoot easier level weight loss exercises for you.

 

Just look below this video, some information, contact me, I hope to help you with your health and fitness needs.

 

To get the most from this workout, combine it with a body that is not filled with substances that slow your metabolism and increase the build up of fat.

 

What is that substance?

 

It’s all the Chemicals we are being exposed to. I wrote a book on how to identify these hidden chemicals and you can get a copy of it for free below.

Filed Under: general fitness and weight loss

Proper posture dictates spinal health

February 21, 2013 by admin

Proper posture is the key variable that determines how healthy your back and neck will be and gives you neck and back pain relief.

Watch these two neck and back pain relief video to understand the problem and some simple exercises to help prevent and even get rid of back and neck pain.

Welcome to body solutions where total body fitness is directed by physical therapists. Today I am going to talk about how to prevent neck pain and neck injuries with proper posture. Now we have become society of sitters where you sit, work on the computer surf the internet. The problem with this posture it intends to be a slouch forward head posture. A really bad posture.

 

If you look at my posture from the side here you will notice that most people will sit in this position and not as much with a straight posture like this. Where your ear, shoulder and hip are straight down in alignment like this.

 

How many people in office you see in office sit like this, in proper posture?

 

Probably none. Most people are slouch forward or reaching forward, the drawback of that posture is that puts much much more compression, much more pressure down at the bones of the neck. One of the best thing you can do is straighten your posture by standing up to do your stretches.

 

You want to stand up and get your posture up and just squeeze your shoulder blades back and down. Not back and up, do not shrug up, those muscles are already tighten up, you want them to be down and back.

 

Just do it couple times during the day, you know just 1o seconds really help reprogram your brain say this is horrendous position and this is much better. I am not saying you want to hold yourself up like this all day, it will look kinds funny.

 

You just want to stretch back and ideally you want to be in a relax position and be in better posture. Now do not over correct, do not hold yourself back all day. Again that uses muscles and using muscles is same as compression down the spine.proper posture

 

So throughout the day if you are tight for being like this for years. It is almost like someone having hand on your shirt and pulling your shirt down all day. You do not want to use muscle to fight that and do this. Because those muscles eventually knotted up and put more compression on your neck. What you really want to do is have the person let go.

Sit in proper posture for better spinal health and neck and back pain relief

 

And how you do that with your body? With regular stretching.

 

Stretching this issues that are tight, they are right because everything is kind of bunch toaster like this form your daily activities. And you wanna do the opposite movements. So one of the easiest exercise you can do it seated, standing is simple squeezing yoru shoulder blades back like this.

 

It delivers a stretch. In next segment I will talk about more advance stretches, they are probably weird but will be much more effective at getting rid of the tightness here to help your neck.

Neck and back pain relief video (click on the video to watch)

Filed Under: physical therapy and injuries

Kinesio tape for shoulder stability

February 14, 2013 by admin

Kinesio tape for shoulder stability or KT tape is great while you have issues with your shoulder.

 

Before using the KT tape for shoulder, first you want to use alcohol to scrub the skin, front of the shoulder to get the oil off the skin. First you want to half about 2 inches of the tape. First two inches goes to the neck here, no tension just stay calm.

 

Leave last two inches, anchor tight and pull and this will be a 100% pull and stick to temple rubber. The last two inches of the kinesio tape with no tension. You can use the rough part, the back part of the holder, you want to rub fast that generates heat which often stick.

 

Read More: Shoulder health for swimming

 

The second piece of this kt tape just cut like this with 2 inches together and cut in half, you want to tip off here and take that off. Right where you go the other end, rub that out without tension. Then we will take one strip, anchor keeping a pull of 50% tension and place on the front of the shoulder. The last two inches with no tension, so the kt tape goes over front of the shoulder.

 

The back one, keep 2 inches no tension, anchor, pull about 50% back here and no tension above. If you look from the side, it almost like a weird drawn shape. Continue with the rough part of the back here, continue rubbing. That will activate the glue and make it stick.

 

The last piece from this kinesio tape, the two torn pieces were 9 inches, the longer piece was 12 inches. Tear off at 2 inch, for this one turn your arm out forward like this, palm is facing forward. This goes there no tension, on the shoulder muscles line here, it goes right over there.

 

Make sure last two inches no tension, anchor make sure your arm is turned out facing forward. 50%, it should come down at an angle little bit and then the last part. Rub it in, what you can do in home is use a blow dryer and heat up the tape to activate the glue.

More on fitness:

Proper posture dictates spinal health

 

knee stability exercises progression – Video

 

This technique works extremely well to help the shoulder stabilize so you can exercise without shoulder pain.

Where to buy kinesio tape

You can get the tape at Amazon.com by clicking on the tape below:

Filed Under: physical therapy and injuries

Proper hip biomechanics every fitness trainer should know

February 8, 2013 by admin

watch_this_video-300x53

Without knowing bio mechanics of our hip muscles , without knowing how our hip works we fitness trainers or gym goers can make mistakes. We might even consider hip muscle pain as good where something could be very wrong!

 

Bio Mechanics of Hip Muscles

 

In this video we will go over the bio mechanics of the hips and how we can apply torque, labor to the hip to vary the resistance for you to understand how positioning can greatly change the muscles of the hip and how they were.

 

Let’s start with some open chance, simpler understanding movements. For example I have a resistance band here. I am just going to step into so if I have the resistance all the way at my ankle. And I step out with one foot, that’s a pretty long lever. The axis of rotation of my hip joint right here all the way where the resistance is at my ankles.

 

Let’s just say this band is 5 pounds of resistance so I can simply make my hip muscles work half as hard by placing the band half way up placing the band on the knees. I just basically reduced the resistance by half. Because the level arm just got decreased by half. I can decrease it even more by coming up to mid thigh.

 

So if we are to use simple math, we were 4 meters down, then 2 meters and now 1. I just cut the resistant by 75%. That’s how it works so another example of that if you are to do side plank. Either you can do plank on the side it works on your hip abductor muscle but if you bend your knees on the floor and plank you just reduced the lever by half for the hip muscles in that exercise.

 

This is to understand how distance is changing where to resistance is applied or changing the pivot point reduce the resistance significantly.

 

Now we will talk about some common exercises and how they affect hip muscles.

workout routines for men and women

One of them will be the squat, so how you squat down can strongly change if it is emphasizing the hips or emphasizing the quad or knee. It is little bit hard to understand but from a side view..

 

When you do a squat there are 2 axis of rotations mainly, the hip joint and the knee joint, these are the 2 joints moving. Because in ultra-ideal word your spin should be moving. Technically if its moving it is another pivot point. Lets just assume that. If you look at my hip joint and knee joint, I will do squat and I will emphasize on shifting my body weight or sticking my butt out, make my body weight go forward.

 

If I have my chest this far forward you might be thinking where is the lever arm, where is the axis rotation? The axis rotation is the hip joint. For every milometer I bend forward my centre of gravity or in other words my entire weight of the torso plus if you have weight on your shoulder, your arms then the average place of centre of that resistance is probably going to be around here in my core.

Mechanics and hip muscles exercises

 

I took the average mass of here and here the distance would be around here and if I draw a vertical line here, the distance of my hip, that’s the lever. However you can see I can change that lever. If I lean forward even more, I just made the lever even more further away from the hip joint. If I straight up my body I just decreased that lever to the hip joint. By bring my weight right over to the hip joint I can almost make it where my hip muscles are.

 

If I lean excessively forward I maximize the lever the distance of the resistance to the hip joint and I make the hip joint work much harder. And by leaning back like this as my centre of mass is directly on the hip joint or slightly anterior to it, now the knee have to work harder, that’s the other axis. So by leaning back I am increasing the lever to the knee and decreasing the lever to the hip.

 

When I lean forward the opposite is true, I now just changed the centre of mass going forward, now I have longer lever to my hip joint. But rather to knee I just moved the lever closer to the knee and that lever is smaller. So you see if you see any kind of squatting or lunging by having my weight up and down like this the hip muscles does not have to work this hard.

 

Because the centre of mass going pretty close to the hip joint, and when I forward like this now the hip muscle kick in. but by conversing by leaning forward my centre of mass closer to the knee so the lever is smaller. So the quad does not have to work as much. By coming back here my centre of mass much further from the knee, much longer lever the quad has to work harder.

 

So how your body is positioned dictates what muscles what muscles you are emphasizing. In an ideal world it’s a balance of both. So a technical squat, going down your chest is sort of over your knees, the centre of mass is possibly mid-way through your hip through the thigh. So there is a equal amount of contraction between the quads and hip or the hamstring complex.

 

And you want that ideal ratio, having your upper body too upright and going down you are emphasizing too much quad and not enough hamstring and hip muscles. Not only you have improper development, you also have admirable forces going through the knee essentially when the quads contract too much and the hamstrings do not.

 

Then your knee joint instead of just pivoting it also wants to slide inside the knee. Because the quadriceps is pulling it into it, in other words the femur wants to slide this way on top of the tibia. So sliding in the knee is like rubbing up cartilages in the knee with every reputation. With every repetition there is lot of weight, resistance being put through the knee. So if you keep grind the knee down with every repetition its going to accelerate joint break down.

 

Again that is not something you will feel that day, that month, year but years of improper body techniques will tear down the knee and they won’t know until its too late.

Wall slide squat can give you a knee pain and do not work on hip muscles

 

This is why we do not do a wall slide squat, when you have your feet here and you go down your centre of mass which is right here over your hip joint because you are leaning back. What that means is whenever you got resistance going through the pivot point there is no resistance essentially on that joint. So in other words by leaning against the wall my gluts and my hamstrings don’t really have to work.

 

I can just woggle my hamstrings right now they are not contracted at all. That is because the resistance is just going through the pivot point. Like standing right in the middle of the seesaw, no resistance. So the hip muscles do not work hardly at all, you core can actually not work as you are leaning against the wall.

 

And it is very admirable for your body to not have the hip and core work together with your thigh. One thing this doses is maximizing the lever of the knee because my resistance centre mass going through here, so this whole distance here is a lever arm for the knee. So my quads are working very hard.

 

The problem with this exercise is that when you have all quad and no hamstring, my knee joint really wants to slide. Infect as I am doing this there is friction of sliding in my knee joints. Again that promotes rapid ante arthritis. There is a lot of force on your quads, your body weight going down through the knee joint and with ever rep its sliding inside.

 

Its pushing on, its sliding the cartilage rubbing together with every repetition. And that is a pro knee arthritis exercise. And also you are not burning nearly as many calories as just staying a squat position like this. Because your gluts, hamstring, your back, your core everything is shut down. Not only you are burning probably 60-70% less calories, you are also accelerating the knee arthritis, you are also training your body to move in a very admirable, non-functional way of motor programming.

 

Your brain contract the muscle in way that doesn’t happen in life, so it is really important to understand the levers the bio techniques of the hips and how they applied to exercises. And how to train those movements those muscles to contract in a way that burns more calories. For most of your clients.

 

For athletes, it is really important to know how to maximize their force output by minimizing lever again backwards from your fat loss clients. For fat loss clients you want to maximize the lever and make them work as much as possible with the least amount of resistance.

 

Backwards for athletes you just wana push them the most amount of weights with least amount of efforts that’s why you need to understand the bio mechanics of lever arms so you can control the resistance placement in relative to their goals. And lastly in wall squats I typically see, it is really important to understand that you want normal contraction balance of hamstring and quads.

 

Get that activation, the balance so the knee does not get rapidly de generated from abnormal forces.

Filed Under: For Personal Trainers

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