FLO FITNESS

How to Balance the Beach Body you WANT, with the Movement you NEED! Now that the weather is getting sunny everyone is rushing to the gym to try and get Beach Body Ready. When you think of beach bodies, you think of the term “Mirror Muscles”. These are all the muscles that look good in the mirror. Now, i would like to say that I dont think its a bad thing to train these muscles. ALL of us at some level care how we look without clothes on. There is not a person on the planet that has not flexed in front of the bathroom mirror or did a few modeling poses before a shower, haha. The issue arises when you Overtrain these muscles and it causes muscular imbalances that lead to pain or injury.  I for one am guilty of this form of training. In my earlier years all I did was workouts right out of muscle and fitness. I really thought that I could look like those guys by drinking protein shakes and lifting (boy was I wrong). However, it was a great learning experience. I am also gui...

Turf Cleats vs Turf Shoes             Lately, I have been having some issues with high school athletes and deciding whether or not they should use turf cleats or turf shoes. I would like to discuss the pros and cons of each and maybe shed some light on some of the injuries I have been seeing at my high school.             The major difference between the two seems to be stability and traction.   The turf cleats offer better traction but lack stability because they are raised off the ground. The turf shoes offer better stability because they are not raised but you get less traction. Neither shoe is bad nor good; it all depends on the athlete wearing them. What I have found is athletes who lack ankle stability should not be wearing cleats to begin with. They tend to get more ankle injuries. For example, many of our younger athletes are suffering from Severs Disease. S...

Candle in the Sun vs Rose that grows from Concrete  This is such a deep topic that one blog on the subject is not enough, however I will do my best. Let's start by defining what each of these terms mean to me. In my opinion the "Candle in the Sun" is the person who has a lot to begin with. They are shining and making things happen but they never really had to struggle to get there.  Jay-Z once said in a song, "Yeah your shining, but the only thing your leaving out/ your a candle in the Sun/ that s&%t don't even out.". To me this means your talking about how good your are doing, you're bragging about your success, but your leaving out the fact that you have always had it. The carpet was laid out for your already. The doors where all open for you, all you had to do was walk thru them.   On the other side of the coin you have the Rose that grew from Concrete. To me, this is the person who had nothing to start with. This is the person who had...

The Necessity for Growth I would like to tell you a story to begin this blog:             When I first opened FLO, a little over two years, ago a friend of mine named Allie had given me a plant. The plant was in a small little vase filled with rocks. There were three stems with about one leaf growing on each one. At the time I really didn’t think anything of the plant. I just put it on my desk and would water it when I felt it needed water. Today, I noticed that the tips of some of the leaves were dying. It occurred to me that the plant had outgrown the vase it was in. This was so symbolic to me because FLO Fitness has almost outgrown its current location.   The funny part is I never noticed that it had got any bigger; I just kept watering it and would move it from spot to spot.             Once I removed the...

The Pro Athlete Trainer Myth                 I wanted to start this blog the same way I started my youtube video on this topic. I want to start by saying I am not trying to offend anyone who trains pro athletes. I have many close friends who have worked with pros and trained pro teams as head S&C Coaches. The video and blog are meant to educate parents and youth coaches on the “Myth of Pro Athlete Trainers”.                 To often people who train “Pros” come to a town and charge outrageous prices to work with youth, in the hopes that the youth will gain some insight on how to make it to the pros.   There is no short cuts to being a Pro Athlete. It takes hard work and proper genetics. There is no way around it. No coach will come to your town for a weekend and transform your child from Joe to Pro. There are just too many varia...

Concussions 101 for Fitness Pros This blog is inspired by a conversation I had with a good buddy of mine who is a Strength Coach. He called me about a client who wanted to workout at his facility but was not cleared by their school from a concussion. I was happy that he called before he trained the Athlete and made the symptoms any worse. I then realized that many fitness professional do not get any continuing education on concussion. I feel it is an extremely important topic and just wanted to give a brief overview on what things you should look for and how to protect yourself from potentially being sued. There are many factors to a concussion but we will keep this as SIMPLE as possible. WHAT IS A CONCUSSION ( SIGNS/SYMPTOMS): Let us start by talking about what a concussion is. A concussion is a Brain INJURY. Therefore we treat it like any other injury. If an Athlete breaks their arm you will cast it for 4 weeks and when the cast is off you would slowly return them to play. Th...

Foundation First Sling Shot Theory                 The Sling Shot Theory is something that we thought of at FLO. It may be a real Theory but we haven’t read about it before. So we are sorry if anyone else already coined the term. The basic principle is that with a Sling Shot, the base needs to be stable in order to pull the band back far enough to generate a large amount of force.   In this scenario the base of the sling shot will represent the Core of the body. Too often trainers load their clients before they build a solid foundation. This most times leads to them loading a dysfunction, which is a fast road to injury.                 Our saying at FLO is Foundation First.   We are firm believers in regression before progression. Many of Athletes come in with bad motor habits that we focus on fixing. We also focus on developi...