Exercises For InjuriesThe Fitness Professional’s Source for Exercises and Injuries.

I was at the NSCA Washington State Fall Clinic.

It was a great event.

Let me share a few of the highlights.

Dave Suprak of Western Washington University was there chatting about shoulders.  I picked up a few great tips from Dave.  He had some great information on what happens to the scapula and scapular stabilizers when your client has poor posture. He gave me some great resources that will help me improve the scapular stabilization exercise program and effective rotator cuff exercise program.

One presenter that I wanted to see was Guido Van Ryssegem. Guido was presenting at the same time as I was, but I got a copy of his presentation. Wow, it was packed with high level shoulder exercise information!  When I get home, I will have to digest it more.

During our learning lunch, Susan M. Kleiner had an evidence based talk on proteins and amino acid supplementation.  Some great information!

I finally got to meet Tim Vagen and see his presentation on Functional Fitness After Fifty.  It was wild to see the exercises that he gets his active seniors doing.  The big things I got from his presentation were to add power exercises, rotation exercises and to teach your clients, active hips.  Leave a comment below if you would like me to do a video on active hips; it is a great fall prevention strategy that Tim uses.

I also did a great interview with Tim Vagen on Shoulder Injury Exercise a few weeks back on the blog.

I also headed over to watch Carmen Bott’s presentation on Planning Off-Season Strength Training for the Triathlete.  It has been some time since I have been doing triathlons, but I am getting the itch to get back into it.  I got three tips out of the presentation that I think will help you with your endurance athletes.

3 Tips from Carmen Bott when Strength Training Triathletes

#1)  Working on the posterior chain of an endurance athlete is a must.  For example, dead lift exercises is a great exercise to give; while a squat is not.

#2)  With the squat there is a lot more quadriceps activity that can lead to greater leg mass; which is not the goal of an endurance athlete, while a dead lift focuses more on the gluteus maximus and hamstrings.

#3)  Another tip I learned from Carmen was to get your clients to use their non-dominant arm first when performing unilateral exercises.  Your client uses their dominant arm to do everything during the day, so getting them to use their non-dominant arm first will give their dominant arm a break and build strength into their non-dominant arm.

Deadlift and Back Pain

Something that came up at all of the presentations was the dead lift.  Many of the presenters love the dead lift and make sure it is a part of their clients exercise program.  I have shied away from the dead lift of late, but it may be time to re-visit the dead lift.  I had chatted about the dead lift in a previous video.  If your client has back pain with a dead lift, CLICK HERE to watch the video.

A big thanks to Kathryn Russell of the NSCA Washington State representative.

A huge thank you to Pro Sports Club in Bellevue, Washington.  What a venue!

Rick Kaselj, MS