Injury Prevention | Top Form Fitness

How to Fix Your Back

As I discussed in one of my earlier blog posts, I was involved in pretty serious car accident as a teenager. A tire blew out and our vehicle rolled into the ditch, throwing me out of the window and about 20 feet through the air! I ended up fracturing 3 lumbar vertebrae (spinal compression fractures) and was confined to several days of bed rest in the hospital. After that I was told to never lift heavy weights again, which didn’t make sense to me because it was strength training that had protected me from a more serious injury! So I set out to learn as much as I could about strength training and post-injury fitness, and in the process I have trained my lower back and core to be one of my strongest muscle groups. Now, I understand that for most people suffering from lower back pain and/or tension it may not be [...]

Josh Hewett2013-11-26T15:11:20-05:00

How to Fix Your Knees

Back in 2004 I was taking Judo lessons (along with Kick-boxing and Wrestling) in my quest to become a legitimate bad-ass. During one lesson I was grappling with another big yellow belt and both of us were being a bit bull-headed, so when I tried to throw him (with sloppy technique) and he fought it, I ended up awkwardly twisting him across my leg and suddenly “POP”, there goes my ACL. Since a major part of my life involves being physically active I opted to have ACL reconstruction surgery. After the surgery I was surprised and disappointed to discover that my knee wasn’t recovering as quickly as I’d expected. I tried everything: physio, massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, laser, etc. I’d get temporary relief at best, but my strength and stability wasn’t there when I hit the gym. I just couldn’t get my medial quad to contract properly. Even after several months [...]

Josh Hewett2013-11-25T18:01:42-05:00

Stretching Can Cause Weakness and Injury

As in many aspects of our society, in the fitness industry there are things that many of us accept as true based on dogma rather than science and facts. An example is the persistent myth that “eating fat is bad for you”. Once an entire system of training (or nutrition) has been developed around a certain (erroneous) belief, it becomes very hard to change, regardless of how much evidence is presented. Cognitive biases are formed over time, which are inflexible by definition. This is why it is SO important to keep an open mind and to become a critical thinker! Stretching and flexibility training is one of the aspects of strength and fitness that really seems to be dragging it’s ass. Despite the abundance of mounting research and evidence to indicate that passive stretching can lead to muscle weakness, joint instability, and increased risk of injury, there still seems to [...]

Josh Hewett2020-06-20T12:52:51-04:00

Strengthen Your Neck, Reduce Pain, Increase Lifts

In general, there isn’t only one common cause of neck pain that applies to everyone, yet many people suffer from neck pain. If you have chronic neck pain, you may have received a diagnosis of disc herniation, whiplash, strain, sprain or something else. Frequently those who work at a desk all day experience neck pain related to postural issues, and even fitness fanatics get the occasion pain in the neck from intense training or heavy lifting. Regardless, most of these conditions have one thing in common: Certain muscles are affected, and these are the muscles we need to target before progressing to more challenging exercises or activities. There are certain muscles in the neck that are designed to help us maintain our normal and healthy curve of the spine. In addition, these muscles are designed to hold our head up all day. […]

Josh Hewett2013-10-27T18:49:38-04:00

Reboot Your Body With Muscle Activation Techniques

I was recently involved in a motor vehicle collision, and suffered minor whiplash. 5 years ago I would have been on the table of a massage therapist and / or a chiropractor, attempting to twist, pop, stretch, and rub the injury out. Not any longer. After 3 sessions with my M.A.T. practitioner, Cathy, I am back in action! MAT is a revolutionary new process that has evolved for correcting muscular imbalances in the body. It has dramatically improved functional capabilities in people of all ages, providing a pain free lifestyle along with elevating sports performance and career longevity in several professional athletes. This process is a biomechanically-based system called Muscle Activation Techniques (MAT)™. This is the same form of therapy I’ve used to successfully recover from any musculo-skeletal injury I’ve suffered over the last few years, and it has also transformed the way I train my clients. What is Muscle [...]

Josh Hewett2011-03-24T00:49:14-04:00

Is Foam Rolling Really Such a Good Idea?

There seems to be strong trend developing in the personal training / strength and conditioning industry involving the use of foam rollers to perform soft tissue work. This appears to be another fad which was borrowed from physical therapists, similar to when “wobble board” training became all the rage. I look at this as an example of a useful tool being taken out of context and significantly overused, to the detriment of this profession, in my opinion. Great trainers and coaches (even some of the best) have become foam rolling fanatics, prothesizing the many benefits of raking various muscles over these rigid cylinders. In no way does this detract from their expertise or credibility, but I do think it is time to take a more critical look at the growing “religion” of foam-rollers. The proponents of foam-rolling often describe it as a form of “self-myofascial release” (SMR). No, despite how [...]

Josh Hewett2011-03-19T15:50:27-04:00

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