FASTER Focus

The thought of warmer weather often leads to us thinking about our problem areas. While we at FASTER want you to feel confident and proud of your fitness related accomplishments and worry less about your physical appearance, we understand it is hard to separate your physical goals from your health and fitness improvements. Most of us have a certain part of our body that we feel is a problem area, be it the stomach, legs, glutes or arms, most of us have one spot we wish could be stronger, slimmer or just a little different. Despite wanting to change one...

What makes us feel so good after we exercise? Endorphins! Our body releases endorphins during exercise that create an immediate mood boost. This is why exercising leaves you feeling so much better. It is so effective at making us feel better that many research studies have shown that exercise can be used in place of antidepressants. Endorphins are our body’s reaction to pain. When we stress the muscles through exercise it causes the body to react to the external stimulus through endorphin release. We are not only getting benefits from exercise physically but mentally as well. These endorphins help make...

Mind over matter, this common phrase is something that can apply to so many aspects of our lives. When it comes to fitness our mindset plays a huge role. We train not only our physical strength but our mental strength as well. Every time you say “I hate the strider” and then crush it anyway, you are overcoming your own doubt and accomplishing a goal. How does this apply to life outside the gym? We often face tasks that are less than desirable and your ability to overcome the undesirable tasks in the gym help establish the ability to overcome...

We are going to dive deeper into the Functional Movement Screen or FMS. It was originally developed through research done by Gray Cook. It has been tested on many major league teams as well as the military and countless fitness facilities. This system of testing uses seven movements of the body to evaluate range of motion and imbalances. Gray determined that our muscle imbalances are often what lead to injury. This week we will be diving into the details of the seven exercises: the deep squat, active leg raise, hurdle step, shoulder mobility, inline lunge, rotary stability, and trunk stability...

Postural deviations and muscular imbalances were something that we introduced last week. This week we will discuss how we detect and correct these types of muscular imbalances. At FASTER we use a well-known screening process called the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) created by a company called Functional Movement Systems. The FMS has been proven through years of research and testing and is considered valid and reliable. Moving through the various exercises of which the FMS is composed allows the fitness professional to test level of skill and deviations to one side or another. The movements of the functional movement screen...