I will be the first to admit I labelled the upper trapezius muscle as a problem muscle that needed to be weakened, more than strengthened. I always thought exercises like shrugs were to be avoided and could not see why anyone would ever want to target a muscle known for developing stiffness and trigger points with a strengthening exercise. I thought this was the fast way to developing chronic neck pain. However, over time I learned there is more to this muscle than many realise and I began to appreciate the importance of the upper traps during movement. I came to see how vital the strength of this muscle is to health of the neck and shoulder and how many of us are trying to weaken this muscle when what it really needs is to be strengthened. Just like the hamstrings, it is fair to say it has unfairly copped a bad rap for a long time and is really misunderstood. In this article I am going to share with you the things I learned the hard way and what the true role of the upper traps is. I will also show how to identify weakness, and most importantly how you can strengthen this muscle without aggravating your neck or shoulder.

Without a doubt the most difficult movement to help someone improve is WALKING. There is so many moving parts within the gait cycle that the use of simple isolated exercises do very little to improve the motor program. But due to this complexity it makes it very difficult to find exercises that are both useful and safe to do. The two main problems associated with loss of stability in the gait cycle are smaller stride lengths and a loss of speed. A slowing of neural firing speed, (the brains message to the nerves within muscles for movement) from lack of exercise produces a slower response time for the initiation of movement. To make up for the body’s lost reaction it compensates by slowing everything down and shortening our stride to overcome our lost reflexes and reaction times. In theory this sounds like a good thing, but in reality this sets people up for disastrous accidents. In this article we show you some simple tests to use for identifying exactly where your loss of stability is that is affecting how you walk, and how these tests can then become a great exercise for significantly improving your walking ability.

We regularly cover articles and videos about various methods and exercises you can use to strengthen the body to either correct muscle imbalance and injury, or improve overall movement performance for life and sports. Rarely do we provide you with a set workout to follow for it is impossible to have a one size fits all training program. We are all unique in the way our bodies move and the best workout is the one that is tailored specifically to your needs, instead of following someone else’s training program which is what you see all the time in magazines and social media. Having said all that, I am going to share with you today a workout I have been using myself a lot over the past few months and why I rate this as my best workout of all time. Some of the exercises I substitute for similar ones so don’t get hung up on the specifics of each exercise, instead pay attention to the logic behind the overall structure of the method that is used. This is something I wish I had been using years ago as the benefits it has provided to my body in a very quick time has been nothing short of astounding. Enjoy.