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More from @mythoughtfood

Alex Bernier

@mythoughtfood

Aug 18

8 Benefits of Lifting Weights At Any Age:

- Better posture.
- Chronic pain resolution and prevention.
- More physical and mental strength.
- Higher muscle quality.
- Higher bone density.
- Improved body composition.
- More balance/coordination.
- Higher athletic performance.

I've worked with people of all ages and have seen how much you can improve the quality of your life with weightlifting. It's magical to witness somebody take control of their bodies after years of physical and even mental struggles. You become a new, more confident person.

There's a reason people become obsessed once they start feeling the effects. Your life changes around you, and many aspects get easier to handle.

Don't let your body falter under the weight of time. Lifting weights is the key to slowing down your decline.

" I'm in the best shape of my life."

9 months at The Online School of Exercise:

" I avoided hip replacement surgery."

2 years at The Online School of Exercise:

Read 6 tweets

Alex Bernier

@mythoughtfood

Jun 3

Front Squats are powerful tools in posture building.

You need enough upper back strength and mobility to hold the position, and many lack both

The lift will take you to the next level.

Practice weekly to witness the magic this summer.

8 Tips To Boost Your Front Squat

In this thread:

1. Elbows-down Front Squat (0:11)
2. Elevate Your Heels. (0:20)
3. Do More External Rotations. (0:27)
4. Do More T3 Raises. (0:36)
5. Stretch Your Forearms. (0:44)
6. Stretch Your Pecs/Lats. (0:52)
7. Mobilize Your Shoulders. (1:05)
8. Mobilize Your Thoracic Spine. (1:14)

The Front Squat is one of my favorite exercises, and I love teaching it to my friends.

Follow these eight tips to level up and benefit from the lift this summer.

Elbows-Down Front Squat

Most people lack the strength to hold a barbell or dumbbell with their elbows pointing ahead. Do the movement with your elbows pointing toward the floor instead. The position will stretch every muscle from the wrists to the neck.

Elevate your heels

Stiff ankles are a common limiting factor in non-front squatters. Elevating your heels by a few inches removes the limitation and allows you to get deeper at the bottom. You stretch your ankles and hips at the same time.

Use weight plates or wedges if available. I'll have my clients do both with and without elevated heels to see which one suits them more. Few start flat.

Read 8 tweets

Alex Bernier

@mythoughtfood

Apr 2

This post is for people with chronic pain and posture problems.

Your body needs strength and mobility to function, and many lack both.

Follow these three steps to resolve your issues or ensure they do not worsen over time:

Step 1: Check if all your muscle groups are strong enough to support your weight (0:04)

Many people jump into intense workouts with muscles that cannot support their body weight.

Let's say the muscles along the back of your legs are weak because you sit all day.

You might be able to stand and walk around, but you do so inefficiently, placing excess pressure on your joints.

This weakness means you worsen your pain or posture issues whenever you move, and it doesn't improve over time unless you address it.

I always start with investigative bodyweight exercises to see how well a client's muscles support them, except for shoulder blade muscles, where I use a lightweight.

These motions expose weaknesses and build the foundations for patching the leaks before moving on to more intense yet effective workouts.

Step 2: Stretch all your muscle groups to find underlying stiffness (1:01)

Stiff muscles stress your body and mind, and stretching exposes this excessive tension.

You'll find that some of your muscles are worse than others, and they're the ones wreaking havoc on your body.

The most common places I find this stored stress in my assessments are the Quads, the Pecs, and the Lats and Calf muscles.

Stretching these stiff muscles will make you move smoother and feel more relaxed throughout the day.

Step 3: Expose all your muscle groups to a gradually increasing resistance (2:19)

You can take your body to the next level once you've built enough foundation strength and mobility.

Apply more resistance in your exercises so that they can lift more than your weight, making them more resilient and powerful.

That's when I will use external weights or add pauses and slower tempos for people who lack equipment.

Life becomes much easier physically when your muscles lift more than your body weight.

Exercises for Step 1:

Here are some exercises I use to assess if your muscles can support your weight effectively:

- Neck Extensions (0:03)

- Y Raises (0:09)

- External Rotations (0:15)

- Hip Bridges (0:21)

- Hip Hinge (0:33)

- Body Weight Squat (0:39)

- Split Squats (0:46)

- Calf Raises (0:52)

Stretches for Step 2:

Here are some stretches I use to find underlying tension:

- Chest Stretch on Wall (0:03)

- Back Stretch with Bench/Chair (0:13)

- Cobra Stretch (0:23)

- Lying Quad Stretch (0:35)

- Hip Flexor Stretch (0:44)

- Calf-Ham Stretch (0:51)

- Stick Ankle Stretch (1:01)

Read 5 tweets

Alex Bernier

@mythoughtfood

Aug 31, 2023

This thread is for people with Sciatica or Lower Back pain.

There is a path out of your suffering.

The steps shown in this video have helped many others like you gain control of their lives again:

I've worked with several clients with sciatica and lower back pain over the last thirteen years, and most shared the same attributes.

Many crucial muscles were out of whack, some too weak while others too stiff.

Their lifestyles had reshaped their bodies for the worse, and they couldn't support themselves or move properly anymore.

The solutions offered by health professionals ranged from surgeries to pills, stretches, and exercises targeting the lower back.

Surprisingly, assessing other seemingly unrelated muscles to the site of the pain exposed major weak points elsewhere in the body.

The pain subsided in about three to six months once we addressed them together, from daily debilitating symptoms to being functional and able to work out more seriously.

Eliminating the issue took six to twelve months or more in some cases. Years of compensations need time to heal, unfortunately.

You feel improvements quickly, which encourages you to push through and continue the training.

This thread presents the similar attributes shared by these clients and gives some exercises to resolve them.

1/ Pelvic Control and Stability

People with sciatica or lower back pain always perform poorly on exercises involving the movements and stabilization of the pelvis.

An unstable mid-body prevents you from bracing yourself when you stand and move and puts pressure on nearby nerves at rest.

Train the abdominal muscles involved in these functions to stabilize the pelvis and improve its control.

Read 9 tweets

Alex Bernier

@mythoughtfood

Aug 23, 2023

A small increase in muscle mass and strength significantly improves our lives.

You feel the benefits with only a fraction of the results of the advanced fitness specimens on social media.

Not sure where to start? These six home exercises build you up to the next level.

1/ Hip Thrusts

Sitting erases the muscle along the back of your legs and hips.

This weakness makes your posture collapse and places a great amount of pressure on your lower back when you move.

Nearly all sedentary people I work with are weak and underdeveloped there.

🎯Do 8-10 reps and hold for 3 seconds at the top.

2/ Incline Push-Ups

The incline variation of the classic exercise is more accessible to beginners than the horizontal one.

The shorter range of motion makes it easier to push back to the starting position.

You’ll build up some baseline strength that will help you graduate to real Push-Ups.

🎯 10-12 reps

Read 5 tweets

Alex Bernier

@mythoughtfood

Aug 9, 2023

The excess tension we hold in our muscles becomes the stress in our minds

Use this mobility routine to let go of the pressure after a long day

The stiffness you feel from head to toe evaporates in less fifteen minutes: