The Bone Health Blueprint

Building and maintaining your ability to generate power becomes increasingly important as you age. And when it comes to bone health, it’s not optional, it’s essential. Power is your ability to produce force quickly. It’s what helps you catch yourself when you trip, stabilize when you lose balance, and move with confidence in unpredictable situations. Training for power stimulates your nervous syst...

A meta-analysis involves a comprehensive and exhaustive literature review of a specific topic with a specific question and involves very strict inclusion and exclusion criteria for the investigations used for review and analysis. This is a great way for researchers to create a generalizable recommendation for a specific population.  The purpose of this investigation was to review, using a meta-ana...

Ep. 81: Position Statement: Exercise guidelines for Osteoporosis Management and Fall Prevention in Osteoporosis Patients A position statement provides the author(s) stance on a topic based on the sum of all the evidence of a debatable topic. Osteoporosis treatment and management is not one-size-fits-all. Personal history, background, capacities and abilities of each person will differ, resulting i...

I call the heel drop exercise the "gateway into impact training." But does it actual meet or exceed the threshold for being osteogenic? Most research will define an impact training exercise that meets or exceeds 3-4 times your bodyweight as osteogenic, meaning it has the capacity to signal the bone for growth. Additionally, impact training and jump training can be less than approachable...

This was an interesting study done in premenopausal women, ages 20 - 35 years old, during a 26 week long investigation. Three groups were used, a resistance training group, step-aerobics high impact group, and a control group.  The resistance training group completed a strength training routine at 65-80% of their 1RM, 3 times per week using the following exercises: leg press, back squat, leg exten...

The Bone Health Blueprint is your evidence-based guide to building stronger bones and maintaining independence for life. In every episode, I break down current research on exercise for osteoporosis prevention and bone growth, explain what the findings really mean, and give you practical, approachable strategies you can use immediately in your own fitness routine. As a doctor of exercise physiology...

In this episode, I dive into the research behind an intriguing combo: high-intensity progressive resistance training paired with self-talk . The featured study explores how these two strategies affect muscle strength and functional performance in older adults—and the results are worth paying attention to. I break down what the study found, how self-talk influenced outcomes, and what it all means f...

In this episode, I dive into a research review that analyzed the effects of full-body resistance training in postmenopausal women. The article pulls together findings from multiple studies to assess how structured strength training impacts metabolic health, bone density, muscular strength, and overall quality of life. Whether you’re a practitioner, a postmenopausal woman, or simply interested in t...

Here’s why your split routine isn’t working… Let’s say you decided to do something adventurous and go on an ice fishing trip. You hit up the outdoor store and buy a ton of new equipment, warm clothes, supplies, etc. You jump on the plane and head to somewhere cold with a frozen lake. The day is finally here and you’re out on the ice starting to drill and pick away at making your fishing hole. Brut...

Let’s talk about trust. Webster will tell you trust is “assured (or guaranteed) reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something OR one in which confidence is placed.” But what if that “one” where confidence is placed is YOU in regards to YOURSELF? Trusting others is one thing while trusting yourself is an entirely different situation. WHY? Because there is no one to...

Progressive overload, simply stated is doing more work than you’ve done before, strategically over time. It doesn’t have to be linear, and really shouldn’t be. However, when you zoom out there is a trend in the upward direction. Here are a few ways to apply an overload to your current routine… 🔹Gradually adding more weight over time (again, non-linear but the trend line moves upward when you zoom...

Expectations can be what gives you an edge, or they can be the limiting factor to achieving your goals. Here is something to consider, are you creating your expectations based on your own reality and experiences? Or are you constructing your expectations around other's experiences and rhetoric? I've found, especially in the world of exercise and fitness, that our expectations of results,...

We've all ridden that wave of motivation to complete a project, pass a test, get that promotion. We've especially learned to rely on it when it comes to exercise. On the horse, off the horse, waiting for that drive to be strong enough to put a few solid weeks together. But what if motivation was just a front? A Trojan horse even. Motivation is tied to emotion, and we all know how quickly...

Over the last few months I've had many conversations with clients and potential clients where their previous training was typically 3 sets of 15 reps where weight was held constant for the entire workout. This may be more common than I had thought, or maybe it's just because I've never trained that way. I've always started with a lower resistance for maybe 12 reps, then started...

Your brain is hard wired to keep you safe, to keep you alive. It doesn't necessarily care if you are alive and thriving. You know what I'm talking about... ahem survival mode. Your nervous system is so hard wired for survival that your brain will do everything it can to keep you comfortable and using as little energy as possible. Think about it, how many times have you skipped a workout...

It's easy to fall under the logic of complicated = better/more valuable. When in reality keeping things simple and focusing on consistency and patience tend to be the best recipe for long term success. At some level we all know this, and we play against our human nature as the long game is the most challenging one to play. Keri and I both own our own online fitness businesses and share the pe...

First, let's set the expectation. If you reduce the rest interval between sets of a given workout, your capacity noticably decreases over the course of your working sets. What does get taxed, however, is your aerobic energy system. When rest intervals are lengthened, your ability to produce the desired reps over the course of many working sets is spared which results in a higher training volu...

A dad with 4 kids under 8 years old shares some tangible and actionable advice about life and fitness. Things definitely change after having kids, and shifting expectations, the way things look, and having gratitude for all of it may change the way you approach exercise and movement in your daily life. "This is who we are now" is a simple but powerful statement that Zak shared and how th...

Athletes & everyday functioning people have a time, whether it's in season or on vacation/travel, where training time is decreased compared to the typical routine. And with that less training time we start to worry at what point will I start to see decrements in my abilities, things like strength and muscle size? This investigation dives into comparing two groups of training, one using hi...

You've been in the gym where the person next to you is completing half reps of a bicep curl or squat and you wonder, is that helping or hurting? First and fore-most I typically recommend working through a full and available range of motion for every movement. Personally I want to be strong through the entire range, regardless of how little or large of that range I'm using. However, when...

Craig has a wealth of knowledge in the health & fitness industry. Over the years of applying his craft & his gift, he has pared down the need for flashy objects & complex training programs. With mastery comes simplicity and the utmost respect for the basics. It's not just about what is accomplished on a single day of training, but what is accomplished every day of training, day-in...

Another round with my fitness consigliere, Chad Trudo. We had all the intentions of breaking down a newly published research article on the topic of countermovement jump performance. However, many tangental conversations occurred, that in my mind were much more usable and fundamental in the world of exercise and strength & conditioning. Chad and I dove into banter on the topic of neuromuscular...

A big thank you to Dr. Hannah Brandt for being a guest on the show. Hannah and I share a similar career story, as we were both previously institutionalized professionals turned entrepreneurs. Hannah's background is in physical therapy where practicing in the current "one size fits all" model never settled well with her values and style of practice. Which lead to her own flourishing...

There have been countless research studies done on understanding training outcomes based on working at differing percentages of your 1-rep max. It's tried and true. But it may be leaving out a very important detail. It does not take into account your level of preparedness the day of training. We all have had days where (for example) 100 pounds feels light and effortless on the bench press. Th...

Thank you to Hannah for cutting into your bedtime and being a guest on the podcast! For those of you who don't know, most of my episodes for this show are recorded "late" in the evening (~8pm) after the kids are down, so if rambling on a tangent occurs you now know why. On this episode we dive into conversations centering around fitness and family. Both of which can take a considera...