Click Link to Access Episode https://anchor.fm/districth/episodes/Episode-16-Were-Back—-Dialing-in-Your-Nutrition–Catalyst-6-Week-Nutrition-Challenge-with-Miranda-DeMark-ekmu8pRead more

You may have noticed that we have begun incorporating “Functional Bodybuilding” into our workouts. While it may not be our typical “Metcon” where we are left drenched in sweat and out of breath on floor, complimenting our conditioning with functional bodybuilding has a host of benefits and carryover to our strength & conditioning including: Increased overall usable strength Correcting muscle imbalances Improved body awareness, Coordination Injury prevention. In this more holistic approach, we focus on movement quality and increased use of our stabilizer muscles to work towards a more complete athlete. During metabolic conditioning workouts, the kipping movements, high rep and repetitive nature can lead to overuse resulting in injuries. How many of us have those achy shoulders and knees or nagging hip flexors and IT bands? Our goal with functional bodybuilding is to try and prevent this by strengthening and stabilizing your joints in ways that are often ignored...Read more

Read that title again. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been asked this question before, but I definitely think it’s one that is worth contemplating.   It’s safe to assume that most people enjoying winning. Although some of us are certainly more competitive than others, getting that “W” is pretty much always considered more fun than the “L”. But what is the driving force behind how we view (and ultimately answer) this question?   I think a lot of us growing up experienced some of the typical “reward vs. punishment” techniques. We were rewarded for good behavior or positive outcomes and vice versa. If you got good grades you could get that cool new video game and be rewarded, or maybe you got your phone taken away if you only got C’s on the report card. However I think this technique did us all a big disservice. These methods taught...Read more

One of my best (and worst) qualities is that I’m a perfectionist. Sometimes, this can be great! It gives me that extra attention to detail and creates a driving force within me to constantly work on bettering myself and the world around me.  Other times, however, this can be one of my worst characteristics because it causes me to freeze. I’m unable to move forward on certain tasks or sometimes even start them at all in the first place, because I’m waiting until it’s “just right” or perfect. I saw a quote the other day by Deborah Stewart that went like this, “We’re not supposed to know how to do it before we’ve done it. We’re just supposed to begin.”  That quote really stuck with me because I struggle a lot with that whole “begin” part and I know that I can’t be the only one. Maybe this was even the case...Read more

As we wrap up our snatch, power clean and jerk and back squat cycles in the next couple of days. I wanted to go over some things regarding the next 4 weeks of strength training which will focus on the push press and deadlift. The push press is movement that bridges the gap between the strict press and the jerk (split or push). Anatomically, it’s trains the quads, glutes, midline/core, upper back and shoulders. In terms of functional fitness and weightlifting, it teaches the athlete to properly use their legs to elevate the barbell overhead, maintain a rigid core against external forces and introduce and improve athletes ability to perform push jerks. The deadlift is one of the most functional compound exercises we train at District H and is trained in a variety of ways to reinforce proper technique when picking up objects from the floor. Anatomically it trains the...Read more