Want bigger quads? Try wearing your lifters! I recently did the 92 of the thrusters for the Mayhem on the Mountain's Butterfly Effect WOD in lifters and found myself very sore the next day.
 
The raised heel of a weightlifting shoe allows you to go deeper into your squat and requires you to bend your knee more to get down to parallel. More joint motion means more tissue stretch around the joint. Your quads then have to contract farther and harder to get you back up. This increased quad work can show up as bigger gains at the weight bar and in your quads. The Journal of Sport Science and the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that lifters who were able to exploit this phenomena for more upright torsos, increased quad activation, and heavier lifts.
Who doesn’t want heavier lifts?
 
 If you do not know what the hype about weightlifting shoes is:
Running shoes are not optimal for squatting in the gym. They compress to allow for shock absorption and lack the firm foundation needed to stabilize you with heavy loads. Weight lifting shoes can help you feel more balanced and stable with heavy lifts. They provide a solid foundation for a good return on the forces you create. But, they may also give you another benefit – a quad pump. 

​Dry needling is a technique that uses a small needle to decrease pain, increase range of motion, and improve functional mobility. It often provides instant results and may be beneficial for those with muscle aches and pains, tightness, lingering mobility issues after an injury or surgery, or muscle spasms. 

   Still can't get your ankle flexibility back after a surgery or injury? Do you always feel like your calf is tight and limiting your squatting, running, or walking performance? Has traditional stretching, rolling, and massaging not worked? It may be time for me to help! Dry Needling may be what you need.
   Dry needling uses a tiny needle to go into the tight muscle to lengthen it and can give you more range of motion, less pain, and more functional mobility. It also helps to reset your body's local chemical balance and promote healing of the area. Patients have had instantly improved walking mechanics, squatting range of motion, mobility, and pain. 
   For stubborn tightness, low-level intramuscular electrical stimulation can be used to help relax the muscle deep down at the site of tightness. Dry needling can be performed on most body parts.
    Call me today at 256-203-3804 to discuss setting up your appointment!

Ankle Mobility Series Part 3: Therapy Interventions - Blading with Cupping (Sorry, the video is of a low back, but the intervention translates to any body part!!)
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Are you the person that has done the stretching, pushing, and prodding in the other videos but still cannot seem to gain mobility? Your body may have developed a neurological pattern to tell itself to be tight in an effort to give you stability or protect you. This neurologic pattern causes you to continually revert back to a tight state and not see much progress with normal stretching. 
EDGE Blading can provide a specific stimulus to your body to help reintegrate the correct neurological response and provide you with more normalized tissue length and mobility. I tend to combine this with cupping to improve the bloodflow and fascial mobility of the targeted area. With just some work with the Blade and cups, this person had improved range of motion, decreased pain. and improved deadlifting ability. 
Contact me to set up an appointment to get you on the track to moving with more freedom and less pain!

This self joint mobilization technique will help to open up the joint space and give you more mobility to translate over your foot during walking, running, squatting, and cycling. Improved ankle mobility will decrease the need for compensations along your knees, hips, and back to often allow for more normal, more powerful, and less painful movement patterns.