MyoKinetics, Chicago, IL (2026)

02/01/2021

𝐓𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒

Out of a 3000-person survey, 75% of you said that your hamstrings feel tight. So perhaps it may just be a normal feeling if most people have it albeit a small sample size. But what would you say is rarer, meeting someone without tight hamstrings or someone with? There are a few causes for the feeling of tightness in the hamstrings and I’ll address the most common ones. ◀️💥For more info swipe left! I'd like to announce that ill is adding a stretching chapter and cardio one soon!

Some common causes of the hamstrings feeling tight are weak hamstrings, weak glutes, injury, overuse, and lastly actual tightness. Weak hamstrings can create the illusions of tightness as they are overworking to maintain their adequate function. Weakness can be initial or happen when fatigue sets in. Underactive glutes (shouldn’t say weak) can cause the hamstrings to overtake their role in hip extension and pelvic stabilization causing them to increase their muscle tone. Injury an obvious one, the muscle tightness to avoid movement and making the injury worse.

Overuse goes with underactive glutes, the hamstrings are working to perform another role and are utilized outside of their capacity causing high muscle tone and stiffness. And lastly is actual tightness, the physical length of the muscle is just not there so when you increase your joint angle it limits you.

If It is an issue worth addressing for you there are 3 steps to fixing tight hamstrings; train your glutes, train your hamstrings, and increase their mobility. First test if your hamstrings are shortened. Try the 90/90 active knee extension (lay on your back neutral pelvis and raise your straight leg as far as it will go should be at around 90 degrees. Train your glutes single-leg hip thrusts are probably the best at-home exercise to isolate them, lastly, train the hamstrings both hip extension and knee flexion think RDL and hamstring curls.

01/29/2021

𝐁𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐒
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Bent over rows are on of the best compound exercises for the lats and the posterior chain. They allow for the lats to be trained with a higher intensity in extension while incorporating the glutes and back stabilizers. However, it is common that they’re performed somewhat incorrectly, and there are a few things that we should look for when we perform them for training the lats. ◀️💥swipe left for more info◀️
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One thing to focus on is having a higher forward lean, the bent over row should be thought of as an RDL with a row. Often people remain too upright which makes the exercise too easy with lighter weight causing an increase the load. With a greater forward lean, the torque on the shoulder will be greater with a small weight. This leads to the next point with a more upright torso the kinematics of the arms changing causing a greater elbow flexion angle, this puts stress on the biceps and lead it to being used more which can cause a curling motion instead of a shoulder extension.
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The next common mistake is not stabilizing the back with the glutes, relaxed glutes will cause the paraspinals to overwork and stabilize the back which will lead to someone feeling it in the lower back rather than the lats. Thinking of it like an RDL again is a great analogy as we want the glutes always on.
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How have you performed the bent over row? Has anyone tried pendlay rows?

01/17/2021

𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐓

Is your chest lagging and seems to not be improving even if you are throwing more volume at it? It may be because of your back muscles not your chest. Your scapular stabilizers are crucial for force production and maintaining tension in the pecs when training them. ◀️💥For more info swipe left and check out chapters 6 & 10.◀️

The scapula is the pivot point where the humerus moves about, when the pecs act on the arm to rotate about the shoulder and the shoulder blades are not stable for the force requirements, you will have compensations occurring. The shoulder blades may get pulled forward into protraction, shortening the pecs and not allowing for optimal engagement. This can also lead to triceps taking over and the anterior delt.

To fix this issue, we need to address the strength and motor control off the scapular stabilizers. Strength is important for counteracting the force produced by the pecs, but motor control is needed to maintain the proper positioning during exercises.

Exercises like; face pulls, scap retraction, rows, A,T,W’s are essential for strength and motor control. For intergrading the motor control aspect to the exercises you need to perform the chest training exercises with lighter weight and learn to control the motion from the shoulder blades.

01/16/2021

𝐒𝐐𝐔𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐘

When it comes to squatting it is usually better to go heavier, the reason being is that the glutes seem to be threshold activated. The threshold of activation seems to be from 40-60%1rm 60-90%1rm and 1rm, meaning that the muscle activation remains roughly the same for each of those sections of weight. Swipe left to learn more about training legs.This is different for the quads which seem to have a more consistent activation throughout the different weights (Roland et al 2019). This could possibly explain why it seems harder to activate your glutes with a lower weight, but we always seem to feel our quads working.

This means we want to have our rep ranges remain between 8-12 and 4-6 to hit the different glute thresholds. However, we can compensate for those thresholds with changes in velocity in order to avoid heavier weight. Using maximal velocity on the concentric part of the squat allows for an increase in activation which lowers threshold weights. This should allow us to achieve the activation of 4-6 reps with 8-12 rep weight.

This is done by descending into the squat with normal speed but using an explosive movement on the weight up which allows for the firing of higher threshold motor neurons. The only thing to be cautious with is maintaining good form as explosive movements can lead to compromised form. Because of that, it is best to start incrementally increasing your ascending velocity and pay attention to how it affects your form. For more information like this swipe left.

01/15/2021

𝐎𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐋 𝐄𝐗𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐒

What is an optimal exercise, depends on who you ask if one even exists? The way I analyze an exercise and its favorability is through a multidimensional return on investment analysis. The image is a general visualization and changes based on an individual’s limitations. However, it should help you enhance your judgment of exercise. To see the most “optimal” exercises for muscular development based on my research swipe left.

The first aspect of exercises is its complexity, the higher the complexity the less return on investment when speaking of hypertrophy. For sports and strength, high complexity comes with a benefit of integration of movements and application to sports. But for general training high complexity does not yield a greater benefit. For example, deadlift yields a greater benefit for glute training than a side lunge overhead press or a Turkish get up. Good exercises but not for what we are looking for.

Next is focus, what is the focus of the exercise and what is the return on what we are focusing on. If your focus is biceps and you are doing lat pulldowns the focus to return ratio is very low. Lat pulldowns activate the biceps but are not the main focus of the exercise lowering your return on investment.

Lastly, effort/capacity to load. How much effort are you adding and what are you getting back for that effort. In conjunction with that, what is the capacity to load the exercise. For example, bridges are great exercises, but you hypothetically can hip thrust 200lb, the capacity to load the bridge exercise does not meet your need/ability hence it is not a good fit for your needs and goals. What do you consider when choosing an exercise

01/14/2021

𝐑𝐎𝐖 𝐕𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

Rows are arguably the best and most versatile back exercise; this is because it utilizes both shoulder extension and scapular retraction focusing on the lats and traps/rhomboids. We also get a great isometric contraction in the back extensors. The reason rows are so versatile is because changing the angle of the shoulder can emphasize different muscle groups because of the line of pull muscles. For example, if your shoulder is at 90degrees and you’re performing horizontal extension it would be hard for the lats to kick in. 💥◀️Swipe left and check out chapter 4 for more back training info.◀️

There are a lot of row variations but ill cover the most common ones, the dumbbell lat row is great at targeting the lat and traps, you can further isolate the lats by locking the scapula in place and focusing on the extension component.

Next is the rear delt row which has the dumbbell at a higher position with the palm facing towards the body. In this position we are able to isolate the rear delt, we can incorporate more traps or lesss by varying the amount of protraction done by the shoulder blades. Be careful to keep shoulder blades tucked back and down as at higher angles the space in the shoulder can be limited due to bony anatomy.

Lastly the barbell row, there are two variations of this exercise overhand grip and underhand, my rules for this exercise is overhand is a trap, underhand is lat. The barbell variation allows for more weight to be done compared to dumbbell variations. This leads to a greater isometric loading on the back extensors.

The takeaway of this post is to incorporate more rowing variations into your back routine and shoulder. There are a few more variations of the rows which can be used but these are the more common ones. What row variations do you do?

01/12/2021

𝐏𝐔𝐋𝐋-𝐔𝐏𝐒 𝐕𝐒. 𝐋𝐀𝐓 𝐏𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍𝐒

It is a common question whether lat putdowns activate the lats more or pull-ups (forward handgrip)? A study by (Kenji et al), from the sports biomechanics journal, looked EMG activation of muscles during both. For more training info like this swipe left.

What they found was that pull-ups had greater activation of the biceps and erector spines when compared to the lat pulldowns. The lat pulldowns threaded towards a higher activation of the re**us abdominis well as slightly more pec major during the eccentric phase. However, for lat activation, there were no differences

Lat pulldowns are easier to master control of the motion and easier to manage the load. Load management allows both an increase in ability to do volume and keep control of form when still a novice. Pullups, on the other hand, are versatile and can be done anywhere without equipment, they emphasize control of the lower body as well for pull-ups you're bound your body weight unless you have equipment like a weighted belt or an assistance machine.

01/10/2021

𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐒
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Often you may hear I am in a caloric deficit or surplus from people who are dieting but are they really and to what extent? ◀️💥swipe left for more info in training◀️ Calorie calculators are a valuable tool when combined with the knowledge of a Dietitian but can often be misunderstood. Here is what you need to know about them.
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Calorie intake calculators are accurate to an extent, the most accurate of equations used is the Mifflin equation predicting within 10 % of actual resting metabolic rate (Frankenfield D et al 2005). It is important to understand that your metabolism can vary based on uncontrollable factors such as arousal state, food you eat, spontaneous activity. And consider that those calculators do not factor in percent lean mass, ethnicity and many other variables.
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When using such calculators take the number with a grain of salt. Pay attention to how your body responds to the changes. Dietitians know how to adjust these numbers based on experience and information they ask you like diet history as well as any conditions that need to be considered. So be careful when getting advice from unqualified individuals.
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Diet apps may be useful tools to make you more conscious of roughly how many calories you are taking in but can also be tricky as many apps allow anyone to input caloric values for foods making them unreliable. Point being when you change your diet based on data from such equations be careful as you may decrease your calories too much or too little which can lead to issue both health and performance. Specifically, in very active individuals as equations tend to underestimate their RMR (Jagim AR et al 2018)

01/07/2021

𝐋𝐄𝐆 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐋𝐄𝐆 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐏𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓
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The leg press is a great accessory exercise in a leg day routine. It has been shown to result in similar muscle gain in a 10-week study comparing it to squats. However, it may not lead to similar performance adaptations further research is needed. ◀️💥swipe left for more training info◀️
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The leg press is a great glute and quad exercises, one common thought with it is that changing foot position will affect muscle activation. Looking at a study that observed muscle activation during different foot positions, neutral, internally rotated, externally rotated. The results showed that there was no statistical difference in muscle activation in the quads based on their evidence.
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This study has a few limitations and improvements that can be done with this study to further refine the results. One strong limitation is the weight they used which was only 55% of their body weight, whether that has the same activation as a higher percent of their actual 1RM isn’t know. However perhaps we may see trends like the leg extension where internal rotation limits the re**us femoris and favors the vastus muscles.
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Another thing to add is that it is common misconception that the leg press engages your hamstring in a manner which they perform work. Many popular websites and books even recommended as a hamstring exercise. However, that is not true it is as much a hamstring exercise as are leg extensions. Which was shown by (Kevin E. et al.) Looked at the emg activity of lower limb muscles during different exercise. What they found was that the activation of the hamstrings was not statically different during the ascent between leg extensions and leg press. This is because of the mechanics of the leg press and the hamstrings crossing both the knee and hip joint.

01/06/2021

𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐓𝐒 ⠀

Rear delts are often overlooked or under trained since most people focus on the middle and front delt. This presents a few issues since the rear delt is actually 1/3 of the shoulder and is also responsible for creating shoulder stability and drawing the arm back. The rear deltoid is also an antagonist to the pec, which can be overworked relative to the rear delt and can improve the efficacy of exercises targeting it. ◀️💥swipe left for more info on training◀️

How many exercises do you do for rear delts? Ideally it should be equal to the number done for middle or front. If you’ve only been doing one exercises for it, you may want to increase the volume and target the rear delt more specifically. This will help it “catch” up to the rest, one way to speed that up is to start your shoulder routine with rear delts. ⠀

There are a lot of exercises that target the rear delt, but a few seem to be more effective. The best two are the reverse pec deck and the face pull (Frank r Et al 2015). Often though these are perform slightly incorrect, in order to fully target the delt you want to keep your scapulae drawn back the whole time just to isolate the horizontal extension movement. This not only helps target the rear delt, but strengthens the mid traps isometrically helping with scapular stability.

What’s your favorite rear delt exercise, and were you neglecting them? I know I was, I’ve seem a huge improvement adding more volume.

01/05/2021

𝐅𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐒

Neil DeGrasse Tyson said I would have the shortest diet book as a physicist, put in fewer calories than you burn. He is right, the equation is simple calories in – CALORIES OUT = -weight loss. There are really 3 things you need to worry about when working on this equation. For some reason, even people who are for it like to complicate it with things you do not need to worry about like NEAT, thermic effect of food. Those are non-issues for us and are hard to control. Focus on the things you can adjust. For more info swipe left and see chapter 11.

The things you need to focus on is calories from Fats and carbs, you are not going to gain weight from the protein calories you ingest see previous post on why. You cannot out train a bad diet as calories are not as easy to burn as to intake. However, you can supplement the calories burned through cardio and training to increase the negative number of calories.

To make caloric intake easier focus on simpler foods that are simpler to figure out roughly how many calories you are taking. 3 things with food, fats are energy-dense, carbs are easy to overeat on. Use non-energy-dense food to help you feel full. You will never overeat on broccoli. Be aware of your food when you eat and eventually you can eat whatever you want as you’ll learn how your body responds.

01/04/2021

𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐓𝐇 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐒
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There are 3 main factors that will usually influence muscle growth; your genetics your training and protein intake. The last 2 factors when it comes to muscle growth are modifiable and can be easily changed once identified as your limiting factor. The first may have set a ceiling for you; however genetic is almost never reached and its limitation can be improved through consistency and dedication.◀️swipe left to learn more ◀️
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Your genetics will dictate how fast your muscle grows based on many factors like muscle fiber types, capacity for muscle growth limb length, metabolism, and protein turnover or if you simply are a non/low responder to exercise. Identifying genetic limitations can help you put specific attention on your training to limit the effect they have. For example, if you have a higher than normal metabolism and you just can’t seem to put on size; eat more. Or your arms are longer causing them to put on mass slower; train them more.
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Next you are not working out at the right intensity or volume respectively. If you’re just going through the motions in the gym and not paying attention you may not be overloading your muscles enough. If your current training isn’t working add more volume through new exercise or more sets. Exercise volume is the key driver of hypertrophy and if you’re not overloading the muscle enough, it won’t grow. Make sure you’re progressively over loading the muscle through the many modifiable factors in training.
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Lastly youre not getting enough protein; Protein is one of the fundamental parts of muscle growth; not getting enough protein can be diminishing your gains. It is not just about getting in protein by grams from all food, when it comes to protein it is crucial to get high quality protein that has a full amino profile. Not all foods are complete protein so pay attention to what you eat. Like in my previous post we learned the threshold for optimal protein intake seems to be around 1.6 g/kg/bw, This is a factor I feel many people don’t stress enough.

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