Optimum Condition Health and Fitness Blog

Tom B on Corrective Exercise

May 16, 2012 – 6:27 pm

By Melissa Allen | Posted in Exercise Programming, Fit Lifestyle, Flexibility Training, Health and Fitness, Strength Training | Tagged cardiovascular conditioning, Exercise, fitness | Comments (0)

Nursemaid’s Elbow

April 10, 2012 – 12:34 pm

Ever heard of Nursemaid’s Elbow? We found out exactly what that was this past weekend, when it happened to my friend’s little baby girl who is almost two.

It’s a dislocation of the radius bone in the elbow and it’s quite common in young children, usually under the age of five. The injury often occurs when the child is picked up by the hand of wrist, like when swinging a child up over a curb or high step. It can also occur if the child breaks a fall with the arm, rolls over in an unusual way, or from swinging a child from the arms while playing.

Unfortunately, once the elbow dislocates, it is likely to do so again, especially in the 3 or 4 weeks after the injury. After the age of five, the injury is less likely to occur since the child’s joints are now much stronger.

This is a very unfortunate thing to happen for both parties involved, and I’m only writing about it in order to help prevent someone from making the same mistake. We must have been very lucky, because I remember it was pretty common to play airplane when I was a kid and swing kids around by both arms, or an arm and a leg. Just luck of the draw, I guess.

Your friendly health & fitness expert,

Melissa
OptimumCondition.com
(619) 252-4993

By Melissa Allen | Posted in Health and Fitness, Health/ Exercise Safety | Tagged baby dislocates elbow, child dislocated elbow, nursemaids elbow | Comments (0)

Do You Suffer from a Muscle Imbalance?

March 31, 2012 – 2:58 pm

Steve Delabar

Recently on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, an episode aired about a pitcher named Steve Delabar that was enjoying life as an A league ball pitcher with hopes of making the big leagues when he blew his elbow out. After giving up his dream of pitching, he went back to school and became a teacher and baseball coach.

He was always interested in a pitching program that he had heard about to help pitchers improve speed, and so he started learning it to use it in his coaching. Testing it out on himself, he began measuring his own speed with a radar gun. To his surprise, he was throwing 85 mph! Shortly thereafter it was up into the 90s! After hitting 95 and 96 mph he decided to call up some scouts to come out and take a look. This story has a great ending…he’s called to the big leagues! Not bad for a guy who never made it out of Minor A ball!

He dedicates all of his success to the pitching program developed by two guys that noticed how baseball players constantly blew out their shoulders but tennis players never did. Serving a tennis ball puts a lot of stress on the shoulder joint, but yet they never seem to get injured. The key to the program’s success lies in the fact that tennis players never let go of the racket when serving (at least not on purpose), while pitchers always let go of the ball. This ultimately results in a muscle imbalance between the anterior and posterior portions of the shoulder. The anterior is over active, while the posterior is under active, and therefore grows weak. The key in balancing the opposing muscle groups is practicing throwing without releasing.

As a Corrective Exercise Specialist, I thought this was a really inspiring story that spelled out the importance of equality amongst opposing muscle groups perfectly.

Your friendly health & fitness expert,

Melissa
OptimumCondition.com
(619) 252-4993

By Melissa Allen | Posted in Exercise Programming, Health and Fitness, Health/ Exercise Safety, Sports Psychology/ Athletic Training | Tagged baseball, baseball pitching program, Brayant Gumbel, Bryant Gumbal, Bryant Gumball, muscle imbalance, muscle imbalance in shoulder, pitchers injury shoulder, pitching speed, pitching strength, Steve Delabar | Comments (3)

Grappling at San Diego Fight Club

March 20, 2012 – 4:03 pm

Charlie Kohler

It’s hard to beat a workout at the San Diego Fight Club. Charlie Kohler runs a great program there for both adults as well as kids. I’ve trained there off and on, and up till recently it’s been mostly off. And that’s been due to the fact that I opened my training facility about two years ago this month. But I’m proud to say I made it back in last week for two great workouts and again this week. So far, so good. Got worked by some young whipper snappers in there but I managed to hold my own even though I’m a bit rusty.

It feels great to be back, and God willing I will be able to be more consistent with my training. In Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, take downs are really important, so we drilled that last week, and this week turnovers got a lot of attention. The thing about BJJ is, you could probably do it every day for the rest of your life and learn something new each time. So boredom doesn’t play a role.

One thing’s for sure, a good warm up and staying flexible by stretching is the key to not getting injured for me. When you’re 20+ you can definitely get away with skipping workouts, in your 30′s they become more important, and after that, lookout, you’ll definitely feel it when you start too cold.

So if anyone out there is looking for a great workout, check out Charlie Kohler’s SDFightClub.com. In addition to Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, he also offers boxing and kickboxing classes. You’ll cover all the bases including punching, striking, take downs, grappling, submissions, you name it. By the way, I’m the only girl that trains jiu-jitsu right now, so hey GIRLS out there, if you’ve ever wanted to try it out, this is THE place!

Your friendly health & fitness expert,

Melissa
OptimumCondition.com
(619) 252-4993

By Melissa Allen | Posted in Cardiovascular Exercise, Flexibility Training, Health and Fitness, Sports Psychology/ Athletic Training, Women and Exercise | Tagged boxing, brazilian jiu-jitsu, Charlie Kohler, jiujitsu, kickboxing, MMA, San Diego Fight Club, SD Fight Club, takedowns | Comments (1)

Jump Start 2012

December 9, 2011 – 3:36 pm

Hi everyone, Melissa, head trainer at Optimum Condition here. Just wanted to let all of you know about a special we’re running to help you jump start your way to great health in the coming year. It’s a killer deal: $504 worth of services for only $97! We try to offer our members and clients the best service we possibly can, and since we’re a small business and not a big conglomerate like the corporate chain gyms, there is only a limited number of spots available. The deal runs out on December 31st, so if this sounds like what your life is missing, don’t delay. Here’s what you get:

Jump Start 2012

One health & fitness audit
One fitness assessment that includes body fat analysis, circumference measurements and body weight ($25 value)
Two half hour personal training sessions ($75 value)
One personal nutrition plan ($199 value)
Four weeks of exercise classes made up of the following:
Lunch Crunch (30 min. workouts for busy people) ($79/ mo. value)
Yoga ($37/ month value)
Fit Camp ($37/ month value)
Kickboxing ($37/ month value)
Tee shirt ($15 value)

$504 total value for only $97

Your friendly health & fitness expert,

Melissa
OptimumCondition.com
(619) 252-4993

By Melissa Allen | Posted in Cardiovascular Exercise, Exercise Seasons, Fit Lifestyle, Health and Fitness, Motivation, Stability Ball Exercises, Strength Training, Weight Lifting, Weight Loss, Women, Women and Exercise | Tagged 2012, big gyms, corporate chain gyms, exercise special, jump start 2012, small business | Comments (1)