MyoKinetics

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.

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?

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.