COACH CYNDEE

So often I hear people comment that they have some part of their body bothering them so they are starting to stretch more.  Even more often people contact me for a massage because they suddenly are having pain somewhere.  It seems that most people neglect both stretching and getting a massage until something hurts.  I am always telling my clients they need to be more consistent with pre and post workout stretching and getting maintenance massages.  Before workouts warming up with active or moving stretching is very important.  Equally important is your routine after your workout, which should include foam rolling followed by stretching.  If you suddenly have pain and then think that stretching will miraculously make it go away you are wrong.   In fact I would suggest against doing a lot of stretching if you possibly injured something.   When you have an acute injury stretching may not be the best option it may need a several days to recover...

The first question people ask when they find out that I am a vegetarian and an athlete is, “how do you get enough protein?”   I once thought the same thing about vegetarians or vegans.   I quit eating any meat except chicken and turkey when I was 15 and I am 46 now.   I never really had the desire to eat it and honestly I didn’t really like chicken and turkey I just thought that all my muscle would wither away if I didn’t eat it.   Reluctantly I ate chicken and turkey and not think about the fact that it was once alive.     I didn’t like to eat any chicken on the bone because it grossed me out I just ate chicken breast or turkey breast and tried not to think about it too much.   Last year I finally had enough and I told myself that I was going to slowly eliminate it from my diet.   I wasn’t telling myself I couldn’t have it but I was going eat less of it.   My boyfriend who is a huge meat eater was not too happy but I told him it wouldn...

I completed St. George 70.3 on Saturday May 2 nd and had a tough day but that’s what happens when your training leading up to an event is sub-optimal.  I did not plan to do the race but my boyfriend signed up so I figured I would do it.  My last race was Ironman Cozumel about 6 months ago and after that race I took about 2 ½ months off from running to let a plantar fasciitis in my foot heal.  I have been running a little but very c autiously as I didn’t want to get re-injured.   I have lacked motivation to get outside on my bike so most of my training on the bike was on my trainer and even that was less than what I should have been doing.   I went into the race knowing that I would not have a great race so it was about being with friends and having fun.   I did this race 2 years ago and it was 2-weeks after Ironman South Africa. I was very fit and recovered really great after IM SA.   I finished St. George in 2013 in 5:30 and on...

Jon and I after his surgery Coming back from a major surgery can sometimes be difficult both mentally and physically.   I recently began working with a client who had a hip replacement, finished physical therapy and was looking for a personal trainer to continue the recovery process.   Once a client is done with physical therapy they sometimes are at a loss and don’t go to the gym because they don’t want to re-injure themselves.   It is so important to continue the healing and recovery process with strength training, cardiovascular exercise, stretching, and massage therapy.   My client is a pretty motivated person so he had planned to workout on his own 2 days a week and workout with me once a week.   Since I am also a massage therapist we incorporated a weekly massage into his recovery.   The days he trains on his own he does basic strength training exercises mostly with different machines at the gym.   The day that he is with me we mix things up...