The muscles of the back and biceps are your “pull muscles”. Back work can be split up into two different types of pulls:

Vertical pulls: Pulling from overhead.
Chin-ups, pull-ups, lat pull downs, etc.

Horizontal pulls: Pulling from in front of you. The “rowing motion”.
Barbell rows, dumbbell rows, cable rows, etc.

Vertical pulls will active more of the lats, the “outer back” muscles. Incorporate vertical pulls to develop back “width” (side to side).

Horizontal pulls will activate more of the rhomboids and traps, the “inner back” muscles. Incorporate these to develop more back “thickness” (front to back). Horizontal pulls strengthen the “posture muscles” (rhomboids, rear deltoids, etc.) that hold you in correct posture, prevent shoulder injuries and pain, and prevent neck pain; so a special emphasis should be put on these.


**As a general rule: pull horizontally to vertically on a 2:1 ratio. For each vertical pulling exercise, do 2 horizontal pulling exercises.


**As another general rule, use at least the same ratio for pulling to pushing exercises (many people overwork the “mirror” muscles and neglect the posterior muscles).


KEY TO ENGAGING THE BACK MUSCLES:
Scapular Retraction & Depression

An extremely common issue when training the back is little to no back activation, with the biceps doing the majority of the work. The most common cause of this is failure to retract and/or depress the scapula (shoulder blades) when pulling.

WHEN PULLING FROM OVERHEAD (vertically): Initiate the movement by pulling the shoulders down first, as if “pulling your shoulders to your back pockets”. Pull your shoulders down towards your lower body as far as possible, without letting your elbows bend at all. Once the shoulders are completely depressed, cue “pulling your elbows towards your hips.” This will effectively engage the lats.

WHEN PULLING FROM IN FRONT OF YOU (horizontally): Focus on pulling the shoulder blades “together and down” as you pull towards your torso. At the back of the movement, squeeze your shoulder blades together, as if you were trying to crush a soda can between them. On the way forward, the eccentric part of the movement, allow the shoulder blades to relax and be pulled forward by the weight to achieve full range of motion on the movement.

Pictured Exercise: Lat Pulldown (muscles worked—latissimus dorsi—the large wing shaped muscles of the back)

Lat Pulldown Tip: instead of focusing on pulling through your hands, forearms and biceps, try focusing your pull through your elbows. Cue yourself to pull your elbows towards your hips. Think of your hands and arms as merely “hooks”. To further help disengagement of the forearms and biceps, do not use a “closed thumb” grip. Use an “open thumb” or thumbless grip. These tips will help you initiate the movement from the intended target muscle—the lats—instead of turning it into a forearm and bicep focused movement.

Hope you find these tips helpful! Give them a try and let me know!

How to keep lost pounds from coming back—changes in nutritional habits and exercise are both critical to losing unhealthy weight and it takes more movement to keep it off once you lose it! The International Association for the Study of Obesity, recommends individuals hoping to keep lost pounds from returning commit to 60-90 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity OR 30-45 minutes of VIGOROUS (key word) physical activity daily.

In a study to get a more accurate picture of just how much successful weight maintainers are exercising, a group of researchers at the University of Colorado found that the weight loss maintainers expended around 12 calories/kg/day as compared to the normal weight (10 calories/kg/day) and overweight individuals (7 calories/kg/day). To find your weight in kilograms, divide your weight in pounds by 2.2
Translated into a step count, the researchers reported that the weight loss maintainers logged 12,100 steps per day as compared to 8,900 steps by the normal weight subjects and 6,500 by the overweight group.
Study Link: click HERE

Part of the struggle to make weight loss permanent is related to the physiological changes that occur when a body shrinks in size. A lighter body burns fewer calories than a heavier one due to the reduced effort it takes to move less mass. It also burns fewer calories at rest (reduction in resting metabolic rate). So, what worked to lose the weight may not be as effective when it comes to maintaining that new weight—to keep it off, keep moving! Changing your everyday habits to include more walks, bike rides and a daily fitness class or workout routine is your key to maintaining your progress. Remember though, we can’t outwork a poor diet, so continue to maintain good nutritional habits in addition to moving more.

You’ve probably seen the headlines and social media blowing up about this new study showing an association between dietary cholesterol (and eggs) and heart disease.

My vegan friends are saying “I told you so” and my egg-o-maniac friends are saying that this is observational and can not conclude cause and effect not to mention some of the other flaws of this study. So what’s the deal?

First some physiology. When you eat cholesterol containing foods, the dietary cholesterol makes up a very small percentage of the cholesterol in circulation—remember that about 85 percent of the cholesterol in the circulation is manufactured by the body in the liver. It isn’t coming directly from the cholesterol that you eat. Individuals will have varying effects on how this changes their own serum cholesterol as your blood cholesterol depends mostly on your liver. The way people process cholesterol differs. Some people appear to be more vulnerable to cholesterol-rich diets. Some may absorb more cholesterol...some less. Some will have bigger changes in how the liver changes its own production and uptake of the cholesterol.

There are complaints that this study is like others where they used a single food frequency questionnaire and isn’t reliable and also we have experimental studies showing improvements in lipids when consuming eggs. What’s my practical suggestion?

I personally don’t eat eggs daily, but I don’t see an issue with having a few per week. How one responds will be individual and genetics can play a role in cholesterol levels. There are healthy properties in eggs. Check your cholesterol regularly. If you see your non hdl cholesterol (total cholesterol minus hdl cholesterol) increase when eating eggs, I would minimize.

This is why it’s important to keep a regular check on your lipids—when is the last time you had bloodwork? Know your numbers ❤️