Apologies for the lack of blogging but I’ve been more than busy juggling assessments on a host of new members, programming for current clients, and organizing the Elemental Fitness Clinic on July 30th.
Our new members are already seeing some results, so I would like to say keep up the good work all! We have a great new group of members with a range of goals, from getting rid of joint pain, losing weight, to gaining some muscle to show off this summer. It is a truly enjoyable challenge to program for such a variety of needs, and coach them through success in those respective goals.
Our intern Christine Wilborn has been patiently learning our assessment processes and doing her programming homework. Now that she has passed her trainer cert she might get her feet wet this month 
She is even taking the opportunity to travel to Seattle to work with Dr. Lee Burton, then to CA to learn from the Cosgroves. No excuses for not learning!
Since moving to Portland a year ago I’ve noticed a distinct lack of fitness education opportunities (and the resulting real lack of quality trainers) so took it upon myself to start fixing that situation. So we are bringing Robert Dos Remedios, author of Cardio Strength Training, up from Los Angeles, Dewey Nielson, and EFL nutrition consultants Roland and Galya Denzel from Southern California.
We are also hosting an opening party on Friday July 29th from 5-8pm.
Spots for the clinic are going fast, and since we are limiting it to 30 participants don’t sleep on this one.
In other news Men’s Health Magazine ran my first article in their July/August issue on page 46. It’s not online yet so please check out the print copy.
Men’s Health UK also just ran an article I wrote on dumbbell training
Lastly Gray Cook just published an excellent short article http://graycook.com/?p=829 that lays out some commonalities between factors behind high obesity rates and poor movement quality/general physical condition.
The take home point from Gray is when it comes to injury or pain, the solution isn’t just to add corrective exercises or physical therapy but to figure out what movements or activities are causing the problem and stop doing it.
The same goes for trying to lose fat. Simply start by removing things from your diet that everyone knows cause fat gain: Soda, Alcohol, fast food, starchy foods and refined sugars.
Continuing to run if you keep having injuries or not stopping the 10 drinks over the weekend is just a futile effort to deny the real problem.
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About the Author:
Owner of Elemental Fitness Lab in Portland, OR. Our approach to training is to integrate research (I'm an NSCA CSCS, certified Functional Movement Screen, and Precision Nutrition) with practical experience. I've studied martial arts in Japan and the U.S. for many years, and have put in my time in the gym, in the water, on the snow, on the rock wall, and on the bike.