Behind the Bluff
Uncover best practices to participate in life on your terms. Every week, hosts Jeff Ford and Kendra Till guide listeners with short conversations on trending wellness topics and share interviews with passionate wellness professionals, our private club leaders, and additional subject matter experts offering valuable tips. Each episode conclusion includes Healthy Momentum, five minutes of inspiration to help you reflect and live differently. Subscribe now and discover the keys to living your greatest active lifestyle.
Behind the Bluff
Why Your Shoulders Hurt and How to Fix It
This episode invites you to explore the often-overlooked shoulder joint, its complexities, and common issues that arise. We tackle mobility, stability, and how improper technique can lead to pain or injury.
• Discussing the importance of shoulder mobility and its impact
• Detailing the common causes of shoulder pain
• Examining the relationship between stability and injury prevention
• Tips for assessing your shoulder health at home
• Insightful recommendations for corrective exercises
• How to improve shoulder issues through training adjustments
If you’re facing shoulder pain, a visit to a physical therapist may be beneficial.
Are you ready to live an active lifestyle? Welcome to Behind the Bluff, where we believe every moment of your life is an opportunity to pursue wellness on your terms. Life is an opportunity to pursue wellness on your terms. I'm your host, jeff Ford, and I am joined today once again with fellow co-host, kendra Till.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to this week's episode. Everyone Today it is just Jeff and I, which is nice. It's been a while.
Speaker 1:Selfishly back together.
Speaker 2:Back together again, and we wanted to spend time on this week's episode discussing the reoccurring joint issues we see the most in our membership, which is the shoulder joint, and by the end of this chat today, you will understand why your shoulders hurt, or maybe those of a loved one's, and what to do about it. So, jeff, let's dive right in.
Speaker 1:I can't wait. I love solving shoulder pain because we do hear about it just about every day. Absolutely or we see things that members are doing that aren't necessarily going to help their shoulders long term. Of course, there's corrections constantly throughout a fitness class and at the same time, there's more we can be doing from a preventative side, definitely.
Speaker 2:So what would you say are a few of the most common reasons people experience shoulder pain while they're training.
Speaker 1:Well, a lot of people are older, who are training or beginning training and we also see an accumulation of issues with the shoulder. So beginning there before we frame out the top three is very important. You don't just wake up one day with poor shoulder mobility or stability. This is an accumulation effect of either moving in the wrong way for a period of time or putting yourself in positions that compromise your ability to move over a period of time. So the top three most common reasons we've already named a couple. Number one is shoulder mobility. Second is shoulder stability, the flip side, and then I'm going to link the third into poor form and muscular imbalances. We can dig into how those are interrelated. But it is also important to note before we add detail to these three common reasons shoulders are the most injury prone joint versus all other joints in the body, and it's because of how it is designed.
Speaker 2:It's very complex compared to the elbow or the knee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, knee up and down, right Fulcrum. It's a lot more simple than the shoulder, and that's why I think we are starting to see even more consultations with physical therapists around the shoulder. And then you're hearing more than just knee replacements and hip replacements. These days You're hearing about full shoulder reconstructive surgery which, when I began fitness, wasn't a huge conversation piece.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I do think it's because you know a lot of folks are playing, you know, tennis and pickleball and golf, yeah, so there's a lot of those are playing tennis and pickleball and golf, so there's a lot of those activities that they're participating in.
Speaker 1:Activities have increased. That is what is cool. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:So, just to recap, then we've got poor shoulder mobility, poor shoulder stability and then also, like you said, poor form due to muscular imbalances.
Speaker 1:Interrelated yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:So let's dive into poor shoulder mobility then. So tell us a little bit more about it and what it looks like and how someone can assess this at home by themselves.
Speaker 1:Well, it looks classic. Shoulders curled in yes, upper back tight, poor posture is a leading indicator. Yes, upper back tight, poor posture is a leading indicator. When we talk about helping people solve lifestyle factors or improve, you want to think about these variables of leading versus lagging indicators and oftentimes, with improving mobility in general, a lot of people focus on lagging indicators, which is, oh, we're going to stretch, we're just going to try to soft tissue, which these things are going to help improve mobility. Right, but there's a reason why we've gotten in this compromise shoulders curled in, stiff back situation, other ways of kind of imagining shoulder mobility and what it looks like is when someone's seated, yes, you can see this same sort of posture when someone presses their arms overhead. Where is that arm in relation to the general center of mass of the shoulder? Can the arm stay completely vertical next to the ear?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Is another way of looking at this. In FMS. How do we get even more detailed here? Fms stands for functional movement screen. It's a screen that's been around for a while. You can actually measure your shoulder mobility by a simple test of putting your thumb inside your fist on your right hand, thumb inside your fist on your left hand and then putting the right hand over your head as if you're about to stretch your tricep like the classic tricep stretch, and then that left hand you curl it up and towards the other fist behind your back, and so the distance between your fists, with the shoulder inflection and the shoulder externally rotated and coming up, gives you a good gauge of are my shoulders healthy?
Speaker 1:If you're not within a hand length and a half, we want to work on your shoulder mobility. It's just a quick test that you can do. I did explain that as right and left. After you test the right side, which would be the right fist on the back elbow up with the left fist coming closer together, you would then just transition and test the other side, where the left elbow would come up by the ear fist down the back and then the right fist would come up, trying to get it as close as you can without overextending the back, flexing the back in a weird position, just kind of that initial spot. So tough to potentially visualize because we're not on video podcasts yet.
Speaker 1:Not yet, but something we show folks in person all the time and gives us a good gauge of like okay, how much are those shoulders internally rotated, how stiff is that upper back right and what? What is the priority? Because by doing that test we can actually quickly see is it the left shoulder or is it the right right that is causing the mobility issues? Right?
Speaker 2:and a bit of a prelude, like what you were saying. It's not just the shoulder, then it can be the thoracic spine that is playing an effect to impacting the shoulders and their mobility. So I think that's. You know, we can dive into some, you know ways to fix the mobility of your, of your shoulders and a little bit but. But I think it's interesting that you do mention other parts than just the shoulder themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an excellent pause because we're not focused just on improving directly the shoulder itself mobility. It's going to be all those muscles around the shoulder that are causing it to not be able to get in the positions that it should Exactly.
Speaker 1:There are a couple of other quick tests too, just to mention here for shoulder mobility. The biggest issue we see amongst golfers, racket fitness individuals, is they can't externally rotate their shoulders. So, really simple, when you internally rotate, that's your shoulder dropping down. Uh, when you externally rotate, it's your shoulder sort of being sent back. Now, uh, this is part of the Titleist Performance Institute screen where you take someone, have them stand up nice and tall, put their arms at a T and we just ask them to flex their shoulders backwards. And what you should be able to do is flex your shoulders just from the shoulder joint itself, not the arms just moving backwards. It should go behind your spine without your spine angle moving Correct yeah.
Speaker 1:Most people can't get any degree of distance behind their spine. So that's another issue we see.
Speaker 2:Definitely. There's actually a similar Pilates assessment that we run where the arms are what we call like a goalpost position.
Speaker 1:Yoga people would would uh, sorry to cut you off. Yeah, cactus, yes cactus.
Speaker 2:Position exactly but what's really fascinating too is that, um, you know you can also notice the difference between the right and the left side too. Um, but to your point paying attention to, is that spine curling away from like, for example, if you're doing that against the wall, is it curling away from the wall as you bring those arms over your head and back, like you mentioned? So, and oftentimes mobility.
Speaker 1:Like we mentioned muscle groups just a second ago, it's that upper back tissue that just is so restricted. So, uh, there are some shoulder flexion tests as well, Um, but a a trainer should be able to assess these things so that they can put you on the right program to create some solutions, Definitely.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, let's dive into poor shoulder stability. Now, I really like this one because shoulders are uniquely prone to more injury, as you mentioned, compared to other joints. But, um, can you explain a little bit more on the why though? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I've learned a lot from our onsite physical therapist, just about the shoulder in talking about this commonality, of why they are so injury prone.
Speaker 1:Number one thing to understand here is the shoulder has the greatest range of motion in the body, which leads to an inherent cost of stability. So when you think of joints, we have some joints that tend to be more mobile and some joints that tend to be more stable. And here's what's cool about the body as you go down it, it alternates. So, from the shoulder to the hip, the hip is more stable, and then when we go to the knee, that's a little bit more mobile, and then when we go to the knee, that's a little bit more mobile, and then when we go to the ankle, that's a little bit more stable. So it's a really simple way of going down your body and understanding which joint airs more on the side of mobility and which joint airs more on the side of stability. Next hand in hand with the shoulder as far as issues we see, is the knee.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You see less hip and ankle issues compared to knees and shoulders. So that's that's a way of kind of just looking at the body in general. But of all the joints in the body, shoulders have the greatest range of motion. That means the more flexible we are, the harder it is to to stabilize. And um, kendra, you know this, I'm a terrible stabilizer. You put me on a Pilates or former and everything starts to shake.
Speaker 2:It's so interesting. Got to work on that stability Definitely, and there, there, yeah, you could definitely. Um, there's ways to to, like Jeff mentioned, you know, if you're doing certain movements and you find them very challenging, we can we can cue them Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can cue those right. Yeah, we can cue those movements. We can start to create motor control patterns so their body learns to stabilize correct and that's that's kind of what we're trying to do with the, the shoulder in general, is teach it to stabilize when it needs to stabilize that flexibility does help us in a lot of different ways of moving, like swimming, for example if you don't have mobile shoulders, you can't get in these positions to pull properly, correct.
Speaker 1:So maybe explaining even a little bit further of why this joint is uniquely prone to injury. It's also because, unlike the hip, the shoulder socket itself can be described as shallow, and this was new for me after conversing with Ashley, learning a little bit more about it in general the last few years. Essentially, the ball of the shoulder joint. It sits loosely in a relatively small socket and this is what leaves it vulnerable to displacement. So the design is what we're getting at here makes the shoulder run into more trouble than these other joints. Like you think of the, the, the hip. It doesn't work like that and a shoulder gets very much strained by excessive movement in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, with that lever length too. Yeah, like you said, the hip joint is much deeper and more concave. So yeah, that's, that's really fascinating. It's a good way to look at it. And I think one thing too is, you know, poor shoulder stability and poor shoulder mobility really can go hand in hand too. So there's a lot of correlations between the two of those. So let's jump into the third one, which is poor form due to muscle imbalance. So what are the biggest form mistakes people make when in pressing exercises, for example, the bench press or overhead press?
Speaker 1:Lots of mistakes. What are those big mistakes that we?
Speaker 2:often see that you know can potentially hurt people's shoulders when they are performing those certain movements.
Speaker 1:Yeah, form is always our governor of prevention. So, yes, our mobility, that kind of sets the stage for how we can move and then our stability sets the stage for how much we can kind of handle within that movement. So form, just commonalities that are of issue with pressing is the elbow being wide, for instance. So a lot of people like to military press. The further the elbow is extended out, the more pressure, putting a lot more strain on the shoulder joint itself. And I tend to be an elbows in guy. So when you think of really clean form with, say, an overhead press, most people do not keep their elbows in when they're pressing. The second thing we'll see when someone's pressing either from a wide position or from a neutral position, which is our preferred method, not getting into advising too quickly, yet is pressing out in front.
Speaker 1:A lot of people will press the weights out in front, usually due to lack of shoulder mobility, or they just get a little half hazard with where that dumbbell, for instance, is in relation to their ear, so that's not good. When you're pressing the other thing with even some pulling movements like a lateral pull-down machine, you'll see folks pull from a angle that's just weird and they arch their back amongst doing it.
Speaker 2:I see that very often.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and a lot of uh, unguided gym sessions. The lat pull down is machine, where people just tend to not pull correctly, uh, where we want that to be a clean vertical pull where we come straight down and we we even might change the grip to put our our body in a in a better position. So the whole key here, just from a technique standpoint, is proper technique. Elbows closer in. Specifically, even on a push-up 45 degrees or less, maybe not completely like what some people would term a tricep push-up, but not at a complete 90 degree. It's most likely going to cause some issues at some point. But all depending on how much you're doing. Of course. The other way of looking at shoulder technique is think about those smaller muscle group movements you're doing and the amount of load that you're doing in those smaller muscle groups.
Speaker 1:So, like lateral raises, front raises, a lot of these bodybuilder movements. I tend to see folks like overloading and those are positions, once again, further away from the shoulder joint, so not necessarily what we want you to do heavy weights with.
Speaker 2:I was going to say lighter weights are better with those, and I guess you think about it, as your arm is a long lever. To your point, jeff, whenever that long lever is closer to the body, it's just safer for the shoulder, it's less strain less, I guess yeah, strain incorrect techniques. So we talked about incorrect techniques for pressing or pulling exercises. What about for the chest, in particular, as well? So anything like that leads to those postural imbalances.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bench day. So, gentlemen love to press.
Speaker 2:They love to overdo it.
Speaker 1:If I'm going to generalize here, uh, overdevelopment of the chest, the anterior delts. So we start to see a lot of the front side of our body getting worked and less of the backside getting work, which leads to postural issues. So the way you're training actually causes you to have more issues down the line. We're going to talk about solutions here in a second. But don't just train chest.
Speaker 1:If you're training chest, you're going to want to have a plan for the posterior side of your body. What we see a lot of the time is um shoulder impingements as well. And that oftentimes is just doing things in the incorrect pattern. Too frequently over time it's essentially like a pinching of the rotator cuff tendons. So yeah, I mean, let's make sure we're training both sides of the body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's very important. So, yeah, like you said, don't ever do it with the chest. Make sure you're paying attention to those back muscles as well. So, okay, well, perfect. So, before we get into the specifics on improving the mobility and the stability and the technique, what's one overarching change that most people can make today to improve their shoulder health? What's the one thing that they're like? Okay, I can practice this right now.
Speaker 1:Right now, change the types of exercises you are putting into your plan and assess how many polls you're doing to push uh. Nadir Mertouli I don't pronounce his last name correctly is one of our uh trainers and both him and I spent spent some time at a certification last year and I never took the push to pull ratio as seriously as we do today. Yes, because, based off the research that the pain-free performance organization has done, dr John Rousin they have not necessarily scientifically proven this, but they have, through all the data and the training sessions that they've done, they have discovered that a three to one pull to push ratio is the best way to ensure that you're not overdoing the pressing and you're able to keep those shoulders healthy long term.
Speaker 2:Love that.
Speaker 1:From a personal sense, I can tell you that I feel so much better not that I was going to say structurally, but posturally as a result of ensuring my workouts look in this way. So, over archingly, what we're saying to do today is adopt a three to one pull to push ratio and exercise. I should probably explain that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's say you're going to do single arm dumbbell rows and you want to do bench press on the same day, yeah, okay. So, and let's just say it's a dumbbell bench press, you're going to do your single arm rows, you're going to do a lat pull down as well, and then you're going to go ahead and do some rear delt flies.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm then you're going to go ahead and do some rear delt flies. That's three pulling movements to offset that one dumbbell press that you had planned. So that's what we want you thinking about as you go into your training sessions, or if you look into your strength training sessions that you're currently doing.
Speaker 2:And we've incorporated that into the programming for some of our classes. For example, to like PB Strongs Simple.
Speaker 1:Strengths PB30. Yeah, it's definitely a work in progress for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because what we're seeing, especially on a one on one basis, the more that this is integrated, the less injury we see. Yes, and to even go more detailed here, you want to be careful with how much vertical pulling you're doing.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 1:So I love pull-ups. They're one of my favorite movements.
Speaker 2:I see, yep, you're on the pull-up bar often.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I try to get in there when I can in between a lunch and appointments. That's right Hanging on the bar, but vertical pulling can be a little more stress on the shoulder as well. So if you're going to do pull-ups, well, what you want to ensure is that there's a two to one ratio of the horizontal pull to the vertical pull.
Speaker 1:So I actually shared that in the example here earlier, where it's just make sure that two of your three pulls are horizontal versus two are vertical and one horizontal. Another way of looking at a horizontal pull is just a bent over barbell row, super flat back pull from that flat position. This is the same thing I would say with pressing Folks who already have poor shoulders right now or are trying to improve their shoulder health. Let's be careful with vertical pressing. That may not be right for you right now.
Speaker 2:Right, so just assess that, but that's cool. That's a brilliant strategy that people can implement straight away into their training regimes.
Speaker 1:Three to one. Pull to push ratio. Love it. It's amazing stuff Love it, love it.
Speaker 2:So what are the best ways to go about improving shoulder mobility then? So, if we're going to dive a little bit deeper into the mobility aspect of the shoulder, what can we do to improve this on a daily basis?
Speaker 1:Just, getting practical. Specific to mobility, it's going to come down to stretching and soft tissue work. You might take a break from overhead pressing and then pay attention to your everyday posture. So pay attention to how you're actually sitting. Movements that I love in correcting um shoulder mobility that are loaded could be a farmer carry from a really good position.
Speaker 1:Set your shoulders, pack them down. That's a simple movement that we do a lot that will set your posture in a good position. If we look at other simple foam rolling techniques foam roll your upper back. Foam roll your lats. Put a therapy ball between your shoulder blade and your spine. Do that off the wall, do it on the floor. There are so many different techniques that are a bit difficult to describe on air, but the most simplest that folks are familiar with would be wall slides. Go to a wall, put your lower back up against a wall, bring those arms to cactus and then slide those arms up and down. Inhale as you're going up, exhale as you're going down, just kind of resetting the position of that upper back. That's a great corrective stretch. Doing it seated is awesome, as long as you can kind of sit cross-legged and glue that lower back up to the wall.
Speaker 1:And then the second, most common, is just open book where we bring our knees to 90 degrees, we take that top arm, that shoulder and then we open up. But the inhaling and exhaling is very important here. And then the consistency is very important. So if we're going after improvements in shoulder mobility back to how we began this episode, your shoulders have accumulated into a stiff and glued up position.
Speaker 2:It's going to take some time. Yeah, it definitely takes some time, and I think you've used the analogy. It's kind of like flossing your teeth. You want to try to incorporate into your regime as much as you can.
Speaker 1:We're going to use the word sheath, weren't you? Oh, you did use the word sheath the other day. So sheath those lats, yeah, just really sheath them. That's another. I'd never heard that before, but I'm definitely going to use that in my next class.
Speaker 2:Now I just want to mention too I am a big one on posture, just with my Pilates background I like to tell a lot of the people I work with to really be acutely aware of your posture throughout the day. Try to bring your awareness to it because those little things can add up over time. So if you are more aware of it you move into what we call this unconscious competence with being in the right position. So just start off by being aware of where you're at in space with your posture and, um, over time you will build into that unconscious kind of competence of just being conscious confidence.
Speaker 1:I like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like a little assessment test too, so all right. So, diving into more of the shoulder stability, how can someone work on this specifically for their shoulders?
Speaker 1:Yeah, this. This is an important one, because I don't think it's going to get trained as much. I think folks are more familiar with how to mobilize their shoulders With stability. It hinges on where your mobility is at.
Speaker 2:Correct yeah.
Speaker 1:So we always want to start in this order mobilize. We always want to start in this order mobilize, stabilize and then strengthen. When we think of the shoulder, specifically for stability, this is where you might incorporate more specific rotator cuff training. We've all been to the physical therapist and been given our rotator cuff exercises. We're talking about going even a little bit further than that, uh, and at the same time those exercises may have value here.
Speaker 1:So pay attention to the scapular muscles for one and then integrate these into warmups and like supersets when you're training. So a big thing for me in my home gym is I've got the three different anchors, very similar to how we have this set up in our studios, with a high anchor, mid anchor and then a low anchor which allows for you to hook up a resistance band with handles in each section and do a lot more smaller muscle group, smaller shoulder muscle group work. So you can actually work external rotation from a few different angles. You can do some variations of pulling, you can do your reverse flies, uh, just gives you a lot of variety, but work those in. So if you've got a main move that you're doing, like for instance, a bench press, it's great to then maybe have two shoulder stabilizer exercises in between, so you actually can even out as you go during your workouts.
Speaker 2:Love it and I think you mentioned it earlier too, Jeff, you can use lighter weights to help stabilize your shoulders. So don't be afraid to grab the three pounds. I mean, you'd be amazed at how that will feel when you're lying on your back, for example, and you're bringing your arm over your head and it's. It can be quite challenging to then stabilize your spine and your you know particularly your thoracic, whilst you're moving your arm in space on your back with three pounds. It's. It's actually quite challenging.
Speaker 1:And that happens a lot in Pilates, right it does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do, we do focus a lot. Pilates is is very honed in on stabilization, so, um so definitely go hop into Pilates class, it could be a good start it could be a very good start.
Speaker 1:So awesome and we didn't touch on it.
Speaker 2:Isometric type movements are great too, so.
Speaker 1:I don't, I, I, I cringe when I see this. A lot in our programming is the overhead carry of the weight, Cause you can just see where folks are positioning it.
Speaker 1:An isometric movement that could help with shoulder stability is a plank from a full plank position, not from. I don't know if I've spoken about this on the podcast, but I don't love planks from the elbows Just my preference because of what it does to the shoulder. It's very hard to keep the shoulder in a good position when you're on your elbows. Now, there's a time and a place for everything, but what I'm talking about with just more isometric stuff is if you get in a high plank and then you pull your for simplicity, if you pull your shoulders back and down without kind of chicken winging your shoulders and just hold, hold.
Speaker 1:The plank itself can be a very powerful exercise to create more stability and for your shoulders to start to do what they're meant to do. Or even, to your example, not not even just bringing a weight overhead, but just laying on your back, putting your arm directly over the shoulder as if you're going to press, and then just packing that shoulder back and down and holding like a minute on each side.
Speaker 1:That's a great one with like even a little heavier weight in that case, because we're not going overhead, that's. That's another way of looking at improvements here. Definitely super. Yeah, great strategies to work on to help stabilize the shoulders and, honestly, strategies that we could integrate more into our general programming Agreed. If I'm being honest, definitely We've got some key takeaways here, jeff and I.
Speaker 2:Always All right. So let's go into a few techniques and tips for listeners. How should someone modify their grip?
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is a big, big one.
Speaker 2:This is a cool way to help those shoulders out yeah, and their hand positioning in particular, um, or the range of motion to protect the shoulders, um, in their next workout. So what are things that they can really focus on for that?
Speaker 1:yeah, let's. Let's start with grip, supinate the grip so that just is a fancy word for palms facing you yeah so if you're doing a lat pull down and you're using that wide bar, probably grip a little closer in, not as wide, and then have your palms face your shoulder, so then the elbows can come directly to your side as you pull down. Other ways of thinking about this is pull up positions, changing your grip on a pull up Not that the majority of our listeners are doing vertical pull-ups, but we do have an assisted pull-up machine here over at Moreland and it's got different ways that you can put your hands so you can have the palms face each other.
Speaker 1:You can supinate, have the palms face you. You can go wide, you can go kind of a classic grip, but those are probably the most basic ways of just changing the grip to help out that shoulder, especially if you're someone who does currently deal with shoulder pain. It's good to focus on the pulling first and even in rows like if you're bending over with dumbbells, you're doing a bent over row just flip the palms. Love that. The way of understanding this is that anatomical position. When we're standing, our thumbs and our palms just face us. What we want to do is probably won't ever happen. Get to the what would you say unconscious position.
Speaker 2:Yes, unconscious competence.
Speaker 1:Unconscious competence of your thumbs being externally turned out when you're just standing in place. But look at anyone when they stand up. You will see that their palms face them. They don't face away.
Speaker 2:Awesome, Jeff. Well, we covered a ton in today's episode today.
Speaker 1:And just one body part.
Speaker 2:That's just one. So are there any final tips that you would like to leave listeners for today.
Speaker 1:Two tips.
Speaker 2:Two tips.
Speaker 1:Two, two, yeah just two, just two. If you remember nothing else from our time together here today, when you're designing your training sessions, adopt a three to one pull to push ratio and if you currently have shoulder pain, might be good to see a physical therapist. And while you figure out that shoulder pain, stop vertical pressing. Don't do overhead pressing. Pay attention to what you're doing so that you don't make that pain worse.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, folks, you heard it. Hopefully you gained some great perspective from today's episode. Make sure you hang around to gain some healthy momentum for the rest of your week.
Speaker 1:When I was very young, I was all into baseball. I collected baseball cards. My dad was my coach growing up and it was one of those sports that I was very good at for a very finite period of time. You could say that I peaked in Little League, but I absolutely held on for dear life to keep playing until I finally quit before my senior year of high school. Today, during my walk, I was thinking about the concept of a rally. In baseball, a rally refers to a sequence of plays where a team strings together multiple hits, walks or other offensive actions to score several runs in an inning, often when they're coming from behind. It was always something you would attempt to cue up when you were playing. Ever heard the term rally cap? This is when players wear their caps inside out or backwards as a superstition to help fuel a comeback.
Speaker 1:I remember doing this on lots of various occasions, especially in those Little League days In life we often say to ourselves today I've got a rally or I'm going to rally, as if the mere words will get us going. It is common, when we've slept poorly or we're absolutely drained from a busy week, to want to rally. I had one of those weeks just last week where I came in with not the same level of energy that I'm used to. And how nice would it be if we could create a rally in our lives with just the flip of a cap. Well, we all know what coffee does when we try to use it to rally and unfortunately, in life and baseball it's not that easy. The flip of a cap, the cup of coffee, doesn't necessarily do it.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of strategy behind it. In baseball, it might be patience at the plate when batters take pitches to force the pitcher into deep counts with the goal of increasing the chance of a mistake. Or it's clutch hitting, like when batters string together singles and doubles, aiming them at the gaps in the outfield rather than trying to rely on home runs. You see, a rally often builds through consistent contact hitting much like consistency in our lives. So for this week, instead of praying for a rally, ask yourself how can you be more patient at the plate. What pitches can you start taking? And finally, where in your life are you trying to hit home runs instead of consistent singles? You deserve to ignite a rally today. Come up with a strategy and swing the bat.
Speaker 1:That message brings us to the end of this week's episode. We hope you enjoyed some time with just Kendra and I again this week. We look forward to bringing you additional fitness-focused, movement-focused episodes in the near future. We're going to take this month to dial back into our roots of fitness and wellness and until next week, remember to actively participate in life on your terms. Thanks everyone.
