As a female in the exercise science field for the past 12 years, I have learned a thing or two about the importance of weight training. When the end goal is weight loss (or pretty much any end goal), a weight-training program is a must. 

Hip pain is a common problem for sedentary and non-sedentary individuals, and many health and fitness pros want to know how they can help their clients who are struggling with this issue.

Chronic pain is a sign that there is irritation or injury at a site. There are a multitude of conditions that can cause hip pain, from trochanteric bursitis to osteoarthritis. The great news is that movement is the panacea for many of these conditions.

In injury assessment, we talk first about the mechanism of injury. This is very simply a description of the condition(s) that led to the injury. By understanding the mechanism of injury, we better understand the injury itself and how to use exercise to heal, not harm.

If you are ready for a pectoral-pumping workout that doesn’t involve push-ups, this workout is for you. Each move is guaranteed to train some or all of the muscles used in push-ups without doing a single push-up.

The human body obtains nutrient energy (calories) from three macronutrients: fat, carbohydrates and protein. Fat functions as a source of energy to muscle at rest, helps carry fat-soluble vitamins and contributes to the structure of every cell in our body. Carbohydrates provide the primary fuel for most bodily functions and are the preferred fuel for the brain and entire nervous system. Protein is vital for cell turnover and antibody production, and assists the body in maintaining fluid balance. It is because of protein’s association with muscle rebuilding and repair that it’s easy to get carried away with the notion of “a little is good, so a lot must be better,” particularly in the quest for creating a more favorable body composition. But the truth is that excess calories, regardless if they come from fat, carbohydrates or protein, will be stored as fat tissue and can contribute to weight gain.

Healthy food doesn’t just magically show up at your house. You’ve got to shop for it, and with the overwhelming number of choices available in today’s grocery stores, this can be challenging. Here are seven tips on how to fill your cart with the good stuff.

There are so many ways to get fit and healthy for a lifetime; however, there are an equal number of ways to harm your health. Some strategies may seem healthy or even be healthy in the right amounts, but they’re often used in excess, negating their health benefits.

Love them or hate them, squats can work wonders for your strength, flexibility, physique and power. This multijoint movement engages the glutes, hamstrings, quad, back and core, making it a great total-body exercise. 

Short cuts are short lived. So why do we feel we can do something for a short time to get lasting results?  We feel all we have to do to lose some weight is to diet or to exercise for a set amount of time. Then presto we get the body, the good health we want. Why do we repeat this self-defeating pattern of behavior?

Sugar is a carbohydrate found in many foods. Carbohydrates are often regarded as a “family” of nutrients. Much like other nutrient families (i.e., protein and fat), carbohydrates contain a number of members, some of which are useful to our health, while others simply add empty calories. Confusion often occurs when we categorize foods as all good or all bad. Instead, it’s important to understand the facts about carbohydrates, what purpose they serve in our bodies, and what we can do to ensure our diets contain more healthful members of the carbohydrate family.

The disturbing study hit The New York Times front page in May, and now it’s officially out in the journal Obesity: In the years after their “Biggest Loser” triumphs, nearly all contestants on the TV show regain the weight they fought so hard to lose, and their metabolisms end up slower than when they started.