Blog

By Dr. Payton Busker, PT, DPT 

Today’s post is all about the Prenatal/Postpartum Program here at Evlo! This program was curated by Doctors of Physical Therapy to support and guide expecting and new moms on their fitness journeys. Although many of our general classes at Evlo are prenatal/postpartum-friendly, we sought to close the knowledge gap of what can be safely performed at different stages of a woman's journey! 

General Recommendations 

First and foremost, we highly recommend that an expecting mother see a pelvic floor physical therapist at some point during her pregnancy. These providers are experts on evaluating your individual body as a whole and in relation to the changes that will occur during and after pregnancy. Our program can work in tandem with your providers’ recommendations and is not meant to replace pelvic floor physical therapy! 

There are very general recommendations that are accepted when it comes to prenatal fitness:

1. In...

By: Dr. Payton Busker, PT, DPT 

WELCOME TO EVLO!! We are so happy you are here! This is your guide to all things Evlo- where to start and where to go. Let’s dive in! 

Recommended Equipment 

Before starting your Evlo journey, we recommend having a few pieces of equipment on hand! Recommended equipment for each individual class can be found in the description below the class video. 

Example of class description with recommended equipment

Dumbbells 

We use a variety of dumbbells throughout the week of classes including light, medium, and heavy weights. When you first begin Evlo, we recommend starting with the following weight selections: 

Heavy: 8 lbs or less

Moderate: 5 lbs or less

Light: 1-3 lbs 

Resistance bands 

Click here to see an option from Amazon! These types of packs allow you to try out different levels of resistance to fit your individual needs. 

Gliders

Click here for an amazon option! Gliders can easily be...

By: Dr. Payton Busker, PT, DPT

Today we will answer the frequently asked question: “How can I incorporate (insert running, biking, HIIT, spin, etc) into my Evlo routine??”.

We will take a detailed look at the 6 different tracks we offer, how we coordinate muscle groups, specific suggestions for engaging in other forms of fitness as an Evlo member, and overall ideas to consider when mixing up your Evlo routine. 

Let’s dive in!

Our Programming 

Both the structure of our class tracks as well as our weekly programming is very intentional. Our goal at Evlo is to achieve muscle hypertrophy while avoiding overuse. Members can achieve this goal by following one of 6 track options:

1. 3 days per week without cardio
2. 3 days per week with cardio
3. 4 days per week without cardio
4. 4 days per week with cardio
5. 5 days per week without cardio
6. 5 days per week with cardio

Each track includes AT LEAST two rest days that we do not recommend skipping past! 

The “3 days...

By: Dr. Payton Busker, PT, DPT

Choosing appropriate external load (i.e. weights) and steadily increasing that load is essential to progressing your fitness routine. But this choice (and the progression) can be very confusing! How do we know where to start? Are there steps to take prior to picking up a heavier dumbbell? And when is it time to add resistance? All of these questions will be answered in today’s blog post! 

Our goal at Evlo is muscle hypertrophy. 

Muscle hypertrophy is the physical increase in muscle size through growth of contractile proteins within the muscle. This increase can lead to many improved health measures such as insulin sensitivity, cardiovascular health, and body composition. Although hypertrophic changes do not have a direct 1-to-1 ratio with strength improvements (ability of your muscle to produce force), increasing the muscle size is shown to allow for more force production through an individual muscle. 

In order to achieve true...

How you train will affect how your body adapts. So today, we’ll look into that a bit. I’ll start by talking about muscle fiber types and how to recruit different types of fibers, then I’ll talk about load to muscles, and lastly, I’ll tie it all together by talking about how different workouts like Pilates, barre, lifting, yoga, and running, will affect your muscles and body composition. 

So let’s start by talking about fiber types. This is important, because your muscles are made up of different types of fibers that are stimulated differently, recover differently, and are of different sizes. You have two primary types within a single muscle: type 1 fibers and type 2 fibers. Within your type 2 fibers, you have several sub-classifications. But for the sake of today’s podcast, we’re going to talk about type 1 fibers or the slow-twitch, type 2a and 2ab, which I’ll lump together to call the intermediate fibers, and type 2b which I'll...

Today I want to give you some ideas of how to exercise when you’re stressed. We know that exercise can be stress-reducing, but it can also contribute to stress, spiraling the issue. I think a lot of people also avoid moving altogether when they’re stressed because they think they need to have an intense session or why bother. 

However, I’m a firm believer that the better you are at dipping and diving through the obstacles of your life instead of staying rigid, the better your life will be. And, dare I say, the better your health will be. Inevitably, we’re going to go through stressful times. It’s about recognizing when you’re in one and adapting accordingly. 

Today I’ll talk about: 

1. Why you’re more likely to get injured when you’re stressed 
2. Neuroendocrine responses to stress 
3. How to recognize when you’re stressed 
4. My suggestion for how to exercise when you’re experiencing a mentally...

This blog is going to be a bit nerdy. We’re talking about 4 cool nervous system “hacks” that can improve the results of your workouts. 

We implement these things in my classes, which is one of the more unseen or unrealized reasons my classes are so effective. I also hear often from the members that this is the first program they look forward to and enjoy, and they may not know why. I think these are some of the reasons why - because we are using their nervous system to create an environment that doesn’t feel like a threat. When your brain thinks something is a threat, it will avoid it. And we know consistency is super important in your workouts, so we have to train our nervous system that our workouts aren’t a threat to our safety. 

Your nervous system is extremely important in driving results from your workouts because it will dictate how easily you will recover and lay down new muscle. Because of this, we have to work WITH our nervous...

This week, I want to talk about overtraining, undertraining, and how you can have both simultaneously. All three of these cases will frustrate you and can be a big reason you’re training consistently but you’re not seeing muscle growth.

We tend to believe that if some is good, more is better. And that’s just not true when it comes to most things, including exercise. 

I know I’m a broken record with this, but I think it sometimes needs to be said in many different ways for you to understand and let it sink in fully. 

There is a dose-response relationship with exercise. A certain dose will yield positive results, but too little or too much will either do nothing or yield negative results. 

Exercise is medicine, yes. And any medicine can be overdosed and see adverse side effects, or underdosed and see no changes. Exercise is no exception. 

Let’s talk about the signs and symptoms of overtraining, undertraining, and undertraining...

Exercise is a stress to the body. It is disrupting the equilibrium of your body, which your body interprets as stress. This means exercise will spike cortisol.

Chronically elevated cortisol will result in problems in your body, as I discussed earlier. However, studies show that regular exercise can improve your stress response, even though it acutely spikes cortisol acutely or right away. 

So the answer is not to stop exercising all together. The answer is to figure out how to dose exercise so that your body responds favorably. 

A common thing I've been told from my Evlo members is that they work out less frequently and intensely with my program, and yet they see more desirable changes in their bodies. 

This change happens partly because of the exercise selection we are choosing - we are intentionally choosing exercises that load the muscles in the most effective ways with minimal joint stress. That results in better muscle adaptation with less painful joints. But it...

Hormones are incredibly complex, and it's difficult to talk about one hormone without talking about other cascading hormones. Today, I want to break down what cortisol is, what can happen if you have too much of it and how to tell, and my recommendations on how to keep it in check. 

Before we begin, remember that this is not medical advice, and to seek advice from your doctor or functional medicine practitioner if you are having severe issues. This post is for informational purposes only. 

If you feel like you're doing everything right - putting in work at the gym, you're trying to eat less, and still not seeing results - it could be because of cortisol imbalance. Often, too much exercise and too little eating can have the reverse effects that you're hoping for because they can mess with your cortisol and hormonal balance. 

One of my goals, which I hope is evident by my content, is to encourage people to get away from the damaging "grind yourself into the ground if...