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In today’s podcast, Dr. Shannon dives into all things foam rolling, massage gunning, *insert recovery tool of choice here*. She breaks down what these tools are and are not doing for your body. Dr. Shannon highlights the all too common practice of utilizing these tools as a bandaid for overuse and how to assess if you might be doing this as well! 

What these tools ARE doing for you:

Foam rollers and massage guns modulate your nervous system. They activate mechanoreceptors within the muscles, providing helpful inputs to send back to the brain. Mechanoreceptors are receptors within the muscle that respond to external stimuli. These stimuli can include touch/pressure implemented from the apparatus of your choice. 

When these mechanoreceptors are stimulated, they send a signal back to your brain. This signal is an input that gives your brain a sense of where that muscle is in space. When our brain has this helpful information, it often feels “safer”. It...

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

Recovery is 50% of the equation for muscle hypertrophy and performance improvements within your workouts.

But how do we know if we are properly recovered?

This week’s blog post will serve as a written guide for why recovery matters, what factors expedite or hinder your recovery, how to objectively measure if you are recovered, and what to do with the results of these measures. For the listeners of Dr. Shannon’s Fit Body, Happy Joints, this information will be familiar. Check out Dr. Shannon’s episode on this topic here if you prefer to listen. For those interested in a visual guide, join me below! 

Why recovery matters: 

Exercise is a catabolic process. 

This means that exercise breaks down muscle tissue leading to temporary damage and weakness. This is a NORMAL process and a key factor in muscle hypertrophy. However, we run into trouble when we layer breakdown on top of breakdown (read: overuse). 

Overuse can...

By: Dr. Payton Busker, PT, DPT

Hi y'all! Welcome to the Evlo Fitness blog.

My name is Dr. Payton and I’ll be bringing you a new blog each week spanning topics from why our thoughts and words matter as it relates to fitness to how to better recruit your glutes. For those of you who don’t know me, I am a Doctor of Physical Therapy, fitness professional, and Evlo’s new Head of Content.

Here at Evlo, we are all about building our bodies up, not tearing them down.

Because of this, we find ourselves in a unique space within the fitness industry. So much of the messaging within the fitness industry reads as follows:
 

• No pain, no gain
• If you could just burn more calories in your workouts, you could lose that extra 5 pounds
• If an exercise hurts, that probably means that your body needs it!

At least one or multiple of these probably sounds familiar to you if you’ve been a member of any sort of group fitness or had a personal trainer in the last 20 years....

Let's End The "No Pain, No Gain" Mentality

I'm inspired to write this post because I've worked with many fitness-minded clients who ultimately want to be fit and healthy, but have absorbed a "no pain, no gain" mentality due to messaging from the fitness industry and end up hurting themselves. This is due to "norms" that have been deemed socially acceptable to believe. And I'd like to challenge them. 

I want to reiterate that I, too, have been guilty of falling into all of these beliefs, which is why I want to shed light on them. I don't think it's productive to "shame" people or organizations who do believe these things, but I want to share what I have learned throughout my fitness and physical therapy experiences.

So let's get to it and shed some light on these seven harmful beliefs the exercise industry has sold us on:

#1: You have to do cardio to be thin or lose fat 

This derives from the message that you need to torch hundreds of...