Body Maintenance:
Address Your Aches & Pains

Aches and pains aren’t just annoying–they keep you from being active the way you want to be. And when you can’t do the things you want to do, that can feel very limiting.

When you can rely on your body to handle whatever life throws at it, your world opens up.

The good news is the body is pretty good at bouncing back from those aches and pains, especially if you know how to help quicken the process.

We’ve put together detailed articles on the most common problem areas in the body, through our combined years of experience teaching and practicing movement, and through Jarlo’s experience as a physical therapist since 1998.

The neck is one of the most vulnerable parts of the body. It’s made up of a network of many small bones, muscles, and ligaments, but it carries around a huge weight – the head – all day long. Most of the time, this works out just fine (after all, the neck was made to fill this function), but things can go wrong if you don’t take proper care of your neck.

Our full tutorial includes a basic explanation of how the neck works, and what might be causing trouble for you, along with exercises (some of which you might not have seen before) to help you address or prevent issues in the neck.

Shoulder pain is extremely common. Obviously, in the case of an acute injury, such as a tear, the key is to see a doctor and follow his/her advice. But many people are walking around with generalized discomfort in the shoulders, and haven’t had an injury they can pin that on.

This article is one of the most detailed we’ve ever written. The shoulder is made up of a lot of moving parts, so it’s not the sort of thing we could write about in short and simple terms. What’s causing your shoulder issues is likely very different from what’s causing someone else’s, but we’ve addressed the most common problems as simply as possible.

Elbow tendonitis, golfer’s elbow, tennis elbow – these ailments are all too common, particularly for trainees who are new to bodyweight exercise. If your elbows are not used to bearing weight or moving around the body the way they do in many bodyweight protocols, they can be vulnerable to strain or discomfort.

In our full tutorial on the elbows, we recommend particular exercises for training the elbows to handle the weight bearing necessary for successful bodyweight training. You can use these exercises to work through current issues, but as always, prevention is key.

Even if you do not currently have any discomfort in your elbows, these exercises will help you avoid potential issues down the line.

Wrist tightness or discomfort is probably one of the most common issues we hear about from our clients, and it makes sense why that would be. Unless you grew up doing gymnastics or a similar activity that would have you putting a lot of weight on your wrists, you probably haven’t spent much time on your hands throughout your life.

When people start getting into bodyweight exercise, they suddenly discover underlying weakness in their wrists and hands.

This tutorial on the wrists goes through a bit of how the wrist works and why things often go awry, and we give you some simple exercises you can use daily to condition your wrists.

The back is one area almost everyone has experienced some level of trouble with at some point. Even if you’ve never had a full-blown back spasm or lasting discomfort, you probably know what it’s like to get out of a car after a long road trip and have a sore back for a few hours or days.

Our detailed tutorial covers how the spine works, common ailments, and exercises to help you improve your strength, flexibility, and control through full spinal flexion and full spinal extension. Doing these exercises often will protect you from unexpected trouble.

The most common issue people have with their hips is tightness or restricted movement. This is caused by a number of things, but general lack of movement is probably the biggest culprit.

This tutorial explains how the hip joint works and the most common problems in this area. We also give you some exercises that will help you work on strengthening and mobilizing your hips in ways you probably haven’t done much of before.

If you’ve struggled with tight hips, you’ll be amazed by what a difference regular practice of these exercises can have.

It’s no secret that the knees can cause quite a bit of trouble, especially as we get older. But don’t resign yourself to just having bad knees once you hit a certain age. It does not have to be that way!

In this tutorial we talk about not only how the knee works and what can go wrong, but we also address how you can tell the difference between a real problem and issues you don’t need to be concerned about.

We also show you some ways to condition your knees to be able to handle different types of movement.

We don’t often think of our feet when we think about protecting our bodies, but the truth is, our feet do a lot for us and need to be taken care of.

The feet can’t really be isolated, as they work with the ankles and calves to keep us standing and stable, so it’s important to make sure you’re putting in the work to keep all those muscles and ligaments working well.

Our tutorial on this area is quite detailed, as there’s a lot that goes into keeping the feet, ankles, and calves healthy, strong, and mobile.