I'm honoured to be chosen as one of the top 10 trainers in Canada!

Check out my interview with Muscle Insider here ->  http://muscle-insider.com/canadian-profiles/shawn-adair

How Deep should you squat?

Walk into any commercial gym and 90% of the time people are doing quarter squats, I have even had people come up to me and say I'm squatting to deep because if I go below 90 it's bad for the knees........😐 

Now depending on the individual and joint mobility, the majority of people should be able to get the hip crease below the knee without any issues. I'm not saying you have to hit ass to grass but breaking just past 90 should be your main goal to work towards when squatting, doing anything above 90 is not a squat in my opinion. Now this doesn't just affect strength, aesthetics are affected as well as you can see from the photo where the most activation occurs during the movement. Learn how to squat correctly and get a coach that knows how to find your optimal squat for the goals your trying to achieve, remember there is no one way to squat everyone is different so you need an Individualized approach 💪🏼 "

There are a few studies showing no correlation between deep squatting and injury risk. In fact, there is some evidence that those who perform deep squats have increased stability of the knee joint. In a study using a knee ligament arthrometer to test nine measures knee stability they found that male powerlifters, many of them elite class, demonstrated significantly tighter joint capsules on anterior drawer tests compared to controls. Moreover, both the powerlifters as well as a group of competitive weight lifters were significantly tighter on the quadriceps active drawer tests at 90 degrees of knee flexion than control subjects. 

ACL and PCL forces have been shown to diminish at higher degrees of knee flexion. Peak ACL forces occur between 15 – 30 degrees of flexion, decreasing significantly at 60 degrees and leveling off thereafter at higher flexion angles. PCL forces rise consistently with every flexion angle beyond 30 degrees of knee flexion, peaking at approximately 90 degrees, and declining significantly thereafter (10). Beyond 120 degrees, PCL forces are minimal" 

Do you know how to perform a proper push up with regressions if needed

A staple exercise in calisthenics and general fitness, the average person should be able to perform at least 1 body weight push up with decent form but you would be amazed to know how many cant. There are a lot of different ways to teach push ups depending on each individual's stability,mobility,strength and body control.
This is how I personally teach the push up to clients and others around me, I've applied these techniques over the last few years with great results from all different types of people. In this video I'm showing some very common mistakes most people make, also how to properly progress the push up so that anyone can learn no matter what level your at.

Run through this check list next time you do some push ups,

The set up
-Hands pointed forward
-Shoulders over wrist
-Screw hands down to develop torque and stability in the shoulder
-Pack scaps (shoulder blades)
-Chin tucked
-Ribcage down/Neutral Spine
-Contract glutes
-Whole body tension

Try to keep your body like this through the whole movement💪🏼 The execution
-Breath into your belly and compress your mid section activating your TVA
-Actively pull yourself down into position keeping your forearms pretty much vertical and until the elbow breaks 90"
-Think about "Pushing the floor away" as your coming back up and then exhale and repeat

That's a basic overview of the push up, it gets WAY more advanced like weighted, clapping, 180s, 360s ect... this is just a general overview hoping to help some of you as well, More videos coming soon! Let me know what exercises you want to see next, Vancouver Personal trainer - Shawn Adair

Do you have good POSTURE?

As some of you are reading this..... are you in a kyphotic / forward head position? 
Did you know for every inch your head moves forward it increases the weight of the head on the spine by an additional 10 pounds. This is a major contributor to issues like neck pain, shoulder pain, tightness, weakness, headaches, osteoarthritis and even decrease lung capacity by 30% so it's important to be aware of these issues and take care of them as needed.

Posture affects everything we do in and out of the gym and is often overlooked by most personal trainers, before an individual starts any intense exercise program posture should be assessed and corrective work given as needed. It's the main foundation for every movement our body makes no matter what type of activity/training your doing, posture will even affect your form on certain exercises.
No matter how hard you train in the gym if you have any major postural issues it will limit your ability to use your body to it's full potential and will also increase your chances for injury. Performing corrective work with a qualified coach will greatly help improve any imbalances and restore proper length tension relationships for optimal control of your body, this will transfer over to improvements in all areas of training even improve your breathing/bracing and over all appearance as well.

Come down to The Bar and get a full postural assessment, we base our gym on quality of movement and helping people train PAIN FREE is my main goal, learn how to take care of your body because it's your only place you have to live 😊

Client Transformation

💥@inaz_irock💥 I'm so proud of her and how far she has come in such a short time! The photo is from about 4 months ago you can see not just aesthetic changes but postural changes as well! Her right shoulder was elevated and protracted forward in a kyphotic position, now she's almost neutral and in good alignment with some back shredz to go along with it. 
She's following her macronutrient intake very well and averaging 1 pound a week for consistent safe fat loss to keep in off in the long run, this is only the begging she's going to make even more gainz with a little more time! Great work Naz🙏🏼😊

Getting messages like this really makes my day😊 it lets me know that I'm doing something positive and helping others in all different areas. This is motivation to keep learning as much as possible and fuel my passion for helping people become better in all aspects of health and fitness💪🏼

The Importance of proper joint alingment throughout your kinetic chain

Most problems with pain or poor movement patterns are normally not just localized in 1 area, everything is aligned through your kinetic chain and if one of those chain links are off it will affect your joints up stream and down stream from the issue. 
For anyone with knee problems I would first look at what the feet and hips are doing because they play a major roll in alignment and stability of the knee, you can see from the photo that once the feet collapse the knee moves inward (valgus) putting undue stress on the hip then putting stress on the back and even affecting alignment of your shoulder as well😁

If you are starting an exercise routine and have these issues it's very important to plan in some corrective work to help realign your body for optimal performance and stay injury free!
It's very common in bootcamp style classes people get yelled at and completely destroyed by a "coach" doing hundreds of repetitions with so many movement dysfunctions and very little if none of actual movement corrections or corrective work being thought.

Always remember with any sort of exercise class/program you do, if this is something you want to do for life it should always be quality before quantity. Anyone can make you tired,sweaty and sore but not everyone can make you better so choose wisely 🙏🏼😊