Why TMJ Exercises Work For Jaw Pain

by GuestPoster on September 1, 2010

tmj exercisesEver felt tension in your jaw? Maybe it’s gone so far as to start hurting because you clench your teeth so much. Some people even experience teeth grinding so intense that parts of their teeth are literally ground away. These are the most common symptoms of a jaw condition called TMJ syndrome and if any of these symptoms seem familiar, you might want to think about what you can do to start preventing or curing your TMJ.

There are a few options available to treat TMJ, each option will be effective at different levels for different people, with different severity in symptoms. The first and most drastic option is the dreaded TMJ surgery. There are a lot of different types obviously, but one of the most common practices if for a dentist to grind down your teeth so that your bite can adjust to a normal state. This isn’t a fool proof exercise though as the root causes of TMJ may still be there, so surgery will only serve as a delayer of symptoms.

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Without Worry

by Josh Hanagarne on September 1, 2010

Guest post by Aloysa

I have spent an awful lot of time in my life worrying. I worried about bills, approaching deadlines, driving in the traffic to work, flu, shrinking budgets, layoffs at work, expenses, the economy, the real estate market and so on. You get the picture. I even worried about my husband driving to work and making it there safely. Do you know anyone else like me? I bet you do.

I worried so much that these worries became debilitating to a certain extent. Sometimes I could not function because I was obsessing about so many things (see my list above). Finally I have decided that I cannot live every minute of my life in a agonizing state of anxiety. I started wondering what I could do to reduce my fixation. [Read more...]

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Kettlebell Limitations

by Josh Hanagarne on August 31, 2010

Guest post by Jon Chacon, the only guy who seems to like writing about kettlebells as much as I do.

The kettlebell is widely used across the strength and conditioning community and though they have been around for close to a hundred years and originated in Russia they have just recently taken off as a fitness tool in the US. The greatest characteristic of these training tools is their immense versatility.

They can be used for a plethora of fitness goals to include strength, strength endurance, power, support grip, impact bracing, and many others. Most of the versatility in the bells comes from the offset nature of the weight in reference to the wrist.

As with a conventional dumbbell or Olympic barbell the weight is symmetric and remains inline with the wrist. The awkward and less predictable properties of the kettlebell make it more difficult to control, thus requiring the recruitment of more muscle and bone structure in any given movement.

A lot of us know what kettlebells are capable of doing. I personally use them for a lot of my conditioning training. But what are some of the limitations of the ever popular kettlebell? Is there anything that they can’t do?

Kettlebell limitations

First of all, I don’t think that there is any training tool that should be used as an “end all, beat all.” The kettlebell is great, but I don’t recommend using it all the time. In fact, if your goals are not strictly to perform a certain movement with the bells, I recommend using the kettlebell as a supplement to your other training goals.

Some of the limitations I will discuss are issues dealing with the logistics and physical properties related to kettlebells and their use, while the other issues will related to training with and using the kettlebells. [Read more...]

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Disadvantages Of Organic Food?

August 31, 2010

Guest post by Jerett Turner The trouble with organic food is not in eating organic. Who can argue against consuming fruits, vegetables, and grains grown without pesticides? Organic isn’t a new concept. It’s more of an old concept that’s been re-discovered. As far as I know, 19th century farms didn’t use lab synthesized fertilizers. But [...]

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How To Lose Weight And Get Stronger

August 31, 2010

In a previous post Josh gave his personal experience on the best way to build muscle. He very nicely explained that he was a “hardgainer” and he outlined his approach in getting stronger by eating (and drinking) more, exercising harder and sleeping like a baby for 8-10 hours a night. Unfortunately not all people are [...]

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The Body Fat Solution by Tom Vento

August 31, 2010

Guest post by Todd Boyer Fitness books have been a hit and miss with me over the years. For some reason I’ll pick up a book on the subject, and have to donate it within twenty minutes. Bogus information doesn’t just exist on the internet. The web is primarily gems like The Body Fat Solution [...]

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A Better Way To Train Your Abs

August 31, 2010

By a guest who would prefer to remain anonymous Before you look at the exercises in this routine it is important to realize that it will not be what you commonly think of when it comes to ab training. The exercises focus on spinal stabilization instead of the more tradition spinal flex (crunching). While you [...]

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Book Review: The Purposeful Primitive

August 31, 2010

Guest post by Jon Chacon Honestly, anything over 200 pages is a little humbling to me, even after going to college, but once I opened The Purposeful Primitive, Marty Gallagher’s 450+ page “how-to” on “using the primordial laws of fitness to trigger inevitable, lasting, and dramatic physical change” I had a hard time putting it [...]

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Beginning Gymnastics For Adults

August 30, 2010

by Logan Christopher When gymnastics come up most people will think of one of two things: Olympic gymnasts doing insane stunts that the average person can’t comprehend doing. And two, little girls in leotards rolling around on the floor or doing splits. If you are an adult looking for an introduction to gymnastics, neither one [...]

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Taking Time Off

August 30, 2010

Hey gang. Duty calls (by which I mean the book I am writing is at a stage where I can’t focus on much else). I will be in and out during September, and don’t plan on writing more than one post each week. If guests submit posts to me I will publish their informational articles, [...]

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How To Get A Stronger Grip

August 27, 2010

I have been consistently working on my hand strength for over a year now. When I started trying to figure out how to get a stronger grip, the idea made me laugh. I could not figure out exactly why it appealed to me so much. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of just about [...]

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Update From The Combat Insomnia Experiment

August 27, 2010

Fact: if you declare that you’re about to finally take the steps to combat insomnia, thus bring to a close two decades of restless nights, going to Yellowstone National Park for the next four days will completely screw everything up. There is nothing less conducive to getting on a sleep schedule than taking a long [...]

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Job Hunting 101: Professional Resume Services?

August 26, 2010

Note from Josh: I know a lot of people who are looking for jobs. I asked Jerret to write this post for anyone who has any questions about their resume. Guest post by Jerret Turner The number of job applicants per job opening has increased dramatically, this according to the latest Job Openings and Labor [...]

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Any White Water Rafting Experts?

August 25, 2010

I was in Yellowstone National park a couple of weeks ago and I went white water rafting for the first time. I’m not really sure if what I did qualifies as rapids or actual white water. I was on a raft with 12 other hollering people, ranging from age 7 up to what appeared to [...]

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Female Strength: A Reader’s Response

August 24, 2010

This is a guest post from Breset “Sterling” Walker, in response to the Female Strength Manifesto I wrote last week. It’s a good one! It’s a good thing it’s five pm on a Friday, as it means everyone in the lab is way more focused on getting their business done and out the door than [...]

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Now Hiring: World’s Strongest Librarian

August 22, 2010

Friend, I have seen an opportunity for what The Joker calls “aggressive expansion.” I would add the words “exciting,” “fun,” and “interesting,” “intellectually satisfying,” and “creative” to the word aggressive. It is time to take things up a notch. It will also be profitable for some of you who jump in with both feet, and [...]

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Female Strength Manifesto

August 20, 2010

Update: I had a wonderful reader’s response to this post. When you’re done here, please read this response to female strength. The majority of my kettlebell students are women. They come to class for what they pretend are many different reasons, but the fact is that they are all there because they want to look [...]

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Improving Convict Conditioning With Gym Movement

August 19, 2010

I have been working on a variation of Paul Wade’s Convict Conditioning program for the last several months as I have chased my ultimate strength training goal: the one-arm pullup. I’m getting closer and closer every single day. When people ask me if I am following the program to the letter, as outlined in the [...]

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61 Hours Book Review

August 19, 2010

Like many of the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child, 61 Hours start with Reacher coming to a stop, this time because he is on a bus full of senior citizens when it crashes in South Dakota during what sounds like an extremely miserable winter. He is quickly plunged (reluctantly) into a situation that only [...]

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The Talisman By Stephen King

August 18, 2010

I recently read Stephen King’s late book Under The Dome. I really enjoyed about 80% of it. It was a little long, as always, but I read it all, as always. It had been quite a while since I had read any of King’s books. This realization sent me scurrying to my book shelves to [...]

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