Last year I published my most popular post to date: Is Exercise a Stress Reliever or a Stress Amplifier?  It explained that while we often think of exercise as stress reliever, it can often have the opposite effect. 

That’s right.  Instead of helping your overall health, your mode or intensity of exercise could be contributing to why you’re constantly getting hurt, sick, or unable to sleep.

While this may seem obvious to you, realizing this fact put me light years ahead of where I was as a coach. Everything started to click. I realized why certain people with frequent back pain, or who were always sick, didn't necessarily feel better after their workout.  And sometimes they even felt worse.

So the inevitable question is: how do you know where on the stress spectrum you fall, and that you're not sabotaging yourself with your mode of exercise?  

I don't talk nearly enough about my clients.  But I should.  Because they're some of the best and most interesting people I've ever met.  

Below is a client spotlight I wrote for our company blog and I'm reposting here.  You'll also note that Sara has her own snarky comments bolded below.  Enjoy her story - she deserves it!

As a red-blooded American, I'll always respect Navy SEALs.  But luckily for my Mom, I could never be one - my poor swimming skills and INTJ personality don't always mix well with authority.  So rather than living out my GI Joe fantasies, I've been experiencing them vicariously with my new favorite book, Extreme Ownership.  

I know what you're thinking, "How can fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq teach us anything about fitness and nutrition?" It's because strong leadership, problem solving, and hard work transcends industries. And I'll take learning wherever I can get it!

As I've done before, below are several parallels between the book and being successful in the gym.  Hope you enjoy them!

Gravity impacts our daily lives much more than we realize.  And no, that title is not a euphemism for weight loss. ;)

But over 90% of us have lingering aches and pains - tight quads, calves, or backs; hip, knee, ankle or back pain.  It may not be painful enough to keep us from our daily activities, but it's enough to know it's still there.

What if I told you that you probably don't have a problem with a particular body part? Instead, you may just have a gravity problem.

I never paid much attention to conditioning.  I thought it was an easy concept to understand.  Do some cardio once a week, hard intervals if you can, and you'll be in shape in no time.  Except if you wanted to build muscle - then don't do any cardio, ever.

And now?  I'm eating my hat.

Thanks to people like Joel Jamieson, our industry has actual science to combat the #broscience.  It's this actual science that's made me change my mind on everything above - we actually need much less interval work; more long slow cardio; and that a proper conditioning plan is incredibly detail oriented.

Below are the three biggest takeaways that anyone can implement immediately into their own programs.