Tune Up Fitness® Self Care Blog

Below, for your viewing pleasure, and the freedom of unwrapping tightness in all three portions of the trapezius muscle, without an untidy extraction of one necessary four-chambered, blood-filled organ, is a video of  Reverse Crucifix. It is one of my favorites…

As a yoga teacher, I may or may not be guilty of having once, twice, hopefully less than 100 times in my pre-YTU days, uttered the phrase “open the back of your heart.” EEK! How unspecific and blatantly disrespectful not to…

The shoulder is a very shallow joint – and because of this feature, we have the capacity for extensive range of motion and the ability to bring the joint through many different directions of movement – adduction, abduction, flexion, extension, internal…

It seems that the rotator cuff muscles (SITS – suprapinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor and subscapularis) are receiving a lot of press these days, yet one of its members is often obscured from the spotlight:  the subscapularis. The largest of the four…

As mentioned in my previous article, YTU Sidewinder exercise is unbelieveably great for the QL. This pose laterally extends and flexes the spine, broadens the ribcage, and awakens the whole torso.  Sidewinder strengthens the obliques and the quadratus lomborum and releases…

In our culture of sitting, low back pain is something everyone has experienced or knows someone who has.  One of the culprits of low back pain is the quadratus lumborum.  Although rather small, it’s a very powerful muscle that wraps around…

On Wednesday I discussed the danger of the psoas major getting tight and weak due to a predominance of sagittal plane movement and long periods of sitting in our modern way of life.  You may remember that I recommended some awesome…

The psoas major is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting muscles of the body.  As part of the Iliopsoas – made up of the psoas major and the iliacus – psoas major is an important hip flexor and low…

My junior year of college I injured the soft tissue of my lower back. It was a very common lower back injury, twisting while the spine was loaded. In this case, I was attempting to push over a trashcan filled with…