Author Archives: Coach Mike

About Coach Mike

Mike Alves is an award winning and highly sought after strength & conditioning expert in the areas of weight loss, body transformations, corrective exercise and performance enhancement. He received his B.S. in Athletic Training from the Prestigious Springfield College, aka the Harvard of Sports Sciences, his ATC from the World Renowned National Athletic Trainers Association, his CSCS from the National Strength & Conditioning Association, the global leader in bridging science with practical application and is Licensed by the state of Massachusetts as a Certified Athletic Trainer. Coach Mike has been written up in the Boston Globe, the Newton Tab, he's been featured on NECN, he's been named a Top Trainer by Boston Common Magazine and been invited to be listed on bostonsbestpersonaltrainers.com, and he's been a repeat #1 Trainer in Boston by Boston Sports Clubs and a #6 Trainer by Town Sports International. Coach Mike lives an active lifestyle, is a relationships 1st person and changes lives through his relationships 1st business. Currently he works out of Newton, MA running the #1 Body Transformation Group Personal Training Program in Massachusetts, Change Your Body Boot Camps and offers private training to a highly selective clientele. His strengths are making training fun and giving the love of training & hard work to those he comes in contact with and helping out of shape and overweight individuals get into their best shape. He has coached middle school, high school, college, amatuer, Olympic & professional athletes in the sports of baseball, soccer, football, basketball, mma, triathlons, endurance running and cycling as well as busy professionals, stay at home moms, retired adults all desiring to feel, move and look better.

Bra Flab vs. Man Boobs

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They might not be life threatening epidemics, but they certainly can be a self esteem threatening epidemic.

What is bra flab?

Bra Flab

Bra flab is the “soft” tissue found above and below the bra material just below the posterior axillary fold (arm pit).  It’s the cousin of arm flab,

Arm Flab

which is when your triceps or back of the arm gets soft and hangs loose like in the picture. 

Most people know about the arm flab, but many haven’t seen the bra flab and bra flab occurs when the muscles on the axillary border of the posterior upper back become atrophied from lack of use and often in conjunction with overeating. 

What do you do?

Pulling more and eat less for starters.  What do I mean by pull more?  Do horizontal and vertical pulling exercises against resistance either from an external load and/or your own body weight.

Sample Exercises:

1.       Vertical Pulls
a)      TRX Chin Up Progression
b)      Band Resisted Reverse Grip Pull Downs
2.       Horizontal Pulls
a)       TRX Inverted Rows Regressions
b)       Seated Band Rows

Adding the above exercises to your strength training routine will help to tone and shape the muscles that make up bra flab.  They’re not the only exercises that can improve the area, but their the biggest bang for your effort exercises.

Fellas.  Man boobs are no bueno and you certainly want to fight getting soft and droopy up top. 

What are man boobs?


Man boobs are when you’re chest muscles or pectoralis muscles become severely atrophied and begin to sag. 
What do you do?
Pushing more and eating less is usually a good start.  What do I mean by push?  Do horizontal and vertical pushing exercises to strengthen and shape both your anterior thoracic wall (chest) and your upper trap muscles to give you the dominant beach muscles that you once had or always wanted. 
Sample Exercises:
1.       Horizontal Pushing
a)       Push Up T Progressions
b)       DB Bench Press
2.       Vertical Pushing
a)       Band Resisted Overhead Press
b)      DB Overhead Press Progressions
Now men or even ladies, if you want to get rid of the saggy boobs and get hard and tight pec muscles, add the above exercises to your exercise routine.  These are also not the only exercises you can do to firm up your chest muscles and give you great traps, but they’ll get you started.
So now you have potential cures to the self-esteem epidemics known as bra flab and man boobs.  Give the exercises a try and you’ll immediately feel them beginning to start the change process.  Incorporate the exercises into your weekly routines and before you know it you’ll have created a habit, eliminated a problem and gained increased self confidence.
Yours changing lives,
Mike Alves
p.s.  want a coach, a team and a program to help you get in your best shape this summer and not next?  Click here to try out Newton’s Best Boot Camp for 1-month at a killer price. 
p.p.s.  here’s the link:  https://www.spafinder.com/sparahrah/Boston-MA/Change-Your-Body-Boot-Camps/14268/index.htm

Imagine what you could do if you had 2 legs!

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Life can be cruel sometimes. You could be born with a disadvantage, make a mistake and be at a disadvantage or just be unlucky. Either way, what you do when you realize your at a disadvantage is what makes a difference. Anthony Robles was born with 1-leg, a certain disadvantage to those of us lucky enough to have 2 legs. His parents didn’t let him make excuses and Anthony didn’t make excuses. He just did what normal kids do. He played sports.

 

In high school he played defensive end for his football team and was a champion in wrestling. When he had to cut weight for football or wrestling he ran…with crutches. He doesn’t like to be called handicapped or disabled, he just wants to be treated normal, so he goes out there and does his best.

Anthony just capped his senior year of college at Arizona State by defeating the defending National Champion from Iowa, Matt McDonough and finishing his year with a record of 36-0.

The guy has only 1-leg and he beat 36 other guys who had 2-legs. Whatever your excuse, whatever your “lemon”, use Anthony’s inspiration to find a way to turn your disadvantage into your strength. Maybe you’ll even end up a champion.

Yours changing lives and with no excuses for excuses,

Mike Alves

Newton Boot Camp
Newton Personal Trainer
Online Training

p.s.  Anthony plans to retire from wrestling on top and not pursue the Olympics.  He is going to get a prosthetic leg and aspires to become a motivational speaker.

p.p.s.  If you’re ready stop imaging and start realizing what you could do with your 2 legs, and getting in shape will help you get there faster, take the first step now and decide to do it.  Then get a coach, get a plan, get a team and get your dream. 

p.p.p.s.  Change Your Body Boot Camps’ Phase 4 begins Sunday, March 27.  Deadline to register is midnight, Thursday, March 24.  Sign up now at  http://bootcampboston.com


Do you know of a good massage therapist?

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I’ve been asked a few times recently who I recommend for a good deep tissue massage, specifically for Tennis Elbow (Lateral Epicondylitis), the pain one feels on the outside of the elbow from repeated or strenuous pulling activities and for shoulder discomfort resulting from a combination of poor posture and overhead activity.

Here is my recommendation:

Massage Therapist: Chris Larson, NCTMB, NCPT, A Deep Tissue & Muscular Orthopaedic Rehab Specialist.

Chris works out of:

Joint Ventures,

Kenmore Square

654 Beacon Street

Boston, MA 02215

and

Mike Boyle Strength & Conditioning

29 Draper Street,

Woburn, MA 01801


Shin Splints

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Ouch. You ever get shin splints. The very uncomfortable pain, most commonly associated with your anterior shin bone (tibia). Well, often times people who are de-conditioned and out of shape experience this problem when they:

  • Go from sedentary and inactive to weight bearing and active
  • Go from sedentary and/or walking to linear, multi-directional or stop + start running
  • change running surfaces: grass to turf, pavement, concrete or wood
  • wear improper footwear: old, worn out sneakers or poorly fitting sneakers
  • have poor foot musculature (soft feet as opposed to strong, muscular feet)
  • have weak (lack of stability or loose) or jacked up (lack of mobility or stiff) ankles
  • have weak anterior shin muscles
  • have poor hip mobility (stiff hips)
  • have poor lumbar spine stability (weak core)
  • have poor recovery from activity
  • forgot their shin pads and got kicked by your partner in Krav Maga

Why does this happen?

The most common reason they experience this is because their feet are soft from wearing soft shoes. Their ankles are weak and stiff from previous ankle sprains or sitting too often and for too long. Their calves, Achilles tendon or entire lower leg musculatures are tight from also sitting too often and for too long. They lack mobility in their hips (too stiff, not a good dancer) and their core is probably weak (unstable and soft like a bowl full of jelly). You could go further and say their thoracic spine is stiff (upper back), their scapulo-thoracic joint (shoulder blade) is unstable and weak and their gleno-humeral or shoulder joint is stiff and weak. The whole kinetic chain is usually messed up, but not in all cases.


What do you do?

Here’s an 11 point action plan I use in my Newton (Boston) Change Your Body Boot Camps to correct shin splints for my participants from acute symptomatic treatment of the actual pain on your shins (ouch!) to the long term resolution of your issue, sometimes it’s even instantaneous relief, just ask Flo.

1. Ice massage with an ice cup (paper cup filled with water and frozen) rubbed over pain site for 10min (if cold sensitive, take off and put back on when tolerable)

2. Foam Roll calf and Achilles tendon. Turn foot in & out.

3. Foam Roll peronneals on the lateral aspect of the lower leg. This is the Curt Shilling muscle from the blood sox or sock days of 2004.


4. Foam Roll the shins

5. Lacrosse ball roll on foot

6. 3-Directional Flat Ankle Mobes (straight over 2nd toe, diagonally towards big toe & pinky toe)


7. 3-Directional Incline Ankle Mobes (straight over 2nd toe, diagonally over big & pinky toes)


8. Frontal Plane ankle mobes (pronation & supination)


9. Active Shin Stretch

10. Active Gastrocnemius Stretch

11. Active Soleus Stretch

Give it a whirl and post a comment below to let me know how it works for you.

Your coach,

Mike Alves

Boston Boot Camp


Newton Boot Camp


Change Your Body Boot Camps




Self Image

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Self Image

There are 2 areas I am rapidly learning about to help my clients achieve their goals. Nutrition is one and psychology is the other. I’m confident my strength and conditioning programs do what their designed to do and am working to master these other 2 areas.

Nutrition involves building a network of go to experts to send clients to or ask questions of, as well as learning answers to basic questions/problems and creating systems to ensure success.

Psychology is a whole other world. Here I need to get into my clients heads and understand what they’re thinking, why they do or don’t do what they do (wink) and how they see themselves.

I’ve got a handful of self improvement resources I’m utilizing and a current one is a book called Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz.

Dr. Maltz was an renowned plastic surgeon who was mystified how some patients could have instantaneous personality change after surgery and others would not. The others, would still see themselves as blemished even though the particular area of dislike had been improved. These patients could even view before and after photographs of themselves and still see no change.

Poor Self Image

Dr. Maltz discovered they had a self image problem that plastic surgery could not correct. I’ve only just begun the book (re-reading Chapter 2) so I can’t give a full review, but you may already see what I’m hoping to learn. I’m hoping to learn how to spot people who have a poor self image and learn how to instantaneously change it (or as soon as possible).

Upon dialog with my human blog inspiration client, Lisa, about this topic, I learned about Physiognomy (pronounced with a silent G). Physiognomy is the assessment of a person’s character or personality from their outer appearance, especially the face. The term physiognomy can also refer to the general appearance of a person, object or terrain, without reference to its implied characteristics. Basically not only do people judge themselves, but they also judge other people as well.

You: “Duh, Mike! I could have told you that.”

Me: O.K. You’re right. I guess I wanted to share the new vocabulary word.

Anyways, (I’ll get to the point now), I suspect if you can change a person’s or your own self image, not only will it be easier for you to make and accept lasting physical change, but you could potentially alter an observer’s perception of you.

Example: If your countenance or facial expression at rest is one of a frown, sneer or saddness, people may draw the conclusion that your a walking dark cloud and to choose to stay away from you. On the flip side if your countenance at rest is one of a subtle smile or mysterious look, people may draw the conclusion that you’re a happy, attractive or interesting person and be drawn to you.

Not that you judge (wink), but what is your first impression of these countenances?

So in conclusion.

Sometime in the near future I hope to become excellent at instantaneous and sustainable self image corrections for myself, my clients and people I come in contact with. I hope to use this to alter the physiognomies or first impressions of other people. This combined with superior nutritional, strength and conditioning programs should result in a whole lotta people who love themselves and their new bodies/lifestyles.

Your coach,

Mike Alves

Newton Boot Camp

p.s. Speaking of Love, check out what Flo loves.


Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 9:42:36 AM
Subject: Yay Boot Camp!

Hey Mike,
As challenging and hard as it is, I LOVE boot camp!…I’m always surprised by how great I feel at the end of the hour, ready to go and energized for the day.

Just wanted to let you know. 🙂

Thanks!
Flo