Dr. Mark Amick

04/26/2022

What does it mean to be strong? And how strong should we be?

It may depend on the person, it may depends on the goal, but you need to be strong enough.

Your body, your muscles, your bones need to be strong enough to handle the demands life throws your way.

In life, we get acted on by forces.

The weight of a baseball applies a force as we throw it. The ground applies a force as we land on it. A barbell applies a force as we lift it. Another athlete applies a force as we make contact with them.

Injuries occur when our body doesn’t have the ability to absorb and displace that force.

You need to be strong enough to absorb and displace whatever that force in life is.

If you want to run, be strong enough to run.

If you want to roll around and play with your grandkids, be strong enough to do so.

If you want to be great at your sport all season long, be strong enough to do it.

Gain strength and maintain strength. Train for life.

Brick by brick.
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04/19/2022

We don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.”-James Clear [Atomic Habits]

Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the process that lead to those results.

Setting long term goals is great, it gives us a sense of direction and a target to shoot for. But what’s more important than the goal is the way we go about achieving the goal.

It’s the habits we put in place, the process and the systems we follow, that will be more rewarding and sustainable over the course of a lifetime.

Falling in love with the process, rather than the results also allows us to find meaning and satisfaction throughout the journey, not just when we reach the destination.

Build out your systems. Enjoy the process.

Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.

Brick by brick. 🧱
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04/14/2022

What do you think when you hear the words holistic health?

I think it’s gotten met with a lot of skepticism. But at it’s core, holistic means relating to or concerned with the wholes or with complete systems rather than just the analysis of individual parts.

Humans are whole, complete systems full of incredibly complex and connected systems working together. And when working with people in any way, it’s important to remember that.

What used to be thought of as this granola term has now become the absolute standard for working with people in health and human performance.

What components make up a healthy life that has fulfillment and great quality to it? People that move well, don’t have chronic illness, have minimal amounts of pain each day, can handle the hardships and adversity life throws their way, can mitigate stress and their physical body can tolerate it, have healthy relationships, good work/life balance, eat well, sleep well, etc.

What components make up a healthy athlete who’s going to be able to perform at the highest level? Physically they need to be able to handle the demands and the forces of their sports. They need to have a high level of sport specific skill. They move well, feel good, and can perform under pressure. They must have the ability to relax, to still themselves, and to stay collected in the biggest of moments. They need to study film and mentally prepare. They need to recover, refuel with proper nutrition, and get optimal sleep to stay at the top of their game.

There are many many components that go into a healthy, happy, confident, durable, and well-conditioned human being. It’s important to take a holistic approach in order to better develop each of those components.

Physically, mentally, and emotionally are you prepared to perform at your best?

If not, start here:

Move often, eat well, sleep well, manage your stress, nurture your relationships.

Make your life your medicine, one step at a time.

Brick by brick 🧱
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Want to take a holistic approach to your health and training? Shoot me a message to get started!

04/14/2022

It’s hard to overestimate the importance of having strong, well conditioned, and resilient hip flexors.

They are involved in the majority of athletic, explosive movements and play a vital role in stability.

People are constantly looking for ways to stretch and mobilize their hip flexors, as they relate their back pain to tight hip flexors.

While it’s great to get movement through the area, the focus really should be on building strength and endurance through this muscle group.

The hip flexors are often undertrained and underexposed to resistance so spending some dedicated time to building strength and endurance can provide huge benefits.

The Iliopsoas is a muscle group that connects our spine to our legs and creates not only hip flexion but also spinal stability. It functions as a major performance driver athletically as well as a protective force for the spine.

Invest the time and build the foundation. Work your way toward pain free performance.

Brick by brick.🧱🧱

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Looking to level up your health and work toward pain free performance? Send me a message and let’s get started!

04/06/2022

The more you know…

Take and apply in any context.

A broad education opens up doors to multiple career paths.

A broad scope of practice allows you to help patients in many different ways.

The more chords you know, the more songs you can play.

The greater the influence, the greater impact you can make.

I love this quote and its application to human movement.

Part of my job as a clinician and as a coach is to give people more options.

Give people more movement options to help them achieve their goals.

With more options comes more confidence. With more confidence comes better performance.

A healthy, strong, coordinated, connected and resilient athlete will have more options to do and achieve more in their given sport.

A healthy, strong, coordinated, connected, and resilient human will have more options and be better equipped to take on the challenges life throws our way.

Life, as with sports, is full of stressors, adversity, and challenges.

Are we equipped to handle them? Are you giving your athletes and your patients options so they can better find the solutions?

The more paths, the more routes.
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My job is to create more paths. I’m here to show you how, shoot me a DM “💪🏼💪🏼” to get started!

Brick by brick 🧱

03/16/2022

Back Pain is a Pain.

There are so many misconceptions and myths when it comes to back pain.

There are false narratives across all domains of health-care that can be incredibly harmful to someone’s pain experience.

Back pain can be confusing, frustrating, time consuming and an expensive cycle if you’re getting pulled in every direction along the journey.

My goal is to simplify that journey. I truly want to educate and empower the people I work with so they can spend less time dealing with back pain bu****it and more time living and enjoying life to the fullest.

Ready to get out of pain and get back to what’s important?

Send me the message “Pain Explained” to set up a free of charge conversation with me to talk more about it.

You are not broken.

Create the environment.

Brick by brick 🧱

03/10/2022

The way we think affects the way we feel.

Our thoughts, beliefs, emotions and expectations are deeply connected to our experience of pain.

So what is pain?

The answer: COMPLEX.

Pain is a multi-system output activated by the brain based on a perceived threat.

We can experience pain with or without damage to our body.

And if we can experience pain without any physical damage..then we can say with certainty that our cognition plays a massive role in how we feel pain.

Pain does not equal injury. Hurt does not equal harm.

It’s far more complicated than is often treated. We need to treat the complexity of the person.
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If your pain is getting in the way of your daily life, DM “PAIN FREE” to find a new solution

02/22/2022

Rethink, Rebuild, and Rediscover.

In the next few weeks I will be starting a 12 week programming block for individuals looking to level up their fitness, nutrition, and overall health.

Working with online clients is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now and I cannot wait to share what I’ve been working on!

From an exercise standpoint, this is not a run of the mill, one size fits all program. This is all about creating an individualized program, tailored to you, your schedule, your specific goals and what you enjoy doing.

Nutritionally, we won’t just build a meal plan telling you when and what to eat. We will work together to create goals, healthy habits, mindfulness, and action steps to achieve those goals.

We will work to build the kind of person that’s capable of long term, sustainable growth and change.

I want to truly equip people with a foundation for nutritional and exercise practice so they will move better, feel better, and build their own habits to achieve their health and fitness goals; not only over the next 12 weeks, but for the rest of their lives.

Rethink, Rebuild, and Rediscover.

Let’s get started.

Brick by brick 🧱

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If you’re interested, shoot me a message and I will get you more details!

02/10/2022

At the start of chiropractic school I had a whole page of notes about my WHY. I wanted to hone in on my mission, write out a list of reasons why I wanted to be in this field and how I felt I could best help people.

This one sentence really summarized the page well:

“I want to help people live longer, happier, healthier lives.”

And while many of my thoughts, techniques, and practices on how I can best help people have changed and evolved (and hopefully will continue to)..that overall statement remains the same. I really do want to help people lead longer, happier and healthier lives.

I want to help people get out of and manage their pain.

I want to help people move freely and without fear or hesitation.

I want to help people master their nutrition and lifestyle habits.

All in hopes that they feel educated, empowered, and confident about their overall health and their ability to do the things that they love to do.

Brick by brick 🧱

02/07/2022

No Action Too Small.

Whatever the goal, whatever the pursuit, nothing gets achieved unless we take action. And while it sounds simple, sometimes getting up and taking action is the hardest part.

Why is it so difficult for us to do? Part of the problem, I believe, is that we think we have to go to the extremes in order to view it as a win, and check it off the list as a productive use of time.

Let’s use weight loss as an example; if the goal is to lose weight, how often do people feel the need to eat perfectly and workout for an hour a day, 5 days a week? That’s an amazing goal, but it overlooks and undervalues the small actions we can take to move us toward that end goal.

Instead, what if we put just as much emphasis on the goal of drinking a glass of water first thing in the morning and maintaining hydration throughout each day of the week? What if we scheduled out some time in our day to just go for a 20 minute walk? What if we wrote out a grocery list and planned to cook a few healthy home-made meals for the week.

Let’s look for the opportunities to create those small actions and celebrate those wins throughout the week. Apply it to any goal in any discipline.

Even a little action, done consistently, will move you forward.

What actions are you adding to your week? ⬇️⬇️

02/03/2022

02/03/2022

02/03/2022

02/01/2022

🚨NOW SEEING PATIENTS🚨

In the past months I have graduated school, passed three board exams, officially become a board certified doctor of chiropractic, a certified nutrition coach, have coached over 70 classes at F45, renovated and built out a clinic space, and started a new business. I have said yes to a lot of new change and challenge and it’s already proving to be an amazing learning experience.

I am joining an unbelievable team of people and clinicians at The Center of Movement where I will focus on Pain and Injury, Exercise Rehabilitation and Nutrition. I am passionate about these areas and I’m excited to share that with my patients! I couldn’t be more excited to work alongside this TCOM team and learn from this core group. I will continue coaching group fitness classes out of multiple F45 gyms in the twin cities throughout the week where I get to work with highly motivated badass people. I will also be working with clients virtually moving forward, providing individualized rehab and training programs as well as 1 on 1 nutrition coaching and programming.

I’m just excited to be a resource for any and all looking to level up their health, movement and nutrition. I’m so grateful for the opportunities and cannot wait to get started! 🙌🏼🙌🏼

I will be kicking it off at The Center of Movement-Edina working Mon, Wed, Thurs in person. I will be coaching out of F45 MPLS and Edina on Tuesday’s and Thursdays. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions!

Let the journey begin. Brick by brick 🧱