Athlete in the Game of Life

08/16/2025

Imagine yourself scoring the winning point, sinking the winning putt, or making the winning play to end the game! We've all had those images in our heads.

Before your favorite athlete steps on the field, they spend hours practicing and training. You can reap the same benefits by training like them. In this episode I give you actionable tips to improve your cognitive function and physical fitness. Use these tips to take your career and physical health to a championship level.

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Imagine yourself scoring the winning point, sinking the winning putt, or making the winning play to end the game! We've all had those images in our heads. Before your favorite athlete steps on the field, they spend hours practicing and training. You can reap the same benefits by training like them.....

08/11/2025

👇🏽 Do Your Lunges Look Like This?

I see this often with clients and members across the years at all the gyms I worked at. Poor balance, tight hip flexors and calf muscles contribute to not being able to keep your front foot flat on the ground.

Proper form is pushing through the center of your foot to keep it flat on the ground. This activates the glutes and quads to work in unison.

08/05/2025

"Sit up straight!" "Stop slouching!" Do You Remember Your Mom Telling You These Things?

Poor posture is attributed to many factors and affects you in ways you may not think of. Postural distortion: Malalignments of bodily segments that place undue stress on the joints; i.e., poor posture at one or more of the kinetic chain checkpoints.

"Static posture represents how an individual physically presents themselves without movement and is a reference for the alignment of the body. An individual’s static posture provides the first clues toward a comprehensive understanding of their overall mobility and neuromuscular control capabilities." - NASM

Factors that affect your posture:
· Chronic suboptimal postures
· Habitual repetitive movements
· Acute injuries
· Recovery from surgery
· Incompletely rehabilitated past injuries

Step 1: Be aware of how you sit and stand on a daily basis
Step 2: Analyze the mentioned factors, and take action to work on one
Step 3: Stretch the overly tight muscles multiple times per day that are negatively affecting your posture.

08/01/2025

Mandy Sibley came to me last year wanting to get stronger as she neared 50. She worked out with her husband years ago and fell off since 2020. As the leader of the praise band at Church of the King in Mandeville, LA, she’s on display to people around the world every weekend. Also a mother of 4 teens and early 20s kids, she knows strength is vital! We work together twice per week for 30 minutes each time. Those sessions are comprised of strength and sports performance exercises. In the last year she’s been with me, she can now use 30 lb dumbbells for her bench press, up from 15 lb when we started. Plus she’s improved her flexibility. Everyone talks about management parlance, team building, and social media marketing, none of that matters when you’re physically weak and in chronic pain.

07/31/2025

🤔 Why Do Muscle Imbalances Occur, and Where Do They Come From?

"Muscle imbalances occur when there is a discrepancy in the strength, flexibility, or function of antagonistic or synergistic muscle groups. These imbalances can result from repetitive patterns or lead to abnormal movement patterns, altered biomechanics, and stress on the musculoskeletal system." - NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine)

🖥️ An imbalance can be caused by sitting long periods of time at your desk with poor posture.

"It is likely that muscle imbalances are likely caused by a combination of biomechanical and neurological factors, including pattern overload, poor technical skill, aging, lack of recovery, and lack of core strength (Sueki et al., 2013). If left unattended, such imbalances may result in altered reciprocal inhibition, synergistic dominance, and joint dysfunction." - NASM

🫢 If you do not stretch your overly tight muscles from sitting (quadriceps, hip flexors, abdominals, pectorals), and strengthen your overly weak muscles (hamstrings, glutes, and upper back), your imbalances can get worse and cause chronic pain.

When you're in chronic pain, your decision-making falters. This leads to mistakes which can cost you thousands or millions of dollars in the long run.

07/29/2025

⚠️ Sitting for Long Periods Contributes to Repetitive Injuries! This is Why You Hurt!

The science:
1. Pattern overload: Consistently repeating the same pattern of motion over long periods of time leading to dysfunction or injury. However, pattern overload is not necessarily restricted to movement patterns; maintaining a constant static posture, such as prolonged sitting, may also be considered a repetitive pattern and contribute to musculoskeletal symptoms in the shoulders, low back, thighs, and knees (Daneshmandi et al., 2017).

2. Poor posture and repetitive, overuse movements can create dysfunction within the connective tissue of the human body (Iqbal & Alghadir, 2017).

👨‍💻 What does this mean for you sitting and reading this?
1. Stand up now!
2. Stretch the tight areas of your shoulders, thighs, and hip flexors multiple times per day.
3. Strengthen the lower back and hamstrings with exercises multiple times per week.

07/26/2025

🫠 What Can Foam Rolling Do to Alleviate Your Pain and Soreness?

Here's the science:
1. Myofascial rolling is classified as a compression intervention where an external object (e.g. foam roller) compresses the myofascia.

2. For the neurophysiological effect, the direct roller pressure may influence tissue relaxation and pain in the local and surrounding tissues. For tissue relaxation, the roller pressure may induce a greater myofascial relaxation or “stretch tolerance” through central nervous system (CNS) (Aboodarda et al., 2015; Behm & Wilke, 2019; Cavanaugh et al., 2017; Cheatham & Kolber, 2017; Jay et al., 2014; Kelly & Beardsley, 2016; Monteiro et al., 2017; Nagi, Rubin, Chelvanayagam, Macefield, & Mahns, 2011)

3. The first ‘intent’ of self-myofascial rolling is to reduce the overactivity or tension in the targeted muscle. To do this, the user should roll the targeted muscle slowly to identify an uncomfortable spot and hold pressure. Once a reduction in tension has been achieved, the next step is to appeal to the mechanical aspect by introducing active movements. Active movements involve, actively, moving the targeted limb on the myofascial roller.

What Does This Mean for You?
Choose 3-4 spots per muscle group per warm up/cool down session. Use the action in my photos of how to move your targeted limb, like your upper leg. Total time is under 2 minutes per leg to get the benefits I described.

Your results will be less soreness and pain, and increased range of motion for your next workout, run, or sport. If you don't exercise, you can still reap the benefits of foam rolling on your overly tight muscles from sitting all day.

07/24/2025

Is Your Core Just Your Abs? 🤔

"Smaller and deeper muscles that provide intersegmental stability from vertebra to vertebra are considered contributors to the local core muscular system. Larger muscles of the spine that tend to be more superficial and create larger movement patterns are considered part of the global core muscular system. Therefore, any muscle that attaches directly to the LPHC (lumbo pelvic hip complex) is considered part of the core muscular system but is subclassified as global or local based on its location and function." -National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM)

Strengthening your core is much more than doing crunches till you puke and can't move. Integrating moves like planks, kettlebell swings, Russian twists, squats, deadlifts, and bird dogs all play different roles to give you a stable and strong core.

What weakens your core? Sitting for 8-10 hours daily! 🤨

07/22/2025

I am 77 years old but hadn’t worked with a trainer until I met Matt. When I retired, I decided it was time to get more serious about maintaining strength and balance as best I could. Matt was the answer for me. He understands how the various muscle groups interact, how we use them, and how we can, through exercise, stretching and weight training, maintain strength and vitality in our later years. Believe me, he’s your huckleberry! - Ted Dittmer

07/19/2025

I struggled to get back into good shape. I didn’t want to chase a shortcut to skinniness with the latest fad diet. I wanted to be genuinely fit again. My decision to train with Matt Peale has helped me rebuild both my physique and confidence. My workouts with Matt Peale are always different and challenging. After several months of weekly training with Matt I have increased both my strength and mobility. I highly recommend Matt Peale as your personal trainer. He helped me get fit and he can help you get fit too. ~ Katie Lape

Thank you, Katie! I've been blessed to train Katie's husband Trey at Franco's Athletic Club and Beau Chene CC. I've also taught their children the Junior Fitness Instruction program at Franco's. Working with me is a family affair!

07/15/2025

🦵 Flexibility vs Mobility, Are They the Same?

Flexibility and mobility are both important for everything you do in life. Can you have good flexibility and poor mobility, or vice versa?

"Flexibility is defined as the normal extensibility of all soft tissues (i.e., muscle length) that allows for the full ROM (range of motion) of a joint. However, mobility represents more than just flexibility. It accounts for the entire available joint ROM and the body’s neuromuscular control during motion (i.e., muscle length and state of neural activation). Factors affecting normal mobility include posture, pattern overload movements (e.g., repetitive sports movements), joint structure, age, pain, injury, gender, and psychosocial influences (e.g., stress) (Page et al., 2010)." - National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM)

Yes, you can have poor range of motion of a joint and good flexibility of the muscles around that joint. Conversely, you can have poor flexibility and full range of motion. It is important for you to understand the difference as you age, have injuries, and engage in activities of daily living like hauling a bag of mulch from the garage to your garden.

Improving your flexibility involves stretching your overly tight muscles MULTIPLE times per day, not just for 10 seconds before a workout. With good flexibility, you can assist your joints to have better range of motion.

When you have good flexibility and joint mobility, you are winning at your game of life!

07/10/2025

I Am Pleased To Announce I Am a Certified Sports Performance Coach!

This means I’m now certified to work with athletes on all levels and in all sports to improve their performance 💪🏽⚾️🏈🏀⚽️🎾!