We have all been there. You cross the finish line of a great race, celebrate the effort, and head home. But a day or two later, your legs feel completely heavy, flat, and unresponsive. When athletes ask me why their legs feel like concrete after a hard effort, they are often looking for a simple answer. As a kinesiologist, I look at this through the lens of muscle physiology and neurology. Here is what is actually happening beneath the surface, and how to fix it. Understandin

You too can have glutes like this. Hamstring strains are a constant frustration for runners and active adults. They are slow to heal, easy to re-injure, and highly disruptive to your consistency. When people look for solutions, the fitness industry tends to offer "magic bullets." For years, the Nordic hamstring exercise has been treated as the ultimate cure-all. If you just do your Nordics, the theory goes, your hamstrings will be bulletproof. As a kinesiologist, my approach

Summer is finally here, bringing long days that are perfect for building running volume. But as the thermometer climbs, your running performance can face a serious bottleneck. Running in high heat and humidity can quickly turn an easy session into an exhausting slog if you do not adjust your approach. As a kinesiologist, I look at heat not just as an obstacle, but as a specific physiological stressor. When you understand how your body reacts to the warmth, you can use targete

When I first wrote about "The Starting Monday Project" back in January, it began as a confession. I had let a lighthearted joke at track meets become a shield for drifting away from my own standards. My starting point in mid-November was 195.3 pounds. Six months have passed since that initial weigh-in. Today, I want to share a direct look at the progress, what actually worked, and how a background goal completely changed the experience. The numbers, six months later I am a bi

If you have ever been told to suck in your stomach or hollow out your belly during a workout, you might actually be turning off your body’s best protective mechanism. Many people view the core as just a flat panel of muscles on the front of the body. In reality, your torso is a 360-degree structure. To move safely under a load, reduce unnecessary strain, and transfer power efficiently, you need a strategy that protects the entire system. The science of the brace Dr. Stuart Mc

In endurance sports, we often default to 'more miles' as the solution to every performance plateau. This approach focuses almost entirely on your metabolic engine, the aerobic and anaerobic biochemical pathways that produce energy. But performance is equally dependent on your mechanical machine. This is your structural 'chassis' the muscles, tendons, and nervous system that act like a spring to translate that energy into forward motion. As a Kinesiologist, my goal is to troub

If you train with me, you’ve likely noticed that medicine ball walks, slams and throws are a frequent staple in our sessions. As a Registered Kinesiologist, my goal is to bridge the gap between clinical expertise and real-world coaching. We don't just throw things to break a sweat (its easy to make someone tired.) every single exercise we do has a specific purpose. Whether you are managing an injury, returning to activity, building strength, or chasing a performance goal, med

The impossible just happened. Sebastian Sawe shattered the legendary two-hour marathon barrier with a mind-bending time of 1:59:30. Even crazier? The top three finishers all broke the previous world record in the exact same race. How did we get here? In a recent breakdown, running coach and sports scientist Steve Magness highlighted the exact mechanisms driving this massive leap in human performance. It isn't just about training harder. It’s a perfect storm of advanced testin

Kinplus was built to fill a gap. Not to add noise to an already crowded industry, but to offer something more clear, more honest, and more useful. That's still the goal. I've always believed that the best coaches never stop learning. I apply that to myself the same way I apply it to the people I work with. The programming I'm putting out now is sharper than it was a year ago. Not because what I was doing was wrong, but because I kept asking better questions. That process of l

There is a version of the perfect workout that lives in every runner's head. The one where the conditions are ideal, the legs feel fresh, every split clicks, and you finish knowing something shifted. You felt it. That was a good one. And then there is every other day. The run that felt like dragging yourself through wet cement. The tempo that fell apart at kilometre 3. The long run you cut short because life intervened. Most runners spend a lot of energy chasing the first kin

Let's get the fear out of the way first. If you're a runner who has avoided the weight room because you're worried about gaining muscle mass that will slow you down, you're not alone. It's one of the most common concerns I hear from distance runners, and it's almost entirely unfounded. Here's why. When you run significant volume, your body releases signals that strongly favour endurance adaptations over muscle growth. The two pathways compete, and in a runner who is training

Can you spot Kevin? Front row, hand on watch, ready to go. The Chilly Half Marathon kicks off the winter/spring race season today, with Around the Bay and the spring marathons right around the corner. If you've been putting in the work, your fitness is built. What's left is making sure your mind shows up too. Setting the Stage Performance starts before the gun goes off. The goal isn't to psych yourself up, it's to create the conditions where your body and mind can do what the

We just wrapped up the OUA Championships, a natural point of reflection as we plan for the future. The season as a whole was massive: we rewrote the Brock record books in the 600m, 1000m, 1500m, 3000m, and the 4x800m relay. Seeing 11 personal bests at the final meet was the perfect capstone to a year where our distance squad effectively moved the bar for what’s possible at this school. Looking through my notes this week, I realized that while training plans are complex, the p

I have a confession: I’ve always been a geek. And I'm talking about the kind of geekiness that was around before gaming went mainstream, countless hours lost in the detailed worlds of Runescape and the strategic layers of World of Warcraft . That same fascination with complex systems and how things work didn't stay confined to virtual realms. It gradually shifted into something much more tangible: understanding the human body, Be purposeful A few years back, my obsession

Do you do a long run each and every week, no matter what time of the year or phase of training you are in? This topic has been on my mind recently, especially after reading a great piece in Canadian Running Magazine titled "Why You Don’t Need to Do a Long Run Every Weekend." It echoed something I wrote about a while back in my own post, "Church of the Long Run: What Are You Scared Of?" The weekly long run is basically running culture at this point. But performance coach Stev

We spend a lot of time talking about heat training. In fact, I wrote a whole guide on how to survive summer running not too long ago. But recently, I came across some fascinating research that looks at the other end of the thermometer, and it might just change how you view those frozen winter mornings. The research comes from Dr. Dominique Gagnon, a physiologist who has spent over a decade studying how the human body handles the cold. His latest data suggests that while we o

I saw a headline this week that made me stop and smile: "Experts say jumping rope is more effective cardio than running." As a runner, my first instinct was to defend my sport! But then I took a step back. We see these headlines all the time.. the idea that fitness is a contest, and we have to pick the single "winner" to get in shape. But if you want to run faster, feel stronger, and stay injury-free, we shouldn't be picking sides. We should be blending them. I like to think

For a long time, "Starting Monday" was a running joke I told at track meets. Whenever an athlete caught me with a coffee and a cookie, that phrase was my shield. It became such a recurring theme that one of my athletes eventually handed me a Tim Hortons receipt with those words written on it. It was a lighthearted jab, but it hit closer to home than I wanted to admit. The reality was that I had drifted away from my own standards. I started this journey at 195.3 lbs . My metab

If I could pull one phrase out of the vocabulary of my patients, it would be this: “I used to.” “I used to run a half marathon every season” “I used to lift four days a week without fail.” “I used to be able to go 100% on zero sleep.” I hear this constantly from people who are deeply committed to being capable, high-performers, parents, athletes who find themselves stuck in a cycle of injury and frustration 👋 (me too). When I ask a new patient about their activity level, the

At 15, I was all-in. I dropped everything for running because my early success felt like something that had to be protected. I’ve become a firm believer in the "long game" and recent science is beginning to show why a broad foundation is such a powerful competitive advantage. The Power of Unstructured Play My childhood was defined by variety. I played seasonal school sports: volleyball, basketball, soccer, and track. My summers were filled with riding bikes, making forts and