At Balanced Flow Wellness, we specialize in enhancing your performance training. Our experts tailor personalized recommendations to our clients’ own athleticism and skill, identifying what you need to improve and giving you the information, resources, and support you need to reach those goals.
Maybe you’re an athlete, or maybe you’re a new parent—either way, your role in life requires specific physical abilities. At our Chicago-based wellness center, we can help you build those much-needed strengths and skills.
How is performance training different from fitness training?
Performance training is all about optimizing your performance in specific skills, making it most popular among athletes. Fitness training is more concerned with overall wellness and has broader goals. Performance training considers the niche activities a person does and finds exercises to hone those skills.
While some training activities, like those for core stability and balance, are always beneficial, others are more unique to certain sports and activities. For example, yoga requires impeccable joint mobility, while in golf it’s less important.
Golfers need great lower body strength and power, while a rower needs more upper body strength. Consider a soccer player; they are likely focused on gaining speed and agility, while a powerlifter is concentrated on maxing out their strength.
The specifics of a performance training plan are determined by an individual’s needed skills and an evaluation of how their physique can be enhanced to improve those skills.
Treatments to Address Specific Needs
At our practice in Chicago, our team specializes in understanding the interconnected systems of your body and how optimizing one attribute can be a catalyst for other benefits. Surpassing your goals with impressive results drives our work. Below are some of our favorite treatments for achieving this.
Miha Enhanced HIIT Bodytec
Miha Enhanced HIIT Bodytec is a wearable technology that amplifies the intensity of any workout. This futuristic workout suit uses electromyostimulation (EMS) to achieve the equivalent of 2.5 hours of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) in just 20 minutes! It is ideal for individuals looking to see massive improvements in strength and speed in a condensed period of time.
What is HIIT?
HIIT stands for high-intensity interval training. It’s a cardio workout that involves alternating between periods of intense exercise and brief recovery periods for less than 30 minutes. HIIT can help decrease body fat, increase strength and endurance, and improve health outcomes. The vigorous nature and impressive results of HIIT make it perfect for athletes.
What is EMS?
EMS stands for electromyostimulation. It’s a type of energy, commonly used as a muscle strengthening therapy. Miha Bodytec can deliver EMS energy to the muscles in your abdomen, back, hips, legs, and arms for a full-body workout every time.
EMS works by penetrating your muscles with electrical impulses, which trigger 85 muscle contractions per second. EMS mimics the natural process in your body that moves your muscles, but it can increase the frequency and intensity of the contractions beyond your own capability.
What is a Miha Bodytec EMS training session like?
After a consultation to evaluate your medical history, physical goals, and current condition, you’ll meet with one of our medically trained movement experts for a Miha Bodytec EMS training session. Your trainer will take you through a series of movements and exercises chosen to work towards your personal goals.
Because the EMS technology is making the most out of your every move, these sessions are only about 12 to 20 minutes long. The difficulty will be in line with your abilities and goals. Many of our patients see initial results from Miha Bodytec EMS training after just a few weeks.
Emsculpt NEO
Your core supports everything you do—reaching down to tie your shoes, swinging a golf club, or even helping your lungs contract. For quick and effective core strengthening, we perform Emsculpt NEO treatments.
Similar to Miha Bodytec, Emsculpt NEO uses electricity to create muscle contractions. This technology uses HIFEM (High Intensity Focused ElectroMagnetic) waves. It is a phenomenal treatment for people to gain core stability and strength efficiently, which can improve overall strength, stability, and balance. People often feel a difference from Emsulpt NEO after a single session.
Emsculpt NEO for the core is beneficial for a wide variety of athletes. We’ve also had individuals use it on their glutes to improve their running, hiking, and climbing abilities.
What is an Emsculpt NEO session like?
Emsculpt NEO sessions are just 30 minutes long and require no downtime. At most, you may feel some muscle soreness for 1 to 2 days, just as you would with a regular workout. This technology can stimulate over 20,000 muscle contractions in your half-hour-long session. That’s like doing 20,000 maximum exertion crunches!
Emsculpt NEO is not painful, but it isn’t quite comfortable either. It feels like a workout where you don’t have to do any of the mental effort, and it’s much faster. We recommend a minimum of 6 to 8 Emsculpt NEO sessions to maximize your results.
Testosterone Optimization
At Balanced Flow Wellness, we like to optimize your inner and outer well-being. Optimizing testosterone levels in both men and women can increase endurance and strength, reduce recovery time, and improve overall performance. With optimal testosterone levels, you can build muscle in shorter periods of time.
We administer hormone optimization therapy for a spectrum of needs, including physical performance, mental agility, low libido, and more.
What is hormone optimization?
Hormone optimization is a therapy for replacing deficient hormone levels and enhancing those that are suboptimal. As you age and go through certain life events, hormones fluctuate significantly. Once you get older, this means that there’s a good chance your hormones are not doing you the favors they could be.
This is significant because hormones influence every bodily function, including:
- Metabolism
- Mood
- Fertility
- Acne
- Blood sugar
- Growth
- Menstruation
- Sexual function
As you can see, hormones are critical to your daily life, let alone athletic performance. Athletes working to perform at the highest possible level can benefit greatly from having optimal hormone levels.
Vitamins
24/7, your cells and organs are carrying out thousands of functions. To do this, they need vitamins the way your favorite meal needs ingredients. We normally get vitamins from food, but a variety of causes can disrupt this process. That’s why we include vitamin shots in our wellness offerings.
Vitamin shots can provide the following benefits:
- Boost energy and mood
- Enhance memory
- Promote fat loss
- Improve skin, hair, and nails
- Decrease stress and depression
- Increase metabolism
- Speed recovery
- Support immunity
- Strengthen bones and muscles
- Increase endurance
Based on your needs and goals, we can customize your vitamin shots to target specific benefits. For example, boosting energy and recovery is a significant advantage for athletes in performance training. Some of our most popular vitamin shots include an amino blend, biotin, glutathione, fat-burning lipotropic MIC, and B-12 shots.
Performance Training: How Cardio & Strength Training Work Together
Performance training activities need to be specific and focused. They are best devised during a one-on-one consultation. However, there are two primary activities that can benefit everyone, from high-performance athletes to office workers. These activities are cardiovascular exercise and strength training.
Cardio and strength training work in tandem to support your overall fitness and health. While cardio benefits your cardiovascular system and oxygen usage, strength training boosts your metabolism and prevents injury.
Benefits of Cardiovascular Exercise
During cardiovascular exercise, your heart beats faster and blood flow increases by up to 20 times. Your breathing gets much faster and deeper than when you’re resting. These biological responses strengthen your heart, enabling it to pump more blood with less effort. This improves your body’s ability to take in and transport oxygen.
Oxygen is critical to energy production, muscle function, and overall athletic performance. Increased oxygen can improve your stamina, recovery, and cognitive function, all of which can make a noticeable difference in athletic performance.
At Balanced Flow Wellness, we can help you determine the best cardiovascular exercise plan for your unique needs and athletic goals.
Benefits of Strength Training
During strength training, the targeted muscles undergo microtears—a normal part of weightlifting or resistance training. The body responds to these slight injuries with protein synthesis to rebuild the muscle fibers, leading to muscle growth and strengthening. This has a plethora of benefits for athletic performance.
Stronger muscles lend themselves to increased power and muscular endurance. It also enhances your metabolism for better body composition long-term. Strength training not only fortifies muscles but also tendons, ligaments, joints, and bones. This offers athletes the advantages of increased mobility, better balance, and injury prevention.
Our team at Balanced Flow Wellness is here to guide you through the ideal strength training plan for your individual needs and skill objectives.
Try Performance Training at Balanced Flow Wellness
We facilitate performance training from the perspective of physical rehabilitation and total body wellness specialists. Optimizing your body for performance while preventing pain and long-term consequences is our bread and butter. If you’re looking for performance training in Chicago, Balanced Flow Wellness is here for you.
To further explore our treatment options for things like weight loss or physical therapy, try our Wellness Planning Tool. It allows you to add your concerns and, in return, you’ll receive a personalized treatment plan. For an in-person consultation, use the button below to book your appointment. Our team looks forward to hearing from you!
