It’s holiday season! Food, family, and fun with a side of inactivity. Don’t let holiday travel turn you into a Grinch. You’re going to be stuck in a small confined space whenever you are traveling or when you are at the dinner table, and likely other times throughout the day. You will move in about a two-foot radius, so we …
Cooking with Mandy: Kiwi berries
If you’ve never heard of kiwi berries, you are in for a real treat! Kiwis the size of berries. What’s not to love? This week in our CSA share, we received a small container of these adorable baby kiwis and we fell in love. While they look almost cartoonish, these delicate snack-size kiwis are not some by-product of a “Honey-I-Shrunk-the-Kids” …
Cooking with Mandy: Watermelon Agua Fresca
This summer has seen its fair share of melons! And it’s no surprise that all the rain we experienced all season long produced some delicious, juicy, sweet watermelons! For the past several weeks, we have received watermelon in our CSA share, and while we do love watermelon, sometimes just eating it plain can get, well plain and boring. So why …
How to Effectively Deal with Stress at Work..in 3 Easy Steps!
We all experience stress, but we don’t all process stress the same way. Stress. It’s inevitable. Some are better than others at dealing with stress. It doesn’t have to be complicated and it can be learned by ANYONE. Having an overwhelming response to stress at work is not only detrimental to your productivity, but it is also hurts your overall …
Cooking with Mandy: Baba Ghanoush
Eggplant is delicious roasted, sautéed, or stir-fried, but it’s stupendous when mashed up in a garlicy Mediterranean dip called baba ghanoush. Silky, creamy, and luxurious, this dip is a common mezze dish, or small plate, on many a table in various Mediterranean countries. Typically served with warm pita bread for dipping, baba ghanoush is a crowd-pleaser sure to wow your …
The TRUTH About Core Training…(Hint it’s More Than Abs!)
There is so much confusion about THE core. Everyone wants a “stronger” core, and yet very few people ask what does that really mean? The (almost) mythical “core” is a dynamic system of strength and stability from your neck to your hips with efficient breathing. There is core beyond crunches and planks. Your core needs to function effectively at all …
How 12 Minutes Per Day at Work Can Transform Your Health
If you are like a majority of American’s, your job is slowly killing you. Too harsh? Ok, slowly sucking away your health. You will spend 1/3 of your life at work (~90,000 hrs) PLUS 100 hrs/ year commuting. Here are a few more stats about the American workforce and why it’s a health detriment: -25% of Americans say work is …
Cooking with Mandy: Carrot Top Hummus
Carrot tops – not exactly the most versatile ingredient in the kitchen. There’s only so much you can do with these bushy greens growing ever so weed-ily from your root veggie, but when these greens are the size of a small tree, pulverizing them down into a pesto or hummus is a great way to use them up. You can …
Cooking with Mandy: Homemade pickles
This week, things are getting pickley! We are pickling the fresh cucumbers that came in our CSA share. If you ever have an abundance of vegetables and you just can’t seem to eat them quick enough, pickling is a great option! Pickling is a preservation method that’s been used for ages. The salt and vinegar thwart off spoilage, but also …
Cooking with Mandy: Fennel and Roasted Beet Salad
Freshly roasted sweet beets and crisp, refreshing fennel are a match made in heaven. Sprinkle with a touch of salt and pepper, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, and you’ve got perfected perfection. In this week’s CSA, we received fresh beets, fennel, and red butterhead lettuce, among other veggies, like green beans and golden squash. Since the temperature here in …
Cooking with Mandy: Kale Smoothies!
If you’re one of those people who has a hard time eating greens on a plate at mealtime, toss them into a smoothie and drink them instead! Pairing veggies with fruit in a cool, blended drink is an excellent way to ensure you’re getting a healthy serving of vitamins, minerals, and immunity-boosting antioxidants for the day. You may not be …
Cooking with Mandy: Fava Beans
Guilty by association, fava beans have a sinister connotation made famous by the character Hannibal Lecter. While they would pair quite nicely with a bottle of Chianti, fava beans are a versatile legume to add to your weekly ingredient repertoire. They’re hearty enough for a main course, but yet also tender and delicate enough to embellish a side dish or …
Cooking with Mandy: Garlic Scapes
Garlic scapes are in this week’s CSA share, and we are getting saucy with them! Those strange green bean-looking tentacles in your CSA share are not of another world; they are garlic scapes! The flower-budding stalks that grow out of the top of a garlic bulb, these lanky greens taste just like garlic and are a flavorful addition to any …
Cooking with Mandy: a healthy take on the Swiss Roll
Veggie-stuffed veggies?! Can it get any better than that? Swiss rolls are on the menu today, and no, we’re not talking the dessert that comes in a box. When you think of Swiss rolls, you might be transported back to your childhood, picturing a box of the Little Debbie’s confections – those mini chocolate cake rolls, filled with crème, and …
Cooking with Mandy: What to do with all these odd-looking veggies?!
We hope you get as excited as we do when we open our CSA share every week! Receiving that box full of vegetables is one of the most exciting parts of our week! We love seeing what recipes we can create from all the goodies in the box! Some are interesting and unusual, while others are more familiar. Maybe you’ve …
Cooking with Mandy: Spiralized Zucchini Salad with Lemon-Herb Tahini
No vegetable says warm weather better than zucchini. When in season, this crisp, sweet, tender vegetable can be used in so many ways! Whether raw or cooked, zucchini is a healthy addition to round out any meal with some greens. Zucchini is a squash, but a squash unlike those categorized as winter squashes, such as pumpkin, butternut, and kabocha. This …
Cooking with Mandy: homemade vegetable cream cheese
When I was growing up, my dad often retold me and my brother the story of how he and my mom met, sharing minute details about the time of year, the weather, different smells, things like that. My dad is an amazing storyteller, so animated and so full of life that I almost always remember every detail of his stories, …
Cooking with Mandy: Shaved Asparagus Salad with a Homemade Dijon Vinaigrette
This week, among the plethora of veggies we received in our CSA share, we got asparagus and several varieties of greens – Bibb lettuce, dandelion greens, romaine, and mustard greens, just to name a few. Obviously, lettuces are most commonly used in cold salads, but these salads can be less than exciting when we throw together the same mundane blend …
Proven Way to FINALLY Fix Your Upper Back Knot
That nasty “knot” feeling we sometimes get in our upper back – it feels like it’s rooted deep in the upper back, but it can actually come from different places. Here are three ways to change your pain perception and work through that “knot”. Lay flat on your belly and place your forearms out in front, bending your arms at …
Cooking with Mandy: Balsamic-Rhubarb Flatbread
While it might look like red celery, you would be in for an unpleasant surprise if you dipped this ruby stalk into a dish of hummus, expecting celery’s characteristic crisp, refreshing sweetness. Rhubarb is contrastingly extremely tart; the kind of tart that dries out your mouth. This vegetable is actually unlike celery in more ways than just its taste. Related …
A Veggie Tale
Growing up, I was taught about the importance of healthy, balanced eating. My dad taught me how to cook at a very young age, and ever since, I’ve been a foodie. He and I still make our favorite memories in the kitchen cooking together. I wouldn’t necessarily say I always had the most sophisticated palate as a child – …
The Psychology of Resolutions
Resolutions are easy to make but hard to keep. Why? There’s an intricate cognitive process your brain goes through when you set any kind of goal for yourself, and resolutions are no exception. In order to have a chance at achieving your goals, they must be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. If you set unrealistic goals, you’re …
3 simple steps to make your diet more nutritious
If you’re like most people and your daily food consumption is SAD (the Standard American Diet), then most likely your nutrition intake is indeed sad. It can be quite overwhelming and difficult to establish healthy eating habits, but all of these habits begin with small behavior changes that aren’t so insurmountable after all. We’ve come up with a few simple …
Yoga, Demystified: What you NEED to Know
Does the very word “yoga” sound daunting? Yoga is a philosophy that is expressed through physical movements, called asanas, mindful breathing, and is usually accompanied by meditation. Contrary to popular belief, yoga does not have to be mystical or impossible, or even a boring stretching session, as many people assume. What’s even better about yoga? You own your practice. Every …
Meet Mandy: Yoga, Family and Fitness
Take it away Mandy… Hi I’m Mandy! I’m the newest addition to the Recharge team, and I am beyond excited to be here! I am the Director of Communications, and although I do not have a background in physical therapy, like the rest of our team, I do have a deep passion for all things health, fitness, and nutrition…..and I …
Tight Hamstrings? Tight Quads? Think Again!
Tight Quads? Tight Hamstrings? It might not be your muscles! Nerves supply the muscles. Nerves need movement too! Tight Hamstrings? Feeling tightness in the back of the leg is often the most common tightness people tell us about. It usually starts with “I can’t touch my toes!” This is most commonly felt in the hamstring muscle, but if it is …
Stiff Back? Stiff Hips? Try This!
We are going to teach you a simple yet effective three step movement progression to make your hips and back feel loose, limber and amazing. This movement progression we often teach to our physical therapy and HoCo CrossFit community. It helps your hips and spine move in ways often limited throughout the day. Remember, your spine and your hips have …
How ACL Sport Injuries Happen: 3 Common Mechanisms
We’ve broken down the anatomy already in this post here, now let’s take a look at how ACL injuries commonly happen. We know there is a common mechanism of injury. This mechanism can be a result of two events. A contact event, where another athlete, object, or force puts the knee in a position that causes the ACL to …
Understanding Knee Anatomy for ACL Injury Management [Video]
We see a lot of athletes, including youth athletes, for physical therapy and performance training here at Recharge|HoCo CrossFit. One of the most common questions we hear is “how can I prevent an ACL injury?” There is no concrete way to prevent injuries. However, you can reduce the risk. It starts by understanding the anatomy. Let’s take a look inside …
Men’s Guide to Understanding Postpartum Women
This guide is for you to understand a few basic things about your wives, friends, siblings, or any woman for that matter who had a child and is now getting back into fitness. I help women get back into exercise as a physical therapist at Recharge and below is a list that I have learned from these wonderful women who’ve …
3 Most Common Soccer Injuries and How You Can Reduce Their Risk
Injury prevention and prediction have become increasingly popular terms as sports injuries seem to be on the rise across all ages of soccer athletes. At Recharge|HoCo CrossFit we challenge athletes to load and perform a variety of movements. However, prevention and prediction appear to be not as black and white as we once thought. Soccer injuries are largely unpredictable. As …
The Ultimate 5 Minute Soccer Warm Up
Ready the work horses of your body for the soccer field in this warm up! Use the soccer warm up as a chance to explore movements that you rarely find yourself in and become efficient in all different directions. When working with a lot of our youth soccer players at Recharge|HoCo CrossFit, whether it’s physical therapy from injury or for …
3 Movements All Youth Athletes Need to Master
Introduction: Youth athletes have a lot on their plates now a days. From year round practice, to club teams, to the school teams, to summer camps; their sports can feel like full time job. You can hear all our thoughts on youth sports in our mythbusting episode. Often lost amongst the noise and busy schedules is the development of movement …
It’s time to Rethink Your Normal
The human body is amazing. We have people come in to Recharge|HoCo CrossFit all the time who have been dealing with aches and pains for years, decades even. They talk about how they learn to live with pain. Or learn to live with not being able to do certain things. This may be due to pain or due to a …
3 Popular Posture Myths Busted
How Important Is Your Posture? Introduction: We sit for prolonged periods. That’s part of our life. Whether it’s at work, at home, or driving–sitting is commonplace. We also use phones, tablets and other forms of technology…a lot. This means we maintain certain postures for prolonged periods of time. Unfortunately, we begin to make various correlations and even worse use good …
Anatomy of Movement: Over Head Strict Press
This is how you do an over head strict press. What is an over head strict press? The strict press is movement that is vital to any program–especially here at Recharge|HoCo CrossFit. It addresses a range of motion that we do not utilize enough in our daily lives which is having our arms overhead. That reason alone gives way to …
Demystifying CrossFit: It’s Not All About Lifting Heavy Weights
CrossFit Goes Beyond Only Lifting Heavy Weights. Introduction On this installment of Demystifying CrossFit from Recharge|HoCo CrossFit we look at the idea of heavy weights. You’ve seen the videos, you may have even had the experience, or perhaps simply been in a CrossFit box to hear the noise of weights on barbells being thrown around. That is not the only …
Mythbusting Pain– This Will Change Your Perspective
How Much Do You Really Know About Pain? This Discussion About Pain May Surprise You! Myth #1: “Pain means that I have tissue damage” Growing up we still believed the notion that if you were in pain, you had an injury or were damaging a part of your body. That narrative is now shifting as we begin to understand …
Low Back Pain Movement Progressions That Feel Amazing
Introduction to Low Back Pain Low back pain. There is so much out there on what is right and what is wrong. You can spend an entire day just googling “low back pain” and going through all the articles. What we hope to do with these posts on low back pain is to give you actionable steps and movements to …
Anatomy of Movement: The Pull-Up
The infamous pull-up is a movement that many strive to get “at least one.” It takes a great degree of strength and confidence to perform– making it a perfect movement to highlight in this episode of anatomy of movement. We are looking at a strict pull-up. Not a kipping pull-up which uses the lower body to propel up to the …
This is Dry Needling–Does it Work?
Introducing Dry Needling. Now let’s see how well it works! There are multitudes of manual therapy “tools” that physical therapists have at their disposal to help with the perception of how your body feels. Often you can feel tight, restricted, or painful amongst a many other descriptors that may limit you from your daily activities or participating in exercise. We …
Mythbusting: Youth Sports and Early Specialization
Welcome back to another episode of mythbusting from Recharge|HoCo CrossFit in Ellicott City! Today’s focus is on youth sports and early sports specialization. Youth training has a lot of myths surrounding it and we dive into 3 of the most popular ones here! Myth #1: “Early sports specialization will help my kids performance and get them to an elite …
Anatomy of Movement: Deadlift
The deadlift is one of the foundational movements you NEED to know. Let’s breakdown the deadlift with the Recharge Anatomy of movement. Strength training for the longest time was viewed as debilitating to your mobility and even worse, bad for your heart 😱. Those days have long past. Enter, the deadlift. Believe it or not, the deadlift was once referred …
Meet Dr. Ryan Smith
Hi. I’m Dr. Ryan Smith. You can call me Ryan. I get the opportunity to talk about myself a bit here, so I’ll keep it short and tell you all of a story that I believe summarizes up myself as a person. I must have been 19 at the time, back home for summer from college. We had a garage …
7 Ways Mindfulness Helps Your Overall Health
Are you in control of your thoughts? Mindfulness is starting to gain ground as a mainstream topic. The practice of mindfulness is something that continually shows positive overall health outcomes in research. Mindfulness practice is being rapidly applied throughout people’s lives. At Recharge we understand the impact a mindfulness practice can have for individuals, which is why we do our …
Anatomy of Movement: Push Up
Anatomy of Movement: Push Up We’ve looked at the Squat, now let’s look at the push up! The push up is a fundamental movement that reflects the skill and strength of any person. It requires strength for the actual push from the arms but also the skill to maintain proper positioning throughout the range of motion. With this mindset, we …
Mythbusting: Physical Therapy
MYTHBUSTING: PHYSICAL THERAPY This week’s mythbusting episode explores everything physical therapy or as known around the world, physiotherapy (with a little help from our business partner, Ben Fung, who is visiting all the way from San Diego!). Despite having great patient satisfaction overall, physical therapy is still a relative unknown in its ability to help individuals with a wide array …
Vlog #5- Callie
Say Hi to Callie! We have an employee! Well… really an intern. Well… really to us, she is just Callie. An intern. An employee. A Recharge team member! Callie arrived as a community liaison to help with a little bit of everything as Recharge grows. She is also a pre-PT student here to learn about everything CrossFit, Physical Therapy, …
Mythbusting Episode 3: CrossFit
There is a lot of stigma and emotion surrounding CrossFit and sometimes that can muddy the water in terms of what we do and do not know about CrossFit. Today’s mythbusting episode focuses on three myths involving CrossFit. “CrossFit is synonymous with injury.” What we are starting to see as more studies come out in regards to injury and CrossFit …
Anatomy of Movement: The Squat
Anatomy of Movement: Squat Squatting is often considered the holy grail in fitness. Why? It’s one of the most comprehensive and adaptable movements to build lower body strength.. more importantly though, it is the equivalent to us getting up and out of a chair. You may be surprised to know that two clinical tests utilized to assess independence and function …
Mythbusting Episode 2: Aging
Recharge MYTHBUSTERS Episode 2: Aging “If you didn’t know how old you are, how old would you think you are?” – Satchel Paige Aging has a lot of connotations along with it, some good, some bad but more importantly agin has a lot of myths surrounding what health and age have to do with one another. In this episode …
VLOG 4: Fun, Fit and Wine
2 Mile Walk. 10,000 Friends. Wine in the Woods. We are approaching one month since we opened. Every week brings about a new adventure and new connection. This week amongst the usual physical therapy, CrossFit and business development, we took some time to support Howard County and hang out with people from our community. Oh and drink some wine. We …
Mythbusting Episode 1: Low Back Pain
Health and Fitness MYTHBUSTERS Episode 1: Low Back Pain Recorded Live from Recharge Low back pain is confusing, frustrating, and bothersome for a vast majority of individuals throughout their lives. In this mythbusting episode we tackle the confusion surrounding low back pain and some of the myths that seem to have lingered around longer than they should be. Myth #1: …
See a Physiotherapist for Low Back Pain
You Should See a Physiotherapist for Low Back Pain We’ve all known someone, or have ourselves, experienced low back pain. In fact, most of us will experience at least one episode of low back pain in our lives. This is not meant to be alarming, on the contrary, we believe that it views low back pain as a part of life …
Is CrossFit Too Intense?
CrossFit has a stigma of being “too intense.” What does that mean? What is a hard work out? How can we objectively define intensity? In two ways… One way is called rate of perceived exertion. The other, a more widely known way, is heart rate. If you regularly measure your RPE and HR you can create an objective and accurate …
Vlog 3: First Week
Welcome to Recharge Grand opening went off without a hitch. It was great. Now it’s time to open the doors. Recharge and HoCo CrossFit are officially open for business. So how do we spread the word and get people to sign up? How do we take a world-class facility and make it a world-class community experience? Great question! In this …
Vlog Two: Week of Grand Opening
The week of the grand opening! Finally. After months of build out the week leading up to the grand opening was filled with late nights, last minute adjustments, and a lot of “little” things. The things you never thought of when considering opening a health hub. It was a whirlwind of a week, but one that has created a lot …
Vlog One: Delivery Day
Every week Gene and I will be recording our thoughts on the process that is Recharge. If the Start Up Experience is the insight into the how and the why, the Vlogs are for us to really examine the what of Recharge. What is going on behind the scenes? What do we think of it? What is failing? What is …
