Heather Milton leads group fitness classes at NYU Langone Orthopedic Center and is a clinician with the Running Laboratory and Golf Laboratory. She is a board-certified exercise physiologist and strength and conditioning specialist. She is certified in Functional Movement Systems® and by the Titleist Performance Institute. She develops specialized programs to help athletes reach their maximum potential and ability. Ms. Milton creates unique and motivational programs to inspire health and fitness clients and designs injury prevention programs for at-risk athletes and youth sports teams. She also identifies limitations that may affect sport performance, including gait faults in running, swing faults in golf, and swing, kick, and throw patterns in rotational sports. Her undergraduate degree in cardiopulmonary science and her master’s degree in clinical exercise physiology are from Northeastern University.
In this interview, she discusses: kinds of patients who can benefit from building stability, strength, and muscle; measures to assess current physical abilities of patients; conditions where building stability, strength, and muscle can produce a preventive effect; impact of strength training on other abilities, such as improved balance and mobility; influence of demographic factors on the attainment of successful outcomes; the difference between stability and strength; progression of building stability, strength and muscle; difference between strength and mass; key components of a program to build stability, strength, and hypertrophy/muscle mass; common mistakes individuals make in their training programs; whether individuals naturally bulk up; gaining strength and avoidance of adding muscle mass; what to say when efforts to gain muscle for years fail; and who benefits from each type of training.