Happy Birthday to readers who celebrate their birthday today, October 31. Also those with birthdays yesterday and tomorrow. Everyday too.
One reader with a special birthday today is Ivy who turns 71 - Inspiring Ivy. Ivy has been generously sending in stories for all to benefit, giving ideas for healthy exercise as part of normal daily life.
"I hope I can look as great as Pearl does when I reach 97, she is amazing. You will smile when I tell you that I did this fun test on the internet whereby you have to answer 34 questions re your health, what you eat, if you take medication etc. etc. The answer came back that I really was 45.5 years of age and I was going to live until I was 106.5 years of age.
"I had already told my kids that I am going to live until I am 96 and that it would be pay back time. I have now changed it to 106.5 years of age - my very words being "May God help you." Of course they laughed - I reminded them of the old saying 'Words said in Jest.'"
Happy Birthday! We made everyone delicious Internet birthday party and Halloween party food. Everyone come celebrate.
Happy Halloween and everyday. "Boo unto others" with good happy food, activity, and spirit. Celebrate everyday, by eating, moving, and living with fun, happy, intelligent, good spirit. Here is a Halloween poem to laugh:
Don't yell at us Don't scream and shout 'Cause when we're scared Our eyes fall out!
The third harvest is here in the Northern Hemisphere. The Hunter's Moon is bright in the sky.
The last harvest of fall is a time of endings and beginnings. More than a commercial holiday of destruction and gruesome death, the approaching winter was historically a time to reverently mark departure of the living and life-giving fields, and be thankful for the harvests they gave. Revering of elders was observed in analogy.
The first and most important precept of thousands of years of yoga and martial arts is ahimsa. Ahimsa means non-violence, non-harm, non-destruction. Ahimsa was reaffirmed in recent times by the Mahatma Gandhi, and in the West by Martin Luther King, Jr. In all the classes I teach, I remind the students that ahimsa is something you incorporate in all your actions. Don't harm yourself by sitting in injury-producing bad slouching. Don't harm yourself with bad exercise. Don't harm yourself by destructive thoughts and actions. Don't harm yourself with unhealthful food and drink. Don't harm yourself by hunching your shoulders to stress through preparing meals, when you can relax your shoulders, straighten your back, breathe, and use each stoke of washing, cutting, and preparing food as beautiful meditation in the same amount of time. Don't harm others with spiteful words, deeds, and thoughts. Don't cause others fear or pain. Don't cause yourself fear and pain.
In many of the countries where we have traveled and lived, lovely short public service announcements occur daily with kind messages of doing good. Television and radio commercials are paid for with no other purpose than to give specific positive examples of helping each other for a better world. Where we have lived in the US, continuous messages of spiteful and worse behavior are common as entertainment.
Several centers in your brain process self-control. They need exercise like anything else. Studies of imaging these brain centers in people who overeat, showed that with retraining, the centers changed in level of activity when pictures of food were viewed. "Exercising self-control" is more than an expression.
Children, and even adults, need consistent positive examples. It is good and crucial exercise. It is easy to destroy, and takes (but also gives) energy to be good. Instead of "Mischief Night" tonight, do good. Instead of spending money on destroying property with thrown eggs and toilet paper, have fun learning a healthful recipe that you can enjoy for years to come. Learn to stand on your hands safely. Paint or draw a picture of a good wish. Talk about how it can come true. Design and construct inspired homemade costumes. Help the community. Volunteer at a shelter. Exercise your spirit. Develop a fun, beautiful positive public service announcement for your home, or a commercial project, that reminds to uplift spirit and behavior. Teach a child something. Don't wait until they are already doing bad. Teach them consistently, before they know to do either, so that they will more often know to choose good and why.
The average American spends nearly $15 on Halloween candy - more than $1 billion total on unhealthful refined sugar and hydrogenated fat candy - just for Halloween. This is not parental love. It is the same as giving them cigarettes or addictive drugs. Change that. Parental love is giving them beautifully functioning self-control brain centers. Halloween story and ideas in Exercise Common Sense Discipline - Turn Down Halloween Junk Food.
Positive behavior is too important to leave up to only the schools, the entertainment industry, the government, the Internet, the home. We all add ahimsa.
Many chapters of ideas for happy bountiful living are in the book Healthy Martial Arts.
Photos of Paul Creating Good on Halloween. Can you find Jolie in the photos?
Diabetes causes such serious health problems that the risk of death is twice as high for someone with diabetes compared to someone of similar age without. More than 20 million people in the US have diabetes (colloquially called "the sugar" disease) with 2 million a year more cases diagnosed every year. Exercise has been found to be a top factor to prevent and treat diabetes.
Three main types of diabetes are type 1, type 2, and gestational.
Type 1 diabetes, where the body does not make enough insulin (in the body organ called the pancreas), is treated with injected or inhaled insulin, although nutrition and exercise changes are a fundamental part of management.
An estimated 90–95% of cases of diabetes in North American are type 2. Type 2 diabetes is also called non insulin-dependent diabetes and obesity-related diabetes. Type 2 was rare until modern sedentary habits combined with mass sales of unhealthful food.
Gestational diabetes is generally a form of type 2 during pregnancy.
In the recent past, type 2 diabetes developed only in adults as they gained weight, reduced activity, and increased packaged, commercial, unhealthful foods. An escalating phenomenon of type 2 diabetes in children is now occurring.
Approximately 85% percent of adults and children diagnosed with type 2 are overweight and less active than they could be. Type 2 is increasingly being found to be best treated with more fun movement and less bad food, a win-win situation.
Several studies have found that exercise and healthier diet are more effective than medicine for people with type 2 diabetes. A recent randomized controlled Canadian study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that people with type 2 diabetes who began exercising developed better blood sugar control, both from aerobic exercise and resistance training. Not exercising yielded no improvements in sugar control. People who combined aerobic exercise and also lifted weights had the biggest improvement. It is not known in this study if results occurred because of the type of exercise mattered, or because the duration of exercise was greater in the combined exercise training group. According to an editorial co-published with the study, "Doctors should prescribe exercise to all type 2 diabetes patients who are healthy enough to work out."
In the past people with diabetes and diabetes-related complications were discouraged from exercise. However, exercise has been known in the past, with recent substantiating studies, to be the top factor to prevent and reverse diabetic problems. According to William Kraus, MD, of Duke University Medical Center, "Failing to prescribe exercise to patients with diabetes is simply unacceptable practice."
Things To Help
You do not need a gym or special clothes or equipment to get aerobic or weight lifting exercise.
Go outdoors for a break every day that you can, for fresh air, sunshine, and fun movement.
For both active and resistance exercise indoors and out, remember that daily healthful movement easily accumulates from your healthy bending, balancing while dressing, taking the stairs, and other daily real life movement.
Have fun - skate, bowl, cycle, walk, go dancing, gardening, shoot hoops, take food to shut-ins and get them moving too, with improvised exercise of moving arms and legs, clapping, singing, and having fun.
For fun exercise-as-lifestyle ideas, check through lists of Fitness Fixer posts, linked at the right of each article.
My post Hyperbarics for Diabetic Foot Injury gives more information on preventing amputations from diabetic wounds, and lists some of the ways that exercise reverses the contributors and complications of diabetes.
There is great hope. Have fun making a new healthier life.
Trendy vitamin water for exercise is big business, adding cost, litter, and sometimes dyes, synthetic isolated vitamins, and questionable sweeteners. Instead, easily make your own sweet, whole-food vitamin water for pennies:
Put clean water in a blender
Add a few grapes with the skin and seeds and blend well.
Carry it with you in healthful containers - described in Green Water
Grape skins and seeds have been found to contain cancer-fighting and other disease-fighting compounds. Think of the money you just saved on expensive grape seed oil products.
For a different light flavor, squeeze in some fresh lemon. Helps keep the container cleaner, too. If you like tea, put a tea bag in the container. No need for hot water. Try a few strawberries with the green tops, watermelon with the seeds, or some raw sweet red pepper to make a variety of light, vitamin water drinks.
Commercially bottled water may not be a healthy fitness drink, from the container it comes in to the water inside.
The water may be no healthier than tap water, the plastic containers may leach chemicals into the water they hold, and the bottling, transport, and disposal all seriously weaken environmental fitness, and ultimately your own.
The Cornell Daily Sun made a nice summary of the information:
CNN news reports that Aquafina and Dasani are no different than tap water
Plastic water bottle manufacturing process, requires 1.5 million barrels of crude oil a year
13,700 18-wheelers are used per week to transport one billion bottles of water across the world.
Bottled water undergoes eight tests under Environmental Protection Agency requirements. Tap water must undergo 22 different tests (tests in countries like Great Britain and Canada are more stringent).
One kilogram of plastic bottles requires 17.5 kilograms of water to be used in the production process. You're putting more water into it than you're getting out.
Bottling and shipping water produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2006.
Tap water is a safe and economical alternative to plastic bottles.
Both articles, plus others, advocate avoiding commercially bottled water and re-filling your own plastic or Nalgene bottles with simple tap water. I add two things:
Use non-plastic bottles. Small glass bottles have been working for me and my students. For more safety, wrap them in protective neoprene sleeves, available easily in many places, including "dollar" stores. Some students have come in with stainless steel bottles from old army supply. We discourage aluminum bottles until we know if there is possibility of the aluminum leaching into the water and if that may affect health.
Get a water filter for your tap water. There is work showing the water supply increasingly contains medical drugs excreted by the users and other chemicals that constitute a "body burden" of compounds with potential health effects. Future posts will explain those topics.
One of my students, Lily, who brings me a wonderful quick-bean recipe in thoughtful glass jars, adds this site for more eco-health through Deforesting Your Mailbox of catalogs.
Click this Friday Fast Fitness for recipes for Healthier Fitness Water. Readers, send your ideas for healthy, convenient water and photos of your inventive, fun containers.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify throughDrBookspan.com/Academy.See Dr. Bookspan's Books. ---
Photo 1 by blmurch. Photo of trashed posture and water bottles by justin.
Bill is now away on his current adventure, flying commercial cargo flights all over the world. He tells about it in Reader Successes Endure - Next Update From Bill. He took time to send some photos of how we changed simple wrist positioning to stop hand and wrist pain when biking:
Don't do this for too long. Hands may go numb and wrists may hurt.
The handshake grip, easy on elbows and wrists.
Alternate hand position, when sitting more upright.
Bill writes:
"I find it helpful to change hand position frequently. It minimizes discomfort and numbness. Ensure position does not put a lot of weight on your arms. Seat and feet should carry most of the weight.
"Labor day ride (September 2007) with a quick group of us old-timers (ages 55 to 66) rode 67 miles in 3hrs 30min. That's 19 mph! Best ride I've ever done. No pain or numbness. Your stuff sure helps."
Distribute weight over your entire hand and fingers.
Use forearm muscles to prevent the wrist from pinching back under all the weight.
The idea is to keep your weight up on your muscles, not just passively compressing the joints.
Use healthful positioning and muscle use to prevent wrist pain when cutting food, using a keyboard or data entry device, gardening, and all the fun exercises you can do. Future posts will give specifics for each, but you can apply the general concepts now to all you do. Confining the wrist to a splint does not stop the source of the problem and is not healthful in the long-run. Wrists need movement and loading to keep the joint healthy, the muscles strong, and bones dense. Just do it in a healthful way.
--- Read success stories of Fitness Fixer methods and readers, and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, or in the Fitness Fixer Index.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. See class schedules, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy. ---
A New Zealand swimmer asked for more sports nutrition. Here is Friday Fast Fitness - quick, good tasting sports shakes - cheaper and healthier than store-bought.
My father and grandfather, (and great-grandfather+) were Ice Swimmers. We all swam all year in open water including several over 20 miles (32km). My grandfather's sure-power recipe was an oily mixture (for future posts). When I raced competitively, I swam 5-7 miles a day, 35-40 miles a week (up to 64km/week). The coach pushed the common fad of eating Jello powder. As a vegetarian I skipped it, and watched other vogue sports food assumptions come and go. Best is real food.
Throw in a blender or other mixer:
Clean water
Peeled banana
Peeled orange with the seeds
Some of the well-washed orange peel
Raw walnuts or other favorite
Some cooked brown rice left from a meal
Sweeten with raisins or a prune softened in clean water. Molasses optional. Adds many minerals.
Cinnamon powder to level blood sugar
Tips:
For the day of the event, you can substitute tea for the water.
Experiment with amounts to get preferred consistency
If you want a chocolate shake, add a scoop of unsweetened cocoa powder (unsweetened non-dutched baking cocoa). People with migraine can leave out the cocoa.
Don't junk it up with milk, sugar, artificial sweeteners, commercial sports powders.
If you use a juicer, put the solids and pulp back in, or you will be drinking sugar water and throwing away the point and the nutrition.
Try different fruit - Persimmons, mangosteen, pineapple, melon, berries, your favorite. Raw red beets are an overlooked sweet fitness food good in shakes.
For flavors, add a small slice of unpeeled ginger root, washed mint leaves.
"The water temp now (has risen to) 14 degrees Celsius (57F) and I had a robust swim this afternoon in Wellington Harbour (photo below right). Interestingly enough there was virtually no shivering. I'd swum for about an hour and a half in the pool earlier today.
"I was struck by the difference between pool and ocean swimming... technically I've improved tremendously in the pool over the past few weeks and my times have improved greatly. In the ocean it's much harder -- but I felt faster nonetheless.
"I am not a fast swimmer -- in fact, at this point I am still too slow to pass Phil's test -- but I can feel I'm making progress. I've been able to hold a pace of 2.5 km/hour for a few hours, and this has been an improvement from a measly 2 km/hour not very long ago. And I'll be up to 25 km/week by the end of this month (about 15.5 miles a week - longer and generally more work swimming than running).
"My plan is to increase weekly mileage to 40 km (approx 25 miles) per week by the end of November and then to make a push through to 50 km/week (about 31 miles) by the end of December -- the 'crunch' month. I'll attempt to renter the open waters by mid-November and begin reacclimatization to the cold. With luck and persistence, I'll be granted the privilege of attempting the Cook Strait swim.
"I met with Phil Rush -- the man who has crossed the Strait seven times (including a double-crossing) and who holds the world's record for a triple crossing of the English Channel. He will be piloting the support boat for my attempt, which will hopefully be in February 2008. His advice: swim, swim, swim… then be ready to take a 6-hour test in early January. In the test I will have to demonstrate that I can sustain at least a 3 km/hour pace for the 6 hours. He told me I'd have to figure out the kind of sustenance I'd need on my own, and he recommended that I not try to gain too much weight -- though he cautioned not to lose any from this point on. He also suggested that I procure the skills of a swim coach to refine technique (Fitness Fixer posts in progress on faster healthier stroke mechanics for swimming).
"Any advice on nutrition or cross-training would be appreciated. Because I also have a full-time job, time is tight and hours in the water are limited. I've experimented with a commercial product (name deleted) for multi-hour endurance activities that's easy on the stomach."
I am not a nutrient biochemistry or epidemiology researcher, so I can only report what I have read from others, which can inadvertently repeat and perpetuate wrong information incestuously (we all say so, it must be true). Following is a summary of what I believe and have seen from working with my patients and athletes:
In general, good nutrition all year will give more benefit than eating special foods for an event, race, or hike.
Processed packaged sports supplement foods cost far more than the ingredients, and you can get healthier ingredients, cheaper, and just as easily without commercial sports powders, bars, drinks, and other preparations.
Many nutrients need to work in the original food containing other components that make each part work better. Some do not work, or have even been found to increase health risks when concentrated in vitamin and mineral supplements.
In general, no commercial processed "sports food," no matter how engineered or marketed as effective for training, will give you the health of healthful real food. Whole foods, for example, a simple apple with the skin, contain combinations of nutritional and disease fighting chemicals that are not available in supplements.
"Energy food" technically means it has calories. Extra calories alone will not enable you to build muscle or win a race.
Increasingly, some "energy food" and drinks contain stimulant compounds. This practice is a foolhardy one to become accustomed to, building cycles of inability to focus, exercise, or feel well without them, and varying degrees of agitation with them, sleep difficulties, and various cardiovascular risks.
Products with soy are usually unfermented soy. Unfermented soy contains enzyme inhibitors which block digestion, goitrogens which inhibit thyroid function, phytic acid, which blocks minerals like zinc and calcium, and estrogen-promoting compounds. Anyone with tendency to estrogen-dependent tumors or cancer, fibroids, cystic ovary and breast, or endometriosis will be better to avoid unfermented soy.
Even if sugar water will extend endurance, it is still junk food, not healthy for the long term. Science Daily reports "Sports drinks face junk food label"
Protein and carbohydrate together work better for training than sugar alone, however commercial processed powdered mixtures are still not the healthy choice over the long term.
This is all good news. You can eat good tasting food, that is quick to make, and cheaper and better for you than expensive commercial "sports food."
Don't worry that you have to eat engineered products to be able to win. You will win better in the long run without them.
Thank you NY Emergency Medicine for hosting Grand Rounds 4.04 this week. On the web, each Grand Rounds is a post by someone who does the meticulous work of gathering their choices for the best medical posts of the week.
"Here is a way to cut down on ED (emergency department) overcrowding; Dr Bookspan, the Fitness Fixer, discusses some easy ways to prevent back pain. Listen up everyone!"
A special story came in. I had been answering inquiries from a reader who wrote me to ask how to stop her mother's knee pain, and after her mother was better, to help her father. I was charmed by this good daughter who wanted to help her parents. She faithfully taught her mother everything I wrote her, and she wrote back with results. I didn't know where she was from, and didn't ask. In the weeks of letters back and forth, she caringly scanned and e-mailed me copies of lab reports and pharmacy prescriptions. She asked good questions about the medicines and tests and how they could help her parents. The tests and prescriptions had notes in Arabic and distinctive generic names. I wondered if I might wind up on a watch list of people who correspond with people from certain countries. In one reply that I wrote, I headed the instructions on knee pain with, "To whoever else may read this, please use it to stop your knee pain too, for more peace and less pain in the world."
Here is the story of Katayon:
"I belong to Afghanistan and I am very grateful to Dr. Jolie Bookspan. My mother’s knees pain was my biggest concern for a long time. She went to more than six best doctors here in Pakistan. But all she got was medicine for relieving her pain which not always helped her. She was also told not to walk a lot and rather sit on the chair most of the time. My mom is young and still it’s very soon for her to spend her life just sitting. Doctors said the cartilage inside her kneecap has dried and can never be recovered and she will always have the pain. And that the only way is to always use those tablets. This really bothered me to think of her feeling pain all her life.
"After trying the doctors in the city, I selected the option of getting support through the internet. That is where I fortunately found Dr Jolie Bookspan who always keeps telling me that medicine is not the only option. But rather we have to adopt healthy movements. In the first stage, this knowing this thing encouraged and cheered me a lot. She also introduced me to the free articles- exercises related to knee pain and back pain, on her website. I have checked almost a lot of those useful links and currently I am following a lot of those helpful movements, exercises and directions mostly for knee pain. Currently I am also suffering from knee pain which is due to weakness of my muscles as the doctors here have told me. Dr Jolie has been a great help for me and my mother.
"And now I and my mother are feeling much better. I learned not to use knee-bands (bracing) because it further weakens the joints instead of strengthening them. I have shared all what I leaned with my whole family. So we are all blessed with an opportunity of adopting healthy joints movements. Besides a lot of other very useful guidance, I learned these important things: climbing the stairs putting full flat foot on the ground avoiding knees coming forward, so overall moving the knees in a healthy way which should not create pain while walking – I am practically doing this and I really see how useful and pain free it is; while picking something from the ground, trying to avoid knees coming forward and instead making it like sitting on a chair. So all in all, we are following all of the guidance and tips which really are pain free and help my knee joints get strengthened. I and my mother regularly every morning and anytime during the day we find time do the squat and lunge exercise which are very much helpful. Not only this, but I have also shared this exercise and all of the other healthy tips with my office colleagues who are suffering from knee pain.
"I never thought of a way out but only as the doctor said that the only option is to have medicine for whole life, whereas Dr. Jolie changed the whole thing for me encouraging me to have fun and keep walking pain free. I feel very fortunate to have found her. And I appreciate all of her time and efforts that she makes to help the world live without pain. I and my mother are deeply inspired by what she is doing to help the people. And we wish her best of luck and lots of energy to keep on her good job." Katayon Q – Afghanistan
Why is there a picture of a flower with this story? A personal photo was not the right thing. I asked Katayon what photo she thought would represent her story and country. She wrote:
"With this email I am sending a picture to go with my story. I was thinking of something to show relief and happiness as a result of being healthy. And I came up with the idea of selecting flower picture for my story. To me, a flower presents every positive thing."
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Train speed and eye-hand coordination while having fun.
Have you seen martial arts movies where the master catches a fly with his chopsticks? The true master doesn't restrain or harm the lives of others. In the spirit of healthful exercise, World Vegetarian month and higher spirit, try this instead:
Tear a sheet of paper to different size pieces
Throw in the air
Catch as many pieces as you can as they flutter downward.
Want more? Use only one hand to catch. Then switch.
You can play this with children too. Get more exercise and prevent pain by using healthy bending to pick pieces up and start again.
Prevent Main Factor in Back Pain After Running and Walking
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
One of our readers, Nick, wrote me that he had had slowly increasing lower back pain despite exercising regularly. He ran, he stretched, he did abdominal exercises. Nick's doctor told Nick to give up running and take up low impact activity. Giving up running made Nick miserable but he did it. The pain came and went, but overall did not change. One day during a walk, his pain had spread into the back of his hip and was unendurable. He didn't feel able to make it back home, and wound up in the emergency room.
His x-rays were inconclusive and he was sent home with anti-inflammatory medicines, instructions to stretch his hamstrings, and rest or try other non-impact activity. This is a common story that readers mail me. It is unfortunate because:
The real cause of the pain was missed.
You do not need to give up running.
This kind of back pain is not inflammatory so does not benefit by anti-inflammatory medicine, which often causes its own problems.
Impact is not the problem. With a little common sense you can see if you clomp instead of walking or running lightly. Use leg muscles to step lightly instead of bashing down with no control. You should be able to run and jump with little impact. Many people walk with higher impact than a good runner lands during running. Future posts will cover this.
Most important was the missed cause - lower back pain during and following running, walking, lifting, and other upright activity is usually from allowing the lower spine to over arch. This hyperlordosis is not caused by an anatomic problem "condition." It is a bad posture, which is easily correctable. Hyperlordosis is one of the most commonly missed causes of lower back pain. Left drawing shows neutral spine. Right drawing shows one kind of hyperlordosis.
In the left neutral spine figure, the hip is level and horizontal from front (ASIS) to back (PSIS). The hip is also vertical from the top of the leg (greater trochanter) to the center crest of the hip. The right drawing shows allowing the front of the hip (pelvis) to tilt forward, which increases the lower spine angle. A small inward curve in the lower back is necessary for disc health and shock absorption. A high angle is as painful as any other pinching and pressuring of an area.
This is what I had Nick do. You can try it too. Check yourself these two ways to see if you stand in hyperlordosis:
Stand up and look sideways in a mirror. Your belt should be level-green line in left neutral drawing. The side seam in dress or trousers should be vertical from leg to waist - black arrow in left drawing, not tilted forward at the hip
Back up slowly and gently into a wall. If your backside touches first, it may be an indicator that you lean forward at the hip. If your upper back touches first it is usually a good indicator that you lean the upper body backward, which increases a second kind of hyperlordosis. See Neutral Spine or Not? for more.
Here is how to reduce an overly large arch:
Stand with your back against a wall, with heels, hips, upper back and back of your head touching.
Put your hands on your hips, thumbs facing the back.
Roll your hip under so that your thumbs come downward in back.
Feel the large space between lower back and the wall become a smaller space.
Keep your heels, hips, upper back and the back of your head touching the wall and stand tall and straight. Lower back pain that is caused by hyperlordosis should ease right away.
Keep the good new neutral spine when you walkaway from the wall, and all the time.
More step-by-step instructions and photos in the Ab Revolution manual.
Check back often. I am working on the next part of this post: Another Common Cause of Back Pain With Running.
Nick was quickly able to return to running by stopping hyperlordosis. So was Ted - Back Pain From Running. Recognize hyperlordosis. It will save office visits, even emergency room visits, tests, time, money, stress, and worry. Reduce hyperlordosis to neutral spine with a simple repositioning technique to stop and prevent much pain.
--- Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here in the several replies to questions already here under this post. Get all posts on this topic by licking labels under posts and links in posts. Also check archives at right, the Fitness Fixer Index, and all the success stories of Fitness Fixer methods.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. See class schedules, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy. ---
Thank you Nurse Rached for hosting Grand Rounds this week. On the web, each Grand Rounds is a post by someone, with their choices for the best medical posts of the week.
Nurse Rached included my post Back Pain From Running in Grand Rounds this week which included posts, mostly by and about military medical personnel.
After reading about success with exercise and stretching over various posts including Monday's Getting More From a Hip Stretch, reader Dr. Alan, sent this photo at right of his mother Pearl, age 97, stretching her hip. The straighter upright you sit, and the farther toward the ankle the leg is placed over opposite knee, the greater the stretch. If you are at your desk, try putting ankle over opposite knee, keeping the lifted knee under the desk. More stretch when low desk height keeps your knee down. Pearl also does the "ankle over knee" hip stretch while standing.
Pearl gets regular leg exercise through good bending as she goes about her busy days - she bends well with one foot in front of the other - the lunge, and with feet side by side - the half-squat. This post tells why this kind of bending gives better exercise, maintains mobility, and prevents various knee problems.
This post tells the Hip Stretch story started with Inspirational Ivy in August. In that post, Ivy tells how she used healthful body mechanics to fix a serious and extended attack of sciatica and foot drop the year before. Several posts since, have given fun updates. Here is the fun that the Hip Stretch started:
Feb 2006, Ivy from New Zealand wrote to me,
"My hips are tight, particularly the right side that being the side I had the severe attack of sciatica. I have worked so hard on my hamstrings and my "dropped" foot, the bonus being that I am winning. Now it is time to put the same amount of work into my hips."
"I am jumping for joy. No, I haven't won a million dollars.
"After having been doing the posterior hip stretch lying down for the past 21 months twice a day, I can now do the same stretch sitting. My hips have always been so tight and there was no way that I could get my ankle across the knee - this has been my goal and I have done it. I have to be honest, I have not got it to perfection, that being my next goal. I wonder if that will take another 21 months. It just shows that a little persistence pays off in the end. I trust that all is well with you."
Twenty-one months - what a dedicated learner. It was a joy to work with enthusiastic Ivy. I wrote back saying it should not take so long, and asked if she did the stretch standing up to put on shoes and socks to make it real life, not an artificial stretch. Ivy wrote back,
"I have tried standing to put my sox on and cannot quite make it YET (note the yet), that will come. I do, however, ensure that I always stand to remove my sox, and the like. Also to put them on except for the sox. I also stand when I moisturize my legs and feet - I do this so as to improve my balance."
I wrote back encouraging putting socks and shoes on and off while standing. The point of stretching is healthy function, not to "do a stretch" just to have a greater range. The benefit is from applying the stretch to ability to stand steadily on one foot and have muscle stretch and length to put on shoes standing .
Four hours later Ivy wrote back:
"Wow, I did it. I have just returned from a 30 minute walk, did some lunges as a further warm up and thought I would give it a try. I cheated, instead of shoes, I used slippers - I thought it would be easier. Tomorrow I will try shoes.
"Dr Jolie, you are my inspiration, you asked if I could do it and that set me a challenge. I must NEVER SAY CAN'T. As you are probably aware, I am a very motivated woman, however, there is no one to spur me along - you have done that and again, I can only say a huge thank you."
The next day this arrived,
"I am very pleased with myself. I just needed that push. As I said yesterday, I must never say can't again.
"Again, all I can say is a huge thank you. A huge hug from me."
Readers, stand with safe balance to dress. Send me your fun photos, mpegs (short computer video) and stories of using healthful range of motion for daily life.
Ivy is a great-grandmother! (and a pretty great person too). She says,
"I guess I am very much like my late father who was a quiet achiever who used to tell me to 'stand tall and be proud of who you are' - I pass this advice on to my kids all the time."
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - for clean, healthy, fresh energy food for hiking, exercise, and sports, and October Vegetarian Month - Easy peanut butter in your own kitchen:
Put fresh, raw peanuts, or other favorite like walnuts, in a bowl and crush them for arm exercise with any kitchen pounding tool. Or use a chopper, grinder, blender, coffee grinder, or other processor.
Crush to powder, depending how chunky you want it.
Mash in apple cubes to make moist, creamy sweet peanut butter. Spice with cinnamon if you want.
Spread on apple, carrot, and other fruit and vegetable slices. Make it portable by stuffing inside raw sweet green and red peppers, in sandwich and wraps (non-grain eaters can make tasty wraps from leafy greens). Use for toppings.
Vary the combination - try almonds mashed with pears. Sunflower seeds or walnut and banana. Sesame seeds and figs. Make with a friend for healthy social fun. Exercise your imagination for healthy sports food.
--- Read success stories and send your own. See if your answers are already here - click Fitness Fixer labels, links, archives, andIndex. Subscribe free - "updates via e-mail" upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification,DrBookspan.com/Academy. Get more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
On Oct 20 and 27th 2007, Temple University Center City (TUCC) Campus in downtown Philadelphia will hold a fun, fast moving workshop, "Fix Your Own Back Pain - Medical Breakthroughs in Non-Surgical Treatment."
The class is a combination of fun and fast-moving audiovisual lecture and non-strenuous physical practice.
You will learn how to fix and prevent the causes of neck pain, back pain, sciatica, herniated and degenerating discs, stenosis, lordosis, facet pain and other problems right in class. You will learn how to not get stiff and sore in the first place:
The class will be held over two Saturdays Oct 20 and 27, 2007, each class 9am-11:30am. This is one 5 hour class divided over two sessions. Plan to attend both days.
Information about this class and others is on my web site page for CLASSES along with links to free readings. To register e-mail Kevin Wood Director, or call (215) 204-6565. The class is suitable for the out-of-shape as well as the athlete.
One of my areas of injury research for both Army and Navy aeromedical systems was preventing back pain from running. Disease Non-Battle Injuries (DNBI) from exercising in the gym and doing PT is a huge military issue - grounding far more personnel than combat casualty.
I ran several studies and found that overarching (hyperlordosis) is a major overlooked cause of lower back pain - some examples are shown in the post Prevent Back Surgery.
I developed a simple method for people with this kind of back pain to understand and reverse the cause of pain themselves, with simple repositioning to neutral spine instead of overarching. It was unexpected news to some groups who have been taught to overarch, and who deliberately tilt the backside far out in back for exercise. But it was welcome relief for my guys who liked to joke that they were my STRACguys - combat slang for 'stupid troops running around in circles.'
I wrote a little training manual that went through several improvements to become the book, The Ab Revolution™ No More Crunches No More Back Pain. The book has two parts. The first shows how to stop back pain during various standing activity in daily life, both non-active and active, including running. The second part gives ways to exercise core muscles in healthier ways.
Reader Ted found the book and put it to immediate use to stop years of disabling back pain and return to running. Ted wrote:
"I am 57 years old and have weighed 175-lbs for the last 10-years (which drives my doctor nuts). I discovered running in 1969, after gaining weight when I entered college. The track at the University was fenced in, so we'd slide under the fence to run it. I jogged for six years, then raced for another ten years. I wasn't a fast runner, but I hit the legendary ''Second Wind'' on many occasions - you feel like you could Run Forever.......No Time....No Distance.....Just You and the Road.........it is a Mystical Experience....
"I tore out my ankle ligaments in 1980, and had to rehab for a year 'til I could start running again. I have run carrying 2 1/2-lb hand weights for the last 22 years. In 1989, I tore my back. It hurt, then the pain subsided, but flared up every so often."
The only way Ted had then to "cure the pain" was to stop running. Ted continued:
"In 2005 I REALLY hurt it, went into spasms (my wife had taken me shopping for eight hours, and I still blame this on being taken shopping), and the pain made me look back fondly on the Ligament Tear of 1980. After that, it was an All the Time Thing. Running dropped to twice a week (if that) and the slightest thing would trigger a back spasm. I accidentally came upon Dr Bookspan's ''Ab Revolution'' and 'mistakenly' bought it as an exercise book. It's more of a Way of Life, just like running.
"I have been pain-free (amazing) for 12-weeks and counting. I have increased my running to 4-5 days a week. Not having my back killing me is more than I could have hoped for. I thought my running days were over, and I would have missed them.......A LOT.
"The funny part was, I had gotten so used to the pain, it took about three DAYS for me to realize it WASN'T hurting. I cannot recommend the techniques in this book enough to other runners, If you can do The Thing You Love, why WOULDN'T you try this?"
What specifically did Ted do to fix the pain? He writes:
"The two techniques (in the book) I got the results from were the Standing Beginning Crunch with the hands facing each other, and the Where is My Belt Pointing? technique."
I will ask Ted what's going on with his knee in the photo he sent for this post, and what we can do to fix that up next. I will cover more on back pain after running, and also hope to post some other interesting work I did on the military running chants called jody calls or jodies, and their effect on perceived exertion during running. Click the label military fitness, below, to see my work on this. Check back often for more.
--- Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and The Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal feedback. Top students may apply for certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
"Vegetarians have the best diet. They have the lowest rates of coronary disease of any group in the country. [T]hey have a fraction of our heart attack rate and they have only 40 percent of our cancer rate." —William Castelli, M.D., Director, Framingham Heart Study, the longest-running epidemiological study in medical history
From my work in sports medicine, I will add to Dr. Castelli's work that I see fairly consistent reduction in joint pain and other pain syndromes when patients stop known "inflammatory foods" including meat and dairy.
October 1 is World Vegetarian Day (www.WorldVegetarianDay.org). The month of October is Vegetarian Awareness Month. The purpose is for a happier, more aware and respectful, and healthier society.
Hurting animals is unhealthy for all involved. In the spirit of healthy body and mind, this post gives four ideas:
Build your own health and benefit your exercise: food and recipes for better exercise training (regardless of your sport), and preventing disease and pain syndromes. Get the book Healthy Martial Arts
Free vegetarian starter kit, free newsletter, with materials in Spanish, to avoid cruelty to yourself, animals, and the Earth, one meal at a time - TryVeg.com
Reduce global warming: GoVeg.org reports on work published in NewScientist.com - It's Better to Green Your Diet Than Your Car (17 Dec. 2005). "You could exchange your "regular" car for a hybrid Toyota Prius and, by doing so, prevent about 1 ton of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year, but according to the University of Chicago, being vegan is more effective in the fight against global warming; a vegan prevents approximately 1.5 fewer tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year than a meat-eater does. The math is simple: You could spend more than $20,000 on a Prius and still emit 50 percent more carbon dioxide than you would if you just gave up eating meat and other animal products."
Feel encouraged. Being vegetarian or making occasional vegetarian meals does not have to involve any strange or expensive foods from specialty stores. You do not need any special pots or food processing equipment. It is a myth that vitamin supplements are necessary. Grocery bills can also be also far less expensive when you don't purchase meat (and don't substitute other expensive food that you do not need).
More Good Stuff:
I will post easy-to-make healthful (real) food for athletes and exercisers, during October vegetarian month, and for Vegan month in November.
Click the label "nutrition" under this article for all Fitness Fixer on healthy smart nutrition, and other labels for all posts on each topic. NonVegetarians are welcome.
--- Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy. ---
Happy Birthday! We made everyone delicious Internet birthday party and Halloween party food. Everyone come celebrate.
