Here is Friday Fast Fitness - get in shape with true fitness:
"For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. "
- Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993) British Actress
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The new Indiana Jones movie came out this past weekend, the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It is set in 1957 with fun fitness and iconry of the era, for future blog posts. Today - the Rocket Sled.
In the early part of the movie, Indiana Jones and the Soviet Russians brawl through a US military testing base in Nevada. Jones and a Russian officer wind up on a rocket sled, which blasts them on a speed track into the desert.
Rocket sleds are one of several devices that create and test the effects of high acceleration on equipment and the people who use them. High acceleration forces occur when jets take off quickly, when launching a space flight, to eject from a hit (compromised) fighter jet, on roller coasters and spin and fall rides, when you fall from a height, and any time you change speed and/or direction quickly. Interesting changes occur in the body under acceleration. Acceleration is one of the areas of my study as a research physiologist and was my work for a time at two facilities testing air vehicle and human systems.
G-force is a measure of acceleration, not force, but the term g-force is also used for the reaction force that results from acceleration. More on meaning, spelling, and math of g and G in another post. Too much g-force can result in g-LOC (Loss of Consciousness), pronounced "jee-lock"in English, but just as meaningful when using the Cyrillic pronunciation of "loss." When piloting a multi-billion dollar property (the fighter jet) G-LOC is not a good thing for anyone. The pilot may convulse, called "doing an Elvis" because the flailing looks like playing an air guitar - a real air guitar. Then the pilot may "ding" (lose consciousness) and the vehicle may "descend below the level of the terrain" (crash) and "disperse energetically" (explode) and "value unfavorably" (be destroyed), and the crew and anyone they land on may "achieve a negative health status" (die).
So we test.
A rocket sled is a small platform. Rockets propel it on the ground on rails. It creates high onset g-forces for a time limited to the length of the track. When personnel or equipment riding it sit as in a car or plane, they experience acceleration pressing them from front to back (on an x-axis).
To measure the higher g-forces with short onset experienced in jet bail-out procedures, a vertical ejection tower can be used. A small seat is propelled quickly upward by a contained blast force under it (like lighting a bomb). If they are positioned to sit upright, the acceleration acts on them from head to foot, on their y-axis.
To experiment with varying accelerations over different amounts of time and onsets, one device used is a centrifuge. A long support arm swings around and around a center anchoring point -like swinging a ball on a string around your head. A container, often ball shaped, at the end of the support arm holds the equipment or personnel being tested. The ball can rotate to position the people inside at any angle to simulate the changing positioning of a cockpit during maneuvers, for example.
What happens to the people in these testing devices? Often they throw up all over my nice equipment. Some of my test subject pilots used to have contests who could eat the worst thing to redisplay on testing day. One ate plastic bugs just for the fun he was sure to cause - then he didn't throw up, no matter what we did to him. In vertical (y-axis) ejections, there is high impact and acceleration forces on the discs and spine. Back injury is a concern for ejection scenarios. Vibration, both during acceleration and non-acceleration situations, such as for helicopter and jack hammer operators seems to be a high contributor to back pain. It is not known if the various vibration devices sold as fitness devices are of the kind (vibration frequency or amplitude) that contribute to joint pain. G-LOC is another consideration. Why do we test it? To see how to prevent it, if we can screen for who is more likely to get it, if we can train those prone to it to be more resistant, and so on, in g-force tolerance improvement programs (g-TIP).
The set of photos at right is a well-known one of USAF Colonel John Paul Stapp, M.D., Ph.D., riding the rocket sled. He was a pioneer of acceleration study and is also known as the originator of the expression "Murphy's Law" for things that can go wrong. The effect on his face along the x-axis is not from his high speed, but the acceleration which is increasing in photos ii and iii, and decreasing in v and vi. Even though his speed is greatest in photo iv, speed is not increasing or decreasing much, so there is little effect.
More on the interesting effects of acceleration and environmental testing from roller coasters to jets to movies in posts to come.
Click labels under this post for more Fitness Fixer on each topic. For example, for all posts on fitness issues portrayed in the movies or other media, click movie/media fitness.
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In July, I will teach three workshops at the annual conference of the Wilderness Medical Society in Snowmass, Colorado. The conference is open to all who want to learn.
Prevent and Fix Injuries Fast moving, jam packed, hands-on workshop to prevent and rehab sprains, bad arches, knee, disc, shoulder, upper back, lower back, SI joint, and mystery back pain. Same class offered twice (one session each): Sunday July 27, 2008, 3-5pm or Tuesday July 29 3-5pm.
Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier: Why Well Known Stretches Aren’t Stopping Injury and What to Do Instead. Come relieve conference aches on the spot, and take home effective techniques. Same class offered twice: Sunday July 27 2008 1-3pm, and Tues July 29th 1-3pm.
Functional Core Training for the Outback No crunches or forward bending that pressures discs. Learn fun, quick techniques to straighten posture, fix lower back pain from hiking and backpacks, and functionally strengthen, from simple moves to the toughest you can get. Bring a backpack (optional backpack training). Same class offered twice: Saturday July 26 2008 10am-12pm, and Monday July 28 10am-12pm.
You don't need to attend the whole conference to take the workshops, although the conference and the people who run the WMS and come to the meetings are fun and interesting.
"Hello, I'm writing as someone who has incurred a training-related lower back injury and who has great interest in your words on hyperlordosis. I am hoping that you might shed some insight on how to achieve a neutral spine while doing "kettlebell swings." This is the exercise that has caused me back pain, and I would love to return to working out with kettlebells, but am not sure how to do so without creating too much lordosis. Any ideas? I appreciate any assistance you can provide and thank you for your contributions! Take care, Dan L"
Throughout history, people have lifted and swung weights of all kinds of shapes. Kettle bells (also called kettle balls and many other names) are usually ball-shaped weights with a handle. A variety of sizes is shown in the photo, above, along with a medicine ball for comparison.
Kettle bells were long used in various martial arts and cultural festivals and contests before being rediscovered for modern weight lifting. In general, you lift, swing, and move them to do various weight lifting exercises. Kettle bells are weights. Benefits of kettlebells are the same as lifting and swinging other kinds of weights.
The photo above shows injurious lower spine posture of the person lifting or swinging overhead, called overarching, swayback or hyperlordosis. His upper body tilts backward relative to the lower spine. There is too much inward curve, pinching and compressing the lower spine. You can even see this pinched fold in his lower back. This poor posture is a common cause of lower back pain. People who chronically over-arch this way often feel they need to bend over forward to make the pain stop. However, using neutral spine and not allowing the slouch while lifting overhead would stop the cause in the first place - right photo below.
Recent kettlebell devotees have made a small set of lifts, and limit swings to mostly vertical swings up and down between the legs. However, a wider range of movement and more function can be trained. Great benefits are possible using weights with handles for functional core stability training, as below.
The photos above, of injurious overarched spine position (left) and healthy neutral (right) while swinging a heavy medicine ball overhead, are from the book Healthy Martial Arts. My black belt student Christopher demonstrates. This is a similar motion as swinging kettle bells overhead by the handle.
In the left photo, Christopher demonstrates the hyperlordosis posture that compresses the lower spine and is a major cause of lower back pain. He allows the hip (pelvis) to tilt forward in front and out in back, and his upper body tilts backward relative to the lower spine. In the right photo, he reduces the overarching to neutral spine. The belt line changes from tipped downward in front to level.
Keep neutral spine when lifting and swinging kettlebells and any weight overhead (right photo). Prevent the slouch of leaning your upper body backward and tilting the pelvis (left photo). Leaning backward and allowing the hip to tilt are often mistakenly done to "balance the weight" and make the lift easier. Leaning the upper body back and tilting the pelvis are not necessary to balance a load - your own muscles can hold the load, and in fact, that is the point of lifting the weights.
Overarching increases the small normal small inward curve (normal small lordosis) to a large curve (hyperlordosis). Hyperlordosis increases compression on the joints (facets) and soft tissue of the lower spine. The same overarching is the hidden cause of back pain in women who lean back and/or tilt the hip trying to offset the load of a pregnancy - Back Pain in Pregnancy - and Why Men Can Get It. Leaning backward and overarching are not helpful adaptations as sometime thought, are not unavoidable, and are not limited to pregnant women. Overarching (hyperlordosis) is a common bad posture, and an often missed source of back pain. It can be easily prevented by using your muscles to hold neutral spine. The post Prevent Back Surgery shows photos of hyperlordosis compared to neutral spine during many activities.
Bending over forward to swing kettlebells between the legs is another exercise where injury and back pain frequently occur. Good squatting technique reduces the problem. Often weight lifters spend much time learning and debating good squat posture, then bend over (injurious bad bending) to pick up and put down their kettlebells.
Neutral spine while exercising with kettle bells is the same as neutral spine during anything else - just hold your spine position. Neutral spine is not done by tightening or clenching any muscles. It is done by moving your hip and lower spine the same way you move your arm to scratch your nose - without tightening, just moving it to where you want it. Holding neutral spine is the same as not slouching your shoulders or not letting your mouth hang open - a voluntary use of your own muscles - built-in exercise.
Keep breathing, Have fun. You can swing weights of any kind in any variety of ways, to be stronger and healthier, without injury.
Learn neutral spine swinging kettlebells, babies, and all other fun weightlifting:
This weekend the United States observes the national holiday of Memorial Day, formerly called Decoration Day, a day to remember soldiers fallen in war.
May we be so strong of body, Strong of spirit, Strong of humanity That none need war, That no soldiers need fall
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - easy, good tasting, healthful food you can grow yourself in your kitchen. Sprouting seeds can be fun to do with children to teach them many things about food, responsibility, biology, and more. Mung beans are a good easy bean to start with:
Spread a bunch of dry beans on a plate. Add enough water to wet the beans. Leave out on a sunny counter.
Rinse beans and plate daily, and return beans to the plate with fresh water.
Within a week, you will have fresh sprouts.
Above photo is a plate of mung beans a few days after sprouting
Sauté lightly in a pan with balsamic vinegar, a slight amount of olive or grapeseed oil, and season with any variety of healthful spices that you like - curry, pepper, fresh lemon, etc. Scramble the sprouts into whatever vegetables or other good food you are cooking.
If you eat the sprouts when they are barely sprouted, it will taste nuttier. If you wait until the sprouts have grown long, they will taste more like greens.
Sprouted sunflower, clover, broccoli, radish, lentil, mung bean, and pea sprouts taste good and have many vitamins and disease-fighting phytochemicals. Sprouting seeds and grains reduces the amounts of phytates in the food, which in turn, increases absorption of minerals like calcium.
Related Fitness Fixer:
Junk Food Through Your Skin? tells how sprouts contain sulphoraphane, which activates cancer-fighting enzymes in your own cells throughout your body, making sprouts healthy not only when eaten, but when used as part of homemade sunscreens.
Articles intended for yesterday and today could not be posted. Blogger is having technical difficulties. No photos or graphics are uploading to Fitness Fixer. The scheduled posts that describe healthy use of kettlebell weights would not be as fun or understandable without seeing the photos. They will come, hopefully soon. Until then, try this remarkable site www.bonkersinstitute.org.
Bonkers Institute was sent to me by reader Dr. Ern Campbell, a good man, who runs the immense resource of the Scubadoc diving medicine site and forum, scuba-doc.com. I am one of the site's diving medicine advisors.
The Bonkers Institute site, on the surface, seems to be funny stories. Look closely to realize how they intelligently expose critical topics. From their "about" page, they explain that they bring to light "shameless disease mongering and unprecedented pharmaceutical profiteering."
"...Our mission is to expose fraudulent medical pseudoscience wherever it is found… We march into the field of battle armed with a powerful weapon: our sense of humor. Fighting pseudoscience with pseudoscience…"
In a hospital, Grand Rounds is a lecture for doctors about a patient or topic. On the web, the weekly Grand Rounds is an electronic post that lists its vote for the best the best in online medical writing. Thank you Musings of a Dinosaur for hosting this week.
In Grand Rounds, Number One Dinosaur wrote that Sprain Prevention and Rehab Training tells how to strengthen the ankle. Better than strengthening, the post explains that the point is to train the positioning sensors in the receptors of your ankles. When you retrain your own muscles to know where straight position is, you can hold ankle position with stable ankles without artificial shoe supports or bracing, which weaken the supporting muscles from disuse.
"Thanks for yet another great post. I am an ER nurse and see the horror of chronic back pain on a daily basis -- the disability, depression, and addiction that eliminates any quality of life for the sufferer and their family. Even after surgeries and pain clinic visits, I've yet to meet a patient who has managed to rehab well. Last year at age 52, after years of moving patients, some over 700 pounds, I injured my back while installing a patio and I couldn't breathe, let alone move without pain. If I hadn't been a devoted follower of yours, my career would have been over. I got your book, Fix Your Own Pain, did the exercises and went back to work four days later. I took a muscle relaxer to help me sleep the first three nights but have never taken any pain medication. The exercises actually relieved pain for me. I can't thank you enough.
Just a quick question, can you suggest proper form for climbing stairs, to prevent back and knee problems? I'm in a 3-story condo and don't want daily routine to do any harm to the old joints. Thanks so much Jolie!"
Barb, you have the intelligence, quick thinking, interest in learning, and empowerment that makes a quality ER nurse. Try Better Exercise on the Stairs.
--- Read more success stories and send your own. See more by clicking labels, archives, and The Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer - "updates via e-mail"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.
Fast Fitness - Fixing Your Handstand to Neutral Spine
Friday, May 16, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Last week's Fast Fitness showed a movie of how to step up into an easy handstand and get back down. This week shows a common pitfall - letting your lower spine sag under gravity - and how to fix it and hold neutral spine.
My student Dennis, Olympic medalist in wrestling, demonstrates:
Step your foot up behind you high onto a wall, then the other.
For the first 5 seconds of the movie, Dennis allows the lower spine to overarch (increase the inward curve) under the pull of gravity, a bad posture called hyperlordosis. It is not the normal inward curve, it is an easily changed bad posture.
At second 5 he changes the tilt of the hip and lower spine back to neutral spine. The action is like doing an abdominal crunch to bring the spine and torso just forward enough to be straight.
This technique practices the muscles and positioning for straight standing, making it better than just a handstand. If you want to gain abdominal strength, using neutral spine uses those muscles. An important difference in Fitness Fixer exercises is that they are not only exercises alone. All the techniques I developed are supposed to be used to train muscle function and positioning for when you stand up and walk away.
Use neutral spine, not only for handstands, but all you do. Examples are in Prevent Back Surgery.
--- 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 throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Get more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
The post How Strong Is Your Arm? - Readers Find Out tells how true fitness does not mean doing a bunch of exercises, then returning to slouching, criticizing, smoking, harming others, and putting damaging things in your body. Fitness is making the many aspects of your life clean and healthy. A reader (who I know to be a good person) wrote:
"Something that I find helpful for people around me and for myself, is to start with setting a milder goal. Like promising yourself you'll only eat sweets during weekends. Many who plan to stop cold turkey can't live up to that and end up feeling bad about themselves all of the time. That's not healthy either. ;-)"
I would not say the same about heroin or binge drinking or hurting the weak. I would not teach a child that it is ok to have unsafe sex or drive drunk, as long as it is "only a little" or only on weekends. Doing something you know is damaging or wrong (not just eating some sweet fruit or small amounts of jaggery, or honey if you are not vegetarian, but junk food that is damaging to body and environment) is not solved by limiting it to weekends.
"Feeling bad 'all the time'" because of it is also not a healthful strategy. Knowing something is not right is useful to change your behavior. If you feel bad and do not change your behavior what are you accomplishing? Don't use it as an excuse to continue unhealthful things just so you don't feel badly.
A useful plan is to think. We teach children not to drink automobile coolant, no matter how sweet it tastes. Pools of coolant on the ground have poisoned many animals who come to drink the sweet stuff. It is sweet as a sugary drink, but damaging to put in your body.
Posts on how to strengthen your health as daily mindset:
In a hospital, Grand Rounds is a lecture for doctors about a patient or topic. On the web, the weekly Grand Rounds is an electronic post that lists its vote for the best the best in online medical writing. Thank you David Williams at Health Business Blog for hosting this week. He called my post "mindful" movement, but Fitness Fixers know it is just common sense.
Fixing Pain and Golf Easier With Real Life Movement Than Isolated Exercises
Monday, May 12, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Jeff is a Silicon Valley executive, and coach of Next Stage. He found that a lifestyle of unhealthy exercise habits can accumulate, until one day of golf becomes "the Camel's Last Straw."
Jeff writes:
"There is life after back pain – even the kind where you can’t walk, sit, lie down, or sleep.
"The weekend before Thanksgiving (2007), I was out golfing, and I made a pretty bad swing at a ball that was buried in deep rough. My club got stopped by the deep grass, my back and arms kept going. I immediately felt a sharp pain in my lower back – so much in fact that I could no longer make a normal swing or even get down into a putting stance.
"I had to give it up after 6 holes and head home. I could still walk, but I couldn’t crouch and I had a hard time getting up out of a chair.
"Three days later feeling a little better, I headed out to the fitness center to do some treadmill running - NOT a good decision. After about 10 minutes, as I was cranking up the speed to a fast jog, I felt a searing pain in my lower back and down through my left thigh. From then on, I was toast.
"By the next morning I could barely walk. I had so much pain in my lower back and left leg I needed to support myself with a cane. I could barely walk or stand with the cane. There was no comfortable position for me, and I couldn’t sleep more than an hour at a time – even on pain killers and over the counter sleeping pills. Two trips to the chiropractor changed nothing.
"I did a web search, found Dr. Bookspan's web site, bought "Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery" and then even sent her an email telling what had happened. To my amazement, I got a personal answer (then another then another as I wrote with more questions and my progress). Dr. Bookspan referred me to the lower back pain part of her site, and I started doing the retraining exercises daily – and more importantly I started “living” the exercises, i.e., using them to get good body positioning and healthy movement into my day.
"In the beginning I could barely do the exercises, my pain was so extreme I couldn’t lie flat on my stomach or back without pain, not to mention doing upper or lower back extensions. (I wrote to Dr. Bookspan who found that I was overarching the lower back, when I was thinking I was straight. Wow! Consciously tucking the hip more reduced the pain significantly.)
"After a few days, things improved so I could perform the exercises better. I started to walk again – albeit with discomfort. (I wrote again and once again got the encouragement I needed, and realized the specific things I was not yet getting right. I was still overarching the lower back and that was preventing healthful motion.)
"Today, it is 5 weeks since worst of the pain. Thanks so much for your support. I am orders of magnitude better! I am walking without a limp – pretty much normal gait. I played 9 holes of golf this morning, walking a very hilly course, carrying my clubs. Yesterday I was on the treadmill doing some light jogging. All signs of discomfort are gone and I am gradually working myself back into shape. I am not taking any medications of any kind, and I am doing just great.
"I am working hard to incorporate the things I learned from Dr. Bookspan about movement, posture, and exercise into my daily life. It makes total sense to me that the positions you are in for most of the day have far more impact than 10 minutes of exercise. I feel like I have been to hell and back, and I definitely don’t want to make another visit."
Fast Fitness - Easy Handstand for Balance, Upper Body Strength -The Movie
Friday, May 09, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - a quick, safer way to try a handstand. Standing on hands has many health and strength benefits and can be easily practiced in this way.
My student Dennis, Olympic medalist in wrestling, demonstrates in this short movie. Click the arrow to watch the movie:
Stand with your back about a foot in front of a wall, and crouch to put your hands on the floor (avoid slippery surface)
Put one foot high up on the wall, then lift the other foot up too
To get down, step one foot back down, then the other
Keep breathing. Smile. Relax. Send in your own photos of trying this. Be safe and have fun.
Dr. Auerbach of the Wilderness Medicine blog wrote an important post for the many requests we get for personalized medical replies. Internet articles are not intended as a substitute for care from your own providers. We don't diagnose, treat, make medical claims, persuade or dissuade anyone about seeking medical attention. Dr. Auerbach's post was so well said, I echo it here for readers of Fitness Fixer: "A fair number of comments from readers of this blog come in the form of clinical questions, in which someone asks for a response to a personal medical question. While I would like to be able to answer most of these, it is difficult to do that without more complete information, and in the absence of being able to examine the patient(s).
"When a question or comment raises an issue or point of interest that is important for everyone, then I will try to address the topic in a separate post, rather than as an isolated answer to a question. In this way, more people can benefit.
"Thanks for being a reader, and for your understanding."
Understand the purpose of techniques given here before trying them, and never if they hurt. No one should hurt themselves to be healthy. More information to help, and options for questions and feedback on my web site www.DrBookspan.com/clinical
When you stretch and exercise, especially if you stretch and exercise to improve your health, remember that the purpose is not to recreate unhealthy movement habits.
Two similar letters came in recently.
Reader Tina wrote:
"Thanks so much for your posts on stopping upper back pain. I have stopped my upper back pain. But, when I pull my neck and shoulders back, I get pain in my lower back. Which stretches should I do to stop this pain?"
Alicia wrote:
"I recently stumbled upon your articles on the Internet about how to reduce back pain. Thanks so much for providing this information! I am experiencing less pain for sure already… but I have a question. When I am keeping my neck back and shoulders back and correcting the lower back arch, I get a pinching sensation in the middle of my back. What am I doing wrong?"
Tina was doing a common unhealthy movement habit. She didn't need stretches to fix the pain; she needed to stop old injurious movement habits. Tina was leaning her upper body backward thinking she was pulling her shoulders back. Leaning backward is not correcting rounded forward shoulders, even if it seems to move the shoulders rearward. The shoulders have not moved at all just stayed rounded while the upper body pinched backward at the lower spine.
The photo at left is a performer who had just finished a trapeze performance. All the exercise and stretching she did every day didn't change her bad positioning habits.
Leaning the upper body backward (shown in the photo, left) increases the inward curve of the lower back, making a sharper angle between the pelvis and the lower spine. That increases the normal lordosis (inward lumbar curve) to hyperlordosis (too much inward curve as in the photo), which put painful pinching compression on the area. Look at the strip on her leotard. It tilts forward at the front hip and back at the back of the hip. It should be straight up and down, which is part of holding neutral spine.
The photo also shows shoulders and upper back rounded forward, and the neck and head jutting forward.
Slipping into familiar unhealthy ways of moving may be habits that occur without thinking. You need to think a bit.
Alicia was just pulling back so tightly that she pinched the area between the shoulder blades. There are sources that say that you should squeeze shoulder blades as if holding a penny between them to fix posture, but of course, that is painful and too tight.
Alicia wrote back:
"Thanks! That helps actually. The pinching was in my upper back, but it's gone now! Thanks so much for responding to me. I look forward to your class in July. Alicia"
Pinching back does not fix posture or stop upper back pain. Instead, stop the causes of the rounded shoulders and the pain.
What To Do
Three short articles show how to understand and fix the causes:
Prevent Back Surgery shows several photos of how people learn the upper body back or tilt the hip out in back during several common exercises, stretches, and daily activities. Both increase the pinching compression on the lumbar spine.
Remember to think and watch for causes instead of going through the motions of exercises and stretches.
--- 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 or RSS, upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Last year, reader Ted fixed back pain by learning to use neutral spine during running and daily life. This week he checked in to say the back is still fine, and that he went on to fix other painful sites.
Fixing pain and injuries by doing some exercises may temporarily ease symptoms. Instead, you can stop the source of injury by making movement habits healthy while exercising and moving through daily life, so that you can get exercise at the same time that the area can heal, and the pain not return.
Ted writes:
"Dr Bookspan, last summer, you helped me return to running, and did an article on me and how the neutral spine fixed my back problem with running.
"The back is a NON ISSUE. Thank you so much.
"Currently, I am working on hip/hammy/knee issues (probably due to over-training). Just thought I would share a thought on the ''Duck Foot'' issue you had talked about (I read the Fitness Fixer religiously). While running on the padded infield of the Stadium Football Field, I was still noticing pains in my hip (caught my foot on the ''upswing'' during a run, hip has hurt off and on since October).
"I focused on my feet, specifically, how I pushed off after the foot-strike (very soft, I often scare other runners because they can't hear me coming up on them). A straight push off after the foot-strike made the pain go away (probably because it aligned my foot/knee/hip during the movement). Also, when the knee pain flared, tensing my quads made it go away.
"I have enjoyed reading your ''Running Articles' please keep 'em coming. AND Thank you for fixing my Back. Much Appreciated, Ted H"
To fix the source of pain, it works best to understand healthful movement retraining and not just "do" a series of rules. One important example is keeping feet parallel or facing forward. The idea is to understand that a straight push-off comes from keeping all the joints in the kinetic chain from feet to hip and spine from twisting in unhealthful ways, not just straighten one segment by twisting another. Yanking or forcing the feet straight is not the point of good positioning.
Ted has more helpful stories to come in future posts. Click these posts for more:
Fast Fitness - How to Feel Change to Neutral Spine
Friday, May 02, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Use a wall to learn neutral spine while standing, to know how to stop a major source lower back pain during standing, walking, and running.
Many people learn pelvic tilts lying on their back in physical therapy or fitness classes. What does that do? Little. The purpose of learning the pelvic tilt is to know how to do it during real daily life so that you do not slouch and overarch your lower spine in to a swayback posture (hyperlordosis) which creates back pain. The tilts do not make your muscles prevent the slouch automatically, you use it to know how to do it yourself. My student Dennis, Olympic medalist in wrestling, demonstrates learning a functional pelvic tilt (he is holding his shirt away with hand so you can see better - you can relax your arms at your sides):
Stand with your back against a wall. Touch heels, hips, shoulders, and the back of your head.
If you allow a large arch in the lower spine there will be a large space between lower back and the wall. Press your lower back toward the wall.
Don't touch or force your lower back to the wall. Just learn how to tilt the hip so that the lower spine comes closer to it and reduces in arch.
Use a wall often to practice, then the idea is to hold neutral spine without the wall during the rest of your day.
Reducing a large arch back to neutral stops the painful lower spine compression on soft tissue and facet joints during standing activities (and bad pushups and handstands).
Raina and several other readers asked about plantar fasciitis.
On a house, a fascia is a flat horizontal surface just under the roof. In your body, a fascia is flat fibrous tissue that wraps your muscles and soft structures. You have fascia in several places. One is across the bottom of your feet. "Plantar” means the bottom of your foot that you "plant" on the ground. Your plantar fascia is the fascia on the bottom of your foot. Plantar fasciitis is an inflammation (-itis) of the fascia on the bottom of your foot.
Normal Plantar Fascia Action When you walk or run with your feet facing straight ahead, the line of bending of the foot is straight from front to back. Each step gives you a nice, built-in small stretch across the bottom of your foot. As you walk, run, jump, and move, your plantar fascia transmits body weight across your foot. It is part of shock absorption for your entire leg.
How Bad Movement Mechanics Hurts Several things can make the fascia tighten and hurt. Here are three. More to come in future posts:
1. When you walk or run with feet facing outward, the fascia loses the normal stretch. Over years of not getting its normal stretch, it becomes tight. Walking with feet facing outward also puts sideways forces on the fascia with each step instead of the needed stretch. Walking with poor shock absorption, banging down heavily with each step can amplify strain forces on a tight fascia. Every step you take on a tight fascia yanks on the heel where it attaches. Eventually the heel and bottom of the foot get irritated from the yanking and start to hurt. Irritation can eventually cause the bone to thicken to protect itself - a heel spur.
The tighter your Achilles and foot fascia, the more "normal" it feels to walk toe-out. In a circular problem, walking toe-outward is a common fascial tightener. It may be "natural" with tightness, but can increase tightness over time.
2. Letting ankles constantly sag into pronation (flattened arches) is another fascial strain. Keeping body weight more evenly around the sole of your foot, not pressing and downward on your arches, lifts the weight off the arch. Reader David from Belgium made us a great short video of easily changing from rolling in on the arches to holding straight in Fast Fitness - Fix Flat Feet, Pronation, and Fallen Arches.
3. Hard sole shoes and some fasciitis braces stop the sole from getting the normal lengthening while walking, stopping the pain from the stretch, giving the false impression that the injury is lessening. A negative cycle continues of shortening and continuing the source of the injury. Injections briefly make the area more prone to injury. Pain pills allow you to continue the injury process without pain telling you that it is wrong. Several kinds of anti-inflammatory and pain medicines interfere with healing. Wearing high heeled shoes raises the heel, shortening the length of the Achilles tendon, putting less stretch on the tendon, the lower leg muscles, and the fascia of the foot.
Fasciitis can be quickly stopped. It does not have to be chronic. "Doing" a few stretches does not undo a lifestyle of shortening, tightening, and straining. Forcing tight, artificially straight position instead of creating the length and use of the area that allows healthful motion, can create more pain in other segments. Use your brain and learn good body movement to allow it to heal and be functional.
Helpful links to move in healthy ways to stop plantar fasciitis:
The book Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery has a section on fasciitis, the many unhealthful lifestyle contributors, and simple lifestyle fixes to build into daily life and your exercise classes.
