Here is Fast Friday Fitness - prevent a common habit that weakens your character - judging others.
After talking to someone, passing them on the street, leaving a party, interacting with them on a checkout line, meeting, internet site, or telephone, do you inventory their perceived faults? Do you pass your poor temperament to others by retelling the list? Notice if you harm yourself with this habit, and instead, decide to leave an interaction with clean character:
Never think you know someone well enough to judge them.
This truth comes from my black belt student Christopher Emmolo.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of Dr. Bookspan's Fitness Fixer methods. See if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Index. Answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe, free - updates via e-mail or RSS upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Limited Class spaces for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. ---
Thank you Rural Doctoring for hosting Grand Rounds 4.49 this week. On the Internet, Grand Rounds is a weekly competition of the best medical posts of the week. Posts are selected by a different host each week.
This week, Dr. Chan of Rural Doctoring selected the list using the Shakespearean theme of The Seven Ages of Man, including my post Fast Fitness - Balance and Ankle Stability in the Dark in the wisest 6th age, saying, "The best thing would be to avoid falling at all."
The flame for the 2008 Paralympics Games will be lit on August 28 at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing China.
The torch relay continues nine days until the start of the 13th Paralympic Games on September 6 in Beijing.
Paralympics Games are an international competition held every four years for physically challenged athletes, following the Olympic Games. The prefix "para" means along with, or parallel to, the Olympics Games.
The Paralympic Games logo includes the red, blue and green symbol based on the Chinese character "Zhi", three strokes representing Heaven, Earth and Human, and the symbol of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in the same colors.
--- 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. ---
I have received urgent inquires from physicians and reporters after an ABC news report came out on surfer's myelopathy - lower body paralysis occurring shortly after surfing.
The main suspected mechanism is standing or lying for long periods with the lower back so overarched that it interferes with blood flow to the spine below it, causing a "stroke in the spine."
Overarching is a topic of my laboratory research as it relates to compression of soft tissue and the joints of the lower vertebrae leading to chronic mystery back pain.
Overarching the lower spine is an avoidable bad posture. It is simply and quickly changed by holding the pelvis level in what is commonly called neutral spine. Compression which impedes blood flow is a different, serious effect. Until I can post separately on it, to understand and avoid one main mechanism, check:
Holding neutral spine is not just an exercise to do then stop and return to overarching during life activity. Neutral spine is a healthy normal position to maintain comfortably, not rigidly, during ordinary activities and exercise. To see some of the issues of neutral spine, click:
Olympic Calories for Michael Phelps and Everyone Else
Monday, August 25, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
I didn't intend to cover this topic until several reporters deluged me in one week. They said I must answer immediately because they had deadlines, gave specifics I must answer so they can be paid for their article (while I supply everything with no remuneration), hours I must contact them at my expense, perhaps without them knowing my time zone placing it in the middle of the night, and so on.
Two reporters seemed to want the usual myths, not corrections or understanding. In numerous interviews, I earnestly debunked urban legends and explained facts, then found their article quoting my name wasn't anything I said. With apologies to readers waiting patiently for earlier topics, here are some of the questions:
The reporters wanted a comment that it was uncommon or abnormal that Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps eats up to 10,000 calories a day when training. It is not a mystery. If athletes train hard over many miles, they need more calories.
It is not unusual to eat large quantities of food and calories, athlete or not. Eating a great deal is nearly customary in the West, certainly in the US. Many people eat many thousands of calories a day more than they burn, and so, gain weight. The only trick seems to be to get people to stop eating that much.
The reporters asked what special techniques are needed to get that many calories. None. Look around restaurants and grocery lines. A typical fast food entrée, with French fries and milkshake can total 5000 calories in only one meal. A "salad-bar" with dressings, sauces, and usual Western choices can start at 1000-2000 calories a plate full and go upward from there. A bag of crisps, chips, or nuts can total 1000 calories in one snack. Exercisers and dieters lulled by slick advertising add hundreds of calories with sports shakes and bars. Ordinary people can eat thousands of calories per meal that they really don't know about, plus snacks. It is not a math mystery that they eat thousands of calories per day, and have extra body weight, regardless of other personal factors.
Another question was what made Phelps burn such an unusual number. It is not unusual for a swimmer or other endurance athlete to burn thousands of calories. When I trained swimming for various competitions I ate between eight and ten thousand calories a day myself, swimming five to seven miles a day. I posted about the mileage in Last October in Fast Fitness - Healthier Sports Shake.
Two reporters asked me to confirm an item from a National Public Radio interview, that once Phelps (or anyone) stops exercise, the body stops feeling hungry, therefore, someone not exercising will eat less. Clearly, this isn't so. People can eat too much regardless of exercise. You are not a cause-and-effect automaton. Food choices and overeating habits can occur separately from exercise habits. Days I didn't swim twice a day, miles at a time, I had to remind myself not to eat the same as when training. Now that I don't train like that, I can't eat like that. It is not increased age but that I do less. No mystery.
No it is not hard for most Westerners to eat - they just buy the food. No special eating techniques are needed. Overeating and eating when not hungry are common. One cup of nuts is about 800 calories. I can stuff about half a cup in a brimming handful. My husband Paul, a hard working carpenter who is taller and more muscular than Phelps, but about as lanky, fits almost a cup in his giant hand. We may scoop a handful while commuting on bike to work. Other people may eat handful after handful while watching television, totaling many thousands of extra calories a week.
It is not true that Phelps is "pure muscle" and no one is. Hopefully they have bones, and brains, and lungs, and some skin and so on.
It is not true that only muscle burns calories, or gender is the deciding factor. All your cells that are alive need to breathe and eat in various amounts, male or female. That is why a fat person, male or female, uses more calories everyday to feed all the extra. A fatter person may need more calories to stay at that higher weight than a smaller muscular person, male or female. Weight loss occurs when they do not eat enough to feed it all. Add a small amount of exercise over the day to do functional daily movement. See the lifestyle links at the end for more.
Resting metabolic rate is not mysterious, or fixed by gender or age. A car in idle uses gas, and people also burn calories even at rest with no exercise. Just like different size cars get different mileage, so do we. Adding suitcases in a car trunk needs more gas to tote them around, even though suitcases are not motive parts. A small to average adult may burn about 75 calories an hour, depending on size, to fuel all the cells to stay alive. Over 24 hours that is about 1800 calories a day. A smaller person may need less. A larger person may need 100 an hour or 2400 a day. When you exercise you use more.
There were more questions, taking me days to write. Until then, click these:
For more on swimming and nutrition for hard endurance exercise click the label "swimming" under this post, or use the Fitness Fixer Index.
--- 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.
---
Photo of NOT Phelps, 540-Gabe_Woodward_2.standalone.prod_affiliate.25 by andynoise
Fast Fitness - Balance and Ankle Stability in the Dark
Friday, August 22, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - quickly improve balance and ankle proprioception - the ability of the ankle and foot to correct positioning, reducing sprain and fall potential.
This one helps balance for daily life, and also helps footing in darkness, which can be encountered on stairs, curbs, and late hikes.
Stand on one foot.
Balance on that foot with eyes closed. Switch feet.
Extend length of balance time with frequent practice.
Balance and proprioception are key to preventing and fixing ankle, foot, and balance trouble.
Obviously, don't do this near the stairs or the breakables. Use common sense to get started safely.
I updated the post Not Old For Olympics with links to the athletes' official Beijing web site competitor information pages. You can learn more about them and see their events and rankings.
Thank You to the blog called SixUntilMe for hosting Grand Rounds 4.48 and including my post Beware of Hype in Training Methods among choices for best medical posts of the week.
The commentators for US gymnast Justin Spring's great Olympic floor exercise routine last week told how Spring underwent months of rehabilitation for knee, ankle and other injuries. The commentators continued about his rehab, exercises, physical therapy teams, and surgeon. Spring landed the end of his difficult routine with straight-legged jolt. One of the commentators mentioned again about the surgeon who fixed the injury. The other commentator replied, "The surgeon should have told him to bend his knees."
The commentator is right. The best health care is not to collect money to cut and treat someone, but prevent the need for cutting them. Landing with a straight knee transmits impact to your spine, neck, ankles, hip, and knee joints. Landing with properly bent knees absorbs impact more through the muscles. Landing hard with a straight knee can push the upper and lower leg bones hard against the two tough pads in each knee called menisci (singular is meniscus) that help cushion each step.
Over repeated hard landings, holes and tears can bore through the meniscus. With repeated landings at an unhealthy joint angle, cartilage can overstretch or tear. The tough strap that crosses the middle of the knee joint, called the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), can overstretch or tear with repeatedly landing on a twisted knee. More on this to come. It is mostly an avoidable training error, not a gender issue as previously thought. Ankle wear and injuries can result from the same. Injury forces increase when the landing is on knee or ankles allowed to sway inward instead of maintaining motion at the midline. These injuries can heal without surgery. More on this in posts to come.
Sometimes injury results from a single high-force landing, such as a bad parachute landing, jumping from extreme heights, or a car crash where a passenger sitting with straight legs is propelled forward (or the engine backward) hard against their feet forcing compression past strength. An example is an ankle injury called a pylon injury, where the far end of the lower leg bone crushes.
Know the mechanism of injury so that you can get out and have fun, and do extreme sports while you move in ways that reduce unhealthful forces. Preventing repeated bad movement habits can also give your joints a larger margin for occasional unexpected dings.
Check what you do with your knees when you step or jump down. From small landings, bend knees a small amount.
Larger heights and circumstances (carrying a heavy backpack) can benefit from more shock absorption using the thigh and hip muscles with deeper bending. It should not be the knees that take up the shock of the bending. It should be the muscles of the hip and leg.
Keep effort on the muscles through how you position your knees. Letting them slide forward shifts weight to the joint. Keeping knees back by only sticking out the backside in back can shift weight to the lower spine. Keep knees back with neutral spine and you will feel the effort in the muscles.
Justin Spring and other gymnasts know to bend their knees. Athletes giving their all at Olympic levels need no criticism from anyone. We just want them to stay healthy.
In A Whole Big Fix Mike fixed several injuries and made the interesting statement, "I stopped cycling to improve my health."
Back in December, I asked Mike if he wanted to get back to cycling and about his shoulder. While we were working on his story, reader requests piled in by the hundreds. Stay with us and questions will be answered. If I only answer them in order, it will be hundreds more posts before I get to questions arriving today, so make your questions fun and helpful.
Mike wrote his update:
"The cycling didn't cause pain at the time, but created bad posture habits and muscle tightness (shoulder rounded forward after separating collarbone in a crash, tight psoas muscles and hamstrings) which led to pain later. I'm walking more human-like now. Also, the air and traffic around here has gotten worse because of the housing and population boom, so I was having horrible coughing fits. Now I don't, without the aid of any medicine and, I believe, by following your diet recommendations.
"Shoulder: The physical therapist had me doing the trench coat type exercises you've described in your books as not as effective or needed, in many different ways (pictured at right), especially the "closing of the trench coat" which didn't make sense to me because they said I was overly tight in the front and too flexible and weak in the back. The visits there didn't work.
"Instead, I used the two stretches shown by your husband - right angle elbow with hand in air in Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain, and the hand in the opposite pocket behind the back while leaning sideways, in Nice Neck Stretch."
Standard physical therapy exercise for rotator cuff consists of keeping the elbow close to the waist and rotating the forearm inward and outward, like a flasher opening and closing a trench coat (photo). There are almost no daily activities that need this specific motion, not even opening a door. No one uses their muscles this way (unless you are a flasher I guess). People do these exercises then go back to daily bad overhead reaching and re-injure their shoulder, or wonder why it never heals.
The rationale for doing the trench coat exercise is that strengthening the rotator cuff will heal the injury. Strengthening is not the main issue in most shoulder injuries that I see. Misuse of the shoulder is the root cause. A common counterproductive scene is people "doing shoulder exercises" with their head and neck slouching forward, upper body rounded, which injures the shoulder with each arm lift.
Slouching the upper body forward when raising arms for any daily activity, stretch, yoga, or weightlifting will continue to injure the shoulder. What improvement are you making to your shoulder to do exercises in a way that will injure?
Mike wrote:
"I'm also concentrating on keeping my thumbs facing forward when arms are down in order to help prevent my shoulders from rolling forward. I'm feeling more upright and balanced when doing everyday activities."
I told Mike that the idea is not to hold thumbs forward. The idea is to get the purpose of the stretch so that the chest muscles lengthen enough so that the arm bone is not pulled into inward rotation. The post on this topic is listed at the end.
Mike was also "doing" one of the key stretches but not getting the stretch needed, so no benefit was occurring. He was going through a set of motions to achieve the set of motions instead of to achieve the purpose, which was to restore resting length to the chest muscles. Mike made us some photos of how he was originally doing the pectoral stretch and how he fixed the motion to get the purpose. I will post them soon so everyone can see the difference.
It is common to stretch in ways that does not achieve the purpose, or in injurious ways. Then news stories report on studies that stretching doesn't improve physical performance or help prevent injuries, and no one knows why. It is not difficult to see why: What Does Stretching Do?
Friday Fast Fitness - Partner Achilles Tendon Stretch
Friday, August 15, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is fast Friday Fitness - relax, have fun practicing stretching and cooperating with a friend, and have a nice - Achilles stretch:
Stand facing a partner at arm's length. Hold each other's hands or arms. Keep arms straight.
Each partner leans and pulls back with straight arms while bending knees keeping heels down on the floor.
Bend only as far as is fun and feels good. Keep leaning back. Keep heels down.
The point is not to squat to the floor, the point is to stretch the Achilles and learn healthy movement habits that you can use for real life. Keeping heels down when bending knees accomplishes the point. If someone is tight, they don't have to bend as far to get a big stretch. Raising heels loses the stretch and the point. Don't squat all the way with heels up, keep heels down.
Whenever you stretch, remember the point of a stretch instead of straining to an arbitrary endpoint.
Overhead Lifting, Reaching, and Throwing - More Part I
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Nice e-mails and requests came in after Part I last Monday about the overlooked training habit which slowly impinges and tears the rotator cuff. Here is one that covers the points from all received so far.
Reader Hanson writes:
"Thank you Dr. Bookspan for exactly the missing link. I had been attending months of expensive private yoga lessons at [well known studio name deleted] for my shoulder woes without much relief, and maybe have worsened my circumstances. I thought becoming worse with yoga was preferable to surgery that my orthopedic surgeon at [top California facility name deleted] said was required. The yoga directress said more months were necessary (for her wallet?) and I must learn to cool my mind (before I questioned why I wasn't getting better?). I sure didn't question when she wore that little outfit. She showed me yoga poses to "awaken" the area and other fuzzy yoga talk. Poses were raising arms overhead, leaning over with arms overhead, sitting with arms up, and so on. My shoulders burned, she said it was "awakenening." Now I discovered from you it was "impinging." No one said anything about a forward head when I raised arms. I did the same as the directress did. She had this bad posture too. She said do it slowly if it burns. So I burned up my shoulders slowly. Instead of paying the yoga directress for another private session of self-injury raising my arms with head forward I printed your blog and held it overhead to read it. I didn't lean myself back and didn't tilt my head forward. The shoulder is already better. I found all those yoga lessons never prepared me to stand up straight. They told me yoga gives you posture, but it didn't give me anything except a worse shoulder. The "awakening" came from your blog saying use this for life not just exercise. I can lift arms without pain now. I keep my head straight, not forward. Can you put more pictures up of what to look for and can you tell people about your blog?"
Left (pink), upper body leaning backward (explained in Part I). Tilting unevenly compresses the lower spine by increasing the inward curve under load, and fools some into thinking the arm is stretching fully. Center, hunched (raised) shoulders and forward head. Hunching compresses the area. Keep shoulders down when raising arms. Don't raise arms and shoulder together. Right (yellow), leaning upper body backward and forward head. Can you detect the forward head camouflaged by the upper body lean back?
Head forward when raising arm. Shoulders rounded, further compressing the area when lifting the arm.
Head forward when raising arm, shoulders rounded. Also pictured - lower back rounded, tilting the hip (pelvis) too far under. Shifts weight to the lumbar discs (click The Cause of Disc and Back Pain).
Fix Your Fitness to be Healthy and Stronger. Be able to do more, not give up lifting:
Click labels under this post for all Fitness Fixer on each topic.
--- 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 apply for certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Get more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Another Reason to Avoid Surgery - Catching Fire "A Bigger Risk Than Thought"
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Operating room fires have seriously injured, even killed patients, and are more common than previously believed.
Data released by the State of Pennsylvania showed 28 operating room fires a year for the past three years in Pennsylvania. Nationally there may be hundreds of such fires, more than the 50 to 100 previously estimated by patient safety organizations.
Mark Bruley, vice president for accident and forensic investigation at the ECRI Institute in Pennsylvania said, "The numbers are higher than we expected…Having a fire on your face can be severely disfiguring and a horrendous experience. With throat procedures, where these fires often occur, they can be fatal."
Operating room safety specialists recommend:
That doctors use less than 100 percent oxygen during head and neck surgery
that surgeons store hot instruments off the operating table when they are not in use,
that doctors wait two or three minutes until alcohol-based products have evaporated from the skin before using cautery tools.
Globe Newspaper Company reported that Antoinette DiPhillipo entered the hospital for gallbladder surgery and woke in her hospital room with burns and blisters covering her midsection and abdomen. During surgery, a cautery instrument had ignited an alcohol-based product applied to her abdomen and chest, and a flash fire occurred. A surgical technician told health officials that he heard a sound similar to lighting a grill. Officials for the hospital made light of estimates of Antoinette DiPhillipo's burns and suffering, and denied that they did not tell her what happened in the operating room. They did say that the fire led to more aggressive prevention policies. DiPhillipo said, "I just wanted to know what happened and for someone to talk to me," she said. "It would have been nice if I had gotten an apology."
More Fitness Fixer posts about how to avoid surgery for joint pain, click the label "surgery" below this post.
See if your other questions are already here: Click and bookmark the new Fitness Fixer Index.
Beijing Olympics & Martial Arts Class Teach Common Sense Cooperation
Monday, August 11, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
The opening ceremonies of the Beijing Summer Olympics were a quiet, powerful reminder of mutual cooperation as path to strength, beauty, and peace. Thousands danced in metaphor for healthy society - that we cooperate to create a masterpiece, and each individual is significant. Responsibility and support flow both ways.
Paul and I were in China in 2001 for a martial arts competition. I hope to post training stories with some of the motivating photos from there. Discipline and eagerness to do good were all around us. We haven't been back to China yet, although we live in other areas of Asia for part of each year. In many places where we live there, human, animal, and machine-powered vehicles of every description overflow the roads, in all directions at once, often with no traffic lights or signs to guide. Both lanes may flow in either or both directions at once. Turns occur any place needed at the moment. Problems are infrequent because people are taught cooperation from early age. It is an Eastern philosophy, way of life, discipline, and virtue. Words are not needed. Westerns who are not aware that cooperation and thoughtfulness is taking place mistake this highly evolved order for disorder. When tourists see someone coming their way, they may not not cede way or cooperate, but insist that others are in their way. Traffic accidents frequently involve tourists.
When I teach martial arts classes in the US, I teach beginning students something that startles them. If a blow is coming toward you, don't stand there and get hit. Move out of the way. Some students first insist on trying to bat my arm/leg/head out of the way with theirs. I tell them not to do that. If two arms hit each other, whose will win, theirs or the other person's? You don't know? Better to get out of the way instead. What if it is an incoming baseball bat. Or weapon. Or an opponent you have gravely misjudged,even if they only seem to be an old lady. In Zen the concept is called, "Don't be there." In common sense it is called "duck." Some beginners insist the air is theirs to stand in and they want to meet an incoming object with their body. Instead of ducking, or at the least, deflecting it without damage to any party (or maybe training some discipline and arm hardening techniques), they throw their arm up to meet mine, then depart class cursing and exaggerating to administration that they broke their arm, and that they were right to deliberately disobey the teacher who was teaching a valuable lesson called, don't hurt yourself or others. In class, I give the students a moving drill. They practice a specific footwork drill to keep them moving. I walk around the class - right in their way, one student at a time. They are confused. Some try to push or hit me to get me out of *their* way. Some try to stand still to resist, but get deflected off balance. This continues until one student remembers the point of the lesson. They get the smart idea to go *around* me. The message - polite, cooperation. No confrontation. No hitting someone in your way, or believing no one owns the ground but you. Just smile and say excuse me. It seems to be a titanic message to some.
Click the arrow to watch group traffic cooperation in this short movie from a street in Vietnam.
Paul and I are comically (to locals in the street) co-occupying a tiny front basket of a bicycle rickshaw. Locals routinely travel by pedicab, but our height and Paul's epic shoulders blocking the driver's view and feet at the same time caused so much merriment by on-lookers that it won us many new friends that day. The driver looked to weigh no more than 100 pounds (45 kilos), pedaling a steel bicycle weighting at least 200 pounds (90kg). In another post I will tell of Paul's and my ride on an Olympic bobsled on an actual competition track. A professional driver took first seat of the 4 man sled, and we put Paul in second seat, as it was the only place for his long legs. For new readers, Paul is almost 7 feet tall (2 meters, 13cm). We were supposed to have a 4G ride (4 times the usual pull of gravity on earth), but Paul's giant feet, it turned out, prevented the driver's elbows from moving enough to steer the 15 sharp turns. We got quite an extra ride - the wildest the driver said he ever had. To be continued in a future post on g-forces.
China posts to come - Athletes are afraid of the squat toilets, why some Chinese citizens wear masks, Eastern societal practices that promote physical health through advanced age, answers to reader questions that pile in, and more on Olympics and human potential.
See if your questions are already here - Click the labels below for more posts on each topic.
Find posts on your favorite topics: Click and bookmark the new Fitness Fixer Index.
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - learn some Chinese for the Olympics.
The Olympic ceremonies start at 8:08 p.m. on the 8th day of the 8th month in 2008. Eight is an auspicious number for the Chinese. Whether you agree or disagree with politics in the world, use learning about someone's language as a step to peace:
Reader Steve writes me funny updates. Steve fixed his back pain that surgeons said was hopeless, using my methods. Then his knees, arches, neck, and various dings and injuries he gets during his active life as an adventurer and professional photographer.
Now he is losing weight in healthful ways. Usually reader inspiring stories start at the beginning. Here is Steve's latest update, sent from Japan. Future posts will work backward, through Steve's upbeat updates. Steve writes:
"I have reduced my waistline by four inches so far. It's a wonderful feeling cutting the excess from my web belts! I've changed my diet to a more healthy one, eating lots of fruits and veggetables, cut out almost all fried foods and processed stuff. I've been exercising. No health club stuff, just ordinary PT. Push-ups, arm circles with weight (20lb potato sacks... Some day I might even put some potatoes inside...) hanging knee lifts, pull ups, etc, and my favorite, the hamster wheel thingie... the little tryk wheel with the handle going through it. About 15-20 minutes of actual work, roughly every other day. I can see my abs again. Hell, I can see my toes again! …I can fit into pants I haven't been able to wear in 8-10 years. Of course, right now I would love to order a nice big pizza, but I'll just have to wait for dinner.... My mid-afternoon snacks are now fruit or nuts. I do treat myself to a square of 80% chocolate after dinner. And of course, a bowl of popcorn later on in the evening. But I'm popping it myself using just a spoonful of olive oil. No more microwave popcorn. And the fat is dripping off me like melted butter. I like that!"
Click labels for more on each topic. The "nutrition" label, for example, gives all articles on healthy cooking and food choices for fitness. The label "readers inspiring story" gives all articles so far of readers who fixed their injuries and pain. These are not testimonials, but tutorials so you can learn what they did, why, and how. Read, have fun learning, then send in your own.
--- 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. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certifiedDrBookspan.com/Academy.
The Summer Olympics of 2008 begin this Friday. Reader Mike asked in the comments to the post Not Old for the Olympics Part II that in addition to other performance enhancements, is it fair to have superior inherited ability?
Mike wrote,
"This was a great article pointing out the ethics of performance enhancement. Money, time, altitude chambers, and speed suits are all an advantage when others don't have them. Then, is it a fair race? I was hoping you were going to get to inherited ability … which brings up the issue that even when all food intake, psychology, training, and equipment are equal, genetics wins out, so how much pride can one take in his accomplishments knowing that a good chunk of one's success was a gift over which you can't overcome? After all, you can't make a quality chair if you're given just balsa wood! This reminds me that we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously based on the outcome of our athletic dominance over others. I should just try to improve my own performance against my previous performances."
In the Star Trek Next Generation episode "Peak Performance," a training exercise between two ships was deliberately mismatched in armaments, crew, and maneuverability. When the first officer chafed at this, asking what was the official's word for "mismatch" the reply was, "Challenge!"
In martial arts, the win does not always go to the taller or stronger person. Athletic ability needs numerous coordinated skills. If the outcome were always for the bigger or faster fighter, there would be no betting in boxing or any other sport.
Inherent ability doesn't always decide the outcome. It's not a matter of not being able to teach a pig to sing. My carpenter husband Paul can make a solid comfortable chair from balsa wood, paper, (even Jell-O™, he speculates, thanks to Mike's post) by dint of skill and love of his craft.
The "Peak Performance" episode emphasized, "The person in the superior position is expected to win. How one performs in a mismatch is precisely of interest. We don't whine about the inequalities of life."
To learn how to build your spirit and body, regardless of what sport you play, or even if you do no sports at all, try the book Healthy Martial Arts.
--- 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. ---
Overhead Lifting, Reaching, and Throwing Part I - Shoulder and Rotator Cuff Injury
Monday, August 04, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
The photo at right shows one main contributor to shoulder and rotator cuff pain, and one for lower back pain. Can you see them? Can you see why the person in red is not getting as much stretch in the shoulder as they think?
I see patients for shoulder pain all the time. Their chart says, "normal range of motion at the shoulder," or the chart reads with a number of angle degrees corresponding to directly overhead reach. I ask the person, "Reach up for me please." They lean their upper body backward, increase the inward curve of the lower back, and their hand points directly overhead. Often they do this while tilting their neck and head forward, which puts the shoulder at a position of compression when the arm is raised. I show them how to straighten the upper body upright, reduce the lower back over-arch, and return to neutral spine. I ask them to reach up again. They can't. They shoulder is too tight to reach directly overhead. They were never stretching their shoulder when they thought they were. They were getting the motion from their lower back, not shoulder. They were only leaning backward, adding compressive load to their lower spine joints, called facets. This will be covered next in Part II.
In the photo, note that the head is forward, a major contributor to rotator cuff injury during overhead arm motion. Lifting your arm with the neck and head tilted forward mashes the upper arm bone against the shoulder bones. This compresses the soft tissue between them, including the rotator cuff and nerves that go down the arm. Each small pinch can eventually saw at the area until a rotator cuff tear begins.
Rotator cuff injury is common, even in people who do no overhead athletics, like pitching, martial arts, or kayaking. Reaching upward is common around the house and for exercise. Starting in the morning, you wash or comb hair (or polish a bald head). You pull clothing on and off overhead. You reach in cabinets, wave goodbye, shield your eyes from the sun, open car trunks and hatches, put things up on racks, shop for groceries and put them away in cabinets, lift children, clean curtains and tub walls, put work in overhead shelves - many reaches, all day, every day. At the gym there are overhead lifts, stretches, and arm motions.
Compressing the nerves that pass through the area and go down the arm sets is called impingement. Impingement is not a disease. Someone with a diagnosis of impingement does not have a real diagnosis. Impingement is not a cause of pain, it is a result. If you stop the mechanical cause, then you can stop the resulting impingement. No drugs or surgery or repeated therapies are needed:
Notice your neck and head position when lifting overhead and don't let your head and neck sag or jut or tilt forward. To see if you have the health and flexibility just to stand straight, try seeing of you can stand comfortably with your back and back of your head against a wall. If not, try some posts on upper body flexibility, such as Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain. Don't force. Breathe. Smile. Relax. It's all for health.
--- 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. ---
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - rows to strengthen the upper body, practice balance and neutral spine, and avoid lower disc injury from bad forward bending.
Readers have been writing in, excited about doing handstands for the first time or improving the handstand they do to get whole body functional fun exercise. My student Danielle demonstrates:
Shift your weight to stand on one hand. Grasp a hand weight in the other hand
Do rows, and any variety of arm free-weight movements that you want to improve.
There is no need to bend over forward to do rows. It does not train functional posture, and unequally squeezes lower discs outward, which adds to degeneration and herniation forces that are common during bad daily sitting and unhealthy bending. You don't need more unhealthy things while exercising.
