David of Belgium developed and teaches an improved new yoga system. He presented it at a world yoga congress. His system corrects for the widespread pain syndromes from flexion overuse, and reduces the cause instead of adhering to set ritual pose sequences - Getting the Right Yoga Medicine. He continues to translate my work into Dutch, create links for posts to reach world audiences, and make dozens of photos and videos for Fitness Fixer posts.
Dr. Clara Hsu teaches Fitness Fixer methods to patients in her practice, prescribes my website, gives my books as presents around the world, and has offered her office space to hold workshops for our new International Academy - How Doctors Help Patients With Fitness Fixer and How Doctors Use The Wall Stand.
An anonymous reader took time to find a neighborhood association with volunteers to shop and deliver a food order at no extra charge to the blind diabetic widow in - Thank You To Readers - Simple Gifts
Thank you everyone for using my methods for Good. Thank you for writing your stories for others to benefit. Congratulations on your great work.
Thank you readers Mim, Kate, Al, Kathy, Julia, PhatMac, Eddie, Carol, Dave, Tony, Anton, Terry Lee, Airchild, Teresa, Nina, Marina, Wondering Oriental, 9Volt Terry, Alberto (farioreo), Kip, Lee, Ness, Jayakrishnan, Michael LMT CNMT who gives his massage clients the Fitness Fixer and my professional website DrBookspan.com as their homework, and all the others who wrote their success stories in the comments of various posts.
Hundreds more, too shy to have their story online, mailed me the best thanks - that because of these methods, they had their lives back.
Be in the next Fitness Fixer Hall of Fame. Send in your success story of using these methods for good. Subscribe, free -updates via e-mail or RSS upper right. Find your topics on the Fitness Fixer Index. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
A reader wrote in that he tried the "wall test" done by standing with your back against a wall. The wall test is a quick general assessment to see if you can comfortably stand up straight, and if not, where the tightness exists that prevents it. The reader said the test hurt. He was angry and wanted me to warn everyone not to do the wall test.
The point of the wall test is to see if you are generally standing upright, or have tightness preventing healthy stance, not to cause pain by forcing it. If you can't comfortably stand straight, it is likely that you are going about your day in a tight, crooked position that contributes to pain syndromes and gradual spine and disc damage. That is the point of doing the test - to determine the source of the problem right then. Then, see if it is just a bad habit of how you stand, if you don't know how to stand well, or if tightness prevents it. Specific functional stretches easily restore resting length to the area. Then you use the new ability to stand and move in healthy ways.
In the photo, Dr. Clara Hsu stands well while checking a patient. In the photo, the patient looks tight, both at the hip and the front of the shoulder. The patient seems to be straining to pull in her chin. She is lifting her ribs and overarching the lower back to try to get the upper body to the wall. These two compensatory moves are things to check for. Instead, pull neck and chin back loosely. Bring upper body upright by unroundng the upper back, not by leaning back, increasing the angle at the lower spine.
The wall test is a general test, not an exercise. It shows three things:
How you are standing at the moment, and perhaps as general habit
Where bad habit or tightness may be that prevents standing in healthy positioning, for example a forward head, bent or tight front hip where it meets the leg, or overarched lower back
The wall test is done a second time as immediate feedback after doing specific retraining stretches, to see how well you have achieved the purpose of the stretches to restore normal length of these areas.
The wall test is a general, not absolute measure. The assessment works for most body types. Many people who think that larger lower body prevents upright stance, may actually be standing bent forward at the hip.
Straining to stand straight is not healthy straight standing. Making it possible to be healthy is the point. Causing more pain would be silly, and counter to the point. Often it is just a matter of identifying what is straight stance using the wall test, and standing better from then on. If the wall stand is uncomfortable, or not possible, check your standing habits. If there is tightness, then stretch the hip, shoulder or wherever else is holding you in tight bent position.
To stretch front chest and hip to make straight standing comfortable:
Coming soon, Dr. Clara Hsu asked me to tell the story of, "Class is always in session."
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer. Click "updates via e-mail" (trumpet icon) upper right.
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - Strengthen your breathing muscles for easier breathing.
Blow up balloons instead of using a pump this New Year's Eve and through the New Year.
Inflate some with the quickest breath you can do. Inflate others with long slow breath.
Don't overbreathe or hyperventilate to become dizzy or force breathing or strain, which can increase blood pressure and pressure in the brain and eye. Stay healthy.
Your lungs don't have muscles, but you have inspiratory and expiratory muscles in your chest and diaphragm. They are muscles like any others that improve with training and decline without regular workouts. Breathing muscle exercise is now accepted scientifically as helpful to patients with various respiratory conditions, asthmas, and allergies.
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives, and labels under posts. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Have The Fitness Fixer e-mailed to you, free. Click "updates via e-mail" - Health Expert Updates (trumpet icon) upper right column.
How do people from Thailand celebrate their birthday? Traditionally they give gifts to others.
Young Thai children are thrilled when their birthday arrives, so that they can give gifts and do good.
They will give extra food and gifts to monks (right).
Many holidays are celebrated around the world this time of year. Doing good returns merit and goodness. That gives health to celebrations and holidays.
By generosity and thanks to others you can overcome personal fear and selfishness:
Take children with you to volunteer at shelters and community centers.
Spend time with your family instead of rushing away in isolation to shop and wrap material things that are not needed in the first place.
For babies and toddlers, wrapping paper and the box it comes in are fabulous treasures. For smarter older ones, too. They don't need video players television, or computers, and will develop better without them. They need the 3-D world and you, face to face.
Instead of expensive so-called fitness trainers involving imaginary motions and swatting the air, try a playground instead.
To go high tech with an electronic game, try active games like Hyperjump from wildplanet.com: Place the targets at a distance, and race, alone or with friends, to tag whichever target momentarily lights. Tag with hand or foot, according to the voice command given by the game at the moment. Or give the money to charity and use your brain making your own game, using a real person, named "it."
For an electronic game of stamina, eye-body coordination, and cardiovascular health everyday, try Dance Dance Revolution. www.DDRgame.com. I found this gem over 15 years ago in Asia. You quickly move your feet to targets to visual cues and music. Difficulty is graded from slower and easier to faster and more complex as you practice. In Asia, some kids even manage this on their hands. Good music has been scientifically shown beneficial for health and the heart.
Go dancing for real, with real people. In your living room, if nowhere else.
If you can't do good works face-to-face, give fruit orchards and beehives to impoverished villages to develop self-sustaining economy and healthy food sources through Heifer.org (those are the vegetarian choices, along with options to send livestock to subsistence farmers who then give offspring to others to continue healthier cycles of independence).
Go outside. The graphics are better. Fresh air. Sunlight in the dark winter months is needed and healthy. Click the label "sunlight" under this post for Fitness Fixer articles listing physiologic benefits of sunlight.
Best gift for children? Your good example of healthy simple ways, joy, love, knowledge, and self-discipline. They need caring leadership.
Consumerism and debt are not stable or healthy ways to live. Invest in simple happy ways. In the Kingdom of Bhutan, the "Land of the Thunder Dragon" in the eastern Himalayas, the government says their plan is to create "Gross National Happiness" grossinternationalhappiness.org. Their health system does not focus on medical potions, surgeries, and treatments, but healthy respectful human interaction, making a healthy base, and preventing much harm in the first place. Click the label "spirit" for ideas.
"Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year." - Victor Borge
Happy Holidays to my readers serving country, stationed all over the world. Happy Holidays to all.
--- 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. For personal evaluation take a Class. Top students may seek certification -DrBookspan.com/Academy.
The web version of Grand Rounds is a collection of the best on-line medical posts from the past week. A different host works each week to find and list the articles. This is different from the Grand Rounds in a hospital, which is a lecture for doctors about a patient or topic.
Thank you to this week's host for doing the hard work of collecting and featuring our posts. Happy Holidays to all.
--- Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail" - (trumpet) upper right. Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Find fun topics on the Fitness Fixer Index.
Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) Surgery Unnecessary
Monday, December 22, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
After injury to the anterior cruciate ligament of the knee (ACL) it is common to be told that surgery is the only way to restore function. Is it?
Ninety percent of ACL injuries in the U.S. are treated with surgical reconstruction. A study reported in the Dec. 15 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism found that, "Two to five years after treatment, patients had similar muscle strength and function whether they had training alone or with surgery." The study concludes, "Reconstructive surgery is not a prerequisite for restoring muscle function." That means you can have good results with good rehab and without surgery.
A second question is development of ostoarthritis following ACL injury. Poor knee stability increases risk of developing arthritis. Studies tracking results for years following the surgery are finding that surgery "adds no benefit over rehabilitative training alone" and that surgery is done, "despite an absence of evidence to suggest that reconstruction of the ACL prevents or reduces the rate of early-onset osteoarthritis." That means you don't need the surgery to prevent possible future arthritis.
A persistent myth is that supportive shoes prevent injury, when they are commonly a source of leg tightness and knee pain. You may do rehab for an ACL injury but still have pain, and think the pain is from the ACL injury when it may be from hard "supportive" shoes. Another common myth is that knee injury comes from "muscle imbalance" in the thigh from too much strength in the quadriceps muscles over the hamstring muscles. The strength of a muscle does not make you move it. That means you control whether you overstraighten a knee or not. It is a use issue, not a strength ratio. Click the articles below for issues of quadriceps to hamstring ratios, injury to the ACL and other knee structures, and healthy ways to fix them.
You don't have to have ACL surgery to rehab a knee injury.
Fitness Fixers for Fixing Knee Pain Without Surgery:
Health&Fitness - How To Be Healthy Happy and Fit For The Rest of Your Life. THIRD edition.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make articles from fun ones. See if your answers are already here - click Fitness Fixer labels, links, archives, andIndex. Read success stories of these methods and send your own. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. More fun in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
After being told he'd have to retire, have surgery, and live with pain forever, Coast Guard Lieutenant Bill S. attended my workshops and went to on return to marathon biking and new work flying cargo 747's around the world - with Captain's bars. Bill has contributed three previous success stories (links below). He keeps in touch and signs his updates "Free Man."
Bill wrote me two notes of thanks over Thanksgiving:
"Hi Dr. Jolie, " I just wanted to say "thanks" for all the help. I would not be able to do my job or enjoy my strenuous activities if we had not done something about the pain. I have much to be thankful for. I cannot start the day without remembering you as I healthfully stretch on my elbows before rising from bed. I am well though my family thinks I'm nuts as I continue to enjoy my 10km runs, 50km hikes and 100km bike rides. The activity is healthy and gives me much to look forward to. I do something everyday I can as it clears the cobwebs from my head and chases the blues away!
" Still flying as 747 captain. I could not do it without the fitness I am maintaining. I am enjoying the job more than initially. My confidence is back.
" Hot new subject: teaching myself to weld and braze so I can design and build bicycles. I am no longer happy with buying frames made by others. Wish me luck. I hope I don't burn down my garage!
" Hope you are well and enjoying all things. Your blog is a frequent inspiration." Take care, safe journeys, your friend, Freeman(really!)
We are still having trouble uploading photos, so imagine the photo of a happy fit Captain Bill standing at the: top of the steps in Liege, Belgium.
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links in posts and labels under each article for more Fitness Fixer on each topic. Find topics on the Fitness Fixer Index.
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free - Click "updates via e-mail" (trumpet icon) upper right. Take classes with Dr. Bookspan - www.DrBookspan.com/classes.
Fast Fitness - Don't Shorten Hip When Stretching Hamstring
Friday, December 19, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - Get a more functional hamstring stretch, and a built-in posturally helpful functional stretch to the front of the hip at the same time.
When lying on your back to stretch your hamstrings by lifting one leg:
Lie flat. Keep the leg you are not lifting flat on the ground, not bent at the knee and hip, or with upper body curled and neck craned, as pictured.
Don't let your pelvis and hip round under you. Don't let your backside curl up off the floor.
Keep your hip, leg, back, shoulders, and head relaxed, flat, straight, touching the ground.
It is a myth that you must bend your knee to protect your back. If you must bend your knee to protect your back, how are you supposed to stand on one leg and lift the other in real life to climb stairs, kick, and even run and walk, without curling into bent over, old-looking, tight, injury-producing position?
When stretching your hamstrings, remember function. Why practice a position that is rounded, tightening, and detrimental to how you move when you stand and extend your legs. Get stretch by lengthening you body enough to be able to straighten out.
Send me your photos of fixing this stretch. Doing is the best learning. I will publish the photos in a reader success post to come.
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Have The Fitness Fixer e-mailed to you, free. Click "updates via e-mail" - Health Expert Updates (trumpet icon) upper right column.
FDA Orders Suicide Risk Warning for Common Back Pain and Migraine Drugs, and Others
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
The FDA issued a public health alert today based on their review of 199 clinical trials. Specific drugs for epilepsy and psychiatric disorders are often prescribed to patients with migraine, back and body pain. The FDA review was released last January, and showed that patients taking those drugs had "almost twice the risk of suicidal behavior or thoughts than patients taking a placebo."
One of the drugs on the warning list is Neurontin (Gabapentin). Patients with back and various nerve and diabetic pain are commonly prescribed this drug. More drugs on the list are frequently prescribed for fibromyalgia and other pain: Lyrica (Pregabalin), Topamax (Topiramate), Celontin (Methosuximide), Felbatol (Felbamate), Zarontin (Ethosuximide) and others.
Here is a list of the medications required to add the warning:
* Carbamazepine (marketed as Carbatrol, Equetro, Tegretol, Tegretol XR) * Clonazepam (marketed as Klonopin) * Clorazepate (marketed as Tranxene) * Divalproex sodium (marketed as Depakote, Depakote ER, Depakene) * Ethosuximide (marketed as Zarontin) * Ethotoin (marketed as Peganone) * Felbamate (marketed as Felbatol) * Gabapentin (marketed as Neurontin) * Lamotrigine (marketed as Lamictal) * Lacosamide (marketed as Vimpat) * Levetiracetam (marketed as Keppra) * Mephenytoin (marketed as Mesantoin) * Methosuximide (marketed as Celontin) * Oxcarbazepine (marketed as Trileptal) * Phenytoin (marketed as Dilantin Suspension) * Pregabalin (marketed as Lyrica) * Primidone (marketed as Mysoline) * Tiagabine (marketed as Gabitril) * Topiramate (marketed as Topamax) * Trimethadione (marketed as Tridione) * Zonisamide (marketed as Zonegran) Some of these drugs are also sold generically.
I will be covering migraine and other headache in the future. Instead of drugs to mask back pain, neck pain and various musculoskeletal and nerve pain, fixing the cause is healthier than drugs. By no longer injuring the area, the pain will stop and the area can heal. It is not matter of choosing between pain and often worse problems from the treatment.
To stop common causes of pain, and the need for drugs, start with these:
Health&Fitness - How To Be Healthy Happy and Fit For The Rest of Your Life. THIRD edition.
The Ab Revolution - No More Crunches No More Back Pain THIRD edition.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones.
See if your answers are already here - click Fitness Fixer labels, links, archives, andIndex. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Read success stories of getting off pain medicine using healthy methods instead. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Certification for top students throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. More in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Thank You Grand Rounds 5.13 - Best Posts of the Year
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Thank you to the blog A Chronic Dose for hosting the "Best Medical Posts of The Year" edition of Grand Rounds and including my post including my post Innovation in Abdominal Muscles.
The web edition of Grand Rounds is a weekly collection of the best on-line medical posts from the past week. This edition collected choices for best posts from the year.
Laurie of Chronic Dose writes, "There was a lot of wisdom passed around in 2008."
Thank you Laurie for doing the hard work of collecting and featuring our posts.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Have The Fitness Fixer e-mailed to you, free. Click "updates via e-mail" - Health Expert Updates (trumpet icon) upper right column.
New studies have been making big health news. These studies conclude that knee surgery is not needed to rehabilitate after several kinds of knee injuries, and that "question the benefits of the surgery." This information is not new. How do I know this? Because of years of previous studies concluding that surgery "worked." Here is what those previous studies often meant:
About 10 years ago, I attended a sports medicine conference. A new line of knee surgeries had come out, and the surgeons and manufacturers of the products used were anxious to have their surgery accepted and endorsed. One of the clinical presentations of the conference was the results of a study that compared patient outcome after knee surgery to the outcome of physical rehabilitation without surgery.
The patient group receiving physical therapy had improvement of function and reduced pain over time. The sample undergoing surgery went through the risks of anesthesia and surgery, lost work and wages, pain controlling narcotics during surgery and recovery, reduced activity for a minimum of 2 months following surgery, and pain from the surgical area. They then underwent months of physical therapy to regain function lost from the surgery. Many had permanent reduction of knee range of motion, considered "standard and acceptable" for that surgery. The loss of range can reduce function of the area, and reduce ability to stretch the hip, which can cascade years later into further restrictions. The physical therapy group had improvements that started soon after beginning treatment. The surgical group initially had decreases in all measures of strength and function, then months of painful recovery, and further months of reduced physical condition while they worked to "get back in shape."
Patient outcomes of muscle strength and pain levels were compared after two years and found roughly equal. The conclusions of the study were that surgery was effective, since two years afterwards, patents in the surgical group had made gains equal to the therapy group. I raised the question to the presenters about the initial painful recovery, then months of recovery, which the therapy group never had to experience. They were angry that I could not see that the outcome measures were equal, so "all's well that ends well." They pointed out that their surgical patients often thank them because they, "wake up and the pain is gone." They omitted that post-surgical patients are on pain relieving drugs, often narcotics.
I do not judge my own patients to be fine, or a method to be worthwhile, if they have to endure loss of mobility and physical levels at all, let alone over two years.
What works better than knee surgery?
Physical retraining of how you use your knees in daily life when walking, bending, running, and other activities.
Checking other causes of knee pain such as hard "supportive" shoes, and many prescription drugs with pain as side effects.
It is common to do exercises to strengthen the legs, then walk away from those same exercises allowing the knees to sag inward, slide, or twist in directions different from the line of the joint. The chronic unequal loading grinds, stretches, and wears at various bands of cartilage that connect upper and lower leg bone (ACL and PCL), meniscus cartilage, can grind the inside of the kneecap causing pattelo-femoral pain, and can even wear away at the shiny smooth cartilage covering bone ends (the articular surfaces), predisposing to arthritis.
This is why much supposed knee rehab isn't " working" - it is being undone the rest of the day by continuing the causes of the problem. Physical retraining is for all real life, not just a bunch of "sets and reps."
You don't have to have surgery to stop pain. Here are Fitness Fixer posts on fixing knee pain without surgery:
The Shinobi no Mono, or the Ninja of old Japan, were renowned for their running speed and endurance.
Running drills called "ashi" (foot or feet) were an important part of Ninjutsu physical training. Try this basic Ninja ashi, or running drill:
Put a straw hat on your chest.
Run without holding the hat with your hands or other fastening.
Run so fast that the hat does not fall - this requires keeping a minimum speed for the duration of the ashi drill.
Where is the photo? He (or she - there were female Ninjas) must have run by so fast you didn't see. We are still working on the problem of photos not uploading. Healthline staffer Jerry has been helping to upload several photos for posts to come. Thankyou Jerry.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives, and labels under posts. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Have The Fitness Fixer e-mailed to you, free. Click "updates via e-mail" - Health Expert Updates (trumpet icon) upper right column.
You can't have SharpBrains without brain blood flow.
On the web, Grand Rounds is a collection of the best on-line medical posts from the past week. A different host works hard each week to find and list the articles. This is different from the Grand Rounds in a hospital, which is a lecture for doctors about a patient or topic.
Thank you to this week's host for doing the hard work of collecting and featuring our posts.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Have The Fitness Fixer e-mailed to you, free. Click "updates via e-mail" - Health Expert Updates (trumpet icon) upper right column.
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Have The Fitness Fixer e-mailed to you, free. Click "updates via e-mail" - Health Expert Updates (trumpet icon) upper right column.
A study making repeated news was that less than half the athletic trainers in a recent survey get a healthful amount of exercise themselves. Of two hundred and seventy five certified athletic trainers who work with athletes, only 41% themselves exercised even half an hour on five or more days a week.
The survey was conducted by graduate student Jessica Groth, now an athletic trainer. In the study conclusion she wrote that (these) athletic trainers, "…were not ideal role models in demonstrating healthy behaviors." However, the Los Angeles Times quoted Groth as saying, "By and large the results are not too bad," and that trainers couldn't exercise enough since, "We're on other people's schedules as far as practices and games are concerned. We work a lot of long hours, and nontraditional hours, as far as mornings, nights and weekends are concerned. You add in families and personal lives, and we're spread pretty thin."
The study was published in the December issue of the Journal of Athletic Training, Self-reported health and fitness habits of certified athletic trainers. J Athl Train. 2008 Oct-Dec;43(6):617-23.
Trainers making the same excuses as the sedentary for not exercising?
Lack of exercise and excuses can happen when you separate healthy movement from real life. Healthful movement and activity should not be something you have to stop your real life to "do." Changing from artificial exercises to how your body needs to move in real life is the realm of functional fitness. The Fitness Fixer, most of my research in orthopedics, the classes I teach, and our new international sports medicine academy deals with functional fitness.
Here are ways to change the myth of "exercise as separate" to movement as functional daily life. It is life-changing:
See the beginning of our new International Academy of Functional Sports Medicine - www.DrBookspan.com/Academy.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories using 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 feedback. Top students may apply to get certifiedDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more with Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Fast Fitness - Reduce Holiday Driving Stress, Increase Human Connection
Friday, December 05, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - Instead of cursing crowds, delays, weather conditions, and other drivers, spend your commuting and errand time every day in the car learning with audio books:
Find your local library.
Check the audio book section.
Find audio books that teach you valuable things you would enjoy.
Children in the car can become engaged in listening and learning instead of withdrawing to personal video games, and texting devices. From the content of the audiobooks, you can restart dialog and develop skills of talking to each other.
Large numbers of interesting audio books can be checked out on line.
Click the labels for more ideas in each topic. Add your suggestions here.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Have The Fitness Fixer e-mailed to you, free. Click "updates via e-mail" - Health Expert Updates (trumpet icon) upper right column.
Readers say they enjoy hearing how to do things, but often remain reluctant to try them. Here is a fun story of success trying a wall handstand for the first time.
Reader Liz first wrote how she fixed her lower back pain using Fitness Fixer methods. I enjoyed getting her organized intelligent e-mails showing how she paid attention to why things worked and how to apply them. I asked her if she did the wall handstand - for fun, and to strengthen in functional ways.
Liz wrote:
"I read your reassuring posts about this but it still looks scary. I'm just not used to being physical, being raised to be "Ladylike" although I'm trying all the time to push my boundaries. I liked your description of you leaping up from your desk and doing a handstand. That marvelous description has stuck in my mind. One day I shall try it, you are very inspiring."
"All you do is put your hands like a pushup on the floor and step your feet up on a chair or wall behind you. "The post has a short movie."
Liz replied:
"I shall try it! First I must visualize myself doing it a few times, and watch the video a bit more too. When I watched it I tried to feel my own arms and legs doing the same movements. I find that helps when I attempt something very new. Also I like the idea of trying it on a chair first, or perhaps I'll work my way up a wall, low at first.
"And after all that I just did it. Felt very odd, never felt like that before. My head full of blood, my arms wobbly (working on the upper body strength) all my tummy and thigh muscles working very hard to keep me straight. I had a few false starts and tried it with each leg, very badly. I'm not strong enough to do it very close to the wall, when I get better at it I expect I will be able to."
I was so happy. I wrote to Liz:
"I am thrilled with you (again).
"Thank you for your faith and trying this. Quick, just snap a photo - a camera phone photo e-mailed to me is fine - anything so that I can throw this up on the Fitness Fixer success stories.
"I never knew that so many people were just not trying the handstands. They write, and sigh, that it is for other people, not them. I am writing this all precisely for them - the very people who need it most - to build the strength, body knowledge, and self confidence that modern fitness removes.
"Enjoy this. Grab bunches of photos. I'll do the work of sorting them out."
Liz replied:
"Hello Dr Jolie, "I found a clear spot, in the hall, where my husband could get a clear shot of me doing a handstand. I was concentrating really hard, and my face was bright red from all my blood pooling in my head, so no smiling face for the photo I'm afraid! I did a downward facing dog first to get comfy with the top down bottom up feeling, then up I went and I held it for a good 25 seconds too!
"I'll work on the other photos.
"Hope you can use this, if it's the wrong size let me know and I'll resend. "Happiness, liz."
What a great handstand. Look at that great neutral spine. Feet so high up on the wall. So much so easily and quickly. What a success.
I wrote to Liz that I was proud of her for trying things that build the strength, body knowledge, and self confidence that modern fitness with arbitrary artificial movements and little sets and reps removes.
Liz replied:
"So true, I felt very proud of myself! I'm going to do it again right now!"
Click the label "handstand" under this post for all posts teaching how to learn various kinds of handstands.
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Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Have The Fitness Fixer e-mailed to you, free. Click "updates via e-mail" - Health Expert Updates (trumpet icon) upper right column.
On the web, Grand Rounds is a collection of the best on-line medical posts from the past week. A different host works hard each week to find and list the articles. This is different from the Grand Rounds in a hospital, which is a lecture for doctors about a patient or topic.
MexicoMedStudent wrote that the post, "Reminds us that most intervertebral disc problems happen over time, and so too over time, they can also be repaired sensibly without invasive intervention." Discs can heal, but it does not take much time. Disc healing can be quick, if you stop injuring them with ordinary bad habits that you already know not to do. Check the post for easy ways to prevent and heal discs.
Thank you to this week's host for doing the hard work of collecting and featuring our posts.
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Vertebral Artery Compression, Dizziness, Discs, and the Forward Head
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
I received an e-mail from Serbia. Miroslav had suffered eight years of dizziness from compression of the vasculature and nerves of his neck. Then he found how to prevent the bad position called "forward head" using my methods. Miroslav had previously read various sources promoting the often-repeated bad advice to bend the neck forward as a the way to make space for the nerves that exit the back of spine. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. That kind of forward bending is not a healthy way over the long term.
Bending the spine forward pinches vertebrae closer in front and farther apart in back, creating unequal pressure that over time, wedges and squeezes discs rearward and outward, like squeezing a tube of toothpaste. A disc nearly always bulges (herniates/moves/slips/migrates/extrudes) toward the back of the spine out the enlarged space, from years of the bad posture of sitting and standing with a rounded/bent forward spine.
Sitting and standing straight would make more space for the nerves without the herniating force. Miroslav also had a forward head as a regular posture, also called "straightening the cervical lordosis." He had been flexing his neck (bending forward) trying to fix his various numbness and pain, and wound up compressing verves, blood vessels and other structures.
Miroslav wrote in one of his blog posts that he was practicing Alexander technique for the previous few weeks, "as specified in Richard Brennan's book /head up and forward." After getting worse and trying various doctors and cures, Miroslav found my web site. He wrote:
"Dear Dr Bookspan, "I have found Your articles online and they have been extremely helpful. I just wanted to say that I appreciate Your work immensely. Few last articles I wrote on http://cvelee.blogspot.com/2008/11/quick-solutions.html regarding my problem and how You have helped me. If You have time, you can catch a glimpse of them. "With respects, "Miroslav Cvetinov"
Here is the post from his blog:
"Q u i c k s o l u t i o n s
"I am strong opponent to quick solutions to many of our everyday problem, whether money or health related. In such manner, I didn't expect my dizziness to disappear over night without trace.
"I had it since 2000. So 8 years before, they did everything necessary to rule out other diseases : EEG, Dopler, Blink reflexes, Evoked potentials... everything clean.
"In 2007. dizziness worsened so neurologist sent me to do endocranium MRI/MRA. Totally clean: no lesions whether white MS or atherosclerotic, balanced blood flow...
"2008. I have found article from Dr Jolie Bookspan, describing forward head posture and neurological deficits. I did have extremely straightened cervical lordosis, so I qualify for FHP. I started practicing healthy head postures : head back and FLEXION.
"I always thought that neck flexion was the key to healthy disc, because it opens neuroforamen, and that that degree of neck flexion wasn't possible without FHP. But, guys, I am physics scientist, I do not know how did it miss me : head-neck system has 5 degrees of freedom. I could pull it back, yet keep healthy degree of flexion. Just think of extending back of the neck while shortening front portion of it. That compulsive strengthening of SCM muscles I did, didn't do me any good, but...
"Anyway, MY TREMENDOUS DIZZINESS DISAPPEARED IN A MOMENT!! MOMENT, not day, not week, immediately. How? I do not know! I do not care! Thanks Dr Jolie.
"I can look over my shoulder while walking now. Easily without dizziness, loss of balance and lightheadedness. This it totally new.
"I have to give credit to 2 doctors more: 1. Dear ENT Vukoja Novak - he was the first one out of many doctors to tell me that if I consider it real, organic disease and not anxiety/panic related, I should check out carotid arteries on Doppler and cervical spine on roentgen. Latter revealed disk degeneration and straightened lordosis. He was the first to point to the spine. 2. Dr Mijanović - While doing EMG, he told me that tongue is clear except huge amount of hyperexcitability and asked me to check out something serious and real. I suggested left arm, with disesthesia running in C6 dermatome. He asked me about dizziness, I told him " I do have it, a lot of it, but dear doctor, I have panic disorder and somatoform disorder. It is due to this.". After poked me with a needle in left deltoid he immediately said "I can assure you, your dizziness are due to your spine."
"So, now I know. Not that it was spine, it can be cured in a moment:)"
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links and archives. Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Have The Fitness Fixer e-mailed to you, free. Click "updates via e-mail" - Health Expert Updates (trumpet icon) upper right column.
