Not long after, I saw Dennis running by at a fast clip, with beautiful neutral spine, good leg and foot alignment, and a light landing with each foot-fall. I asked him why he had asked about running lightly when his running was great. He said he had changed to running lightly after I worked with him on it. I asked if it made a difference and he laughed, "Of course. It used to hurt."
Dennis is muscular and squarely built. He used to leave an impression on the floor when he walked, and had knee, neck, and lower back pain after running.
Getting good exercise with healthy impact is fun, feels good, helps bone density, and probably is good for many body systems that benefit by impact and movement. Getting healthy exercise and enough bone loading is possible without jarring landings and transmitting damaging force to the joints. Dennis did several things to stop injuring his joints during movement:
He stopped letting his arches flatten downward. Using his own leg and ankle muscles, Dennis held neutral foot position maintaining a good arch without needing any inserts or special running shoe - Arch Support Is Not From Shoes.
Stopped letting the knees bend inward toward each other when running, and held neutral foot position - Healthy Knees.
Using the information in my classes, Dennis fixed recurring ankle injuries, and various back neck and other joint pain and went on to win medals in wrestling. His stories and photos will follow in reader success articles to come.
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - if you have been afraid to try a handstand, here is a quick easy way to have success. You will strengthen your hands, wrist, arms, shoulders, upper body, and core, practice balance, and get blood circulating.
Crouch down near a wall (avoid slippery floor)
Put one foot high up on the wall
Lift up the other foot
To add a nice stretch on the hamstrings, lift one leg away from the wall into a wide split position in the air, as below.
If you have uncontrolled glaucoma or high blood pressure, ask your care providers first.
Click here to see a quick video showing how to change sagging spine to neutral spine.
Is your arm strong enough to put down the junk food, soda, ice cream, French fries, fast food, cookie, processed sugar products masquerading as sports food, lunch meats, Danish, donut, cigarette, chips, pretzels, recreational drugs.
They are not healthy. They are not necessary. They are a bad habit. They work against you. They reduce your fitness. They create dependence. their production creates extra litter and pollution. It is money that is not necessary to spend that you could put toward healthful good food, or helping the poor.
How strong are you really? Is your arm strong enough to put them back down, away from your mouth?
The post Spotting Back Pain During Running and Walking - What Do Abs Have To Do With It? showed the common and painful bad posture of standing with too much inward curve in the lower back, called swayback and hyperlordosis. A reader mailed me an article about gluteal muscles and asked what gluteal muscles have to do with it. The article shows one kind of hyperlordosis, with the hip pushed forward. The drawing at right shows that hip-forward hyperlordosis position (right figure) compared to neutral spine (left figure). The article stated that the hip-forward posture was due to weak gluteal muscles, and that strengthening the muscles would fix the bad posture. The article gave a strengthening exercise of lying on your back and squeezing the "cheeks" of the backside together as if squeezing a coin between them.
Knowing muscle action will help you know why it doesn't work that way:
Your gluteal muscles are muscles of your backside. One function is to pull your upper leg backward, for example, when walking, to pull each leg behind you. The distance between the back of your hip and the back of your upper leg shortens.
If you use your gluteal muscles while standing (not tighten them, just use them to bring about movement) your hip will push forward. That is the opposite of correcting a hip that is forward in bad posture.
Squeezing the "cheeks" of the gluteal muscles together is training a different movement direction than either pushing your hip and leg forward or back.
Another fallacy is that tight gluteal muscles pull the hip so that it pushes forward into bad posture. It is true that tight hip muscles in front will change the tilt of your hip. People with anterior tightness cannot easily bring the leg behind them, which hurts stance and gait. Gluteal muscles cannot get that tight unless you have tetanus. Gluteal tight enough to push the hip forward a few inches would be so tight that you would not be able to sit down. You would tear your backside like splitting your pants.
The key point is that strengthening a muscle does not make it move your body or change your position. If you strengthen your arm, for example, your arm does not automatically wave around or raise over your head. Your arm only moves when you make it move. Strengthening your gluteal muscles will not move your hip for you. Even if strengthening did make any body part move on its own, gluteal muscles would cause a forward hip, not correct it.
Think of asking a dog to shake hands with you. If you want the dog to move his paw up to shake your hand, you do not strengthen his leg and paw. You train the movement and the voluntary desire to bring about the action.
Standing, walking, and running in hyperlordosis is a major cause of lower back pain. Some people stick the backside out in back and others tilt the upper body back with the hip thrust forward. Both increase the inward curve of the lower back and painfully pinch the lower back structures. Although some fitness information and advertisements represent overarching as attractive, even something to deliberately do, it is an unhealthy and weak posture, making it unattractive and undesirable.
Strengthening muscles is good and helpful and fun and healthy, and so on. Strengthening gluteal muscles or any other muscles will not automatically make you stand in healthful position. Stronger muscles do not make you move. You can change to healthful position right now without strengthening. These posts show how:
When you hear that you need various strengthening exercises to correct posture, think of shaking a dog's paw.
--- Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - instead of eating junk food and playing violent video games, try a fun game to build your English vocabulary and help impoverished areas.
For each correct definition, FreeRice donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.
If your definiftion is correct, the next word is harder. If incorrect, you get an easier word. In this way, FreeRice adjusts to your vocabulary level.
According to their site, FreeRice runs the site at no profit. The rice is paid for by the advertisers, and distributed by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). They give this warning: This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance...
Put down your junk food. Feed your brain and the hungry.
Equinox - An Exercise in Treating People With Equality
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Today is the equinox. As the earth continues on its yearly path around the Sun, the center of the disk of the Sun passed over the Earth's equator at 1:48 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time this morning (March 20, 05:48 Universal Time). At the date of the equinox, night and day are approximately equal length all over the world (small variations for refractive effects). The Northern Hemisphere begins Spring, while the Southern Hemisphere begins the shorter days of Fall. Each day, for the next three months, days will become a few minutes longer and nights shorter in the Northern hemisphere. Our Southern Hemisphere friends will have longer nights each night until the Solstice in June.
Japan celebrates six days of the Spring equinox (shunbun no hi). Graves are visited during the week to reflect on looking forward and back. The six days are based on the six perfections: giving, observance of virtuous teachings, perseverance, effort, contemplation, and wisdom. Nowruz, in various spellings, is a major Spring observance among many Eastern religions. Nowruz comes from Persian words meaning "new daylight." Observances may date to at least 15,000 years ago. Diverse Indo-European cultures celebrated the Spring Goddess-mother and source of returning life. In the West, many observe the return of Spring and life with symbols of eggs, birth, passing, and rebirth.
The equinox is a fitting time to reflect on equality. That does not mean that everyone must get the same shoe size, but that you consider someone of higher or lower social rank with the same respect.
There is a story that at the end of the final exam of the finest MBA program in the country, was one question, "What is the name of the person who cleans the floors of this building?" Anyone not able to answer this did not get a degree that semester.
Do you say hello to the people who work so hard to make a beautiful place for you to learn and work? Do you care who they are? They are a special human being like you are. Learn their name. Say hello. See the difference it makes to them and to your world outlook.
Thank you Dr. Scott at Polite Dissent for hosting Grand Rounds 4.26 this week. Polite Dissent has interesting posts on medical and physiological mistakes portrayed in cartoons, television shows, and other media.
Reader Joe Blatt recently celebrated his 63rd wedding anniversary. He was a Broadway choreographer and dancer.
He demonstrates how to keep good flexibility and balance through the ordinary daily activity of standing to put on shoes and socks, and tying your shoes.
Fast Fitness - Stronger Arms and Chest, and Core, Hip, and Leg Stability With A Friend
Friday, March 14, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - strengthen inner legs, thighs, arms, and core, while practicing neutral spine with a friend. More exercise than putting hands up on a bench or exercise ball.
My students Johanna (1) and Diana (2) demonstrate the beginning of this move. Description of how to progress follows the photos:
Partner 1 lies face up with bent knees
Partner 2 does pushups on Partner 1's knees while holding neutral spine, not letting the lower back sag and arch downward. Partner 1 gets entry-level exercise hip and core exercise by holding legs stable and does not let knees wobble. Higher-level exercise is described below the photos.
To increase core and hip stabilization training for both partners, Partner 1 tilts knees slightly to each side while Partner 2 continues pushups. Try both moving continuously side to side, and holding legs stable at an angle. Do not twist your spine.
Spotting Back Pain During Running and Walking - What Do Abs Have To Do With It?
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
The post Innovation in Abdominal Muscles showed one of the most common, yet most overlooked cause of lower back pain during long standing walking, and running.
Readers sent excited letters stating they could finally see and feel why they had back pain, and could immediately feel the difference when they stopped standing with too much inward curve in the lower spine, and began standing and moving in neutral spine.
Neutral spine at left. The line from the top of the leg up to the middle of the hip is vertical. The beltline (line from front to back through the crest of the hipbone) is horizontal.
Middle drawing shows tilting the hip forward in front and out in back.
Right drawing shows tilting the hip forward, and also leaning the upper body backward.
Readers asked for more photos so that they can see the difference between overarching (hyperlordosis) and neutral spine (normal lordosis) during running and walking. They wanted to see the overarch in action and what running in neutral spine looked like.
The two photos above show allowing hyperlordosis, or too much inward curve (arch) in the lower spine. It is not a normal curve. The angle increases where the back of the vertebrae come together. It does not look fit or healthy.
In both photos, the hip tilts forward in front (and out in back) instead of holding vertical. The abdomen rounds outward.
Note the red stripe on the runner's pants in the photo at left. The stripe tilts forward from the top of the leg to the middle of the hip. Compare to the red vertical line in the middle and right-hand drawing. The beltline tips downward in front. Compare to the red lines tilting downward in the drawings.
The walker in the photo at right tilts the hip forward in front (and out in back), beltline tips downward. The upper body leans and sags backward.
Neutral spine.
The muscles that shorten to prevent the upper body tilting back and the hip tilting forward are your abdominal muscles. The abdominal muscles are too long when you allow overarching. Keep this in mind when you hear about exercise programs that claim to lengthen your abs.
Moving your spine to neutral spine for all daily life is how abdominal muscles help prevent back pain. It is not strengthening them that does this, and it is not tightening. Crunches and other forward bending exercises do not train you how to use your abs to hold neutral spine and they increase herniating pressure on your discs - click Good Life Works Better Than Bad Ab Exercise. Use your abdominal muscles, without tightening them, to position your lower spine during all you do, just like using any other muscles to move any other part the way you want. It is a free ab workout all day, and you will stop a major cause of back pain during standing, walking, and running.
Click Prevent Back Surgery to see why overarching can be so damaging to the joints of the vertebrae.
Click my web site books page www.DrBookspan.com/books to see the training manual The Ab Revolution™. It shows several techniques to learn neutral spine as a normal habit, and how to use it to stop back pain from hyperlordosis, even if you don't exercise (Part 1) and how to use it for better core training if you want to incorporate it into exercises (Part 2), from simple to the hardest you can get.
My student Leslie is 67 years old. She has been working with me for several years. Click the arrow of this 30 second movie to watch her knock off 30 pushups.
At around the 25 second mark of this short movie, enjoy the reaction of the student who will appear at right.
Leslie holds straight neutral spine position. She does not let her lower spine sag, or her head and neck sag downward. To see a movie to practice how to change overarched hyperlordotic sagging spine to neutral spine for pushups, click Fast Fitness - Strengthen by Changing Your Plank.
Leslie says hello to all the readers and that she is strong with such great positioning due to my classes and emphasis on being able to hold up your own body weight in healthful positioning for regular daily life. I hope to post more of Leslie's and other students' happiness and strength.
Bookmark this post. Open it every day and do your 30 pushups with Leslie.
How many of you caught that the photo in the Fast Fitness post - Fix Positioning by Watching Others is of terrible body positioning that is a common source of upper body pain and injury?
I received letters asking about the photo. Several readers did not catch that the reason for the photo was that both people were standing in terrible rounded forward posture. Some readers thought the photo was not of bad posture, but showed people with interest in the game or that they way they were standing was a needed position to see the ball.
It is a harmful body position called forward head and round shoulders.
The rounded and tilted forward position of the upper back, neck and head is a bad positioning that is a major cause of:
Upper back pain sometimes called Upper crossed syndrome
Look in your fitness magazines and videos and look around during fitness classes and the gym to see if you can see the forward head and a rounded upper body. It's a handy reminder that it is not healthy, and to exercise in better, healthier ways.
Read inspiring success stories of these methods and send your own. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and The Fitness Fixer Index. 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. Limited Class spaces for personal feedback. Top students may apply for certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Next Workshops on Healthier Stretching and Fixing Neck and Back Pain
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
I will hold 2 different fun, fast moving workshops this March and April.
"Fix Your Own Back Pain - Medical Breakthroughs in Non-Surgical Treatment" will be given at two locations, one in downtown (center city) Philadelphia, and one in a northern suburb.
Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier will be given at the suburban location along with the fix pain workshop.
Both workshops are a combination of fun and fast-moving audiovisual lecture and non-strenuous physical practice.
The "Fix Your Own Back Pain" workshop in Center City Philadelphia is one class divided over two sessions. It will be held at Temple Center City Campus on two Saturdays, March 29 and April 5, 2008, 9 am-11:30 am.
Saturday April 12, 2008, I will run both workshops in one jam-packed Saturday at the Ambler/Ft.Washington Pennsylvania campus of Temple University. You can learn how to fix your pain from 9 am-2 pm, then continue on with the stretching workshop from 2:30-4:30 pm, the same day. For this big one day double workshop, we already have two people registered from India, two from England, and more from California, Massachusetts, and several of the United States.
In the Fix Pain workshop, I show how to stop the causes of the pain, not just do a bunch of exercises or treatments for symptoms. We practice how to fix the source of neck pain, upper and lower back pain, certain hip pain, disc herniation or bulging, impingement, sciatica, SI joint pain, and more. The workshops are suitable for the out-of-shape as well as the athlete. Wear comfortable ordinary clothing. If you have to change your clothes to fix pain, how are you supposed to have an ongoing normal life without pain?
A Reader Asks About Osteoporosis and Walking Lightly
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
One good question launched many answers. The post Walk Lightly - Shock Absorption for Happier Joints explained a light step prevents joint, soft tissue, and plantar fasciitis pain. In the comments, Carol asked if there were, "a connection between walking lightly and oesteopenia?" This is interesting, since osteopenia is lower than normal bone density, that lack of enough pulling or tension on the bones reduces bone density, and a certain amount of impact and loading keeps bones denser. The simple answer seems to be, that walking lightly should not be enough to reduce bone density, by itself.
Walking, running, and jumping lightly is good exercise to load the bones, while being better for your ankles, knees, hips, and spine than jarring with each step. The post Why So Many Aerobics Injuries? cited news accounts attributing joint pain and injury to high impact activities, with examples of popular aerobics personalities of the 1980s who now say they are too crippled to exercise. Their injuries were avoidable, but not by avoiding impact exercises. Impact activities can be done safely by not stomping down hard. Even repeated jumps from a height can be done with soft landings. Good athletes run, jump, and box with far less impact than most people walk, and have good strong bones. Exercise, done right, is crucial for your bones - Exercise is More Important Than Calcium Supplements for Bones.
When muscles pull your bones during walking, running, and other exercise, the pulling increases bone density. Adding external weight loads bones further. That is a major way weight-bearing and weight lifting exercise increases bone density. The effect of muscles contracting to provide good shock absorption when moving also pulls on the bones,which should be good. The post Forensic Anthropology and Bone Density looked at influencing the shape of our bones by how we move.
The reader went on to comment, "I have always been very light on my feet, and now in my 50s I have found out I have low bone density. I have a cousin who shakes the house when she walks who has been told that she doesn't ever have to worry about her bone mass." Walking lightly alone should not have caused the osteopenia. Questions would be, what other exercise the reader does, and what things might be decreasing her bone density? For the cousin, "shaking the house" by itself may not be enough bone stimulus that anyone could tell her that she "doesn't ever have to worry." Has the cousin taken a bone density test and was found to be high (for whatever reason)? Then you can say there is lowered risk of fracture. Is this cousin is very heavy, which helps load bone? Does this cousin do regular exercise to increase her bone density? It is not likely to be a valid prediction that someone never has to worry about bone density just because they walk badly.
The reader went on to ask, "I went to a bones for life class and was taught to do heel bouncing to stimulate bone growth. i.e. dropping repeatedly from toes onto heels while standing in proper alignment. Do you agree with that exercise?" I did a few searches on the bones for life class and found that the class uses many exercises, not bouncing on the heels alone. Bouncing for a few minutes would not be enough to undo an entire sedentary life style and the various things people do that actively take away from bone density. You need to do all the other exercises. How much the shock wave of the impact may additionally load or stimulate the bone is an interesting open possibility.
There are studies looking at effects of vibration and tapping on bone building. Mechanisms have been studied from the effect on cat bones of their purring, to various machines that bang or vibrate. Some advertising for vibration machines goes as far as making claims that they will increase bone density. So far, none have been found to have as much bone building effect as muscular activity (exercise). Too much occupational vibration, like jack-hammer, helicopter and similar environments produces joint pain, injuries to the spine, eyes, ear, nervous, and other systems. That was one of the topics I was looking into when I did aviation medicine research, explained in Indiana Jones Rocket Sled. A news article that came out on last year's fitness fad of vibration plates promising weight loss and fitness building, mentioned a few of the problems with too much vibration, and, ironically had an accompanying photograph showing severely hyperlordotic (overarched) lower spine positioning by a person listed as the trainer. Hyperlordotic spine posture, by itself, damages the facet joints of the spine over time. It seems safe to say that the jolting of the vertebral joints against each other in this overly arched position would only be worsened by vibration. The post Prevent Back Surgery shows examples of overarched lower spine and why it causes so many injuries in fitness.
It would be interesting to know if low levels of vibration and impact, through tap dancing, Flamenco dancing, pogo stick jumping, and similar activities, would change bone compared to the same amount of exercise without the impact. Some studies claim that swimmers or cyclists do not have as high bone density as runners, while others do not find that when they control for the direct muscle work applied to the area. There are even studies showing that Tai Chi, a most mild form movement with almost no foot-falls at all, can increase bone density in older people, just from the movement.
Along with walking or running, and weight lifting to build bone density, and using your muscles to stop stomping which can hurt the joints, you can prevent bone loss by avoiding things that reduce bone density:
Smoking
Drugs that are known to greatly increase risk of bone fracture: stomach acid drugs and steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, regular use of SSRI antidepressants such as Prozac and Paxil. Numerous medications used to treat different cancers may produce osteopenia (bone shortage) and osteoporosis in long-term cancer survivors. See Stomach Acid Drugs Increase Osteoporosis and Hip Fractures
Lack of sunlight. Calcium cannot be absorbed or do its job without enough sunlight
High consumption of meat and dairy products
Drinking alcohol too often
Lack of fruit and vegetables, and vegetable calcium sources
Eating wheat and related grains by people with celiac
Osteoporosis and osteopenia cause major problems for men, not only women. More on this to come. Move, walk, lift weights, stand on your hands, and jump for fun, exercise, and bone building. You do not need to ooze around on tiptoe to avoid impact injuries. Jump and dance and stamp your feet for fun, for bone building, and for all the refreshing good feeling it gives, without jarring your joints and retinas loose. Have fun.
Carol ended her comment to me with, "Thanks for your site - I've learned a lot about alignment, which has helped in many ways." Thank you Carol for writing so many helpful questions for our benefit.
He stopped keeping a large inward curve in the lower back while running. Changing to neutral spine decreased the compressive pinching and loading of the vertebral joints and soft tissue - Spotting Back Pain During Running and Walking - What Do Abs Have To Do With It?
