Fast Fitness - Better Back and Leg Exercise When Vacuuming
Friday, January 30, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Prevent lumbar disc degeneration, and strengthen and stretch your legs without needing a gym, trainer, or exercise equipment, or even changing your clothes:
Notice if you bend wrong - pictured at right with red X. It may stretch and feel good, but over time pushes discs outward to the back (herniates them).
Stand upright and bend both knees in a lunge - pictured center with green check mark.
Instead of only doing lunges as an exercise 10 times and paying for a trainer or a gym (right) use it hundreds of times a day for real life bending. That is functional exercise.
Good bending will not hurt your knees. Keep front knee back over your ankle (left and middle photo with green check mark). Healthy positioning keeps your body weight on your muscles and off your knee joint.
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels below posts, 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.
Hamstring to Quadriceps Ratios Not the Answer in Knee Injury
Monday, January 26, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
A common myth is that injury comes from "muscle imbalance" in the thigh from too much strength in the quadriceps muscles over the hamstring muscles.
Early studies showed poor ratios of quad to hamstring strength. It was concluded that because of this, when the athlete would kick, for example, the overly strong quadriceps would overstraighten the knee, and the overpowered hamstring behind the thigh would not be able to stop the powerful straightening. The knee would overstraighten and hyperextend the joint, injuring it.
Athletes were put on hamstring strengthening training. Then they went back to kicking with the same bad habit of overstraightening as before.
The problem was simply that they athlete would hyperextend the knee. They were allowing it through bad training habits, not being made to do it by a strong quadriceps. Your muscles do not make you move. You learn though training and practice how to move in healthy ways.
What to do? When you kick, don't fling your leg out and hyperextend (overstraighten) the knee. Control the end point position. When you land from jumps or descending stairs, don't step down on a locked, straight knee. Control the end point position.
--- 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 personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. LimitedClass spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify through DrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Fast Fitness - Fixing Arches, Knock Knee, and Knee Pain Without Orthotics
Friday, January 23, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - Stop one major source of inward-turning knees (knock-knees). Click the movie arrow to run:
Look at your bare legs in a mirror with feet facing straight forward.
See if the knees turn inward to face more toward each other than forward.
Feel how the muscles can pull outward to gently move (not force) knee position. These muscles like to be used correctly, not left unused.
Often, knees turned inward are a simple case of letting body weight sag downward onto the inside of the leg and arch of the foot, not a case of unchanging anatomy. Pain often comes from letting the knees and ankles twist, rotate, and sag. Restoring neutral position can stop this source of pain. Don't yank or force one segment, like the knee, causing problems in others. Restoring neutral means healthy position for the whole leg.
Orthotics are hard inserts that hold your foot in a certain position. Orthotics are different from cushion inserts that make a softer landing for each step. You can control leg and foot position without orthotics. That doesn't mean orthotics don't work, just that you can do it without them. It's cheaper and you get a free leg muscle stability workout at the same time.
Remember, don't force. If it hurts, it's wrong. Creating new strain instead of restoring function is not health or good thinking. All you are doing is restoring muscle length and using that to learn how to stand neutral, not tilted so much that you compress your joints.
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 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.
Your Muscles Are Your Orthotics for Arches, Knock Knee, and Knee Pain
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
David from Belgium has been a success story and valuable contributor. He frequently makes us photos and movies showing how to fix pain and unhealthful fitness using Fitness Fixer techniques. He first left a comment on a post in 2007:
"I'm training to be a yoga teacher and I'd love to teach the right things to my pupils such as good posture. Your insights are very inspirational. After struggling with minor but persistent knee pain for some years, I was diagnosed with seriously fallen arches recently. I'm not really flat-footed, but ankles that drop inwards too much. (I could clearly see that on the video my podiatrist made of me walking on bare feet). In a week I'll be getting new orthotics. Though, after reading a patient's testimony on your site I decided to try and use my feet differently. So now on my walks to and from my day job I'm trying to walk 'right'. Rolling on the entire foot, heel to toes, leaning more on the sides and using all five toes. It feels awkward though and I notice that I often forget it. I wonder if this will 'fix' my feet eventually? Anyway, thanks for sharing your knowledge!"
I replied that it "fixes" arch positioning as soon as you do it. It is natural to control how you stand and move - the whole intent of functioning in a healthy way in life, and the intent of yoga (supposedly). It seems at odds to say that yoga teaches body awareness, strength, or positioning, then let ankles slump without control, and purchase devices to do it for you. Once you understand the purpose, it will not be awkward. It is the same as any other good posture.
Since then, David has consistently made good use of these materials, and shared many success stories. He has fixed various pain producing habits for himself and his students, fixed his mother's herniated lumbar disc by showing her healthy bending around the house - Bending Right is Fitness as a Lifestyle, and developed a new yoga system of healthier movement - Getting the Right Yoga Medicine.
Orthotics are rigid shaped devices, fitted by prescription, that specifically move and hold your foot in a certain position.
Orthotics are different from over-the-counter shoe pads that can help by cushioning impact.
Orthotics do not do anything you cannot do yourself using your own muscles and sense of positioning (kinesthetics).
It is a myth that only a device can move your foot and leg leg. Click the label "myth" under this post for all Fitness Fixer posts on fitness myths.
Try these in relaxed way:
Stand and see that you can raise your own arches back to normal, taught in the post Arch Support Is Not From Shoes. It takes only seconds.
Make sure you are also not pronating from higher up - Healthy Knees.
Remember, don't force. If it hurts, it's wrong. All you are doing is learning how to stand neutral, not tilted so much that you compress the joints.
The concept is to hold your feet in the same healthful position that shoe supports would. It is like an ice skater holds their skates straight at the ankle, not angled.
During walking and running, a brief and small inward drop (slight pronation) occurs right after foot contact that creates part of the "spring" and propulsion. The idea is not to prevent all foot motion, but to not let the knee twist inward. You can do that with your own brain and muscles.
See if your answers are already here by clicking links, labels under posts, archives, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Read success stories of these methods and send your own. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer - Click "updates via e-mail" - (trumpet icon) upper right. Find fun topics on See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certifiedDrBookspan.com/Academy.
Last month, President-elect Barack Obama named four scientists to lead his science and technology team. I listened to his December 20, 2008 radio address. I heard words I waited all my life to hear.
When I was a small child, when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I told them, "A scientist!" I always knew.
I wanted to know how things worked and didn't work, and most importantly, why? Three men fall in freezing water. One dies. One is fine and warm and swims to safety. The third, shivering and miserable. Why? How? As a military scientist, my work was to find why standard operations and techniques didn't work. How to change them to make them effective, safe, sleek, powerful, good, and replace the wrong. Thankless work, what a surprise. I found why specific widespread medical practices weren't working, and what worked better. People using the changes began being able to do things previously hampered by injury and poor training methods.
When medicine and science aren't healthy, we find healthy ways, and do them instead. That is the best meaning of the word "health care," because it is finally healthy, and because we care how it affects people's lives. It is not health care if it is not healthy.
It is not a crusade, just doing what is simple and right, something anyone can know and do - not to sell products, hype, surgeries that you don't need, medicines or exercises that fix one thing and hurt six others, for profits and glory. Support what is true, not what you wish is true, or to repeat what "everyone" says, blind dogma, right or not.
At his December radio address, President-elect Obama said,
“The truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us."
We are currently in Thailand. From abroad, we will be watching the inauguration. We are looking forward to returning to a healthier country.
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.
Surgery for Knee Arthritis, Meniscus, Not Needed To Stop Pain, Restore Function
Monday, January 19, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Good news. If you don't like or want knee surgery for most arthritis or meniscus injury, you don't have to have it. Lack of need for surgery has been demonstrated over many years in rehabilitation populations, and in a mostly ignored older clinical study. Recent studies confirm you can stop most pain and restore function just as well without surgery through good physical rehab.
Millions of Americans undergo arthroscopic surgery for knee pain every year. Over the last 30 years, arthroscopic surgery has been routinely accepted and prescribed for knee pain without undergoing rigorous evaluation.
Even when a 2002 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) found that results of arthroscopic surgery for knee osteoarthritis were no higher than medicine and physical therapy alone, the surgical community "remained unswayed."
Dr. Brian Feagan, co-author of a study in the Sept. 11 2008 issue of the NEJM stated, "It really didn't change practice that much. That's why this second [study] was really important."
Feagan's randomized, controlled trial involved 178 patients, average age 60. All had moderate-to-severe osteoarthritis of the knee. Half underwent arthroscopic surgery plus medical and physical therapy. The other half used medical and physical therapy alone. After two years, both groups' scores on a measure of arthritis severity were about the same.
A second study also published in the same journal issue, found that meniscal tears are common in the general population and, "may not, in fact, be responsible for painful symptoms." That means that if you have knee pain, and have scans and imaging which show a meniscus tear, it may not even be the tear that is causing the pain.
"There's going to be a swing in practice," said Dr. Feagan.
Study authors stated that meniscal tears detected on MRI may confuse matters and lead to unnecessary therapy. This is a similar finding to back pain where patients with pain are shown to have a herniated disc, stenosis, or other finding, but the pain is not from the anatomical finding, but the same bad movement habits, slouching, and lack of good movement that make anyone hurt. Discs also often appear herniated, and spines compressed by stenosis on scans of people with no back pain. Don't base your treatment and future on a picture. Scans are not tea leaves.
Supportive and inflexible shoes are often prescribed in the belief that they restore healthy tracking, but studies show that these shoes increase knee load and tendency to arthritis. You may do rehab for the meniscus that shows up on x-ray, but still have pain that may only be from the from hard "supportive" shoes. You can "support" and align and stabilize your own feet and ankles and knees using good mechanics and your own muscles.
Poor knee stability increases risk of developing arthritis, and increases wear on the meniscus. Studies tracking results for years following surgery are finding that surgery "adds no benefit over rehabilitative training alone." That means you don't need the surgery to fix or prevent possible future arthritis.
--- I make posts from fun mail and success stories. 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. Why not try fun stuff, then contribute! Read success stories of these methods and send your own. 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 certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Fast Fitness - Hip Stretch and Spine Stability Training When Stretching Legs
Friday, January 16, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - Retrain your standing leg stretches to hold your spine and hip in healthful position, get more stretch to the front of the hip, use your back muscles, practice balance, and learn functional stretching - the way your body needs to move in real life in a healthy way.
When you raise one leg to stretch when standing:
Keep your standing leg straight. Don't bend at the knee and hip, as pictured.
Don't round your back or let your pelvis and hip round under you, as pictured.
Stand straight. Relaxed. Don't force or strain. Breathe.
When stretching, remember function. Why practice a position that is rounded, tight, and detrimental to how you move in real life when you lift your legs. It would look silly and unhealthy to stand up that way. Why stretch that way?
Get functional stretch by lengthening your body enough to be able to straighten out. That is the purpose of the stretch.
Use the new length and your brain to stand straight. Transfer the positioning to real life when you are standing and lift one leg to take stairs, kick, dance, play sports, climb over things, and other life activities. Standing without being so tight that you round your body forward, or just round from habit, is healthier, better looking, burns more calories, and stops many sources of chronic aches and pains.
Send me your photos of fixing this stretch. Doing is the best learning. I will post the photos in a reader success story.
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels below posts, and 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 debate in fad fitness is if you need aerobic activity to lose weight, or if weightlifting is sufficient. The larger issue is that you need to use your cardiovascular system for health.
A 21 year long study from the Stanford University School of Medicine found that older runners live longer and suffer fewer disabilities than healthy non-runners.
All 440 study participants were 50 years old or over at the beginning of the study. All ran an average of four hours a week. By the end of the study, all were in their 70s, 80s, and older, running an average of 76 minutes a week.
At the 19 year mark in the study, 34 percent of the non-runners had died, compared with 15 percent of the runners. Onset of disability was delayed in runners by an average of 16 years.
Lead study author, Dr. James Fries, is almost 70, runs 20 miles a week and plays tennis. He stated the positive numbers for runners was not even as high as compared to average populations, because "the control group was pretty darn healthy." The "health gap" between runners and non-runners increased with age. Fries said, "I always thought that the two curves would start to parallel each other and that eventually aging would overpower exercise. We can't find even a little twitch toward that gap narrowing in the present time."
Study authors also stated that, "The findings probably apply to a variety of aerobic exercises, including walking."
Study was published in the Aug. 11 2008 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Conventional medical texts originally stressed that exercise would harm elders. That viewpoint led to disastrous decades of needless infirmities among people who could have retained mobility and independence.
In 1980, Dr. Fries wrote a landmark paper of his "compression of morbidity" hypothesis, that "regular exercise would compress, or reduce, the amount of time near the end of life when a person was disabled or unable to carry out the activities of daily living, such as walking, dressing and getting out of a chair."
Stay active, keep moving whatever your age. It is the most important medicine you have.
--- 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. ---
Grand Round host Dr. Barbara Kivowitz, called this post, "a rich compilation."
Thank you Dr. Kivowitz for doing the hard work of gathering and listing helpful articles and information for readers.
---
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links, and archives. 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
in the list of the best medical posts of last week.
On the web, Grand Rounds is a list of posts that the host spends time working to find and list. This is different from a hospital Grand Rounds, which is a lecture.
The Jan 6th Grand Round theme was "Profit in Medicine." Dr. Leap mentioned my post will cut into doctors profits. When the patient benefits, *that* is health care.
---
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, 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.
Evidence-based education in functional physical medicine, sports medicine including diving medicine, and rehabilitation, changing exercise and medicine to healthier ways,
Internationally attended sports medicine congresses,
Certifications for physicians, allied health, physical therapists, fitness instructors, massage professionals, and the public,
Fellow advancement opportunities for physicians and researchers.
We are non-sectarian and dedicated to peace and health of all. We accept no advertising from unhealthful "health and sports" products. Part of course tuitions go to medical research, charity, and elderly help.
We are holding a contest to design the Academy logo. Winning logo will be seen internationally with credit to the designer. Logo designs should be simple, incorporate the concepts of brains and functional strength. Other concepts and ideas welcome.
If you are interested to help through your logo design submission, or other good ideas and talents, or be part of this organization, let me know. Be prepared to have fun and use your brain.
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. See if your answers are already here by clicking links,labels under posts, archives, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer - Click "updates via e-mail" (trumpet icon) upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal feedback. Top students may apply for certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
A study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found no evidence of accelerated rates of osteoarthritis among long-distance runners.
Further, weight-bearing exercise like running helps stave off osteoporosis by maintaining bone mineral density.
Study source: American Journal of Preventive Medicine August 2008; 35(2):133-8.
With good movement mechanics, running will not cause early wear on your bones and joints. With injurious poor movement habits, of course, you can wear and injure the joints.
Posts showing good movement mechanics during exercise and daily life:
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.
Fast Fitness - How Abdominal Muscles Prevent Hyperlordosis When Carrying
Friday, January 09, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - How to use your abdominal muscles to maintain neutral spine when carrying babies, and other things held and carried.
When you hold loads in front, notice if you lean your upper body backward - right-hand photo marked with red X. Leaning backward from the waist increases lumbar lordosis (hyperlordosis) which pinches the lower spine, causing aching after long standing.
Instead, stand upright - middle and left photo. The muscles that pull your spine forward to straight position against the load are your abdominal muscles. Upper spine angle will be a little more upright than pictured (center).
It is a myth that you must lean back to offset a carried load. You get a free abdominal muscle workout and increase abdominal muscles endurance by using them (not tightening) to change from painful to healthful standing position. Breathe normally.
David from Belgium is pictured at left. David has made many contributions to Fitness Fixer through photos, movies, success stories fixing his own pain and of his yoga students, translated many of my articles into Dutch, and has developed a healthier yoga style which he premiered at a world yoga congress last year
He did all this during the time he and wife (pictured center and right above) were expecting their first baby, arriving early last February. Thank you David and family from all of us.
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.
Overhead Lifting, Reaching, and Throwing Part II - Lower Back
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Part I of this three part series, showed a major hidden cause of rotator cuff injury - jutting the neck and chin forward while raising arms. This post shows a major hidden cause of "mystery lower back pain."
Letting the head and neck hang forward is called a "forward head." The forward head puts the shoulder at a position of compression when the arm is raised, even when using a computer, a common cause of pain and numbness that radiates down the arm.
The forward head is a bad posture. It causes much upper back and neck pain. Usually people have a forward head because they do not know it is bad posture and do not prevent it. Occasionally they have used a forward position for so long that the muscles get tight and it feels familiar to jut forward and strange to hold the neck and head in upright healthier position. Click links below to Fitness Fixer articles that show how to spot and prevent the cause of the injurious positioning.
The photographer (red shirt) in the photo at left, several of the people in blue shirts, are leaning the upper body backward to raise the arms. Leaning back increases the inward arch of the lower back.
The resulting posture is called swayback, overarching, and hyperlordosis.
Hyperlordosis is a major cause of mystery lower back pain. The sharp angle presses on the lower spine, making it ache. Over time, the compression can injure the facet joints which are the joints of the vertebrae, discs, and soft tissue.
Reader David from Belgium has made us several helpful training videos. In the one below:
Click the arrow to watch as he reaches upward.
He first allows the beltline to tip downward, then mostly corrects it.
David left some of the arch to show readers.
I thank David for all his continuing great work. We are in the process of making more of these helpful topic segments.
Coming on Friday Fast Fitness - How Abdominal Muscles Prevent Hyperlordosis When Carrying.
---
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. Find fun topics on the Fitness Fixer Index.
Readers, thank you for making Fitness Fixer a highly read and useful health site. Positive response has been considerable. E-mails and success stories steadily come in of readers reclaiming health mobility, fixing pain, having fun, and accomplishing their dreams using these methods.
As you read this, we have been away the past week traveling for work, and are somewhere in Europe. Over the next several days, we will be on our way back to Asia. For the next two months in Asia, I will check in and post article for you from Internet cafes as we make our way through work, and travel on overnight trains and ferries.
If you have a success story with photos for me to post, e-mail me your story and how to access your photo sharing site, if you have one, to get your photos to put in the post.
If you are e-mailing me photos for your success stories, send small jpgs so my e-mail does not fill, and so I can directly upload them for posts without finding a graphics program to resize them.
Continue to leave comments of your successes with these methods.
If you have questions, check for posts already here on Fitness Fixer, and the Index. I won't have access to Internet or e-mail for the next week. I won't receive comments until after that.
I am not the moderator for comments. I cannot choose which comments are put through. The staff at Healthline uploads comments when they can. When you send a comment, it will not appear right away. It goes first to Healthline staff. We don't post comments that are advertisements, just ones for learning healthy things.
It may be several days before your comment becomes visible, then several more until I am able to get to an Internet café where I can see them and write replies. Blogger has been having troubles. It is not always uploading photos, and sometimes it does not allow me to reply to comments. Readers - write your helpful comments to each other.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Russian Orthodox readers - S nastupaiushchim Novym godom i s Rozhdestvom Khristovym, to Greek Orthodox celebrating Epiphany - Hronia polla kai eytyhismenos o kainourios hronos, with Armenian, Ethiopian, and other Eastern Rite readers. To communities celebrating Three Kings Day, Twelfth Night, and everyone - healthy peace together. Add your greeting to the comments. I hope that covers everyone.
This is the story of trekking to record the sacred music and art of LUNG-TA, the Windhorse.
Travel was by horseback and walking, at elevations approaching 14,000 feet, over treacherous areas with washouts, slides and erosion, some with sheer drop-offs over 1000 feet.
Composer Andrea Clearfield and artist Maureen Drdak trekked a month in Nepal in September 2008, to research and collect music, history, personal accounts, and art from Buddhist communities and monasteries, for a commissioned major work to be performed in March in Philadelphia.
They spent fourteen days trekking northward across the western highlands, arriving at Monthang, capital of the remote restricted Kingdom of Lo in Upper Mustang, close to the Tibetan border.
The Kingdom of Lo has been described as the "American Southwest on steroids." The artists' trek led northward following the canyon of the Kali Gandaki river, recognized as the worlds deepest gorge, cutting between the Himalayan mountains of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri.
Andrea had been one of my students for several years. Before she left for Nepal she met with me to ask what conditioning she should do.
I told her that good bending will serve her for many of the most important things she will do.
I reminded her she will be sitting horseback for hours and will not need exercises that sit or bend forward, but those that restore muscle length to get straightened up again. She would benefit by sitting and squatting comfortably on the ground. I evaluated her ankles for stability and reminded her that while the Westerners on treks will have expensive boots holding their ankles up for them, atrophying and leaving their muscles without use, the porters for her trek will likely be in flip-flops, holding their own leg position using their own muscles.
Andrea wrote me:
"On my trek to Nepal, what I found most beneficial was having learned from you the proper use of bending from the knees with straight back, particularly for squatting - necessary for using the "toilets" and for other functions in village life. I also incorporated your teachings of good posture into my long treks on horseback, and found my back to be strong and pain-free, even after 8 hours of riding through fierce winds and remote high desert environments through the Himalayas. I also practiced daily yogic asanas in the various tea-houses where we stayed, paying attention to keeping a straight spine, relaxed shoulders and open chest. Although I left the States with an ankle injury, this has slowly healed as well."
"Thank you, Jolie, for helping me stay healthy and pain-free on the trek!"
Namaste and Tashi Delek, Andrea
Andrea and Maureen were accompanied by Dr. Sienna Craig - Dartmouth anthropologist, and Dr. Gyaltso Bista, Amchi physician to King Jigme Palbar Bista of Lo.
They met with the King and Queen of Lo, Bista nobles, high ranking lamas, and the court singer Tashi Tzering. They met with John Sanday and Luigi Fieni, international experts in restoring the treasured monasteries of Monthang and newly discovered caves of the region. They also met with the Lobas, the people of, "this last enclave of pure Tibetan culture."
Lung-Ta, the Windhorse was commissioned by the Network for New Music. The Lo Monthang region of Nepal is home to a horse culture that is, "threatened by the encroaching pressures of the outside world." The horse carries the prayers of the faithful upwards toward the heavens.
The performance will be March 6, 2008 at the Great Hall at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Relatives of the King of Lo have been invited to speak to the audience about the cultural and environmental fragility of this remote kingdom.
Lung-Ta: Music by Andrea Clearfield. Group Motion Artistic Director Manfred Fischbeck will choreograph accompanying dance, performed by Network for New Music. visual art by Maureen Drdak, Dance by Group Motion Dance Company.
Maureen writes: "The title refers to the Tibetan Buddhist prayer flag, as well as that quality of the individual that manifests 'inner vibratory power' – the wellspring of infinite compassion. Incorporating text written for this work by Senior Lama Tenzin Bista of Lo Monthang’s Chode Monastery, it is a prayer for the planet."
Three large paintings will be suspended (like prayer flags) across the expanse of the Great Hall in the University of the Arts, beginning two weeks before the premiere.
A second performance/exhibition of Drdak's work and Clearfield's music will be held at West Chester University on March 8, 2009.
Information for the LUNG-TA project is on the Network website, networkfornewmusic.org.
Read more success stories 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. Find fun topics on the Fitness Fixer Index.
Fast Fitness - High Core Strength For The New Year
Friday, January 02, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - a quick fun one to fulfill New Year's Resolutions for increased strength of body and core. Strengthen almost everything with this fun move that my students affectionately call "peeing dog" -
Hold a straight pushup position. Keep elbows slightly bent, not locked.
Lift one leg straight out to the side, as if over a bicycle. Hold as long as you can. Jump to switch other leg out to the other side.
Hold neutral spine throughout (pictured at center). Don't let lower spine or neck droop under your weight (gray shirt second from right). This post shows how - Fast Fitness - Strengthen by Changing Your Plank.
Send your photos or short movies of your successes doing this. Coming soon - an even more fun and challenging maneuver once you can do this one.
Photo is from my workshop at the 2007 International Black Belt Hall of Fame.
---
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.
Today is the first day of the Shinto New Year (Gantan-Sai) and the Western New Year on the Gregorian calendar, the solar calendar used in much of the world, reorganized by Pope Gregory XIII in the (solar calendar year) 1582.
One New Year tradition, of many, occurs in the freezing waters off Coney Island New York. For many years, my Grandfather was the oldest member of the Brooklyn Icebergs, a swimming club who swims in the ocean every day of the year, no matter what weather or temperature, including New Year's Day when air and water temperatures are often below zero centigrade, and sometimes Fahrenheit.
I will post more on the fun and physiology of cold swimming in months to come.
On the New Year, it is another tradition for people look forward and back at their lives and make plans for things to change. The two-headed Roman god Janus symbolizes and names the first month of the year.
The Mahayana New Year will be Jan 11 and Lunar New Year will be January 26 The Baha'i and Persian/Zoroastrian New Year's Day will fall on the Vernal Equinox on March 21.
Happy New Year To All.
---
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.
