Where To Continue with Fitness Fixer During Healthline's Pause for All Bloggers
Friday, April 30, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Thank you and congratulations to everyone who wrote to see if I was OK when Fitness Fixer suddenly stopped broadcasting April 7. Smart readers know I never missed getting you Fitness Fixers for the last 4 years - even overseas with remote, difficult, even non-existant Internet. You know who your friends are when they check in to say they care. Thank you.
The Blogger software that Healthline uses to make the Health Authority blogs including Fitness Fixer, announced that we cannot upload articles or receive or reply to comments after April 30th. Through an engineering accident, my Fitness Fixer was stopped April 7th. Healthline has told us that for an undetermined time, perhaps many months, all blogs cease. While the next step is determined:
Attend my classes. Come for these special opportunities and certification - DrBookspan.com/classes
On Twitter. Readers, teach me how to use this thingie. I will post fun contests, quick fixes, class announcements on Twitter. No chatter, just useful info. Follow TheFitnessFixer - Twitter.com/TheFitnessFixer
Engineers wanted - Our human-powered electricity generation program is still in progress. Build the prototypes of the hand and leg cranks (like bicycles) to run lights, televisions, and other daily electricals. It's insanely backwards to pay and use electricity to run artificial fitness machines to burn calories. Turning the machines yourself would burn the calories and light the world. Come join us! E-mail or Tweet me.
Thank you to Johanna, who single-handedly redeemed the complaining students featured in Air Pushups. Johanna came to a recent Fix Back pain class and said she had taken a yoga class with me and remembered when I did one-armed air push ups. She said she thought I was a superhero. Thank you Johanna.
Thank you Dr. Paul Auerbach who invited me to write The Fitness Fixer. Thank you Healthline.
Thank you readers for the thousands of letters telling how you fixed your pain and your life using this work. Lots more we can do. Rock On.
Fast Fitness - Eighth Group Functional Training: Spine and Shoulder Stability With Overhead Motions
Friday, April 23, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - eighth in the series of Functional Fitness Training (Bookspan Basics) to teach your group, teams, classes, students, kids, battalions, or self. In this Bookspan Basic Training, you train positioning and muscle skills to reach overhead with healthy mechanics for the shoulder and lower back.
Assemble your group in neat rows. Stand in front in view of all. Tell them this is a basic, functional physical skill to learn to prevent injurious positioning during overhead motions.
Everyone reaches up. Have everyone notice if they lean their upper body backward to raise their arms. See if their tilt their beltline downward in front or push the hip/pelvis forward. See examples in both photos above and below. Explain that leaning back and increasing the lower spine arch are not a healthy ways to raise arms and that upright neutral spine is a stronger base for their arm movement and uses abdominal muscles.
Have everyone bring their ribs back down to level, pull upper body to upright, and tuck the hip under to straighten the pelvis to vertical and neutral. The motion is like doing an abdominal crunch standing up, without curling forward. You crunch enough to bring yourself to straight and upright. See our short movie of fixing this on Overhead Lifting, Reaching, and Throwing Part II - Lower Back.
Have everyone hold their upper body upright and vertical and notice where their shoulder is and try it again with healthy position.
Leaning back when raising arms increases the inward curve of the lower back, causing a swayback, hyper-lordotic posture. Hyperlordosis is a common source of "mystery" back pain. It comes when you over-arch - usually during long standing, walking, running, reaching, then goes away. People are mystified. Look at both photos again. It is easily prevented by stopping the injurious position then and there. Send your success photos to me at DrBookspan.com.
Make sure everyone breathes. A bad habit promoted by much popular fitness is tightening the abdominal and backside muscles to do minor movements. People hold their breath. Make sure all can do full relaxed belly breathing while holding neutral spine and reaching both arms overhead. Remind all to keep their shoulders down and not raise the shoulders when they raise the arms.
Fast Fitness - Seventh Group Functional Training: Advancing Ankle and Knee Safety With Single Leg Jumps
Friday, April 16, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - seventh in the series of Functional Fitness Training (Bookspan Basics) to teach your group, teams, classes, students, kids, battalions, or self. In this Bookspan Basic Training, you advance lower leg stability from single leg vertical jumps to lateral movement:
Assemble your group in neat rows. Stand in front in view of all. Tell them this is a basic, functional physical skill to learn how to reduce lower body injuries during sideways jumps. Remind them they need to use the same principles from the Third, Fifth, and Sixth FFT of vertical jumps.
Have everyone crouch using good bending (knees do not sway inward or slide forward, taught in the first skill), then rise to toes with stable neutral ankle (not bowing outward at the side, taught in the second skill). Remind them that when they land from a jump they use the same neutral ankle.
Stand with good stance on one leg only. Have them leap side to side from one leg to the other
Then try it jumping side to side on the same leg. Switch and repeat.
Use this for improving ability and reducing injury potential from changing direction, cutting, lateral movement, landing to the side from jumps, slips and missteps, and more. It builds on the Third, Fifth, and Sixth Functional Training exercises where you learned to jump vertically (up and down), laterally (side to side) with good lower body mechanics, then advanced to vertical single leg jumps.
During actual real life walking around, practice this by hopping (from one foot to the same one foot only) from point to point. Use street cracks and lines as goal points.
Trainers, Drill Instructors, readers, send in your stories of how you use these in your program.
Good body mechanics are a powerful performance enhancing aid.
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - learn healthy floor-sitting, mobilize your pelvis, and use your core muscles and brains at the same time to move out of painful position to healthy comfortable sitting.
Here is a technique to identify if you sit in a way that is associated with lower back pain, and a technique to move out of unhealthful position:
1. Sit on the floor cross legged. 2. Notice your pelvis. Does it tilt backward at the top, so that the lower back rounds outward. This is too much tuck, demonstrated by my student Yash in photo 1 below:
3. Put your hands on the floor right behind your hips. Push against your hands to lift your back upright. Can you feel your hip tilt forward to upright position demonstrated in photo 2 below?
(In the photo above, hands are not behind the hip, to provide unobstructed view of the hip/pelvis corrected from tilted back to vertical)
Sit well and you can sit without back pain.
If your hip is too tight to move out of unhealthful tilted position, then it is likely that you are sitting with your back in painful rounded position.
If you are tight, or do not know how to move your pelvis while sitting, it is often easier to learn to mobilize your pelvis standing or lying down. The pelvic tilt is misused in therapy settings. It is mistakenly thought of as a strengthener or a back pain fix. The muscle work (to strengthen) is minimal. The idea is to learn *how* to move the pelvis so that you can voluntarily move to the needed position, then hold it.
Fast Fitness - More Plank Chess and Success Photos
Friday, April 02, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - strong mind in a strong body - readers Paul J and son sent in their success playing their invention - plank chess:
Paul J writes:
"This time we played a complete game. "We had to hold the plank during our turn. "Once again my game was not going too well, and after about 10min I lost my balance moving my Knight. "Tonight I’ll work on shoulders so inclined plank and wall hand stands are in order. "I wonder if I can do a wall hand stand push up yet ….only one way to find out, right?" : )
Holding a plank 10 minutes is great work:
1. Hold your plank during your turn:
2. Your collaborator (remember, we are not opponents in life) holds a plank during their turn:
3. You hold a plank again during your next turn:
I have played tournament blitz chess (bullet chess), where moves can't exceed 15 seconds (or other brief time). I have played battle chess with martial artists in historic costume, fighting a short match for each move, with move completion only allowed upon winning. I have played Arpanet chess with military buddies, transmitting a move to another base, disconnect, go back to work, then stop any experiment on the burner to receive your collaborator's next move. I have tried (and tried) "total recall" chess where only a referee has tangible pieces while both players move only from memory. Plank chess from Paul J and son is a great idea.
Third photo helpfully demonstrates losing neutral, allowing a bit of sag for benefit of readers to see. Keep your plank neutral - Fast Fitness - Push Ups with Neutral Spine
"Side note on plank and thinking. I have been trying to recite a kata narration (the moves of a karate sequence) from memory during a plank and find it incredibly difficult to concentrate. At first it was just plan different and difficult, now it seems to get difficult after 30secs. (the memory verbal part) It’s like I can feel my brain trying to multitask, and misfiring.
"I suppose this is a type of stressful concentration training and is good for the brain. Makes me wonder what other psychological/physiological benefits there may be."
Speaking a sequence or other specific chain of events at the same time as directing your body to do unrelated sequences requires a collection of concentration and focus.
Hold a plank
Recite the directions to your school or workplace, the steps of your martial arts forms, or other sequences
While still holding your plank, recite the steps backward
It takes intense practice before physical movements become automatic while mental focus is directed separately. This is a fun, wise, important, and functional thing to practice and train. Training automaticity is never an excuse to text and drive. The difficulty of this training drill demonstrates why it results in so many accidents.
Coming soon: Taking this to the next step for more physical concentration training
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - great concentration, body strength and endurance for almost everything, healthful family fun, and improving your chess game, all at once. Reader Paul J wrote in with this:
"Dr. Jolie, "Have you and your husband ever tried to play chess and do the plank at the same time? "Well, my son and I tried last night and my plank failed first so I lost. "Plus, my opening moves were bad , so I ended up losing the game twice. "Not quite Chess Boxing, but easy to try at home. PJ"
Give a try:
Face the board. Hold a neutral spine push-up position called the plank.
Hold while you play, at least for your turn.
Winner can be determined by moves alone, or the player who maintains their plank.
Use this as a model for straight position while raising your arm to move your chess pieces.
Paul J wrote:
"I was thinking doing the plank for the whole game may only be possible by a few people. "However it should be possible to do the plank during your turn and the opponent gets to rest. "This encourages faster play (my original intent) and of course exercise and working at concentration."
I wrote back asking Paul J and his son to get some photos. While they do that, readers please try it and send in your own - of Chess, other board game you like, or other great ideas that you have.
Fast Fitness - How To Find The Most Recent Fitness Fixer
Friday, March 05, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - What does the blue underlined link calledThe Fitness Fixer at top left do?
News feeds and RSS aren't working for many readers again. No problem. If you have missed some articles, or are reading a previous article, an archived article, or were sent a link, here is how to find the current articles and others:
Any time you are reading any Fitness Fixer, look to the top left for the large blue underlined title The Fitness Fixer. It is a link to the page that loads the current article, plus several previous.
To see articles previous to the one you are reading, look for gray banner to the right called Recent Posts. It is the list above the Archives.
Achives give all articles in a specific month. If you want the current month and it is not yet in the Archives, click the blue underlined title The Fitness Fixer at top left.
Instead of putting photos of this here, you can try it yourself right now with the real thing.
If you are not already on the Fitness Fixer site, use the URL for the Fitness Fixer main page:
Fast Fitness - Sixth Group Functional Training: Advancing Ankle and Knee Safety With Single Leg Movement
Friday, February 26, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - sixth in the series of FunctionalFitness Training (Bookspan Basics) to teach your group, teams, classes, students, kids, battalions, or self.
Today, Feb 26th, is my birthday. Celebrate with healthy movement and having some fun. In this Bookspan Basic Training, advance your lower leg stability with single leg use, to be ready for landing from jumps, slips and missteps, and more.
It builds on the Third and Fifth Functional Training exercises where you learned to jump vertically (up and down) and leap laterally to one foot (side to side) with good lower body mechanics.
Assemble your group in neat rows. Stand in front in view of all. Tell them this is a basic, functional physical skill to learn how to reduce knee and ankle injuries during sideways jumps. Remind them they need to use the same principles from previous (Third) Basic Training of vertical jumps:
Have everyone bend both knees to crouch using good bending (knees do not sway inward or slide forward, taught in the first skill), then rise to toes with stable neutral ankle (not bowing outward at the side, taught in the second skill).
Have them stand on one leg only. Repeat crouching then rising to the ball of that foot (half-toe) on that one leg. Rise and lower on one leg. Don't let body weight sway outward to the small toes, turning the ankle. Keep strong neutral stance. Repeat 10-100 times, depending on time and need.
Remind them that when they land from a jump, they use the same good bending and neutral ankle. Then use all good mechanics to hop - jump and land on that one leg. Hop 10-100 times, depending on time and need. Change legs and repeat.
Photo - lower limb stability and placement during landings of all kinds prevents injuries. Practice so you don't turn your ankle or knee.
Each new Functional Training exercise shows how to teach your groups (or self) how to prevent common musculoskeletal problems during the team season or operational theater.
Trainers, Drill Instructors, readers, send in your stories of how you use these in your program.
Good body mechanics are a powerful performance enhancing aid.
--- Read success stories and send your own. See if your answers are already here - click Fitness Fixer labels, links, archives, andIndex. Subscribe free - updates via e-mail or RSS, upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Fast Fitness - Easy Start to Mobilize Shoulder and Scapula
Friday, February 19, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - an easy way to learn and feel how to use the often forgotten serratus anterior muscles, for better shoulder mobilization, first introduced in December:
On any surface you are comfortable, go to hands and knees. Keep your arms straight at the elbow. Let your upper body sink under your weight so that your shoulder blades roll back and come towards each other. Your shoulder blades may stick out like wings, photo 1 below.
Correct that problem by pulling your upper back to a straighter position, photo 2 below.
Alternately sink and pull upward to correct the winging. Improve by increasing the number and speed you can correct. Use the hands-and-knees position to get the idea. As soon as you have the concept of how to move, use the full pushup position, called plank, to get off your knees and get real exercise.
The standing version of this drill is in my book Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery. Thank you to Dr. Johannes Ernst, who wrote in about using hands and knees to get started:
"I should mention I'm actually doing a variation of the scapular mobilization exercise which I have found to be more effective for me: basically like a push-up, but propped up on knees and elbows. That way I can extend the amplitude of the back and forth movement further than if standing up. That additional stretch does seem to make a difference, and it seems to work some muscles as I can do only about 30 or so before I run out of steam."
--- Read success stories and send your own. See if your answers are already here - click Fitness Fixer labels, links, archives, andIndex. Subscribe free - updates via e-mail or RSS, upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Fast Fitness - Your Own Reality Valentine's Day Cooking Show
Friday, February 12, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Make Valentine's weekend fit, classy, and serene in the kitchen.
Instead of yelling, insults, and impatience that generates stress chemicals that damage heart and blood vessels, then serving that to yourself or family, serve health for brain, body, mind, and spirit:
Try the idea that meals are the process of making something nice, together or alone. Don't miss this healthy time. Meals don't only begin when you finish stressing it onto a plate.
It's not cool to bicker. Can you relate to someone without small talk and one-upmanship? Try real conversation. Or quiet and smiles.
Instead of focus on the product - rushing to serve polluted food and atmosphere - the preparing itself is a time for healthy body positioning, breathing as you cut and wash food, standing straight at the counter. Then you don't need extra time for meditation; your life is meditative.
Make your reality show for your meals the way life really can be. It takes the same time to stand well and smile as slouch. Cutting and washing goes more easily without tight shoulders and repeated unhappy thoughts. No stress-filled yelling, slouching, tightening your neck and shoulders to do the washing, cutting, and preparing. Alone or with loved ones, have a fun joke telling, singing, time of breathing and standing well, enjoying that you have food to prepare and a roof over your head to prepare it.
The Winter Olympic Torch lights today! See Wednesday's article, Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games 2010 or click the label Olympics for all Olympic posts.
For those who feel there are no coincidences, Happy Olympic, Valentine's, Fast Fitness, Lunar New Year.
--- Read success stories and send your own. See if your answers are already here - click Fitness Fixer labels, links, archives, andIndex. Subscribe free via e-mail or RSS, upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Fast Fitness - Hip and Quadriceps Stretch Lying Down
Friday, February 05, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - The front of the leg and hip are helpful places to stretch. Here is another nice stretch for the front of your hip and thigh.
People often "do" a quadriceps stretch without getting a stretch. They keep the front of their hip bent forward at the crease where it meets the body, meaning the area is being shortened not stretched. This is opposite of the point of the stretch. To get the stretch and the idea of lengthening and extending at the hip:
Lie on one side with both knees bent in front of you. It is ok to round your body a bit. The spine is not rounding under compression. It's a nice stretch. Prop your head comfortably.
Keep the bottom knee still bent in front of your body.
Notice different stretch with raised and lowered top knee placement. Stretch the other leg too.
Prevent these reasons the top knee may hurt:
Don't pull back so hard that it pulls painfully at the knee.
Tight quads can feel like knee pain when they tightly pull where they attach at the knee. It is not a problem with the knee, but with tight thigh and quadriceps muscles. Tight people may feel sharp pulling or yanking around the knee when trying to put weight on a knee stretched behind them, as when ruining or lunging. The problem is tightness, so stretch gently and intelligently. The idea is to stretch the quads so you don't hurt, not yank so that you do.
Check that you are not twisting at the knee - generally you can tell this if your foot is facing a different direction than the front of your knee. One commonly missed reason for knee pain felt during running and walking is twisted stretching, including yoga poses like lotus and hero if you don't turn from the hip, and others, covered in Knee Pain When Running - Check Your Yoga.
--- Read success stories of these methods and send your own. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels, links in posts, archives, and The Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe free, "updates via e-mail" upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Getinfo all in one place in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Perceived exertion is your own description of how hard you are exercising
Perceived exertion is usually described on a scale of 1 to 10 (very, very easy to extremely hard).
Until recently, perceived exertion was found to correlate with actual oxygen consumption, meaning your body is actually working medium hard with medium oxygen consumption when the effort feels medium hard. Perceived exertion scales are becoming ineffective as young people become increasingly unused to exercise and rate almost any minor effort as extremely hard.
It is not an injury when you exercise hard enough to have sore muscles over the next three to four days. It is not an injury when you use your body enough to feel aching effort in your muscles. It is not a respiratory problem when you are out of breath from hard exercise. It is not a medical problem when you are tired at the end of the day. If you have worked hard, being tired enough to sleep is right and needed, and avoids the need for taking medicines to sleep.
Work to increase the effort it takes to become out of breath and feel hard muscular effort. Work to increase the amount of work it takes for you to feel something is moderately hard.
Fast Fitness - New Understanding of Hyperlordosis and Disc Injury
Friday, January 22, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - a new possible contributor to vertebral disc injury, and how to avoid it:
In my previous studies, I found that overdoing the inward lower spine curve (hyperlordosis) pinches the lower spine like a soda straw. It forces the spine joints, called facets, backward against each other, eventually wearing them, and compresses surrounding soft tissue. After long periods of standing, exercise, and lifting with too much inward curve, lower back pain is not a big surprise or mysterious to fix.
Hyperlordosis was not previously thought of as a direct herniating force on discs. The major factor was and still is too much forward bending. Weighted flexion (bending forward bearing your body weight) opens the space between vertebrae in back, and over years of slouched sitting and bad bending and lifting forward, presses discs outward through that space creating herniated discs (an injury, not a disease). In my previous work I found that for someone with a disc already herniated, hyperlordosis pinches it, adding pain to the separate problem of the disc. Showing people how to stop standing in hyperlordosis greatly reduced their disc pain. In recent work, I found that hyperlordosis exacerbates, and possibly initiates disc herniation itself.
My new work is showing that hyperlordosis is a probable mechanism to directly shift disc position. I made a diagram showing the disc injury coming from overarching/ hyperlordosis/ hyperextending the spine that is so common in pop fitness.
Above, Left and center - Drawings of two ways you can stand in hyperlordosis, and the results over time, on the discs. Above, Right - Actual MRI, comparable to center drawing, shows disc herniation and pinching between lower vertebrae.
Hyperlordosis in both walkers, easily seen at right. Damaging sloppy posture.
Hyperlordosis (overarching the lower spine) is a spine damaging posture. Hyperlordosis and the pain from it can be changed as easily as moving your spine to a smaller, healthier degree of arch (neutral spine). It is not tightening your abs, just moving your spine, as simply as bending your elbow. Links below tell more.
--- Read success stories of these methods and send your own. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels, links in posts, archives, and The Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, click "updates via e-mail" upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification,DrBookspan.com/Academy. Get more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Fast Fitness - How To Be An Inspiring Success and Send In Your Story
Friday, January 08, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - How to Be in the Fitness Fixer Hall of Fame.
The 2009 Fitness Fixer Hall of Fame listed readers who fixed their fitness and sent their stories. How can you be in the Hall of Fame 2010?
Send in your reader inspiring success story. If you have read Fitness Fixer for any time, you probably are smart and would use it, and by now, be better at some aspect of your life:
Large or small, write what you did and why and how. It can be one small improvement like sitting in healthy position at your desk or bending right so that you no longer hurt. It can be that you stopped pain and now can do activities you used to love, or wanted to try for the first time. It can be how you taught a family member or friend to stop their pain.
If you don't have something, choose a fun and easy Fitness Fixer - close to 700 so far. Labels under each article gives all articles in that category, for example all Fast Fitness, or all reader inspiring stories. Or use the Fitness Fixer Index.
Take photos and short movies if you can, of small file-size. Send me your story with your link to your photos on a photo-sharing site like Flickr, MyPhotoTown, Picassa, or other you prefer. If you don't know how to do that, it may be fun to learn. At last resort, e-mail me the photos.
Ivy from New Zealand had to borrow a film camera, wait for developing, and mail me the photos from overseas, which I scanned and uploaded. Her efforts with her 86 year old neighbor who took the photos are on Inspirational Ivy. Reader Robert Davis propped his camera phone on a paperclip, put the camera on timer, and ran into place. For smart Fitness Fixer readers, there is always a way. On my professional website www.DrBookspan.com, the academy page and the BOOKS page have contact links to be used for Sending Good. Separate pages and contact links exist for asking questions and professional help.
A telling observation is when I search photo databases for examples for the hundreds of articles for all of you, searches using keywords of "exercise," "health" and "fitness," or searches of fitness sites yield only bad, unhealthful positioning. Often, unless I take the photo myself of a student or patient, or a reader sends one in, there is no "good" example. Come be one.
Double Benefit: Enter the Fitness Fixer contests. If you show how you do it yourself, and why this is a positive change in your life, you can have two successes - contest winner and success story.
--- Read success stories of these methods and send your own. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels, links in posts, archives, and The Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe free- "updates via e-mail" or RSS, upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Here is Friday Fast Fitness for the New Year- Knowing What Is Fitness.
Being fit of body and mind is not doing a bunch of artificial rituals in a gym.
True fitness is how you live your life. How you treat yourself and others. How you walk, bend and lift outside the gym. How you stand breathe smile and take pleasure in the rhythm of cooking and cleaning as a life meditation. How you work together by seeing that it doesn't matter if someone cuts in front of you in line:
No matter how fancy and expensive the car you drive, do you use it to take food to the hungry, or an old person where they need to go?
It doesn't matter how expensive your house, but if you welcome friends to come in out of the cold, and make it a place of peace and health for yourself and family.
It doesn't matter how expensive your cosmetics and manicures and hairstyles, and clothes, but if you use your hands, your voice, and yourself to speak well, act with honor and make the world a garden.
--- Read success stories and send your own. See if your answers are already here - click Fitness Fixer labels, links, archives, andIndex. Subscribe free - "updates via e-mail" upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may apply for certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Get more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Fast Fitness - Mobilize and Strengthen With Serratus PushUps
Friday, December 18, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Strengthen and learn to use the often forgotten serratus anterior muscles and learn a good mobilization for your shoulders so that you don't get stiff, and become stuck round-shouldered when driving or typing.
"Serratus" muscles wrap your chest below your armpits. Their sections fan out like your fingers, looking serrated, giving the name. They wrap around your sides to the front, so are further described with the word "anterior." Muscle names are often descriptive, and can be easy and fun to understand. They are important for keeping your shoulder blades in place - but only when you use them to.
My student Yash demonstrates:
1. Hold a push up position with straight not locked arms. This is often called a plank position. Keeping your arms straight at the elbow, let your upper body sink under your weight so that your shoulder blades roll back and squeeze together - photo 1.
2. Correct that problem by pulling your upper back to a straighter position - photo 2
3. Do as many repetitions of sinking and pulling upward to correct the winging that you can at once. Improve by increasing the number and speed you can correct.Coming posts will describe the serratus more and what it does, more on winging scapula, more fixes for it, and more on understanding muscle names and uses. Understanding, rather than memorizing, will help you know if claims for exercise fads and machines will help or not, and to not feel like an outsider about your anatomy and health. No medical degrees needed to understand your own body.
Fast Fitness - Getting Exercise Making Holiday Light Power
Friday, December 11, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - Why pay money to go to a gym to use electricity to power a treadmill or exercise bike, when it should be the other way around.
Burn calories and save money generating electricity to power holiday lights for your house and community (and maybe your blender).
Fourteen year old William Kamkwamba brought the first electric power to his village. He had no school to teach him, he went to the library to learn how to build a windmill from parts he hunted in a junkyard. If he can do it, can the engineers, builders, electricians, tinkers, teachers, and smarties of Fitness Fixer readers make a simple bicycle generator to hook up to holiday lights?
Try a bike shop to see how to make or get a bicycle powered generator. Several models power bicycle lights. Adapt one to hook up to holiday lights.
Each person in your group can get a turn to burn healthy calories and get in shape pedaling for an hour. The world gets clean electricity and you make it.
Happy New Decade of Common Sense Functional and Green Fitness.
Related:
These are the kinds of projects my Academy works on - The Academy of Functional Exercise Medicine (AFEM). Come join us - www.DrBookspan.com/Academy.
--- Read success stories of these methods and send your own. See if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and The Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe free, click "updates via e-mail"upper right. For personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
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Photo of Fluorescent light, human-powered electric generator (le vélo produit l'énergie électrique pour allumer le siège recouvert de néons qui est à l'arrière), by Dalbera and Arsenale (53ème Biennale de Venise) (Set
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - Fun rows to strengthen your back, chest, arms, grip, and torso muscles, without bending over or forward, using commonly available objects, no gym needed:
To start, leave both feet on the ground. Hold a low study pipe, branch, or overhead handle. Lean far back, body straight. Bend both elbows to pull up and lower down as many times as you can. Improve by increasing the number of times, and how fast you can pull up.
Once you can hold on and pull up, increase strength and balance by lifting your feet to the overhead support. Hold on whatever way you want that is safe. Pull up and down.
Hold your body straight, not rounded as pictured. You will work your muscles harder, involve core muscles, and train knowledge and use of healthier positioning.
Rows are great and useful exercise. Instead of standing or sitting bent over, you can strengthen the same and more muscles without loading the lumbar discs. These incline rows are fun and useful for climbing, and building ability to do pull-ups.
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When you send me your photos of fixing this and other fun things, send a photo sharing link of web-size, not high resolution, instead of e-mailing photos to me. Blogger isn't letting me upload directly, and when on the road, I don't have programs to resize. Have fun.
--- Read 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. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) 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.
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