Here is Fast Friday Fitness - strengthen forearm, hand, and wrist while practicing a useful skill (functional exercise).
Use a screwdriver to push in and turn a screw into a block of wood. Then drive two more.
Using the same hand, reverse direction and undo all three.
Repeat with the other hand
Use hand and forearm muscles to power the turning, instead of letting the effort concentrate on the wrist.
Start with soft wood and work up to harder materials.
With your improved skills, you can go from making your wrist better to helping fix and build things to make your community better.
---
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, free. 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.
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - rows to strengthen the upper body, practice balance and neutral spine, and avoid lower disc injury from bad forward bending.
Readers have been writing in, excited about doing handstands for the first time or improving the handstand they do to get whole body functional fun exercise. My student Danielle demonstrates:
Shift your weight to stand on one hand. Grasp a hand weight in the other hand
Do rows, and any variety of arm free-weight movements that you want to improve.
There is no need to bend over forward to do rows. It does not train functional posture, and unequally squeezes lower discs outward, which adds to degeneration and herniation forces that are common during bad daily sitting and unhealthy bending. You don't need more unhealthy things while exercising.
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - learn to lift up to a full handstand, for shoulder, arm, and wrist strength, balance, agility, skill, and fun.
Previous posts showed how to step up to an easy handstand by putting one foot up high behind you on a wall or surface. Here is how to learn swinging up to full handstand:
Stand close to a secure surface.
Plop both hands on the floor about a foot from the wall and swing one leg upward
Use momentum of putting hands down and swinging leg up, to swing the other leg upward to the wall.
Click the arrow to run the short movie. Three of my students demonstrate three stages of learning this handstand:
Mr. Sosaku at right holds the finished stance.
Helen, center shows swinging up straight, bringing both feet to the wall.
Kimberly shows the beginning - placing hands and getting the idea of lifting legs upward.
Let your feet come to the wall and straighten your body, so that you do not curl your back against the wall. Work to increase strength and balance, so that you need the wall less and less, eventually holding straight handstand without the wall. Note the hand weight on the floor. Future posts will show weightlifting with one arm while in handstand on the other.
During the part of the year that we live in the United States, we have a luxury - a washing machine. You put clothes in it, and it washes them for you. You come back later, hang out the clothes, and the Earth dries them for you. Luxury.
Recently the old washing machine could not wash any more. I always appreciated the machine, but I rediscovered something else. Washing clothes by rubbing them on a washboard, and wringing water from heavy canvas work jeans and martial arts uniforms is vigorous hand and arm exercise.
Occasionally, sources for arthritis information state that if you have arthritis of the hands or wrists, avoid wringing clothes and instead, purchase a tool that squeezes the cloth to remove the water for you. However, it is not use of the hands or a wringing action in itself that causes arthritis pain. Use of the hands improves function, improves joint health, improves the strength that allows you to accomplish more without strain, and is an important part of arthritis prevention and management.
Good use and exercise of the hands does not mean to move the area no matter how much it hurts. Misuse - bad movement habits - is often the culprit in wear and pressure on the area. Instead of craning the wrist and fingers back and levering the wringing action on the finger joints, wrist and base of the thumb, use the muscles of the hand and forearm, as well as the entire arms to power the wringing action. Start with fun gentle squeezing, let the hands warm through real life use, and continue to improve function through use.
There is no need to keep straight wrists or splint them to keep them straight. Splinting may temporarily reduce pain, but reduces strength and function which often leads to bigger problems. It is not a healthful or useful solution to, "limit the patient to limit the pain." Use your body, have fun, be active, and be able to move for normal daily function. Use healthful body mechanics and the actions will be far more likely to build you than injure.
More posts on strengthening the hands are on the way.
More on distributing weight on muscules of the arm and hand instead of compressing the joints:
Click the labels under each Fitness Fixer article for more on each topic.
--- Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certifiedDrBookspan.com/Academy.
Fast Fitness - Easy Handstand for Balance, Upper Body Strength -The Movie
Friday, May 09, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - a quick, safer way to try a handstand. Standing on hands has many health and strength benefits and can be easily practiced in this way.
My student Dennis, Olympic medalist in wrestling, demonstrates in this short movie. Click the arrow to watch the movie:
Stand with your back about a foot in front of a wall, and crouch to put your hands on the floor (avoid slippery surface)
Put one foot high up on the wall, then lift the other foot up too
To get down, step one foot back down, then the other
Keep breathing. Smile. Relax. Send in your own photos of trying this. Be safe and have fun.
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.
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.
Fast Fitness - Plyometric Partner Bench Press for Valentine's Week
Friday, February 15, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Have fun together as you strengthen arms, shoulders, chest, back, wrists, and core, while practicing neutral spine, speed, teamwork, and cooperation in a fun plyometric partner bench press.
Lie face up with both arms held upward (white karate uniform) to support partner (black karate uniform).
Partner (black uniform) rests shoulders on your hands and holds straight body position on toes. Partner (black uniform) uses abdominal muscles to hold neutral spine without letting the lower back sag.
Push your partner up and down with your hands in a bench press motion. To add plyometric training, push partner strongly and quickly into the air (right). Catch them lightly, bending your elbows upon contact. Switch places and repeat.
Use common sense and springy light touch to reduce unhealthful impact in both partners. You can improve strength and speed without hurting joints and connective tissue. I will post more on plyometrics in articles to come.
--- 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. ---
Valentines Day is for everyone, not just couples. It is healthy to have active fun with family and friends too.
Monday's post Valentine Partner Pushups gives a fun partner exercise idea. Here are more variations for active fun with children and friends of many ages.
Babies and children love to move. They can hold their body weight. Get them started early. Don't let them lose this strength by making them sit still and eat. Get up from the table and play. That is Valentines Day love.
Try these with friends
This man is doing a partner handstand with his young daughter. It is a lot of good exercise and balance for both:
I will cover how to do this partner handstand in a future post. Send in your own photos of fun exercise with family and friends.
Exercising in social ways is healthy. Valentine's Day is this week. This week I will post several ideas for fun active partner exercise. Start with this version of partner pushups, then have fun making up your own.
Pushups give full body physical benefit when done with neutral spine.
These two Fitness Fixers explain how to tell neutral spine while holding a pushup position and how to correct an overarching lower back (hyperlordosis) to neutral spine:
Fast Fitness - Prevent Wrist Pain During Pushups and Cooking
Friday, February 08, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Learn to use strength and good joint positioning instead of compressing the wrist joint during activities that put weight on a bent wrist.
Good positioning and strength is more effective than splinting wrists straight and restricting activity. Learn to distribute weight across your whole hand:
While sitting or standing, press your right wrist and hand backward strongly using your left hand. Feel the right wrist compress under the weight of the other hand.
Now use your right hand and forearm muscles to press forward against the left hand. You should feel the compression come off the right wrist.
Hold a pushup position. Use this technique so that, regardless of your weight, instead of letting your weight compress your wrists, you use your hand and forearm muscles. Keep weight distributed across your entire hand, not just on the heel of the hand.
Use this to learn how to press with your whole hand whenever you use your wrists - for weightlifting, for standing on your hands, for typing, driving, biking, playing piano, and during cooking and cleaning.
--- 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. ---
Fast Fitness - Core Hip & Body, Posture Strength & Balance
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - training and challenging abdominal muscles to hold neutral spine. Use this, not as an exercise to "do," but to use to retrain neutral spine. Reader Mike, who did a A Whole Big Fix sent this photo to illustrate:
Hold a plank.
Lift one arm straight in front.
Figure out which is the opposite leg and lift that one. Keep straight spine
Mike writes:
"Here's some more feedback on your exercises: it seems the more planks I do with opposite arm/leg extended, the less my hip pops, so I'm doing those every morning for about 4 sets of 10 sec. holds on each side, along with the side planks. Those seem to set my posture off right for the rest of the day. I'm using my hand and wrist muscles to take weight off the bones, as you've said, and my wrists, are getting stronger.
"BTW: my daughter's badminton coach has a PhD in exercise physiology and she's also a big fan of your site."
Fast Fitness - Upper Back, Shoulder, Triceps, Arm, Wrist, and Hand Stretch
Friday, December 07, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - nice stretch for hands, upper back, and everything in between.
Stand with your back about a foot from a solid surface
Reach upward and backward to place both hands on the wall, all fingers facing downward
Press, lifting upward, keeping the stretch in your chest and upper body.
Vary the stretch by straightening elbows more.
Do not pinch your spine backward like a soda straw at the lower back, which increases lordosis (causes hyperlordosis). Tuck hip to neutral to stop compressive pain in the lower back. Here is how.
Breathe. Smile. Feel good stretching your upper back out of forward-rounded posture.
My mother is a Russian circus teacher. We recently went with her to a recital of a neighbor who teaches elementary trapeze arts. The performers, age about 10 to a women in her 50s, were having fun moving and pulling themselves up and down ropes, scarves, and hoops. It wasn't a polished performance or high technical ability. That wasn't the point. They were lifting their body weight, climbing, stretching, balancing, focusing, burning calories, learning safety and cooperation, exercising, developing arm, hand, wrist, and grip strength, and moving their bodies in functional ways.
Their over-dramatic costumes flopped over their faces when they hung upside down. One young performer wore fly-front long johns. They seemed to think they were great artists. True or not, they were moving, smiling, stretching, laughing, and exercising to do art and fun.
Check for fun safe programs near you of healthy movement of all kinds. Get the good they can provide of new fun ways to use your body and mind functionally. If they use traditional stretches and exercises to warm-up that are not healthful, change or skip them. These posts give ideas:
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - fix your plank (hold pushup position) to strengthen core and wrists, and train standing neutral spine posture. In yoga the plank is done in high and low positions called chaturunga.
A sagging inward curve to the lower back is not the normal curve, it is too much curve - pictured at the start of the MPEG movie below. Holding a plank with a sagging (overarched, hyperlordotic) lower spine "hammocks" body weight onto your spine joints called facets, adding to lower back pain, and does not use your core muscles. It is counterproductive as an exercise. Instead:
Hold a pushup position
Change sagging lower back to neutral by tucking the hip. Head up, neck as straight as standing.
Don't flop all weight on wrists. Press with hand and fingers, and use forearm muscles to reduce wrist compression and shift weight to surrounding muscles - see Stronger Pain-Free Wrists When Biking for ideas.
Reader David D. from Belgium sent this excellent movie. He pushes up into plank. You can also can start on hands and feet without pushing up. He first demonstrates badly overarched lower back, then changes to neutral spine in seconds 8-11 of the movie, then holds. When you do this you will immediately feel the effort shift to your abs. Use this instead of crunches for functional core training. If you push up from the floor, hold tucked neutral spine, not lifting upper body first.
(The exercise is not to do overarching and change to neutral - it is to hold neutral throughout.)
Bill is now away on his current adventure, flying commercial cargo flights all over the world. He tells about it in Reader Successes Endure - Next Update From Bill. He took time to send some photos of how we changed simple wrist positioning to stop hand and wrist pain when biking:
Don't do this for too long. Hands may go numb and wrists may hurt.
The handshake grip, easy on elbows and wrists.
Alternate hand position, when sitting more upright.
Bill writes:
"I find it helpful to change hand position frequently. It minimizes discomfort and numbness. Ensure position does not put a lot of weight on your arms. Seat and feet should carry most of the weight.
"Labor day ride (September 2007) with a quick group of us old-timers (ages 55 to 66) rode 67 miles in 3hrs 30min. That's 19 mph! Best ride I've ever done. No pain or numbness. Your stuff sure helps."
Distribute weight over your entire hand and fingers.
Use forearm muscles to prevent the wrist from pinching back under all the weight.
The idea is to keep your weight up on your muscles, not just passively compressing the joints.
Use healthful positioning and muscle use to prevent wrist pain when cutting food, using a keyboard or data entry device, gardening, and all the fun exercises you can do. Future posts will give specifics for each, but you can apply the general concepts now to all you do. Confining the wrist to a splint does not stop the source of the problem and is not healthful in the long-run. Wrists need movement and loading to keep the joint healthy, the muscles strong, and bones dense. Just do it in a healthful way.
--- Read success stories of Fitness Fixer methods and readers, and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, or in the Fitness Fixer Index.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. See class schedules, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy. ---
In May, blog reader Bill (Lieutenant William Slabonik) sent an inspiring story - Freed From Pain, He Rides Again. Bill had been told by several sources that surgery and disability retirement were his only options. He used Fitness Fixer information to change a future as damaged as x-rays of his spine, to the active life he loves, without pain. He used information from the upper back and shoulder posts, among others, to learn how neck discs, upper back muscles, and other structures are damaged with mal-positioning, and how to employ healthy muscle use so the discs can heal and arm numbness stops, even riding long bike trips, lifting heavy gear, and in his demanding work as a pilot. He fixed low back chronic pain with the simple neutral spine repositioning away from a hyperlordotic (over-arched lower spine) when standing, shown in Prevent Back Surgery and all the posts on neutral spine.
In the May update, Bill told how he fixed the injuries and rode the Pennsylvania State Police Memorial century ride. Last week Bill reported in:
"My goal of riding the 200 km night ride down the Jersey shore was a success. I rode from 10pm 'til 9am with no problems covering the distance of 125 miles. I actually felt like I could go on a lot further. I have also completed a 2-day 200-mile ride to visit my brother-in-law in Maryland. I now can get on my bike on any day and reasonably crank out a hundred mile ride. No serious pain or discomfort noted. Only the usual slight soreness in the rear end and hands and elbows that seems to come with any long ride. The neck, shoulders and back did incredibly well, - I constantly checked my position while on the bike and did some "Healthy Stretching" whenever I was off the bike. Mission accomplished."
Note to readers - I will cover hand and arm soreness with biking in posts to come. I already worked with Bill to prevent local hand numbness from compressive leaning on the wrists, which Bill put to immediate use. I asked Bill to take photos for you of his simple changes in biking positioning to change damaging neck, shoulder, arm, and hand use to healthy ones.
Bill says,
"My son has promised to help me with the photos. I must ride herd on this project and get back to you soon.
"My confidence and health have skyrocketed. My daughters are leaving for college and I am looking forward to an empty house soon. They have thanked me for being there when they needed me and asked me why I just don't go and do something I would love to do. I am applying for retirement this morning and have completed an interview for a job flying in mainland China. I have two other airlines trying to get me to interview. Wish me luck on my next amazing adventure. And thanks for your help and encouragement."
Bill - Free Man
Bill, all hats off to you. Keep flying high. More good things are still to come. Keep us posted.
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - nice stretch for hands, wrist, and forearms:
Face a wall and raise both hands to about head height.
Turn palms up, thumbs to the outside, fingers downward,
Press toward wall. Bend elbows to various amounts for a full-range wonderful, gentle stretch.
Keep body straight, not sagging inward or tilting out in back.
Breathe. Smile. Feel good.
--- 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.
Readers have e-mailed for more upper body strengtheners.
Increasing upper body strength helps many things. The post Quick and Fun Arm and Body Strengthener listed several benefits to your health and daily activities, and gave a quick, fun upper body strengthener that needs no weights or equipment, no trip to the gym, can be done in the home or office, and improves balance at the same time. It is not as hard as it looks.
Consult the post link and exercise your brains and common sense first:
Crouch down in front of a wall (drawing 1).
Put one foot up high on the wall (drawing 2).
Raise the other so that both feet are on the wall (drawing 3) to produce a quick and easy to do handstand.
Hold yourself steady. Relax and breathe.
The above link explained how to use this easy handstand to do various other exercises to progressively strengthen.
To add an effective leg stretch:
While holding the wall handstand, gently, carefully, lower one foot on the wall, then lift the other foot far away from the wall
Open legs overhead into a wide split (drawing at left)
Hold, breathe, relax, enjoy
Switch legs to stretch the other side.
This stretch feels great and is fun to do. As far as I have been able to determine, it is good for the shoulder (as long as you don't fall on it or do something not intended in this stretch).
Hold weight on your hand and forearm muscles instead of only mashing your wrists back to keep this move a good strengthen for the wrist, which is often needed to prevent wrist pain.
This fun exercise improves balance and is effective to improve your ability to hold body positioning steady - two important skills for health. Use your muscles to hold your torso straight, without letting it sag and sway.
Have fun and develop fun healthy movement with this combination stretch, balance exercise, and strengthener. This stretch and others for all ability levels is in the book Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier.
Abdominal Muscle Exercise - Better, Different, Not What You Think
Friday, January 19, 2007
Healthline
Many medical fitness programs, health and exercise classes, and kickboxing and martial arts practices have a complicated and ritualized belief structure that the abdominal muscles have some magic or central function. They try to fix back pain or improve posture through abdominal strengthening programs. Usually these strengthening programs use the same unhealthful rounding forward motions that cause high pressure on your lumbar discs, practice unhealthful bent-forward posture, and perpetuate several common pain syndromes.
Here in Thailand, the Muay Thai kick-boxers and training camps do not have any beliefs about the torng, or abdomen. Even so, the Thai boxers are among the world's best-conditioned fighters. You can swing a bat at their abdomen and it would not faze them. In fact, that is part of training in many training camps. Today I have an abdominal muscle training exercise for you that is more fun than that:
The post Change Common Exercises to Get Better Ab Exercise and Stop Back Pain showed how the pushup, or just holding a pushup position, called The Plank is often done allowing the lower back to overly arch and sag under body weight, as in the upper photo at left. This extra arching, called hyper-lordosis, pressures the lower back and means that you are not getting exercise because you are just resting your body weight on the joints of your lower back instead of holding up your body weight in a straighter, healthier position, shown in the lower photo. Try this:
As soon as you tuck the hip, you will immediately feel the load shift off your lower back and onto your abdominal muscles.
Once you can hold a good flat plank position, add lifting one arm as shown in the lower photo. Do not allow your lower back to sag, shown in the upper photo. Do not hunch or round your upper body, also shown in the upper photo. Rounding the upper body will get in the way of your shoulder joint being able to lift your arm.
"Unround" your upper back and lift your chest to straighten your back. This makes room for your shoulder to allow your arm to straighten in line with your body.
Once you can lift your arm, also lift your opposite leg (not the leg on the same side but the other one). You will feel your abdominal muscles working strongly.
Hold as long as you can.
Keep relaxed but straight, and keep breathing.
Work up to being able to jump to switch the arm and leg that is lifted.
This fun abdominal exercise trains you how to hold your body in the same straight neutral spine position you need for standing and walking and reaching overhead without arching the lower back. That means it is functional abdominal exercise. Many people who do hundreds of crunches a day cannot do this exercise at all because they have never trained their abdominal muscles in the way they really need to work – to hold your spine straight without sagging inward (overly arching).
Crunches are not functional, and train unhealthful, forward-bent posture, which you don't need after a day of sitting at your desk or over the steering wheel.
Instead of crunches, this is one of many fun abdominal-building exercise. You will get better more effective abdominal exercise in the way your body, and abs, work for real.
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, free. 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.
