Happy Mothers Day

Wishing everyone a Happy Mothers Day, for your mother, a mother, yourself, and Mother Earth.

Click Healthy Mothers Day for health and fun.

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Fast Fitness - Easy Handstand for Balance, Upper Body Strength -The Movie

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:

1. Stand with your back about a foot in front of a wall, and crouch to put your hands on the floor (avoid slippery surface)
2. Put one foot high up on the wall, then lift the other foot up too
3. To get down, step one foot back down, then the other

To see step by step still photos and more explanation, click the post Fast Fitness - Easy Handstand where David from Belgium shows the handstand plus how to add a nice overhead hamstring stretch.


Keep breathing. Smile. Relax. Send in your own photos of trying this. Be safe and have fun.

Labels: arm, balance, circulation, fast fitness, shoulder, strength, upper back, video/movie, wrist

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Replies to Medical Questions

Dr. Auerbach of the Wilderness Medicine blog wrote an important post for the many requests we get for personalized medical replies. It was so well said, I echo it here for readers of Fitness Fixer:

A fair number of comments from readers of this blog come in the form of clinical questions, in which someone asks for a response to a personal medical question. While I would like to be able to answer most of these, it is difficult to do that without more complete information, and in the absence of being able to examine the patient(s).

When a question or comment raises an issue or point of interest that is important for everyone, then I will try to address the topic in a separate post, rather than as an isolated answer to a question. In this way, more people can benefit.

Thanks for being a reader, and for your understanding.

Labels: education, fix pain

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Fix One Pain, Don't Cause Another

When you stretch and exercise, especially if you stretch and exercise to improve your health, remember that the purpose is not to recreate unhealthy movement habits.

Two similar letters came in recently.

Reader Tina wrote:

"Thanks so much for your posts on stopping upper back pain. I have stopped my upper back pain. But, when I pull my neck and shoulders back, I get pain in my lower back. Which stretches should I do to stop this pain?"

Alicia wrote:

"I recently stumbled upon your articles on the Internet about how to reduce back pain. Thanks so much for providing this information! I am experiencing less pain for sure already… but I have a question. When I am keeping my neck back and shoulders back and correcting the lower back arch, I get a pinching sensation in the middle of my back. What am I doing wrong?"

Tina was doing a common unhealthy movement habit. She didn't need stretches to fix the pain; she needed to stop old injurious movement habits. Tina was leaning her upper body backward thinking she was pulling her shoulders back. Leaning backward is not correcting rounded forward shoulders, even if it seems to move the shoulders rearward. The shoulders have not moved at all just stayed rounded while the upper body pinched backward at the lower spine.

Leaning the upper body backward increases the inward curve of the lower back, making a sharper angle between the pelvis and the lower spine. That increases the normal lordosis (inward lumbar curve) to hyperlordosis, which put painful pinching compression on the area. The shoulders may even still be rounded forward, as in the photo at left. The two segments are different. The photo is a performer who had just finished a trapeze performance. All the exercise and stretching she did every day didn't change her bad positioning habits.

Slipping into familiar unhealthy ways of moving may be habits that occur without thinking. You need to think a bit.

Alicia was just pulling back so tightly that she pinched the area between the shoulder blades. There are sources that say that you should squeeze shoulder blades as if holding a penny between them to fix posture, but of course, that is painful and too tight.

Alicia wrote back:

"Thanks! That helps actually. The pinching was in my upper back, but it's gone now! Thanks so much for responding to me. I look forward to your class in July.
Alicia"

Pinching back does not fix posture or stop upper back pain. Instead, stop the causes of the rounded shoulders and the pain. These three posts help understand and fix the causes: First read and try Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain. Then the second stretch is Nice Neck Stretch. The third stretch to help restore upper body positioning is Friday Fast Fitness - Better Shoulder and Triceps Stretch.

Don't exercise one area and hurt the next:

• The post Change Daily Reaching to Get Ab Exercise and Stop Back and Shoulder Pain shows a photo of the common bad habit of leaning the upper body backward when raising the arms.
• The post Prevent Back Surgery shows several photos of how people learn the upper body back or tilt the hip out in back during several common exercises, stretches, and daily activities. Both increase the pinching compression on the lumbar spine.

Remember to think and watch for causes instead of just *doing* exercises and stretches.

Labels: fix pain, lordosis, lower back, neutral spine, posture, shoulder, upper back

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Runner Fixes More Pain With Straighter Push-Off

Last year, reader Ted fixed back pain by learning to use neutral spine during running and daily life. This week he checked in to say the back is still fine, and that he went on to fix other painful sites.

Fixing pain and injuries by doing some exercises may temporarily ease symptoms. Instead, you can stop the source of injury by making movement habits healthy while exercising and moving through daily life, so that you can get exercise at the same time that the area can heal, and the pain not return.

Ted writes:

"Dr Bookspan, last summer, you helped me return to running, and did an article on me and how the neutral spine fixed my back problem with running.

"The back is a NON ISSUE. Thank you so much.

"Currently, I am working on hip/hammy/knee issues (probably due to over-training). Just thought I would share a thought on the ''Duck Foot'' issue you had talked about (I read the Fitness Fixer religiously). While running on the padded infield of the Stadium Football Field, I was still noticing pains in my hip (caught my foot on the ''upswing'' during a run, hip has hurt off and on since October).

"I focused on my feet, specifically, how I pushed off after the foot-strike (very soft, I often scare other runners because they can't hear me coming up on them). A straight push off after the foot-strike made the pain go away (probably because it aligned my foot/knee/hip during the movement). Also, when the knee pain flared, tensing my quads made it go away.

"I have enjoyed reading your ''Running Articles' please keep 'em coming.
AND
Thank you for fixing my Back.
Much Appreciated,
Ted H"

"Ps. I got your new book (Health & Fitness THIRD edition). VERY good info, I'm trying to use it everyday."

To fix the source of pain, it works best to understand healthful movement retraining and not just "do" a series of rules. One important example is keeping feet parallel or facing forward. The idea is to understand that a straight push-off comes from keeping all the joints in the kinetic chain from feet to hip and spine from twisting in unhealthful ways, not just straighten one segment by twisting another. Yanking or forcing the feet straight is not the point of good positioning.

Ted has more helpful stories to come in future posts. Click these posts for more:

• Back Pain From Running - Ted's story
• Spotting Back Pain During Running and Walking - What Do Abs Have To Do With It?
• Walk Lightly - Shock Absorption for Happier Joints
• Which Shoes Help Exercise, Fall Prevention, and Ankles?
• Plantar Fasciitis Part I
• Health & Fitness Third Edition at Last

Labels: feet, fix pain, impact, knee, readers inspiring story, running

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Fast Fitness - How to Feel Change to Neutral Spine

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Use a wall to learn neutral spine while standing, to know how to stop a major source lower back pain during standing, walking, and running.

Many people learn pelvic tilts lying on their back in physical therapy or fitness classes. What does that do? Little. The purpose of learning the pelvic tilt is to know how to do it during real daily life so that you do not overarch (hyperlordosis) and create back pain. My student Dennis, Olympic medalist in wrestling, demonstrates learning a functional pelvic tilt (he is holding his shirt away with hand so you can see better - you can relax your arms at your sides):

1. Stand with your back against a wall. Touch heels, hips, shoulders, and the back of your head.
2. If you allow a large arch in the lower spine there will be a large space between lower back and the wall. Press your lower back toward the wall.
3. Don't touch or force your lower back to the wall. Just learn how to tilt the hip so that the lower spine comes closer to it and reduces in arch.

Use a wall often to practice, then the idea is to hold neutral spine without the wall during the rest of your day.

Reducing a large arch back to neutral stops the painful lower spine compression on soft tissue and facet joints during standing activities (and bad pushups and handstands).

• Another short movie that shows the same idea, without the wall - Friday Fast Fitness - Neutral Spine in 5 Seconds
• Another short movie - changing hyperlordosis to neutral spine while holding a pushup position - Fast Fitness - Strengthen by Changing Your Plank
• To learn why hyperlordosis causes lower back pain - Neutral Spine or Not?
  
• Still to come - changing hyperlordosis to neutral spine during handstands.

Labels: facet joints, fast fitness, lordosis, lower back, neutral spine, video/movie

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Plantar Fasciitis Part I

Raina and several other readers asked about plantar fasciitis.

On a house, a fascia is a flat horizontal surface just under the roof. In your body, a fascia is flat fibrous tissue that wraps your muscles and soft structures. You have fascia in several places. One is across the bottom of your feet. "Plantar” means the bottom of your foot that you "plant" on the ground. Your plantar fascia is the fascia on the bottom of your foot. Plantar fasciitis is an inflammation (-itis) of the fascia on the bottom of your foot.

Normal Plantar Fascia Action
When you walk or run with your feet facing straight ahead, the line of bending of the foot is straight from front to back. Each step gives you a nice, built-in small stretch across the bottom of your foot. As you walk, run, jump, and move, your plantar fascia transmits body weight across your foot. It is part of shock absorption for your entire leg.

How Bad Movement Mechanics Hurts
Several things can make the fascia tighten and hurt. Here are three. More to come in future posts:

1. When you walk or run with feet facing outward, the fascia loses the normal stretch. Over years of not getting its normal stretch, it becomes tight. Walking with feet facing outward also puts sideways forces on the fascia with each step. Over years, your foot can get strained. Walking with poor shock absorption, banging down heavily with each step can amplify strain forces on a tight fascia. Every step you take on a tight fascia yanks on the heel where it attaches. Eventually the heel and bottom of the foot get irritated from the yanking and start to hurt.

The tighter your Achilles and foot fascia, the more "normal" it feels to walk toe-out. In a circular problem, walking toe-outward is a common fascial tightener. It may be "natural" with tightness, but can increase tightness over time.

2. Letting ankles pronate (arches flatten) is another fascial strain. Keep your body weight evenly around the sole of your foot, not sagging inward on your arches, pressing them downward. Reader David from Belgium has made us a great short video of easily changing from rolling in on the arches to holding straight in Fast Fitness - Fix Flat Feet, Pronation, and Fallen Arches.

3. Hard sole shoes and some fasciitis braces stop the sole from getting the normal lengthening while walking, therefore stopping the pain from the stretch, giving the false impression that the injury is lessening. It is a negative cycle of shortening and continuing the source of the injury. Injections briefly make the area more prone to injury. Pain pills allow you to continue the injury process without pain telling you that it is wrong. Several kinds of anti-inflammatory and pain medicines interfere with healing. Wearing high heeled shoes raises the heel, shortening the length of the Achilles tendon, putting less stretch on the tendon, the lower leg muscles, and the fascia of the foot.

Fasciitis can be quickly stopped. It does not have to be chronic. "Doing" a few stretches does not undo a lifestyle of shortening, tightening, and straining. Use good body movement for all movement to allow it to heal and be functional.

Helpful links to move in healthy ways to stop plantar fasciitis:

• Fast Fitness - Fix Flat Feet, Pronation, and Fallen Arches
• Which Shoes Help Exercise, Fall Prevention, and Ankles?
• Arch Support Is Not From Shoes
• Better Achilles Tendon Stretch
• The book Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery has a section on fasciitis, the many unhealthful lifestyle contributors, and simple lifestyle fixes to build into daily life and your exercise classes.

Labels: achilles stretch, feet, fix pain, injury, plantar fasciitis, pronation, running, walking

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