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Dr. Bookspan Inducted to Hall of Honor - National Organization of Underwater Instructors, NAUI
Monday, April 05, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
It was my honor to be notified recently that I was inducted into the Hall of Honor of the largest non-profit scuba diver training organization in the world.
The award is for my work as a scuba instructor, teaching divers and diving leaders, as a diving and hyperbaric medical researcher finding safer diving practices, advising committees determining policies, running hyperbaric medical conferences, writing diving textbooks, and other contributions.
The National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) trains recreational and technical scuba divers from novice through instructor. Their motto is Safety Through Education.
This year, two people were inducted. I was honored along with my old friend and colleague Henry Veix, former physical education director at West Point Military Academy.
My colleague Peter Oliver accepted the NAUI Hall of Honor award in my name and expressed my thanks.
Contest - Name The New Feature on Fitness Terminology
Monday, February 22, 2010
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is a fun new contest - can you think of a great name for a new Fitness Fixer feature?
In December, a reader helped me know that perhaps others beside himself do not know basic names of body parts and processes. "Anonymous" felt that the muscle names submitted to the Sit Up Straight contest were "impenetrable." He wrote:
"I think his answer, which may be 100% technically correct, is 0% helpful for most people without a degree in physiology. The great thing about this website is that it converts medical mumbo jumbo into accessible language (including visual language).
I replied:
"Dear Anonymous, Thank you for instructing me that other readers too, may not recognize basic body parts and what they do.
"No degrees should be needed to know fundamentals about yourself. Just like knowing common car parts, you can prevent unneeded repairs, and being fooled by sales pitches.
"I took your good idea in the next article after this one, I added a description why a muscle was named and how to understand its action by the name - Fast Fitness - Mobilize and Strengthen With Serratus PushUps. I plan others to follow."
It is not only people "without degrees" who don't know basic body parts and functions. Often, trainers, instructors, even doctors, do not know either. They just repeat the same myths they have read and heard.
The new feature will explain how muscles got their names, movement names like flexion and extension, and body processes that are often misunderstood and repeated in pop fitness, and in health care and medicine.
This new feature can be a fun way readers can understand and benefit, not like in school where it is often is just lists of terms and definitions you don't recognize or care about.
What shall we call it?
Some ideas:
Basic Body Terms What Does That Mean? - Then the term goes here… Understanding Health Words
Reader Paul J submitted these:
“How it works” “How the body works” “Body works” “Bookspan’s Body Works” “Bookspan’s Body Brain Booster” “The Brain Booster” “Say, what?” “What Did The Doctor Say?” “Under the Skin”
Submit your entries in the comments below - make the titles descriptive, helpful, smart. Hurry so we can begin this new feature.
--- 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.
Reader Paul J has been named Winner of the contest to name the figure who illustrates many of my books, articles in Fitness Fixer, web site articles, and Academy teaching materials.
The comic figure who educates about healthy movement continues from one I had an artist design for me. The artist moved away and could no longer work for me. I am no artist, and had to learn to draw him - not great like the original artist's, but what I could figure out for myself.
When I hired the talented young medical graphics artist, I told him I envisioned an image that was not man or woman, not black or white, not young or old, but everyone. He drew me a white guy, with a big western nose. Still it was a funny warm character that people say they can identify with as he figures out life.
Runner-up was reader JayaKrishna who gave him the name, Dr. Goodback™. I like that, and that remains his formal professional name. The rest of the time, thanks to Paul J, his name is Backman!™
When you see Fitness Fixer posts with this character, you should see the trademark symbol and his copyrighted name.
The name also reminded me of a SuperHero name. I wrote to thank Paul J, saying "I am BACKman!™ POW! splat! take that Joker!"
He wrote back, "Do you mean Jock-err...the steroid using muscle man that does bad bending?"
Close to 200 drawings in the book Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier, many more in Health & Fitness THIRD edition, among the 114 photos and drawing in The Ab Revolution™ third edition revised expanded, and Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery - all on www.DrBookspan.com.
--- 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 spaces for personal feedback. Top students may apply for certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - a life-saving holiday gift that you can give, even if you haven't shopped - give a CPR class.
CPR is a first aid procedure. With CPR training, you can help save someone who has stopped breathing or heartbeat.
CPR stands for Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation. CPR gives the person air, and presses on their chest to circulate blood until emergency care arrives.
CPR can be learned and practiced under instructor supervision in a single session class. Class lengths vary. Introductory 3 and 4 hour classes may include use of external automatic defibrillators (AED). Longer classes include additional procedures, the different protocols for adults, children, and infants, and how two people can work together to do rescues.
Gift idea - give a person a card with your pledge to pay for their class or go with them. Contact the Red Cross, Heart Association, and other community preparedness training group to check classes and prices in your area (Red Crescent is more projects than classes). CPR methods change over the years. If you took a class years ago, methods are different now. Certification expires after one year. This month I spent many days renewing my various certifications and teaching Red Cross certification classes as a volunteer.
In a CPR class I taught earlier this month, obese students chomped potato chips while watching videos of CPR for heart attack. A student who said he was in graduate school for kinesiology sat extremely slouched for the 4 hour class, and bent wrong repeatedly to pick up blankets and move his practice CPR manikin. Remember - it's a class for better health?
Give blood. After I last wrote about donating, several readers asked if I give blood. I have given 41 times to the Red Cross (not paid), not counting three times directly for relatives in emergencies. This is a small number compared to Lillian in Blood Hero.
There Are Still Millions Around The World Without Basics to Live:
--- 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.
My professional and life work is understanding and studying the fastest, highest, quickest, coldest, hottest, bravest, strongest in human physiology. I study the body in extremes. I study what makes one person able to survive an event and the person next to him perish. Strong brave men get hazardous duty pay to spend a day with me. I make grown men cry.
Since I was small, I wanted to be a scientist. I wanted to live under the sea. I wanted to understand why three people will fall in freezing water, one will die, one will be sick, and one will be fine. In the same marathon, some racers will have heat exhaustion, others experience cold injury. I have lived underwater, on ships, and mountains. I examine long unsolved cold cases as Science Officer of The Vidocq Society, not to know how they died, but their state while alive. (I am the "Spock of Vidocq.")
Since I was very small, I read accounts of survival - stories of defecting MIG pilots, tiger pit prisoners, remote plane crashes, snowbound hikers, expeditions across continents, near-drownings, children of war, swimming races in the arctic, the different bones developed in children learning different trades and movement patterns. I grew up to study the difference in joint angles and limb lengths that confer speed or strength advantage. I study which and how much training supersedes inborn advantage and increases performance.
As a research scientist, I do the "get-your-hands-cold-and-dirty" work to distinguish what actually happens and how it comes to be that way. Many things we heard in school or in stories were never true, just repeated. My work in extremes is mostly behind the scenes (the team player scenario). Piles of data I collected and hand-analyzed for countless studies are in my file cabinets and brain. I apply these studies to develop training methods and injury recovery methods that work for the moment, and for long-term health.
Some readers have asked me to make a category of Fitness Fixer stories called Dr. Bookspan's Excellent Adventures. I will work on it. A few samples are in the Related links below.
Happy Solstice, the longest night of the year in the Northern hemisphere.
--- 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 earn certification throughDrBookspan.com/Academy. Get more in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
StuartShip - How To Start Healthy Movement Programs
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Reader Stuart Wood knew that the way to healthier communities is getting up and teaching it. He wrote me several impressive notes of using my work to fix his own injuries, then for his Boss, then requesting if he could use it formally to teach community projects. I awarded him an Academy Appointment for Making Community Projects Healthy.
Stuart writes this update:
"After months of reading your blog I have become inspired to teach some of your information to whoever is willing to listen. I think the health and fitness situation in our country can benefit from your work and after trying it out and seeing results, as well as helping my friend to fix his bulging disc, I thought that the information you provide on your websites and in your books needs to reach more people. I read your blog regularly and have always loved the inspirational stories that your readers have supplied. The writings between you and "Inspirational Ivy" really helped to make me realize that I could be healthy and strong for many years to come as well as the posts of the Thai women in their 80's going strong! I think it is so unfortunate that aging and weakness are commonly believed to go hand in hand. I think the problem needs to be addressed when children are young and before they ingrain bad health and movement habits.
"My co-workers have been receptive to your ideas and they have helped me greatly in thinking about and learning how to effectively explain your technique.
Today I taught for the first time in a semi-formal setting. I had a friend who had helped fix his own back pain (bulged disc) take pictures for me. The first thing I learned is that I have much improvement to make in my own movement, I suggest (like you have said) that everyone have a friend take candid pictures of them to test their progress. The group of kids I'm teaching are at the Archer Center in Tucson, AZ. They are part of the CATCH after school program and I wanted to teach them some good movement habits to benefit them in their daily lives as well as in sports and play-time.
"I was not sure how to start or what to teach exactly and time was limited for each group (only about 20 minutes) so I went to the Functional Fitness Friday posts and the (main) stretches like the side-stretch (done well at right, using wall for straight placement) and chest stretch and lunge. It was quite the learning experience! The first group of children were between 8-10 or so and their attention spans were short and I couldn't achieve much with them in the short time. I think the best thing would be big exercises like push-ups with neutral spine and lunge and activities full of movement because they seemed most interested in those things. The second group of kids were older and they were very focused and interested. I taught them the side and chest stretches, emphasizing relaxation and making it feel good. I had them do the wall test and then stretch and see if they found a difference. Some did and some didn't. I realized that teaching these age groups would require multiple sessions broken down into different sessions and incorporated into games.
"What I realized most was how interested the instructor was, he felt the difference at once between improper and proper techniques. I think in addition to teaching children I would like to teach the instructors because they are the primary source of information for the children. I am also very inspired to keep at it myself because I want to be effective in my demonstrations and be a model student myself."
"My teaching from today is listed under "Teaching to CATCH program" which is an after school health and wellness program.
Stuart is working on two other community programs so far, including a wellness Pilot program and a water harvesting project for his dry city of Tucson, with stories to come.
He summarizes:
"I went to the Parks and Rec Aquatics Supervisor and asked if I could teach and take some pics. The city of Tucson is starting a wellness pilot program in early January because of the high rate of strain related injuries. Because my friend (the one who I helped fix back pain) talked about the good your work had done for him with the aquatics supervisor at a recent wellness meeting for city employees, he already knew a little about what I was up to and is going to work with me to incorporate your method into the wellness program to teach employees at district meetings city wide!
"I just graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelors in anthropology. I would like to pursue graduate school but not sure in what field.
"Thanks for the graduation present, couldn't have asked for better!" ;)
--- 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. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Fast Fitness - Which Books to Get for Holiday Shopping Black Friday
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - quick, inexpensive holiday gifts, easy to get, helpful to have. Many readers asked which books to get. Thank you everyone who sent me great notes and success stories how the books made their lives strong, fun, and pain free, and requests for more for friends. Here are descriptions and ways to get books and other fun:
All my books have different information. If you get them all you won't go wrong, or repeat the same stuff.
Limited personally signed copies to you or someone else are possible. I can write something special, with different signing for each person on your list. I can mail them all to you for the same postage, or to different people separately. You can also order straight from retailers instead of me. Links follow below (or click items).
A reader wrote a comment, angry that his e-book did not print, and that it hurt his back "sitting at the computer pasting screenshots into into MSWord" to print his e-book on fixing back pain. He must have thought it was "Reprimand your way to my heart" day. E-books don't print. That is why they are called "E" (electronic) books. The book company lawyers told me his pain was divine punishment for copyright violation. Also for not following book instructions on healthy sitting. I am working on getting new editions of e-Books complied and uploaded (buggy slow software is keeping me at the desk many days overtime). New e-books should be ready for Christmas orders. New editions will soon be available for Kindle and other readers. The e-books already on my web site download directly to your computer. For portable print books, get the print editions.
If you can only get one book:
Top choice for athletes is Healthy Martial Arts. It is a treasury for all athletes. It teaches how to live and move and be healthy during all action of body and mind, with over 200 photographs. For regular exercisers, or those who want to start and just be healthy and have fun, a good choice would be Health & Fitness THIRD edition - How To Be Healthy Happy and Fit For The Rest Of Your Life. It's an all-in-one book with thirty-one fun chapters of fitness, nutrition, health, disease prevention, fixing back and neck pain, joint pain, functional exercise, "green" fitness, emotional health, brain health, stretching, and fun facts about the body. (Or as they say, "if you only read one book this year, you should read more...")
Best Combo:
With either Healthy Martial Arts or Health & Fitness THIRD ed., add Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery.
For the Most "Bang for the Buck:"
Get a bunch, above, and throw in a Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier (200 illustrations) and Ab Revolution™ Third Edition expanded (114 drawings and photos). The Ab Revolution™ is described in: Back Pain From Running and Innovation in Abdominal Muscles
"Thank-you for your considerable research and explanations regarding neck and low back pain. Have recently checked out the Stretching Smarter... book you wrote to see if it is better than other posture books. It is infinitely better. Want to buy some books with photos next.
For scuba divers and diving medicine people on your list:
Diving Physiology In Plain English - all my career work and research in the field of decompression and diving science and two books summarizing the entire field of Hyperbaric and Diving Medicine.
All books and descriptions - on my web site BOOKS page.
--- 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. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Fast Fitness - Contest: What Does It Take To Sit Upright?
Friday, October 16, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - a Contest!
Conventional beliefs about posture include that you must do certain exercises or stretches or strengthening to change your posture. Is that true?
Look at photo 1 and 2 and answer the simple question below:
Photo 1
photo 2
Submit Your Answer:
What muscle strengthening or stretch is required to change from first (unhealthy rounded) to second (upright) sitting?
Name the muscle(s) and action needed - don't just name a muscle, say which way it needs to pull.
Explain why the same people (with the same tightness or weakness) who sit with the lower spine rounded forward (flexion) often stand with the lower back overly curved inward (hyperlordosis) - just the opposite.
Disregard the leg position in the two photos - the question is not how to move the leg, those were just the two photos I could find. Focus on describing how to change yourself to upright sitting without moving the leg (why? if you need to move the leg, then you are too tight for basic health. This question is how to restore that basic).
Use your brain. Partial credit applies. I will post answers, explanations, and winners.
Hint for success:
Sit and try it yourself, don't go only to anatomy books.
Read inspiring success stories of these methods and send your own. See if your answers are already here by clicking post labels, links, archives at right, and Index. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Subscribe free, "updates via e-mail" upper right. Limited Class space for personal feedback. Top students may earn certification,DrBookspan.com/Academy. Learn more (answer to this quiz too) in Dr. Bookspan's Books.
Teachers, coaches, parents, babysitters, trainers, and others have asked me for retraining drills to do with their sports teams, exercisers, and regular school classes.
I will start a series of short articles, one topic per article.
Each will have short instructions that work for group training.
Teams can practice them before each training session, or incorporated into their other exercises.
These will be retraining exercises that school teams and athletes can use to reduce sprains, knee pain, back strain, and other common musculoskeletal issues that arise during the team season. All are basic movement needed for every day activity and real life changed to be healthy - Bookspan Basics.
Each topic can be taught in a short lecture, hopefully within 1-5 minutes, then everyone can try the drill.
This new curriculum is part of the Academy of Functional Exercise Medicine (AFEM)'s Youth Division programming. If your team is changing to healthy ways, you can be a part of this program, which includes certification, awards, teacher training, and other fun - click Academy. There is no charge to participate. This is for health.
Send in your ideas for a name for this program. Trainers, send in your stories of how you use them in your program.
--- 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 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.
Here is Fast Fitness Friday - quick resource for reforming your health care - the Fitness Fixer Index:
Reader David from Belgium first helped me program the index last July (2008). Since then, I have manually added posts and maintained the index on my site.
Fitness Fixer index is now alphabetized to find specific topics more easily, and expanded with more topics.
Image currently the masthead of Dr. Jolie Bookspan's Fitness Fixer - a work in progress. Send in your funny healthy additions. Stay tuned for improvements.
--- Questions come in by hundreds. I make posts from fun mail. Before asking more, 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.
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 - Save Money, Fix Pain, Do More Exercise, Get Fit Faster - Strengthen Personal Responsibility
Friday, June 19, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Fast Friday Fitness - Reduce reliance on gimmicks, medicines, potions, expensive paraphernalia, and repeated treatments for the same problem.
How long does it take to stop slouching, or stop herniating a disc, or stop paying money to eat food that is bad for your health? It takes as long as you want to continue injurious ways.
Reader Paul J wrote:
"A few days after you left for your conference, something in the news caused me to start thinking you should be in the news…….
"In other news today, scientist Dr. Jolie Bookspan is prescribing doses of Personal Responsibility and Activity for various joint pain conditions. Her work along with regular doses of PR & A will result in curing many forms of back pain, knee pain and foot problems. She has also gone so far as to suggest its off-label use may cure non joint ailments as well.
"Since PR & A is neither a pharmaceutical nor a medical device, companies that normally engage in the distribution of free pens have not found the financial benefits of PR & A.
"Many doctors have not seen PR & A in their patients or on pens, and therefore are not familiar with its indications. "
Paul J.
It is up to the person's view of their own body - do they want to stop damaging themselves and do beneficial things, or must they have others change them with constant treatments, sessions, therapies, adjustments, "somatics," (etc). Get free exercise of body and mind by taking personal responsibility for your own slouching. How are you sitting right now? Do you slouch waiting for your pain treatments or back exercise class?
Instead of causing common health problems, then spending time and money on drugs and treatments, stop causes and do good instead. Ongoing treatments are not short cuts, but a long, indirect route.
If you throw trash, it is no mystery when the place is trashy. Stop doing unhealthy things and you feel better.
Click for More:
Faster Improvement in Strength and Health With Personal Responsibility:
Read success stories of these methods 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. Class schedules, get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Get Certified, Learn With Fitness Fixer Personally In Colorado USA in July
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
In July, I will be back at the annual conference of the Wilderness Medical Society in Snowmass, Colorado to teach three workshops. Six actually. By demand, I will be giving each one twice to allow more people to learn.
My classes are eligible for certification through the Academy of Functional Exercise Medicine (renamed from Functional Fitness Medicine) - www.DrBookspan.com/Academy. Certification counts toward Academy Fellow requirements - FAFEM. Fellow status is a distinguished degree.
The Wilderness Medicine conference is open to all who want to learn.
1. Prevent and Fix Injuries Fast moving, jam packed, hands-on workshop. Learn how to recognize, fix, and prevent conditions that cause sprains, bad arches, knee, disc, shoulder, upper back, lower back, SI joint, and mystery back pain. I will teach this workshop twice (one session each): Monday July 27, 2009, 7:40-9:40 am OR Tuesday July 28. 1-3pm.
2. Not The Same Old Stretches - Why Well Known Stretches Aren’t Stopping Injury and What to Do Instead. Come relieve conference aches on the spot. Discover why conventional stretching promotes flexed (aging) postural habits and degenerative forces on joints. Take home effective new and innovative techniques. Same class offered twice: Tues July 28, 2009, 3:20-5:20pm, OR Wednesday July 29, 7:40am-9:40am.
3. Functional Core Training - What's Hot and What's Not No crunches or forward bending that pressures discs and teaches bent over "old" posture. Learn fun, quick techniques to straighten posture, fix lower back pain from hiking and backpacks, and functionally strengthen, from simple moves to the toughest you can get. Bring a backpack (optional backpack training). Same class offered twice: Monday, July 27, 2009. 10am-12pm, OR Wednesday July 29 10am-12pm.
This year, my workshops are free with conference admission. In the past, they were extra charge, payable to WMS, but you did not need to pay for the conference separately.
You don't need to attend the whole conference to take the workshops, although the conference and the people who come to the meetings are fun and interesting. With free admission to my workshops, class size is limited. I will give preference to those seeking certification so that they may learn better. Certification is extra fee. Dedicated students are allowed to take the same workshop twice at no extra fee. Even when there was a class fee, this allowance was always offered. Learning is more important than fees.
Read success stories of people using my methods 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. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Mr. Jim Morris won the Mr. Universe title in 1977, was inducted into the Physical Fitness Hall Of Fame with Bill Pearl and Jack Lalanne in 1978, won Mr. Olympia Masters in 1996, and other awards.
He continues bodybuilding at age 73, able and active, encouraging healthful nutrition and exercise practices, and responsible living.
For his ongoing positive teaching, he has been appointed as a Practitioner of the Academy of Functional Exercise Medicine. The Academy is the teaching arm of my practice, which works for a smart healthy world.
Mr. America write to us:
"Dr. Bookspan,
"I am so thrilled to be so honored.
"The Academy is the “missing voice” in the litany of exercise noise. The goal of improving daily life should be foremost in our priorities. Just as an athlete perfects a movement we should continually be looking to better those things we do constantly. As always you are at the forefront of thinking and implementing. Congratulations on the new Academy and the best of luck with it. I am honored to be placed in so exalted a position and shall cherish it.
Jim"
Mr. Morris was first featured in Fitness Fixer in:
The Academy has classes, fun activities, cool t-shirts, certification for teaching and health professionals, fellow advancement opportunities for physicians and researchers, and other opportunities. Click the Academy link for more about Functional Exercise - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
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Read success stories of these methods 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. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Comments, A Medical Conference, New Findings on Discs
Monday, May 25, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
By the time this post comes out, we should be halfway out West to a medical conference. I'm presenting a study, which took years to do, and which found something unexpected.
I am a medical researcher. I find out the things that doctors (with any luck) then learn and put into practice. A research career has all (and more) of the medical schooling, but without the burden of the medical salary. In previous studies, I found that chronically overdoing the inward lower spine curve pinches the lower spine. It forces the spine joints, called facets, backward against each other, eventually wearing them out, 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. In the work I am presenting, I found that although it is known that the main factor to injure vertebral discs is too much bending forward, that overarching backward can hurt discs too. This is a new proposed mechanism of disc injury.
There is supposed to be a small inward curve to the lower spine. With the (very) small normal inward curve, spine bones line up on top of each other like stacks of cups so that there is equal pressure on discs from front to back. That is called normal lordosis (inward curve). Chronic bending forward manages to unequally load the discs so that they push out in back. Overarching also unequally loads the area. It seems to pinch already protruded discs, and may even factor in the herniation process. I will be presenting on years of my work that lead to this finding.
I made a diagram showing the disc injury coming from overarching/ hyperlordosis/ hyperextending the spine that is so common in pop fitness. The Healthline blog software is still not loading any new photos of my own. Stock photos or those from other people's sharing sites appear, but I the blogger is not letting us get my own diagrams and student photos to you, for now. I mailed the image to Healthline.com staffer Jerry, who said he could upload it for you. It should appear here, below this paragraph, so you can understand better why hyper-lordosis, although common, and often taught, it not neutral spine and can make unnecessary pain. The damage and pain can be quick to fix when you know how. Click the labels "facets" and "lordosis" for posts explaining this issue.
I have to pay the travel to get to the conference, pay the conference fee, essentially, pay to work. I have to bring a computer and projector to give my own presentation (or pay an AV fee to the conference) but won't have Internet access to see or answer questions. Leave fun comments but hold questions for the next two weeks.
Photo is me, taken on the way on the way to a previous medical conference, out for some barefoot climbing.
--- 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. ---
Back pain from lifting and carrying babies and young children is common. Rehab and PT programs commonly have people spend time (away from their children and other important things they need to do) to lift weight to strengthen back muscles.
Here is an idea - if weight lifting helps, lift the kids. Just lift them right, so that you do not get the back pain in the first place. It is not the lifting that causes the pain.
Good Kid Lifting:
Prevents pain,
Strengthens your muscles,
Gives built in exercise (functional exercise the way your muscles work),
Increases contact with your young kids, important to their development,
Improves ability to keep time with your children fun, healthy, and happy.
Readers asked me to make reminders for them about how to lift and carry their young children.
I created several different reminders on good lifting, bending, carrying. Fun T-shirts for kids are available in several colors and fabrics. There are bibs, singlets, and shirts for babies, and fun Back and Neck Saver reminders for grownups too.
Read success stories of these methods 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. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
On Saturday May 16th 2009, I will be offering an opportunity to learn many techniques in one day, and pursue certification.
I will teach two different workshops. Come learn to fix injuries for yourself and others.
Optional certifications in each course will be available by arrangement. The certifications are authorized by the International Academy of Functional Exercise Medicine:
Fix and Prevent Injuries - Ankles, Arches, Discs, Knee, Back, & Neck 9am-1:30pm and Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier 1:30-4:30pm.
Both workshops are held on the same day, Saturday May 16th, in downtown Philadelphia at Temple University Center City campus, 1515 Market Street, across the street from historic City Hall.
People fly in from all over the world to attend this double workshop in one-day format.
The Academy has been in process of renaming to "Exercise Medicine" instead of the previous "Sports Medicine" for the wider application outside of sports. New developments are listed on the Academy site:
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Read success stories of these methods 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. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Readers, patients, and students have asked me for years to write down for them about good lifting and bending over babies and children. I wrote articles and books. I did experiments in the lab. They still said they couldn't remember. So I made something for all of you. You can give these to everyone in need for Mothers and Fathers days, coming up, and all year.
Here it is, quicker and easier than reading the books:
If the photo does not appear (blogger is having troubles) click this link.
I designed singlets and one-piece suits for infants, T-shirts for toddlers and children, various sizes and colors.
One student had asked me to write down and hang the information around her neck so she would have an easy way to remember all the time. So I made a bib too - for the baby - so she could see it each time she bent to feed and lift.
I was surprised people wouldn't just remember on their own to live in a way so important to their health. But they kept coming back asking for me to tell them again. I am drawing the various concepts and putting them on daily items as funny reminders. I will show them in future posts if readers are interested.
Click the photo or go to this site for all the educational gifts designed so far - http://www.cafepress.com/AcademyGifts. Send your requests for other ways to have fun health built in to daily memory.
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Read success stories of Fitness Fixer methods and send your own. Questions come in by hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. 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. RSS feed currently not working, so click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Health Homework Becomes AntiObesity Chronic Disease Reality Check
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Jeff & Sabrina sent me an e-mail that their 7th grade son was given a school assignment about the "proper amount of calories to have a normal weight" but with junk foods listed in the menus.
They made a video of the events, explaining,
"Could it be that our schools are actually Suspect Number One in fostering obesity and chronic illness?"
This is not a surprise. I have taught at medical schools and attended medical conferences that serve unhealthy foods. I was on a national committee to determine nutrition consensus statements where the box lunches served had cookies, sodas, processed bread, cured meat and cheese sandwiches, "sports bars" which are candy in an expensive wrapper, and gloppy fatty dressing. I have received many letters from doctors and fitness instructors that they can't be expected to eat right, or even exercise enough given their busy schedules. This is not fitness. Fitness is not appearances, or being unhealthy while giving medical advice to others, or taking stimulant drugs to stay awake to work extra jobs to support a spending habit, or doing repetitions of artificial exercises 10 times, then returning to slouching and bad bending to pick up your gym bag. Fitness is how you think, move, act, and help the world be better.
We need some role models. Click the arrow to watch the video.
If the video does not appear on your screen, click their link
Read success stories of these methods and send your own. Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from selected ones. Before asking, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, and archives at right.
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It was my honor to be notified recently that I was inducted into the Hall of Honor of the largest non-profit scuba diver training organization in the world.
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