Fixing Posture - No Exercises Needed

A widespread myth is that to fix posture you must strengthen sets of muscles.

After spending time and money on strengthening exercises, people often wind up as stronger people with the same poor body position. The fallacy is that strengthening does not create movement. You do that yourself.

A physician wrote me that he has hyperlordosis from surfing, and is "working" to fix it. He had spent much time waiting for the exercises to "work." What he missed is that surfing does not cause it, and how you stand can be fixed there and then by deliberately, volitionally changing how you stand. How? Try Friday Fast Fitness - Neutral Spine in 5 Seconds.


In the comments to the post Prevent Main Factor in Back Pain After Running and Walking, a Division I athlete wrote:

"Thank you. I am a D1 athlete and have been struggling with back pain/extreme tightness when lifting and playing in the same day. I have known I had bad posture while running/walking for about 4 years, went to physical therapy for it, and still haven't changed it. I kept waiting for a certain exercise to suddenly "fix" me. Duh, what fixes me is ME CHANGING IT. Shocking."

When certain muscles are tight, it can feel normal to stand badly. Even though it is popular to talk about tight hamstrings changing posture, that is mostly an issue when sitting. When standing, two tight areas are most common, chest and front hip:

• Tight front chest muscles make round-shouldered position feel normal. Round-shouldered positioning keeps the front muscles shortened, in a cycle of shortening and tightening. The upper back muscles over-lengthen. This is why the most common stretch of pulling an arm over the front of the body is usually counterproductive. To fix anterior (front) tightness start with understanding and doing the pectoral stretch, described in Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain and stop promoting an already overstretched posterior shoulder with The Stretch You Need The Least.
  

• Tight front hip muscles make standing badly feel normal. The front of the hip is pulled downward, tipping the backside outward in back. The lower back increases in inward curve in a painful posture called swayback or hyperlordosis. Many people stand this way without knowing it because they think standing with the hip tilted forward in front is normal or "cute." Much of modern conventional "fitness" encourages this unhealthy, unattractive bad posture.

Hyperlordosis is a major hidden factor in lower back pain. People may undergo months, even years of treatments, adjustments, shots, medicines, therapies for discs, sciatica, facet pain, and other pain without knowing or changing the cause - allowing a too large an inward curve to the lower back.

The photo at right demonstrates an over-arch in the lower spine, the hip tilted forward in front, and a forward head while doing an activity supposed to be for health. It seems impractical to do "fitness" in unhealthy ways. Moreover, tilting the hip forward reduces the Achilles stretch and reinforces bad movement habits. For a more functional Achilles stretch try Better Achilles Tendon Stretch.

Hyperlordosis is not a medical condition or unchangeable anatomy. It is simple bad posture that you can allow or change right as you stand. Neutral spine is not pushing the hip forward, just moving it enough to make it level. See a short movie in the post Friday Fast Fitness - Neutral Spine in 5 Seconds. To stretch the front hip, try these:

1. Fast Fitness - Quick Relaxing Hip Stretch.
2. Change the common ineffective way to stretch the front of the thigh and hip with Instantly Better Hip and Quadriceps Stretch
3. and Stretch While You Strengthen Legs.
   

Watch other people when they exercise, walk, and run. See how often you can spot the unhealthy overarched lower spine. See what to look for in the post Spotting Back Pain During Running and Walking - What Do Abs Have To Do With It?

Remember that stretching the hip and shoulder, and anywhere else, will not automatically make you stand right. You do that yourself using your own muscles and brain. Free exercise. Free fix.

Labels: fix pain, lordosis, lower back, myths, posture, stretch

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Fast Fitness - Fixing Yoga Warrior and Lunge Exercise to Neutral Spine

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - quickly change your posture to change your luck on Friday the 13th. Hyperlordosis (swayback posture) seems to be unlucky - it causes lower back pain. You can do this in seconds to make a certain change to healthier spine for yoga or practicing the lunge. If you don't believe in luck, you're lucky. It's just good posture and simple anatomy.

Reader David from Belgium demonstrates in this 20 second movie that he made for us:

1. First ten seconds - he steps into a yoga pose called Warrior pose, but allows overly arched lower spine. He also demonstrates leaning more weight forward of center line, which is a different issue.
2. Note how the belt line tips downward in front and the lower spine overly curves inward - more than a normal curve.
3. At second 11 he levels the hip to bring the posture to neutral spine. Then he kindly demonstrates overarching when raising the arms further. Instead, hold neutral spine and raise the arms from the shoulder, not the lower back.

To prevent shoulder impingement when raising arms, keep shoulders down and back, don't just chin and neck forward, keep them gently in. A forward head posture compresses the rotator cuff when lifting arms. See Safer Overhead Military Press.

I never expected repeated requests to see how to do neutral spine in different activities. It is the same. Just apply the same neutral spine and that’s all. I thought one post would do it, but will post each activity readers ask about. I am aware that there are yoga and fitness places which teach to overarch the spine as part of the move. Teaching swayback does not seem to be as helpful as teaching neutral spine. Changing lunge and Warrior pose to neutral also improves the stretch to the front hip muscles of the back leg. Lucky.

Labels: fast fitness, fix pain, holiday, impingement, lordosis, neutral spine, posture, video/movie, yoga

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Fast Fitness - Fixing Your Handstand to Neutral Spine

Last week's Fast Fitness showed a movie of how to step up into an easy handstand and get back down. This week shows a common pitfall - letting your lower spine sag under gravity - and how to fix it and hold neutral spine.

My student Dennis, Olympic medalist in wrestling, demonstrates:

1. Step your foot up behind you high onto a wall, then the other.
2. For the first 5 seconds of the movie, Dennis allows the lower spine to overarch (increase the inward curve) under the pull of gravity, a bad posture called hyperlordosis. It is not the normal inward curve, it is an easily changed bad posture.
3. At second 5 he changes the tilt of the hip and lower spine back to neutral spine. The action is like doing an abdominal crunch to bring the spine and torso just forward enough to be straight.

This technique practices the muscles and positioning for straight standing, making it better than just a handstand. If you want to gain abdominal strength, using neutral spine uses those muscles. An important difference in Fitness Fixer exercises is that they are not only exercises alone. All the techniques I developed are supposed to be used to train muscle function and positioning for when you stand up and walk away.

Use neutral spine, not only for handstands, but all you do. Examples are in Prevent Back Surgery.

Labels: abdominal muscles, arm, fast fitness, lordosis, lower back, neutral spine, posture, strength, video/movie

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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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Fast Fitness - First Morning Stretch

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - straighten out first thing in the morning and help your back feel good.

Instead of sitting on the bed first thing in the morning, which loads the discs, try this:

1. Before getting out of bed, turn face down propped gently on elbows
2. Hold briefly
3. Get out of bed without sitting.

Don't droop your head downward, jut your neck or chin forward, hunch your shoulders, or fold back sharply at the lower spine. Find a low gentle position that makes your whole back feel good. The idea is to feel better and straighter, not strain, force, or make your posture worse. That would be silly.

For most people this first morning stretch works well. If it hurts your lower back, go to a lower position. If you flatten completely straight and still feel pain or pinching in the lower back, then how can you stand up straight without the same problem? Don't use this First Morning Stretch until you find why it is not comfortable. One common reason is front hip tightness. Try the Quick Relaxing Hip Stretch.

Labels: disc, fast fitness, hip, leg stretch, lower back, posture, stretch

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Tax Preparation Health

Taxes are due April 15th. Piles of papers, forms, schedules, receipts. Readers have asked how to be healthier while working at the desk, and how to keep their cool during tax preparation.

Several readers asked how to stop neck pain when looking down over deskwork. Reader John M, specifically asked "How do you suggest someone look down (to look at a chart etc at work) without pushing the (herniated neck) disc out more (or aggravating symptoms)?

Three photos above show tilting the neck forward and/or jutting the chin forward. Holding the head forward of the neck and body is a major source of upper back and neck pain. The "forward head" is hard on the soft tissues, the joints of the vertebrae called facets, and the discs of the neck, and is a major overlooked cause of "upper crossed syndrome." The forward head is just a bad posture, and easy to stop. It is not necessary to jut the neck or chin forward to look downward.

Check how you are sitting right now. Are you letting your neck hang forward, are you jutting your chin forward, or are you pushing or rounding your neck and upper body forward? Instead, keep chin in, loosely and gently. If needed, bring your chair closer in closer to the desk and lean the upper body back instead of rounding your lower back against the chair back and leaning the upper body forwad.

To look down comfortably - tip chin down in relaxed straight position instead of jutting the head and neck forward. That is healthy positioning for everyone - injured or not. No need to lean or hang the head or neck forward, or round your upper back to look downward.

More posts with quick techniques to feel better during desk work:

• Stretch upper body in your chair - Tax Stretch
• Stretch and relax upper body - Quick, Feel-Good Upper Back and Chest Stretch
• Stretch and relax lower body - Quick Relaxing Hip Stretch
• Stretch and relax your breathing - Do Breathing Exercises Work?
• Stretch and relax your spirit - Fast Fitness Friday - Strong Spirit.

Labels: disc, facet joints, fix pain, holiday, neck, posture, sitting, stress, upper back

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Fast Fitness - Fix Flat Feet, Pronation, and Fallen Arches

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - feel how your own muscles work to hold arch support, so that you can have healthy arches without artificial shoe arch supports or orthotics, which weaken the supporting muscles from disuse:

1. Stand with feet parallel and look in a mirror where you can see your feet, or just look down.
2. Pull outward until your arches rise and restore, and your ankles are straight
3. Use this as your new natural position, gaining built-in muscle strength and arch stability with each step you take.

Click the arrow to see the short movie made for us by reader David from Belgium. First he allows his weight to shirt inward, pushing his arch flatter toward the floor. Then at seconds 3 to 4 in the movie, he uses the outer muscles to pull to straight neutral ankle position. At seconds 8 to 9 he allows the arch to sag again, then simply restores and holds a healthy arch from second 13 onward.

You can have healthful arch position too. Legs and feet have posture that you can control yourself. Use your own muscles and get free built-in exercise and arch support all day, and stop painful poor positioning.

Labels: ankle, arches, fast fitness, feet, fix pain, posture, pronation, video/movie

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Gluteal Muscles Myth - Shaking The Dog's Paw

The post Spotting Back Pain During Running and Walking - What Do Abs Have To Do With It? showed the common and painful bad posture of standing with too much inward curve in the lower back, called swayback and hyperlordosis. A reader mailed me an article about gluteal muscles and asked what gluteal muscles have to do with it.

The article shows one kind of hyperlordosis, with the hip pushed forward. The drawing at right shows that hip-forward hyperlordosis position (right figure) compared to neutral spine (left figure). The article stated that the hip-forward posture was due to weak gluteal muscles, and that strengthening the muscles would fix the bad posture. The article gave a strengthening exercise of lying on your back and squeezing the "cheeks" of the backside together as if squeezing a coin between them.

Knowing muscle action will help you know why it doesn't work that way:

1. Your gluteal muscles are muscles of your backside. One function is to pull your upper leg backward, for example, when walking, to pull each leg behind you. The distance between the back of your hip and the back of your upper leg shortens.
2. If you use your gluteal muscles while standing (not tighten them, just use them to bring about movement) your hip will push forward. That is the opposite of correcting a hip that is forward in bad posture.
3. Squeezing the "cheeks" of the gluteal muscles together is training a different movement direction than either pushing your hip and leg forward or back.
4. Another fallacy is that tight gluteal muscles pull the hip so that it pushes forward into bad posture. It is true that tight hip muscles in front will change the tilt of your hip. People with anterior tightness cannot easily bring the leg behind them, which hurts stance and gait. Gluteal muscles cannot get that tight unless you have tetanus. Gluteal tight enough to push the hip forward a few inches would be so tight that you would not be able to sit down. You would tear your backside like splitting your pants.

The key point is that strengthening a muscle does not make it move your body or change your position. If you strengthen your arm, for example, your arm does not automatically wave around or raise over your head. Your arm only moves when you make it move. Strengthening your gluteal muscles will not move your hip for you. Even if strengthening did make any body part move on its own, gluteal muscles would cause a forward hip, not correct it.

Think of asking a dog to shake hands with you. If you want the dog to move his paw up to shake your hand, you do not strengthen his leg and paw. You train the movement and the voluntary desire to bring about the action.

Standing, walking, and running in hyperlordosis is a major cause of lower back pain. Some people stick the backside out in back and others tilt the upper body back with the hip thrust forward. Both increase the inward curve of the lower back and painfully pinch the lower back structures. Although some fitness information and advertisements represent overarching as attractive, even something to deliberately do, it is an unhealthy and weak posture, making it unattractive and undesirable.

Strengthening muscles is good and helpful and fun and healthy, and so on. Strengthening gluteal muscles or any other muscles will not automatically make you stand in healthful position. Stronger muscles do not make you move. You can change to healthful position right now without strengthening. These posts show how:

• The post Friday Fast Fitness - Neutral Spine in 5 Seconds shows a quick movie.
• Prevent Back Surgery shows places to look for overarching and why it is so important to prevent it.
  
• Neutral Spine or Not? shows two kinds of hyperlordosis to watch for, with links to photos how to stand in neutral spine.
  
• For a stretch for the anterior hip: standing - Hip Stretch While You Strengthen Legs and lying down - Fast Fitness - Quick Relaxing Hip Stretch
  

When you hear that you need various strengthening exercises to correct posture, think of shaking a dog's paw.

Labels: abdominal muscles, fix pain, lordosis, lower back, myths, neutral spine, posture, running, strength, walking

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Spotting Back Pain During Running and Walking - What Do Abs Have To Do With It?

The post Innovation in Abdominal Muscles showed one of the most common, yet most overlooked cause of lower back pain during long standing walking, and running.

Readers sent excited letters stating they could finally see and feel why they had back pain, and could immediately feel the difference when they stopped standing with too much inward curve in the lower spine, and began standing and moving in neutral spine.

Readers asked for more photos so that they can see the difference between overarching (hyperlordosis) and neutral spine (normal lordosis) during running and walking. They wanted to see the overarch in action and what running in neutral spine looked like.

• In both photos, the hip tilts forward in front (and out in back) instead of holding vertical. The abdomen rounds outward.
• Note the red stripe on the runner's pants in the photo at left. The stripe tilts forward from the top of the leg to the middle of the hip. Compare to the red vertical line in the middle and right-hand drawing. The beltline tips downward in front. Compare to the red lines tilting downward in the drawings.
  
• The walker in the photo at right tilts the hip forward in front (and out in back), beltline tips downward. The upper body leans and sags backward.

The muscles that shorten to prevent the upper body tilting back and the hip tilting forward are your abdominal muscles. The abdominal muscles are too long when you allow overarching. Keep this in mind when you hear about exercise programs that claim to lengthen your abs.

Moving your spine to neutral spine for all daily life is how abdominal muscles help prevent back pain. It is not strengthening them that does this, and it is not tightening. Crunches and other forward bending exercises do not train you how to use your abs to hold neutral spine and they increase herniating pressure on your discs - click Good Life Works Better Than Bad Ab Exercise. Use your abdominal muscles, without tightening them, to position your lower spine during all you do, just like using any other muscles to move any other part the way you want. It is a free ab workout all day, and you will stop a major cause of back pain during standing, walking, and running.

• Click Overlooked Ab Muscles in Overhead Lifts to see more examples of overarching during lifting weights.
• Click Change Daily Reaching to Get Ab Exercise and Stop Back and Shoulder Pain to see an example when reaching and lifting arms overhead
• Click Prevent Back Surgery to see why overarching can be so damaging to the joints of the vertebrae.
• Click my web site books page www.DrBookspan.com/books to see the training manual The Ab Revolution™. It shows several techniques to learn neutral spine as a normal habit, and how to use it to stop back pain from hyperlordosis, even if you don't exercise (Part 1) and how to use it for better core training if you want to incorporate it into exercises (Part 2), from simple to the hardest you can get.
  
  

Labels: abdominal muscles, facet joints, fix pain, lordosis, neutral spine, posture, running, walking

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Fast Fitness - Quick Homemade Almond Milk and Rice Milk

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - easy, inexpensive almond milk and rice milk.

Good tasting and healthier than dairy milk or soymilk. See Is Your Health Food Unhealthful?

Use in place of milk in most recipes, desserts, in coffee or tea.

For almond milk:

1. Soak a cup of raw almonds for several hours until soft. Four hours is a good start.
2. Use a blender or other mixer to blend softened almonds with several (about 4) cups of clean water until you like the consistency.
3. Optional flavors can be cinnamon, vanilla, unsweetened undutched cocoa, nutmeg, small fresh piece of ginger root, fresh berries, and others.

For rice milk, throw cooked rice in a blender or bowl and mash with water until the consistency you want. Flavor as above.

Don't slouch your neck forward as in the right-hand person in the second photo above. Stand straight, pictured in Fast Fitness - Homemade Sports Food.

Labels: fast fitness, nutrition, posture, upper back

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Long Sitting - Simple and More Comfortable

As you read this, we will have been on several days of flights and trains.

Sitting for long periods does not have to be uncomfortable, whether at the desk, on a flight, when driving. Most lists of instructions for sitting without hurting your back tell you to sit in exact ways at exact angles. This is not needed. Instead, it's better to understand the concepts of how and why strain and injury occur when sitting. Then you can sit in healthy ways that are comfortable, easy, and healthy.

Many desk chairs, even expensive ergonomic chairs are made so that you sit with your spine rounded forward. Sitting rounded eventually creates herniating forces on your discs, explained in The Cause of Disc and Back Pain and Are You Making Your Exercise Unhealthy?

Commercial airline, bus, and train seats often have a concave seat back, encouraging prolonged, enforced rounding. So do many car seat backs, even those saying they have lumbar support.

• If your seat back is too concave, pad the space with a small cushion.
• Use a pad about the size of your own forearm.
• Place the pad in the small inward curve of your lower back.
• Don't remain sitting rounding forward against the lumbar pad out of habit. A lumbar roll will not make you sit right.
• Lean your upper back against the chair. Don't press your lower back against the pad.
• If your lumbar roll hurts, it is not right. It should not be a hard material that hurts you. See if you have it positioned in the right place.
• At a desk, move your seat in closer so that you do not round or lean forward to reach or see the computer.

Future posts will cover more about lumbar roll use and misuse.

If the seat is very concave, you may need two pillows, one for the small inward curve of your low back, and the second above that one for your upper back, in the space still left by the rounded seat. The upper back has a small outward curve, however sitting with a large outward curve creates upper back pain.

Get up frequently to move. Here is the link to last year's travel sitting post on Exercise and Stretch for Long Travel Sitting.

Labels: disc, fix pain, lower back, lumbar roll, posture, sitting, upper back

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Fast Fitness - Fix Positioning by Watching Others

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - a quick easy way to remember healthful body positioning for daily activity and exercise.
To remind yourself of your positioning, watch other people.

Reader Rich Tarpinian (Fix Neck, Play Hockey, Use Brain, Fun Life) writes:

"By the way, I'm still doing well and have been referring many people to your website. In general, I've had much less tension in the shoulders and neck and for the first time in decades, feel like neck stiffness does not have to be chronic. One very useful suggestion you gave was to start observing others to see how problems can begin/continue to manifest themselves in real life. I actually feel bad for them as I witness them creating all of those problems. Thanks again - I will continue to be a testament to the great healing work you do. Rich Tarpinian"

Rich generously provided his websites - darlarich.com and www.myspace.com/darlarichjazz offering, "If someone wishes to ask me a question about my new found wisdom, they'll have an email address."

Reader Dennis, Olympic medalist in wrestling, says he notices his shadow for posture reminders when biking. His inspiring story of fixing injuries and improving training to Olympic levels will be posted (Dennis, get your photos finished :-)

Labels: fast fitness, posture, readers inspiring story

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Household Fitness in the New Year

Start off the new year with fitness as a lifestyle. Use healthy movement and body positioning as you go about all your daily activities.

David from Belgium trains balance first thing



Ivy from New Zealand uses a half squat to functionally strengthen her legs and prevent back pain while making the bed.






See - Bending Right is Fitness as a Lifestyle.

















Our friend MomPon is relative to the abbot of the Muay Thai Monks on Horseback near the border of Myanmar (Burma). We stayed with her during the time we spent at the monastery. She sits straight and comfortably in full squat to get things for dinner from her garden, then to wash dishes in her kitchen. We do the same when we help. She stands straight with chin in to reach overhead to get tamarind fruit from her tree, see - Change Daily Reaching to Get Ab Exercise and Stop Back and Shoulder Pain.

Labels: balance, biking, children, gardening, lunge, posture, sitting, squat

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Thanksgiving Health

Every year at Thanksgiving, some of my students are far from home or without a family to visit. We invite them to our little house for a warm meal on cushions by the fireplace.

We tell them the food is vegetarian and we sit on the floor without Western-style furniture. Some suddenly remember an uncle in Boston they'll visit. This year we're pleased that a former student is flying from Japan to visit after studying with us here years ago.

This is the link to last year's Fitness and Health as a Lifestyle for Thanksgiving to help holiday lifting, carrying, cooking, cleaning, and preparations. Here are more easy fun Thanksgiving fitness-as-a-lifestyle ideas:

• If you're traveling far for holiday visits, here is Exercise and Stretch for Long Travel Sitting.
  
  
• Sitting on the floor with good positioning is healthier than in chairs, and gives a built-in hip stretch. Done in rounded positioning, it is the same as bad sitting in chairs. Use Quick and Easy Strength and Balance Exercise.


• Vegetarian and vegan food makes a full, healthy, good tasting Thanksgiving feast. It does not have to be strange or spartan. Avoid unfermented soy in powdered protein drinks, bars, and textured vegetable protein. It is not as healthy as promoted. Real food gives protein, and is healthier. See Is Your Health Food Unhealthful? and Get Muscles for Christmas.


• While standing to prepare food at the counter, put your shoulders back with chin loosely in and hip tucked to neutral - photo example in Fast Fitness - Homemade Sports Food. Then your neck and back will not hurt during cooking.


• Even if you need to hurry to prepare and clean, remember to be happy that you are well-off enough to have things to prepare and clean.


• Have kids help, rather than stressing to do everything alone while they miss the discipline, good habits, and exercise of helping you. Make it fun to be together.


• Instead of hunching shoulders and rushing to get the cooking done, straighten, breathe, and use each stroke of washing and cutting as a meditation.


• Get free bending and spiritual exercise by cleaning closets to donate clothing to warm someone in need. Every year Paul and I stand with a clothing bag in city alleys near the shelters. Extra large homeless women take Paul's extra large shirts and jackets. Squirrelly homeless men pick out my small jeans. They smile jagged-toothed smiles at their new clothes. We enjoy listening to their stories and sharing warm home-baked food with them.


• Laugh until your cheeks hurt.
  


• "Before eating, give thanks to the food" - Arapaho Native American proverb.


• When possessions break, give thanks for having possessions, which is more than much of the world has. When your faucet leaks, give thanks that you have running water. When we lived in Asia, we walked down only two flights to a bathroom then climbed back two flights with a jug of water for cooking. People in many places in the world walk miles just for the privilege of digging for food and carrying heavy water pots back. That gives perspective on Westerners who easily eat much and exercise little, and believe only the most minor contributors to weight gain - Metabolism - How to Lose Weight and Save Money.


• There are groups of mountain monks in Japan, who, after going to the bathroom, give thanks because everything worked. Learn to give thanks for all the little things and big things.


• Get rid of an enemy this Thanksgiving. Abraham Lincoln explained: "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"

We are fortunate to have food, and cushions, and a warm fire, and friends who visit from afar. Thank you readers for using my work to make your lives better. You are my gifts.

More on the exercise of living happily and giving thanks in Healthy Martial Arts.

Labels: children, holiday, posture, spirit, stress

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Fast Fitness - Strengthen by Changing Your Plank

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:

1. Hold a pushup position
2. Change sagging lower back to neutral by tucking the hip. Head up, neck as straight as standing.
   
3. 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.)

Labels: abdominal muscles, facet joints, fast fitness, fix pain, lordosis, lower back, neutral spine, posture, strength, video/movie, wrist, yoga

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Mischief is Not Good Exercise - Halloween Ahimsa

The third harvest is here in the Northern Hemisphere. The Hunter's Moon is bright in the sky.

The last harvest of fall is a time of endings and beginnings. More than a commercial holiday of destruction and gruesome death, the approaching winter was historically a time to reverently mark departure of the living and life-giving fields, and be thankful for the harvests they gave. Revering of elders was observed in analogy.

The first and most important precept of thousands of years of yoga and martial arts is ahimsa. Ahimsa means non-violence, non-harm, non-destruction. Ahimsa was reaffirmed in recent times by the Mahatma Gandhi, and in the West by Martin Luther King, Jr. In all the classes I teach, I remind the students that ahimsa is something you incorporate in all your actions. Don't harm yourself by sitting in injury-producing bad slouching. Don't harm yourself with bad exercise. Don't harm yourself by destructive thoughts and actions. Don't harm yourself with unhealthful food and drink. Don't harm yourself by hunching your shoulders to stress through preparing meals, when you can relax your shoulders, straighten your back, breathe, and use each stoke of washing, cutting, and preparing food as beautiful meditation in the same amount of time. Don't harm others with spiteful words, deeds, and thoughts. Don't cause others fear or pain. Don't cause yourself fear and pain.

In many of the countries where we have traveled and lived, lovely short public service announcements occur daily with kind messages of doing good. Television and radio commercials are paid for with no other purpose than to give specific positive examples of helping each other for a better world. Where we have lived in the US, continuous messages of spitef