Black Belt Hall of Fame 2009

This weekend we will attend the Black Belt Hall of Fame event hosted by the Eastern USA Martial Arts Association. Paul and I are honored to be invited back this year, and receive awards for Instructor of the Year. I will teach a workshop on Stretching Smarter for Martial Artists.

Why stretch smarter? Many standard stretches work to increase flexibility but don't improve martial arts or other sports, and aren't good for the joints.

Martial artists and other athletes often develop injuries from years of bad stretches. It's understandable to put yourself in harm's way to carry children and elders from a burning building, or suffer cold and hypoxia rescuing a stranded mountaineer. It's silly to injure yourself doing stretches and exercises you think are for your health. In martial arts you can harden your body to withstand blows through difficult and uncomfortable training, but it isn't the point of martial arts or other sports and activities to beat up yourself. I cover the difference between toughening the body and injuring it in the seminar and in my book Healthy Martial Arts.

My workshop teaches functional flexibility - changing your body to work better in real ways needed for daily life and fighting arts.

Functional exercise and medicine is an exciting change in fitness and health. My Academy page explains more - Academy of Functional Exercise Medicine AFEM.

I won't have Internet or mail for the week.

The hall of Fame event is by invitation only. Contact:

Executive Director Soke Kanzler Eastern
U.S.A. International Martial Arts Association
1 (800) 456-3872
EUSAIMAA@aol.com
P.O. Box 9642
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania 15226 USA

If you can't attend the lecture, get the book:

• Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier

Related Fitness Fixer:

• Black Belt Hall of Fame 2008
• Black Belt Hall of Fame
• Black Belt Hall of Fame - Black Belts and Black Tie
• International Martial Arts Association - Weekend Event Nov 10-12
• What Does Stretching Do?
• Throw a Stronger Punch (or Push a Car or Stroller) Using This Back Pain Reduction Technique

Random Fun Article:

• All the More Reason To Try - Exercise to Overcome Each Difficulty

Labels: fix pain, injury, International Academy of Functional Sports Medicine, martial arts, stretch

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Fitness Tests - Do They Do What They Claim?

A number of conventional standardized fitness tests, surprisingly, are not accurate. They do not test what they claim to test. To get real answers that you can use, it is important to know if you are doing what you think you are doing.

An example of a test that does not test what it claims is the "Sit and Reach" test. Sit and Reach is assumed to test hamstring flexibility, but is more a measure of how much you can round your spine. Many people can pass the Sit and Reach with little hamstring flexibility and an unhealthful angle at the hip - tilted back (shown by shorts side seam) rather than vertical. The Sit and Reach is required testing for numerous military, corporate, and school fitness programs

Another standard fitness assessment uses crunches or sit ups, supposedly to test abdominal muscle function. Bending or curling forward does not give a predictive measure of how well you can use your abdominal muscles to adjust your spine position for spine health, for sports ability, to prevent back pain, in short, to move in healthy ways in real daily life and work where you need it most.

A test may be reliable, which means it gives the same answer each time you test the same thing. For example, a scale should measure the same item at the same weight each time. A reliable scale may not be accurate. That means, it may be wrong by the same amount each time. But it does give the same answer reliably. Having a reliable test does not mean it will be accurate. Accuracy and reliability are both necessary components of devising tests that are actually helpful.

I worked years researching more prognostic and beneficial tests for several common fitness measures. If your military or police division, school, or industry wants to hire me to train you in simple new reliable and accurate tests, let me know.


Related:

• Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch
• Good Life Works Better Than Bad Ab Exercise
• Can We Teach Young Doctors to Be Healthy?
• Abdominal Muscle Exercise - Better, Different, Not What You Think

Random, Unrelated Fitness Fixer:

• Exercise Your Sense of Humor

Labels: abdominal muscles, hamstring, leg stretch, lower back, practice of medicine, sitting, stretch, tests of fitness/health

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Reps of Exercises Don't Fix Pain; Fixing Causes Does

Monica from Montana bent over dogs daily in her dog boarding kennel. She spent the summer doing stretches, exercises and going to chiropractors for severe back pain. She did all her "sets and reps" (repetitions) of the exercises her various practitioners gave her. The pain kept coming back. What did she do differently that stopped this cycle?

I first heard from Monica through her short happy note:

"Thank You!! So much. I've had quite the drain of lower back pain the whole summer. Finally I got online and read your article and have now begun the fast road to recovery. The first day I did have relief. Now it's been three days and I can't stop talking about how good I feel. Today I drove six hours and was still comfortable!
"Thank you again,
"Monica
"Montana"

I wrote to thank her for using my work as intended and taking time to tell me. She replied:

"Hi Dr. Bookspan,
"The whole summer of 2009 was plagued with lower back pain, I thought due to raking pine cones. I did my usual routine. Going to the chiropractor. Doing stretches (the wrong stretches) all day long thinking they were giving me relief and come to find out by reading your website I was re-injuring my back over and over by doing these improper stretches of bending forward. When I found your website it all made sense so I immediately implemented your instruction and what do you know I immediately started feeling better.

"The pain did not all go away over night, it has taken time to heal, tolerable time thank you. At the end of August I wrote to you saying thank you. It is now the first part of October and the lower back pain is pretty much gone.

"When the pain makes an appearance I immediately pay attention to body position and it (the pain) goes away. I also suspect the chairs I use at work were a part of setting me up for this injury. The chairs are like saddles to "help with upright posture." The molded hard part of the back of the chair is protruding to where it was subtly pushing on my tail bone I've now realized. I think that's a part in why the injury was so low in my back. Plus I think the saddle part of the chair had been affecting my hips. This has taken some time to realize I was so used to these chairs. This whole combination has caused quite a bit of pain and discomfort but due to your website I started looking at all of these things and am reaping the benefits.

"Thank You Dr. Bookspan! You are a bright expression of this essence we all are. The essence of compassion, clarity and skillful means.
"Much Love,
"Monica

Thank you Monica, for lovely writing.

I wrote back to Monica to see what, specifically, she found helpful, and make sure that after time, she remained pain free, had her life back, and could do more than before she started using my work. To help readers, I make sure these reader inspiring stories are tutorials, not just testimonials. For new readers who have not previously heard of fixing causes rather than doing a few sets and reps of exercise and stretches, I ask success story writers to include specifics.

Monica continues with two commonly prescribed forward bending stretches that add to a common source of pain, rather than fix any problem:

"The main (wrong) exercise I kept repeating over and over was to sit in a chair, bend forward with arms between my legs to stretch as much as I could. This would make my spine move as if straightening - I thought. I also found that bending forward over the front knee created a stretch that would make my spine move. I realize now this was not a good thing."

She also described habitual body positioning that are classic contributors to pain. Even if you do all your sets and reps of exercise and stretches, if you don't prevent these causes of pain, you won't stop the resulting pain:

"My habits have been to let the bottom of my pelvis bend back at while sitting or standing. You know the "butt out" posture. While walking, my feet tend to face outward too. I've now been more conscious to keep my feet square and tilting the bottom of my pelvis forward to give my spine more support. Works like a charm.

"For real life bending... The first thing I do in the morning is go feed dogs in my dog boarding kennel, so in order to pick up bowls and put them back down I now bend my legs instead of bending over using my back. I try to keep my heels to the ground and come up easy while I'm still gaining strength to take care of my knees. My legs have adapted quickly. I bend using my legs all day long and really try to take care of my knees and back.

"I hope this helps someone.
"Warm Regards,
"Monica"

If You Have Questions How To Do This For Yourself:

• Good Life Works Better Than Bad Ab Exercise
• Fixing Discs by Fixing Causes
• Innovation in Abdominal Muscles
• 14,000 Miles on a Bike - Herniating and Fixing Discs
• Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending
• Fast Fitness - First Morning Stretch
  
• Getting the Right Yoga Medicine
• Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch
• My website articles on fixing causes of musculoskeletal pain.
  

Random Unrelated Fun Article:

• Collapsing Astronaut Gives Healthy Reminder

Labels: fix pain, lower back, readers inspiring story, stretch

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Fast Fitness - Stretch For Menstrual Cramps

Labels: hip stretch, massage, menstruation, partner exercise, stretch

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Fast Fitness - Better Standing Hamstring, Achilles, and Inside Leg Stretch

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - get a better stretch for the hamstring of the standing leg when stretching the other leg to the side:

1. When you stand with one leg stretching to the side, notice the leg you are standing on. It is common to stand with the foot turned outward and the hip rounded under you.
2. Instead, turn the standing leg to face directly ahead. Knee and toes straight forward. Not turned out, not even a small amount. Stand straight.
   
3. Notice the stretch move to the back of your leg.
   

Stand straight without leaning over, rounding your upper body, or letting your hip round under you. This is different from the way most people are used to.

The straighter you stand, the more stretch, while training the function of healthy posture - a functional stretch. You need to be able to lift one leg without being so tight that your back rounds and your hip rolls under. Think of stairs, kicks for dancing, aerobics, martial arts, stepping over things, stairs, much real life. If you are not only using bad mechanics for daily life, but training unhealthful tight mechanics with conventional bent over stretching, what are you accomplishing?

If you can't stand straight, lower your leg to where you can. There is little point stretching for health while practicing unhealthful ways.

Last year Leslie was featured knocking off 30 push-ups in Are You Stronger Than A 67 Year Old Lady?

What has happened in a year? She can now do 40 push-ups. We just don't have a video camera. While we get one, click the link to do your push-ups with her each morning while it is still only 30.

Related:
Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch
Quick Hamstring Stretch At Work
Doorway Hamstring Stretch
Healthier Hamstring Stretching

Labels: achilles stretch, aging, fast fitness, hamstring, hip stretch, leg stretch, martial arts, readers inspiring story, stretch, upper back, yoga

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Fast Fitness - Develop Ankle Stability Sense While Stretching

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - prevent a common source of overstretched lateral ankle ligament, which is one contributor to repeated sprains - turning the ankle when stretching:

1. When you stretch your hip and legs, or sit cross legged or in yoga poses, notice if you allow the foot to turn, increasing stretch on the outside ligaments of the ankle - too much supination. Reader Liz demonstrates in photo 1 below.
2. Straighten your ankle, Liz photo 2, below.
3. You may notice you get more good stretch from your hip to make up for the motion you were getting by turning your ankle. Holding straight gives better stretch in the hip, and better ankle stability training.

Then remember to use the sense and knowledge of ankle straightening when you stand, run, take stairs. Lying down to stretch will not train stable ankles. The idea of this post is not to make ankles worse with your stretches. Not all things are good to stretch. Avoid the unhealthful practice of lengthening the side ankle ligaments, shown again in the photo below:



Liz sent in several success stories. Here is her first:
How a Reader Stopped Recurring Pain, Got Stronger, and Said Aha!

Related:
Unhealthy Yoga Ankles
Better Hip Stretch - Check Your Ankles
How To Treat Ankle Sprains and Prevent Them
No More Ankle Sprains Part II

Labels: ankle, fast fitness, hip stretch, leg strength, sprain, stretch, supination, yoga

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Pectoral (Chest) Stretch - The Most Common Mistake in the Best Shoulder Stretch

Mike Benson has sent several Fitness Fixer inspiring stories. In response to reader requests, he made us this photo set showing, "The most common mistake in the best stretch - How to not get any stretch from the pectoral stretch." I asked him to demonstrate this, because I see this mistake so often. People often "do" a stretch without "getting" a stretch.

Why is this stretch so good? Round-shouldered posture is a main contributor to neck and upper body pain and rotator cuff injury. Round-shouldered posture feels comfortable and natural when the front chest muscles are tight. A common mistake is to stretch the shoulder joint, which does not address this problem.

The purpose of the pectoral stretch is to lengthen chest muscles so that healthier positioning feels natural and comfortable. If you merely hold your elbow to the side, little lengthening can occur - shown in first photo:




Second photo below - changing the position to get the purpose - lengthening anterior (front) muscles that go across the chest. One way is to use a wall to help you press your elbow back.

• Turn your body and feet away from the wall.
• Your elbow is behind you, no longer out to the side.
• Raising the elbow higher or lower changes the stretch.
• Experiment until you only feel a stretch in the front chest and no pain or pinching anywhere in the shoulder:

• Keep shoulder down and relaxed
• Do not make any pain anywhere. The idea is to make things healthier, not to strain, push, force, tighten, grunt, and call that a health promotion activity.
• Understand the purpose first. The purpose of this stretch is to lengthen front chest muscles so that tightness does not pull you into feeling that round-shouldered position is the norm or that it is uncomfortable to straighten. Feel the stretch in the intended area.
  
• Use a mirror to help you connect what the position looks like with what it feels like.
• Use your brain.

Related:

Fix One Pain, Don't Cause Another
What Does Stretching Do?
The Stretch You Need The Least

More to Stretch the Anterior Chest:

Stretching With a Friend - Partner Pectoral Stretch
Pectoral Stretch was first introduced in Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain
Quick, Feel-Good Upper Back and Chest Stretch

Mike Benson's Success Stories:

A Whole Big Fix
Fast Fitness - Core Hip & Body, Posture Strength & Balance
Flasher Exercises Not Best for Shoulder Pain
Healthy Youth Parties - Fun Exercise, No Junk Food

Labels: arm, chest, fix pain, posture, readers inspiring story, rotator cuff, shoulder, stretch

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Do Body Building and Vegan Go Together?

Here is the latest fun update from Robert Davis on losing fat and increasing strength and flexibility. He has been sending success after success using Fitness Fixer techniques:

"I have noticed a big improvement since I started in my flexibility. I noticed this the other day when I realized just how much farther I can stretch now. I could not lower completely into a sitting squat without tipping before. Now I can and it sure as heck makes working in really low areas for a longer time very easy without resorting to bending (bad weighted flexed) which I refuse to do at all now.

"I have seen increases in all areas of stretching. I see that it just takes time and consistency.

"Since I am a musician, I carry a guitar bag everywhere. I decided to make a "portable" gym. Got a pull-up bar that goes in doors (removes and mounts quickly) and my guitar bag. That is all I need. I fill the bag with random objects to add weight and strap it on (like a backpack) and do everything from the books with increased weight and also pull-ups of all kinds of grips/variations for more challenge. You mentioned the wall handstand pushups and this reminded me of that. I strap my weighted bag to my back and do those now too. No need to go to the gym =P

"PS my friends think the wall stand pushups are "nuts" and can barely hold themselves up in position when they try. Who needs the military press? I actually found this to be much harder because of all the stabilization. Unlike a machine or barbell, it feels like a lot more muscles are coming into play a bit more when doing them like that. Seems so with almost all the body weight exercises. No wonder aside from cosmetics, weight training has no functional use outside of the gym. Takes a bonehead like me to realize this!

"Oddly, since I had changed my diet from meats and animal to Vegan (inspired by the body builders you have shown on the Fitness fixer) I have had people comment that I seem to be getting bigger! This is kinda funny because I actually lost some mass and it is mostly body fat from the weightlifting diet (now changed to vegan) and doing these exercises in place of weight training. They often do not believe me when I say I have not touched the bench in 3 months or so now. =0"

How to get started with a wall handstand:

• Wall Handstand Success With Liz. Use your brain. Be safe and careful, obviously.

Mr. Davis' fun stories:

• Video of how to do handstand pushups - Fast Fitness - Add Balance, Stability, and Portability to Military Press - Handstand Pushups
• Cardiovascular Cleanup
• Fast Fitness - Better Legs and Pain Relief Comes From You Not The Exercise Ball
• Fixed Injuries, Got Strong, With Functional Exercise

Mr. Jim Morris, Mr. America, vegan bodybuilder at age 72:

• Mr. America Urges Goodness and Responsibility
• Mr. Morris is a role model, and practitioner of the DrBookspan.com/Academy
  

Healthy vegetarian ways - healthier nutrition and Earth resources by not mass producing, killing, and eating animals and their products:

• World Vegetarian Day

Vegetarian and vegan bodybuilders and martial artists:

• World Vegan Day is November 1

Watch for Fast Fitness this Friday to see what Robert Davis will show you next.

Labels: arm, handstand, nutrition, readers inspiring story, squat, strength, stretch, weight loss

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Cardiovascular CleanUp

Labels: achilles stretch, aerobic, circulation, hip strength, leg strength, leg stretch, performance enhancing modality, readers inspiring story, squat, strength, stretch, warmup

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Fast Fitness - Hip Stretch and Spine Stability Training When Stretching Legs

Here is Fast Friday Fitness - Retrain your standing leg stretches to hold your spine and hip in healthful position, get more stretch to the front of the hip, use your back muscles, practice balance, and learn functional stretching - the way your body needs to move in real life in a healthy way.

When you raise one leg to stretch when standing:

1. Keep your standing leg straight. Don't bend at the knee and hip, as pictured.
2. Don't round your back or let your pelvis and hip round under you, as pictured.
   
3. Stand straight. Relaxed. Don't force or strain. Breathe.

When stretching, remember function. Why practice a position that is rounded, tight, and detrimental to how you move in real life when you lift your legs. It would look silly and unhealthy to stand up that way. Why stretch that way?

Get functional stretch by lengthening your body enough to be able to straighten out. That is the purpose of the stretch.

Use the new length and your brain to stand straight. Transfer the positioning to real life when you are standing and lift one leg to take stairs, kick, dance, play sports, climb over things, and other life activities. Standing without being so tight that you round your body forward, or just round from habit, is healthier, better looking, burns more calories, and stops many sources of chronic aches and pains.

Send me your photos of fixing this stretch. Doing is the best learning. I will post the photos in a reader success story.


See how to retrain this same stretch lying down:

• Fast Fitness - Don't Shorten Hip When Stretching Hamstring

See photos of fixing this same stretch for kicking and stairs:

• Common Exercises Teach Hip Tightness When Kicking, Stretching, and on the Stairs

Related posts:

• Improve Stretch and Strength With Better Kicking
• What Does Stretching Do?
• Are You Making Your Exercise Unhealthy?
• Better Achilles Tendon Stretch
• Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch
• Is Bad Martial Arts Good Exercise?
• The Cause of Disc and Back Pain
• Better Exercise on the Stairs
• Common Exercises Teach Hip Tightness When Kicking, Stretching, and on the Stairs

Labels: balance, fast fitness, fix pain, hip, hip stretch, leg stretch, lower back, posture, stretch, upper back

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How Doctors Use The Wall Stand

A reader wrote in that he tried the "wall test" done by standing with your back against a wall. The wall test is a quick general assessment to see if you can comfortably stand up straight, and if not, where the tightness exists that prevents it. The reader said the test hurt. He was angry and wanted me to warn everyone not to do the wall test.

The point of the wall test is to see if you are generally standing upright, or have tightness preventing healthy stance, not to cause pain by forcing it. If you can't comfortably stand straight, it is likely that you are going about your day in a tight, crooked position that contributes to pain syndromes and gradual spine and disc damage. That is the point of doing the test - to determine the source of the problem right then. Then, see if it is just a bad habit of how you stand, if you don't know how to stand well, or if tightness prevents it. Specific functional stretches easily restore resting length to the area. Then you use the new ability to stand and move in healthy ways.


In the photo, Dr. Clara Hsu stands well while checking a patient. In the photo, the patient looks tight, both at the hip and the front of the shoulder. The patient seems to be straining to pull in her chin. She is lifting her ribs and overarching the lower back to try to get the upper body to the wall. These two compensatory moves are things to check for. Instead, pull neck and chin back loosely. Bring upper body upright by unroundng the upper back, not by leaning back, increasing the angle at the lower spine.

Dr. Clara Hsu was featured in a reader success story in How Doctors Help Patients With Fitness Fixer.

The wall test is a general test, not an exercise. It shows three things:

1. How you are standing at the moment, and perhaps as general habit
2. Where bad habit or tightness may be that prevents standing in healthy positioning, for example a forward head, bent or tight front hip where it meets the leg, or overarched lower back
3. The wall test is done a second time as immediate feedback after doing specific retraining stretches, to see how well you have achieved the purpose of the stretches to restore normal length of these areas.

The wall test is a general, not absolute measure. The assessment works for most body types. Many people who think that larger lower body prevents upright stance, may actually be standing bent forward at the hip.

Straining to stand straight is not healthy straight standing. Making it possible to be healthy is the point. Causing more pain would be silly, and counter to the point. Often it is just a matter of identifying what is straight stance using the wall test, and standing better from then on. If the wall stand is uncomfortable, or not possible, check your standing habits. If there is tightness, then stretch the hip, shoulder or wherever else is holding you in tight bent position.


To stretch front chest and hip to make straight standing comfortable:

• Fast Fitness - Quick Relaxing Hip Stretch
• Hip Stretch While You Strengthen Legs
• Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain
• Nice Neck Stretch
• Friday Fast Fitness - Better Shoulder and Triceps Stretch

Posts to understand and fix compensatory movements:

• Breasts Causing Upper Back Pain is a Myth
• Fast Fitness - How to Feel Change to Neutral Spine
• Fix One Pain, Don't Cause Another

Coming soon, Dr. Clara Hsu asked me to tell the story of, "Class is always in session."

Labels: fix pain, hip, posture, readers inspiring story, stretch

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How Much Inward Curve Space Should There Be In The Lower Back?

Reader Carina asked a good question on the post Prevent Back Surgery about how much space there should be in the lower back inward curve. Comments were not accepted by the Blogger software for several weeks, and I could not reply in the comments. Her question is so good, it was chosen for this Fitness Fixer post.

Carina writes:

"Hello Jolie,
"Your information is so wonderful. Thanks for this stuff it's priceless.

I have been using the wall trick during the day when my back hurts (How to Feel Change to Neutral Spine). Wow it feels great. Only thing I can't STAY and walk like this. My knees are STUCK bent (or I go back to the big arch). I'd seriously look very odd walking around with bent knees. So here are my questions

"1) How much of my hand should go through when I am standing against the wall???
When I stand at the wall and do it naturally I can stick my whole arm to my elbow behind the arch.

"2) Besides these links you provided from a previous question
Fast Fitness - Quick Relaxing Hip
and
http://windowsxp-privacy.net/?id=198760105 "
(Note - the above link didn't come through in Carina's comment; I don't know which it is.)

"is there anything that helps me walk in neutral spine and not looking silly?
"Thanks for caring about our backs,
Carina"

Carina, great work. You have found that simply changing spinal angle (wall "trick") to reduce overarching works right away to reduce cause of pain. Next, here is how to retrain neutral spine into a normal natural stance:

1) Don't worry about "How much hand fits." It doesn't indicate amount of overarching. Lower spinal angle is what matters. Body proportions change the distance from wall - independent of spinal angle.

• If you have too much tilt to the pelvis or you lean the upper body backward, lower spinal angle increases. To reduce an arch that is large, press the lower back closer to the wall.


• The post Neutral Spine or Not? shows how to tell if your hip (pelvis) is tilted or straight, and/or if overarching (hyperlordosis/swayback) is coming from the upper body (leaning back). The wall maneuver shows you how to reduce the overarch. Don't press flat against the wall or you'll round like a beetle :-)


• While standing at the wall, see if you can do a small "crunch" movement without rounding your upper body forward, to reduce the overly large arch. Movement is just from the hip and mid-torso. Hopefully, you will feel that you easily move the body without bending your knees. That should produce reduced lower back arch. Send some photos if you like and I will take a look.

2) Next, you need to make it possible and comfortable:

• Check if you are tightening muscles. Don't tighten or clench backside or abdominal muscles. Tightening makes it harder to move to neutral - Using Abdominal Muscles is Not Tightening or Pressing Navel to Spine.


• See the post for stretches to restore length to the areas needed - Which Stretch Stops Back Pain by Making Neutral Spine Possible?


• Check how you are standing. Don't try to touch the back of the legs to the wall. Just heels, backside, upper back, back of head.


• Thank you for already checking the other links and finding the relaxing-hip-stretch. I couldn't tell which other stretch you wrote, but most stretches that lengthen a tight front hip can help. One that is functional for daily bending that you need to do anyway is Hip Stretch While You Strengthen Legs.

Hope to hear more about your successes. Send photos and I can post your continuing success in Readers Inspiring Stories.

Labels: abdominal muscles, fix pain, hip, lordosis, lower back, neutral spine, posture, readers inspiring story, stretch

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Black Belt Hall of Fame 2008

This weekend, we will be at the International Black Belt Hall of Fame. Top martial artists and their students attend from all over the world.

I will teach a seminar on Stretching Smarter. Research is increasingly showing that conventional stretching is often not preventing or helping heal injuries. My seminar covers state of the art changes to stretch methods to restore function rather than doing artificial movements for arbitrary range of motion. Stretching Smarter workshops for the general public and medical personnel are planned for the Spring of 2009. Through cooperation of the International Academy of Functional Fitness, we hope to have certifications in place. See information on workshops on my website CLASS page.

Grandmaster Kanzler and Kim Harper and staff work tirelessly all year to make each year's Hall of Fame event. Photos are still not posting to show Hall of Fame training and the seminars. Hopefully will follow. For now, it's a martial arts visualization exercise. Paul and I were inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame several years ago and have been invited back each year as teachers. I am back in a white do-gi (karate training uniform). I left karate years ago to compete, train, and teach in other styles. This year, Paul reopened our karate dojo (training hall) after many years. I have returned to karate as his student. Check the CLASS page if you want to study karate with Paul at the new center. Scroll down to the karate class description.

I won't have e-mail for a few days to answer questions. Several posts are having technical trouble posting my replies to comments anyway, as part of overall temporary difficulties with the Blogger. Blogger needs a rest too, why not. I am preparing some of the reader questions as posts to come.

Until then, here are related posts:

• What Does Stretching Do?
• New International Academy Using Jolie Bookspan's Methods
• 2006 Black Belt Hall of Fame - Black Belts and Black Tie
• 2006 International Martial Arts Association Weekend
• 2007 Black Belt Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame event is by invitation only. To attend or stop by and say hello this weekend, contact the International Headquarters of the International USA Martial Arts Association, 1-800-456-3872. Tell them I referred you.

Labels: fix pain, martial arts, stretch

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How a Reader Stopped Recurring Pain, Got Stronger, and Said Aha!

Liz from New Zealand left a comment on the post Surfer's Myelopathy,

"Short history, I have hurt my lower back and neck several times previously through poor lifting technique and bad posture. My chiropractor did help, but it kept happening. I used to sit at a computer most of the day at work, then drive home, then go for a 30min walk with minimum stretching.

"Last year, when my back was ok, I decided to try riding my bike to work, three days a week, for the environment, the money, and for my fitness and weight. Each way is 12 kms, very hilly too in Auckland (New Zealand). After one week, my lower back was very badly hurt. I thought I'd never be able to ride to work again, that I'd have to get dressed sitting down for the rest of my life and I could barely walk. I felt like an old arthritic lady and I was only 38.

"I searched every book and website I could find, I had the idea it was my posture but I didn't know what to do about it. I found some information, but often what they recommended I couldn't do, they were too extreme or hurt me more or made no difference.

"Then I found your website www.drbookspan.com. Aha! I thought-this sounds good. And it was.


"I bought your book "Fix your own pain" and learn't more and got stronger and healthier, following your advice.

"But still my back hurt a bit, I would forget to tuck my pelvis, then it hurt and I'd remember. I would get up and move around more, I adjusted my chair and computer to help my posture at my desk, but would forget and slump and my back or neck would hurt and I'd then I'd remember.

"I can't believe how long it took me to "Click." When you say it's for every time you bend, you mean Every Single Time! Keep your pelvis gently tucked All The Time. Keep your back straight, heels down and knees over your ankles Every Single Time you bend.

"Then I started to remember alot more, and my back only hurt a little bit. Then just recently I decided to try cycling again.

"And my lower back hurt again. I went back to your book and read some more and thought. I read about the hip stretches and read your blog and thought.

"And I tried two stretches I hadn't tried before, the sitting figure-4 stretch and the stretch on your blog where you lay on your back to do the figure-4 stretch and gently lean to the side your foot is facing.

"What a difference they have made. I have to tell you just those two stretches have changed my life. Now I walk (pelvis gently tucked) with no pain, I sit (small lower back arch, chin in, relaxed) with no pain. Any little twinge and I do the seated figure-4 stretch and it's gone. After my bike ride I get down on the ground (in the changing rooms!) and do the stretch on my back.

"I found that I needed to lift my foot well up from the floor, keeping my hips level, and move both legs, still in the figure-4, over to the side my foot was facing, helped by holding my crossed ankle with my hands and keeping this stretch for about 30 seconds. This increased the stretch and felt sooooo gooood. And continued to feel good after the stretch.

"This is the first time I've added a comment to a blog, but I just had to let you know how grateful I am to you and your generosity in sharing your knowledge and I wanted to share with your readers about the increased stretch, I've learnt so much from reading their stories and your replies, I wanted to contribute a little bit too."

Many many thanks, Liz
Auckland, New Zealand"

Liz, thank you for great work applying the concepts, rather than just doing treatments and exercises, and taking time to write to inspire and teach other readers. Send updates and photos when you can.

Going to a chiropractor does not solve the cause of the pain. Something may be tight or "out" but that is the result, not the cause. Save a lot of money and time by spotting the cause and making simple changes to stop it from happening again, yourself:

• When Liz says "tuck the hip" it means straighten the lower spine to neutral position, not to round the back. Rounding is tucking too much. There is a difference. Here is a post with descriptions and drawings - Prevent Main Factor in Back Pain After Running and Walking

• Quick movie of how to tuck a too large curve to neutral - Friday Fast Fitness - Neutral Spine in 5 Seconds

• Good bending for legs with neutral spine - Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending

• Aha! When to use good bending for legs and spine - How Often Should You Be Healthy?

• Hip stretch - Fast Fitness - Better Posterior Hip, Iliotibial, and Piriform Stretch

• Watch for this common mistake when stretching - Better Hip Stretch - Check Your Ankles

• Reader Mike demonstrates the seated figure 4 in A Whole Big Fix

• Fast Fitness - Great Hip, Side, Leg, and I.T. Stretch

• Increase your hip stretch (carefully) with Fast Fitness - Balance, Strength, Stretch, and Socks

• Ivy's story - Getting More From a Hip Stretch

• Book - Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery.

Labels: biking, fix pain, injury, lordosis, lower back, readers inspiring story, squat, stretch

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Friday Fast Fitness - Partner Achilles Tendon Stretch

Here is fast Friday Fitness - relax, have fun practicing stretching and cooperating with a friend, and have a nice - Achilles stretch:

1. Stand facing a partner at arm's length. Hold each other's hands or arms. Keep arms straight.
2. Each partner leans and pulls back with straight arms while bending knees keeping heels down on the floor.
3. Bend only as far as is fun and feels good. Keep leaning back. Keep heels down.

The point is not to squat to the floor, the point is to stretch the Achilles and learn healthy movement habits that you can use for real life. Keeping heels down when bending knees accomplishes the point. If someone is tight, they don't have to bend as far to get a big stretch. Raising heels loses the stretch and the point. Don't squat all the way with heels up, keep heels down.

Whenever you stretch, remember the point of a stretch instead of straining to an arbitrary endpoint.

• Learn good bending habits: Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending.
• When should you use good bending habits?: How Good Would You Look From 400 Squats a Day - Just Stop Unhealthy Bending.
• Daily examples: Household Fitness in the New Year.
• Fun book for Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier.
  

Labels: achilles stretch, fast fitness, partner exercise, stretch

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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 unfit ways - practicing unhealthy positioning, shown in the photo ->

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, practice of medicine, stretch

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Fast Fitness - One-Legged Party Trick for Strength, Flexibility, Balance

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - have fun while building balance, flexibility, coordination, concentration, and leg strength.

1. Stand on one foot with a can or other small container on the floor in front of you
2. While balancing on one leg, bend to lower yourself toward the floor
3. Retrieve something fun from the floor with your mouth - no hands.

Labels: balance, children, fast fitness, hip, leg strength, leg stretch, lunge, squat, strength, stretch

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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.

Also do this several times throughout the day. Feels good after long sitting and physical work.

For most people this 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, hip stretch, leg stretch, lower back, posture, stretch

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Feeling Better Than She Ever Has Part I - Fixing Herniated Disk and Reclaiming Active Life

Barbara's story came in over several weeks. Barbara thought she was healthy and active, and had done years of yoga. She had years of lower back pain, then a sudden onset of severe pain, leg weakness, and numbness. She couldn't push off effectively with her left foot, or stand on tiptoe. The heel of her left foot was completely numb, as well as the left side of that foot.

Barbara lives six hours from the nearest big town (there are 300 people in her little town in the Yukon and one general store).

Her doctor found that she had a herniated disc in her lower back, put her on anti-inflammatories. She was in continuing pain, and fearful of her future of pain and reduced activity, which would mean getting more out of shape and feeling worse. She was frightened that she had some "debilitating disease."

Barbara found my web site and this Fitness Fixer column with free information of how discs become pushed outward (herniated) through bad sitting and bending habits, and began trying some of the information. She wrote me excitedly the first week,

"I decided, after reading one of the many great patient stories you included in your book showing what to do, to lie on the floor on my stomach propped on my elbows to read your book. This felt amazing and when I got up again I could walk straight!"

Another e-mail followed that she was feeling worse again after that. I asked if she had gone back to all the injurious habits that cause the pain. She was surprised to realize that she had. Bad forward bending puts outward and eventually herniating forces on the discs. Barbara was bending badly all day at work when she need to pick things up, bending badly at home over the sink, counters, and while doing housework, then going to yoga class and spending much time bending over forward. Even in a yoga class, herniating forces occur from chronic forward bending, both sitting and standing bent over. It isn't magically good for the discs by calling it a stretch. Barbara also had been told by her health care providers not to do any lunges or squats. She later realized they were just the healthy bending she needed to do normal daily reaching and bending at work and around the house. Without them, she would only be doing the same bad bending that was contributing to the original problem.

Barbara wrote,

"I realized that part of my problem all week was that I had been half-heartedly doing "exercises" then going back to wrong bending while getting completely frustrated because it would seem things would start to feel better in the morning, but I'd feel like garbage by night. I wouldn't do all the things you recommended first thing in the morning, and I would get halfway through a lunge or squat to bend or pick something up and then bend forward out of frustration. So, I pampered myself yesterday - really, truly practicing and applying how to move in real life, especially concentrating on those lunges and squats when I needed to get something. It also finally clicked with me that while I was trying to concentrate on tucking the hip to neutral spine to walk, I was totally ignoring the forward bend of my upper back while standing and walking all week. I was walking all stooped over and feeling like an invalid."

I wish I could write that Barbara followed everything I said and was better the first day. What actually occurred was that it was six weeks until the "light bulb went on" and Barbara realized that "doing" a stretch or exercise doesn't magically erase the injury. Stopping the injurious bad movement habits that harms the disc is needed to let it heal. Using healthy movement in daily life for daily bending and reaching would improve strength and balance. Barbara said that reading the Fitness Fixer stories from Ivy sparked her "turning point" to understand. She then started feeling relief.

Barbara wrote.

"In short, I’ve come from having pain, and muscles completely unaccustomed to healthy movement lifestyle, to feeling stronger, more flexible and agile, pain free, along with a new attitude to everyday life and health, with fresh energy and a renewal of love of life. I know this might sound dramatic, but you’ve changed my way of life.

"Your website has been a godsend actually; especially when I surf the net and see "surgery" splattered everywhere.

"PS My principal just ordered your book - he borrowed Fix Your Own Pain for a week (I didn't think I'd get it back) and would like his own copy. That's saying a lot - he's doesn't take well to other people's advice."

It was six weeks of half-way recovery and recurring pain until Barbara got the idea that "doing exercises" doesn't heal an injury if you go back to bad movement habits the rest of the day. She also noticed how some of the most common exercises contribute to the original problem. Here are links to the information Barbara used:

• Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch
• Common Exercises Teach Bad Bending
• Bending Right is Fitness as a Lifestyle
• How Good Would You Look From 400 Squats a Day - Just Stop Unhealthy Bending
• Disc Pain - Not a Mystery, Easy to Fix
• How to bend using the lunge - Strengthen Legs Without Knee Pain - Standing Lunge
• How to bend using the half-squat - Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention -Healthy Bending
• Neutral Spine or Not?
• Lying comfortably propped on elbows to unload discs - Fast Fitness - First Morning Stretch
  
• Inspirational Ivy
• Inspirational Ivy II - Beating Foot Drop and Sciatica, and Getting Healthier
• and the books.

Barbara generously wrote up her story to help readers see that they can fix pain sooner, rather than waiting six weeks.
Coming next, Feeling Better Than She Ever Has Part II - a look behind the scenes.

Labels: disc, fix pain, impingement, injury, lunge, readers inspiring story, sciatica, squat, stretch, yoga

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Married 63 Years With Good Balance

Reader Joe Blatt recently celebrated his 63rd wedding anniversary. He was a Broadway choreographer and dancer.

He demonstrates how to keep good flexibility and balance through the ordinary daily activity of standing to put on shoes and socks, and tying your shoes.

• Click Ancient Shoe Exercise for Hip Stretch and Balance to learn more about keeping fit through this normal daily activity.
• Click Fast Fitness - Balance, Strength, Stretch, and Socks to see the short movie of it made by reader David from Belgium.

Moving in the way your body needs for daily function is a functional exercise. Use this functional exercise every day.

Labels: aging, balance, hip, hip stretch, leg stretch, readers inspiring story, stretch

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Fast Fitness - Relaxing Hip, Leg, and Groin Stretch

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - A nice stretch for inside leg and hip that does not involve sitting. It is called Rocket Ship:

1. Lie face down. Feel both hipbones touch flat on the floor.
2. Bring one knee out to the side. Don't rock or tilt to the side. Keep both hipbones flat on the floor.
3. Bring the other knee out to the other side. Breathe. Relax.

Photo is of reader Bernie Cleff, age 80, who:

• Fixed Leg Numbness, Back Pain, Flank Pain, Knee Pain, Nerve Pain, Three Unhealthy Surgeries,
• and demonstrated Quick Relaxing Hip Stretch
  
• and Dynamic Partner Balance Challenge.

Labels: fast fitness, hip, hip stretch, leg stretch, readers inspiring story, stretch

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Can We Teach Young Doctors to Be Healthy?

We have been traveling for the past 2 months in Asia and are on the way to the chilly Smokey Mountains of Tennessee USA to teach medical students for a week during their rotation elective in Wilderness Medicine. This is the third year I will teach there.

I will teach the entire curriculum of diving medicine and physiology, plus a workshop on why commonly prescribed stretches are not healthful, and what to do instead. Several members of the Knox County Sheriff's Office from Knoxville TN have requested to attend my lectures, and several readers made the effort to find the class information on my web site and make arrangements to travel to the camp to attend.

As a physiologist, I design the techniques that physicians use. I spent many years as a military and university researcher in environmental physiology, which is how the body functions in the heat and cold, at altitude and underwater, breathing different mixtures of gases, doing different forms and intensities of exercise. It's important to understand why things work. If you don't understand, then you can't think for yourself, and all you can do is repeat the mistakes of the generation before you, who also were just repeating what they learned in a book from teachers who just were repeating what they had heard.

This problem occurs with some of the exercises and stretches given as physical therapy. An introduction to the problem is in the post What Does Stretching Do? In the past two years teaching at the camp, we encountered young students who were not interested to change bad stretches, and made a point of showing me after my lectures that they will keep doing their rounded bent forward toe touches, since "everyone knows" that is how it is done. However, Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch.

The problem occurs with nutrition. The medical school food at the wilderness camp is not healthy, and students have defended eating candy and junk food as reasonable, even saying that what they eat is not unhealthful - What Medical Students Told Me About Nutrition and When Did Health Become Thinking Out Of The Box?

The problem can occur with medical treatments that are in the books, even though wrong. In my diving physiology lectures, I try to show that if you understand the physiology, you will know why certain treatments do not work or are not needed. Immersion in water, for example, creates many interesting effects such as distributing blood volume more out of the limbs to the body. This is similar to the effect that occurs in space, described in Collapsing Astronaut Gives Healthy Reminder. Recently, during our travels, Paul wound up in the hospital with a swollen leg. The doctor who was Chief of Medicine of the hospital, announced that the treatment was bed rest. Paul was told he must lie flat in bed for at least three to fours days with the leg elevated to drain the fluid. We understand that bed rest is often listed in books as a treatment for this, but it is wrong. I asked the doctor if going in the water could help. The doctor said that standing in the water meant the leg would be "hanging down" and the leg needed to be elevated to drain. If you understand immersion, then you know why immersion can more effectively treat limb edema and water retention than medicines and lying in bed. Extended bed rest is unhealthy, and reduces muscle and bone health so much that it is used to study the damage to the body from floating around during space travel. We escaped the medical care and went into the water. I will post more on immersion, edema, and health soon.

I will not have Internet access for the next week to read or reply to comments. Enjoy the posts. Start taking and sending in fun photos of your successes using all the fun techniques.

Labels: aerospace, altitude, children, cold, education, fix pain, green fitness, hamstring, heat, hyperbaric, injury, nutrition, practice of medicine, scuba, sitting, stretch, swimming

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Fixing Leg Numbness, Back Pain, Flank Pain, Knee Pain, Nerve Pain, Three Unhealthy Surgeries, Part II

In Part I of this post on Monday, photographer Bernie tells of fixing years of pain that doctors told him only surgery would fix, even after three surgeries. Here is a look "behind the scenes."

10 March 2005, Bernie e-mailed me:

"I've had this persistent paresthesias for 4+ years. I just learned about you yesterday. Where are your back & spine classes held. Tomorrow, I'm having lumbar myelogram & CT at (top name deleted here) Hospital. Before I consider anything else, I want to learn about your methods."

I wrote back with class information. I had two classes coming up. One was the next month. The second would be in early May and only a few blocks from where he lived. I told how we work to see change in pain right in class. I asked him to let me know the test results and that I hoped to see him in class.

20 March 2005 he wrote back:

"Thanks for asking, I never expected you to keep in touch. The myelogram and CT showed moderate central spinal stenosis at L4-L5. Severe facet joint arthropy & hypertrophy of ligamentum flaxa causing compression of the lateral recesses stenosis of L5 on both sides, kinking of L5 nerve root sleeves on both sides. I have a copy of the xray, showing the "hourglass" at L4-L5

"(name deleted) is the attending, 3-B Orthopaedics. He said the next step is surgery, by ( ), at ( ) Hosp. I asked if strengthening of my upper body would help support my spine. He said "try it" so I'll be at physical therapy next week to start.

"I have a commitment for the weekend of April 2-3 so can't attend that class, much as I'd like to. Since I live at (close to) your class at Temple CC is my best chance of attending. Cordially, Bernie Cleff"

I checked back in to make sure he was signed up for the May class and to ask what he was doing in Physical therapy. He wrote:

29March 2005
"The phys therapy that I'm getting concentrates on my core muscles. Thanks for getting in touch...very kind of you."

I wrote back saying that conventional core exercises were not the best thing. Usually they are forward bending actions that will further compress the discs, the nerves, and also do not retrain the abdominal muscles in the way they work when you go about daily life. Strengthening does not automatically support the spine. I wanted to make sure that he had my Ab Revolution book, which was then out in a training manual version. He said he had it with him for PT. (I found out two years later that they had the book, but they were not using it, and were doing traditional forward bending abdominal exercises.)

10 May 2005, the day after the Fix Your Own Back Pain workshop was held, Bernie wrote me,

"Hello, I did sign-up for your class at TUCC on Monday 5/9, but I was too tired to attend. On top of that, I am scheduled for spine surgery at ( ) on Wed 5/11/05, with ( ). After having 2 epidurals and physical therapy I decided to go for the surgery. My nerve that is pinched is in the shape of an hourglass (at L4- L5) and (the doctors told him) that no body position or exercise changes are going to help at this time. Both legs are numb and I am walking like a drunk. It is kind of you to keep in touch. I hope to meet you at your fall class."

Days later, Bernie had the surgery. He tells about it, and his next two years, in Part I of this story. The doctors all considered his surgery a "complete success." They said the surgery went completely according to plan, with no complications. His recovery was in line with expected results. The fact that his pain returned, was worse, and complicated by limited movement from his plates and screws and other surgical hardware not a factor to them. They felt the limited movement was beneficial and a goal of the surgery. The commonly held idea is to stop motion in the area to stop the pain.

In late October of 2007 arrived to teach the Fix Your Own Back and Neck Pain Workshop. I had 16 people waiting for me. One was Mr. Bernie Cleff, a funny white-haired muscular man of 80, who was in much pain.

We had a fun, energetic class. One of the students was a young man from India. He sat unsmiling as I mentioned various yoga poses that can injure discs in the neck. I explained that I am not against all yoga, and studied years to become a teacher myself. He sat unsmiling. We did three specific techniques to stop the neck pain process and a beautiful smile radiated from the young man from India. He had three herniated discs in his neck from his yoga practice of the specific moves I had mentioned, together with sitting badly at a computer for his work. He already knew those yoga moves hurt his neck. He had just been worried the pain would never stop. When the pain stopped right there in class, he smiled.

Another of the students was a golf pro. Who I consulted with afterward to test out my work on lower back pain and golf. More on this to come.

Mr. Cleff did great in the first class. This class was done over two weeks. I gave the students things to try during the week before the second (last) class.

Oct 25 2007 he wrote me:

"Today (Thursday) is my class day at The Clay Studio, working over the wheel for 5 hours. I felt good with very little noticeable pain. Usually after walking the 5 blocks from my home to the studio both my legs would tingle badly and I would stop to rest halfway. Not today. When I told my classmates about you phoning me to ask how I was doing with your exercises & stretching, they could not get over your caring. None of us had ever had a Dr. call to check-up. You are one hellova person and I'm thankful that I've met you.

"I've had my spine problems with the pinched nerves for a long time - roughly 4-5 years - and I'm slowly getting better since you came into my life. There is no other way to say it. Thanks Jolie."

He was improved in one class, and he felt that he was "slowly" getting better. I like an empowered student who does not want to dawdle to get better. The day after the second of the two sessions, Bernie wrote:

28 Oct 2007

"Last night, I walked about 7 blocks to restaurant AQUA (great value, low cost & delicious) and back home another 7 blocks.

"Upper back extension causes no pain, lower back does. I can do plank on elbows, holding for 60 seconds now, no pain.

"If you want to make photos of a geriatric doing your things, it's OK with me. as you've seen, I'm not bashful or delicate. I will work at getting better, my daughter is getting married January 5 and I want to be able to dance with her and my wife."

Bernie went back to his doctors to ask about a small amount of remaining pain. They told him he should have more surgery and gave him prescriptions. He wrote to ask me:

"On Nov. 2 I have a follow up with the spine surgeon (same guy) and on Nov 14 a consult with a Neurologist ( ). Do you have any suggestions about a pain med FENTANYL, which was suggested by a doc at the V.A."

I wrote back that Fentanyl is a surgical grade narcotic. It is used "off-label" for back pain and there have been deaths. I asked him to tell me more about what hurt, and when, so we could stop it without any harmful medicine, and also what the neurologist said.

14 Nov 2007, he wrote:

"I had an office visit with the neurologist at ( ), he said my twisted nerve at L5 will never get better and I will always have pain."

They told him to have another spine surgery and take the Fentanyl. (Then why did they put him though all that surgery??)

He wrote:

"Hello, I still have some tingling in both knees...but much better than 2 weeks ago! There has always been pain in my left flank between spine & hip, never told you because the knees were my greatest problem… The lower back pain persists, but only left side. When I do the trap stretch leaning to left--puts much pressure on that pain. Leaning to the right feels like a good stretch. Any additional suggestions?"

I found that that he was still doing "their" exercises. Conventional exercises of bending forward to stretch the hamstrings are often prescribed for back pain. The assumption is that tight hamstrings have something to do with back pain. However, bending forward is one major contributor of this kind of back pain. I changed how he stretched his hamstrings to one of the ways we did in class.

He was also continuing to overarch his lower back when walking, which was a large source of the tingling pain. When he used the Trapezius stretch, he was also overarching, which makes pain when bending to that side. This kind of pain is often confused for spinal stenosis. One classic sign of stenosis is pain when bending toward one side. However, the narrowing is not true stenosis, but just overarching which narrows and pinches the area. For someone who has stenosis, not pinching the area further with overarching is frequently enough to stop pain.

What was complicating everything was his surgeries. They were considered "completely successful." The two knee replacements were "completely rehabbed" meaning he could bend his knees enough to sit in a chair. He could no longer stretch the front of his hip enough to prevent the kind of tightness that encourages standing and moving in overarched position. The back surgery put a plate in his back to prevent much movement. That meant that even small overarching movements were enough to pressure the newly immovable area. The back hurt, and the tight back and hip were compressing nerves going down both legs.

After we fixed these issues he wrote two mails:

"Jolie You hit on the spot. I will keep at it gently."

and

"Jolie, a quick note to tell you today I walked 12 blocks, stopping to stretch hamstrings.. often on steps or fireplug....as you suggested...also lunge stretch. I will dance at my daughter's wedding. Much thanks.

"There will not ever be more surgery on my body."

For the flank pain, he had been for many tests, and was even scheduled for a kidney evaluation. The muscles in the area were so tight, that I biked over to his home to do a sports medicine technique to stretch it out for him, and checked his other stretches. I went over how to stretch the front of the hip without overarching his lower back. His sweet funny wife made me lunch. We got some fun photos of things as gifts for you, of fun stretches and activities.

He wrote:

"I've had x-rays, MRI, bloodwork, surgery, injections, no Dr. had any solution.
YOU HAD THE ANSWER. No wonder so many people have thanked you."

He did the work and gave me the credit. That's a good man.



Next:

• Bernie dances at his daughter's wedding in Cauda Equina - Result Not Cause.

Related:

• Fixing Leg Numbness, Back Pain, Flank Pain, Knee Pain, Nerve Pain, Three Unhealthy Surgeries, Part I
• Overhead Lifting, Reaching, and Throwing - More Part I
• Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch
  
• Prevent Back Surgery
  

See Mr. Cleff Demonstrate:

• Fast Fitness - Quick Relaxing Hip Stretch
• Fast Fitness - Relaxing Hip, Leg, and Groin Stretch
• and Dynamic Partner Balance Challenge.
  
  

Labels: drugs, facet joints, fix pain, hamstring, impingement, injury, knee, lordosis, lower back, neck, practice of medicine, readers inspiring story, side, stenosis, stretch, surgery, yoga

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Fast Fitness - Quick Relaxing Hip Stretch

Here is Fast Friday Fitness. A stretch for front hip muscles, often tight from sitting and counterproductive forward-bending exercises in fitness and Pilates classes

1. Lie over a bed or bench with hips right at the edge and legs dangling
2. Feel wonderful stretch in front hip muscles
3. If your lower back hurts, you are probably arching your lower back, as in the left photo, Click and read this post - Innovation in Abdominal Muscles. Correct it by tucking your hip (by flattening lower back) toward the bed - right photo.

Reader Bernie, age 80, supplied these photos. He had registered for my Fix Your Own Back Pain workshop but skipped it to do surgery instead. He returned to me in worse pain two years later. His story how we successfully fix the worsened situation is posted in:

• Fixing Leg Numbness, Back Pain, Flank Pain, Knee Pain, Nerve Pain, Three Unhealthy Surgeries, Part I
• and Fixing Leg Numbness, Back Pain, Flank Pain, Knee Pain, Nerve Pain, Three Unhealthy Surgeries, Part II

He also demonstrates:

• Fast Fitness - Dynamic Partner Balance Challenge
• and Fast Fitness - Relaxing Hip, Leg, and Groin Stretch.

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

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Fast Fitness - Upper Back, Shoulder, Triceps, Arm, Wrist, and Hand Stretch

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - nice stretch for hands, upper back, and everything in between.

1. Stand with your back about a foot from a solid surface


2. Reach upward and backward to place both hands on the wall, all fingers facing downward


3. Press, lifting upward, keeping the stretch in your chest and upper body.

Vary the stretch by straightening elbows more.

Do not pinch your spine backward like a soda straw at the lower back, which increases lordosis (causes hyperlordosis). Tuck hip to neutral to stop compressive pain in the lower back. Here is how.

Breathe. Smile. Feel good stretching your upper back out of forward-rounded posture.

Labels: arm, fast fitness, hand, lordosis, neutral spine, shoulder, stretch, upper back, wrist

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After School Trapeze Arts is Good Exercise

My mother is a Russian circus teacher. We recently went with her to a recital of a neighbor who teaches elementary trapeze arts. The performers, age about 10 to a women in her 50s, were having fun moving and pulling themselves up and down ropes, scarves, and hoops. It wasn't a polished performance or high technical ability. That wasn't the point. They were lifting their body weight, climbing, stretching, balancing, focusing, burning calories, learning safety and cooperation, exercising, developing arm, hand, wrist, and grip strength, and moving their bodies in functional ways.

Their over-dramatic costumes flopped over their faces when they hung upside down. One young performer wore fly-front long johns. They seemed to think they were great artists. True or not, they were moving, smiling, stretching, laughing, and exercising to do art and fun.

Check for fun safe programs near you of healthy movement of all kinds. Get the good they can provide of new fun ways to use your body and mind functionally. If they use traditional stretches and exercises to warm-up that are not healthful, change or skip them. These posts give ideas:

• Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch
• The Stretch You Need The Least
• Common Exercises Teach Hip Tightness When Kicking, Stretching, and on the Stairs
• Aren't You Supposed To Stick Your Behind Out to Sit Down or Do Squats?
• Better Shoulder and Triceps Stretch
• Change Common Exercises to Get Better Ab Exercise and Stop Back Pain
• Stop doing crunches (ever again) - Good Life Works Better Than Bad Ab Exercise
• Instantly Better Hip and Quadriceps Stretch
• Better Achilles Tendon Stretch

Labels: arm, balance, children, hand, partner exercise, strength, stretch, warmup, weight loss, wrist

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Pearl is 97

After reading about success with exercise and stretching over various posts including Monday's Getting More From a Hip Stretch, reader Dr. Alan, sent this photo at right of his mother Pearl, age 97, stretching her hip. The straighter upright you sit, and the farther toward the ankle the leg is placed over opposite knee, the greater the stretch. If you are at your desk, try putting ankle over opposite knee, keeping the lifted knee under the desk. More stretch when low desk height keeps your knee down. Pearl also does the "ankle over knee" hip stretch while standing.

Pearl gets regular leg exercise through good bending as she goes about her busy days - she bends well with one foot in front of the other - the lunge, and with feet side by side - the half-squat. This post tells why this kind of bending gives better exercise, maintains mobility, and prevents various knee problems.

Thank you Pearl!

Labels: aging, hip, leg stretch, readers inspiring story, sitting, stretch

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Getting More From a Hip Stretch

This post tells the Hip Stretch story started with Inspirational Ivy in August. In that post, Ivy tells how she used healthful body mechanics to fix a serious and extended attack of sciatica and foot drop the year before. Several posts since, have given fun updates. Here is the fun that the Hip Stretch started:

Feb 2006, Ivy from New Zealand wrote to me,

"My hips are tight, particularly the right side that being the side I had the severe attack of sciatica. I have worked so hard on my hamstrings and my "dropped" foot, the bonus being that I am winning. Now it is time to put the same amount of work into my hips."

I figured Ivy would start with the Better Posterior Hip and Piriform Stretch and a few of the other hip stretches in my books, then apply them for daily life by crossing one ankle over the other knee for putting on shoes, shown at right, described in Ancient Shoe Exercise for Hip Stretch and Balance, and that would be that.

In August 2007, she wrote,

"I am jumping for joy. No, I haven't won a million dollars.

"After having been doing the posterior hip stretch lying down for the past 21 months twice a day, I can now do the same stretch sitting. My hips have always been so tight and there was no way that I could get my ankle across the knee - this has been my goal and I have done it. I have to be honest, I have not got it to perfection, that being my next goal. I wonder if that will take another 21 months. It just shows that a little persistence pays off in the end. I trust that all is well with you."

Twenty-one months - what a dedicated learner. It was a joy to work with enthusiastic Ivy. I wrote back saying it should not take so long, and asked if she did the stretch standing up to put on shoes and socks to make it real life, not an artificial stretch. Ivy wrote back,

"I have tried standing to put my sox on and cannot quite make it YET (note the yet), that will come. I do, however, ensure that I always stand to remove my sox, and the like. Also to put them on except for the sox. I also stand when I moisturize my legs and feet - I do this so as to improve my balance."

I wrote back encouraging putting socks and shoes on and off while standing. The point of stretching is healthy function, not to "do a stretch" just to have a greater range. The benefit is from applying the stretch to ability to stand steadily on one foot and have muscle stretch and length to put on shoes standing .

Four hours later Ivy wrote back:

"Wow, I did it. I have just returned from a 30 minute walk, did some lunges as a further warm up and thought I would give it a try. I cheated, instead of shoes, I used slippers - I thought it would be easier. Tomorrow I will try shoes.

"Dr Jolie, you are my inspiration, you asked if I could do it and that set me a challenge. I must NEVER SAY CAN'T. As you are probably aware, I am a very motivated woman, however, there is no one to spur me along - you have done that and again, I can only say a huge thank you."

The next day this arrived,

"I am very pleased with myself. I just needed that push. As I said yesterday, I must never say can't again.

"Again, all I can say is a huge thank you. A huge hug from me."

Readers, stand with safe balance to dress. Send me your fun photos, mpegs (short computer video) and stories of using healthful range of motion for daily life.

Original story and updates:

• Inspirational Ivy
• Inspirational Ivy II - Beating Foot Drop and Sciatica, and Getting Healthier
• Good Life Works Better Than Bad Ab Exercise
• Farm Work, Lifestyle Exercise, and Preventing Overuse Pain

Ivy is a great-grandmother! (and a pretty great person too). She says,

"I guess I am very much like my late father who was a quiet achiever who used to tell me to 'stand tall and be proud of who you are' - I pass this advice on to my kids all the time."

Labels: balance, hip strength, hip stretch, leg stretch, readers inspiring story, sciatica, shoes, spirit, stress, stretch

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Friday Fast Fitness - Better Shoulder and Triceps Stretch

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Quick shoulder and triceps stretch, without adding new bad positioning. Use this instead of the usual stretch of pulling elbow overhead with the other hand, which usually results in leaning the head forward and arching the lower back.

Instead:

1. Stand diagonally in front of a wall.
2. Raise elbow (the one closest to the wall). Lean arm, armpit, and body against the wall
3. Breathe. Relax. Smile. Switch sides.

Do not arch the lower back or tighten any part, or it will hurt and not be right or healthy. That would be silly.

Labels: arm, fast fitness, lower back, neutral spine, shoulder, stretch, upper back

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Better Stretches for Swimming - Cook Strait Update

The September equinox was this weekend. At the moment of the equinox, the center of the disk of the sun crosses the equator. The northern hemisphere comes into Fall while the southern hemisphere begins Spring. For the day before and after that moment, the entire apparent disk of the sun passes the equator, and night and day are approximately equal length all over the world.

Japan celebrates three days before and after the equinox as a time for life reflection, looking forward and back. A Mid-Autumn Festival of the second of three fall harvests is celebrated in many East Asian communities around this time on a varying lunar calendar. The full moon closest to the Autumn equinox is the Harvest Moon, lighting long evenings of harvest work. The moon all during the month of the Autumn equinox is the Wine Moon, a good time for grape harvest, occurring (usually) around September in the northern hemisphere and March in the southern hemisphere.

With this equinox, the weather is warming in the Southern Hemisphere, meaning increased swim training for New Zealander 'Dr. Ernie' (blog name).

He is training to swim the 16 miles of the Cook Straight, introduced in May's post Sixteen Miles of Cold Water and updated in Getting Fitter in 50 Degrees.

Dr. Ernie sent the photo at left and wrote,

"This phase has been one of knuckling down. So here goes:
"Cook Strait Swim: Phase II
"Now it gets serious.....

"On June 6 I completed my last open water swim in Wellington Harbour in water temps of about 14 C: It felt really cold, the coldest I've experienced. The swim lasted 45 minutes and I noted that afterwards I didn't shiver at all -- a clear sign of acclimatization. I was advised by all to start serious swim technique and endurance preparation in the pool.

"I met with Phil Rush -- the man who has crossed the Strait seven times (including a double-crossing) and who holds the world's record for a triple crossing of the English Channel. He will be piloting the support boat for my attempt, which will hopefully be in February 2008. His advice: swim, swim, swim -- get up to 40 km/week by December (approx 25 statute miles or 21.6 nautical miles), and then be ready to take a 6-hour test in early January. In the test I will have to demonstrate that I can sustain at least a 3 km/hour pace for the 6 hours (a little under 2 miles per hour, a mid-training pace).

"Since July, I've been meeting with my coach, a former Olympian (I'll not mention his name until I've made it successfully across the Strait) and it's been hard going. But very necessary. What I assumed I could do on my own proved to be incorrect. For one, basic aspects of technique have been clarified and my entire stroke has been reworked in the past two months -- a good thing because I don't have a competitive swimming background and I've been doing lots of stuff to create drag. If' I' m to make it across the Strait I'll have to be extremely efficient. And I'll have to be able to keep up pace to stay warm. So my coach had done several important things: first, he's forced me to realign my body position, stressing posture, line and balance; second, he's pushed high-intensity sprint and interval training in addition to long distance swims. I plan to continue weekly lessons through the end of the year."

One of the things Dr. Ernie and I have been working on is better swim stretches.

Good shoulder range of motion helps swimming. Some experts regard the extra range as always destabilizing for the shoulder joints.

I investigated this over several years in the lab, and found that much of the problem is unhealthful stretches, not the range achieved.

You can have a mobile strong shoulder without developing instability or injuring the shoulder joints and surrounding cartilage and soft tissue.

One counterproductive stretch for most people is pulling one arm across the front of your body. It is usually The Stretch You Need The Least. Click the link for more about why.



A better way to stretch your shoulders is to stop doing this less healthful stretch and do three healthier ones:

1. Front chest (pectoral) muscles, taught in Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain


2. Nice Neck Stretch. To make sure you get the stretch as intended and not lean or round forward, do the Nice Neck Stretch (trapezius stretch pictured at right) with your back and the back of your head against a wall so that you do not bring your head forward of the wall as you slide down to the side.


3. Fast Fitness Friday this week will add a third stretch that is more effective than the common practice of pulling the elbow overhead with the other hand - Friday Fast Fitness - Better Shoulder and Triceps Stretch.
   
   

Related Fitness Fixer:

• Dr. Ernie's story continues next week - Nutrition for Endurance Swim Training.
• Post from last year's equinox - Is Bad Martial Arts Good Exercise?
• More to understand what makes a good stretch - What Does Stretching Do?
• Click labels under this post for more Fitness Fixer about each topic.

Labels: arm, holiday, readers inspiring story, shoulder, stretch, swimming

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Fast Fitness - Better Posterior Hip, Iliotibial, and Piriform Stretch

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Quickly improve a common stretch for the back and side of the hip.

Note step 2 and 3 which slides the supporting leg sideways. That change makes it different from the usual ankle over knee stretch:

1. Lie face up. Bend one knee to put one foot on the floor or bed, comfortably close to your backside. Other ankle crosses knee.
2. Notice which direction the raised foot is facing. Slide the other foot (the one on the floor or bed) and knee in that direction. Reader David demonstrates. In the left photo, the raised foot faces left. Move the whole leg on the floor to the left. Feel the stretch increase in the raised leg.
3. Switch sides. Right photo shows raised foot facing right. Slide supporting foot and knee sideways to the right.
   

This stretch is often called a piriform muscle (or pyriformis) stretch, but it stretches other hip muscles more. The piriform muscles are external rotators (turn the leg outward). More external rotation with the usual ankle over knee does not stretch it much. The changed foot position helps, and future posts will cover more on piriform.

Don't make this stretch hurt or send pain down the leg. The point is to relax and loosen the area, not tighten, constrict, and impinge. Breathe.

This is another 'ooh' stretch. As soon as you do it right, it feels good and you say ooh.

Labels: fast fitness, hip, hip stretch, iliotibial band, leg stretch, stretch

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Parcours - Old Fun Is New Exercise

Parcours is pronounced par-core. It is a French word meaning "course" or trail. A parcours is a path with obstacles at varied intervals. You navigate using your body and brain, similar to steeplechase.

Some parcours are formally designed municipal parks. Some are impromptu collections of trees, walls, buildings, windows, and rocks. On a rainy day you can make your own in your house.

In ancient times, a course might involve days of travel. Today, several cities around the world have public courses used by people of all abilities and ages. Modern fitness programs use it, with names like freerunning and various brand names, but the idea is not new.

Stations may be a log to walk across, rings to swing on, various height and shape objects to stretch on and around, a place to see how far or high you can jump, something to balance on, a ladder or wall to climb over or under.

To get to the next station, you can walk, run, bike, skate, or whatever you can do. Parcours length varies from a block to miles. Some people make a day of it with picnics and rests between stations. Others go make a quick lunch run over part or all of the course.

In the early 1980s I was the first person to put exercise programs aboard cruise ships. Until then, cruises were associated only with deck chairs and food. I was told exercise would not catch on. I ran exercise, health education, and stretch classes, and led the scuba and snorkel trips. I also led a parcours, taking about an hour, all over the ship, from deck to deck, stem to stern, over and under tables, chairs, hatches, and railings, and through the cha-cha lessons. We ran, we walked, we balanced, we cha-cha'd, we tip-toed very fast to get away, we laughed.

Parcours uses the body in natural ways to build strength, spirit, and balance. It can be healthier, better training, and more fun than doing artificial repetitions of an isolated exercise.

More to come on keeping parcours safe for joints, and preventing injuries.

Labels: balance, children, circulation, spirit, strength, stretch

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Fast Fitness - Great Hip, Side, Leg, and Iliotibial (I.T. band) Stretch

Here is Friday Fast Fitness. Stretching the side of the hip and ilio-tibial (I.T. band) does several good things. Here is a fast, healthy way to do it:

1. Lie flat, face up.
2. Place legs like clock hands, one to 10 o' clock, the other to 2 o'clock (or wider).
3. Bring one ankle over the other, leaving the other at 10 (or 2 o'clock). Keep hips flat against the floor, don't tilt or twist. Legs straight. Hold. Switch.

This is an "ouu" stretch because when you do it right, you say "ouu." If you don't feel an instant great stretch, pull both legs more to the side. Ouu.

Smile, breathe.

Labels: fast fitness, hip, hip stretch, iliotibial band, leg stretch, lower back, stretch

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Fast Fitness - Quick Wrist and Forearm Stretch

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - nice stretch for hands, wrist, and forearms:

1. Face a wall and raise both hands to about head height.
2. Turn palms up, thumbs to the outside, fingers downward,
3. Press toward wall. Bend elbows to various amounts for a full-range wonderful, gentle stretch.
4. Keep body straight, not sagging inward or tilting out in back.

Breathe. Smile. Feel good.

Labels: fast fitness, hand, stretch, wrist

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Lunges and Beans

To get a better lunge stretch and stop pressure on the medial knee (the side facing the other leg), don't turn your back leg outward (left photo). Turn your back foot parallel, and face forward (right photo)

The previous post Hip Stretch While You Strengthen Legs shows a key move to position the hip to get a great stretch on the front of the hip and feel a better strengthener for the legs as you lower and rise in standing lunges.

One of my students, Lily, demonstrates good hip and leg position for the lunge (second photo at right). Instead of tilting the hip forward in front and out in back, you tuck the bottom of the hip to maintain it vertical from the top of the leg (hip joint) to the middle of the waist. Note the stripe of the side of the pants compared to the vertical line in the wall behind her.

On occasion, Lily makes me a wonderful bean dish and brings it to class in a glass container. The glass is a thoughtful healthy touch to avoid whatever may leach out of plastics into food. My students and I try to do this with food and drinks carried to work and class. Here is her recipe. Just throw it all in a bowl:

Lily's Wonderful Beans

Cup or two of cooked black beans
Cup or two of corn
1 jalapeño pepper, diced
1 red onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
2 tablespoons cumin powder
1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
sprinkle of olive oil, just enough to blend ingredients
squeeze 1 fresh lime over the top

Some people with celiac omit the corn. Celiac causes various discomforts after eating wheat and related products.

Good bending gives free exercise and stops a major cause of several chronic pain syndromes (muscle strain, disc degeneration, disc herniation, and sciatica) at the same time. Click the labels under this post for related posts. If you use the lunge and squat around the house for all the things you need to bend for instead of bad bending, you will stop a major source of back pain back, and get hundreds of free leg exercises a day. Enjoy healthy eating and healthy lunging.

Labels: celiac, disc, hip, hip strength, leg strength, leg stretch, lunge, nutrition, sciatica, stretch

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Get Fit in Colorado at the Wilderness Medical Society Meeting

Check your calendar for a healthy trip to Colorado. The Wilderness Medicine Conference and Annual Meeting will run July 21-25, 2007, in Snowmass, not far from Aspen.

I will teach two fun workshops at the meeting on July 24. You don't have to be a member of the Wilderness Medical Society (WMS) to attend the conference, and you don't have to attend the meeting to take my workshops, although it's a great meeting with several days of fun, interesting lectures with good people in a great location. The WMS calls it "Education, inspiration, recreation, relaxation, renewal, and community."

I'll be teaching The Ab Revolution™ Core Training method, and Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier, both on Tuesday July 24th. You can take either or both, one after the next. The Ab Revolution™ retrains your core muscles with no forward bending which promotes disc trouble, neck pain, tight posture, and other troubles. It can provide more ab exercise than conventional abdominal exercise, and shows you how to keep your spine position healthy during any ordinary daily life, even when not exercising. You'll also learn to fix one major source of back pain right there on the spot. The Stretch workshop is packed with new, fun techniques that work better, faster, and don't hurt. You will learn how to not get stiff and sore in the first place. Fitness is healthiest when it is fun movement that trains good body mechanics in the way your body needs to do real life activity.

The rest of the conference will have interesting lectures on lightning, altitude sickness, hiking and expedition injuries, diving medicine, aerospace, heat, new research, and favorite wilderness topics of parasites and diarrhea (some medical conferences have whole day seminars on diarrhea which is a serious world health issue, especially in babies and children). Healthline blogger and wilderness expert Paul Auerbach will lecture on marine envenomations. There will be workshops in photography, GPS, survival, and other fun hands-on opportunities along with my two fast-moving workshops. Snowmass is at a moderate elevation. The yearly Run for Research leaves you more breathless than usual.

Class info about both workshops is on my web site page CLASSES. To register, contact the WMS - Wilderness Medical Society by e-mail or phone (800) 627-0629. Workshops are filling up fast.

If you can't make my workshops this time, find the books with complete text and illustrations of everything we will do on my BOOKS page.

Pack a bag. Come get healthy out in some clean air and sunshine.

Labels: abdominal muscles, education, fix pain, stretch

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Strengthen and Retrain Function With The Lunge

The previous post Leg Exercise That Helps Your Back introduced the lunge. The lunge can be a quick effective fitness and health enhancer when you understand that you use it for real life bending, not just as an exercise to do for a set number of "reps."

The idea is to use the lunge in a healthy way instead of bending over "wrong" for all the hundreds of times you bend around the house and workplace. Then you stop one of the major sources of back (and knee) pain and degeneration while you get free built-in exercise, calorie burning, and leg and hip stretch and strengthening. The post How Good Would You Look From 400 Squats a Day - Just Stop Unhealthy Bending shows just how many times every day you need to know this.

Reader Ivy from New Zealand sent in the photo above right showing a great way to bend for some of the many times you need to bend to reach and get things - the standing lunge:

• Upright torso
• Bending straight downward, not forward
• Front shin pretty much vertical
• Front knee over the foot
• Front knee does not sway inward. This is key in retraining knee stability during real life bending, stairs, and other movement.
  
• Back foot facing ahead, not turned out
• Front heel down. Better for knee and gives built-in Achilles stretch
• Feet nicely spaced
• Hands free, not on front leg
• The side-seam of the jeans from hip to waist-band is vertical, not tilting forward. It is somewhat hidden by Ivy's arm, I know. But the idea is important - do not tilt your hip forward to stick the backside out in back. Keeping the side seam vertical does several important things to strengthen and stretch, and keep neutral spine that I will cover in future posts on lunging.
• Looks comfortable and doable.

When using the lunge, do not bog down in "rules" over placement. The idea is to move in simple, healthy positioning, not hold yourself rigidly.

The post The Cause of Disc and Back Pain shows more on why healthy bending is key to fitness as a lifestyle, and Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending introduces the half-squat as one of several fit and healthy normal ways to bend for every day activities.

Going to a gym three times a week is not fitness as a lifestyle. Instead of "doing" exercise, lift, and bend, and move in healthy ways all the time for real fitness as a lifestyle. Give it a try and send in your success stories.

Labels: achilles stretch, hip, knee, leg strength, lunge, stretch

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Calories Burned in Prayer

Last week at the sports medicine conference, I talked to a researcher from Kuwait University. Dr. Jasem Ramadan presented a lovely little study called Bioenergetics of Islamic Prayers, measuring the amount of oxygen and calories the physical movements of the prayers burned.

Five standard prayers (Salat) are mandatory every day for every adult male and female Muslim. Each prayer has a continuous sequence of body movements (Rakkas) consisting of standing, bowing, kneeling and sitting. Each Rakka lasts between 3 and 6 minutes. Dr. Ramadan looked at the energy cost of two and four Rakka prayers in thirty-two male and female adults. He found that Salats have a positive effect on metabolic function. For an 80 kg person, energy cost of daily prayers was about 80 calories a day, and could be considered a form of physical activity that enhances fitness.

Dr. Ramadan told me, "The prayers have been done for thousands of years and no one thinks about it as physical exercise." I told him I think that often. I told him that Russian Orthodox prayer was pretty physical. A liturgy lasts hours, done standing and continuously crossing yourself from the floor in a squat to high overhead. Everyone including the oldest people do this, up and down, and up and down, and up and down, stretching and squatting, reaching and bending. I always thought it was group community health activity, probably found long ago to be protective against many ailments (and attributed divinely). The original yogas were the same, reaching upward to exalt the heavens, bowing, kneeling, prostrating, rising, over and over.

I told Dr. Ramadan that many Westerners aren't comfortably able to do the kneeling Rakka shown in Healthy Toe Stretches or rise to a stand without using their hands, as in the post Quick and Easy Strength and Balance Exercise, not only the elderly, but the rest of the population too.

He seemed surprised and interested. I told him I believed that this lack of basic human movement for real daily life was a major contributor to the epidemic numbers of people who are too weak and unstable to get up unassisted, to walk without canes and walkers, have trouble taking stairs, have poor balance, and for much knee and hip pain and degeneration. Dr. Ramadan said that elders in his country do not suffer knee and hip arthritis in high numbers, and can easily rise from the floor into their old age. I told him that many Westerners are familiar with a device that is worn, with a button to press for help if they cannot get up from the floor or chair. At this point, he was sure I was kidding.

If you cannot get up from the floor or low chair easily without using your hands, you likely have dangerously decreased leg strength and balance. Use good bending to strengthen your legs and knees many times a day and improve your fitness, explained in the post How Often Should You Be Healthy? Use healthy movement every day to sit, rise, bend right, clean, garden, give thanks, stretch, take stairs, and play to get healthy functional exercise, and prevent common joint pain. That is fitness as a lifestyle.

Labels: aging, arthritis, balance, fix pain, hip, hip stretch, knee, leg strength, leg stretch, strength, stretch, weight loss, yoga

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What Does Stretching Do?

Stretching has been shown in some studies to prevent injuries or pain, or improve athletic performance. Based on this, gyms are filled with people stretching - often in tight, unhealthy ways that re-emphasize the rounded forward postures that caused the pain and injuries in the first place. Other studies cast doubt on benefits of stretching for injury reduction, or indicate that stretching reduces muscle tensile contraction. Based on that, there are athletes who say they won't stretch at all. This is where I wind up back in the lab for more years to find out where the discrepancies lie and what to do about them.

The problem seems to be how people stretch, then how they then go exercise and incur their injuries. Another key issue is how they go about their real life outside of the gym and their stretching routine.

For many, stretching means producing a greater range of motion for any given joint, and bending forward to touch the toes. Many of these same people don't have the flexibility to comfortably lie flat without a pillow under head or knees, or stand with their back against a wall with the back of their head touching the wall without craning their neck or lower back. Their back and shoulders are too rounded forward. Their hip is too tight in front. Tight chest, shoulders, and anterior hip contributes to round-shouldered, bent forward posture. The average person is often too tight to just stand up straight. Consequently, they stand, walk, and do all activities at joint angles that impinge, grind, rub, and stress. This is functional tightness.

It is not a mystery when populations don't become more flexible or prevent injuries through conventional stretching routines. The idea of stretching needs to be reframed as specific retraining to restore healthy length to your muscles, so that you no longer stand, sit, and move with strained unhealthful positioning.

Stretching needs reform.

Several posts have introduced how ingrained unhealthful stretching is in popular fitness. Start with the following, plus the links I put in each, to see how to retrain your muscles and brain to stretch in ways that restores and retrains healthy positioning, rather than distort it:

• Are You Making Your Exercise Unhealthy?
• Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch
• The Stretch You Need The Least.

For functional stretching, use these three stretches every day:

• Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain
• Nice Neck Stretch
• Friday Fast Fitness - Better Shoulder and Triceps Stretch
  
  

For using healthful muscle length for movement and exercise:

• Common Exercises Teach Hip Tightness When Kicking, Stretching, and on the Stairs

Labels: fix pain, injury, leg stretch, posture, stretch

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Functional Achilles Stretch

Sitting in full squat with heels down can be healthful and useful. Squatting for daily life is a built-in Achilles stretch, more effective and functional than the standard "lunge and lean stretch" against the wall, or lowering one heel from a step or ledge. Better Achilles Tendon Stretch shows one Achilles tendon stretch that is effective and quick. Sitting in a full squat is another. Rising from the squat adds functional leg muscle strengthening and balance.

I took the photo, above left, in an airport in Asia. The man was easily sitting to work on his laptop during the hour before boarding. Others were similarly sitting with laptops and mobile devices to get work done. Elders squatted that way to rest.

Achilles Stretch in the Bathroom introduced the full squat as a functional normal daily action used in many countries for resting, washing, gardening, working, washing, toileting, chatting on the phone, and other activities, and gave an idea of how to try it. Save Knees When Squatting explains how keeping the heels down rather than lifting heels to rest on the ball of the foot is safer for the knees. Reader Mim supplied a wonderful link in the comments for a great little film of the Asia squat. More Fun Squatting tells a funny squatting story.

People new to squatting may find their Achilles tendons are too tight to bend in this normal manner. Reader Ivy of New Zealand offered to demonstrate one easy way to practice this stretch in a safe way, and sent the photo at right.

Keep both heels down while holding something sturdy in front. Straighten your arms and lean back to shift weight away from the knee joints.

Squatting can be a nice stretch for your lower back too. I have been working, off and on, for some years on the interesting finding that slight forward spine rounding when just sitting on your heels in the squat (no weights) does not load the spine to the extent of sitting on your behind in a chair. Be smart about trying it or not if you already have damaged knees. When rising, make sure to keep knees back over your feet, not sliding forward, which loads the knee joint, or inward at an angle (narrower than your feet), which can twist the joint. Either action can grind against the meniscus and cartilage.

Done properly, it should feel good on the Achilles and calf, lower back, be good exercise, not hurt the knees, and become an option for a functional stretch and even normal sitting ability.

Labels: achilles stretch, balance, leg strength, leg stretch, lower back, sitting, squat, strength, stretch

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Healthy Mother's Day

Neolithic groups (stone age) worshiped the mother. Ancient Germans worshipped the virgin Hertha holding her child. Scandinavians worshipped virgin Disa holding her child. In ancient Egypt it was Isis with infant Osiris. In India, Devaki had Krishna (also by virgin birth). In Asia, Cybele and Deoius. Chinese holy mother Shing Moo held her child in arms. Christian missionaries to Tibet, China, and Japan found that holy mothers depicted with splendid light around their head and holding a divine child had been worshiped long before they got there.

In Rome, the goddess was Demeter, meaning Earth Mother, wearing wreathes of braided corn in her hair. In ancient Greece, Demeter was called Ceres, the great mother with baby at breast. From her name "Ceres," we get the word "cereal" (grains), "which made man different from wild animals."

In the spring in ancient Greece, celebrations were held in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. Christian Europe celebrated the spring festival of "Mother Church" who (they believed) would protect them from harm. During the 1600's, England celebrated "Mothering Sunday" on the 4th Sunday of Lent, honoring the mothers of England. All cultures worshiped the divine, the Mother, who gives life and food, compassion and love.

So. How to celebrate this Sunday on Mother's Day? I'm in favor of some goddess worship, probably involving some rocks and food and chocolates and compassion and love. Not so original, but time tested and universal:

• Visit Mom (or a Mom) and give her a massage (if she wants one). Neck, hands, feet, back. Good for circulation for giver and receiver. Touch can be healthy. Ask her stories.
• Teach her a Nice Neck Stretch
• Make her (and you) something healthy to eat. For light teas, try cinnamon, cloves, grated orange peel, or ginger in hot water.
• For a cold treat without unhealthy junk food, mash a frozen banana with crushed raw walnuts or flax seeds. Use a food grinder or get free exercise by mashing them yourself in a bowl. It will taste like creamy ice cream. Flax seeds and walnuts have been found to be effective to help bone health as vegetarian sources of omega-3 (n-3) fatty acids. Raw walnuts (as part of a general low fat and cholesterol diet) have also been found to have a beneficial effect to decrease cardiovascular disease risk, among other benefits. This treat has fiber and is non dairy, both associated with lower breast cancer risk.
• Goddess worship often is helped with chocolate. The primary chemical in chocolate is theobromine. "Theo-" means God and "broma" comes from a word meaning food. The theobromine in chocolate was named for "food of the gods." Theobromine is an antioxidant, weak diuretic, stimulant, and mood booster, opens breathing airways, and relieves coughing. Dark chocolate has more theobromine than lighter chocolate, with flavonoids and phenolics, plant substances that are good for the heart. People who get a kind of vascular headache called migraine do better not to eat chocolate. For others, get plain cocoa, unsweetened, not junked up with sugar. Add the unsweetened cocoa to the frozen mashed banana and walnuts for a healthy sweet wonderful treat that tastes better than you would expect. For exotic flavor and more health benefit, add fresh grated ginger root.
• Sit outside in the air and sun to have your tea and frozen banana. Warnings on the dangers of overtanning are important for preventing skin cancer for people who work outdoors, who over-tan for cosmetic purposes, and a few other populations. Another group to consider is those spending too little time outdoors. Sunlight exposure and the Vitamin D it makes your skin produce, is increasingly documented as crucial to bone density, healthy immune function, positive mood, sound sleep at night, relief of symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, MS, Parkinsons, polycystic ovary, diabetes, and other health issues. A nice massage and tea and chocolate outside in the sunlight could be made into a wonderful Mother's Day. Nice excuse to buy a hat.
• Make Mom (or a Mom) some homemade healthy skin lotion. Commercial products have preservatives, dyes, and chemicals. Try combinations of grape seed oil, tea tree oil (very small amount), vitamins C and E, ginger, honey, tea, fresh aloe, and fragrances from oils, fruit, flowers like lavender, or leaves like mint. (Don't wear citrus oils like lime out in the sun.)
• Help out at a woman and child shelter. Or help at a men's shelter to help the guys get back on their feet to help their own families.
• Celebrate Mother Earth - go out and pick up litter. It's good exercise. Bend right.
• Make a trip to look around a home improvement center to see about some do it yourself solar projects, even if only to replace a few lights.
• Go do gardening for your mother, or your mother Earth. Lift and bend right, reach right, carry in healthy ways.
  
• Do some cooking, shopping, vacuuming, and cleaning for Mom (or a Mom). Water their plants. It's good exercise for you and a nice thing for them.
• Be good to each other - all the children of Earth.
• Follow the advice of the unknown who said, "The most important gift a father can give his children is to love their mother."
• If that doesn't work, take the advice on the side of aspirin bottles: "Take two aspirin, and keep away from children."

Labels: arthritis, circulation, diabetes, digestion, fibromyalgia, fix pain, green fitness, holiday, massage, nutrition, osteoporosis, Parkinson, spirit, stretch, sunlight, upper back

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Quick Hamstring Stretch At Work

Bending over from a stand to touch the toes may "work" to stretch the hamstrings, but puts degenerative forces on the discs, whether you keep your back straight or rounded. It is also not a functional way to stretch. It is not done in the manner your body moves in regular life and does not train healthful movement.


One of my students, Vikki, demonstrates a nice, quick, and effective hamstring stretch, done standing straight, photo at right, that you can easily do during your regular day:

• Stand facing a wall (or tree as in the photo) just about arm's length away.
• Make sure both feet are facing forward, not turned out.
• Lift one foot to press the heel against the wall at about hip height.
• Peek down to see if your standing foot is straight, and has not rotated outward, not even a small amount.
• Lift your upper body to stand straight.
• Don't let your hip curl under or your back round.
• Smile and breathe.
• Hold a few seconds and switch legs.

Vikki and co-worker Cindy are State Paramedics. Cindy is the Director of Services and Vikki is in charge of Search and Rescue. They support firefighting crews in the field. When there is a large fire in their service area, they are posted at strategic spots near the fires, and might treat 1-2 firefighters a day with various injuries, dehydration, hyperthermia, and difficulty breathing due to smoke inhalation. During the rest of their daily work, they do a lot of heavy lifting and carrying.

Cindy and Vikki use the back pain reduction techniques, and the exercises and stretches of this blog and my classes for their work.

Readers, send in your photos and stories.

Labels: disc, hamstring, leg stretch, posture, stretch

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Doorway Hamstring Stretch

Here is a hamstring stretch that is relaxing to do, more effective than bending over to touch toes, and doesn't pressure the lower back or neck discs. The doorway hamstring stretch trains healthful positioning that makes straighter posture feel natural in daily life when standing up and gives a better stretch while lying down. Reader Ivy from New Zealand sent in the photo at right of doing this stretch so well. Thank you Ivy.

• Lie face up in a doorway.
• Lift one leg up to rest against the wall or doorjamb.
• Keep your body, shoulders, head, and other leg relaxed comfortably flat on the floor.
• Keep both hips flat on the floor. Don't let your hips round under you. Don't let the leg on the floor get lifted upward along with the leg you are stretching. If it raises, that often indicates a tight hip. Gently keeping the leg down on the floor stretches the hip, giving additional benefit.
• Relax and breathe. Smile. Hold for a few seconds, then switch legs using the other side of the door or wall.
• For more stretch, move your whole body further into the doorway.
• To add stretch for the back of your calf and bottom of your foot, pull your toes back and downward, using your shin muscles, a towel, or your hand if you can reach.

It is not the case that you must bend the other knee to protect your back or prevent muscle strain. It is not harmful to keep the leg on the floor comfortably straight and stretched flat against the floor. Keeping the leg down makes the stretch more functional and transferable to daily life movement. Several Fitness Fixer articles cover why - here is one, Fast Fitness - Don't Shorten Hip When Stretching Hamstring. Relax and enjoy this stretch.

Readers, send me your photos and success stories showing healthy movement during real life. Don't be shy.

More:

• Read more from Ivy to get inspired about fitness as a lifestyle.

Labels: disc, feet, hamstring, leg stretch, stretch

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Do Fun, Not Exercise

Today I took a break from a study we're doing, to do the Leg Stretch That Strengthens Arms in yesterday's post. It is a good exercise that you can do quickly.

A pile of assorted scientific utensils fell out of my pockets, along with pens, rulers, scribbled data notes, a telemetry battery, the roster for a new class starting tonight, and - strange for a scientist - an amount of money in the form of a few coins.

I have long taught to shift weight while holding a handstand to progressively strengthen arms until you can walk on your hands, and to stand balancing on one hand. The idea is to work so that you will be able to do it. Today I was reminded how practical it can be.

Here is a new fun exercise while standing upside down on your hands - shift weight to stand on one hand and retrieve objects on the floor with the other hand to stuff them back in your pocket.

Of course, everything will fall back out. Then you laugh upside down and pick them up again. This will last through a good exercise session. My hat also kept popping off, another good exercise to get back on while upside down. If you need to shoo pets away from your face, all the more exercise. Be safe. Have fun.

To get started doing handstands in a safe, controlled manner, see Quick and Fun Arm and Body Strengthener. It is an excellent upper body and core strengthener and balance trainer.

Labels: arm, balance, strength, stress, stretch, upper back

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Leg Stretch that Strengthens Arms

Readers have e-mailed for more upper body strengtheners.

Increasing upper body strength helps many things. The post Quick and Fun Arm and Body Strengthener listed several benefits to your health and daily activities, and gave a quick, fun upper body strengthener that needs no weights or equipment, no trip to the gym, can be done in the home or office, and improves balance at the same time. It is not as hard as it looks.

Consult the post link and exercise your brains and common sense first:

1. Crouch down in front of a wall (drawing 1).
2. Put one foot up high on the wall (drawing 2).
3. Raise the other so that both feet are on the wall (drawing 3) to produce a quick and easy to do handstand.
4. Hold yourself steady. Relax and breathe.
5. The above link explained how to use this easy handstand to do various other exercises to progressively strengthen.

To add an effective leg stretch:

1. While holding the wall handstand, gently, carefully, lower one foot on the wall, then lift the other foot far away from the wall
2. Open legs overhead into a wide split (drawing at left)
3. Hold, breathe, relax, enjoy
4. Switch legs to stretch the other side.

This stretch feels great and is fun to do. As far as I have been able to determine, it is good for the shoulder (as long as you don't fall on it or do something not intended in this stretch).

Hold weight on your hand and forearm muscles instead of only mashing your wrists back to keep this move a good strengthen for the wrist, which is often needed to prevent wrist pain.

This fun exercise improves balance and is effective to improve your ability to hold body positioning steady - two important skills for health. Use your muscles to hold your torso straight, without letting it sag and sway.

Have fun and develop fun healthy movement with this combination stretch, balance exercise, and strengthener. This stretch and others for all ability levels is in the book Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier.

Labels: arm, balance, hip, leg stretch, strength, stretch, wrist

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Tax Stretch

The tax filing date is coming in a few days in the United States. Bending forward over a desk is a common source of sore neck and upper back.

A nice stretch for the upper back is to stretch back.

Stretching back reduces pressure on (unloads) the discs. A little about why bending forward loads the discs is in Disc Pain - Not a Mystery, Easy to Fix and Are You Making Your Exercise Unhealthy? Stretching back also is nice for the muscles.

Keep it simple. Breathe. Don't stress.

Labels: fix pain, holiday, neck, stress, stretch, upper back

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Nice Neck Stretch

Here is a quick stretch, helpful after long sitting or working. It stretches the neck, upper body, and side of the body, helping restore muscle length to tight muscles.

• Put one hand behind you, as if in an opposite back pocket (photo at right).
• Slide the other hand down your leg toward your knee. Breathe.
• Tilt your head toward your shoulder, gently stretching the entire side of your neck and body.
• For best stretch to the side of the neck, look forward, rather than up or down.
• Don't lean your head or body forward or you will lose the stretch. Stand straight.
• Hold for a few seconds.
• Change sides and repeat on the other side. Smile. Keep breathing.

To tell if you are standing straight, do the stretch with your back against a wall. Keep the back of your head against the wall for the entire stretch. If it is not comfortable to stand against a wall with your shoulders, backside, and the back of your head all touching at once, do the pectoral stretch in Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain. You can check for the upper body tightness that makes it uncomfortable to stand straight - Thumbs Can Show Tightness That Leads to Upper Back Pain.

Use this stretch, called the trapezius stretch, along with the pectoral stretch to restore healthy positioning to the upper body. Rounded upper body position while lifting contributes to shoulder trouble, explained in Upper Back Exercise and Neck Pain Prevention Too.

With good positioning you can lift more and avoid injury.

More good, quick stretches in the book Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier.

Labels: fix pain, neck, posture, side, stretch, upper back

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Why You Need Toe Stretches

When you take your shoes off and stand up, do your toes turn upward by themselves, as in the photo at right? That is usually from tightness in the top of the foot. You can often see the tight, string-like tendons on the top of the foot pulling the toes back. Do your toes face outward (toward the little toes) when your foot is facing straight forward (same photo). A sideways -shift is common, not only from tight shoes, but can be produced from how you walk, step after step, year after year.

Toes deform into unhealthful positions in common ways:

• Shoes: Tight shoes fold and shift toes out of place. Heeled shoes push toes upward. When toes are held in one position too much, the muscles tighten and don't go back to normal length.
• How You Use Foot Muscles: Many people do not use muscles in their feet or toes when they walk. They just clomp. The muscles that normally work to pull toes and forefoot downward during the weight-bearing phase never engage properly. The toes stretch upward during push-off, but not downward.
• Positioning: If you walk with feet facing outward, the "push-off" phase is on the side of the big toe instead of the bottom of the foot. After years of being pushed toward the other toes, the big toe eventually tightens into the new shifted position.

Good reasons to stretch toes:

• Healthy spacing avoids fungus like Athlete's foot, calluses and other injuries from rubbing, and improves needed movement.
• Toes need to move through a full range up and down, and independently from each other, for balance, preventing several causes of foot pain, and for quicker, healthier movement ability. Feet are not just blocks to clomp around on.
• You can avoid toes that curl, hook, hammer, face different directions, or push sideways into bunions.

Try these easy stretches:

• Take your toes in your hands and bend them all downward, to stretch the top of your foot.
• Take your toes in your hands and bend them all upward, enough to feel a nice stretch in the bottom of your foot, not just the toes.
• Pull each toe apart from the next.
• Pull the little and big toes away from each other at once, restoring healthy width to the front of the foot.
• Pull any toes that are bent-up until they are back downward. Pull bent-down areas gently straight, and pull curled toes straight out to restore straight length.
• See the post Healthy Toe Stretches for fun foot stretches.

Stretch deformed, squashed toes with your hands several times every day, or at least at night and in the morning, or when exercising or stretching. Reduce the need to stretch them back to health in the first place. Walk with feet (and knees) facing straight ahead. Wear shoes with room in the toes. Tight shoes are not healthy. Unhealthy shoes are not beautiful.

Labels: feet, fix pain, gait, posture, shoes, stretch, toes

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Are Your Shoes Too Tight?

It is often taught that tight or snug shoes are needed for "support." However, tight shoes are not healthy for many reasons, or even needed. The posts Arch Support Is Not From Shoes and Which Shoes Help Exercise, Fall Prevention, and Ankles? explain more about the myth that support is from shoes.

Shoes worn snugly "for support" cause frequent problems. If your toes fit together like puzzle pieces or do not face straight ahead, as in the photo at left, it is likely that you frequently wear shoes that are too tight.

There should be space between each toe, and each toe should face straight forward, not turned toward either side (photo below right).



If you need toe separators (a soft foam device for separating toes) to paint your toenails, your toes are too tight and bunched together. Toes that are bunched together need regular stretching to separate them. Take your toes in your hands and gently pull them apart. Some of my patients use those toe separators to wear to bed. That is all right to start, but instead of only treating the result of a tightness problem, it is best to correct the problem with simple stretching before deformity progresses to the point where it is difficult to fix:

• Pull your toes away from each other with your hands.
• Straighten each toe gently.
• Make sure all toes separate and can wiggle.
• Practice wiggling your toes.
• Don't wear shoes that push your toes together or keep them from moving.
• Avoid tight socks and stockings - "tight" is anything that presses your toes together.
• When standing, don't tighten or clench your toes against the floor or each other. Don't press toes into the ground to balance so much that they buckle and bend. Keep your weight distributed over your entire foot, including your heel. Notice if you rock forward to the ball of your foot when standing.
• Take off shoes and all hosiery every day and let toes get sunlight and air.
• When you exercise and walk, make sure you do not walk "toe-out." Turning the feet outward, sometimes called "duck-foot" used to be thought the normal direction of the fibers and muscles. Now it is known that both feet should be able to comfortably face straight ahead.

Toes do many wonderful things for balance, walking, ability to jump and move quickly, for the shock absorption important to your hip, and more. See the post Healthy Toe Stretches for foot stretches. The next post will give fun stretches specifically for tight toes.

Labels: feet, fix pain, gait, injury, shoes, stretch, sunlight, toes

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Human Growth Hormone

Actor Sylvester Stallone made news this week for being found with the drug Jintropin. Jintropin is a brand name for the drug growth hormone (GH).

Growth hormone is naturally made in the pituitary gland of your brain. It does several things, including stimulating protein to make muscle. Various bodybuilders and athletes get injections of synthetic growth hormone hoping to get bigger. Actors and models use growth hormone injections to look more muscular and lean, and some cosmetic procedure doctors promote it as a drug against various signs of aging. Growth hormone use is not yet detectable by drug testing.

In children, one function of growth hormone is to stimulate bone lengthening. When the pituitary doesn't produce enough, children don't grow enough, causing one form of dwarfism. Occasionally, with too much, a child can grow to a giant. An adult taking growth hormone will not increase long bone length, so cannot get taller. Instead the forehead, hands, feet, and jaw may elongate.

Growth hormone "doping" is expensive, and must be done for a long time before results occur. For bigger results, some bodybuilders and athletes combine, or "stack," growth hormones with anabolic steroids (body building hormones). Some users add the dangerous practice of injecting insulin in combination with growth hormone (and/or steroids) for bigger muscles, more veins showing, and the appearance of exceptionally thin skin, looking as if shrink-wrapped over the muscle (believed a desirable look by some). Insulin doping can cause serious, long-term illnesses.

Growth hormone use does not seem to cause the serious health problems produced by steroids (as far as known). Problems from GH can include joint pain, wrist pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, joint swelling, facial swelling, facial elongation, and increased blood pressure. Using large doses can decrease thyroid function and increase risk of diabetes. Sadly, users may think these are signs of aging, so they take more growth hormone believing it will stop this "aging." If the user already has cancer, it can increase growth of the tumor. Growth is what this hormone does. There is no need for too much of it.

Growth hormone is naturally produced in your body all your life. Older people produce less growth hormone, but they still produce it. Some advertising for GH tries to persuade that older people are somehow at a disadvantage without a lot. Remember that older people (above the age range of puberty) need less because they are not growing, although they still need enough for strength and tissue repair.

Aging alone is not what makes you not have enough growth hormone. Four main practices reduce your body's levels:

• Lack of exercise. That makes sense, because without exercise your muscles, bones, and other tissues have no reason to rebuild; you aren't using them, after all.
• High blood sugar from dietary sources - such as eating too much and eating junk food.
• Already high levels. Your body reduces its growth hormone levels if it already has too much. Growth hormone stimulates your liver and other tissues to secrete "insulin-like growth factor-I" (IGF-I), which is the real factor behind most of the effects of growth hormone. Having high blood levels of IGF-I decreases secretion of growth hormone as a normal regulatory function.
• Anti-inflammatory and immune-suppressive medicines called glucocorticoids (such as prednisone, dexamethasone, and hydrocortisone). Ongoing dosage with these can lead to osteoporosis, muscle weakness, delayed wound healing, and increased infection risk. This should be kept in mind by people taking them for injuries and pain.
  

How do you get more natural growth hormone in healthy amounts without side effects? Three main agents stimulate GH secretion:

• Exercise. Getting exercise in healthful ways, described throughout Fitness Fixer blog posts, boosts GH at all ages.
• Deep sleep. With good exercise, you will sleep well at night too.
• Low levels of sugar in your blood. It is shown that both high fat and high refined-sugar diets increase blood sugar. It is not rocket science to eat less junk and more fruit and vegetables to be healthier and to lower high blood sugar.

Related Fitness Fixer:
There is more to growth, metabolizing fat, or building muscle than taking hormones. Click these posts on safe "natural" training for a healthy muscular body:

• Get Muscles for Christmas
• Getting Stronger Without a Gym

Books:

• My book Healthy Martial Arts has a chapter on performance enhancing foods and substances, good and bad, and chapters on effective fun exercise, stretch, and improvement for body and mind. Not just for martial artists, it is for everyone who wants to move in healthier ways.
• Health & Fitness THIRD ed (How to Be Healthy Happy and Fit for the Rest of your Life) covers easy ways to have healthier fun, nutrition, health, and functional movement during ordinary daily life, and avoid pain without drugs or surgery.

Coming Next: Rocky IV and Healthier Exercise.

Labels: drugs, fix pain, martial arts, nutrition, osteoporosis, performance enhancing modality, stretch

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Stretching With a Friend - Partner Pectoral Stretch

The posts Quick, Feel-Good Upper Back and Chest Stretch and Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain showed two ways to stretch your upper body in the way most needed - backward, not forward. Today's post gives the same great-feeling, healthful stretch for two, the Partner Pectoral Stretch:

1. Stand back-to-back, as in the photo, arms outstretched, hands comfortably linked, thumbs face upward.
2. Don't lean back, arch your back, or jut your neck forward. Stand straight.
3. One partner gently pulls arms forward, while the second partner allows their arms to stretch backward, letting the chest muscles stretch (left-hand photo).
4. The idea is not to yank the second partner's shoulder at the joint. Allow the front chest muscles to lengthen. It should only feel good.
5. Hold for a few seconds while breathing easily, then switch so the second partner who just stretched arms backward, pulls arms forward to stretch the first partner (right hand photo).

Valentine's week Fitness Fixer posts on sharing health began with a fun lower body exercise in Partner Leg Press. Tuesday linked to doing healthier massage. Wednesday told about a sincere meaning of Valentine's Day - teaching a neighbor how to quickly stop painful, frightening back pain and sciatica.

Valentine's day doesn't have to be one day, then forgotten about. It can be the start of healthy interaction between any people and for yourself, for every day, which is the idea of "Fitness as a Lifestyle."


More partner stretches and exercises in the book Healthy Martial Arts

Labels: arm, chest, fix pain, holiday, partner exercise, stretch, upper back

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Making Thai Massage Healthier Part II - Avoid Snapping Elbows or Knees Backward

The previous two posts told a little about Thai massage and some of the benefits and pitfalls.

Some massage practioners say that Thai massage is an "energy-based" system, not a physical one. However, there are direct physical moves that bring direct physical change, both good and bad.

Many of the stretches of Northern style Thai massage can be helpful to restore length to tight muscles so that you can restore healthy body positioning. For example, in the photo at left, the legs are lifted upward so that the front of the hip is gently stretched. The practitioner puts their foot on the back of the the person's hip to prevent the lower back from being overly-arched by the stretch and to concentrate the stretch more on the front hip muscles. This is a beneficial stretch because the front of the hip is often tight from long sitting and faulty standing positioning. This Thai massage stretch restores length to the front hip muscles.

There are a few moves that are usually better to skip. Some practitioners may straighten your elbow or knee too quickly and too much, sometimes adding a forceful snap. The elbow and knee joints are not shaped to hyper-extend. Hyperextension means to go more than a normally straight position. Hyperextending the knee or elbow can damage the joint and strain the cartilage. In the photo, the knees are bending normally.

It is not usually healthful to snap a joint, especially repeatedly over time, to reach the end of its range of motion. Although many of us learned to do this in massage school, and were taught that the snapping and hyperextending motion has benefits, it is better to skip joint snapping, and do other moves that have benefit without harm.

Next:
Keeping Thai Massage Healthy Part III - Should You Do "The Blood Stop?"

Previous Fitness Fixer Posts on Thai Massage:
Changing Thai Massage to Be Healthier Part I - Avoid Pressuring Lower Back Discs
What is Thai Massage?

Labels: elbow, hip, knee, massage, stretch

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Better Hip Stretch - Check Your Ankles

We are on the long trip south to Malaysia. The next posts will tell the interesting story of why. The previous post Unhealthy Yoga Ankles showed how you can reduce the good stretch on the hip and increase a bad stretch on the ankles by letting your ankle bend inward instead of keeping the ankle joint straight when sitting cross legged.

Look at the photo, at left, of the good positioning of the people, sitting to chat, in the morning of the overnight train ride. Besides their good upright sitting positioning, note the straight ankle position. They do not turn the outside of ankle, but get the needed stretch to sit with knees out, from the hip - a better stretch.

Good positioning is common in people of all ages here in Asia. People of all ages, even aged people, sit easily this way to eat, travel, or read the paper. Fitness as a lifestyle is not difficult and does not require exercise machines or gyms or trainers.

Related Fitness Fixer:

• Spot and avoid overstretching the outside of the ankle - Fast Fitness - Develop Ankle Stability Sense While Stretching.

Labels: ankle, hip, leg stretch, posture, sitting, stretch

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Unhealthy Yoga Ankles

Just as there are foods that are bad for you, and just as some common medicines have side effects to make you sicker instead of better, there are several yoga moves that injure directly or predispose you to later injury. This is true, not just for people who overdo the pose, or who are inexperienced, but because the move itself is inherently unhealthy.

When you sit cross-legged, don't let your ankles turn upward, as in the left-side photo, above left. By turning the ankle, you diminish the stretch on your hip and inner leg muscles, and put an unhealthy stretch force on the outside of your ankle. The outside of the ankle is not supposed to stretch much; it is supposed to hold your ankle straight so that it does not turn when you stumble. Overstretching the outside of your ankle is one of a few bad habits that predispose you to ankle sprains. Future posts will cover more on stopping ankle pain and sprains, and will give fun ways to strengthen your ankles. For now, try this when sitting cross legged:

• Straighten your ankles, as in the right-hand photo above. Preventing the bending will stop overstretching the outer ligaments and you will get more and better stretch in your hip. The hip stretch is better because the turning of the leg has to come from the hip, instead of keeping the hip raised and tight, but bending up from the ankle.
  
• Sit upright and straight. Don't round your back, not even a small amount.
• Lift your chest to sit straight instead of sitting rounded.
  
• If your hip is so tight that you cannot comfortably sit upright and straight, put both hands behind you to lean your weight on your hands and push yourself upright (right photo, above).
• You will feel more stretch, and practice better habits by sitting up straight than by leaning forward with your back and shoulders rounded.

If you get recurring ankle sprains, check to see if you are ensuring that your problem continues through the bad habit of overlengthening the outside of your ankle. Check if you sit poorly to do this stretch with your back rounded and hip curled under because you are too tight to sit in a healthful position. Sitting rounded puts huge herniating force on the lumbar (lower back) discs. Putting your hands behind you to straighten you takes weight off your lower back discs, and gives you a good hip stretch as you regain straight positioning.

As more people try to fix their health problems through medical exercise programs and yoga classes, it is good to make sure not to do things that make new health problems and perpetuate old ones.

Photos from the book Healthy Martial Arts

Labels: ankle, injury, sitting, stretch, yoga

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Healthy Toe Stretches

Don't forget to stretch your toes. You need mobile toes for balance, healthy walking mechanics, and foot health.

Every day, take your feet in your hands and stretch your toes apart side to side, easily and comfortably. Make sure all your toes can move apart from each other, and that each one moves up and down. It is not healthy for your toes to remain stuck together and not moving.

Sitting in various ways can be a built-in stretch for the toes. If you sit on your heels, as in the photo at left, or kneel on your hands and knees with toes curled under you, or when you are sitting in your chair right now, see if you can bend your foot behind you and still touch all your toes to the floor - even your little toes. Don't force toes to bend, just gently see if they all reach the floor. After stretching your toes back (toward the top of your foot) bend them all down toward the bottom of your foot. Many people, particularly people who wear heeled shoes wind up with toes that are bent upward all the time. The tendons on the top of the foot can shorten from keeping the toes bent up, and the toes can get stuck in a pulled-up position. Future posts will cover more on stretching your feet for mobility, pain control, and health.

When you sit, as in the photo above, see if you can rise to a stand without pushing off the floor with your hands or bracing your hands against your leg or knee. Just use your leg muscles and get a strength and balance exercise while you get a nice stretch on the bottom of your feet.

The photo was taken when I studied a medicine course in Cambodia. Before and after classes you practice respect, concentration, and self-discipline. While you do this, you get a lot of physical exercise - it is commonplace for people of any age to kneel without using hands for anything except to hold the candles, flowers, and incense, and to rise the same way. The photo was taken in the middle of bowing, so I am not fully straightened yet. The nun is laughing. My Cambodian is so bad that I made her laugh. I think that is good exercise and good medicine too.

Photo by Paul

Labels: ankle, arches, balance, feet, fix pain, gait, leg strength, orthotics, pronation, shoes, spirit, squat, strength, stretch, toes

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More Fun Squatting

The previous post, Achilles Stretch in the Bathroom, explains how and why the squat is a functional lifestyle exercise, good to stretch the Achilles tendon and get strong, shapely leg muscles. By keeping both heels down and your weight off the front of your foot, it can be safe for the knees. The large amount of built-in leg exercise you get from routinely sitting and rising from sitting this way strengthens the hip, thigh, and knees.

At the left is a photo of a sign that is common here in Asia. The sign instructs people who are accustomed to squatting how to use the strange seat. The drawing marked with an X shows someone standing with both feet on the seat and squatting over the bowl. That is marked as incorrect use. The user is instructed to sit touching the seat. I asked some of the locals what they thought of the "sit and touch the seat" method. They shuddered, pointing out how silly that was.

Beside strengthening and stretching the legs, squatting is a cleaner way to sit, since only your feet touch the surface. It is common to see people waiting for a bus at the street curb, sitting, not with their behind on the curb, but sitting in a squat so that only their feet touch.

Squat toilets vary, but are often clean. You leave your shoes outside and wear bath shoes. Even some public toilets have public rubber shoes thoughtfully provided.

Western sit-down fixtures are becomming more common, as more wealthy tourists demand them and locals adopt less physical lifestyles. Our friends living here told us the story of a family who decided to convert their shining clean indoor squat facility to Western plumbing. They purchased a standard raised bowl and seat. They left on a short tip while a workman installed it. When they returned, the man was proud of his installation. He excitedly told the people it had been strange at first, but he did a fine job. He led the people to his finished work and said that at first he was puzzled by the height of it, but figured out to dig a deep hole. He buried the new, shiny toilet exactly up to the seat to become the familiar floor level.

Related posts on full squats:
Save Knees When Squatting
Achilles Stretch in the Bathroom

Related posts on half squats:
Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending.

Labels: achilles stretch, fix pain, knee, leg strength, leg stretch, squat, stretch

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Achilles Stretch in the Bathroom

In the airport, an obvious tourist arriving here in Asia proudly waved a travel pack of toilet seat covers and claimed to be ready for the germs of travel. Another tourist nearby announced that it was a problem for him that women couldn't go to the bathroom outdoors. I asked him why he thought they couldn't. He said it was because they can't stand up to go, and someone needed to invent a tray so that they could. I asked him if men sat to pass their bowels. He seemed surprised when he realized that everyone does natural things the same way. Both men and women have been sitting to "go" for thousands of years before plumbing and raised seats were invented.

All over Asia, Africa, India, the South Sea continents and islands, and even in places in Europe and the Americas, men, women, and children routinely and easily sit in full squat to eat, wait, talk on the phone, rest, relax, wash, and do other activities of life. The tourist with her seat covers may quickly find that squatting is cleaner than touching a seat. Many people who first encounter Western sit-down plumbing think it is unclean and barbaric. The squat is a functional and excellent leg strengthener and Achilles tendon stretch. People in their 80s and older who routinely squat have strong legs and healthy good knees, and can easily rise from the floor.

Would you like to try the squat? (Use your brain to be safe to try things or not, if you have damaged knees):

• Keep both heels down (right drawing) as you bend both knees, which protects your knees.
• One way to practice the squat if your Achilles tendons are too tight, is to hold something in front of you, like a counter or sink, and bend both knees as much as you can with both heels down.
  
• While holding the support in front of you, lean back with both arms straight so that your weight stays over your whole foot and heels, which moves your weight off your knee joints and back onto your leg muscles.
• Try to balance and sit without holding on. If you find yourself falling backward, or if your heels come up (left drawing), it is likely that your Achilles tendons are too tight for this normal activity. Put one or both hands behind you to lean on (not in the squat bathroom but just to practice).

Every time you bend around the house, use a small squat with both heels down, described in Bending Right is Fitness as a Lifestyle and Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending. You will strengthen your thighs and hip, develop healthful bending that stops knee pain, strengthen your shins, and stretch your Achilles tendons each time. As this routing bending strengthens and stretches your legs, progress to lower and lower bending until you can comfortably sit in a squat. Have fun.

Drawing of Backman!™ © copyright Dr. Jolie Bookspan. Read more fun and functional stretching in the book Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier

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Labels: achilles stretch, balance, knee, leg strength, leg stretch, squat, stretch

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Exercise and Stretch for Long Travel Sitting

We have just gotten home to Thailand after over 40 hours of flights. It would have taken longer to walk here, so we are happy. We unfolded husband Paul, just under seven feet tall, from the seat. During the next month and a half we will travel on 14-hour overnight trains and ferries to places we need to be. Paul will practice good bending almost everywhere as he tries to fit under low Asian doorways, roofs, and bus ceilings, bow lower than the old people, and stand and sit with his head lower than the head of the monks, as is respectful.

Most people sit a great deal even without long travel. Sitting puts higher pressure on the back and spine than standing. Long sitting pressures the back far more. Sitting also means keeping the hip bent forward at the crease of the leg. The muscles in front of the hip shorten and tighten. When most people exercise, their exercise is usually more bending forward. The result for most people is that the hip stays bent almost all the time. Much tightness results that prevents normal hip function, and reinforces the same tight, bent positioning that is so hard on the spine.

Long airline flights sometimes provide a video or printed message encouraging in-seat exercise and stretching. Often the advice is forward bending. That is the last thing most people needs. Instead, try the following:

• Stretch your back and shoulders backward, not forward. Pull your chin in while pushing your upper back backward against the seat back. Stretch arms overhead. Breathe.
• Lean the back of your head and upper back against the seat, press your feet on the floor, and raise your hips, trying to straighten your hip at the "crease" of the leg. Don't bend your neck forward; leep it straight. You will feel your thigh and hip muscles working to do this.
• Turn in your seat to each side to brace your elbow against the seat back for the pectoral stretch, shown in Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain.
• Stretch the back of your legs by straightening your knees and pulling your toes back using your shin muscles.
• Increase leg circulation by pressing both feet against each other, then cross your ankles and pull both feet outward against each other, then cross your ankles the other way and repeat. Try it again with both legs out in fron, as in the stretch above.
• Get out of your seat as often as you can. Restore length to the front of your hip with the hip-tilt quadriceps stretch shown in Instantly Better Hip and Quadriceps Stretch.
• With one foot far in front of you and the other in back (lunge position) tip your hip under you to stretch the front of your hip. As soon as you tilt your hip under, you will feel the difference. While holding the hip tilt, bend both knees to dip straight down almost to the floor, then up. Do many, then switch legs and do many more.
• It is easy and unobtrusive to do wall stretches while waiting for the rest room: Rest your head, heels, hip, and upper back against the wall, described in the post Breasts Causing Upper Back Pain is a Myth. Bring both arms overhead, hands touching the wall. Lean your body far to one side then the other. Keep both hands touching the wall. When Paul does this one, his head is often either against the ceiling or he can't stand up fully at all, depending on the type of aircraft. He bends knees and grasps each elbow overhead, keeping elbows touching the wall behind him. For other people short enough to fit standing up, just stand straight.
• Then stand a step away from the wall and stretch arms overhead and back to touch the wall, fingers pointing downward. Straighten elbows as much as comfortable and keep the stretch coming from your upper back, not lower back.

Click labels under this post for more on each topic.
More stretches in the book Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier.

Labels: circulation, fix pain, hip, leg strength, leg stretch, lower back, sitting, stretch, upper back

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Quick, Feel-Good Upper Back and Chest Stretch

Today 37 new students were waiting when I came in to teach yoga. I was their New Year's Resolution. Most were sitting bent over forward, rounding their back to stretch. When I walked through the gym to get to the teaching room, I walked past a gym full of New Year's Resolutions, all bent over forward straining to stretch, bent over their stair machine and bent over their treadmill. They were lying on the floor face-up rounding forward and they were standing bent over, face-down. Many were doing The Stretch You Need The Least. Everyone looked like the same unhealthful, bent-over posture that you already know causes back pain if you do it over your computer and steering wheel. I mentioned that bending over forward to stretch and exercise, although popular, and ingrained, and dogmatically and almost universally taught, is not what they needed.

Previous posts have shown how this bending does not give the best exercise or stretch: Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch and Common Exercises Teach Bad Bending, and is not healthy during daily life: How Often Should You Be Healthy? and promotes the same bad bent forward habits you started with that cause pain: Breasts Causing Upper Back Pain is a Myth.

What is needed is to get used to holding the body in healthful straighter ways during daily life and during exercise and stretching. In the post Better Achilles Tendon Stretch I showed how to get a better leg stretch without bending forward. Following is a nice upper spine stretch you can do while lying down to relax. Try this:

• Lie on your back over a pillow or an article of clothing comfortably placed under your upper back between your shoulder blades. Start with your hands by your sides.
• If this hurts, stop and see what to do in the following three paragraphs.
• Don't put the pillow under your head or neck, just your upper back.
  
• Let your upper back drop backward toward the floor.
• Notice the feeling of the upper spine no longer rounding forward.
• Relax and breathe. The stretch should feel good.
• To increase the stretch, bring both arms by your ears. You should be able to raise your arms without arching your lower back or feeling pinching in the shoulder.

If you are not able to lie on your back without lower back pain, the usual reason is tightness in the front hip muscles. Do the Instantly Better Hip and Quadriceps Stretch on each leg to loosen the front of the hip.

If you are not able to lie on your back without upper back or neck pain, the usual reason is tightness in the front chest muscles and over rounding in the upper back. Do the pectoral (chest muscle) stretch described in Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain.

If you have osteoporosis check with your doctor before doing the pillow stretch. One of the intended benefits of this stretch is to help prevent the rounding that contributes to the tendency to fracture already thin bones.

Many people spend so much of their life rounding forward, that their spine loses the mobility to bend backward, or even, in many cases to straighten enough to just lie flat and stand straight. The point of this stretch is to "unround" the upper spine and get it to relax and extend backward (arch safely) in the other direction. This stretch helps to "undo" the constant forward rounding that tightens the upper body and contributes to many pain syndromes. It is important to regain the normal flexibility to be able to straighten the upper spine enough to stand and sit and exercise in healthful straight position.

Drawing copyright from the book Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier

Labels: chest, fix pain, neck, shoulder, stretch, upper back, yoga

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New Year's Resolutions

This spring I will be offering two opportunities to learn breakthrough techniques in person to fix pain, and get stronger and more flexible. People come from all over and have a fun time.

The spring workshops are "Fix Your Own Back Pain - Medical Breakthroughs in Non-Surgical Treatment" and "Stretches That Help, Stretches That Harm."

In the fun, active back pain workshop, learn to get rid of neck, back, and hip pain and keep it from coming back. You will fix the causes of neck pain, back pain, sciatica, herniated and degenerating discs, stenosis, lordosis, facet pain and other problems right in class. In the stretch workshop you will learn about the many common stretches that harm your joints or don't improve flexibility, and innovative stretches to do instead. You will learn how to not get stiff and sore in the first place:

1. On April 21 2007, we will run both workshops in one full, fast-moving day at Temple University Ambler/Ft Washington campus in Ambler, Pennsylvania. Fix Your Back Pain will run 9:30am to 2pm, and "Stretches That Harm" will run from 2:30 to 4:30pm. Contact Rhonda Geyer, Director, by email or phone (215) 283-1304. Out-of-towners can have a fun Saturday in class and stay to visit Philadelphia on Sunday. Tourist info at www.goPhila.com.
2. For a slower pace, come to Temple University at the Center City campus in downtown Philadelphia to attend just the Back pain workshop, held over two Saturdays March 3 and 10, 2007. Each class is held from 9am-11:30am. This is one class divided over two sessions. Plan to attend both days. To register e-mail Kevin Wood Director, or call (215) 204-6565.

Links to register for both classes on-line plus more class info are on my web site page for CLASSES. Both workshops are a combination of fun and fast-moving audiovisual lecture and non-strenuous physical practice. Both classes are suitable for the out-of-shape as well as the athlete. Wear comfortable ordinary clothing. If you have to change your clothes to fix pain and move and stretch in healthy ways during normal life, how are you supposed to have an ongoing normal life without pain?

Come prepared to have fun and stretch your brain.

Labels: disc, education, fix pain, holiday, stretch

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Getting Stronger Without a Gym

I often hear from trainers, and read in exercise books, that you cannot get stronger without lifting weights. They say that body weight is not enough. Then I watch the trainers and read what the exercise books say to do to strengthen. Often the weights they teach to lift are far lighter than the resistance your muscles get from moving your own body during a real life activity.

I see women in exercise classes lifting little two and five pound hand weights, then bend over wrong to put the weights down and bend over wrong again to hoist up their 20-pound handbag. I see knee pain patients in rehab centers with two and three-pound weights strapped on their ankle, sitting down to do little leg raises. Or, they pull stretchy bands with their leg. Then they get up and walk away with injurious body mechanics, letting their knees and ankles sag inward because they are not using their leg muscles to stop it. The unhealthy sagging grinds away joint cartilage and prevents full use of the leg muscles. They don't understand why their knees, ankles, and feet still hurt even when they "Do their exercises."

Your body weight is the most important thing you need to lift. Following are things to start with, to strengthen without a gym or equipment. The main idea of these activities is not to "do" them as an exercise 10 times, but to use them to retrain your muscles how to hold your body in healthy position, then use that healthy positioning for all daily life:

1. Hold a pushup position, called the plank, described in the post Change Common Exercises to Get Better Ab Exercise and Stop Back Pain. Understand that the point of the plank is to learn how to hold your spine straight without sagging under your body weight. I see people doing the plank all the time in gyms and fitness classes, with their bottom hiked up in the air and their low back looking like a hammock, sinking under their body weight. That is not the normal lower back curve. It is injurious overarching. Done poorly this way, the plank does little to strengthen and just pressures your lower back. Done well, the plank is excellent to strengthen your wrist. The wrist is neglected in fitness, and the resulting weakness is a common source of injury. I will post more about wrists. Do the plank every day - that is how helpful and important it is. If you can't even hold up your own body weight, you may have serious weakness.

2. Use the squat for daily bending, described in the post How Good Would You Look From 400 Squats a Day - Just Stop Unhealthy Bending. The point is to use this healthy bending all the time instead of bending wrong. In posts to come, I will show another way for healthy bending using a lunge position with one leg in front and the other in back.

3. If you can't sit and rise from the floor without your hands, you are too weak and tight for ordinary daily life. Try Quick and Easy Strength and Balance Exercise. Also practice getting up from your chair (safely) without using your hands or leaning forward.

4. Stand to put on your hosiery, pants, and shoes: Better Balance by Christmas.

5. Hang from a chining bar, a branch, a pipe, a doorjamb, or any secure overhead. Don't worry if you cannot do full pull-ups, just hold on and hang. When you can do that, hang for as long as you can from a bent-arm position, and begin trying to raise yourself (do a pull-up). Maybe you will need to start by stepping up on a box to help raise yourself, and letting yourself slowly lower without using the box. Work up to full pull-ups. If that is easy, use fewer fingers to hold on.

6. Try the Quick and Fun Arm and Body Strengthener.

When the above body weight activities become too easy, do them carrying functional weight, such packages, children, books, and other common things. It is crucial to health and independence to be able to lift and move your own body weight. In posts to come I will show you how to do more with these body weight activities for more strength and fun being active. Until then, do these every day and send your photos and stories of how you got stronger and happier.

Make it your New Year's Resolutions to be strong for real life in real ways.


Photo by quailwood

Labels: abdominal muscles, achilles stretch, aging, arm, balance, fix pain, hamstring, hand, knee, leg press, leg strength, leg stretch, lower back, practice of medicine, shoulder, side, squat, strength, stretch, upper back

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Getting Stronger is for Everyone

I received several e-mails from people who tried the Quick and Fun Arm and Body Strengthener in the previous post. Readers were happy with their new-found understanding that being able to hold up their own body weight is important, empowering, healthy, and fun. They wanted to know more about the benefits.

Strength training isn't just for big guys in a gym. You need strength to lift and carry things around the house and workplace, to lift packages, children, groceries, and yourself easily rather than struggle. By increasing strength, you can do daily activities more easily, and reduce your chance of injury while doing it. Strengthening is important to reduce, even reverse, many characteristics often mistaken for aging, Becoming weak, unsteady, and slow is not aging. Are you as active as previously? It is a simple example of "use or lose."

At the ACSM New York conference on aging earlier this month, experts explained how it used to be thought that rates of protein synthesis, meaning how much protein your body uses to rebuild itself, decline with aging. However, it is not aging, but disuse. When experimental groups of people in their 70s began being active again, their rates of protein synthesis became comparable to the groups of 30-year-olds.

In my lecture at the aging conference, I told how the common perception of not being able to get up from the floor is not aging; it is the need to regain the strength and balance to do it. Part of my lecture explained how elderly and debilitated people who could not previously lift themselves out of their chairs become more mobile from daily movement that strengthens, allowing them to get up and walk again. Everyone needs the strength to lift their own body weight up from the floor, from bed, and out of chairs. With strengthening, may people who previously needed walkers and canes, sometimes even wheelchairs, could walk unaided again, and stop needing many medicines.

Using muscles is a key part of osteoporosis prevention. The pull of muscle against bone thickens the bone. The stronger a muscle, the more it can pull on the bones it attaches to when you use it. Without exercise, you lose bone no matter how much calcium you eat. Even a young person in a cast loses bone from simple disuse.

Even people who don't do activities commonly regarded as needing strength, do daily activities like carrying grocery bags, a suitcase for travel, or a squirmy child. When your arms are weak, you are more likely to lean back to carry things on front of you, shifting the weight to your lower back. You should be able to carry everything you want without leaning back or to the side, no matter whether it is a child on one hip or grocery bags carried in front in both arms, or both. You should be able to carry a shoulder bag or knapsack on your back without leaning your body forward.

Strength is important for everyone. You don't need a gym or trainer to get stronger. You don't need to change clothes. You don't need to buy equipment. Several posts of this blog have shown how to move with healthy positioning. The next post will list several ways to use that healthy positioning to strengthen your body more each day.

Labels: aging, fix pain, osteoporosis, strength, stretch

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Quick and Fun Arm and Body Strengthener

Upper body strength is important for health, making daily activities easier, and other benefits including preventing osteoporosis of the upper back and wrist, two major sites of bone loss in both men and women. It is often said in gyms and fitness articles that body weight is not enough to strengthen, and that you need weights and equipment. Fortunately, that is not true.

Here is a quick, fun, upper body strengthener using your own body weight. It has the added advantages of also strengthening core muscles plus training a fair amount of balance. It also gives many benefits of a tilt table or inversion machine. You can use this fun exercise anywhere you have even a small wall space. It is fun and not as hard as it looks. Be brave, and (safely, carefully) try this:

• Stand with your back about a foot in front of a wall (face away from the wall).
• Crouch down and put both hands on the floor - drawing #1 at right.
• Put the bottom of one foot high on the wall - drawing #2.
• Lift your other leg to the wall so that you are standing on your hands with both feet up on the wall - drawing #3.
• Hold as long as you can. Keep breathing.
• When you want to come down, just step one, then both feet back down to the floor the way you started in drawing #1.

Avoid this one if you have uncontrolled high blood pressure or problems with pressure in your eyes or brain. To keep this exercise fun and safe, when you are upside down standing on your hands, don't let your lower back sag into an arch. Keep your hip tucked to straighten your back and you will get free core strengthening while you do this. Don't let your body weight pressure your shoulders. Use your upper body muscles to maintain shoulder position instead of letting your shoulder joints grind under your weight. Don't fall down on your face. Use your arm strength and hold yourself up. Keep breathing and don't tighten and strain, which increases blood pressure.

Don't think of this as an extreme exercise. It can be simple; don't be afraid to try it daily. My Grandmother "downgraded" to this one in her 90's from full handstands (without the wall), because it is easier and safer.

When this exercise becomes too easy, rock side to side so that you stand with weight first on one hand, then the other, as if walking on your hands. Keep your feet against the wall for balance, at first. When this becomes too easy, stand only on one hand for increasing periods. Start doing small dips, like upside-down pushups. Increase until you can dip your head almost to the floor, then push back up to a handstand again. Work until you no longer need the wall.

You do not need to lift big weights in a gym to strengthen. Your body weight provides fun, effective strengthening, with no machines, gyms, or extra weights needed.

Reader Tries This and Shows How To Get Started, Even if You Think You Can't:

• Wall Handstand Success With Liz

Labels: abdominal muscles, arm, balance, hamstring, hand, handstand, leg strength, leg stretch, strength, stretch, upper back, wrist

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Instantly Better Hip and Quadriceps Stretch

The purpose of the quadriceps stretch is to lengthen the front hip muscles. It is often done in ways that do not stretch the front muscles. The standing quadriceps is done by bending one knee to clasp the foot in your hand behind you (or rest it on a chair if you can't reach). If you increase the lower back arch and keep the leg bent forward at the front of the hip (top drawing at left), not much stretch occurs, and the purpose of the stretch is lost.

Instead of "doing" a stretch, get the purpose of the stretch. Try this:

• Look at the top drawing, then the second drawing at left.
• Stand and begin the stretch.
• Tuck your hip under to reduce the lower back arch, as if you are starting an "abdominal crunch."
• Don't curl your upper body forward; just tuck the lower body at the hip.
• When you tuck the hip correctly, you will immediately feel the stretch move to your thigh.
• Straighten your arm away from your body and push your knee downward and backward.
• Allow your lower back to arch again, and you will immediately notice the stretch will lesson or stop.
  
• Tuck your hip under again and you will feel the stretch return to the front of your thigh.

I have seen a poster hanging in various gyms of "dos and don'ts for exercise and stretch." The poster shows this quadriceps stretch and says you should not pull your foot away from your body in back because that makes you arch your back. However, it is not pulling your foot away that makes you arch. You allow the arching if you do not tuck your hip - using your muscles to straighten your spine. The post Throw a Stronger Punch (or Push a Car or Stroller) Using This Back Pain Reduction Technique shows how to reposition your spine using the tucking technique. Then you can pull your foot away to increase the stretch all you want. You can control whether you arch or not.

Many people start this stretch by lifting their leg forward at the hip, bending over forward to reach their foot, then pulling the foot behind them. The point of the stretch is to lengthen the front of your hip, not bend it. Instead of bending forward to reach your foot, stand straight, lift your foot behind you, and reach back. If you are too tight to reach your foot, place it on a chair or bench behind you. Work up from there. If your balance is too poor to do this stretch, stand near something for safety, but do not hold on. You will quickly improve balance by simply practicing it. You will not improve balance by holding on.

Remember - don't "do a stretch" - do the purpose of the stretch. Use this stretch with your upper body upright and straight. Keep your hip tucked under, your shoulders down, and get a nice stretch and balance exercise in one.

Related Fitness Fixer:

• What Does Stretching Do?
• Hamstring to Quadriceps Ratios Not the Answer in Knee Injury
• Common Exercises Teach Hip Tightness When Kicking, Stretching, and on the Stairs
• Fast Fitness - Straighten and Stretch Hip While Strengthening Core, Arms, Legs, and Balance
• Fast Fitness - Don't Shorten Hip When Stretching Hamstring
  
  

Labels: abdominal muscles, balance, hip stretch, leg stretch, lower back, neutral spine, stretch

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Better Balance by Christmas

I heard a radio program about yoga for senior citizens. The yoga program directors made the usual statements about yoga helping strength and balance. Then they said something that seemed at odds with their goal. They said, "If your balance is poor, do the moves sitting down or hold on to the wall." The very thing that you need to improve your balance is to practice standing and (safely) not holding the wall. If you sit and hold on, you prevent practicing balance.

Balance that helps your normal daily life is easy to improve at any age. All you need is to stand up and balance. Balance is quickly lost with sitting and disuse.

How does balance practice help you? You have receptors in all your joints that sense positioning. They can tell if you are about to fall. They tell your body to send signals to your muscles to steady you. If you don't use your balance sensors with balance practice, they become slow and unable to sense positioning well. You may tip over far enough to fall before your receptors sense it and can tell your muscles to pull you to upright position. Balance practice also improves your muscles. Without balance practice, your muscles become too slow and weak to prevent you from tipping over and falling. If you have let yourself become tight, brittle, and weak from lack of general exercise, you may strain, tear, or break something from a fall that would not have otherwise caused any harm.

Years ago when I left working in the hospital to go into private practice in sports medicine, I found that by making house calls you learn the reasons for people's pain and injuries that you will never see in a hospital or clinic exam setting. It was the first time I ever saw anyone have to sit to put on or take off their shoes. Here are a few quick, functional (real life) ways to improve balance:

• Stand up when you put on your socks or hosiery.
• Stand up to put on your pants. Lift one leg in front of you, keep your upper body comfortably straight and upright, and slide on each pant leg.
• Stand up to put on your shoes. Try two ways: holding the foot in the air front of you to place the shoe, and by crossing the ankle on the opposite knee.
• For more balance, after putting on one sock or shoe, remain standing on one foot and do a small squat on one leg to reach the other sock or shoe on the floor.

If you can't stand to dress yourself, and you have at least one working leg, you may be too tight and weak and unsteady for healthy normal life. To get started:

• Practice standing on one foot without holding on to anything. If balance is poor stand near a wall for safety to get started and have a skilled friend help. Practice standing for 10 counts without holding on. Increase how long you can balance.
• Stand on one foot and swing the other forward and back, side to side, without holding on or touching down. Safely.
• If you use a cane, practice walking holding it off the ground. Use your brain to do this intelligently and safely to improve balance and reduce dependence on the cane.

Balance is "use or lose" and can be quickly improved with safe smart practice. You don't need to go to a gym or "do exercises." Use balance skills as part of your daily life.

For more fun and functional real life balance activities see the books Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery and Healthy Martial Arts.

Labels: achilles stretch, aging, ankle, balance, feet, fix pain, holiday, leg strength, leg stretch, practice of medicine, side, spirit, squat, strength, stretch, upper back, yoga

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Quick and Easy Strength and Balance Exercise

Several readers sent e-mails about the last post, asking about being able to sit on the floor. Many said they are so tight and weak that it is hard for them to get down, and not comfortable to sit comfortably and straight, as in the photo at left. Others wrote applauding that I am getting the message out that sitting comfortably on the floor is a normal ability, not strange or extreme.

First, don't be shy about posting replies and comments on this blog instead of e-mailing me privately. Next, sitting comfortably on the ground or floor is not an advanced athletic contortion. It is an entry-level physical ability that is crucial for normal physical function of your body.

If you don't have the stretch, strength, and balance to do this most basic of movements, you have severe weakness and tightness. It is not just people who don't exercise. I have seen aerobics instructors and personal trainers who cannot sit comfortably straight on the floor. Their hip is so tight from all the forward bending exercises they do that their hip rolls and rounds under them, which shifts their body weight to their discs and lower back. They may do artificial gym exercises, but cannot easily get down to the floor without using their hands because they have not trained movement that is useful to daily life, called functional exercise.

For a quick exercise to improve strength and balance, try this:

1. Stand up.
2. Easily and lightly, sit down on the floor without using your hands to get down.
3. Sit by crossing your ankles and lowering into a cross-legged sit, or by squatting straight down, or lightly and softly kneeling on one knee then sitting. Experiment until you can do all three ways.
4. Don't thump down hard on the floor. Use your leg muscles to lower softly with shock absorption.
5. Sit straight without rounding your back forward or curling your hip under you.
6. Stand up again without using your hands to get up.

Do this "sit and rise" exercise several times in a row. It is more useful and effective than doing little leg raises or presses in a gym. Don't be put off if you can't do this right away. Practice (safely) and you will quickly get stronger and more flexible, with better balance. When your strength improves so much from practicing sitting and rising from the floor that your body weight is not enough to give you exercise, sit and rise from the floor holding children or packages.

You can sit and rise from the floor ten times a day as an isolated exercise then spend the rest of your day sitting in a chair, but it makes more sense to sit and rise from the floor for real life. Sitting on the floor is not a strange or rare thing only done in poor villages far away. It is done in a great part of the world's countries, even in developed cities, and in our home. When you come to eat with us, you will sit at a low table on the floor by the fire. It's nice.

Sitting and rising from the floor is one of the many ways that much of the world gets built-in leg exercise and protects their hip joints from stiffening, arthritis, and bone loss. You will see grandparents easily lifting grandchildren, and other loads. They get bone-building strength, flexibility, and balance every day through their real life, and don't need to buy little machines or go to trainers to do ten little repetitions of an artificial movement. So can you.


Photo by Tupinamba, CreativeCommons

Labels: aging, balance, leg press, leg strength, leg stretch, sitting, squat, strength, stretch

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Conference on Aging Dec 2, 2006 in Midtown New York

The Greater New York Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) will hold a conference on aging on Saturday, December 2nd, 2006 at the Flatotel, 135 W. 52nd Street between 6th & 7th Avenue, in New York City.

In one fast moving day, there will be nine lectures by authorities on metabolic changes of aging, cardiovascular changes and the benefits of exercise, exercise in older patients with heart failure, neuromuscular training for the older population, psychosocial aspects, physical training for older clients with special conditions, and nutritional needs of older populations. I will be giving a lecture called "Three Quick Techniques for Three Musculoskeletal Problems Confused for Aging."

Many of the declines that come with doing less are often confused with aging. A stiff and rounded upper back, for example, is not necessarily aging, but practice. Are you sitting rounded forward reading this right now? Do you spend your day rounding over your desk and steering wheel, then go to the gym and bend forward for crunches, leg lifts, Pilates, and toe touches? Do you bend your neck down to do biceps curls? No wonder it's hard for you to straighten out. How long will you practice unhealthy bent forward position before you get stuck that way? There is no need to exercise in the very way that is not healthy when you do it sitting at your desk. There are better ways.

Much of the loss of strength and balance over the years is from disuse not aging. Many people do not use their legs for the hundreds of times each day they need to bend. They bend wrong, throwing their weight on their spine. Their back hurts and their legs and hips tighten and weaken. Eventually they find they are unable to sit comfortably on the floor, and more worryingly, cannot rise from the floor, or even from their chair without using their hands. This is debilitating weakness, and a dangerously unhealthy cycle of use or lose. It is not aging. In cultures where sitting and rising from the floor is a daily activity, people of 90 have the strength and balance to do it. They do not suffer the rates of falls, osteoporosis, arthritis, and cardiovascular disease of less active populations.

My lecture will cover three easy techniques to maintain and improve spine health and muscle strength. Come say hello. The meeting is designed for allied health practitioners, but is open to the public, with reduced registration fees for members of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) New York Chapter. Contact Felicia D. Stoler, MS, RD (732) 946-4436, or e-mail fstoler@att.net

Labels: aging, arthritis, balance, disc, education, fix pain, hip strength, knee, leg strength, leg stretch, lower back, osteoporosis, sitting, squat, strength, stress, stretch, upper back

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Bending Right is Fitness as a Lifestyle

Readers asked for more pictures of healthy bending around the house and workplace during daily life. They've been getting excited about the idea that daily life is the way to physical ability and health, instead of stopping life to do a bunch of exercises. People spend time and money for endless treatments and gadgets for back and knee pain and tight Achilles tendon. Healthy bending prevents the commonest sources of all of these.

• A major predisposing factor of knee and hip arthritis is weak thighs.
• A major risk factor of hip osteoporosis is lack of weight bearing exercise.
• A major risk factor of falls is weak legs and poor balance.
• The Achilles tendon gets a natural stretch with each time you bend right with heels down, and loses this constant normal source of stretch without good bending.
• The most important contributor to making a lumbar disc degenerate, or slip out of place (herniate), and press on nerves causing sciatica, is bad bending forward.
• The biggest contributor to upper back and neck pain is keeping the upper body rounded and bent over forward.

If you would like to reduce risk of falls, osteoporosis, bad discs, sciatica, achy upper back, and arthritis, get a built-in Achilles tendon stretch, and get strong shapely legs all at the same time, just use your legs with good body position for daily healthy bending.

Why go to the gym or to physical therapy to do knee bends to strengthen your legs, then spend your "real life" weakening your legs and degenerating your lower back discs with bad bending, and say, "I don't have time to exercise."

You will get free built-in exercise just moving in life. My friends and family in Asia are astonished when I tell them I teach Americans how to bend to look in the refrigerator, and that Americans tell me it is too much work to bend right to load dishes in a machine that washes for them. Then they pay money to go to a gym or buy equipment to exercise their legs.

Here is a fun way to change mindset to exercise as a lifestyle:

Count how many times a day you bend and how many times you can choose to harm yourself or help yourself.

If you would like to try "fitness as a lifestyle," this is the best place to start. Think of it:

1. when bending to make the bed,
2. to pick up laundry,
3. look in the refrigerator,
4. load and unload the dishwasher,
5. to pick up your shoes,
6. open a lower cabinet,
7. lift a child or pet,
8. feed a child or pet,
9. pick up things from the floor,
10. pick up hand weights to do exercise,
11. put down weights after exercising,
12. many daily activities.

Related Fitness Fixer:

• Fast Fitness - Count How Many Times You Help Or Hurt Your Body Daily
• Readers Count - Second Missed Cause of Back Pain With Golf
• How Often Should You Be Healthy?
• Better Balance by Christmas
• Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending
• How Good Would You Look From 400 Squats a Day - Just Stop Unhealthy Bending
• Common Exercises Teach Bad Bending
• Stomach Acid Drugs Increase Osteoporosis and Hip Fractures

Books:

• Learn bending, reaching, and fixing knee and back pain: Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery
  
• Get built-in lifestyle exercise, fix back and knee pain, learn health and fun at the same time: Health & Fitness in Plain English THIRD edition.

Labels: achilles stretch, arthritis, disc, fix pain, knee, leg press, leg strength, leg stretch, lower back, osteoporosis, practice of medicine, sciatica, squat, strength, stretch, upper back

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Change Daily Reaching to Get Ab Exercise and Stop Back and Shoulder Pain

When you lift your arms, do you lean back and increase the arch of your lower back? It is unhealthy body mechanics if you do - photo at right.

Arching your back to raise your arms reduces the stretch and exercise on the shoulder, and increases loading on the lower spine joints and soft tissue.

Do you arch your back to raise your arms? Try this to tell:

• Stand and reach as high as you can overhead.
• Notice if you lift your ribs and lean your upper body backward.
• Check if you stick your backside out in back, or do the opposite and push your hips forward. Both increase the lower back arch which increases load on the joints and soft tissue. You may feel a familiar pressure in the lower back.

Increasing lower back arching may occur automatically, and may seem "natural," but it is not healthy. Wetting your pants is natural too, but you have to learn to control it. To reduce the unhealthy overarching:

• While standing arched, bring ribs back down to level, and tuck your "tailbone" under you to straighten your hip.
• The motion is like doing an abdominal crunch standing up. Don't bend your upper body to the front, just "crunch" (or flex) the lower spine to reduce the overarching.
• Your lower back moves backward, and your "tailbone" tucks straight under you so it is not tilted out in back.

Now reach up overhead again holding the new straighter position. Feel how the reach needs to come from your shoulder instead of your lower back. Keep shoulders relaxed downward, and don't crane or tense your neck.

It is common for people to push their hip forward, thinking that is what is meant by "tuck the hip." That makes arching worse. Don't push your entire hip forward, just roll the bottom under. This motion is also called a "pelvic tilt." See the tilt in the photo in post Throw a Stronger Punch (or Push a Car or Stroller) Using This Back Pain Reduction Technique.

Watch other people when they reach overhead for exercise and daily life, and notice fitness magazines picturing overhead moves. See how often they increase the arch of their lower back. It is important to be able to tell when positioning is unhealthy, not just follow a bunch of strange rules about how to stand and exercise.

The next time you are in the shower washing your head, notice if you are leaning backward, and remember this article and concept. Reduce the overly large lower back arch back to normal/neutral, using the tucking/tilting move described above. Feel how the pinching pressure is reduced in your lower back. The muscles that work to flex your lower spine forward enough to reduce over-arching are your abdominal muscles. By preventing unhealthy over-arching each time you reach up, you will get built-in abdominal exercise and better shoulder stretch, and stop the source of much "mystery" lower back pain.

See more helpful info in:

• Fixing the Commonest Source of Mystery Lower Back Pain
• What Abdominal Muscles Don't Do - The Missing Link.

Labels: abdominal muscles, arm, facet joints, fix pain, lordosis, lower back, posture, shoulder, strength, stretch, upper back

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Healthy Knees

My Tuesday night martial arts students worked hard last night on sweeps, falls, tumbling, and quick recovery to their feet. Each week they also learn a new jump rope technique. They have been getting good at fast skipping, crossing the rope in multiple spins to the front, sides, and overhead, and varied footwork during jumps.

When landing from jumps, it is important not to let your knees knock inward under your body weight (photo at left). It is important for knee health not only when jumping, but descending the stairs, bending for all daily needs, and even getting in and out of your chair.

Letting your weight fall to the inside of your knee joint, instead of holding your weight evenly on your knees using your own leg muscles, adds load and wear to the cartilage on the inner surface of the knee bones, stresses the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the middle, overstretches the ligament on the inner side of the knee, and can damage a meniscus. A menscus is one of two small cushions in each knee between the knee bones. Letting knees sway inward more commonly damages the medial meniscus (the inner one) although either or both can be stretched or twisted by bad knee positioning. Letting your knees sway inward is not a "condition," and not unavoidable or something you are born to have. It is a posture you can control using your own muscles to hold your legs from swaying inward.

A while back I took a box-aerobics class because I had a coupon for a free week at a local club. The woman in front of me was stomping up and down as she swatted the air. Her knees bumped together every time her feet landed. Her feet were at least ten inches apart yet her knees bashed together, over and over, bending inward at the knee joint. It was alarming.

Don't let your knees (or ankles) sway inward under your weight. Use your muscles to hold knees in position, over your feet:

• When landing, land lightly - softly. Don't pound. The only noise should be the whirring of the jump rope, not your feet slamming the ground, transmitting shock to your knees and hips, and up your spine.
• Bend your knees lightly when you land. Don't land straight-legged.
• When you bend your knees for landing, don't let them sway inward.
• Keep kneecaps facing the same direction as toes, not twisting inward.
• Land softly, on the ball of the foot first. Quickly bring heels down while bending knees to absorb impact.

Remember healthy knee positioning during all activities. Look at your own knees and other people's knees when they take the stairs, and when bending to reach or retrieve things for healthy bending at home and work. Notice knees when you get out of your chair and sit back down. Don't let knees sway inward. Hold them in line using your thigh muscles, not letting them angle sharply inward.

It is easy to control leg positioning for healthy knee joints while you stand, bend, take stairs, exercise, and jump so that your daily life and exercise is healthy.

• More on keeping knees healthy during exercise, in the book Healthy Martial Arts and Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery

Labels: aging, ankle, arches, fix pain, injury, knee, leg strength, martial arts, orthotics, posture, pronation, strength, stretch

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Better Achilles Tendon Stretch

A frequently seen stretch for the calf muscles and Achilles tendon is the "lunge and lean" pictured at right. It is one of the least effective ways to stretch your calf and Achilles. Although many people spend much time doing this stretch, they often get little or no stretch:

• Bending over forward reduces the stretch and trains the same bent forward position that you already know is poor posture when you sit like that at your desk or steering wheel.
• Sticking your hips out in back reduces the stretch on the Achilles tendon.
• Turning your back foot outward, even a small amount, reduces, and often eliminates the stretch completely.

The "lunge and lean" is not highly effective, even when done "well," and is often done in the ineffective ways listed above. This is one reason why Achilles tendon stretching doesn't seem to be cutting down on injuries as hoped. Instead of the "lunge and lean," following is a quick, effective way to stretch your calf and Achilles tendon:

• Stand facing a wall at about arm's length away.
• Stand with both feet facing straight ahead - parallel - not turned out, even a small amount.
• Put one foot on the wall at knee height. Press that heel toward the wall.
  
• Look down and see if the foot you are standing on is facing directly ahead. Make that standing foot straight, not turned out; not even a little.
• Do not lean toward the wall. Lift your chest until you are standing straight.
• Don't let your hip curl under or your standing knee or hip bend.
• Smile, relax shoulders, and breathe.
• Hold a few seconds and switch legs.

Many people are so tight, that as soon as they raise one leg against the wall, their standing foot turns out without their even noticing it, and they round their back. Don't stretch wrong, allowing the tightness to perpetuate.

The closer you press your heel toward the wall, the more stretch. If you are tight, you will get substantial stretch just getting close. The purpose of this move is not to touch the wall by any means possible, but to get a functional stretch and not automatically go to unhealthful positioning. Do the purpose of the stretch - to retrain the same healthy positioning you need for real life.

Stretching is supposed to be healthy. When you stretch, don't practice bad bent over posture habits. Stretch in ways to make your daily life healthier.

Related:

• What Does Stretching Do?
• Functional Achilles Stretch
• Achilles Stretch in the Bathroom
• Fast Fitness - Built In Functional Achilles Tendon Stretch
• Friday Fast Fitness - Partner Achilles Tendon Stretch
  
  
  

Labels: achilles stretch, balance, disc, leg stretch, stretch

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Thumbs Can Show Tightness That Leads to Upper Back Pain

Healthy body position should be a natural easy part of daily life, not something you stop work to do as an exercise.

Unhealthy body positioning is more ingrained in daily life than many people realize. How can you tell your own positioning? Watch other people. See how many spend all day rounding their shoulders forward over their work and steering wheel, then further round their shoulders to stretch by bending forward, and do the unnecesary stretch of bringing one arm across the front of their body, then exercise by bending forward for crunches and leg lifts. The result of all this chronic forward bending is overstretching the back muscles and tightening your anterior (front) muscles. Many patients who come to see me, even those who can touch their toes and put one foot behind their head are so tight that they can't comfortably stand or sit straight. This is not just a problem of looking bad. It affects the health of your joints and muscles.

The post Breasts Causing Upper Back Pain is a Myth explained how overstretched back muscles and tight anterior muscles can promote the "forward head" and bent forward position that causes so much muscle strain and damage to the discs and joints of the back, shoulder, and neck. Many people "do neck exercises" never understanding that the exercises do not solve the problem of the chest muscles being too tight, and do not address how to hold healthy position. They stretch, believing that stretching prevents sports injuries, or that it is for doing contortions, but never know that the point of healthy stretching is to restore normal resting length just to stand and move in everyday life. They stretch in ways that exacerbates the problem they started with - rounding forward.

Try this to see if you round your shoulders:

• Use the photo, upper left, for reference.
• While standing with arms loosely at your sides, glance down at your hands.
• Do your thumbs face each other, as in the photo, instead of facing forward? That shows that tightness in front of your chest has rotated your arms inward (round shoulders).
• Does it feel awkward and unnatural to pull shoulders back so that your thumbs face forward? The point is to make it comfortable to be right, not force good positioning, which makes more strain.

To fix the problem, try this:

• Check your thumb positioning while standing comfortably.
• Do the pectoral stretch, taught in the post Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain.
• Right after doing the pectoral stretch, drop your arms loosely by your sides and glance down at your thumbs again.
• If you did the pectoral stretch right, your thumbs should now be facing more forward because you fixed the tightness that rounds shoulders and rotates arms inward.

During the day, notice your thumbs when standing to see if you are rounding. Notice other people's thumbs. Watch their upper body positioning when they sit and stand and let it remind you to use healthy straight habits so that you do not get tight in the first place.

Recommended Book:

• Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery

Related Fitness Fixer:

• How Doctors Use The Wall Stand
• Nice Neck Stretch
• Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain
• Quick, Feel-Good Upper Back and Chest Stretch
  
• What Does Stretching Do?

Labels: arm, chest, disc, fix pain, hand, neck, posture, shoulder, stretch, upper back

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The Stretch You Need The Least

Probably the most common stretch I see in gyms and fitness classes, beside hurting your discs by bending "wrong" to stretch hamstrings, is bringing one arm across your body in front, pictured at left. Although this posterior shoulder stretch is one of the most common stretches, it is one of the least necessary.

You probably already have over-stretched the back of your shoulders by slouching all day over your desk, steering wheel, and other work. Sitting and standing with rounded shoulders wears on the neck and shoulder joints and is a common source of upper back and neck pain. One of the most unnecessary things you can do is to further stretch the back of your already overstretched shoulder. Going to a gym to do it does not magically make it healthy.

The best way to stretch your shoulders for health is to skip the posterior shoulder stretch. Instead, stretch the front chest (pectoral) muscles, shown in Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain to help straighten and "unround" your shoulders and upper back.

Here is a check for how well you can straighten your shoulder positioning for healthy standing and sitting:

• Can you put your hands on your hips and bring your shoulders back?
• You should be able to pull your shoulders back without tilting your shoulders forward, or arching your lower back, or jutting your head forward.
• When you can pull your shoulders back easily with your hands on your hips, try pulling your shoulders back with your hands clasped together behind your back. Keep chin in and shoulders back.

Occasionally I give my cerebral palsy patients the posterior shoulder stretch (above left illustration) if they have an overly pulled-back position. More helpful to these patients is The Ab Revolution, a method I developed where you move your spine from an overly arched lower back, so common in many people, to a less arched position, reducing much back pain. The muscles that bring the lower spine forward are the abdominal muscles so you get a free ab workout going about your day just keeping healthy straighter spine position. The post Fixing the Commonest Source of Mystery Lower Back Pain shows how easy this is.

It is rare to need the posterior shoulder stretch. Yet, notice how often you see it in fitness publications and gyms. Instead of doing stretches to practice rounded posture, use stretches like the pectoral stretch to restore healthy position. Then use the healthy positioning as a free built-in stretch for all you do so you don't get tight in the first place. That's fitness as a lifestyle.


Illustration and more ways to change stretches to be healthy are found in the book Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier

Labels: abdominal muscles, arm, chest, fix pain, hamstring, lower back, posture, practice of medicine, shoulder, sitting, stretch, upper back

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Common Exercises Teach Upper Back and Neck Pain

Tuesday night is martial arts class. It had rained all day. A few students were absent. They missed class on how to toughen body and spirit because of water? Next time it pours I think I should hold class outside. In fairness, the students who missed class responsibly contacted me that they would be out.

The rest of my students were sitting in two neat rows. They had gotten their equipment out of bins in healthy ways by bending their knees with body upright and heels down. Then they sat down in their rows on the floor without using their hands. Most were sitting up straight. The rest straightened when they saw me walk in.

Each week students practice preventing the bad habit of jutting their head forward of the center line of their body during stances and moves for exercise and sparring (left photo, above left). Healthy position keeps the chin in and the angle of the lower jaw over the center line of the shoulder (right photo).

A forward head is not healthy for daily life or exercise. It results in much neck, upper back, and shoulder pain. Jutting the head forward for kicking, lifting a weight, and other movement is commonly seen in exercise magazines and videos. Watch for it and let it remind you not to do that. The forward head doesn't look tough, it looks untrained and weak and is several inches closer to the opponent making your face easier to hit. It frequently leads to upper body pain, and in case of a blow to the head, a tilted forward angle of the neck in relation to the brain and skull is more likely to result in brain injury.

A forward head is not something you can't control. Just as you can move your arm or leg, you can easily move your neck in a relaxed way into the healthier chin-in position you want. The post Breasts Causing Upper Back Pain is a Myth gave a simple "wall test" to see if you keep your head forward - stand with your back against a wall and see if the back of your head also touches comfortably. If you have to arch your back or jut your chin forward or up to touch the back of your head, you are probably too tight to stand straight and are probably standing and moving all the time in an unhealthy bent-forward position that strains the neck, back, and other areas.

The post Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain taught the pectoral stretch to restore muscle length to make healthy straight position comfortable. Use the pectoral stretch first thing in the morning and many times throughout the day. Then use your new ability to stand straight. The pectoral stretch (or any stretch) is not what fixes the problem. The stretch makes it possible for you to stand in the way that no longer strains and injures.

In the martial arts and in life, inviting a bad outcome is known as "leading with your chin." Letting your head and chin jut forward, as in the forward head, is inviting a bad health outcome. The martial arts teaches you to stop problems, not cause them. You can easily stop long-term damage through simple repositioning. You will look and feel better. That's using your head.


Photo and more on this and related topics in the book Healthy Martial Arts

Labels: chest, fix pain, martial arts, neck, posture, practice of medicine, sitting, stretch, upper back

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Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain

The post Breasts Causing Upper Back Pain is a Myth explained that a tilted-forward position of the head and neck, called a forward head, is not the normal tilt to the neck. It is an avoidable slouch that causes much upper back, neck, and shoulder pain, and pressures the discs of the upper spine.

Do you have a forward head? Here is a test, called The Wall Test:
If you can't put your back against a wall and comfortably touch the back of your head to the wall too without overarching your back or raising your chin, that usually indicates that the muscles in front of your chest are so tight that they restrict normal standing. The resulting bent-forward position of your neck creates large forces on the muscles and joints of your upper spine as it strains to hold the weight of your head forward of the supporting spine instead of above it.

Being too tight to stand and sit upright instead of slouching forward is common, even among people who stretch regularly. The reason is that they usually practice stretching forward, rarely stretching the front muscles by stretching back. In turn, holding your body bent forward instead of upright perpetuates tightness.

To lengthen the front chest (pectoral) area needed to stop the slouching-tightness cycle, use the photo above left for reference and try this:

• Use the photo above as a guide. Stand facing a wall. Bend one elbow out to the side and put the inside surface of that arm against the wall, as in the left-hand photo.
• Turn your whole body and feet away from the wall, letting the wall brace your bent arm behind you, as in the right-hand photo.
• If you are doing this stretch right, you will feel a nice stretch in the front of your chest.
• Keep your shoulders down and relaxed. Breathe. Smile.
• Hold a few seconds, breathe in, change arms, and breathe out while stretching the other side for a few seconds.
• Now drop both arms and turn to stand with your back against the wall again. If you did this pectoral stretch right, standing straight with the back of your head touching the wall should now feel more natural and comfortable and no longer a strain.
• When you walk away from the wall don't slouch forward again out of habit. Hold the easy new healthy positioning for everything you do.

Remember that the wall test (checking if you are straight against a wall) is a test - it is not an exercise that fixes anything, it tells if you are doing the pectoral stretch and two more stretches to correctly restore anterior muscle resting length. This pectoral stretch is one of three techniques to stop upper body tightness that prevents standing and moving in healthy ways.

Three stretches together help more. After doing this pectoral stretch and seeing the results with the Wall Test, add the next two stretches to restore resting length to be able to stand comfortably:

2. Nice Neck Stretch - trapezius stretch
3. Friday Fast Fitness - Better Shoulder and Triceps Stretch

After each stretch, check yourself again with the wall test to see if you did them in the way intended - to work. Then, remember that head and body position is voluntary. Hold your head up and shoulders back softly all the time. The stretches just make it possible YOU are the one to hold it there and retrain your body. No adjustments or bracing does that.

Do the pectoral stretch first thing every morning and several times every day to learn healthy positioning. Then check yourself with the wall test to see if you did it in a way that worked. Use this pectoral stretch and the two other stretches (nice trapezius stretch and better triceps stretch) instead of the stretch where you stand in a doorway or corner to stretch both arms at once, and instead of pulling your straight arm(s) behind you - what I call, The Stretch You Need The Least.

The three stretches will stop pain for the short term. In fact, if you don't feel improved right away, you're doing them wrong. Then for the fix, use them to allow you to hold healthy upright positioning. By not letting your head hang forward all day, you will no longer need constant pills, adjustments, or treatments for pain. You will stop the cause.

If You Have Questions:

• Photo and details and complete sequence of restoring healthy body position, in the book Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery - What to do to fix many sources of pain and injury, step-by-step.
• Post to get the purpose of this pectoral stretch - Pectoral (Chest) Stretch - The Most Common Mistake in the Best Shoulder Stretch
• How Doctors Use The Wall Stand Test
  
• Click the labels under this post for all Fitness Fixer posts about that topic, for example, for posts about neck pain, click "neck," for healthy sitting, click the label "sitting." For all posts explaining discs or fixing pain, click those labels.
• Even more information is in the replies to the many reader comments below this post.Before asking more questions, see if your answers are already here
  

Labels: chest, disc, fix pain, neck, posture, shoulder, sitting, stretch, upper back

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Common Exercises Teach Hip Tightness When Kicking, Stretching, and on the Stairs

Tuesday night my martial arts students showed they had improved. When I came in they were waiting in two neat rows. I still had to cue them to sit up straight.

In the post Is Bad Martial Arts Good Exercise? I mentioned showing the class not to let their neck, back, and hip round forward when kicking. By straightening, strength and stretch are built into regular movement.

Several readers e-mailed me that they noticed for the first time that they let one leg pull forward when lifting the other (notice the standing leg in the left-hand photo, at left). They said they felt a good difference when they straightened (right photo).

If the front muscles of your hip are tight, when you lift one leg high you may find that you round your back and bend the other leg. Watch for this during kicks in martial arts and aerobics, when lying on your back raising one leg overhead to stretch the hamstrings, and ascending stairs. The common practice of allowing the other leg to bend forward perpetuates a tight anterior hip, which in turn, contributes to walking bent forward and back pain.

In martial arts, you don't want your standing leg completely straight. That is an invitation for your opponent to kick your knee, snapping it backward. But for both health and effective martial movement, you don't want to bend the leg more than a small amount. Bending the back, hip, and leg when kicking decreases force of the kick, pressures your discs, and reduces stretch on the hip and hamstrings. The rounded-under hip position keeps the hip tight, a hidden cause of groin pulls. It also looks weak and unskilled. For lying hamstring stretches with one leg overhead, it is often taught to keep the second leg bent to "protect the back." However, keeping the leg (and body) flat on the floor give a far better stretch and is healthier for your back. Even in slow easy motions of stair climbing, leaning forward and allowing the second leg to pull forward reduces the normal hamstring and hip stretch, decreases the exercise on your hip and leg muscles, and reduces the back muscle activation for holding the straight position you need for health and back pain prevention.

It is said the martial arts gives you discipline and strength. It won't if you practice unhealthy habits. When raising one leg, hold your neck and back upright. Prevent the other leg from pulling forward. You will get a built-in hip stretch, one of the places you need to stretch most. You will get back and hip exercise in the way you need to move in real life, and prevent tightness and weakness that leads to poor movement and pain. You will change from kicking like a bent over old lady to a young strong athlete. Exercise as a lifestyle is not something done "for body parts." It is built into your normal movement to make it healthy movement.


Photo (and more healthy techniques) from the book Healthy Martial Arts

Labels: achilles stretch, balance, chest, disc, hamstring, hip, hip stretch, knee, leg strength, leg stretch, lower back, martial arts, neck, posture, stairs, strength, stretch, upper back

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Is Bad Martial Arts Good Exercise?

This week marked several beginnings. The equinox began the journey of the sun away from the northern hemisphere bringing longer nights. The festivals of Ramadan, St. Sophia, Navarati and others celebrate origins and understanding. The university semester began, including the full-to-capacity martial arts class I teach on Tuesday nights at Temple U's Center City campus.

When I arrived, students were sitting on the floor waiting. Some sat in bad rounded posture that you know is unhealthy at your desk. They straightened when I asked them to. In past semesters there were students who refused. Once, one stormed out shouting she didn't understand why she had to sit straight when class hadn't started yet. She didn't know that class is always in session.

Students got their equipment - bending wrong to yank weights out of bins. I told them, "Healthy bending. This class is for health." Some didn't understand the connection. Others tapped those still bending wrong, "Teacher says bend your legs." Several looked surprised. One said, "I'm getting leg exercise before class even begins." I told her that class is always in session. I reminded students to use healthy bending at home and work for every time they bend (Disc Pain - Not a Mystery, Easy to Fix). I showed them how to get more exercise by helping others who came in late.

We began stances. Students sometimes have a stereotyped idea, sometimes learned from aerobic boxing classes. They stand with shoulders hunched up, upper back rounded, head and chin jutting forward, and their behind tilted out in back. I mimicked them. They giggled at how bad it looks. I told them, "You don't look tough. You look ninety." It's true that you use shoulders to block some strikes, but you are not supposed to hunch. Don't do things to harm your neck in order to protect your neck. Overarching your lower back so that your behind tilts out in back is a frequent cause of back pain in daily life (Fixing the Commonest Source of "Mystery" Lower Back Pain) and injury when giving or receiving a blow. It's silly to go to boxing class and beat up yourself.

Look at the photo above. It shows terrible positioning that injures, and perpetuates the tightness that causes more troubles. When you lift one leg to kick (or stretch or take the stairs), notice if your other leg pulls forward. That shows tightness in the front of your hip. Instead, stand straight and keep the standing leg from pulling forward. Don't round your body to lift your leg. You will get built-in anterior hip stretch, one of the places you need to stretch most, and prevent several problems that I will cover soon.

The point of exercise is to improve life. It is missing the point to exercise in unhealthy ways, training unhealthy habits. If you are interested in learning how to retrain healthy movement in martial arts or aerobic boxing classes that you transfer to daily life, let me know and I will post more on what my students learn.

Book:

• Healthy Martial Arts - www.DrBookspan.com/books. Winner of the Black Belt Hall of Fame Readers Choice Award.

Labels: hamstring, hip, injury, knee, leg strength, leg stretch, lower back, martial arts, neck, posture, shoulder, strength, stretch, upper back

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Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch

You already know that sitting bent over your desk, steering wheel, and computer is unhealthy for your back. Then you go to the gym and sit bent over to touch your toes to stretch. It is the same bad bending. It is not magically different or healthy because it is called a stretch.

Sitting and leaning forward to touch toes, even with your back straight, is a common contributor to lower back pain. It may stretch your back and legs, but sitting, especially sitting bent forward puts high forces on the discs of your lower back.

The sitting hamstring stretch also practices the same bad bent forward posture that you already are probably overdoing at your computer, desk, and other daily activities. Modern lifestyle predominantly favors being bent forward, overstretching your back and tightening the front of your body until it becomes natural to slouch forward and uncomfortable to stand straight. Lower back discs become increasingly squashed and pressed outward from all the forward bending. It starts feeling “normal” to stand and move with your back rounded in unhealthy position.

Sitting and bending forward is not even the most effective way to stretch your hamstrings, even though it is a common stretch, and has been done for many years. Many things that are common and traditional are also not healthy, like smoking and hostility. Use healthy ways instead. The previous post Healthier Hamstring Stretching shows one easy effective hamstring stretch. Posts to come will show many more.Check back often.

Every day in my Sports Medicine practice, I see patients who are instructors of yoga, Pilates, and aerobics with ongoing back pain from doing bad stretches. They say they need the stretch because their back hurts. Then they learn that much of their pain is from the stretch. When they realize this, they smile, stop the bent over stretches, both sitting and standing. I show them more effective hamstring stretches to do instead. They quickly become more flexible from the better stretches, and the pain stops that they were getting from pressuring their discs and lower back with sitting bent forward. Have fun using your brain for stretching, and putting health back into fitness.

Related Fitness Fixer:

• Are You Making Your Exercise Unhealthy?
• Disc Pain - Not a Mystery, Easy to Fix
• Healthier Hamstring Stretching
• 14,000 Miles on a Bike - Herniating and Fixing Discs
• Common Exercises Teach Bad Bending
• What Does Stretching Do?
  
  

Related Book:

• Healthy Martial Arts - for all athletes, not just martial artists. Healthier smarter training for everyone.
  

Labels: disc, fix pain, hamstring, injury, leg stretch, lower back, sitting, smoking, stretch, upper back, yoga

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Healthier Hamstring Stretching

One of the most common stretches for the hamstrings is bending over from a stand to touch the toes. You already know that bending over with straight legs to pick up a package is unhealthy for your back. Bending over to stretch is just as unhealthy. Forward bending puts large forces on the discs of your lower back, and is not even a highly effective stretch for your hamstrings. Bending over to touch toes is a common contributor to back pain, whether you keep your back rounded or straight. I will show you more about exactly why in future posts.

Instead of bending over to stretch, or standing with one foot propped up on a bench or chair, an effective way to stretch the hamstring is to stand facing a wall and press one heel against the wall at about hip height.

• Keep your standing foot straight, not turned out; not even a small amount.
• Look down and see if your standing foot is facing straight ahead.
• Move your foot so that it is straight, or you will lose the stretch. As soon as you turn your standing foot straight, you will feel the stretch improve.
• Lift your chest and stand straight.
  
• Don't let your hip curl under.
  
• Smile and breathe.
  
• Hold a few seconds and switch legs.
  

Stretching is supposed to be healthy. When you stretch, don't practice bad posture habits by rounding your back, and don't practice things you know aren't healthy like bending over so that your body weight hinges on your lower back.

Stretch in ways to make your life healthier.

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Find more information in the replies already here to reader comments below this and other articles. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here. Click labels, links in posts, archives at right and the Fitness Fixer Index. Read success stories of these methods and send your own. For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions.

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Drawings copyright by Dr. Jolie Bookspan from the book Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier

Labels: breathing, chest, disc, fix pain, hamstring, injury, leg stretch, lower back, stretch

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What is "Fitness as a Lifestyle?"

To many people, fitness means stopping your "real life," changing clothes, driving somewhere else, and doing uncomfortable things without similarity to movement in daily life. Then they go back to "real life" - slouching, bending wrong, walking heavily, sitting rounded, leaning back to carry packages, taking elevators, and avoiding movement.

At the gym, people do squats with a trainer, paying to learn proper form and upright back, then bend over wrong to put the weight down when they’re finished. They do proper lunges for their legs in exercise class, then bend over wrong without using their legs to pick up their things when they leave. They work with weights to isolate arms but never learn how their entire body stabilizes a weight, then hurt their back opening a window at home. They work on a treadmill or elliptical trainer but sprain their ankle when out walking because they haven't trained balance and stabilization. They sit hunched in bad posture waiting for exercise class to start. In modern life, exercise is something you go and specially "do," then destroy and ignore your health the other 23 hours a day. Fitness has become “fast food” – stripped of value, sweetened up, and mass produced, even when unhealthy.

Changing your real life into healthy movement is a big and inspiring area of rethinking and retraining. Instead of sitting slouched then stopping to stretch because your back hurts, sit and stand well so that you do not get stiff and sore in the first place. Instead of lifting packages, babies, groceries, laundry, and everything else wrong all day, then stopping to do back exercises because your back hurts, lift properly. I will show you exactly how in posts to come. You will get built-in exercise, strengthen your knees, and save your back. You don’t need to go to a gym; move, balance, and reach in healthy ways in order to do your real life. Instead of thinking you must stop your life to get health and exercise, fill your life with built-in healthy movement.

Photo: National Cancer Institute, Linda Bartlett (photographer)

Labels: aging, ankle, balance, children, fix pain, injury, knee, lower back, lunge, nutrition, performance enhancing modality, posture, practice of medicine, sitting, spirit, strength, stress, stretch

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Welcome to the Fitness Fixer

A recent injury survey by US military revealed that 62% of American injuries in Iraq are occurring in the gym. The same is happening at home. How can this be? Several things are happening. Just as not every medicine is healthy, not all exercises and stretches are healthy.

Just as smoking "works" for weight loss, but is not a smart or healthy way to do it, many exercises "work" for cosmetic results, but result in long-term injury, and promote bad movement habits. Other common exercises don't work your body the way you need to move in real life, resulting in strains and injuries when going about daily activities.

This Fitness Fixer blog will show you hundreds of simple ways to change your exercises, stretches, and daily movement, to make them fun, healthy, and the way you really need to move for healthier daily life. In my laboratory research in human physiology, and my sports medicine clinical practice, I see patients every day who are hurting and unhappy, despite all the exercise and fitness they do. Many of my patients are yoga teachers and Pilates teachers with back pain, hip pain, and neck pain. I see personal trainers with herniated discs and knee pain. I see body builders with back pain, despite all the abdominal exercises they do. I see patients, including fitness instructors, who aren't getting more flexible no matter how much stretching they do. I see people who are stressed, tired, achy, and not in shape, even though they spend hundreds of dollars a month on supplements and pills, gizmos, equipment, trainers, and classes. The answers are simple, and this regular column will cover many easy changes you can make so that your fitness becomes not only more effective, but fun and healthy.

Labels: abdominal muscles, disc, fix pain, injury, knee, lower back, nutrition, practice of medicine, spirit, strength, stress, stretch, yoga

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