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      Why Yin Yoga Enhances Your Athletic Skills and Daily Life
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  • Members
    • Partner Facilities
    • FAQs
    • Fitness & Event Schedules
    • Updates & News
  • Aspen Club Campus
    • Health & Fitness
    • Spa & Beauty
    • Membership
  • The Pulse
    • Move
      • Are You Up for A Challenge?
      • Avoid These Exercises
      • Cycling Mechanics & Orthotics
      • Mobility Matters
      • ACL Injury Prevention
    • Eat
      • Top Ten Foods to Try in the Spring/Summer Season
      • Meatless Mondays
      • Six Tips to Curb the Holiday Eating Extravagances
    • Breathe
      • Being Happy in Stressful Times
      • Meditation & Chronic Pain
      • Do You Know What Yoga Does for You? (Part 1)
      • Work Smarter Not Harder
    • Connect
      • The Aspen Club & Aspen Shakti Announce a Marriage Made in Aspen
      • Best Off-Piste Spots in Aspen Snowmass for Snowboarders
    • Why Yin Yoga Enhances Your Athletic Skills and Daily Life
  • Sports Medicine Institute
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    • Personal Performance Programs & Retreats
    • Professional Performance Programs
    • Signature Events
    • Calendar
  • Residences
  • Become a Member
Aspen Club
hiking
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Use Hiking to Improve Spine Health (While Toning Your Bum!)

With a few tweaks, hiking can be a great exercise for the glutes, which, in turn, helps promote a healthy spine. The key is good posture and gluteal activation.

Let’s start with stairs. Practicing this on some stairs will help you get the feel for it before you go for a hike. When you walk up the stairs, do you feel the muscles in your butt working? Hopefully so. If not, you aren’t using your body’s biggest asset (no pun intended) for going uphill. Think about pushing yourself up the stair with your glutes rather than pulling yourself up the stair with your quads and calves. Start by standing erect with the shoulders down and back, head centered over the shoulders. As you step up it’s okay to lean forward slightly if you must, but don’t hunch forward. Once your body weight is on the forward leg, propel yourself upward by extending the hip pushing with the glutes, rather than pulling through with your thighs. Hint: if you feel like you need to put your hands on your thigh to push yourself up a big step, you probably aren’t using your glutes and/or don’t have enough strength in those muscles.

Once you feel the glutes working on stairs, then it’s easy to translate that into hiking. Begin with a hike with some degree of uphill. The steeper the uphill, the easier it is to use your glutes. Maintain good posture throughout and be conscious of feeling a light to heavy (depending on degree of uphill or size of step up) contraction in the glutes while hiking uphill. Done properly, you should feel like you are standing tall with your chest slightly out and abs lightly tense. If you are new to this or didn’t feel your glutes at first doing the test on stairs, this will take some effort and thought in the beginning. It gets easier and will become natural in a relatively short amount of time. Coming downhill, you will rely more on your quads, but still try to maintain good posture.

If you are having trouble, read the blog on gluteal amnesia or feel free to email us at backinstitute@aspenclub.com. Happy hiking!

Out of Pain. Into Possibility. Jeremy James.

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plank
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Efficient, Effective Exercises for the Office or Home (No Equipment Needed!)

As I mentioned before in my blog about sitting, it is very important to break up your day with exercise and movement. The following exercises are the most effective and efficient exercises you can do without equipment for spine and overall health. They target all the important muscle groups. Try doing a few of every hour or so if you are sitting at work all day. Or, get a full circuit done at once.

Squats: In the beginning, use a chair or bench to get the feel of the movement. Place the chair or bench behind you. Stand with legs shoulder width apart and feet forward or slightly outturned. Squat back at a 45-degree angle so that your butt slightly touches the bench. Keep the back still. Then drive upward using the glutes to extend the hip. If you are doing this right, you should feel the muscles in your butt working more than the muscles in your thighs. A trick that can help activate the glutes is to push outward with the heels (“spreading the floor with the feet”) as you rise. This should make you feel the glutes working. Again, if your knees are dropping in, you are probably not using the glutes. Do this for 10-15 reps.

Planks: Lie on your stomach, up on your elbows. Engage your glutes and abs. Depress your shoulders. Lift your butt and knees off the floor. Keep your back and hips level. Gently tug your elbows toward your feet (no movement should take place). Hold for 10 seconds. Repeat three to five times. If this is too hard, leave your knees on the floor.

plank

Side Planks: Lie on your side, up on one elbow. Engage your abs and glutes.  Lift your hips and knees off the floor. Hold for 10 seconds. Repeat three to five times. If it is too hard, leave your knees on the floor.

side plank

Push-Ups: Think of a push up as a “moving plank.” Your body should stay stiff like it does with the plank. The movement comes from the shoulders. Engage your abs and glutes. Press yourself up with your elbows angled down towards the ribcage, not out from the ears. If this is too hard, start by staying on your knees or having your hands on a chair or bench. Do this for 10-15 reps.

push ups

Hip Extension Lift: Lie on your back with your knees at a 90-degree angle and your heels on a chair. Engage your glutes and abs. Drive your heels down on the chair keeping your toes pointed upward and lift your butt off the floor. Hold for three seconds. Return to starting position. If this is too hard, start with feet flat on the floor. Do this for 10-15 reps.

hip extensions

Try getting two to three circuits done in a day if you can.

All the important muscle groups worked with no equipment. Now, you have no excuse not to exercise! As always, if you experience pain with any of these beyond just muscle exertion, stop and contact your healthcare provider (or email me at backinstitute@aspenclub.com). Enjoy!

Out of Pain. Into Possibility. Jeremy James.

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yoga
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Is Yoga or Pilates Enough?

I commonly see patients who consider themselves to be ultra-fit because they excel at a method of training, sport, or exercise class. This includes people who are masters at CrossFit, Pilates, martial arts, various types of yoga, running, swimming, cycling, skiing, etc. Usually these people are quite shocked to learn that they have significant weaknesses and imbalances, which, over time, have caused serious dysfunction and pain.

Before I go any further, let me first say that being good at any of these activities is usually far better than being sedentary, or even moderately fit. Each of those activities mentioned have substantial benefits to the participant. Troubles can arise when one of these activities is taken to the extreme, without being built on a proper foundation.

I’ll pick on yoga briefly because it has some of the most dedicated adherents, who also turn out to be the most surprised when things go south. Depending on the type (I am generalizing here), yoga can offer a multitude of benefits including increased flexibility, endurance, strength, and mental well-being. With some types of yoga, die-hard enthusiasts tend to become too mobile, or hypermobile, over time. While mobility is important, especially in the hips, people who do some types of yoga exclusively will find themselves too mobile at the expense of stability of the spine and endurance of the supporting musculature. After a few decades, this will land them in my office wondering how this happened to them. They are also usually quite surprised to learn that they must avoid or alter certain poses to stop further injury from occurring.

The same can be said to varying degrees for most other sports, classes, or training styles. Some are better than others but few, if any, are perfect all by themselves. Taking one concept and thinking it should be applied as much as possible all over the body doesn’t work. Flexibility is good to a degree in certain areas. Strength is the same. Stiffness is the same. Balance is key.

Any exercise routine should be built upon a solid foundation of spinal stability, hip mobility, proper movement patterns, and good posture. I have touched upon these concepts in previous blogs. Once these are learned, practiced, and incorporated into your exercise routines and daily life, you can enjoy those other things that you like to do. Just remember, if there is something you absolutely hate doing, you probably need more of it.

As always, feel free to send us a message with all your questions about spine health and fitness at backinstitute@aspenclub.com. Good luck!

Out of Pain. Into Possibility. Jeremy James.

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back pain
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Gluteal Amnesia

One of the most common denominators in my patients with chronic back pain is a lack of gluteal activation and strength. This pattern is sometimes referred to as gluteal amnesia. Usually due to a life of prolonged sitting, people forget how to use their glutes and their back suffers.

There are several different muscles in the buttocks, with the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius being two of the most important ones. The gluteus maximus is the biggest muscle in the human body. It has the job of keeping the trunk straight in a standing posture and for propelling us upward and forward (extending the hip). The gluteus medius functions to abduct the hip (pull away from midline) and stabilize the hip and spine, especially when on one leg. When these muscles are not used properly, the spine can suffer significantly. I am often asked “How could I have been doing these movements all my life without using these huge important muscles? Wouldn’t I know it?” One of my favorite analogies goes as follows, from Bill Fabrocini: If you have a car with one flat tire and you push the gas, the car is still going to go. You can probably drive a long way with that flat tire. Though at some point the axle, or another important part of the car, is going to give out from the stress and you are going to have a much bigger problem than just a flat tire. So, it goes with the human body. You can still move without using your glutes, but at some point, the spine, or another joint is going to break down.

Probably the most common movement pattern where gluteal amnesia is apparent is the squat pattern. When the glutes don’t fire properly during activities like squatting, the lumbar erectors and hamstrings take over and exert enormous forces through the lumbar spine (low back). This one is easy to check. Stand in front of a mirror and squat down. If your knees drop inward towards each other as you squat down, you probably suffer from gluteal amnesia.

Thankfully, gluteal amnesia can be fixed. Once identified by a trained specialist, an exercise protocol can be undertaken to reverse this pattern. The following are some simple exercises to do this. But remember, the goal is to incorporate gluteal activation into your daily activities and sports. A skilled therapist can help you with this.

Bridge: Lie on your back with knees bent. Tighten your abdominals and squeeze your glutes. Lift the hips off the ground without rolling up through the spine. Hold for five seconds. You should feel the muscles in your butt contracting on both sides. The hamstrings should be relaxed. If you feel that the hamstrings are doing most of the work, push your feet away from yourself into the floor. This will activate the quads and relax the hamstrings. After holding for five seconds, repeat 10 or 12 times.

bridge exercise

Clam Shell: This is a very basic exercise to activate gluteus medius (along with some other muscles). Lay on your side with knees and hips bent. Place your thumb on the bone in the front of your hip. This is called your ASIS. Lay the fingers across your hip as shown and they will be on the gluteus medius. Open the knee up like a clam shell. Repeat several times, thinking about the muscle under your fingers.

clam shell exercise

Modified Clam Shell: To start the strengthen the glutes, move to this exercise once you have done clam shell. The key to this exercise is to open the hip up and slightly outward, making sure not to pull the knee towards the chest. You also want the knee slightly above the foot in the opening phase of the exercise. Lay on your side with knees and hips at 90 degrees. Brace your core and start the movement by contracting the gluteus medius (follow directions in clam shell). Open the hip up and out (with foot) to about 45 or 50 degrees. Lower slowly with control.

modified clam shell exercise

Squats: After you have mastered some of the above exercises, you are ready to try squats. In the beginning, use a chair or bench to get the feel of the movement. Place the chair or bench behind you. Stand with legs shoulder width apart and feet forward or slightly out turned. Squat back at a 45-degree angle so that your butt slightly touches the bench. Then drive upward using the glutes to extend the hip. If you are doing this right, you should feel the muscles in your butt working more than the muscles in your thighs. A trick that can help activate the glutes is to push outward with the heels (“spreading the floor with the feet”) as you rise. This should make you feel the glutes working. Again, if your knees are dropping in, you are probably not using the glutes.

Reactivating your glutes after years of inactivity in those muscles can be very challenging. Often, it takes the help of a skilled therapist to accomplish this goal. If you suffer from chronic back pain and have not been evaluated for gluteal amnesia, you need to be.

As always, feel free to send us a message with all your questions about spine health and fitness at backinstitute@aspenclub.com. Good luck!

Out of Pain. Into Possibility. Jeremy James.

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Moving Properly

If you’ve been told that you have arthritis or degenerative disc or joint disease, you are far from alone. Around 80% of people over the age of 55 have some sort of x-ray evidence of osteoarthritis. No matter what your age, whether a teenager, a senior, or somewhere in between, there are things you can do to avoid or minimize the effects of degenerative conditions like arthritis.

Although genetics do play a role in developing osteoarthritis and how severe it will be, a lot is in your control. Movement is one of the main contributing factors that cause degeneration of joints including the hip, knee, and spine. Our bodies are designed for constant mobility; however, when our movement patters are poor and repeated daily, it causes excessive wear and tear on your joints. These problems don’t develop overnight and learning to move properly and purposefully will enable you to do your favorite activities without pain well into your senior years.

Below are four great tips to help you move properly:

Hip hinge: Bend from the hips and not the back. Practicing “hip hinging” spares your low back from repetitive stress and strain. Lumbar disc herniation is usually the result of bending from the back repeatedly daily.

hip hinge - proper and improper form

Rotate from the hips and not the waist. Our lumbar spines weren’t designed to rotate very much and repetitive rotation wears down the discs. Imagine squeezing and twisting a sponge over and over and you get the picture. Eventually that sponge will crumble and tear and so will your discs. Combining bending and twisting from the low back is a very bad combo.

Proper form: rotate; Improper form: twist

Squat instead of bending when possible.Use your gluteal muscles and legs to lift objects instead of your low back.

squat proper vs improper form

Use your butt. The gluteus maximus is the biggest muscle in the human body. It has the job of keeping the trunk straight during a standing posture and for propelling us upward and forward. You should feel your butt muscles (gluteal) working when you stand from a squat position, climb stairs, jump, or brace yourself during weight lifting. Using the gluteal muscles spares the spine of unhealthy loads and repetitive stress.

For a more in depth discussion, a great resource is Thinner This Year, the follow-up to the New York Times bestseller, Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley.

Source: http://www.uptodate.com/contents/osteoarthritis-symptoms-and-diagnosis-beyond-the-basics

 

As always, feel free to send us a message with all your questions about spine health and fitness at backinstitute@aspenclub.com. Good luck!

Out of Pain. Into Possibility. Jeremy James.

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What to Do When Flying Is Literally a Pain in The Butt (or Back, or Neck…)

Having just gotten back from a very long 14-hour flight from Sydney, Australia, I can empathize with my frequent-flying patients who tell me that the worst thing for their back is a plane flight. Back and neck pain are extremely common during and after long flights. This is due to an unpleasantly (but appropriately) named process called creep. Simply, creep causes deformation in the ligaments and other tissues in your back and neck when they are subjected to load. As you sit in that impossibly cramped little airplane seat (who designed these things anyway), creep sets in and causes the various tissues in your back to change, setting you up for painful spasm during the flight and potential injury after the flight, especially when lifting that heavy suitcase. How can you fight creep? Move!

  • Change positions in your seat often. Cross one leg over the other, shift your weight from side to side, put a pillow behind your low back, even slouch from time to time (yes, it’s okay for short bouts).
  • Get up and walk. If you aren’t sleeping, get up and walk to the back of the plane. While there, try a few of these dynamic stretches and movements. Do this for at least five minutes. Try to do this at least every half hour if you can. Don’t worry, you won’t look crazy! I see more and more people doing variations of these when I fly now.
  • After you get off the plane, make sure you give your body as much time as you can to rebound from the creep process before you pick anything up. You won’t have time to fully recover as this takes several hours, but the more time the better. Walk around a bit if you have time. Stand for a while. This will minimize your chances of straining your back when you pick up that heavy suitcase. When you do lift, use your butt, not your back.
  • Remember that prevention and preparation are key. The proper, regular exercises build endurance in the postural muscles that support the spine resulting in a better defense against the negative effects of creep. Building endurance in the core is key. Practice these exercises as mentioned in my previous blogs.

 

Standing Hip Flexor Stretch with Gentle Back Extension: Ease into this position until you feel a slight stretch in the groin and thigh of the rear leg. Open the chest and gently extend the spine. Hold for five to 10 seconds while breathing. Repeat a few times then switch legs.

hip flexor stretch ​​Pec Stretch/Chest Opening: Use a corner or doorframe for this one. Place your hand on the wall and step forward until you feel a gentle stretch in the chest. Turn your head to the opposite side and slightly downward. Hold for five to 10 seconds while breathing. Repeat a few times then switch arms/legs.

pec stretch

Squats: Stand with legs shoulder width apart and feet forward or slightly outturned. Squat back at a 45-degree angle so that your butt drops behind you, not below you. Keep the back still. Then drive upward using the glutes to extend the hip. If you are doing this right, you should feel the muscles in your butt working more than the muscles in your thighs. A trick that can help activate the glutes is to push outward with the heels (“spreading the floor with the feet”) as you rise. This should make you feel the glutes working. Again, if your knees are dropping in you are probably not using the glutes. Do this for 10-15 reps.

squat

Seated Relief Position: Sit with your buttocks at the edge of your seat. Spread your legs apart slightly. Turn your toes out slightly. Rest your weight on your legs and feet. Tilt your pelvis slightly forward and Lift your chest up, gently increasing the curve of your lower back. Turn your palms up. Breathe for 10 seconds. Repeat a few times.

seated relief position

 

As always, feel free to send us a message with all your questions about spine health and fitness at backinstitute@aspenclub.com. Good luck!

Out of Pain. Into Possibility. Jeremy James.

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Behind Lat Pulldown
Move

Avoid These Exercises

I spend a lot of time talking about what is good to do in the gym for spine and overall health, so I thought I would say a quick word about a few things you should avoid. With some exceptions, such as training for a specific sport or certain rehab protocols, these exercises should be avoided when trying to achieve overall health.

Sit-ups: If you were to set out to design an exercise to ruin lumbar discs, the discs in your low back, you would be hard-pressed to design one more effective at that task than sit-ups. Why? Repetitive flexion aka forward bending and twisting damages the discs in your low back. Sit-ups and sit-ups with rotation reproduce these movements exactly. Instead, try crunches, like a sit up but your low back doesn’t bend, and planks with short isometric holds.

Don't: Sit-ups; Do: Planks

Upright Rows: This exercise places the shoulder into internal rotation, putting the supraspinatus and its tendon at serious risk of injury over time. It also places a lot of stress on the cervical spine. Instead, do “full can.”

Don't: Upright Row; Do: Full Can

Behind the Head Lat Pull-down: This one places the shoulder in a vulnerable position, which can lead to injury of the rotator cuff and shoulder joint. It also puts enormous strain on the cervical spine (neck) because of the forward head position. Instead try Lat pull-down to the chest or pull-ups if possible. Also, try alternating between standing Lat pulldowns and seated Lat pulldowns to activate more of the core and gluteal muscles.

Don't: Behind Lat Pulldown; Do: Lat Pulldown

Rotations from the Waist with Band, Cable, or Medicine Ball: As mentioned, sit-ups, rotation, or twisting of the lumbar spine can lead to disc degeneration and/or herniation over time, especially with load. Twisting from the waist will get your oblique ripped but at great expense to your low back. Instead, rotate from the hips. This strengthens the hips instead of the spine and is a great exercise. It also trains you how to move in your day-to-day life, avoiding low back injuries.

Don't: Twist from the Hips; Do: Turn from the Hips

Smith Squats: Smith machines were designed to help people squat with heavy load while minimizing the risk of the lifter collapsing due to a built-in catch mechanism. The problem with doing Smith Squats is that the machine guides the bar in one plane of motion, which won’t allow most people to do a functional squat on it. The squat is a very complicated and important exercise for back health. It is crucial that one masters squat mechanics before applying load. Most people need to work with a trainer in the beginning to master this move. Since all people’s bodies are different, the one size fits all approach of the Smith Machine doesn’t work and creates poor squat patterns, which can lead to knee, hip, and back problems down the road.

Don't: Smith Squat; Do: Squat

As always, feel free to send us a message with all your questions about spine health and fitness at backinstitute@aspenclub.com. Good luck!

Out of Pain. Into Possibility. Jeremy James.

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Move

Mobility Matters

mobilityIt is very important to move correctly when exercising. Everything we do in the gym, squats, lunges, pushing, pulling, and rotating should become a reflection of what we do in everyday life, including our recreational sports. Longevity of our bodies, especially our joints, is largely dependent upon good movement patterns that are reproducible. If you want to spare your low back and save your knees from debilitating arthritis, you must take the time to move with purpose.

So, what does this take and how do you begin? Although there are many facets involved that I will eventually cover, the first aspect of moving well is mobility. I like to think of mobility as the ability to move freely and easily into and out of positions that are essential for everyday life. If you can’t squat into a balanced position where your thighs are parallel with the floor while keeping your upper body upright and your feet facing forward, then you lack mobility. The lack of mobility may be in your ankles or your hips and combined with a variety of short and tight muscles such as your hamstrings. The key point is that you can’t squat correctly because you lack mobility, and that must be addressed. It makes no sense to overload your squat patterns with weights or to perform heavy leg presses until you establish a good squat pattern, otherwise you just wear your joints down.

So, the question is how do you improve mobility. The first point to consider is that mobility is much more than muscular flexibility. Mobility also involves range of motion of our joints, extensibility of elastic membranes that surround our muscles referred to as fascia, among many other tissues including the skin. The traditional approach of simply static stretching the tight muscles such as our hamstrings or quadriceps will do very little by itself to improve the way you move. Static stretching does have a place, but it’s not enough. To move better, we must also enhance joint mobility and put that mobility into motion. Hence, a dynamic approach! In a dynamic approach, one moves into and out of positions and with each repetition, the joint being addressed is stretched a little more, and the muscles being stretched are under tension. This results in greater range of motion that is both supportive and controllable by muscular contractions. This is the key to moving better.  Don’t simply attempt to get greater range of motion, but rather, greater range of motion with control.

Here is a little insight for most of you. The areas of the body where most people begin to lose motion as they age is in the shoulders, the mid-back, the hips, and the ankle. Loss of motion in any of these areas will affect the overall quality of your movements in almost anything you do. If you need to lunge down to pick things off the floor, you need mobility in your ankles, hips, and mid-back. If you lack mobility in any of these areas, there will be compensation in the way you move and some type of abnormal stress on one or more of your joints.  Often it is the knees, which is why so many aging people have knee pain. The best way to prevent knee problems is to make sure you have good ankle and hip mobility and the muscular control to support your knees as you move into and out of positions.

So where do we go from here? The best thing I can suggest is to direct you to an informative resource to learn how to address mobility. I don’t want to sound like an infomercial, but I created the DVDs “Thinner This Year Preparation for Movement” and “The Sacred 25 and Beyond” exactly for this purpose. These DVDs serve as a guide to teach you how to perform the exercises that are essential to move with greater motion and control. Both are available on youngernextyear.com/DVDs. Give them a try and start moving in the right direction.

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gym
Move

Going to The Gym

I spend a great deal of time in gyms all over the country. It is part of my job both as a physical therapist and trainer. Much of the time, I watch and observe in frustration as people lift weights with no thought at all about the alignment of their joints, particularly their very fragile spine. In the task-oriented world we live in, it does in fact seem to be all about completing the task without any thought of the consequences. Complete 3 sets of 10 repetitions of squats or leg presses with a hundred pounds, and you get a medal for finishing but no consideration is given to “how” you completed the exercise set. Did your knees buckle inward, did you round or hyper extend your back like a gymnast as you squatted down, did your head shoot forward like a turtle, and did your feet turn way out like a ballet dancer? I am here to tell you that other things matter a great deal more than completing the set. Before I get into these intricate details, let’s first discuss why they matter, and first and foremost, what the objective should be in putting your body through the strain and hardship of weight training exercises in the first place.

Make no mistake, the primary purpose for the typical exercises we do in the gym (whether at home or in a club) is to reinforce good patterns of movement that we need for everyday life. Think about it, squatting is simply sitting in a chair, lunging is what we often do to pick things off the floor, pushing and pulling relate to a wide arrange of daily tasks such as lifting objects over our head and opening doors. These movements are also common to sports whether it be golf (rotational movements) or skiing (lateral lunges). Everything we do in the gym becomes an expression of what we do outside the gym. If we do things in the gym with proper alignment and form, we train our bodies to minimize the loads on our joints, and then we are more likely to repeat the same patterns in daily life. Most of the ailments people suffer from, ailments such as low back pain, hip or knee arthritis, or tendonitis, are simply because they performed the movements I discussed above the wrong way repeatedly.

Think about it, how many times have you squatted in your life? If you are around my age of 48 or older and think a few hundred times, a few thousand times perhaps, think again. How about a few hundred thousand times to possibly over a million times. Same goes with lunging, and these numbers probably only factor into daily life. If you go to the gym and workout with weights or machines, add onto that the strain of performing these movements under loads and stresses that accelerate the wear and tear on your joints. That is why the blue print matters.

Have you ever picked up a hobby such as dancing, golf, or even something as simple typing? Imagine if you were taught the wrong steps in the tango, grip for the golf swing, or the hand position on the keyboard. Now imagine you rehearsed these skills the wrong way for several years. How much harder would it be then to correct these dysfunctional patterns? It would probably be better if you started from scratch all over again because the original blueprint is faulted. That is just the way our brains work.

Remember when you first learned to walk. If you don’t, simply watch a one year old going through the process. Every step is a conscious effort – the step length and width and the arm position. Thousands and thousands of steps are analyzed by our main computer framework, the brain. Then over time, the process of walking no longer becomes a conscious effort but rather automatic. I would hope that none of us really must think about walking anymore and that it is an ingrained software pattern in our brain.

So where am I going with all of this? Squatting, lunging, rotating, pushing, and pulling should be ingrained software patterns in our brains. The problem is that for many people, the software is flawed because for years, we have been doing it the wrong way. Not only that, but those who exercise reinforce these poor patterns under loads and stresses. No wonder their bodies eventually break down. It’s time to learn how to walk all over again and to move away from task completion mentality to one of conscious effort of how we move. It should not simply be about going to the gym to lose weight or to lift weights to make our muscles bigger and stronger. On the contrary, it should be all about performing purposeful movements that transfer over into everything we do in life. Of course, we can still get fit along the way and develop muscle mass in a proportionate manner. However, these are the byproducts of performing movements with correct alignment and form especially when under the loads of weights.

It takes a little bit of work and some open mindedness, but the benefits far outweigh the ease of repeating the same old stagnant program that will only break your body down. I think you will the find the information precious to your longevity.

stress
Breathe

Being Happy in Stressful Times

With everything going on these days, many of us are finding it difficult to deal with stress. I personally have struggled with stress management in the past, especially regarding things I cannot control such as those in the daily news, world events, etc. Here are a few simple tips to find balance in your life and be happier and less stressed:

  • Improved Sleep: Don’t watch or read the news for several hours before bed. This can cause heightened anxiety, leading to more difficulty getting to sleep. This includes Facebook. Put the phones, computers, and tablets away for at least an hour before bed. The blue light emitted by these display screens is a spectrum of light that keeps the brain awake. Multiple studies show that people that read on devices which emit blue light sleep less well than those that read traditional paper books. If you wake up in the middle of the night and want to read, pick up a paper book or magazine instead of your smartphone or tablet.
  • Exercise: Get regular exercise during the day. Simple. Try to get some exercise most days of the week.
  • Improved Nutrition: As mentioned in my previous blog, nutrition plays a role in the stress response. Try to eat “real” foods. This means foods that don’t come out of a package. Snack on nuts and fruits instead of chips, power bars, and cookies. Eat lots of different colors everyday – reds, oranges, greens, purples, etc. I find that this is the easiest way to make sure you get plenty of nutrients in your diet.
  • Improved Relationships: Studies show that people who interact with those they care about more regularly are happier. Who would have thought? Finding a balance between work and real life is one of the hardest things for Americans to do. It’s so important. Make some extra time for your loved ones every day.
  • Meditate: Meditation is exercise for your brain. Just like exercise, you must do it regularly for it to have the desired benefits. Regular meditation has multiple health benefits.

I don’t claim to be anywhere near perfect in managing my stress, but I try to do each of these things as much as I can. I need the reminders too, and writing this all down helps me as well. Try one this week and another next week. Good luck!

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