An Education in Exercise

Whether you're in good health, rehabbing a recent injury or have arthritis, osteoporosis or other chronic condition, the following key points should be followed to ensure you get the most out of your workout. Remember to talk to your doctor first so the two of you can work together to design an exercise program that's right for you.

LESSON 1: Before starting an exercise program, you and your health professional need to understand what your immediate goals are. Are you trying to lose weight? Increase strength? Train for a particular sport? Do you have any swelling? Pain? Weakness? Are your joints stiff? Once you know what you want to accomplish, it's a lot easier to figure out where to start.

LESSON 2: Exercise should consist of three clear phases. Begins with five to 10 minutes of warm-ups.Keep in mind that a "warm-up" is not the same as stretching.

LESSON 3: Type of exercise is just as important as the three phases. Try to incorporate different types of programs, such as stretching, strength training, balance training, and aerobic conditioning. Each of these affects the joints and body in different ways. By using all of them, you'll be able to make better gains in your health.

LESSON 4: There can be some discomfort with exercise at first. Therefore, precaution should be taken to ensure you don't injure yourself. Remember that your body's response to exercise can change day by day. You shouldn't feel pain, particularly sudden/sharp pain, when you are exercising.

LESSON 5: Rest time is crucial for strength training. In the past, people tended to weight train every day. Research is showing that if a body doesn't get enough rest, it will break down instead of building up. Therefore, never strength train the same body part two days in a row. Always allow at least two days in between, if not longer.

LESSON 6: Lifestyle activities are also effective forms of exercise. For example, gardening, going for hikes, taking the stairs at work, or playing catch with your kids or grandkids is just as effective in producing positive effects as a more traditional "gym" program.

LESSON 7: Most guidelines recommend 20 to 30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per day. However, if you are not able to do this, then break it up into five-minute bouts several times a day. Research shows that doing smaller bouts of exercise through the day is just as beneficial as one continuous session.

Top Whole Foods for Health

Nutritionally, there is no perfect food, although a few come pretty close. And even if there were, who'd want to eat the same thing every meal, every day? Fortunately, variety and healthy eating can go hand in hand, particularly if you know where to look. Take a look at these foods that pack a nutritional punch and can be incorporated into a wide variety of meal plans.

Beets: Beets were one of the most successful crops in the Biosphere project.Basically, it simulated living on the moon. And if you had to pick one vegetable to take with you to the moon, you'd do well to pick beets. The roots and leaves are packed with antioxidant phytochemicals, provide much-needed minerals and vitamins, and are a good source of fiber.

Rye: Obesity statistics suggest a good portion of us could use some help battling the scale, and rye is on your side. Rye has an excellent reputation for helping us feel full, produces a low insulin response, and is typically a good source of fiber. It is a rich source of minerals, too.

Organic Berries: This isn't a hard sell, right? Juicy, bright, and tasty, berries add fiber, vitamins and antioxidants to your diet. These little gems appear to support healthy arteries, cognition, inflammation and eyesight. Many studies have found a benefit in drinking cranberry or blueberry juice for prevention of urinary tract infections.

Fermented foods: Face it Mr. Clean, the human body needs bacteria, and fermented foods provide"good" bacteria (probiotics) to give our native colonies a helping hand. Clinical trials continue to examine the benefits of probiotics on gastrointestinal complaints like diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome, as well as for conditions such as colic and eczema in infants.

Legumes: This low-fat, no-cholesterol source of protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals is among the best foods we can eat. As a substitute for meat-based protein, beans can help support our drive for heart health. And the fiber and protein in legumes are excellent tools in our weight-management toolbox.

Understanding Wellness

The term "improved function" has been used by chiropractors for years to help patients understand the benefits of chiropractic care and the role it plays in true wellness. The body is made up of muscles, organs and glands that are controlled by the nervous system, and the nervous system consists of the brain, spinal cord and nerves.

The brain sends signals down the spine and to the nerves, which tell the heart to beat, the lungs to breathe, the stomach to digest, the glands to produce necessary hormones, and so on. It's when the signals don't get from the spinal cord to the nerves and then from the nerves to the muscles, organs and glands that the body begins to lose proper function and symptoms begin to occur.

Mainstream medicine doesn't recognize these symptoms as simple alerts from the body that there's something amiss, but instead as something that must be eliminated through chemicals or pharmaceuticals. They don't seek wellness, but rather a lack of symptoms.

The biggest difference between mainstream medicine and wellness care is just that: medicine. Today's medical professionals are still treating symptoms instead of the cause of the problem. The bigger problem lies with the fact that the medicines usually begin to create their own list of symptoms that must be treated with more medicines. It's a domino effect leading not to health and wellness, but to illness and dependence.

These days, the term wellness is being overused and abused by a society that recognizes its importance but doesn't understand its application. Marketing departments around the globe are throwing the word around because it's popular, but often it's simply being used as a gimmick to improve sales of products that have nothing to do with improved health and function.

We live in a society that's been conditioned to believe there's a medication or a surgical procedure to fix every problem. Is that really the way you want to live your life? Now that you understand wellness, start doing something to ensure you can enjoy it. Talk to your chiropractor to learn more.

Effect of Ankle Taping on Knee and Ankle Joint Biomechanics in Sporting Tasks

By limiting motion at the ankle, taping increased mechanical stability at this joint. Ankle taping also provided protective benefits to the knee via reduced internal rotation moments and varus impulses during both planned and unplanned maneuvers. Medial collateral and anterior cruciate ligament injuries may occur through increased valgus impulse during sidestepping undertaken with ankle tape.

 

Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 10/20/2010

UNDERSTANDING STRESS

What is stress, and what can cause it?
Life without stimulus would be incredibly dull and boring. Life with too much stimulus becomes unpleasant and tiring, and may ultimately damage your health or well-being. Too much stress can seriously interfere with your ability to perform effectively.

The art of stress management is to keep yourself at a level of stimulation that is healthy and enjoyable. This series of articles will help you to monitor and control stress so that you can find and operate at a level that is most comfortable for you. It will discuss strategies to reduce or eliminate sources of unpleasant stress.

It will also explain what can happen when you do not control stress properly. Most people realize that aspects of their work and lifestyle can cause stress. While this is true, it is also important to note that it can be caused by your environment and by the food and drink you consume. There are several major sources of stress:

Survival Stress: this may occur in cases where your survival or health is threatened, where you are put under pressure, or where you experience some unpleasant or challenging event. Here adrenaline is released in your body and you experience all the symptoms of your body preparing for 'fight or flight'.

Internally Generated Stress: this can come from anxious worrying about events beyond your control, from a tense, hurried approach to life, or from relationship problems caused by your own behavior. It can also come from an 'addiction' to and enjoyment of stress

Environmental and Job Stress: here your living or working environment causes the stress. It may come from noise, crowding, pollution, untidiness, dirt or other distractions. Alternatively stress can come from events at work.

Fatigue and Overwork: here stress builds up over a long period. This can occur where you try to achieve too much in too little time, or where you are not using effective time management strategies.

Internally Generated Stress & Anxiety
Your personality can affect the way in which you experience stress. You may be familiar with the idea of 'type A' personalities who thrive on stress, and 'type B' personalities who are mellower and more relaxed in their approach.

Stress can cause the levels of a neurotransmitter called noradrenalin to rise. This can give a feeling of confidence and elation that type As like. They can therefore subconsciously defer work until the last minute to create a 'deadline high', or can create a stressful environment at work that feeds their enjoyment of a situation.
The downside of this is that they may leave jobs so late that they fail when an unexpected crisis occurs. This may also cause unnecessary stress for other colleagues who are already under a high level of stress.

Other aspects of personality can cause stress. Examples are:
Perfectionism, where the perfectionist's extremely or impossibly high
standards can cause stress excessive self-effacement, where constant attention to the needs of others can lead to dissatisfaction when no-one looks after your needs, and anxiety.

Anxiety
Anxiety occurs where you are concerned that circumstances are out of control. In some cases being anxious and worrying over a problem may generate a solution. Normally it will just result in negative thinking. Albert Ellis listed the five main unrealistic desires or beliefs that cause anxiety: The desire always to have the love and admiration of all people important to you. This is unrealistic because you have no control over other people's minds.
They can have bad days, see things in odd ways, make mistakes or can be plain disagreeable and awkward. The desire to be thoroughly competent at all times.

This is unrealistic because you only achieve competence at a new level by making mistakes. Everybody has bad days and makes mistakes. The belief that external factors cause all misfortune. Often negative events can be caused by your own negative attitudes. Similarly your own negative attitudes can cause you to view neutral events negatively. Someone else might find something positive in
something you view as a problem. The desire that events should always turn out the way that you want them to, and that people should always do what you want.

Other people have their own agendas and do what they want to do. The belief that past bad experience will inevitably control what will happen in the future. You can very often improve or change things if you try hard enough or look at things in a different way.

Don't Let Housework Be a Pain in Your Back

A back injury is debilitating. Simple tasks such as tying your shoes or getting something out of the pantry can be very painful activities. Despite your pain, life must go on. You may be able to reduce your hours or activities at work to accommodate your injury. Regular household chores must be done however. Here are some tips to enable you to alleviate the pain associated with getting your household chores completed.
•    Instead of putting your laundry in a basket, use a laundry bad with straps on it. Carrying the load on your back like a backpack takes the strain of your lower back.
•    Keep your laundry basket and hampers on a table, or elevated off the floor. This will eliminate the need for you to bend down to pick it up.
•    Install supporting bars into your shower and tub to provide assistance when you get in and out of the bath. In addition, install a foot bar inside the shower so you don’t have to bend over to wash your feet and legs. Install supporting bars around the toilet as well to assist the strain on your back.
•    Purchase washer/dryer risers to get your washer and dryer elevated. Bending over and lifting wet laundry can cause a back injury to a very healthy person, let alone someone with an existing injury.
•    Instead of using sheets and blankets, use a duvet cover. It is easier throwing a blanket on a bed than it is to tuck in sheets and a blanket. Make the bed on your knees instead of standing and bending over.
•    Organize your cabinets and drawers so that the items you use more frequently are within easy reach. Always use a step stool to reach items on high shelves.
•    Finally, take frequent breaks to give your body a rest. Do a brief warm up prior to starting your chores.
If your injury is so severe that these suggestions are not enough to allow you to get your chores done, give a chiropractor a call. The minor adjustments, which have been recommended, should get you through a mild to medium back injury as you heal. If however, you are suffering in pain and not being treated by a medical professional, call a chiropractor. Chiropractors are instrumental in restoring backs back to health so you can get back to living your life.