Back and Spine Health Exercise: Exercise is one of the most significant ways to increase longevity, improve health, and decrease pain and suffering. A proper exercise program can improve flexibility, mobility, increase strength, and reduce back pain. Knowledge of the best exercises to improve health or decrease pain is essential to a workout plan or pain management program. Regular exercise is one of the best things you can do for overall health. The many benefits include improved health and fitness and reduced risk of chronic diseases.
There are many different types of exercise; it is important to pick the right types. Most benefits from a combination of exercises: Endurance or aerobic activities increase your breathing and heart rate. They keep your heart, lungs, and circulatory system healthy and improve your overall fitness. Examples include brisk walking, jogging, swimming, and biking.
Strength or resistance training, exercises make your muscles stronger. Some examples are lifting weights and using a resistance band. Balance exercises can make it easier to walk on uneven surfaces and help prevent falls. To improve your balance, try tai chi or exercises like standing on one leg. Flexibility exercises stretch your muscles and can help your body stay limber. Yoga and doing various stretches can make you more flexible.
The Schroth method can help control scoliosis, a spinal condition with little medical advice available for patients to know how to help themselves, aside from wearing a scoliosis brace. On the contrary of popular belief, a proper program utilizing the Schroth method exercises can ultimately help people achieve spinal balance, providing them with an increased grade of control regarding a patient’s scoliosis.
Careful instruction from a qualified and experienced healthcare professional who specialized in the Schroth method for scoliosis can empower a scoliosis patient in multiple ways. Most importantly, one-to-one training between a chiropractor or physical therapist and a patient helps properly educate the individual on the most effective ways to counteract the abnormal curvature of their spine.
Finding Relief for Scoliosis
The Schroth method exercises alone aren’t enough to provide relief from scoliosis and its associated symptoms, altering the way an individual engages in their daily activities can also help ease the progression of the spinal condition. As the patient, learning which Schroth method exercises are recommended for each specific curvature of the spine and practicing curve-pattern-specific breathing exercises can be beneficial for the overall health of the spine. There is an additional empowering element, however, in learning what not to do to prevent the scoliosis from advancing.
When a child or adult follows the correct Schroth method exercises from a qualified and experienced healthcare professional, including multi-part movements combined with breathing to promote spinal stabilization to strengthen the spinal musculature, feeling relief from their symptoms as well as seeing the improvement in the alignment of the spine can be empowering and motivating. The Schroth method can be an effective treatment for scoliosis.
Moreover, its essential for the patient with scoliosis to consult an experienced and qualified healthcare professional who understands the complex anatomy of a spine with scoliosis and its effects on the rest of the body. Chiropractors, physical therapists, and other healthcare specialists who focus on spinal complications, such as scoliosis, should also be capable of spending as much time as necessary to explain the bends, twists, curves and effects of an individual’s scoliosis on the rest of their body. Make sure to seek the proper treatment for your scoliosis or other spinal issue.
Scoliosis Assistance for Children and Adults
From a parental perspective, when a child is diagnosed with scoliosis, or simply if the adult is diagnosed with the spinal condition, its common for them to have a variety of questions regarding their complication. From, which is the proper posture to avoid the progression of scoliosis and whether the bending, twisting and collapsing of the spine with each movement is affecting the scoliosis, to, what are the safest, most effective treatments available for scoliosis, these common questions can be answered accordingly by an experienced and qualified healthcare professional. Furthermore, once a child, or adult, has been diagnosed with scoliosis, its fundamental for them to seek immediate medical attention in order to avoid further complications from the spinal condition, such as the threat of spinal fusion resulting in surgery. The sooner scoliosis is treated, the better for the patient.
When considering the Schroth method for scoliosis, utilizing a specialized exercise program for a child or adult with scoliosis, there’s one final consideration the patient, and parents alike, must become aware of, treatment for scoliosis may be a lifetime commitment. Scoliosis doesn’t end with skeletal maturity. Children become adults and adults will eventually begin to experience the natural degeneration of their spine, as well as other structures in their body, which may lead to scoliosis and other spinal complications. It’s essential for patients to continue seeking regular medical care from a qualified and experienced chiropractor, physical therapist, or other healthcare professional, regarding their scoliosis.
The Schroth method and its specific exercises are for life and after participation in a comprehensive program, the patient will have the necessary skills and tools needed to manage their scoliosis and other similar spinal issues. This empowering treatment option can help ultimately avoid the progression of scoliosis, providing overall health and wellness for a lifetime to come.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
By Dr. Alex Jimenez
Additional Topics: Neck Pain and Auto Injury
After being involved in an automobile accident, the sheer force of the impact can often cause whiplash, a common type of neck injury resulting from the sudden, back-and-forth motion of the head against the body due to a car wreck, or other incident. Because of this, many of the complex structures found within the neck, including the spine, ligaments and muscles, can be stretched beyond their normal range, causing injury and painful symptoms.
Andres Martinez continues his testimonial in part III.
PUSH-as-Rx � is leading the field with laser focus supporting our youth sport programs.� The�PUSH-as-Rx � System is a sport specific athletic program designed by a strength-agility coach and physiology doctor with a combined 40 years of experience working with extreme athletes. At its core, the program is the multidisciplinary study of reactive agility, body mechanics and extreme motion dynamics. Through continuous and detailed assessments of the athletes in motion and while under direct supervised stress loads, a clear quantitative picture of body dynamics emerges. Exposure to the biomechanical vulnerabilities are presented to our team. �Immediately,�we adjust our methods for our athletes in order to optimize performance.� This highly adaptive system with continual�dynamic adjustments has helped many of our athletes come back faster, stronger, and ready post injury while safely minimizing recovery times. Results demonstrate clear improved agility, speed, decreased reaction time with greatly improved postural-torque mechanics.��PUSH-as-Rx � offers specialized extreme performance enhancements to our athletes no matter the age.
Please Recommend Us: If you have enjoyed this video and/or we have helped you in any way please feel free to recommend us. Thank You.
Lauren Baldwin, never felt better about herself until after she came to Push-as-Rx �. Together with her husband, they came together to Push as Rx, where they were able to bond and become stronger. Lauren Baldwin appreciates how thoughtful and encouraging the trainers are, always making sure they are safe as well as always making sure every person is achieving their goals to become the best they can be.
PUSH-as-Rx � is leading the field with laser focus supporting our youth sport programs.� The�PUSH-as-Rx � System is a sport specific athletic program designed by a strength-agility coach and physiology doctor with a combined 40 years of experience working with extreme athletes. At its core, the program is the multidisciplinary study of reactive agility, body mechanics and extreme motion dynamics. Through continuous and detailed assessments of the athletes in motion and while under direct supervised stress loads, a clear quantitative picture of body dynamics emerges. Exposure to the biomechanical vulnerabilities are presented to our team. �Immediately,�we adjust our methods for our athletes in order to optimize performance.� This highly adaptive system with continual�dynamic adjustments has helped many of our athletes come back faster, stronger, and ready post injury while safely minimizing recovery times. Results demonstrate clear improved agility, speed, decreased reaction time with greatly improved postural-torque mechanics.��PUSH-as-Rx � offers specialized extreme performance enhancements to our athletes no matter the age.
Please Recommend Us: If you have enjoyed this video and/or we have helped you in any way please feel free to recommend us. Thank You.
Exercise can reduce the risk of heart damage in middle-aged adults and seniors — even in those who are obese, according to a new study.
“The protective association of physical activity against [heart] damage may have implications for heart failure risk reduction, particularly among the high-risk group of individuals with excess weight,” study lead author Dr. Roberta Florido said in an American College of Cardiology news release.
Florido is a cardiology fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
“Promoting physical activity,” she added, “may be a particularly important strategy for heart failure risk reductions among high risk groups such as those with obesity.”
To gauge the influence of physical activity on heart health, the researchers looked at the experience of more than 9,400 people between 45 and 64 years of age. The participants were grouped according to how much exercise they got. Current guidelines recommend at least 75 minutes a week of vigorous activity, or 150 or more minutes of moderate to vigorous activity.
A lower level of activity, called “intermediate,” was defined as up to 74 minutes a week of vigorous activity or up to 149 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity. According to the researchers, those who did no exercise were 39 percent more likely to have heart damage than those who followed the guidelines. Those who followed intermediate level routines had 34 percent more heart damage than their fully active peers.
The researchers found indications that obese individuals who engaged in “recommended” levels of activity had lower blood levels of troponin — a key indicator of heart damage — compared with those who did no exercise at all.
Florido and her colleagues described their findings in the April 24 issue of JACC: Heart Failure.
An accompanying editorial urged heart specialists to promote healthy habits rather than simply treat heart problems once they develop.
News stories are written and provided by HealthDay and do not reflect federal policy, the views of MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
Additional Topics: Weight Loss Eases Back Pain
Back pain and symptoms of sciatica can affect a majority of the population throughout their lifetime. Research studies have demonstrated that people who are overweight or obese experience more back complications than people with a healthy weight. A proper nutrition along with regular physical fitness can help with weight loss as well as help maintain a healthy weight to eliminate symptoms of back pain and sciatica. Chiropractic care is also another natural form of treatment which treats back pain and sciatica utilizing manual spinal adjustments and manipulations.
Ask kids what their favorite part of the school day is and most will say lunch and recess. But the timing of these events matters when it comes to what children eat and how much physical activity they get, researchers report.
The new findings could help schools develop policies to promote healthy eating and exercise habits for kids, the study authors said.
“Overall, our findings suggest that recess and lunch behaviors are interrelated. However, the specific food choices and activity levels children engage in may be subject to the timing and duration of lunch and recess,” researcher Gabriella McLoughlin said in an American Society for Nutrition news release.
Nutritional Intake and Physical Activity for Kids
McLoughlin, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is scheduled to present the research Sunday at the society’s annual meeting in Chicago.
For the study, researchers analyzed what 151 fourth- and fifth-graders at two schools ate for lunch and their physical activity. All ate lunch right before or right after recess. Most research has focused on nutritional intake or physical activity during recess. Study leader Naiman Khan called this the first “to objectively measure food intake at lunch in conjunction with physical activity, and consider the influence of duration and timing.”
Khan is an assistant professor of kinesiology and community health at the university. The researchers discovered that students who had recess before eating lunch wasted less food. But kids who had lunch before recess ate more vegetables.
While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends recess before lunch to help curb food waste, researchers say this schedule and how much time kids have to eat and play could have unwanted effects on what they eat and how much exercise they get. The study found that kids who had more time for lunch and recess and who ate before they played were more active. The opposite was true for boys and girls who had less time for lunch and recess. These students were more active if they had recess before they ate.
“We plan to communicate our findings to school teachers, administrators and policymakers to facilitate the implementation of evidence-based policies that support children’s ability to meet their daily physical activity and nutritional recommendations,” Khan said.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
Additional Topics: Whole Body Wellness
Maintaining overall health and wellness through a balanced nutrition, regular physical activity and proper sleep is essential for your whole body�s well-being. While these are some of the most important contributing factors for staying healthy, seeking care and preventing injuries or the development of conditions through natural alternatives can also guarantee overall health and wellness. Chiropractic care is a safe and effective treatment option utilized by many individuals to ensure whole body wellness.
A combination of exercise and sufficient vitamin D levels may reduce the risk of serious heart problems more than either one alone, a new study suggests.
An analysis of data spanning 20 years from more than 10,000 U.S. adults found that those who got the recommended amounts of exercise and had adequate vitamin D levels had a 23 percent lower risk of heart attack or stroke.
People who met physical activity targets but were deficient in the so-called “sunshine vitamin” did not have a lower risk.
The combined benefit of having adequate vitamin D and exercise levels was better than either factor alone, according to the Johns Hopkins University study. It was published recently in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
While the observational study does not prove cause and effect, it does support the idea that adequate exercise and vitamin D are signs of good health, the researchers said. Vitamin D is produced when the body is exposed to sunlight and is found in some foods.
“In our study, both failure to meet the recommended physical activity levels and having vitamin D deficiency were very common,” study co-author Dr. Erin Michos said in a university news release.
“The bottom line is we need to encourage people to move more in the name of heart health,” Michos added.
She is associate director of preventive cardiology and associate professor of medicine at the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease at Johns Hopkins.
Though the study found that the more people exercised, the higher their vitamin D levels, this was true for whites but not for blacks, the researchers said. Michos said people with darker skin may produce vitamin D less efficiently because their skin pigments act as a natural sunscreen.
Most adults can get adequate levels of vitamin D with a few minutes a day of sunlight in spring, summer and fall, along with eating a well-balanced diet that includes oily fish such as salmon and fortified foods like cereal and milk, according to Michos.
SOURCE: Johns Hopkins University, news release, April 27, 2017
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
Additional Topics: Chiropractic and Athletic Performance
Chiropractic care is a popular, alternative treatment option which focuses on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of injuries and/or conditions associated to the musculoskeletal and nervous system, primarily the spine. Many athletes, and civilians alike, seek chiropractic care to restore their natural health and wellness, however, chiropractic has been demonstrated to benefit athletes by increasing their athletic performance.
Here’s yet another reason to make sure your kids are active: New research shows those with stronger muscles may have better working memory.
Evaluating 79 children between the ages of 9 and 11, scientists said they found that muscle fitness was directly related to a more accurate memory. The results also reinforced established research linking kids’ aerobic fitness to better thinking skills and academic performance.
“There are multiple ways children can derive benefit from exercise … to build healthy bodies as well as healthy minds,” said study co-author Charles Hillman. He’s a professor of psychology and health sciences at Northeastern University in Boston. “We know that kids are becoming increasingly inactive, overweight and unfit,” Hillman added. “So, it’s important to take studies like these … to basically indicate the benefit of physical activity and the importance of it.”
Physical Activity in Children
Only 1 in 3 children in the United States is physically active every day, according to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. One contributor is the 7.5 hours per day, on average, that children spend in front of a screen — whether it be TV, video games, computers or the like.
Children taking part in the study completed both aerobic fitness and muscular fitness assessments, including upper body, lower body and core exercises. Additionally, their working memory and academic achievement were measured by various tests.
Hillman and his colleagues found that participants with higher levels of aerobic fitness also scored higher on tests of memory and mathematics. But a new insight was gleaned with the finding that muscle fitness was directly linked to memory performance — though not academic performance. Hillman emphasized that the muscle fitness tests used in the research resembled the kinds of activity kids take part in regularly — not lifting large weights.
“It wasn’t pure strength the way that running is pure cardio,” Hillman explained, “in the sense that they were doing high volume [repetitions] and low weights. Much was body movement, such as pushups and squats or lifting light medicine balls. We were trying to mimic the way kids would typically be active.”
Working memory in both boys and girls appeared to benefit equally from greater muscle fitness, he noted.
Hillman said scientists aren’t sure how greater muscle fitness would work to enhance memory. Drawing from the results of animal research, he theorized that muscle fitness could help connections develop between brain neurons.
Dr. Bradley Sandella, fellowship director for sports medicine at Christiana Care Health System in Wilmington, Del., said the new findings provided information he could use in his own practice.
“I think we always think about the benefit of physical activity on overall health, but not specifically for cognitive function,” Sandella said. “This is something I can use to motivate students, but also parents of students, to become more physically active. Not only do we know it’s good for physical development, but also that it’s good for cognitive development.”
He cautioned, however, that the study was preliminary and that long-term research is needed to determine any effects of muscle fitness on academic performance. The study also did not prove that stronger muscles caused memory to improve.
The study was published recently in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
SOURCES: Charles Hillman, Ph.D., professor, psychology and health sciences, Northeastern University, Boston; Bradley Sandella, D.O., fellowship director, sports medicine, Christiana Care Health System, Wilmington, Del.; April 2017 issue, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
Additional Topics: Whole Body Wellness
Maintaining overall health and wellness through a balanced nutrition, regular physical activity and proper sleep is essential for your whole body�s well-being. While these are some of the most important contributing factors for staying healthy, seeking care and preventing injuries or the development of conditions through natural alternatives can also guarantee overall health and wellness. Chiropractic care is a safe and effective treatment option utilized by many individuals to ensure whole body wellness.
IFM's Find A Practitioner tool is the largest referral network in Functional Medicine, created to help patients locate Functional Medicine practitioners anywhere in the world. IFM Certified Practitioners are listed first in the search results, given their extensive education in Functional Medicine
