Back and Spinal Fitness at PUSH as Rx leads the field with a laser focus on supporting our youth sports 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.
The program is the multidisciplinary study of reactive agility, body mechanics, and extreme motion dynamics at its core. A clear quantitative picture of body dynamics emerges through continuous and detailed assessments of the athletes in motion and under directly supervised stress loads.
Exposure to the biomechanical vulnerabilities is presented to our team. Immediately, we adjust our methods for our athletes to optimize performance. This highly adaptive system with continual dynamic adjustments has helped many of our athletes return 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.
New research has found more evidence to suggest a positive link between exercise and depression, this time finding that children who exercise could benefit from a reduce risk of developing depression in the future.
Carried out by a team from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and University of Calgary researchers at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, the study is the first meta-analysis to examine the potential protective effect of childhood physical activity on depression later in life.
According to the Canadian Mental Health Association 3.2 million children in Canada between the ages of 12 and 19 are at risk for developing depression.
A number of exercise intervention programs for children have been launched in recent years to support treatment for mental health issues, however current research shows large discrepancies on the effectiveness of exercise. Although some studies show strong support for physical activity’s effect on reducing depression, other studies show no relationship at all.
To look further into the validity of exercise interventions based on the existing evidence the team conducted a meta-analysis of 40 studies involving a total of 90,000 participants between the ages of eight and 19 years old. Study participants were healthy and had not been diagnosed with depression.
The team found a statistically significant association between increased physical activity and a lower risk of future depressive symptoms; however, the link was not as strong as they expected.
Explaining the results principal investigator, Dr. Daphne Korczak, said, “This suggests that physical activity is one factor, but that there are other factors that are important in determining a child’s risk for developing depression,” adding that factors such as having a family history of depression, particularly in a parent, or struggling at school academically or socially can all play a role.
Korczak added that further research looking at children with depression or examining the frequency, type or intensity of exercise would be useful in developing a better understanding of how physical activity affects the brain and the body to impact someone’s mood.
The Canadian Psychological Association recommends children and adolescents get 60 minutes of physical activity a day, but statistics published by the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology suggest that only 15 percent of children (5 to 11 years) and five percent of adolescents (12 to 17 years) meet this recommended amount.
The study can be found online published in the journal Pediatrics.
Plantar fasciitis is a common affliction affecting many athletes, in particular runners. Adam Smith has written a great piece in the September issue of Sports Injury Bulletin outlining the relevant anatomy, how the injury occurs, how to differentiate from other similar pathologies, such as neural irritation in the tarsal tunnel, and finally how to manage it.
Speaking from experience as a former sufferer of plantar fasciitis, it can be a frustratingly recalcitrant condition and I have heard of some extreme measures to manage it. Read on for a story on the drastic measures an AFL player took to overcome the problem, and to understand more about the condition.
Many years ago an elite level AFL player had suffered a 2 year history of plantar fasciitis with no relief from any form of treatment. In the end the sports doctor at the club involved injected the plantar fascia origin with a corticosteroid injection the day before a game.
The hope was that as the plantar fascia weakened due to the steroid injection, the player would rupture it, go through the standard week rehab protocol, and then be pain free for ever more.
And yes, the player did rupture the plantar fascia during during the game and was consequently placed in a boot for about 10 days. He soon was walking, then running, and was playing again within four weeks with no more problems. The podiatrist made an orthotic to control the dropped arch and all the problems went away.
What has happened to that player now is anyone’s guess. He may now suffer from long term issues due to a poorly controlled arch that have caused other issues such as achilles tendon, knee pain and/or hip pain.
So do we really need the plantar fascia and why is it such a problem when it is injured?
Being bipedal (walking on two leg) animals, the plantar fascia gives the natural plantar arch support in weight bearing positions. It is a passive structure that acts like a high tension wire to keep the arch bones supinated as we push off.
Without a plantar fascia in place, we would need a better active system to create the arch support, such as the intrinsic plantar arch muscles, and also the extrinsic long arch support muscles such as the tibialis posterior, flexor hallucis longus (FHL) and the flexor digitorum longus (FDL). These muscles would need extra work to improve their arch control abilities. Alternatively, we could use a passive support mechanism in the form of an orthotic to control the arch position.
The majority of plantar fascia problems stem from a build up of tensile and compressive forces that degenerate the plantar fascia origin against the heel bone. The combination of tensile (stretch) force due to overpronation and the added compressive force as the plantar fascia is pushed against the heel bone leads to a pathological state whereby the plantar fascia degenerates and creates dysfunction and pain.
Therefore like other degenerative tendon issues (such as Achilles tendons) once the patient starts to feel pain often the injury has been building for months to years. Which explains why it then becomes so problematic to deal with.
Proper management takes time to not only correct the muscle imbalances that cause it � such as tight calves, poor hip control, poor pronation control � but due to its degenerative nature it requires a huge amount of time to even slightly change the existing pathology.
For more information, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
Additional Topics: What is Chiropractic?
Chiropractic care is an well-known, alternative treatment option utilized to prevent, diagnose and treat a variety of injuries and conditions associated with the spine, primarily subluxations or spinal misalignments. Chiropractic focuses on restoring and maintaining the overall health and wellness of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems. Through the use of spinal adjustments and manual manipulations, a chiropractor, or doctor of chiropractic, can carefully re-align the spine, improving a patient�s strength, mobility and flexibility.
Do you have a muscle imbalance? Muscle imbalances occur when one side of opposing muscles is stronger than the other. Many exercise enthusiasts may be getting chronic injuries because of muscle imbalances they don�t know they have. According to renowned physical therapist Dr. Kareem Samhouri, locating and correcting muscle imbalances is essential to good health, and can help cure many of the ailments people encounter daily.
Dr. Kareem is a doctor of Physical Therapy & Kinesiology and owner of Dr. Kareem F Samhouri Fitness LLC. In his practice, Dr. Kareem has rehabilitated and trained a wide variety of patients seeking help for an assortment health issues:
Improved athletic performance in Olympic and professional athletes
Joint pain in baby boomers
Balance issues in older patients
Coma victims
Spinal cord injuries
Rare diseases
Heart issues
Lung disease
Pregnancy
Stroke victims
Health issues among children and infants
How To Fix Muscle Imbalance
Dr. Kareem has had many amazing success stories throughout his medical career. One of his favorite patients is a 112 year old women who was wheelchair bound:
�She had very little strength or coordination, but had a great spirit and was willing to work hard. The mission was to reactivate her muscles and nervous system, so we started with simple exercises such as simply lifting one foot and putting it back down.
�Once she was able to do that, we focused on squeezing her knees together and moving them apart. In the beginning she needed assistance, but over time, she was lifting her knees, rotating her shoulders and pulling herself out of her chair with little assistance.
�When she was finally able to lift herself out of the chair without help, she asked me �is there any way I can dance?� The music was turned up and after a little help, she was able to dance for the first time in years!�
Another highlight of Dr. Kareem�s career was helping save the life of a four-day old baby who was born 18 weeks prematurely. This baby was the youngest baby ever born at that hospital and doctors didn�t think this baby was going to survive.
What Dr. Kareem did was to put the baby in different positions:
�Instead of it cringing into fetal position because of all the noises, and sirens, and bells, and whistles going off in the hospital, we opened him up and let his chest breathe a little bit. We moved the baby�s arms in diagonal patterns so he could actually get more breath. We also put a little pressure on the diaphragm so the baby could take deeper breaths, then took the pressure off as the belly would expand and contract.
�All of these factors led towards the baby really just developing a little bit more easily and a little bit faster. Of course, in an infant that�s that young, you really just have to be as gentle as can be. Oftentimes, instead of a hand, it�s just barely a fingertip touch that you�re going to do. When it came to actually moving the baby�s muscles, light, little taps in the areas where the nerve ties into the muscle to say, �Hey, right here.�
�Sure enough, baby got better, grew up totally healthy, and ended up living a healthy life.�
When Dr. Kareem consults with his clients, he shares his philosophy on health: �Your body is designed to heal or decay. From now on, decide on your own health momentum. Regain control while you begin to look and feel years younger.�
Dr. Kareem started on his health journey by simply wanting to help his mother with her health issues, but soon discovered he had health issues of his own. After close scrutiny, he was able to determine that his ailments were due to a muscle imbalance, and they were all alleviated by simply straightening out his posture. He eventually graduated from Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and became a physical therapist. Shortly thereafter, he added personal training to his resume, opening the world�s first clinic where these practices were taught all under one roof. Dr. Kareem believes the body is meant to move, and the key to good health is getting it to move correctly.
This is the basis of muscle balance therapy, and it is designed to assist the body with the following health issues:
Alleviating pain
Faster healing
Improved mood
Improved posture
Increased athleticism
Greater quality of life
� Causes of Common Muscle Imbalance
There are many causes of muscle imbalance, following are the most common:
Improper Exercise When it comes to traditional exercise, many of us tend to exercise in a one or two-dimensional way, which is primarily comprised of movements that are either forwards and/or backwards. For example, the bench press and running are two exercises that are extremely popular, but they can cause muscle imbalances if other complementary exercises are not included in the workout regimen.
In many cases, muscle imbalances mean that the larger muscles are becoming stronger at a faster rate than the smaller muscles. According to Dr. Kareem, the issues caused by muscle imbalance affects more than the disturbed area and may cause a domino effect. For example, if a person has a rotator cuff imbalance, the nerve signal that shuts down the muscle is turned on. When a muscle gets shut down, not only does it stop a person from being able to move the way they want, but it slows down their metabolism as well. This can make a person less effective at many other things, which could eventually affect their mood.
Even as adults, we are meant to play. Our bodies are designed to move in every possible direction. That�s how you would naturally hit all the different muscles. Unfortunately, many of us don�t play. We go to a gym and try to simulate the movements, yet we�re missing different diagonals, rotations, and areas that would be balanced by real life dynamic movement. Repetitive workout routines can create muscle imbalances that wreck our bodies over time.
Moreover, imbalances can lead to injury. For some exercise enthusiasts who are getting chronic injuries, it may be from an underlying muscle imbalance. A person can be big and strong in certain areas, but his smaller stabilizer muscles are not being used. As a result, the body is thrown out of balance, oftentimes creating a functional problem.
Muscle imbalances can affect people of all ages. Kids can experience overuse injuries very quickly, making them less capable of excelling in a sport. In adults of all fitness levels, muscle imbalances can have a negative impact on performance; they�ll be slower, less coordinated, and unable to learn new movements quickly. In older individuals, muscle imbalances can result in decreased coordination, decreased strength and joint pain. Many times, the pain seems to have come out of nowhere or flares up suddenly, but in reality, it was based on a long history of improper movement.
Sedentary Lifestyle
The human body was made to move, not sit at a desk or in front of the television for an extended period of time. Excess sitting can cause muscles to become tight and eventually shorter than they are designed to be. The dangers associated with the sedentary lifestyle are well documented. According to data from the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD)1
Sedentary people have the highest rate of heart attacks.
For every 2 hours a person watches television, their risk of Type 2 diabetes�increases 14%
Sedentary individuals have an increased risk of breast and colon cancer.
The risk of stroke is reduced by two-thirds in physically active men and women by 50%.
Bone loss�increases in physically inactive individuals.
Walking for sixty minutes daily can reduce a person�s risk of obesity by 24%.
A Weak Core
A strong core helps keeps the muscles and internal organs properly aligned. A weak core can cause slouching, which can lead to poor posture, which could lead to muscle imbalances. These imbalances in the core can lead to health issues such as constipation, acid reflux, and other issues.
Common Muscle Imbalance Areas
Muscle imbalances can happen throughout the body. Some of the most common imbalances include the following:
Neck flexors.�A person�s neck flexors actually end up quite stretched, while their neck extensors become compressed. This often occurs if a person is right handed and they�re always writing with their right hand, typing in a specific way, reaching for a mouse or a stapler, or just rotating their spine in a very specific pattern and shoulder in the same manner over and over again.
Tight hip flexors. Tight hip flexors are caused by sitting for extended periods of time. The human body was not designed to sit as long and as often as we do, and the result is the hip flexors become shortened. This in turn causes the pelvis to rotate or tilt downward, causing the glutes to become lengthened and weak. This will put more pressure on the hamstrings, increasing the risk of hamstring tears, strains and pulls.
Weak upper back. Another common problem is forward shoulder posture, or �upper crossed syndrome.� This is common among individuals who spend long hours in front of a computer. The head goes forward, and as people make that adjustment, chin comes up, which causes an additional strain. Another cause of the upper back imbalance is performing �pushing� exercises such as pushups and bench presses, but not doing any �pulling� exercises for the back such as bent over rows or pulldowns.
As a result of these imbalances, the trapezius and rhomboid muscles become lengthened and weak, while the pectoral muscles and anterior deltoids become tight.
Tight calves. Women who wear high heels increase their probability of having tight calves. The soleus, gastrocnemius, peroneal, and other muscles in the lower leg become tight. This muscle imbalance can lead to different foot, heel, and ankle problems such as plantar fasciitis and fallen arches.
Tight Piriformis. The piriformis is muscle in the glutes which is also part of the external rotator in the hip. A tight piriformis occurs more often in men than women because men tend to sit with their legs open more often than women. Individuals with a tight piriformis often have knee problems, while others may experience problems with sciatica, which is shooting pain from the glutes to the back of the legs.
Tight abductors. Tight abductors usually occur in women because they tend to sit with their legs crossed. If a person has tight abductors, the femur may become internally rotated, which increases the probability of knee pain.
Muscle imbalance can occur in many different ways. Not only is It important to be aware of their causes, but it�s also important to know the various ways they can harm the body.
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Dangers of Muscle Imbalance
Many people are unaware how muscle imbalances can affect their overall health. Oftentimes, I would explain to my clients how �structure affects function.� I would show them an x-ray so they can see how an imbalance could erode their discs early and cause injury. However, it was a challenge for me to get them to understand how that affects their immune system.
Dr. Kareem explains the dangers of muscle imbalance by looking at the problem from both an Eastern medicine philosophy and Western medicine philosophy. He feels both viewpoints are valid, even though they are based on different rationales.
For example, in Western medicine, it�s understood that if we don�t take care of our bodies and keep them in proper alignment, they will begin to deteriorate and become weak very quickly. Pain signals will take over instead of muscle signals and contractions. We�ll begin to lose coordination, which ultimately, means we�ll lose our mobility and become less active. We�ll be less motivated to eat right and begin to feel helpless and assume the fetal position.
When we�re stressed, we curl up in the fetal position, and that�s a position of self-defeat. This position is a sign of anxiety, depression, and tension throughout the entire body. As we begin to look at illness from this perspective, we start to branch over to the Eastern medicine philosophy: how does this affect quality of life?
As we delve deeper into the Eastern medicine philosophy, we must consider the importance of the central nervous system and cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) and how it relates to muscle balancing: If you have a block in CSF flow, and it gets disrupted (through your brain, through your spinal cord, and back up,) it will change the way your entire body communicates.
Dr. Kareem elaborates further: �If there�s something more critical going on in your body right now, like for example, your nervous system�s compromised because CSF flow is blocked, then it doesn�t care if you want to lose weight. It doesn�t care if you have a cut or a laceration on your skin. It�s not going to heal it as well. It certainly doesn�t care if you have wrinkles that you want to get rid of or if your energy level isn�t what you want it to be. You got to fix the root cause, the number one priority in your body, and a domino effect takes place.
�That, perhaps, linked with oral health are two of the most important foundational things you can do to improve your health, period. If you�re not taking good care of your mouth, and you�re not taking good care of the messaging system for your entire body, those are primitive areas of your body that change everything else. The body�s organized in a way where it�s going to work from the highest priority backwards.�
When it comes to health, many people are focused on the wrong things. People are concerned more about the wrinkles� and the weight loss so energy and focus goes there. They don�t realize that root canals, cavitation, and amalgam fillings�in their mouths are making them toxic. It�s important for people to understand these things can cause inflammation, accelerated aging, and other issues. Toxins do this by getting into the cells the nervous system, and ultimately the anterior head. They�re not aware how their spinal cord is stretched and interfering with their nervous system. Instead of focusing on issues like the skin and weight loss, it�s more important to look upstream�and get to the root cause of our health issues.
Dr. Kareem believes that it is important to work on the number one system first, which is the endocrine system. When the endocrine system is under stress, hormones are more important than going on a particular diet. For example, if your pelvis is out of position and it�s properly realigned, you might uncover a six-pack you didn�t know you had:
�This is one of my biggest lessons and one of my earliest personal training finds. This was an introduction for me to muscle balancing. You see, there was this girl named Lindsey, and she worked as hard as anybody could work. She wasn�t anorexic, but she was borderline at that point where she was just doing everything she possibly could in the gym. She was eating correctly, so she wasn�t really skimming off food, but she just couldn�t get that final six-pack. She just wanted a little bit of definition. She always had the four at the top of the abs, but nothing at the bottom.
�Finally, I ended up doing a postural assessment on her. I took a peek. You know what? We just needed to tip her pelvis backwards a little bit. When we tipped her pelvis backwards a little bit, lo and behold, all those folds went away. Her love handles weren�t actually there. There was no extra body fat on her body preventing her from having the body she wanted. She just needed to be in a slightly different position.
�Now, the coolest thing is not only did she end up getting the body that she wanted, but she starting moving so quickly, all her results accelerated. It was months of work to get to this point, where then all of a sudden, in the next 30 days, she hit every single one of her goals. Truth was, it only took two weeks to tip her pelvis back into position and a few simple exercises that anybody can do at home with just their body weight alone.�
Do You Have Muscle Imbalances?
Our subconscious mind knows when the body�s out of position. If we turned the lights off in the room, you know your arms are behind you. You don�t have to look over to see that. That�s because there�s these little mechanoreceptors in every muscle telling your brain, �We�re over here.�
Same with when the head is forward. The mechanoreceptors are firing, letting the brain knows it�s out of position. When something is out of position, it sucks the energy right out of the cell. This �energy drain� is disruptive to your central nervous system and, if uncorrected, your entire body over time.
The subconscious mind knows this, but the average person is unaware the imbalance is occurring. They don�t know their head is tilted forward or their hips are slightly misaligned. They look in the mirror and think they are ok. I remember when I did this type of work saying, �Look at your low shoulder,� and they would look at themselves and say, �What low shoulder?� The point is this imbalance is the norm, but it�s can be a huge performance zapper.
If a person has had muscle imbalance for a period of time, one or both of these things can happen:
Our bodies are going to balance themselves out. If your head is tilted one way, you�ll subconsciously raise your shoulder a little bit to balance.
A person may opt to take medication to try relieve symptoms of discomfort. However, medication doesn�t get to the root cause of the issue, which is the muscle imbalance. In reality, a slight adjustment may be all that is needed.
Checking for Muscle Imbalances
You can check for muscle imbalances in the comfort of your own home:
Take a string and hang it from the ceiling, or have someone hold it for you. With the string, divide your body between right and left sides. Take a picture of yourself and compare your two sides.
1. When you look closely at the picture, look for the following signs of muscle imbalance:
Is one shoulder is up a little bit more than the other?
Is your side bent a little bit?
Is your head slightly tilted?
Is one hip raised little higher than the other?
Do you have a little bit more of a love handle on one side?
Is one hip is tighter than the other?
2. Take a second picture with the string dividing the body from front to back by taking it with the string at your side.
Is your head forward?
Is your chin tipped up?
Is one shoulder a little bit higher or rounder than the other one?
Is your pelvis tipped so that your lower back is arched a bit, and your belly is sticking out?
These imbalances can affect a person in many different ways. For example, if you�re a runner or athlete you may ask yourself �why can�t I get my hamstrings stronger?� or �why can�t I get faster?� This may be a case where you�re not getting the signal because your back�s arched, and you�re tipped out of position. Identifying the imbalances with a concrete image you can reference is an excellent place to begin looking for clues.
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Correcting Muscle Imbalances
Once the muscle imbalance is found, steps can be taken to correct it. While many people have the same types of muscle imbalances, Dr. Kareem stresses that it�s also important to focus on personalized health. This simply means to tailor muscle balancing techniques based on your symmetry.
�A lot of people say, �My right bicep is stronger than my left. Should I just lift heavier on my left and try and make up for it?� No. You actually want to back down. You want to cater to the more limited side of your body. Symmetry comes first. The fastest results come from slowing down to balance your body�s strength, and then everything accelerates from there. You want to back off from your weights on both arms to match the strength of your left, and then you would increase.�
�The same thing reflects ability and mobility in tissue release. If you can raise both arms up into the air, but one of your shoulders is hiking up a little bit, don�t go quite as far. Cater to the more limited side just before your shoulder hikes up, and come back. Work on your mobility just here, opening up your chest, increasing your ability to take a deep breath through your diaphragm. Then what happens is before you know it, even just a few reps in oftentimes, you�ll start to get a little bit further. If you just keep pushing past that point of resistance, sure, the left can keep going as far as it wants, but the right�s never going to get any better. That just results in more twisting through your body.�
Dr. Kareem has devised a short, five-minute program that uses a diagonal pattern that brings the body back into alignment naturally:
1. Free Squat
Stand hip width apart or slightly wider
Exhale and slowly lower, looking straight ahead
Inhale and rise back to starting position
Repeat for 50 seconds
Notes: Keep feet firmly planted. Arms can be crossed in front of body, fingertips at your ears, or held out (as shown.)
2. Superset pushup
Start with hands close together
Exhale and lower
Inhale and rise to starting position
Move hands out to shoulder width apart
Exhale and lower
Inhale and rise to starting position
Move arms out passed shoulder width apart
Exhale and lower
Inhale and rise to start position
This is one rep.
Repeat for 50 seconds
Notes: Pushups can be modified by doing them on your knees.
3. Fast Bridges
Lay on back with your feet planted onto the ground
Keep arms on your sides for stability
Raise hips toward the ceiling and lower quickly
Repeat for 50 seconds
Notes: Keep upper back planted on floor. Make sure to raise both hips evenly. Do not tilt the body.
4. Middle Trap (Bird Exercise)
Lower body into squat position
Feet shoulder width apart
Dig heels into floor
Tuck your chin
Extend arms out to sides
Lower arms to floor
Raise arms parallel to sides
Lower
Repeat for 50 seconds
Notes: Move shoulder, not the arms.
5. Rotational Plank
Start in pushup position
Keep core tight
Exhale and slowly roll body upwards on your left side
Inhale and slowly lower body back to pushup starting position
Repeat for 50 seconds
Notes: Keep core tight at all times. Body should be rolling back and forward in one fluid motion. Keep arms in plank positions at all times. Exercise can also be done on forearms.
For more information on these exercises, go to Dr. Kareem�s website.
This exercise program is designed to stimulate the front of body, the back of body, the lower body, and the upper body. This excites all of the nerves in the body and involves the smaller muscles. As a person performs these exercises, his body will quickly learn how to challenge the smaller muscles as well.
The body will begin to balance itself out by recruiting the big muscles to send the signal to the smaller ones. The idea here is to �train a nerve, not a muscle,� and that nerve starts in your head.
Dr. Kareem recommends performing these exercises every day or every other day. 50 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest before you transition to the next exercise. Everything is one minute, and it�s a total of five minutes every other day.
A popular misconception is we must do a certain amount of weight or reps for an exercise to be effective. Popular opinion is we are to do three sets of 10, three sets of 15, five sets, etc. In actuality, there is no solid evidence saying that that has to be the number instead of three reps or instead of six. The reality is your body just wants the cue in the right direction and let it take over. Instead of overanalyzing, we should just let nature take its course. We can self-optimize and trigger our small cues to say, �hey, body, I want to do this now.� When we send that signal for the first time, the body will understand, and it�ll start to superimpose it onto our lives and our body.
The Power of Visualization
An important part of this exercise is visualization. When a person thinks about a movement, the body begins to respond to that movement. Elite athletes use this method to prepare for a race or athletic event. They visualize the entire race before it happens.
It�s important to watch somebody else demonstrate properly first, then picture yourself doing the same move identically. This is the fastest way to learn a movement, and your body will begin to subconsciously learn how to perform the movement as well. Visualization techniques are very effective, and have shown to increase contractile strength by 30%.
On average, it takes about six weeks for a new exercise or activity to become second nature. A good example is getting out of a chair: the average person just gets up and walks without thinking about it, but in the beginning it may have taken effort. This is often the case with babies first learning to walk or people who are going through rehabilitation. They have to learn certain things all over again until they can do them without thinking about them.
Dealing with Chronic Injuries
When dealing with chronic injuries, Dr. Kareem suggests a person back off from their current activities or lower the intensity to ensure they�re not overtraining. It�s time to allow the body to learn something new, and that can be accomplished by performing the five muscle balance exercises described above. Here are a few tips from Dr. Kareem:
Weekend warrior.�If you�re not moving at all during the week, it may be helpful to decrease the intensity on the weekend warrior activities. If you�ve been playing two hours of basketball a day, cut it down to one just for a few weeks until you get the postural piece right.�
Elite athlete.�If you�re an elite athlete, maybe you�ll cut out a little bit of the time that you�re spending in the gym weight training. What you want to do is just use these five exercises initially, and then replace them over time. Use these five exercises. Do your workout, so you�re still playing basketball, or you�ll still play your sport. Within a few weeks, you�ll notice that your posture�s improved. Do that plumb line test, and you�ll see, �Where do I stand?�
Older individuals.�If you�re an older adult, avoiding falls is going to be the number one predictor of your longevity and quality of life. Take the same five minutes and use it as your five-minute mini circuit, or five-minute circuit in anything that you�re doing to enhance your health.�
�Once you know your body�s moving the way you envisioned, you can replace the five exercises with something different and something more powerful for you. It can be coordination training, speed training, balance reaction training, etc.�
In addition to athletics, doing muscle balancing exercises can help alleviate many other health conditions as well.
Additional Benefits of Muscle Balancing
Muscle balancing therapy has shown to help many conditions including the following:
Arthritis
Speed
Chronic pain
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Muscle balancing exercises are designed to improve health on a cellular level, giving attention to cells in the body that need them most.
Improved circulation. Muscle balancing helps the circulatory system become more efficient. This is important because red blood cells carry oxygen and the oxygen mitochondria needed to create energy production for every cell in the body.
Strengthened nervous system. Muscle balancing teaches the body to contract a muscle at the right time and in the right sequence by targeting our nerves instead of our muscles. The body then creates a �pump effect� that allows the deoxygenated blood stuck in your ankles and fingertips to find its way back to your heart efficiently and easily. This allows the heart to focus on getting rich, oxygenated blood back to the rest of your body.
Muscle Balancing with Massage
Dr. Kareem believes in myofascial release, which is a method of applying gentle pressure to eliminate pain and restore motion. When a person gets a massage and they experience a �good hurt,� that can indicate they either have a muscle imbalance or a knot in the muscle.
In addition to the five exercises, a tennis ball, foam roller, or massage are all effective ways to help remove knots and eliminate muscle imbalance. By using these methods, you�re taking something that functions almost like scar tissue, and giving it more slack. When you give your body more slack, you give it more forgiveness. Ultimately, that leads to a more effective, younger-feeling body.
Muscle imbalances can affect a person in many different ways. By eliminating imbalances, a person can see quality of life improve physically, mentally and spiritually. However, fixing muscle imbalance is one piece of the puzzle to realizing optimal health. I encourage you to address any imbalance, but to get real and lasting results a Multi-Therapeutic Approach must be implemented. My MTA involves diet change and variation, proper exercise, fasting, True Cellular Detox�, emotional detox, and more. Combining multiple proven health strategies is the most surefire way I know to fix cellular dysfunction and enjoy your best life.
The bodies of runners who put in a lot of mileage appear to be more efficient at running compared to those who run less, a new study finds. Jasper Verheul and colleagues at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom compared two groups of runners. One group ran more than 27 miles a week, the other group ran fewer than nine miles a week.
Anatomy of Runners
The researchers examined the activity of muscle groups in the thigh and the motion of knee joints with a variety of tools as the participants ran at different speeds during the research study.
“Given the importance of the knee joint in running, it was hoped that by examining knee joint stiffness and muscle activation levels across a range of running speeds, the adaptations of neuromuscular factors due to running training could be closely explored for the first time,” the researchers wrote.
When their feet landed on the ground, the knees of the runners who put in the most miles had less muscle activity and more stiffness. The researchers also saw that the tendons in the high-mileage runners worked more efficiently at pushing the body forward.
“From this, we concluded that high-mileage training leads to changes in the muscles and tendons that likely reduce energy expenditure during running, and these adaptations are enhanced the faster you go,” the researchers said.
The study appeared in the Journal of Applied Physiology.
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.
For more information, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
Additional Topics: Chiropractic and Athletic Performance
The prevention of sports injuries through the practice of proper stretches and exercises is essential for athletes. When an injury caused by an accident does occur however, many athletes seek chiropractic care to help diagnose and treat any possible sport-related injuries and conditions. Chiropractic treatment focuses on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of injuries and conditions associated with the musculoskeletal and nervous system through the use of spinal adjustments and manual manipulations. Chiropractic is beneficial for many athletes’s performance.
For people experiencing low back pain, the thought of exercise often seems daunting. But yoga may be a natural fit in the quest to relieve an aching back, a new review indicates.
The findings come from an analysis of 12 studies that included more than 1,000 participants with lower back pain. The studies compared yoga to physical therapy or patient education.
There was some evidence that yoga led to small improvements in pain, and small to moderate improvements in back function at three and six months.
“We found that the practice of yoga was linked to pain relief and improvement in function,” said review author L. Susan Wieland. She is an assistant professor of family and community medicine at the University of Maryland.
“For some patients suffering from chronic non-specific low back pain, yoga may be worth considering as a form of treatment,” Wieland added in a university news release.
About 80 percent of Americans will have back pain at some point in their lives, but treatment can be a challenge. For millions of people, chronic back pain affects their sleep, and their ability to do daily tasks and exercise.
Yoga has become increasingly popular in the United States in recent years. It typically involves a combination of physical movements, controlled breathing, and relaxation or meditation.
The review was published online recently in the journal Cochrane Library.
SOURCE: University of Maryland, news release, Feb. 6, 2017
For more information, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
Whole Body Wellness
Overall health and wellness can be achieved by following a proper nutrition and engaging in regular exercise and/or physical activities. While these are some of the most common ways to ensure whole body health and wellness, visiting a qualified and experienced healthcare professional can also grant your body additional benefits. Chiropractic care, for instance, is a safe and effective alternative treatment option utilized by people to maintain well-being.
Whether from the disease itself or the treatment, cancer can be exhausting, but a new review says there are ways to beat back cancer-related fatigue.
The review included a look at 113 past studies that included more than 11,000 adult cancer patients. The researchers found that exercise and/or behavioral and educational therapy seemed to be more effective than prescription drugs for dealing with fatigue.
“Exercise and psychological treatment, and the combination of these two interventions, work the best for treating cancer-related fatigue — better than any pharmaceuticals we have tested,” noted study lead author Karen Mustian. She’s an associate professor with the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Wilmot Cancer Institute in Rochester, N.Y.
The upshot, said Mustian, is that doctors should consider exercise and psychological interventions as the “first-line therapy” instead of more medications when it comes to tackling cancer-related fatigue. The study team noted that cancer-related fatigue is a very common problem among cancer patients, both during and following treatment. The American Cancer Society describes the phenomenon as distinct from routine tiredness. Even if you get rest, you’re still tired. Your arms and legs may feel heavy. You may feel too tired to do even the simplest tasks, such as eating a meal, according to the ACS.
Beyond affecting overall quality of life, cancer-related fatigue can also interfere with a patient’s ability to continue cancer treatment itself. That may result in a poorer prognosis and, in some cases, a reduced chance for long-term survival, the study authors said.
For the study, Mustian and colleagues looked at cancer-related fatigue triggered by the onset of cancer itself, rather than as a side effect of treatment.
Almost half of the patients included in the review were women battling breast cancer. Ten studies focused solely on male patients. In all, almost 80 percent of study participants were women. Their average age was 54. The analysis excluded studies that looked at so-called complementary therapies, with an exception made for alternative exercise treatments, such as yoga or tai chi.
In addition, the research team didn’t include studies that had assessed drug treatments involving erythropoietin medications (such as epoetin alpha, brand names Procrit and Epogen). These drugs are designed to stimulate red blood cell production, and are “used primarily for treating anemia and are not recommended as a stand-alone treatment for [cancer-related fatigue] due to adverse effects,” the study authors stated.
Studies included looked at the impact of four different treatment approaches: exercise alone (including aerobic, such as walking or swimming or anaerobic, such as weight-lifting); mental health interventions aimed at providing information and/or helping patients understand and adapt to their current situation; a combination of both exercise and psychological treatment; and prescription drugs, including stimulant medications (such as modafinil, brand name Provigil) and ADHD meds (such as methylphenidate, brand name Ritalin).
All four interventions led to improvement in fatigue. But the researchers found that exercise therapy led to the best outcomes. But psychological therapies produced similarly positive results, as did treatments that integrated exercise with mental health efforts.
The team concluded that when it came to controlling cancer-related fatigue, the exercise and/or psychological therapy approaches appeared to outperform prescription drugs. Colleen Doyle is managing director of nutrition and physical activity for the ACS. She said exercise has many benefits, not just helping to ease fatigue.
“But because many people undergoing treatment do experience fatigue, it’s nice to know that there is something an individual can do to help reduce that fatigue and gain some of the many other benefits of exercise [both during and after treatment]: reduced stress, less anxiety, [and] benefits to physical functioning,” Doyle said.
But can the typical cancer patient actually handle an exercise regime? Mustian says yes.
“These are not your elite athletes or fitness buffs,” she said. Almost all of the studies focused on people who had been sedentary and were placed on a low-to-moderate intensity exercise regimen, involving activities such as yoga or resistance training. “So they are normal people who were not regular exercisers, and who were able to complete these interventions and have relief from their fatigue,” Mustian said.
Doyle said that for patients who weren’t previously active, it’s important to start slowly.
“Our recommendation for survivors is essentially avoid inactivity as best you can. There will be days when you feel like not doing much of anything, and that’s okay, but strive to do something. Even if it is gentle stretching exercises, or a five-minute walk down the block,” she advised.
Mustian stressed that relatively few studies looked at combining exercise and psychological therapy.
“So it is not as clear what the best way to combine them would be,” she noted. The researchers said more studies need to be done to explore the ideal way to integrate exercise and psychological interventions.
The study was published March 2 in JAMA Oncology.
SOURCES: Karen M. Mustian, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor, Wilmot Cancer Institute, department of surgery, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, N.Y.; Colleen Doyle, M.S., R.D., managing director, Nutrition and Physical Activity, American Cancer Society; March 2, 2017, JAMA Oncology
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: What is Chiropractic?
Chiropractic care is an well-known, alternative treatment option utilized to prevent, diagnose and treat a variety of injuries and conditions associated with the spine, primarily subluxations or spinal misalignments. Chiropractic focuses on restoring and maintaining the overall health and wellness of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems. Through the use of spinal adjustments and manual manipulations, a chiropractor, or doctor of chiropractic, can carefully re-align the spine, improving a patient�s strength, mobility and flexibility.
Getting regular exercise and staying slim can lower the risk for an especially hard-to-treat type of heart failure, new research shows.
This specific type of disease is called heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). Ejection fraction is the amount of blood that’s pumped out of the heart. In many people with heart failure, the heart is so weak that it doesn’t pump enough blood out of the heart to meet the body’s demands.
In HFpEF, the heart muscle becomes stiff and doesn’t fill up with enough blood. This causes fluid to build up in the lungs and the body, the researchers explained in a news release from the American College of Cardiology.
“We consistently found an association between physical activity, BMI [body mass index] and overall heart failure risk,” said study senior author Dr. Jarett Berry. BMI is a measurement of body fat based on height and weight. “This was not unexpected,” Berry said, “however, the impact of these lifestyle factors on heart failure subtypes was quite different.”
Berry, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, is an associate professor in the department of internal medicine and clinical sciences, and director of cardiac rehabilitation. HFpEF accounts for up to 50 percent of heart failure cases. Treatment for the condition often doesn’t work well, which increases the importance of prevention strategies, the study authors said. For the report, Berry and his colleagues reviewed information from three previous studies that included more than 51,000 people. The researchers excluded anyone who had heart disease when the studies began.
The investigators looked for information on how much exercise the participants got, as well as their weight. In addition, the researchers reviewed participants’ medical records to see if people had been admitted to the hospital for heart failure over the several years of the study.
The study authors found that traditional risk factors for heart failure — such as high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking and obesity — were less common among those who were more active. People who exercised more tended to be white, male and have higher levels of education and income, the findings showed.
Meanwhile, people who carried more excess weight were younger, less active and were more likely to have risk factors for heart disease, according to the report. Overall, the researchers identified almost 3,200 cases of heart failure. Almost 40 percent were HFpEF. Nearly 29 percent were heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), which is associated with weak heart muscle that doesn’t pump properly. And just under 32 percent were unclassified.
The study doesn’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship, but low levels of physical activity were associated with a 6 percent lower risk of heart failure than no physical activity. Those who got the recommended amounts of exercise had an 11 percent lower risk of heart failure.
In people who got more than the recommended amounts of exercise, the risk of HFpEF was reduced by 19 percent. In addition, the incidence of HFpEF was significantly higher among those with excess weight, the findings showed.
According to the study’s first author, Dr. Ambarish Pandey, “These data suggest the importance of modifying lifestyle patterns to help prevent HFpEF in the general population.” Pandey is a cardiology fellow at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
The study was published Feb. 27 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
SOURCE: American College of Cardiology, news release, Feb. 27, 2017
For more information, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
Additional Topics: Chiropractic Care for Older Adults
With the progression of age, it�s common for the human body to naturally begin to degenerate. Although degenerative changes in the body are normal, it�s also common for complications associated with aging to develop. Chiropractic care is a safe and effective, alternative treatment option utilized by many individuals to prevent, diagnose and treat injuries and conditions associated with the structures of the spine. Research studies have demonstrated that chiropractic treatment can help older adults find relief from their neck pain and back pain.
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