Back Clinic Power & Strength Training. These types of conditioning programs are for both athletes and the general population. They can reach higher levels of personal power and strength, making them capable of achieving their personal fitness goals. Power is defined as the ability to generate as much force as fast as possible. It’s needed for athletic movements such as workouts (clean & jerk), swinging a bat, golf club, tennis racket, and running through a tackle.
Power requires strength and speed to develop force. Strength is the amount of force muscle/s can exert against an external load. One rep maximum test is performed where individuals assess the greatest weight they can lift while maintaining proper form. The movement’s speed is not important in a strength test. Dr. Alex Jimenez offers insight into various stretches and exercises and explains the possible risks of injury on strength training through his numerous article archives.
Malik Decquir shares his reason for staying determined in sports by never giving up and being consistent. Malik found Push-as-Rx �� in order to enhance his physical performance and his experience changed his outlook. He expresses how happy and comfortable he is at Push as Rx and offers his greatest gratitude to the trainers who were there when he needed them the most, giving him great advice, and pushing him to become the best at Push-as-Rx �.
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.
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I have been travelling through Athens and now Istanbul. My 11 year old is a Percy Jackson nut and has been filling me in with the who’s who of Greek mythology and I am learning Latin words every day. Quite an education!
I looked up the word syndesmosis and the Latin translation is “(New Latin, from Greek sundesmos) bond, ligament, from sundein, meaning to bind together”. As sports injury professionals, we know syndesmosis to be the joint articulation between the tibia and the fibula bones around the ankle. These two bones are �bound’ together with very firm and strong ligaments.
Syndesmosis comes to mind after I saw a girl sprain a syndesmosis at the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul today. This poor girl was preoccupied by the hundreds of cats and kittens running all over the place and did not see the uneven cobblestones on which she placed her foot. At the same time, she turned to change direction. This is a common mechanism of injury for a syndesmosis – a forced dorsiflexion and rotation on a fixed foot.
Rehab Masterclass Issue 140 Of Sports Injury Bulletin
Of all the ankle injuries, injury to the syndesmosis is the biggest pest to sports physios and the like. And unlike simple garden variety ankle sprains that heal quickly, the syndesmosis takes a LONG time to heal properly. If you deal with athletes that are susceptible to syndesmosis sprains, I’m sure you will agree that these are harder injuries to manage because of the severe consequences if done badly.
I go into a fair bit of detail in my Sports Injury Bulletin piece about syndesmosis injuries, detailing how they happen, how to identify them and then manage them. What I would like to highlight here are the implications of mismanaging a syndesmosis sprain.
In the current issue of The Journal of Sports and Physical Therapy, a group of Japanese researchers discovered that individuals who had chronic ankle instability (CAI) had a distal fibula that was positioned more lateral compared with healthy individuals with no CAI. In effect, those who had suffered serious syndesmosis injuries in the past and ended up with a wider distance between the fibula and the tibia, suffered more ongoing ankle pain than those without a tibfib separation.
Research shows that even a 1mm displacement of the talus within the mortise (due to a wider placed fibula) can reduce the contact area in the talocrural joint by 42% (Ramsey and Hamilton 1976). Mismanaged syndesmosis injuries, resulting in an excessive amount of opening, can lead to early onset arthritic changes and chronic ankle instability. The talus bone bounces around in the now wider tibfib articulation.
A Widening Of The Fibula Is Due To One Of The Following:
Poor initial management, whereby the athlete is allowed to weight bear too early and this weight bearing forces the fibula away from the tibia as the syndesmosis ligaments are trying to heal.
The degree of damage is so severe that proper tightening of these ligaments is not possible without surgical intervention such as a screw or similar being placed between the two bones to �force’ them together.
The key for a sports injury practitioner, is to properly identify a regular ankle sprain from a more serious syndesmosis injury. If you get this part wrong and allow the athlete to get back to weight bearing too early, then expect some complaints about a chronically painful ankle some time down the track.
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Kobayashi et al (2014). �Fibular malalignment in individuals with chronic ankle instability.’ JOPST. 44(11); pp 841-910.
Ramsey and Hamilton (1976). J Bone and J Surgery Am. 58(3); 356-357.
When you think of a ballerina body, you may picture a petite, slender�physique. But many dancers have rejected that rigid idea of what a ballerina is supposed to�look like�and instead, they’ve led a shift towards�embracing a diverse range of�athletic ballerina bodies. One woman who’s played a major role in that movement is none other than Misty Copeland, the iconic principle dancer at the American Ballet Theater.
�We are real women and ballerinas, muscular, feminine but also strong, lithe but also curvaceous,� Copeland writes in her new book, Ballerina Body: Dancing and Eating Your Way to a Leaner, Stronger, and More Graceful You�($30, amazon.com).�But Copeland doesn�t pretend she always felt so confident in her skin. �None of it was easy. Not my climb in the ballet world, not my arrival at a place of personal contentment and peace, not my journey to the body I stand in.�
Her book is her way of helping other women reach the same state of body confidence that she now exudes to the world. �I dream of sharing what I�ve learned�of showing women everywhere how to reach their body goals and achieve what they see as their best selves,” she says.
For Copeland, that has meant prioritizing exercise, as an integral and positive element of her day.��Working out, so essential to our mental and physical well-being, can and should be woven through every part of our lives,� Copeland says.
Below are four exercises that she incorporates in�her cross-training routine, to help maintain her ideal ballerina body��one that is lean but sinewy, with muscles that are long, sculpted, and toned.� But you certainly don’t have to be a dancer to reap the benefits of these challenging moves. Try them out to�get toned from head to (pointed)�toe.
Relev�
�Relev� means �raised,� or lifted, and describes the position when you rise onto the balls of your feet (demi-pointe) or onto the toes (pointe) of one or both feet.
a. Begin in first position. Demi-pli�, then stretch your knees and rise onto demi-pointe (relev�). Repeat this three times and old on the count of four. When done to music, the counts are to the timing of the music.
b. Repeat once. When you get stronger, you may do four repetitions.
Remember to hold your posture. The flexing and pointing also prepare and strengthen your ankles to allow you to stand on demi-pointe (or en pointe, if you are an advanced dancer).
Balancing Adagio
�Adagio� refers to the slow movement in the ballet technique. As much as the adagio is about flexibility, strength, and fluidity in the movement, learning this exercise on the floor will give you an advantage before approaching it standing. On the floor you acquire a sense of balance and where your weight should be in order to leverage it to make you legs appear higher and more extended in opposition to our upper body.
This exercise should be done slowly to improve balance, alignment, abdominal strength, and stamina.
a. Start by sitting with your legs together on the floor in front of you.
b. Lift your legs into the air by bending your knees, holding the backs of your things with your hands with your legs still bent and parallel to each other.
c. Leaning back, with your back straight and the backs of your thighs (hamstrings) leaning into your hands, slowly lengthen both legs into the air until they are fully straight, making you into a V shape. Bend your knees so the tips of your toes touch the floor. Now do the same with each leg, alone, keeping the tips of the toes of your other leg posed on the floor.
d. Repeat the sequence, beginning with the other leg, when doing the single-leg section.
Seaweed
This exercise is great for freeing and lengthening the spine and for centering and strengthening the core.
a. Begin lying on your back, your legs together and parallel and your feet pointed.
b. Bend your legs slowly, bringing them off the floor, still bent, and lifting your feet off the floor as well, while your back hugs the ground.
c. Keeping your lower back on the floor and your shoulder blades drawn down toward your waist, curl your upper back off the floor, around your lower abs. Your arms should act like seaweed being moved by the motion of the tides, around and behind your lifted legs.
d. Float your upper back and arms down to the floor, legs still bent, body still energized.
e. Repeat four times, bringing your legs gently toward your head as your core and upper body lift, igniting the lower abdominal muscles.
f. After the last time, hold one hand or wrist (depending on the length of your arms) with the other, behind your thighs.
g. Lengthen your legs straight into the air, pressing the backs of your legs into your arms.
h. Propel your legs to the floor, arms still around them, until you get close to the floor. Then open your arms to the sides and move them forward toward your feet, over your head.
i. Your upper back should bend forward over your legs as you transition from lying to sitting, with the backs of your hands on the floor to help stabilize and keep the backs of your legs on the floor.
j. Roll down through your spine until your back is on the floor and you are in the starting position, with your shoulders relaxed. Repeat two to four times.
D�gag�
�D�gag� means �disengaged.� When preparing for d�gag�s in particular, but whenever you�re lying on the floor, you should feel like you are standing or jumping�not lying on the sand at the beach!
This exercise is good for length, strength, and alignment. Be sure to press the parts of your back and body that are touching the surface of the floor to the floor, allowing your working leg to float up, initiating the movement with your inner thighs and the backs of the legs rather than the top of your thighs (quadriceps).
a. Begin lying on your back with your feet in first position (heels together and toes apart, feet pointed).
b. Place your arms at your sides with your palms facing down; you can vary the positioning of your arms depending on what makes you comfortable, as long as your arms don�t go above your shoulders.
c. Keep your legs elongated, straight on the floor.
d. Use your palms and arms by pressing them to the floor. This will help to strengthen ?your core and align the spine.
e. Lift one leg two or three inches from the floor, with your toes still pointed out, by pressing the standing leg (again, whether you�re standing or lying on the floor, the standing leg is the one that is not moving; it helps to maintain balance), your arms, and your head into the floor. This will help you to lift the working leg while maintaining stability throughout your body. Do four d�gag�s with one leg front, then switch legs and do four with the other leg front.
f. Now do four d�gag�s to each side. For these, your working leg stays on the floor, brushing along the floor as it extends to the side. Do not disturb the balance of the pelvis or the back as you move the working leg.
Excerpted from the book BALLERINA BODY by Misty Copeland. Copyright 2017 by Misty Copeland. Reprinted with permission of Grand Central Life & Style. All rights reserved.
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.
A common soccer move — bouncing the ball off of the head — may not be as harmless to the brain as has been thought, new research suggests.
A study of more than 200 adult amateur soccer players of both genders found that regularly “heading” the ball, as well as suffering accidental hits to the head, significantly boosted a player’s risk of concussion.”The prevailing wisdom is that routine heading in soccer is innocuous and we need only worry about players when they have unintentional head collisions,” study leader Dr. Michael Lipton, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, said in a college news release.”But our study suggests that you don’t need an overt collision to warrant this type of concern,” said Lipton. He is professor of radiology, psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Einstein.Another concussion expert who reviewed the findings agreed.Soccer Athletes at Risk
The study “seems to provide additional evidence that such practices within the game of soccer can put athletes at risk for traumatic brain injury,” said Dr. Jamie Ullman. She directs neurotrauma at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y.Much of the research into sports-related concussions has concentrated on high-impact sports, such as football or hockey. But head trauma experts have long known that other sports — including soccer and rugby — might carry risks, too.In prior studies, Lipton said his team found that “30 percent of soccer players who’d had more than 1,000 headings per year had a higher risk of microstructural changes in the brain’s white matter, typical of traumatic brain injury, and worse cognitive performance.”Exploring the issue further, the new study focused on online questionnaires answered by 222 adult amateur soccer club players in the New York City area, both male and female. All had played soccer at least six months during the prior year.Men averaged 44 headers in two weeks, the survey found, while women averaged 27. One or more accidental head impacts, such as a ball hitting the back of the head or a head colliding with another player’s knee, were reported by 43 percent of women and 37 percent of men.Players who regularly headed the ball were three times more likely to have concussion symptoms than those who didn’t head the ball often, Lipton’s team reported.Players who suffered accidental head impacts two or more times within a two-week span were six times more likely to have concussion symptoms than those without accidental head impacts, the findings showed.Of those who headed the ball or reported accidental head impacts, 20 percent had moderate to severe concussion symptoms, according to the report.Of the seven players with very severe symptoms, six had two or more unintentional head impacts over two weeks, four were among those who headed the ball the most, and three were in the group that headed the ball second-most.Lipton stressed that the findings cannot be generalized to child, teen or professional soccer players.Still, “our findings certainly indicate that heading is more than just a ‘sub-concussive’ impact, and that heading-related concussions are common,” Lipton said. “We need to give people who have these injuries proper care and make efforts to prevent multiple head impacts, which are particularly dangerous.”That means watching out for symptoms, he added.”Many players who head the ball frequently are experiencing classic concussion symptoms — such as headache, confusion and dizziness — during games and practice, even though they are not actually diagnosed with concussion,” Lipton explained.”Concussion sufferers should avoid additional collisions or head impacts during the following days or weeks, when their risk of incurring a second concussion is extremely high,” he said. “Because these injuries go unrecognized and unmanaged, there may be important clinical consequences for the short and long term.”Dr. Salman Azhar is a neurologist and director of stroke services at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. He said the new findings are in accordance with prior studies, and the odds for concussion appeared to rise along with the frequency of head impacts.”The chance of having moderate-to-severe symptoms increased when the unintentional heading went from just one per two-week period to two per two-week period,” Azhar noted.The study was initially published online Feb. 1 in the journal Neurology.
For more information, ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900
Presented By:
Dr. Alex Jimenez D.C.,C.C.S.T
Spinal Trauma Specialist
Walk into any gym or health club and you�ll find people exercising�their core. Coretraining has�taken the world by storm, and for good reason, as every DC knows. Strengthening the�core creates stability and better movement and helps prevent lower back pain. To help patients get the most from�their efforts, it�s important they understand what they�re doing. You can explain the difference between the local and global muscles, as I�ve outlined�below, and help your patients�perform core work safely and effectively.
What Is the Core?
I like to tell patients that their core is a shorthand way of referring to all the muscles of their�lower back/pelvis/hip area. It�s where your center of gravity is located and where movement begins. A strong core stabilizes the spine and pelvis and supports you as you move. The core has 29 pairs of muscles that�fall into two categories:
��Local Muscles. Patients can think�of local muscles as the deeper muscles, the ones close to the�spine and responsible for stabilization.�They don�t have much ability to move the�joints. The local muscles are further broken down into primary and secondary categories. The primary local muscles are the transverse abdominus and multifidi (the two most critical muscles for providing stability). The secondary local muscles are the internal obliques, quadratus lumborum, diaphragm and pelvic floor muscles.
��Global Muscles.�The global muscles are the outermost layer of muscle�they�re the ones you can feel through your skin. They�re responsible for moving joints. The global muscles in the core are the rectus abdominus, external obliques, erector spinae, psoas major and iliocostalis.
The core should operate as an integrated functional unit, with the local and global muscles working together to allow easy, smooth, pain-free movement. When the muscles work together optimally, each component distributes, absorbs and transfers forces. The kinetic chain of motion functions efficiently when you do something dynamic, like exercise or run.
Core Injury
An injury to one of the core muscles usually means an episode of lower back pain for your patient. When that happens, the deep stabilizers change how they work as a way to compensate for the injury and protect the area. The stabilizers now have delayed action; they�re turned on only after you move, instead of as you move. Because now they�re not functioning as they should, the�brain recruits the�global muscles to compensate. That causes a core imbalance. The result: pain in the lower back, pelvis and glutes (the big muscles you sit on).
Exercises designed to help get patients� core muscles back in balance are the best way to prevent re-injury and avoid lower back pain. Traditional abdominal exercises are often recommended to strengthen the global muscles. These exercises can actually increase pressure on the lower spine. Similarly, traditional lower back hyperextension exercises meant to stretch out the lower spine also may actually increase pressure on it. A better approach to preventing lower back pain is restoring stability with the core exercises below.
Abdominal Brace
The abdominal brace activates all the contracting muscles in the abdominal wall, without involving the nearby obliques and rectus muscles. This exercise strengthens the connection between the global muscles and the deep local muscles. This helps restore the balance between them and improves spinal stiffness.
To get an idea of how the muscles in your core work, place your thumbs in the small of your back on either side of your spine. Next, do a hip hinge: bend forward from the hips about 15 degrees. You should feel the muscles in your lower back move as you bend and stand back up again.
To do the brace, stand upright and suck in your stomach, as if you were about to get punched. Hold hat for 10 seconds, then relax. Repeat 20 times; do three sets.
You�ll know you�re doing the brace correctly if you poke your extended fingertips right into your side below your ribs and then brace. You should feel the muscles move under your fingertips.
Curl-Ups
Curl-ups train the rectus abdominus, the long abdominal muscle that runs vertically from your breastbone all the way down on both sides of your bellybutton.
Start by lying on your back with your hands palm-up beneath your lower back. Bend one leg and put the foot flat on the floor; extend the other leg. Hold your head and neck stiffly locked onto your ribcage�imagine them as one unit. Lift your head and shoulders slightly off the floor by three or four inches and hold that position for 20 seconds. Your elbows should touch the floor while you do this. Relax and gently lie back again. Repeat 10 times. Switch legs and repeat 10 times gain. Do three sets.
Tip: If your patient has�neck discomfort doing this, have them push their�tongue against the roof of the�mouth�to help�stabilize the neck muscles.
Side Bridge
The side bridge, also called the side plank, trains the quadratus lumborum, lateral obliques, and transverse abdominus muscles, all local muscles that help stabilize the�spine.
Start by lying on your side. Place your top leg in front of your bottom leg (the heel of your top foot should touch the toe of the bottom foot). Raise your body using the down-side shoulder and elbow. Cap the opposite shoulder with your free hand. Hold for as long as you can, aiming for 30 seconds. Switch sides and repeat.
Bird Dog
This exercise is great for training the back extensors, including the longissimus, iliocostalis and multifidii.
Start on your hands and knees (quadruped position). Raise and extend the opposite arm and leg simultaneously, like a dog pointing to where the bird is. �Hold or eight seconds, then return to the quadruped position. Repeat eight times, then switch arms and legs and repeat for eight reps. Do three sets.
Conclusion
All the muscles of the�core must work together to produce efficient and effective movement. The core is the center of the�body�s motion�training it is a critical part of any exercise routine. Teaching your�patients proper technique for core training will result in�big benefits for them now and in the future.
Share this Core Strengthening guide with patients, courtesy of WebExercises
Walk into any gym or health club and you�ll find people exercising�their core. Core training has�taken the world by storm, and for good reason, as every DC knows. Strengthening the�core creates stability, better movement and helps prevent lower back pain.
Strength training and building strong muscles can help an individual lose weight. Exercising in general is a great way to burn calories and improve fitness levels but, muscle tissue can burn as many as 15 times more calories per day than fat tissue, including during rest.
Building strong muscles can also help protect an individual�s joints, especially the back.�when the muscles are stronger, the body places less pressure on the joints and connective tissue during physical activities, including exerting activities such as weight lifting. Building strong muscles to relieve strain on the joints is also essential for preventing and/or treating arthritis. Also, building stronger muscles can help improve an individual�s posture.
Strength training and building stronger muscles is also healthy for the heart. Muscle tissue is able to perform with less amounts of oxygen, in other words, the heart doesn�t need to pump harder when being active.�Additionally, building strong muscles can be good for managing blood pressure.
Strength training can greatly benefit individuals as they age, helping to prevent injury or certain conditions. As we age, the body undergoes natural physical changes, such as degeneration of the joints, causing the development of certain health conditions, such as a degeneration of the spine or arthritis.
Building strong muscles through strength training is essential towards maintaining overall health, fitness, and wellness.
By learning how to participate in strength training workouts, a majority of individuals can ultimately benefit from their body�s natural functions in order to prevent, improve, and maintain, their ideal fitness goals.
Dr. Alex Jimenez D.C.,C.C.S.T�s insight:
Strength training is a type of exercise which specializes in resistance training to build muscle strength and size as well as increase endurance. Besides building strong muscles, strength training offers several other benefits for both men and women, and especially for people above the age of 50. For individuals seeking to improve their overall health, fitness, and wellness, strengthening their muscles should be a top priority. For more information, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at (915) 850-0900.
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
2017 by Misty Copeland. Reprinted with permission of Grand Central Life & Style. All rights reserved.
Muscle balancing therapy has shown to help many conditions including the following:
Curl-ups train the rectus abdominus, the long abdominal muscle that runs vertically from your breastbone all the way down on both sides of your bellybutton.
The side bridge, also called the side plank, trains the quadratus lumborum, lateral obliques, and transverse abdominus muscles, all local muscles that help stabilize the�spine.
This exercise is great for training the back extensors, including the longissimus, iliocostalis and multifidii.
