Month: January 2020

For core endurance, abdominal hollowing is weird.  Hollow body shape is awesome.  End of lesson.

A few of you may remember abdominal hollowing.  Most of you have seen it when some childhood friend has the strange ability to suck their stomach back into their spine and up into their rib cage.  Besides being creepy, it was initially thought to be a good exercise for core strength and endurance.  Turns out… not so much.

When you “suck it in”, you actually disintegrate the pelvis and the rib cage.  If you haven’t been following recently, that is a very bad thing.  When the pelvis and rib cage lose integration, all of the bones, ligaments, and muscles are in a very weak and vulnerable position.  So, it’s important to keep strength and integrity throughout the core for long periods – core endurance.  If only there was a way…

This exercise helps patients increase core endurance as well as baseline awareness of core integration.  Progressing this exercise ensures that your core maintains perfect integration regardless of high or low intensity actions throughout the day.  In other words, you are strong and stable all day, every day.

Good Luck and #keepmoving

Dr.J

GET HELP

You must have stability at all times!

So maybe we don’t have to worry about the middle school bully punching us in the stomach.  But, wouldn’t it be nice to have a rock solid and stable core?  Achieving spinal stability serves us well  in defense against both real and imperceptible foes.

Foe #1 is the actual person that will punch you in the gut.  Foe #2 is the imperceptible foe named “spinal degeneration”.  He is a silent killer and once he has done his work there is really no turning back.  Soreness, numbness, tingling, and shooting pain are but a few of the side-kicks he brings to the party.

Long story short, be prepared to defend against both.  This exercise will help.

Good luck and #keepmoving

Dr.J

 

 

Breathing is more than a “Life Skill”

It’s something we take for granted.  We go through life, moment to moment, not really conscious of the life sustaining action of breathing.  Because of this, we think we are naturals at the task.  Absolute, undisputed champions of the world when it comes to this breathing thing.

Reality has a slightly different interpretation.  As humans, we are very hard to kill because of our insane ability to adapt within our environment.  However, when adaptations run out, life gets very uncomfortable and difficult.  With respect to breathing, we can be terrible with this task, severely compensating with every breath.  And because of this truth, when we become aware of this flaw our body is generally in a very uncomfortable and difficult scenario.

In regards to our featured patient, Ms. Meghan needed to reestablish her ability to breath correctly while keeping stability in her core.  This means she had to breath all the way in and all the way out while staying completely firm through her belly.  And honestly, more than her belly.  She had to stay evenly stable front to back, side to side, and top to bottom throughout the entire breathing cycle.  So yeah, kinda hard.  Check out this video to see how it is/isn’t done.

Keeping a solid and stable core from the rib cage to the pelvis is critical to relieving pain and stabilizing the tissues of the low back.  Taking a breather from time to time in order to reset perfect stability can be the difference between winning or losing the battle to save your spine.

Good luck and #keepmoving

Dr.J

How many steps did you walk today?

It’s a question we may ask ourselves, or something we track within a group to help us stay healthy.  But, does counting our walking steps really make us healthy or does it push us toward our next injury?

It’s a fair question considering the recommended number of steps is 10,000.  That’s right, 10,000 repetitions of anything is a lot of repetitions.  In fact, its the same number of repetitions as hours to “master” something.  All in one day!

But what if each walking step creates instability and compression in the low back, hips, knees, ankles, and plantar fascia?  Could we be stepping ourselves into the doctors office thinking we are becoming more fit and healthy?

The only way to answer these questions is to understand appropriate technique and then pay attention to what we are doing in our longer walks..  You don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to pay attention and try your best to avoid sloppy technique.  This video will help.

Walking from the core will not only protect the feet, but help you stabilize your entire system.  It’s worth the attention, and you will be gifted with 10,000 opportunities to practice each and every day.  Don’t miss the opportunity to dominate.

Good luck and #keepmoving

Dr.J