Category: Blog

Sitting may be causing your back pain

How many hours a day do you sit?  Chances are if you added it up you’d be shocked.  The average American sits for 10-15 hours a day.  YIKES!!

Take a look at this new 1 – minute video to see how sitting actually changes the length of your muscles.  Since muscles attach one bone or several bones to another, this causes misalignment and often pain.

The good news is, that if you stand up and move for 5 minutes every ½ hour, you can make lasting changes to the length of those muscles, giving your body a chance to realign and avoid pain.

What To Do With an Idea

How do you react when you know you have a great idea and then something gets in the way?  You tried, you think you failed, you conclude that it’s just not possible.  In reality, our limitations are most often self imposed.

This morning I got out of the shower and had that light bulb go off in my head.  Something I’d been pondering suddenly made perfect sense.  I was busy in my mind working out the details.  Enter my 9 year old daughter who gave me the perfect opportunity to put into action exactly what I was thinking about.

What came out of my mouth was the exact opposite of my brilliant idea.  I realized it as she walked out of my bedroom door.  Did I fail in execution?  Yes.  Absolutely.  Without a doubt.  Am I going to give up on that idea.  No. Absolutely not.  Without a doubt.

We have choices to make every moment of every day.  I choose to forgive myself these little failures.  Our tendency is often to talk down to ourselves.  To dwell on what we did wrong, rather than make a quick adjustment and keep moving.

I’ll do it better next time.  I believe in the idea.  I just need to practice, make little corrections along the way and always keep moving.

 

When Nothing Goes Right…..Go Left

I moved to Williamstown just over a year ago with my two daughters.  They are bright and fun.  Full of life.  Williamstown is  filled with academics, entrepreneurs, artists and genuinely fascinating people. The landscape of the Berkshires and these people drew me here like a bear to honey. I wanted a place for my girls to thrive and that’s exactly what they are doing.

Let’s just say that the results of the presidential #election last week were not met with joy here. There was an electric WTF energy in the air.

Here’s what I think. Every single thing that happens in life presents an opportunity. An opportunity to be still for a moment to ask why? What am I here in this moment to do? Everything is an opportunity for change. Ironically it’s the things that piss you off the most, the things that hurt you to your bones, the things that bring you to your knees that are the greatest gifts.

My philosophy is hanging on the wall next to my bed….

When nothing goes right < go left

Simple. We cannot sit still and complain. We cannot bitch and moan and blame others for the way we feel. We cannot take it upon ourselves to fix what we think is wrong with the way another person talks or behaves or even votes. I did that for a long time in my marriage. I poured energy into thinking that if I could just change the way he behaved, the way he thought, the way he spoke….we would be happy again. That was pretty f$%#ing egotistical of me.

Then it hit me. How about I look in the mirror? Who was I becoming? What did I want? Why was I pinning all my hopes for joy on a person and a choice we made in our 20’s?

I sat still. I read everything I could. I stopped trying to drown out the hurt. I let myself feel it. I sat still for the first time in years and asked myself what I wanted. I fought feelings of selfishness because every once in a while, while I sat still, I could recognize myself again. I didn’t want to lose that. So when it was suggested that I was becoming someone my husband didn’t recognize, that I was being selfish; I had to make a choice, because at the same time, friends were saying I looked different, better, brighter….

I was committed to the path I chose in the first half of my life, but it wasn’t going well for either of us. Nothing was going right….so I went left.

I believe that action is everything. Words and promises don’t excite me. We have to gather up the strength to just do something different. We have to create new habits. A new habit takes will power, because you are going against your path of least resistance. The good news is, it only takes discipline long enough for it to become a habit. Then it’s auto pilot baby.

I like to sleep in. I complained that I didn’t have time to take for myself because motherhood is really demanding. I got tired of feeling rushed and foggy. So I get up early now. I make time. I wasn’t happy with my body. So I changed what I ate and moved more. I was not happy with my job. I started my own thing.  First Studio Be in Maine and now Berkshire Fitness Company in Williamstown. I wasn’t happy in my marriage, we tried and tried….it wasn’t right anymore, so I went left.

So my friends, if you took the time to read this. Make to the time to sit still. Be in whatever you are in. Find something that isn’t going right…..and go left.

Be Well, 

Robin

Stagnation: Shedding Light on Disease & Dysfunction, Part I


I am a nut about the type of movement that stimulates not only the musculoskeletal system, but also the nervous system.  That is the crucial element that many of us are missing throughout the day.  As a Physical Therapist and movement specialist, when I start talking about the need to move during the day I inevitably hear, “well I move around all day.”  Yes, if you get out of bed and do your thing, you are moving.  But are we moving with the varying speed, direction and resistance that we were designed for?

The Industrial Revolution had a profound effect on the nature of work and the role of the worker.  Scores of people went from more varied movements throughout the day to a sort of confined repetition.  Wearing down our bodies with repetitive movement is like driving your car on the lawn over the same track everyday…..it won’t take long to wear down that one pathway.  The same thing happens in our bodies.  Osteo or Degenerative Arthritis can be explained simply in this way.  We wear down the cartilage in the same pathway instead of moving in ways that disperse the glide over the entire surface.  Travel back in time to when humans had to gather and hunt to survive and you conjure up images of long days of movement in every direction and at varying speeds and loads.

Many of us have more sedentary office jobs or have to sit in the car, train or plane for hours at a time.  I would argue that sitting is even worse for your body than the repetitive motions required in more labor intensive work.  When we sit, we do 4 things to our body:

  1. Shorten the muscles in the front of the hips and behind and knees and ankles, as well as in the chest and axilla.  This causes them to hold on tight and restrict the motion of these joints when you stand up (that’s why we feel stiff).  Over time, this has implications when we do finally get out for that walk, run or game of golf.  Something else has to take up the slack and it’s usually your low back, knees or shoulders.
  2. Compress the muscles and soft tissue in the buttock and thighs.  This can create significant problems with blood flow and over time can compromise the nerves running through there.
  3. Cause the postural muscles to shut off (as an energy efficient machine, our muscles will “hibernate” when are still for a period of time).  This causes the ligaments to have to try and hold the bones in place.  Try as we might, none of us sits with prefect upright posture.  As a result, the vertebrae will compress the nice squishy disc more on one side than the other.  Over time this can lead to painful disc bulging or herniation.  Another nasty effect is something called creep or the fancy medical term Spondylolisthesis. Both of these can cause compression of the nerves leading to back pain, leg pain and sometimes leg numbness. Since the muscles think they can take a break, the ligaments try to hold on (we have ligaments as an extra protection to keep our joints in place).  Over time they get lengthened and don’t hold the bones in place anymore, causing one vertebrae to creep out of place on top of another.
  4. Create knots and uncomfortable inflammation.  Consider this, the human body is roughly 60% water.   Our muscles not only move us from place to place, they act as a hydrodynamic pump to keep the flow of important nutrient filled fluid running through our bodies.  Knots are what we feel when the tissue gets sticky or dry.  For the GrillMasters among you, this can be likened to the difference between a juicy rare steak and a t
    ough, dry, well done hunk of meat.

dreamstime_xl_3965350The Stagnation Nation

ALL 4 of the above cause Stagnation (stag-ney-shuhn) which by definition is the state or condition of having stopped, as by ceasing to run or flow.  Another definition is a failure to develop, progress, or advance.

Visualize the difference between the clean running waters of a beautiful mountain stream, and the stale stagnant water that pools when the flow is blocked.  The running stream is fed by gravity and fueled by momentum.  That is what movement in our bodies that combine multiple directions, pushing, pulling, climbing and carrying does for our system.  It keeps things fresh, healthy and alive within our neuro-musculo-skeletal system (the effect on the organs and prevention of disease is huge, but we will cover more of that in Part 2 of this series)

Now picture the pooled stagnant water that has lost it’s ability to flow.  Things get stale, organisms and bacteria grow; within the confines of our bodies this stagnation takes up space and causes pain or tenderness.  The congestion sends a signal to our pain receptors (we all have different frequencies that trigger pain), which unfortunately can create a cycle of protection and less movement leading to more stagnation, more dysfunction and more pain.

This stagnation within the soft tissue of our neuromuscular system is what makes deep touch to these areas tender to massage.  A skilled practitioner can feel the difference in this tissue and should take care to follow the right paths to clear the congestion.  This is what we do here at Be Fit Co in our Active Tension Release sessions.  I call them active because while I’m a huge fan of massage as part of a healthy lifestyle, I know the importance of teaching you the right movements to keep the stagnation out after you walk out the door.

Treatment and Education

Common sense combined with a knowledge of anatomy and physiology give us the 2 best methods to treat this common cause of pain, fatigue and imbalance.

  • We need to assess the soft tissue and use massage and manual techniques (some passive and some active) to clear the stagnation.
  • We find the right movements to sprinkle into your day that target the whole system in just the right directions for you.  This is crucial. Period.

The whispers of muscle and joint pain

 Learning to listen to the whispers of muscle and joint pain

Do you know anyone over 40 who hasn’t noticed a significant change in their body’s ability to bounce back?  Whether it’s from a glass of wine too many the night before, a new workout, long hours in the garden, or long hours sitting….we tend to get a few more aches than we used to and many of them stick around longer than seems necessary.  Most people think it’s just because we are getting older.  I disagree. I think it’s because we just aren’t listening.

Just the other day I was typing away on the computer.  I’d been sitting way too long and “my spot” started whispering to me.  We all have a “spot” and mine lives in a muscle just above my left shoulder blade.  It tells me when I’ve been sitting too long and it’s even smart enough to tell me when I’m stressed out.  When it starts to whisper to me I feel it, but depending on what I’m doing, I will either listen or ignore it.  When I choose the latter, it gets louder and louder and louder until whatever I’m doing becomes impossible to focus on.

I invited the ache in by ignoring the signs I know very well.  I was ready to get that sh*t done and nothing was going to stop me.  I’ve been told I can be a little stubborn. The joke was on me because in the end it took longer to get done and it didn’t turn out as good as it could have if I’d gotten rid of ‘the spot’ while it was still politely whispering.

This type of muscle and joint pain either comes from lack of preparation or lack of variety.  Many times we can easily prepare our bodies for the task by getting a little motion in the right places before going out for that run or playing our sport.  Other times, we just need to move in the opposite directions for a minute or two when “that spot” starts to whisper.

So what should I have done? Watch this quick video https://vimeo.com/178025809

When I’m smart this is what I do, the bonus is that the movement is not only good for my body, it’s good for my brain.  When I sit back down I inevitably have the answer to whatever I was struggling with.

Great answers can only come from great questions, so here’s one for you. If you don’t take care of your body like you take care everything else, where do you plan to live?

Anatomy in Motion

“My hamstrings have always been tight.”

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard this since I graduated from PT school in 1995, I would be writing while sipping a mojito on my private island.

Some people tell me that they stretch them every day to no avail.  Some have given up.  Some just laugh at the very suggestion of stretching.  No matter….I am undaunted because I know a secret.

Ok, it’s not really a secret but I got your attention right?  The ‘secret’ is anatomy in motion.  That is my passion, I practice it, I teach it, I experiment with it.  Every day.

If you look at a picture of how our muscles run through the body you will see that they layer and wrap and twist and turn.  When we are trying to get some stretch (or length) in a muscle or group of muscles we have to twist and turn right along with them.

Give this a try and feel the difference for yourself https://youtu.be/ICfDblktzK0