Tag: Fitness

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You Are As Old As Your Spine

aging spine

Aging is not just the number of years you’ve inhabited planet Earth, but rather the degree of wear and tear your body, brain, and vital organs are expressing at a given point in time. – Ronesh Sinha, MD

A spine with too much, too little, or improper movement directly affects the wiring and firing of nerves that come from your brain and travel down your spinal cord. Your brain and spinal cord act like the world’s most powerful computer chip which requires a proper information and power supply to work properly. Movement of the spine dictates how information is received in the brain through tiny little nerve ending’s called mechanoreceptors. The spine also houses critical nerves, arteries, and veins that carry food and waste in and out of the brain and spinal cord.

This is why – regardless of disease or symptoms – a healthy, properly moving, aligned spine is so essential to our health. By restoring motion to the spine (via the chiropractic adjustment), changes will begin to occur, such as: decrease in stress signals and stress hormones, decrease inflammation, and pain (if present) will subside. Most important of all, it results in a healthy body-brain neurological communication which is essential for overall health.

When it comes to your spine – the things we do on a daily basis are either moving us towards a healthy spine or away from health and towards a degenerating spine. Research shows that a joint (aka your spine) that has lost a degree of its normal movement will begin degenerating at a rate measurable within one week of onset. It’s important to realize that this degenerative process will continue, often painlessly, until significant degeneration has occurred. This is a big reason why you don’t need to be in pain to have chiropractic care in our office.

The following are the good and bad in keeping your spine as young as possible:

The Good

  • Periodic chiropractic checkups – Regardless of symptoms, the research shows we are much healthier with a properly moving spine than without.
  • Stretch regularly – Consider how inflexible most people are – how do you think they got that way? Muscles abide by the “use it or lose it” principle. Avoid this fate by isolating key muscle groups and giving them a good daily stretch (Patients in our office receive customized stretches based on their individual needs).
  • Proper hydration – Your spine and its supportive structures work best when they’re hydrated. Most people will not drink enough water to replace their original fluid deficit, and this problem is exacerbated with age.
  • Daily exercise – Ideally we should be spending a good portion of our days walking, standing and moving in general. If we don’t our bodies rebel and health declines. Do some form of exercise that significantly raises your heart rate for 30 minutes at least four times a week.
  • Supportive sleep environment – Your bed and pillow should both help keep your body in natural alignment. Dated and flimsy mattresses stress your hips, pelvis, and back, which inevitably lead to chronic pain. Buy a quality pillow that keeps your head level, and use a good mattress that firmly (yet comfortably) prevents your spine from dipping or sagging while you sleep.
  • Be mindful of your posture – This applies to whatever you’re doing, whether you’re at work, home, in the car, at the gym, or simply standing up. Good posture has benefits; poor posture has consequences.
  • Proper nutrition –  A nutrient-rich diet with a diversity of plants, healthy proteins and high quality, healthy fats actually feed and nourish your genes, slowing the degenerative process.

The Bad

  • Poor general posture (slouching) – With proper postural awareness, you can save years of wear and tear on the spine, and maintain full function of the delicate nervous system.
  • Sedentary lifestyle – A study done in over 2,000 identical twins who carry the same genetic material showed that the more active twins had longer, healthier telomeres than their genetically identical siblings.  The most active twins had genes that appeared 9 years younger than their inactive siblings. Spend less time on your computer/phone and move daily.
  • Stress – Chronic stress promotes inflammation and oxidative damage that is inflicted upon DNA, which increases disease risk and accelerates aging.
  • Sleeping on your stomach – Having your head and neck turned to one side while sleeping can significantly strain the muscles and ligaments of the spine. Repeatedly doing so every night for years slowly adds pressure to the joints and nerves, contributing to spinal degeneration and allowing for the development of a variety of health problems.
  • Neglecting your spine by not getting periodic chiropractic checkups – By restoring motion and removing nerve interference – you can begin to function how you were designed to.
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Why I Wear Minimalist Shoes

Why I Wear Minimalist Shoes

If you are a patient at our office, you may have noticed that I don’t wear the typical office footwear. There is a reason for this. As a chiropractor, I believe that we were designed to be extraordinary – and I believe in the inborn intelligence of our body. I know what you’re thinking, what does that have to do with shoes? We’ll get there.

There are some chiropractors who are always very eager to recommend or order orthotics when a patient complains of foot or leg issues. To be honest, this never really made sense to me. Our body knows how to walk, and it knows how to adapt to the stressors that you place on it. Humans have been walking and running for millions of years, apparently safely, in running flats, in thin sandals or mocassins, or in no shoes at all. So why would you need to put in a rigid orthotic to “create” an arch where there was none before? My belief is that when you stress the foot and let it work the way it was intended to and become stronger, the arches will change. As opposed to relying on external support which could weaken the stabilizing muscles (by having an orthotic or shoe doing their job). It is very similar to those who recommend wearing a back or neck brace when they’ve injured themselves. You have a natural back brace – it’s called your core – and when you wear a brace you’re further weaking the core, causing your body to become dependent on the brace to do the work.

In an attempt to make shoes more comfortable, shoe companies and their technology have actually made our feet worse. The over-engineering of running shoes have caused us to learn to run in inefficiently and incorrectly. By making shoes that have thicker heels for cushioning, we’ve altered the way we are designed to move – causing our heel to hit the ground first. By shielding the foot from the ground with excessive cushioning, you limit proprioception (ground feel) and how the body reacts to the terrain through fine adjustments in balance and body position. While it may “feel” as if the shock is being absorbed by the shoe with each step – only a small amount is actually absorbed by the shoe – the rest of the force (2-3 x the body weight) is actually being transferred through the lower extremity. This over stresses the bones, joints, muscles and tendons from the toes through the spine. In my experience, many cases of lower back pain are aggravated by heel strike. If you ever walk around barefoot – notice that you walk and run correctly without thinking about it – that’s because it’s actually painful to land on your heel (landing on the forefoot much more comfortable).

Now, I realize we can’t all walk around and go to work barefoot – but we can do the next best thing – wear minimalist shoes. Don’t worry – this doesn’t mean you have to rock those funky toe shoes – it simply means wearing a shoe with minimal or no (if you’re feet can tolerate it) cushioning. These shoes encourage you to walk and run in a more natural gait. The way we are meant to move is by landing more on the balls of our feet. This two year study is proof that wearing a minimalist shoe can strengthen intrinsic foot musculature which can then change the shape of the foot and arch over time. Check out the before and after photos:

The bottom line is that our shoes can often do more harm than good. Like many things when it comes to our health, what seems to alleviate our problem in the short term, has actually masked our poor walking and running mechanics and created more problems in the long run. If you are someone who has struggled with foot pain and/or chronic lower back pain, I would suggest taking a look at minimalist shoes. It’s important to remember that this will require a careful adjustment period to make sure that the muscles of the feet and legs have time to adjust (a rapid change to minimalist footwear exclusively often causes injury). In the same way that you would slowly introduce foot orthotics, minimalist shoes should gradually be introduced – start by wearing 1 hour/day, then 2 hours/day, etc. Listen to your feet – your body will quickly tell you what to do.

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Omega 3 For Athletic Performance

Omega 3 For Athletic Peformance

Essential fats are required fats we cannot make and therefore must consume from an outside source. One category of these fats found in fish oil – Omega 3 fats – are a must when it comes to optimal athletic performance. Here are some of the ways they can help you maximize your performance and get results.

Faster recovery: Omega-3 fatty acids are renowned for their anti-inflammatory properties.  After a tough workout, you may feel sore or stiff, or you might experience swelling, redness or tenderness in certain areas. This is called inflammation, and it’s the body’s way of protecting itself. It can also slow down the body’s recovery process and tissue repair.  Look for a supplement high in EPA, which is the essential fatty acid with the most anti-inflammatory properties.

Less soreness: Omega-3 assists blood flow to muscles during exercise, and some studies show supplementation decreases muscle soreness by 35%. As well, athletes with a high omega-3 intake experience less swelling and an increased range of motion after a workout.

Increased fat burning and metabolism: Studies show that omega-3 supplementation combined with exercise leads to increased fat burning in muscles and inhibits fat storage.

Increased mental focus and concentration: Omega-3 has been linked with an increase in clarity, memory, and concentration and can actually help you stay focused and alert.

Improved cardiovascular function: Omega-3 improves heart parameters during exercise by reducing heart rate and improving oxygen delivery to the heart. Continue reading “Omega 3 For Athletic Performance”

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8 Ways to Avoid Being A Supplement Junkie

nutritional supplements

I should start off by saying that I am not in any way, shape or form anti-supplement. Supplements are a great tool and they serve many people well, especially when used appropriately. But here’s what I don’t understand. People are slowly moving away from treating every minor ailment and condition with a prescription drug (which is great). However, many are replacing pharmaceuticals with natural supplements – which are sadly doing the same thing (albeit usually in a safer way). They are simply treating symptoms and covering up the problem, never truly getting to the cause.

As a chiropractor my viewpoint may be different. After all, our profession was founded on the idea of getting to the cause – we focus on creating health rather than managing disease. I would never associate health as something that could come out of a pill or bottle whether they were natural or not), but as something that is experienced from the inside-out. When it comes to nutrition – the right food turns on the right genes, and create biological signals that create health, while the wrong foods turn on genes that cause disease and create biological chaos.

With that being said, have you been in a health food store recently? Standing in line you can see people whose shopping cart is covered with no less than 30 boxes of different herbs, vitamins, and supplements of all kinds. B-complexes, Glucosamine, Licorice, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Ginko, Garlic, and St. John’s Wort just to name a few. While this is certainly an extreme example, it’s not as rare as you might think.

We have the power to determine how healthy our cells are by the choices we make with our bodies. Our bodies are equipped with an incredible ability to go towards health when it’s supplied with the right building materials. If your cells are like houses, the quality of the cell is dependent on the building materials which are found in our food.

Taking vitamins have become an extra job for some, here’s how to avoid it: Continue reading “8 Ways to Avoid Being A Supplement Junkie”

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Getting To The Cause

symptoms vs cause

An image of a lowly iceberg. It looks so simple to simply steer around and bypass it on the way to smoother seas. But if our past was a good teacher, then we know that by only paying attention to the surface, we can miss a dangerous obstacle in the depths.

As long as we continue to exist in a healthcare system that only seeks to reduce symptoms, then we will continue to get the same results as those who only saw the tip of the iceberg.

Presently, however, physicians lack the training (and financial incentives) to help people learn how to eat healthy, exercise, stop smoking, avoid environmental toxins, or address the effects of structural abnormalities in the spine. So they continue to do what they know how to do: prescribe medication and perform surgery.

Our bodies are equipped with an incredible array of signals to let us know that something is wrong. Sometimes it comes in the form of a pain in the back, draining fatigue, or headaches. The purpose of these signals is to tell us that something is wrong, but it’s up to us to look within to identify the cause. Structural shifts of the spine that lead to neurological communication errors are often the underlying cause of some of the challenges that are preventing you from being your best.

Unless we look towards the body’s Innate healing capacity, and why it’s not operating at 100% full function, then we are missing the boat on the health challenges of millions of people. And there’s no amount of drugs, natural medicine, surgery, or insurance money that can save that ship from sinking.