Your Own Personal Trainer

Your Own Personal Trainer

Regular Chiropractic Care and Personal Fitness

Getting regular exercise is not a cure-all. Although it's very difficult to maintain good health if you're not exercising consistently, exercise in itself is not enough. Additional components of a healthy lifestyle include good nutrition, sufficient rest, intangibles such as a positive outlook on life, and regular chiropractic care. Regular chiropractic care ties together all the other things you're doing to achieve high levels of personal health and wellness. By identifying, analyzing, and correcting spinal misalignments, your chiropractor is helping to reduce nerve interference and helping to facilitate optimal functioning of all your body's physiological systems. As a result, you're able to make maximum use of the good foods you're eating and get the most out of your exercise time. By making these healthy lifestyle choices, including regular chiropractic care, you're choosing to enhance your personal health and well-being.

Back in the day, there were no personal trainers. If you needed to learn how to exercise, you got a subscription to one of a few well-known "muscle magazines" and read several issues from cover to cover. Then you joined a "Y" and began to discreetly observe what was going in the weight room, trying to match up what you had read in the magazine with what you were seeing in the gym. Eventually, you put together a series of exercises, sets, and reps that worked for you. Back then, any strength training program you developed would be strictly based on a seat-of-the-pants approach. You learned by trial and error.

Today there is a vast body of scientific literature focused on the various benefits of numerous forms and types of exercise.¹ However, scientific studies are not good at evaluating the how-to's of getting fit. Fortunately many informal resources are available, all intended to point you in the right direction. But not all of these resources are accurate or trustworthy, and the challenge is to identify a set of basic principles that will be applicable to your specific situation.

Firstly, before getting started you need to make sure that it's OK to actually get started. Let your  doctor (your family chiropractor, family physician, or internist) know what you're planning to do and have her tell you what you need to watch out for, if anything. Next, you need to make a commitment. Consistency is the key to deriving lasting value from exercise. Additionally, irregular exercise sessions will often lead to injury. If you're serious about getting fit, then make a commitment to yourself to participate in a 12-week program. At the end of 12 weeks, you'll evaluate how you feel, what you've accomplished, and whether you want to keep going. 

In terms of strength training (that is, weight lifting), three sessions per week is ideal. By doing "split routines" you can exercise all the major muscle groups each week. On one day you'll do exercises for the chest and back. Another day you'll do exercises for the legs. On the third day you'll focus on the shoulders, biceps, and triceps. This set of split routines will produce optimal results for many people.

Importantly, you'll be doing chest and triceps (and back and biceps) on different days, thus avoiding the potential for overwork and injury. But you may find that an alternate set of split routines works best for you. The key is to start slowly and build up strength gradually. Once you have some experience and an improved level of fitness, you may branch out and vary your basic routine, experimenting and seeing what works best for you. In terms of sets and repetitions (reps), three sets per exercise and eight to 12 repetitions per set represent the classical, tried and true method of getting fit and making gradual strength gains over time. For any strength training exercise, start with a weight at which you can do eight repetitions comfortably. This should be neither too easy, nor too difficult. Of course, it's far better to err on the side of caution. You never want to do too much too soon.

As you go along in your fitness program, you'll add core exercise routines² and aerobics exercise such as walking, swimming, biking, and running. If you work out slowly and gradually and maintain consistency, you'll have a great deal of fun and gain substantially improved levels of health and well-being.³

¹Storer TW, et al: Effect of supervised, periodized exercise training vs. self-directed training on lean body mass and other fitness variables in health club members. J Strength Cond Res 28(7):1995-2006, 2014
²Kahle N, Tevald MA: Core muscle strengthening's improvement of balance performance in community-dwelling older adults: a pilot study. J Aging Phys Act 22(1):65-73, 2014
³Huffman KM, et al: Metabolite signatures of exercise training in human skeletal muscle relate to mitochondrial remodelling and cardiometabolic fitness. Diabetologia 2014 Aug 5. [Epub ahead of print]

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Keep Motivated

It may be a snow day but don't let it be on off day of training. Here is some motivation to get out there and get it done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SUzcDUERLo

The Fast Lane

Regular Chiropractic Care and Core Fitness

Many exercise-related injuries are caused, in part, by deficiencies in core muscle strength. Weakness in core performance leads to a lack of biomechanical support for movements such as bending, lifting, pushing, and pulling. You're not aware of such lack of support until, for example, you attempt a dumbbell squat or try to run a little faster in an interval training session. Even a simple exercise such as a lat pulldown or triceps pressdown requires sufficient core stabilization. A strong core is critically important for a successful exercise program. The core muscular system consists of numerous inner layers of sheets of muscle and a vast array of small muscles that help maintain coordinated movement among your spinal bones, pelvic bones, and hip joints. By detecting and correcting spinal misalignments that cause nerve interference, regular chiropractic care helps ensure that your core muscles are receiving the nerve information they need to function properly and help you get the most out of your exercise time.

Driving fast is not necessarily a good thing. We want to get where we're going as quickly as possible, but we also want to arrive safely. If we drive too fast, we may encounter all sorts of problems. If we drive too slow, we're wasting time and may be causing traffic problems behind us. These competing considerations will both be fulfilled by maintaining an average velocity that is at or close to the posted speed limit. We want to find the "sweet spot," the happy medium that both saves time and helps keep us safe.
The same principles may also be applied when we're exercising. We want to improve, get stronger, and build more endurance as soon as we can, while simultaneously avoiding injury and staying healthy. Very often, these goals may conflict. It's important to ensure that we're exercising efficiently and making certain we're deriving the greatest benefit from our exercise time. These benefits are obtained by a steady approach, one that focuses on incremental gains accomplished over time.¹
It's natural to want to arrive at a desired outcome quickly. But as with any other form of training, whether learning to play the piano or becoming a competent chess player, substantial time is required to produce long lasting results. In the case of exercise, trying to hurry the process will usually cause an injury. You'll be set back at least weeks, if not months, and you'll have to start over, pretty much from the beginning.
For almost all of us the "tortoise" approach, rather than that of the "hare" in the well-known fable, will produce the health benefits we're hoping to achieve from our daily exercise. If you've never walked before and want to incorporate this aerobic activity as part of your exercise routine, start with a 10-minute walk. This doesn't sound like much, but that is precisely the point. Start by doing a little and build up gradually and consistently. Within 6 or 8 weeks you'll be doing 30-40 minute brisk walks several times a week, which will represent a very good aerobic exercise program. Incorporating strength training into your routine will employ a similar method. For each of your exercises (such as bench press, one-arm row, squat, toe raise, shoulder press, biceps curl, and lying triceps press), begin with a weight with which you can comfortably do 10 repetitions. If you can't do 10 reps, the weight is too heavy. Start with that weight and do 3 sets per exercise. Build up gradually by increasing the weight by 5%, if possible, each week or every 2 weeks. After 10 to 12 weeks you'll be noticeably stronger and your metabolism will begin to be more efficient.^2,3
By progressing slowly and steadily, you will build a solid base and make consistent and possibly substantial gains in your exercise routine. You will get where you want to get safely and effectively. The long-term outcome will be enhanced health, wellness, and well-being.

¹Marongiu E, Crisafulli A: Cardioprotection acquired through exercise: the role of ischemic preconditioning. Curr Cardiol Rev 10(4):336-348, 2014
²Huxel Bliven KC, Anderson BE: Core stability training for injury prevention. Sports Health 5(6):514-522, 2013
³Granacher U, et al: The importance of trunk muscle strength for balance, functional performance, and fall prevention in seniors: a systematic review. Sports Med 43(7):627-641, 2013

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Mankato Melt Down 2014

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The Power of Cross Training

The Power of Cross-Training

Chiropractic Care Optimizes the Benefits of Exercise

Cross-training places numerous physiological demands on your cardiorespiratory and musculoskeletal systems, as well as on your digestive, hormonal, and immune systems. These demands are necessary for your ongoing health and well-being, following both the principle of "use it or lose it" and Wolff's Law (bone remodels along lines of physiological stress). But in order to maximize our cross-training gains, we want to make sure that our body's underlying structure is intact. Our various physiological systems must be able to communicate with each other efficiently, and each system must be able to receive and transmit information to the master system, the nerve system. Regular chiropractic care helps ensure these necessary interactions are taking place, consistently and over time. By detecting and correcting spinal misalignments and by removing nerve interference, regular chiropractic care helps optimize all physiological functioning and helps you get the most out of your cross-training activities.

Cross-training refers to a combination of different methods of exercise. Specifically, cross-training refers to the combination of strength training and cardiovascular training in your overall exercise program. Whether you're a 14-year-old just starting out on your first fitness program, or whether you're a 74-year-old who hasn't exercised in more than 40 years, cross-training will provide optimal results for the time and effort you spend on exercise.
In cross-training, it's not that you're doing aerobic and strength-training activities simultaneously. Rather, you're incorporating both methods in your weekly exercise regime. One week you might do three sessions of strength training and two sessions of cardiovascular activity. The next week you could do three sessions of aerobic exercise and two sessions of strength training. The result is that, overall, approximately half of your exercise time is devoted to each of these two methods.
The remarkable outcome of combining two distinctly different training modes is that both sets of results are enhanced.^1,2 Doing cardiovascular exercise on alternate days makes you stronger. In other words, your muscular strength and size are greater than they would be if strength training were your only form of exercise. Correspondingly, doing strength training on alternate days provides you with heightened cardiovascular gains. Specifically, your stroke volume (the amount of blood pumped on each contraction of your heart muscle) and vital capacity (the amount of air you can take in on each breath) are greater than the results you would have obtained by only doing aerobic exercise.
The benefits of cross-training are automatic. There's nothing you need to do intentionally to achieve these gains, other than engaging in your cross-training program five days a week. When you train your heart and lungs by doing cardiovascular (really, cardiorespiratory) exercise, your skeletal muscles automatically participate in your walking, running, biking, or swimming activity. When you do strength training, exercising your chest, back, shoulders, arms, and legs (on different split-training days, of course), your heart and lungs automatically participate, pumping the extra blood and breathing in the extra oxygen required for any vigorous physical activity.
The synergy created by the cross-training format potentiates the results obtained from each method.³ The improved performance of your heart and lungs, derived from aerobic training, enables greater strength training gains. A stronger musculoskeletal system, derived from training with weights, causes your heart and lungs to become more efficient to meet new demands. A positive feedback loop is established from which you obtain improved health and enhanced wellness and  well-being.
The best time to begin your new cross-training program is today. Start slowly, increase duration and intensity gradually, and evaluate your gains at 6- and 12-week intervals. Your chiropractor is experienced in exercise rehabilitation and will help you design a cross-training program that works for you.
¹Fournier SB, et al: Improved Arterial-Ventricular Coupling in Metabolic Syndrome after Exercise Training. Med Sci Sports Exerc  2014 May 27. [Epub ahead of print]
²Kolka C: Treating Diabetes with Exercise - Focus on the Microvasculature. J Diabetes Metab 4:308, 2013
³Dos Santos ES, et al: Acute and Chronic Cardiovascular Response to 16 Weeks of Combined Eccentric or Traditional Resistance and Aerobic Training in Elderly Hypertensive Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial. J Strength Cond Res 2014 May 19. [Epub ahead of print]

Moving Kids to College? Read this..

Heavy Lifting

Chiropractic Care and Core Training

Core training focuses on the deepest muscular layers of your body, including small muscles such as the multifidi and intertransversarii that lie directly on the spinal column and help move individual spinal vertebras. In order to train these deep muscles properly, the spinal vertebras need to be able to move freely throughout their full range of motion. This is where regular chiropractic care comes in. Chiropractic care identifies, analyzes, and corrects sites of limited spinal mobility, making it possible for you to optimally train your core muscles. Returning to fitness requires an ongoing commitment of time and effort. In order to get the most out of your investment in yourself, it’s important to make sure that your body will respond effectively to your exercise activities. Regular chiropractic care helps ensure that you’ll achieve such success.

All of us who’ve experienced a back injury of one sort or another have been told at some point to “avoid heavy lifting.” That type of advice appears to be a no-brainer or at least redundant, as no one whose back is hurting is going to try to pick up an air conditioner or even a 100-foot reel of garden hose. In this context, it’s important to remember the words of Shakespeare’s Cassius: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves”. The problem isn’t the heavy lifting, as such. The real problem is in us, that is, in our overall level of conditioning or physical fitness.
Most back injuries don’t occur as a result of heavy lifting, but rather are caused by a seemingly innocuous event such as bending over in the shower to retrieve a bar of soap that has fallen to the floor. Other likely pain-producing scenarios are bending over to place a bag of groceries in the trunk o f a car bending over to tie a loose shoelace. None of these circumstances involved lifting extraordinary weight.  Rather, the common elements are lack of flexibility and lack of appropriate muscle tone and strength to support the weight of your body in a forward flexed position.
The problem isn’t lack of big muscles. Picking up a bar of soap or positioning a 15-pound grocery bag doesn’t require bulging biceps or massive lats. The problem is lack of conditioning. Most of us no longer do actual physical work on a regular basis. We spend the large majority of our day sitting, either working, reading, or watching entertainment on television or other devices. The result of such lack of activity is twofold. Muscles lose strength and muscle fibers are replaced by fat. Additionally, tendons and ligaments contract and become tight, losing their necessary composition of elastic fibers. The functional loss associated with these physiological changes is profound. We experience these change every time we feel a twinge, or worse, in our backs.
The fix is easy and primarily focuses on building up core muscle strength.^1,2 Core training is directed toward your deep abdominal muscles. The main such muscle is the transverses abdominis, which surrounds your entire waist, protecting and supporting your lower back. You can think of this critically important structure as your internal weight belt. Activation of the core muscles is required for all effective physical activity.³ Without this essential foundation, any minor attempt at work, even bending over to pick up a pencil, can lead to disaster in the form of excruciating back pain.
Core training includes exercises such as the scorpion, lying windmill with bent legs, pushups, squats, and the plank. Many good books and numerous online videos are available to provide instruction in the performance of core exercises. Your chiropractor is experienced in rehabilitative exercise and will help guide you to the training methods that are best for you.
¹Inani SB, Selkar SP: Effect of core stabilization exercises versus conventional exercises on pain and functional status in patients with non-specific low back pain: a randomized clinical trial. J Back Musculoskel Rehabil 26(1):37-43, 2014
²Brumitt J, et al: Core stabilization exercise prescription, part 2: a systematic review of motor control and general (global) exercise rehabilitation approaches for patients with low back pain. Sports Health 5(6):510-3, 2013
³Wang XQ, et al: A meta-analysis of core stability exercise versus general exercise for chronic low back pain. PLoS One 2012;7(12):e52082. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052082. Epub 2012 Dec 17

Heavy Lifting

Chiropractic Care and Core Training

Core training focuses on the deepest muscular layers of your body, including small muscles such as the multifidi and intertransversarii that lie directly on the spinal column and help move individual spinal vertebras. In order to train these deep muscles properly, the spinal vertebras need to be able to move freely throughout their full range of motion. This is where regular chiropractic care comes in. Chiropractic care identifies, analyzes, and corrects sites of limited spinal mobility, making it possible for you to optimally train your core muscles. Returning to fitness requires an ongoing commitment of time and effort. In order to get the most out of your investment in yourself, it’s important to make sure that your body will respond effectively to your exercise activities. Regular chiropractic care helps ensure that you’ll achieve such success.

All of us who’ve experienced a back injury of one sort or another have been told at some point to “avoid heavy lifting.” That type of advice appears to be a no-brainer or at least redundant, as no one whose back is hurting is going to try to pick up an air conditioner or even a 100-foot reel of garden hose. In this context, it’s important to remember the words of Shakespeare’s Cassius: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves”. The problem isn’t the heavy lifting, as such. The real problem is in us, that is, in our overall level of conditioning or physical fitness.
Most back injuries don’t occur as a result of heavy lifting, but rather are caused by a seemingly innocuous event such as bending over in the shower to retrieve a bar of soap that has fallen to the floor. Other likely pain-producing scenarios are bending over to place a bag of groceries in the trunk o f a car bending over to tie a loose shoelace. None of these circumstances involved lifting extraordinary weight.  Rather, the common elements are lack of flexibility and lack of appropriate muscle tone and strength to support the weight of your body in a forward flexed position.
The problem isn’t lack of big muscles. Picking up a bar of soap or positioning a 15-pound grocery bag doesn’t require bulging biceps or massive lats. The problem is lack of conditioning. Most of us no longer do actual physical work on a regular basis. We spend the large majority of our day sitting, either working, reading, or watching entertainment on television or other devices. The result of such lack of activity is twofold. Muscles lose strength and muscle fibers are replaced by fat. Additionally, tendons and ligaments contract and become tight, losing their necessary composition of elastic fibers. The functional loss associated with these physiological changes is profound. We experience these change every time we feel a twinge, or worse, in our backs.
The fix is easy and primarily focuses on building up core muscle strength.^1,2 Core training is directed toward your deep abdominal muscles. The main such muscle is the transverses abdominis, which surrounds your entire waist, protecting and supporting your lower back. You can think of this critically important structure as your internal weight belt. Activation of the core muscles is required for all effective physical activity.³ Without this essential foundation, any minor attempt at work, even bending over to pick up a pencil, can lead to disaster in the form of excruciating back pain.
Core training includes exercises such as the scorpion, lying windmill with bent legs, pushups, squats, and the plank. Many good books and numerous online videos are available to provide instruction in the performance of core exercises. Your chiropractor is experienced in rehabilitative exercise and will help guide you to the training methods that are best for you.
¹Inani SB, Selkar SP: Effect of core stabilization exercises versus conventional exercises on pain and functional status in patients with non-specific low back pain: a randomized clinical trial. J Back Musculoskel Rehabil 26(1):37-43, 2014
²Brumitt J, et al: Core stabilization exercise prescription, part 2: a systematic review of motor control and general (global) exercise rehabilitation approaches for patients with low back pain. Sports Health 5(6):510-3, 2013
³Wang XQ, et al: A meta-analysis of core stability exercise versus general exercise for chronic low back pain. PLoS One 2012;7(12):e52082. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052082. Epub 2012 Dec 17

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