Home Improvement

Chiropractic Care, Balance, and Safety in the Home

Proprioception involves activity of specialized nerve endings that tell your brain about the current configuration of all your joints (for example, the ankle joint of your right foot is currently bent at a 90-degree angle) and how much weight is being loaded onto each joint. This is a marvelously complex system. In order for your brain to receive such critical information on an instantansous basis and to be able to respond equally instantaneously, the channels of communication need to be wide open and free of interference. Regular chiropractic care helps this process run smoothly and effectively. By aligning your spinal column and removing sources of nerve interference. Regular chiropractic care assists your proprioceptive system and all the other nerve system components in keeping you flexible, balanced, and safe.

You've finally decided to paint your kids' bedrooms. Not only that, but you're going to do it yourself. Congratulations. Or your rooftop gutters have become so filled with leaves that the only place for overflow rainwater to go is down the sides of your house and seep into the foundation, and you've decided to install a gutter protection system. And you're going to do that yourself.
These may be great choices. DIY projects are self-affirming and self-empowering, and often provide real opportunities for personal growth and development. There may be substantial cost savings, or you just want to reconnect with your high school self who loved shop class. Regardless of the numerous possible motivations, the most important consideration in any home improvement project is safety.
Aside from basic rules such as using protective goggles and always having a buddy supporting and stabilizing the ladder you're up on, safety around the home often depends on your own level of physical fitness. For example, if you're relatively out-of-shape, it's easy to strain a neck, shoulder, or lower back muscle when you're trying to apply paint evenly to a corner of the ceiling. Similarly, if you haven't done any vigorous exercise on a consistent basis in a while, do-it-yourself activities such as changing your car battery or even mowing your lawn can cause a lower back injury or even a twisted ankle or knee.
Doing regular vigorous exercise provides many benefits In addition to preparing you for real physical work. Also, supporting your exercise and physical work is a specialized system of nerve endings known as proprioceptors.¹ These nerve cells play a significant role in whether physical activity is done easily and well or, instead, results in an injury. Stated succinctly, proprioceptors tell your brain about your body's position in three-dimensional space. For example, if you're bending over to pick up two one-gallon cans of paint, your brain needs to know that you're ankles are bent at 20 degrees, your knees are bent at 80 degrees, and your hips are bent at 70 degrees. If this information isn't transmitted accurately or isn't  received fairly instantaneously, you may suffer a lower back injury even though the paint cans themselves only weigh 8 pounds each.
Proprioception becomes a critical system any time you go up on a ladder.² Maintaining your balance depends on a moment-by-moment, two-directional stream of information between your brain and your bones, joints, muscles, and ligaments. Your nerve system and your musculoskeletal system do all the calculations required to enable you to work safely from the top step of your ladder. But if your proprioception system hasn't been optimally trained in a while and is, in a sense, out of shape, your balance and overall safety are at risk. Bad things can happen.
From all points of view, including that of safety in the home, it's important to maintain your proprioception system in peak condition. You can easily do this by engaging in regular strength-building activities such as strength training and yoga and regular aerobic activities such as running, walking, swimming, and biking.³ Proprioceptor training is built-in to all forms of vigorous exercise. Safely and successfully completing your home improvement projects is one of the many benefits.
¹Judkins TN, Scheidt RA: Visuo-proprioceptive interactions during adaptation of the human reach. J Neurophysiol 2013 Nov 20 [Epub ahead of print]
²Suetterlin KJ, Sayer AA: Proprioception: where are we now? A commentary on clinical assessment, changes across the life course, functional implications and future interventions. Age Aging 2013 Nov 14 [Epub ahead of print]
³Maitre J, et al: Chronic physical activity preserves efficiency of proprioception in postural control in older women. J Rehabil Res Dev 50(6):811-820, 2013

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Strength Training for Beginners (and Experts, Too)

Chiropractic Care and Strength Training

Regular vigorous exercise is a requirement for good health. Ideally, every adult is exercising for at least 30 minutes five times per week. Regular chiropractic care provides fundamental support for this necessary level of physical activity. Regular exercise requires optimal functioning of muscles, joints, and bones. In turn, such optimal performance requires full and free functioning of your nerve system. The nerve system sends timely instructions to all the rest of your body systems, informing cells, tissues, and organs as to when to do their jobs and exactly how much of a job to do. Regular chiropractic care removes irritation and inflammation from spinal nerves and other critical nerve tissue, helping ensure that exercising muscles receive the information they need to do their jobs well. By helping keep your nerve system healthy, regular chiropractic care helps you get the most out of your investment in exercise.

Strength training, otherwise known as weight training, is one of those activities that provides a wide range of benefits for the person who does it regularly. Like yoga, strength straining makes all your muscles stronger, enhances flexibility, and improves cardiovascular capability and capacity. In fact, two strength training sessions per week combined with one or two yoga classes per week will lead to super-fitness for most people within only a couple of months.
Strength training is beneficial for teenagers, young adults, and older adults.¹ Many strength training exercises are done in a weightbearing position, and the process of doing reps and sets with a modestly or moderately heavy load makes your bones stronger. Not only muscles, but also the soft tissues of the musculoskeletal system, including tendons, ligaments, and joint cartilage, are made sturdier by receiving increased supplies of oxygen and other nutrients. Engaging in a regular program of strength training will provide more restful sleep, rid your metabolism of accumulated toxins, add sparkle and tone to your skin, and improve your overall sense of well-being. All at the low price of two to three hours per week.
The key question is how to begin. Many books and online training videos are available. Most fitness centers offer a complimentary lesson or two with a personal trainer to enable you to learn the basics. Simply put, you want to train all of your major muscle groups once per week. For example, you can exercise your chest and back muscles on one day and your shoulders and arms on another day. If you're also doing one or two yoga classes per week, or one yoga class and two walking or running days per week, your leg muscles are covered.²
Let's say this is your chest and back day. Ideally you'll do three different exercises per body part. For your chest you could do lying-down (supine) bench presses with dumbbells, supine flies (in which you hold the dumbbells overhead and then open your arms out to the side), and incline bench presses with dumbbells. For your back, you could do one-arm rows, supine dumbbell pullovers (in which you use both hands to hold one dumbbell overhead and then lower the dumbbell all the way behind your head), and lat pulldowns on a machine. All together, doing these six different exercises, three sets per exercise, should take about one hour.
Then, two or three days later in the week, you do strength training for your shoulders, biceps, and triceps. Shoulder exercises could include seated overhead presses, standing lateral raises, and seated bent-over rows. Bicep exercises could include seated alternate incline curls, machine bicep curls, and seated concentration curls. Tricep exercises could include push-ups, lying (supine) tricep extensions, and machine tricep pressdowns. Again, these nine different exercises, three sets per exercise, should take about one hour.
There are many video clips available on the internet that demonstrate the mechanics of each of these exercises. Good form is critical. In fact, making sure your posture is balanced and your abdominal muscles are activated is more important than the amount of weight you are lifting.
Beginners, especially, need to know how much weight they should be using on each exercise.³ Importantly, lifting too much weight too soon will usually lead to injury. Of course, we want to work-out as safely as possible. Choose a weight at which you can comfortably do eight repetitions. If you can't do eight, the weight is too heavy. If eight repetitions with a particular weight seems ridiculously easy, try again with a weight that is 10% heavier. Repeat the process until you find the starting weight that is comfortable for you. There are many types of weight progression programs that you will employ as you become accustomed to the weight-training process. The main point is to begin to engage in this highly beneficial form of exercise. As your mastery of these techniques slowly improves, a new world of fitness, fun, and satisfaction will be revealed.
¹Conceicao MS, et al: Sixteen weeks of resistance training can decrease the risk of metabolic syndrome in healthy postmenopausal women. Clin Interv Aging Epub Sept 16 2013
²Karavirta L, et al: Heart rate dynamics after combined strength and endurance training in middle-aged women: heterogeneity of responses. PLoS One 2013 Aug 27;8(8):e72664. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0072664
³Van Roie E, et al: Strength training at high versus low external resistance in older adults: Effects on muscle volume, muscle strength, and force-velocity characteristics. Exp Gerontol Epub ahead of print

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Choosing the Right Diet for Me

Regular Chiropractic Care and Your Diet

Regular chiropractic care is helpful for musculoskeletal conditions such as back pain, neck pain, and headache. Regular chiropractic care is also important for maintaining the functioning of other key components of your health and well-being such as digestion and metabolism. As the normal physiological activities of all your body systems depend on the nerve system for instructions, proper timing, and signaling, the nerve system itself needs to be kept in working order. This is the role of chiropractic care. Effective, healthy functioning of your digestive system and a well-orchestrated metabolic system will help you get the most benefit from the good food you're eating. Regular chiropractic care helps make this possible.

It seems as if every few months there’s a new diet whose rules and requirements we must follow if we’re going to reach the goal of good health. The “paleo” diet provides a great example of this phenomenon. We’re exhorted by paleo proponents to eat lots of fats and animal protein. Carbohydrate consumption should be fairly light. Grass-fed beef is prized by paleo-dieters. You may consume unlimited amounts of butter, and must eliminate all cereals, legumes, and dairy products (except butter of course) from your diet. Now unless you’re a paleo convert, these prescriptions may seem to fly in the face of everything you’ve ever known about healthy eating. Paleo supporters will respond with the claim that human biology developed over the course of hundreds of thousands of years and that agriculture is brand new, having arrived about 10,000 years ago. That’s worth thinking about, but we may remember that other diets backed by correspondingly compelling logic and dollops of science have come and gone over the course of many decades.
For instance, the Atkins diet is still going strong for more than 50 years. The main requirement of the Atkins diet is low carbohydrate consumption, and in this way the Atkins program resembles the paleo diet. High-protein consumption is the other pillar of the Atkins approach. The rationale was that such an eating plan would force your body to burn fat, rather than glucose, for energy. But the diet hasn’t withstood rigorous scientific scrutiny.^1,2
Vegan and vegetarian diets have also been popular for many decades.3 The vegetarian lifestyle has wide appeal and vegetarian recipes are famed for their simplicity and palate-pleasing qualities. However, vegetarian contrarians do exist. Some studies even suggest that vegetarian or vegan diets may be associated with anxiety, depression, and neurologic dysfunction.³
The bottom line is that good sense should prevail. Starting a diet because the program was touted in a magazine article or a talk-show interview may not be in every person's best interest. Simply put, any diet may be harmful to a particular person. It's important to remember that what works for one person may not work for another. Paleo, Atkins, and vegetarian diets may create great benefits for certain persons, but may cause real medical problems for other people. The best overall approach for most us is to eat regularly from a wide variety of food groups, make sure to eat five servings of fresh fruits and vegetables every day, and pay close attention to portion control and calorie intake. Those desiring more detailed information and recommendations will find their chiropractors and family physicians excellent sources of expert guidance.
¹ Noto H, et al: Low-carbohydrate diets and all-cause mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. PLoS One 2013;8(1):e55030. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0055030. Epub 2013 Jan 25
² Lagiou P, et al: Low carbohydrate-high protein diet and incidence of cardiovascular diseases in Swedish women: prospective cohort study. Br Med J 2012 Jun 26;344:e4026. doi: 10.1136/bmj.e4026
³Plotnikoff GA: Nutritional assessment in vegetarians and vegans: questions clinicians should ask. Minn Med 95(12):36-36, 2012

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