Whole Body Revolution

Rewire yourself for greater health, happiness and success.

Sukie Baxter

Posture

If You Must Sit at a Computer, At Least Do This…

I hope you’re sitting down for this because I have some news….your office chair is killing you.  No, seriously, it is.  Sitting is now a proven health risk, as you might have guessed from the chronic aches in your back, neck and shoulders.

Peter A. Levine, an obesity specialist at the Mayo clinic, states, “What fascinates me is that humans evolved over 1.5 million years entirely on the ability to walk and move. And literally 150 years ago, 90% of human endeavor was still agricultural. In a tiny speck of time we’ve become chair-sentenced.”

We already know sitting is bad for the back and neck, but did you know that within a couple of hours of sitting, healthy cholesterol plummets by 20%?  There is a physiological change in the body chemistry when you sit.  Postural muscles that should be active as you move around during the day are completely relaxed which decreases enzyme activity.  These enzymes are responsible for mobilizing fat out of the blood stream, so if they’re not active, you’re likely to wind up with a bad case of obesity.

And what about that posture?  Can sitting really be so bad for our spines?  “When you’re standing, you’re bearing weight through the hips, knees, and ankles,” says Dr. Andrew C. Hecht, co-chief of spinal surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center. “When you’re sitting, you’re bearing all that weight through the pelvis and spine, and it puts the highest pressure on your back discs. Looking at MRIs, even sitting with perfect posture causes serious pressure on your back.”

And worst of all, simply going to the gym for an hour a few times a week does not offset the negative effects of sitting.  You can’t out-exercise a sedentary day-time job.

So, what do you do if you’re stuck at a desk all day?

First, make sure you have a proper ergonomic set up.  Don’t waste money on an expensive ergonomic chair, by the way; it’s just as easy to slouch on a fancy $700 seat as it is on a $15 chair from IKEA.  Ideally, you should sit on a flat, firm surface (my favorite is a wooden bench).  Any contour will affect the alignment of your pelvis, which causes tension and pain in your back.

Make sure your seat is high enough that your hips are higher than your knees.  If your hips are below your knees, all the weight of your body sinks into your pelvis, but with your hips elevated, you can use pressure from your feet on the floor to support your spine.  In fact, a “perching” set up where you merely lean against a stool that is about bar stool height is ideal because it allows your legs to continue supporting most of your weight.

Your monitor should be at eye level or slightly above so you don’t collapse forward into the ever-popular “computer neck” syndrome where your head is a good six inches in front of your shoulders.

Make sure you’re perched on your sitting bones and not on your tail bone.  Rocking back on your tail bone will cause your sacrum to jam up.  Since your sacrum is the bottom-most vertebra of your spine, if it can’t move, neither can the rest of your back.  That results in a lot of pain.  When you are sitting forward on your sitting bones, you should have a slight arch to your lower back – this is normal.  You do not want your back to be straight.  You need that gentle s-curvature of the spine!

Perhaps most importantly, take lots of breaks.  Get up, go get a glass of water.  Walk over to the mail room.  Visit a coworker instead of sending an email.  Take a lap around the office.  Go outside and get some fresh air.  If you’re going to take a coffee break, maybe head out to the shop that’s a block away instead of stumbling two steps to the cafeteria.  The more you can get up and get moving, the better off you’ll be.  Remember, just going to the gym doesn’t counteract sitting.  You have to reduce your total time in a chair to get any measurable results.

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Uncategorized

Stop Eating Gluten and For Crying Out Loud, Don’t Substitute with Gluten-Free Junk Food

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Gluten-free is the new fat free.  It seems like every time I turn around, I’m meeting another person with Celiac Disease, seeing another gluten-free bakery pop up or walking through grocery store aisles lined with gluten-free goodies.  In fact, doctors estimate that 7 out of 10 people have a gluten sensitivity.

Gluten sensitivity is so common; it’s estimated that 99% of the people suffering from gluten sensitivity are unaware of it, and even those who don’t have full blown celiac disease have an increased risk of death by 35% if they consume gluten containing products.

So, what exactly is gluten?  How do you know if you’re sensitive to it?  And are all those gluten-free substitutes healthy?

Let’s start with the basics…

What is Gluten?

Gluten is a protein found in wheat and some other grains, like barely, rye, and spelt.  Gluten is formed when two protein molecules called gliadin and glutelin combine, usually once water or liquid is added to the flour.  Gluten gives dough its stretchy, gluey texture and is in part responsible for the rising of the dough.  Gluten also helps give the finished baked good its shape.

What is Celiac Disease?

Celiac Disease is a condition where the body has an immune response to the gluten protein found in wheat, barley and rye.  When gluten is consumed, the villi, tiny little finger-like projections along the interior of the intestine, atrophy and can no longer extract nutrition from food.  The most extreme stage of Celiac Disease is called total villus atrophy (TVA).

Celiac is now thought to be only one type of gluten sensitivity.  According to Dr. Tom O’Brien, gluten sensitivity and Celiac Disease specialist, gluten sensitivity can manifest in other organs or tissues.  In fact, for every one person who manifests the symptoms of gluten sensitivity in the gut, there are eight people who manifest symptoms elsewhere.

Gluten has been implicated in neurological disorders such as headaches and ADHD.  Children diagnosed with ADHD report improvement in symptoms after following a gluten-free diet for six months or longer.

How Do You Know if You’re Gluten Intolerant or Have Celiac Disease?

Standard tests for gluten sensitivity and Celiac Disease test for antibodies to the amino acid gliadin; however, this test is often wrong because many people with gluten sensitivity don’t react to this specific amino acid.  So, if you’re reacting to a slightly different component of gluten, your Celiac Disease test will come back negative, but gluten can still be damaging your body.

Other tests that look for something called tissue transglutaminase require you to be in the most extreme stage of shutdown, total villus atrophy, to be accurate.  If you have reached the height of Celiac Disease, these tests are right on the money, but if you’re only experiencing inflammation or partial villus atrophy, the tests are wrong seven out of ten times.

Symptoms of gluten sensitivity run the gamut from bloating, gas and abdominal discomfort to fatigue, weight loss, osteoporosis, skin disorders (acne, psoriasis, etc.), mood swings, depression, and more.

What Does Gluten Do to Your Body?

A review paper in The New England Journal of Medicine listed 55 conditions that can be caused by eating gluten, including osteoporosis, irritable bowel disease, inflammatory bowel disease, anemia, cancer, fatigue, canker sores, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and almost all other autoimmune diseases.  Gluten is also linked to many mental and emotional disorders, like anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, dementia and migraines.

If You Have a Gluten Sensitivity or Celiac Disease, Do You Have to Give Up Wheat and Gluten Completely?

If you have been diagnosed with Celiac Disease, you must completely eliminate wheat and gluten from your diet.  Even one milligram of gluten – about the size of an eighth of your thumbnail – is enough to keep your intestines from healing.

If you are merely sensitive to gluten, it’s yet unknown whether eating gluten from time to time will have adverse effects or not.  Doctors are still doing research with their improved tests to monitor the progress of gluten-sensitive individuals.  It’s very risky to eat gluten even when your symptoms are not present, however, because gluten-intolerant individuals face a much shortened life span than those without gluten sensitivity.

When you eat gluten, your body treats it like a foreign invader, attacking it instead of treating it like food.  This creates systemic inflammation and is often associated with abdominal bloating.  Over time, this constant internal war wears down your body.  Even though you may not overtly feel symptoms from eating gluten, effects can still be happening at the sub-clinical (cellular) level.

Finally, Are Gluten-Free Products Good for Me?

Just because it’s gluten-free doesn’t mean it’s good for you.  A brownie is still a brownie in all its sugary gloriousness, even if it is gluten-free.  In fact, many gluten-free foods contain more fat, sugar and carbohydrates than their gluten-filled counterparts.  Most store-bought gluten-free mixes are full of fillers, like sugar and starch.  It’s no more okay to sit down and eat a box of gluten-free cookies than it is to eat regular cookies.  That said, gluten-free products can provide nice treats for people on gluten-free diets, but eat them as you would any candy…sparingly.

 

Posture

Kettlebell Routine to Increase Hip Flexibility

Lack of hip flexibility is one of the most common issues I see in clients with lower back pain, middle back pain and neck and shoulder pain.  Why are our hips so inflexible?  Well, our bodies get really good at doing whatever it is we do repeatedly.  Since we sit so much – at desks, on couches, in cars and restaurants – our hip flexors get tight, short and stiff.

Tight hip flexors pull your pelvis into anterior rotation, giving you a “sway-back” and throwing your body out of balance.  A horizontal pelvis is as critical to good posture as a solid foundation is to a structurally sound building.  Tip your pelvis too far in one direction or the other and your body has to compensate with excess tension elsewhere.

This kettlebell routine will help you develop functional flexibility in your hip flexors.  It’s far more effective than static stretching because dynamic flexibility exercises prepare your body for real life.  Your muscles need to be able to both lengthen and contract.  Static stretching only trains the lengthening portion.

Also, dynamic movements actively engage your nervous system, the “software” that controls muscle tension.  Working with the nervous systems is the fastest way to make changes to muscle tone throughout the body.

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Posture

What is fascia (and why should I care about it)?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/3178757768/

Muscles have stolen the limelight for far too long.  They get all the best placements in magazines.  We train them, build them, strengthen them and stretch them.  But move over muscles, there’s a new player in town and his name is fascia.

So, what’s the big deal about fascia?  Well, ever heard the term brains over brawn?  It aptly sums up the advantages to focusing on fascia instead of dedicating hours to building massive muscles.  Fascia is “smart tissue,” meaning it’s intricately connected with your internal wiring – your nervous system.

Ever heard of proprioception?  Proprioception is your body’s own sense of self in space.  It’s what keeps you from walking into doorways or sticking your fork in your eye.  It’s how you know when you’re going to bump into stuff without directly looking at it.

Proprioception can exist because your muscles have little tiny cells inside them that sense changes in length as you move around.  This is why you get that pain when you stretch your muscles – it’s those proprioceptors sending a signal to the brain that you might be stretching too far and putting yourself in danger of a torn muscle.

So, back to fascia…you know how muscle-bound, iron-pumping, mirror gazing men are sometimes called meat heads?  Well, there might be something to that.  In the race for intelligence, fascia has muscle beat, hands down.  Fascia has ten times the sensory perception that muscle does.  Ten times!  Talk about a braniac!

That means that fascia can sense different kinds of movement, not just stretching.  It feels twisting, shearing, vibration and other types of movement.  Additionally, it’s fascia that gives muscle its shape.  Without fascia, muscle would be one big lump of undifferentiated tissue.

Fascia divides out the muscle groups, giving you additional function and flexibility.  And where we used to think muscle did all the heavy lifting, research is showing us that fascia’s pretty good at that, too.  Fascia has what’s called “contractile ability,” meaning that it can shorten, just like muscles.

Fascia makes up the tendons that attach muscle to bone.  We used to think these were just static ropes and that a muscle would contract, pulling the bones closer together to produce locomotion (ummm, that means movement).  Now we know that the muscle holds isometrically while the fascia contracts.  In fact, fascial spring (a type of contraction produced during plyometric movement such as jumping and bouncing) is responsible for the bounciness of some animals, like kangaroos.  If they had to depend on muscle density alone, they wouldn’t be able to jump nearly as far.

So, all of this is very well and good, but why is fascia the next “big thing” in fitness?  Well, for good reason.  Fascial stretching gives much more lasting results in terms of increasing flexibility.  Athletes who train their fascia can produce greater power with less muscular force, giving them unparalleled endurance.  And, since fascia essentially gives our bodies their shape, working with the fascial network can repattern posture, making it the go-to tissue for long-term pain relief.

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Posture

How to fix flat feet

 

Are flat feet genetic?  Do people with flat feet face a lifetime of supportive shoes and corrective orthotics?  What causes flat feet, exactly?

Actually, about 20% of the American population has so-called “flat feet.”  This is defined as a foot that has no discernible medial arch.  If you ask a flat footed person to step in paint and then make a footprint on butcher paper, you’ll get an imprint of the entire surface of his foot.

But how do we get flat feet?  Many people attribute it – incorrectly, in my opinion – to genetics.  If your parents had flat feet, you will, too.

The reality is that we’re all born with flat feet.  Arches are created, not born.  We develop our arches by standing and walking on our feet, preferably barefoot.  When shoes enter into the picture, that’s when things get a little caddywompus.

Back in 1905, Dr. Philip Hoffman did a survey comparing the feet of people who wear shoes to those of people who grew up barefoot.  The study was published in the American Journal of Orthopedic Surgery.  Fortunately for us, Hoffman also took a lot of photographs to illustrate his point.

Exhibit A – The feet of a non-shoe-wearing native hominid (or, in plain English, a barefoot person)

As you can see, this person’s feet look a bit like hands with the toes splayed wide and lots of space between each digit.  Also, note the line drawn through the foot on the right; it runs directly from the big toe through the heel.

If we compare this to the feet of a shod person, or someone who’s worn shoes their whole life, we can see a massive difference:

Notice how the feet in this photo have taken on the shape of the shoes and there is no direct line from the big toe to the heel.  How do you think this affects the functionality of the foot, let alone balance?  Not so good.

Even more disturbing is the fact that shoes make this change to our feet relatively quickly.  Here’s a photo showing a comparison between an adult who has never worn shoes and a child who has only had shoes on for 3 months.  90 days is all it takes to completely inhibit the natural function of your feet!

Researchers in India found that wearing shoes before the age of 6 is correlated with a higher incidence of flat feet.  8.2% of children who wore shoes had flat feet compared with 2.8% of children who ran around barefoot.

So, if it seems that shoes are the root cause of flat feet, why are flat footed people constantly hearing recommendations for arch supports, orthotics and other foot-altering technology?

The reality is that we’re a shoe wearing society (why we wear them is beyond me…what’s the first thing you kick off when you get home and are ready to relax?).  We also love technology, and thanks to Nike, we’re conditioned to believe that our feet need tiny pillows under them to function properly.

Also, there’s no financial investment in the advice to “just” strengthen your feet, no $100 sneakers or constantly changing custom orthotics to purchase.  When you put your feet into these supportive devices, however, it’s like putting your arches in a wheel chair.  The orthotics do all the work and the muscles of your feet become flaccid.

Your arches are meant to expand and contract with every step.  They’re built in shock absorbers, plus they launch you forward as you walk, making your gate much more efficient.

Orthotics, arch supports, sneakers and shoe inserts make you feel better temporarily.  Collapsed arches are correlated to collapse through the core, so giving your feet a lift will result in you feeling lighter…as long as you’re standing still.  The problem is, as soon as you take a step, your arch’s natural function is inhibited, meaning you have to compensate with other, less efficient muscles.

This contributes to tight quads and hip flexors, which cause lower back pain…but before I go on a rant about the importance of the foot in postural health, let’s take a look at what you can do to strengthen your flat feet and avoid the money pit of built-up footwear.

First, and most importantly, ditch any footwear that is is stiff, inflexible or provides arch support in any way, shape or form.  While you’re at it, toss out your high heels (okay, you can keep a few pairs for special occasions, but if you’re serious about fixing your flat feet, you’ll want to stay as close to barefoot as you can 98% of the time).  This includes, but is not limited to, the ugliest shoes on earth, Dansko clogs.

Despite their clever branding and endorsements by nurses in hospitals everywhere (who, despite their numerous and admiral medical accomplishments, have zero training in posture or structural function), these are perhaps the worst shoes you could possibly wear.  Not only do they not bend, they also have a molded foot bed that promotes inversion of your transverse arch which makes natural toe function completely impossible.  100% of my clients with lower back pain have inverted transverse arches.

Next, go barefoot as often as you can!  Going barefoot is the best way to stimulate the sensory perception on the bottoms of your feet, which in turn causes different muscles in your lower legs to fire.  These muscles are the ones that support your medial arch, so as you wake them up, your arch will also come alive.

Walking barefoot in sand is great extra credit because it’s an ever changing surface and causes you to flex, extend, invert and evert your foot.  These movements will stimulate the proprioceptors in your ankle joint, which will in turn cause your posture to shift for the better without you having to do any additional exercises or training.

Once you’ve instituted these first two changes, you can start strengthening your feet with specific drills.  Spreading your toes as far apart as you can is one way to flex your foot muscles.  Hold the stretch for as long as you can.  If you can’t spread your toes (like me when I first started this), check out Yoga Toes.  It’s a great aid to use until you have a little more control over your foot movement.

Another fantastic arch builder is to use your toes to pick things up and move them.  Try spreading a bunch of marbles on the floor and put a bowl next to the marbles.  Using your toes, pick up the marbles and drop them into the bowl.  This promotes dexterity and strength in your foot.

You can also try standing on your toes for periods of 30 seconds to a minute.  Most of us have weak toes because, as you can see in the pictures above, our shoes squish our feet together and make toe function difficult.  Standing on your toes will, again, wake up the sensory perception and get the muscles of your feet firing differently.

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