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June 6, 2012 Uncategorized

How to End Joint Pain and Stiffness Even When Stretching and Yoga Don’t Work

I recently received a sweet email from a 61 year old woman who explained that, although she’s been doing yoga for about a year and loves exercising, she wakes up stiff and achy every morning. She asked if maybe she’s doing the wrong stretches…

So, I wanted to clear up a little confusion. If you’re waking up stiff and achy, it’s likely your joints and not your muscles that are the problem. Stretching focuses on soft tissue (your muscles) and doesn’t have a great effect on your joints, other than lengthening the muscles surrounding a joint.

Joints are rich in tiny cells called proprioceptors. These guys basically keep us from walking into walls (hopefully) and from sticking our fork in our eye when we’re trying to eat. They tell your body where it is in space, how you’re moving, how much you’ve stretched a muscle, etc.

When your joint is screaming in pain, it’s getting a signal from a kind of nerve called a nociceptor, a type of proprioceptive nerve found in joints. However, joints have far more mechanoreceptors, or nerves that sense motion and touch, than it does nociceptors, and mechanoreceptors send signals to the brain much faster and clearer than nociceptors.

Therefore, by stimulating the joint mechanoreceptors, you will effectively eliminate joint pain, mostly because you have far more “noise” coming from the mechanoreceptors than you do the nociceptors, so the brain never even hears the pain signal.

How do you stimulate those mechanoreceptors, you ask? Excellent question.

Dynamic joint mobility drills – exercises that take a joint through full range of motion in an active manor, meaning that you do the moving and not somebody else – are the best way to stimulate your joints’ mechanoreceptors, eliminate pain and increase the flow of synovial fluid inside the joint which acts like a natural form of WD-40, lubricating your joints’ movements.

Static stretching as is done in yoga can’t hold a candle to the pain reducing properties of dynamic joint mobility and, best of all, you only need 15-20 minutes a day to get results.

So, where can you find these amazing joint mobility drills? Z-Health has an excellent beginner’s DVD with basic joint mobility exercises you can do at home in your living room. They’re simple and clearly explained, so even if you’ve never tried joint mobility exercises before, you’ll be able to follow along.

Click here to visit the Z-Health website and learn more about dynamic joint mobility. I suggest you start with the R-Phase DVD, the first tier of their program designed to rehabilitate aching and injured joints.

December 21, 2011 Uncategorized

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

http://www.sxc.hu/profile/elvinstar

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.

May 18, 2011 Uncategorized

Magic Enzymes: How Systemic Enzymes Can Eliminate Pain & Boost Health

What Are Enzymes?

Enzymes are energized protein molecules that are necessary to support life. All animals and plants have enzymes in them. We need enzymes to break down the food we eat and convert it into energy as well as to support all the metabolic processes happening in our bodies at all times.

What’s the Difference Between Systemic Enzymes and Digestive Enzymes?

Digestive enzymes are those that are needed to break down food in our digestive tract. Our bodies produce enzymes in the pancreas, but as we age, enzyme production drastically decreases, causing compromised digestive function (meaning our food sits in our digestive tracts and ferments). We can also supplement our digestive enzymes with fresh, raw fruits and vegetables, but these delicate enzymes are destroyed when exposed to high heat (greater than 115 degrees).

Systemic enzymes are designed to survive the stomach acid and digestive tract and be absorbed by the blood stream. These enzymes travel through the body and “eat up” any inflammatory proteins. Systemic enzymes are much more expensive to produce than digestive enzyme supplements because they must be enteric coated and also be put into “suspended animation” to prevent the enzymes from acting on each other and neutralizing their effectiveness. For this reason, digestive enzyme supplements are not as effective as systemic enzymes when used for pain relief.

Why is Controlling Inflammation so Important?

Inflammation is the root cause of most major diseases. C-reactive protein, an inflammatory marker in the blood, is a greater predictor of a heart attack than cholesterol levels. Inflammation has been linked to everything from coronary disease to diabetes. When you have high levels of inflammation in your body, it’s like being cooked from the inside out.

Inflammation is a primary player in pain. Too many years of stress and inflammation-causing foods like nightshades (potatoes, peppers, tomatoes), grains, sugar and processed junk food will cause a build up of inflammatory proteins in the body, which in turn cause aches, pains and stiffness…if they haven’t yet caused major, life-threatening diseases.

What Do Systemic Enzymes Do?

Systemic enzymes reduce levels of inflammation in the body. They have a nearly miraculous ability to determine good inflammation (like that that’s necessary for gut function) from bad (like chronic inflammation in a joint) and they only “eat up” the bad inflammation. They are also blood cleansing, anti-viral and antibacterial. Systemic enzymes dissolve excess scar tissue and fibrosis in the body as well as balancing out the immune system. When our immune systems become over-active, they can turn against us and start attacking our own tissues. This is called auto-immune disease and is the case in MS, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Enzymes can regulate the immune system to prevent autoimmune responses.

Where Can You Buy Systemic Enzymes?

I recommend the Vitalzyme systemic enzymes because they are enteric coated and completely vegetarian. For 20% off of your entire order of systemic enzymes, you can use my health provider account. Just enter the user name and password below when you place your order:

Website: http://www.nutrascripts.com

Customer Login: sukie
Customer Password: i86wg9

January 26, 2011 Uncategorized

Stop Wasting Time in the Gym! Part II: What you should be doing instead

If you missed last week’s article on how to stop wasting time in the gym, you can read it here.

Now you’ve gotten on the bandwagon and stopped doing really inefficient exercises in the gym. Hurray! Really, when you can get the same amount of stuff done in fifteen minutes as you can in an hour, why in the world would you take the longer path?!

Part of the reason that we’re conditioned to believe we need about an hour of time in the gym to get results is that “leading health experts” have told us so. And yes, if you’re doing time-wasting exercises that are little more than physical busy-work, you will need to spend more time pumping iron to get anything done.

But there’s a much faster way to blast fat and develop slim, sexy muscles…

Introducing the powerhouse of physical conditioning, High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT! Interval training is not to be confused with circuit training where you move from station to station performing different exercises. HIIT is absolutely the fastest way to burn through fat, improve cardiovascular capacity and boost athletic performance.

Whereas most exercise programs – cardiovascular conditioning in particular – choose a target heart rate or heart rate zone that is about 65% of your max, take you up to that zone and keep you there for 30 minutes or more, HIIT pushes your heart rate sky high and then gives you a resting or recovery period.

Why is high intensity interval training so effective? Well, in short, it causes you to burn more calories, flat out. When you perform low intensity exercise, such as 30 minutes on an elliptical machine or exercise bike, you only burn calories while you’re actually exercising. When you do HIIT, you boost your metabolism for up to 24 hours post-workout!

Additionally, interval training is highly beneficial to heart health. During steady state cardio training, such as prolonged periods of running, your heart will become lighter and more efficient. You’re effectively burning away heart muscle! HIIT training causes your heart muscle – actually, all of your muscles – to become larger and stronger. This is important for two reasons: One, a stronger heart is a healthier heart, leaving you less prone to heart disease such as myocardial infarction or atherosclerosis; and Two, larger, stronger muscles boost your metabolism and burn more fat.

The author of the book The Doctor’s Heart Cure, Dr. Al Sears, M.D., who has cured heart disease in over 15,000 patients writes, “When you exercise for more than about 10 minutes, your heart adapts by becoming more efficient. It achieves this efficiency through downsizing. Long-duration exercise makes the heart, lungs and muscles smaller so that they can go longer with less energy, but there’s a trade-off. The cardiovascular system becomes very good at handling a 60-minute jog, but it gives up the ability to provide you with big bursts of energy for short periods. Far from protecting your heart, this loss makes you more vulnerable to a heart attack.”

Basically, heart attacks don’t happen because of a lack of cardiovascular endurance. They happen because of a sudden spike in heart rate due to increased load.

Even more interesting, steady state training doesn’t really translate into real life. I mean, part of the reason we all go to the gym is to make ourselves more able to deal with day to day challenges, right? But when in the real world do you keep a steady heart rate for a prolonged period of time? Say you’re helping a friend move into her house. You’ll likely pick up a piece of furniture, carry it up the stairs, put it down and walk back to the truck. This is exactly like interval training…periods of intensity alternated with periods of rest.

So…how much time does this interval training take? I already mentioned it’s less than you’re used to, but would you believe you can get full-body conditioning in less than 5 minutes? I see you out there raising your eyebrows and shaking your head, but it’s TRUE!

Dr. Izumi Tabata completed a study at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, Japan, demonstrating that just 8 sets (and that’s 8 sets maximum, not minimum) of 20 seconds of intense exercise spaced with 10 seconds of rest in between is all you need to boost your fat burning ability while also improving aerobic and anaerobic capabilities. That’s a total of 3.8 minutes! No more excuses about not having time to exercise!

Here’s how you make this work for you:

1. Pick an exercise, any exercise. The beauty of the tabata set is you don’t even need equipment to get it done. Body weight squats, sprinting, jumping rope, kettlebell swings, cycling, running stairs, or virtually any other kind of exercise where you can modify intensity. The most portable option is, of course, outdoor sprinting.

(Note for you kettlebell sport athletes out there….I find that super efficient GS style snatches, cleans, jerks, etc., are far too efficient to fully challenge you for this kind of exercise, so either go hard style – I know, but it works – or pick something non-kettlebell for tabata sets).

2. Warm up your body and joints appropriately. Your warm up will look different depending on your age and condition, but ideally will contain full body movements and dynamic joint mobility drills to warm up your synovial fluid and tune up your proprioception.

3. Get a great interval timer, like a GymBoss, or just stand in front of a clock with a second hand (best when doing an exercise that allows you to stay in one place, like squats). I often use the timer feature on my iPhone.

4. Perform 20 seconds of your chosen exercise FULL OUT. You should feel like your lungs will explode and your legs will fall off if you have to do just one more squat, take one more set, jump one more loop of that rope. Give 100%. Interval training, like all things in life, gives back as much as you put into it. Put all you have into it. Note: If you have enough breath left to complain about how hard it is, you’re not working hard enough. I know this is tough love, but it is the truth.

5. Rest for 10 seconds.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 a total of eight times, for just under four minutes of exercise time.

7. Cool down. You’ll most likely be shaky and out of breath. Keep your body moving, just shuffle your feet, walk in circles or do whatever you can manage until your heart rate normalizes.

8. Stretch, hydrate, and move on with your day!

This is a very simple way to condition your body, but it is not easy! It’s haaaaaard. Yes, its’ only four minutes of exercise, but those four minutes aren’t so pleasant. But isn’t it worth it to shave 56 minutes off your workout time?

January 19, 2011 Uncategorized

Stop Wasting Time in The Gym! Part I

It never fails to amaze me. People complain, complain, complain about not having enough time to work out, and then I see them in the gym spending hours and hours on exercises that are absolutely useless!

**Warning: If you’re highly committed to your workout routine, this might ruffle your feathers. If you don’t want your feathers ruffled, stop reading now.**

So, most people go to the gym for two basic reasons: to burn fat and to build or tone muscle. These are both great reasons to get your booty in gear and get going on a workout routine. However, I do have a newsflash for you…if you want to shred through fat and get toned, beautiful muscles, PUT DOWN THE 2 POUND DUMBBELLS!

There, I said it. I’ve been wanting to say this for five whole years. I have sat by in frustration as I watched gym-goers, especially women, perform useless exercise after useless exercise. Frankly, I don’t know why women are so weight-lifting adverse. Give a woman a toddler, two bags of groceries, a diaper bag, a purse and a ring of house keys and she’ll drag that load up three flights of stairs no problem. Give her a 20 pound weight and she’ll tell you she can’t lift that and even if she could, she’d have “man arms.”

I’m here to call bull and put an end to all the time wasting going on in gyms across America! And possibly across the world!

Whenever I am at the gym – which isn’t often, because I frequently get to swinging my kettlebell in my living room these days instead of trekking out in the rain (yes, I’m that adverse to water falling from the sky) – I see women agonizingly doing ridiculous exercises that won’t build strength for anything in the real world, and, even worse, are often dangerous. Perhaps worst of all, these women think that the hours they put in at the gym are giving them some benefit. The real truth? You can get a fat blasting workout in 10 minutes or less that will also build strength and cardiovascular endurance. The rest is just icing on the cake.

So, to help you eliminate the useless time wasters from your gym routine, I present to you…

5 things you should never do in the gym:

1. Straight arm raises in front of you with dumbbells – Seriously? What are we building here, folks? The ability to lift buckets of water straight out and put them under a cow’s nose? WHEN will you EVER use this in real life? Not to mention, these little buggers have a nasty habit of causing tension in the trapezius muscles, which makes you come into my office to fix your neck pain. Don’t do this.

2. Any kind of weight lifting while standing on a bosu ball – Next time you stand on one of those half-moon bosu balls, take a look at your ankles in the mirror. Are they horizontal at the ankle joint? No? Well then, you’re in for some serious injuries in your future if you load an unstable ankle joint with weight. Bosu balls are for balance, not weight training. Stay on terra firma for the heavy lifting.

3. Bicep Curls – As my friend and strength coach, strongman, and kettlebell lifter extraordinaire Andrew Durniat says, “Nice biceps, what are you going to use those for?” Biceps can be pretty, sure. But doing bicep curls won’t make you stronger. Why? Well, we never contract one muscle in isolation, especially in our arms. When you lift things in real life, you use your whole body. If you want functional strength – the kind that will translate to carrying 30 pound purses and laptop cases without causing neck strain or low back pain – train across joints. That means, choose exercises that involve bending more than one joint at a time, like the classic overhead military press with either dumbbells or a bar. Bonus: Engaging more muscles means you burn more calories and get a total body workout for better overall muscle tone.

4. Read a book – If you can read while you’re doing it, it’s not super effective. Exercise is for more than your body. Movement keeps your mind young and improves body-mind coordination as well. If you want to read a book while riding a bike, that’s recreation. To get a workout, keep your focus straight. Hint: One of the most underused and overlooked pieces of equipment that almost every gym has is the rowing machine. No book reading possible there, just some serious full body conditioning (but make sure you get someone who knows what they’re doing to show you proper form so you get the maximum benefit without injury).

5. Anything with less than 10 pound dumbbells unless you’re seriously de-conditioned, a senior, or in rehab. If you’re going to the gym to burn fat and tone muscle, you need to add a lot more resistance than the weight of the purse you keep slung over your shoulder all day long. Raise the intensity and do fewer repetitions. You’ll be amazed at the results (and I promise, you won’t turn into the incredible hulk).

Just in case you’re still suspicious and think I’m lying about that last bit, let me share this picture with you from when I was in peak athletic condition for kettlebell training. That red bell over my head? That’s 32 kilograms or about 70 pounds. And yes, I got it up there with ONE ARM. Does it look like I have a lot of muscle bulk? Nope. The trick is training for function – the ability to generate force – instead of isolating each muscle and training it individually. The results are much different.