Eric Creesy has a nice series of posts on his blog that relate to helping you correct/fend off poor posture. It’s well worth having a read through the 4 parts and incorporating the ideas into your routines.
Runners should do some weight training
I’ve always felt there was a place for weight training in an endurance athlete’s program. Here Carson Boddicker discusses some of the benefits for runners of including weight training within their schedule. Essentially if you’re stronger you can produce the same force with less effort so in other words you can go faster or further for the same relative effort. Another plus is in helping with injury prevention. If you’re stronger you’ll be more resiliant to the stress you expose yourself to.
Knee pain
I had been experiencing pain in around both knees recently and it reminded me of a couple of articles by Art Riggs on knee pain and various aspects that need to be taken into consideration when treating it.
Knee pain can come in many forms from meniscal damage to condromalacia but often overlooked are simple muscular/fascial problems in the clamour for something “exciting” to be the problem. When we do get injured or suffer from any of the number of knee conditions that can affect the movement of the knee the condition/injury is often our main concern but we forget that these problems all result in the knee not functioning properly. We develop compensatory movement patterns due to the pain that affects the knee from the condition/injury or the surgery carried out to repair the damaged area. Sendentary individuals can develop similar problems due to the fact that the knee is flexed for long periods of the day reuslting in the inability to fully extend the knee. Continue reading “Knee pain”
The knee bone is connected to the thigh bone, the hamstrings to the suboccipitals
I found this short article on Carson Boddicker’s blog pretty interesting. In it he talks about how release of the suboccipitals through a simple PNF stretch can result in a greater increase in hip mobility than a similar treatment for the hamstrings themselves. This is of particular interest for the office worker/runner since I’ve yet to come across anybody who spends any amount of time in front of a PC who didn’t need work to both areas but the suboccipitals in particular and yet again highlights the interconnected nature of our body.
More glutes
A client recently paid for an appointment for their sister who asked “will he do my glutes?”. Anybody who’s read the blog or been in for an appointment regarding back pain knows I think they need a bit of attention, both in terms of bodywork and with prehab/rehab exercise. Here’s a good one my friend Chris let me know about from Zach Dechant’s blog.
Life style factors and lumbar disc disease
I picked this post up on my friend Chris’ Conditioning Research blog. You can get the whole study here but the study found the following results that would definitely be worth further investigation.
The results of this case-control study reveal a positive association between weight and lumbar disc herniation as well as lumbar disc narrowing among men and women. A medium amount of pack-years was associated with lumbar disc herniation and narrowing in men and women. A non-significantly lowered risk of lumbar disc disease was found in men with high levels of cumulative body building and strength training.
Getting your 5-a-day
We all know the importance of getting our 5 portions of fruit and veg every day well this is my take on the idea applied to some simple mobility/flexibilty work that we would all benefit form on a daily basis. Most people now have sedentary jobs and find themselves being in front of a computer either all day or a substantial part of it. The effects of this sedentary lifestyle on the body are often create a more kyphotic posture, flattening the lumbar curve and exaggerating both the thoracic and cervical curves. The musculature of the back, as a generalisation, gets lengthened whilst that on the front gets shortened and the joints of the spine start to stiffen and lose their mobilty. Along with this the hips also stiffen and the glutes get over stretched and switch off. The hamstrings shorten and the quads lengthen and so on it goes through the body. Continue reading “Getting your 5-a-day”
Dumbbell Training
Helping yourself
One of the questions I ask when somebody new comes in is are they involved in any sports or what exercise do they do(if any). The reason behind the question is to get some insight into where there problems may be coming from and to give advice as to what they can do to help combat any problems that could develop. Of those who either participate in a sport or do regular exercise unless they actually engaging in a sport very few people do any weight training. Pilates, running, yoga, swimming etc but rarely weight training. Continue reading “Helping yourself”
My posture is fine
I posted a link on the facebook page a little while ago about the great article on Katy Says regarding posture and the alignment of your pelvis. I thought it might be good to expand here with regards to what I’m seeing/wanting to do with it.
Often when talking to a new client about their posture they will feel that it’s ok, that they don’t slouch etc. Yet when you get away from thinking about slouching/hunched posture and look at how the shoulder/hip/knee line up it’s quite obvious that it isn’t fine at all, just as Katy points out in the article. Continue reading “My posture is fine”