What to do? For all the above, it is critical to rehab very methodically, starting with encouraging movement (any movement, however minimal). When injured, your body’s instinct will be to protect itself from further injury. However, this is counter-productive.

Immobility slows down healing, reduces body fluid exchange, lubrication, movement, and a downward spiral kicks in. The shoulder easily becomes chronically inflamed. Movement within your pain-free zone, however, works miracles: toning nerves & muscles as well as encouraging production and moving lubricating body fluids around injured parts. Stubborn pains are often in inflamed ligaments, rather than muscles.

The basic principle is to open the shoulder joint, take pressure off sensitive nerves, then gradually increase range of motion. Much later, gradually add greater resistance, first with body weight then, stretch bands preferably.

I’ll explain the Step One Shoulder Opener exercise: Standing, bend forward at the waist, letting both arms hang from gravity. Note & record over a ruler or other gauge or marking on paper how far forward-backward, left-right you are able to move the arm hanging with the weight of gravity.

Follow-up with a 2nd bent-over movement: rotate the hanging arm clockwise, then counter-clockwise, noting & recording the diameter of your circles, perhaps measuring as above (always date the records).  The measurement provides positive, encouraging feedback over time.

With intense pain, try a hot Cryopac before the exercise and a cold Cryopac after the exercise. Perform these at least for 2 minutes upon rising from bed, or going to bed. Perform these during the day as pain permits.

Sleeping on the sore shoulder will increase morning pain. Try cold packs before bedtime.  Avoid sleeping with body weight on the inflamed shoulder.

Please use all the methods to restore shoulders as best as possible. Persist! Persist! Persist! It reduced my shoulder rehab by several months.  There is no doubt that these guidelines, if followed in a self-disciplined way, will reduce your pain and provide greater freedom of movement for your shoulders.  The extra sense of independent self-empowerment is an additional important psychological bonus!

The quads extend the knees, but the hamstrings are equally important for stabilizing the knee action.  Keeping knees slightly bent most of the time engages the quads and hamstrings, taking some pressure off the knees – regardless whether there’s meniscus or cartilage or bone damage. When the upper body is held in good posture, this position tends to direct body weight toward the heel, away from the damaged knee, engaging the hip and lower back – all much more preferred rather than directing the body weight towards a vulnerable knee.

Avoid impact to the knee, especially in a forward direction, but encourage backward movements as much as possible, especially descending stairs – all in order to build up supportive structures of the lower back, the buttocks, and hamstrings. All of these work together for greater knee stability.

The bending knee must track toward the toes; this is far more critical than whether the knee stops short of passing beyond the toes when viewed from above. Avoid anything that torques the knee.  Particularly if there is structurally damage at the knee, it’s important to encourage precise tracking of knee towards toes when strengthening the remaining undamaged supportive structures of the knee, legs, hips, and lower back.

What works to strengthen vulnerable knees?  Backward movement descending stairs or inclines are excellent strengtheners. Also, heel pullbacks against a resistance band or cord under a door.  Also, leg pullbacks (like on a skateboard) in waist-deep water also provide effective strengthening of the entire back-leg-knee structure.

I have used all of these techniques for clients as well as for myself.  They are all effective.  Persistence is important, not just daily exercise but attention to all movements during the day.  Starting off gently is important.  Grooving the movements (i.e. careful tracking) is also important.  I recommend having someone observe and provide feedback on your movement pattern or watch yourself in the mirror.

“Runaway obesity” is where the individual has totally lost control over their weight.   Science suggests that we are born with a number of fat cells which stay rather constant in number over the life of the average individual.

However, I’m reading that once a person reaches 170% of the weight ideal for their bone structure and height, then the fat cells enlarge only up to a certain point.

Then, instead of merely enlarging and continuing to absorb more fat, they actually reproduce and increase in number – each cell able to reproduce itself twice, and only twice.  Yet that’s enough to result in runaway obesity, where there’s an ever-growing number of fat cells capable of absorbing and holding fat in the body.

Further discussion, what happens with liposuction? Does the body quickly replace the lost fat-cells?  Is that why many people regain the weight lost by liposuction?  Is “set point” theory valid?  In other words, does our genetics program the body from the beginning to maintain a particular weight no matter what, so that some of us are naturally programmed to become obese and others to stay thin?  Or can genetic metabolism be controlled?

I read that a fat cell requires far less energy to absorb dietary fat than dietary protein or carb – i.e. a fat cell absorbs dietary fat more easily than protein or carb.

The implications are huge: 1) reduce dietary fat  2) increase protein (but not so excessive that it affects liver and kidneys) to create a digestion “metabolic load” 3) supply enough (but not excessive) carbs for fast-release energy to support daily function, including digestion, but not more  4) more fat cells = more fat absorbed = runaway obesity 5) increase caloric deficit with exercise.

We know that obese parents tend to produce children with a tendency to obesity (i.e. babies with an abnormally large numbers of fat cells like their parents).  But there are some questions.

1 ) If a child born non-obese, later in life becomes an obese parent, do they change their DNA structure and pass on obesity genes to their offspring?   2) Or is lifestyle the only factor?  I’m looking for some solid research.  The implications are huge.

Either way, they are interesting and may improve the quality of one’s life.  Increasing sex in one’s relationship can be challenging, however.  Mutual respect, civil behaviour and open communication between partners is a great starting point for more and better sex (which may likely lead to health benefits).

http://lifestyle.ca.msn.com/health-fitness/health/rogers-article.aspx?cp-documentid=25872377

Body parts affected by obesity

Obesity is more than just your appearance or being physically unable to do what you want to do.  It produces an extra load on all the organs, the musculoskeletal system, vision, metabolism and even the brain.

The organs (liver, gall bladder, kidneys, lungs, heart, pancreas, and reproductive organs) suffer from the extra load to digest and metabolize the kinds of foods that lead to obesity (salty, sugary, processed, low-fibre).  Also, organs must deal with chemical and hormonal imbalances caused by excess blood sugar (glucose) and lipids (fat) in the body.  Lipids become oxidized (become more solid) which results in fat tissue inflammation that promotes insulin resistance and obesity complications.  This constant inflammatory stress contributes to diabetic, cardiovascular, immune, respiratory (sleep apnea) and arthritic conditions.  (Source: Harvard Med School et al)

The muscles have difficulty maintaining healthy posture or moving efficiently.  They often become strained and inflamed.  Back, hips, knees, feet and ankles become strained and are often in constant pain making movement difficult.  Bones and joints deteriorate with the repeated excess strain and unsafe joint alignment.

Connective tissue become strained and inflamed.  Joint, spinal, and connective tissue inflammation often becomes chronic i.e. long-lasting.  Of course, chronic pain encourages less movement, and less calorie-burning – a downward spiral that’s challenging to stop.

Vision is affected by complications of obesity, particularly diabetic eye diseases that include blurred vision, macro degenerative disease and blindness.

Metabolism is affected.  As obesity progresses, (particularly with yo-yo diets) more and more fat cells are produced and become enlarged promoting runaway obesity.

The brain is affected.  Negative self-image, depression, and lack of social contact may be connected with obesity.  Yo-yo diets associated with obesity throw leptin and ghrelin hunger hormones out of balance, promoting excess calorie intake following caloric starvation.  Ghrelin from the gut triggers not only appetite in the brain’s hypothalamus, but also body-wide cell activity that produces free radicals (oxidants) that also challenge the body.  (Source: Dana Institute).  In addition, there’s evidence that with obesity, brain cells change and become “insulated” from receiving signals of “hungry” and “not hungry”.  (Source: Monash Obesity & Diabetes Institute, Australia).  The result – a chronic cycle of eating even when not hungry.

Avoiding obesity is far easier than managing it, but there is hope – future article.

There’s no lack of hype and information (often debatable) from the food, drug, medical, and fitness industries.

As a wise reader, keep an open mind, but do your research homework and make mindful conclusions that work for your long-term health.

For all issues, prevention trumps cure: maintaining good, neutral spinal alignment (i.e. good posture when sitting in particular) appears to be critical. 30 minutes of therapy per week (if you’re lucky) can’t beat constant mindfulness of your spinal alignment. Talk to a health professional aware of ergonomics of the back.

Once injured, again start with healthy spinal alignment for all activities, including sleep, sitting, standing, and in particular lifting. Most vulnerable movement for the back? Visualize starting a lawnmower.

Contrary to old thought, rest is not necessarily the cure. Research does not support that surgery is always a cure either (approximately 50% cure rate compared to ideas in this article).  Corrective rest involves maintaining movement, but within a safe range, with safe resistance (i.e. weight), with safe spinal alignment, incorporating several muscle groups rather than a single one. Not that hard to do with some basic guidelines:

• Keep moving to encourage synovial body fluids to lubricate inflamed areas!  Keep up your body fluids during this time and always!
• Keep knees slightly bent to encourage healthy spinal alignment
• Keep vertebrae stacked neutrally (i.e. not crunched in a particular direction, but neutral)
• Pull in and draw your abs up, and tighten glutes to aid your core girdle to support your spine
• Keep feet hip-width apart for greater lateral stability
• Apply slower, rhythmic movements rather than quick in all movements
• When sitting, standing, moving – avoid irritating chronic back pain further, adjust your body position

We’ll take a look at various back issues in future articles.

Sometimes the expression is external and obvious: posture, the way we carry ourselves, our tone of speech, our heart rate, our body tension, our touch.

Other times, the expression is internal, hidden or more subtle: our “vibes” to others, our “aura”, and our hormonal and other biochemical responses.

Sometimes, music can bridge these connections.  Sometimes, noting the effect that certain musical experiences give us can illuminate our own individual triggers, revealing to us why we behave as we do.

Responses to music are easy to detect in the human body. Classical music from the baroque period causes the heart beat and pulse rate to relax to the beat of the music. As the body becomes relaxed and alert, the mind is able to concentrate more easily. Furthermore, baroque music decreases blood pressure and enhances the ability to learn. Music affects the amplitude and frequency of brain waves, which can be measured by an electro-encephalogram. Music also affects breathing rate and electrical resistance of the skin. It has been observed to cause the pupils to dilate, increase blood pressure, and increase the heart rate.  (from the Music and the Brain link that follows)

The following link will be interesting not only to musicians, but also to anyone interested in how the mind and body are interconnected.

Music and the Brain

Depends on your body, your effort and depends on your instructor’s guidelines.

Depends on your body?

An athletic, lean body can push the water harder relative to their body weight, giving themselves a more intense workout.

An obese person, on the other hand, will have more difficulty achieving sufficient intensity relative to their body weight due to issues of greater surface area, more water to push, slower movements, likely insufficient muscle strength to push the water hard enough, likely fewer repetitions. All this adds up to a lack of muscle overload – required to increase muscle strength and endurance.

Another concern…we build bulk on land with heavy weights, short reps, aiming to “bulk up”.  For the client wishing to burn calories and slim down, however, I wonder whether increasing the mass of water you’re pushing with each stroke might also cause the “bulking up” – just wondering.

Depends on the instructor’s guidelines?

The instructor needs to encourage a higher intensity than usual because movements will likely be less intense in deeper water.  Significant buoyancy (less of a factor in shallow water) may contribute to difficulty maintaining effective body positions while executing movements.  Significant body density tends to encourage sinking.  Non-swimmers may feel unsafe, and unable to perform movements.  An instructor needs creative skills to work around these issues to maximize the effectiveness of the deep water – and it can be done.