Jan 16

Building Lean Muscles and Insulin Management

The storage of excess fat mass and metabolic conditions such as pre-diabetes can produce undesirable events in our everyday life functionality.  Not only does excess fat mass create threatening environments within our cardiovascular system, but carrying around more weight than our body can manage due to a surplus of fat mass combined with deconditioned fitness levels elicits stressful loads on the body’s joints.  After a set of blood panels ordered by our doctors reveals blood markers indicating pre-diabetes, individuals receive an immediate warning signal that the likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes might be present if an intervention isn’t taken.

Pre-diabetic conditions and superfluous storage of fat mass often go hand in hand.  If an individual has a high amount of fat mass, too many foods that create an environment of fat storage are likely being consumed by the individual.  The storage of fat doesn’t just appear overnight.  Subcutaneous fat mass accumulated in the abdomen, hips, upper chest, and armpit area is developed over time when a human lacks movement and eats more calories than are used as energy in a day.

Low physical activity days produce a sedentary lifestyle.  When humans don’t move but eat foods high in starchy carbohydrates, the sugars present in carbohydrates that don’t get used as energy convert to fat.  Imagine a week in which sandwiches, pasta, and alcoholic beverages are consumed by a person four to five days per week, and the only physical activity performed is a walk to and from parked cars when visiting the store or to the workplace to sit for hours.  The result is likely a body that does not need to use carbohydrates in the system for energy, triggering a stimulus to store subcutaneous fat mass.

Insulin is a hormone responsible for shuttling sugar to a specific cell.  After consuming a food with a high sugar concentration, insulin is pumped into the bloodstream from the pancreas.  Hormones are chemical messengers that tell cells within the body to perform a specific function.  Insulin possesses beneficial and detrimental functions affecting overall health.  Skeletal muscles are the organs in our body responsible for mechanical movement, such as our quadriceps, gluteal, core, and biceps muscles.  When these muscles are stressed from exercise, their natural response is to heal and recover by overlaying protein and amino acids to the damaged sites of muscles to become bigger and stronger to keep performing demanding physical activities, such as rigorous exercise.  The anabolic reconstructive properties of insulin aid in the recovery of skeletal muscle following exercise.

After a muscle endures a demanding exercise experience, the cells are slightly torn and disrupted at the microscopic level.  Thanks to the naturally occurring regenerative properties our bodies are granted, the muscle cells’ immediate response is to recover by absorbing protein and amino acids from the bloodstream.  However, the muscle cell needs an energy source to efficiently grab onto proteins and bond them to the site of damaged muscle to fill the tears from exercise-induced stress.  Following an exercise session, including rigorous resistance training, foods that produce insulin can be beneficial.  Energy occurs from the breakdown of sugar.  Therefore, the insulin in the body aids in providing intramuscular fuel to utilize proteins to rebuild muscle.

A solution we offer to our personal training clients with goals to ween off prediabetes medication is to not only adhere to consistent exercise but also to make skillful eating decisions involving consuming carbohydrates around rigorous physical activity.  Additionally, when consuming carbohydrates, referring to a glycemic index scale assists in choosing carbohydrate sources with a lower insulin production rate.  Furthermore, if physical activity levels are low, it would be beneficial to abstain from consuming copious amounts of carbohydrates so the unused carbohydrates don’t get stored as fat.  Examples might include avoiding additional carbohydrate consumption over long sedentary days in a work environment, including desk work or commuting in a car or airplane.  One of the most effective ways to manage pre-diabetic symptoms and lose weight is to avoid eating carbohydrates before going to bed.

Let’s not demonize carbohydrates and insulin.  Carbohydrates are beneficial for fueling the body for exercise and demanding levels of physical activity.  Insulin has beneficial properties to the synthesis of lean muscle mass following bouts of rigorous exercise.  However, the choices we make when eating food with high amounts of carbohydrates and producing insulin should be decided at the most beneficial times after exercise and avoided when physical activity is low.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Jan 09

Venturing into 2025 with skillful dietary decisions

We’ve arrived at the quarter century successfully.  Starting the new year on a high note is on many people’s minds.  Managing finances, learning a new skill, or working toward the bucket list of visiting highly sought-after wonders of the world are a few examples of the monumental achievements people might be motivated to work toward throughout the next twelve months of 2025.  However, one of the most popular topics is usually to refine the way their body looks and feels.  Along with the goal of body refinement comes one of the most popular metrics people are fixated on: the digital representation of their weight on the electric scale.  Losing weight is usually at the top of the list of things to improve in the new year.

By now, we should be receiving email blasts and social media advertisements of New Year special discounts from most of our local gyms.  If we travel past small group fitness class venues such as Orange Theory or Crossfit locations, we’ll probably see a sign propped up facing the road with a message to passers-by that membership for the first month of the year is fifty percent off.  Professionals managing fitness facilities understand that people motivated by their New Year’s goals are eager to sign up and immediately take action to improve their bodies via exercise.  What better place to go than fitness centers offering discounts and literally waving you down while you stroll by?

Local gyms, small group fitness classes, and personal training centers play a huge role in offering professionally catered exercise sessions to people interested in losing weight and improving their overall health.  Napa is fortunate to have an abundance of fitness centers providing support to individuals looking to improve their health and fitness.  However,  there are a few obstacles shunting people’s abilities to achieve weight loss goals even with the help of the robust resources of fitness professionals in our community.

Fitness classes and gym sessions usually produce an average of an hour of rigorous exercise when someone visits the gym.  Additionally, participants usually frequent these classes an average of two to three times per week.  Furthermore, a high concentration of brand-new gym-goers make up most of the attendants participating in January discount special packaged fitness classes.  Unfortunately, attendance drop-off can occur within three weeks of starting a new fitness program due to lack of interest, not having fun, or finding something more important to do than refining overall health.  Exercising twice a week is challenging for people who live busy lives as employees, business owners, or parents.  And, these three hours a week of exercise don’t account for the other events in our everyday life that pose obstacles to our weight loss efforts the other one hundred and sixty-five hours in the week.

Unless we have a professional dietitian by our side on our payroll for sixteen hours out of the day, we need to learn to depend on our own conscious decisions regarding the food that enters our bodies.  If our goal is to shed a few pounds of subcutaneous fat mass, the person we look at in the mirror every morning is responsible for the food we consume.  If we think a steady diet of visiting Panda Express and ordering their egg rolls and deep-fried chicken will be offset by three days a week of sweating at Pilates class or getting twenty-thousand steps in a day, we’re on another planet.  The truth is that an exercise routine can’t override a lackadaisical diet.  Perhaps more time should be spent on skillful dietary decisions as a priority as a foundation in our efforts to support weight loss goals.

A strategy that helps our personal training clients build a foundation of optimal eating decisions isn’t necessarily following an etched-out diet. Making better decisions throughout their day when consuming a certain food develops a sense of autonomy and self-government within individuals to empower their ability to intuitively decipher what will or won’t cause weight gain.  A powerful example that makes an immediate impact is to focus on what time of day carbohydrates are consumed.

Having starches and bread later in the day is usually where we see a hindrance in our client’s nutritional mindset.  Pasta, rice, and bread at dinner are a surefire way to hold onto excess fat.  When humans are physically active, carbohydrates are used as a source of fuel to keep the body moving through rigorous exercise.  However, when in a sedentary state of sitting or being inactive for a long period after consuming carbohydrates, the sugars in carbohydrate-dense foods are converted and stored as fat in the upper chest, abdominal, and hip regions.  As a solution to counteract the effects of excess fat storage from food, an effective tactic is to limit carbohydrate consumption around periods in the day that are more physically active periods of the day.

Routine exercise is undoubtedly one of the most important factors in refining human health and losing fat mass.  However, let’s not forget about the decisions we make that reside directly in front of us every day when we eat.  Don’t forget about exercise when conquering your New Year’s resolutions.  More importantly, build a strong foundation in dietary decision-making to supercharge your efforts in losing weight and making 2025 a healthy and strong year.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Jan 06

Reduce Shoulder Pain with Skillful Exercise Decisions

Upper extremity movements are present in a multitude of events in our everyday lives.  Reaching overhead to obtain a coffee mug from a high shelf in the cupboard, rotating and reaching backward to grab hold of a seatbelt and fastening it before disembarking in our cars, or simply putting on a jacket are a few examples of what our shoulder joints allow us to perform in a normal day.  However, when neck, shoulder, or scapular pain arises, a task as simple as putting on a hat or blow-drying one’s hair can be an undesirable experience of pain and discomfort.

The shoulder joint is a ball and socket joint.  Other joint types present within the body include hinge, saddle, or facet joints.  Along with its ball and socket sibling, the hip joint, the shoulder joint allows for impressive circular and rotational ranges of motion.  Equipped with the ability to project the arm forward, out to the side, overhead, and maneuver behind the body, the shoulder joint allows our arms to move through various planes of movement so our hands can grab objects to lift, pull, and push them to our desired location.  Additionally, the impressive range of motion of the shoulder grants humans the ability to perform athletic activities such as throwing and catching balls or striking objects with instruments such as golf clubs, tennis rackets, or pickleball paddles.

The free space within the bony framework of the shoulder allows for an increased range of motion for the upper extremities.  Unlike the dense bony fortress that the pelvic girdle offers the hip’s ball and socket joint, the shoulder joint has significantly less stability than the hip joint.  The clavicle, shoulder blade, rib cage, and humerus are attached by muscles, tendons, and ligaments that don’t offer strong bone-to-bone attachments like the hip.  This is why the shoulder has an increased ability to perform circular movements compared to the hip.

The scapula, or shoulder blade, has a large array of muscular attachments to the posterior aspect of the ribs, spine, and humerus.  These muscular attachments of the scapula to the humerus allow for the sophisticated movements of the upper extremities, each responsible for an impressive array of rotation, flexion, extension, adduction, and abduction.  Due to the lack of bone-to-bone attachments and the increased demand for the muscular attachments present in the shoulder, the increased potential for injury in the form of overuse and underuse of the shoulder stabilizer muscles is at a higher risk than that of the hip joint.  Therefore, the increased awareness to support the shoulder’s health for our everyday life functionality can’t be overstated.

Similar to the decreased size of the humerus, clavicle, scapula, and rib bones within the shoulder joint when compared to the femur and pelvic girdle of the hips, the muscles responsible for producing force and reinforcing the structural integrity within the shoulder are smaller than the hips muscles.  For example, the gluteus maximus is roughly twice the size of the pectorals.  The shoulder muscles of the rotator cuff and scapular stabilization have a limit to the amount of power and structural stability they can maintain for upper extremity force-producing movements.  If the shoulder muscles become overworked, the risk for shoulder musculoskeletal afflictions can occur in the form of rotator cuff syndrome, frozen shoulder, or torn tendons and ligaments.  To prevent this, focusing on consistently practicing shoulder injury prevention movements is critically important to staving off debilitating shoulder joint injuries.

Some of us incorporate vitamins and immune system support supplements within our diets.  A few examples include taking B vitamins in the morning, some aged garlic extract at night, collagen powder in our smoothies, or increased turmeric in our diet.  These supplements are aimed at avoiding getting sick, decreasing inflammation, and influencing the reduced likelihood of advanced forms of arthritis.  If there were a magic vitamin we could take to reduce our shoulder rotator cuffs from developing pain, I wouldn’t be writing this article.  Consistent adherence to injury prevention, rehabilitative, and strengthening exercises for the shoulder joint is the “magic pill” that strongly influences the avoidance of developing chronic shoulder pain and injuries.

As a form of consistent practice to ensure our clients know a few best practices to decrease the likelihood of shoulder injury during our personal training sessions, we require all exercise participants to conduct a series of mobility tactics meant to activate the stabilizing muscles of the shoulder joint.  The same movements are performed before every training session in meticulous detail under our professional critiques.    An example of one shoulder movement prep includes scapular protraction and retraction:

Scapular Protraction and Retraction:   Lift your arms to about armpit level and bend them at a 90-degree angle.  While maintaining your elbows at a 90-degree angle and keeping your fingertips facing forward, glide your shoulder blades forward along your rib cage until you feel a stretch in the upper back and muscular sensation in your pectoral region.  Reverse the motion and glide your shoulder blades backward against your ribs.  You should feel muscular sensation in the muscles surrounding your shoulder blades.   Repeat this movement for five to ten repetitions.

The purpose of overviewing and rehearsing these regularly practiced techniques is not only to reinforce the structural integrity of the shoulder joint, but also so exercise participants never forget these techniques.  That way, they can take their “injury prevention vitamins” via consistent exercise every time they workout at our fitness center, or more importantly, under their own exercise settings during a home workout or at a local gym.  By consistently practicing injury prevention and mobility movements for the shoulder joint, we have the potential to have functional upper extremities to help us live happy, healthy, and strong lives.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Dec 26

Resistance Training and Osteoporosis Management

The six hundred and two bones comprising the human skeleton are sophisticated structures of living tissue.  Our bones are key components that allow us to interact with the physically active environments in which we participate in our normal daily lives.  Starting from the cellular level, bones are made up of a dense concentration of osteons, osteocytes, osteoblasts, blood vessels, and various other functional units responsible for holding bones together, creating a solid skeletal framework that allows our body to move.  Interlaced with organic minerals that lay over each other, like the composition of fiberglass, bone cells connect to form layers of hard mineralized connective tissue to shape solid skeletal structures such as the skull, vertebrae, humerus, pelvis, or femur.

The deep intrinsic structure of bone cells is organized in a spiderweb-like matrix of rigid minerals resembling that of a sponge that has openings allowing blood and liquid to flow through it.  If we could imagine a sponge that’s made out of super solid cement, this gives us a rough idea of what the image of the inside of our bones looks like.  Osteons are bone cells.  The word porous means something with little holes that liquid can pass through.    The degenerative bone condition osteoporosis indicates that bones have larger holes than normal in their inner membrane than a normal bone unafflicted by lack of bone mineral density.  Therefore, people with advanced forms of osteoporosis have more porous bones.

Individuals with symptoms of osteoporosis have an increased likelihood of enduring microfractures and stress in bones such as the spine, shoulders, and hips.  These small microfractures can lead to a decrease in bone size and density.  When the risk of falling is present, bones are more frail and break more often after untimely falls occur in individuals with advanced cases of osteoporosis.  While the detriments of osteoporosis are a reality some of us must deal with, we can increase the strength of bones and everyday life functionality by utilizing strategically planned exercise.

Similar to how a muscle grows after a few months of consistent resistance training, bones develop strength in their inner matrix of mineralized connective tissue to adapt to the stress imposed on them from exercise.  An example of resistance training we conduct with our personal training clients includes cues for them to move through challenging planes of motion using gravity, dumbbells, or resistance bands as a form of controlled resistance.  This stress induces productive microscopic tearing and inflammation of the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones.

The human body has an efficient healing system in which it is wired to recover to match and surpass the demands of an exercise routine by healing the stress imposed on the connective tissue to become larger and develop an increased density within the connective tissue to be dense enough to continue moving through future bouts of rigorous physical activity.  These adaptations don’t occur overnight.  Research has repeatedly supported that long-lasting adaptations from resistance training take anywhere from nine to twelve months of a consistently practiced exercise program to develop reinforced structural integrity within the muscle, tendon, ligament, and bone cells.   Therefore, it’s important to adhere to an exercise routine and, more importantly, to stick with it for the long run if fending off the detriments of osteoporosis and other degenerative bone diseases is the goal.

An optimal place to start implementing resistance training if starting from a novice or inexperienced skill set could be to start with exercises that only use gravity as a source of resistance and position the body in a challenging standing, seated, or lying down position.  A few examples commonly understood as “body weight resistance” type movements include exercises featured in Yoga and Pilates classes.  When entering a beginning Yoga or Pilates class, instructors usually teach the basics of getting up and down off the ground, bending over while keeping the back straight, and utilizing the strong core and hip muscles as a point of emphasis in an exercise session.  Additionally, it might be worthwhile to seek the guidance of an exercise professional who understands the progressions of body weight exercises, how to perform them safely, and has a solid foundation of knowledge regarding the limitations of osteoporosis and how to navigate around risk factors.

While some shudder at the term osteoporosis, understanding how to manage risk factors of the advancement of bone density loss and decreasing the risk of falling via strategically planned exercise offers a sense of hope.  If we can learn the exercises we enjoy, seem safe, and offer muscle and bone-strengthening adaptations through consistent practice, we can live happier, healthier, and stronger lives.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Dec 14

Slower Exercise to Recover and Keep Going

“I’m not sure I should come in for my training session today.  I might have lifted something the wrong way when I was bending down to prune my roses.  Now, I have some tightness and pain in my lower back and right side of my hip.  What do you recommend?” read one of the emails from Revy in my inbox on a Monday morning a few weeks ago.

Revy is one of our personal training clients who frequents our fitness center twice a week.  Her attendance is among the upper percentile in terms of showing up ready to go for her twice-weekly training sessions.   Fueled by a light pre-workout meal, a bottle of water, and the assurance that she would show up fifteen minutes early to complete her dynamic stretching routine that has been etched into her memory banks, one could say Revy is the ideal personal training client.  The coaches fight over who trains Revy because she listens and comprehends the exercise tactics we cue her to perform with intense concentration, purpose, and an eagerness to receive positive feedback.

As a woman just entering her sixties and embracing a life of retirement, Revy has embraced a fit and active lifestyle as the key to paving a path of adventure and fun to fuel the aspirations of traveling, hanging out with her friends and family, and recreational activities she’s always wanted to delve into.  However, after training for over eighteen months, Revy experienced something unusual she hadn’t felt after the positive outcomes she garnered from consistently adhering to her fitness routine.  Following two hours of pruning rose bushes, raking up leaves, and filling up her brown compost bin, she woke up with back pain that severely disrupted her daily activities the next day.

After reading Revy’s email, I felt sympathetic toward her discomfort.  She has worked diligently to ensure the condition of her body is nurtured and operating at full capacity thanks to her efforts to eat healthy and exercise regularly.  However, I understand that certain events are out of our control, and outliers in the course of everyday life can present a shift in the normal rhythm we’re accustomed to.

I trusted Revy’s intuition that exercise might make things worse.  I told Revy I was confident we could adjust her training regimen to avoid exacerbating the injury.  Furthermore, her program would be revised in an effort to alleviate her pain and rehab the site of her injury.  This meant the coaching team knew to incorporate lower back injury prevention, stretching, and less compressive movements in her exercise prescription.  As a productive intervention, we incorporate isometric and eccentric modes of exercise when participants report an onset of pain from an unlikely event in which they endured a musculoskeletal injury.

Isometric exercise can be defined as a mode of exercise in which the surrounding joints aren’t moving but are still under tension. A common example is the straight-arm plank. This position is commonly understood as positioning oneself in the starting position of a push-up and maintaining that position for a specific period of time. We usually instruct our personal training clients to hold a plank for twenty to thirty seconds to start.

Once planks can be maintained for a proficient amount of time, about forty-five seconds to a minute, we progress to the next mode of exercise, eccentric movements. Commonly understood as a slow-lowered or “negative” portion of an exercise, eccentric muscle contractions can be identified as the lengthening of a muscle fiber.

A commonly perceived normal exercise routine consists of a one-to-one ratio of lifting a load and lowering it at the same speed.  Performing this mode of a normal one-to-one ratio of time in the accent and descent of the push-up is commonly understood as the traditional way of exercising.  This isn’t what we wanted to do for Revy.

We knew that Revy’s body was in a state of distress.  Instructing her to perform three sets of ten repetitions for her compound lower and upper body movements might exacerbate the injured area because the rate of muscular contraction and physical exertion could potentially overstress an already stressed area.  Therefore, performing three sets of four repetitions of slow-lowered descent exercises would be beneficial and avoid the risk of pushing past Revy’s limitations.  We put Revy in a successful situation by reducing her repetition count but lengthening the duration of the repetition.  This way, she would still be performing exercise but in a modified style that decreased the mechanical movements of her joints yet still applied productive stress to her muscles.  The likelihood of straining the area further decreased by reducing the amount of movement on the joints in her back and hip.  Most importantly, Revy could still attend her beloved training sessions to stay consistent in her journey to be fit and strong for her everyday life activities.

It’s worthwhile to refine one’s fitness habits when an injury occurs.  The last thing we want to do is either “push through the pain” and make things worse or just quit exercising altogether.  We can still keep moving when an injury presents itself.  After an unexpected injury occurs, take a step back, reassess what we can do, and keep pressing forward by consistently adhering to a ritual of regular exercise.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Dec 05

Exercise Adherence to Mitigate Hip Pain

Relatively simple movements one would think we should be able to do every day without even thinking about it include squatting down to pick objects off from the ground, standing up from a seated position, or ascending stairs.  These everyday functional movements depend on optimally conditioned hip joints.  Consisting of a ball and socket joint granting the ability to move forward, backward, side-to-side, and rotate close to a full circular range of motion, the hip joint allows the body to execute advanced functions throughout our everyday lives.  The ability to decrease the elevation of the hips throughout squatting movements, hinge over from the hip joint to pick up objects, go up and down stairs, walk, hike, or jog rely on a structurally sound and strong infrastructure of the hip.  Impediments to our normal functionality can become significantly threatened if there is a disruption to the hip’s structural integrity.  For the readers who experience hip pain, one could appreciate how a seemingly simple movement such as walking, getting in and out of the car, or stepping up onto a curb can seem like gearing up to walk over ten yards of hot coals while barefoot.  Discomfort and pain are a part of life that we don’t wish upon anyone.  However, while hip pain conditions might appear like a plague that lingers like the scent of a dog freshly sprayed by a skunk, we can practice consistent exercise to support hip health.

To understand how to alleviate hip pain, it’s worthwhile to enlighten ourselves on the composition of the hip and a few basic functions.  Centrally located in the body next to the spine and abdomen, the hip joint consists of the head of the femur, which inserts into a concave-shaped socket of fused pelvic bones.  The head of the femur is a rounded, convex-shaped portion of bone that fits congruently into the hip socket.  The labrum is a large suction-cup-like ligament originating from the inside of the hip socket.  It articulates around the head of the femur, providing significant structural support that keeps the hip from traveling out of the socket and allows for a substantial rotational range of motion.  An intricate yet organized network of muscles originating from the sacrum, pelvic bones, anterior portion of the spine, and tendonous sheaths of the abdomen assist in adhering the hip fit snuggly into the hip socket.  Depending on the message the human in charge of the hip joints sends from the brain, through the spinal cord, out toward the motor nerves, and to the muscles.  Each muscle has a unique function that abducts, adducts, flexes, extends, and rotates the hip joint.  Furthermore, along the bony prominence of bones include bursae, which are fluid-filled sacks that allow for the smooth gliding of tendons over the pointier portion of bones during muscle contraction.

Inflamed, strained, and stressed hip muscles occur from multiple presentations, including prolonged sedentary periods, overuse injuries, traumatic physical injuries, or the advancement of age-related degenerative bone disease.  Connective tissue absent of sufficient physical activity and exercise is threatened by inadequate supplies of blood to the site of muscles, tendons, and ligaments that produce large movements and endure substantial stress.  As a result, inflammation can occur in the bursae sacks, ligaments, and tendons, leading to tendonitis, bursitis, and the potential for arthritis at the end of the hip bone.  If lack of exercise is causing a decrease of oxygenated blood flow to the muscles, tendon, and ligaments holding the hip joint together, a solution to relieving pain and decreasing the likelihood of future pain increasing is to practice consistent adherence to hip injury prevention exercises.

A few exercises we conduct with our personal training clients every time they arrive for their training sessions include a hip movement preparation routine.  No matter what specific exercises we have in line for them, they will always rehearse a hip movement prep. routine that activates the hip muscles before entering into any compound and compressive resistance training tactics.  Here is an example of an exercise we include to activate the gluteal muscles, adductors, and abductors of the hip:

Supine Isometric Single Leg Hip Extension:  To perform the supine isometric single leg hip extension, start by positioning yourself flat on the ground with your arms extended and your knees bent.  Keep one leg bent and the foot of the supporting leg flat on the ground, and extend the opposite knee toward the front of the body.  Press your stabilizing foot into the ground and lift the hips upward until a brief muscular sensation is experienced in the hamstrings and glutes.  Once your hips are extended upward, hold this position utilizing your glutes and hamstrings to stabilize the hips in an extended position for 10 to 30 seconds.  Repeat this movement on the opposite leg.

Similar to taking your vitamins every morning to improve the immune system and fend off illness, movement prep. exercises for the hip should be rehearsed in a similar ritual when preparing the body for exercise.  Not only will movement prep. exercises prevent injuries to the hip, but the compounding effects of practicing these tactics before every training session have the potential to significantly impact avoiding hip strains, decreasing the onset of arthritis, and alleviating nagging hip pain.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Nov 27

Sciatica Exercise Intervention

Physical pain triggered by overuse injuries, deconditioned or weak muscles, or traumatic events substantially impacts the general population’s everyday life.  Normal functional activities, including running errands, conducting general home-based chores, or simply getting in and out of bed, can become significantly hindered by a chronic injury that inflicts pain on an area of the body.  A symptom we usually see with our personal training clients is the “pain in the butt” condition.  Commonly regarded as sciatica,  this condition can be as simple as a strained muscle causing a minor nuisance or, in more extreme cases, a pain symptom traveling from the base of the back down to the posterior aspect of the leg inflicting debilitating symptoms of searing nerve pain, numbness, and weakness for weeks, months, or longer.

The sciatic nerve originates at the base of the lumbar vertebrae and the middle portion of the sacrum.  These spinal root nerves bud out of the spine and braid together to create one large nerve that travels down the posterior aspect of the thigh, down to the foot, and ends at the base of the heel.  This expansive geography of the sciatic nerve explains its importance in supplying the lower extremities with sufficient neuromuscular innervation for normal human functions such as walking, getting up from a standing position, or bending the knees.  If this network of nerves is compressed by shifted vertebrae, bulging or herniated discs, or strained muscles of the lower back or deep gluteal muscles, disrupted nerve signals can be experienced as intense pain in the back, searing sensations in the middle of the buttocks, or a “heavy” and numb feeling in the lower leg and foot.

Living in a world that involves a perpetual battle with sciatica can be a tricky case of how to find contributing factors to the root cause for individuals coping with this debilitating nerve condition.  It should come as no surprise that resolving such a condition doesn’t come without ease.  If people could live in a world where taking a magic pill and physical limitations caused by musculoskeletal injuries go “poof” and never return, everyone would do it.  Solving the puzzle of recovering from chronic painful physical afflictions such as sciatica symptoms is never easy.  However, understanding and appreciating the mechanisms of injury and finding cookie crumbs leading to solutions on how to unwind contributing factors to decrease pain and improve overall functionality throughout everyday life can be attained.  While the compounding effects of injury, advancements in age, and the various monkey wrenches life throws at us don’t get any easier as time goes on, we can make efforts to improve our future by participating in a consistent exercise routine to mitigate pain.

 

Adopting consistent exercise that emphasizes strength, mobility, and muscular endurance in the muscles supporting the lower back and hip can’t be understated to alleviate these symptoms.  By strengthening the paraspinal muscles that support the lower back and hip complex, the likelihood of shifting or twisting the vertebra past their normal range of motion won’t occur as often.  Additionally, practicing stretches and strengthening movements that improve the range of motion, strength, and muscular endurance of the lower back and hips improves our everyday functionality by enhancing our performance when we bend over or rotate the torso.

Below are two examples of simple yet effective exercise techniques we apply to our personal training clients programs who might experience sciatica symptoms or are continually practicing injury prevention tactics to stave off sciatica flare-ups in the future:

  1. Alternating Bird Dog Stretch: Start by positioning yourself on the ground with your hands underneath your chest and knees underneath your hips.   With one arm in a stable position on the ground, lift the opposite arm out in front of the body and reach the fingertips out in front as far as you can.  At the same time, extend the leg on the opposite side of the extended arm behind you to straighten the leg out as far as you can.  Ensure that the spine is kept as straight as possible.  You should experience muscular activation and a stretching sensation in the shoulder, core, lower back, and hips. Repeat this movement for five to ten repetitions on both sides of the body.
  2. Knee Tilt Stretch: To perform the Knee tilt Stretch, start by positioning yourself flat on the ground with your arms extended and your knees bent.   Tilt your knees to one side of the body as far as you can while keeping your knees and ankles touching.  After a brief stretching sensation is experienced in the lower back and outer hip, alternate this motion to the other side.  Repeat this movement for five to ten repetitions on both sides of the body.

 

As we advance in age and increase the usage of the body throughout our ventures in our hobbies, work life, and everyday movements, the body’s organs are more than likely to endure a few bumps and bruises along the way.  By regularly practicing and adhering to an exercise routine focusing on injury prevention, along with improving strength and coordination, we can enjoy more interactions and experiences while living happy, healthy, and strong lives.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Nov 19

Exercising to Prevent Lower Back Pain

Lower back injuries are among the most common physical maladies affecting people’s functionality and experiences in their everyday lives.  The lumbosacral joint, the area of the body in which the fifth vertebrae of the lumbar spine connects to the fused vertebral bones of the sacrum, allows the body to perform complex movements.  The ability to bend over from the hips to pick up objects, stand upright, and interact with our environment by leaning forward, tilting to the side, or rotating from the hips are just a few mechanisms that occur thousands of times throughout the day without us realizing.  However, when an injury to the lower back in the form of a strained stabilizing spinal muscle, shifted vertebrae, or pinched nerve caused by a bulging disc occurs, these seemingly simple movements in everyday life can turn into living strife for something as easy as leaning forward to open a car door without an immediate pain signal in the lower back.

Consisting of an intricate complex of joints, intervertebral cartilaginous discs, nerves, and a substantial array of muscles attaching a matrix of bones in a sophisticated design,  the lower back and hip complex are located in a critically important part  of the body, right in the middle.  The upper half of our body consists of the skull, upper extremities, and torso.  The downstairs neighbor to the upper body is the lower body, consisting of the hips, legs, and feet.  Similar to if the middle portion bisecting an upstairs-downstairs condominium had significant structural damage to the beams holding up the second floor, stairs, or subfloor, the central structural support area of the lower spine and hips can become unstable, weak, and a threat to a person quality of life when the overall condition of the lower back area isn’t a top priority.

Fortunately, a weak lower back doesn’t need to be compared to the water damage, wood rot, or termite infestation that destroys the subfloor in the second story of a two-story home. Lower back pain is curable and can be improved with an understanding of the risk factors that create it. Appreciating and understanding how a safe, effective, and consistent exercise program has the potential to reinforce the structural integrity of the lower back positively influences our interactions in our normal everyday environments while reducing limitations stemming from pain.

We conduct assessments with our newer personal training clients to discover if pre-existing injuries are obstacles to the physical activities they want to be able to participate in.  Lower back pain in the form of bulging discs, former severe back injuries, sciatica, or fear of reinjuring their backs aren’t uncommon answers during this assessment.  In an effort to design an exercise prescription with an appropriate dose of movements aimed to create the best outcomes for an exercise participant presenting lower back problems, we not only choose stretches, mobility tactics, and strengthening techniques that promote a strong back with less pain, but we also actively remove exercises that exacerbate pain symptoms in the lower back and could potentially worsen the participant’s pain.

It’s not uncommon to enter a large gym setting or small group fitness class where other participants are conducting advanced exercises. We can view regular social media feeds on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok and observe a person who is the age of twenty to thirty years old holding a barbell loaded with weights over their head lunging across the room, followed by a clip of them hanging from a pull-up bar and lifting their legs to their nose.   The subtitles might read, “These are my favorite full-body strengthening techniques.”  As a fitness professional who has made the study of physical therapy, strength and conditioning, and fitness education my life’s work, my heart usually skips a beat, and a brief fainting spell usually occurs when I see these posts.  I’m sure there are good intentions from these fitness influencers.  However, it would be safe to assume that the influencer who is under the age of thirty and has the metabolism of a hummingbird so they can show off their washboard abs lifting a barbell of circa forty-five pounds over their head more than likely hasn’t suffered a setback of severe musculoskeletal injuries, in particular lower back injuries.

A fundamental and safe area to start in an exercise routine to manage lower back pain is to master bodyweight movements before even picking up a dumbbell, barbell, kettlebell, or other form of exercise equipment themed weight.  Focusing on mastering technique throughout exercise performance before pushing ourselves to a sense of physical exertion ensures we can move our bodies with less restriction.  For example, our ability to reach overhead, grab onto and hold objects in front of us, and bend down to pick up light objects is necessary for all humans.  Perhaps focusing on ensuring the spine is aligned correctly, and the muscles of the neck, shoulder blades, lumbar area, and glutes are activating when performing dynamic stretching technique at the beginning of an exercise session should be prioritized before delving into advanced movements, such as barbell Romanian deadlift, barbell back squats, or dumbbell chest press.  Furthermore, ensuring the core muscles located at the abdomen, posterior back, and hip region are strong and coordinated enough to get up and down from the ground is an important action that can’t be overstated.  Therefore, flexibility and mobility of the lower back should be prioritized before “working your core” and doing a set of crunches.  Perhaps a set of pelvic tilts, isometric glute bridges, or lower back knee tilt rotations could suffice as a suitable point of mastery to ensure we can perform the basic function of getting up from the ground and reinforce the muscles responsible for securing the lumbar spine and pelvis from becoming strained in future everyday life occurrences.

Lower back injuries are physically, mentally, and emotionally debilitating. It is critically important to appreciate what exercises best suit our current fitness levels in our everyday lives.  Before progressing into advanced exercises, ensure that awareness of back injury prevention and exercises appropriate to your current fitness levels are prioritized so you get the best possible outcome from a consistent exercise routine.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Nov 11

Staying fit throughout the end of the year

November brings chilly days with less sunlight than we’re used to in the summer months.  Adjusting our clocks back one hour sets the tone for the official start of stepping foot into the winter months.  Driving home from work, embracing a naturally lit street powered by the sun is now replaced by the glow of dim street lights. What was once a bright, warm environment transforms into gray-toned, cloud-covered skies.  As the world turns, creating a cooler setting for Northern California, we can expect to see our fair share of rain, mist, and fog for the next few months.

This cold and rugged winter environment, combined with the lack of light, introduces a few challenges society regularly adapts to. The lack of sunlight encourages people to stay inside more, under the security of the lightbulbs inside their warm, dry houses.  The idea of staying inside and bundling up under a blanket, grabbing a cup of hearty and comforting soup, and flipping on one of our favorite holiday flicks on streaming devices can be a nostalgic and refreshing experience as what we used to do as children coming home from school on a rainy winter day.  However, being confined to the activities inside our homes introduces a potential issue for our health:  we don’t move as much as we did during the warm and well-lit summer months.

These last two months offer a few other festivities that create a sense of joy, companionship, and overall achievement as we close out the year 2024.  Holiday parties, Thanksgiving week, and school end-of-year breaks bring about a plethora of holiday food, including gingerbread molasses cookies, Santa hat-shaped sugar cookies, and Lindt chocolates.  Additionally, ‘tis the season for baking and bringing treats to the workplace.  Why?  It’s dark and cold, so no one wants to go outside.  Sitting in front of a warm oven in the kitchen is an enticing alternative to raking leaves on damp and cold winter mornings.  Holiday treats such as cookies, cakes, and candies hit the break rooms and countertops.  Usually, these treats are a rich combination of butter, and insulin-spiking carbohydrates, in the form of sugar and flour, that we don’t enjoy as frequently throughout the summer months.  Combining decreased physical activity and a surplus of holiday-themed treat food not normally consumed creates a perfect scenario for the body’s ability to store fat, move less, and become bloated.  Therefore, remaining consistent with exercise and managing a healthy diet throughout the holiday season is critically important to our well-being.

Excess calories are converted into fat cells under our skin when the body consumes more food than can be processed for energy expenditure.  Additionally, the increase in carbohydrate-rich food has an increased potential to increase free-floating levels of insulin hormone throughout our blood.  Insulin is a potent anabolic hormone with productive properties for the body when the need to shuttle sugar into muscle cells for energy is present.  However, when the body is at rest, the body doesn’t necessarily need insulin for energy.

After throwing back some eggnog and hot chocolate paired with fruit cake, mashed potatoes, and stuffing, the body is primed to harness the carbohydrates and convert them to fat cells for storage.  Combining the copious overconsumption of carbohydrates, alcohol, and just too much food matter with a lack of movement, the body is a perfect instrument to store fat and increase circulating insulin levels.

A tactic we recommend to our personal training clients to manage the threat of the holiday season’s tantalizing treats and decreased physical activity is managing what time of the day food is consumed, particularly carbohydrates.  The body utilizes carbohydrates for energy throughout physical activity when the body is at a higher level of exertion.  It should go without saying that exercise stimulates the heart, and carbohydrates are chemically broken down and used as fuel for physical movement.  However, when carbohydrates are consumed later in the day and our activity levels slow down, they don’t have anywhere to be utilized.  As a result, unused carbohydrates convert to fat mass. In an effort to decrease the potential for carbohydrates to be converted into fat, perhaps limiting the amount of carbohydrates consumed in the later portion of the evening can be reduced.  By adjusting the tactics in which we consume starchy, bready, and sugar-based drinks and food to the earlier part of the day and abstaining at the later half, we can influence the likelihood for our body to utilize carbohydrates more efficiently and decrease the possibility of converting them to fat.

Thanksgiving and holiday cheer bring about companionship, a celebration of the end of a successful year, and overall cheer among our friends, family, and peers.  Giving thanks for positive aspects of our lives can be bolstered by enjoying a few alcoholic drinks and tasty sweets while laughing, smiling, and hanging out with the people we care about during this exuberant time of year.  But don’t let the egg nog flow too fast or make a habit of polishing off the last of the turkey left the next few days after Thanksgiving.  The ability to overeat during these festive times is at an all-time high during the holidays.  Therefore, the act of overeating mitigation should be prioritized.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Nov 06

Getting Into an Exercise Ritual

Regular exercise adherence improves our overall quality of life in an almost immeasurable way. Keeping our bodies fit assists in losing weight, decreasing the risk of cardiovascular or metabolic disease, and contributes to beneficial stress management to our psycho-emotional well-being.  Exercise continues to be a panacea for healing symptoms that threaten physical, emotional, psychological, and everyday life functionality.  So, why don’t more people exercise?

Sometimes, the idea of setting aside and ignoring our phone for a few moments, stepping away from the comfort of sitting on our couches to watch the latest streaming series on Netflix, or waking up that extra ninety minutes before we typically wake up on a work day doesn’t seem overly appealing.  Choosing exercise over a routine activity that is usually comforting and safe can be akin to simultaneously putting a plate full of steamed freezer-bag packaged brussel sprouts and a bowl of ice cream in front of someone after dinner.  What would one choose?  The comfort of creamy and scrumptious ice cream after a balanced dinner featuring a lean protein and a salad?  Or, another serving of cruciferous vegetables that some of us may have been forced to eat when we were youngsters at the dinner table under our parent’s surveillance?

For some readers, the idea of boiled brussel sprouts is in line with trying to forget about the nightmares Freddy Cruger engrained in children’s memories after watching Nightmare on Elm Street throughout the eighties.  It’s important to appreciate the barriers and challenges the idea of paving out time for consistent exercise creates for most of the the general population.  Even though exercise might induce a vision of less than fun experiences while sweating profusely and inflicting physical rigor on oneself, understanding that perseverance past our comfort zone and ingraining a routine of regular exercise has the potential to improve our lives substantially.  Moving past our comfort zone and feeling confident in getting through the initial apprehension toward exercise is a challenging yet attainable task.

A common misperception of exercise is that a session of exercise needs to be hours long.  A visit to the doctor’s office might include an interview including the question, “Do you exercise at least one hundred and fifty minutes per week?”  Additionally, local gym small group fitness classes last anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour.  Furthermore, for those of us who scroll through social media, it isn’t uncommon to see a social media influencer with the physique of a Marvel comic book superhero filming themselves performing advanced exercise techniques with the recommendation that viewers should be performing three sets of twenty repetitions.  Daunting?  Time consuming?  Intimidating to the point the point of getting into exercise creates a feeling of sheer terror?  Sometimes, I don’t blame people for their apprehensions toward exercise.

A useful tactic we encourage our personal training clients to practice is picking a number that seems attainable for the quantity of movements they feel comfortable exercising.  For example, if one hundred total movements seems like a safe compromise that won’t bring back the taste of steamed brussel sprouts, perhaps that’s a good place to start.  An example of one hundred total movements might look like this:

  1. Arm crosses: Perform two sets of ten repetitions (twenty total movements)
  2. Hoola hoop hip circles: Perform two sets of ten repetitions (twenty total movements)
  3. Sit-to-stand squats: Perform two sets of ten repetitions (twenty total movements)
  4. Inclined push-ups from countertop height: Perform two sets of ten repetitions (twenty total movements)
  5. Calf raises holding hands in front of a wall: Perform two sets of ten repetitions (twenty total movements)

Believe it or not, performing these movements requires a significant amount of strength, neuromuscular facilitation, and balance.  Additionally, this example doesn’t require visiting a gym or signing up for a fitness class.  One can achieve these simple yet effective exercise tactics in the comfort of their own home.  If a routine like this that includes bodyweight movements and low levels of exertion is practiced one to three times per week, the body learns to adapt to the slight increase in exercise-induced stress imposed on it.  After a few weeks, these movements might become a little easier, motivation to try new things might arise, and a positive feedback mechanism might be introduced as an envigorating ritual just as comforting as having breakfast, drinking coffee, or feeding the cat.

Adherence is one of the biggest challenges to ingraining an exercise routine in our lives.  However, getting started might be more of a leap of courage.  It’s OK to be a little apprehensive about exercise.  However, evidence throughout research and literature shows that exercise solves more problems in our lives than most medications can cure.  Try looking for opportunities in which a ritual of exercise can be established.  The reward of giving yourself the gift of consistently practicing exercise is invaluable.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Facebook
Google+
YouTube
Instagram