Mar 21

Finger Strength-Get a Grip on your Fitness Routine

The small bones protruding from the ends of our hands meticulously function throughout our everyday lives to perform tasks with remarkable dexterity and precision, beginning first thing in the morning and maintaining their efficient productivity until the last moments before our heads rest on a pillow and we transition into a deep slumber.  These little bones are our fingers.  Sometimes referred to as digits or phalanges, the fingers are powered by small ligaments, tendons, and muscles that encircle each bone.  The fingers are equipped with a network of nerves that immediately receive a signal from our brain, which then travels through our spinal cord and ends up at the tips of each of our ten fingers.  This signal contains messages instructing our fingers to move harmoniously and in an intricately organized fashion to execute fine motor movements. These small organs, located at the end of our hands, don’t receive a lot of attention compared to other joints and muscles in the body.  Why are the fingers just as important as other commonly injured joints, such as the neck, shoulder, lower back, hips, knees, or ankles?  We probably don’t think twice about how important our fingers are until they have trouble functioning.  The anatomy of the fingers is more complex than what they first appear, and the condition of our fingers is critically important to our overall quality of life.

As I sit in my computer chair typing this article, I’m engaging in a tremendous amount of neuromuscular interactions by striking the keys with the tips of my fingers, utilizing the skills I was taught in grade school to type over sixty words per minute.  There have been moments when I’ve cut the tip of my thumb or one of the neighboring fingers, in which a band-aid had to be placed on that finger to lessen the impact of hitting a key so I wouldn’t be distracted by the annoying pain of each key click.  That seemingly small distraction also disrupted my efficiency in tasks such as grabbing a fork to scramble my eggs in the morning, zipping the zipper of my hoodie, and typing on my keyboard while answering emails and conducting administrative duties.  Who would’ve thought the seemingly simple activity of pressing down on a space bar, “e” key, or shift button could be taken away by a minor flesh wound?

For some members of the general population, a small cut to the tip of the finger is minor compared to other factors that hinder finger strength and everyday life human functionality.  Degenerative bone and joint conditions, such as osteoporosis and arthritis in the wrist and fingers, can impair an individual’s normal daily functions. These conditions not only cause pain in the fingers, wrists, and hands but can also lead to physical deformity due to the progression of arthritis.  After long careers of hand usage to conduct rigorous physical labor, such as swinging hammers as a craftsman, working with a knife as a chef, or being a massage therapist for years, arthritic physical side effects can appear in which the interphalangeal joints between each digit in the fingers can deviate in an abnormal direction away from normal joint congruency, creating fingers that appear crooked when compared to their normal straight alignment. Additionally, the deterioration of tendon and ligament strength within the fingers can occur over time if excessive stress is applied throughout a career of demanding physical activity.  The result of years of hard work using our hands can lead to a loss of strength, reduced ability to fully flex or extend the fingers, and impaired neuromuscular coordination throughout the fingers.

As the physical stresses of being a successful human in our society seem to appear at multiple angles, in addition to our finger and hand health, we don’t need to settle on the fact that we might be dealing with maladies that appear permanent.  We can always make an effort to improve our situation and progress towards a better outcome.  In the case of finger and hand performance, adhering to a consistent exercise program can lead to positive outcomes in enhancing finger and hand strength, allowing us to operate more efficiently in various activities that involve hand and finger movements.

A simple and effective movement we instruct most of our personal training clients to perform at the beginning of each training session includes a forearm, wrist, and finger warm-up:

Finger Flexion and Extension:  To perform the finger flexion and extension exercise, start by extending your arms in front of you at about armpit level.  Straighten the fingers away from the body until you experience a muscular sensation in the back of the hand, wrist, and forearms.  Reverse the motion by making a fist and squeezing with both hands, as if you’re wringing out a wet towel, until you experience a muscular sensation in your forearms.  Repeat this movement with both hands simultaneously for five to ten repetitions.

If we’re looking to improve grip strength or tactics to reduce wrist or finger arthritic discomfort, adhering to a consistent exercise routine one to three times per week is critically important.  Whether it’s completing a self-guided workout for forty-five minutes at Planet Fitness, attending Yoga classes, or setting aside time for an at-home exercise routine, consistency in an exercise program is a critically important asset in maintaining not only hand health but also the overall health of the body.  If you have time, try to incorporate a few finger-specific exercises into your routine before starting the day.  The results of a strong set of fingers has the potential to create a surprisingly happier, healthier, and stronger life for years to come.

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.

Mar 14

Exercising for Something you Look Forward to

What inspires you?  What motivates you?  What makes you excited?  These questions can help us get up in the morning and get the most out of the time and energy we dedicate to activities throughout our day.  How?  If we answer these questions in a few sentences, perhaps we can either remind ourselves of what we enjoy doing or we can discover new goals we want to achieve.  The ambition to experience fun and invigorating new adventures, interact with energizing environments, or complete projects is fulfilling and rewarding.  However, monumental goals, whether short term or big and audacious, require a certain amount of energy, time, and preparation.  Having something to look forward to is potent fuel to prepare us for special moments, whether a few days away, three to four weeks from now, a few months, or even years.

The arena of lifetime fitness pays substantial dividends to our ability to enjoy what we look forward to.  A few examples of events that might produce feelings of excitement on the horizon for hard-working parents, employees, or the retired population can span anywhere from a weekend getaway to a nearby location or a trip to Europe in celebration of monumental accomplishments like a 60th birthday, a college graduation, or retiring after a long career.  Another example might be the draw to feel and look the best for a wedding for oneself or a friend.  Additionally, preparing for recreational sporting events such as a golf tournament, long-distance run, pickleball, or tennis tournament requires a refined fitness level.  Let’s not forget about a few of the more simple things that might occur every weekend that are a bright spot in our lives such as throwing a baseball with our kids or grand kids, walking or taking hikes with loved ones or friends, having the ability to bend down to pull weeds out of the garden, refinish a piece of furniture, or move a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer from one side of the kitchen to the other.  These activities don’t necessarily require a hyper-athletic fitness model like physique, but existing in our everyday environment with less fat mass, more muscle and strength, and extra energy unquestionably assists us in enjoying and savoring moments we look forward to.

Adhering to a healthy lifestyle, exercising regularly throughout the week, and abstaining from activities and environments that could harm our health doesn’t come without challenges.  After a long day of work, a cold beer, a few glasses of wine, and chips and crackers while paroosing through the multiple sources of sporting news, Instagram and Tik Tok feeds, and Netflix shows is psychologically and emotionally comforting and decompressing.  A homemade dinner consisting of vegetables, a lean protein, and a glass of sparkling water at the end of the day probably doesn’t sound as appealing as a slice of pizza or taco dish delivered from one of Napa’s amazing restaurants brought to our doorstep by Doordash.

As humans, we usually gravitate toward the path of least resistance.  It’s easy to eat whatever foods we think taste good without any care for the consequences they might have on the amount of fat mass we have on our bodies.  Lounging around and enjoying more than a few glasses of beer, wine, or cocktails after a long day of sitting at a desk for eight hours is relaxing and doesn’t take much effort.  However, if these activities of consuming too much unhealthy food and decreasing physical activity occur too often, the experiences we look forward to in life can be threatened because we didn’t take care of ourselves.

Finding a bright spot on the horizon that we embrace with anxious anticipation is a potent tool that helps fuel motivating factors to live a happy, healthy, and strong life.  Whether it be spending time with others, preparing for an event in which the body needs to be optimally conditioned, or planning a monumental vacation, maintaining a healthy and active life supports these events we look forward to.  It takes additional motivation, effort, and concentration to abstain from activities that hinder our health goals.  Additionally, it also takes effort to exercise two to three days a week and practice healthy eating habits.  However, if we dig deep and tap into what inspires us and focus on what we look forward to, perhaps building a path to be happy, healthy, and strong can empower us to enjoy the events we cherish in the future.

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.

Mar 06

Train me to get up off the floor

“What’s the sport where the super athletic crazy guys jump on walls and scale them like a lizard?”  Asked Ophelia at one of her morning training sessions.  “You know, you see stunt men do it in Jason Bourne and John Wick movies.  They hang off walls, drop from cliffs, and land like cats after a broad jump from a twenty-foot roof top.”  She added.  “Oh, that’s parkour.”  Coach Slash, her assigned personal trainer for the session, replied.  “That’s a type of athletic discipline in which the goal is to get from one point to another the fastest way possible.  That sometimes means jumping from one roof top to another.”  Ophelia paused momentarily with a sly smirk. “I want you to train me to be able to do that.”  She snickered and added, “Either that or make it to where I can get up and down from the floor.”

Ophelia is one of our diligent and devoted personal training clients in her mid-sixties.  She is in exceptional health and maintains a healthy ratio of lean muscle mass to fat mass, show’s up on time to her bi-weekly training sessions fifteen minutes early ready to warm up and exercise, and, as we can see by her comments at the beginning of the page, she has a witty and spry sense of humor.  So, Ophelia is doing a lot of things correctly when it comes to practicing the art of lifetime fitness.  A consistent exercise ritual, a healthy diet, smiling, and laughter are a significant portion of her life.

As humans advance in age, events occur that make seemingly normal activities like getting up and down from the floor become challenging.  Past events throughout our lives can contribute to joint pain, mobility limitations, or muscular weakness.  The first steps when getting out of bed first thing in the morning can remind us that somewhere along the line in our life, we’ve tweaked our back, strained a shoulder tendon, or our joints have developed arthritis.

The byproducts of enduring the stresses of life have the likelihood of producing pain-like symptoms, contributing to the reduction of our normal physical activities, and changing the way we interact with our everyday life environments.  Contributing factors leading to increased pain and mobility impairment include sedentary lifestyles, poor dietary decisions, or lack of motivation to overcome and rehab significant injuries.  These examples are often due to neglecting the importance of staying active and exercising, which produces suboptimal lifestyle adaptations that might include the inability to perform simple human functions, such as getting up and down from the floor.

Superflous amounts of sitting for hours, consuming high amount of starchy and fatty foods during low levels of physical activity, endulging in drinking copious amounts of alcohol more than half the week, or putting routine exercise on the back burner are self induced examples of why people struggle to perform something as simple as getting up and down from the ground.  These examples don’t include living with an advanced form of arthritis and osteoporosis, a degenerative nerve disease, or recovering from joint replacement surgery.  Those extreme cases require a more advanced form of therapy and medical intervention.  However, human’s in our current day and age can significantly benefit from focusing on the low hanging fruits of success by ensuring to refine the issues that are right in front of them they have control over such as practicing healthy dietary choices, sitting less, moving more, and finding exercises and recreational physical activities they enjoy.

General advancement in age can be expected to occur every time we pass around the sun.  We don’t need cutting-edge research to demonstrate that a body that is a year older than it was three hundred and sixty-five days ago has bone, joint, and connective tissue that isn’t as new as what it was in the past.  While we know that the tissues in the body change over time, and sometimes the tissue becomes more brittle and our coordination isn’t where it was as teenagers at our athletic prime, one thing that we never want to disappear is our ability to get up and down off the floor.  Similar to when a baseball player doesn’t practice playing catch and the ability to catch and throw can decrease, getting up and down from the ground is a diminishing skill set.  Focusing on small goals such as managing weight, working on not overindulging too much in alcohol or treats, and practicing exercises that reinforce the ability to get up and down from the floor can help us to 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.

Feb 28

Strong, Mobile, and Durable Hips

Hobbies, traveling, completing weekend projects, and spending time with friends, family, and significant others require the ability to move and interact with the environment around us.  Retired and career-driven populations looking to start a family or who are already raising children depend on efficient human movement.  Whether it be working on refinishing a side table for our living room, sitting at a desk for eight to ten hours at the office, or carting a group of pre-teens to and from extracurricular activities or youth sporting events, our bodies need to function properly to support the people, communities, and projects that rely on us.

Bending over, getting up and down from a seated or kneeling position, reaching in front, twisting and rotating, or simply walking to and from the car seems simple.  That is, until a spasm in the lower back, pain in the hip region, or knee mobility limitations unveil themselves to hinder normal human function.  While a healthy diet, maintaining a reasonable lean muscle mass to fat mass ratio, and staying cardiovasculary fit are critical toward the success of our everyday life activities, a commonly overlooked component of our body that contributes to a substantial portion of our human movement is the hip joint and its sophisitcated network of muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, bursaes, and bone-to-bone attachments.

Residing smack dab in the middle of the body, the hips consist of the attachment of the spine to the sacrum, the pelvic girdle, and the right and left femur that inserts into the hip joint.  This dense, bony framework assists the torso in rotating from left to right and bending the torso up and down.  Additionally, the hip joint allows our lower extremities to stride forward when walking, scaling a set of stairs, or stepping up and over objects.  It’s valuable to appreciate the muscles that create such seemingly simple movements, granting us the ability to function successfully in society as bipedal organisms.

The hip flexor muscles originate from the anterior portion of the spine and the inside of the pelvic girdle and attach to the front of the femurs.  Deep, intrinsic hip flexor muscles such as the psoas and rectus femoris create powerful movements of hip flexion, better known as bringing the thigh closer to the torso and forward when we walk, climb up a set of stairs, or lift the legs to put on our shoes and socks.  The glutes originate at the back end of the hip bone and are attached to the back of the thigh.  Gluteal muscles are strong hip extensors that push the pelvis forward underneath the torso to assist in maintaining an upright posture.  Bringing the leg backward during the posterior path of follow-through when walking movement is also supported by the gluteal and hamstring muscles.  The abductors originate at the top of the pelvic girdle and attach to the inner bottom portion of the thigh and the top of the tibia, or shin bone, below the knee joint.  Moving the leg to the outside and away from the body’s midline is powered by the abductors.  Abduction means to “take away,”  for example, like someone is being “abducted by aliens.”  The difference is that aliens aren’t taking away our thighs.   Our hip abductor muscles are “taking away” the thigh from the body’s midline, utilizing muscular force by abducting the hip.

A movement that we conduct with our personal training clients every training session to ensure the body never forgets how to perform the normal daily function of walking, stepping up, or getting up and down from the ground is hip flexion.  The seemingly basic function of bringing the hip forward is commonly overlooked.  Hip flexion usually isn’t on the forefront of people’s minds until one can’t get up off the ground or has issues going up and down stairs.  Therefore, practicing the forward movement of the hip should never be overstated and practiced consistently.  An example of practicing hip flexion is the “standing leg kick stretch” within our dynamic stretching warm-up that is conducted at the beginning of every training session to activate the muscle of hip flexion.

Standing Leg Kick Stretch:  Reach your hand in front of you.  While keeping your supporting leg straight, actively bring one leg in front of you to touch your hand as if you are performing a kicking motion.  Ensure that the kicking leg is kept as straight as possible. You should experience a slight stretching sensation in your hamstring and calf muscles.  Repeat this movement five to ten times on both legs.

If a guitarist doesn’t practice their musical talent, they might not perform to their musically gifted potential because lack of rehearsing a movement that one seems to know like the back of their hand consistently becomes a diminished skill.  The movements of the hip aren’t much different if a seemingly innate skillset isn’t practiced.  Therefore, ensuring to consistently practice the movements our hips produce contributes to keeping the body’s physical conditioning in a fine-tuned and polished state to 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.

Feb 19

Going on Walking Dates for Physical and Emotional Health

The never-ending hamster wheel of stress hits us from all angles in portions of our lives where we spend most of our time.  An example might include spending eight to ten hours per day devoting our time and energy to our jobs, whether on our computers, phones, commuting in the car, or parked in chairs at the office.  Or, we might spend a superfluous amount of time absorbing electronic forms of entertainment, such as checking our phones every five minutes to see what text messages we may have received or what the hottest new thread of social media networks might be.  For parents of school-age children, the demands of ensuring children get to school or sports practice on time adds another set of tactics that can’t be left undone.  It’s easy for us to put other activities first before taking care of ourselves.  For those of us who have spouses, significant others, or friends that we enjoy hanging out with outside of employment and family life logistics, spending time with those people might be exactly what we need to separate ourselves from the perpetual fire hose of the stresses life imposes on us.  Scheduling a date to set aside your normal work life and taking a walk with a special person not only helps enhance physical well-being but also introduces much-needed time to decompress and enjoy social interaction with another human who doesn’t want your money, depend on you to make money for their business, and grants you freedom from worrying about other humans who depend on you.

Walking is an underappreciated form of fitness that optimizes human performance in a multitude of ways.  If we were to track the daily steps a server at one of Napa’s local restaurants takes, twenty thousand steps would be a minimum amount throughout an eight-hour shift of waiting tables. The physical demands of food servers, bartenders, and bussers require a sufficient cardiovascular system, a strong core to stand upright, and joints that can endure the stresses of being mobile for an eight-hour shift.  For workers who sit at a desk answering phone calls, working on reports, or answering emails, achieving ten thousand steps is a reach.  The desk worker, commuter, or stay-at-home parent might not have the same physical demands as a high-speed food server.  Furthermore, the type of stress an individual produces when completing the administrative logistics of managing schedules, answering phone calls and texts, and tabulating financial logistics produces a substantial amount of mental, psychological, and emotional stress.  By the time we come home to our families or loved ones, we’re pretty much a ticking time bomb full of enough stressful energy to unleash upon the first person in sight after stepping through the front door.

Research has repeatedly produced evidence that exercise is a panacea of solutions to not only enhance our physical well-being, but regular exercise also acts as a potent medicine to counteract psychological stress.  While going to the gym and adhering to gym sessions containing resistance training, entering a cycling class to get a sweat on, or following a Yoga instructional video produces significant adaptations toward enhancing fitness levels, it might be just another box to check off for an individual getting off an eight to ten hour work day.  If attending the local gym or participating in a spin or Pilates class doesn’t seem like the right fit, perhaps the simple act of walking with your spouse, friend, or child might be a useful alternative.  The combination of a leisurely walk with someone you get along with and look forward to sharing time with has the potential to decrease psychological and emotional stress while exercising muscles that might have laid dormant all day while working.

Scheduling walking dates throughout the week doesn’t hold the same expectations as completing a rigorous workout at a local gym or small group fitness class.  The demands of walking are more achievable than ensuring one must show up at a certain time for spin, Yoga, or Pilates class.  We can walk outside our dwelling and start moving forward at a slow pace with minimal expectations on when we’re going to start a walk.  The only requirement is showing up for a walk.  The chirping birds, trees waving in the wind, the bright sun, and the dimly lit moon don’t care when you join them for a leisurely walk.  So, take a walk when ever you want.  More importantly, if you find a friend who wants to join you on a walk with little to no expectation of physical exertion level and a flexible schedule, the benefits toward our lifetime fitness efforts are profoundly empowering.

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.

Feb 13

Consistent Exercise and Pain Management Keeps the Spine Strong

Generalized “wear and tear” from enduring the stress of life for over fifty years elicits repercussions to our joints.  The articular surface of joints can get scuffed after being used for manual labor, the stresses of an athletic career, or recovering from a traumatic injury.  As the surface of joints wears down, they become rough and gritty, akin to the feel of sandpaper.  The result of the rough surface of joints can lead to arthritis and sensations of crepitus, such as the sound and feeling of two marbles grinding against each other.  This is commonly felt in the knee joints when traveling up a set of steps.  Along with the contributing factors toward the wearing down of the surface of joints caused by a person’s history of physical stress, a factor that comes attached to our lives no matter what our physical activity background is aging.  General age-related degeneration of bone and joint structure is something every human has as part of their life.  One of the most common joint injuries affected by the advancement of age occurs in the spine.

Consisting of over twenty bones, the spine is a complex of bones called vertebrae.  These spinal bones have a multitude of critically important functions to the success of our lives.  The spine’s most obvious observable attribute is the structural feature of holding the torso upright.  Acting as a vertical rod that connects the hips to the skull, the spine keeps a human upright to walk around and interact with the environment.  In addition to the important structural features of the spine, each section of the spine has unique functions.  The cervical section of the spine consists of seven vertebrae that attach the skull to the shoulder region, which have a distinctive shape meant for rotation of the neck, allowing for turning, rotation, and hinging of the skull.  Just below the cervical section are twelve thoracic vertebrae, which allow for attachment of the ribs.  Between the ribs and the hips resides a set of five lumbar vertebrae before the spine meets the sacrum and hips.  The lumbar vertebrae are the largest and most dense section of spinal bones, acting as a weight-bearing centerpiece to keep the body upright.

It should go without saying that the health and well-being of our spine are critically important for the functionality of our everyday lives.  Degenerative joint conditions in the spine can include arthritis, stenosis, and compressed nerves caused by bulging or herniated discs.  These examples of spinal conditions can lead to debilitating symptoms of pain, numbness, and weakness throughout the body.  I wish I could give everyone magic spine-strengthening pills that would alleviate pain, and we can live in a world with an indestructible back, but we don’t live in a fantasy world. The truth is the body is prone to injury and gradual deterioration.  However, we don’t need to settle and give in to pain.  The detrimental effects of pain and debilitating spine injuries can be mitigated via strategically designed exercise tactics.

Two factors that affect people and can be rectified relatively soon via consistent exercise practice are staving off pain and increasing mobility. If the body is in less pain, fewer restrictions hold a person back from moving freely in their everyday life activities.

Aching, dull, or searing muscular pain in the lower back can create a psychological and emotional distraction, impeding people from wanting to pursue recreational physical activities.  Throwing a ball with grandchildren, gardening, or participating in sports such as tennis, golf, or pickleball can be limited due to the onset of lower back pain.  Fear and anxiety that someone might hurt their back further could veer a person away from participating in the physical activities they cherish.  As a solution to control pain when lower back injuries are perpetually presenting themselves, ensuring to stick to a schedule of pain reduction tactics is critical.  Pain-reducing tactics such as applying a heating pad to the lower back for twenty minutes, applying a topical anti-inflammatory ointment, or acquiring therapeutic bodywork can be helpful.  However, it’s challenging to tell if these tactics alleviate and stave off pain if they aren’t practiced consistently.  To ensure the maximum effectiveness of such simple pain relief tactics, paving out time somewhere once per day to apply these tactics has the potential to make a change.

Another relatively safe tactic we recommend to our personal training clients to manage back pain is increasing mobility.  Sufficient management of mobility means optimizing the body’s ability to bend, twist, and extend in a greater range of motion.  One of the most simple pain relieving techniques we conduct with our personal training clients is a knee tilt stretch:

Knee tilt stretch:  To perform the knee tilt stretch, start by positioning yourself flat on your back 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 10 repetitions on both sides of the body.

As humans advance in age, generalized wear and tear of the organs and tissues within the body can appear when we least expect it.  However, the older we get, the more we gain experience in the trials of life, usually resulting in becoming smarter humans.  Therefore, while our bodies might not be as new as they were when we were running around in our high school and college years, life experience grants us the gift of knowing that we should work smarter and not harder.  To reduce the maladies of lower back pain, ensure that pain-relieving and mobility tactics suit your needs.  Once that’s established, practicing these techniques daily can serve as the magic pill to reducing back pain and the likelihood of future injury so we can 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.

Feb 07

Take Care of Your Feet

The gift of existing in the world as bipedal organisms puts the human race at the top of the hierarchy in the animal kingdom. With a set of hands with opposable thumbs and the ability to walk, our body’s engineering makes us one of the most sophisticated and successful species on earth.  While the skeletal structure of the human body is impressive in many aspects, one area that allows us to get out of bed, get in and out of our cars, traverse a set of stairs, and travel from our vehicle to our jobs includes a particular body part that is commonly overlooked:  our feet.  Until we get a case of plantar fasciitis, shin splits, bunions, lower extremity neuropathy, or a harsh case of sore soles of the feet after a long day of walking, we don’t necessarily understand how important the condition of our feet can be.

The connective tissue in the feet consists of a complex matrix of tendons, ligaments, blood vessels, nerves, and muscles. Made up of over twenty bones and a vast network of muscles, the human foot has many functional units, allowing us to walk, stand up, and conduct dynamic movements on our feet.  The tiny bones of the feet, including the toes, metatarsals, and heel, hold the load of our body when standing, walking, climbing stairs, or running.  Additionally, the neuromuscular signals throughout the feet harmoniously create coordinated movements in the toes, ankle, and lower extremities throughout most movements we conduct in our everyday lives. Therefore, appreciating the structural integrity and conditioning of the foot muscles can’t be overstated.

Foot pain can arise from sedentary activities in which the foot is stationary for a prolonged period.  The lack of blood flow and neuromuscular engagement can cause a decrease in muscular tone, hindering the ability of the foot muscles to maintain sufficient muscle mass and coordination.  A lack of physical activity can lead to a decrease in athleticism and coordination, which contributes to rolling ankles, stubbing toes, and the risk of falling.  Additionally, periods of inactivity increase the liklihood of  injuries due to the lack of muscular conditioning and the foot muscles’ inability to manage the stress of everyday life when walking and bearing weight on the feet throughout a normal day.  The combination of being on one’s feet for hours on feet lacking strength and muscular endurance, and is not used to taking ten thousand or more steps per day can lead to bruising to the sole, collapsing of the foot arch, or pain in the ankle and shin area.  If our goal is to recover foot pain and mitigate the likelihood of further maladies within the foot, intervention and maintenance routines must be consistently followed.

When our personal training clients report foot pain, the first tactic is identifying what issues worsen the pain.  If standing at the workplace seems to be the primary culprit for foot pain, perhaps strategically integrating periods of fifteen minutes sitting down with the feet propped up on a chair could help.  Paving out a portion of your day to set aside two or three fifteen-minute gaps in which a timer is set and the feet are propped on a chair off the ground is a simple solution that doesn’t need a doctor appointment or a list of fifteen physical therapy exercises that must be performed twice a day.

We recommend ankle and foot stretches and resistance training exercises to our personal training clients. While strength, muscular endurance, and mobility are unquestionably important in mitigating undesirable foot issues, it’s also worthwhile to understand a simple physics equation: force = mass multiplied by acceleration.  Mass in this equation is our body weight, and gravity combines with our body mass to anchor down to the ground.  If the body has excess fat mass contributing to the overall weight residing over the feet, the feet are going to have to support more force being pressed down upon the tiny little bones responsible for holding our body upright.  If adjustments toward lessening overall fat mass haven’t been addressed when foot pain is present, another low-hanging fruit toward resolving foot pain could be losing weight.

A simple and effective exercise tactic for strengthening the feet we conduct in about ninety percent of our personal training clients’ exercise prescriptions is plantar flexion, commonly known as calf raise exercises.  This tactic assists in maintaining the muscles that are responsible for bringing the heel up and down throughout walking movements.  Here is an example of a plantar flexion exercise:

Isometric plantar flexion:  While standing upright, lift the heels off the ground until a brief muscular activation sensation is experienced in the gastrocnemius muscles.  Ensure to press on the balls of the feet and avoid letting the feet roll out to the side.  Maintain this position for fifteen to thirty seconds.

Foot pain is no fun.  And, doctors and podiatrists are invaluable assets to the success and production of the human race.  However, when foot pain arises, we can resolve a few issues before booking a visit to a medical professional to assess foot pain.  A few first steps toward helping the feet could be as simple as resting more, ensuring we’re getting enough steps throughout the day, managing the composition of excess fat mass on the body, and ensuring the muscles of the feet get the attention they need throughout exercise sessions.

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 29

Am I Getting Enough Protein in My Diet?

“It’s challenging for me to eat enough protein throughout the day,” shared Nester during his training session.  “I’m only one hundred and fifty pounds, and the doctor recommends that I eat about half a gram of protein per pound of body weight.”  This would mean that Nester must consume around seventy-five grams of protein throughout the day.  A busy work schedule that includes massive amounts of phone calls, emails, computer work, and meetings posed a hindrance for Nester to sit down and eat.

“How much protein do you usually eat in a day?” I asked Nester.  “Sometimes around fifty grams or so,” He replied.  I was curious of what Nester perceived as fifty grams of protein,“What do you have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”  Nester answered, “I usually do some toast at breakfast.  Lunch is a wild card. Sometimes I don’t eat lunch at all.  At dinner, sometimes I have to go out to dinner with my colleagues and clients and have something there.”

From my standpoint, Nester was so busy with his work schedule that his goal of practicing optimal dietary decision-making habits was on the back burner.  The obligations toward the successful operations of his work schedule unquestionably took priority before making skillful eating decisions to reach his protein goals.  If Nester wanted to rectify the issue of not getting enough protein in his daily diet, prioritizing awareness toward ensuring protein is consumed throughout the day regularly would need to happen.

Dietary protein is essential for nurturing the skeletal muscle in the body.  In the exercise arena, adequate protein consumption and consistent resistance training go hand in hand.  After a session of performing compound resistance training tactics such as squats, push-ups, and pulling movements for three sets of ten repetitions on each movement, the skeletal muscle becomes stressed resulting in microscopic tears within the connective tissue comprising the muscle.  The body’s natural reaction is to heal these microscopic tears via muscle resynthesis by adhering protein from the bloodstream onto the damaged site of muscle.  This action of protein resynthesis rebuilds the muscle to become larger and stronger during muscular contractions.   Therefore, consistently practiced resistance training plus adequate protein consumption produces structurally reinforced lean muscle mass.

After gathering information on what Nester ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I found a gap in his tactics for acquiring sufficient protein.  It wasn’t the intimidating number of acquiring seventy-five grams of protein in his diet that was the primary culprit.  Nester simply wasn’t eating enough food overall.

A simple solution we offer our personal training clients looking for nutritional guidance, like Nester, who are struggling to acquire adequate protein in their diet, is to ensure they eat enough throughout the day.  It’s all too often that we hear that people work themselves to the bone and never get out of their office chairs until the final minutes of their shift conclude.  Before they know it, they haven’t eaten anything besides a mixed coffee drink and pastry from Starbucks.  When it’s dinner time, anything will suffice to fill the hole of hunger.  In this case, the last thing on people’s minds is getting enough protein.

An attainable solution that many people find useful is to ensure that they eat three to five times per day.  This could mean breakfast, a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack (if necessary), and a light dinner.  Furthermore, in each of these meals, including a lean protein source about the portion size of what can fit in the palm of the hand is a useful way to include protein in each eating period.  The average hand palm size is about two to four inches in surface area.  So, including a protein source such as one or two eggs, a slice of chicken breast, or a handful of raw unsalted nuts could suffice as an acceptable source of protein in each meal.  In Nester’s case, if he were to eat fifteen grams of protein in each meal throughout five eating periods, he could come very close to meeting seventy-five grams of protein if he simply included about a handful serving size of protein in each meal without even looking at a nutritional label.

Identifying and consuming adequate dietary protein is essential to optimizing fitness adaptations, such as managing weight and building lean muscle mass.  If tracking the amount of protein consumed daily is challenging, try to include lean protein in every meal.  By practicing this simple tactic of frequently eating protein in every meal, the body will be able to repair damaged muscle and assist in getting the most out of 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.

Jan 23

Avoiding Exercises That Hurt

“How’d you feel after the last workout?” I asked Thor, one of our long-time personal training clients, before beginning his first of two weekly training sessions.  “I feel pretty good except for some knee pain I’m experiencing.” I looked at Thor with a gaze of concern as he continued sharing how his body reacted from our previous training session.  “I think it was from the last three months of doing squats.  Probably just the accumulation of doing all those squats throughout our training sessions made my knees cranky.”

I did my best to hold my composure as my heart increased by about thirty beats per minute, and a faint feeling came over me.  “Just the accumulation of doing all those squats?” I thought.  Why didn’t Thor tell us sooner that his knees were irritated?  The last thing we ever want for our personal training clients is to report back any painful byproducts from their training experience under our guidance.

I followed up with Thor, “Have your knees been hurting for three months?”  Thor nonchalantly replied, “Yup.  Like three to four months.”  After Thor added that a few months were“making his knees cranky” from the exercises we guided him through, my heart began to race more, and a sense of disappointment shrouded me.  I stopped interviewing Thor about his feedback from the previous training session and went directly toward a higher-priority threat. Why wasn’t Thor telling us he was experiencing knee discomfort?  Our job as lifetime fitness experts is to stave off pain for our exercise participants, not produce painful symptoms.

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner that your knees were hurting from the squats?” I asked Thor.  “Well, no pain, no gain, right?”  This time I visually squinted my eyes and pursed my lips in visually apparent disapproval of the subsequent statement.  I responded, “Actually, we’re aiming toward quite the opposite.”  I paused and put down my clipboard, “No pain should be a massive gain.”

Unfortunately, a stigma exists in our culture that pain and discomfort are attached to the thought of going to a gym, attending a small group fitness class, or hiring a personal trainer.  A common reason potential exercise participants sign up for our services is to receive external motivation from us and position our coaching services as a drill instructor-type figure, to forcefully put them through rigorous exercise.  In fact, during our initial consultations, when potential clients enter our fitness center for the first session, we ask them a very important discovery question, “What interests you in our personal training services?”  The answer is sometimes, “I need you to whip me into shape.”  When I hear this statement, my knee-jerk reaction is to tell them they need to enroll in basic training in their favorite military branch.  The term “whip” really shouldn’t be used in any gym setting.  And, while I am unquestionably grateful for the military services present in our society, fitness leaders aren’t drill instructors training soon-to-be soldiers for basic training.

It’s important to discover our lifetime fitness goals and demystify the image of embarking on a journey of strife and sheer anguish when entering a gym.  If our goal is to lose weight, then seeking out the help of fitness professionals should include understanding concepts of exercises that increase awareness of cardiovascular fitness, injury prevention, strength training, and revisions to productive dietary habits.  Refining the look and feel of one’s body should consist of a constructive approach to understanding that specific exercises target areas of the body meant to strengthen and reinforce the structural integrity of muscles.  Most importantly, ingraining fitness as part of one’s life should be a gift, not a daunting task that inflicts undesirable sensations of psychological and emotional distress to the point in which permanent physical pain results from doing what a fitness coach tells you to do.

If we’re looking to utilize physical activity and exercise as a productive supporter of our everyday lives, perhaps we can view exercise sessions as more of a gift to empower our lives, instead of an undesirable punishment session, leaving one crawling out of the gym.  Consistent exercise is meant to decrease excess fat mass, improve mobility and flexibility, and offer psychological and stress-reducing adaptations.  Similar to how including vegetables in our diet to improve our immune system, exercise provides a benefit to our lives.  However, would you like to have a bowl of brussel sprouts steamed to a lifeless husk after being in a steamer for an hour?  Or, would you prefer a roasted brussel sprout that is well seasoned, crispy around the edges, yet soft and supple on the inside with a dash of balsamic reduction?   We would probably choose the more gourmet delicious version of a beneficial cruciferous vegetable.

If exercise imposes psychological, emotional, or physical pain, then perhaps it’s time to reassess the purpose of the current type of exercise.  After a few classes of performing barbell back squats ruins the next day because your back and knees are so inflamed you can’t pick up your grandkids, perhaps you should stop.  There are modifications to exercise programs that can be applied to produce a more rewarding and desirable experience than “no pain, no gain.”  Ensure to use exercise as a tool to produce an improved life by trusting your intuition on what the best exercises are for your future.

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 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.

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