Apr 08

Spring Time Dynamic Stretching

The rainy months of the year are subsiding.  Now that we can venture outside, the hills are lush with green grass and tree foliage.  Thanks to three months of steady rain, dust, and grime on the streets look like they have been pressure washed.   Majestic songbirds flutter throughout the sky, enjoying the blossoming pink plum tree flowers and mustards interlacing the vineyards.  Following the rainy season, Napa transforms into a unique place akin to a picturesque landscape painting by Van Gogh.

The residents and visitors of Napa are presented with the gift of interacting with this paradise.  Marie Falls, Devil’s Punch Bowl, and the small waterfalls coursing off the edge of Mount George are thriving as they emit an impressive display of heart-pounding flowing water.  The vibrant redwood trees residing at Bothe State Park emit a calm and serene environment under their canopy like no other area in the valley.  For the recreational gardeners in the community, the eagerness to venture into a sunny backyard accompanied by ruby-throated hummingbirds to embark on a green thumbs escapade is just around the corner.

Even though these activities offer breathtaking experiences, they require physical fortitude and the ability to endure the substantial amounts of physical movement needed to enjoy them. For example, hikes to the falls can take two to ten miles of inclined walking over technical terrain.  Spending time in the yard with our beloved gardens requires bending down, reaching over and around objects, and utilizing hefty tools.  With that being said, being physically strong is critically important to the enjoyment of these much sought-after springtime joys.

A tactic we perform with our personal training clients meant to prepare them for a rigorous exercise session is a concentrated dynamic stretching routine.  Our exercise sessions resemble movements involved in recreational physical activity, housework, or gardening.  These events include bending down to pick up objects, kneeling on the ground, or holding onto awkward structures involving grip strength.  Similar to warming up the muscles, getting your heart rate prepared, and settling in on a focused psychological state for exercise, our bodies would benefit similarly from a warm-up when we conduct challenging physical activities in our hobbies and common forms of labor.  Here are a few dynamic stretching techniques we perform with our clients before every personal training session:

  1. Side-to-side neck stretch:  To perform the side-to-side neck stretch, start by flexing the neck by bringing the ear to the shoulder until a brief stretching sensation is experienced in the side of the neck and upper shoulder.  Once you feel a slight stretch, flex your neck in the other direction by bringing your ear to the other shoulder.  Repeat this stretch for five to ten repetitions.
  2. Supinated arm crossing stretch: To perform the arm crossing stretch with palms facing upward, start by lifting your arms to armpit level.  Rotate your palms upward and perform a crossing motion across your chest and reverse the motion to abduct your arms away from the midline of your body.  Once you feel a slight stretch in the pecs, shoulders, and biceps, reverse the motion.  Repeat this stretch for five to ten repetitions.
  3. “Hula Hoop” stretch: To perform the “Hula hoop” stretch, start by placing your hand on the crests of your hips.  Rotate your hips in a circular motion.   Reverse the motion by rotating your hips in the opposite direction.  You should feel a stretch in the front and back portions of your hips and lower back.  Repeat this movement for five to ten repetitions.

These examples demonstrate an effective warm-up for the neck, shoulder, lower back, and hips.  Performing simple preparatory movements targeting structurally significant joints of the body bolsters neurological activation of those sites of the body.  Increased neuromuscular conduction optimizes coordination, fine motor movements, and dexterity.  Additionally, warming up larger muscles surrounding structurally important joints triggers the absorption of more oxygen from the bloodstream to utilize as energy.  This causes the heart to pump more oxygenated blood to the working muscles.  A steady supply of oxygenated blood to muscles stressed from physical activity assists working muscles to fatigue less and operate for more extended periods.  Most importantly, performing a movement prep routine before each bout of physical activity consistently fortifies the muscular architecture of the muscles.  This means the connective tissue comprising the intricate structures of the bones, ligaments, tendons, and muscles holding joints together can withstand more stress and produce increased work for physical activity.

Perusing through the countryside on awe-spiring hikes, showing those weeds who’s boss around our garden beds, and painting the side of our houses are just around the corner.  To get the most out of these experiences, give your body the privilege to prepare for these events so we can truly enjoy these experiences in Napa’s wondrous climate.

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 30

Staying Healthy Pays for Itself

Two of our full-time coaches called in sick a few weeks ago.  With a slew of clients eager to achieve their weekly and bi-weekly training sessions, myself and the remaining coaches, unhindered by the season’s illnesses, put in some extra hours to accommodate our beloved personal training clients.  The standard eight-hour day of coaching cascaded into ten to twelve hours of coaching clients.  We became slightly backlogged by adding in program design, onboarding our talented new coaches and apprentices, and the logistics of managing training schedules.  Two days later, we were back in full force.  All the coaches resumed their normal operations, exuberantly guiding our clients to succeed in their weekly exercise sessions.

As a nasty bug latched hold of our sick coaches, the other coaches took all the proper precautions to ensure our gym was free of the sickness that possessed their bodies and to ensure they recovered efficiently and effectively.  They updated the coaching crew on their body temperature status every four to six hours to see if their fever broke.  The helpful representatives of local COVID testing stations happily shoved swabs up their nostrils to check for the latest strain of the coronavirus.

After a few days of our sick teammates feeling like they got tossed out of a high-speed train, their fevers broke, headaches subsided, and the faucets of their runny noses turned off.  Additionally, the coaches holding down the fort returned to regular working hours.  Two days of disruption caused by an illness were effortlessly shrugged off like a rookie linebackers attempt to tackle Bo Jackson.

As ambassadors of health and fitness, the coaches at our fitness studio participate in regular exercise sessions three to four times per week. Additionally, one would be hard-pressed to find one of our coaches scrolling through their phones or in front of the television, vegging out in their free time.  Instead, they participate in their favorite recreational physical activity outside of training clients.  This is the quintessential fitness coach’s optimal state of homeostasis.

Exercise puts the body through bouts of physiological stress.  Stress hormones, heart rate responses, and blood pressure increase during rigorous exercise.  These reactions momentarily cause stress hormone production along with a slight reduction of the immune system.  The key word here is “momentarily.”  This controlled dose of exercise prepares our body to handle sources of external stress.  Such as physical weakness, psychological and emotional distress, and suppressed immune system threats.  An invoice for a hefty utility bill, a phone call that your child ditched school, or a heated business discussion can induce the same stress.  This type of external stress can produce just as much, if not more, physiological and emotional distress than a controlled exercise bout.  It should come as no surprise that the more stressed we are, the more likely we will forget to take care of ourselves.  In this case, we might become ill. However, adaptations to the stress imposed on the body via regularly organized exercise sessions ingrain the ability of the body to manage external stress.  Additionally, if the body is in optimal physical condition, it wants to recover and return to a healthy state of homeostasis.  Just like our personal trainer friends.

Illness throughout our lives is inevitable.  Unfortunately, everyone gets sick.  However, if we include regular exercise and incorporate recreational physical activity into our lives, we don’t have to be sick for very long.  That’s why it pays off to be healthy.

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 17

Physical Activity is the Natural High

“Wow, I actually feel better than when I walked in,” exclaimed an individual concluding a training session.  Geno had just finished his initial consultation, in which we conducted a physical assessment and gathered information to build a customized fitness program. As Geno exited the studio, the weather presented an ominous gray, gloomy, and rainy day.  Not only was Geno slightly stressed due to a combination of work travel and personal stress, but he was also dealing with pain in his lower back that impeded him from performing his favorite recreational physical activity of bowling.  Geno felt like a little black cloud was following him around that didn’t just bring rain and a frigid climate to his world but also made him feel like he was down in the dumps due to his current situation.  However, after he completed a small series of movements to activate the musculature of his lower back and hips, that little black cloud seemed to fade away along with his lower back pain.  His eyes opened, and he started telling funny stories about his friends at the bowling alley.  Indeed, Geno felt better at the end of this brief exercise assessment than when he walked.

February and March of 2023 have been rainy months.  Even though Napa has one of the world’s most temperate and desirable climates, these last two months have given us a reality check of what everyday life might be like in Portland, Oregon or Seattle.  The amount of rain we’ve been blessed with sets us up for success in the future.  However, the gray sky, lack of sunshine, chilly temperatures, and wet ground can give rise to feeling confined.  The desire to venture outside our cozy, warm, and dry homes isn’t the first thought running through our minds when another bomb cyclone, atmospheric river, or meteorological phenomenon is set to roll over our town.  Add a dash of twenty-five to thirty mile per hour winds, and remaining behind the framing and walls of our houses seems like a more desirable scenario.

Sunny days inspire us to take walks, dabble in chores in our backyards, and engage in outdoor sports activities. Unfortunately, the lack of this preferred climate puts a roadblock to participating in our hobbies outside. For those of us who perform work in an office, work from home in a home office setting, or commute for hours on long highways, the barricade cold and damp weather imposes upon us can induce ominous thoughts, accumulate frustration, and increase stress levels.  Without an outlet to participate in the outdoor activities we cherish, pent-up restlessness and stress can present suboptimal experiences.

The good news is there is a solution to some of these issues of temporary weather-imposed confinement:  exercise. For those who work from home, conducting administrative work via looking at a computer screen or even a tiny cell phone screen can be increased due to the lack of outdoor walk breaks or lunch meetings. In addition, as a method to intervene with the lack of usual recess sunny days offers us, we can reserve some time for brief bouts of indoor exercise.

Reserving time for exercise creates an environment where we put our phones down, step away from the computer screens, and focus solely on ourselves.  As people get past the first few minutes of exercise, the focus becomes centered on the effort and concentration needed to perform the challenging movements exercise requires.

Taking a Peloton class?  You better hold onto the handles of that bike and listen to the instructor’s cues from the app.  If you have a phone in your hand, you might fall off the bike and fail to keep up.  Doing a set of planks?  Looks like you won’t be able to text your co-worker about that deadline.  It can wait.  In a Yoga class?  If I were you, I’d put that phone on silent and stash it in the depths of your gym bag.  Better yet, leave it in the lobby on the other side of the classroom door.  It will be there when you return.  If your ringtone goes off in a Yoga class setting, you will endure the wrath of an entire class’s worth of eyes scorning your presence.

After completing as little as ten reps of squats or as long as a thirty-minute Pilates class, a feeling of victory courses through our body because we’re relieved of that period of rigor exercise is finished.  This feeling of post-exercise elation is the exact opposite of the “let me out” scenario we endure on damp, dreary, and rainy days.  Additionally, research supports exercise physiologically supports our mood and positive outlook in our everyday lives.  Physicians, psychologists, and the literature of peer-reviewed exercise physiology journals recommend exercise to reduce stress due to the positive endorphins the body experiences, an increase in circulating serotonin and dopamine, and a decrease in excess cortisol and similar stress hormones following the completion of a workout.  Furthermore, indoor exercise routines performed on a rainy day impart muscular adaptations to support the outdoor physical activities we engage in when the sun peaks its head out.

The gray and chilly gloom is almost over.  Sun and blue skies will soon illuminate the ground the rain has been kind enough to clean off for us.  We need to hold it together until that day comes.  Step away from the hustle and bustle of indoor work activities and reserve some time for indoor exercise.  By staying happy, healthy, and strong throughout these winter months, we can take full advantage of the warmer days in one of the world’s most beautiful areas.

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 12

Exercise Hurts

“I don’t like to sweat.”  “Why would you want to inflict pain on yourself?”  “There’s weird people at my Yoga class.”  “I don’t want to be around all those young kids at the gym taking pictures of themselves.”

An alarmingly prevalent reason people veer from fitness is the physical discomfort exercise can impose on a person’s mental and physical state.  Training specific areas of the body through skillfully designed strength and conditioning movements has been proven through the millennia that exercise aids the human race in functioning at optimal levels.  However, reserving time to put yourself through a bout of physical exertion isn’t like curling up on the couch with your favorite snack and watching the new season of The Mandolorian.  Accomplishing exercise is challenging.  Sometimes people don’t like to exercise because exerting oneself is painful and uncomfortable.

The fear of physical discomfort exercise inflicts on the body isn’t uncommon. Unfortunately, we see many of our personal training clients start this way.  Local gyms, exercise classes, and fitness studios are set up with what a fitness professional would see as valuable tools to assist exercise participants in completing a workout that will improve their lives.  However,  for some exercise participants who haven’t been introduced to the culture of a gym setting, one look at a hyperathletic Yoga instructor, the barbells resting on the back of a young twenty-something-year-old, or sweat dripping off of a gym rat hell-bent on getting the most of his workout isn’t what the novice exercise participant envisions as fun.  The site of these typical exercise environments is enough to send a gym newbie running out the door like they just saw a wild bear enter their house.  Why would you want to work out if the gym setting induces a stress response akin to having your hair on fire?

A solution that gives fearful exercise participants hope is to understand why exercise is a good fit for someone’s life in the first place.  What does exercise give you?  In some ways, adhering to an exercise program offers us similar benefits to the hard work we put into our careers.  For example, attending four to twelve years of college probably wasn’t easy for some.  Waking up early for a four-hour class once per week or taking a late-night class on economics isn’t’ the most desirable event..  Additionally, sitting down to answer emails for a few hours, commuting to a town two hours away for an important sales meeting, or taking a flight to another state or country for important work endeavors aren’t at the top of the list of entertainment.  Once again, begging out on your favorite Netfilx series sounds way more fun.  However, these less than palpable tasks offer us gifts in financial success, the ability to take care of family, and invest further in our lives.

Devoting time to exercise isn’t much different than the tasks we complete to advance our careers and support our lifestyles.  However, exercise is equally, if not more, essential to the time we devote to our work lives because of the benefits it offers our  health.  Without the ability to be physically strong, fend of disease and illness, and mitigate pain in our body, we won’t be able to perform at our best in vital areas of our jobs, hobbies, and interactions with our family and friends.  Therefore, understand that putting oneself in an uncomfortable situation in the exercise arena aren’t much different than inserting ourselves in the labor we regularly conduct to support our careers and livelihood.

To be successful in our careers and functions of everyday life, people usually gravitate toward job skills they are good at and enjoy.  For example, an individual who excels in mathematics could perform optimally in accounting. On the other hand, a bachelor’s in finance probably wouldn’t necessarily support a career working as a deep-sea fisherman.  Comparing  successful academic background and job selections has similarities to finding enjoyable modes of exercise.  If the goal of exercise is to decompress from a stressful day, improve flexibility, and move in a low-impact setting, then perhaps a Yoga or Pilates class would be a good fit.  However, if lifting heavy things and exerting oneself until your face is red and sweat drip from your brow is enjoyable, maybe a bout of resistance training with barbells, dumbbells, and weight machines at a local gym is the right fit.  If we want exercise not to seem like grueling work, we need to find an exercise setting that we enjoy, perform well at, and supports our goals.

Most importantly, understanding exercise is similar to the work we do in our everyday lives is a useful tactic.  No one ever said completing forty hours of work per week would be easy.  Devoting three hours a week of exertive activity via exercise isn’t a walk in the park either.  Grasping the concept that exercise will pay a dividend in an enjoyable and pain free life can help us preserve through the seemingly painful and daunting portion of adhering to a fitness 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.

Mar 02

Improving Sedentary Behavior

Society has evolved into an innovative community, mastering the ability to manage our everyday affairs through electronics.  Along with phones, computers, and tablets offering instant gratification comes a position where we physically conform our bodies to a resting position requiring little to no movement.  In other words, we sit a lot.  In fact, six to eight hours a day of commuting to work, conducting administrative duties at our desks, or scrolling through our phones to view text messages, emails, and the latest social media crutch isn’t uncommon.

Lack of physical movement is categorized as sedentary behavior.  People with lifestyle habits where movement is at a minimum pose threats of developing a multitude of metabolic diseases such as cardiovascular afflictions, insulin resistance, decreased lean muscle mass, and surplus fat storage

Another contributing factor, creating a synergy for increased fat storage, is the overconsumption of carbohydrates at suboptimal periods.  For instance, snacking on chips, breads, pastries, or candies during times of the day when physical activity levels are low or directly before bed.  Low energy expenditure contributes to a lack of calorie utilization, which converts to dense fat under our skin.

Carbohydrates are fancy words for sugars.  We need sugar to utilize as a source of energy.  Sugar gets a bad rap due to its identity toward developing metabolic disease.  However, sugar is present throughout the body and is responsible for various cellular interactions within the nervous and muscular systems.  A common misconception of sugar is that sugars are only present in sweet foods such as candies, pastries, or sodas.  Sugars are also formed from gluconeogenesis, which is the breakdown of non-carbohydrate sources, such as fats, into usable energy.

Wearable technology such as Fit Bits and Apple watches track activity rings and remind us where we are in our daily recommendations for physical activity.  One of the best ways to fill in the physical activity rings is to get up and walk for brief bouts.  This is a potently effective method to utilize the aerobic energy system for caloric expenditure.  However, it’s important to note that getting up and moving the body via standing and walking isn’t the only key to the puzzle.  Appreciating the beneficial properties of skillfully consuming food and exercising to enhance lean muscle mass are critically significant to decreasing factors leading to developing metabolic diseases, heart dysfunction, and increasing BMI.  Not only will nutritional awareness and routine exercises reduce the likelihood of metabolic disease, but practicing these habits enhance the productivity and quality of everyday life activities.

Skeletal muscles are the organs in our body that move and stabilize our bones.  Examples include the trapezius, which stabilizes our shoulder blades, triceps that extend our arms, paraspinal muscles that hold our vertebrae together, and gluteal muscles that move our hips.  These muscles are not only responsible for large movements in our body, but they also possess the ability to utilize insulin as a growth factor to repair stressed sites of skeletal muscle.

Skeletal muscle also possesses insulin receptors.  After skeletal muscles are stressed from rigorous activity, such as a concentrated resistance training session, the muscles welcome insulin to bond onto the surface of their cells.  Insulin is a potent anabolic hormone that regulates the influx of sugars from the bloodstream into connective tissue cells.  Absorbing sugar into stressed muscle cells allows the muscles to utilize sugar as source of energy to grab onto free-floating proteins and amino acids to repair post-workout damaged muscle structure.  This action of muscle resynthesis increases insulin sensitivity, which counteracts the possibility of developing insulin resistance.

It’s important to understand that increased physical activity is beneficial for regulating the ability to move optimally and fend off disease.  Filling up the activity rings on our helpful wearable technology aids us in living healthier as the technological demands of our lives segway to sitting longer.  However, let’s not forget to acknowledge the importance of skillful nutritional habits and routine exercise combined with increased physical activity.  Decreased sedentary behavior, nutritional awareness, and consistent adherence to exercise equals reduced likelihood of disease and improved overall quality of life.

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 22

Healthy Foods with One Ingredient

Sprinkling lemon, lime, and orange juice on food offers bright and exciting notes of acidity.  The sweetness and crunchiness of carrots, celery, and onions contribute a satisfying and refreshing note when added to a dish in raw and cooked forms.  The juiciness and refined flavor of properly cooked salmon are reminiscent of the scent of an early morning walk on a beach or riverfront.  These simple flavors create a harmonious and healthy composition of taste and nourishment for the body to be satisfied both in our taste buds and in the absorption of vital nutrients.

Fresh fruit, veggies, and lean meats have many features that add to a dish but share one trait, they each possess one ingredient.  A carrot from the produce section has a carrot in it.  A lemon plucked from a tree in the neighborhood is comprised of a lemon.  It shouldn’t be any surprise that a filet of salmon is made up of one hundred percent salmon.  When paired together, these foods have the potential to make a delicious and healthy meal.

Our grocery stores also have other items on the outskirts of the produce and fresh seafood and meat section.  These are the foods that reside in boxes, packages, and bottles.  The prepared food items in these boxes offer a similar eating experience to fresh fruit, vegetables, and proteins. For example, a pack of healthy cereal could possess delicate notes of crunchy texture, sweetness, and a perfect balance of seasoning that is efficiently composed by pouring it into a bowl and dousing it with milk.  A protein bar offers a similarly satisfying experience when unwrapped, and a bite is taken out of the bar-formed vessel.  A kaleidoscope of acids, salt, and sweetness courses throughout our palate as we masticate the bar.  The convenience of a protein powder mixed into water for a quick meal consisting of strawberry, vanilla, or chocolate flavor is another popular option for immediate gratification to suffice the requirements of a healthy meal.

The difference between these packaged, premade foods to raw veggies, fruits, and lean protein is the number of ingredients in the boxed, bottled, and or ziplock-bagged foods.  The ingredients on present the side of packaged foods possess a paragraph’s worth of small font describing the contents that make up the food inside the package.  The elements within the food label can range from ten to fifty components, all in various compositions.

Some of these items are processed in sophisticated methods we can’t necessarily describe unless we are food researchers with a degree in organic chemistry.  Additionally, some of these packaged foods contain processed and denatured carbohydrates to fill the capacity of the vessel carrying the food.  Carbohydrates are beneficial for supplying energy to the body.  However, when carbohydrates are cooked down, denatured, and then resynthesized into another form, the sugar content can become high enough to spike insulin levels at suboptimal periods throughout the day.  Additionally, the digestive system may not recognize processed food as noticeable as a single-ingredient food in its raw state.  This could lead to a diminished absorption rate of vitamins, water, and disease-preventing substances within each food.

Packaged foods offer convenience and a viable food acquisition method to the population.  However, all the ingredients present within these premade foods can pose a challenge to individuals less experienced in identifying beneficial qualities in food.  Reading the tiny font on the side of the package isn’t the first thing people think of when buying these foods.  However, the ingredients in the raw form of veggies, fruits, nuts, and meats are simple to identify.

Creating meals from simple ingredients acquired from the produce section, meat counter, or a simple bag of raw unsalted nuts ensures the consumer they are eating exactly what they expect.  Raw and simple ingredients are easily absorbed throughout the digestive system.  This means the water and nutrients in single-ingredient foods are synthesized more efficiently throughout the body and delivered to the organs to extract the beneficial properties within the food we consume on a daily basis.  Focusing on simple ingredients has the potential to keep us on a healthy track to efficiently manage our weight, heal the body, and fend off disease.

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 16

Core Muscles-Like the rings in the trunk of tree

Many moons ago, I participated in a  class curated by an accomplished gentleman possessing his PhD in Botany.  His life’s work was to s engulf himself in studying redwood trees.  Our class was fortunate to take a field trip to Armstrong Woods park.  This area outside of Guerneville was flooded with massive redwood trees on Earth for hundreds of years.

As we ventured through this awe-inspiring fantasy land of brisk air, an intoxicating aroma of redwood needles, and an array of majestic birds and acrobatic squirrels, our teacher stopped at a tree trunk dwarfing his five-foot-five-inch ectomorphic stature.  “The dark rings on this tree stump signify the number of years this tree has been alive.”  Named the Colonel Armstrong tree,this massive artifact was estimated to be over fourteen hundred years old.

Enjoying every moment of this trip, I couldn’t help but relate to this tree’s core structure to the studies I was involved in as I pursued my academic path of kinesiology. Immediately, I thought of the core muscles involved in stabilizing the midsection of the spine present in the human body.  Similar to the fibrous structures comprising the rings surrounding the inner rings of the titanic Colonel Armstrong, the muscles around our spine have similar features within the skeletal muscles supporting the core of the body, so our top half doesn’t topple over.

A multitude of muscles run up and down, side to side, and around the spine.  The paraspinal muscles trace the spine vertically, aiding in the ability to bend forward and backward and ensure the torso is upright throughout everyday human activities.  Transverse abdominal muscles lace around the waist like a zipped-up jacket to allow rotational movements and protect the spine from twisting too far at the spinal joints.  Rectus abdominus muscles reside in the front portion of the abdomen, aiding in forward bending and bringing the torso closer to the lower extremities.  This movement is essential for getting up off the ground or out of bed.  The deeper muscles of the psoas attach to the anterior portion of the spine to the upper portion of the pelvis and thighs.  These deep muscles of the core are similar to the inner location of the rings of a tree trunk.  Psoas muscles act as strong core multi-plane movers and stabilizers and are responsible for the first movements of our core and hips before more significant movements.

Comparing the rings of a tree to our human anatomy responsible for the structural integrity and function of our “trunk” gives a visual representation of the vital role our muscular tissue contributes to the condition of our core muscles.  One could imagine if a tree had a feeble, skinny designation of rings within its trunk, the likelihood of it bending over, breaking, or even uprooting and toppling over is increased.  The same circumstances are present within our bodies.

Exercising the core muscles of our body enables us to have a robust and strong trunk.  Therefore, ensure to input core stabilization exercises into your fitness routine one to three times per week to reinforce the inner lining of our trunk so we can live a strong, healthy, and stable life.

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 10

Moving Side to Side and Front to Back

Curbs, steps, speedbumps, and roots causing sidewalk cracks have a purpose in the functionality of our society.  Sidewalk curbs create a location for our automobiles to park next to as not to disturb walking patrons.  Speedbumps made of asphalt and painted with white or striped yellow give the message to drivers to slow down.  Otherwise, the bottom end of the car could receive a reminder in the form of a repair bill from a local autobody shop.  Trees need room to grow as well.  Their roots spread underground to acquire nutrients and water so their leaves can deliver oxygen to the air we breathe.

Society and mother nature harmonizes, offering organization between humans traveling on foot, our four-wheeled gas-powered transportation devices, and our tall leafy friends, the trees.  However, these byproducts of increased height on the ground we walk on are sometimes perceived as obstacles for individuals with hindered movement.

Walking is a normal human motion mastered at a young age.  Putting one foot in front of the other to travel a set distance is commonly perceived as a non-challenging task.  This is until something happens, causing us not to walk normally.  Overcoming a significant illness, recovering from surgery, or shifting from a deconditioned lifestyle poses physical challenges to the body.  Pain, lethargy, and decreased muscular strength and endurance can make these seemingly simple increases in height to move our feet while walking laborious and challenging tasks.

Maintaining the ability to have an efficient forward stride followed by the posterior follow throughout each step of walking ensures optimal forward movement.  Picking up the feet to increase the elevation of the foot moving forward ensures we don’t scrape or stub the front of our foot on any object while walking forward.  This motion requires adequate hip and knee flexion.  As the femur elevates and the knee bends in a normal stride, the foot’s distance from the ground increases.  Additionally, as the foot is elevated via optimal hip and knee flexion, the foot’s sole needs to be parallel to the ground.  If the toes are at a decreased angle, the probability for the front of the foot to drag and catch an object increases.  Lastly, proficient walking strides include an efficient follow-through in which the foot travels behind the body after that foot propels the body forward.

Awareness of these variables in walking is critically essential.  However, to increase our body’s walking performance and decrease the likelihood of falling, consistently performing routine exercise substantially improves our overall walking performance.  Below are a few techniques we practice with our personal training clients:

  1. Isolated single-leg step-up:  Place one foot on a step three to nine inches high.  The elevated foot remains on the step the entire time.  While shifting the torso slightly forward to where the axis of the armpit is over the middle of the thigh, push the elevated heel on the step into the ground as you elevate your trailing foot onto the step. Next, maintain the same elevated foot on the step and slowly descend the trailing foot to the ground.  Ensure to keep the elevated foot’s heel planted firmly into the step throughout the movement.  Repeat this movement for one to three sets of five repetitions on each leg.
  2. Standing isometric single-leg hip flexion: Standing with good posture, lift one leg to where the thigh is somewhat perpendicular to the axis of the crest of the hip.  Ensure to keep the shin directly under the knee as the thigh remains elevated.  Stand next to an object to grab onto for balance, such as a door frame or post.  Hold this position on each leg for one to three sets of fifteen seconds each leg.
  3. Standing knee flexion: Maintaining an upright posture, flex one knee by “kicking” the heel posteriorly toward the back of the body.  You should feel slight muscular sensation in the hamstring muscles.  If additional balance is required, perform this exercise against a wall.  Repeat this movement for one to three sets of five repetitions on each leg.

Walking might seem like a task as simple as breathing. Unfortunately, physically traumatic events in life hinder our ability to perform such an everyday task.  Remember to practice refining your walking stride.  Let’s also remember to refine our walking performance practicing consistency and adherence to our 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.

Feb 01

Self improvement balancing acts as time goes on

“It doesn’t get much easier.”  This statement came from one of my peers who was ten years older than me.  He who expressed this to me after sharing with him the knee pain I was experiencing.  This knee pain was brought about by spending a significant amount of time preparing my garden for the spring season over the weekend.  Moving wheelbarrows of mulch, laying weed barriers, setting up anti-squirrel defense systems, and turning my compost pile were just a few tactics that took a fair amount of physical exertion.  I knew my garden was getting prepared to become a lush and fertile climate for veggies to thrive.  However, my knee felt tired, swollen, and cranky after the rigorous effort I put into gardening.

I understood my friend’s dry, yet, honest exclamation.  His statement expressed his experience with aches and pains he has endured throughout his life.  He was a sage I respected who had seen ten more years of stress than me that life could throw at a person.  However, my entrepreneurial spirit was motivated to find the positive in this comment.

The next day, I thought about the phrase “it doesn’t get any easier” and connected that statement to the currency of the situation regarding my knee pain.  My immediate counter to this statement was, “but, it gets better.”  I’m sure many people can relate to challenging times in life.  Being a parent, attending college, and starting a business were not easy parts of my life.

I learned fast that progressing from a regular undergraduate student to graduate classes didn’t offer any breaks.  After my son turned fourteen, I was posed with an intelligent, courageous, and strong-willed human under my roof that I hadn’t dealt with throughout my life.  Branching off from working for large companies to opening my business left me feeling like I was on an inflatable raft out in the Pacific Ocean with only an oar to paddle myself to shore.  Those times weren’t “easy” at all.  However, by enduring the trials and tribulations these circumstances put in my way, I’ve progressed through these challenging experiences. I now possess pertinent tools to make my everyday life enjoyable and fulling.

Enduring the nagging pain and the inconvenience of a swollen knee wasn’t the most desirable state of affairs I would prefer.  However, I believed I would feel better in more ways than one by developing well-thought-out approaches to progress past this knee pain.  As an advocate of lifetime fitness, my nature was to implement tactics to improve my knee status and find a way to “get better.”

We promote a phrase to our personal training clients at the beginning of their training session: “you’ll feel better walking out than when you walked in.”  Even though a person might feel physically deconditioned, enduring pain in the body, or stressed out from the logistics of life, nine times out of ten, they feel better after a bout of routine exercise.

So, how could the currency of my situation become better?  I had a strong sense that focusing on the healing abilities of my body as I aged wasn’t a productive way to improve my situation.  A billion research articles state that the body doesn’t heal as fast following each trip around the sun.  Mulling my mind on those thoughts wasn’t going to do much good for my knee pain.  However, designing a workout focusing on healing loads, injury prevention, balance, and strength training, the other parts of my body will improve how I feel.  If I can improve how I feel, things will “get better.”

Focusing on joint injury prevention, balance, coordination, and functional strength are simple yet effective exercise themes.  Techniques such as planks, push-ups, and single-leg balancing exercises promote strength, endurance, and durability in many critically essential joints throughout the body.

Enduring pain at any episode of life can obstruct the overall experiences we get out of our everyday lives.  Indeed, we can be posed with new challenges that we haven’t yet seen, making them a challenge to overcome.  However, if we can establish a starting point in how we can “make things better,” perhaps we can take steps forward to alleviating and potentially surpassing what malady is imposing its will upon us.

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 25

Instant Gratification and The Human Body

The human race has been privileged throughout the past few decades with phenomenological inventions offering instant gratification.  Payment via tapping our credit card or phone on the surface of a payment processor at grocery stores, gas stations, and restaurants removes any apprehensions of thinking twice about the number being deducted from our digital bank account.  Remember when we needed to acquire a carbon copy by superimposing an image of the credit card’s number on a triplicate of white, yellow, and pink paper?  Those days have been conveniently put in the archive of human history.  Our lives are far less complicated thanks to the genius of the human race.

Downloading content on our phones can be acquired in the blink of an eye.  To make this more impressive, I could watch the entire series of Friends on a road while droning through the badlands of I-5 on Hulu, thanks to the assistance of our 5G phone networks.  Remember the sound of connecting to the internet back in the ’90s?  It sounded akin to the combination of screeching tires and an albatross mating call.  For the generation of humans who lived through these experiences, they can appreciate that the era of digital instant gratification is here to stay.

These technological advances to aid in our everyday productivity can offer massive improvements to our lives. For example: opening up the Amazon app and having a thirty-six pack of toilet paper delivered to my doorstep in less than twenty-four hours is pretty cool.  This convenience allocates a free hour in my day by alleviating a trip to Wal-Mart to buy some toilet paper.  Avoiding waiting in a line watching people stare at their cell phones to absorb the latest mind-leaching Tik-Tok reel while being blasted by the cacophony of screaming children isn’t that bad.

Unfortunately, this immediate result of completing tasks requiring physical effort and thought can be debilitating to our productivity in human development as we age.  The resources that give us that “ta-dah!” effect after we get something done right away can become too prevalent in our day-to-day lives.  Too much immediate gratification could lead to a lack of using the brain to produce creative thoughts and the body to move and interact less with the environment around us.  If long-term health is a goal in our lives, it’s worthwhile to maintain clarity of the critically important factors of moving and making conscious decisions throughout our day.

The physiology involved in the human body doesn’t offer instant gratification the same way as the tap payment of a credit card when filling up our gas on their convenient payment processors located on the pump.  If our fitness goals entail increasing strength, losing weight, or decreasing pain, a substantial amount of focus and consistent practice in keeping the body moving must be allocated to our schedule.  We can’t download an app from the Apple or Google Play store to immediately be able to perform ten pushups, maintain a healthy weight, or overcome nagging pain and injuries.  The efforts, thoughts, and energy we dedicate to moving our bodies are the application.  There aren’t many machines that can replace the willpower and discipline ingrained within our human identity.

It’s helpful to put digital devices away for a moment that track every variable of data present in our lives.  Ensuring we can participate in everyday activities like walking long distances, stepping up and down stairs, or bending down to pick objects up off the ground are necessary to live long and happy lives.  Instant satisfaction from technology has created this fantastic world we exist in.  However, let’s not forget to maintain the movement that our ancestors who lived before the era of instant digital satisfaction.  Even though our everyday lives are proficient thanks to technology, we still need to roll up our sleeves and consistently perform chores, walk frequently, and train our bodies to endure the demands the world imposes on our bodies.

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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