Aug 31

Risk of Falling: Get a Grip

“Taking a digger,” “getting up close and personal with the stairs,” or “eating it” are comical phrases when relating to an event where gravity got the best of us, causing us to fall. Typically, these humorous situations can be laughed off and we can live as if nothing happened.

Falls could be a simple trip and tumble to the ground.  It seems like nothing ever happened after a brief dusting off the pants and clapping debris off our hands.  However, falling is no laughing matter for individuals with hindered balanced, deconditioned fitness levels, or degenerative bone disease.  A fall could be as minor as a scraped knee or as catastrophic as a broken bone.

Decreasing the risk factors of falling is critical to everyday life when recovering from injuries, balance is an issue, or with the advancement of age.  It’s no surprise a strong and fit body can shave off risk factors of falling.  Increased strength and lean muscle mass in the ankle, knee, hip, and back promote increased neuromuscular facilitation, overall body strength, and decrease the likelihood of fatigue when performing long bouts of physical activity.  A less common variable in the equation of decreasing fall occurrences and the severity of the result of falls is using our hands to grab onto an object both during and after a fall.

For those of us who had the privilege of seeing babies develop into mobile bipedal humans, you’ve seen the evolution of how a human learns to stand upright from a prone crawling position.  Babies just learning to walk will army crawl to an object, such as the arm of a couch, grab onto it, and pull themselves up so they can stand.  After mastering standing up and establishing their balance, they might peruse a hallway, using the wall as a safety guide as they slide an outstretched hand on the wall.  If the newly walking child falls in the middle of a room, they’ll crawl to an object or person, grab onto it with their tiny fingers, and pull themselves up to standing.

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a fully grown five-foot ten-inch tall adult who has just stumbled over a dog and fallen backward.  After assessing ourselves and understanding the severity of the fall, we’ll find ourselves on the ground.  Ironically, this is the same position as the youngster learning to walk: on the ground, wondering how to stand up.  One of the first things we use to get back up from a fall is our hands.  We might sit upright, using our hands to push off the ground to extend our arms, assisting our torso to sit up.  After establishing a seated position, a helpful bystander might extend their arm; asking you to grab their hand.  You might be alone after a falling scenario.  Finding an object like a rail, pole, or fence are objects we can use our hands to wrap our fingers around and pull ourselves up.

An equally vital variable during falls is our natural response to reach out to something to grab hold of to intervene with an in-progress fall by decreasing the velocity of our body as it drops. Again, the importance of using our fingers’ gripping ability to grab onto objects is critically important to this piece of decreasing the severity of falling.

Optimizing grip strength through exercise is a productive tool for falling events to support the performance of our impulse to reach out for something during a fall or grab onto an object to help us up after a fall.  Along with forearm, biceps, and triceps strength, training finger strength is essential for the ability to efficiently grab onto objects. Therefore, a simple and effective exercise to input into any exercise routine is the finger flexion and extension exercise.

To perform the finger flexion and extension exercise, start in a standing position and elevate your arms with your elbows extended at your collar bone height.  As your arms remain elevated and you demonstrate a pristine example of perfect human posture, spread your fingertips out as if you are putting your fingers in a set of gloves.  Hold this position at its maximum range of motion for one to two seconds.  After you experience a brief muscular sensation in your fingers, wrist, and forearms, reverse the action and squeeze your finger and thumbs toward the palms of your hand as if you are ringing out a wet towel.  Hold this squeezing motion for one to two seconds until a muscular sensation can be experienced in the palms, wrist, and forearms.  Repeat these movements for five to ten repetitions on both arms at once.

Optimal fitness levels such as strength, cardiovascular endurance, and balance help mitigate fall risk factors. However, let’s not forget to continue to exercise the very motion that helped us when we took our first steps as humans.  The ability to grab onto something and help ourselves up can get us out of some of the most troublesome situations.

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.

Aug 25

Muscles and a Balanced Diet Make a Successful Team

The scales of deciding to indulge in decadent foods and maintaining a healthy functional body continue to be an act of checks and balances for society.  Humanity has developed an array of resources to acquire delicious food at our fingertips.  As five o’clock PM hits, and we depart from our jobs or pick up our kids from soccer practice, a trip to the store to get some veggies and lean protein sounds laborious to most.  A simple act of tapping the Door Dash app icon on our phone to have a few sandwiches from our favorite burger joint in town delivered to our doorsteps sounds far more enticing. However, an issue arises with the convenience available on our high-powered two-by-four-inch computers nestled comfortably in our pockets and purses.  We can enjoy, too much, a good thing without putting much effort into it.

We don’t need a news report or a peer-reviewed article to present mind-blowing data to understand that four to five days per week of ordering sandwiches from Door Dash cause a threat to our health.  Foods such as burgers, burritos, and a value meal at Panda Express should be considered a privilege as a reward for hard work, not an everyday function.  If we click on the Door Dash icon as much as we click on our email app icon, there might be an issue with the number of decisions we make in consuming too much treat food over choosing optimal foods in our diets.

Maintaining a stable balance of consuming foods with a balanced amount of carbohydrates, fat, and protein can be a productive tactic to mitigate the harmful effects of consuming too many treat foods.  A helpful tactic we relay to our personal training clients is to try to have two healthy meals for every treat meal.  For instance, if we have a long day and Door Dashing a burrito sounds irresistible that evening, perhaps we can match that decision to acquire take out with two subsequent evenings of having a salad and a piece of fish or chicken for dinner.  This way, our choices to eat healthy foods double our decisions to acquire treat foods.

Let’s not forget about the importance exercise offers to the scales of staying healthy versus overindulging.  Skeletal muscles are the muscles we exercise when we squat and perform push-ups or planks.  These muscles utilize the substrates present in the food we eat to make our bodies move and reinforce their structure to hold them upright.  If we don’t feed these muscles with the fuel necessary to perform their functional purpose, they will operate akin to an airplane filled with regular automobile fuel.  In other words, our muscles malfunction when we make suboptimal food choices. Therefore, understanding the components essential to the successful functioning of the muscles in our body is critically important.  A big part of the components for successful muscular function comes from our food choices. Luckily, foods that support the development of lean muscle mass are foods that don’t have a lot of processed, high glycemic index carbohydrates, or unhealthy fats.  If we overindulge, our muscles suffer.  However, suppose we focus on eating foods containing raw ingredients, lack chemical processing, or meals made at home. In that case, we consume foods that absorb efficiently in our digestive tract, which fuel our muscles optimally, support the building of lean muscle, and decrease the degradation of muscle mass.

To help mitigate the effects of suboptimal substrates concentration in the body, ensuring exercise to the large muscles of the lower extremities, hips, chest, and shoulder blades of the body is essential.   As these muscles become stressed, their natural response is to absorb carbohydrates and proteins in the bloodstream to resynthesize the sites of the muscle cells stressed from exercise to become bigger and stronger.  The adaptation of muscle recovery allows the stressed muscles to match the demands imposed upon them from strenuous physical activity.  Additionally, the more lean muscle mass present in the body, the higher likelihood of the muscles utilizing free floating fatty acids as a fuel source during a resting state.  However, we can’t feed these stressed muscles optimally if we consume foods that are complicated for our bodies to break down.  In other words, that favorite burger with that buttery and fluffy brioche bun, ooey-gooey Vermont cheddar cheese, and unctuous grass-fed Kobe beef burger won’t necessarily feed our muscles in a way our body can easily process if consumed four to five times per week.  I’m sure we can imagine where the calories present in the burger might go as it passes our muscles faster than an airplane getting ready for take-off.

Napa has some of the best food options, if not the best, available when ordering take-out.  We’re blessed to be immersed in such a thriving culinary culture. However, by understanding that balancing these scenarios with nights of healthy eating and routine exercise, we can mitigate the effects of metabolic disease, contribute to the prevention of cardio arterial disease, and stave off obesity while living happy, healthy, and strong lives.

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

Aug 18

Sciatica is a Pain in the Butt: Part 2

Last week, we shed light upon a few noteworthy structures surrounding the sciatic nerve in the body.  This region of muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, and nerves is referred to as the lumbopelvic hip complex, or the LPHC.  The combination of connective tissue present in the LPHC is significant for the integrity of the lumbar spine and hip region.  Appreciating the area’s intricacies can empower our ability to decrease debilitating symptoms of lower back pain, hip tightness, and, one of the most popular criminals in the LPHC community, sciatica.

Described as sharp, searing, or annoying pain originating from the center of the buttocks, sciatica is a condition that sends nerve pain down the back of the leg to the heel.  Discomfort is an understatement for severe cases of sciatica.  Symptoms of sciatica can originate from many root causes.  Compressed or shifted vertebrae, bulging discs knocked out of alignment, or deconditioned muscles surrounding the hip region all contribute to sciatica causing this “pain in the butt” condition.

Before visiting a doctor’s office, exploring x-rays and MRI images, and how surgical intervention can remedy extreme sciatica, perhaps looking at some low-hanging fruit solutions can be helpful.  This simple yet effective tactic can be achieved by educating ourselves about exercises to strengthen the LPHC.  If we reinforce the system of muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the LPHC, we will likely have less collapse of weak muscles and bones that push down on the sciatic nerve.

Underneath the gluteal muscles, resides the piriformis muscle.  Physical therapists and fitness professionals consider sciatica a common culprit in people’s lives.  A prevalent cause of sciatica is the compression of the piriformis muscles pushing down the sciatic nerve.  This deep gluteal muscle traces directly over the sciatic nerve path as the nerve travels inferiorly down the back of the leg.  The primary function of the piriformis is to lift the leg up and away from the body’s midline.  This action is known as hip abduction.  When this muscle gets inflamed, it increases in size.  Just like a traffic jam at the Jameson Canyon to Highway 80 eastbound junction. Pressure, stress, and pain ensues as this area of the hip gets congested, with a muscle that shouldn’t be as large as it is and is pressed down on the sciatic nerve. So, what happens when the piriformis pushes down on the sciatic nerve?  “Ow,” is what happens.

Identifying a common cause of sciatica, such as a deconditioned piriformis, is an efficient and effective first step to laying out a plan of action to solve the beginning periods of sciatica.  Now that we know the disruptions the piriformis can contribute to the development of sciatica, what can we do to support our piriformis muscle, so it doesn’t go into a state of distress?

We input efficient and effective rehabilitative movement solutions into our personal training clients’ exercise programs specifically meant to enhance the muscular strength present in the LPHC.  Targeting the muscles of the anterior and posterior portion of the lumbar spine muscles, such as the abdominals, deep psoas muscles, and hip flexors, help support the front part of the spine.  If we keep the front portion of the spine and hips, we even out how much force can be pressed down the spine.  Additionally, exercises emphasizing muscular engagement of the glutes allow for increases in strength adaptions to various other piriformis muscles, allowing the demands of our body’s hip movements.  This means that the piriformis won’t be the only muscle performing all the work.  Our gluteal muscles are responsible for moving our legs forward, backward, and side-to-side.   Balancing the strength of the piriformis and gluteal muscles allows the joint to operate as one unit.

Here are two exercises targeting the muscles of the LPHC and have the potential to alleviate sciatica:

  1.  Pelvic tilt against a wall:  Position your back flat against a wall and move your feet slightly in front of you to where you lean back against the wall.  Position your back flat against the wall and “roll the crest of your hips toward your ribs.”  This movement should stimulate a contraction in the abdominals and glutes.  Perform at least five to ten repetitions once per day.
  2. Supine Isometric Hip Extension:  This is a fancy term for what we commonly understand as hip bridges in Yoga class.  Lay flat on the ground with the knees bent at about forty-five degrees. Then, while pressing your heels into the ground and ensuring the lower back is stabilized, lift the hips upward until a muscular contraction is experienced in the glutes and hamstrings.  Hold this position for ten to fifteen seconds.  Perform at least one set of holding for fifteen seconds once per day.

A multitude of potential afflictions can impose symptoms of sciatica, impeding the productivity of our everyday lives.  However, deconditioned fitness levels are one of the most common causes of sciatica. Therefore, pain mitigation through exercise adherence and performing exercises that prevent pain are simple and effective tactics that will keep us away from developing this “pain in the butt.”

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.

Aug 10

Sciatica is a pain in the butt: Part 1

Nerve pain can be the most challenging forms of physical sensations to explain.  The compression of nerves can have many descriptions:  searing, “zinging,” or irritable feelings caused by a pinched nerve. A common nerve disruption is located in the hip region featuring a disturbance around the sciatic nerve.  For readers who have experienced sciatic nerve pain, one could agree that sciatica can make our everyday life activities a “pain in the butt.”

Let’s introduce ourselves to the LPHC.  Better known as the lumbopelvic hip complex, this is a term exercise physiologist nerds use when referring to the muscles, bones, ligaments, and nerves correlating with the lower back, hip, and upper thigh region.

The “lumbo” portion refers to the vertebrae of the lumbar spine.  A vertebra is a spine bone that encases the spinal cord.  These uniquely shaped bones have various spinal root nerves budding out from the side, which innervate organs and the skeletal muscle attached to the nerves junction point.  One could say these nerves act as highways of electrical signals relaying messages from our brain to body organs.  The lumbar vertebrae are unique due to their sizeable bulky structure compared to its neighbors, the thoracic and sacral spines which aren’t as structurally dense.  These five lumbar vertebrae reside smack dab in the middle of the body.  So they need to be thick and robust to carry the load of our torso over our hips.

“Pelvic” refers to the pelvis region of the LPHC.  The pelvis includes the sacrum and the fused bones of the pelvis including the ilium, ischium, and pubis.  The sacrum is a collection of spinal vertebrae fused to create the triangle bone attached to the lumbar spine’s fifth and last lumbar vertebrae.  Similar to the lumbar vertebrae, the sacrum possesses small tunnels allowing nerves stemming from the spinal cord to travel through the hip joints and down the legs to innervate the lower extremities.  The triangular bone of the sacrum acts as a key stone in which the boney crests of the ilium and what Yoga instructors refer to as the “sits bone,” the ischium, are fused too.

Lastly, we have the “hip” portion of the LPHC.  The hip joint is a sophisticated structure that makes a ball and socket joint.  The fusion of the ilium, ischium and pubic bone come together at one point to form this socket, allowing the knobby head of the femur to fit into.  The combination of this ball and socket joint and the head of the femur makes the hip joint.  A vast array of muscles, tendons, and ligaments connect, intersect, and overlap to allow for the integration of the unique movement of the hip.

So, why is it important to know about the LPHC and sciatica? First, let’s make one last introduction to a network of nerves that form a braid called the “cauda equina.”  Latin for “horse tail,” the cauda equina is a collection of nerves stemming from the lumbar vertebrae.  When viewing an anatomical image of the body, it indeed looks like a horse’s tail draping over the back of its hips.   This collection of nerves innervates organs within our abdomen and muscles of the hip, knee, and ankle joint.  In connection with innervating the lower extremities, we have the cauda equina’s roommate, the sciatic nerve.   The sciatic nerve is an extension cord-sized nerve stemming from the lumbar and sacral vertebra that passes through the hip joint.  Its job is also to innervate skeletal muscles of the hip, knee, and ankle joint.   Appreciating this body region is key to mitigating the beginning periods of sciatica and recovering from chronic cases of sciatica.

The network of muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nerves residing in the LPHC create a masterpiece of integrating nervous signaling and the conduction of various muscles firing at one time, allowing us to stand upright, rotate our torso, and move our legs in multiple ranges of motion.  If this region is damaged, the integration of these coordinated movements can become flawed, resulting in weakness, pain, and a decreased lean muscle mass around the LPHC.  The muscles connecting the lumbar spine to the pelvic region maintain the integrity of the vertebrae connecting the lower back to the hips.  The muscles around the hip keep the ball and socket joint in a neutral position and protect the hips from rubbing against the hip joint’s insertion point on the sciatic nerve.  Therefore, knowing the architecture of this region and understanding the muscles involved in keeping the LPHC in alignment aids us in staving off pain, decreased movement, and nerve damage.

In next week’s article, we’ll introduce ourselves to the muscles attaching to LPHC.  After we formally greet these muscles, we’ll find out what exercises these muscles enjoy doing that make them develop into solid and active motors to keep our spine and hips strong, healthy, and able to manage pain.

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

Aug 03

Balancing the Scales of Diet and Exercise

The scales of deciding to indulge in decadent foods and maintaining a healthy, functional body continue to be an act of checks and balances for society.  Humanity has developed an array of resources to acquire delicious food at our fingertips.  As five o’clock PM hits, and we depart from our jobs or pick up our kids from soccer practice, a trip to the store to get some veggies, and lean protein sounds laborious to most.  A simple act of tapping the Door Dash app icon on our phone to have a few sandwiches from our favorite burger joint in town delivered to our doorsteps sounds far more enticing. However, an issue arises with the convenience available on our high-powered two-by-four-inch computers nestled comfortably in our pockets and purses.  We can enjoy too much a good thing without putting much effort into it.

We don’t need a news report or a peer-reviewed article to present mind-blowing data to understand that four to five days per week of ordering sandwiches from Door Dash cause a threat to our health.  Foods such as burgers, burritos, and a value meal at Panda Express should be considered a privilege as a reward for hard work, not an everyday function.  If we click on the Door Dash icon as much as we click on our email app icon, there might be an issue with the number of decisions we make in consuming too much treat food over choosing optimal foods in our diets.

Maintaining a stable balance of consuming foods with a balanced amount of carbohydrates, fat, and protein can be a productive tactic to mitigate the harmful effects of consuming too many treat foods.  A helpful tactic we relay to our personal training clients is to try to have two healthy meals for every treat meal.  For instance, if we have a long day and Door Dashing a burrito sounds irresistible that evening, perhaps we can match that decision to acquire take out with two subsequent evenings of having a salad and a piece of fish or chicken for dinner.  This way, our choices to eat healthy foods double our decisions to acquire treat foods.

Let’s not forget about the importance exercise offers to the scales of staying healthy versus overindulging.  Skeletal muscles are the muscles we exercise when we squat and perform push-ups or planks.  These muscles utilize the substrates present in the food we eat to make our bodies move and reinforce their structure to hold them upright.  If we don’t feed these muscles with the fuel necessary to perform their functional purpose, they will operate akin to an airplane filled with regular automobile fuel.  In other words, our muscles malfunction when we make suboptimal food choices. Therefore, understanding the components essential to the successful functioning of the muscles in our body is critically important.  A big part of the components for successful muscular function comes from our food choices. Luckily, foods that support the development of lean muscle mass are foods that don’t have a lot of processed, high glycemic index carbohydrates, or unhealthy fats.  If we overindulge, our muscles suffer.  However, suppose we focus on eating foods containing raw ingredients, lack chemical processing, or meals made at home. In that case, we consume foods that absorb efficiently in our digestive tract, which fuel our muscles optimally, support the building of lean muscle, and decrease the degradation of muscle mass.

To help mitigate the effects of suboptimal substrates concentration in the body, ensuring exercise to the large muscles of the lower extremities, hips, chest, and shoulder blades of the body is essential.   As these muscles become stressed, their natural response is to absorb carbohydrates and proteins in the bloodstream to resynthesize the sites of the muscle cells stressed from exercise to become bigger and stronger.  The adaptation of muscle recovery allows the stressed muscles to match the demands imposed upon them from strenuous physical activity.  Additionally, the more lean muscle mass present in the body, the higher likelihood of the muscles utilizing free floating fatty acids as a fuel source during a resting state.  However, we can’t feed these stressed muscles optimally if we consume foods that are complicated for our bodies to break down.  In other words, that favorite burger with that buttery and fluffy brioche bun, ooey-gooey Vermont cheddar cheese, and unctuous grass-fed Kobe beef burger won’t necessarily feed our muscles in a way our body can easily process if consumed four to five times per week.  I’m sure we can imagine where the calories present in the burger might go as it passes our muscles faster than an airplane getting ready for take-off.

Napa has some of the best food, if not the best, options available when ordering take-out.  We’re blessed to be immersed in such a thriving culinary culture.   However, by understanding that balancing these scenarios with nights of healthy eating and routine exercise, we can mitigate the effects of metabolic disease, contribute to the prevention of cardio arterial disease, and stave off obesity while living happy, healthy, and vital 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.

Jul 29

Getting Out of Bed and Exercising (Part 1)

As our digital noise device projects sound waves into the air on Monday at 6:30 AM,  birds can be heard performing their best Whitney Houston impression in their avian lingo.  Now that the gloom of the cold Napa winter has subsided, we enter a sunny, warm, and lively May. An astounding gradient of blue, orange, and the rare slash of the pink border of the horizon as the sunset hovers above the Napa Valley mountains.

The community of Napa is privileged to enjoy such splendors.  However, to take in these features of the Shangri La we live in, we have to elevate our bodies into a vertical position and mobilize ourselves..  These visions of rapture can come to a screeching halt if we can’t move in an efficient, pain-free manner throughout our everyday lives.

What sounds better at 6:30 AM?  A warm and cozy bed?  Or the Shangri La?  After a restful weekend and the introduction to a week full of rigorous work tasks, this crossroad we meet when getting out of our comfortable bed can put us on a psychological battlefield.

Don’t worry, the bed will still be there at the end of the day.  It’s an intimate object lacking a conscious brain.  It won’t get up and leave us for another human. So give your bed some TLC. Make your side of the bed so it’s ready to receive you in its magnificent sheltering and soft glory and get on with your day.  After a day of getting important tactics accomplished, that bed will be increasingly inviting when it’s time for some shut-eye.

We can all relate that sitting in bed and fiddling with our phones for a few minutes is far easier than getting out of bed and preparing for a day’s work on Monday.  However, remaining in bed for that extra five minutes can immediately be turned into fifteen or even twenty minutes. So there goes a period of your morning in which you can make a significant pivot in your productivity and mental mindset for the upcoming day.

It might sound crazy, but having the courage to get out of bed to achieve exercise can transition from letting valuable extra bedtime minutes in the morning transform into a potent ingredient of success for our physical, psychological, and emotional well-being.  The benefits of performing the challenging task of getting out of bed to exercise in the morning produce an invaluable impact on surpassing some of the challenges we might experience throughout the day.

The productive stress imposed upon the body elicits adaptions to optimize our sleep-wake cycle.  Additionally, the stress hormones produced via exercise assist in mitigating the pressure we might experience from extrinsic stresses of life such as financial, family, and emotional hardships.  Lastly, this valuable time to ourselves in the morning can prove an advanced form of meditation where we can focus on our own thoughts and move away from the firehose of news and social media information projected at us during our time in bed looking at our phones on Monday morning.

Exercising first thing in the morning at the beginning of the week might sound nuts, but the bi-product of such a tactic presents an astronomical improvement to human performance.

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.

Jul 23

Just Don’t Hurt Your Back (Part 2)

Some of us don’t realize how vital lower back health is until an accidental injury debilitates us.  Quick tweaks to the back can occur from the simplest motions throughout our everyday lives.  From lifting up a bag of groceries, to chasing around our kids, to the simple act of getting out of the car can impose a painful back injury altering productivity of an average days functions.  Strained muscles, pinched nerves, or compressed disks are injuries one usually doesn’t hear about until it happens to themselves.

To prevent catastrophic back injuries, we must appreciate the spine’s structure.  Like a building, the spinal column consists of architecture holding it upright.  These brackets that hold our spine together are muscles, tendons, and ligaments.  A rickety old building might have a few rusty nails, loose screws, and rotting wood.  Our spine isn’t much different if it lacks a structured and adherent exercise routine.  Below are a few exercises that reinforce the connective tissue holding the bones of our spine in place:

  1. Standing posterior pelvic tilt: In a standing position, place your hands on the crests of your hips.  Actively “tuck” the crests of your hips toward your rib cage.  This motion should shorten the area between your ribs and the crests of your hips while simultaneously straightening the lumbar spine.  Muscular activation should be experienced in the abdominals, lower back, and glutes.  This exercise is important for activating the psoas muscles attached from the ventral portion of the spine to the hips, the abdominals connecting the lumbar vertebrae to the hips, and the glutes attaching the posterior aspect of the hips to the back of the femurs.  Performing two sets of ten repetitions supports muscle strengthening and neuromuscular adaptation to support the lumbopelvic hip complex.
  2. Straight arm plank: The plank is an isometric exercise.  The term isometric means that a muscle is put under tension for a prolonged period in which it remains in static contraction.  This form of contraction is a basic form of resistance training that avoids the risk of injury due to its limited demands of coordinated movements.  The isometric force allows for stress that will elicit an adaption to match the demands put on the group of muscles supporting the spine and hips.  In the case of the muscles surrounding the spine, this isometric exercise is akin to the stabilizing factors the spinal stabilization muscles demonstrate when we stand upright.  Therefore, performing an exercise that mimics standing will aid us in standing up right longer.  To perform the straight arm plank: find an inclined surface and lean forward with your arms extending and holding up your body.  To increase the challenge of this exercise, decrease the elevation of the surface you are supporting yourself on.  Performing this exercise for fifteen to thirty seconds, two to three times per week can significantly benefit your back strength.

Possessing a strong, functional, and injury-free back is something we are not simply born with.  To avoid lower back injury and decrease the time we are out if an injury were to occur, consistent exercises meant to strengthen our back must be done two to three times per week.

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.

Jul 13

Just Dont’ Hurt Your Back

“All you have to do is…”  If only life were as easy as living the description behind these words.  If this were the case, we’d all be living on Mars. However, I’m sure we’re all aware that life is full of twists and turns we can’t necessarily predict.  In the case of the physical well-being of our spinal health, there are many motions our back allows us to do: twist, turn, bend, pivot, and remain still for a prolonged period.  We can perform all of these motions thanks to the intricate structure of our spine, the nerves that branch out from our spinal cord to our extremities, and the muscles surrounding the spine.  However, once we sleep funny, endure a few five-plus hour plane rides, or turn our heads the wrong way when looking behind us, a section of our spine can tweak out and dramatically derail the physical activities of our everyday lives.

The spine consists of five sections of uniquely shaped bones called vertebrae. These vertebrae encase our spinal cord.  The vertebrae’s specific functions depending on what part of the body the spine is associated with.  The cervical vertebrae of the neck are seven bones stacked on top of each other.  The thoracic group of vertebrae consists of twelve bones that connect the spine to the ribcage.  The thick, sturdy lumbar vertebrae are a group of five bones that are the strongest and thickest of the spinal bones residing between the ribs and hips.  The sacrum is made of five fused vertebrae connecting the spine to the hips.  Finally, the coccyx, or tail bone, has three to five coccygeal vertebrae.

It’s safe to say that most of the population has suffered from a form back pain.  We can’t “just” avoid a few motions throughout our day to ensure our back stays in good condition.  If one section of the back is tweaked, many maladies can ensue.  Ensuring the back is capable of enduring the stresses of our day takes planning, effort, and understanding of the muscles necessary to ensure optimal spinal health.

A combination of stretching, resistance training, and mobility exercises is critical to a healthy back free of injury.  In part two, we’ll cover a few movements that can be done two to three times per week.  Adhering to consistent exercise can significantly help strengthen our back, avoid injuries, and decrease the longevity of an injury if it were to occur.  Remember that weekly consistency of adhering to exercises is the key to a happy and strong 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.

Jul 06

The gym isn’t fun

The other day when I was out and about running some errands, I had the privilege to run into an old friend.  We had connected earlier in the week at the pickleball courts in Yountville.  He mentioned how fun the sport was and how his body wasn’t as stressed after a tennis session.  He added that the few hours he went to play pickleball gave him a great workout.  “I don’t like to work out that much anymore at the gym or a group fitness class because it’s just not fun anymore.  I get bored.”  He added, “But pickleball is something I can go out and play with my wife, my friends, and meet new people while still getting a great workout.  My calorie ring on my fitness watch tracked that I burnt nine-hundred active calories.”

Conversations we have with our personal training clients are similar. For example, an important question we ask clients who are just starting their personal training experience is, “What holds you back from achieving your fitness goals?”  Along with lack of time, not being sure where to begin, and fear of getting hurt, “The gym isn’t a fun place,” is a standard answer.

For some people, entering the same room day in and out is boring.  Visiting the leg press machine that’s still warm from the body heat of the person previously using it can be off-putting.  Waiting your turn for the lat pulldown machine as another gym-goer shuffles throughout their phone sitting on the equipment when you want to get in and out efficiently can be maddening.  Lastly, if there are no parking spaces at the gym, a knee-jerk reaction for a person who already lacks the motivation to get into the gym after a long day of work is to pull a one-eighty, drive home, and avoid the gym altogether. As a result, the gym can lose its appeal.  If it’s a person’s primary source of exercise, these variables can be hard-pressed to keep a person’s interest.

Circling back to my conversation about pickleball with my friend, he mentioned how fun and what an excellent workout his pickleball experiences gave him.  If something is fun, the desire to return to this activity increases.  This demonstrates a potent tactic to stay fit while finding something you enjoy.  For my friend, this new recreational physical activity keeps him outside and running around.

Keeping a fun physical activity is an effective method to stay fit.  However, let’s not forget, recreational physical activities like pickleball require light running, changing directions, and swinging a racket.  These are significant movements that apply stress to the body.  Whether it be a recreational sport, gardening, or playing catch with your kids, the body needs optimal condition to reinforce the longevity of these activities. It’s essential to support such a physical activity with strength training and injury prevention exercises to participate in an activity we genuinely enjoy sustainably. Therefore, a good ratio to hold yourself to is to perform at least one hour of strength training and injury prevention exercise every three hours you participate in your recreational physical activity.

Let’s not forget that recreational physical activity can be a primary form of maintaining our fitness levels.  However, remember that routine exercise has its place in ensuring the body stays strong, balanced, coordinated, and free of injuries.

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.

Jun 30

Digital Detox

The term detox can be defined as: a process or period in which one abstains or rids the body of unhealthy or toxic substances.  The one-hundred and thirty-eight gram, three by six-inch device the majority of the population wields in their hand every day have unquestionably revolutionized humanity.  Anyone can absorb knowledge from their phones by performing a quick Google search.  Going to the bank, shopping, or trips to the hardware store have been replaced by the revolution of apps available on our phones.

Thanks to our phones, our lives have become so efficient that we don’t have to worry about specific tasks.  However, while our ability to cross boundaries, thanks to our digital money makers improving lives, we also enter into a dependent relationship where we are bound to these small electronic tablets.  Even as I compose this article, I have my phone three inches away from my keyboard.

Cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and alcohol have been identified as potentially unhealthy crutches chronic users can’t live without.  Overusing these items leads to unhealthy afflictions such as cancer, increased stress, and suboptimal lifestyle habits.  There is always a case of a beer or wine within arm’s reach from the kitchen table for some of us.  Cigarette boxes and chewing tobacco cans fit effortlessly into our pockets, making the action of acquiring these accessory items as easy as retrieving our cell phones.  At times, people depend on these items.  Without them, emotions, thoughts, and energy expenditure unravel.  Life can become imbalanced without these items that reside within arm’s reach.  Would we feel the same if we didn’t have our phones by us?  I’d bet we would enter a state of distress if our phones were left in a location over a hundred miles away.

The dependence on external stimuli from our phones can induce tunnel vision.  When there is something humans find effortless and offers a substantial amount of behavior and emotionally stimulating sensation, it’s pretty hard to let go of that treasure.  When we can’t live without certain things, we can forget about other important things occurring in our lives.

We live in a world of saltwater oceans, cloud-streaked blue skies, and rolling hills formed by millenniums of earth’s natural evolution.  These attributes of our world gift us happiness, freedom, and unforgettable experiences.  Sometimes, it’s hard to make it through the day without checking our phone’s texts, emails, and social media’s current events.  Our phones offer entertainment platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and many others that show us pictures and video clips including people performing entertaining acts, animals doing funny tricks, and visions of sought after vacation destinations.  Instead of consistently using our tiny phone screens to look at these experiences, why not put the phone down and take these experiences in for ourselves to get the full effect.  Go outside, take a trip to the coast, and take walks at dusk and dawn to decrease our digital addictions.

Here are a few steps to detox from our digital addictions and focus more on the experiences we can take in to gift ourselves with easy to obtain experiences in our everyday lives:

  1. Put the phone on silent when eating: Whenever you’re at the table eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a simple snack, put your cell phone on silent.  Not vibrate.  Not “low ring.”  Not “one beep.”  Put it on silent.  You can even put it in another room.  These moments that allow for periodic experiences where we are only left to the extents of our thoughts can produce ideas that get blocked out by our myopic focus on the small screens of our phones.  Eating brings about tastes, feelings of relief from momentary hunger, and thoughts and memories from previous eating experiences of the past.  Don’t let our electronic devices take these feelings away.
  2. Use post-its: Do you have a computer?  Do you know how to use a keyboard to answer emails?  If so, perhaps you can limit yourself to answering email only from your computer interface.  I can name more people than the number of fingers and toes attached to my body that use their cell phones to type a long, drawn-out email. Nine times out of ten, feelings, emotion, and intellectual sophistication become omitted from an email composed on a cell phone. Why?  Because the screen size is ten times less than a computer monitor, our thumbs must be used on a touch screen with text size mirroring the surface area of an ants body.  No wonder we can’t think clearly in cell phone-produced emails; we can’t see.  Instead of spending more energy typing emails on our phones, make a quick note on a Post-it pad to reply to the party you wish to email and put it on your keyboard. The next time you sit in front of your keyboard, you can put your full efforts into addressing the individual you are reaching out to.  Plus, you won’t be looking at a tiny screen on a device initially meant to call people.
  3. Avoid answering work-related texts after dinner: Sitting down with our family, friends, or even by ourselves usually takes place at the end of the day.  This time of day typically involves a low energy level.  So why not let go of the stresses of all the hard work we endure throughout a full day of work?  The text messages about the various tasks that need to be completed can wait until the following day.  Take this time after dinner to unwind and decompress.

Our phones and tablets offer us a revolutionary form of progressing as a human race.  However, it’s all too often that we forget we used to use a telephone that was connected to our wall in our homes.  Let’s not forget the purpose of these electronic devices.  They give us the privilege to acquire whatever content we want and an advanced form of communication.  At the same time, we can fall into an unhealthy rut of spending too much time on our phones.  Take some time for yourself by stepping away from your cell phone to experience the gifts the world offers us that we have right in front of 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.

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