Nov 16

Improving Balance with Exercise Progressions

There are many everyday life scenarios in which we find ourselves being pushed off our center of gravity.  Whether it’s a slight stutter step to the outside or tripping over an object on the ground, regaining our balance and center of gravity is frequent interaction with our environment.  Activities as simple as getting out of bed, stepping up and down stairs, or putting on shoes present situations that can cause us to stumble.  In the worst-case scenario, a seemingly basic daily activity hindering balance can cause a fall.

It takes one simple presentation of imbalance, resulting in our bodies traveling in a compromising direction.  These random instances that disrupt our balance can bring something as minor as a brief stumble.  In extreme cases, a fall can result in a significant injury and a drastic change to our everyday functionality.

Loss of balance leads to immediate, impulsive reactions to aid our bodies from sustaining an injury.  An example is reaching our hands out to brace ourselves when the body is unexpectedly propelled forward following a stumble or trip.  This response is meant to grab onto objects to break our fall or have our hands take the brunt of the force the body endures if it plummets to the ground, acting as a shock absorber.  Another immediate reaction the body performs is taking a few steps forward until our center of gravity is regained after we stumble on objects, such as a rock or crack in the ground.  The reaction of stumbling forward influences the body to regain upright posture by telling the lower extremities to move rapidly under the torso.  If the torso falls faster than the lower extremities, the body can be sent diving to the ground quicker than a redwood being felled in Mendocino county.

The threat of losing balance and falling is no joke.  The risk of falling can show itself after recovering from an injury to our lower extremities, adopting a sedentary lifestyle, or advancing age.  Examples of recovering from injury could include healing from a twisted ankle to the more extreme cases of recovering from hip replacement surgery.  For those of us having a career requiring multiple hours on the computer, commuting in a car or airplane, or taking phone calls all day at a desk, it should be no surprise that activity levels will decrease.  In this case, with lower activity levels, fitness and human performance can decrease by experiencing adaptations of increased fat mass, reduced strength, and deconditioning of athletic potential.

Additionally, the advancement of age presents the accumulation of multiple factors, causing moments where the body can be disoriented and lose balance. Therefore, it’s important to identify these risk factors leading to potential loss of balance and fall risks.  Fortunately, we don’t need to let the loss of balance become a life-altering issue.  Educating ourselves on exercises to fortify our balance and coordination is a solution that takes an investment of time to exercise.  However, the results help us mitigate the factors leading to loss of balance and the risk of falling.

We perform a basic progression to improve balance with our personal training clients.   The single-leg balance exercise is a simple and potently effective technique that rapidly enhances balance.  Below are a few progressions on introducing this exercise and continuing them after building competency and mastering each progress point.

  1. Hand supported on stable object isometric leg lift (beginning level exercise): Find a sturdy object to place your hand on while standing upright.  Such as the corner of a wall, a rail, or a post.  Lift one leg to where the knee is around hip level.  Hold this position for fifteen to thirty seconds.  Repeat this movement for three sets on each leg.  Once you feel this exercise can be performed without using a stabilizing object to hold on to, move to the next progression.
  2.  Standing leg staggered in front foot lift-offs (progression 1):  Position yourself in an upright stance and bring one foot out in front of the body to where the leading foot’s heel is about even with the middle of the stationary foot.  Ensure to position yourself next to a supporting object in case of losing balance.  This way, you can regain a safe standing position. Next, lift the leading foot slightly off the ground and place it back down in a safe and stable position.  Perform three sets of five to ten repetitions on each leg.  Once mastery and competency of lifting the foot and setting it down have been mastered, progress to the next exercise.
  3. Hands-free isometric leg lift (progression 2):  While standing upright, find a sturdy object that your hand can grab onto for safety.  Such as the corner of a wall, a rail, or post.  Without using the stabilizing object, lift one leg to where the knee is around hip level.  Ensure to spot yourself next to the supporting object in case there is a loss of balance to regain a safe standing position.  Hold this position for five to fifteen seconds.  Repeat this movement for three sets on each leg.

The threat of losing balance can be reduced if we train our bodies to endure the risk factors thrown our way.  It’s equally important to choose exercises that increase our balance and practice them consistently.  After we notice we are progressing in a specific exercise, we can advance to the next exercise to improve our balance more.  These progressions take compliance, consistency, and focus.

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

 

Nov 03

Treats and Healthy Habits

“If I’m going out, I’m going out riding a dragon.”  This is one of my favorite quotes regarding dedicating a day of treating myself to my favorite “guilty pleasure”: decadent food.  After a week’s worth of clean eating, practicing healthy lifestyle habits, playing competitive pickleball three times per week, and participating in meticulously designed exercise routines, I feel some delectable meals from Napa’s finest pastry shops offer me the reward of sending my love of eating through a phantasmagoria of treat food heaven.

Perhaps I could venture down the street to Model Bakery to order one of their world-renowned English muffins toasted to perfection and layered with fruit compote.  Or, maybe I should head to Sweetie Pies to enjoy a cinnamon roll and a masterfully designed scone while overlooking the Napa River. Finally, Winston’s is my favorite indulgence of all that is pure and sacred in the breakfast food world.  I always have Winson’s stowed away in my back pocket when I know I need to escape to the land of tantalizingly delicious donuts.  Oh, Winson’s, how I love your donuts.  I could die a happy man while taking a bath in your vanilla glazed donuts, maple twists, and sour cream citrus rolls.

Napa is a culinary mecca supplying our community housing the finest food on the planet.  However, it should come as no surprise that my favorite breakfast joints aren’t always the most beneficial to the health of the human body.  If we abuse these food choices, the body can endure suboptimal side effects, potentially compromising our long-term health.

The masterfully designed recipes of white flour, sugars, and fats comprising my favorite breakfast treat foods present a cornucopia of reactions within the body that can pose harmful metabolic effects when consumed without any sense of caution.  Gluten, high concentrations of fat, and insulin-producing sugars can slow down digestion, accumulate unhealthy amounts of lipids in blood vessels, subcutaneous fat, and even pose the threat of developing diabetes.

Similar to a person going back and forth to Hawaii on vacation every other week, the luster of the palm trees, breathtaking sunsets, and crashing waves on sapphire waters could become mundane if the trip is taken too many times.  Furthermore, indulging oneself in treat foods, such as the donut bender described earlier in this article, can make the concept of treat food not feel like a treat at all.  Instead, these delectable treat foods can become another cog in a vicious cycle to “fill a hole” of hunger.  Once a sacred experience of enjoying this fantastic food is indulged too regularly, it doesn’t become special anymore.  Furthermore, if treat foods are consumed too often, our appreciation for healthy food choices might become obsolete because we only identify treat foods as our primary food source.

Understanding the word “treat” is an important concept we teach our personal training clients during their nutritional consultations.  We all have foods we look forward to and fantasize about eating.  For me, it’s Winston’s donuts.  Identifying these foods as “treats” helps us distinguish between everyday, healthy food and what foods should be consumed sparingly.  Additionally, suppose we live by the principles of making healthy decisions three times more often than “treat” decisions in our dietary habits. In that case, it’s more obtainable to make healthy food choices.

For example, if Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are days focused on consuming bread-free meals and inputting a vegetable to every meal and Thursday is a date night in which we allow ourselves a few drinks at the bar and a decadent meal, we would be making three times the number of healthy choices to one treat choice.  Another method that proves helpful in managing treat-to-healthy food ratios is to allow oneself only three nights per week of consuming alcohol.  By laying a path for making healthy decisions, we can redefine how our body processes the substance we put into it. For example, if we put three day’s worth of Winston’s donuts, eighteen beers, and ten lattes in our bodies every week, our bodies will reflect those choices.  I’m sure you can use your imagination to envision the detrimental side effects that beer, donuts, and sugary Starbucks beverages yield to our digestive tract, metabolism, and appearance.  However, suppose we have three days of eating lean proteins, two-to-three servings of vegetables, and maintaining adequate hydration throughout the day. In that case, our bodies will reflect those healthier habits by experiencing increased energy, the ability to stave off illness, and feeling spry and ready to seize the day.

By identifying what a treat is versus what are optimal food choices, we can redefine the way our body processes food.  Sure, we can enjoy Napa’s fantastic food and wine.  However, let’s not remove the critically important term “enjoy” from this equation of making healthy dietary decisions.  To truly enjoy a treat, putting forth diligence and effort into managing optimal food choices must be done first. So, reward yourself with your favorite mind-blowing treat food after making a series of healthy choices so we can truly take in the gift treat foods offer while maintaining a productive path in our health and fitness journey.

 

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.

 

Oct 27

Out of Breath From a Flight of Stairs

I had the opportunity to visit our nation’s capital this week, Washington, DC.  My first time in this part of the country offered picturesque views of the trees changing colors, of leaves from umber orange to crimson red.  Businesspeople clad in warm coats, scarves, and beanies steadily kept a rigorous walking pace up and down the boisterous streets as horns honked at people jaywalking.  Museums, monuments, and memorials presented their historical significance and breathtaking detail as we toured the national mall.  This experience truly made me appreciate the history of America and the efforts it took our predecessors to bring us here to enjoy our present-day society.  Along with all the history, amazing sites, and jaw-dropping food, there was one more addition to this busy city that was far different from my hometown of Napa, California.  Washington, DC, has a lot of stairs.

These stairs presented themselves in various sizes, materials, and distances.  The height of the stairs could be anywhere from three to twelve inches.  Stairways to the footsteps of the capital could be thirty yards of only moderate elevation with a slight angle.  However, when visiting the Rotunda, the height of the steps dwarfed some of the other stairs.  Even though there may have only been thirty steps, the incline was akin to hiking a steep mountainside.  My mode of physical activity went from a leisurely walk up the outside of the capital to feeling like an Ibex on the side of a mountain in the European Alps.  I could see my fellow tourists running out of breath as they ascended the various flights of stairs.  This tour was not only an educational and enlightening experience, but it was also a test of physical strength and endurance.

My experience of seeing the physical demands of a larger city possessing a high concentration of working people on a mission made me appreciate an exercise we conduct with our personal training clients: the “step up” exercise.  This exercise is performed where the participant steps onto an inclined surface, anywhere from six to twenty inches, and steps back down.  One foot is placed on the inclined step, and the participant drives their heel into the step as one-foot trails to the top, followed by the same foot stepping down and the opposite foot descending to meet the leading foot.  We repeat the same sequence with the opposite foot for a set of five to ten repetitions on both legs.  This exercise helps strengthen the muscles surrounding the hip, knee, and ankle joints.

The muscles stressed in the step-up exercise adapt to have the potential to produce more force and muscular density.  Additionally, balance, foot dexterity, and coordination are improved. Lower-body muscular endurance for stepping movements increases as well.  These physiological adaptations aid in the prevention of injury, decrease nagging knee pain, and contribute to decreasing the risk of falling.  As a country bumpkin from Napa, California, who doesn’t have this elaborate layout of steps in my hometown setting, I found it fascinating how individuals in the Washington, DC, environment perform this exercise day in and day out.  Therefore, they must obtain these muscular adaptations by living their everyday lives in this busy city filled with steps.

Stairs aren’t going anywhere.  In fact, as more buildings are constructed, they get taller and usually have more floors.  This means there are going to be stairs in our future.  When we see a set of stairs next to an escalator or an elevator that only goes up one floor, perhaps taking the stairs would be a better option to benefit our physical wellbeing.  Part of living a happy, healthy, and strong life involves adherence to training our body through the productive stress of physical activity.  We can achieve significant adaptions that improve our quality of life by taking a flight of stairs.  If we get out of breath or fatigued after going up and down the stairs, perhaps we need to take the stairs more.

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.

 

Oct 21

Being Healthy Pays Off

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 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.

Oct 08

Fit for Travel

Our world offers majestic mountain ranges, azure and sapphire oceans, and unique cultures, offering us awe-inspiring food and human interactions.  We have a seemingly unlimited number of options for those of us possessing a strong desire to explore the world.  How people interact with each other, eat, and function in every life is unique to the different regions of the world.  For those who love travelling, diving into such experiences gives us a feeling of fulfillment like no other.

Taking a trip halfway across the world evokes an overwhelming sense of excitement.  The thought of taking a brief hiatus from our everyday lives of working and putting other stresses on hold is enticing.  However, travelling logistics can prevent us from thoroughly enjoying an adventure we’ve been anxiously awaiting to embark on.  We have to go to an airport, endure airport security screenings, wait in a terminal for an hour or two, jam ourselves in an airplane in close quarters with other humans, and remain in static positions for hours.

After we land, we must reorient our body to its natural shapes and hit the ground running.  A potential long wait through the rental car line and another commute to a hotel might ensue.  If you’re lucky, checking in at the hotel might be fast but, then again, it may not.  However, let’s not forget about our fifty to eighty pounds of luggage we have to haul in and out of rental cars, to an elevator, and ultimately throw onto our bed to unpack and organize.  The mountains, oceans, and food of far way lands are waiting for us.  However, some physically and psychologically demanding tasks are required to arrive at our prized traveling experience.

Adhering to a fitness routine to maintain a healthy and mobile body is essential to these adventures.  The ability to move fluidly, contort the body to fit unfamiliar situations, and being able to stand for long periods are critical parts of enjoying these adventures.  Similar to how professional athletes approach their season in elite athletic and physical condition to manage the stresses of a four-to six-month season or a ten-to-twenty-day trip to an unfamiliar land would benefit from a similar mode of preparation.

It’s a good idea to prepare a few months in advance to condition the body to manage the stresses of travel with a foundational level of fitness.  We know a twelve-hour flight across the ocean will impose stress on the body.  To prepare for this physical stress, regular stretching and mobility can mitigate the stiffening of the body.  Yoga, Pilates, and stretching classes are helpful tools to aid in preparing to put the body in the restrictive position of a plane seat. Recreational activities such as walking cobblestone streets, hiking rugged treks, or swimming are common activities while traveling.  A resistance training protocol to exercise the upper body, core, and lower extremities two to three times per week can assist in the body’s overall strength, endurance, and structural integrity while participating in these fun activities.  To fully enjoy these experiences, setting a foundation of optimal health and fitness is critically important.

Before we go on these monumental adventures, it’s a good idea to prepare the body a few months in advance to condition the body to manage the stresses of travel.  We don’t want nagging pain or determinants of our physical abilities to slow down the trip of a lifetime.

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.

Sep 28

Isometric Exercise: Progressive Regressions

A few themes in life slow our progress throughout our fitness journey.  Common obstacles compromising our adherence to physical activity are lack of time and distractions to our focus.  Long weeks of traveling for work, making sure “little Johnny” gets to his soccer practice, or finishing a landscaping project at home require significant time and energy.  Chronic pain symptoms from previous injuries or recovering from an illness can engulf our mental capacity.  These events are mentally draining.  Lack of time and mental fatigue can impede gym visits or attending a weekly fitness class.

Research supports regular exercise aids in alleviating chronic pain and positively impacting our quality of life.  However, when we simply don’t feel up to it, the very thought of exercises is similar to working an overtime graveyard shift after a full day’s work.  Long days at work elicit physical, psychological, and emotional fatigue.  Additionally, living with afflictions caused by chronic pain or illness makes exercising challenging.

An exercise tactic that serves as a productive buffer from letting these obstacles steer us away from exercises is to choose exercises with less intensity.  Isometric exercise is a simple and effective form of training involving holding one body position under tension for a period of time.  A widely understood exercise is the straight arm plank exercise.  This exercise is the act of holding the starting position of push up.  The body is placed into a shape where the muscles must maintain that shape under the resistance of gravity and remain that shape for a prolonged period.  The triceps, pectorals, core, hip, and knee muscles are held in a static position. By performing isometric exercise modes, we can still improve our body’s overall strength.  Muscle, nerve, hormone, and emotional adaptions are still acquired after performing isometric exercises.  Isometric exercises are less sophisticated and more manageable to perform because they lack mechanical stress on the muscles to contract for various repetitions and require less oxygenated blood delivered from the heart to the working muscles.  Hence, it will be less physically demanding.

Below are a few examples of isometric exercises:

Isometric wall squat and sit:  Lean up against a wall and slide your back down the wall until muscular engagement is experienced in the glutes, quadriceps, and hamstrings.  Once a manageable tension is acquired, hold this position for ten to thirty seconds.  To make this exercise more challenging, decrease the angle of your hips to your knees by sliding your back down the wall further toward the ground.  For safety, ensure you are on a surface with friction or wear shoes.  No one wants their feet to shoot out from underneath them and fall on their butts because they did a wall sit wearing socks.

Isometric wall press:  Lean up against a wall and squat slightly to where the knees are bent at about a ten-to-thirty-degree angle. Ensuring the lower back is flat against the wall, press the back of your hands into the wall as if you are trying to “push the wall away from you.”  You should experience muscular engagement in your shoulder blades, triceps, and the back of your shoulder rotator cuff.  Hold this position for ten to thirty seconds.

Straight arm plank:  This “don’t leave home without it” exercise acts as a Swiss army knife that has proven to be a potently productive exercise to any human’s exercise routine.  Why?  Because any human on the Earth only needs two tools to reap the benefits of this exercise:  1) Their body 2) The ground.  To perform the straight arm plank, post your arms straight into the ground underneath your eyebrows and plant the balls of your feet into the ground.  Ensure to straighten the knees and keep the spine rigid.  You don’t want your back to resemble the bridge Harrison Ford crossed in The Temple of Doom as he was chased by an army of heart-eating villains.  While posting in this position, focus on using the abdominal muscles to maintain a rigid spine and the triceps to keep the arms extended.  You should feel muscular engagement in the shoulders, triceps, abdominals, and glutes.  Hold this position for ten to thirty seconds.

The demands of life impose a significant amount of stress in which our intuition sometimes tells us exercise is probably not the best thing for us.  While pushing our bodies past our capabilities isn’t the best-case scenario, we can find forms of exercise of lower intensity to give us the health benefits we need to continue being productive and happy.

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.

Sep 24

I Only Worked Out Once This Week

As Simone entered the gym, she looked at me for an instant and immediately darted her eyes away from my line of sight.  “I know, I know.  You’re going to ask me if I did my fitness homework routine last week.” Then, following an exaggerated, drawn-out sigh, she exclaimed, “I only did one workout last week.”  I felt like a dad waiting at the door for his teenage daughter to come home late from prom past curfew.

After a brief awkward staredown between the two of us, we waited for the moment in which one of us would break the deafening silence.  “Did you have a rack of ribs and a pint of ice cream?  I bet you ‘tapped the Rockies’ and chased that down with a six-pack of Coors Light too.”  I jokingly asked.  Knowing each other’s sense of humor, we smiled and burst into raucous laughter.

I knew Simone didn’t make suboptimal food choices often.  In fact, as one of our personal training clients for over two years, she has made monumental strides in her fitness journey.  Two years of personal training, embracing a lean protein and veggie concentrated diet, and limiting herself to one night a week of drinking wine have refined her body to become a strong and healthy vessel.  She has built a foundation of converting fat mass into lean muscle mass, increased her overall physical strength, and forged a crucible of healthy habits in the time we coached her. Unfortunately, she was being a little hard on herself.  After some side-aching laughter, Simone remarked, “On top of that rack of ribs, I got a hankering for some Denny’s and made a late night run to ‘woof’ down some pancakes at 2 AM!”  Simone had to travel multiple times for work obligations the previous week.  This made paving out time for exercise sessions challenging.  We were able to turn her feelings of guilt into a comedy show because Simone knew she had one unusual week in which she deviated from her path to achieving her goal amount of exercise sessions last week.

Following Simone’s testimony of missing a few workouts the previous week, we discussed key points of how this missed week of fitness acted as a critical success factor for her health and fitness goals.  First, she experienced a productively healthy withdrawal symptom from missing her workout.  She didn’t throw her hands up in the air and admit defeat.  Instead, she had an emotion she didn’t want to endure again.  This feeling of missing her workout was akin to the feeling of being late for a flight.  She was genuinely fond of her workouts and felt an emptiness in her life when her exercise time wasn’t there. Simone was more likely to get two or more workouts this upcoming week because she didn’t want to feel this abnormal feeling of missing her exercise sessions.

Two years of consistently training twice per week with a personal fitness coach meant she completed around ninety-six workouts per year.  She also tracked how many nights she achieved clean eating habits and how much alcohol she consumed. The tradition of adhering to a minimum of exercising twice per week became her new normal.  These healthy habits rewarded her with a barometer of emotional feedback letting her body know adhering to fitness benefited her.  It didn’t feel right if she missed a workout throughout her week.  However, this is a good thing.  These additions of making exercise sessions part of the week are significant changes that install healthy adaptations to our psychological and physiological well-being.

It’s important to avoid being too hard on yourself for missing a workout or having one suboptimal day of dietary decision-making.  We are all human.  The wonderful thing about being human is that we wake up the next day with a fresh start.  Start exercising an average of one day per week.  Then, venture into making a promise that exercising twice weekly is the new normal.  Once that habit is installed, it will feel more like a gift and less like a chore each 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.

Sep 14

Mindful Posture Decreases Shoulder Injuries

Not too long ago, we had to pick up corded phones and dial phone numbers that we either memorized or obtained via our contact book. We physically wrote names and phone numbers down using a pen and paper.  The necessity to carve out time in our day to venture to the grocery store at a planned time to acquire groceries, hardware, or electronics was far more prevalent.  Believe it or not, our computers and business phones mainly resided in offices away from our homes.  This was an era in which people physically moved more.  Technology wasn’t as present to offer the convenience we see in our modern age.

Fast forward to the present day, in the year 2022.  Humanity is fortunate to live in a world with computers and cell phones.  We can order our food online, chat with our friends in mere moments (utilizing text messages) or put in a full forty-hour work week from our home office.

An issue resides in this splendor of convenience we have made for ourselves throughout technology innovations:  we move less and confine our bodies to one space for long periods.  One can devote hours looking at a cell phone, answering emails, or entertaining themselves with social or streaming video platforms.  The shoulders are an area of the body impacted by small movements when using cell phones, tablets, and computers.  Small movements such as elevating the arms on a desk and manipulating a mouse in a two-by-two-inch area put more demand on the shoulder than it appears.  Peering down at a cell phone to swipe and tap has similar afflictions to our neck, upper back, and shoulders.  The extension of the arm, tiny movements, and lack of physical activity strain the shoulder joints.  Imagine putting your car in drive and reverse five times in a minute for an hour.  The car gears would become stressed over time with seemingly small movements.

Shoulder issues can occur when muscles are inactive in one position over prolonged periods.  These static muscle positions can cause atrophy and decreased blood supply to muscles and connective tissue surrounding joints. In addition, small micro-movements paired with restricted body positioning, such as hunkering over a keyboard or looking at our cell phones, can threaten our shoulder’s integrity if exercise is neglected.  Hunching forward while the head is pointed down and the chest is collapsing inward is a classic example of severe shoulder protraction.  This action shortens chest muscles, induces shoulder rotator cuff impingement, and causes excessive rounding of the cervical and thoracic spines.

A solution our personal training clients see tremendous results from is by performing a simple and effective set of ten repetitions of shoulder blade protraction and retraction exercises.  Protraction and retraction refer to the forward and backward gliding of the shoulder blades along the rib cage.

To perform a set of shoulder protraction and retraction, start by standing straight up with good posture, ensuring your forehead is pointed forward, your shoulder is stacked over your ribs, and your hips are under your ribs. Next, elevate your arms below armpit height with your fingertips pointed forward, and the elbow bent at a ninety-degree angle.  Maintaining this arm position, glide your shoulder blades backward against the ribcage until a brief muscular sensation is experienced in the upper back muscles.  Reverse this movement by gliding the shoulder blades forward until muscular engagement can be felt in the chest and muscles around the armpits.  Repeat these movements for ten repetitions from one to five times per week.

Focusing on the stabilizing muscles of the shoulder assists in preventing strain on significant neck, upper back, and shoulder muscles.  In an era where physical activity can easily be watered down by innovations of technology, we can avoid underuse injuries by practicing efficient and effective forms of exercise regularly.

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.

Sep 09

Just One More Healthy Deed

It’s normal to strive for a little bit more of something.  After a long day at the office, a top by the local fast-food joint or order from Door Dash seems like the simple solution.  Sitting on the couch and turning on the ball game while scrolling through text messages and social media sounds enticing.  Little do we know that a burger from Jack in the Box will give us heartburn and make us feel like we swallowed a brick.  Those “quick” texts and glances through Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok can turn into sixty minutes of staring at our phones like a zombie from Michael Jackson’s music video, Thriller.  What if we could fit a healthy habit before we commit to these simple solutions after a long day’s work?  If might seem like pouring a bucket of water into an ocean.  However, finding a way to squeak in an extra healthy habit significantly impacts our everyday health and happiness.

Making your bed after you wake up is one of the easiest ways to prepare for a good night’s sleep.  Regardless of the outcome of your day, you still have a warm bed welcoming your weary body for some much-needed rest.  This could take an extra five to ten minutes in your morning to fortify your day’s positive outcome. In addition, looking into other simple habits can snowball into performing more healthy habits. For example, could making your bed one extra time per week help you lose weight, decrease pain, reduce the risk of falling, or create more happiness in your life?

This same concept of performing just a bit more work contributes to our lifetime fitness journey.  Examples might include anything from a college athlete in the weight room putting on five more pounds to their one repetition max lift or a couple taking leisurely walks taking ten more steps before they turn around to go home.  These examples demonstrate how a little more effort moves us past our comfort zone.  The additional weight lifted by the college athlete may lead to lifting five more pounds on their next attempt or even ten pounds on their third attempt.  The couple taking nightly strolls who took those extra ten steps support their ability to improve their walking performance and eventually walk an additional block or even another half mile to their routine walks.  Devising methods to add a few more simple tactics can create a potent chain reaction to another healthy habit.

The extra steps we take on our walks, the one more set of squats, or the extra sheet that we flatten and place a pillow neatly on top puts us closer than we imagine to have the power to pave a stronger and healthier path in our 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 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.

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