Nov 08

Becoming a Recreational Athlete

Physical activity has been a facet of survival and progression throughout our existence as the human race.  Building houses and farming are examples of staples in our physical activities we have conducted through the millennia which propelled society to function efficiently as it does today.  The physically stressing demands of constructing structures and performing the labors of farming require extensive energy and time.  One could imagine our predecessors from hundreds of years ago were physically fit simply by performing similar manual labor tasks in their everyday lives.  Keep in mind, these grueling forms of physical labor were conducted before technology evolved to help make everyday tasks more efficient and less troublesome.  Drills, power tools, tractors, and skilled labor weren’t always available.  Therefore, our great, great, great, grandparents had to use their own hands and mental, emotional, and psychological gumption to complete everyday tasks that we can easily achieve in today’s day and age by flipping a switch or pushing a button.

In our current era, many tasks are done for us.  Construction companies build houses.  Farming companies gather food throughout the agricultural industry and deliver these resources to stores.  We use automobiles to get to and from our jobs.  We simply exchange money for resources at centers that have a system readily available to acquire what we need.  Thankfully, we don’t need a horse and carriage to go a few miles down the way to get a week’s worth of supplies to survive.  However, society is at a threat of taking these privileges for granted.  Our professions are less strenuous than what our predecessors endured.  A high number of jobs that create an income for us require sitting down and doing desk work, speaking on the phone, or communicating via car, ferry, or plane.  We are far more sedentary than Uncle Leroy was back in the 1600’s.   The physical stress from such rigorous daily work afflicted upon previous generations a few centuries ago could very well imposed fitter bodies.   Physical stress of plowing fields, building houses, with only nails and hammers could have promoted muscles, bones, and the neurological system development.   In order to successfully function and thrive in an era where physical activity among the human race was more of a necessity in their everyday lives.

In our current era, putting hours in throughout the week at a local gym, Yoga class, or on the Peloton is an important facet for society’s well-being.  Strong muscles, cardiovascular endurance, and flexibility are just a few components of the benefits of regular exercise.  However, if we don’t have a physically active profession, we spend forty plus hours per week at, our body can’t maintain its fitness levels like our ancestors did.   A lifestyle lacking physical labor shunts our body’s ability to adapt to physically stressful activities like building and farming involves.  Granted, society has evolved where we don’t need to build our own house, sow our own fields, or steer our own horse and buggy.  However, a gap of decreased activity has appeared that desperately needs to be addressed to reinforce the health and wellness of society.  A simple solution to address this issue is to find fun and invigorating forms of recreational physical activity.

Recreational sports such as golf, bocce ball, or pickleball are simple, fun, and enthralling activities that promote coordination, skillfulness, and mastery of a technique, and promote cardiovascular improvements for the body.  Hobbies around the house such as refinishing furniture, gardening or throwing a ball for our dogs are just a few examples of recreational physical activities that involves lifting, squatting down, getting up off the ground, and maintaining an athletic skill.  By adhering to recreational physical activities on top of our forty-hour work weeks, we can promote physical adaptations to our body similar to how our ancestors did in their everyday lives performing manual labor.

Time at the local gym and fitness classes keep us fit, active, and give us something to look forward to.  However, let’s not forget the fitness component participating in a recreational physical activity can do for our body throughout our weeks.  We don’t expect to be performing such physical activities like harvesting boysenberries like some of our grandparents did in the 1920’s during the dustbowl.  Remember to keep our bodies moving so we don’t miss out on the healthy adaptations our bodies receive from recreational physical activity.

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 02

Tight Hips=Tight Back

Our veteran client, Freddy, was beginning his weekly exercise routine.  He expressed his back was feeling tight.  He immediately knelt with his back facing an exercise bench.  Putting one foot on the bench and the other foot positioned in front of him as if he were genuflecting in a position meant to stretch his quadriceps and abdominal muscles, Freddy explained, “The chiropractor tells me if my lower back is tight, then my hip flexor muscles must be tight.”  Impressed by his knowledge of the anatomy of his hips and back, Freddy had successfully troubleshooted how to alleviate pain in his low back outside of my exercise instruction.  Focusing on the well-being of our hip flexor muscles is a great solution to alleviate common lower back symptoms in which our society struggles with on a daily basis.  Good job Freddy.  The chiropractor gets a gold star as well.

The hips connect to the spine in a fashion which allow the hips to tilt forward and backward.  This motion of rolling the crest of the hips forward and backward is called an anterior and posterior pelvic tilt.  Imagine the crest of the hips rolling toward the belly button and shortening the space between the crest of the hips and the ribs.  This is a posterior pelvic tilt because the pelvis is rolling toward the back of the body.  In contrast, visualize the tail bone lifting and the crest of the hips on the front of the body rolling forward, opening the up the abdomen and creating an arch in the lower back.  This motion makes the body look like the shape of Donald Duck’s body, where the buttocks protrudes backwards and a pronounced arch in the lower back appears.  This is called an anterior pelvic tilt because the crests of the hips are rolling to the front of the body.  These motions are noteworthy to focus on because the overuse and underuse of these movements cause imbalance to the structural integrity of the spine and hips.

During a hyper posteriorly tilted hip scenario, the vertebrae of the lumber spine are pulled forward as the crest of the hips roll toward the ribs in the front of the body.  As the crests of the hips roll toward the navel, the hip flexor muscles originating from the higher part of the femur, attaching to the ventral portion of the spine, shorten.  This causes the lower back to round and the torso to collapse forward, making the body look like the hunched over Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.  The intricate pathways of the nerves budding through the spine are at the threat of becoming impinged, causing neuropathy, pain, and lack of mobility.  Overuse from sitting hours in a desk, commuting in a car, or flying in a plane are common causes to this type of underuse injury.  This sedentary type of environment can simultaneously contribute to the underuse and deconditioning of the core, hip flexors, and paraspinal muscles.  The body’s malleable features have similarities to the properties of porcelain during its molding and curing process.  If we stay in in shape, where our hips are posteriorly tilted and our lower spine becomes rounded over a prolonged period of time, our bodies remain in that shape when we stand up.

To counteract this effect of tight hip flexors and abdominal muscles, the simplest solution we utilize is to prescribe exercises reversing the actions that have produced this situation.  First, the best way to cure tight hips is to simply stand up more often.  The hips aren’t bent at ninety degrees when standing.  Therefore, standing up lengthens the hip flexors and deep abdominal muscles.  This also tells the paraspinal muscles to activate during standing as opposed to their dormant state during sitting where the seat and back rest replace the function of paraspinal and the vertical abdominal muscles.

Strengthening the hip flexors, like our friend Freddy, is important.  However, mobility of the pelvis is an equal, if not more, effective solution to prevent future low back injuries.  People who have experienced lower back pain have probably made a visit to one of Napa’s great physical therapists.   If anyone has paid a visit to the physical therapy office, they have more than likely been instructed to perform anterior and posterior pelvic tilts to decrease lower back pain.

To perform pelvic tilts, start from a standing position.  Place your index fingers on both of the crest of your hips located in the front of your body.  Roll the crest of the hips forward in a slow and controlled motion until a brief sensation in the abdominal muscles is felt.  You may even feel a slight stretch in the lower back.  After that movement has been completed, roll the hips in the opposite direction, feeling a slight exertive sensation the paraspinal muscles.  Use caution as to avoid crunching the back to where this movement causes pain.  Keep in mind, these pelvic tilts are meant to mobilize the hips to avoid stiffness in the lower back and hips.  Perform five to ten repetitions daily at a ten percent perceived exertion of maximal intensity to help loosen up the hips and lower back.

Instructing patients how to perform a posterior and anterior pelvic tilt is like the first chapter in a Physical Therapy 101 course.  Therefore, it’s critically important to work to maintain the hips in a neutral position.  We love our physical therapists in our community.  Let’s continue to support them but not making too many visits to their offices for a lower back injury we might be able to avoid altogether with some adherence to exercise.

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

Oct 18

Upper Back and Shoulder Blade Strength

“Can you make a brace for me?”  One of our personal training clients, Frances, inquired jokingly.  “Just so my shoulder blades and back can stay in place without me doing any work.  Maybe just some brackets and a few deck screws to pin my shoulder blades in place so they don’t droop forward?”  Frances added.  This comment came after performing a set of the horizontal band pull apart exercise.  This exercise strengthens the muscles attaching to the scapula, thoracic spine, and posterior portion of the humerus.  By holding a resistance band in front of the body about clavicle height, retracting the shoulder blades, and maintaining extended elbows while performing ten to fifteen repetitions of pulling that band apart in a composed and controlled motion, a series of muscles attaching to the scapula and upper back are exercised.  To ensure we get the most of this exercise, we give the cue to “park the shoulder blades” against the rib cage to ensure the muscles of scapular stabilization are engaged throughout the movements.  On a serious note, I informed Frances, “You already have a brace.  It’s those muscles that connect your shoulder blades to your arms and upper back.”

To appreciate the importance of the upper back and scapula region, it’s noteworthy to realize how the musculoskeletal architectural of the region.  The scapula, or shoulder blade, has very few bone-to-bone attachment points.  In fact, it’s sometimes referred to as a “floating bone” due to the limited number of attachments to bones.  Instead of having strong insertions to joints of bones, the scapula has various muscles attached to it responsible for smooth and efficient movement of the shoulder rotator cuff joint and stabilization to the upper back and neck.  If there is a lack of strength in the muscles of scapular stabilization, nagging and debilitating injuries can occur.  Example of such injuries might be damage to the rotator cuff region, upper back and shoulder blade pain, or nerve pain associated with afflictions to suboptimal upper back and spine strength.  Ensuring to pay particular attention to the integrity of the muscles surrounding the scapula allows us to reach overhead without pain, stand and sit up straight, and avoid pain that can ruin our day.

Movements associated with muscles attached to the scapula include full rotation of the rotator cuff, the gliding forward and backward of the shoulders, and stability to the thoracic and cervical vertebrae.  We never know how much we use these movements until a simple strain to one the muscles attaching to the scapula occurs.  A tweak to the neck can make turning around to look for cars as you are backing out of the Wholefoods parking lot a daunting a task.  The last thing you would want is to throw out your arm and go through the parent shame of having to sit out while playing catch with your child before a baseball game.  It’s worthwhile to remember that injury prevention to this area is critically important to the functions of our everyday life.

Circling back to Frances’ comment about his inquiry of having a brace installed to his upper back for stability purposes, the muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, and various other connective tissue that we were born with are perfect pieces of hardware serving as structural support.   The upper body consists of the rib cage, skull, and thoracic and cervical vertebrae.  Each of these bones have attachment points offering structural support responsible for the physical forces we endure in our human performance.  The muscles responsible for neck movements have attachment points from the base of the skull to the upper portion of the scapula.  Muscular attachment points originating at the shoulder joints travelling to attach to more than five attachment points of the scapula function to move the arm in a multidirectional fashion along with preventing the chest to cave forward. If these muscles are maintained in optimal condition via exercise, we can prevent postural issues and pain throughout the upper back and shoulder region.

A cue we give our personal training clients as a reminder that we have our very own pre-installed brace for our upper backs is to “park the shoulders.”  This cue is meant to remind the exercise participant to retract the shoulder blades backward and down the rib cage.  After performing this movement, the chest is opened up and the shoulders are moving in the opposite direction of shrugging your shoulders.  By “parking the shoulder blades,” collapsing forward of the chest is decreased and the bracing structures responsible for scapular and thoracic reinforcement are activated.

Pain and weakness throughout the body is a reminder we may not be utilizing our built-in human braces correctly.  Use your built-in braces that have already been installed in our masterpiece of a skeleton to reinforce the body to live a pain free, healthy, 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.

Oct 12

Fitness Preparation for an Event

One of our aspiring young coaches recently completed an ultra-endurance event known as the Spartan Race.  This is an event that includes eight miles of professionally designed obstacles one would see in a military boot.  The only difference is a creative twist with the addition of obstacles including long distances of monkey bars, ice cold water baths to swim through, and the gift of throwing a javelin at a target at the end of the race in a physically exhausted state.  When Tom told me about this event, I looked at him in a bewildered expression and asked him if he had received a blow to the head over the weekend.  Personally, I wouldn’t volunteer to run eight miles through an army boot camp on steroids.  However, whenever Tom spoke about this event, the exuberance in his voice became more concentrated and you could see the endorphins flood through his eyes as the Spartan Race approached.

In our down time between conducting personal training sessions, Tom shared when his next planned run would be.  Five miles yesterday, eight miles at the end of the day, or a few miles before he would train clients in the morning later in the week.  Meeting his running goals every week was at the top of his priority list.  Tom could also be heard asking both clients and fellow coaches when training sessions would end to ensure he could have the gym to himself to devote time toward his workouts.  Through my peripheral vision while performing administrative work behind the desk, small Tupperware containers of salad, thinly sliced chicken breast, and nuts could be seen neatly stashed in the corner so Tom could get frequent feedings of lean protein and veggies.  There was no doubt, Tom took preparing for this event seriously.

After Tom successfully completed the Spartan Race, he shared the details.  The event was performed on the beautiful Monterey peninsula.  He and a group of friends joined him in this chaotically fun activity.  There were multiple memorable moments he said he would never forget throughout the various obstacle and interactions with his peers as he went through the event.

Four hours of aerobic activity through a maze of obstacles challenging the will of the human body paired with eight miles of running doesn’t sound like the most appealing of activities.  However, if you’ve met Tom, it would be visually apparent that he’s already in exceptional physical condition.  Tom certainly wasn’t born that way though.  There were years of participating in sports and group recreational physical activities Tom has been a part of throughout his life that he has devoted time to prepare his body for.  This example of having a goal event to achieve promoted a certain desire to motivate Tom to diligently work toward.  Could it be the hours of running throughout the week, the four consistent days in the gym, or the pristine dietary decisions that gave Tom the body of a well-polished athlete?  Or was it the motivation, desire, and willingness to be able to complete this short-term goal that gifted Tom the mental, physical, and emotionally energy to adherently comply to his lifetime fitness efforts?  These tactics gave Tom a body that could endure a significant amount of physical demands.

The desire to work toward a short-term goal is a productive tool to stay in shape.  Additionally, signing up with a team of like-minded individuals offers support from those peers to stay motivated and be a supportive teammate.  Adherence to an exercise routine, eating the right foods, getting enough sleep, and avoiding copious amounts of indulgent foods and alcohol undoubtedly forge a solid foundation to a healthy body.  However, these tactics are challenging to muster up and complete without a reason.  When we have something to look forward to that requires a refined level of fitness and expectation to perform competently, the motivation and desire to perform well for that reason makes these challenging fitness decisions more of a gift for yourself and team and less of a task.

Healthy and fitness plateaus happen to the best of us.  A great tool to reignite the fire to train for something can be promoted with the goal of getting in shape for a physical activity event with a group of peers sharing the same interest.  Instead of just getting into shape, use the motivation to stay in shape for physical challenges as motivation to continue practicing exercise and living a healthy, active, 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.

Oct 07

We all have enough time for exercise

Time is a piece of reality in life we can’t fully control.  After reading the previous sentence, that moment will be stored in the archives of history along with the many other events we have participated in throughout our lives.  The idea of time can be limiting for us.  We have twenty-four hours in our day to interact with the world.  This could mean allocating eight to twelve hours working toward our jobs, making sure our children are getting to school and sports practices on time or running grocery store errands.  Before we know it, the end of the day approaches and we are met with the darkness of the night.  We only have a few hours to eat dinner and get some sleep until we prepare for the next day.

A barrier to achieve fitness goals we hear from our personal training community is the obstacle of time.  People have expressed their fitness is negatively impacted due to the amount of time necessary to devote toward exercise.  This is a challenging topic because many normal functioning humans spend a significant number of hours in their week dedicated to their profession.  We all understand the importance of being the best version of ourselves for our jobs that financially support ourselves and our family.  However, the most important person responsible for these responsibilities is commonly overlooked.  That person is the human we look at in the mirror every time we wake up in the morning.

Diminishing returns play a significant role in our maximum potential to support our body, emotions, and mind.  Our goal to spend ten hours of unblinking energy to accomplish the daily task list for the day is an admirable attribute.  This list will undoubtedly fill back up after the day is over.  The left-over items on the yesterday’s task list will be anxiously awaiting your attention when the rooster crows at the break of dawn the next as the sun rises.   Once our eyes open back up, we shower, eat our breakfast, and get dressed, yesterday’s unfinished tasks are still there waiting to be tended to.  Spending time on the to-do list everyday will make for a productive and successful day.  However, if there isn’t any time laid out to focus on self-care, the prolonged hours of labor inflict wear and tear on the body and mind in the form of increased stress hormone concentration circulating throughout our bloodstream, neglected healthy dietary decisions, and loss of fitness throughout the body.

We can achieve the benefits of exercise by completing some consistent body weight exercises on a daily basis.  A term we call “consistent practice” are a few simple yet effective exercises we include to our personal training client’s fitness homework programs.  These consistent practice exercises consist of exercises that won’t exceed 30 seconds per set that can be done any time throughout the day.  Three exercises that stimulate a large surface area of muscle is chosen to be performed at any time throughout the day.  Example of low learning curve exercises could be the body weight squat, straight arm plank, and incline push up.  The squat covers a large group of lower extremity exercises while the plank and push up cover a substantial area of upper extremity and assistance core exercises.

A preview of how these consistent practice exercises are performed might look like this:

  1. After waking up in the morning and prepare hop in the shower, it takes a moment for the hot water to warm up. Perhaps this would be a good time to perform ten pushups on the bathroom counter.
  2. Now that you are squeaky clean after a refreshing shower, you might make your way to your dresser. Before putting your socks on, this might be a perfect time to complete ten repetitions of body weight squats.
  3. About to the head out the door for a thirty-minute commute to work? There’s always time for a thirty second straight arm plank.  Get down and post your arms on the ground for ten to thirty seconds to get the muscles of the upper extremities and core stimulated.

These intermittent exercises throughout the day performed in short spurts of limited time apply muscular stress throughout the body.  Performing these simple to exercises on a consistent schedule trains the body to adapt to additional demand imposed upon it.  The result is a momentary increase in stimuli in the muscle, a slight increased heart rate response, and a much-needed break for our minds that preparing to endure the tasks we will conquer in the day.

When there isn’t time to get to the gym for a concentrated exercise session on a jam-packed day, don’t worry about it.  Performing simple and effective exercises for just one set randomly dispersed throughout the day elicits similar body strengthening and stress reducing results.  It’s true that we all only have 24 hours in our day to get things done.  However, we all have 5 minutes somewhere throughout the day as well.  Take some time out for yourself to fit in exercise to assist us in being elite performing humans and getting more out of our twenty-four hours.

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 20

How Does Stretching Make you FEEL?

Flexibility and mobility are terms that contribute to an efficient, pain free, and productive body. Functions such as reaching over the head to acquire objects, bending down to pick objects off the ground, or rotating the torso to get in and out of cars are common movements that require joints to be able to move without any impedance.  Imagine a world in which getting into the car took five minutes because of back and hip stiffness?  These obstacles in flexibility wouldn’t put us in the best of moods.  Changing the angle of the thighs, flexing at the torso, and bending the knees are functions we utilize daily.   We shouldn’t have to put extra effort into something that we perform frequently in our daily lives.  The inability to conduct a normal human function doesn’t make us feel very good.

Throughout one of my internship experiences as an apprentice collegiate strength and conditioning coach, I was up to my ears in books, peer reviewed journal articles, and research projects that covered a wide array of human performance.  Athletes of multiple sports entering the human performance complex acted as guinea pigs for the elite strengthening and conditioning coaches I mentored under.  The coaches were hard-nosed gym rats who acquired their PhD and made it their life’s work to improve a human’s physical activity via exercise.  It was safe to say, these coaches were very in tune with tactics that reinforced the body’s development to its maximum potential.

During a training session with one of the college teams, we began with a long static stretching protocol.  The athletes would line up, sit down on the ground, and touch their toes.  They held this position and a few other stretching positions for 3 minutes each pose.  I recall an exercise physiology lecture that covered the difference between static and dynamic stretching.  The different modes of stretching were beneficial in particular applications of movement.  The content we covered touched on the benefits of dynamic stretching over static stretching before exercise and sports specific performance.  Dynamic stretching was defined as momentarily stretching muscles and returning it to its normal baseline position.  A standing toe touch is a great example.  To perform the standing toe touch, keep the leg extended at the knee and kick your leg up toward the ceiling and reach your hand out as if you are touching your toe.  A momentary stretch in the hamstrings should be experienced.  In contrast, a static stretching example for the hamstring is the “sit and reach” stretch.  To perform, the participant is in a seated position reaching for their toes for a prolonged period of time.  This static stretch of the hamstrings should be held for a minute or longer to achieve flexibility improvements.

The content my exercise physiology professor discussed is how static stretching decreases force production due to the lengthening of muscle fibers.  When muscles fibers lengthen, they lose their spring like abilities.  Why would you want to lose “springiness” before doing explosive athletic movements?  I shared this knowledge with one of the strength and conditioning coaches.  After he stared me at with a face as cold as ice, he exclaimed: “Research says lots of things.  But these stretches make the athletes feel good.”  He added, “They can throw around 300 lbs. of weight at a time and play to their maximum potential every game with a smile on their face.  Science says a lot of interesting things, but it doesn’t consider how my athletes feel psychologically, mentally, and emotionally before a tough workout, practice, or game.”  This coach made a a great point.  A collegiate athlete with a full-ride scholar ship taking fifteen units and having to perform at an elite level on a division one college sports program puts a lot of pressure on a person.   The coaches were definitely onto something when they put an emphasis on making sure the athletes were a good state of mind instead of strictly improving their sports performance with the most cutting-edge research.

Research supporting evidence that particular data will influence one thing or the other.  However, when it comes to living life as an active human, it’s important to go to what makes a person feel good.  If a person takes a shot of pickle juice every morning and they swear it gives them enough energy to roto-till a yard, then it sounds like something is working right.  Who knows what peer reviewed research articles says about the correlation between pickle juice and muscular physiology?  If your routines are helping you feel better throughout your day, keep them going to instill a ritual of helping you feel at your maximum physical potential.  Sure, scientific data is always going to benefit us.  However, it’s the traditions we practice that make us feel good that scientific data doesn’t necessarily support. Feeling free of stress and in a fluid state of mind helps us live happier, healthier, and stronger lives.

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

Sep 06

Healthy Dinners: Electronic Free Meals

Long days at the office require rest and relaxation.  Waking up at the early hours of the morning, commuting to job sites, and devoting energy and time to your trade requires significant psychological, emotional, and physical bandwidth.  As we make the journey home following a productive day, we look forward to seeing the inside of our homes.  Putting your feet up while relaxing in the recliner, getting filled in on how your spouse or child’s day was, or zoning out to watch a few shows on the television sounds appealing.  As we devote hours to other tasks throughout the day, we expend a tremendous number of calories, which leaves us hungry at the end of the day.  As a staple in our human rituals over the course of our existence, dinner has been the most potent end of day tool to help us relax and prepare to hit the hay.  Dinner is a time to wind down and prepare for six to eight hours of slumber before we wake up to seize the day again as the sun rise awaits us tomorrow.

Dinner, or supper time, occurs when the sun descends in the horizon.  The lights turn on around the inside of the house, the sounds of cars driving down our streets dissipates, and birds stop chirping.  The decreased stimuli create a quiet, soothing, and relaxing climate.  Additionally, as we sit down to enjoy a plate of food at dinner, we might be accompanied by our spouse, kids, or other family members.  Our pets can even join us for dinner, making this a great conclusion to an eventful day.  Fortunately, this is an opportunity to share experiences and interact with the people we are closest to.  Cacophony and stimuli of a standard workday are momentarily put on hold during dinner. People at the dinner table, and the plate of food in front of you, offer a moment of peace.

Few parts of our day allow us to catch up with our loved ones.  It’s common for partners in a romantic relationship to work separate jobs away from each other for eight to ten hours per day and be void of any communication between each other.  Kids attend school, play sports, and hang out with their friends until they arrive home.  They might spend more time getting homework completed and study for tests.  If dinner is the only time to be in the same room before life presents the next day full of tasks, perhaps limiting distractions can aid us in resting up and resetting for tomorrow.

Turning off the television for fifteen to thirty minutes won’t hurt anything.  Setting cell phones to “do not disturb” and laying them to rest in a different room isn’t the end of the world.  They aren’t going anywhere.  We have already been exposed to a day’s worth of fast paced meetings, deadlines, talking on our phones, answering email, and conducting multiple conversations with others.  Our nerves and stress hormones are running rampant after a successful day of productivity.  Listening to the news, scrolling through social media, and answering texts impose more stimulus to a body already put through a marathon of being a productive human for our jobs and tasks throughout the day.

Dinner is a time to rest and digest, not a time for fight or flight.  We got off that flight the moment we clocked out of work and drove home.  Perhaps it would benefit our life to stay off of the flight of the never-ending fire hose stream of voicemails, text messages, social media feeds, and way too many news updates when we sit down for dinner.  Give the body a chance to decompress, sit still, and enjoy a moment to ourselves and with the people we love.  Perhaps we can turn the electronics off for just a moment to refresh yourself at dinner.  The text messages, social media, and news will be there when you finish that little bit of time at dinner.  I promise.

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 27

ABC’s: Feet, Stability, and Balance Exercises

Last week, we reviewed the young Olympic phenom, Simone Biles and her ability to display the extents at which the human body can move in various presentations of imbalance.  We concluded that Simone is a generational phenom of athletic performance that arises once a decade to set new world records in sports.  While the rest of the earth’s population is happy being able to get out bed and walk to their kitchen every morning, without much hinderance to our balance, we don’t notice how valuable balance is until we have it taken away.  Balance, proprioception, and coordination can be impacted by advancements in age, injury, or suboptimal fitness levels.  These scenarios to losing balance are curable though.  Our Olympic champion friend, Simone, has a rare set of skills.  However, she keeps the skills of elite balance because she practices and trains in a consistent manner.  Therefore, if we want to avoid decreases to our ability to have sufficient balance in our everyday lives, we need to adhere to a consistent practice schedule to maintain our balance we use in our everyday lives.

Balance can be defined as the ability to correct imbalances.  Presentations of imbalance can lead to unproductive and possibility harmful situations.  Tripping over a dog toy, uneven sidewalk, or a grandchild running rampantly in our direction of travel are some examples of random occurrences that lead into having to correct an unbalanced situation.  The loss of footing requires immediate correction of placing both feet in a centered positive to regain balance.  The ability to regain a balance in standing position after balance is disrupted seems simple enough.  However, this basic tactic can develop into a lost skill if left unpracticed.  It doesn’t take exceptionally long for a human body to plummet to the ground, like a tree being chopped down, when a foot is swept out from underneath a person.  The result produces a thud that not only echoes in sound, but that force sends a tremendous amount of energy throughout the body upon impact that can elicit significant damage.

We can prevent such a fall from loss of balance, due to tripping, by mindfully practicing tactics to improve reaction time, foot dexterity, coordination, and awareness.  A simple and effective tactic requiring twenty-six repetitions we conduct with our personal training clients is what we call “ABC foot writing.”  To perform, find a solid object to spot yourself in case you feel as if you will lose balance.  An edged wall, outdoor post, or refrigerator will suffice.  Safety first.  After you have found an object to spot yourself, lift one foot in the air.  Imagine your big toe is the tip of a Sharpee marker.  While keeping the foot elevated off the ground, trace the letters of the alphabet in the air, envisioning you are writing each letter in front of you on an imaginary piece of paper.  Once you have finished the alphabet on one of the feet, plant the foot you just exercised firmly on the ground and repeat on the other foot.

This practice is an efficient and effective way to improve balance, strengthen core muscles, and increase coordination of the feet and ankles.  By keeping the foot elevated and conducting the alphabet, the ankle joint, various metatarsal bones, and toes are moving in the motions of flexion, extension, circumduction, pronation, and supination.  These are all critically important movements involved in the performance on landing and balancing on each foot to establish optimal balance.  By keeping these motions present in the forefront of our mind, the feet are more likely to be prepared to correct a random presentation of imbalance.

Olympic athletes need to be elite performers at Olympic level events.  Time is devoted to ensuring they are able to perform at the Olympic level.  As the other ninety-nine percent of the general population, we need to be elite performers in avoiding falls and imbalance injuries.  Therefore, we need to practice for unbalancing scenarios regularly.  By performing just one set of writing the alphabet with our feet, we can contribute to fending off accidents due to loss of balance.

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 19

Why do I have poor balance?

The Olympic gymnastics anomaly, Simone Biles, put on another spectacle of elite human performance at the recent Olympic trials.  Events such walking along the balance beam with precise steps, like that of a dove hopping along a telephone line, seems as simple a task as brushing her teeth.  As she bounces off the ground to flip head over heels and turn thee-hundred and sixty degrees in the air, in what seems to be ten feet in the air, she lands with the grace of jaguar descending from a jungle treetop.  Not only can this elite athlete challenge the laws of physics, but she also follows her movements to a synchronized rhythm of dance and music as she moves her arms, turns her body in multiple directions, and poses during floor routines like a bird of paradise dances after a lifetime of practice.  Simone demonstrates important components to elite balance, coordination, and precision.  Sure, Simone may have pulled the “elite DNA” card as she developed in the womb that only a handful of humans in this world are fortunate enough to obtain.  However, if we look at the activities she practices, we can gather a few ideas on how the general population can improve their balance.

An important part of our warmup routine we conduct with our personal training clients includes a few movements requiring exercise participants to lift one leg from the ground while the other leg remains on the ground.  At the very beginning stages of exercise routines, clients will wobble around, wave their hands frantically, and attempt not to teeter over their non-stabilized leg and find the ground as they regain their comfortable state of balance.  Now that two feet are on the ground, balance gets re-established.  “Man, why is my balance so bad?”  We hear this often when clients are in the beginning stages of entering into a new exercise program.  We usually follow up with the questions, “How often do you perform balancing routines?”  “Do you play recreational sports, dance, or hike?”  A common answer to this question is, “Not as much as I should.” Or simply, “No.”

Balance can be interpreted into many things.  The ability to walk in a straight line unhindered, recovering after stubbing a toe on an uneven piece of pavement, or regaining center of gravity after turning around or getting up from the group rapidly.  Our Olympian friend, Simone, obliviously checked these boxes, and a few more, when applying to a be a human while in the waiting room at the womb.  She can perform these activities and many more at will.  However, for the remaining majority of the general population, we might have struggles with these presentations of imbalances.  A critically important skill to improve balance is the ability to correct our imbalances in an efficient manner.  As Simone gracefully soars through the air and lands on one foot like a snowflake landing on a twig of a spruce tree in the Canadian arctic, she is unhindered by any imbalances.  She demonstrates mastery of the ability to avoid imbalance from impeding her performance.

We can take a page out Simone’s book to apply to our own practice of improving balance.  We don’t need to be an Olympic qualifier to detect where our imbalances are.  As a realistic solution, approach imbalances at the root of what hinders balance.  Is walking in a straight line challenging?  Is the ability to stand on one leg for a prolonged period an issue?  Perhaps the fear of falling is present.  These common afflictions to our will never improve unless practiced.

Simone is a human prodigy that only appears once a decade.  However, her athletic ability is not the only component that offers her elite balance.  She studies her imbalances and refers to a coach who informs her what she needs to improve upon.  Most importantly, she takes the time out to address misbalancing situations and makes efforts to correct them.  Only a fair portion of the general population has elite athletic abilities who can demonstrate exceptional balance.  However, if we take the time to notice what hinders our balance throughout our everyday lives, we can lay some plans on how to improve our balance.  Next week, we’ll discuss some simple and effective balancing exercises that can immediately improve our balance to help us live happier, stronger, and healthier 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 08

Healthy Knees and Strong Hips

A productive and enjoyable experience to our everyday lives is what most of us strive to achieve after we wake up in the morning.  A critically important factor to a fulfilling day is our physical well-being.  We can have a to-do list with the power to supercharge our world.  However, we cannot make these life-enhancing waves through a meticulously designed to-do list if we cannot move efficiently.  Our legs get us from point A to B in many more instance than we think.  We do not just use our automobiles to get us to important locations in life.  Let’s not forget about how important the structural integrity of our knees is to have a successful day.

Knees are complex hinge joints held together by an intricate matrix of connective tissues, muscles, ligaments, and tendons.  Ligaments attach bone to bone.  They aren’t as vascular as their neighbors, the muscles and tendons.  These important structures consist of cruciate ligaments that protect the knee joints from shifting foo far forward, backwards, or side to side as we walk, step up, or change directions.  A ligament’s lower blood supply makes healing from injuries take longer.  Therefore, excessive stress to theses knee ligaments is harmful to knee health.

Tendons connect muscles to bones.  They act as an attachment point to the bones as muscles contract to move the bones in a specific direction.  The hamstring, quadriceps, gluteal, abductors, and adductor muscles originate from the hip region.  These muscles move the leg in multiple directions including forward, backward, toward, and away from the midline of the body.  Insufficient strength in the hip joints leads to the brunt of the force placed on our knee from our activities throughout the day.  The knee joint isn’t designed to uphold as much force as the hip joint.  Focusing on the muscles that bracket the knee joint will prevent knee ligaments from getting damaged and prolong the functionality of the knee joint longer.

Wear and tear on the knee joint in debilitating on a physical, emotional, and psychological level.  There’s nothing more frustrating than having to walk at snail speed because of nagging knee pain.  Therefore, it’s valuable to understand that strengthening the muscles in the hip region will assist in even force distribution when walking, stepping up stairs, getting in and out of cars, or getting up and down from the ground.  Focusing on lower extremity specific exercises that target the glutes, hamstring, and quadriceps lay a sturdy foundation to support the knee.  Sufficient muscular density and strength in these three main muscle groups will not only aid in efficient every life activity, but also decrease the detrimental effects of arthritis and other degenerative bone afflictions.

Exercises such as squats, supine hip extensions, and inclined walking are simple and effective exercises to strengthen hip muscles.  An exercise prescription that can be easily followed is to perform the “ten, ten, ten” method.  Execute ten repetitions of squats, ten repetitions of hip extensions, and walk up a hill or inclined surface for ten minutes.  This can be done as little as once per week to efficiently strengthen hip muscles.  Weekly adherence to simple exercises such as these will strengthen hips to reinforce our knee joints.

Point A to point B is not just a commute to work or the grocery store.  It’s also getting out of bed, getting up and down from sitting, and doing activity around the house.  Strong and pain free knees are necessary to get us to those various points throughout our days.  Keep your knees healthy by ensuring the hips are activity strengthened and conditioned to endure a productive days’ worth of accomplishments.

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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