Oct 04

Resistance Training Improves Knee Health

Walking, getting in and out of cars, going up and down stairs, or kneeling to pick up objects are common activities in our everyday lives that our lower extremities allow us to do. However, activities that seem simple enough that someone should be able to do it with their eyes closed can be cut short by an affliction to the knee joint.  The introduction of knee pain and dysfunction appears in various presentations.

As we meet with our personal training clients for their initial consultations to learn more about their goals and visions for the future, we primarily focus on the history of injury their bodies have endured.  We need to know what limitations the exercise participant has due to what type of traumatic injury has occurred, the development of degenerative joint disease, or the history of corrective surgeries.  If we’re going to recommend an exercise prescription to an individual to enhance strength, decrease the likelihood of future injury, and improve the overall quality of life and functionality, it’s necessary to understand where we are on the road map in relation to an individual current standpoint in their fitness journey to achieve their goals.  One of the most common reports of injury appears at the knee joint. The introduction of osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, corrective surgery, or joint replacement aren’t uncommon pain points that can be improved utilizing corrective exercise tactics.

One of the most sought-after services our exercise participants seek is guidance for performing resistance training techniques. These techniques are instrumental in mitigating joint pain, increasing functional strength, rehabbing a joint injury, getting back to everyday activities following corrective surgery, or prehabbing an area to enhance the effectiveness of physical therapy and the healing process when preparing for corrective surgery.  Understanding the planes of movement the knee joint is responsible for, what activities the knee contributes to everyday life functionality, and areas of weakness that can be improved upon from strengthening via exercise are crucial for implementing a lower extremity resistance training routine to enhance knee health.

The knee is a true hinge joint. Its job is to bend and extend.  It can’t rotate or glide forward or backward compared to the hip or ankle joint. The knee works harmoniously with the coordinated simultaneous movements of the trunk, hip, ankle, and foot. Along with essential ligaments, tendons, blood vessels, and nerve supplies, skeletal muscular attachment points are located on the knee’s front, sides, and back.  Lack of muscular size, strength, and neuromuscular coordination to the connective tissue and skeletal muscles can not only enhance the progression of degenerative bone disease but can also introduce the likelihood of future injury to occur as we age.  Therefore, understanding the need to strengthen the knee joint muscles is critically important.

To start off by understating exercises that are safe, simple, and effective foundational movements, choose exercises that focus on knee flexion and extension, as well as hip adduction and abduction, and serve as foundational strengthening movements that reinforce the structural integrity of the knee.  Flexion and extension are the bending and straightening of the knee joint.  The muscle that brings the shin toward the back of the thigh creates flexion in the knee.  The muscles of knee flexion are predominantly the hamstring muscles.  Knee extension is the straightening of the leg where the shin extends out in front of the body until it is roughly perpendicular to the thigh.  Quadricep muscle groups are responsible for knee extension.  Both the quadriceps and the hamstrings have muscular attachment points starting from the hip that travel to the knee joint on the front and back of the knee.  Therefore, strengthening these joints assist in maintaining stability not only in the straightening and bending of the knee but also as isometric anchor points akin to framing screws holding together two boards to decrease forward and backward shifting of the knee and thigh bone.

Other simple and effective muscles to focus on to reinforce knee strength are the hip adductors and abductors.  The abductors originate at the hip bone and attach to the outside of the knee joint.  Joint abduction means “take away from the midline” or to bring the lower extremity outward and away from the body.  Hip adduction is the antithesis of abduction, where the muscles attaching from the hip’s inner part attach to the knee’s inner portion and pull the thigh inward toward the body.  The abductors and adductors control the inward and outward motion of the leg and serve as critically important supporting components to mitigate medial to lateral shifting at the knee joint.

For a more in-depth description of exercises we focus on to enhance understanding of knee extension and flexion, as well as hip abduction and adduction, tune in for part two of this article on knee strength resistance training next week in the Napa Register.  In the meantime, perhaps researching a few safe, simple, and effective foundational strength training tactics focusing on knee joint health could shed some light on what movements might be missing in our exercise programs.  Bolstering our understanding of knee strengthening has the potential to help 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 28

Efficient Order of Operations in Exercise Sessions

“That’s just bad math,” my physics professor told me as I struggled to finalize a lengthy equation for calculating potential energy in one of our laboratory experiments.  “Use PEMDAS,” she chirped at me, slightly annoyed.  I recalled the fourth-grade lesson on multiplying numbers of more than two digits, long division, and the introduction of the dreaded parentheses and exponents.  This simple lesson empowered me to sit back down at my desk, rewrite the equation, and produce the correct answer by solving what was inside the parentheses, then apply my exponents, and multiply and divide from left to right.  After I submitted the laboratory experiment and received full credit, I can still recall today that accomplishing tasks in the incorrect order led to inefficiency and, ultimately, an undesirable result.  I always wanted to avoid scenarios that were caused by “bad math.”  Completing the correct order of operations is also crucial to achieving a successful exercise session.

During my time at Napa College, I needed to take a few extra prerequisites to apply to physical therapy school. It just so happened that general physics was one of the courses. That course equipped me with the necessary tools to understand angles in force production and double-checked my work as I slogged through the challenging math equations.  Similar to the teachings of Professor “Bad Math,” the services we offer to our personal training clients involve checking their work. As fitness professionals, we play a crucial role in guiding our clients’ exercise prescriptions, ensuring they are completed in the most efficient order to elicit the most optimal outcome possible from a bout of exercise.

Exercise sessions consisting of rigorous movements are complex and require concentration and focus.  The body produces a symphony of thoughts, feelings, and actions that transmit signals to our muscles via neurological electrical impulses traveling from our brain to our spinal cord and eventually to motor neurons to make our body move in a desired physical task.  Allocating time at the beginning of an exercise session to priming up this neurological response enhances the coordination of the brain to muscle function.  Ligaments, tendons, and skeletal muscle also function from oxygenated blood flow and carbohydrate delivery.  Without an efficient signal of neuromuscular coordination and muscle-fueling substrates delivered by the blood, we are more likely to achieve a suboptimal outcome from an exercise session.  We must strive to avoid “bad math” in our exercise efforts, as it can lead to inefficiency and undesirable results.  To achieve an optimal result in our training sessions, understanding the order of operations and the modes of exercise to perform throughout each session can’t be understated.

Below is a simple and practical example of our form of PEMDAS that we use to coach our personal training clients to ensure they achieve an optimal outcome from their training sessions:

  1. Start with a dynamic stretching routine: The body needs to slowly increase the amount of neuromuscular synapses, increase the heart’s beats per minute, and psychologically enter a mode of rigorous intensity throughout a workout session.  We don’t want to immediately step into a maelstrom of struggle by lifting weights, running, or putting ourselves in compromised positions requiring substantial energy expenditure and concentration.  Instead, start with five to ten repetitions that warm up the body’s major muscles, such as moving the shoulder joints, lower back, hips, knees, and ankles.

An example of an upper and lower extremity dynamic stretching routine might include:

Supinated Arm Crossing Stretch:   Lift your arms to armpit level.  Rotate your palms upward, perform a crossing motion across your chest, and reverse the motion to abduct your arms away from the midline of your body.  Repeat the motion once you feel a slight stretch in the pecs, shoulders, and biceps for five to ten repetitions.

  1. “Pendulum” Stretch:  Find a stable surface to lean forward and place your hands on, such as a wall or post.   Bring an extended leg slightly in front of your body with your toe pointed forward.  Gently swing your leg to the inside of your body and then again to the outside of your body.  You should experience a slight stretching sensation in your inner thigh region.  Repeat this movement for five to 10 repetitions on both legs.
  2. Perform compound-resistant training techniques before simple movements:  Movements in which force is produced from multiple joints are considered compound movements.  Examples for the lower body include squats, lunges, or step-ups.  Upper body compound movements include push-ups, chest press machines, or bench press.  These movements require a concentrated and intense stress response in the muscles.  Due to their advanced requirements of energy expenditure, concentration, and focus while in a compromised position, compound movement should be conducted before more simple movements.
  3. Perform assistance movements last: Assistance movements that require only one joint of the body to move throughout resistance should be performed later. Exercises such as dumbbell biceps curls or cable triceps press-downs don’t require substantial focus and energy expenditure, so they can be performed after the more concentrated resistance training movements.

Exercise is meant to offer a form of productive stress so the body can become stronger and more resilient to the demands of everyday life.  However, ensuring exercise in a safe and effective environment takes planning.  By following a safe and effective order of operations when exercising, we can get a positive and desirable outcome from our exercise sessions.

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

Sep 19

The Art of Putting on our Underwear and Everyday Functionality

“They all put their underwear the same way,”  my high school football coach proclaimed during his pre-game motivational speech.  This seemingly off-topic comment, a nugget of wisdom from our leader, left my teammates and I pondering its relevance to our upcoming game against Vallejo High School.   We were preparing to face a team known for their elite athletes, who ran sub 4.5 seconds forty-yard dashes and had full-ride scholarships to reputable collegiate football programs.  What could the coach have meant by the way we put our underwear on when compared to our opponents? What did it have to do with our performance on the field?

Let’s delve into the seemingly simple task of putting on a pair of underwear. It’s not just a matter of slipping it on and off.  A set of underwear has a circular entrance and two separate openings for our right and left legs to pass through.  A person must make a decision to either put the right or left leg in through the bigger opening meant for the hips, followed by the second decision to pass the other leg through the hip entry point and to the secondary thigh slot.  Who would’ve thought putting on underpants could be such an intricate task? It’s a task that requires a level of dexterity and coordination that we often take for granted.

What technique do we prefer when equipping our underwear?  Is it sitting on the edge of our bed first thing in the morning before starting the day?  Or, is it the tactic of standing one leg while bending over, grabbing the underwear, lifting the hip to fit one leg in through one of the thigh slots, then repeating with the other leg?  One of these techniques requires advanced spatial awareness, dexterity, coordination, and balance.  Sitting down and sliding one’s leg through the openings removes the need to think about the surroundings and transfer balance from one leg to another.  However, the ability to stand in the middle of a room without any objects to stabilize oneself, bend over at the hips, grab the undergarment with both hands, and efficiently transfer the center of gravity from one foot to the other while simultaneously lifting the thigh, bending the knee, and gliding the feet through the thigh slots requires an intricate computation of neuromuscular coordination and immediate decision making.

Standing on one leg while making decisions to move one or two other extremities is a seemingly simple action for some.  However, for individuals with deconditioned fitness levels, simply putting on a set of undies while standing up can pose a lofty challenge.  Balance can degenerate rapidly if not consistently practiced.  A lack of ability to correct imbalances can threaten functionality, productivity, safety, and overall enjoyment of life.  If putting on a set of underwear is a challenge first thing in the day, one could imagine that other challenging tasks requiring balance won’t be much easier.  Examples that require the mastery of efficient balance levels include stepping up and down stairs, getting in and out of a car, or interacting with our pets, children, or grandkids.  Identifying and correcting imbalances is critically important for a productive, safe, and fulfilling day of life.

If we look at the demands of standing up and sliding our underwear on first thing in the morning, the torso needs to bend over, which requires hamstrings and lower back muscles that are flexible enough to hinge over the hips down to the ground.  To step into the underwear entryway, one foot must be entered at a time, which requires lifting one foot and transferring weight from one to the other.  After both feet are in, the torso is elevated back to a vertical position while simultaneously pulling the undies up, which requires sufficient thigh, hip, and lower back strength.

While putting on your undergarment may appear to be a humorous example of human performance, it’s noteworthy to consider the importance of conducting this action proficiently at this current time and for the rest of our lives.  As time passes, the body is not the same as it once was as an injury-free and spry teenager.  Joint structures and muscular strength may have been altered due to injuries, lifestyle habits, or general age-related imbalances.  Therefore, it’s essential to notice the simple acts, such as putting our underwear on, that can significantly hinder our livelihood if taken away.

Going back to what our coach said about our team having the ability to put our underwear on the same way as our opponents, I think our coach was saying we’re on an even playing ground with our ability as humans.  We wouldn’t have been able to get to the point where we performed organized sports if we had trouble putting our underwear on.  Even though our opponents could run faster than ninety-five percent of our team and probably had more athletic potential, we still had something in common that didn’t make facing off against them too intimidating.

If muscular strength, coordination, or recovery from injury seem to be significant obstacles, focus on mastering the simple movement requirements, such as putting on socks, standing up, or putting on underwear one foot at a time without losing balance. Maintaining optimal performance in these simple movements has the potential to equip us with essential tools and aid us in living long, happy, and strong lives for years to come.

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

Sep 10

Foundations in Health with Fitness Education

Health and fitness awareness is positively evolving society’s outlook on the benefits of living active lives. The advancements of smartwatches not only offer the properties of our beloved phones, which can be talked into, interact with for business decisions, and peer through various apps, but also track our activity levels, such as how many steps we’ve taken or how long we’ve been standing still.  A cornucopia of services offered by fitness professionals is increasingly booming into local small businesses, including cycling classes, Pilates studios, and other small group fitness classes.  Additionally, savvy technical fitness professionals are pumping out instructional video-based apps we can download on our phones or view from our flatscreen monitors in our living room.  Popular and successful applications include Peleton Bikes or The Mirror, which offer an interactive approach to exercise for participants to follow a professionally designed fitness session any time they want.

Thanks to the revolutions of exercise-based technology and fitness entrepreneurs, we’re fortunate to have fitness and health-enhancing resources readily available to assist in living productive and enjoyable lives. However, it’s important to remember the potential risks involved when participating in an exercise program. Just like learning how to ride a bike for the first time, there is a learning curve involved in conducting the sophisticated physical demands involved in each of these exercise arenas.

I can recall when my son first took off on his bike with training wheels when he was around three years of age.  The pedals powered by the adrenaline-filled tiny human were turning at surprisingly rapid revolutions. I wouldn’t have been surprised if sparks started to flare off to the side and smoke began to emit from the chains.  It was only a matter of seconds before he lost his balance and plummeted toward the ground.   After his bike veered off, he proceeded to project out in the opposite direction in a series of barrel rolls propelled by the momentum of his enthusiastically fueled pedaling performance.  I felt like I had just witnessed a biker roll his Harley after taking a turn too fast.  Fortunately, he was unscathed from this event.  About a month later, he learned to pedal a little slower and master the art of strategically tearing around corners utilizing precision, dexterity, and strategy he had practiced in his training wheel-equipped vehicle.

The enthusiasm of initiating an exercise journey for the first time with an exciting new stimulus isn’t much different than my son’s journey to go fast into a new, fun, and thrilling experience of learning how to operate his first two-wheeled vehicle.  Unfortunately, in the exercise arena, conducting exercises where the participant lacks competency and mastery of the intricacies involved in sophisticated exercise actions can lead to injuries.  The last thing we want from any exercise session is to get injured.  Additionally, no one wants to develop overuse injuries from exercises performed incorrectly for the previous few weeks to months.  Remember that exercise is meant to enhance productivity, functionality, and overall quality of life.  Investing time to educate oneself on the purpose of exercise movements, the technical aspects of a specific action in an exercise session, and the potential injuries is critically important for achieving optimal outcomes when starting a new fitness experience.

We instruct our personal training clients to perform a series of dynamic stretching and preparatory exercises before any training session.  These movements are encouraged to become a ritual of warming up the body, delivering oxygenated blood flow to the working muscle, producing synovial fluid in the joints, and putting the exercise participant’s psychological mindset into the mode of entering rigorous physical activity.

After completing a concentrated full-body warm-up routine, we coach our clients to complete one set of three variations of exercises that seem to be present in most exercise environments.  These primary movements are planks, push-ups, and squats.  This doesn’t mean holding the world records of planks for 9 hours, completing the Navy Seal requirement of push-ups, or getting under a barbell for a one-repetition maximum of squatting a personal best equal to twice a person’s body weight.  Instead, completing a plank at a manageable inclined angle or on the floor for twenty to thirty seconds is sufficient to activate the core muscles and neuromuscular system of the spine and lumbopelvic hip complex.  Completing five to ten push-ups at an inclined angle or on the floor serves the purpose of activating the stabilizing muscles of the rotator cuff of the shoulder.  Completing a few reps of sit-to-stand squats is an efficient way to warm up the lower back, hip, knees, and ankles before entering into an exercise routine requiring stepping, lunging, getting up and down off the ground, or long-distance walking and biking.  A ritual of rehashing compound movements at a lower intensity before entering a bout of rigorous physical activity not only enhances the strength of the big motors of the body but also encourages us never to forget how to perform these movements present in so many exercise programs.

Take time to let the technique of exercise to sink in when just starting out a new fitness program.  By understanding a learning curve is required to master exercise techniques, we can get the best possible outcomes out of fitness programs.

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 04

Staying Fit to Manage Arthritis

General age-related breakdown occurs in many aspects of our lives, including the wear and tear of the engines in our automobiles, the scuffs in our hardwood floors, or the chipping of paint on the side of our houses facing the hot afternoon sun.  These repercussions of being present in the world for years can’t necessarily be reversed or avoided.  Simply existing in the world introduces an advancement of age for any object from its genesis to the current point of its life.  Similarly, as time goes on, a human who has circled this earth for a substantial amount of years can expect to experience general age-related symptoms of organs in their bodies getting chipped, scuffed, stretched out, or, in undesirable events, torn or broken.  In the human advancement of age, we see wrinkles on our skin, maybe a slight decrease in our ability to lose subcutaneous fat mass or develop lean muscles, or the introduction of osteoarthritis in our joints.

Osteoarthritis can be defined as clinically diagnosed symptoms of pain occuring throughout the bones and joints.  A few common examples of arthritic pain and joint inflammation appear in the neck joint, rotator cuff, wrist and fingers, lumbar spine, hip joints, or knee joints.  Advanced cases of arthritis could lead to the need for surgical intervention, including partial or total joint replacements to the hips, knees, or shoulders.    Once the pain from inflammation of the joints caused by degradation of the cartilage in joints leading to bone-on-bone contact becomes so intense, productivity and function in everyday life can become significantly hindered.  Consistently dealing with pain from the waking hours of the morning until the day ends can bring frustration, depression, or loss of sleep to an individual’s life.  While surgical intervention is a worthwhile option to remedy the detrimental effects of osteoarthritis, avoiding the need to take painkillers, looking into shaving off bone spurs or acquiring a joint replacement can be managed to delay the need for corrective surgery.  Maintaining a physically active and fit body grants the power to potentially avoid degenerated joint corrective surgery altogether.

The onset of osteoarthritis not only stems from the result of general age related degeneration of connective tissue, but is also produced as a result of previous injuries or lack of physical activity.  For example, a previous injury to a knee joint in which the joint was immobilized for a prolonged period might have produced athrophy in the joint in which the stimulus to grow was absent, causing connective tissue surrounding the joint to breakdown.  Furthermore, inactive individuals are prone to the development of bone-on-bone contact throughout the body’s joints.  Lack of physical activity triggers a response to halt the body’s reaction to produce anabolic hormones.  Anabolic growth hormones aid in developing lean muscle mass and bone mineral density.  However, this stimulus to trigger bone and muscle strengthening effects only occurs after the body is put through consistent physical activity, resistance training, or corrective exercise.

To delay the advancement of osteoarthritis and general age-related degenerative connective tissue occurrences, we coach our personal training clients to accomplish at least one day of resistance training each week.  This isn’t just meandering through the gym and dilly-dallying on random equipment here or there.  Consistently practicing joint strengthening and injury prevention tactics must be identified, tested, approved, and finally prioritized in a meticulously designed strength and conditioning program specific to an individual’s current physical capabilities and fitness levels.

Tactics that create significant adaptations to fitness levels include simple yet effective movements that can be repeated week after week.  Body weight-themed exercises such as planks, inclined push-ups, or assisted squats require a low learning curve and are often mastered quickly.  After a few weeks of performing three sets of five to ten repetitions of simple body weight techniques, developing competency within these techniques is likely to occur.  Venturing into more sophisticated forms of exercise and physical activity has the potential to improve overall body strength and decrease the likelihood of bone and joint-related injuries or advancement to arthritic symptoms.  However, it’s critically important to discover and consistently practice foundational resistance training tactics that can be repeated from day one of starting an exercise regimen to the day we stop moving altogether.

Research and historical evidence have repeatedly proven that a body in motion stays in motion.  Even though distractions of joint pain and hindrances to movement occur as we age, the desire to continue adapting toward advancing our fitness levels must remain present to avoid accelerating the deterioration of bones and joints so we can live happy, healthy, and strong lives.

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

Aug 28

Exercise is the Natural High

“It doesn’t get much better than this,”  I commented after sitting on a bench at Crane Park in St. Helena and peering out into the vineyard-laced countryside with a few of my pickleball companions.  We concluded a three-hour session of playing pickleball matches, switching partners every game.  For me, this was just what the doctor ordered.  The phone was left in the car, my court shoes were strapped on tight, and I heard nothing by the percussive cacophony of plastic balls hitting paddles for long-awaited sessions away from checking my emails, returning texts, and the hustle and bustle of getting things done in my professional world.

Crane Park in St. Helena offers many well-kept areas for recreational physical activity.  Starting with my personal favorite, four newly paved and painted pickleball courts welcome pickleball junkies.  To the west, you can see more than four tennis courts breaming with devoted tennis players playing and bantering with each other in a friendly competitive match, youth coaching lessons, or the lone participant with a bucket of balls by their side practicing serves.  A stone’s throw away to the west includes a slew of bocce ball courts with many tables and benches.  A few nights throughout the week feature bocce league play, where you’ll find the lanes filled with skilled Bocce athletes socializing, laughing, and working on mastering their ball-rolling skills.  Most importantly, a functioning bathroom with two separate units resides fifty meters away from these three arenas of recreational physical activity.  These features Crane Park offers are potent ingredients to put the world on hold for a moment while people can venture out for much-needed movement.

As productive humans in today’s society, we put pressure on ourselves to be the best we can.  Whether it be making the most money possible, being the best parent or spouse, or struggling with an interpersonal conflict, challenges are present in our daily lives in which we try to be the best version of ourselves.  Within these periods of putting in energy and effort to produce a positive outcome at the end of the day, a byproduct of mental, emotional, and physical stress can arise.  Examples might include a deadline for a specific work or career-related task due at the end of the week.  Or a co-worker isn’t picking up their portion of an expected workload.  Maybe an infestation of termites or rats has plagued the subfloor of your house, and you need to manage that by working with an exterminator.  Life can offer obstacles that are challenging to manage.  The bi-product of resolving some lifestyle-related issues can produce stress.

An overabundance of psychological, emotional, and mental related stress can equate to physical stress.  Loss of sleep, irritability, or decreases in energy are just a few outcomes of existing in a hyper-stressful environment.  Along with a lack of recovery from a long day of getting things done, inadequate sleep can lead to a dysfunctional immune system or hormonal imbalances.  A state of discontent, frustration, or impatience doesn’t help us to support the people we care about if certain things trigger a snappy response because our stress hormones are heightened.  To sum it all up, a stressful state of mind is exhausting.  And, if we don’t have any energy because we’re so stressed, how are we supposed to be the best version of ourselves?  Fortunately, these conditions can be remedied by consistently applying skillful exercise decisions as a pertinent portion of our lives.

Exercise positively influences optimal psychological, physical, and emotional stress management.  As the body enters a state of physical exertion, a “fight or flight” mode is introduced to the nerves, muscles, and organs.  As the body moves its legs faster or lifts a challenging amount of external resistance, physiological chemical reactions occur in which the release of stress hormones improves exercise performance.  The heart rate increases, oxygenated blood flow is sent to working muscles, and nerve cells are excited and encouraged to fire more synapses to areas of the body to produce athletic movements.

Exercise-induced stress hormones are beneficial in balancing out the stress responses we might encounter in our everyday lives.  One of the most helpful features of the human body is its ability to adapt to imposed demands of rigorous physical and psychological situations.  The body becomes stressed as we increase our heart and complete a bout of exertive physical activity.  However, as an adaptation to match the demand of the stress introduced via exercise, the body learns to become less stressed via fitness level enhancements such as increased strength and cardiovascular endurance.  An optimally conditioned body won’t release exercise-induced stress hormones until later in strenuous physical activity.  The good news is these adaptations trickle into helping us manage stress responses we might endure through our busy everyday lives. Exercise has the power to be a natural anti-depressant that can replace the need to have a glass of wine, take a toke off a vape pen, and, in some cases, remove the need for anti-anxiety medication.  By using our stress during exercises, we can decrease the likelihood of becoming anxious, frustrated, and irritable during stressful situations in our everyday lives.

Some people’s form of recreational sport might include golf.  For others, it’s gardening, bowling, or walking with their buddies.  While it may not be as simple as taking a pill or a sip of alcohol to unwind after a day filled with the demands of everyday life, exercise offers the “natural high” that can’t be overdosed.  And, the side effects include helping us live happy, healthy, and strong lives.

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

Aug 23

How to Fall

The risk of falling introduces itself in a multitude of ways including deconditioned fitness levels, harsh external environments, or, what most of us are concerned about as we tack on another decade to our lives, the advancement of age and deterioration of balance.  A foot catching the end of an area rug, slipping off of a curb while walking down the street in a poorly lit nighttime environment, or stumbling backward after getting up too fast from a seated position are a few examples of falling scenarios are a few examples of common instances in which falls occur.

As a human topples over and rapidly drops to the ground from a vertical position, the impact of colliding the body onto the ground produces an impressive jolt of energy that travels through the skin, muscles, bones, and nerves which can cause significant damage.  Walking away with a few scrapes and bruises after a tripping and falling event is a blessing.  In more extreme cases, the body can endure broken or dislocated bones, injured spines and hips, or a percussion injury to the cranium.  Appreciating the contributing factors to how falling can impact our well-being shouldn’t be understated.  Therefore, it’s worthwhile to understand the dynamics of falling and reinforce the body to prepare for a falling situation.

Suboptimal posture produced by weak core muscles and suboptimal lower extremity strength can cause the body to slouch forward and cause feet to drag off the ground.  As feet scrape across the ground through normal walking strides, the possibility of catching the bottom of the foot on an object on the ground increases.  If the feet drag onto the ground normally, it’s only a matter of time before the front part of the foot hits an object and impedes the normal walking path of that individual.  As the bottom half of the body is stationary and the top half still has its momentum going forward, the top half of the body launches forward since the lower extremities act as a stationary point.  This can lead to a face-first fall to the ground.  Identifying techniques to decrease the risk of falling and learning how to fall correctly are critically important tactics to apply to a human’s everyday life so the repercussions of a fall aren’t catastrophically severe.

We can’t necessarily control what objects are placed in front of us as we performing our usual everyday activities.  However, we can control our body’s ability to function optimally in rigorous environments such as wet and icy weather, uneven pavement, or unexpected objects impeding our normal walking path.  One of the best ways to mitigate the effects of falling is to consistently practice rituals of strength and conditioning for the core, hips, knees, and ankles.  Without going into how to identify, step over, or recover from presentations of tripping and falling, a body that consistently practices managing productive physical stress through a strategically designed exercise program is more likely to maintain a coordinated and athletic potential that can adjust to recovering from falling situations.  For example, an individual who performs squatting, stepping, and plank movements has strong legs and a torso that stands in good posture.  This status of strong lower extremities and strong spinal and core stabilizers produces a body that stands upright and pick the feet up off the ground.

Tripping and taking a fall can happen in an instant.  In other words, a fall can be impossible to predict.  However, if one can identify in that split second that a loss of balance or tripping situation is occurring, it’s worthwhile to take evasive maneuvers so the body doesn’t take significant damage.  A few techniques that can decrease the severity of falls can include:

  1. Try to avoid falling with an outstretched arm: A natural response to falling backward is to reach the handout and hold the body up to decelerate the body from hitting the ground too hard.  While it’s true the outstretched arm absorbs the force of the fall, the result of an outstretched arm with the entire mass of the body can result in a broken wrist, dislocated elbow, or worse.  If possible, try to maneuver the body to the side of the body to land in a sliding motion on the armpit, side of the torso, and side of the hips.
  2. Use your forearms to decelerate a face-first fall: If a fall occurs in which the body is propelled in a face-first motion after a tripping incident while moving forward, one of the worst injuries that can occur is the head hitting the ground.  An immediate impact of the face and cranium striking the ground can result in a broken nose, chipped teeth, or serious head trauma.  If falling forward is identified and corrective action can be applied, put both elbows in front of the face and prepare to absorb impact utilizing the forearm bones.

It might be worthwhile to seek out a professional such as a physical therapist, skilled fitness professional, or advanced aging health practitioner for lessons.  Learning how to fall is an invaluable form of education to prepare for potential tripping and falling instances.  Predicting a fall is like trying to predict exactly what days it’s going to rain a year from now.  However, if an increased likelihood of falling is a risk factor, the best we can do is prepare and equip ourselves with a body that can avoid falling situations, and, in the event that a tripping and falling scenario occurs, intervene with tactics that can avoid serious injury.

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 09

Foundations in Movement-Ankle Strength

Enduring a full day of eight or more hours of physical activity including walking around the house after getting out of bed first thing in the morning, to performing a rigorous physical activity such as conducting manual labor at our jobs requires the ability to walk, step up, turn around, or kneel.  These seemingly simple activities involve a vast network of neurological connections and sophisticated, coordinated movements from the spine to our hips, down to our knees, and eventually ending at our foot and ankle joints.  Similar to how massive redwood trees support their trunk and branches via an elaborate root system, our feet and ankle joints are primarily responsible for keeping our bodies vertical and mobile so we can function productively in our everyday lives.

The anatomy of the foot is comprised of a series of toe bones called phalanges, metatarsals of the midfoot, and the ankle joint where the shin bone connects the leg to the foot.  The unique grooves and articulations of these bones allow the foot to flex, extend, rotate side-to-side, and create circular motions.  These features grant us the ability to walk, jog, or sprint forward.  Stepping up onto stairs, moving laterally, or stepping down off of curbs are a few examples that require the foot to be able to sense the ground and trigger the appropriate muscles present in the ankle and foot to support and move the body throughout walking, stepping, and shifting balance.  Ankle and foot flexibility, coordination, and overall strength are critically important to our ability to move with less restriction, operate with optimal balance, and proceed throughout our everyday lives in coordinated functional movements.  Therefore, ensuring to input ankle and foot strengthening themes in our exercise routine shouldn’t be overlooked.

The ability of the foot to dorsiflex, plantar flex, evert, invert, and perform circumduction plays a critical role in ankle strengthening.  Dorsiflexion is the ability of the shin to travel closer to the toes.  The opposite direction is plantar flexion, in which the sole bends in the opposite direction toward the calves.  Eversion is the outward bending of the foot in which the pinky toe side of the foot rotates toward the outside of the shin.  Inward rotation of the foot when the sole rotates toward the midline of the body is inversion.  Ankle circumduction is the circular movement in which the foot rotates around the ankle joint from left to right.  These simple motions are responsible for a multitude of complex abilities that allow us to function efficiently as bipedal organisms.  When these abilities of the ankle are restricted, our experience of interacting with our normal daily physical activities can become hindered.  Fortunately, by adhering to a schedule of consistently practicing movements utilizing strength and conditioning techniques to support the ankle and foot, we can reduce the risk of injury and increase our overall quality of life.

A few simple and effective tactics that help promote ankle strength and functionality involve movements that can be done in a home setting.  Below are a few exercises we perform with our personal training clients to assist in ankle and foot strengthening:

  1. Isometric Plantar Flexion:  Better known as the calf raise, plantar flexion from a standing position involves lifting the heel off the ground.  To perform, lift both heels off of the ground and maintain that position with the heels off of the ground for 10 to 30 seconds.  Muscular sensation should be experienced in the calf muscle group in the posterior aspect of the shin bone.  To assist in balance, position yourself in front of a wall so you can use the wall to stabilize your body if you teter forward.
  2. “ABC Foot Writing”: Similar to finding balance when performing the plantar flexion exercise, stand in front of a wall or supporting object, such as a counter, to stabilize yourself.  Lift one foot off the ground and slightly in front of the body.  Begin tracing imaginary letters of the alphabet with your toe.  These twenty-six movements while tracing each letter of the alphabet move the ankle joint in various planes of motion.  Muscular sensation should be experienced at the top of the foot and lateral aspect of the shin.  To increase the challenge of this exercise, lift the foot out in front of the body more and higher off the ground.  This puts more demand on the body’s ability to correct imbalances and puts more demand on the supporting leg and the raised leg.

Many joints in the body offer critically important features to our productivity and functionality.  Let’s not forget the ankle joint offers us the privilege in our everyday lives that supersedes the importance of driving a car, which is our ability to walk without any hindrance.  Taking a few moments out of our day to reinforce the integrity of our ankle joints assists us in our ability to prosper in our everyday lives with less pain and decreases limitations in our usual everyday movements.

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 01

Utilizing Exercise to Reinforce Confidence in Balance

The ability to maintain our body’s balance throughout our everyday life activities is critically important to our productivity and functionality.  Deconditioned fitness levels, recovering from a significant surgery, or the general advancement of age play a role in creating unbalanced environments.  Standing up from seated or lying down positions, correcting our walking path if we need to suddenly move out of the way of a moving object, or the muscular strength and coordination of our core and lower extremities affect balance.  Finding exercises to practice and reinforce the ability to stay balanced in circumstances that offer presentations of imbalance are vital assets to the general population’s fitness routine.

As we age, the general degradation of muscle and connective tissue occurs.  The healing process of our muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones isn’t as profound as that of a sixteen-year-old multisport athlete.  However, it’s useful to note that as adults progress past their high school and college athletic careers, physical activity levels decrease due to the necessity of working a forty-hour work week, entering a business partnership, or getting married and starting a family.  Needless to say, physical activity and adherence to fitness routines are shunted due to the maturation of the average human in our society.  So, when it comes to degeneration of muscle strength and size over time, what comes first?  Getting older?  Or, we simply get complacent and stop engaging in recreational physical activity and exercise before the obligations of life take over?

Unless we’re Marty McFly driving a masterfully polished stainless steel DeLorean that can travel back in time, we can’t do much about adding another year onto our age after each time the Earth takes a trip around the sun.  However, the human body has a unique ability to adapt to specific adaptations that are imposed on it.  In other words, if the body is put through a period of rigorous work, muscles receive a series of microscopic tears in them.  Better known to the gym rat world as “a case of the DOMS,” or delayed onset muscle soreness, our body feels a slight sensation of pain a few days following a resistance training session.  As muscles heal and adapt after a resistance training session, the body becomes stronger in being able to manipulate objects in the environment more efficiently due to an increase in neuromuscular coordination and muscular strength.  Additionally, the ability to move fluidly in multiple positions while walking, stepping up and down stairs, turning around, or standing up is improved from this adaptation of muscle building.

Understanding exercise techniques that reinforce our ability to change direction immediately, regain balance after an immediate adjustment of stumbling, or avoid falling improves balance.  More importantly, consistently practicing training exercises that reinforce the mastery of balance is critically important to possessing optimal balance to decrease the risk of falling, avoid injury, and ultimately increase confidence through movement as we age.  Therefore balance training should be practiced regularly, if not every day per week.  Once we stop practicing such a critically important aspect of our lives, balance can degenerate rapidly.

Reinforcing balance is supported by strong core and lower extremity muscles.  Strength training exercises such as squats and planks are simple and effective exercises that benefit exercise participants at an entry-level of fitness to the regularly practicing fitness veteran.  Along with strength training, exercises specifically for balance include movements that position the body in a broad or narrow stance, moving in straight lines, or standing on one leg for a brief period.  Below are a few simple stretches we include in our personal training clients’ movement prep routines at the beginning of every training session that are meant to improve and maintain balance:

Single leg balance:  Stand with both feet on the ground and toes facing forward.  While distributing your center of gravity toward one foot, gradually lift the opposite foot off the ground and hold it in an elevated position.  Hold this position for 10-30 seconds on both legs.  To reinforce safety, ensure to perform this exercise next to an object that can be used to grab onto to stabilize in case a loss of balance occurs, such as a wall or sturdy rail.

Heel-to-toe walk:  Stand with both feet on the ground and toes facing forward.  While distributing your center of gravity toward one foot, gradually bring the opposite forward until is just before your stable foot and touch your heel to the toe of the stabilizing foot.  Once your balance has been recalibrated to the new leading foot, bring the trailing foot around the stabilizing foot and repeat the same movement traveling in a straight line.  Travel forward in this movement for about the length of 5 to 10 feet.

These examples are not cutting-edge movements one might see professional athletes performing in their strength and conditioning sessions.  However, these movements offer the ability to be performed consistently.  Practicing simple and effective balancing tactics at least two to three days per week for just one set offers the potential to improve everyday balance, decrease the likelihood of injury, and improve our confidence throughout the movements that become hindered as general aging occurs.

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

 

Jul 26

Making Unhealthy Food Decisions a Sacred Experience

A hidden treasure exists in Napa Valley in the form of a twelve-inch piece of cooked dough produced by R+D Kithcen’s take-out menu.  Better known as Hawaiin-style pizza, this masterpiece of American-Italian fusion displays a pillowy, yet structurally sound, dough that has been meticulously measured out by the R+D culinary team that creates an identical product each time I visit their pick-up location.  Thick slices of pineapples, slightly toasted ham, thinly sliced red onion, and cilantro sit atop a platform of creamy, tangy cheese.  Between the cheese and dough resides a barrier of sauce I’ve yet to identify featuring a tomato sauce base of flavor, yet still has touches of mustardy-vinegar-like acidity that ties the masterfully engineered cooked dough with the harmonious display of toppings creating a majestic soiree of flavors gallivanting along the tastebuds.  Whenever I open up the small pizza box, the aroma kept inside streams toward my nose producing an olfactory escapade triggering a hedonistic pleasure that is set to ensue in a few moments.  Needless to say, this pizza won’t last long if put in front of me.  While I perceive the R+D take-out Hawaiin-style pizza as a form of gold, it creates an issue.  It’s easy to get your hands on.

A few other miracles of culinary genius that gracing our world offer us an eating experience like no other include French fries, ice cream, and beer and wine.  The art of frying 3-inch long, quarter-inch thick potatoes has risen to a mass-produced food product that can be found anywhere from fine dining restaurants, to fast food institutions, to the frozen bags present in the freezers at grocery stores that immediately hit our kitchen tables in a matter of minutes. Cream and milk are constituted in the form of a cold and spoonable morsel that can effortlessly be scooped out of an ice cream quart putting some of the most sought-after food pleasures easily accessible within a few yards from our freezer to our sofas.  Furthermore, humans enjoy a sense of relaxation and laughter after a long day of work.  This is where a bottle of beer or glass of wine can immediately create the environment to escape the grasp of our stressful work lives and enter into a whimsical world of relaxation and indifference after pouring a glass of our favorite wine or cracking the cap off of our favorite beer.

A combination of starchy potatoes, salt, and the texture of a crispy exterior fresh out of the deep-fat fryer scratches our junk food itch in a matter of minutes.  The cold, creamy, and sweet composition of ice cream can easily bring us back to the nostalgia of having ice cream after we reluctantly forced down steamed veggies at the dinner table when we were youngsters.  Pleasant feelings of relaxation, smiling, and laughter are linked to having a glass of wine after a stressful day.  While all of these culinary pleasures produce rapture and joy, consuming too much of them in a short period can create the potential for suboptimal health outcomes of increased fat storage, metabolic diseases including diabetes and cardio arterial disease, and loss of energy.  Add the ability for us to get our hands on these products in a matter of minutes by venturing to a fast food drive-through, sitting down at our favorite restaurant and producing a table full of a glass of beer and a plate of food, or perusing down the freezer aisle to get a frozen pizza or a quart of ice cream, we further compound the detrimental effects of our societies ability to give us whatever we want whenever we want.

Taking a trip back in time to the 1920s when our predecessors lived in an era where fast food restaurants and Door Dash didn’t exist and a million wineries producing some of the world’s best wines weren’t a stone’s throw away, we can imagine how people of that era didn’t have the resources to acquire their culinary guilty pleasures as prevalently.  Instead, cake and ice cream showed their faces at special events like birthday parties.  Meals at restaurants were reserved for extravagant and special occasions, such as wedding anniversaries or visits celebrating an out-of-town relative.  One could imagine the technology to produce a cake wasn’t as sophisticated as today’s ovens and kitchen equipment.  Additionally, it’s safe to say restaurants weren’t as prevalent back in the 20s when compared to the slew of fast food restaurants in strip malls.  Therefore, treats such as desserts, alcohol, and food prepared by a restaurant team were considered something as a rare occurrence.  One could say making a cake or sitting down at a restaurant was a sacred experience that should be cherished and taken in as a rare event one would be lucky to participate in.

What would happen if we reverse-engineered our tactics of using our phones to order DoorDash, make an online pick-up order, or sit down for a restaurant meal to reserve as a special experience in which we can only participate one to two times a week?  Maybe we could make more meals at home that we plan and take control over what ingredients go onto our plates.  Society exists in the golden era of instant satisfaction when it comes to food acquisition.  However, if we utilize our ability for instant gratification too much, we might experience negative side effects.  Focusing on our ability to make our meals and taking a break from the privileges of immediate food acquisition for two or three nights a week can produce health benefits to assist us in living happy, healthy, and strong lives.

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

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