Oct 04

Fun Exercise Equals Consistancy

Engaging with the numerous methods of electronic entertainment is a prominent part of our culture.  Our phones, tablets, computers, and televisions have become integrated into a uniformed presentation of digital media so that we look at a variety of screens present in our lives at any location and circumstance.  Whether it be watching a series on Hulu, playing an online game, or looking at our email, it appears that we are constantly being prompted to interact with our digital lifestyle devices.  Along with those prompts, we can’t help but notice the need to view the advertisements present during our digital experience.

Fitness advertisements and influencers have developed into popular channels on social media platforms, web searches, and even the advertisements linked to the streaming services of our TVs.  It’s not rare to find a twenty-something-year-old gentleman with abdominal muscles chiseled enough to grate parmesan cheese on performing “the best exercise for burning fat.”  Additionally, in any internet browser’s random ad space squares, you might find other health-related advertisements, such as local fitness businesses promoting the next monthly special deal.  Expect to see a massive influx of fitness center membership specials as the new year approaches as well.

While the influence of emphasizing health and fitness has increased over the generations and become a pivotal part of our society, the decision to embark on a fresh new fitness journey can be challenging.  Orange Theory, Planet Fitness, and other local gyms are in the community to help people.  However, entering a fitness facility to speak with a representative who has the body of a Greek god might be a little intimidating.  Additionally, other veteran participants at fitness facilities might have a one-up on newbies since they have had time to refine their fitness levels.  Furthermore, entering a facility housing mechanical running devices, large iron heavy objects, and upbeat, high-energy music is overstimulating to individuals not used to this environment.  Lastly, the advertisements we see while scrolling down our social media feeds or internet browsers initially meant to help us get into the gym and feel healthier can ultimately feel like we are being ordered to sign up immediately.  Messages like, “Join now!” “Don’t miss out!”  “Ends Soon!” could be perceived as an order from a drill sergeant or pushy salesman to get in right away. Why would you want to sign up for something that sounds like your boss telling you to get in and pay for a membership before a specific deadline?

Taking a step back from the pressures and intimating factors of exercise can be a helpful first step for emphasizing physical activity and health to improve our quality of life.  The concept of having fun can get lost in the shuffle of doing something “we want to do and doing something “we have” to do. If activities are fun, the likelihood of remembering the engaging and enjoyable factors of that specific experience might make us want to return to it.  In other words, if we’re looking for an activity to improve our overall quality of life using fitness as a catalyst, perhaps we should focus on physical activities that are fun, memorable, and something we look forward to.

Walking with your spouse or friend to get a cup of coffee a half mile away is a common activity because conversations, sights, and sounds are fascinating.  The additional steps and calories burnt tracked on wearable technology are fantastic.  However, the enjoyable and memorable experience of experiencing the world might be what drives people to take these walks.  Meeting with three friends to play a game of ping pong or pickle ball produces conversations, laughter, and the chance to bask in the sunlight.  Sure, the increased demand for the aerobic energy system and utilizing calories as a fuel source to burn more fat is an appealing feature of playing an hour’s worth of pickleball.  Once again, the fitness-improving variables produced by a social game of pickleball aren’t always the driving factor in participating in the activity.  People keep coming out to the courts because it’s fun, and they look forward to another game with their friends a few days later or next week.

We rarely hear an individual say, “I’m so bummed I didn’t burn the number of calories my Apple watch told me to do.”  However, we might feel slightly disappointed if we miss a walk with our favorite companion or if a pickleball game gets rained out.  The cancellation of these activities produces more disappointment because we look forward to the things that cause elation, joy, and fun.  Perhaps we can take a step back from the consistent prompting and pressures from advertisements and social media influence as the driving force to get us fit.  Stop taking orders and find physical activities that are fun, memorable, and that you look forward to.  If we focus on enjoyment in our physical activity, we have found a gift of happiness, health, and strength by our side for the rest of our lives.

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

Sep 23

Managing Chronic Pain and Overcoming Fear of Exercise

Chronic pain presents itself in a wide range of symptoms throughout the general population.  Degenerative bone disease, recovering from significant orthopedic surgeries, or joint misalignments are some conditions contributing to prolonged periods of pain.  Chronic pain can be defined as a symptom of unresolved physical pain that has negatively affected the productive functionality of a person for up to three months.  Examples of the negative impact of chronic pain include disrupting one’s ability to walk, get a full night’s sleep, or perform enjoyable recreational physical activities.

The effects of chronic pain arise at unique times throughout a human’s life.  Sometimes, the occurrence of a random injury causing damage to the spine due to car crashes, picking something up the wrong way, or tripping and falling can result in dealing with some form of pain and discomfort daily.  The repercussions of such injuries can cause prolonged periods of muscle guarding, nerve-related pain, and psychological and emotional stress.  Additionally, degenerative bone diseases such as arthritis, spinal stenosis, or osteopenia can affect significant joints of the body, such as the neck, shoulders, spine, hips, and knees.  Such conditions elicit profound signals of pain in areas of the body.  Pain can present itself as searing, shooting, dull, or sharp sensations throughout particular regions of the body.  Additionally, pain can be temperamental.  It can present itself first thing in the morning, later in the day, or be triggered by activities that are hard to identify what caused the pain mechanism.

Exercise causes similar sensations to the pain signals arthritis and recovering from injuries give to the body.  However, exercise-induced discomfort is a diminished pain response compared to chronic pain symptoms. After performing a set of pushups, a person can expect to feel a slight burning sensation in the chest, arms, core, lower back, and legs.  Some people refer to this byproduct of exercise occurring within the muscle as a minor form of pain.  Another example of activity-related pain can be from the effects of jogging, biking, or a bout of exercise on a rowing machine.  The sensation of fatigue throughout the body and stress applied to the lungs produce bodily discomfort.

An abundance of research supports that routine exercise can potentially mitigate the effects of chronic pain.  It should come as no surprise that adherence to a safe, effective, and efficient exercise routine offers positive physical adaptations toward the connective tissue infrastructure responsible for decreasing bodily pain.  Stronger muscles, tendons, and ligaments act as brackets around joints to reduce bone-on-bone contact.  Additionally, an efficient aerobic energy fends off heart disease and metabolic disease while also offering increased energy to support everyday life activities.  However, the desire for an individual with chronic pain to enter an exercise routine that causes exercise-induced discomfort isn’t appealing mentally or emotionally.  Therefore, a person dealing with chronic pain may not want to exercise because they don’t want to be in more pain.

A few potential solutions can help people overcome the daunting decision to enter an exercise program to decrease chronic pain:

  1. Advice from a professional:  Seeking out the guidance of a qualified professional who understands your situation on both a physiological and emotional level serves as a supportive starting point toward decreasing chronic pain.  Reflecting on the mechanism of pain to a professional willing to help opens up the opportunity to have someone else by your side to help solve the puzzle of reducing chronic pain.  Physical therapists, bodywork professionals, and experienced personal trainers have made their lives work to aid people in living pain-free, happy, and strong.  Having that support system is critically important to starting on a good step.
  2. Set a clear and attainable goal: Pain can cause psychological and emotional distress, creating a scenario in which people might be unable to think straight.  It’s easy to get depressed when the same cycle of pain presents itself daily.  However, taking some time out to set goals of what everyday life would be like with a decreased amount of pain aids in what tactics must be completed to feel better.
  3. Laying of plans: The support of a professional by your side and a clear and attainable goal serve as sturdy starting points to decrease chronic pain.  After the foundation of support is complete, creating a weekly schedule to exercise, receiving therapeutic bodywork from a physical therapist or massage therapist, and passive recovery is another integral step in the journey of reducing pain.  Reserving specific appointments for yourself and decreasing distractions in a weekly planned-out structure sets the stage for tactics toward pain reduction efforts.

Reducing pain is a constant dynamic that needs to be addressed consistently.  The ability to completely eliminate pain symptoms of chronic pain is a challenge.  Taking time out to consistently decrease contributing factors of pain through skilled exercise selection and adherence to rehabilitation techniques play a pivotal role in living a life with less pain.

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

Sep 16

Visits to your Local Gyms, Don’t Forget to Warm Up

Most towns have local membership-driven gyms.  Exercise participants can simply approach the front desk associates upon entry, zap their gym cards, and waltz into a vast ocean of gym equipment strewn before them.  Our society is fortunate to have this resource available.  Local gyms offer an exercise environment where participants can enter at their own volition to promote a healthy community.

Treadmills, ellipticals, and stationary bikes encourage participants to train their aerobic energy system.  Resistance training equipment such as the leg press, chest press, and lat pull-down machines are designed to perform repetitions of strenuous movements for sets of ten to fifteen repetitions in an effort to encourage participants to increase lean muscle mass and strength.  Larger local gyms in Napa, such as Healthquest, Active Wellness, and INSHAPE, offer small group fitness classes led by certified fitness instructors scheduled throughout the day.  These classes build a sense of community while also adding the feature of following movements demonstrated by a certified fitness professional.  Needless to say, our local gym scene offers a substantial amount of benefits to the health and well-being of our community.

The gym scene can be fun, invigorating, and an invaluable resource to fend off metabolic disease, arthritis, and sedentary lifestyles.  Seeing progress by noticing the amount of weight lifted on the leg press machine is encouraging.  Your first week of training might include three sets of fifty pounds followed by three sets of seventy pounds after your second week of training.  The ability to walk a mile slightly faster than previous weeks on a treadmill is another feeling of elation, producing a positive gym experience.  Attending two days a week of your favorite core fusion group fitness class leaves you with a smile on your face after hanging out with your class buddies and working up a sweat while listening to exhilarating music.  However, after a few weeks of doing the same thing, what happens if you feel some pain in your shoulder, a crick in the lower back, or nagging and dull pain in the knee?

Unfortunately, performing too much exercise too soon can offer painful side effects.  Our personal training clients approach us with comments about joint pain.  After gathering a brief history of what their supplemental exercise routine consists of outside of their private training sessions, they usually describe a story in which they visit a local gym a few times a week.  An exciting and elaborate story ensues, describing a few trips around the gym floor utilizing the intricate resistance training machines, hopping on the elliptical for ten minutes or so, and taking the group fitness class is a common response.  As part of our initial evaluation, we like to ask, “What does your warm-up consist of?”  A look of sheer bewilderment and shock seems to numb the expression on their face, followed by a moment of deafening silence in the air.  One of two things commonly occurs at this moment:  A hand is held up in where the index finger is touching the thumb, forming the shape of a small circle signifying the number zero, or the words “Nothing” are the answer.

Warming up the muscles surrounding the significant joints in the body before beginning a bout of exertive physical activity is critical for injury prevention and optimizing the body for proficient exercise performance.  A warm-up routine stimulating the neuromuscular system, increasing heart rate, and sending oxygenated blood to the working muscles promotes more than the avoidance of strains or unfortunate injuries.  Setting aside three to five minutes before your exercise routine to prepare your body to move sets the tone of your exercise experience by priming your psychological and mental status for a successful performance.  Once your body and mind detect you are ready for exercise, the likelihood of apprehension and overuse injuries is decreased.

Set aside some time to warm up the muscles of the neck, upper extremities, lower back, hips, knees, and ankles before venturing onto the gym floor.  By giving your body the gift of a warm-up, you are setting yourself up for a successful exercise experience.

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

Sep 09

Physical Activity and Motivation: Set a goal and get it done

Weeds.  Once described to me by a dear friend and mentor as “something in which its intrinsic value has not yet to be discovered.”  Seeing as both my back and front yards quickly became overwhelmed with wild weeds that sprouted and proliferated, I fully-heartedly agreed with this statement.  If I happened to be a deer that enjoyed munching on wild foliage throughout a forest in my natural habitat, then perhaps I could find some value in a fifty-square-foot area of weeds.  However, I am not a deer.  I’m a human.  And, I’m not so sure weeds taste that great or would benefit my digestive system.  So, I have no need for weeds.  This led to project “weed abatement”.

Instead of mowing my weeds down once a week or spraying them with a vile weed-killing substance, I researched alternative methods to mitigate the psychological and emotional effects the mundane task of weed management had on me.  Waking up on a weekend morning to rifle through my shed to pull out my lawn mower, getting powder debris of plant matter on my skin and in my eyes, and sweating profusely wasn’t on the top of the list after a long work week.  I’d much rather sit inside for a few hours and look at the inside of my house that I had only seen early in the morning and the last remaining hours at dinner time before I ventured into dreamland.  As a solution, I discovered that covering my weeds with wood chips would naturally suppress their urge to propagate.  Instead of waging chemical warfare on mechanically slicing their leaves to see the weeds regrow to their normal length next week, I could remove the very source that encourages them to grow: the sun.  This meant I had to remove their origin of photosynthesis by putting down used cardboard and covering the area with a copious amount of wood chips.  The best part is that the supplies were the right price, free.

After an inquiry to freechipdrop.com, I had a dump truck’s worth of wood chips in my parking lot in a few days.  A daunting and powerful spectacle, that pile of wood chips resembled a substantial amount of work on my end.  I grabbed my metal rake, wheelbarrow, and flathead shovel.  It was time to start scooping, wheeling, and spreading the chips to cover the colony of weeds that had hindered my relaxing Sundays.  After hours of filling my wheelbarrow up and traveling to the next destination of the weed patch to disperse chips, I noticed I had made a tiny dent in my pile.  I saw what an hours work could do to this pile.  I observed the pile decrease in surface area by reducing the height and radius of how much ground it covered.  This project would take a few days of hour-long labor intervals to complete.

Fortunately, I had a friend who offered their help in this project.  Thank goodness for friends.  I told him that if we simply met for one hour twice weekly, we could knock out this pile.  That meant I had two hours of labor to invest into this pile twice weekly.  Over two weeks my buddy and I produced eight hours of shoveling, wheelbarrow usage, and raking.  Before we knew it, the pile was gone, and I had a driveway to park my car in.  Most importantly, I succeeded in snuffing out those worthless weeds.

A noteworthy observation was how setting appointments with realistic and manageable time frames to get things done accelerated the completion of my project.  A small mountain’s worth of wood chips can be intimidating and challenging to motivate oneself to grab a shovel and start moving the pile.  One scoop full doesn’t seem like a lot.  However, an hour’s worth of shoveling equates to quite a lot of progress.

This experience led me to think about the progress our personal training clients can make in their fitness goals when initially making the decision to motivate and dedicate themselves to a fitness program.  Whether it be a package of ten small group fitness classes or making a more significant investment to sign up for three to six months’ worth of fitness classes with a private personal training facility, Yoga, or Pilates studio, it’s challenging to see the needle move toward making progress.  Losing weight, gaining strength, or decreasing pain doesn’t happen overnight.  Like my enormous pile of wood chips, it takes planning and time to progress and achieve fitness goals.  Fitness adaptations can only be seen if we consistently practice adhering to weekly exercise sessions.

It’s amazing how much can get done if we invest small increments of time into projects and goals.  Sometimes, things don’t happen immediately.  However, if we plan our strategy and make weekly appointments to accomplish tasks, we can see incremental progress until the job is complete.

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

Aug 31

Calorie Counting and Portion Size

Food serves its purpose in many ways to benefit our overall functioning and productivity in our society.  The various foods we consume aid us in strengthening our bodies’ muscular and internal organ systems, fending off illness, and fueling our bodies with sufficient energy.  However, while food is significant to the functioning of our bodies, the decisions we make with food can counteract  its positive attributes.

A common topic we hear from our personal training clients is discovering the best tactic for weight loss.  As professionals in the fitness industry, it’s our job and passion to help people thrive in a happy, healthy, and strong manner throughout their everyday lives.  Consistent adherence to weekly exercise is an essential portion of developing and maintaining a body with low fat mass and an efficient amount of lean muscle mass.  Our exercise participants meet with us for training appointments anywhere from one to three times per week for a seventy-five-minute customized training sessions.  Like other individuals in our community who regularly attend small group fitness classes at gym fitness studios like Orange Theory, Yoga or Pilates classes, or membership driven gyms, routine exercise is one of the most essential foundations of maintaining a healthy weight.

Our dietrary decisions play a critical role in balancing foods effects on our bodies.Historically, counting calories has been a popular and effective tactic in delivering successful outcomes in weight loss efforts.  A classic approach to losing extra fat mass is utilizing more calories as energy than we consume.  Additionally, if we decrease our average daily calories, we’ll likely lose weight too.  Therefore, counting calories is a potently effective method to maintain an optimal lean muscle mass to fat mass ratio.  However, what if counting calories isn’t the most desirable tactic to adhere to?

Outside of calorie counting, our society keeps track of things every day.  From digital representations of our bank accounts presented on our computers to counting minutes of activity on our mobile devices, we keep track of many variables on a daily basis.  It’s easy to saturate ourselves with continually counting and tracking things.

Two simple yet effective low-hanging fruit eating decisions are to be mindful of portion size and when food is consumed.  A commonly overlooked recommendation to aid in choosing optimal quantities of food to consume is using our hands as a measuring device.  Using the amount of the volume of food that fits into the hand is an adequate portion size that can limit overeating yet also satiate hunger.  A helpful example could be fitting a handful of carbohydrates in one hand and protein in the other.  For example, a handful amount of oatmeal and a handful of eggs could serve as a healthy breakfast.

Additionally, integrating larger quantities of food at the beginning portion of the day and making efforts to consume smaller amounts later in the day aid in utilizing calories for energy and avoiding converting excess calories to fat.  We are more likely to use more calories as a fuel source earlier than later in the day.  Therefore, larger portions could be helpful before the afternoon, and smaller portions could aid in fat storage mitigation later in the day when energy levels are lower.

Food should be an enjoyable experience throughout our lives.  Savoring the flavors, textures, and social interactions food offers us is a valuable feature we enjoy in our culture.  Making healthy eating decisions can reinforce our relationship with our fitness journey and living healthy and fulfilling 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 24

Arthritis and Bone Mineral Density

Our bones are significant organs within our body responsible for the infrastructure and framework that keeps us upright and allows us to move in multiple planes of motion.  Similar to how rebar, cement, and two-by-fours hold buildings together, our bones supply an internal stabilizing factor to support our body.  Our skeleton offers us a magnificent design featuring bones possessing unique movement abilities based on the bones shape and location within the body.  Various types of joints, such as ball and socket, hinge, saddle, and facet joints, offer a wide array of movements in our extremities.  Needless to say, the bones residing underneath, around, and on top of muscles, nerves, blood vessels, and internal organs are extremely important.

A potential threat to our bone health is degenerative bone disease.  A common diagnosis society is afflicted with is arthritis.  This bone condition can be stemmed from various originations.  Sometimes, arthritis can be a genetic condition in which degenerative bone and joint disease are present in other family members.  However, a typical presentation of degenerative bone disease comes in the form of underuse or a sedentary lifestyle, which produces a deconditioned state for humans who perform suboptimal physical activity and lack routine exercise.  This lack of exercise and physical activity sends a message to the body that if the body stops moving, then there wouldn’t be any reason to have strong bones to support a physically inactive individual.

Bone mineral density can be defined as the strength present within the internal structure of our bones.  Osteocytes, blood vessels, and collagen cells comprise the fabric holding our bones together.  The status of the cells and compounds in our bones contribute to our bones strength.

To counteract the harmful effects of arthritis and degenerative bone disease, the body needs a stimulus to promote the strengthening and resynthesis of bone mineral density.  One of the most efficient and effective ways to encourage the reinforcement of strong bones and joints is to perform safe and effective resistance training exercises.  An increased lean muscle mass around bones mitigates force from exertive movements to apply too much stress to the bones.  Additionally, the body will react to a skillfully designed resistance training program by detecting the stress imposed on the area of the body being moved through slightly exertive movements.  The result of physical stress via skillful exercise not only increases lean muscle mass but also sends signals to the bone cells to respond to exercise-induced stress.  Adaptations of increased blood supply to the cellular structure within deep layers of the bone trigger repair and resynthesis of bone cell and collagen, making the bone tissue more durable, dense, and stable. Therefore, adhering to safe and effective resistance training routines can potentially mitigate the suboptimal effects of arthritis and degenerative bone and joint disease.

Focusing on low impact isometric or eccentric movements is a great place to start when the goal is to promote bone and muscle strengthening.  Before picking up the dumbbells, kettlebells, and barbells at the gym, perhaps a more suitable approach would be to seek counsel from a private Pilates instructor, a Yoga teacher, a physical therapist, or a skilled personal trainer.  Exercise is a crucial medication for combatting arthritis.  However, conducting exercise routines should be performed skillfully and safely to allow time to learn the purpose and techniques of each movement.

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 21

Sciatica Struggles

“You don’t know what you got ‘till it’s gone.”  It couldn’t have been said any better than when I listened to the 80’s hair band playing this song out of the Alpine speakers in my stepdads car on the way to school many moons ago.  When I have a headache, upset stomach, or a bad case of seasonal allergies causing havoc on my sinuses, I wish I was in a normal unafflicted state.  These symptoms take days or even weeks to dissipate,  I rarely find myself thinking about my present state when I don’t have headaches, a sour stomach, or my allergies are going haywire.  I suppose when my body is in a neutral point of homeostasis, I don’t have to notice anything suboptimal occurring.  It’s easy to notice when we’re in pain.  Yet, it’s challenging to acknowledge when things are going well around us.

This same feeling of noticing how things are going wrong could be said about physical pain.  A typical example we see among newer personal training clients is sciatica.  Better known as a burning, zinging, throbbing, and “nervy” pain pulsating down the buttocks, the back of the leg, along the calf, and the heel, managing sciatica is just as undesirable as dealing with the repercussions of food poisoning.  This unique symptom contributing to a lack of mobility, disruption of sleep, and a negatively affected psychological and emotional state gets its name from interference to the proper functioning of the sciatic nerve.  A person dealing with sciatica might as well say they’re sick.

The nervous system is responsible for transferring electric signals from the brain and spinal cord to organs so they can perform their duties of allowing the body to operate correctly.  The sciatic nerve is unique due to its large physical structure and length.  It originates at the base of the spine and covers the landscape of the entire back half of the leg.  Signals to innervate lower extremity muscles to contract are sent from this main message center to the lower extremities.  The sciatic nerve is a significant structure toward the optimal function of one of the most critical actions we perform in our everyday lives, walking and standing.

Waking up from sleep and having a “pins and needles” feeling in your arm after laying on it for a few hours is a classic case of what happens when a nerve gets compressed.  The good news is, after a few moments of discomfort, this “dead arm” feeling dissipates.  Similar symptoms occur with the presentation of sciatica.  The large nerve that covers the back of our lower extremities gets compressed, causing neuropathy.  However, these symptoms aren’t as simple as accidentally sleeping on an area of the body and causing temporary tingling in the area.  Sciatica is far more complicated.

The compression of the sciatic nerve can occur due to vertebrae or spinal disc pressing on a portion of the nerve or a tight muscle pushing down it.  Spinal disruptions are complicated and require dedication and adherence to a structured rehabilitation program professionally designed by a physical therapist or spinal specialist.  However, before going down the route of thinking something devastating has happened to the spine, aiming for the low-hanging fruit to alleviate sciatica can resolve this issue via muscle conditioning.  Ruling out muscular disturbance causing sciatica is an attainable method with the potential to relieve sciatica and contribute to ruling out spinal problems.

One such symptom contributing to sciatica is compression of the nerve caused by tight gluteal and hip muscles.  The piriformis muscle is the star of the deep hip muscles that gets plenty of attention when sciatica is creating havoc on the body.  Getting its name from the Latin definition of “pear-shaped form,” the piriformis makes its home directly over the top of the sciatic nerve.  Usually a friendly neighborly duo, the piriformis and sciatic nerve typically hang out and function harmoniously.  However, when the piriformis has a bad day, it tightens and presses down on the sciatic nerve.

Muscular imbalances are usually caused by an insufficient fitness level.  Sure, we can blame a tight muscle’s presence on how much we sit all day as a desk jockey or commuter.  Sitting more will equates to the hips boney structure compressing the sciatic nerve.  However, adhering to a consistent and effective fitness routine is a commonly forgotten contributor to mitigating sciatica.  Possessing adequate muscular strength, mobility, and blood flow to the musculature of the hips significantly decreases the risk of hip muscles like the piriformis from tightening up and compressing the sciatic nerve.

Living life pain-free is far more enjoyable than living in pain.  Similar to how eating the right food and getting enough sleep contributes to fending off headaches and upset stomachs, consistently adhering to a lower body fitness routine ensures sciatica and other lower back problems stay out of the picture.  Fight against the urge to notice what’s going wrong in the body and switch the line of thought to what’s going right.  Focusing on tactics that reinforce what makes the body feel good is a magnificent mindset to be in.

 

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 16

Upper Body Strength and Quality of LIfe

After a long week of work, chores, and the demands of being a human in today’s society, the weekends gifts us with a few extra hours to sit back and relax.  Kicking your feet up and tuning into a ball game is just one of the many bonuses the slower-paced Saturdays and Sundays allows.  There might be a few “honey-do” chores around the house involving tightening screws on the outdoor shed, exchanging a blown-out light bulb for a new one, or pressure washing the cobwebs off the underside of your roof might be requested since the demands of weekday endeavors aren’t as prevalent.  For those of you who have young children or grandkids, it should come as no surprise the weekend is a prime time for interacting with these young, energetic, and brilliant beings.

Your weekend lunch might start with assembling your favorite sandwich, entailing a masterful foundation of two slices of yeasty and spongy bread, mouthwatering choices of deli meat, mayonnaise, and pickles.  However, opening a jar of pickles might take more effort than first perceived.  Grabbing the glass jar with a hand in one orientation and shifting the top hand fitting onto the top of the pickle jar in another position requires a certain amount of strength, coordination, and skill within the muscles of the upper extremities.  Opening a new airtight jar of pickles can be difficult for individuals with deconditioned gripping muscles.

Parents of young children in their first years of playing overhead-throwing sports such as baseball, softball, or football might need to drain some of their energy.  One could imagine a game of catch isn’t too far away these weekend days.  “Mom or dad isn’t working today. Surely, they must want to wake up and throw a ball with me,” might be what is going through the youngster’s mind.  In contrast, the words, “I get to put my feet up and watch some YouTube videos and catch up on my shows on Hulu,” might be what’s going through an adults line of thought who devoted forty to fifty hours of their week toward their careers.  The last thing we want is to neglect our brilliant protégés by lacking the ability to play a little catch.  Playing a few games of catch requires using the fingers, hands, and wrists to catch and throw a ball repeatedly.

A factory-sealed jar of pickles, a loose screw on the cabinet, or a fifteen-minute game of catch with a small human shouldn’t be factors holding us back from enjoying the weekend.  Instead of viewing the challenges of opening an airtight glass jar as a rigorous bout of labor, reinforcing hand strength prevents this detour of enjoying a pickle on our sandwiches.  Sufficient wrist and finger strength reinforce our hands’ ability to wield a screwdriver and turn it ten times to tighten hinges in our kitchen cabinets.  For the parents reading this, strong wrists, elbows, and rotator cuffs are just as important as the ability to get our kids to school on time so we can get out and play some much-needed catch with them.

Exercises such as dumbbell bicep curls, pushups, and shoulder stretches are simple yet effective tactics that significantly improve upper extremity strength.  Perhaps achieving a few reps of dumbbell bicep curls two to three days a week can improve finger, wrist, and forearm strength.  Additionally, completing a set of ten pushups from the countertop two to three times per week has the potential to improve the strength responsible for extending the arms and holding them in front of the body.  Lastly, performing a doorway stretch for thirty seconds daily on each arm can prevent rotator cuff injuries and improve throwing performance.

Setting aside time to relax and unwind is an invaluable theme that seems to be forgotten far too often.  However, let’s not forget the body needs strength and endurance to get the most out of these leisurely times.  Ensure to input exercises that support our upper body strength and avoid injuries to our wrists, elbows, and shoulders by regularly adhering to routine upper body strengthening exercises.

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 13

Back Pain and Everyday Life

The trials and tribulations of life present themselves in various ways where we can expect to prepare for them or randomly when we least expect it.  Our society consistently manages the scales of financial status, human relations, and psychological health.  A few top contributors requiring a substantial amount of time include paying the bills, maintaining a healthy relationship with our spouse, and finding time to enjoy our everyday lives.  Along with ensuring the rent and utilities are paid, mitigating quibbling of relationships, and getting enough sleep, yet another variable seems to fit directly into life’s top five critically important topics to maintain at an optimal level.  This item that seems to appear randomly and needs immediate attention is back pain.

The back is comprised of a network of bones, muscles, and nerves granting us the freedom and ability to thrive in the physical realm of our world.  The spine acts as a keystone in the center of our body.    Our spine possesses protective properties to the spinal cord.  Also known as a portion of the central nervous system, the spinal cord is an elongation of the brain responsible for sending electronic signals to our skeletal muscles and organs.  Without an efficient signal sent to the muscles and organs, one could imagine that the human body may not operate as effectively.  Therefore, if there is an alarm sounding off in the form of back pain notifying us that something isn’t right, it would be just as essential to address the issue of back pain in the same sense of urgency we address other high-priority themes that hold together the productivity of our time on earth.

In the fitness industry, personal trainers see back pain as a primary culprit to impeding an exercise participant’s progress.  If there is an issue that barricades the productivity of someone’s everyday life that can be alleviated if attention is brought to rectifying the primary cause of back pain, then we know where to start.  We instruct our personal training clients to follow simple yet effective best practices to fend off back pain and mitigate the long-lasting afflictions back pain causes.

  1. Exercise consistently:  Before we go into the cutting-edge exercises that can be found on the interwebs or posts by social media fitness professionals, it’s essential to understand the concept of ingraining regular exercise as a staple in our identity.  Exercising for ten to fifteen minutes two to three times a week can redefine a human’s physical architecture.  Before choosing what areas of the body we want to tone and strengthen, identify a consistent and realistic plan to adhere to an exercise schedule.  Inconsistencies in exercise routines disrupt progressions toward fortifying the human body.
  2. Start with isometric exercises: The traditional sit-up, crunch, or fancy core machines at our local gym are effective but require a substantial amount of spine organization to be performed correctly and reap the full benefits of reducing back pain.  Before venturing into advanced exercises, a safe option would be to start with isometric exercises such as the simple straight-arm plank.  Isometric exercise is defined as a body position placed under tension without any mechanical movement.  Putting the body in a situation where it must remain unmoved by the external resistance of gravity requires muscular activation by simply remaining still under tension.  The straight-arm plank requires one movement that needs to be held for a short period.  Practicing this technique two to three times per week can reinforce the spine muscles to mitigate the harmful effects of back pain.
  3. Find a fitness professional and practice your technique: Exercise can be challenging.  Similar to being trained at job sites for specific functions, exercise requires consistent adherence to refine techniques so we get the most benefit without harming ourselves.  Seeking a personal trainer to meet in a one-on-one setting, a Pilates instructor, or physical therapist offers invaluable resources toward ensuring the execution of each technique is performed for optimal outcomes.

Understanding that back pain can slow down our ability to function optimally in our everyday lives is important.  Take some time to identify what back strengthening and injury prevention exercises fit your life.  By practicing back-strengthening exercises, we can avoid being held up by back pain and get the most out of life.

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

Aug 02

Procrastination and Exercise

The resident mockingbirds camping out in the neighborhood trees can be heard performing a symphony of bird songs.  Your bedroom window is slightly cracked, allowing the crisp and refreshing morning summer air to flow over your face as you slowly regain consciousness from a good night’s sleep.  As you notice the light becoming brighter shining in your room from the window, the sky starts to illuminate into more brilliant colors of azure blue and calming lavender purple undertones over the eastern mountains.  You know the sun is moments away from hovering above the horizon.  Your bed feels safe, stable, and comforting.  The intricate formation of your pillows supporting your head is something you look forward to every night after a productive day.  Perhaps you have your favorite cat-shaped stuffed animal that helps keep your arm in a stable position while you lay on your side to partake in the best slumber possible.  This seems like a flawless portrait of how you want your Saturday mornings to be after a rigorous and productive five days of living life to the fullest this past week.  However, it’s Monday morning at 7:30 AM.  And, you’re Yoga class is starting in thirty minutes.

This scenario of waking up to a beautiful morning after a restful weekend might not seem surprising.  Your bed is warm, you’ve taken it easy over the weekend, and your body is cuddled up, akin to how you felt when you were wrapped up like a burrito-blanket as an infant in your parents’ arms.  However, you have a boatload of tasks to accomplish now that the weekend has concluded.  Dropping kids off at school, getting ready to perform your best at your jobs, and handling the demands of being the head of a household throughout the week are just a few examples of the busy lives humans live in today’s society.  After the logistics of everyday life have concluded, we have a category that frequently hits the back burner; exercise.  Why would we want to get up an hour early, travel to the gym, and sweat?  After a long day of work, does it seem appealing to park in the lot in front of a local gym, change into exercise-appropriate apparel, and perform a bout of physically exhaustive movements?  Or, does it sound more enticing to head home, grab a beer, kick our feet up on the Lazy Boy recliner, and turn on the Giants game?

Sometimes the phenomenological life-enhancing benefits of exercise aren’t enough to peel us out of a warm cozy bed and devote an extra hour of exercise to our day.  Fending off cardiovascular and metabolic disease, improving bone mineral density, decreasing the likelihood of unexpected injuries, mitigating stress, or creating an overall healthier everyday life experience via an adherent exercise program is probably the last thing on our mind when all we want to do is remain cocooned in our blankets in bed.  When checking off the daily list of to-do’s, consistent adherence to exercise can quickly become an empty box left unchecked.

A few tactics we recommend to our personal training clients is to set realistic goals.  If you’re starting an exercise program, the last thing you want to do is go from zero to committing to five days of exercise right off the bat.  A five-hundred percent increase in adhering to an exercise program is a lofty expectation.  Instead, meeting your weekly exercise expectancy one to two days per week is more attainable.  Consistently completing an average of two days a week of organized exercise sessions have the ability to offer significantly positive results.  Additionally, exercise sessions don’t need to be hours long.  Performing safe and effective exercise routines for fifteen to twenty minutes in your home can produce optimal outcomes and create healthier versions of ourselves.

Additionally, it’s important to make exercise fun.  If running up dusty hills first thing in the morning seems like the portrayal of limbo in the afterlife, you probably shouldn’t do it.  Perhaps meeting your friend for a Yoga class and following it up with a quick coffee to chat for a few moments sounds more enticing.  Want to flip some tires at 6 AM?  Go right ahead.  If not, don’t sign up for a small group fitness class where picking up and flipping used and dirty tractor tires is part of the agenda.  Perhaps connecting with a friend who likes throwing a frisbee or hitting a few pickleballs at a local park might be more down your alley.  Having a buddy join you or looking forward to a fun activity makes achieving those exercise sessions more attainable and enticing.

Exercise procrastination is a simple action to accomplish. Gravitating toward the path of least resistance takes little-to-no effort.  That’s why it’s easy to stay in bed or drive past a few local gyms on our way home to grab a beer and kick our feet up for a few hours while staring at a fifty-five-inch screen projecting monotonous images.  Let’s not forget that setting aside time for something fun is easy too.  It might take less time and effort to achieve a small bout of exercise than it does to watch a docuseries on Netflix.  Let’s appreciate the fun and enjoyment physical activity brings us.  Adding a stimulating and healthy form of exercise throughout our day gives us the gift of enhancing our physical well-being to 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.

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