Aug 28
“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 …
Aug 23
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 …
Aug 09
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 …
Aug 01
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 …
Jul 17
The nights are hot, people are sporting tank tops in the morning, and flip-flops have replaced the usual foot attire for the standard grocery store visits. As temperatures rise to the mid to upper nineties later in the afternoon and kids on summer vacation run rampant as raucous laughter fills the streets, we know it’s …
Jul 02
“Once we get over the age of thirty, we’re pretty much diagnosed with arthritis.” These were the words of a physical therapist who mentored me during one of my many internship experiences. Arthritis appears in a multitude of presentations based on an individual’s history of injury, adherence to exercise and physical activity, or through a …
Jun 18
“I read some research that one of the biggest factors causing falls is related to having a weak core,” expressed Dutch during one of his weekly personal training sessions. Dutch expressed this as we performed an exercise involving balancing on one leg as I threw a la crosse ball, bouncing it off of the ground …
Jun 01
As I was meandering through my garden over Memorial Day weekend, basking in the glowing Napa sunlight and enjoying the refreshing Northern California breeze, I went to move my wheelbarrow away from one of my garden beds. The bok choy in my garden was thriving. However, something disturbing residing within the bed of the wheelbarrow …
May 16
The spinal cord is an elongation of our brain consisting of a series of hollow bones stacked on top of each other. These bony structures are our vertebrae. Spanning from the base of the skull down to the buttocks, each vertebra possesses a hollow cylinder-like interior meant to encase and protect the spinal cord. Consisting …
May 08
“I wish there was an instruction manual that told you how to get old,” expressed Selwyn as we enjoyed a cup of coffee and pastry outside of West Won Bakery. After catching up after a few months of being too busy to meet up and conduct our usual friendly banter, something that came up with …
