“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 …
Category: Stress Napa
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Jul 17
Exercising in the Heat of the Summer
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
Managing Arthritis with Skillful Exercise and Rest Decisions
“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 01
Fend off Arthritis by Managing Stagnant Joints
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 …