Didn't Fall Out of Tree, This How To Video Could Save Your Shoulder

Christmas is two short weeks away.  ARE YOU READY!?  I am about done with my list and am working on my two final giftees: My nieces.  Allison is 5 and Sarah is 2.  The issue here is they have everything.  I do not mean they have everything they need.  That would imply they do not go without food and warm boots, which they do not.  But they also have everything they want!  Unless of course you consider an ipad a necessity.  If that is the case then you live with my sister on Planet Silliness in the Obscene Consumerism System.

The list I received for the girls is as follows:
Allison: Markers, plain white paper, every Barbie in the world and the Barbie Dream House.
Sarah: A digger, a horse, a unicorn and crayons and the Barbie Dream House.

Looking at my budget, which does not include horses, mythical horse-like creatures or anything Mattel calls a "dream" anything, it looks like Office Depot is the big winner when I go shopping this week.

"What does any of this have to do with shoulder, or fitness, or anything," you might ask?  I will tell you.  Today I am giving you, the reader, an early Christmas present!  I have produced a Jerry Bruckheimer-quality video so stunning and engrossing you will be riveted to your screen for at least 20 seconds.  The video contains stretches AND exercises for that non-falling-out-of-a-tree-related shoulder injury!  The stretches are as described in the "Falling out of the Tree..." post and the video has the added Straight Arm on the Ball bonus stretch because I forgot to ask the girls to do the "Straight Arm on the Wall Stretch."  The three exercises with the bands are great for strengthening the rotator cuff.

Thank you again to our excellent demonstrator Courtney and the newest addition to our demo team Megan!  They both play volleyball for the Niwot High School Cougars in Longmont, Colorado.

Please, as always, post or email tom@canyonptandf.com with questions or comments.  Now that I have more or less figured out how to create a video, look for more video blogs and be sure to visit us at www.canyonptandf.com.

Stretch your hips for you back demo photos/ Thanksgiving Edition

Happy Thanksgiving all.  I hope you are all preparing for or are recently recovering from eating obscene amounts of food.

"What the hell is wrong with you!?"

You might ask.  And I would reply, "There are many things wrong with me.  To what specifically are  you referring?"

And you would respond in a very judging tone, "How dare you encourage people to eat too much on Thanksgiving!  You are a horrible example!"

And I would say, slightly offended but mostly skeptically, "Look, one day out of the year someone, perhaps even yourself, goes through the trouble of getting up at the crack of dawn to roast a turkey, makes homemade everything from stuffing to potatoes to delicious vegetable casserole to an average of 3 - 4 pies per U.S. capita.  FOR THE LOVE OF GOD EAT IT!!  Be good the rest of the year.  Seriously, I dare you."

Anyway, once you are done stuffing your face with reckless abandon take a look at photos, as promised, for stretching your hips and strengthening your glutes for helping with low back pain:

Static Hip Stretch

This is another look at the static hip stretch as seen in the previous post.  Next we have a variation with a twist which gives the slightly more flexible individual a better stretch:

Static Hip with Rotation

And finally we have the starting position for glute strengthening.  Remember, 15 forward, 15 backward and 15 up and down.

Hip Circles

Thank you to Courtney for your help with photos and please "Plus 1," Forward or Comment to let her know we appreciate her work.  If you need additional information please visit www.canyonptandf.com or e mail me at tom@canyonptandf.com

Next week I will post the photos for the Knee Exercises Even You Can Do.  Until then, give these a try!  Oh and I highly encourage you to count and record your calories during Thanksgiving din...  Haha who am I kidding!  Happy Thanksgiving!

What to do for the non-falling out of a tree related shoulder pain.

Today we conclude our body part series with shoulders!  I want to start with yet another disclaimer.  If you fall out of a tree and land on your shoulder, seek medical attention immediately.  You should also seriously re-evaluate your choice of hobbies.  Why exactly were you climbing a tree?  Were the authorities in anyway involved?  Is there a pending restraining order?

But if you wake up one day and you feel a little discomfort in that shoulder or if you are getting a little discomfort doing pushing exercises I recommend a little light stretching before you commit to visiting the doctor's office.  Again, by way of disclaimer, if after 2 to 3 weeks you do not see significant improvement it is time to go see the doc.

Each of these four stretches is going to have a dynamic (moving) and static (not moving) component to it.  There will be a 5 count and then a 20 second hold:

1. Straight Arm Against Wall: Find a corner of a building, preferably one you belong in, and hold your arm straight out, even with the shoulder.  Place your hand on the wall and rotate your body so you feel a stretch in your chest.  Stretch and release, stretch and release 5 times and then hold for 20 seconds.
2. Bent Arm Against Wall: This is essentially the same stretch only you will bend your elbow 90 degrees so your fingers are pointing up.  Place your entire forearm (or as my friend Claire calls it the "forceps.") on the wall and do the same stretching technique as the the straight arm.
3. Arms Overhead: Reach your arms up overhead with fingers pointing toward the ceiling.  Shifting the shoulder upward, reach and relax, reach and relax, 5 times plus 20 seconds.
4. Hands Behind the Back: With straight arms, interlace your fingers behind your back.  Without bending at the torso, bring your arms away from your body and let them come back.  This is also done 5 times plus 20.

Do this every day for a couple weeks and see what happens.  If your shoulders start to feel better, you were successful and it was all a result of my help and you should probably send me a large cash donation.  If it did not help it was probably because you did not follow instructions properly but you should still send a large cash donation.  Oh and make an appointment to see an actual physician.

I discovered this week writing these descriptions is pretty challenging!  I imagine reading them has been equally challenging.  So starting next week in celebration of Thanksgiving I will GIVE you pictures and maybe even some video of all the exercises from our body part series if I can talk someone, Courtney, in to doing them for me.  

For more information or vague exercise descriptions visit www.canyonptandf.com or message me at tom@canyonptandf.com.

Two Tricks for Knee Pain Even You Can do at Home

Somewhat to my surprise the two articles on sore backs seem to be quite popular, whereas my riveting article on caffeinated underwear received little or no attention at all.   Based on my experience with the general public I assumed it was far more interested in underwear than lower backs, but, the people have spoken!

Today, therefore, I will continue my body part series.  Today's featured body part is the knee.  Before I go any farther let me clarify a couple things.  First, if you have suffered an acute knee injury, such as a falling on a slippery driveway your neighbor's child never got around to shoveling, or being hit repeatedly by a baseball bat in the side of leg you should seek immediate medical attention.  The tips I am sharing are for knee discomfort of the "CRAP!  Why is my knee sore today!?" variety.  So before you read on, please get a feel for in to which category you might fall.

One of the most common complaints I hear is "As I am getting older my knees feels 'loose' or 'unstable.'"  My first recommendation is try standing on one foot for about 30 seconds, 2 to three times, three times a week.  If that is too easy, get a foam pad, balance disk or BOSU and stand on it on one foot.  Being on one leg requires the muscles of the leg to stabilize the ankle and the knee and the more they have to do it, the more they remember how to do it.  After a few weeks, you should start to feel a difference!

Another complaint I hear is "I have this pain at the lower portion and to the outside of my knee-cap."  Often this pain is caused by a too tight IT band.  The Iliotibial (IT) band is a thick band of fibers that begins at the pelvis and runs down the outside of the thigh where it attaches at the tibia, or shin bone.  Although it is not technically a muscle, the IT band still does get tight especially for people who tend to run a lot.  My recommendation is to buy a foam roller and use it on the IT Band like the incredibly buff cartoon character in this example:

It will result in, just so you understand, a new kind of wholly unpleasant variety of pain.   BUT!  If you are consistent and do it correctly over time the pain will diminish in both your IT Band and your knee, so it is probably worth it.

Let me know how these two ideas work for you or if you have other knee related questions please comment below or e mail me at: tom@canyonptandf.com.  See you next week for our next featured body part and don't forget to visit www.canyonptandf.com to drive up web traffic and our Google rating!

Lower Back Pain, Try Stretching Your Hips, Part 2

I have not gotten any younger this week.  Although by back is doing much better, it is still giving me little reminders from time to time it is still there.  So I stretch my hips and it feels better. And then I go on with my day, and the next day I stretch my hips, and it feels better.  However, I feel like I have hit sort of a lower-back-pain plateau here.  So I decided to again be proactive and add strengthening to stretching.

In order to maintain muscle balance one must stretch the tight muscle and strengthen the opposing weak muscle.  In my case the hip flexors are the tight muscles and the Glutes are the weak muscles.  And to be honest, after looking at myself in the mirror, I can see no reasonable person will claim my glutes are too strong.  Or big, Or really even there at all.  They need some work.

Unfortunately I, like most folks, am Quadriceps dominant.  What that means is whenever I do a lower-body exercise (Squat, Lunge, Squatting Lunge, Lunging Squat, etc.) my Quads immediately take over so my Glutes can sit back and enjoy the ride.  So job one is to teach those Glutes how to work again.  I followed these simple steps and BELIEVE me, I could tell they were working:

1. Lay on your side with the bottom leg bent so a 90-degree angle is formed at the hip and at the knee.
2. Hold your top leg straight with your foot flexed and rotated in so the toes point down at about a 45-degree angle,  
3. Make medium sized circles with your leg, 15 forward and 15 backward, and then raise the leg straight up and down 15 times all without resting the leg.  
4. Repeat for the other side.

If you are doing it correctly you will immediately feel it in your Glutes.  After a few days of teaching those guys how to work, start working on squats.  With a flat back, drop into a good squat, SQUEEZE your butt, and come back up.  It is different for each person, but after a while those glutes should start firing with every squatting motion you make and HOORAY! you have achieved (better) balance.

I encourage you to give it a try yourself, and let me know how it works.  You can either comment here on the blog or e-mail me at tom@canyonptandf.com.  And because blogs with photos seem to get more attention I have, for your enjoyment, included a picture of my research assistant Matilda's favorite toy, "The Ferret!"  Enjoy!

Lower Back Pain? Try Stretching Your Hips...?

It was recently brought to my attention I am old.  Not just older, but old.  I thought that was a little unfair until I realized I was hobbling around like an old man this morning.  My back was sore!  And it's not like I was squatting 405lbs yesterday and had a good excuse,  I just woke up this morning with a sore back!  Coming on the heels of being accused of being old, I was kind of pissed.

So I stretched out my back.  Nothing.  I waited a little bit.  Stretched again.  Nothing.  That did not improve my mood.  It made no sense.  I have been doing more or less the same fitness program for the last 3 weeks: Run 3.5 miles one day, lift the next, 6 days a week.  Then it occurred to me, in addition to my workouts I spent 3 hours driving Wednesday which I almost never do.  I then spent 5 hours doing research, in a library, in a chair.  I was inactive for 8 hours.  Something I NEVER do.

My hip flexor muscles were in a contracted position for 8 hours Wednesday and as a result were tight.  This likely caused, unbeknownst to me, a greater than normal anterior pelvic tilt.  The front of my pelvis was being pulled down by the tight hip flexors, which caused the back of my pelvis to rise up.  The anterior pelvic tilt likely caused a greater than normal curve in my lower spine which put my spine is a compromising position.  So what did I do?  I ran on it Wednesday afternoon, lifted yesterday and, Tada!  Sore back today!

Once I realized the potential problem I was able to treat the problem instead of the symptom.  Problem: Tight hip flexor muscles.  Symptom: Sore back.  I started stretching my hip flexors and what I can tell you is that even if they were not causing the low back pain, they were damn tight!  Stretching them was so uncomfortable I almost forgot about my back.  And, as it turns out, it work!  After only 2 minutes of hip flexor stretching the back pain was reduced by, I would say, at least 50%.  Below are the basic and, lets say, slightly more advanced versions of what I did to stretch my hip flexors:

So the next time you are feeling low back pain, and assuming you have no history of major back injury, give this a shot!  For more common sense solutions to common problems, visit www.canyonptandf.com and see how you can FEEL SUPER today!

Get me my tattered sheet! I am Batman!

I discovered a disturbing new "fitness" trend: Fitness programs for the under 12 demographic.  Now let me be clear, I think kids should exercise.  I think they should maintain a healthy weight.  And I think creating a fitness program for them is pure insanity.

Having a structured fitness program for a five-year old is, to me, kind of like having a fitness program for my research assistant, Matilda.  For those who do not know, Matilda is s 2-year-old German Sheppard mixed with... stuff.  She is in great shape!  How, might you ask, does she do this?  I will tell you!  Although this is based purely on personal observations I have made during the last couple hours, I can comfortably clam Matilda lives to play.  She will play with anything at any time.  She plays with squirrels (admittedly I do not think the squirrels see the fun in sprinting across the yard fearing for their lives but that's their loss), she plays with bones, she plays with stuffed objects, some of which squeek, some of which do not, she plays with me, with other dogs, she plays with EVERYTHING.  The only time she does not play is when I force her to lay on her pillow while I work, waiting to play.  The closest thing she has to a structured workout is her evening walk but because I dictate the pace it probably is not much harder than waiting to play.

"What in the world does that have to do with a five-year-old," do you ask?

Again skipping the scientific research, I have determined, based on my own childhood memories, kids love to play!  When I was 5 I needed an old sheet and a stocking cap and I was Batman!  As Batman I would tear around the backyard fighting crime (Our backyard was a cesspool of crime) with a Batarang which looked remarkably like a broken Frisbee.  No one was yelling at me to do one more rep, no one was coming up with creative workouts or checking my form.  Crime did not sleep in St Paul so Batman was constantly on the move.  My mother did occasionally point out particularly heinous crimes which had to be stopped immediately,  Most of those happened during the winter months in very deep snow.

My point is with a little encouragement kids tend to find their own paths to fitness. The rest is just a gimmick.  Get them away from the televisions and tablets, send them outside and let them work their magic.  You too probably remember days from your childhood when you let your imaginations run wild and came home exhausted at the end of a long day of crimefighting.

For more information on fighting crime in my backyard, programs to kickstart YOUR fitness program or ways to avoid trending gimmicks, visit www.canyonptandf.com  And remember to always be yourself, unless you can be Batman.  Then ALWAYS be Batman.