Statin Myalgia

There’s a new condition that many of you should be aware of. It’s called statin myalgia. It’s caused from taking drugs for cholesterol. This is a common problem as many people have high cholesterol. These drugs can cause lower back pain, leg pain and magnify any pain by 50-60%. This has very important implications for chiropractors.

Since I see patients all the time for lower back pain and leg pain, it is important to tell me if you are taking these drugs. These drugs can slow the improvement that you would normally expect. I have found that some patients take longer than others to heal. This could be for a number of reasons, but this recent information regarding the dangers of cholesterol drugs makes me wonder how many people are not getting the results they want because of the side effects from the statins.

Spondylolisthesis

If you’ve been diagnosed with a spondylolisthesis, here is an outline of the treatment that helps. We call this problem a “spondy” for short for obvious reasons.

Adjustments are performed to the area under the spondy. If you have a problem at the L4 vertebrae, we might adjust L5 underneath it. If the problem is L5, we might adjust the sacrum. The purpose of this is to take the stress off the joints of the spondy.

Avoiding certain exercises that cause arching of the back. Certain yoga postures that arch the back will further damage the joints. Don’t do them. I know this will upset all the yogis out there, but haven’t you ever wondered why some people get worse with yoga? I’m all for yoga, but if there’s a spondy it’s not going to work.

Stabilization exercises are useful. If you can learn to contract the muscles of your torso and keep your spondy still while you move your arms and legs, you are on your way to fixing your pain.

It can take 2-3 weeks before you begin to notice pain relief. It may take up to 3-4 months to fully stabilize the spine so that we are done with treatment. Periodic adjustments to the area are beneficial because this is a chronic condition. There is no cure for a spondy but with proper treatment you can live a normal life with minimal pain.

Why are these things on the side of the road?

During a bicycle ride, I have plenty of time to think. Sometimes I will have a concern or problem, only to come home with the exact solution. Sometimes I’ll solve a problem within an hour and I’ll use my cell phone to call my answering machine and leave a message. It’s during these epic rides that I might appreciate the landscape, suffer a little to improve my fitness, clear my mind of the world’s stresses…and then I notice it. There’s something on the side of the road that catches my eye. I can only wonder how it got there. You’d never notice these things in a car because you’re going too fast. For fun, I thought I’d share with you (and ask because maybe it’s YOUR fault) what I see. I’m very curious why these things are on the side of the road.

Beer bottles: I would like to know why there are so many beer bottles and cans on the sides of our roads. They’re not on our main streets, they’re on the back roads in Somis, Ventura, Ojai, and the Santa Monica Mountains. I know HOW they got there…people threw them out of their car windows when they were done with them. My bigger concern is that someone was drinking it before they threw it out. I mean, who’s going out and driving and throwing their empty beer cans on the side of these roads?

Wheel balancing metal thingies: You don’t know this, but a number of you are missing those metal things on the front wheels of your cars. I know this because I see them on the ground all the time. Your spine is out of alignment and so is your car.

Flattened animals: I know why these are there. Remember the jokes about why the chicken crossed the road? Maybe the chicken made it, but the snakes, frogs, possums, squirrels, raccoons, and other assorted fauna didn’t make it across the road.

Glass: This goes without saying, but if you can please stop throwing glass on the side of the road 25 miles away from my house I would really appreciate it. I do not like changing a flat tire.

Under garments: Now this is a funny one. Who is driving 30 mph on winding/twisting roads and suddenly decides to throw their underwear out the window? They may lead interesting lives, but geez. Also, sometimes you’ll see a single shoe. I always wonder where the rest of the body is. Is it in a bag and it’s been thrown over the edge of the cliff? I mean, how did that shoe get there?

Car tire hubs: These just fall off. If you’re missing one, I can probably tell you where it is.

Memorials: This one scares me because I don’t want to have one for myself. I know exactly why these are there. Someone died at this exact spot. It reminds me to be careful and ride safely. I remember when I was riding in Solvang a couple of years ago and the route called for us to ride up this one hill that was a popular with motorcyclists. Just on the incline of the mountain, I passed by like 12 memorials. I started thinking to myself that maybe this isn’t the place to be riding.

Sports Injuries in Kids: What You Need to Know

A recent article indicated the most high risk sports for children. It’s already September and I’ve had lots of parents bring their kids in for injuries due to sports.

Here’s the top four sports in order based upon the number of injuries per year:
Football 350,000
Basketball 300,000
Soccer 140,000
Baseball 120,000

The main injury you need to worry about as a parent is a concussion.

Concussions can have long-lasting effects. Kids can develop memory problems, headaches, trouble concentrating and even depression. In sports where ego drives the athlete (football in particular), the young person is likely told to “shake it off.” The problem is only 5% of all concussions result in the kid being knocked-out. You think they’re okay until later when they start developing problems.

You can’t “shake off” a concussion.

What needs to occur is to have the kid pulled from the game if there is a head injury. No debate necessary. Let the child complain. Let them explain that “I’m okay.” Let them fear the teasing from their peers. It’s not worth talking the risk to let them continue to play.

If you suspect a concussion, watch your child and how they act. If there’s any question, take them to the emergency room.

How we fix elbow tendonitis

For most people the pain is on the outside of the elbow. A minority of the time it is on the inside of the elbow. If it’s on the outside of the elbow, it’s called tennis elbow and if it’s on the inside, it’s called golfers elbow. You don’t have to play tennis or golf to get tendonitis in the elbow. In fact it’s often caused from typing.

Most patients will complain of pain, fatigue, and tenderness in the muscles. X-rays are not necessary unless there’s been a forceful injury that caused it. How we come to the conclusion of muscle/tendon pain is by stretching the muscle and having you pull against it. Normal muscles and tendons don’t produce pain when you do that. If there’s tendonitis it will be painful.

The way to get rid of it is to perform cross friction massage. With my thumb I will rub the tendon 90 degrees to the direction of the tendon. This can last up to 10 minutes. Within the first 3 minutes you will usually feel the tendon become numb to any pain. Often we will see a patient twice a week for 4-6 weeks. That’s usually enough to resolve it.

Ultrasound and cold laser therapy can help this condition. Athletic taping is helpful but only if there is not an excessive amount of hair on the elbow. The tape doesn’t stick to the skin otherwise.

Exercises for the elbow include doing extension curls. You would use a 5-10 pound weight and rest your forearm on a table. You would lift the weight using both arms and then slowly lower the weight to the bottom position. Three sets of 15 repetitions done twice a day for three months often is enough to fully rehabilitate the condition.

Should you reduce inflammation?

I told a patient to use ice to reduce inflammation and she was hesitant to do so. She brought up an interesting concept. This patient felt that if inflammation was a natural response to an injury, wouldn’t it make sense to let it happen? Doesn’t reducing inflammation prevent proper healing?

To some degree she has a point. If the inflammation is tolerable meaning that you can tolerate the pain, it may be worthwhile to allow the natural process to happen. Inflammation is how the body initially handles an injury.

However in many cases inflammation becomes excessive. This happens for a number of reasons. Firstly many foods we eat are fuel to the fire of inflammation. Go to the zone diet website to learn more. Food allows our body to produce more inflammatory hormones that cause an excessive amount of inflammation.

Using ice doesn’t eliminate inflammation, it reduces it.

Lastly, people come to a doctor to reduce their pain. Ice works good for that. While it may be temporary, so is every drug you take. Ice doesn’t destroy your liver and kidneys. It’s much safer.

Clinical experience has shown that patients with new injuries have increased pain when applying heat. Ice has shown to help the pain.

Changing your posture

A question I get absolutely all the time is, “Why is my posture so bad?”

The answer? It’s the little things you’re doing over a period of years.

It’s hard to influence your posture with exercises. Most of the time it’s due to things you are doing outside of the gym.Imagine a person that sits all day. Their hips are constantly in flexion, their upper back and shoulders are slouched over, they get up every two hours to go to the vending machine. Even if you gave this person the absolute perfect exercises they may not change their posture much.Why?It’s because what we do everyday for hours and hours. A half-hour workout just isn’t going to change your posture.

Think about it – do you really expect 1 ½ hours in the gym every week to counteract the fact that you sit at a desk or in your car for 40, 50 or even 60 hours every week?It’s not going to happen. Those constant postures manifest and develop into something much bigger than you give them credit for. Muscles tighten in as little as 20 minutes; that means if you’re sitting at a desk for 8 hours every day, your muscles are adapting to that position by getting shorter! On top of that remember that you drove to work, you sat down for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All these postures were the same!

If you are really serious about changing your posture, look at every aspect of your day.

If you sit at a desk, get your hips in extension by performing frequent lunge stretches. Get a stand-up desk. Move around a lot. Try to be constantly moving.
If you drive all day long, set a timer on your phone to go off every 15 minutes that will cue you to sit-up straight and move around a bit. Fidgeting is not a bad thing!

Results that last?

Do you want results that last a long time? What a silly question, of course you do. When it comes to back and neck pain, most people suffer constantly.

The key to long term pain relief in the lower back and neck is to improve muscular endurance. It’s not to increase strength of the muscles, it’s to increase the time that the muscles can contract. This means that it is not important to lift heavy weights for your spine, but rather you must be able to lift light weights for a longer period of time. In fact many exercises don’t even require weights. Your own body weight is enough.

The goal is to hold a position and be able to maintain that position without movement for a couple of minutes. Think of it this way, stop doing crunches but rather hold the top position for one minute.

People that lift heavy weights all the time still can suffer with back pain. Strength appears to have a very weak correlation with lower back pain. Just because you can lift heavy weights doesn’t mean your back may not hurt. You have to be able to do an exercise that lasts a long time to help the correct muscles in your lower back.

The correct exercises are extensions on a gym ball, stability exercises on the floor, higher repetition deadlifts, squats, and good-mornings. We can show you these in the office.

The problem is that most people that have repetitive constant back pain have weak muscles that get quickly tired and have shrunk. To compound the problem, the muscles don’t contract at the right time. For example, when you go to lift a box in the garage, the back muscles should work, but they take a split second too long to contract. Just enough time to sprain your back. OuchThey also had abnormal activation patterns.

The muscles of your lower back quickly shrink after an episode of lower back pain. The muscles don’t recover after the pain is gone. This sets you up for the next episode of back pain.

It takes 8 weeks of endurance training to increase endurance ability by 100%- 150% in patients that are out of shape. This means that AFTER the back pain is gone, it can take 8 weeks to fully recover the muscular endurance to prevent the next episode. As you can imagine, some patients never follow this advice. They figure that the pain is gone so they must be alright only to experience pain again. It’s a vicious cycle.

Exercises can be done daily or even twice daily because they don’t produce muscle soreness. Usually with chiropractic, the pain will begin to reduce within 1-6 weeks depending upon the case. After this, it is important to continue with the treatment while exercising for at least eight weeks.

This is the reasoning for the treatment recommendations that we make.

Diet Cola or Coffee?

I’m switching from diet cola to coffee. Is that healthier?

I’m not so sure that coffee can be considered “health food” but when you compare the chemicals in diet colas to coffee, coffee can be considered healthier.

There have been some studies showing that caffeine taken prior to exercise can stimulate energy from fat cells. This is only for infrequent ingestion of caffeine. It’s not to say that coffee is a weight loss drink. When those people ingested caffeine regularly, the results were not as good.

Coffee the way some people drink it should be sold at 31-flavors rather than Starbuck’s. The studies were done with coffee…beans with hot water…not cream, sugar, caramel, chocolate sprinkles, etc.

Lastly, you are likely to get a dirty look from your dentist, with a speech about teeth whitening.

So while it’s unlikely that coffee is the holy grail of health, it seems to be considered by some to be “healthy” this week.

We’ll see what happens.

Eating before and after a workout

If you wake up early in the morning and workout for less than one hour, it’s not really necessary to eat anything. Just go do the workout and come home and eat.

After the workout, you should eat something that contains some balance to it according to the Zone Diet. Do this regardless if you are lifting weights or doing cardio. Eggs and an apple are perfect. A Clif bar, chocolate milk, a protein shake, or a high protein cereal like Go-Lean are good choices. Bad choices are toast, coffee, bagels, most cereals, and juices. This will allow your body to burn fat and not blood sugar. You’ll also have more energy.

If you are working out later in the day, eating prior to exercising is going to be a factor. If you are doing cardiovascular exercises that don’t involve a lot of bouncing (cycling, walking on a treadmill, stair-stepping) you can literally eat right before. Ideally, a zone snack would be perfect because it would allow you to primarily burn fat as an energy source. Snacks/meals such as a turkey/cheese sandwich with avocado on it could work. Eating a high carbohydrate meal right before an aerobic workout is forcing your body to use your blood sugar as the primary energy source rather than fat. This makes your exercise not as effective.

If you are doing weight lifting later in the day, it’s best to time your eating so that you are eating an hour before your workout. It’s hard to workout with a full stomach. If you get off work at 5:00 pm, don’t just run to the gym and workout. If you haven’t eaten since noon, you might lose energy. Maybe you can have some yogurt or fruit at 4:00 pm. If you are in a crunch, Gatorade and string cheese is a good pre-workout meal prior to weight lifting.

How to exercise around injuries

Many people have chronic conditions. These are pains that never fully go away but can be lessened greatly through chiropractic methods. The challenge is to still work out while you have the pain. How do you know when you can workout through the pain? Should you rest and wait?

With chronic problems it’s best to work around the pain, rather than through it. A patient of mine was working out and trying to do push ups and it was killing her wrists and shoulders. Since she was working out in the gym I told her to try the pec-deck machine and barbell bench presses. These exercises worked the same muscles as the push up, but didn’t bother her wrist or shoulders. She didn’t stop working out, she just didn’t do the exercises that hurt.

Now some would argue that the push up is a better exercise than the non-functional machines and weights. It’s not a better exercise if you get injured.

You can try the treadmill, elliptical, or exercise bike. There’s even recumbent bicycles if your back is really hurting. While all of these are good for your cardiovascular fitness, some may bother your knee or back. Simply try another exercise until you find the right one.

In certain circumstances you should just not work out at all. In cases where there is a new injury and/or there’s inflammation it would be best to take some time off.

In some cases you can workout through the pain. In these cases where there is a weakness that is the reason for instability in the spine, exercising despite pain would be appropriate. In these cases you will significantly feel better as you are exercising. You will know that it feels better because as you are gaining strength, the pain will lessen. If the pain is getting worse, you need to stop.

When 20/20 Doesn't Work Anymore

Usually people join the gym and do 20 minutes of cardio and 20 minutes of machines, 3-times per week. They never change their routine. If you’re lucky, this will work for you. The main problem is that if you are consistent you’ll hit a plateau after two months. If you no longer lose weight, you’ll likely get frustrated and quit.

Here’s what you should do after the two months of 20/20:

You’ll need to increase the weight lifting workout. It’s quicker to do some basic exercises that involve a lot of muscles rather than using 15 different machines. If you did bench press, squats, and pull ups you would be finished in 45 minutes. If you don’t like free weights, you can do machines but try to use machines that work more than one muscle. Weight lifting should be done the day before endurance exercise.

The following day you should do a light resistance endurance workout. Every calls this “cardio.” Use something like an exercise bike, treadmill, swimming etc. You want to do something that will get your heart going without a lot of strain on your joints. In other words, running on concrete would be restricted. In this workout, you want to exercise up to one hour at a consistent pace.

Research has shown that physiologically, the weight lifting can tear muscle fibers and the cardio can help flush blood through the muscles resulting in less soreness for you. By organizing your workout in this fashion, you’ll get greater strength gains and less soreness. If you did an endurance day first and the weight training on the second day, the muscles would be too fatigued to gain maximum benefit.

The third day of this cycle would be a rest day. Remember that we started out with a 3-day a week exercise program. Now you are graduating to a 4-day a week. Day 4-5 would be the same as day 1 and day 2. You would do weight training the first day, and endurance exercise the following day. Even though before you were exercising more frequently with weights and cardio (3x/week) you were only spending a total of one hour each per week. That’s why you hit a plateau. By adopting this two day cycle with a rest day in between, you are now doing weights two hours per week and endurance two hours per week.

You will find that this system will give you the benefits of continuing progress.

Sacroiliac Joint Pain and How to Fix it

Patients come in all the time with lower back pain that is either localized to one side or it feels like it’s a band of pain across the belt-line. It usually hurts worse in the morning and will loosen up as the day progresses. The pain can range from a mild ache to intense sharp pain.

How we treat this condition involves the following:

Adjusting the sacroiliac joint. We either use the Arthostim instrument or our hands to increase the movement of the joint. The most common finding of sacroiliac joint pain is restricted range of motion. We determine this by watching how the joint moves while you raise one leg upwards, then the other.

Ultrasound or cold laser therapy. If there is swelling within the joint, the ultrasound will help. Cold laser therapy works better, but some people prefer the ultrasound.

Stretching the piriformis muscle and Psoas muscle. These muscles are the prime movers of the hip. Most people with sacroiliac joint pain have tightness on the side of the restriction.

Rehabilitation and prevention of this type of pain requires the patient to perform squats and good-mornings. The greater physical condition the patient is in, the sooner they can start rehab. Ultimately, you want to prevent this condition from happening. Periodic adjustments to the sacroiliac joint and strengthening exercises such as good-mornings are the two most important things for prevention.

What I do on my off time

My kids got to see dad race in Goleta recently. They had a good time. They’re favorite part was going out to lunch. This was a type of race where we go around a set course, so every 3-5 minutes my family got to see how I was doing in the race. Unlike a road race where you take off and are never seen again for 1 ½ hours, or a time trial where it’s as exciting to watch as grass growing, this type of race was more fun for the kids to see.

For those that asked, I did okay. The race seemed to be pretty crazy in that everyone was taking different lines through the turns and it seemed pretty chaotic. After every turn, it was a mad dash to speed up and try to get in front. I would be in the top 10 position and suddenly after a turn if I wasn’t watching it, I would be in 40th place! So I would make an effort to improve my position and within a couple of laps I was back in the top 10. This went on during the entire race.

The pace wasn’t that bad. By the end, the average speed was 24 mph. There were times when we were doing 27-28 mph. It seemed so effortless due to the fact that the majority of the time I was drafting. I told Lisa before the race that my game plan was to find the biggest dude in the race and draft him. It worked half the time.

Some riders were taking some interesting risks by riding in the street gutter to improve their position and I would get boxed out at times, but after the next turn be able to get back. Some riders were weaving side to side a lot, so I tried to stay in front of them rather than behind them. My other tactic was to come home with all my skin too.

With about 5 laps to go, I thought to myself that I probably didn’t want to be next to anyone during a sprint for safety reasons. Also, I’m not exactly a sprinter. For some odd ball reason the whole group just kind of slowed down. Since I was in a good position and I felt pretty good (because I had been drafting for the last 25 minutes) I decided to try to win by taking off. I stood up and just pedaled as hard as I could, hoping that I could hold it for the remaining laps.

Well, it didn’t work. I was in the lead for only one lap.

The group increased their speed, caught me and passed right passed me.

It was a blast though being out in front for a while, having my kids cheer for me.

Now if I can only increase my muscular endurance for just 4 laps…

Nutritional Websites

On our website there is a section under “important links” that relates to nutrition. This is the link to Dr. Barry Sears, the creator of the zone. You can go to the website and become a member for free. One of the benefits is that it can determine your body fat percentage and your lean tissue. It then calculates exactly how many grams of protein per day you should eat, how many carbohydrates and fats.

At first the website is daunting and intimidating. I can tell you that it is worth the effort to learn about nutrition. You can become an expert at this with effort. You don’t have to buy anything on there even though they offer products. For example, I buy my EPA/DHA from a different company only because I get a doctors’ discount.

Read everything on this website because you will learn how to reduce body fat, increase energy, and get healthy.

Should you sleep on your back, side or stomach?

The short answer is “on your back.”

However, here’s some food for thought. Very few people can control how they sleep. Some people can, but most can’t.

Sleeping on your back is the best for your back, but you shouldn’t become paranoid if you can’t do it. Video’s of patients during sleep studies have shown that people toss and turn multiple times per night. When the video is placed at high speed, it looks like someone is having a seizure.

When our first child was born I remember trying to “force” her to sleep on her back. All the fear with SIDS and stuff can scare a parent. So we would place her on her back. When she was old enough to roll, she would do what was instinctive to her and that was to sleep on her belly. One option would be for us to wake up every half hour and rotate her to her back, but that was not an option that could last for very long.

How you sleep is somewhat instinctive. That’s the lesson I learned from my kids.

If I give you advice, will you follow it?

I wish I could ask this question and get a straight answer, but it’s so uncomfortable that I just can’t do it.

Seriously though, if you ask for my advice, how long should the answer be? Is it worth my time to give you advice? Does it go in one ear and out the other?

You ask for my help with your spine, so I help you. Then you want to know how to keep it this way and I spend 30 minutes showing you how to exercise. The next time I see you, you have any of the following reasons why you didn’t do it:

“I forgot”
“I don’t have time”
“I dunno”
“I forgot what I was supposed to do”
“I was too busy”
“Does my insurance cover that?”

If I give you advice it’s because I’m trying to help you…so you better do it! Sometimes the most complex problems have the simplest answers. I think there are times when I might show someone one or two stretches or exercises that can make a tremendous difference, but because they seem so benign, they patient doesn’t do them. Their value or importance is not magnified enough.

Be assured that if I’m showing you something to do for yourself, I’m doing it for a reason. It’s to help you.

I had a patient that had neck pain and was raising her shoulders during every inhalation. She was over-utilizing her neck muscles and developing pain and cramping in her neck. I spent about 10-15 minutes teaching her how to perform diaphragmatic breathing. It’s like yoga-breathing. The purpose was to teach her to relax the muscles of her neck so that she wouldn’t hurt. She was to perform this ONCE per day for a total of 10 breaths.

On the next treatment I asked her if she did them and what the results were. “I didn’t have time” she said. She didn’t have time to take 10 breaths once per day! Imagine that!

Help me help you. Follow advice.

Should you follow my advice?

This is a recent story that I thought was interesting because it almost sounds like it would be written for a Readers Digest magazine. On a daily basis I try to give people instructions on how to help themselves but often your advice gets debunked by a friend, neighbor, or doctor internet. I’m sure this is how dentists feel when trying to get people to floss. Here’s the story:

A patient recently was asked to perform some exercises for her knees. I told her to do them daily and return in one week to assess her progress.

The following week I walked into the treatment room and asked, “Did you do the exercises?”

She replied “no.”

I looked at her in bewilderment. I couldn’t understand how such a simple exercise performed once a day for 30 seconds per day could be so difficult.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well, I saw my other doctor in Santa Barbara and he said I shouldn’t do them. He said he didn’t know why my left knee was hurting so he gave me a cortisone shot. Boy did that hurt” was her answer.

In my confused state, I tried to understand the situation. “Okay, so you have two different doctors. One says to perform an exercise, the other says not to. So I guess it’s up to you to decide which advice you want to follow.”

“He charges more so I’m following his advice” she explained.

Amazon Berries, Secrets From the Orient, and Oprah

So I guess there’s a new secret weight loss product that people are asking about. Since the good Dr. Oz and Oprah speak about it, that should tell you that it’s a message straight from heaven. So here we go.

People ask my opinion about this and since I don’t watch Oprah, it’s hard for me to learn about this stuff. I thought I knew a lot about nutrition, after all, I eat things that fall under the category of nutrition everyday. We studied it in school to the nth degree.

So here’s my biased opinion about new diets in general:

If it’s a fruit, vegetable or whatever from another country it can’t be too fresh by the time it hits my mouth.

If I have to buy it from an “independent distributor” then I’ll wait for next years’ miracle.

If it’s a “secret” than I’m not the one that should be involved. I was the worst at keeping secrets when I was a kid.

If I get a bathrobe with the purchase, I don’t want it.

If it involves a capsule, it can’t be as good as the real thing.

If a major nutritional company doesn’t make it, I don’t want it. I want to make sure the stuff is clean.

Try this:

Since Dr. Oz has his special diet, I figure I can come up with one. It’s sure to make you lose weight because it’s low in carbs (that’s very popular right now), won’t kill you, and has the whole “colon-cleansing” buzz to it.

I’m being serious here, go to the supermarket or Costco and buy the following items. This will last you for one week. Figure out how to cook them with the combined ingredients. Try to not eat anything other than what’s on this list.

3 lean steaks
2 salmon steaks
Iceburg lettuce
5 pounds of broccoli
3 pounds of tomatoes
Olive oil
Garlic
Basil
Dozen eggs
5 lemons
Low fat cheese
Deli turkey
2 bags of almonds
1 bag of walnuts

The great thing about my diet is that I tell you WHAT to eat rather than what NOT to eat! Isn’t this great?

So your goal is to figure out how to eat all this stuff during the weak. I might write a book or go on television some day with this diet. All I need to do is to speak with an Australian accent and wave my arms a lot. Then I’ll need to find a very pretty but curious interviewer that can ask the appropriate questions and I’ll be set for life.

Hey, and it’s only$19.95 plus s&h.

"Unique" questions people will ask

Last week I had some real interesting conversations with patients. Some day I’m going to write a book about all the fun stuff that goes on in a chiropractic office. Maybe it will be the next sitcom.

Q: Is there a way I can get your newsletters without going on the computer? I’m afraid of computers.

A: I didn’t know what to say to this one. The answer is no however. Maybe a friend can print it out for you. We don’t print them and send them via the mail anymore.

Q: Is there a way to learn trigger point therapy without coming to your class?

A: You can buy books. You can go on the internet.

Q: Can I see you on Saturday or Sunday?

A: If it’s an emergency. There is an additional charge. The fee is $75 and insurance doesn’t cover it. You must pay in advance for the appointment.

Q: How can I crack myself?

A: I wouldn’t do that if I were you. That’s how we end up getting those emergency phone calls on the weekend. A friend cracks your back, messes you up, and then I have to repair the damage.

Q: Are you going to play music or light candles?

A: No.

Am I working out too much?

This is the time of year when everyone spends their hard-earned money at the gym. There are some that are the unfortunate few that will end up in my office in February. There are many ways to avoid overdoing it. First of all…stop overdoing it.

Some people will join the gym and spend up to 2 hours a day in there. How anyone can spend that much time in there blows my mind. After finding out that 40 minutes was spent in the sauna and another 20 minutes was spent cooling down, it’s still an hour. If you’ve spent 20 minutes warming up, then you are getting 40 minutes of exercise. When you factor in that you might be waiting for a machine, it’s no wonder that it takes so long.

When you begin to spend a good portion of your life in the gym, it’s easy to lose weight. Almost anything you do will burn some calories. Even the sauna will make you lose some water weight. After about a month most people start to plateau on the weight loss. The secret is to not spend more time in the gym, but rather make the time spent there more efficient.

There’s really no reason why a person should spend more than one hour at a time in the gym. The typical workout that most people do is 20 minutes of “cardio” which can mean a treadmill, elliptical, or stationary bike. Then they hit the machines for about 20 minutes, then do a different machine to cool down. This is universally accepted as to what is supposed to happen in the gym. All the fitness centers are organized in this manner.

But what do you do once you’ve stopped losing weight? Do you add more time to each section? Do you double it? Do you eat less?

One option is to divide the workouts. Sports training research has found it beneficial to do strength training separately from endurance training. In other words, you could do weights/machines on Monday, then Tuesday do all endurance/cardio. Wednesday could be a day off and then Thursday and Friday are similar to what you’ve already done. The different exercise routines demand different forms of energy in the muscles and stimulate different hormonal responses in the body. That’s why it’s better to separate the two styles of workouts.

If you are totally addicted and want to go to the gym 6 days a week, then on Wednesday and Saturday you would do another cardio workout that is not stressful to the joints like the stationary bike. Do these days for only ½ hour because you need to be ready to exercise hard the following day.

I would recommend that you not workout 6 days a week. Four times for most people is enough, especially in the beginning. Lots of people get injured from doing too much too soon.

Seven hours a week is more than enough to reach most peoples’ goals. It’s not necessary to spend 14 hours in the gym per week. That’s how people end up with injuries, burnout, and missed workouts.

Trigger Point Therapy

Our next trigger point therapy class with be on Wednesday, January 28th . It will start at 6:00 pm and end at 7:15 pm.

We do the class in the examination room which can hold 10 people. Therefore, if you and your spouse/significant other want to attend, please let Jen know. We will reserve space for 10 people and once it’s full, we stop telling people about it.

Here’s what you will learn:

1. The causes of trigger points in the muscles.
2. What normal muscle should feel like, what trigger points feel like.
3. Locations of common trigger points that cause headaches, neck
pain, shoulder pain, and lower back pain.
4. Other therapies that help (heat versus ice, balms, stretches, etc)

Trigger point therapy has been an invaluable method for me personally as I have found that I am able to reduce my own muscular pain very quickly. It has helped me recover quicker from workouts that normally would wipe me out. It’s so simple and easy to do that people overlook it searching for a more complex way to deal with pain.

Many people leave the class asking me, “is that all there is to it?” There’s no ancient secret that takes years to master. Once you learn it, you’ll be able to do it forever.

So if you would like to attend, please let my staff know and we’ll sign you up. Bring your spouse/significant other because very often, they are the ones that can do this for you.