the Chiropractic Student

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Archive for category Exercise

When Stretching Doesn’t Work

Jul 11

Posted by cstepien in Exercise, Patient Education | Comments

Do you feel that behind your thigh or in your calf?

You think you are stretching your hamstrings? Well, you’re not. At least not likely. Why is it necessary to even discuss stretching?

Why Flexiblity is Important

The ability to move in a full range of motion is important because we use our bodies the way we were meant to move. We use ALL of a muscle instead of only a part. We use ALL of our muscles instead of a specific few. This is healthy, balanced movement.

Once we start losing flexibility, our tightness snowballs. My grandmother would ask me at least once a day to get something out of the cabinet for her that was right above her head. My grandfather didn’t have the flexibility or strength to perform a squat; he died as he fell going to the bathroom, hitting his head on the sink on the way down.

Flexibility allows movement. Movement allows the body to function. You (and your grand-kids) can be happy because you are able to do everything you want and need to do in life.

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Bending Your Knees to Lift is Just the Beginning…

Feb 5

Posted by spastuch in Exercise, Patient Education | Comments

Proper Lifting Techniques

Proper Lifting Techniques

You have heard it before. “Bend your knees when you pick that up or you’ll hurt your back.” Well, that’s true, to a degree. The fact is though, simply bending your knees is not enough to prevent low back injury.

The reason chiropractors, physical therapists, and personal trainers alike advise bending your knees is because they do not want you to put stress on your low back. The thought is that bending your knees will shift the stress from the back to the knee, but this is not always true. Don’t get me wrong, you should always bend your knees when lifting, but there are other things that must be done as well.

To understand what you need to do to protect your back, you will first need to understand some basic bio mechanics. I promise to keep it very simple. You have 24 vertebrae sitting directly on top of one another that make up your spine. Your spine rests on top of a bone called the sacrum. The sacrum is positioned directly in between two bones called the pelvic bones. In between each of the 24 vertebrae and where the spine meets the sacrum is a disc which you have probably heard of before. While the vertebrae and the sacrum are bones, the discs are made of cartilage and fluid that is structurally not much different than a jelly doughnut; they are hard on the outside and soft in the middle.

Simply put, those vertebrae work together like a spring when you bend over. Imagine bending a spring back and forth over and over again. While that spring might be very strong at first, over time, it would weaken and eventually break. Most commonly with bending, the injury is to your disc. Imagine squeezing a jelly doughnut on one side, all the jelly would squirt out the other direction. This is a simplified example of a bulging or herniated disc. So how do we prevent this from happening? Read the rest of this entry »

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The Opportunity Cost of Our Time

Oct 28

Posted by cstepien in Exercise, Philosophy | Comments

Time is money... or is it more than that?

Time is money... or is it more than that?

I always talk about bang for your buck with patients or people I am training. People can grasp that they want to get the most value for the paid dollars or for their time as they can. To be most effective in any one aspect, it only makes sense to focus the most on those aspects that will achieve the most sufficient results. Stephen Covey lists it has one of his 7 habits of Highly Effective People: “Do first things first.” What happens when we don’t do first things first?

What I did not realize was that there was an economic term for “bang for your buck,” which is “opportunity cost.” Opportunity cost is essentially what you have to give up in order to make anyone decision. In my personal life, having a job costs me the opportunities of having free time to read and spend time with friends. In chiropractic, the time I spend playing games costs me opportunities to learn new techniques or adjusting people. No choice is either right or wrong from person to person, but individually, each choice does bring us closer or farther away from our goals in life. Read the rest of this entry »

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Some Nutritious Food For Thought for the Gym-goer

Oct 16

Posted by kwatkins in Exercise, Musings | Comments

Everyone needs exercise

Everyone needs exercise

*This article is considered a musing. Musings are articles of interest, but not of research quality. Instead, they are designed for entertainment or personal opinion.

My remarks for this most recent pearl of wisdom stemmed from a couple of different incidents molding together. I finally got myself back into a formal strength training program after being on hiatus for about 3 months (ah ah ah…doesn’t mean I wasn’t running around. Remember, exercise is the meaningful execution of preplanned and purposeful physical activity) when I realized I was only about 6 weeks away from my first internship and I needed to get some hypertrophy going if i was going to be of any use to my future patients (first internship is in outpatient neuro rehab – very taxing). So I wandered down to the health club, which is in a fairly affluent area and on my way in, as well as while taking inventory of what this place really had to offer, I saw a decent amount of people who were interested in their health. Lots of people, biking, running, playing basketball, lifting, etc., but knowing these white collar types, a thought instaneously flashed through my head – what does he have need to be that big for? – as I passed by one gentleman. Very prejudicial, I know, but I can’t help it – first impressions were always snap and uncontrollable with me.

After my 30 min jog on the treadmill, I stretched out and made my way to the weight room to again assess what equipment the administration thought was necessary. Outside the weight room and above the water fountain hung pictures and credentialing of all the personal trainers (serendipitously convenient, no? These guys are good). I was happy that everyone had at least a Bachelors degree in something related (although my ears pricked after reading one girl was touted as having experience with physical therapy as a result of an internship she had, but there wasn’t anything after her name to suggest she was actually a P.T.), but under one gentleman’s mini CV he only had written “Fitness is a Lifestyle!” This is true, however….
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