Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Thick Elastic Bands, Carabineers and Girdles

Sometimes, especially in times of extra stress or heavy loads, we might wonder, what is holding me together here?

When it comes to our mental health, that answer is probably going to be a nice set of coping tools such as support of family or friends, a higher purpose, a good counselor, much to be grateful for, and/or a clear plan with attainable goals.

When it comes to our bodies, the answer we’re going to Pick today is Connective Tissue.

Bet some folks never thought about needing to care for connective tissue. (But it's literally holding you together!) Until they started having pain in their knee, elbow, hip or ankle.

Tendonitis is what happens to us when we expect too much from our tendons, and it tends to rear its head in joints where muscles repeatedly pull on bones. Because tendons attach muscle to bone. So you’ve got your Achilles tendonitis, your tennis elbow and your tender back-of-the-knee pain, all the result of inflamed tendons. Maybe they were tight and you kept yanking on them--flexing that muscle, grasping that handle, pounding that pavement with those feet and calves.

And then you’ve got your ol’ ligament troubles, too. I say ol' because it’s more polite than old. Really, ligaments do age and sometimes they get too loose and kinda saggy when you’ve overstretched them past their original plan (dancers, gymnasts, cheerleaders, fast ball pitchers as my witnesses). They get worn down too, holding your bones together your whole life. Because that’s what ligaments do: attach bones to other bones.

You know how underwear elastic just eventually isn’t going to give anymore? That happens to ligaments in a way. Though thankfully ligament wear and tear doesn’t make your legs fall right off your bottom like your old underwear does. What it does instead is cause instability in the examples given above, or tight joints at the opposite end. Ligaments don’t have much natural give to begin with, so they do need your help. Don’t ignore them, and try not to over-pretzelize yourself either, if it's not required by your job.

There's also fascia. You have a sheath of tissue that sort of holds your muscles and guts and stuff inside you, under your layers of skin. It’s interesting to consider honoring your fascia, because its job is so utilitarian. But I have found a way for you to do so.

Pick One Thing: Your Connective Tissue

Tendons are like a thicker version of the elastic bands or cords that are used when someone bungee jumps or at the ends of a hammock where it attaches to the base or a tree. The idea is your muscle tissue ends up as tendonous tissue so it can provide a strong attachment to bones. Which are harder and more solid still. So muscle is juicy and it can flex and grow and pull, but tendon is not so much, so it can hold on to something solid when the juicy part is putting a strain on the whole set up.

If you don’t warm up your tissues before activities, or maintain a regular gentle stretching program, the muscles you use most will aggravate the heck out of the tendons trying to hold on for them.

Ligaments are like steel carabineers that attach hanging things to other long things but allow for movement between then. Examples are rock climbers’ harnesses to the rocks up above them, or pulley systems that might lift a heavy platform with a piano on it. The idea is that you’ve got two strong things that must be attached without being fused solid to each other. Like, your thigh and your calf.

ACL, MCL, PCL… sports fans and athletes themselves have likely heard these terms before, when someone went down and was out for the season. The L stands for ligament. Think of your knee ligaments, then imagine a snapped carabineer. Stuff will dangle.

If you don’t warm up your tissues before activities, or maintain a regular gentle stretching program, the joints you use the most can cause a sudden and unmanageable strain on the ligaments trying to hold your bones together. Some things bear repeating.

Fascia is like an inner girdle of sorts. A sheath is such a good way to think about it. In certain places in your body it holds pretty darn tight, for reasons it thinks are good ones. For example, around your calves and around your pelvic area. Because your calves and your pelvic area have such tough jobs which put a lot of strain on the muscles there. Fascia support to the rescue.

But say you want your calves to grow more muscle? That fascia might hold you back a tad. Body builders might be able to get a little extra edge by stretching the fascia that surrounds their muscles, leaving extra room for development. At least, Arnold Schwarzenegger swore by it. He says that by doing an a chest fly series after his upper body workouts, he was able to build the biggest chest muscles ever, because his blood had already pumped up the muscles, then the stretching maximized the room the tissue had to respond as it repaired.

Massage is another way to release fascia. If you ever hear the term self myofascial release, that means self massage. It usually is called for over large muscles and their attachments. You can use things like a rolling pin or a foam roller tube to work out some pretty tight and tender areas, help you reduce the risk of injury, recover faster from the strain of your workouts, heal muscle fibers in more organized pattern to keep it from tugging weirdly on your bones…and overall, just feel better in the end.

Gentle stretching and proper warm-ups are also a must for long term achievements in fluid movement and agility without pain and popping. All of the above are very useful to offset risks of repetitive motion injuries, from carpal tunnel syndrome to runner’s knee.

Some trainers like to think that there’s no point in stretching past the resting length of a muscle. But many of us like to disagree, especially if we know someone who might, say, want to kick a ball really far… or join a middle age softball league… or slip on the ice.

You never know when you’re going to need to count on a little more give from your connective tissue. So I say, give it a little more love. It’s a habit you should start now, and keep for life, so you can maintain that graceful edge when you’re 90 and competing for the dance queen contest at the senior center. Or when you’re running for public office and want people to remember those pecs.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

The Muscle, The Mohawk and You

When I think about someone who is the epitome of “the muscle” of the operation, the first one that comes to mind is Mr. T. I pity the fool who doesn’t recognize the value that beast added to his team. Yes, yes, the operation needs the brains behind it and the beauty to distract the others. But it’s the muscle who has to move out in front to get the job done.

Great groups have that muscle. The tank and the cannon. The football lineman. Bad cop, to back up good cop. Peppermint Patty.

The same holds true for the team consisting of all your body parts. Without the muscle, you’re simply not going anywhere. Physically, that is. The muscles of your body move your bones. Without them, you literally would be Jell-O heap of skin, bones and guts.

Fortunately, it’s relatively simple to honor and take care of your muscles. But before I give you a concise two-part checklist of tactics for doing so, I need to sidetrack just a little bit to talk about disabilities that compromise muscle usage.

All people are born with muscles, but muscles don’t work the same for all people. Muscle function depends on the signaling of the nervous system, which depends on the conducting of those signals between the brain and the body via the spine. Injuries to the spinal cord, brain or nerves can cause muscle dysfunction and failure. Examples range from Christopher Reeve’s spinal injury which left him severely paralyzed and contributed to his premature death, to a stroke victim’s facial paralysis. One the result of a violent impact, the other the results of a microscopic blood vessel bursting.

This is all to point out the delicate balance and dependant relationship of all the systems and functions of our body parts. As I go on to talk about muscles in a moment, I’m doing so within the context of teaching able-bodied people simple ways of maintaining their muscles for health and wellness in everyday life. I didn’t want to move on with the writing without taking a moment to pay homage to all the other parts of some people which can and do step in to compensate when muscles just aren’t available to get a job done. The brains, the beauty, the heart, the spirit, the communication, the experiences and the lessons brought to others.

Muscle, when you’ve got good control of it, should be most appreciated. When you don’t have muscles to call in, you rely on your other team members. The sharp shooters and quarterbacks and detectives all matter. And Linus. He mattered a lot.

Pick One Thing: Your Muscles

~~ Feed them well. They like protein. Most people should aim for an average of .8 grams of protein per pound of body weight, per day. People with a lot of muscle or who use a lot of muscle need even more. Many bodybuilders eat three times that amount. Choose clean and natural proteins. Animal meats are fine, eggs and dairy are fine, and nuts too, but a mix of foods in moderation is always a great idea.

~~ Move them in big ways, often. Modern man sits a lot. Evolutionary physiologists are warning us that this could be a big problem. Our bodies evolved over tens of thousands of years in situations that required frequent, vigorous, continued movement. Now we sit in our cars, in our offices, on our sofas, and at our computers, most of most days. We need muscle to be healthy but we’re not going to get much by sitting around on our glutes and telling ourselves that 60 minutes at the gym three times a week should do the job.

Life. It should move you. Every day.

Stand, walk, run, bend, lift, skip, pick things up, carry things around, ride a bike, dig a garden. Get up right now and do something. If the glutes are resisting, channel your inner mohawk and get the job done.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

"The insulin's connected to the glucagon, the glucagon's connected to the cortisol..."

So, I'm singing my title this week.

It's been a month since I last posted, and to remind you, I promised I would be writing about hormones this time. Well, that has turned out to be a big promise to fulfill. I'm sort of going to half-ditch it, because there is just no way to cover all the things that are happening in you right now on a cellular level when it comes to hormone production, secretion, triggering, timing, receptors, balancing, etc. That's why I started out singing, to distract you in case you're disappointed that I won't be giving you the full rush of hormones you distracted.

Maybe it will be difficult to find out exactly what you can do about the care and keeping of your hormonal health, too. Sure, try to stay healthy, get regular check ups, and report any unusual body system changes you experience to your doctor. Because if your endocrine system is compromised, it’s not good news, you should catch it and take care of it asap. But beyond that, I'm not sure. Research is happening as I write. Along with the song-singing.

Pick One Thing: Your Hormones
Go ahead and try. If you can pick just one, let me know. They are so all intricately involved. It's quite beautiful if you can get past all the science-talk you find when you try to research them. Miraculous, really, to learn the sympony of processes taking place this very second within every cell in your body, as you just sit there and read my blog and hum along.

I think the easiest way to approach this topic is to identify those processes that you can have the most influence over, as well as those hormones that produce effects you can easily identify, and hopefully balance or control. Like insulin, for example. Insulin and its partner in all things blood sugar, glucagon, have a lot to do with your daily wellness and your overall health.

Diabetes is a disease in which blood sugar levels are not well-controlled. And many fitness aficionados know that glucagon has to do with glucose (sugar) and then glycogen, which is used as energy by your body during exercise. If insulin and glucagon are not in good balance, you can not only become ill, you can burn energy inefficiently to the point where your body is fueling itself with its own muscle.

Ewww. Nobody wants that. But how to avoid it? If it’s not Type I Diabetes, which is a genetic condition that usually appears in childhood, then it’s Type II Diabetes, and that’s the one you can try to do something about. Stay in a healthy body weight. Eat a balanced diet rich in vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins and avoid all simple carbohydrates such as things made with white flour and sugar. Exercise. That seems sensible enough.

If you get regular physicals, your doctor is likely to spot onset of Diabetes symptoms via your blood work and your consult. Do what your doctor says as soon as your doctor says it, especially if it involves advice on how you can often avoid taking medications by managing Diabetes naturally with lifestyle changes.

Here’s another hormone worth noting: adrenalin. You know it as the fight or flight, prepare you for an emergency, hormone. It courses through your body as a result of threat or stress. Good, to a certain degree. Bad, to another. A constant low level of stress is found in many a modern life. This can mess up the body’s ability to regulate and process all the changes the hormone triggers. Things like increased pulse, heavy breathing, muscle tension, blood flow… sometimes you really do need to relax.

Your body has trouble dealing with all that speed you’re manufacturing but not fully working out (let’s face it, you won't go running from your desk at work the way your ancestors had to go running from the big tiger). Some other chemical/gland wizardry takes place on a cellular level and stressors end up turning into cortisol.

Cortisol is another chemical bad guy from the health, wellness and fitness perspective. It’s produced at the end of the process above, and is stored in fat cells, most commonly, in your belly. This is the reason why the belly measurement in contrast to your hips is such an important one. You might not think you have an issue with stress, cortisol, and waist-to-hip ratio, but if you carry excess fat in your midsection, you’re certainly at risk for more health problems as you age. Some people are shaped in this way, owing to DNA. If that is you, you need to work harder than your pear-shaped neighbor at balancing your stress, diet, exercise and outlook on life, to reduce your belly fat storage.

Once again, the solutions to so many of our potential problems can be found in prevention. So many of the things that are good for your heart are good for your brain, and then we learn they are good for your digestive system, and immune system, and now look here, they are good for your endocrine system, too.

Can you avoid most sweets, especially sugary drinks, pastries and cakes? Can you take at least 30 minutes for yourself every single day, to work off stress and help your body burn fat, not muscle? How about an hour then, three days a week? Lift things, move that body, hold those abs. Stretch and release muscle tension. Get fresh air, let your thoughts go.

Sleep.
Eat wholesome food.
Keep supportive people close in your life.
Enjoy recreation and hard work with equal vigor.

That kind of healthfulness doesn’t sound so bad for this week, now does it?

I’m quite happy now, that even from the complexity of hormones; we can still derive a basic, doable approach to the care and keeping of you. Because just like hormones, we all function best when we work together in balance... I do believe we're connected, through information, in our wellness and in this world.