Club Blog

By: Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D.

With each birthday after our 39th (a nicer way of saying, “as we age”), our muscles tighten and our range of motion diminishes.  Duh.

This puts a damper on our activities of daily living including everything from leaning over to tie our shoes and reaching for our carry-on bag in the overhead compartment to twisting when we reach to put on our seat belt and bending down to pick up the kids’ toys. Thankfully, the Sporting Club has highly skilled trainers and fitness professionals who are masterful at helping members stretch and gain flexibility, regardless of age or health status.

I recently had a “regeneration session” with The Sporting Club’s personal trainer, Eric Isselin, and it was eye opening—ok, joint opening was more like it! If you haven’t experienced this type of a stretch, you are missing something.

Like many at the gym, I do a fair amount of dynamic stretching after warming up before a workout, but this was way different.  Butt kicks, high knees and hugs, carioca, glute walks, climbing “over the fence,” are some examples of dynamic stretching you see in the gym.  Eric’s calls his stretching routine “regeneration” for a reason.

His post-workout “on the table” PNF, soft-tissue and active stretching session was an outstanding way to reduce my muscle tension and soreness, increase range of motion in my joints, and increase my general energy level (primarily due to increased circulation).

There’s been some confusion about the value of stretching before exercise, in part, due to a recent CDC study of 100 papers that looked at stretching studies.  They found that people who stretched before exercise were not less likely to suffer injuries. But perhaps a better interpretation is that while warming up can prevent injury, stretching before exercise has little or no effect on injury. In either case, a good warm up followed by pain-free dynamic stretching before exercise (holding a stretch for 30 seconds or so without bouncing) has been shown to be generally superior to static stretching before an exercise session.

Why is stretching so valuable, even for people who don’t exercise? Here are the top 5 reasons to stretch it out:

1. Boosts flexibility and reduces likelihood of muscle strain

2. Improves blood circulation to, and nourishes, muscles, helping recovery from injury

3. Develops balance and coordination and decreases likelihood of falls

4. Reduces lower back pain by loosening muscles in the lower back, glutes, hamstrings, piriformis and hip flexors.

5. Enhances cardiovascular health, artery function and reduces hypertension.

Finally, while you are busy stretching your muscles, don’t forget your mind.   For it was none other than Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. who noted, “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”  That’s true mind-body benefit!

(ARA) – The ache in your back that just won’t go away and the pain from twisting your ankle will both have you searching for ways to relieve your pain. But these are two very different kinds of pain. Depending on their cause, the prescribed medical treatment might also be very different.

The first kind of pain, usually resulting from an injury, is acute pain. Some examples are sprains, burns, scrapes and contusions. When you have acute pain, your first instinct is to go to the doctor or pharmacy so you can begin treatment immediately. The defining characteristic of acute pain is that it does not continue indefinitely. It typically lasts for fewer than six months (often far less than that) and is usually resolved when the cause is successfully treated.

The second kind of pain is called chronic pain. The defining characteristic of chronic pain is that it can go on for weeks, months or even years. Some examples include back pain, neck pain; joint pain; arthritis pain; headaches and even pain without a known cause. Always see your doctor regarding treatment options for this type of pain. Chronic pain can reduce physical ability and can even lead to depression. Physically compensating for the pain by changing the way you sit, walk or sleep could also aggravate or increase pre-existing discomfort. There are many ways for chronic pain sufferers to temporarily relieve their pain, but unfortunately, many of the treatments can have unwanted side effects and can be expensive for long term use.

The first and most common way to manage chronic pain is with over-the-counter (OTC) or doctor prescribed drugs. However, many chronic pain sufferers are becoming concerned about the types, safety and quantity of drugs they are taking. Often, the medications prescribed can have physical or psychological side effects, risk dependency or may have potentially dangerous interactions with other drugs you may be taking. One popular and natural way to help manage pain with less dependence on drugs is a moist heating pad.

With many medical professionals now recommending heat therapy, the quality and effectiveness of these products has grown. Old-fashioned remedies are being replaced by products that employ new materials and technologies to deliver safer, more effective and easier-to-use heat treatments.

Heat therapy treatments come in two types: dry heat and moist heat.

Dry heat therapy is available with traditional products like electric heating pads and the new warming patches that are worn for 8 hours. While many people find these treatments effective, they can be potentially dangerous. The need to constantly replace disposable patches can be very expensive.

Moist heat treatments are medically preferred over dry heat treatments because moist heat penetrates more quickly and deeply (and at lower and safer temperatures). Today, with the introduction of microwave activated moist heat wraps and pads, the same moist heat treatments used daily in clinics, doctor’s offices and sports training facilities can be attained at home. These treatments are easy to prepare and apply.

Thermalon Microwave Activated Moist Heat pads, for example, are ready in a minute and when applied for just 20 minutes they deliver hours of relief. The Hydro Pearls in the wraps create moisture naturally so adding water is not necessary. Just microwave and apply any time for a natural pain relief treatment. Thermalon wraps, which can be found at Walgreens, CVS and other drugstore and food chains, are washable, reusable and economical for daily use.

Ask your doctor if moist heat therapy could be part of a plan to manage your pain more naturally. More information about moist heat therapy products is available at www.thermalon.com.

If you follow these basic guidelines, you can get all the exercise you need to improve your physical condition and psychological health. Use them to come up with your own health and fitness program.

1. Select an aerobic exercise that’s fun for you and that you can do indoors or outside. Choose from jogging, hiking, walking, running, playing soccer or tennis, or in-line skating. Cardiovascular conditioning or aerobic exercises can help you attain a total body workout, so be sure that, whatever you do, it’s vigorous and sustained. Make sure your heart rate goes up and stays up for at least 20 minutes.

2. Use exercise videos to learn new exercises and have a leader to follow. There are many interesting and innovative videos on the market today that offer a wide variety of activities, all of them designed to improve your health and fitness. If you can imagine it, someone’s made a video to show you how and keep you moving! Much less expensive than a gym or equipment, these videos give a great workout and some pretty good entertainment. Examples in addition to programs designed for specific parts of the body include kickboxing, body rock, belly dancing, power yoga, and salsa dancing.

3. Change the way you do things around the house and get a good workout. Instead of using your power lawn mower, use a push mower. Vacuum the whole house. Shovel snow from your driveway and sidewalks. Carry your laundry basket or your groceries up and down the stairs a few times. Wear weights around your ankles and wrists as you go about your daily routine. There are many small ways to improve your health and fitness without even noticing it!

One of the biggest obstacles to staying on track for fitness is losing motivation. People are just starting an exercise program can find themselves quickly tired of the same routine. Keeping exercise appealing and maintaining a good fitness perspective is key to long-term success.

If you have to watch the exact same episode of your favorite television show every day for the rest of your life, you would probably be banging your head against the wall by the end of the week. You would change the channel, pick up a book, or do anything you could to avoid something you once enjoyed.

Yet, many people starting on a fitness program feel compelled to follow the same routine, day after day after day, and consequently fall off the exercise wagon due to sheer boredom.

That is why, most people would want the services of a fitness trainer in order to provide them the different portions of the fitness program in a more livelier style.

So what is the best way to get fit for a big surf holiday while you are busy back at home, with all the pressures and distraction every day living brings? We believe there are 3 things you should do. The first 2 should be part of your long term commitment to personal health and fitness and the last is aimed at giving you a real fitness boost before you go on holiday.

The first thing you need to take care of is your general level of endurance. You need to be fit enough to go hard for 10 – 15 minutes minimum as often this is the minimum paddling requirement for getting through the breakers and out the back. I believe this fitness requirement needs to be a little more specific than “general endurance”. I believe you need to have a base level of “water endurance” or water fitness. Surfers and swimmers have an inate feel for the water. It is very different to exercising on land. It has a different type of co-ordination and efficiency. The fittest runner can be a disaster in the water, burning up all their energy and getting nowhere.

So to cover off this requirement, you should be swimming or surfing at least twice a week, every week of the year. Do not leave it till a month before your holidays, it is impossible to develop water fitness in such a small span of time. If you love surfing, you will love the water. Make it a part of your life. Then, in the month leading up to your holiday, increase you workload by 1 or 2 sessions a week and make your sessions much more intensive. This will give you a little fitness boost pre-arrival.

The second key to surfing fitness is flexibility, balance and core strength. Once again, this is not something you want to leave till the last minute, rather something you want to develop over time as part of your commitment to surfing, health and fitness. Yoga is the answer here. Yoga is so good for surfing fitness, it is almost as if it was invented purely with the surfer in mind. Not only does yoga help you improve your flexibility, balance and core strength, it also re-aligns and re-balances your body back into its natural and healthy position, away from the imbalanced position which surfing causes. For example, even the simple act of paddling requires you to over-arch your back, creating a distortion in the development of your back muscles. Yoga sorts all these types of issues out, as well as conditioning your body. My advice, get yourself a surf specific yoga DVD and do it 2 or 3 times a week.