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Look at That Fit Brain

1/14/2015

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Recently I have heard many commercials encouraging people to go online and take a test to determine "brain fitness" and I began to wonder what a fit brain would look like. Not in a physical open the head and take a gander type of look, but more along the lines of how people use the word "fit" to describe a body's appearance and not its abilities. It is so commonplace to use the term for bodies that I thought it would be interesting to ponder what it might be like if we developed some physical appearance characteristics to identify those with fit brains. I realize this may seem crazy but if you can step back far enough I suspect you might also see how crazy it is to use appearance to identify a fit body.

It seems silly if you think about fitness as it applies to your brain in the same way that we consider fitness of the body. For the body we tend to think fitness is first about appearance, not its function, and then when we consider the function often it is in terms of completing something specific. Imagine applying this same way of thinking to your brain: you completed the course/test/certification and now you don't need to do anything with your brain. And for training the brain and its ability to process information or recall detail, we could set limits on how far we really wanted to go with the capacity - substituting 'smart' for strong' in phrases like " I don't want to get too strong."

If you shifted your paradigm and started thinking about training your body as your mind, what would you change? You could still have achievement goals for function (bench press your body weight) or appearance (shapely shoulders) but those goals would never be in conflict with your ongoing health. As with your brain, your body would first need the fitness to support your lifestyle. Because the body doesn't provide as fast a disruption to our daily lives as the brain would if we got our priorities misaligned, it requires far more conscious attention and focus. But with the right focus, incredible things can be achieved.

Living tissue has an amazing ability to adapt to demands that are placed upon it. Our limitations typically arise not from the natural limits of the body and brain, but from our own ability to train in such a way that it maximizes our potential. The body's goal of the easiest possible way means it requires continual reminders to be encouraged to develop. With the brain and body, once is not enough and, as Tami and Carla point out this month, many times it just takes lots of practice. 


As always, let me know how I can help.

Adam 
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Exercise is Medicine

1/8/2015

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When I worked in a hospital that serviced a more rural area, many of the patients used the phrase "take your exercise". At the time, this wording sounded odd to me as my understanding of exercise was far more along the lines of something that you do, but as the Exercise is Medicine movement continues to grow, I have started to wonder more about how fitting this phrase really is.

In simplistic terms, this is how we often discuss medications and if your exercises are corrective, then it might make sense to think about them more as something that you take. So, what is corrective exercise? Any exercise that brings a balance to the body could be seen as corrective, but it is easier to visualize as related to skeletal muscle balance.

The body is very good at adapting to demands, and will strive to find the easiest possible way to perform the movement required. Or, as often is the case, rather than movement, a stabilization counter to the forces of movement. This stabilization doesn't have to be from muscle, but in many cases we prefer the muscles to be stabilizers because it decreases the amount of stress to the joints as well as increases the amount of calories expended to perform the same movement. Working these muscles, though, can be tricky especially if your body has found a way around using them. Until recently (some believers may still exist) there was actually a school of thought that believed some of the postural stabilizing muscles like the transverse abdominus could not be consciously contracted.This thinking said that those muscles simply stabilize and respond to forces acting on the body, thus, to strengthen them you follow specific exercises and they naturally work. This sounds great and many corrective exercise programs are designed on this belief. You are shown the exercise, you perform the movement and the muscles work. Unfortunately, that is not always how the body works.

When the body has found an easier way, or even a known way, then that is the pattern it will use to create the movement of the exercise. Without the hands-on specific guidance to cue the right muscles to activate, one can go through the motions and seem to be performing the exercise without getting the benefit. Actually, worse than not getting the benefit, the default undesired patterns could be reinforced.

If you have muscles that are not working to stabilize then other parts of the body must take the stress. The muscles mentioned earlier, transverse abdominus, is the deep abdominal muscle that pulls the waist in and stabilizes the midsections during any movement. If it is not doing its job, then the torque generated from as simple a movement as walking increases the stress to the spine and stress to the spine can lead to a variety of disc or facet joint issues.

As with any process of relearning how to use the body, the first step to reverse this process is learning how to contract the transverse abdominus muscle. Second, is challenging the muscle to hold still while a load or force is pulling on it. Then, the muscle can be directly worked through a range against force (not an option for the transverse since it only pulls in to make the waist smaller). Finally, the awareness and strength of the muscle can begin to be used during other activities where it is not the prime mover and acts as a stabilizer.
 


These steps are the series of progression of how to get a body that is out of balance into balance and prepared for a typical balanced exercise program. Without first going through this process an individual with postural imbalances will create greater imbalances with a "balanced program" by strengthening those known movement patterns. Thankfully the industry is starting to catch up to this realization and it is easier to find providers who understand the hands-on care required for this process. There is no standardization, yet, but whenever you consider a practitioner who is providing corrective exercises remember that palpation to cue the muscle and ensure you are engaging the right muscle is imperative to the success of the entire process.


As always, let me know how I can help.


Adam
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    EQUIVITA

    This blog is written and updated by the staff that support EQUIVITA. Individual blog posts are the thoughts of the staff member that submitted the post.  The content of these posts often support the thoughts and ideas of our organization, but do not always(and we scarcely use definitives) reflect the same thoughts or ideas of the organization as a whole.

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