Unstress your neck!

Social media is a necessary evil for some things.  And one disturbing trend I see is the jutting chin or tilted head seen in photos, most often in females.  Yes you may have a lovely, long neck but continually holding your head like that is not healthy.  Yet I see it all the time and not just in photos.  Some people hold their bodies like that all day.  No wonder it hurts.

That is self mutilation.  You are compressing everything at the back of your neck, the nerves, blood vessels, and everything else in there.  That is, you are interrupting the flow of traffic to and from your brain.  

 

 

 

Have you let that sink in yet?

 

Of course your neck and shoulders are also sore, tight and hurt chronically.  Because you are hurting it yourself.  And guess what? Your neck is a part of your spine so you are hurting your spine.  And guess what else you are hurting?  Your spinal cord, yes, that is part of your nervous system.  So not only are you damaging your nervous system but also stressing it, so you are literally stressing yourself out.

 

You don’t see boxers with their chins out because they will get hurt.  But by sticking your chin out all the time you are in fact hurting yourself.  

 

A lot of my recent writing has been on this because I am trying to get people to wake up to the fact that a lot of what they perceive to be unexplained musculoskeletal or even more malicious conditions they may have are no more than a result of their own habits.  So you have the choice to either do something about it or become another victim.  One is healthy, the other not so much except for your massage therapist’s bank account.

 

Look after your body, you only have the one vessel.

We are what we repeatedly do (NO, You are NOT genetically quad dominant!)

Like my post on hyperextension and hurting yourself, I want to dispel some myths here that I keep hearing in the health and fitness world.

“I’m quad dominant”, “my/neck/shoulders/quads/calves/back are just sore/tight all the time for no reason”, “I’m hamstring dominant”.

Any of these sound familiar?
I could go on but these are some of the more common ones I hear or see on a regular basis.

These statements involve supposed cause and effect when in fact they are mere observations of correlation.

Here goes. Yes you may use your quads more than your glutes. What is called muscular imbalance in the modern fitness and rehabilitation landscape.
You overuse your neck/shoulders/calves/back so of course they are overworked and then sore/tight. And you use your hamstrings more than you use your glutes. That’s simply your patterns of holding, of moving and storing emotions rather than any predisposition due to your genetics despite what you may have been taught to believe.

“We are what we repeatedly do.” ~Aristotle

Simple right? These are merely observations of the effect and the underlying causes. Simply you have learnt to use your body in certain ways. It’s not mere rhetoric or academic in nature. I know because I’ve been through some of these and see a lot of it in my work.

So first observe yourself or ask someone with a good eye and unbiased perspective to help you.

For example, if you squat your deadlift/hip hinge patterns, or fail to coordinate the proper pattern of muscle firing when you jump, sprint or kick then I would guess you are ‘quad dominant’. Or you may activate your hamstrings more and/or earlier than your glutes in some of these patterns then you are probably ‘hamstring dominant’ and ‘prone to hamstring cramps’ too to boot. Why? Because you are using your body in a manner it was never designed for. And sure you can get stronger and get deeper into dysfunction but we are simply not built that way. So things like the cramps will not go away. And you may also tense your neck, back, shoulders and calves all at the same time too so you are tight in those places also.

So what can you do? Relearn or rather unlearn these inefficient patterns. And then relearn the ones you were born with. For I’ve never seen babies be quad dominant, hamstring dominant or have tight neck, shoulders, back, calves as that is not productive in learning to walk. Babies show the way we naturally develop our movement patterns. They are relaxed and strong. Read that again. Maybe that is a link we should try to get. Relaxed and strong.

Relearning is most efficient if you practice this in everyday life as well as when you are moving in the gym or otherwise. This is the true value of alignment. Because alignment is not merely static posture. That is merely a starting point to help give you reference. But we are never static. Just the act of breathing makes the body become dynamic. Yes, the body is alive.

Again observe how you tend to hold yourself in standing, sitting, lying down, driving, etc etc. Are you getting the point yet?

You are quad dominant or hamstring dominant only because that is what you do. Over and over again. So the brain gets more efficient at recalling that pattern. It’s not just about this exercise or that exercise but how you perform them. I’ve seen so called professionals squat deadlifts and kettlebell swings, so of course they cannot understand how the latter is an athletic movement as they also run like a collection of parts as if they were Frankenstein reincarnated. Of course they are then quad dominant.  They keep training themselves to use their quads to locomote so no wonder their quads and hamstrings get tight and they don’t have the shapely backside they desire.  And I’ve seen the same people complain of tight backs, necks, shoulders because they keep tensing, that is overworking, those parts of their bodies.

The choice is yours. You can live with your so called predispositions or you can address them and see where the path leads. But you will never know if you never try. Now choose. The path is before you.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.” ~Robert Frost.

It’s all about lifestyle

Health is a lifestyle. It’s about decisions all day everyday.

There are no magic pills be they exercise, food etc. It’s not about eating or doing one ‘best’ thing once. It is a moment to moment process. Which is why so many people have problems in this modern society that craves instant gratification.

“There are no quick fire methods. We must believe this before we can become really healthy.

We must be careful over how we live in order to preserve our health. We must look after our health. Looking after your health takes thought and time.”

It is also a gradual process, like farming. It’s not like exercise hard for an hour a day then do nothing all day. Don’t overdo it and don’t underdo it. The easiest way up the mountain is gradually step by step. Pushing through pain and ‘no pain no gain’ is stupid. Pain is a signal and if we learn to not listen to ourselves then it is no wonder that we also learn to not listen to others. If we cannot even listen to the closest body then how can we listen to others? We never listen so we never learn.

“Human beings will go to stupid lengths to achieve their ends. Sickness and discomfort are signs from the body warning us to change pace.”

Listen, stay open and learn. Step by step walk the thousand mile road.
The thousand mile road is your life.
The path is your way. Keep walking.

Stop hurting yourself: Just because you can doesn’t mean that you should

With great power comes great responsibility. Right?

I could give you lots of stories about abuse of power like the various political incidents that have occurred this year, involving conflict, shootings, planes.

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

But tonight I’m going to talk about range of motion in the body’s joints.

In particular hyperextension and lockout.

Hyperextension: Extension of a joint beyond its normal range of motion.

Classically seen in ballet, many other dance forms, gymnastics, diving, some misinformed modern day yoga, gym and pilates practitioners etc where aesthetics is the goal. Just look at the knees and elbows and you will know what I mean. Because somehow an unhealthy joint angle is supposed to be aesthetically pleasing. Yes, these people may have strong muscles and be fit looking blah blah blah but hyperextension of the joints is simply not healthy. Read the definition of hyperextension again. BEYOND normal range of motion.

So what is wrong with this picture then?

The ligaments and soft tissue that are responsible for holding the joint together and maintaining integrity of the joint are overstretched. The joint can now move in a way that is no longer natural and will lead to damage down the line if repeated often enough. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Stop hurting yourself.

In martial arts these are the positions people try to get you in to make you submit or to break your joints. Think about it. It’s much easier to break a joint if you take it to end point first. Just like snapping a chicken wing. First you twist or bend until it gets to end point. And then you snap! Easy right?

So not only is it a weak position often with associated pressure/pain in the affected joint but the other thing is that when one part of the chain is locked in an inflexible position then other parts of the chain have to compensate. How? Now they are no longer working normally and are more prone to problems.

 

This woman’s hyperextended elbows will give her shoulder issues in the long run if she keeps putting it into this position. This is why I always cringe watching people, mainly women, push up by forcing their elbows into hyperextension (there are other alignment issues but we’ll stick with hyperextension for now). And it is mostly women because of the laxity in their joints due to hormonal differences. But sometimes it is men too. I actually have fairly mobile joints.

It doesn’t make you more injury prone if you have such joints, not if you don’t keep pushing them to your end range. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Hyperextension is also commonly seen in the low back (low back pain), neck (neck and shoulder issues) as well as the knees and elbows.

And it’s not a matter of strength but awareness. Because it doesn’t matter how strong you are. IF you keep putting yourself in broken, compromised positions like this young lady in the name of emphasising your curves then you will hurt yourself. It’s not a matter of if but when, and how often. And injuries are never healthy. Or sexy.

So stop hurting yourself. You’ve been warned. I’ll let you know where you can send the money you just saved on your physio bills later.

Remember, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.