This week, my husband and I attended a fabulous presentation by Dr. Eric Oestmann on Rotator Cuff Disorders. While designed as continued education for physical therapist, it had plenty of information for our use as personal trainers. We see shoulder problems more often than we like, and I myself am intimately acquainted with impingement syndrome, shoulder surgeries and a frozen shoulder.
Most interesting for me were the assessment modalities to determine range of motion of the two shoulder joints. Yes, indeed, two! Not just right and left but two per side. The one we always think of is the one of the arm called glenohumeral joint. The other one is a little more obscure, and we may not even think of it as a joint: it is called scapula-thoracic joint and is the movement of the shoulder blade against the rib cage. The movement of those joints can be assessed individually, and the result can give valuable information as to what needs to be stretched or strengthened.
What struck me during the presentation is how much overlap there is between physical therapy and personal training. For me, manual manipulation is off limits; won’t do it, it’s not in my scope of practice. At the same time, I can instruct people in the use of the foam roller with MELT thus empowering people to mobilize their connective tissue. And while I must not and cannot diagnose and treat a problem, it is within my scope of practice to identify muscular imbalances and address those.
As I listened to Dr. Oestmann who approached from the field of physical therapy, I realized how lucky I am to be a personal trainer. I only see people who actually WANT to exercise and don’t have to give a second thought to those who don’t. Physical therapists are also limited in time and often must be done after a given number of visits whether their patient is sufficiently better or not.
One take home assessment immediately became a challenge to the students in my MELT class the following day. It is called clock exercise and goes as follows: lie on your right side, right leg almost straight, left leg bent and left knee touching the floor. Put your left hand on a straight arm on the floor near the left knee. Keep your left arm straight and your knee on the floor as you circle your arm around your head and to the backside of your body. Repeat on the other side. The goal is to keep the hand in touch with the floor at all times. This should indeed be possible, and it would be an indication of ideal shoulder range of motion. We did this at the beginning of the class as an adjunct to the MELT assessment. After some serious MELTing, we checked the same assessment again and – voilà – it was improved for many participants.
It’s the old question: “Why would anybody jump out of a perfectly good airplane?” Well, I have an answer now: “It is exhilarating!”
I came to this piece of wisdom yesterday, November 24, when, after several weather-related re-schedules, my day had come and I went up in an airplane, jumped out and landed a few minutes later. Mind you, it was a tandem jump. I was perfectly secured and strapped onto an experienced instructor and had nothing else to do but to enjoy the ride. But enjoy the ride I did.
When my assigned time came, I was first strapped into a tight harness over a jumpsuit (that’s where that word comes from), talked with the instructor for just a few basic instructions, and then into the airplane we loaded. The first time ever that I went into the backdoor of what looked like a cargo hold. We sat like sardines on the benches along the side with additional jumpers squeezed in the middle.
When it was time to prepare, Greg repeated the instructions and then attached my harness to his. Once I was secured, the backdoor opened again, and reality hit: that was my way out. At an altitude of 13,500 feet (that’s over 4,100 meters for the rest of us), the individual jumpers just left, and I was the first of the tandem jumpers. Before I even had time to wonder whether I was afraid or not, I was already out the door.
The sensation is difficult to describe. I did not even have the sense of falling. Rather shortly after the exit, I found myself in the proper position with arms and feet out as if face down. It must have been Greg’s doing because I would not have known how to get there. He got us into a spin at which time I was glad to have chosen a light lunch. Next thing I know, Jeff, the videographer, came flying toward us. Eventually, we locked hands and did a few circles. It must have been awfully cold up there but I didn’t notice any of it.
After about a minute (as I was told afterwards) of free-fall, Greg deployed the parachute, and all of a sudden it got very quiet. It’s amazing how these big chutes can be controlled in terms of speed and direction.
Landing was as easy as the rest of it because I only needed to do as I was told, and that is: “Keep your feet up until your butt has come to a complete stop.”
I now have memories of an amazing experience. I also got a certificate of the jump which I will keep with my ‘important’ papers. And I have a video which will give me a chance to relive the moment. And if you are interested to see it as well, here is the link:
Thanksgiving is almost upon us. Even though I have lived in the US now for well over 20 years, I have not yet quite warmed up to it.
Befuddled is probably the best way to describe my reaction. I understand the tradition of family getting together. I also understand that, at its beginnings, having one day of the year where food is abundant must have felt nothing short of paradise. I realize that those poor pilgrims, sitting there with the Indians and sharing a meal, had no guarantee for another good meal for some time in the future.
That was then. And where are we today?
Sadly, I realize that there are people even here in the US who go hungry and who do not know where their next meal will come from. I also must say that I personally do not know a single person who fits that description. Quite the contrary; almost everybody I know keeps a keen eye on the bathroom scale in the effort to reduce or maintain.
So why do look at the entire holiday season as a gigantic feeding trough as if we were still stuck in the days where you eat when you can, and as much as possible at that, just to have some reserves for the lean times that used to lie ahead?
I want to appeal to everybody reading this to give it just a little thought before sitting down for a huge meal. Take your time to enjoy every bite of it. Usually, even the best meal loses its initial appeal after the first few spoonfuls.
I wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving!
One more time, I’ll use this blog for a non-fitness related subject to be on record with my political view.
I have many reasons but want to focus on the one part that is the closest to my heart, and that is healthcare.
I am from Germany and did not come to this country until 1989. During the first 5 years, I was an international assignee working for IBM, and thus I was in an environment where all my colleagues had healthcare and I did not give it any thought because, to me, that’s the way it is supposed to be. After I got married, decided to stay in the US for good, and changed careers to be in the fitness industry, I began to look around my new home in North Carolina. That’s when it started dawning on me that a significant percentage of Americans do not have healthcare coverage, that pre-existing conditions can be excluded from policies, and that preventive care does not seem to be a priority.
When the debate over healthcare raged, many arguments were made on either side, and I was dismayed to listen to people who used countries like Germany, France or the UK as a negative example. I have lived in a country with comprehensive healthcare, and I still have many friends there. I love the country I am living in right now. I became a citizen because this is my home. But the lack of health access equality to every other of my fellow citizens was always a source of pain to me. I cannot truly be happy about my own healthcare access knowing that others do not have the opportunity.
I was elated when legislation was passed towards achieving this goal, and I was grateful when it was upheld by the Supreme Court. If it was on this one issue alone, I could not vote for anybody who promises to repeal it.
Here I stand!
I am currently glued to my DVD player watching a series of 24 lectures by Robert Sapolsky Ph.D. about stress and its impact on the body. The ramifications are truly frightening; there is not a function in the body that is not negatively influenced by the mechanisms of stress. And what is even more notable is that most of the stress originates from thoughts and feelings that are far removed from the initial scenarios for which stress was designed.
The processes that happen when we are stressed are designed to get us ready for the proverbial ‘Flight or Fight’ response in matters of life and death. As a species, we are the only ones capable of conjuring up frightful scenarios to which we then promptly respond as if we were in actual physical danger.
And there are a lot of things that people get stressed about: the weather, the traffic, the boss, the colleagues, the favorite teach losing, global warming, people disputing global warming. Right now we have enough people stressed about the outcome of the presidential elections on either end of the political spectrum.
What has all of this to do with MELT?
One thing I love when I teach a MELT class is the complete silence at the end of the class. After an hour of MELTing, the participants seem entirely removed from all the worries of the world. The inward focus of MELT quiets the stress response, and the change is palpable in the room. Being able to break the stress cycle is important because it enables the body to return to the repair mode that comes along with improved sleep.
MELT is not a cure-all, particularly if people insist on getting stressed and prefer to keep their stress levels up. I have heard people talk quite proudly about their type A personality. We cannot protect people from themselves. But MELT is a great modality to improve where we have control, and that are our thoughts and our frame of mind.
Even though I teach classes at a wellness center, I do not work out there myself. The main reason is that there are many members who know me and like to talk to me. I love to talk to people but it does not make for a very effective workout.
Instead, I work out at my own studio where I have my own equipment, and the only distraction is my dog.
But the other day, I got some guest passes to another fitness club in town, and today I decided to go there just to see how I would like it. It was a very familiar location; years ago, I trained clients there for a short period of time. It had changed hands numerous times since but in many ways was still very much what I remembered.
As I walked in and presented my guest pass, I was immediately sized up as a potential member, and before I knew it, a very friendly young lady came out of nowhere willing to show me around. I marveled at her attire with dress and heels which did not seem to point to a fitness club. But she was perfectly happy to leave me alone when I told her that I really just wanted to work out.
As I meandered through the club, I made a mental note of the improvements in the technology of weight training machines. Remarkable as they are, I never took a shine to them and instead decided to entertain myself with a cable tower which pretty much allowed me to do anything I wanted to do (and which I could just as well have done at my studio where I have this apparatus). Next I spotted some balls and Bosus, great favorites of mine. My plans came to nothing, though, because the balls were soft as marshmallows. All the while I was there, music was playing, and it was not as much background as I would have liked it to be. Granted, my love for classical music makes me an outsider in fitness clubs. After having a really good time at the True Stretch, I left.
I realize how fortunate I am to have what I want right here in my basement, complete with dog and classical music playing in the background. Fitness clubs and wellness centers play an important role, and much good comes from them (as long as people use them).
But still….. for me, there is no place like home.
Well, after months of studying, I am now a newly minted ‘Corrective Exercise Specialist’. I signed up for this certification in July thinking that it would be easier than the fitness Nutrition Specialist certification that is also issued by NASM and which I had passed just weeks before.
BOY, WAS I WRONG!
It was not that I have learned new tricks but have added a lot to the arsenal that I already have. The NASM CES certification is great to sharpen skills of static and movement assessments, and in my very first assessment after this certification, I identified a compensation that would have escaped me before in the initial assessment.
I love the fact that I can now merge MELT and CES into one comprehensive package, and it is my expectation that I will be able to help my clients and class participants get on the path to better well-being and health even more effectively.
When I teach a MELT (Myofascial Energetic Length Technique) class, I always begin by talking the participants through an assessment where I describe ideal alignment, and the participants are encouraged to evaluate by comparing their self-perception to the ideal. I recently had a question about this. Here it is:
“Why is it so important to be in ideal alignment?”
Sure, it looks look when somebody has good posture but that is not the main reason.
When we are in good alignment (i.e. have ideal posture), we have proper relationships within our musculoskeletal system and move the ease and efficiency. Even slight deviations compromise this efficiency. For example, if our head is a little forward, something in our body has to go backwards to maintain the center of gravity. Thus we have shortened a muscle somewhere and lengthened another to compensate. If we always return back to ideal posture, then those relationships are restored to their proper length but that usually does not happen.
We often stay in less than ideal alignment, and the result is that compensations become permanent. The detrimental effects are not immediately obvious, particularly when the deviations are slight. When we notice it a lot is when we have an injury which causes us to limp for a while or if we are immobilized in a cast. For one, it costs a great deal of effort to get from point A to B. And it usually does not take long, and we notice that other parts of our body begin to hurt. The lower back, for example, is often a victim of an ankle sprain.
It is my belief that bad posture often starts as a bad habit. Habitually carrying heavy objects on just one side (which includes small children on just one hip), sitting in front of the computer with the head jutting forward and slouching instead of sitting upright are just some examples.
So: what can you do about it? First, notice it. It’s half the battle. I am biased and believe that a MELT class is a great place to learn about your posture. But a skilled fitness professional can also help you identify imbalances and compensations and design a program that can address them.
And now: head up, shoulders back and abs tight – just as your mother always said!
Last Wednesday, I had another opportunity to talk to a group of massage therapy students. It was about one of my favorite subjects, MELT (Myofascial Energetic Length Technique).
There are many professions, massage therapy being one of them, where the professionals have to rely on the effortless functioning of their bodies in order to pursue their careers. Sue Hitzman, the creator of the MELT method, is a manual therapist herself, and she developed the MELT hand treatment in response to her own problems from overworked hands.
Just looking at the effects of the MELT hand treatment itself, the benefits are great, whether people sit at their computers all day long or are in a profession where the use of hands is a main part of the job like massage therapy and hair styling or recreational activity such as arts and crafts. Taking just 10 minutes a few times a week can help maintain the health of the hands as well as have beneficial impact on structures higher up the arm lines like shoulders and necks.
I recently had the privilege to review a manuscript which tries to address the question which we are all asking: considering the well-known risks of not exercising and excess weight, why is it that we – as a nation – are getting more unfit and heavier at the same time.
To start with my punch-line; this may feel like a downer: I do not have the answer either.
The excuses are legend and rarely justified: no time, too tired, family first, and many others. It is usually not lack of knowledge. Many preface their excuses with a list of what they ‘should do’ before starting in on the ‘buts’.
It is not possible to scare people into healthier behavior; who wants the stick? And a carrot does not seem such an alluring option if you can carrot cake with frosting, maybe even à la mode.
I also watch with pharmaceutical advertising with concern. Controlling diabetes or hypertension with a pill makes the person still diabetic or hypertensive even if the blood work is good and the blood pressure reading is normal. Yet, somehow we have convinced ourselves that it is not there if we cannot see it.
For me, moving is about the freedom to do what I want. I love walking and am fortunate enough to have a faithful canine companion who shares my enthusiasm. I never thought of movement as exercise that I do apart from my life. Our bodies were designed to move, to push and to pull, to reach and to extend.
I know that many feel like I do. I also know that many more do not. I feel sorry for them because they are missing out on a sensation of well-being they have never known.
And even though we can only lead a horse to the water, we should still do it over and over again at the odd chance that it will drink one of these days.
