As the new year approaches people often make the mistake of trying to make too many changes every January. The idea is to “make up for lost time.” But what ends up happening is no one can stick to drastic resolutions and burn out ends the whole attempted health revolution.
Another common mistake is to only focus on physical fitness. Why not try our holistic 7 health tips this January and see if they work better for you?
“What are myofascial lines?”
Simply put, they are series of muscles that run through your whole body in order to allow movement.
They run all the way down your front, back and sides. Some are superficially placed, others deeper.
As they say, “strong is the new skinny.” Women are turning more and more to building muscles instead of simply dieting and losing weight.
And this is a good thing.
In the 1960’s, thin was in. And girls often made calorie restriction the beginning and end of their “fitness” plan. By the 1980’s, aerobics and running replaced starvation and we all took a healthy step in the right direction. But the endless cardio was often erroneously coupled with too little strength building and fat free diets. The idea was simple, don’t eat fats and perform tons of cardio and you’ll be skinny. The goal was still to get smaller. To weigh less.
Thankfully we’ve come a long way since then. Crossfit and fitness competitions drove more and more women into the gym with the boys. And the results of lifting heavier weights than they had historically done was surprisingly healthy and attractive. Healthier and more attractive than the female fads of the past.
Aerobics and cardio of the 80’s and 90’s had “skinny” as the end result.
Weight cutting through dehydration may not only increase risk of concussions, it may lead to long term neurological deterioration affecting athletes in more areas than previously thought
(see article below for details)
In the realm of combat sports, athletes are paired off against opponents of the same size. This is obviously done for fighter safety. Having a 220 pound wrestler grabbing and throwing a 140 pound opponent would be dangerous for the smaller athlete. Hours before competition (in jiu jitsu and wrestling tournaments) or a day to a day and a half before competition (in kickboxing, boxing and MMA fights) athletes have to be weighed in order to make sure they are at their competition weight (or below, but never above). Theoretically this keeps fighters safe.
Unfortunately, this may not be true. As can be expected, athletes are doing anything they can to shrink their body weight as low as possible in hopes of fighting other athletes that are smaller than them. This is usually achieved by dehydrating the body severely in the days leading up to a weigh-in. Fluids can be replaced rather quickly and therefore, the athlete who can drop the most water in a short time will be the more muscular and heavier athlete in competition. In a real sense, there are two events happening: a weight cut competition and a fight.
I like to regularly visit my rateMDs page to see what my patients are saying about me anonymously. You see, the beauty of rateMDs is that you see what actual customers have to say, good or bad. It is a window into the real reaction folks have of your practice. None of the reviews are paid for. In fact, rateMDs.com does not allow for paid content. You CAN pay rateMDs for higher exposure, but not to generate reviews. I pay NOTHING to rateMDs. So what you see is purely organic.
One of my recent reviews started with “Dr P saved my life.”
In May of 2019 I completely tore my ACL while wrestling. Within 10 seconds I continued grappling (from the ground only) for about an hour. Next day the swelling and pain let me know something was wrong (I had not confirmed the tear via MRI at that point). 
I started rehabilitating the knee and cautiously grappled. Within a month I worsened the injury while grappling. Unfortunately, the next day, I was scheduled to run the Tough Mudder at Whistler in British Columbia. I taped my leg up like a mummy and ran the 16 K trek up and down the world famous ski resort. About one and a half months after this, while grappling, I dislocated the medial meniscus and it shot out the back of the knee joint. Not having x-ray vision, I did not exactly know this at the time, but a later MRI revealed it. Finally, at that point I stopped grappling completely and turned simply to rehabilitation while I await surgery. Continue reading
Myofascial release is basically an uncomfortably — often painfully — deep massage-like procedure that focuses on properly finding and breaking down scar tissue inside your body’s soft tissues.
Muscles, tendons, ligaments, fat and fascia are all examples of “soft tissues.” Essentially if it’s not bone, fluid or internal organs, it qualifies as soft tissue.
Scar tissue is a thin, dental floss-like “cobweb” that weaves itself into, around and even through your body’s soft tissue. It is triggered by inflammation. Inflammation is triggered by injury. Scar tissue formation strengthens torn muscles, tendons, ligaments, skin or any other soft tissue.
Scar tissue between muscle ribbons
This article was submitted to us by guest contributor Jennifer McGregor
A recent article by Energy Fitbox notes that busy people are the most likely to neglect self-care and suffer from burnout. As the world around you accelerates, it can be difficult to even think about slowing down. Fortunately, you can practice some well-needed self-care by making simple tweaks to your daily schedule, as opposed to adding more things to it. Let’s look at some ways you adjust the little things and reap big benefits.
this entry is by guest author Brad Krause:
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We’ve all heard the term self-care in conversations with friends, doctors, co-workers or family members—but do we really know what it means? Self-care is more than just managing our health by taking the time to practice good hygiene or exercise regularly—though those are important parts. Self-care is about taking deliberate action to show compassion and consideration to ourselves, making healthy choices for our physical and mental well-being.
The most common form of dizziness (i.e.: vertigo) is a form of peripheral vertigo known as Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). Symptoms of BPPV include:
– nausea and sometimes vomiting
– a form of dizziness that, to the sufferer, feels like a spinning motion
– dizziness brought on by sudden movement (often getting up from laying down)
– vision blurriness
– eyes spinning (nystagmus)
– quick bursts of dizziness that last only seconds (although BPPV can also last several minutes) Continue reading
