The Importance of Good Posture

Posture is not something you do, but what happens as a result of something you do. Depending on what you do, posture can become worse or better.

I'll give you an example. You're sitting, slouched in a chair at a seminar and the speaker says, 'Sit up straight.' You sit up straight. But a minute later you're back in the slouch position.

Poor posture is an indicator that muscles are not strong enough or flexible enough to keep your body in good alignment.

Stay in poor alignment for 20 years and you end up with a crook back, stiff neck, 'cold' shoulder, limp wrist, bung hip, game leg and dicky knee.

People with good posture naturally sit up straight, not because they think about sitting up straight but because their pelvis and the bones above it are being held in good alignment - by the way their body is locked into positon by the chair they're sitting in and the desk they're sitting at - and by their own muscles.

Poor posture is a symptom that the body is out of alignment and if it's out of alignment for too long, sooner or later you'll experience pain as ligaments, tendons and muscles around particular joints are stretched beyond their pain threshold..

The misalignment and the pain that eventually comes with it is, in turn a symptom, usually of tight muscles attached to the pelvis that have taken first the pelvis and then the bones above it out of alignment.

It follows that if any part of your musculature is not strong and flexible you run the risk of developing poor posture - from your feet up to the top of your head.

Poor posture is a critical guide to what's causing musculo-skeletal pain.

If you have pain, you might find the answer to why you have it here:

http://www.globalbackcare.com/back-pain-help/index.html#.UfsVI6zHbgs

Get someone to take some photos of you and send them to me. I'll show you what poor posture can tell you about the cause of the pain.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and if you're looking for solutions to musculo-skeletal pain you may find them at

http://www.globalbackcare.com

Regards and best wishes

John Miller

$70 million reasons why not to buy Nike shoes

Shock horror, glamor puss, Maria Sharapova caught cheating - or was it just stretching the biological envelope, or an administrative oversight. Maybe if she'd stuck with beetroot juice she'd be home free.

But Sharapova has been cheating for a long time. Every time she hits a ball in a match and screams at the top of her voice, that's cheating. It's designed to put her opponents off their game.

The irony of it all is that it takes WADA to pick her up for cheating not tennis authorities and tournament directors - or television networks.

When Sharapova is playing I don't watch. I can't bear the screaming. When any of the women players scream I switch off.

I don't know why her opponents don't complain, or stop playing. There is no place for grunting and screaming in sport. It's cheating.

I heard it said she doesn't scream during practice. If that's the case she's a fraud.

Then I find out she's on a $70m contract with Nike.

This is the company that has shoes made in third world countries for a few bucks and sells them for $200. They take us for mugs.

Well not me. I buy the same shoes that come out of the same factory, cost a few bucks to make and sell for $40 or less. They look the same, feel the same and last as long. Like $200 shoes they all wear through at the toes and the heels and they all end up being worn while I'm gardening.

Here's where some of the money goes. (Statistics based on yearly contracts and not verified.)

Michael Jordan        $60m
Lebron James          $30m
Kevin Durant          $28m
Cristiano Ronaldo   $21m
Tiger Woods           $20m
Kobe Bryant           $15m
Roger Federer         $12m
Neymar Jr               $9.5m
Rafael Nadal           $10m
Rory Mcllroy          $10m
Maria Sharapova    $8.5m

The list is as long as your arm.

All you have to keep in mind is that every time you buy a pair of sand shoes costing more than a pair of brogues you know you're being taken for a ride.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned, put on your shorts and sandshoes and start exercising.

Regards and best wishes

John Miller

USA 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines

I've just been looking at the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans Summary.

Here's what they say:

'Most health benefits occur with at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) a week of moderate intensity physical activity, such as brisk walking. Additional benefits occur with more physical activity.'

It's information that's as about as useful as a hip pocket on a singlet.

What's 'moderate'?  Most people believe that moderate exercise is ambling around the block - dawdling, loafing.

The report says the guidelines are 'science-based', but any exercise prescription that lacks frequency, duration and a dosage that includes heart rate suggestions ain't based on good science.

In the medical industry you don't leave it to the patient to decide what the dosage is going to be. Apparently when it comes to the sandshoe industry it doesn't matter.

Well it does matter. most people don't know what physical exertion is. it's why they don't reap the benefits of a good aerobic fitness training program.

You can get the Aerabyte aerobic exercise prescription on this link:

http://www.aerabyte.com

And what about this:

'Both aerobic (endurance) and muscle-strengthening (resistance) physical activity are beneficial.'

The dills who drew up this policy forgot to include flexibility - lack of which is the major cause of joint and muscle pain.

Plus, with respect to a strength training program they didn't prescribe a dosage - times a week, sets, repetitions, weights ... Or number of pressups, situps and squats. No wonder the metabolic, musculo-skeletal and psychological health of the Western World is getting worse.

Here are some standards to aim at - and exceed.

http://www.millerhealth.com.au/fit-for-work/index.html

In the mean time stay tuned, highly tuned with a decent aerobic fitness, strength and flexibility training program.


Regards and best wishes

John Miller

Heart Foundation Caught in Bed with Kelloggs

In February while I was out driving I came across this sign at Richmond in Qld - half way between Townsville and Mt Isa.

It's a little hard to see it, but if you look carefully at the bottom right hand corner of the sign you'll notice Australia's puissant medical charity has partnered up with one of the world's premier junk food manufacturers in awarding recognition for Local Government recreation initiatives.

The lake is a man-made lake named after former Richmond mayor, Fred Tritton and has become a focus for recreational activities in the town. The day I drove through Richmond it was over 40 degrees and dry as the proverbial dead dingo!

The Heart Foundation has a long standing tradition of marrying up to the junk food industry. A few years ago it was the McDonald exceptionally fast food company, but the marriage left a nasty taste in too many mouths for it to last. Plus hands up all those people who go to McDonalds to buy plastic bags of cut up apple?

They've joined the dieticians association and jumped into (an increasingly crowded) bed with the food manufacturing industry.

But what can you expect from a medical charity that will scrape money off the top of sales of manufactured food to fund research into medical and pharmaceutical solutions for the body system dysfunctions caused by the ravages of manufactured food?

When you cast your eye over the Heart Foundation's healthy food Tick program you couldn't have expected a better selection of junk food than if Billy Bunter himself had been on the selection panel. If it's manufactured food, if it's delivered in packets, tins, cardboard boxes and plastic bags - and if it comes with a back-hander, there's a good chance the Heart Foundation will run an enthusiastic ruler over it.

They've given the tick to:

   Milo - 46% sugar
   Breakfast biscuits
   Pasta, including creamy, bacon carbonara
   Ice cream
   Pies
   Pizza

In their own words, 'The Tick Program is the Heart Foundation’s guide to helping people make better food choices quickly and easily. Tick foods meet the Heart Foundation’s strict nutrition standards for nutrients such as saturated and trans fats, sodium, kilojoules (calories) and fibre.'

Baloney!

If you want to know more, grab yourself a copy of the Hourglass Diet and receive a free copy of 'Eat and Grow Fat' and the 'Glycemic Index Sideshow'.

Plus you'll get the 'Aerabyte Aerobic Fitness Training System' and the 'I'm Getting Closer to my Ideal Weight' inner mental training audio file.

Here's the link

http://www.hourglassediet.com

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and take Bob Carr's advice; 'less flour, more power'.

John Miller

Scheissenhausen's disease

There is no medical cure for this disease.

It was first described by German metabolic physician, Gustav Adolph Scheissenhausen (8^th June 1864 – 9th September 1945)  in 1915 and was named after him in 2014 when the prevalence of the disease became notified as a world-wide pandemic. Prior to that it had been notified as a syndrome – which is medical speak for ‘We don’t know what’s caused it.’

SD is diagnosed in people of all ages over the age of 15. In 2013 it was estimated that over 800m people, mainly from Europe, North America and the Antipodes were suffering from the disease. It is predicted to grow at an exponential rate as people lead increasing sedentary lives, eat more and more junk food and live lives that swing between stressed-out-of-their-brain and quiet desperation.

Although Scheissenhausen’s Disease develops differently for every individual, there are many common symptoms. You’re tired all the time. You’re over weight, in fact your trousers are so tight they’re ring-barking you. You get a thumping headache after lunch that goes away after a double shot coffee. You’ve got a crook guts, insomnia, brain fog, reflux, constipation, piles, sore muscles, joint pain and the deadly metabolic trio, high blood pressure, high cholesterol level and high blood sugar.

You drink too much alcohol, coffee and cola. You exist on a diet of fat, flour and sugar. There is a high likelihood you’re in the wrong job or under-appreciated at work. Similarly there is a high likelihood you’re in the wrong relationship or under-appreciated at home. Furthermore there is a high likelihood you don’t even like yourself.

In short you feel shithouse.

Early symptoms are often mistakenly thought to be manifestations of stress, aimlessness and vacuity, but that’s only half the problem. In general the main driver of SD is poor metabolic health. This is the reason why there is no medical cure. It’s not a medical problem; it’s a fitness, diet and wellbeing problem.

As the disease advances, symptoms increase. People often withdraw into their own little world spending more and more time on the couch watching Days of Our Lives, eating potato crisps and Delta Cremes, drinking diet Coke and drifting off with the faeries.

Since the disease is different for each individual, predicting how it will affect each person is difficult. SD develops for an unknown and variable amount of time before becoming fully apparent, and it can progress undiagnosed for years. On average, the life expectancy following diagnosis is approximately 50 years.

The great tragedy is people are living for years with Scheissenhausen's Disease without a clue as to what’s wrong with them. Some people are victims of ignorance, particularly that of their physician. Others are just plain lazy, ignorant or attached to the junk way of life. Many are beyond hope. The only relief they get is from their tailor, chemist, publican and barista.

There are no available medical treatments that stop or reverse the progression of the disease.

When SD is suspected the last person you should see is a physician.  Current medical and pharmaceutical treatments only help with masking the symptoms of the disease. In the long run you’ll gradually get worse, leading to more medication. Sooner or later the medications will conflict with each other. Side effect on top of side effect will be treated with more medication. In the end you won’t just feel shithouse you’ll be completely stuffed.

The doctor will also send you to the pathologist, the radiologist, the gastrologist, the astrologist and the proctologist neither of whom will be able to account for the causes of SD. They’ll slug you an arm and a leg, write out some Latinate gobbledook and send you back to your doctor. Not knowing the cause of the disease, let along the cure, the doctor will take the path of least resistance – which is to whip out the pad, scribble off a script, ask you whether it’s ‘cheque, savings, credit, PIN or sign and send you over to the chemist.’ End of diagnosis, end of treatment. Next!

The great tragedy is that you may come away from the doctor diagnosed with a whole range of body system dysfunctions, all except SD.

The cause and progression of Scheissenhausen’s Disease is very well understood by fitness practitioners.

If you’re feeling shithouse, improve your aerobic fitness dramatically. With 1000 aerabytes a week you should soon notice an improvement.

Embark on a regular and systematic strength and flexibility training program, stop stuffing yourself full of fat, flour and sugar, get back closer to your ideal weight, lay off the grog, stop drinking cola, limit yourself to one coffee a day, get some counselling, go to a high powered personal development weekend and Scheissenhausen’s Disease will start to disappear.

SCHEISSENHAUSEN Gustav Adolph  (8^th June 1864 – 9th September 1945) German metabolic physician, after who Scheissenhausen’s Disease is named.

 Gustav Adolph Scheissenhausen was born in Marktbreit, Bavaria on 8^th June 1864 where his father was a night soil engineer and his mother a haus frau.
 

Coincidentally, Marktbreit was the home town of Alois Altzheimer (14 June 1864 – 19 December 1915).

The two famous physicians were in the same class at the same school and entered the same university (Wurzburg) to study medicine. Scheissenhausen became a metabolic physician and Altzheimer a neurologist.

 

In 1917, while the country was in the grip of what would later become known as the First World War, Dr. Scheissenhausen observed that an increasing number of German men and women were being referred to him with a mysterious illness that included the symptoms of lethargy, headaches, insomnia, belly ache, obesity and running out of puff when gardening. In a speech given to the Deutsche Institut für Metabolische Dysfunktion on 18th April 1922, he was able to identify for the first time the pathology and the clinical symptoms of what would become Scheissenhausen’s Syndrome.
 

Despite the rise of Nazism, which curtailed medical research expenditure, Scheissenhausen plugged on, attending to patients, making observations, filling filing cabinets with notes and writing articles about the syndrome in German Medical journals that few people had the opportunity to read.
 

Eventually on 9^th of September 1945 he succumbed to the disease for which he would become famous.

It was not until 2011 that Australian mug physical educator, John Miller, on holidays in Europe was having a coffee and kuchen at the Scheisenhausen Institute  in Marktbriet that a chance conversation with Scheissenhausen’s son Hans led to the filing cabinets containing Scheissenhausen’s epic work.
 

The rest as they say is history. After a short period of intensive research at the Australian Institute for Metabolic Health Studies in Iron Knob, South Australia, it was in February 2014 that visiting fellow, the (self-styled doctor) Miller officially elevated Scheissenhausen’s syndrome to Scheissenhausen’s Disease, bringing to a close the mystery surrounding the collection of symptoms that make up this popular disease.
 

1% Weight Loss Challenge - Week 8

I've been away for a couple of weeks presenting seminars in north-west Queensland where it's as dry as a bone.

Growing up in Whyalla I know what it's like living in a place where it's as dry as a bone. Since the year I was born it's averaged 10 inches or rain a year, pretty much spread out over the months. In autumn and winter it gets an inch or so a month from the south westerlies and in the summer months it gets cloud bursts fed by monsoonal rains from the Indian Ocean - though with an average of an inch a month all that Whyalla ever received was the very last few hairs of the tail of any monsoon.

The thing about Whyalla though is that there was never a drought, just a low rainfall and the local pastoralists knew that if they ran just one sheep per square mile they'd come out ahead.

On the other hand the average rainfall for Winton is around 18 inches; but here's the rub. It can vary from around 43 inches as it did in the year 2000, down to 2 inches, as it did in 2002 and down to virtually nothing in the last couple of years.

While I was away I cracked a tooth and by the time I got home I was pretty much laid up and exhausted. It took me a week to recover.

But, I've bounced back and am back in the training harness.

The stats don't look all that good and I've got some making up to do before I get back to you in a week's time.

In the  mean time stay tuned, highly tuned and spare a thought for emaciated sheep and cattle feeding off dirt and farmers at their wits end. It's a heart-breaking situation that lowering interest rates isn't going to fix.

John Miller

1% Weight Loss Challenge - end of week 4 - The Parable of the Runner

Ah! that's a better. But nothing to really write home about - only around a kilo a week over the last 4 weeks.

Last week I was getting worried but the saviour has turned out to be the NutriBullet blender which we got just after Christmas. Previously we'd had a juicer and which used to leave most of the fibre behind.

The NutriBullett mashes everything up in to a delectable (almost smoothie-type) drink. I've been using a mix of fruit and vegetables for two shakes a day, one around lunch time and one around 3pm. The latter shake is warding off the before-tea munchies. Before tea is danger time.

I've also started on cider vinegar three times a day. I think it's helping to clear up my skin, particularly the bit of psoriasis I've inherited from my mother.

THE PARABLE OF THE RUNNER

A man went out for a run.

He’d only run a hundred yards when he felt a twinge in his right calf muscle. He slowed down to a walk and then returned home. He put ice on it, rested it for a few days, started walking again and soon found that he could shuffle slowly without discomfort. He gradually turned the shuffle into a jog. Then the jog became a run. He kept on running.

Then the weather took a turn for the worse, it became cold and wet. He wanted to stay in bed where it was warm, but he got up every morning at 6.30, rugged himself up - and kept on running.

His work took him to a far off place where it was hot so he couldn’t train outside. He kept on running, inside on the treadmill in the gym.

There were times when he was tired, when he’d gone to bed late. He got up anyway, put on his shorts, tee shirt and running shoes, got outside the front door - and kept on running, one leg at a time.

Other times while he was running he felt that he couldn’t go any further. He was stuffed. So he slowed down, went back to shuffling and jogging, paced himself - but kept on running.

He had hard days and easy days, but regardless of how he felt at the start of a run - he kept on running.

When he became stale he started cross training. As well as running he went swimming and cycling and worked out on the stepper. He lifted weights and after tea did his stretches on the floor while watching TV.

His health improved, he got back closer to his ideal weight, he slept better, his blood pressure and cholesterol came down. He became as lean as a greyhound, fit as a trout and toey as a Roman sandal.

His running times improved 30%. He could run for 60 minutes. He felt 100% better.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and if you've got feet let them run.


John Miller

http://www.completefitnessworkout.com

1% Weight Loss Challenge - end of week 3 - Whoops!

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Whoops!

This weeks results don't look to good. Inexplicable. Must be something wrong with the scales - or the food intake and elimination cycle! Whichever way you look at it, it's not a pretty result. But we live in hope and there's always next week to which we can look forward.

Trained hard for 1050 aerabytes of high density exercise.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned, lay off the garbohydrates and exercise like buggery.


John Miller

http://www.hourglassdiet.com

1% Weight Loss Challenge - End of Week 2 - So Far So Good

A single swallow doesn't make a summer, nor does losing a few kilos at the start of a weight loss program amount to much more than a hill of beans, but it's a start.

Like most races it's the finishing line that's more important than the starting line.

Here's last week's results.

 

If you'd like to download the Aerabyte Fitness Tracka - aerobic fitness diary - an essential tool to accompany any weight loss program - click on the link:

http://www.johnmiller.com.au/aob/tracka.pdf

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned - and cool.


John Miller

1% Weight Loss Challenge - End of Week 1

I read somewhere this week that Sydney University is calling for customers to enrol in a fat loss research program to try and work out the most effective way to lose weight. You'd reckon by now that nutritionists the world over would know that the most effective way to lose weight is to exercise like buggery and lay off the garbohydrates.

Whilst attending Biggest Loser classes would seem to be the best shot most people will ever have to get back closer to their ideal weight, I doubt that the  Sydney University nutrition department has this form of weight loss regime in mind.

A very, very high percentage of people don't have a clue how much exercise they need to do to get themselves back into good metabolic health of which being overweight is the most visible sign.

In my (vast) experience I've never met anyone who exercised with aerobic vigor for 40 minutes a day who was in poor metabolic health and 30KG over weight. You can put down the glasses, close down the research institutes, the results are in, all cut and dried, done and dusted.

'Exercise like buggery' is not strictly a technical term, but it means getting 1000 aerabytes of vigorous aerobic activity every week.

'Lay off the garbohdrates' means restricting your intake of flour and sugar; on their own, mixed together or combined with fat - the typical junk food diet.

Anyway, to cut a long story short this week I got to 1210 aerabytes, most of it on the stepper with heart rate of 130 plus. And the results are:

But it's early days yet. Talk is easy.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned, exercise like buggery and lay off the garbohydrates.


John Miller

1% per Week Weight Loss Target

We're right at the start of 2014 and it's the ideal time to think about getting both fitter and thinner. If you're thinking about dropping a few kilos over the next couple of months feel free to download a copy of my 1% per week weight loss target from this link:

http://www.johnmiller.com.au/hgd/index.htm

Any surplus fat around your body is going to peel off quicker if you up your exercise, both aerobic and strength training. I can't think of any better guide than the CompleteFitnessWorkout.

Nor can I think of a better set of guiding principles for eating wisely in a junk food world than the Hourglass Diet.

My fitness week starts on Mondays and starting on Monday the 6th of January I'll be commencing my own weight loss program.

For aerobic exercise I'll be working out on the stepper and aiming for 1000 aerabytes a week.

You can join me on the Health Blogarithm to see how I go and join in the fun with your own reports.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and focus on losing 1% of your body weight each week.

Watch this spot.

John Miller

Painfully Tight Calves - the Unequal Burden

Do you need to warm muscles up before giving them a massage?

Probably, but when you think about it, 98.6F sounds sufficient!

When it comes to loosening stiff muscles rolling isn't the complete answer. You usually have to keep rolling.

You roll the knots out of a muscle and by the next morning the knots have come back again. It's a never ending saga; you loosen the muscle, it tightens itself back up again, you loosen, it tightens ... Is it true  that the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result?

If a particular muscle is stiff and sore it's highly likely that it's bearing too much of - or an unequal share of - the burden of locomotion because a muscle (muscles) elsewhere have pulled the skeleton out of alignment.

For instance if you're a runner and you have a tight and persistently painful right calf the cause may be tight left buttock or hamstring or hip flexor or quadratus lumborum ... that has slightly twisted your pelvis.

The level of uneven burden may be so slight you can hardly notice it - but your right calf does. You rub and roll the calf, but to no avail. It's always painfully stiff. you need the human body equivalent of a wheel alignment.

In my own case I notice it when I'm working out on the stepper. My right foot is always an inch and a half behind my left foot. I've assessed the cause of the problem as being a tight left buttock, which I work on persistently, but I'm of an age where a lifetime of rotating to the left to kick and throw (I'm right handed) might have led to permanent rotation of the pelvis.

On the other hand, my diagnosis may not be correct. I could be just plain ignorant of what's causing the pelvis to rotate and what needs to be done and would appreciate some help from readers more knowledgeable about this 'complaint' than I am. I'm more than willing to defer to a 'higher power'.

The principle then is that the cause of the pain is unlikely to be the point where it's painful.

We're fascinated by and attracted to the spot where the pain is - not where the cause of the pain is. It's why when it comes to lower back pain, radiologists want to X-ray the lower back and therapists want to rub, crunch, heat and vibrate it.

The second principle sort of follows on from the first and derives from the dualistic way we look at things. The medical industry is dogged by the fascination with the part, not the whole. Hence if you have a headache it must be because something inside your head is 'not right' rather than the whole body is not right.

So, when you have stiffness in one part, stand back and look at the whole musculo-skeletal ecosystem - chances are it's a system problem, in which case you'd take up yoga or some other form of general movement 'therapy'.

A final word; the particular muscles (and indeed whole musculature) may not be strong enough to do the job expected of it.

Rarely do we strengthen calves (or feet) in such a way that we build their capacity to manage the loads we expect of them.

My recent experience suggests that slow, very slow calf raises are an essential part of the runners/sportsperson's armoury: 5 seconds up, 5 seconds hold, 5 seconds down, 10 seconds hold. It will take 10 minutes not 1 minute.

 "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Medical Research Reaches New Lows

Too much medical science has been perverted by Big Pharma, where research focuses on the effectiveness of one drug against another without comparing the effectiveness of the new drug to the effectiveness of running round the block, eating one less block of chocolate, one less bag of chips and drinking one less bottle of soda pop a day.

Whilst there are, of course exceptions, what medical science has done is complicate the simple, make the cheap expensive and the transparent opaque.  (What the medical industry at large has done, with the support of the State, is built up the perfect closed shop, complete with its priests, bishops and cardinals. It's even engineered its own set of blasphemy laws to protect its pseudo-ecclesiastical power.)

Medical science has become a sacred cow.


(A physiotherapist reviewing my Musculo-skeletal Health program bagged it because I didn't have the scope of practice to diagnose the likely causes of lower back pain. Apparently only doctors have a license to diagnose the cause of a particular body system dysfunction. I can tell you one thing, when it comes to diagnosing the cause of low back pain most doctors definitely don't have a clue.)

In short, a lot of medical science is just plain baloney; busy work for the inmates of the sheltered workshops for the academically gifted.

It's a game that starts with pushing out the begging bowl, (masquerading as a grant application) snagging a stipend from either mug tax payers or Big Pharma, followed by a frenetic round of paper writing, seminar presenting, back slapping, head patting, brown nosing and champagne quaffing at international conferences.

If medical science was any good, the health, fitness and wellbeing of the community would be getting better, not worse; the percentage of GDP being spent on junk medicine would be coming down, not increasing. People would be walking around with a spring in their step, proud and upright - as lean as greyhounds, fit as trout and toey as Roman sandals.

This is a bloated industry, bathing in the reflected glory of Edward Jenner and Howard Florey, full of sound and fury.

If everyone did, every day, what The Great Ardell does, every day, doctors, physiotherapists, chiropractors and pharmacists would be sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and don't go to doctors for things doctors can't fix and or for things you're quite capable of fixing yourself.

Back Pain Research

A lot of back pain research is selective-evidence-based because of its focus on and around the spot where it hurts, rather than taking a global, system-wide approach to its causes and treatment.
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Most people with low back pain have a pelvis that's out of alignment due to tight muscles attached to it, front, back and sides - but usually tight hamstring and buttock muscles - and maybe hip flexors.

There are a genre of people who are exceptionally aerobically fit and strong who succumb to back pain. Usually they're very inflexible. Bones in the back will usually already be out of alignment. You can test how far out of alignment but using this diagnostic procedure.

When the pelvis is out of alignment the bones above it move out of alignment. When the vertebrae move out of alignment ligaments, tendons and muscles attached to those bones are stretched beyond their pain threshold. The nucleus of one of more discs starts to get squeezed out. Then along comes an incident - often trivial - that 'tips the person over the edge' and the disc herniates.

The 'straw that breaks the camels back' usually gets the blame, whether it's bending down to pick up a leaf, swivelling round to pick up a phone book, cleaning your desk or lifting a bag of groceries into the car. It can happen to the best of us.

The bag of groceries is not the underlying cause of the problem, just one of the many straws that lob on the lower back. The groceries (the leaf, the phone book, the desk) get the blame.

This is an example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. (If A occurs before B then A must have caused B.)

Academic bio mechanics and physiotherapists want to scare us with selective-evidence-based science. For instance, Canadian bio mechanic, Stuart McGill warns against doing situps because they place HUGE forces at the spot where discs herniate.

 http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/01/19/the-man-who-wants-to-kill-crunches/

 However, a healthy musclo-skeletal system is designed to cope with the HUGE forces he rails against.

Blaming a sit up for herniating a disc is indeed a selective piece of evidence. How far the bones of the spinal column are already out of alignment, how inflexible some of the muscles attached to it are and how weak the muscles attached to the pelvis and spine are more important factors.

The body needs persistent flexibility exercises done in sufficient dosage to keep the pelvis and spinal column in good alignment. It needs persistent strength exercises to support the bones in good alignment. (The point I suspect McGill misses is the fact that a good strength training program will also support bones in misalignment.)

But just focusing on the strength of muscles attached to the spine 'somewhere' in the vicinity of the pain misses the point. The cause of the pain is rarely at the site of the pain

The fact that the medical and therapeutic industries are fixated on the site of the pain, has perverted the course of lower back pain research. It's a system problem, that manifests itself in the lower back, not a lower back problem per se.

This means a lot of the evidence as to the cause of lower back pain is selective and if the evidence is selective then we need to be careful not to rely on it too heavily.

As for yoga, if the Chinese have been doing it for 2,000 years, I'd bet on it. I wouldn't change it. It's a musculo-skeletal health program that focuses on the musculo-skeletal system as a whole and not just on one small segment of it. I wouldn't be scared off from doing some of the poses on the say-so of latter day bio mechanics and physiotherapists.

We're dealing with a system that goes from the bottom of the feet right up to the top of the head and just about all the muscles in this chain work together to keep the bones in correct alignment - including the bones in the lower spine.

Focus on the system, not just spot where it hurts. Keep the system strong and flexible and the chances of coming down with a crook back are quite remote.

If you're searching for back pain bogy men, you've got to look further than leaves, desks, bags of groceries and situps.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and diminish your risk of joint and muscle pain by keeping yourself strong and flexible.


John Miller

http://www.globalbackcare.com

Core Strength Exercises

There's a lot of debate about which muscles are 'core' muscles and which exercises you need to do to improve core strength.

Most people think that core muscles are those 'somewhere behind your belly button'.  Physiotherapists get people to lie on their back and suck their guts in to strengthen those muscles.

Not many people became stronger by sucking their guts in.

My definition of core muscles is any muscle attached to the pelvis or the spine.

Withjout complicating the sipple you ought to be able to look after your core strength by regularly doing these four exercises:

1. Situps of any type.

2. Pressups definitely. Pressups are plank in motion - the best predictor of risk of lower back pain.

3. Squats - don't forget that core muscles are any muscles attached to the pelvis or spine. Just get a piece of wood an inch or so thick, place it under your heels and start squatting. Make sure your backside goes below your knees.

4. Superman - don't forget the muscles on the 'back side' of the body.

If everyone could do 40 situps, 40 pressups and 40 squats doctors, physios and chiros would be sitting around twiddling their thumbs.


In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned, keep strengthening your core muscles and visit http://www.globalbackcare.com for a complete musculo-skeletal health training program.


John Miller

Accupuncture and Back Pain

I'd bet on anything the Chinese have been doing to 2000 years, BUT, that wouldn't stop me from doing the strength and flexibility exercises that need to be done to get the pelvis and the bones above it back in alignment.


Most people go for a particular therapy and then forget that the most effective therapy is the one that they can do themselves - for free - at home - a targeted strength and flexibility training program.

There is no way you can keep yourself in good musculo-skeletal health without such a program.

The corollary is that if you have low back pain, start doing the exercises needed to get the pelvis and the bones above itback into better alignment, for a sufficient period of time each day for them to take effect. No rubbing, no crunching, no heating, no vibrating, no doping, no surgery.

Norman Marcus, Director, Norman Marcus Pain Institute, Associate Professor, NYU/Langone School of Medicine writes, 'non specific or idiopathic low back pain which refers to sprains and strains of soft tissue accounts for 70 to 80% of patients presenting with pain in the low back (http://bit.ly/15K9ORX).'

The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council puts the idiopathic figure at 95%.

Believing that 70% - 95% of low back pain doesn't have a cause pretty much rules out the medical industry as being the experts in this field.

If you don't know the cause how can you possible direct a treatment at fixing it?

Motor mechanics would go out of business if they adopted these principles.

You could pretty much count on the causes of those 70%-95% being generated by a lack of strength and flexibility - causing bones to move out of alignment.

In the first instance treat low back pain as a personally-generated fitness problem - and understand that the chances of solving a personally-generated fitness problem with a medical/pharmaceutical/surgical solution is very remote.

Just about everything the medical industry writes about low back pain and just about every things it recommends to relieve the pain provides evidence that it is out of its depth.

Complicating the simple and making the cheap expensive definitely doesn't mean you're going to solve the problem.


In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned, loosen the tight muscles and strengthen the weak muscles.


John Miller

http://www.globalbackcare.com

Stretching Before Exercise

I've read one of the research reports (Herbert et al. Effects of stretching before and after exercising on muscle soreness and risk of injury: systematic review. British Medical Journal. 2002). All Herbert and his mate, Gabriel did was look at the results of other studies - without saying just how bad they were.

'The first study investigated effects of supervised stretching of calf muscles before exercising (two stretches of soleus and gastrocnemius muscles for 20 seconds on each limb, total stretch time 160 seconds).'

If the feet are out of alignment, if the upper and lower leg bones are out of alignment, if the pelvis is out of alignment, 20 seconds of calf stretching to avoid soreness is about as useful as a hip pocket on a singlet.

'The second study investigated effects of supervised stretching of six muscle groups in the lower limbs before exercising (one 20 second stretch to each muscle group on each limb, total stretch time 240 seconds.)'

At least more muscles were being stretched but the time was grossly inadequate to have much of an effect. No wonder this regime didn't work.

'Total stretch time per session varied from 300 seconds to 600 seconds, with the exception of one study in which total stretch time was only 80 seconds.'

'This systematic review finds clear evidence from five studies of nominally moderate quality that stretching before or after exercising has no effect on delayed onset muscle soreness.'

Well at least Herbert and Gabriel had the decency to say the studies were of 'nominally moderate quality.' What he should have said was they were of dreadful quality.

'Conclusions: Stretching before or after exercising does not confer protection from muscle soreness. Stretching before exercising does not seem to confer a practically useful reduction in the risk of injury, but the generality of this finding needs testing. Insufficient research has been done with which to determine the effects of stretching on sporting performance.'

Read it again. The 'generality of this finding needs testing.' The last sentence says it all. 'Insufficient research has been done ...' Add to that 'insufficient quality research has been done.'


Can you believe that the sporting world is now running around using this evidence as gospel?

Herbert and Gabriel have produced a very tawdry report. Basing the findings on the effectiveness of stretching as a method of reducing injury or muscles soreness on a stretching regime that takes 20 seconds if definitely baloney.

Anyone who knows anything about stretching (loosening) knows that 20 seconds is useless. In that time the muscles doesn't even get the message that it's safe to loosen off.

The other flaw in the report is that it takes no consideration of the effect of constant, daily, extended loosening off of ALL the major muscles of the body associated with keeping the skeleton in good alignment and facilitating propulsion and locomotion.

If I were running an elite athlete program I'd make the athletes do at least an hour of yoga a day and probably have them working at the barre for the same amount of time.

This is a research report that never should have been given the light of day, let alone be used to bag the benefits of a regular, systematic and extended muscle loosening program.

20 seconds, bah humbug.

Stretching Research

Reports are coming out saying that the latest stretching research is telling people that stretching is useless.

It's baloney.

In the sit down culture it's imperative that you stretch in order to prevent tight muscles from taking your skeleton out of alignment.

If your stretches are not making your muscles looser, chances are you're not doing them for long enough - or often enough.

The western world is experiencing a musculo-skeletal pain catastrophe/calamity/epidemic, caused mainly by tight muscles taking bones out of alignment. Weak muscles exacerbates the problem.

I don't know where this research comes from - probably Pfizzer, Smerk, Roach or the American College of Surgeons!

If every one did half and hour's yoga every day, doctors, physiotherapists, chiropractors and chemists would be sitting around twiddling their thumbs and playing golf most afternoons.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and keep loosening off tight muscles and strengthening weak muscles.

How Long do you Need to Stretch For?

I think the duration of the 'stretch' is very important. Keep in mind that what we're talking about is giving muscles 'confidence' that it is safe to loosen off. It's not stretching per se, but creating the conditions for the muscle to loosen off that we need to focus on.

I'd say it takes at least a minute for a muscle to get the message it is safe to loosen up, maybe even longer. With lower back pain, you'd want to allocate 20 minutes for each of static back, supine groin stretch and hip crossover. Most people only stretch for 20 seconds and wonder why they never get better.

If you're planning on loosening a muscle, take10 or 20 long, slow breaths and with every breath you breathe out increase the 'stretch', even by the smallest amount.

For instance, with a conventional hamstring 'stretch' with one leg on a bar, with every breath you breathe out, take your navel a little closer to your thigh. With 20 deep breaths you'll make a lot of progress. Tust give the muscle time and respect.

I haven't expressed this in scientific terms but you'll get the message.

Ozone Therapy for Herniated Disc

It's doubtful that any treatment for low back pain comes close to the effectiveness of a set of strength and flexibility exercises, specifically designed to get the pelvis and the bones above it back into better alignment.

This is the gold standard treatment, simple and cost effective.

Research studies on the effectiveness of other treatments that don't compare the effectiveness of those treatments against the effectiveness of a regular, systematic and sustained set of exercises is poor research that leads to poor clinical practice.

Keep in mind too that the exercises most physicians prescribe to their customers, fail to target the cause of the misalignment and lack the frequency, intensity and duration needed to bring about this re-alignment of the skeleton!

For a high proportion of people, low back pain comes not only with a pelvis and spinal column that are out of alignment but a body that is in poor general physical condition.

If your customer can't do a sit up, can't hardly do any press-ups, situps, or squats, can't touch their toes or sit up straight with their legs crossed, is more than 20Kg over weight and doesn't have a regular and systematic strength and flexibility training program, it's highly unlikely that their herniated disc is due to a lack of oxygen therapy.

When it comes to the medical treatment of lower back pain, the medical industry has complicated the simple and made the cheap expensive.

When the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council  (NHMRC) (and other medical institutes around the world) can get away with describing 95% of lower back pain as being idiopathic, you'll know that a high proportion of physicians are poorly trained to know where to look for the underlying cause of the pain, let alone prescribe the simple strength an flexibility exercises designed to restore poor function to good.

These physicians are prime targets for surgeons and drug companies.