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