Jul 18

Strong Upper Extremities Traveling

A walk through an airport terminal reveals the surprising truth that traveling is a strength and conditioning event. Suitcases are hoisted off luggage carousels, carry-on bags are pressed into overhead bins, backpacks are slung over shoulders, and rolling luggage is towed across long stretches of pavement. Before a single vacation photo is taken, the body has already performed dozens of lifts, presses, pulls, and carries.

Travel highlights the upper extremities, a part of the body that is commonly overlooked. Our hands, elbows, and shoulders are the tools that manage nearly every physical demand of a journey. The fingers and forearms grip handles and railings. The elbows bend and straighten to lift bags from the ground to a hotel bed. The strength, functionality, and integrity of the shoulders are important assets when we press luggage up into an overhead bin or stabilize a heavy tote during a long walk to the gate. These same structures serve us at home when we haul groceries, open stubborn jars, pull trash bins to the curb, and push ourselves up from a chair.

For those of us venturing into our upper fifties, sixties, and beyond, travel often becomes one of the most anticipated rewards of a lifetime of hard work. Visiting grandchildren across the country, touring a foreign city, or embarking on a long-awaited cruise are the experiences that fill our calendars and our conversations. However, this is also an area of life when muscle mass and grip strength naturally decline if they aren’t maintained. A sore shoulder, a flare of tennis elbow, or fingers that fatigue quickly can transform an exciting itinerary into a source of anxiety. Needing assistance to lift a carry-on into an overhead bin can feel like a small surrender of independence that many travelers would prefer to avoid.

It’s worthwhile to understand how the upper extremity operates as a connected chain. The muscles of the forearms close our fingers around objects and generate grip strength. The biceps and triceps bend and straighten the elbow to lift and press. Above them, the shoulder is stabilized by the rotator cuff, a group of four muscles that hold the ball of the upper arm bone securely in its socket. Supporting the whole operation are the muscles of scapular stabilization surrounding the shoulder blades, such as the trapezius and latissimus dorsi, which anchor the arms to the torso. When one link in this chain is weak, the neighboring links absorb extra stress, which is often how nagging musculoskeletal injuries begin.

The encouraging news is that reinforcing this chain doesn’t require heroic feats of strength. Safe, simple, and effective resistance training performed two to three times per week can pay massive dividends. Bicep curls with light dumbbells strengthen the elbows and shoulders and also increase grip strength. Rowing motions with a resistance band reinforce the shoulder blades. Consistent practice of these movements builds a reserve of strength that mitigates the likelihood of injuries interrupting the adventures we’ve worked so hard to enjoy.

Below is an exercise we use with our personal training clients to strengthen the hands, elbows, and shoulders.

The “farmer’s carry” is a simple and effective exercise that mimics everyday life activities such as carrying groceries or luggage. Start by standing tall with a dumbbell, kettlebell, or even a jug of water in each hand, positioned at your sides. Choose a weight that feels challenging but manageable, such as five to fifteen pounds per hand. Ensure your shoulder blades are pulled down and back, as if tucking them into your back pockets. Ensure your spine remains rigid and your gaze faces forward rather than down at the ground. Grip the weights firmly and walk twenty to thirty steps at a controlled pace, then turn around and walk back. Ensure your shoulders stay level and avoid leaning to either side throughout the movement. You should experience muscular activation in your fingers, forearms, shoulders, and the muscles between your shoulder blades. Repeat this walk for three to five rounds, resting as needed.

Strong hands, durable elbows, and resilient shoulders are invaluable assets for lifetime fitness. Whether the destination is an overseas adventure, a grandchild’s graduation, or simply the grocery store across town, our upper extremities determine how confidently we move through the journey. Perhaps we can dedicate a few minutes in our weekly routines to reinforce these hardworking muscles so we can keep lifting, carrying, and exploring for years to come.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Jul 10

Stay Fit for Recreational Sports

An engaging and fun activity after a day of labor is playing a recreational sport.  Golf, tennis, pickleball, running, and biking are some of the most popular sports among our personal training clients.  Engaging in sports requires physical capabilities and athleticism, including the ability to endure long periods of potentially strenuous activity, consistent practice to refine the actions needed for the sport, and a certain level of strength, balance, and coordination.

Recreational sports are fun.  Golf, tennis, pickleball, running, and biking commonly fall into the recreational physical activity category.  Unless we’re in a competitive setting such as a tournament or league, engaging in these sports acts as a way for people to get their minds off the stresses of work and everyday life while getting a sense of accomplishment before the day ends.  However, even at the recreational level, sports can be taxing on the body.  Unfortunately, musculoskeletal injuries can occur when participating in activities that are seemingly safe and not too taxing on the body.  This is where injury prevention through appropriately selected exercise is critical for participating in the recreational sports we look forward to.

Injuries at the recreational-sport level can happen at the most inopportune times.  For instance, after a few weeks of picking up golf and working on the complexities of a golf swing in driving, chipping, and putting, lower back, elbow, or knee injuries can appear.  For those of us who enjoy racket sports such as tennis or pickleball, the stop-and-go motion when striking a ball can cause lower back, knee, or ankle pain.  Even a seemingly simple recreational sport, such as Bocce ball, can produce lower back stiffness and soreness from bending over to roll a wooden ball on a Bocce ball league night, which requires two to thirty rolls per event.

While the likelihood of enduring a traumatic injury such as broken bones from a fall or torn ligaments, tendons, and other significant connective tissue isn’t common, overuse injuries from playing constantly throughout the week and adding hours of recreational sporting activities add physical stress to the body.  After a few weeks of fun, consistent play, a few areas of soreness may develop.  Awareness and understanding that a maintenance program of injury prevention and sport-specific strength and conditioning can significantly enhance the enjoyment of these recreational sports and, more importantly, keep us within the arena of play by mitigating the likelihood of overuse injuries.

Common areas in the body that become stiff, sore, and sometimes painful enough to make us aware that something is not right after a bout of recreational sporting activity include the back, knees, ankles, and shoulders.  To offset the severity of these byproducts of discomfort, injury prevention tactics to these areas in the form of low-intensity resistance training and stretching performed outside the field of play can pay massive dividends not only toward optimizing performance, but also toward not having to worry as much about the suboptimal byproducts of pain and discomfort our favorite recreational sports might impose on the body.  Below is an exercise we use with our personal training clients as part of injury prevention and strength and conditioning to help offset delayed-onset muscle soreness.

For lower back, shoulders and hips, the “bird dog” exercise is a simple, safe, and effective tactic:

To perform the alternating “bird dog” exercise, start by lying on the ground with your hands under your chest and your knees under your hips.   With one arm in a stable position on the ground, lift the opposite arm out in front of the body and reach the fingertips as far as you can.  At the same time, extend the leg on the opposite side of the arm extended behind you to straighten it as far as you can.  Ensure the spine is as straight as possible.  Ensure the back of the head stays in line with the spine throughout the movement.  Additionally, maintain rigidity in your shoulder blades, spine, and hips to ensure your torso doesn’t rotate throughout the movements.  Furthermore, ensure you dorsiflex the ankle of the extended working leg by keeping your toes pointed toward your body.  You should experience muscular activation and a stretching sensation in the shoulder, core, lower back, and hips. Repeat this movement for five to ten repetitions on both sides of the body.

Recreational sports give us something to look forward to after enduring the stresses of everyday life.  The ability to decompress, sweat, laugh, and hone a craft in an enjoyable sport is an invaluable asset to lifetime fitness efforts.  Let’s ensure we stay fit for these activities so we can continue to get out and play for years to come.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Jul 03

Complexities of Core Strength

“Imagine if your arms and legs magically disappeared from the armpits and hips.  All the muscles in the region between the armpits and hips are your core.”  These were the words of the fitness director who supervised me at a gym I worked at many moons ago.  I was selected to teach a small-group fitness class called “core values.”  To successfully provide class participants with a beneficial outcome from the exercises conducted in class, I needed to know which muscles fell under her definition of core and how to safely and effectively instruct participants in activating them.

“We don’t just sit around and do crunches throughout the class,” explained my boss.  “The idea is to build strength in the muscles that create functional movement in our hips, lower back, and shoulders.”

The description seemed a little extreme and morbid at first. Who wants to think about having their arms and legs removed?  However, the description immediately resonated with my knowledge of the human body’s anatomy.

A common understanding of “core” seems to focus on the abdominal muscles.  Social media feeds, advertisements on our streaming devices, and pictures of hyper-athletic young athletes on protein and sports drinks at the store display their six-packs.  Consumers are more than likely to focus myopically on the chiseled abs of the individuals modeling them.  These models have been expertly trained by elite-level fitness coaches, directed on what to eat by a dietitian, and prepared for three months for a shot that displays their midsections so defined and chiseled that they could grate cheese on their abs.  Add in the beauty of airbrushing, body makeup, AI images, and Photoshop editing, and you have an image of a human with the midsection of a Greek god.

Sometimes, this image of having Brad Pitt’s six-pack is what the general population perceives as the core.  While these fitness models have worked hard to develop a midsection worthy of TV, social media, or health supplement advertisements, that image doesn’t necessarily reflect the core strength’s missing pieces that help the general population be more productive and functional while staving off injuries.

Think of the way a caterpillar moves on the ground.  They have little nubby appendages that grab the ground as the segmented portion at the center of their bodies reaches forward to move them, little by little.  I would argue that caterpillars have a strong core, using my boss’s description of core muscles.  Insects with similar morphology to caterpillars are essentially all core muscles.  They don’t necessarily use their arms for much other than creating friction on the ground.  Humans have four extremities that are invaluable assets in our lives.  Somewhat similar to a caterpillar’s body, our spine has multiple segments composed of muscles, bones, nerves, and, most importantly, the spinal cord, which is one of the most critical assets for innervating our body.

To better appreciate the core muscles that create a significant impact on our productivity and functionality, which aren’t just for a six-pack, it’s worthwhile to look at the anatomy that connects the spine to the hips and the spine to the shoulders.  The hip girdle is a collection of bones that attach to the spine and the thigh bones.  The spinal column is a collection of the cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and sacral columns.  These sections of the spine consist of uniquely shaped bones called vertebrae, which stack on top of one another and provide specific properties of rotation, flexion, and extension.  The shoulder girdle is comprised of the clavicle and scapula, which are connected to the thoracic and cervical spine by ligaments, tendons, and muscles.

While there is a vast network of muscles that can fill the pages of an anatomy course guideline, the few muscles that serve as effective core-strengthening movements we teach our personal training clients start at the hips, abdomen, and shoulder blades.  The muscles surrounding the hip joints are among the strongest in the body and serve as structural reinforcement at the body’s center.  The glutes are among the simplest muscles to identify as hip muscles and are a safe, efficient place to start when focusing on reinforcing hip strength.  The muscles of scapular stabilization, which surround the shoulder blades and shoulder joint, help maintain upright posture when standing and sitting.  Larger muscles of the shoulder blade include the trapezius, latissimus dorsi, and teres muscles.  A multitude of muscles reside along the front, back, and sides of the spine, including the psoas and erector spinae.

The human body is complex.  A strong, durable, and resilient core undoubtedly reinforces people’s ability to live a highly functional, productive, and enjoyable life.   Perhaps we can take some time to educate ourselves on the different core muscle groups and specifically target the ones that truly make up the core of the body.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Jun 26

Refining Balance and Posture by Standing Upright

The ability to stand upright on two feet can be perceived as a normal activity that doesn’t need much appreciation.  However, standing upright is an invaluable asset.  An example of a pivotal moment in our everyday life is getting out of bed first thing in the morning. This might look like pushing oneself up from a lying position, swinging the feet over the edge of the bed, placing both feet on the floor, and extending the legs to finish in an upright standing position.  Whether we literally roll out of bed or put a little more thought into it by strategically following an order of operations to pivot our bodies and gradually get to a standing position, we usually do it without a second thought.  We’re able to accomplish this seemingly simple task thanks to the brain’s sophisticated design and the body’s neuromuscular system that operates in an efficiently coordinated manner to bring us to an upright standing position.

Being the most advanced organism on Earth, humans are equipped with a system of a central command center and wiring that gives immediate messages to allow us to interact with our environment by walking forward, stepping side to side, standing up from seated positions, kneeling down, or performing athletic activities such as running, jumping, catching, or a combination of all three.   These complex activities are made possible by the body’s skeletal framework, neuromuscular system, and our ability to adapt by refining our skill set and fostering neuroplasticity in our cognitive functioning, enabling us to learn, improve, and develop competency in a physical activity.

A human’s ability to stand upright and travel forward relies on optimal posture, so the spine can remain relatively perpendicular to the ground and aligned with the center of gravity.  If the spine flexes or extends too far forward, backward, or laterally, the center of gravity that allows us to be upright can be compromised.  A shift in the spine that pulls the body out of alignment with its center of gravity creates a lean in a direction that bends the spinal joints beyond their natural range of motion, hindering balance and increasing the risk for spinal injury.  The more the spine veers away from its perpendicular position to the ground when standing, the more balance and coordination are hindered.

I’ve never been to France, but I have studied a little architecture and understand that the Leaning Tower of Pisa isn’t perfectly aligned with the ground.  It leans about four degrees out of an ideal centralized foundation.  For the leaning tower of Pisa, it’s worked for a few centuries.  However, for humans who have a spinal cord encased in vertebrae that both support as a foundational component that allows the body to remain in an optimal center of gravity while also transmitting neuromuscular signals from the brain to the body’s extremities, a spine that leans out of alignment for long periods of time significantly compromises health and everyday life functionality.

A hunched-forward posture shifts the center of gravity anteriorly and causes the spine to bend like a fishing pole with a hooked fish.  This not only contributes to a slew of musculoskeletal spinal injuries but can also increase the risk of falling forward.  Therefore, ensuring the body has optimal posture when standing and walking is critically important to our health and everyday life functional capacity.

Posture isn’t only important for everyday physical activity, but also critically important for a successful exercise session.  Maintaining spinal alignment throughout exercises reduces the likelihood of injury and promotes optimal posture in everyday functional activities.  An exercise we conduct with our personal training clients at the beginning of every training session that serves as an injury-prevention and postural-support tactic is scapular protraction and retraction.  To perform scapular protraction and retraction:

Lift your arms and bend them at about a ninety-degree angle, aligning your arms with your armpits and fingertips pointing in front of you.  While maintaining your elbows at a 90-degree angle and keeping your fingertips facing forward, glide your shoulder blades forward along your rib cage until you feel a stretch in the upper back and a muscular sensation in your pectoral region.  Reverse the motion and glide your shoulder blades backward against your ribs.  You should feel a muscular sensation in the muscles surrounding your shoulder blades.   Repeat this movement for five to ten repetitions.

This exercise promotes strength and endurance in the scapular stabilization muscles.  The muscles connecting from the scapula to the thoracic and cervical spine encourage the head to pull back in an upright position, where the skull sits congruently at the top of the spinal column.  Performing this simple exercise a few times a week can significantly improve posture, reinforce balance, and help us be more productive and functional in our everyday lives.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Jun 19

Being Comfortable in Uncomfortable Situations at the Gym

I grew up a gym rat, starting to go to a local gym in sixth grade.  The gym gave me something to do.  I saw how a room filled with inanimate, stationary objects used by other exercise participants offered a simple yet engaging and fulfilling aspect of my life that had been missing.  Over time, seeing what the other adults in the gym did made me curious about why they engaged in those activities.

My parents would drop me off at the gym about four to five times per week.  After school, I didn’t really have much to do.  I hated homework, wasn’t very social, and found TV increasingly boring.  The gym gave me something to do.

I recall having two complimentary training sessions with the personal trainers at the local gym I signed up for, as part of a “get to know the gym” service offered to new members for the first month.  I took up that offer and met with a vibrant, hyper-athletic young man who was excited to show me around.  During those two sessions, the trainer taught me to warm up on a stationary bike for ten minutes, then head to the gym floor and use the weight-training machines.

I distinctly remember a time when the trainer showed me how to use the upright seated chest press.  The first set, he told me to perform eight reps.  I rested, and he adjusted the pins on the weight racks.  This made the resistance heavier and also made the pushing action harder.  I distinctly remember a new sensation that was akin to a sense of pain that flowed throughout my chest and arms.  It was a burning sensation that almost caused a brief feeling of paralysis after the set.  Little did I know, this was totally normal.  The trainer looked at me and said in his quintessential teenager “surfer dude” nineties tone, “Good job, little dude!  That’s what you call muscle activation!”

As an eleven-year-old who never really experienced this sensation, I was in shock.  Was this pain?  Were my arms going to function the same way after this session?  Was this grown adult in front of me a psycho?  The trainer saw the expression on my face and let me know that this is what working out feels like.  He reminded me that pushing my body past its normal comfort zone produces feedback that rigorous work is underway.

As I was panting and holding my chest, he added, “You have to break the muscles down before you build them back up.  This is how you get strong.”  One could imagine that, as I was sitting on a chest press machine, holding my arms as if they were about to fall off, I was questioning his logic.  The next comment he said made me wonder if I should run out of the gym completely, “Now let’s do another set and finish strong.”  For some reason, I complied with his suggestion.  What did I have to lose?  The other alternative was going home to watch a rerun of The Full House Show or doing homework. The next set of the newly discovered “muscle burn” wasn’t as bad as the first time.  It was fun to learn that I could get better at exercising.

The next morning, I woke up with an odd sensation, like a sunburn after a long day at the beach, all over my body.  I moved around, grimaced as I put my shirt on, and noticed that sitting down was challenging. However, I felt something good about this feeling of soreness.  I felt I had accomplished something that wasn’t necessarily easy.

A few days after the delayed onset muscle soreness had subsided, I asked my dad to drop me off at the gym again after school.  I sat down on the same chest press machine “surfer dude” trainer had me perform a set of exercises on, moved the pin to ten pounds heavier than it was last time I sat in that machine, and performed ten repetitions, which was two more repetitions than what I did the first time I set foot in the gym.

Surprisingly, my arms didn’t feel like they were going to explode.  I had gotten stronger.  From that point onward, I went to the gym four to five times per week and discovered other exercises that put me in uncomfortable positions, which eventually became manageable, and demonstrated that I can overcome challenging situations in the exercise arena.

It may sound like something simple that many people experience at certain times in life, but the concept of “work” isn’t always comfortable.  However, the feeling of overcoming an experience that makes you work hard is special.  Even though exercise can seem daunting, completing a difficult task can help us feel more comfortable in uncomfortable situations.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Jun 13

Resistance Training and Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis can be defined as a condition in which bones gradually lose density and become more porous and brittle over time. As the inner structure of the bone thins and hollows, the risk of a fracture increases. Ordinary daily moments that most of us never think twice about begin to carry more weight. This becomes more pressing as people advance in age.   Balance can become impaired, reaction time slows, and the increased risk of falling are a few symptoms that arise as humans age. Exercise can be utilized as a potent medicine to help counteract the undesirable effects of degenerative bone disease. Incorporating safe, consistent, and effective exercise, such as resistance training, helps manage the deleterious effects of age-related osteoporosis.

It may be useful to appreciate that bones are not a dead, static, inanimate object residing in our bodies. Bone is a living tissue with a blood supply and unique characteristics, similar to those of other organs in the body, that respond to how it is treated in everyday life. Much like a muscle, which adapts to a stressful stimulus and grows bigger and stronger, bone responds by resynthesizing, repairing, and reinforcing its structural architecture after a bout of safe, consistent, and effective exercise-induced stress.

Imagine a healthy bone, free of symptoms of degenerative bone disease.  That healthy bone is like a towering redwood rooted in the ground at Bothe State Park in St. Helena, with a dense, reinforced trunk anchored deep in the earth and built to sway through storms and hold steady through the occasional earthquake. In contrast, a bone afflicted with a high concentration of osteoporosis is more like a dried piece of cork left out in the summer sun on a hot desert beach on the southern coast of the Algarve region in Portugal. A piece of dried cork tree left out in the hot sun will have degenerated into a light, brittle piece of scrap wood riddled with tiny air pockets that can crack under a force that the redwood would barely notice. While this exaggerated metaphor of osteoporosis might suggest that bones can break under something as gentle as a brisk morning breeze, bones can grow stronger and become more resilient to withstand the stresses of daily human function if trained with intention through a well-designed exercise practice.

While osteoporosis can affect the entire skeleton, hip, femur, and spine fractures tend to inflict the heaviest toll on a person’s mobility, independence, and overall quality of life. Healing after injuries to skin, muscle, tendons, ligaments, and bones isn’t as efficient as humans age. A bone injury in a seventy-year-old has far more implications than that of a twenty-five-year-old. Therefore, the importance of injury prevention cannot be overstated enough when advanced forms of osteoporosis are present in a person’s life. The goal is not to be afraid of movement, but to use movement as our protection.

It should come as no surprise that research continues to support that resistance training is one of the most effective tools available for protecting our bones. A safe, effective, and most importantly, consistent resistance training routine can increase bone mineral density, build muscular strength, and refine balance and coordination.  The ability to stay upright and respond to potential threats to balance reduces the risk of falls and reinforces confidence during rigorous daily physical activity.

It also helps to clear up a common misunderstanding.  Resistance training is sometimes thought of as the image of a hyper-athletic man with a loaded barbell in a chalky gym full of other alpha males performing heavy squats, deadlifts, and bench presses.  Let’s be clear, this isn’t the only form of resistance training.

It’s helpful to think of exercise-induced physical resistance as the thing our muscles push or pull against.  Forces of physical resistance can be applied to the body using our own body weight paired with gravity, held in an isometric position, or with elastic resistance bands, a pair of light dumbbells, or a machine at the local gym.

We coach our personal training clients in Napa to rely on compound movements, which engage multiple joints simultaneously. Squats and lunges build the hips, knees, and ankles that carry us through the day. Push-ups and rowing movements strengthen the chest, shoulders, and upper back, and reinforce the muscles and bones of the upper extremities. Planks and other core stabilization exercises strengthen the trunk muscles that reinforce the spine. Resistance training isn’t necessarily defined as lifting the heaviest weights possible. Exercising with optimal technique under an appropriate form of resistance should be a priority to stimulate adaptation in bone tissue.

A diagnosis of osteoporosis does not have to mean the surrender of strength, independence, or the life we love. Our bones are always paying attention to how we treat them.  If we treat our bones with respect and listen to the exercises that harmonize best with our bodies, we can live happy, healthy lives while knowing we have strong bones.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Jun 05

Building a Strong and Resilient Lower Back

“All I did was bend over to pick up a bag of dog food,” Wolfgang explained as he eased himself onto the bench at the beginning of his training session, clearly wincing in pain as he put his hand on his lower back. “I hear about people throwing their backs out moving couches or refrigerators.  But, dog food?” Wolfgang’s story is one we hear often. Back injuries tend to occur unexpectedly during everyday movements such as reaching into the trunk of a car, scooping laundry off the floor, or pulling weeds in the garden.

Lower back pain is public enemy number one in the world of annoying, and sometimes debilitating, musculoskeletal ailments.   Some of our personal training clients seek out our services to build strength after a lower back injury.  A few examples might include recovering from conditions such as bulging or herniated discs, stenosis, or a pinched nerve. Fortunately, the human body responds positively to consistent, appropriately selected exercise by becoming more resilient.

Appreciating the design and structure of the lower back area is a useful tactic for creating a game plan to address common pain points.  The lumbar spine consists of five vertebrae stacked at the base of the spine. Those vertebrae anchor into the sacrum, a triangular bone formed by five fused vertebrae that connects the spine to the pelvis.  The hip joint is where the thigh bones attach to the pelvis.   Understanding how these areas work together and how they become deconditioned helps us protect the lower back before complications arise.

The spine is like the central column of a building, and the surrounding muscles are like the steel reinforcement that brackets it. A concrete column remains rigid not because of the concrete alone, but because of the surrounding steel framework embedded in and around it, sharing the load. The same is true for the spine. On the front side of the body, the deep abdominal muscles and hip flexors, such as the iliopsoas, stabilize the anterior spine and help control pelvic position. Along the back of the spine, the paraspinal muscles run beside the vertebrae like sturdy brackets. These muscles are built for endurance, holding the spine steady hour after hour while we sit, stand, and move throughout the day.

Residing at the center of the body are the gluteal muscles, which act as the anchoring bracket where the spine’s column meets the foundation of the legs. When the glutes are strong and active, they keep the pelvis centered beneath the torso, reinforcing the spine’s vertical structural architecture. The glutes also power hip extension, the motion that propels us forward when walking, lifts us up a flight of stairs, and raises us out of a chair. When the glutes become weak, smaller muscles in the hips and lower back are forced to compensate, which can produce stiffness or pain.

Deconditioned core muscles and inactivity can gradually shift the workload onto less structurally sound connective tissue, which aren’t optimally designed to withstand rigorous physical activity, such as the paraspinal and multifidus muscles along the spine or smaller ligaments of the lumbar spine, pelvis, and hips. The spinal muscles end up doing work better suited to the hips, glutes, and core.

By the time a bag of dog food or troublesome weeds enters the picture and creates a scenario for a back injury, the act of bending over isn’t necessarily the cause of the injury. Sometimes, those simple daily movements in which an everyday tactic results in a lower back injury are the straw that breaks the camel’s back due to deconditioned muscles around the core and hips.

Building a more supportive team around the spine does not require complicated equipment. Regular walking, balance practice, and core stabilization exercises all earn a place in the exercise prescriptions we design for our personal training clients. A simple and effective movement to start with is the sit-to-stand:

To perform the sit-to-stand, begin seated in a sturdy chair with your feet flat on the floor. Reach your arms forward, press through your feet, and stand all the way up until your hips are underneath your shoulders. Then lower yourself back into the chair slowly and with control. Ten repetitions performed two to three times per week is a safe and effective starting point.

The slow lowering portion of the sit-to-stand activates the glutes, hips, and spinal stabilizers to share the workload as a team, rehearsing the skills the body needs when bending down to pick something up off the ground.

Consistently reinforcing the bracketing and framework around the lower back and keeping the spine supported as a sturdy, rigid structure can reduce the likelihood of lower back injuries.  When we invest in the muscles surrounding the spine and hips, we give ourselves a sturdy foundation to keep living happy, healthy, and strong lives.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

May 31

Strong Calves help with Balance and Coordination

“I almost went down stepping off the curb at the grocery store last week,” Frieren mentioned as she laced up her shoes for her morning training session. “I caught myself, but for a second I really thought I was going over.” She laughed it off, but the look in her eyes told the rest of the story. That small, surprising wobble after an unexpected misstep off a curb can turn a routine movement into a moment of adrenaline-inducing alert and apocalyptic fear.  A sudden loss of balance, such as stepping off a curb and rolling an ankle, stubbing one’s toe, or misjudging the height of a step’s decline, could result in a multitude of injuries when a person plummets to the ground.

We probably don’t want to hear that balance, proprioception, and coordination can be negatively affected by being overweight, deconditioned fitness levels, or advancing age.  Fortunately, the human body can improve its fitness levels when the appropriate exercise strategy is applied.  A contributor that assists the body in remaining upright is located at the bottom of the leg. The muscles of the foot, ankle, shin, and calf are doing more work than they tend to get credit for. When the muscles of the lower leg are optimally conditioned, the small wobbles of everyday life can become more manageable. However, when the muscles of the lower leg are neglected, seemingly simple movements like stepping can threaten a person’s well-being.

The gastrocnemius, commonly known as the calf muscle, runs along the back of the lower leg, connecting the Achilles tendon and anchoring into the heel. Its primary job is to lift the heel off the ground.  Every step we take during a walk asks the calf to lift the heel and produce force through the ball of the foot. Climbing a flight of stairs asks the calf to spring us upward from one step to the next.  Standing up from a chair, pushing off when walking or running, and reaching up to grab something from a high shelf all draw on this little workhorse.

A commonly overlooked movement is the downward movement of the heel when we step down off a curb, descend a flight of stairs, or lower ourselves into a chair.   The calf is asked to control the speed at which the heel returns to the ground. That deceleration is what keeps a step down from becoming a jolt.  Additionally, this heel-to-ground deceleration is a similar action that helps us catch ourselves when a foot lands a little off target. The calf is a brake as much as it is an engine. We coach our personal training clients to think about both jobs, because everyday function and productivity depend on both.

The calves respond very well to simple, consistent practice.  A simple and effective tactic to coach our personal training clients is the eccentric calf raise.  It’s a relatively easy-to-learn movement that requires no equipment and can be done in less than a minute while you are waiting for coffee to brew or waiting in line at the store.

To perform the eccentric calf raise, stand behind a stabilizing object, such as a sturdy chair, or near a countertop, where you can lightly rest your fingertips for balance. With both feet flat on the ground, press up onto the balls of the feet, lifting the heels as high as feels comfortable. Pause briefly at the top, then lower the heels slowly toward the ground.

The slow-lowering portion of this movement is critical because the controlled descent is like stepping down from a curb. Ten repetitions performed two or three times per week are a sensible starting place. Over time, that small dose of practice rehearses everyday life movements in stepping and recalibrating balance when necessary.

Balance is a coordinated neuromuscular symphony among many aspects of the body, including the inner ear, eyes, brain, core, hips, knees, ankles, and calves. When one of those contributors is underprepared, the others must work harder to compensate. Strengthening the lower leg gives the rest of the body a reliable foundation by contributing to increasing confidence in footing when stepping on and off curbs, navigating uneven sidewalks, managing a change of direction in a crowded farmers’ market, or carrying groceries from the car to the kitchen.

For our friends and neighbors who want to keep walking briskly, climbing stairs without a second thought, and moving through the day without that small wobble of doubt, the calves are not a glamorous place to put attention.  However, focusing on calf strengthening is an invaluable asset for promoting optimal movement patterns for everyday functionality and productivity. The dividend, paid out over years of everyday movement, can appear as enhanced steadiness, independence, and the freedom to keep doing the things we love while staying happy, healthy, and strong.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

May 23

Treat Foods are Good for Lifetime Fitness

People often ask me what my favorite foods are.  I always give my honest answer enthusiastically. “Pizza, donuts, and ice cream,” The reply is usually paired with a look of bewilderment, “Then how do you stay so fit?”

I suppose that’s a fair question. I maintain a healthy body fat-to-muscle mass ratio, and I have owned a personal training center here in Napa for over ten years.  I could be considered a walking contradiction.  Yet those foods hold a special place in my heart.

The textural contrast and toothiness of a professionally made donut from Winston’s is an unexplainable pleasure I look forward to every week. Making pizza has become a real hobby. I mix the dough every week, fuss over the oven temperature, experiment with different yeasts and water-to-flour ratios, and rotate through cheeses and toppings until it tastes right.  I enjoy happily engulfing my masterfully designed pizza with gusto.  Additionally, I love being on a never-ending journey to discover the world’s best artisan ice cream, always searching for mind-blowing, innovative flavors with good mouthfeel rather than tasting like chalky frozen milk.

So how do I enjoy foods that seem like they would detonate an explosion of diabetes and increase fat mass while remaining relatively lean? I indulge in these foods about once per week, and I think of them as “treats,” not “cheats.” That one distinction matters. A cheat sounds like you broke a rule and got away with something. A treat is an experience purposefully earned and enjoyed. Most importantly, treats are something to look forward to if you know they’re waiting for you after earning them.

Staying on the beneficial side of the “treat vs. cheat” line takes a little structure. During our personal training clients’ nutritional consultations, we work interactively to establish foundational dietary management strategies that prevent “treat food” consumption from becoming a daily habit. Too many treats, too often, is a potent ingredient for subcutaneous fat to begin accumulating, leading to the development of insulin resistance and elevated stress hormones, which produce suboptimal health issues.

A successful tactic we’ve seen in our nutritional consultations is limiting the indulgence of treat foods to days when rigorous exercise or physical activities in the form of strength training, cardiovascular exercise, or recreational activities are present. Challenging exercise sessions give the body the ability to absorb extra calories instead of letting a surplus go unused. The other part happens inside the muscle.  Resistance training creates small amounts of stress and microscopic damage in muscle tissue.   Muscles respond by repairing those stressed areas. During that repair period, skeletal muscles become far more responsive to insulin and pull sugar from the bloodstream for energy, drawing in amino acids and protein to rebuild stronger, more durable muscle cells that adapt to the demands of rigorous physical activity.  Periods of physical activity make muscles hungry, and a treat meal eaten that day is put to much better use than one eaten after a day on the couch.

Let’s be clear, working out does not turn treat food into health food.  Treat foods supercharge insulin production and have a ton of calories.  The beauty of bread and cheese piled together isn’t a nutritional powerhouse.  However, enjoying those foods once a week is acceptable. Eating them every day is a different story, and we do not need to be rocket scientists to see where that road leads. A steady stream of sugary, starchy, and fatty food, day after day, raises the odds of insulin resistance, which can open the door to diabetes and a slew of metabolic diseases.  Additionally, overconsuming treat foods is a fantastic way to store a steady supply of undesirable subcutaneous fat under our skin.

Deciding ahead of time when your treat day is can be a fun game to play by surrounding them with at least three days of clean eating beforehand.  A day of “clean eating” could look like days when sugary, starchy, and fatty foods are set aside, and lean proteins, vegetables, fiber, and plenty of water are prioritized instead. On the treat day itself, get your rigorous exercise in. Spacing your treats out this way gives your body time to reset between indulgences, mitigates the slow creep of subcutaneous fat accumulation and metabolic disease, and spares you that heavy, sluggish feeling that comes from too many rich meals in a row. Best of all, you still get to eat the foods you love.

Swearing off pizza, donuts, and ice cream forever sounds like a mundane lifestyle that produces rules that are waiting to be broken. Making intentional decisions, earning your treats with a stretch of healthy eating and a good workout, and then enjoying every bite without a without feeling too guilty sounds doable. Plan it, work for it, and savor it, and perhaps we can utilize treat foods to live happy, healthy, and strong lives.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

May 19

Walking with Intention

Somewhere between the ages of six and eighteen months, humans accomplish one of the most remarkable feats in our species’ physical development.  We figure out how to crawl, and not long after, we push ourselves up onto two wobbly legs and begin walking.  Becoming bipedal is one of the defining traits that make humans unique.  Once we master this skill, walking quickly becomes so automatic that most of us stop noticing it altogether.  We wake up in the morning, walk to the kitchen, drive to work, walk into the office, and not a single thought about the miraculous coordination required of a sophisticated automated network of neuromuscular signaling for any of those actions enters our minds.

That is, until walking is taken away.  A lower extremity surgery that puts someone on crutches for months or a medical event that introduces a wheelchair into someone’s life can change a person’s world almost overnight.  Suddenly, the most ordinary tasks become significant projects.  Going to the bathroom, retrieving the mail, or moving from the couch to the dinner table transforms from normal daily activities into events that require planning, effort, and assistance.  The loss of walking puts into perspective how much we take this ability for granted.  It would be similar to the disruption that would occur if our cell phones, our cars, or our televisions were suddenly taken away.  Our world would look quite different without these tools we depend on every day.  For those of us who don’t have afflictions that hinder our ability to walk, we shouldn’t take the simple act of walking for granted.

Walking holds an impressive list of health and fitness benefits that often go unnoticed.  Taking a walk outside of normal daily activity burns calories, builds endurance in the lower-extremity muscles, and refines coordination needed for everyday functionality.  The act of taking one step in front of the other is more sophisticated than we tend to realize.  The hip flexes, the foot moves forward, the leg steps over any objects in the way, and then the leg drives backward to propel the body into the next step.  This coordinated sequence engages the ankles, knees, hips, and portions of the spine in a way that few other activities can replicate.

We coach our personal training clients to think about walking as a stimulus that the body responds to.  Similar to strength training, walking needs to be consistently trained so we can perform optimally in everyday activities for years to come. When the body is consistently engaged in walking, it responds by producing synovial fluid that lubricates the joints of the foot, ankle, knee, hip, and spine.  This consistent practice of walking provides healthy compressive stress to the bones, reinforcing their structure and mitigating the progression of osteoporosis.  Additionally, consistent intentional walking keeps the muscles and nervous system primed to continue walking for years to come.

When walking is removed from the daily routine, and a sedentary environment takes its place, the body adapts to that stimulus and becomes deconditioned.  Muscle mass decreases, the rate of synovial fluid production slows, and bone mineral density regeneration declines.  The body adapts to whatever we put it through.  The question is what kind of adaptation we want to give it.

A commonly overlooked benefit is the therapeutic value of walking with intention by putting the phone down, setting the earpiece on the counter, and stepping outside for twenty to thirty minutes through an environment that isn’t controlled by a two-by-four-inch screen.  Most of us spend a substantial portion of our day staring at a glowing rectangle, whether it’s a phone, a computer monitor, or a television projecting light into our living room for hours.  A twenty-minute walk through a neighborhood or a park puts us in an environment where the actual physical world is right in front of us.  We can hear the birds chirping, see the green trees and the blue sky, smell the air, and feel the day’s temperature on our skin.  These sensations are easy to miss when our attention is dedicated to the digital world.

Walking is a gift.  We were granted this ability before we could even form complete sentences as toddlers.  When we walk with intention, we get to combine the physiological benefits of stimulating the joints, muscles, and nervous system with the mental and emotional benefits of stepping away from the constant pull of the digital world.  Make some time this week to walk with intention.  Take twenty to thirty minutes to step outside, look up at the sky, and feel the world around you.  Walking with intention is a powerful tactic to help us live happy, healthy, and strong lives.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.