How to make change easy.

March 1, 2012 by

Why is it that we often wait until we’ve lost some component of our health or fitness before we decide we are going to try to get it back?

Why do we wait until the odds are stacked against us, until the challenge is seemingly insurmountable, before trying to fix things, to set them right?

Especially when we know what we should be doing. When we know we need to exercise more, eat healthier, stress less, and sleep more.

It’s not for lack of information.

We have Google. Yahoo. Bing. Men’s Health. Oxygen magazine. Or any of the other innumerable portals of health and fitness knowledge that are readily available for mere dollars or often, for free.

Too much information, perhaps? Paralysis by analysis? Too much contradictory “facts & fallacies” from the health and fitness gurus, the Dr Oz’s, the Atkins of the world?

But there are tools and resources out there to filter through all that noise.

Is it because change is hard? Because fixing your health and fitness requires a massive, complete, and immediate lifestyle change? An extreme makeover of sorts with hours upon hours of exercise, regimented diet plans and no more fun?

Credit: Felix Burton

Surprisingly, change isn’t as hard, or as negative, as you think it may be.

People have kids. Sometimes more than one. People make big investments or purchases: houses, boats, cottages. Jobs and careers change. Travel to foreign or exotic places. Relationships are formed and broken: people get married and divorced.

Those are big changes, yet people do them all the time. Many of them are the same people who believe that changing health and fitness is nearly impossible.

So why do so many people struggle with making that health and fitness change?

Too much, too soon.

The same way we see people in our physiotherapy practice come in with injured knees: they started full tilt into a running program after spending the whole winter curled up on the couch. There was no build up. Their body wasn’t given a chance to develop the ability to cope with the stress of running.

Too much, too soon.

It’s the same way we see people in our chiropractic office for neck or shoulder problems: they decided to paint the whole house in one go, spending hours on end with no rest with their heads tilted skyward and their arms extended overhead.

Too much, too soon.

We see the same all-or-none mentality in people looking to transform their bodies, looking to lose the spare tire around their midsection, looking to improve their energy levels, their base fitness.

Too much, too soon.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Small changes repeated consistently lead to huge results.

If you’re trying to lose extra weight, start small. You don’t need to revamp your whole diet. You don’t need to starve yourself and fight off self-inflicted hunger pangs. You don’t need to restrict yourself to boiled chicken and broccoli for every meal.

You could do something as simple as cutting out any calorie containing beverage and switching to just drinking water.

And then repeat that habit consistently.

If you’re looking to improve your fitness and you’re completely sedentary, it could be as simple as adding in 5-10 minutes of intentional exercise a day.

You could start by just walking, or doing squats in your living room.

As long as it’s a little bit more than what you were doing before, it’ll have a positive impact.

And then repeat that habit consistently.

To your optimal health. And ultimate performance.

The Primal Team

 

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Digging In: The Primal Patterns and You

February 16, 2012 by

Here’s a quick recap of the six Primal Movement Patterns that almost every human movement can be broken down into:

  • Squat/Lift
  • Lunge
  • Push/Pull
  • Twist
  • Gait
  • Balance

As promised, we’ll briefly discuss each movement in general terms and then give you examples of when you’re likely doing it. After, we’ll summarize some of the common faults and some quick fixes that may help resolve some of those movement related issues.

Squat/Lift: The squat/lift pattern is one of the most commonly recognized patterns out there. It involves bending through the knees and hips with the feet staying in the same relative position. We recognize it in young babies even before they start learning to stand upright. We can see the squat motion as they lie on their backs kicking their legs out together, over and over, building up strength for when they need to be able to do it against gravity. As we grow up, it’s how we sit down, stand up, pick groceries off the floor, and go for that massive 360 reverse slam dunk (jumping off two feet) over top of Shaquille O’Neill.

Lunge: The lunge pattern can be broadly described as stepping forward, backwards, to the side, or to any angle between them. While similar to the squat pattern, the difference is that one leg moves away from the other. We use this pattern when we dodge oncoming pedestrian traffic on Yonge Street (side-stepping the bankers engrossed in their Blackberries), stepping back from the yellow line when the subway car pulls into the station (so we don’t lose the tip of our nose), and even when we “step” into our cars, to a certain extent.
Flickr - chascow - ana lunges

Push/Pull: This Primal Pattern can be described as any pushing or pulling motion. It can be directed vertically, horizontally or on any plane in between. In daily activities, this can be seen when we are opening or closing doors, dragging our suitcases behind us, or pushing a grocery cart at the store.

Twist: Twist, or torque, refers to our ability to create rotational forces. Torque is created through our bodies when we chop wood, swing a golf club, or complete any other similar type activity.

Gait: This represents our movement strategies: it’s how we get from one place to the next. It can include crawling, walking, and running to name a few.
Skeleton walk02Balance: Balance is our ability to maintain our centre of gravity with as little excess movement, or sway, as possible. We balance our bodies when we stand up. We balance as a component of our walking. This is an integral movement pattern that allows us to avoid falling down and is often used in combination with other movement patterns.

A few common faults across all categories:

  • Excessive movement through the spine (e.g. flexing forward through low back, twisting excessively with golf swing)
  • Improper or uneven weight distribution (e.g. weight shifted to one foot or the other, weight shifted forward/backward)
  • Faulty body positioning with pushing or pulling a load (e.g. shoulder hiked when dragging suitcase)
  • Not actually using the right muscles/joints to complete a movement pattern (e.g. “plopping” down into a chair)
  • Altered or compensated gait pattern (e.g. limping, excessive pelvis rotation etc)
  • Poor balance levels (e.g. inability to control body sway when standing on one foot)

The Fixes:

  1. Education: If you’re having problems, learn what pattern is being done incorrectly. Learn how to stop it. And learn how to replace it with a better, safer one that protects your body. Or at the very least, doesn’t wear it down as quickly. If you’re not having any problems, prevent them from happening in the future.
    • Find out what’s got you in pain, or keeping you in pain (e.g. the way you bend through your back every day)
    • Find out how you can avoid injuries or dysfunctions (e.g. keep your bones and muscles strong as you age)
  2. Motor Control: Train your body to consistently move better.
    • Fix poor postures (e.g. slouch at computer desk)
    • Improve mobility/stability (e.g. loosen up immobile hips, stabilize spine)
    • Reduce or eliminate imbalances (e.g. stretch tight muscles, strengthen weak muscles)
    • Re-train faulty movement patterns (e.g. improper squats, excess twisting through spine with golf swing)
  3. Get in shape: Train your body to tolerate these various stresses. Improve your level of conditioning.
    • Push your cardiovascular system to its potential
    • Build your strength, power, and endurance to their highest levels of performance
    • This can be done with any physical activity you enjoy: running, biking, swimming, weights or sports.
    • Just get active and start!

The Primal Team

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Primal Patterns: How Do You Stack Up?

February 12, 2012 by

I don’t know about you, but we at Primal Human Performance take our biomechanics very seriously.

We don’t just go to the mall to hang out, we go to watch, observe, and learn from the huge variety of movement patterns people have; all of these patterns vying to complete typical daily tasks from walking to carrying groceries, to going up and down stairs.

In actuality though, if you deconstructed every single of movement that we humans use throughout the day, you’ll notice that there are simply just a few Primal Patterns that keep cropping up, either independently, or in combinations with each other.

Dr. Stuart McGill, one of the world’s premier spine researchers, describes (by describe, I mean lists) them as follows:

•    Squat/Lift
•    Lunge
•    Twist
•    Push/Pull
•    Gait
•    Balance

Now what if you did one of these, or a few of these, incorrectly?

And what if you repeated that faulty pattern over and over again without even knowing it, day after day, week after week, year after year?

What if your compensation movements just so happened to be in your low back? Or your shoulder? Or your knee?

Perhaps every time you sit down in a chair?

Or every time you go out for a run or lift weights at the gym?

Or every day as you sit in your car, wait for the bus, or do what you do at work?

Gold star for you if you’ve come to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, your faulty movement pattern may be wearing your body down before its time.

You only have one body. Be nice to it.

Fix your faults.

In the next series of posts, we’ll go through a couple of simple exercises that you can easily incorporate into your day to work on each of the 6 Primal Movement Patterns listed above.

Yours in Optimal Health and Ultimate Performance.

Team Primal

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Rehab and Performance: Can the Two Co-Exist?

February 9, 2012 by

You were super active up until the moment you got injured.

You might have twisted your ankle stepping off a curb while out on a 10K run. Or your knee buckled underneath you while you were hitting the slopes hard. You may have tweaked your low back while playing horsie with the kids. Or maybe you pinched your shoulder reaching into the back seat of the car to grab your purse.

Whatever the body part, something bad happened. And things suddenly changed.

You know what usually happens next, right?

“I’ll take a few days to let it rest, it should clear up.”

Maybe a little ice. A couple ibuprofen. A tensor wrap here, a hot pack there. Some Tiger Balm. And a big glass of red wine.

For some, that’s all it’ll take and things will clear up. They’ll be back to their everyday activity, pushing the limits, and living life. The pain, the dysfunction, and the misery will be nothing more than a long forgotten memory.

For the unlucky few, it unfortunately doesn’t work out that way. Things stay the same, or they get worse. More pain. Less movement. Weakness. Decreased function and performance.

Out comes the Ben & Jerry’s, on goes the TV, and the moping begins.

“Why me?”

“Why won’t this heal? Why won’t it get better?”

And here begins the sad, downward spiral of the once lofty fitness goals and aspirations.

The running stops cold. They gym, heck, that could be on another planet! Even the kids will have to wait till you feel better to play with them.

Limping. Hobbling. Shuffling. Modifying how you do things.

“Exercise?! Are you kidding me, I’m injured!”

Days grow into weeks. You feel your once toned muscles soften like freshly kneaded dough. Your shape slowly shifting, growing at the paunch almost imperceptibly at first, but then quickly gaining steam.

The couch, which remarkably wasn’t made of memory foam, has developed new physical properties, and has somehow molded to your new and expanding body contours. Like a plush glove that embraces you, welcoming you, caressing you. Bidding you to stay for a while.

Your motivation levels drop. Depression creeps in. It gets harder and harder to even do little things. You’re on edge. Your mind’s not as sharp and clear as it used to be. You feel anxious without even knowing why. Restless like a caged animal that needs to let off steam.

You realize that you miss your former active self; enough is finally enough.

You’ve realized that nothing truly changes if nothing changes.

“That’s it, I’m going to get ________(insert injured body part here) fixed!”

You dutifully look up your physiotherapist/chiropractor/massage therapist (insert your injury rehab professional here) and call them up and get booked in for your treatment.

You diligently go through your rehab and at the end of it all, you are free from pain, you have your range of motion, and your strength is coming back.

You’re now just a softer and weaker, albeit pain-free, version of your old injured self.

Discharged from therapy, you start from ground zero again to build yourself back up. Step by slow step. For most people, that’s almost as daunting and depressing as being injured!

What if there were another way?

What if, during your rehab, you actually IMPROVED your fitness? What if you shed a few of those injury pounds? What if, at the end of your treatment plan, you were able to perform at, or beyond, the level you were at BEFORE you got injured?

At Primal Human Performance, we believe that the above should be part of every injury rehab treatment plan. We believe that your injury treatment should not merely cover the bases, but should empower you to attain physical peaks you didn’t think possible.

That’s why as soon as you’re body is ready, we’ll have you in our high performance gym, pushing, pulling, squatting, lunging, crawling, and throwing your way to optimal health and ultimate performance.

Who says you can’t rehab an injury while improving your performance at the same time?

Team Primal

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Dangerous job? 40,270 injuries per year! Are you at risk?

January 29, 2012 by

Photo Credit: Sylvain Pedneault

If this is your profession, that should scare you.

According to the National Fire Protection Agency in a 3-year period, there were an estimated annual average of 40, 270 firefighter fireground injuries in the U.S. Of these injuries, 24% were attributed to minor sprains/strains, 12% to pain and 34% moderate to severe sprains/strains (1). This accounts for a whopping 70% of total fireground injuries reported!

Since the job requirements are likely fairly similar, it’s not hard to imagine these injury percentages being equivalent here in Canada.

As a firefighter, what does that mean to you?

Quite simply, firefighting is a high risk, dangerous profession!

These types of injuries can cause all sorts of problems, both personally and professionally.

  • Lost time at work
  • Inability to safely complete physical job requirements
  • Placement on modified duties
  • Risk of further injury or disability
  • Challenges with everyday tasks such as playing with kids, exercising
  • Drop in morale and confidence
  • Increased rates of frustration, depression due to pain and dysfunction

So what can you do to protect yourself?

In our opinion, there are two things you can do to put yourself in the best possible position to have not only a long, safe career as a fire fighting professional, but also a healthy life outside of work as well.

Photo Credit: AMagill

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”

The first item is simply represented by the quote above. This means decreasing your risk before you get hurt. This means doing all you can to make sure your body is in the best possible position to tolerate the rigors of your specific work tasks: that your shoulders and rotator cuff are strong enough to pull heavy hoses, that your legs can tolerate repeatedly climbing ladders in full gear, that your back and core are tough enough to withstand crawling through dangerous terrain, or smashing down walls.

Research has shown that having your body conditioned by improving certain fitness factors, much like a professional athlete, will allow you to perform safely at the highest levels possible, with the lowest risk of injury (2, 3).

These factors include:

  • Improving your cardiovascular fitness and stamina to buffer against thermal stress
  • Augmenting anaerobic capacity, allowing you to perform bursts of high intensity work such as breaking down walls and doors
  • Bolstering muscular strength and endurance to help you lift, carry, and drag anything you need to, with greater ease and less strain on your body
  • Optimizing core strength to protect your back against potentially harmful job-specific movement patterns
  • Maximize shoulder stability to avoid disastrous rotator cuff or shoulder injuries

Photo Credit: Joshua Sherurcij

By addressing these important fitness factors before you’re injured and increasing your body’s capacity to tolerate profession-specific stresses in a preventative fashion, you can avoid the unnecessary aggravation and pain of common firefighter sprain/strain injuries to your shoulders and rotator cuff, your neck, your back (upper/lower), or your knees and legs. Your workplace benefits package may cover treatments with highly trained physiotherapists and chiropractors who possess specialized knowledge of your job-specific needs, so be smart – Think prevention, not rehabilitation

“You don’t fix the problem until you define it” John W Snow

Secondly, it’s imperative to treat and rehabilitate your existing injuries properly the first time. This means not just dealing with symptoms and giving you a band-aid solution. These only work superficially, but don’t really fix the problem. Proper treatment and rehab should first involve a comprehensive and thorough assessment to find out the underlying causes and risk factors relating to your injury and it should include a complete treatment plan which addresses them in a task specific, functional manner.

Let’s use the example of a firefighter with low back pain. An assessment would look at the typical positions or movements this individual is exposed to throughout the day:

  • Do they slouch?
  • Do they bend or twist through their back too much?
  • Do they bend forward and backward repeatedly?
  • Do they twist and turn through the wrong parts of the spine?

During treatment, specific exercises or interventions would be implemented to reduce pain, address problem areas, and protect against further injury. These can include:

  • Postural corrections
  • Hip mobility drills
  • Core strengthening exercises
  • Functional retraining

Photo Credit: Joshua Sherurcij

This comprehensive assessment and treatment approach not only treats your injury, it also improves your performance. Not as an afterthought. Not as an aside. But as an integral part of your rehabilitation program.

At Primal Human Performance, we’re focused on specialized treatment for emergency service professionals.  Our practitioners, using a variety of specialized assessment, treatment, and therapy techniques, can diagnose your problem and trace it back to the root causes. From here, we will design and implement an individualized treatment plan that will not only deal with the causes of your injury and get you out of pain, but also take your performance to the next level in the shortest time possible.

Yours in Optimal Health,

Dev Chengkalath, Physiotherapist and Katie Au, Chiropractor

References:

(1) Patterns of firefighter fireground injuries. Karter, MJ. National Fire Protection Association, Fire Analysis and Research Division. May 2009.
(2) Curr Sports Med Rep. 2011 May-Jun;10(3):167-72. Firefighter fitness: improving performance and preventing injuries and fatalities. Smith DL.
(3) J Occup Environ Med. 2010 Mar;52(3):336-9. Implementation of a physician-organized wellness regime (POWR) enforcing the 2007 NFPA standard 1582: injury rate reduction and associated cost savings. Leffer M, Grizzell T.

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One Man. Two Ratchet Sets. And lots of metal.

January 27, 2012 by
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Beyond Survival. Learn to Thrive.

January 26, 2012 by

7 Simple Steps to Perform at Your Best

If you’re looking to perform at your highest level, there are a few things you should consider to ensure that your systems are firing on all cylinders and that you’re actually achieving your full potential.

Stay Hydrated: Many studies have shown that even a small drop in hydration levels can negatively impact performance. The ideal beverage is, of course, water. Being calorie free, it can be an important component of not only helping your physiological systems do what they are designed to do, but also helping you shed those unwanted pounds.

Fix Your Fuel: As any of the top race car drivers could tell you, their finely tuned machines wouldn’t be able to push the limits of performance without a solid supply of the best fuel out there for their engines to burn. Think of your body the same way. Eating the right foods, at the right time, will ensure that your body has the energy source it needs to keep you going. And going.

Pre-hab: The easiest injury to treat is the one you don’t have! Pre-habilitation means doing the right things to make sure your body is able to tolerate your sports and activities before you get hurt. This is prevention at its finest. Adding a pre-hab component could be as simple as putting a joint mobility/stability program in place (e.g. mobile hips and stable spine for low back pain avoidance), or it could mean working on some of your weak points (e.g. increasing core strength).

Rehab: While pre-hab is a great and can help reduce the risk of many injuries, unfortunately, it’s not 100% guaranteed. In sport, as with life, injuries can, and do, still happen. What’s important here, though, is that they are dealt with immediately before any secondary or compensatory issues occur. This is where enlisting the help of a sports-injury focused physiotherapist or chiropractor can really make a difference. The sooner you address the problem and resolve any lingering issues, the sooner you can get back to what you love!

General Fitness and Athleticism: Who couldn’t use more strength and flexibility? Or more cardiovascular endurance? Or more anaerobic power? While you may not be paid millions of dollars to play a sport, you are still an athlete! And these are just a few of the physiological components that you can significantly improve with a well-constructed, progressive and consistent training plan. As a bonus side effect, you’ll burn off a bunch of unwanted fat and have to buy yourself a new wardrobe to compliment your new chiseled, athletic physique.

Sleep: Tired. Fatigued. Fighting to keep your heavy eyes open, and your mouth closed from perpetual yawning. Sound familiar? If you’re like most people, you’re probably not getting enough of it. Or, if you’re one of the lucky few who gets enough hours down,  you’re might not be getting the quality of sleep your body needs. To help with this, develop good sleep hygiene habits. Set up a pre-bedtime routine that allows you to free your mind of the day’s stress and negativity. Disconnect from all your tech gadgets and gizmos (that means leaving your cell phone out of your bedroom!) and make sure your room is as dark as you can get it.

Rest and Recover: This goes beyond sleep. If you’re always on the go, there’s a good chance that you’re not getting enough rest and recovery. While not all stress is bad (it can be a really good thing, under the right circumstances), fighting it day in and day out without the opportunity to reset will leave your endocrine and nervous system fried. Carve out a small chunk of time where you can decompress, de-stress, and just let yourself unwind. Take a walk, read a book, or hop in the tub for a stress-busting soak. Your mind, and your body will thank you.

Yours in Optimal Health,

Team Primal

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Our Philosophy Wall: Get Primal.

January 17, 2012 by

 

 

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The Primal Unveiling

January 15, 2012 by

 

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Why am I in pain?

August 29, 2011 by

Do you get out of bed feeling tired, sore and achy, even after having slept for 8 hours?

Do you come home from work, at the end of along day, your neck and shoulders screaming at you, tight and tense?

Does your knee wobble, give out, and curse every time you try to jog around the block or even tackle a set of stairs?

The bad news: you’re probably hurting yourself every single day without even knowing it.

Sounds strange doesn’t it? But for most of you out there, it’s true.

From back pain to neck pain to shoulder pain or even knee pain, there is likely something you do everyday that keeps you in pain.

The good news…

It can be fixed!

There’s a good chance that with the appropriate steps, a splash of education and a dash of dedication, you can be pain free and doing the things you love. And usually, these fixes don’t have to consume your free time or even cause huge changes in your life!

So what’s the fix?

Postural Awareness!

Postural awareness is your awareness of your posture throughout the day. Since a large number of injuries, aches and pains (such as those described above) can be attributed to repetitive strain and overuse, being aware of your posture can help you decrease the chances of this happening.

How is posture implicated in repetitive strain and overuse injuries?

For example, if you work in an office setting all day, you likely spend a large amount of time sitting at a desk. This would likely involve using a computer, talking on the phone, writing etc. But overall, it’d be fair to say that you’d spend most of your time seated. If you’re like most people, you also likely slouch when seated. And again, like most people, you probably slouch the same way you always do, in the same position.

By holding these sustained slouched postures for a good chunk of the day (5 or 6 or more hours), the various components of your body such as your joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments are forced to do more work or different work than they’re designed to do. Over time, these repetitive stresses build up and cause small injuries called micro-traumas to these structures. As time goes on, these micro-traumas accumulate causing changes in how you move or use your body (compensations).

At first these compensations are quite small and you probably won’t even notice them. It may be something as simple as a slight weight shift onto one hip more than the other when you’re sitting or a sneaky elevation of the shoulder when you reach for something.

As these compensations continue to take place, the micro-traumas become bigger problems, which we call macro-traumas. Think of this as the straw that breaks the camel’s back. These are the ones you’ll notice. This is where the pain stops you from doing the things you love doing and really starts impacting your life.

What can you do?

  1. Change your postures often: You can do this by getting up and moving around more. Or change your position every time the phone rings. Our bodies are designed for movement. The more they move, the better they function and the healthier we are!
  2. Improve your fitness: If your fitness level is higher, you, and your body, can tolerate more stress before hitting a breaking point. Plus, as an added bonus, exercise can be a great stress buster! Who couldn’t do with less stress in their life?
  3. Improve your nutrition: In fact, this component may be one of the most most important steps you can take to change your life for the better. As your mama always told you, you are what you eat! Unfortunately for many North Americans, life is busy. And that means that we try to find fast and convenient ways to feed ourselves. Sadly, our choices tend to be sub-optimal which will then impact our body’s ability to prevent injury or recover from injury.

How we can help

Our highly trained team of physiotherapists, chiropractors, massage therapists, personal trainers can help you get back to the business of life by consulting with you to design a personalized treatment plan to assist with a variety of injuries, aches and pains. Contact us to start on your journey to your Optimal Health and Ultimate Performance.

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