Category Archives: head, neck and back

Exercise balls

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Since the 1960’s large inflatible balls have become an increasingly common object in gymnasiums in many lands around the world. Starting in Switzerland they have been known as Swiss Balls, Fit Balls, Gym Balls, Sweda Balls etc.

The first time I really took notice of what they could do was several years ago when a former co-worker who had long suffered lower back pain, was at her desk sitting with perfect posture. I had never seen her sit this way before, she had always been such a bad sloucher in all the time I knew her. When I complimented her on her improved posture she told me that she bought a Swiss ball and used it whenever she could.

What surprised me most was that my co-worker was not a good exerciser and didn’t seek much remedial treatment considering how much her back seemed to bother her and yet the Swiss ball seemed to be just what she needed. Most of her back pain was gone and she looked better too, the way everybody does when they have a good posture.

Exercise balls tend to range in size between 55 and 90 centimetres, the taller you are the bigger the ball you need. The deepest muscles in your body that hold you upright are your core muscles (these include your psoas, erector spinae and rectus abdominus) and these are the muscles Swiss balls work best on.

Part of the reason why these large inflatible balls work so well is that they are always making you move or sit or lie on them in a balanced way, if you didn’t you would fall off. They are comfortable too if you can’t kneel down and reach the floor.

There are not a huge range of different exercises to do on Swiss balls but once you get used to them,you will find that making slight variations to your posture will improve your all round balance and strength.

Swiss balls can be useful aids to doing stretching exercise too but even if you only want to use them as a chair, regularly and in the right way they should help your back and straighten you up.

Exercise balls are not a bad way to start getting fit again for men or for women and they hurt alot less than dumbells do if you drop them. If you already are ripped give them a try anyway, see how many of your favourite exercises you can do on them particularly for bench-work.

Another advantage that large exercise balls have is that if you need to put it away for a while you just let the air out and fold it into a neat, flat easy to store bundle. You will find a number of Swiss ball exercises in Self Massage that will assist you with your balance as well as your flexibility.

PMR (Polymyalgia Rheumatica)

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As the name suggests PMR effects our muscles (myalgia) and joints (rheumatica). PMR is one of the 80+ auto immune diseases that can strike without warning, with no easily discernable cause and can be very debilitating. The symptoms of PMR vary from person to person although it does seem to be universally agreed that the larger joints in your body are the worst effected particularly your shoulders. Other symptoms may include a sudden inexplicable weight loss, jaw tension headaches and pain in other joints including your fingers, wrists, elbows, spine and toes. A blood test would reveal a high ESR, more women than men suffer from PMR,  50+ is the typical age demographic and the symptoms of PMR can be similar to the symptoms of other auto immune disease such as fibro myalgia or rheumatoid arthritis.

PMR tends to be episodic, for most the symptoms  start in the shoulders and are most severe first thing in the morning. Raising your arms above your head when your shoulders are acute can be very painful and restrictive, though fortunately they usually respond well to anti-inflammatory drugs…..so long as you have no high blood pressure or stomach ulcers. Corticosteroids such as prednisone can lessen the symptoms significantly though apart from being contra-indicated for hypertension and stomach ulcers you may experience weight gain using this drug aswell as severe mood swings and an inability to relax. The original onset of symptoms can last from 12 months to 4 years but if it recurs it is usually of less intensity than the first time.

Unlike muscular problems where you get a little warning before you get into a painful position, PMR can suddenly feel very intense and stop you in your tracks the moment you bend a joint even a little too far. Potentially the most serious symptom of PMR is Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA), it is this that causes the jaw tension headaches which, if left untreated can blind you.

Some PMR sufferers try an alkaline or nightshade free diet and find they do not help, others who try claim such diets definately do work. In either case you can still take your medications if you want to use both, so long as any food you eliminate from your diet has it’s nutritional values replaced by some other food. Many who get diagnosed with PMR find alot of relief from acupuncture, ice packs, massage, osteopathy and chiropractic, these therapies can be used in conjunction with pharmacuetical treatments too.

For a previously active and able bodied person the onset of PMR can be scary and demoralising, any exercise at all in the early acute stages may prove impossible, even having sex may require some adjustment. Practising meditation and relaxation techniques can help you cope with PMR as will planning what you do when you go out, if your knees are affected you might find that stairs are best avoided and getting into and out of coats can be embarrassingly difficult too. Like many other health problems that effect your abilities your facility to distract yourself and remain positive is an important part of  managing PMR.

Climate, Health and TCM II

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Dry arid environments in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) were considered to be damaging to the health of the airways, skin and colon, these 3 organs were grouped together in TCM because they were all considered to be organs of excretion. Two of these ofcourse have ongoing continuous contact to the air around us and if we suffer from a condition such as eczema with asthma for instance the dryness of the air can have a profound effect on the way we feel.

Dry air can come from air conditioning indoors and drought outdoors, dusty and smoky places tend to dry the air too. Our airways are not suited to such conditions because an important part of what protects our lungs is the moist lining of the nose, pharynx and trachea- our whole windpipe. If the lining dries up then dust, pollen, germs and soot do not get trapped in the sticky moist airways mucosa (skin that is naturally moist like inside your mouth).

Smoking is a common cause of airway dryness too and also has the effect of suppressing the fine hairs (cilia) lining your windpipe that normally help brush trapped airborn particles backwards out of your lungs. Dryness in TCM when applied to it’s effects on the colon explains alot of constipation. Dryness is said to help dissipate chi, like water leaving through our breath, we lose far more water through our lungs than through our bladders.

Coldness in TCM is said to make your energy sink, it can really stiffen you up particularly in your joints, most of our joints are not very well padded at all so if it is cold outside our knees and spine lose mobility particularly as we get older. Bones are easier to break  in cold weather and the action of the kidneys and bladder were considered impaired in the cold too, it always seems harder to withhold yourself from urinating when you are cold and we then even feel colder once we do so because something warm (urine) has left  the body. Our procreative potentials were regarded as the domain of our kidney chi, this is why TCM explains the feeling of sudden heat loss after sexual climax.

The action of the adrenal glands in TCM were considered to be part of your kidney energy or chi because they are physically attached to the top of the kidney,  in Western Medicine (WM) the adrenals are considered to be a part of the endocrine system because they secrete hormones, the most well known of which is adrenaline. It is considered in TCM that too much coldness exhausts your adrenals faster and lowers the libido too. Coldness is considered in TCM to be strongly related to the emotion of fear and is often one of the last things a person feels before they die.

TCM explains health concepts as a series of relationships, it is a science of pattern identification where all things can be considered as connected through a web of influence between diet, rest, stress, environment.

Bursitis

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The bursae are small fleshy sacks filled with fluid that help our joints move smoothly and absorb shock. If you think of bursa as a zip lock bag with a small amount of oil inside and no air and then rub it between your hands, your hands will easily slide against each other and this is how bursa work. There are about 160 individual bursa in your body and they are found near your joints where muscle and tendon slide against each other and over your bones, without bursa your joints would creek and grate within.

Like many other musculo-skeletal problems in the body bursitis is often age related and seems to effect women more often than men. The symptoms of bursitis may include swelling and inflammation in your joint but the main one is pain that is made worse when you press against it. Bursitis is not like that “good pain” feeling that you get when a stiff muscle is rubbed, it is aversive to the touch. Bursitis may feel like arthritis but strictly speaking it is not because it does not primarily effect the joint capsule.

Because bursitis can be age related it may manifest with other musculo-skeletal diseases, so if you doctor has told you that you have it but your symptoms are slightly different from those described here that might be why.

Bursitis is caused by repetative strain injuries, cumulative muscle micro trauma, having one leg shorter than the other, arthritis, standing for long periods, accidental trauma and poor posture. Good old fashion neglect won’t help you either, being generally unfit will not help your bursitis nor will poor water consumption.

When your bursitis is very acute doing any exercise may be painful but when you are in your normal day to day living with bursitis routine, regular stretching exercise is a great idea. Ultra-sound, friction massage, ice packs (4-5 times a day), rest and anti-inflammatories can all help relieve the symptoms of bursitis.

In serious cases of bursitis that do not respond well to other measures, fluid may be aspirated via a needle to relieve pressure inside your effected joint. This type of therapy can be effective  thougfh a little on the uncomfortable side, if you try the gentler options first aspiration may be unnecessary.

I have always found massage to be effective on bursitis (Self Massage too), not so much on where the bursitis pain is actually felt but the muscle attached to the particular tendon that the bursae is cushioning. For instance when a person has hip bursitis you will find thigh muscles not far from the pain site that need to be loosened and stretched. Bursitis usually results from the over use of particular muscles.

Back pain and house work

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Although doing house work and working out in a gym can be equally strenuous and tiring they tend to effect our bodies quite differently in some important ways. The most obvious difference between the two is that when we exercise we make a point of using the body in an even way, lifting the same weight on each arm, stretching both legs to the same degree and standing, sitting or lying straight as we do so. House work on the other hand is all about getting the job done as quickly as possible which usually means using your “good hand” to do most of it and not always in a very posture conscious way.

In past postings this has been discussed  in general terms (exercise and work) but today we will look at specific examples how house work can be done in a more user friendly way.  Alot of house hold chores can only be done predominantly using  one hand at a time like when we sweep, mop, vacuum and clean windows, the challenge here is remembering to do so an even amount of time and effort on both sides like we do when we are exercising. If you work this way it will slow you down a bit but as you get used to it your body will last much better working in such a manner.

Another way that the rules of good exercise can make house work less painful on your back is by keeping it straight as you work, if you need to pull weeds from the garden or get down to clean the bathtub, kneel or squat don’t bend over. If a kitchen sink is too low for you (as many older ones are) spread your feet further apart when you use it, this will lower your centre of gravity, you will not have to bend forward if you do this. Likewise if something is up high stand on a set of steps to do it NEVER on a chair or stool, chairs and stools were not designed to do this and are dangerous when used that way.

If you ever push a pram or a lawn mower stand up straight and close to what you are pushing, you wont back over your toes if you remember to step back first if you need to reverse, (if your mower has a grass catcher even better still) and make sure that whatever pram you buy has long enough handles for ALL the people who might be pushing it.

Erik Goodman’s foundation exercises are a good way to help lop sided core strength.

I don’t know anybody who likes cleaning bathrooms but you will have to do it less if you dry yourself while you are still in the shower recess and then use the towel to wipe the shower screen and tiles dry before you get out, where there is no moisture there is no mildew and mould to clean. A few extra minutes spent doing this will lessen the need to gas yourself and pollute our water ways with strong cleaning agents.