RunAway Hip Flexors – The Beast of Sitting

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Meet the Muscular BEAST behind much of our pain and dysfunction: It’s the Hip Flexor Muscle and we build it up every time we work at a desk!

Sitting at our desk places ENORMOUS DEMAND on our Hip Flexor Muscles (See: Hip-A-Tightus on RanksAcademy.com) while nearly putting the rest of our lower body musculature to sleep!

Hip Flexor is a Monster Muscle built to rotate our whole trunk!  Every time we reach for the mouse or wiggle in our chair, the hip flexors get a workout!


PROBLEM:
Muscles THRIVE on demand (This is the phenomenon of Strength by Addition to be discussed shortly).

Warning: OVERGROWN Hip Flexors, seeded by sitting, overwhelm balancing musculature & inadvertently shut down our hips, giving us duck feet, stooped shoulders.....AND LOTS OF BACK PAIN!!!!

The Beast of Sitting must be Sat Down!

We counter-balance overgrown hip flexors in two ways:

  1. Build Up the Groups Opposing Hip Flexors:

    - The Rotator Cuff and Rhomboid Muscles of the Upper Back oppose forward lean

            -  The Calf and Hamstrings  pull back the classic tipping pelvis created by overly strong Hip Flexors

(See Strategic Strength at RanksAcademy.com)


2.  Sooth the Savage    Prolonged passive elongations of the Hip Flexor calm hyperactive muscle – this is a different style of stretching in which a muscle is lengthened and held relaxed for up to an hour!! The Process is called “myofascial release” and it is one the flexibility styles employed in Ranks training – (Visit Flexibility Freed/Flexibility Cultivated at RanksAcademy.com)

You Must Keep Your Hip Flexors Tamed to Stay Free in your body!

Look for “Flexibility: A Specialized Form of Strength” from the Be Your Own Personal Trainer Series at RanksAcademy and Stand Up for Yourself!!!

Massage Salads

Food for Thought:
Which is better: Salad or Massage?

Salads give us fiber, calcium, good fats – They make us feel better, avoid disease and live longer.

There is nothing much more muscularly nutritious than massage.

Massage adapts Muscles to “beneficial stress” (See PowerWire #9), & re-connects the nervous system to the body improving balance, flexibility and over-all well-being.

Digest this concept: Massage is to Exercise what Salads are to Nutrition.

Setting the Table:

We know a nutrition plan consisting of one salad amongst a diet of burgers, chips and ice cream is preposterous....
Stick to 3 salads a day for 3 months, while substantially cutting back the junk, and you create systemic change!

This is how we teach Massage in The Ranks!
We Call it The Gluing Energy Process of Self-Applied Deep Tissue Work -

8 Deep Tissue Techniques create a salad bar of options

When you feed yourself 8 tactile “nutrition” techniques everyday to counteract driving, desk-jockeying and couch sitting, Change Happens Fast!.... Chew on This…


Look for the “Be Your Own Personal Trainer” live events and DVD from The Ranks. Hit the massage salads daily and get your muscles CLEANED OUT!

Fixing the Posture Tent

The wind collapsed my tent!

It was September 2, 1985.

My former high school annually sent the freshman on a character-building outdoor trip to Camp Chewonki in Wiscasset, Maine.

I was spending my 14th birthday freezing my a*! off at 5:0O AM in a storm along the Kennebec River!

I was pissed!

I had to make a fix in the dark, re-securing and re-balancing the cords by feel… I was grouchy and wet…but managed to survive…

 

Little did I know what that birthday would teach me about fixing PAIN & POSTURE!

A tent EXPLAINS a lot about your pain and difficulty moving.

As the tent shelters from the elements, the body shelters from Gravity:

 Your Back Pain and lost balance are not due to shoes or mattress – it is really TENT COLLAPSE. Act acCORDingly.

* Tent walls form a protected inner space - Pelvis and rib cage protect abdominal and thoracic cavities

* Both have surprisingly light bendable bones for sturdiness

* Opposing cords provide tent structure –muscles-tendon-ligaments provide tensions keeping us solid and functional!

 A Postural Evaluation elucidates problems by discovering which muscular tent cords are too tense & too slack. (See The 8 Crossroads at RanksAcademy.com & PowerWire#6)

Strengthening and Deep Tissue work fix us by restoring SYMMETRICAL TENSION to our musculo-skeletal system.

 

  • Know which cords to tighten/which to release with a Postural Elucidation from The Ranks.

  • Learn the Art of giving a Postural Elucidation from Ranks Trainer Training & the RanksAcademy “Be Your Own Personal Trainer” program

  • This way, you’ll be a HAPPY CAMPER

Breathing Right: A Gut Check

Burdened with a protruding belly and frequent back pain? Stop wasting your breath!

BREATHING is rightfully emphasized as an integral part of exercise….

BUT, more important than when you breathe is the ISSUE of HOW you Breath.

The Skinny on Breathing:
Our Diaphragm has critical attachments to our deepest layer of abdominal muscle -Transverse Abdominis – a big player in back pain. Transverse Abdominis ties into the pelvic floor and hip flexor muscles uniting the core! (See PowerWire #8)

Trained Breathing strengthens hips, ab’s and tushies!!! With instruction and repetition, you can get your whole core behind your breath!

Not Sure you’re breathing right?...Just Look Down!
Right Breathing fixes your posture AND tames your Gut! If you have a belly protrusion, you have lost your breath. The Tranverse Abdominis not only assists breath but acts as the “corset muscle” - literally holding in intestines and stomach! Tranverse Abdoninis is unusual because it is primarily recruited in respiration. Core-Less Breathing = Protruding Belly!

SOLUTION: A Whisper Campaign
The mechanics involved in WHISPERING connect the diaphragm into the rest of the core. In The Ranks, we insinuate correct “whispery” breathing action with every exercise.

The Wind at our Backs
The back improves as well!! Spinal support is preferably supplied by the Strong core in front of the spine. With a breathless, deflated core, the smaller muscles running along the back of the spine (See: Backfire at RanksAcademy.com) are painfully overworked.
So Battle the Bulge & defend your back – Learn to Train Every Breath You Take with The Ranks!!!


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Knee Pain: Get Me Outta Here!

Dave, age 38, had a predicament:
His Left Knee Hurt, he couldn’t play basketball, and didn’t know why…

Being pained is being harassed in your body. Dave wanted out! – He came to me saying, “I need some knee exercises.”
PROBLEM: Bodily Predicaments are SPECIFIC. This is why doing “knee exercises” for knee pain is a crapshoot and can often hurt you.

Before any “exercises” Dave needed a MAP – a true assessment of what was setting off the knee and a definitive way back to health.

 In The Ranks, we make you a “Pain Map” - the most important thing we do.
 
The Pain Map is a  3-D representation of your multiple postures: head to pelvis to foot & a comparative left to right chart of your MUSCLE TENSIONS (see the all-important 8 Crossroads at RanksAcademy.com)
 Pain Mapping, the 8 Crossroads and De-Coding the Secret Language of Muscle Tensions  is covered in detail in Ranks Trainer Training and The Ranks’ “Be Your Own Personal Trainer” series.

BREAKING OUT:
 Dave’s Pain Map showed his left Knee problem was compensation for a tightened RIGHT HIP. The Map also predicted (correctly) that Dave’s left neck muscles were problematic and IT WAS AFFECTING THE KNEE.
 Dave’s SPECIALIZED MAP showed the way out of KNEE PRISON:

The recovery route was through RIGHT HIP (see Bitter End) and LEFT NECK (See School of Hard Necks and PowerWire #14)simultaneously.

DO YOU NEED A MAP OUT OF PAIN JAIL??? 

The Pain Map is both the Representation of how you REALLY ARE NOW AND the directions to BECOMING the person you WISH TO BE.
So Plan to Get Past Your Pain and Back in the Game with Your Pain Map from The Ranks!! 


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The Case of the Ankle-Core

I received a distress call last week:
A friend’s turned right ankle was not healing. Her doctor recommended a month in a foot brace that was now making her hip hurt!
My Mission: Figure out why the ankle was not getting Better
The First Rule of Joint Pain is not to question the joint but ask, “Who is letting the joint down??” The Usual Suspect in such matters is the Pelvis-Core Complex.
It is always awkward checking out a friend's posture – Especially when she happens to be your Best Friend’s wife! – But I did what I had to do….

A clue appeared!
My girl had a major league tilted pelvis on her right side, the same side as the sore ankle. (We cover “tilted pelvises” exhaustively in Ranks Trainer Training)
Basically, our core is a column of fluid contained from the bottom by the pelvis (pelvis is Latin for “basin”). The core acts as giant spring every step we take.
When the pelvis is too tilted, the shifted core essentially becomes disconnected, letting down the rest of the joints.

My friend’s ankle was really fine – the problem was lack of shock absorption from a disconnected core. Her ankle is now better because the right problem was treated.

 

Do you Have Chronic Ankle Problems? Likely it is related to a Disconnected Core.
A Quick Self-Test is to wear a belt and study your side view in the mirror. If the front of the belt rests LOWER than the back of the belt, your pelvis is tilting.
The culprit of this Ankle Case was The Core.
Now tuck in your shirt and go check for a Core Disconnect in the Mirror – it’s a cinch!


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Painful Memory

The Following Occurred last night between 7PM and 10PM: 
I watched 4 episodes of “24” in a row and my BACK GOT REALLY STIFF!

 “24” is programmed on my DVR – it’s there waiting to be played back! I couldn’t resist!

Jack Pain:
While watching 3 hours of Jack Bauer, my other DVRS – my muscles -were at work recording as well! All muscles are all hard-wired into our spinal cord & subconscious brain  to MEMORIZE our most commonly performed actions.
After 3 hours on the couch, I was shaped like – my couch!

OUCH!!

“Muscle Memory” is usually quite handy – imagine how difficult life would be if we had to learn to tie our shoes EVERY TIME! Shoe Tying is pattern that just gets PLAYED BACK.

Here is where the Trouble comes in. Whatever happens most gets recorded and replayed – Well, for most of us that’s SITTING - at work, behind the wheel OR in front of the ol’ flatscreen.

Our back and necks hurt & our muscles inexorably stiffen because we are
constantly subconsciously assuming the shape of our CHAIRS!

The Muscular Aging Process is really a growing divergence between what our OPTIMAL Posture should be and what NORMAL Postures become habituated.

The SOLUTION is EXERCISE Like a DVR.
Exercise, in DVR terms, is a process of
A)    Erasing Unwanted Muscular Recording
B)    Recording Something Good for US

The Lesson This Week: Exercising a few times a week at the gym will not keep you pain-free. You have to Plan handfuls of small drills to do a few times daily opposing the preponderance of sitting we all do in modern life.

What do we do?
See “Gluing Energy” and “Jawbreakers” on RanksAcademy.com
Practice Gluing Energy and Get Yourself some Jawbreakers – This will keep you away from a series of Painful Episodes.


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Sleeping: Wrong, Right or Left

Here is the Eazzziest back and neck pain action item you’ll ever get & it costs $ZZZero: Sleep Right.
Yes, the way you sleep can protect and more importantly RESTORE your back. Alas, Ranks Fans, getting into bed is trickier than you think.

We learned in PowerWire #13 that we all have a side bend to our spine influencing our posture, pain and performance.

Remember, our Exercise Life is composed of two parts:
A)    Doing Stuff (weights, yoga, etc….)
B)    Untangling our pesky Postural Asymmetries as we go (this is central theme of staying Muscularly Young)

By knowing which SIDE we are supposed to sleep on, we can fix ourselves while we sleep!!

So, once again go check out which love handle is bigger and higher – This is the side to which you are bending.
Next, get on you jammies.
If you have a right side bend and you sleep on YOUR LEFT SIDE, Gravity is now DEEPENING that side bend – You are sleeping wrong!

NIGHT-MOVES
Avoid this by changing sides – If you’re a Right Side-Bender, Sleep on the RIGHT side. This way, Gravity is straightening your side bend.
In a preview of coming attractions, as we explore Flexibility in The Ranks, a recurring theme is harnessing Gravity to fix our posture for us…More on that later…
 
I know this action may involve changing years of habit and perhaps coming face to face with your snoring spouse/mattress companion du jour…
So take this advice – Get Right Back to Bed and Bed your Back Right! - with THE RANKS!!

>
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Hamstrings Quartet

Do you want Flexible Hamstrings???
Everybody does!
It’s my biggest request – well, top 4 anyway…We care about loose hamstrings because they make everything athletic so much easier! Hamstrings’ role is fine-tuning our movement: orchestrating changing speed and direction.
 
(Mr. Preventer Practices The Hamstrings Quartet)

 Loose Hamstrings keep us smooth, quick and muscularly young.

The funny thing about hamstrings is stretching  directly, such as touching for your toes, does VERY LITTLE to get them unstuck!

Hamstrings are tricky because  4 different things together must be done to loosen them.

The Explanation for the Necessary Quartet of drills is all in the anatomy…

The Ol’ Hamstrings are 3 muscles Emerging from the bones of the lower leg (tibia and fibula).  
It is very significant that the hamstrings blend attachment points with the BIGGER THICKER calve muscle around the back of the knee.

In flexibility training we must always watch for muscles’ influence on each other! The bigger, stronger muscles always set the tone. Hamstrings are slave to the calves!

The poor hamstrings can’t catch a break from above either!  They converge and insert into the base bone of the pelvis (called the ischial tuberosity) –

PROBLEM: The pelvis is controlled by the BIGGER, STRONGER Butt Muscles! This further makes the hamstrings slave to the Butt!

The HAMSTRINGS are stuck between a GastrROC and the ASS-Place!  (forgive the forced pun)

The real arbiters of hamstring flexibility are the muscles of the butt and the calve

So here is the lesson, Ranks Fans: If you wanna compose looser Hamstrings, you will need to play a Full Hamstring Quartet:

  1. Do Deep Tissue release at the Calf (See “Whooping Calf” at RanksAcademy.com)
  2. Do Deep Tissue Release for the Butt (See “Bitter End” at RanksAcademy.com)
  3. The Butt Rotator Muscles must Be “Strategically Strengthened” (See Strategic Strength on RanksAcademy.com and PowerWire #13)
  4. We Need to Do a Big Stretch Incorporating Hammy, Calves and Butt AT THE SAME TIME…This is why I like yoga’s Downward Facing Dog Stretch which gets my vote for Most Important Stretch in The World!

So don’t get down over your Hamstrung Hamstrings. Take a Page from The Ranks Songbook and Get Downward Dog as part of your Hamstrings Quartet!!


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Low Back Head Games

A blasphemous fact about poor posture is that, for a while, it is necessary and can work quite well! Crooked bodies can putter along satisfactorily for decades.
 
Our musculo-skeletal systems are loaded with head to toe compensatory capacities allowing a spinal twist here, and a pelvic tilt there.
 
 But our luck does run out....
A BIG area of postural compensation in the body is THE HEAD.
All of our skeletal twists and bends are accommodated by puppeteering the head (via neck muscles) to keep our eyes’ horizon straight. This is very useful “bad posture” with far-reaching consequences.
 
The problems of such Head Games come in the form of hamstring tightness and back pain.
 
 
Do you Have a Chronic Hamstring Problem?
How about Low Back Pain that stubbornly returns after low back treatment?
  • Well, you probably have a crooked head problem as well. Think of your head as a twenty pound weight. Tipped to one side, we create an asymmetrical load which the lower body (i.e. low back and hamstrings) must relentlessly counterbalance.
 
Here is a head check for you: Look at your face carefully in the mirror and see which Earlobe is lower than the other. The head is tilted toward the side of the lower ear lobe.
 
The Solution to your back and hamstring problems is getting into your head– via the neck!
To really untangle chronic hamstring and back issues, you must combine Neck Deep Tissue Release (see “School of Hard Necks” on the Ranks Academy website as well as PowerWire #6) with your lower body flexibility program.

Your back problems are likely a Pain in The Neck As Well…..Get your whole back situation Elucidated with a Postural Elucidation from The Ranks…

♥ Handle Match

ABSTRACT: Do you Have Back Pain, a knee injury or neck pain that won’t go away?
The Answer is likely a scoliosis diagnosed in your Love Handles!!
I’m not one who thinks the tools for health should be held by a few practitioners whom the majority must depend on.
Our knowledge of self is the difference between a long, free healthy life or being a slave to pain and a decline in what we can physically do.

In the self-reliant spirit of The Ranks, I have a great PowerWire for you this week – a simple, POWERFUL, postural self-analysis in a full length mirror…

Pull down the shades, get into your skimmies and check out your LOVE HANDLES in the mirror (yes, even MR Preventer himself has some love handle to speak of…)

A)    Do you see which side bulges more & is a bit higher?

**Congratulations!** You just uncovered a major musculo-skeletal asymmetry central to all the exercise strategy you are ever going to do!

What does the bigger bulge signify?
What you see, my friends, is your scoliosis – a side bend of the spine – When the muscles on one side of our body pull more strongly than the other side, the whole pelvis shifts towards the stronger side causing the tell-tale larger bulge!

 Read about major culprits causing the Love Handle Mismatch on the 8 Crossroads Section of the RanksAcademy website:
1)      The Bitter End
2)      Backfire
3)      Quadzilla
4)      Hip-A-Tightus

Do you Have Back Pain, a knee injury or neck pain that won’t go away?
The Answer is likely in your Love Handles!!
What the Different size Love Handles showcase is an asymmetrical posture. When an ache or pain does not get better after ten days or so, we are living with an asymmetrical posture –
The counter-intuitive aspect of chronic pain is that we do not experience the same pain each day. Rather something off in our posture re-injures anew all the time!

Getting over local problems such as foot, knee and back pain requires restoring global symmetry to our bodies.

In The Ranks, we do a 40 point Postural Evaluation as a baseline of treatment plan. We need to be armed with as much information about ourselves as possible.

But just this info about your Love Handle sizes is plenty to guide training and recovery

And how to Even our Uneven Love Handles?
We Answer our Anatomy Back!
The side with the larger Love Handle is the side receiving Strategic deep tissue work to Release the constricted muscles pulling our pelvis (and center of gravity over to one side)

In The Ranks, we call this self-applied deep tissue work, “The Gluing Energy Process”
So get a Handle on Your Posture and solve your chronic pain problems – Feel the Love from The Ranks


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Gravity’s Antidote: POSTURE-BALANCE

The Ranks is a Healthcare & Fitness / Education and Media Company with a simple objective: Re-defining Aging in America. In a healthcare world with dwindling safety nets, The Ranks accomplishes the mission by turning 50, 60, 70-year olds into their own personal trainers, building The Ranks of America’s Older Athlete.

Time’s biggest physical threat to us is Un-Refined Gravity. Gravity, wantonly hitting us will relentlessly drag us into destructive posture.

To wit, this week’s lesson is on utilizing Gravity with a new term: POSTURE-BALANCE

POSTURE-BALANCE is the critical element you need to stay pain-free and muscularly young.

Our Anatomy kindly furnishes us with all we need to contend with gravity: Skeletal thickenings at our skull, shoulder, hip, knees, and ankles along with “Squishy”, open muscles. (See PowerWire #9)

All we have to do to avoid being worn down by gravity (and actually capitalize on it) is adjust our shape as needed when performing life’s actions.

The reason we care so much about POSTURE is because, done right, POSTURE is what OPPOSES gravity and HARNESSES its potential within our muscles.

. This is where “POSTURE-BALANCE” comes in. The best posture is Rapidly Adjusting Posture. The Bodily Adjusting we do to painlessly take advantage of gravity while on the move is called “BALANCE”.

The POSTURE-BALANCE connection is nicely analogized by the animation Flip-book. A Flip-Book is a book of individual drawings whichis “read” by flipping the pages rapidly animating the pictures within.

Life is complicated because even as the ground beneath us changes, Gravity changes NOT! We need smooth access to lots of Postures to get through life! As flipping gives life to the Flip-Book, Balance brings life to Posture.

POSTURE-BALANCE is the dynamic tuning process we use to arrange muscles, skeleton and core to oppose and harness gravity pain-free as we go – Especially for the fun stuff such as running, swinging a golf club or skiing down a mountain –
 we Without the ability to change shape on the run, we become a Flip Book stuck on one page! The spectrum of activities we can do gets smaller and smaller – We physically age.

POSTURE-BALANCE is the critical ingredient to all things athletic! If you want to enjoy better, safer POSTURE, you must TRAIN BALANCE.
The Ranks’ Personal Trainer Education Knows Posture, Knows Balance and Knows combining both enriches your life with more freedom and fun.


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The Pull of A Purpose! - Great Guys!

 
Abstract: The point of today’s parable is capitalizing on the energy of overriding reasonbehind our endeavors.WE need 2 Primary Ingredients to keep ourselves Muscularly Young over the long haul:
1)      PROPER Stress to keep us ALIVE!
2)     The Purpose/People Making the Stress Worthwhile!
Staying Muscularly Young into our 40"s, 50's, 60"s is an unusual thing to do – not easy or intuitive. It takes more than “toning up” or “loosening the hammy’s”. We need a great plan & an emotional charge to journey to a hard-got destination. The flexibility, balance and quickness required are best realized as side effects of reaching meaningful goals. This lesson was reinforced to me this past Thanksgiving.
Ten years ago I haphazardly fell into an Ultimate Frisbee Community that meets up Sunday mornings in Wellesley, MA.Ultimate is tough game of constant running. Nothing makes me more sore the day after...
 
The Heart of this Disc-Community is a clan of cousins – The Heffernans/Laughins/Jacobs- What a family! A fantastic group of smart, funny, athletic and DECENT people whom I’m honored to call FRIENDS.
 
Once a year, on Thanksgiving Weekend, the Heffernan, Laughlin, Jacobs gang play together as a family as “Team Doonarie” in a best 3 out of 5 Ultimate Frisbee throw-down against all the non-family players:
A disparate assemblage of disc-toting “Outsiders” in an event named, “The Marie’s Cup.” I’ve been an Outsider team member for several years…
 
But the truth is, over the last two seasons, I stopped showing up on Sundays – I was busy writing or working or ….whatever…. Last Thanksgiving, my Outsiders got spanked - embarrassed really - in an undisciplined, sloppy Maries Cup showing…I painfully remember my back going out during the pre-Big Game Warm-Up…I personally played like crap & felt slow - it was time to hang up the disc….
 
 
This fall of 2009, the Outsider captains – my Thanksgiving coaches – Mike “Eisy” Eisenstadt and Charlie “CW” Walsh e-mailed that Marie’s Cup was nearing - it was time to get up & IN SHAPE. Even though I’d been a no-show all Frisbee season, I got invited to re-join the team – and a funny thing stirred….I wanted to play again!....But I was not sure why…
 
Sunday practices started in Mid-October –  I hadn’t trained that hard in years – Sprints, jump-roping, cones, ladder-drills and a giant truck tire from G-d Knows Where…
 
At the risk of divulging too much info, that first practice actually liquefied my breakfast remainders leading to an unmentionable post-practice near-miss.
The weeks and practices piled up – The Outsiders got better – I got better –and a realization grew clear–
 
Even though I restore people physically professionally – (not for nuthin’, - I know LOTS about the human body), the presence of a GAME-DAY PURPOSE was amplifying my efforts– I was hustling because I didn’t want to let these Great Guys -both my teammates and the big-hearted DOONARIE- down! – 
 
We fundamentally need in our training –especially as we plan to age –the magnetic pull of “purpose.” OUR best teachers, trainers, therapists and coaches wake this within us…
 
And it doesn’t matter what our destination is so long as we commit.
 
The first point WE TRACK in Ranks Training is  “BENCHMARK.” We ask and decide, “Where do I want to be??” We write the Benchmark(s) down and bring them to life....
 
Then, Ranks Training Provides the Ticket to Ride.…Physical journeys to a resolved destination are potentially littered with pulled hamstrings, twisted ankles and sore backs. We create a map of our lurking vulnerabilities. The Gluing Energy Process, Postural Elucidations and Active Recovery kept me (and a few teammates) ready to go – Purpose kept us moving…
 
Did a few of my boys need some fixing? Absolutely!
Did Ol’ Adam have to fix himself – Hell Yeah!
Was it all worth the trouble???...The outcome of the BIG GAME was GREAT: I got stronger and Re-Connected with Great Friends.....
So this Post-Thanksgiving week, I give thanks to my Frisbee Life– My Outsider and Doonarie Brothers….. I know what I’ll be doing next year this time….
 
Recent Issues
·         #8 Trainers of the Lost Core
·         #6 Signature of Pain
·         #5 The Simple 3 Checklist

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26 Working it Out: Trainer & Therapist

 
 
The other night I attended a social gathering at a shmancy restaurant in Chestnut Hill, MA, put on by Privatus Healthcare - a very smart nursing and care Company in the Boston area.
I met terrific people who, like me, are engaged in evolving healthcare quality as the Age Wave comes in (Don’t worry – Nancy Pelosi isn’t
the only person at work on this…).
 
After trying the pizza (it was OK) I had a thought provoking conversation with Sarah Marcotte, membership coordinator of Cambridge at Home – a wild organization of Cambridge, MA residents uniquely re-defining “retirement”…
Sarah, an advocate for scores of people eager to age freely in their own homes, asked me a $Million ($Trillion?) question:
 
Who helps people age better, The Personal Trainer or The Physical Therapist???
 
I promised Sarah a PowerWire on her question, and the anwer is:
 
UNANSWERABLE - as both therapist and trainer are part of one tapestry. And lemme-tell-ya, separating the actions of these two fields leads to stagnation and trouble. Here’s Why:
 
The Job Sarah wanted done for her people is the Job we all need done: Becoming Better via Exercise…The rub in all this lies in just what exercise is anyway….
 
Precise definitions matter, Ranks Readers, so here we go – Adam Poock’s definition of Exercise:
 
Exercise is - Stress inducing desirablepersonal adaptation
 
The nature of exercise is, you see, a synthesis of training and therapy.
 
 “Stress” is just energy – efforts –
push-up’s and bicep curls, sprints and pigeon poses –
The magic of our biology is that sufficient stresses cause adaptation: muscles strengthen, circulation densifies, nervous systems hone – this hard-got work is wrung out of us by great coaches
Advantage: Trainer
 
BUT – and this is a big BUT, such adaptation must be corrective and Desirable –We all possess specific vulnerability and have specific needs –. Whoever applies the stress must possess PROFOUND anatomic and postural diagnostic skill along with great hands. Stress is dangerous stuff without a careful plan.
Advantage: Therapist
 
In my own experience My great teachers have been offered a balance mind-opening and butt-kicking. Two Examples from my twenties:
 
Gary Gray from Adrian, Michigan is an ingenious Physical Therapist and teacher who transformed and massively advanced my understanding of anatomy’s interconnectedness
Brad Crews, my first and most brilliant yoga instructor put me to work – awakening my power of breath and connected core to build handstands, splits and great endurance– there was none of that in my program at Boston University.
 
Most importantly, Gary would never have had his impact on me if not for Brad bringing anatomy alive, and Brad’s work could not have been internalized if not for Gary’s model of how bodies work. I needed them both for either to take hold!!
 
This is the educational foundation of the Ranks – bringing these seemingly separate worlds together as one problem-solving force.
 
So my answer for Sarah as to who gets the job done is: A Synthesis of the Two
 
  • The Therapist who is part athlete, knows the feel of training and the fluidity of performing
  • The Trainer has to study posture and physiology – I’d recommend Davies’ Trigger Point Therapy Workbook for starters
  • And EVERYBODY should take some kind of anatomy course every year – that stuff is tricky, and a lot more than memorizing where everything goes!!
 Great Problem-Solvers in Healthcare will be born of surprising intellectual collaborations – massage tables and running shoes, medicine balls and anatomy charts.
The Ranks Trainer Training Program teaches collaboration – anatomy hits the yoga mat and deep tissue work frees strength – Building people who get the job done means planting our feet in two worlds together – our solutions are there – we just have to keep working them out.
Recent Issues
·         #8 Trainers of the Lost Core
·         #6 Signature of Pain
·         #5 The Simple 3 Checklist

Need help designing your Home Gym?
Visit Our Friends at Precision Fitness Equipment

Do you have a question for a PowerWire Topic?
Ask “Mr. Preventer”, Adam Poock, Adam@RanksAcademy.com and your query may be the next topic on The Ranks Power Wire

Stay Squishy, My Friends
Abstract Great Prevention is not just being flexible or strong – It is being able to smoothly transition between states of flexibility and states of strength – This baseline ability to CHANGE FORM on the run is our “squishiness” or muscular versatility and it is a true measure of muscular age…Frequent Strategic Deep Tissue Work from The Ranks builds critical Muscular Squishiness.
A Vital Muscular Competency central to strength and function is rarely (if ever) pinpointed in conventional exercise – I speak of the quality of muscular “squishiness”. In The Ranks, Squishiness is the essence of “Muscular Youth.”
The purpose of today's parable is making you aware of your muscles' squish factor...Muscle “squishiness” is muscle’s capacity to compress/lengthen & rebound to original shape. 
It's our muscles' squishiness that allows for Easy Muscular gear-shifting you need to bend for something AND THEN lift it, OR to run quickly, STOP, & change directions...
"Squishiness" or in RanksSpeak, "Muscle Versatility" between flexibility and strength is MORE IMPORTANT than the amount we have of either….
Here’s Why: “Squishiness” permits us to  instantly adapt through changing environments- handling life’s unpredictables coming at us fast in our complicated world!
 
With stairs to climb, kids to pick up, balance to maintain and abrupt stops to make….It’s rough out there!
In the gym, we are told to hit the weights, do cardio-vascular work and maybe touch our toes for flexibility.
THIS IS NOT ENOUGH because overlooked in our workout is the ability to TRANSITION from states of strength into states of flexibility. We aren’t training SQUISHINESS & Lack of squishiness sets up injury and pain.
What “exercise” builds Squishiness (i.e.: muscular versatility)?: It’s Deep Tissue Massage – (yes, deep tissue massage is technically exercise as I’ll make the case for soon…)
In The Ranks, strategic deep tissue work is emphasized in the Sequencing process of circuit training. In Ranks Training we use the Trigger Point Ball Tool for self-applied deep tissue work between the more conventional exercises...
• Do you have Back Pain?  - Get strategically squishy with the Trigger Point Ball to better absorb impact of walking
• Feeling Stiff and Wobbly? – Get more squishy with the Trigger Point Ball and easily adjust muscular shape over varying terrain.
Ranks training conditions to be squishy – in the butt, thigh, calves and neck muscles. Our Squishiness is our best muscular insurance policy! 
Learn more about “muscular squishiness”  at  RanksAcademy.com

Check out Strength by Subtraction and The Gluing Energy Process.

 
 Also visit PowerWire #3 for a refresher on the workings of your muscle physiology.
Stay Muscularly Young by staying Squishy, My Friends
Recent Issues
·         #8 Trainers of the Lost Core
·         #6 Signature of Pain
·         #5 The Simple 3 Checklist

Need help designing your Home Gym?
Visit Our Friends at Precision Fitness Equipment

Do you have a question for a PowerWire Topic?
Ask “Mr. Preventer”, Adam Poock, Adam@RanksAcademy.com and your query may be the next topic on The Ranks Power Wire

Trainers of the Lost Core

I have well-worn copies of Hollinstead’s Textbook of Anatomy, Gray’s
Anatomy, and the classic, Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy.
Collectively, these are my Ark, Grail, and Temple of studying human structure.
 
But all 3 books share a GROSS deficiency:
None of them mention the “CORE” - anywhere!!
 
How can this be?!
Every Pilates teacher, golf pro, and sensei on earth impel to “build the core”.
We know human bodies have “cores” yet none exist in Anatomy Texts.
What Gives?? Is the Core Lost in our Anatomy?!!
 
The Lost Core is the missing link between academic anatomical study AND  training & performance reality.
 
 Who’s to blame for this Core-Less Anatomy to Core Exercise Predicament we must break out of ?
 
–I blame...those Pesky Greek Root Words!!!
The word “anatomy” derives from Greek roots “ana” – up and “tome’ – cutting. 
Alas, Netter and Gray are great study-buddies but lousy gym partners. Anatomy Texts don’t recognize a core because the core is not a part of anatomy.
The core is a formed amalgam of anatomy.
 
The “core” is a group of a dozen or so muscles temporarily pulling together  as hydraulic fulcrum, energy source and universal force translator for our actions. The core includes:
  • familiar muscles such as diaphragm and abdominals
  • & Not so familiar Muscles such as pubo-coccygeus
 
– Dissected, the core parts are pieces of deflated balloon revealing nothing of its purpose and potential when connected.
 
The art of training is connecting our core into our actions.
 
To Escape Muscular Age we need both the anatomical chops of Netter & Gray AND core connecting training expertise. Where to find that combo of skill?? I wonder….
Recent Issues

Need help designing your Home Gym?
Visit Our Friends at Precision Fitness Equipment

Do you have a question for a PowerWire Topic?
Ask “Mr. Preventer”, Adam Poock, Adam@RanksAcademy.com and your query may be the next topic on The Ranks Power Wire

A Car-TRADICTION: Bumper Band-Aids

I rear-ended someone last summer…There was no damage on my car and not a scratch on the “rear-endee”…Of course, that didn’t stop the weasel from filing a dubious damages’ claim for a new bumper.

If only I could have slapped a Band-Aid on his bumper and saved myself the surcharges! – Of course, such things as Bumper-Band-Aids are preposterous…Bumpers are inanimate and can’t heal…
 
We forget the opposite rule is also true – WE are BIOLOGICAL and can NOT mechanically switch out parts to get better again! We must HEAL ourselves to get better!!
 
Seeing our body as distinct replaceable component pieces is inaccurate...

 

I hear this all the time:
“My shoulder hurts, I need shoulder work”
“My feet hurt so my feet must be weak”
 
This is auto-shop thinking that will not solve our biological problems. Biological problem-solving means arranging an internal environment where healing occurs.
  • Hip Flexibility fixes shoulders - Our sore shoulder is likely a compensation to asymmetrical hip tightness
  • Butt Exercises fix feet - Sore feet materialize from weak gluteal muscles leaning us too forward on our feet
 
We are not Buicks! We must junk the “body-part as car-part” analogy to get muscularly young!
 Get  a Biological Training Plan from The Ranks~
  • Postural Landmark Chart
  • Pain Map
  • Maneuvering Plan
 ....Learn more at RanksAcademy.com

 

Signature of Pain

Poor George Bush – such an easy mark for a laugh…

DO YOU WANT TO IMPROVE YOUR POSTURE?
THEN YOU NEED TO STUDY THE WAY YOU SIGN YOUR NAME!!
 
NAME SIGNING is a physical act we all relate to…using forearm muscles (there are no finger muscles), rotator cuff, and a splash of core.
 
Cool about signatures is we all write them differently. Even nearly identical athletes, produce wildly diverse signatures.
 
How? - WE KNOW of course name-writing, is both physical and personal.
 Histories, fears, - our very feelings about ourselves - pour into signing our name.
 
Guess What?
The signature is not our only emotion-laden physical act – Our POSTURE is as well!
Calves, spinal erectors, and neck muscles  - all of the chain-links making our posture - possess learned signature tensions! AND our posture is the ultimate cause of ongoing PAIN...
 
Does poor posture ensure pain’s handwriting is on the wall???
 
Not at all….BUT “Improving posture” to stem pain, is a process akin to changing our very signature! We need lots of focused repitition of specific small drills to overcome memorized, emotional patterns.
 

In The Ranks, we correct posture with “The Gluing Energy Process”: Small, consistent, specially applied deep tissue work along with “Strategic Strengthening.” Don't be resigned to be in pain - Sign Up for Ranks Training!


Learn more at RanksAcademy.com
 
Look for The Ranks’ Posture Intensive in December.

 

The Simple 3 Checklist

Abstract: The dispositions of 3 influential muscles, 2 at the hip and 1 at the neck, determine the effectiveness of exercise and presence of pain.

I get this all the time – a very perplexed friend or client says:

“I swim and do yoga religiously! Yet I’m hurting and feel like I’m falling apart! What gives?!”
 
Just as striking a musical note can sound sweet or painfully off key, exercise works best when it stimulates us smoothly.
Whatever exercise we are doing, the quality of the experience is determined by 3 checklist muscles setting our postural receptivity.
 
Inevitably, people miss the gains of training because of muscular imbalance in at least one of the Simple 3 Checklist:
 
 
A)    The Piriformis/Gluteus Medius
OK, these are two superimposed muscles - Connecting pelvis and hip concertedly, these butt muscles control the angles of our hips joining our core to the ground!
 
B)    The Hip Flexors
These monstrous muscles make up the posterior wall of our core. The Hip Flexors emerge from our diaphragm, powerfully attach to all of our lumbar vertebra and discs, cross our pelvis, & insert into our inner thigh
 
C)    The Scalenes
The Scalenes may be the most ornery muscles of them all! The scalenes are three sets of muscles running out of all 7 cervical vertebra and discs, grabbing on to our collar bone and first rib. The scalenes literally hold our head up, are very prone to trauma and have far-reaching pain referrals.
 
Therefore, don’t blame the exercise for hurting you – Always look to the Simple 3 Checklist for trouble. Cultivate the Simple 3 regularly with Gluing Energy Deep Tissue work and Versatile Strategic Strength to make exercise sweet-sounding again…More Specifics to follow and more details on the Simple 3 Checklist anatomy at www.RanksAcademy.com

One Word of Advice: “PostureSpan”

Abstract: Losing our posture is a serious threat to health and, eventually, financial well being. For real quality of life, we must assure in our physical training that “PostureSpan” keeps up with our lifespan. There is no muscle more key to fixing and maintaining posture than our piriformis.

The Concept of 401K Anxiety is simple enough – We will need enough money to last our lifespan - How about Posture Anxiety?
 
Money is not the only thing we need to save! Losing posture over time represents a real threat – physically and financially.
 
If we are lucky, our lifespan will be 85-90 years. We need our posture for just as long!
What happens if our PostureSpan doesn’t last our lifespan – to say nothing of our “BalanceSpan” or “FlexibitySpan”?
 
It is within this time gap between Lifespan and Posturespan that healthcare costs get REALLY expensive due to pain, joint degradation, & immobility – Oh My!
 
The Purpose of Prevention is closing this high cost gap by keeping our posture reserves upright–
 
So here is a real stock tip for you: Invest in your PIRIFORMIS
 
We shall cover a lot of anatomy in The PowerWire, but this muscle is all important...
 The piriformis muscle of the hip is the crossroad arbiter of posture due to its strategic position:
* Lying halfway inside of our core and halfway outside of it, piriformis keeps the ground and our core connected, setting up the quality of our posture.
 
Piriformis is great place to start investing in Strategic Strength (more on this concept later) and Tissue Versatility (more on this concept later as well…) to assure a vibrant, healthy life.
 
To learn more, check out the “Bitter End” section of the RanksAcademy web site and look for “The Ranks Posture Fest” coming soon from Ranks Academy

Warhol Flexibility: Stretch Small, Stretch Big, Stretch Small

ABSTRACT: Flexibility is urgently important and unnecessarily frustrating. The older athlete needs to understand the redundant nature of muscle tissue composition. Based on this model of our muscles, resembling the Warhol Soup Cans ,The Ranks trains this effective method of flexibility acquisition: Stretch Small-Stretch Big- Stretch Small

There is much to say on the subject of flexibility so look for more flexibility on The RANKSPower Wire!

The clock is ticking –The OLDEST Baby Boomer turns 64 in January – not even official retirement age yet!

We do not have a health care crisis in this country so much as a DEMOGRAPHIC crisis. As retirement numbers increase  the number of collectors of social security & Medicare increase – all while our national tax base decreases - YIKES!

But the sky is not going to fall. The Ranks is here to turn these tables by stretching the idea of what being 65 in this country is all about...
 
To wit, today we broach the surface a huge subject urgently impacting our Muscular Youth – Flexibility….Who doesn’t wish they were more flexible? Losing our flexibility hurts – and can be quite dangerous.
(In a preview of coming attractions, I will explain that flexibility is actually a refined form of strength AND a major component of BALANCE – more on that later…)
 
We older athletes need to get more flexible! The problem is changes in flexibility are quite elusive – unless we count going from bad to worse…
 
The reason conventional attempts to improve flexibility don’t yield many gains it is that we lack a SUFFICIENT MODEL explaining how muscles operate – and thus how flexibility is trained.
 
What is misunderstood about our muscles is that they are actually composed of MANY (as in millions) of Redundant Component Parts called “motor units”.
If we took an up close look at muscle composition we would see something resembling a protein version of Andy Warhol’s iconic soup cans!
 
 
 
Why the redundancy??
Survival – If we bang our leg into the coffee table, our thigh muscle doesn’t shatter – Parts of our leg are immobilized, but enough working units around the trauma allow us to still LIMP away…
 
Versatility – Lots of semi-independent moving parts give us a huge spectrum of possible movement as well as loads of capacity for shock absorption (another reason to stay flexible!)
 
Each part – or repeating mini-muscle soup can - is actually capable of a bit of independent movement – Each soup can has a dedicated nerve supply allowing it to either act in concert with the rest of the muscle around it OR act on its own.
 
Based on this Andy Warhol model of muscle function, we can see what erodes our flexibility over time and how to get that flexibility back!
  • Over time, chance injuries, work life habits, and compensations to both create loads of micro-traumas in our musculature – Handfuls of “soup-cans” get disordered (usually to stop micro-internal bleeding)

     
     

  • Collectively we feel lots of upended "soup cans" around our musculature as a loss of flexibility. This lost flexibility s associated with– but not a direct result of – aging.
This is why, in The Ranks, to get flexible, we do not just stretch in the traditional sense of the word – we focus on first getting our chronically jumbled motor units smoothly opening and closing again with strategically applied deep tissue work. (Where you apply your deep tissue work is identified on your Ranks Pain Map – more on that later as well…)
 
THEN, we insinuate the small muscular recoveries into larger yoga stretches and poses.
 
The flexibility mantra of The Ranks is thusly called: Stretch Small (Strategic Soup Can Fixing)– Stretch Big (yoga poses) - Stretch Small (re-order the soup cans again just to be safe)

 

Why we need to be athletes

Why we need to be “a-thə-lēts”
 
Coming up with mottos for The Ranks, a debate materialized between a close advisor and me over vocabulary.
 
I went with “The Ranks - Building The New Older Athlete”
 
My advisor, a close friend and brilliant business consultant named Steve Barney –argued why alienate with the word “athlete” when so few people truly identify that way…
           
Regrettably, connotations of the word “athlete” have diminished.
           
What is an athlete after all? Is it someone paid to play a sport? – Partially, yes...& unfortunately the asinine behavior of these few – facial tattooing, judge threatening & self-applied gunfire- distract from the ideal of what the athlete should be….
           
The Greek root of athlete is “athl”, meaning a contest or challenge. An “athlete” is one who struggles with challenges.
 
There is no shortage of challenges these days – especially for The Ranks – parenting, mentoring, staying muscularly young….We do have a shortage of athletes however….
  • An athlete is someone cognizant of their body, and regularly cultivating it in order to face challenge
  • An athlete is one finding success through collected small failure –  with a mindset finding composure amidst disorder, plans against long odds, and will to carry out
In Ranks Academy we have the plans building 50, 60, 70+ year old athletes - the kind of people you can count on – and we can’t get enough of those….

The 65 Problem

Do you want a problem? OK – I’ll give you a problem – We are fixated on the number 65. We plan to retire at 65 AND start collecting “entitlement” checks at 65.

Now, the spirit of providing for the truly elderly is wonderful and kind. The problem is that as a population we are living for 20 years longer than the so-called retirement age of 65.

The issue has to do with the actuarial tables of 1935! In 1935, at the creation of the Social Security Act, the average life expectancy in America was…65! The intention of social security was for Americans to be assisted just as soon as they died!

In 2009, we read relentlessly about massive unsustainable deficit spending primarily supporting pensions and benefits to an increasingly large aging population. This is raising our taxes and onerously mortgaging the future generations of this country

The solution to unsustainable government budgets will be The Ranks Members. Our economy will call upon our over 65’s, over 75’s and maybe over 85’s to contribute and produce!

The onset of social security and pensions at age 65 will have to transition upwards -  The only question is how prepared will the 60+ population be for the inevitable.

The Mission of The Ranks is preparing today’s Moms and Dads, Grandmothers and Grandfathers, trainers and medical professionals with grown-up physical education to be great 85 year olds.

To grow as a nation the mentality around the number 65 must grow as well….

Know Your Pain Map!

* The Pain Map of Postural Landmarks and Muscle Tensions Asymmetries* The guide in The Ranks to our personal Muscular Youth Wouldn’t it be nice to know , “Is today the day I will hurt myself,” - and then be able to stop it? This is why you need a PAIN MAP 

  • Our physiology is not simple
  • Successful Training is not just repetition of drills!

 “Exercise” is focused maneuvering through our signature physiology

  • We Stress ourselves where needed
  • We diffuse vulnerabilities as they lie

 Get your Pain Map done and be on your way to Muscular Youth

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