Over the past twenty years or so, fitness and medical research has discovered a direct connection between individual stress levels and weight management issues. The only thing they don’t yet understand exactly is how or why these issues will occur. Weight management doesn’t necessarily mean weight gain either. Many people actually lose weight when they are under extended periods of stress - sometimes to dangerous levels. Weight gain is certainly one of the possible scenarios associated with stress and this sort of gain can easily perpetuate itself. A person can gain weight as a result of being stressed at work, home, or other emotional inlet and then can become further stressed by the societal implications of weight gain. Not a good cycle.
To better understand weight and stress related issues, we must first take a look at the two systems separately. The weight management system is actually the communication of your body when it is high or low on energy. Our energy is gleaned from food and drink and other ingested compounds and we are constantly monitoring this process unconsciously. Essentially this system determines hunger and thirst. When our body gets low on energy, we are supposed to become hungry, when it is low on water, we should get thirsty. But like any system, if there is a block or error in the chain of communication, the system breaks down and becomes confused. This may have happened at your work place once or twice.
The stress controlling system has to do with self-made products like hormones and enzymes. Our body creates it’s own communication devices out of protein and other elements to communicate with itself. If your gut wants your brain to know it’s hungry, it will release hormones into your blood which reach a part of your brain that tells you to recognize hunger. Stress, as it turns out, is a very powerful cause of hormone communication which should, in most cases, outweigh all other communications at the moment of stress. In fact some of the organs which release stress hormones into your body also manage the hormones for hunger and thirst. Evolutionarily, stress is the “fight or flight” response in our body. If we are in some sort of mortal danger, our system gets flooded with hormones that make us stronger, more alert, and more sensitive than we would be in a resting state. Whether our better choice in a stressful situation is “fight” or “flight”, because of these hormones, we will have the added energy and ability necessary to perform either.
There are three basic hormones that control the fight or flight stress response. While it’s not important to know exactly what their names are, it is of interest to note that two of these hormones actually suppress hunger, but the third encourages hunger. The two hunger suppressing hormones are released first in a situation of dire stress. If you are scared or in some kind of mortal danger, your body needs to be as responsive as it can to protect itself. It can’t bother with hunger at that moment, and it will therefore suppress this feeling in order to deal with the stress at hand. These two hormones only act for a short period of time, however - generally long enough to get us out of danger (not much more than a minute or two) and then they are consumed by our body. These hormones could be a reason that some people actually lose weight under stress. If someone’s body were unable to consume these hormones after the initial feeling of danger subsided, their hunger suppressing properties would still be active after the stress diminished. Since these hormones exaggerate alertness, it would be expected that a person having this sort of overload would also have trouble sleeping or comfortably relaxing in any situation.
It is potentially the third and final hormone, called cortisol, which gives people the most trouble with weight gain. If you are in a state of constant stress, though not such that you feel you are in mortal danger, you body would have released and consumed the first two hormones of the “fight or flight” response, but the third would continue to be released. Cortisol is the hormone which is necessary to maintain stability within the body systems during stressful situations. It is important to understand that cortisol causes neither weight gain or weight loss. It is simply a regulatory signal for your body systems to stay functioning since the other two stress hormones are so powerful. Because the other two do suppress hunger, cortisol helps to induce hunger - thereby negating the previous suppression.
If your body is in a state of constant stress, it is also frequently in a constant state of cortisol release. The glands which release the cortisol are under the impression that the other systems will require the stabilizing effects of this hormone. It is possible that a person who is under constant stress will too frequently become hungry.
The really messy part of stress and weight management occurs when one’s own fat cells induce stress. Yes, even fat cells release hormonal communication into the body. These hormones are related - not surprisingly - to energy and hunger. Fat in your body can serve as an energy source, but only when it exists in excess. Basic fat levels are necessary for protection of various organs like your heart and kidneys and also keep some internal communications like those for temperature and energy in a state of balance. Because the nature of fat is to maintain balance, when fat cells are in a state of loss (ie. fat burn from exercise), their first reaction is negative and perceived as stressful. In other words, when a person first starts exercising and dieting in an effort to lose weight, their own body is fighting them because this weight loss is adverse to the bodies understanding of its own current stasis. After a couple weeks or so this negative response is not perceived and normal weight loss can occur without much psychological effect, but your brain’s initial reaction to fat loss can be completely opposite of what you might expect.
Finally, in a worst case scenario - although not that uncommon - the ingestion of food will actually help to reduce stress in some people. The cycle here is not only obnoxious but difficult to recognize and often more difficult to break. Imagine you are constantly stressed. Maybe not to a perceivable level, but enough that your serum cortisol is high. This existence of cortisol makes you hungry. If you eat, you satiate the hunger only long enough to become stressed again. If you don’t eat, your stress level increases because now you are hungry and your gut is not receiving input that you are ingesting nutrients. Your body starts taking energy from fat. The fat gets mad and induces more stress so you become more hungry. Now the only way to feel better is to eat. So you eat a lot and for a brief moment you feel de-stressed until you get back in your car during rush hour or go back to your high stress job or have to deal with your difficult home life and the stress is back and the cycle starts again. It is not only extremely frustrating but also demoralizing to have the one thing you are trying to avoid - food - be the only thing that makes you feel comfortable. If you have these feelings, though, just realize that it is not because you are somehow weak or don’t have the will power to fight it. You just have to recognize that your body is constantly fighting your lifestyle (whether your chose that lifestyle or not) and the byproduct of your body engaging in this fight is for you to be hungry constantly.
With all these hormones running around, how do we know when is enough and how much is too much? Well, we don’t. This is the problem. A doctor can measure your “serum cortisol” levels in your body (essentially how much cortisol you have running around your system), but since cortisol itself is not a direct indicator of weight gain, this reading doesn’t tell us much. There are drugs which suppress the various stress hormones but these too do not affect one’s feeling of hunger. There are even drugs which suppress hunger but some of these actually induce a stress response so you can see why this may not work either. Unfortunately the answer to this problem is that there is as yet no simple answer. Since each person creates and reacts to stress differently, it is almost impossible to have a single fix to a problem which affects a good portion of this American population.
So far, the best way to combat stress and the weight management issues associated with stress is to actually take stock of and make adjustments to your life. Again, you may not immediately recognize that you are stressed because you haven’t felt the affects of those first two “fight or flight” hormones for quite a while, but the cortisol is still running around your body making you hungry. Or you may be under such stress that those first two hormones do get released way too often and you are losing weight to an unhealthy level. Either way, the first thing you have to do is recognize that you have some sort of stress in your life. One of the most common stressful situations is one in which have no control over changing or altering the stress. If you are in a difficult job or bad relationship or other stressful situation, the simple fact that you can’t alter that situation is stressful. Once you recognize that you have stress, you can take efforts to de-stress. You should have a chance to de-stress every single day if possible and if not every day then at least the vast majority of days in a week/month/year. You should spend at least an hour or more in this de-stressed mode whether that mode be exercising, meditation, taking yoga, watching television (without snacking), or sitting on the porch with a glass of wine watching a sunset, you need to do this activity often and without distraction. You may not be able to control the ability of your body to deal with stress the way you want, but you can manage that stress to the best of your ability. Sometimes you have to take care of yourself before all others. This may be the most effective method of stress and weight management you have. Find your best method to de-stress!
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Injured... While Sleeping?
Every once in a while you wake up and your neck hurts. Sometimes it’s so bad that you feel you can’t even turn your head one way or the other. It feels stuck, achy and completely uncomfortable all day so you take some Ibuprophen, rub it here and there and try to stretch it as often as you can as the day goes on. But what happened? You can’t remember doing anything the day before that would have caused your neck to be sore. You don’t recall heading a ball in soccer or getting in a little fender bender or even banging your head against your office wall after you got of the phone with your controller. Still your neck is sore, the muscles are tight and it hurts to move. What you probably did - or didn’t do - is get what I’ll call a “sleep injury”. Exactly as it sounds, a sleep injury is a mild injury you probably incurred while sleeping. Not that you fell off the bed or managed to kick the dresser in the middle of the night, but your body ended up positioned in such a way as to force some part of you to be over-stretched or over-contracted.
Sleep injuries can most commonly happen in the neck, back, shoulders, knees, hips and under some circumstances even the feet. Do you see a trend here? Almost any joint can be the site for a sleep injury and it mostly depends upon what position you slept in that night. Each type of injury is similar in that the height of pain is early in the morning - when you get up and try to move the afflicted body part. Also, this injury can affect other activities. A hip or knees sleep injury can bother you while running or walking whereas the neck and back injury makes it hard to turn around or even sit up. Sleep injuries usually work themselves out because your body eventually recognizes that it is in the wrong position and will correct the situation in the next night or two. Some like knee and shoulder injuries could last a little longer, however. The important thing to remember about a sleep injury is to recognize it as such and try to avert the problem in the future. Each type of sleep injury has a particular cause and it’s own simple method for alleviating the pain in the future.
Physiologists have figured out that the anatomically correct position to sleep in would be lying on one’s back with their head elevated about 4 to six inches and their knees bent upward about 8 inches. Physiologists are silly - no one sleeps like this. We sleep on our backs with our arms over our head, or on our side in some sort of fetal position or totally on our stomach with our head turned to one side or any other number of awkward and sometimes alcohol induced positions. Under normal circumstances these positions should have no affect on the physical structures of your body if you are comfortable when you fall asleep. However, if your body is unable to obtain a restful sleep position because of stress or discomfort it may try to alter your position slightly in adverse directions for your joints. Identifying the type and likely cause of a sleep injury is the best way to avert the problem the next night.
Each injury has its own cause(s) and, therefore has its own simple treatment. Remember, any sleep injury will induce the most pain in the morning. It may even take you a few moments before you can get out of bed at all. Sometimes these injuries may be associated with mild numbness of the extremities as well. I’ll go through each common type of sleep injury and simple ways to alleviate the pain but if you try these methods and pain persists, consider talking to your doctor or accepting the possibility that you don’t have a sleep injury at all but rather the pain is caused by some other means.
Neck Injury: I’ve already described a typical neck injury in the first paragraph. This is one of the more common sleep injuries and, fortunately, often one that manages to handle itself within a few days without any changes made by the sufferer. Neck injuries are usually caused when your head gets in an awkward position relative to your torso. This can happen if you sleep on unnatural surfaces like on a chair or couch or in a car for instance or if your head happens to be in an odd position in bed. If your head is elevated too far from your shoulder in any direction or if it is turned too far from center relative to the natural flexibility of your body, this over-stretched position could cause pain if the position is maintained over time (like several hours of sleep). Neck injuries in bed could be caused by a new pillow or a pillow that is too low or high in the first place. Or, if you sleep on your stomach, it could be the result of just turning your head too far to the side. In any case, try adjusting the size or number of pillows under your head and if you sleep on your stomach, try putting a pillow under the arm and should which lie on the same side as your face.
Shoulder Injury: A sleep shoulder injury will usually cause pain in the back or top of the shoulder joint and sometimes slightly down the back of your arm. This can come from one of two probable reasons. First, if you have a tendency to sleep on your back, and your arm ends up over your head for the night, this could cause compression in the joint capsule between a couple bones. If you were to hold this position for a few minutes, it may not feel like much but after several hours, your shoulder will have had enough and it will tell you in the morning. Another position which can cause shoulder injury is lying on either your side or your stomach with your arm turned over in front of your body such that the shoulder capsule is stretched rather than pinched. Both result in a similar pain, however, and the important thing to remember is that these tissues have likely been over-stretched so don’t try to stretch them more when you get up in the morning. Rather, try moving the arms up and down and out to the side slowly to allow the arm to warm up then add a little weight to the movement with cans of food or rocks or weights - anything slightly heavy. If the weight hurts, stop moving that way. To avoid the same situation try hugging a pillow when you go to sleep. This should keep you from rolling onto your arm in the first place.
Back Injury: A back injury will usually happen if your whole body is somehow twisted. If by some odd movement your torso faces one way and your legs face another, your back muscles will try to stabilize your spine and they will get tired by the time the night is over. This, of course, is painful. If you have a back sleep injury, you can attempt to stretch it mildly but it would be helpful to warm-up a bit first. To avoid the back injury, hug a pillow like you might for a shoulder injury but to keep your legs from flailing, try putting a pillow down under or between your legs as well. This should keep you from twisting into the odd position again.
Hip Injury: Hip sleep injuries are most common in women for anatomical reasons. Adult women have wider hips than men and their hips, therefore, create greater angles relative to the position of their legs in many situations. If you sleep on your side - particularly the same side every night - you may find yourself with some hip pain the next morning. The pain you would feel is again an over-stretching of tissues on the outer portion of the hip, so don’t try to stretch these. Rather get up and walk around for a bit then try to balance for a few seconds at a time on alternate legs. This should help to work it out some. You get to use the pillow trick again for hip pain, but in this case, you want to put the pillow between your knees while you lie on your side so that your top leg is slightly elevated. This will help to align your leg more properly with your hip.
Knee Injury: The knee injury is tricky. Mostly because there are so many ways to hurt the knee that it is hard to identify a sleep injury of the knee. Again, pay attention to the time of day that the pain occurs most often and with the greatest intensity. If it is early in the morning when you first try to get out of bed, the culprit may be your sleeping position. Knee sleep injuries occur when your thigh is somehow braced and your lower leg hangs limp in a direction other than the natural bend of the knee. This can happen if you sleep on your side and one leg sits atop the other with the bottom leg bent or if you sleep on your stomach and one leg ends up extending off the side or end of the bed. The result will be a general ache in the sides or back of the knee again from over-stretching. Try to walk around a little until the pain goes away and to avoid this problem the next night, try using the same pillow trick you would with hip pain, or just make sure that both knees sit on the bed at about the same height.
Fortunately your body is usually pretty good at avoiding injury while you are asleep. If you are in an awkward position, you may just wake up or your body will move itself to avoid the continued stretch. If you are particularly exhausted for some reason or if you fall asleep under the influence of depressants (alcohol) your body may not be aware enough to adjust your positioning. And as some of us know, you can potentially sleep in any number of awkward situations when severely under the influence. Most sleep injuries wont last more than a few days and will go away on their own, but if your positioning continues, the injury may become more chronic and cause continued pain during other activities. In these cases the various pillow and positioning remedies I have given should help alleviate the problem. But, if the pain still wont go away - of course, see your doctor.
Sleep injuries can most commonly happen in the neck, back, shoulders, knees, hips and under some circumstances even the feet. Do you see a trend here? Almost any joint can be the site for a sleep injury and it mostly depends upon what position you slept in that night. Each type of injury is similar in that the height of pain is early in the morning - when you get up and try to move the afflicted body part. Also, this injury can affect other activities. A hip or knees sleep injury can bother you while running or walking whereas the neck and back injury makes it hard to turn around or even sit up. Sleep injuries usually work themselves out because your body eventually recognizes that it is in the wrong position and will correct the situation in the next night or two. Some like knee and shoulder injuries could last a little longer, however. The important thing to remember about a sleep injury is to recognize it as such and try to avert the problem in the future. Each type of sleep injury has a particular cause and it’s own simple method for alleviating the pain in the future.
Physiologists have figured out that the anatomically correct position to sleep in would be lying on one’s back with their head elevated about 4 to six inches and their knees bent upward about 8 inches. Physiologists are silly - no one sleeps like this. We sleep on our backs with our arms over our head, or on our side in some sort of fetal position or totally on our stomach with our head turned to one side or any other number of awkward and sometimes alcohol induced positions. Under normal circumstances these positions should have no affect on the physical structures of your body if you are comfortable when you fall asleep. However, if your body is unable to obtain a restful sleep position because of stress or discomfort it may try to alter your position slightly in adverse directions for your joints. Identifying the type and likely cause of a sleep injury is the best way to avert the problem the next night.
Each injury has its own cause(s) and, therefore has its own simple treatment. Remember, any sleep injury will induce the most pain in the morning. It may even take you a few moments before you can get out of bed at all. Sometimes these injuries may be associated with mild numbness of the extremities as well. I’ll go through each common type of sleep injury and simple ways to alleviate the pain but if you try these methods and pain persists, consider talking to your doctor or accepting the possibility that you don’t have a sleep injury at all but rather the pain is caused by some other means.
Neck Injury: I’ve already described a typical neck injury in the first paragraph. This is one of the more common sleep injuries and, fortunately, often one that manages to handle itself within a few days without any changes made by the sufferer. Neck injuries are usually caused when your head gets in an awkward position relative to your torso. This can happen if you sleep on unnatural surfaces like on a chair or couch or in a car for instance or if your head happens to be in an odd position in bed. If your head is elevated too far from your shoulder in any direction or if it is turned too far from center relative to the natural flexibility of your body, this over-stretched position could cause pain if the position is maintained over time (like several hours of sleep). Neck injuries in bed could be caused by a new pillow or a pillow that is too low or high in the first place. Or, if you sleep on your stomach, it could be the result of just turning your head too far to the side. In any case, try adjusting the size or number of pillows under your head and if you sleep on your stomach, try putting a pillow under the arm and should which lie on the same side as your face.
Shoulder Injury: A sleep shoulder injury will usually cause pain in the back or top of the shoulder joint and sometimes slightly down the back of your arm. This can come from one of two probable reasons. First, if you have a tendency to sleep on your back, and your arm ends up over your head for the night, this could cause compression in the joint capsule between a couple bones. If you were to hold this position for a few minutes, it may not feel like much but after several hours, your shoulder will have had enough and it will tell you in the morning. Another position which can cause shoulder injury is lying on either your side or your stomach with your arm turned over in front of your body such that the shoulder capsule is stretched rather than pinched. Both result in a similar pain, however, and the important thing to remember is that these tissues have likely been over-stretched so don’t try to stretch them more when you get up in the morning. Rather, try moving the arms up and down and out to the side slowly to allow the arm to warm up then add a little weight to the movement with cans of food or rocks or weights - anything slightly heavy. If the weight hurts, stop moving that way. To avoid the same situation try hugging a pillow when you go to sleep. This should keep you from rolling onto your arm in the first place.
Back Injury: A back injury will usually happen if your whole body is somehow twisted. If by some odd movement your torso faces one way and your legs face another, your back muscles will try to stabilize your spine and they will get tired by the time the night is over. This, of course, is painful. If you have a back sleep injury, you can attempt to stretch it mildly but it would be helpful to warm-up a bit first. To avoid the back injury, hug a pillow like you might for a shoulder injury but to keep your legs from flailing, try putting a pillow down under or between your legs as well. This should keep you from twisting into the odd position again.
Hip Injury: Hip sleep injuries are most common in women for anatomical reasons. Adult women have wider hips than men and their hips, therefore, create greater angles relative to the position of their legs in many situations. If you sleep on your side - particularly the same side every night - you may find yourself with some hip pain the next morning. The pain you would feel is again an over-stretching of tissues on the outer portion of the hip, so don’t try to stretch these. Rather get up and walk around for a bit then try to balance for a few seconds at a time on alternate legs. This should help to work it out some. You get to use the pillow trick again for hip pain, but in this case, you want to put the pillow between your knees while you lie on your side so that your top leg is slightly elevated. This will help to align your leg more properly with your hip.
Knee Injury: The knee injury is tricky. Mostly because there are so many ways to hurt the knee that it is hard to identify a sleep injury of the knee. Again, pay attention to the time of day that the pain occurs most often and with the greatest intensity. If it is early in the morning when you first try to get out of bed, the culprit may be your sleeping position. Knee sleep injuries occur when your thigh is somehow braced and your lower leg hangs limp in a direction other than the natural bend of the knee. This can happen if you sleep on your side and one leg sits atop the other with the bottom leg bent or if you sleep on your stomach and one leg ends up extending off the side or end of the bed. The result will be a general ache in the sides or back of the knee again from over-stretching. Try to walk around a little until the pain goes away and to avoid this problem the next night, try using the same pillow trick you would with hip pain, or just make sure that both knees sit on the bed at about the same height.
Fortunately your body is usually pretty good at avoiding injury while you are asleep. If you are in an awkward position, you may just wake up or your body will move itself to avoid the continued stretch. If you are particularly exhausted for some reason or if you fall asleep under the influence of depressants (alcohol) your body may not be aware enough to adjust your positioning. And as some of us know, you can potentially sleep in any number of awkward situations when severely under the influence. Most sleep injuries wont last more than a few days and will go away on their own, but if your positioning continues, the injury may become more chronic and cause continued pain during other activities. In these cases the various pillow and positioning remedies I have given should help alleviate the problem. But, if the pain still wont go away - of course, see your doctor.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
A Necessary Warm-Up
Getting a proper warm-up before physical activity is one of the most essential facets of an exercise routine or any other labor intensive endeavor. Although many people consider a warm-up a waste of time, properly initiating activity for your body can help your performance in sport, reduce the likelihood of injury during activity, encourage proper utilization of nutrients and body energy and even in a severe extreme, save your life. Warming up your body is a fairly simple procedure and can be accomplished many different ways but the simple inclusion of a warm-up to your activity can have immeasurable benefit.
The definition of a warm-up is just what it sounds - an slight increasing in body temperature. This is accomplished by simply moving around for a little bit before tackling the task at hand. In some sports like baseball and golf for instance, an athlete will not only warm-up before starting a match but also during the match. Have you ever seen either one of these athletes take a practice swing before attempting to connect with the ball? This quick little practice is going to increase their body temperature very slightly but more importantly for them it is also initiating an musculo-neurologic (muscle and nerve) memory pattern. Warming up is also necessary for loosening stiff and tightened tissues both within joints and your blood and lymphatic vessels. Finally warming up can help to encourage passage of essential nutrients and water in and out of your cells to keep up their energy and enable your body to work at a higher level longer.
Types of Warm-Up:
Cardiovascular - A cardiovascular warm up is simply a method of gradually increasing your body’s temperature, breathing patterns and heart rate to a level elevated above rest enough to allow you to safely perform exercise. This is probably the most common warm up in a gym or fitness setting as cardiovascular equipment is usually readily available. To achieve cardiovascular warm-up simply initiate movement (biking, jogging, rowing, swimming, elliptical) at an easy pace for five to ten minutes or until your body feels loose. Don’t attack the machine right away. Rather ease into the exercise starting at a slow pace and slowly increase your intensity until your breathing, heart rate, and body temperature have risen.
Stretching - Stretching can be used as a warm up as long as the body is not too cold initially. Dancers, athletes, and even heavy laborers will often use a mild stretch to get their body ready to tackle the coming activity. Both static and dynamic stretching are acceptable means of warming up the body, although the dynamic method may take a little less time because of the greater amount of energy needed to engage in a dynamic stretch. (See “Is Stretching Necessary?” in February of ’08 for more information on types of stretching.) When stretching for a warm-up, like the cardiovascular method, the initial stretch should be mild and should gradually increase in intensity as your body adjusts to the activity. Be sure to stretch the parts of the body which you intend to use, as a simple stretch of body parts unrelated to your endeavor won’t be as productive. A static stretch warm-up will usually last about 10 to 20 minutes depending on the ensuing activity and a dynamic stretch will require between 5 and 15 minutes for a proper warm-up.
NOTE: Some professionals will distinguish between stretching and calisthenics for warming up, but in this context, mild calisthenics falls under the dynamic stretching category.
Breathing and Meditating - These methods of warm-up are derived from eastern practices like yoga and martial arts and may be a bit more difficult to engage for satisfactory results. It is possible to increase one’s breathing, heart rate, and even your body temperature through sheer concentration and methodical breathing methods, but again, this is a skill unto itself and is not usually successful without proper training. If you are capable of proper meditation or pranayama yoga, you can use these energies as a successful warm up but it may take 15 minutes or more. Many people who engage in such eastern practices find them to be the most soothing manner of initiating a new activity, but they are not for everyone.
Benefits of a Warm-Up:
Musculo-skeletal (muscles and bones) - In a sedentary state, the one part of our body that possibly gets the most rest is our structure. Our muscles require an incredible amount of our internal energy to enact movement and, naturally, more aggressive or intense movements increase that energy expenditure. Therefore, when our muscles don’t have to do anything, they don’t. Neither do the tendons, ligaments, and other soft tissues associate with our physical internal structure. Because they are relatively inactive in a resting state, they are not prepared to immediately initiate high intensity movement. Muscles and other structural soft tissues in your joints and along your bones require great amounts of fluid and lubrication as well - much like the moving parts of a car. When active, these tissues are flooded with lubrication and energy to keep the body moving. When inactive, however, imagine these tissues as a sponge that sits on the side of your sink - when it’s not being used, it slowly dries out and becomes brittle - so too do our tissues. To warm-up the sponge we need simply to run it through water. To warm-up our muscular and connective tissues, we need to engage in one of the three aforementioned methods. Imagine how that sponge would feel if you tried to wash a cheese grater without putting some water on it first? This is how your joints feel without the proper warm-up, and they’ll let you know by aching later.
Neuro-muscular (muscles and nerves) - In order for our body to work, your muscles must be in constant communication with your nerves and your control centers in your brain and spinal column. If you are going to engage in a task of skill in which the motions of the task are unnatural or require practiced precision, a warm-up will be necessary to initiate and enhance proper neuro-muscular pathways. This is one reason a baseball player and golfer will take a few practice swings before attacking the ball. Other activities require similar nervous stimulation: just about any sport, dance, or labor which will require a good deal of physical control. You may not need a warm up to pick up a pencil, but its a good idea to warm up if you are going to repeatedly lift and carry bags of concrete for instance. And remember, if you were in a resting state before tackling the activity, your muscles are in a state of lethargy anyhow so they need a little kick start.
Cardio-vascular (heart and blood vessels) This is where a warm-up can be life saving. As we age, all of the tissues in our body lose their structural integrity to some extent. Our soft tissues become harder, and our hard tissues become softer and more brittle. It is just the way nature takes its toll on your body over the years. Some of the soft tissues in your body make up your heart and blood vessels. These too will naturally harden as you get older. If you combine this natural hardening with the additional stiffening and blockage caused by excessive cholesterol you could have a small bomb waiting to go off in your body. If you increase your blood pressure too quickly by engaging in severe activity without warming up, this fragile point in your blood vessels may not be able to take the strain and could rupture. This, of course, is not good. However, even if you do have a blockage of some sort in your arteries, a nice, slow warm up will help the stiff tissues loosen and decrease the chance of an increase in blood pressure causing a rupture. If you are elderly, or are at risk for blood pressure related maladies, discuss with your doctor the necessary precautions for starting an exercise program. A good cardio-vascular warm up could take 10 minutes or more if you are in a risk category.
Cellular - This benefit was discussed in relation to both muscle tissue and heart and vessel tissue. A good warm-up promotes fluid and nutrient exchange within our cells. This exchange is vital to keep our joints lubricate, our nerves communicating, our muscles moving, and our heart, vessels, and lungs flexible to the onset of a new activity. Every change in our body happens at a cellular level and your whole body is of course made of cells. This means that every part of your body benefits from a warm-up.
The last thing to note about a warm-up is that it has to be in immediate proximity to the activity in which you will be partaking. You can’t warm up at home then drive to the gym and expect it to still be effective. Your body is too quick to recover and much of your tissue will have returned to it’s dry sponge state from sitting in the car. A warm-up needs to occur immediately before the exercise. Different people find they require different amounts of time to warm up. The recommended time frame is 5 minutes for most activity, but I personally like 10 because I feel my body is not yet ready to perform optimally with 5 minutes. Some people who have chronic pain or other conditions may feel best from a full 15 to 20 minute warm up such that they are nearly sweating before even beginning the task at hand. In general, you can’t warm-up too much as long as your temperature increase is mild and gradual. You can easily, however, not warm-up enough or, heaven forbid, not at all...
The definition of a warm-up is just what it sounds - an slight increasing in body temperature. This is accomplished by simply moving around for a little bit before tackling the task at hand. In some sports like baseball and golf for instance, an athlete will not only warm-up before starting a match but also during the match. Have you ever seen either one of these athletes take a practice swing before attempting to connect with the ball? This quick little practice is going to increase their body temperature very slightly but more importantly for them it is also initiating an musculo-neurologic (muscle and nerve) memory pattern. Warming up is also necessary for loosening stiff and tightened tissues both within joints and your blood and lymphatic vessels. Finally warming up can help to encourage passage of essential nutrients and water in and out of your cells to keep up their energy and enable your body to work at a higher level longer.
Types of Warm-Up:
Cardiovascular - A cardiovascular warm up is simply a method of gradually increasing your body’s temperature, breathing patterns and heart rate to a level elevated above rest enough to allow you to safely perform exercise. This is probably the most common warm up in a gym or fitness setting as cardiovascular equipment is usually readily available. To achieve cardiovascular warm-up simply initiate movement (biking, jogging, rowing, swimming, elliptical) at an easy pace for five to ten minutes or until your body feels loose. Don’t attack the machine right away. Rather ease into the exercise starting at a slow pace and slowly increase your intensity until your breathing, heart rate, and body temperature have risen.
Stretching - Stretching can be used as a warm up as long as the body is not too cold initially. Dancers, athletes, and even heavy laborers will often use a mild stretch to get their body ready to tackle the coming activity. Both static and dynamic stretching are acceptable means of warming up the body, although the dynamic method may take a little less time because of the greater amount of energy needed to engage in a dynamic stretch. (See “Is Stretching Necessary?” in February of ’08 for more information on types of stretching.) When stretching for a warm-up, like the cardiovascular method, the initial stretch should be mild and should gradually increase in intensity as your body adjusts to the activity. Be sure to stretch the parts of the body which you intend to use, as a simple stretch of body parts unrelated to your endeavor won’t be as productive. A static stretch warm-up will usually last about 10 to 20 minutes depending on the ensuing activity and a dynamic stretch will require between 5 and 15 minutes for a proper warm-up.
NOTE: Some professionals will distinguish between stretching and calisthenics for warming up, but in this context, mild calisthenics falls under the dynamic stretching category.
Breathing and Meditating - These methods of warm-up are derived from eastern practices like yoga and martial arts and may be a bit more difficult to engage for satisfactory results. It is possible to increase one’s breathing, heart rate, and even your body temperature through sheer concentration and methodical breathing methods, but again, this is a skill unto itself and is not usually successful without proper training. If you are capable of proper meditation or pranayama yoga, you can use these energies as a successful warm up but it may take 15 minutes or more. Many people who engage in such eastern practices find them to be the most soothing manner of initiating a new activity, but they are not for everyone.
Benefits of a Warm-Up:
Musculo-skeletal (muscles and bones) - In a sedentary state, the one part of our body that possibly gets the most rest is our structure. Our muscles require an incredible amount of our internal energy to enact movement and, naturally, more aggressive or intense movements increase that energy expenditure. Therefore, when our muscles don’t have to do anything, they don’t. Neither do the tendons, ligaments, and other soft tissues associate with our physical internal structure. Because they are relatively inactive in a resting state, they are not prepared to immediately initiate high intensity movement. Muscles and other structural soft tissues in your joints and along your bones require great amounts of fluid and lubrication as well - much like the moving parts of a car. When active, these tissues are flooded with lubrication and energy to keep the body moving. When inactive, however, imagine these tissues as a sponge that sits on the side of your sink - when it’s not being used, it slowly dries out and becomes brittle - so too do our tissues. To warm-up the sponge we need simply to run it through water. To warm-up our muscular and connective tissues, we need to engage in one of the three aforementioned methods. Imagine how that sponge would feel if you tried to wash a cheese grater without putting some water on it first? This is how your joints feel without the proper warm-up, and they’ll let you know by aching later.
Neuro-muscular (muscles and nerves) - In order for our body to work, your muscles must be in constant communication with your nerves and your control centers in your brain and spinal column. If you are going to engage in a task of skill in which the motions of the task are unnatural or require practiced precision, a warm-up will be necessary to initiate and enhance proper neuro-muscular pathways. This is one reason a baseball player and golfer will take a few practice swings before attacking the ball. Other activities require similar nervous stimulation: just about any sport, dance, or labor which will require a good deal of physical control. You may not need a warm up to pick up a pencil, but its a good idea to warm up if you are going to repeatedly lift and carry bags of concrete for instance. And remember, if you were in a resting state before tackling the activity, your muscles are in a state of lethargy anyhow so they need a little kick start.
Cardio-vascular (heart and blood vessels) This is where a warm-up can be life saving. As we age, all of the tissues in our body lose their structural integrity to some extent. Our soft tissues become harder, and our hard tissues become softer and more brittle. It is just the way nature takes its toll on your body over the years. Some of the soft tissues in your body make up your heart and blood vessels. These too will naturally harden as you get older. If you combine this natural hardening with the additional stiffening and blockage caused by excessive cholesterol you could have a small bomb waiting to go off in your body. If you increase your blood pressure too quickly by engaging in severe activity without warming up, this fragile point in your blood vessels may not be able to take the strain and could rupture. This, of course, is not good. However, even if you do have a blockage of some sort in your arteries, a nice, slow warm up will help the stiff tissues loosen and decrease the chance of an increase in blood pressure causing a rupture. If you are elderly, or are at risk for blood pressure related maladies, discuss with your doctor the necessary precautions for starting an exercise program. A good cardio-vascular warm up could take 10 minutes or more if you are in a risk category.
Cellular - This benefit was discussed in relation to both muscle tissue and heart and vessel tissue. A good warm-up promotes fluid and nutrient exchange within our cells. This exchange is vital to keep our joints lubricate, our nerves communicating, our muscles moving, and our heart, vessels, and lungs flexible to the onset of a new activity. Every change in our body happens at a cellular level and your whole body is of course made of cells. This means that every part of your body benefits from a warm-up.
The last thing to note about a warm-up is that it has to be in immediate proximity to the activity in which you will be partaking. You can’t warm up at home then drive to the gym and expect it to still be effective. Your body is too quick to recover and much of your tissue will have returned to it’s dry sponge state from sitting in the car. A warm-up needs to occur immediately before the exercise. Different people find they require different amounts of time to warm up. The recommended time frame is 5 minutes for most activity, but I personally like 10 because I feel my body is not yet ready to perform optimally with 5 minutes. Some people who have chronic pain or other conditions may feel best from a full 15 to 20 minute warm up such that they are nearly sweating before even beginning the task at hand. In general, you can’t warm-up too much as long as your temperature increase is mild and gradual. You can easily, however, not warm-up enough or, heaven forbid, not at all...
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