I’m lucky…I’m down in Colorado getting some natural Vitamin D from the sunshine before heading back to Toronto’s cold weather winter.

As you know, the gloomy, overcast, rainy days of winter can take their toll on our emotional and mental health. There is a reason why the long days of summer seem to fly by but the short days of winter seem to drag on forever.

Take the example of a friend of mine. She grew up just outside of Vancouver British Columbia and as beautiful as it may be there, they get more than their fair share of gloomy, rainy days, especially in the winter months. She found a number of ways to hep make the days brighter and the blah months cheerier.

Shauna has always been very into health and fitness so making a change in her diet and workout regime wasn’t necessary. In fact, her lifestyle is likely what prevented her from being even more down in the dumps.

She did however make some changes in other areas. Her Doctor gave her some valuable advice and tips that she used to her full advantage. First of all, Shauna was advised on how crucial relationships could be on these dreary days of winter. She was told how uplifting a walk and chat with a good friend or loved one would be. It helped.

He explained the role of vitamin D and UVB rays. She took a good look at her diet and added in a Vitamin D supplement. She took advantage of sunny days and even spent a little time in a tanning bed, responsibly and in moderation of course.

He also told her to pay attention to her sleep cycle. She was instructed to make time for sleep and place it as a priority just as much as a workout or a meal would be. All of these factors made a big difference.

By making a few changes in your daily routine, you can beat those winter blahs and feel better during the cold, blustery months. Before you know it, those spring flowers will be popping up everywhere and you’ll be ready to break out the shorts and tank tops.

Social Support

Valued friendships and supportive family members should never be underestimated. In these days of email and texting, face to face contact seems to have been devalued, but it’s crucial to the state of your mental health.

Think about those days when everything seems to go wrong. Doesn’t it feel better to vent about your frustrations to a good friend that can offer some understanding or even just an open ear? The key is to fill your life with positive, happy people. If your so called support system consists of nothing but draining, negative individuals, that will zap your energy and do nothing but bring you down.

When you’re feeling down in the dumps, it’s natural to feel like you want to be alone. By ignoring that urge and placing yourself in a positive, social situation, you will likely emerge from that blah feeling and feel much more uplifted. You’ll snap out of it so to speak.

One of the best options for a quick pick me up is to call a good friend and go out for a nice brisk walk. Not only will you get the conversation you need, you’ll be exercising at the same time. If it’s a sunny day, that’s even better.

Vitamin D and Sunshine

The short, sometimes gloomy days of winter leave us all craving some sunshine. The lack of exposure to the suns rays, can pose certain health disturbances both mental and physical.

Vitamin D is an important nutrient that is obtained through both diet and exposure to sunlight. A sufficient supply of vitamin D has been shown to increase serotonin levels and decrease the production of stress hormones while regulating other important neurotransmitters like dopamine and adrenaline. All of these factors contribute to balancing mood and keeping spirits up.

There are very few foods that are rich in Vitamin D, which can make it challenging to consume the necessary requirements. This is why it is important to take advantage of those sunny days, no matter how few or far between.

If you live north of Atlanta Georgia however, even constant exposure to the sun will not allow for the production of Vitamin D in the winter months. This makes it even more crucial to ensure plenty of exposure during the summer. Ten to fifteen minutes of sunlight exposure, without the use of sunscreen, three to four times a week will allow for the necessary production and storage of Vitamin D all year.

During the winter months, or even the summer if you live in a particularly cloudy, rainy part of the world, it is important to consume as much Vitamin D rich foods as possible like fatty fish and fortified milk and cereals.

Although tanning beds have received negative press, they may be useful for some people in the winter months, especially those that are susceptible to depression. If used responsibly and moderately, a tanning bed that offers UVB rays will produce Vitamin D and help stave off the blues.

Last but not least, the sunny days just seem more cheerful than the grey, overcast days. Nature looks prettier and people tend to just smile more. Even a sunny smile from a stranger can brighten a person’s day.

Sleep

Sleep is crucial to our mental and physical well being. A good, quality sleep allows for the necessary recovery and rejuvenation of our mind, body and soul. It has been proven time and again that consistent sleep deprivation can lead to a number of ailments including heart disease, cancer, weight gain, and rapid aging.

Aside from the big health scares, sleep deprivation can also make you irritable, lethargic, weak and unfocused. Add this to a gloomy sight outside your window and it’s a recipe for the blahs. Most experts agree that we need seven to nine hours of quality sleep a night for it to have the necessary restorative effect.

While this may not be possible every single night of your life, it’s best to get into a habit of making sleep a priority. Shut down the TV, emails, facebook and twitter and get into a pre bedtime routine to make falling asleep an easy process.

Exercise

As if there aren’t already a million reasons to participate in a regular exercise program, now you can make it a million and one. Exercise has been shown to potentially be as promising a treatment for depression and anxiety as antidepressant medication.

In a scientific sense, exercise eases the symptoms of depression by releasing the ‘feel good’ brain chemicals like serotonin, dopamine and endorphins. It also boots the immune system. A weak immune system can exacerbate symptoms of depression.

Exercise also helps regulate hormones including stress hormones, aids in digestion and proper circulation and acts as a wake up call to the metabolism. All of these factors help us to feel better physically and when we feel better physically, we often enjoy a more positive outlook emotionally as well.

On the emotional side of things, a good workout offers a distraction to the worries of the day. If your boss is hounding you, the kids are driving you nuts or you’ve had a big argument with your spouse, working out can give you the change of focus you need, even for a brief amount of time. You can clear your head and gain new perspective.

Using exercise to break through physical limitations you once placed upon yourself can have a very positive impact on self esteem as well. After a heart pounding, muscle ripping workout, you’re likely to leave the gym feeling much better about yourself than when you arrived.

Nutrition

A diet that’s high in unhealthy fats, sodium, sugar and calories will not only leave you looking awful, it will leave you feeling awful as well. Proper, balanced nutrition plays a very big part in keeping spirits up.

Processed foods and salty, sugary snacks wreak havoc on hormones, causing highs and lows that simply add to any existing winter blahs you may be feeling. As always, fresh, whole, real foods will need to be the meat of your diet if you hope to keep depression at bay.

Carbohydrates have long been known to aid in the release of the feel good neurotransmitter, serotonin. Whole grains, rice, potatoes, yams and pasta will keep serotonin flowing. Of course consuming these foods in moderation is imperative. You won’t feel any better about life if you pack on a spare tire from too many potatoes and too much spaghetti.

Omega 3 fats should also be a staple in your diet (try this source). These precious fats that are found in fish, seafood, avocados, nuts, olive and flax seed oil have been shown to play an important role in the brain. A diet rich in Omega 3 fats may increase the volume of grey matter, particularly the part of the brain that affects mood, impulsivity and emotion.

Stock up on salmon, tuna, mackerel, sardines, oysters, raw nuts, olive oil and flax seed oil for a brighter day.

In Summary

Winters are long, but they don’t have to be miserable. Enjoy some sunshine, even if it is man made, keep up with the high energy workouts even on the days you’d rather stay in bed, fill up on real food, chat with a good friend and get some shut eye. These simple things will keep the blahs away and maybe the Doctor too.

My personal request to you is that you do NOT do the same. Lord knows I’ve tried, and I keep trying, to change her.

Fortunately, we’ve made some progress on her health, but not enough. I buy healthy food when I’m home, and while she knows better, she still eats the junk. Ice cream in the freezer, chocolate bars around the house (and also in the
freezer). Her Achilles heal is night eating. Might it be yours too?

Years of inactivity and bad nutrition have taken a toll on her health. During my last visit I found a manual for a cardiac-rehab program on her kitchen counter. Ouch.

Hopefully that means she is getting more exercise, but I really need her to change her diet. You know why?

Most people don’t realize this, but diet is more important than exercise for cardiovascular health and fat loss.

So what I’ve done is gone and ordered her some supplements for the New Year. These essentials will help her take some big steps to a better diet.

1) Healthy Recipes

My mom loves to cook, and if she just made some small  changes to classic recipes, she could enjoy her favorite foods and I’d know that she was eating well.

So I ordered her this recipe book.

It was less than 5 bucks.

2) Daily EFA Protection

Everyone, even my mom, knows that fish oils are an essential part of a healthy diet.

But research suggests this specific type of essential fatty acid is even healthier. So I bought her a monthly supply of this EFA protection that is renewed each month, that way she doesn’t forget to restock her cupboard.

3) Daily Greens Drink

You would have to spend as much as $40 every day in fruits and vegetables alone to equal the antioxidant power found  in a daily dosage of this amazing drink. I think this could be the most important addition to her diet.

4) Daily Whey Protein

Yes, my mom’s going to be hitting the whey protein, but for a different reason than you might expect.

After all, she gets plenty of protein at lunch and dinner, BUT protein has been shown to reduce appetite, so hopefully this will help her cut back on the dreaded night eating.

These three supplements plus the healthy recipes should allow her to make a dramatic improvement in her health.

It will bring down her high-blood pressure, help her sleep better, reduce her joint pain (she’s got hip, wrist,  shoulder AND knee problems), and give her more energy.

In addition to this new nutrition plan, and any extra exercise ol’ Bally the Dog can provide her every time he  stays over at her house while I’m traveling, she also has
one big factor supporting her health.

That one big thing she is her social and an abundance of  positive relationships. It’s tough to say for sure how long good people and hobbies can extend a life, but I’m hoping those combined with modern medicine will help her live even
longer than her own mother (who lived to be 85).

It’s all a big unknown. But what we do know is that she’s moving to a new house this year and the building project will keep her busy – and excited.

I believe she can live to be late 80′s or even 90 if I can just get her to change her diet and toss the junk.

So that’s my little personal soap opera.

Now before we go, I want to repeat my personal request to you.

Please take care of yourself and stick to the healthiest nutrition plan you can. Please, that is all that I ask.

In fact, on Christmas Eve, I posted on Twitter that all I wanted for Christmas was for my readers to eat more
green vegetables.

And I’m serious. Nutrition is as powerful as drugs. Even more powerful, in many cases.

What you eat is so important for both fat loss and long-term health…so make it a goal to have the best nutrition you can in 2012 and for the rest of your life.

Your body and your family will thank you for it.

Sincerely,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Certified Turbulence Trainer

Today Dr. Michael Sommers helps us to recognize some of the symptoms we need to start paying attention to that can cause low back pain..

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CRAIG BALLANTYNE: The last thing I’ll ask you about, because I know you’ve got to run off and take the little guy to the doctor.  But low back same as what we just talked about with the shoulder blades, proper posture and lifting technique.

MICHAEL SOMMERS: I was going to get into this a second ago with trying to understand – how do you know when there’s a problem?  How does anybody know when there’s an injury developing?  And what I hear in the clinic day in and day out – someone comes in, major low back pain.  How did it happen?  We’re talking about someone like yourself, someone with a lot of muscle, a really fit guy.  How did this happen?  I’m sure listeners out there will have had this experience.

Reached down to put a sock on.  That’s how the injury happened.  That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense at first glance if you don’t know anything about the physiology.  You could understand it if you were lifting a truck tire or you’re carrying an old fridge out of your house and you lost your balance.  That’s an obvious huge stimulus, huge load for the low back to take.  But why the sock situation?  Why is it so common that someone reaches down for something completely what would seem totally innocuous and then we have this massive pain cascade that takes hold after that?

And the reason is that people aren’t aware of the signs and symptoms of a problem building.  And inevitably when I ask the person, “Was there anything leading up to this?”  Sometimes they say, “No, no,” at first.  But when we probe a little bit what you find is that their body had been talking to them before that.  They had been stiff and achy a few times over the week and it had kind of been getting a little bit worse but it didn’t seem out of the ordinary.

If you’re feeling anything out of the ordinary like stiff and achy, especially in your low back, and there’s not really a reason for it that’s a problem developing.  That means that over the course of your day there’s something happening.

Whatever position you’re taking, whether it’s in your office chair, whether it’s in the gym, whether it’s the way you’re running, if it’s how you’re picking up your kid, you’re a carpenter and you do things a particular way, you’re a teacher and you have to sit.

Whatever it is, there’s some kind of mechanism that’s leading us to a pathology.  Something isn’t being done right.   Your body is not being used properly.  And there is slow, what we call creep is the term we use in the muscle tissue, because something is happening to create a creeping of the tissue where it’s either elongating or it’s being pulled in a direction it doesn’t want to go in.  And that’s what that feeling is that you’re getting.

So for those of you out there, if you’re starting to feel tight and tender in the back of the shoulder – and we didn’t get a chance to talk about your elbow too – if there are little twinges happening in your elbow, don’t ignore those things.  Craig, you’re great at noticing these things.  And it takes some body awareness.  That’s not easy.  But you have to learn to listen to your body.  You have to learn to say, “Okay, this is an issue.  It’s out of the ordinary.  I need to have someone who knows what they’re doing just evaluate it quickly.”

If it’s gone within 24 hours and you never feel it again maybe it was a one-off.  That happens.  On the other hand, if it’s developing, if it’s becoming in any way more severe, more intense, more frequent you need to take action on that.  And if you don’t, more often than not it’s an overuse injury and it’s going to become something that is not only more painful but will take longer to get rid of and will be generally a bigger pain in your rear end. So with low back stuff I hear that all the time.  Tight and tender.

And getting back to the question about what is it about position or posture, most of the time it just has to do with the fact that the person has some kid of faulty mechanics.  It comes down to what the shape of their spine is that they inherited from their mom and dad, and how that spine is impacted by what they’re doing from day to day.  Lots of people looking for, “What are the best stretches, what are the best core exercises for low back?”

And my answer is it depends.  It depends on how you’re shaped.  It depends on what that back goes through from day to day.  And if you understand how those two relate then you can create a program specific to that person, whether it involves more glute firing which I find that I do with almost everyone.

There are some people out there that don’t need that, but by and large we live in what I call a useless glute society where because of sitting or for whatever – and that’s probably the number one reason – our ability to take the load of our bodies, for our glute fibers to take that load, which they’re very well designed for if you understand the anatomy, we’re very bad at doing that.  We don’t know how to use our glutes to take up the force.

And if you watch anyone, like yourself who knows a lot about training, you’ll see their glutes are a massive, massive contributor to most of the lower body, and even a lot of the upper body exercises they’re doing.  So that’s another piece of advice that I would have for everyone out there, is try to get your glutes involved as much as possible.  Have someone who you know who knows what they’re doing have a look at how you’re training, and if it’s being done in a safe way that will allow you to train for many years to come.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE: That’s perfect.  I really appreciate it.  And it shows what I’m trying to say with most people is that most exercises are total body exercises and not isolation in themselves.  So thanks again, Dr. Sommers.  We can definitely have another chat another time.  We’re going to get a lot of questions back.  But I really appreciate your time.  So again, thank you.

MICHAEL SOMMERS:  My pleasure, Craig.  And I look forward to talking to you again.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE: Okay, great.  And everyone, if you are in Toronto, again, visit Dr. Sommers at EvolveChiropractic.com.  And until next month this is Craig Ballantyne from TurbulenceTraining.com.  Bye-bye everyone.

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CRAIG BALLANTYNE:  Now let’s go back and talk about the treatment methods that A, an end user should be looking for in their community or B, what a trainer should be referring their clients out to.  So you do the ART.

We can also maybe talk a little bit about acupuncture, what goes on with that, and anything else you want to mention.  And then we’ll also talk a little bit about the foam rolling self-massage that we can do for ourselves.

MICHAEL SOMMERS: ART is really, right now, I think unparalleled in terms of its effectiveness for treating muscle injury, even at the micro injury level where we see the most common things, the little dysfunction that’s happening in muscles where that strength isn’t there.

And normally what that is, is the cross bridges that make up your muscles – the muscles, of course, made up of the two filaments, the actin and the myosin – and what makes that muscle fire are those cross bridges.

And if there isn’t a clean setting for that to happen, if there’s scar tissue buildup or blood buildup or you’re not getting the kind of oxygenation in there you’re not going to have a clean firing.  You’re not going to be able to train well.

So that’s where ART really comes in.  And it’s one of these things that once it became more popular people started hearing about it.  It’s what athletes are looking for.  It’s a little bit strenuous and painful on us clinicians who use it.  It’s hard on our thumbs, but it really helps the athlete population and that makes it fun for us to do.

So that in combination – acupuncture also can be really helpful.  In some situations, again, if there’s scar tissue buildup and especially if there’s a problem with the nerve firing to the area, there is a lot of success with using acupuncture for muscle injuries.  I don’t have as much experience with that myself, but that is something that people also go to and I’ve heard pretty good success stories about.

And then lastly, the foam roller is a fantastic way for everybody at home, people just training and who daily want to make sure that there’s good blood flow to the muscle tissue and that you’re not getting that scar tissue buildup.  The question after this really is how do you know when you’re getting that?

And we can talk about that in a second, but with a foam roller what you’re doing is you’re providing a very deep fascial and myofascial kind of friction and pressure over the course of the entire muscle belly of the tissue.  And that’s hard to do to yourself  if you don’t have a foam roller.  It’s not going to be as deep and as specific as something like ART, but on a regular self-maintenance kind of basis I don’t think you can beat a foam roller for trying to keep muscle tissue as healthy as possible.

These are tissues that have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to be able to do a lot of work.  And they’re used to a lot of work.  In our modern society we don’t work them as much as maybe – those of you out there who are training a lot, you are getting that kind of work done, but for the average office chair athlete it’s a different story.

So it’s one of those things where it just brings a really needed dose of friction and release to some tissue where you could have a bit of scar tissue building up, especially if you’re training hard.

So that’s a great thing to do.  It’s pretty expensive.  You can do it almost anywhere.  You just need to be able to lie on the floor, have a surface to roll around on.  Especially if you’ve got a bench with you where you can throw your arm up on that and use some weight against it.  And sometimes you have to be a bit creative, but you can use almost any muscle with a foam roller.  And anyone who’s used one will tell you it hurts.  But it always feels good after.  So in that sense, it’s a lot like ART.  Maybe a little bit less specific and a little less deep, but pretty effective nonetheless I think.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE: So I guess one of the common aspects of both acupuncture, ART and even the foam rolling have in common is they’re getting blood flow to the tissue.  What’s the different between ART and acupuncture then?  And even with the foam rolling you’re getting pressure on the muscle tissue.  So what’s actually going on there?

MICHAEL SOMMERS: The theory behind acupuncture is that it opens up neural pathways that might be blocked.  And that comes from TCM, from traditional Chinese medicine.  The understanding of how muscle injury happens and what actually is going on at a microscopic level in the tissue is at a pretty young age we don’t know as much about it as we probably should at this point.  We do know really what works in helping to heal muscle tissue, and that’s things like ART and things like acupuncture.  We know a little bit more I would think about ART than we do acupuncture in terms of the microscopic level.

But typically acupuncture deals a bit more with the nervous side, the neural side of things, which is a little bit harder to do.  It can be done with ART, but I think ART has a better targeted approach at the tissue and the fascia itself.

And what I find is when that’s not working I try to combine the ART with an acupuncture regimen and then that seems to be a bit of a shotgun approach attacking all the possible problems.  And we almost always have success with that.  So that’s sort of the difference between those two.

The other thing, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned about why these things seem to work for muscle injury is that we know for sure that direct pressure like ART, especially combined with movement, stimulates cells called fibroblasts.  And these are the cells that are in charge of laying down new muscle tissue.  This is what you want.  Every workout the idea is to create a little bit of damage.  It’s a catabolic process.  The whole point being that the body will adapt to that by laying down bigger, stronger tissue and the end result being a stronger, fitter body.

So that’s the desired end.  We’re actually injuring ourselves purposefully for the purpose of becoming stronger.  And in order for that strength to build we need these fibroblasts to march in there.  When the injury happens they get triggered.  They waltz over and start doing their thing, which is to take the collagen which is provided by Vitamin C in your body.  I’m not sure if your listeners out there are aware of that and the importance of getting Vitamin C.  All we need is Vitamin C and water and fibroblasts and the whole process can happen.

But if there’s a shortage of any of those then the healing is less than optimal.  So that’s one of the other issues.  And hopefully everybody out there is getting their Vitamin C and hydrating properly, and getting the protein needed for that kind of anabolic process for building on top, trying to build a bigger, stronger muscle after that injury takes place.  But I thought I’d mention that too because that’s another factor in the treatment and healing process.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE: Well, that’s really good.  I could talk to you for hours on this.

Click here for part 4, where we are going to talk about low back pain.

Over the next few days I am going to share some tips and advice that a good therapist should give you.

So lets begin…..

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CRAIG BALLANTYNE:  Hey everyone, this is Craig Ballantyne from Turbulence Training.  I am here with a good friend of mine and my chiropractor, Dr. Michael Sommers, who is a chiropractor in Toronto at EvolveChiropractic.com.  So Dr. Sommers, how are you today?

MICHAEL SOMMERS:  I’m doing very well, Craig.  Thanks.  How are you?

CRAIG BALLANTYNE:  Very good, thank you.  Because you gave me a little treatment yesterday I’m in pretty good condition here.  So let us start by talking about – just tell them what you generally treat on me.  A bit of my rotator cuff stuff and then maybe talk a little bit about my forearms.  Eventually we’ll get to some lower back stuff too.

MICHAEL SOMMERS:  Essentially what I find with not just trainers, but anybody training hard, one of the main complaints – and I’m sure a lot of people out there are experiencing these sorts of things, and whether they know about it or not is another thing – is that there’s a lot of overuse injury out there.  And it happens to the best of people, even sometimes when they try to incorporate the best technique that they can.

But essentially, in the case of your shoulders, for instance, you train really hard.  And unless your muscle balance is absolutely perfect some tissues will end up firing harder than they’re supposed to.  Or maybe the stability of particular joints or muscle groups or bones is not there and we end up with either some kind of microtear where one of the muscles is overused enough that it tears, or worse you could get a sprain or a strain.

One of the great things about ART – a lot of people seem to know about it now – but it’s Active Release Technique and it’s a deep muscle myofascial stripping technique that incorporates movement into the muscle works.  I’ll take a contact on a muscle group of yours.  For instance, we know that external rotators, like with yourself, a lot of people have overuse in the external rotators of their shoulders.  And there’s good reason for that.  It’s because more often than not the scapula are not being stabilized the way that they should be.

So anyway, we end up working a lot on external rotators.  It can be somewhat painful.  But a lot of people, it’s that sort of hurts so good feeling where I’ll take a contact on the muscle.  I’ll ask you to do a movement and while I’ve got the tension on the tissue you’re pulling the muscle through from a position of short to long.

What that does is it breaks up any little scar tissue or kind of agglutination of blood or any other debris that’s in there from an improper healing process.  And hopefully we get that out.

We flush that out and you’re good at hydrating and doing all the other things that you need to do to help the healing process.  If we’ve done that well hopefully you get back to training hard and the muscle works as well as it can.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE: So let’s delve into training.  What are changes that can be made?  First of all, what is the number one mistake that you were talking about with the shoulder blades that people make in their training?  And then what changes can be made within a workout with various exercises or tips that you give, cuing tips, that we can give to people, to ourselves and to our clients to start eliminating some of the stress on the rotator cuff during exercises?

MICHAEL SOMMERS: Without question, I’d say the biggest infraction is poor scapular stabilization.  Shoulder blade not properly anchored in the proper position to perform exercise at a high intensity.

So basically what happens is we get something called scapular excursion.  So the shoulder blade ends up becoming protracted.  That means coming forward and around the torso more than it should be.

It should be anchored back against the rib cage in a posteromedial position we would say anatomically.  But basically back and down.  If it is then you’re going to be able to perform as well as possible.  If it isn’t those 17 muscles that attach to the shoulder blade are going to function from a position of relative weakness.

So the number one infraction for sure is sloppy shoulder blade mechanics, people not anchoring their shoulder blades down.  And as far as cuing people and how we go about helping people train harder and in a safe way is to teach them to what I call set the scapula with every single repetition.  And that does two things.  One, when you do it every repetition it creates a neural link between the brain and the scapula so that you start to do that automatically.

And we know with certain exercise habits and different stretches we’re now seeing that it’s not about how long you do something.  It’s about the number of times a day that you do that thing.  So if we get someone to set that scapula repetitively over the course of a workout there’s a neural link that’s created there, and then hopefully that becomes automized so that it becomes automatic.

So essentially I just cue them to keep the shoulder blade in a position that’s back and down throughout the course of the entire movement pattern.  Most people do find that they’re actually a bit stronger when they do that; to do that you have to use a bit of core stabilization as well because it requires the abdomen to keep in a particular position.

So again, you’re adding more stability to the whole process.

This goes for other lower body issues as well.  When sometimes we have to position the pelvis in a particular way to try and create more power generation and do it safely as well.  But definitely shoulder blade mechanics is something people out there should really be thinking about because that’s how your arm attaches to the rest of your torso.  And if it’s not anchored down in a proper fashion, there’s no way to generate maximum power and there’s no way to even exert yourself at a high rate and do it safely.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE: You know what we need is we need a little referee in there calling shoulder blade infractions in the gym.

MICHAEL SOMMERS:  Totally.  Absolutely, a whistle and striped shorts.  That would be nice.

That’s all for today but join me in part 2 where we discuss the benefits of stretching.

Today, Dr. Berardi share with us one of his methods that he has been using, from his early days, it’s been a critical factor when it comes to fat loss.

Let’s take a look at that is.

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Craig:  You talked about the how you use the struggling periods as a way to go back and look at things and how they have made an impacted on you.  Can you share with us the importance of writing down or recording things? Some people have never done any food journal or even writing their workouts down.

John: Yes, the truth is when I started training I actually kept records because back then I didn’t have a computer, or any of the technology that people have access to now.

So, for me, it was pretty much old school. I used a sharpened number two pencil, and a spiral bound flip notebook, it was good enough for me at the time. I kept records of each workout. I’d weigh myself regularly and enter my weight in my notebook, and I would write my nutrition plan down in the same kind of book so that everything was time correlated.  It was a really primitive way of tracking.

The interesting part but also really sad is when I moved to London, Ontario to do my PhD, I think I was maybe 25 at the time, and I had been keeping records, since I was 18.  I had about seven years of records, when my car was broken into and all my records disappeared. Someone stole all the things out of my car including all of my workout journals. So, I don’t know if there’s a bunch of young punk kids that ended up getting really brawny after stealing my stuff, but nevertheless, I still continued to keep journals after that.

When I keep records I don’t like to make them too complicated; I write it down and let it lie. No judgments associated with it. I am not second guessing myself. I am not asking “Am I doing the perfect stuff?” I find people can paralyze themselves by judging their journal. Whether you keep a personal journal of your thoughts or of your workouts its important just to write it down, then be REFLECT ON IT OVER TIME TO SEE WHAT WORKED AND WHAT HASN’T WORKED.

Usually at the time you write it all down you probably won’t have the clarity of insight to see what’s working but you’ll see it when you look back in retrospect. This is kind of bigger picture stuff, so I don’t know if it’s helping people immediately lose fat, but the idea is you JUST WRITE IT DOWN. It only takes a few seconds every day.

Another trick I have for writing a journal that’s even simpler than writing the stuff down in a notebook is to get a large desktop calendar.  I’m talking the huge calendars with the big blocks for the dates. What I often do for myself, and I recommend it to my clients is just basically keep a nutrition and exercise log on this calendar.

Therefore every day that you’ve successfully completed your workout that on your scheduled or some type of physical activity, whether it’s at the gym, or you went for a walk, you put a slash in one direction. Every day you felt you’ve successfully finished a nutritional good habit, I use habit rather than saying a “perfectly designed diet” you put a check in the opposite direction.

The idea is you basically get a big X mark on the days that you’ve been successful and on the days that you’re not successful there’s either only one slash or no slashes. It gives you a great way at the end of each month to look back and say, “How well did I really do this month?” I find a lot of people don’t have good memories, they remember the past through rose colored glasses.

So, they think, “I did a really great job this month. I don’t understand why I’m not losing fat.” But if they actually had calendar they would have seen that maybe they were only 50 percent compliant with what they should have been, so it’s a great way to keep track, it also a nice way to project goals into the future.

Rather than having complicated goals it’s great to just have a SIMPLE set of behavior goals. Just think how easy it is to ask yourself. “Can I get 90 percent of the days for October checked off, Yes? I did my workout? What about my nutrition habit?” You’d be surprised how often accomplishing SIMPLE goals leads to PHYSIQUE PROGRESS. It seems very simple and I know sometimes people want to dig for deeper physiological changes, but this type of stuff works very, very well and it’s easy to record. People are often underestimating how powerful it is.

That’s all for today. Join us in part 3 when the doctor will give and idea of how many calories we really need.

But first, confession time.

Despite everything we know, old meatheads like me and Jason Ferruggia still “overdo things” and end up hurting ourselves in the gym.

But I’m lucky, because I just pull muscles (like I did last Monday while deadlifting). Jay, on the other hand, messes up his shoulder joint at least once per year.

Now when you have a serious injury like Jay’s, you have to go to the doctor. There is nothing that I can do to help you – sorry!

NOTE #1 – I hope you never, ever get hurt!

NOTE #2 – If you do get hurt, the most important thing for you to do is get your injury checked out by a doctor. Please be conservative!

But when I get a little muscle strain, I just use these 3 simple secrets for fast recovery. These secrets were given to me by my chiropractor, Dr. Michael Sommers of Evolve Chiropractic in Toronto.

1) Apply Ice immediately

Start by icing for ten minutes, then take ten minutes off, and then ice again for ten minutes.

(NOTE: Keep a thin moist towel between ice and skin to prevent skin damage.)

Ice the injury 3 times daily for the first 72 hours (morning, noon, and night). Of course, if the injury is severe, go immediately to the hospital.