Stretching Series Video Guide

Stretching Series Video Guide.

Use this index for your resource on our short video series. Each video contains one to four stretches to help a specific region of the body. For a more comprehensive stretching routine, try our 7-Minute Daily Stretch.

 

Neck/Shoulder Series 1: Shoulder Circles, Straight Shoulder & Floor Angels

Neck/Shoulder Series 2: Neck Range of Motion, Rhomboid Push-up, PostureMedic brace

Neck/Shoulder Series 3: Katy Bowman’s “Paint the Globe”

Lower Back/Hip Series 1: Calf Stretch, Hip Openers, Sitting Cross Legged, Quadriceps

Lower Back/Hip Series 2: Spinal Twist, Modified Child’s Pose, Modified Pigeon, Tailor’s

Lower Back/Hip Series 3: Pelvic Tilts, Founder by Foundation Training, Modified Squats

Foot Series 1: Calf Stretch, Roll the Foot with Ball

Foot Series 2: Reflexology Board, Sit on Heels, Toe Spacing

Kids Series: Healthy Spine, Healthy Mind, a 12 exercise series to help with mobility, balance and brain-body communication.

5 Tips for Simple Meal Planning

5 Tips for Simple Meal Planning.

The difference between a healthy, home cooked meal and an unhealthy one is usually just the time it takes to plan and prepare it. With today’s busy lifestyle, it’s easy for working families to opt for quicker, less healthy meals in a crunch. Follow these five tips to start enjoying more delicious, nutritious meals together!

  1. Have a prep day. Set aside time every week to plan and prep a week’s worth of food. You can easily pre-cut veggies, cook meats, make soups, etc. It will make individual meal prep go much smoother and save time. Here’s a great article to get you started.
  2. Invest in a programmable crock pot or even an instant pot. Crock pots and pressure cookers with multiple settings and timers can make healthy meals a reality for working families. Or, don’t be afraid to ask a friend or neighbor to stop by during the day and turn your crock pot on for you.
  3. Have a 7-Day Plan. Knowing what you’re going to have for dinner on Thursday when it’s Monday morning takes out the guess work and minimizes trips to the store. Try eMeals and/or PlateJoy for customized help.
  4. Make it a family affair. Teach kids (and spouses) how to prep, using kid friendly knives if needed, and get them involved in as many steps as possible.
  5. Pull out the cookbook and explore food blogs. Expand your culinary reach by diving into a cookbook and explore new, healthy options. Here are some of our favorites to look into: Whole 30, Nourished Beginnings, Nourishing Traditions, Nourished Kitchen, Against All Grain, Raising Generation Nourished, Axe.

***Bonus Tip: Get adjusted! It won’t make meal planning easier but it will help your alignment, mobility and overall well-being ?

5 Tips For Managing Emotional Stress

5 Tips for Managing Emotional Stress.

Emotional stress is just as harmful to your health and physical trauma and toxic overload. But, many people don’t know what to do about it or even like to talk about it. Here are five tips to get you started on managing your emotional stress.

  1. Focus on Routine. Not only will this help with time management, it will keep your day on track and minimize emotional triggers. Establish a routine that includes both what you need to get done in addition to fun activities that you enjoy.
  2. Move Regularly. Whether it be walking, yoga, biking or even Boot Camp (high intensity interval training), regular body motion (you can call it exercise if you’d like) is vital for a healthy mindset.
  3. Feed your soul. Enjoy quiet time, read, pray, practice breathing techniques or do whatever it is that helps you relax and feel worry free. Here are a few of our favorite apps that can help. Glenn Harrold, Bold Tranquility and Centering Prayer.
  4. Find your (real) social network. Engage regularly with family, friends, church groups or even a pet. And, don’t be afraid to seek out the help of a counselor or therapist. Sometimes we all need professional help.
  5. Focus on Nutrition. Create a healthy meal plan (whole foods, paleo, Weston A Price) to keep you on track and prevent using alcohol, sugar and nicotine as coping mechanisms.

Bonus Tip: Get adjusted to minimize spinal stress that can be keeping you from feeling like yourself!

5 Must-Have Mobility Props

5 Must-Have Mobility Props.
Adding movement to your day to day activities is as easy as walking more, sitting on the floor instead of a couch and carrying your child on a hike instead of using a baby carrier. But most of us have restrictions and old injury that limit our mobility, function and ultimately, our health and well-being. Props are a beneficial tool to help your body move in different ways or introduce loads to minimize restrictions and promote healing. Here are our top 5 recommended props and how to best use them:
Half Round– Half rounds, or domes, provide the stability of a foam roller but in a fixed position. They’re a great way to stretch your calves, feet or even provide heel support for a modified squat. Keep one in both your home and workplace and use often. Calf/foot tension is often the root cause of many musculoskeletal issues!
Reflexology board– Reflexology boards provide instant soothing relief of foot soreness, releases stress and tension and stimulate reflexology pressure points on the bottom of your feet. Stand on these at home when working in the kitchen or at work with a standing workstation. Try 30 seconds at a time at first and move around to increase mobility between all 26 bones in the foot.
Stability Disc– Stability discs can be used to sit on at work or in the car to improve posture and alleviate spinal strain. You can also stand on them to enhance core function. Children with sensory issues often see improvements when sitting on these in the classroom.
Yoga Ball– Exercise balls promote strength, agility and balance. Use them for squats, abdominal work or just to sit on in your living room.
Pull Up Bar– Can’t do a pull-up? No problem! Hanging provides a great load on your body to improve shoulder function, minimize spinal tension, improve grip strength and open up the rib cage. Time yourself each week with a goal to hang longer and change your grip often. And yes, if you can do a pull-up, do them, lots of them with variable grips.

elderberry supplement for cold and flu season

Missing Minerals: 5 Common Deficiencies

Missing Minerals: 5 Common Deficiencies.

If you didn’t think vitamins and minerals were overwhelming, just walk down the nutrition aisle at Meijer or Wal-Mart and try to make some sense of it. Although we should get all our vitamins and minerals from our food, some essential nutrients are still lacking in a healthy diet and can contribute to chronic illness. Here is a list of what we’ve found to be the top 5 vitamin deficiencies, food sources to add and the best vitamins to supplement with that we know of:

  1. Fish Oil– the omega fatty acids in fish oils help with joint health and cellular repair. Wild Alaskan salmon is one of the best sources but is often very pricy. A more cost-effective alternative are canned sardines. When choosing a supplement, buyer beware! The jumbo bottle at Costco may not good quality and have little positive effect on your health. The best source of fish oil I know of is Rosita’s. It’s super fishy tasting and expensive. But, it works! For a better tasting oil, less expensive fish oil, try liquid Omegavail (capsule) or even the Lemon Drop Smoothie for kids.
  2. Vit D– sunshine, fatty fish (tuna, sardines & salmon), cheese and egg yolks all contain Vitamin D to help with many biological processes in the body like immune support, bone health and autoimmune disorders. Emulsi-D is a great supplement to easily get your 2,000-4,000 IU’s in per day. Bio-D mulsion is another source that may absorb better depending on the individual.
  3. Probiotics– probiotics are the good bacteria that live in your body to help with digestion and immune function and are found in fermented foods like sauerkraut, kombucha, natto, yogurt, apple cider vinegar, tempeh and kefir. Probiotic Synergy is available in both tablet and powder Probiotic Supreme offers the same number of strains but in triple the concentration. For variety, Ther-biotic complete offers more total strains per capsule and their children’s chewable is perfect for kids! They also have an infant formula that is great for babies.
  4. Magnesium-magnesium helps with tissue repair, protein synthesis and over 300 biomechanical functions in the body. It is most commonly found in spinach, pumpkin seeds, almonds, black beans, and avocado. Magnesium Malate provides a simple tablet at 180 mg each while Natural Calm makes a pleasant tasting drink with 155mg per teaspoon.
  5. Iodine– According to Dr. David Brownstein and many other healthcare professionals, living in the Midwest makes us significantly deficient in Iodine since it’s mostly found in seaweed, kelp and seafood. This significantly impairs thyroid function! A few great supplements are Iodoral, Liquid Iodine Forte and Iodine Synergy support your daily needs.

Pregnancy Complications: 5 Common Triggers

Pregnancy Complications: 5 Common Triggers (And What To Do About Them!)

Pregnancy is a stressful time of life, both in positive and negative ways.  With so much to celebrate it’s unfortunate that the negative stresses can get in the way of enjoying the moment. These stresses can cause complications in each phase of pregnancy, labor and delivery. Fortunately, for over 10 years we’ve helped many women overcome these stresses and enjoy a more positive outcome for both mother and baby. Here are the top 5 triggers that we’ve seen cause problems and solutions to each.

  1. You’re Not Squatting Enough. Sitting, old injuries and lack of movement inhibits pelvic function, diminishes your ability to squat and can impair labor and delivery. Midwife Ina May Gaskin  recommends that all pregnant women squat about 300 times a day to improve birth outcomes. If you’re having trouble squatting, try these versions of modified squats. Also, taking a class in The Bradley Method will show you additional stretches and exercises to optimize pregnancy, labor and delivery.
  2. You’re exposed to too many toxins and radiation. Mercury from fish and flu shots can cause negative effects to both mom and baby. Tylenol also adds a major chemical insult that can cause neurological damage to the baby and also diminishes glutathione (important antioxidant) levels. Finally, each ultrasound puts some stress on the unborn child. It’s important to talk to your birth provider about which, if any of these, are necessary or can be omitted from your prenatal plan.
  3. You’re missing crucial nutrients. Poor diet can lead to low birth weight in the baby, inhibit pelvic ligament stretch during labor, cause the mom to be dehydrated and increases the likelihood of postpartum bleeding. The Brewer Pregnancy Diet is a great starting point for nutritional needs during pregnancy (additional article on Brewer Diet). Magnesium (and also Natural Calm) is a great supplement during pregnancy because it helps with constipation and muscle tension. Both Bradley Method and Hypnobirthing classes also discuss dietary needs during pregnancy.
  4. You Don’t Have A Plan. If you’ve ever ran a marathon, or thought about running one, you put together a plan first. Same goes for driving across the country or traveling abroad. Well, labor and delivery is harder than all of those yet few sit down to plan it out. Do you want to deliver upright (which is easier) or while laying on your back (much harder)? Who is allowed in the room? Is water birth an option? Vit K shot? Hep B? Circumcision? Sit down with your significant other and make decisions on these when you have a clear mind and not in the thick of things. Here’s a Sample birth plan to get you started.
  5. You’re Stressed Out. Emotional stress can cause undue muscle tension that may inhibit baby positioning, not to mention cause discomfort and pain. Try listening to relaxing music while taking an Epsom salt bath each night, download a stress management app (here’s another option and more relaxation methods) or even consider taking a hypnobirthing class.

*Bonus Tip! Get Adjusted.  Misalignments of the pelvis, sacrum and lumbar spine can affect supporting muscles and ligaments. In turn, these can prevent the baby from dropping into proper position, not to mention causing pain and discomfort for mom. Chiropractors trained in the Webster technique can help these alignment issues through gentle adjustments and improve birth outcomes. One published study found that pregnant women under regular chiropractic care had 25-31% shorter labors (Cara L. Borggren, 2007)!

 

Why Shoes Matter: 4 Questions to Ask Yourself

Why Shoes Matter: 4 Questions to Ask Yourself.

“The current state of your feet is a future projection of how well you will be able to move when you get older.”  from Simple Steps to Foot Pain Relief by Katy Bowman, MS

When it comes to the health of your whole body, there is little as important as the oft neglected feet. We cram our feet into ill-fitting shoes, wear heels most of the time and then expect our feet to support us for 80, 90 or 100 years.  Do yourself a favor and ask these questions when picking out your next pair of shoes.

  1. Does the sole of your shoe allow for natural movement?  25% of the bones and muscles in your body are in your feet and those bones and muscles need to MOVE.  Have you ever seen someone’s arm after they had a cast removed? The muscles in the arm have shrunk and they have little strength. This is what is happening to your feet if you are always wearing shoes that don’t allow for natural movement.
  2. Is the shoe attached to your foot? Do you need to grip your toes to keep the shoe on?  The gripping motion you have to make with your toes to keep a shoe on (think flip flops) is the same motion that leads to hammertoes. Your shoe should be firmly attached to your foot so that it is an extension of you.
  3. How wide is the toe box? Can you spread your toes?  If your toes are repeatedly being squished into a small space the muscles will weaken and bones will be positioned incorrectly. Now imagine your whole body weight, day after day, loaded onto your squished muscles and bones. Foot pain, anyone?
  4. Does the shoe have a heel?  I’m not just talking about a 4 inch heel. I’m talking about any elevation in the heel area of a shoe. Check out your running shoes. Is your heel higher than your toes? Have you ever thought about what happens when you wear a heel all the time?  You should look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa but your body compensates by tucking your pelvis and bending your knees.  With these compensations you are able to walk, even run, in a heeled shoe.  But the long term impact on your knees, hips and pelvic floor are devastating.

So what should you wear?  First of all, try walking around barefoot when you are home. Loosen up the muscles and allow your toes to move freely. And if you want to purchase healthier footwear, check out these posts from Katy Bowman: The Winter Shoe List or The Summer Shoe List.

Neck Pain? 5 Things You’re Doing Wrong

Neck Pain? 5 Things You’re Doing Wrong.
neck-pain-photo2We understand how frustrating it can be to deal with chronic neck pain. Missing out on family activities, taking sick days and just not feeling yourself can be downright demoralizing. Fortunately, for over 10 years we’ve helped patients resolve their neck issues so they can get back to living their life and doing the things they love. Here are the top 5 causes for neck pain and our advice for relief and resolution:

  1. You’re not managing your stress. Emotional stress tends to manifest itself in tight upper back muscles that pull on the lower neck. Try an exercise called Emotional Freedom Technique, start a yoga nidra meditation routine with Bold Tranquility or attend a yoga class at either the Lakeshore Yoga Center or On The Path Yoga.
  2. Your pillow and “sleep posture” are hurting you. You should sleep on your back or on your side with a firm, but flat pillow. You don’t want something too big that it props your head up too much. Use a slightly thicker pillow if you sleep on your side and bring the bottom of your pillow to just below the tops of your shoulders if you sleep on your back. Poor posture in any facet of your life (work, exercise, using a phone) will add unnecessary stress to your neck and upper back.
  3. You’re not moving. Lack of motion in any part of your spine (or joint in the body) leads to muscle tension and poor circulation which contributes to pain. Try these 3 simple exercises (starting at the 7:30 mark) daily to help the motion and function of your upper back and neck.
  4.  You’re not breathing properly. Take a deep breath and notice what parts of your body move. Most people move their shoulders up or expand their belly out to breath. But both of those motions negatively impact different parts of your spine, causing pain.  The ideal way to breath is by expanding your rib cage. Expanding the rib cage allows for optimum intake of oxygen without any negative impact on the rest of your body.
  5.  You’re not getting adjusted. Misalignment in the neck and tension in the skull can contribute to pain. Chiropractors detect these imbalances and make corrections (adjustments) to restore alignment which improves mobility and alleviates tension. Some specially trained chiropractors also perform cranial therapy to relieve tension and improve stability. Combined, these techniques often alleviate neck pain.

Lower Back Pain? 5 Things you’re doing wrong

Lower Back Pain? 5 Things you’re doing wrong.
We understand how frustrating it can be to deal with chronic, recurrent lower back pain. Missing out on family activities, taking sick days and just not feeling yourself can be downright demoralizing. Fortunately, for over 10 years we’ve helped many patients resolve their back issues so they can get back to living their life and doing the things they love. Here are our top 5 tips for back pain relief and resolution:back-pain-image2

1. Your movements are the same from 9-5. Whether you’re sitting at a computer or lifting, twisting and bending all day, your lower back is enduring stress via repetitive motion. The key is to change it up. Get a standing work station if possible and engage different muscle groups while you work. If you have to sit, sit creatively. If you have a more physical job or take care of small children, try to engage both sides of your body equally.

2. You exercise for 30 minutes each day. Exercising for 30 minutes a day has a lot of health benefits but can’t negate lack of motion the rest of your waking hours. If you’re awake for 16 hours, your 30 minute workout makes up 3 percent of your potential movement time. Lack of motion leads to muscle tension and poor circulation which leads to pain. Here is a good routine of 15 different stretches to incorporate throughout your day.

3. You’re not paying attention to your feet. Footwear interferes with natural movement and twenty-five percent of the muscles and bones in the body are in the feet. That’s a lot of opportunity for tension and imbalance which puts stress on the lower back via the kinetic chain. Practice standing on a reflexology board, stability disc or stretch your feet on a foam roller half round. For more exercises, try this book or listen to this Podcast on foot health.

4. You have bad posture. Poor ergonomics and posture contribute to strain in the lower back and muscle attachments to the pelvis which can cause chronic pain. This includes walking/standing with forward sway or also an anterior pelvis. Have someone take a side view picture or video of you standing or better yet walking. If your hips are translated (shifted) in front of your ankles, you have a problem. Stand sideways in front of a full length mirror (or have a partner guide you) and try lining up your shoulder, hip and ankle. This is often best achieved by trying to flex or extend your lumbar spine ever so slightly, think of doing just part of a pelvic tilt while standing. Here are a few more exercises to address anterior pelvic tilt from a guy with just a couple hundred thousand more views than us. Think about your posture in all facets of your life and try to use the best body position possible. 

5. You’re not getting adjusted. Misalignment in the lower back and pelvis can cause pain and discomfort. Chiropractors detect these imbalances and make corrections (adjustments) to restore alignment which improves circulation and minimizes pressure. Some specially trained chiropractors also perform foot adjustments to help overall, whole body alignment. These techniques often alleviate lower back symptoms.

Chronic Headaches? 5 Things You’re Doing Wrong

Chronic Headaches? 5 Things You’re Doing Wrong.

Chronic headaches are not normal and not something you need to live with. Fortunately, for over 10 years we’ve helped many patients resolve their headaches so they can get back to living their life and doing the things they love. Here are our top 5 tips for headache relief and resolution:

headache

  1. You’re not drinking water.  Your body needs about half its weight in ounces of clean water per day (75oz for 150 lbs) and many headaches are related to dehydration.  (P.S. Coffee doesn’t count toward your water goal!)
  2. You have bad posture. Poor ergonomics and posture contribute to strain on the upper neck and muscle attachments to the skull which can cause headaches. This includes looking down at a phone or tablet often, sitting too long at a computer and even sleeping on your stomach or with a pillow that is too big. Hint: Put down your cell phone!
  3. You’re not moving. Lack of motion leads to muscle tension and poor circulation which leads to pain. Try these 3 simple exercises (starting at the 7:30 mark) daily to help the motion and function of your upper back and neck.
  4. You have a poor diet.  Sugar, food additives (MSG, preservatives, hydrogenated oils, etc) and artificial sweeteners often contribute to headaches. Try to eliminate these from your diet.  On the flip side, consider adding magnesium to your diet. 80% of us are magnesium deficient and headaches are one of the early symptoms of deficiency. These are the two sources we recommend, Natural Calm and Magnesium Malate.
  5. You’re not getting adjusted. Misalignment in the neck and tension in the skull can contribute to headaches. Chiropractors detect these imbalances and make corrections (adjustments) to restore alignment which improves circulation and minimizes pressure. Some specially trained chiropractors also perform cranial therapy which relieves tension. These techniques often alleviate headache symptoms.