By taroThe New Postural Assessment
The emerging standard of muscular assessment.
Continue ReadingMuscular Balance
Six Revelations Towards a Solution for Elbow Pain
There is a lot of confusion in regards to elbow pain. Every purveyor of health products and services has a different perspective. Don’t be confounded by all the clamour. Read the following six revelations and get on the path to clarity.
1. The primary cause of most elbow pain is muscular overuse. Muscular overuse causes muscles to get tight. Tight muscles are vulnerable to inflammation (known as tendonitis or golfer’s/tennis elbow), cramps, strains and tears. Tension also pulls the skeleton out of alignment which can cause arthritis and/or neuropathy.
NOTE: While your case of elbow pain is most likely the result of overused muscles, always get a proper diagnosis from a medical doctor!
2. Overuse injuries are caused by weakness. Working muscles assist each other to create movement. Should some muscles within a group become weak, their lack of work has to be assumed by those which remain strong. The burden of compensating for weak muscles causes strong muscles to become overused!
3. Strength is the most powerful solution for overuse injuries: End the burden of compensation by strengthening weak muscles and overused muscles recover. Recovery is fast and profound! Most people will feel an immediate reduction of pain and tightness. Often only two or three strengthening sessions are required for complete resolution. Strengthening weak muscles also increases tone helping to balance tension around joints. Improving skeletal alignment with strength is critical when managing arthritis, pinched nerves and ligament health. Strength is more powerful than stretching, myofascial release or rest! (however, the ultimate intervention combines all four).
4. Weak muscles lie adjacent to the strong. If you have an overused elbow flexor its weak partner will also be found within the elbow flexor group. Likewise, if you have an overused elbow extensor the muscle you need to strengthen will also belong to the elbow extensor group. No need to venture far from overused muscles to find weak partners or synergists.
5. Your left side must be trained in a manner opposite to your right side: If you are unlucky enough to have pain in both elbows – what you stretch on the left must be strengthened on the right and vice-versa. For example, if your extensor carpi radials is tight on your left it will be weak on your right! It does not matter if the pain feels identical. Only a very precise assessment can determine the exact needs of individual muscle fibres. Tarodo stretching actually isolates the individual heads within a muscle. The muscular needs of your body vary from front to back as well as side to side.
6. Blame posture: Posture is the placement of bones to compensate for the effects of gravity. For a bone to move (and remain in position) some muscles need to be active while others need to be inhibited. Active muscles become strong muscles and inhibited muscles become weak. Stop blaming yesterdays workout for your pain! Postural stress is relentless – continuing even as we sleep. Gravity never ceases – victimizing our backs, necks, shoulders, hips, knees, elbows, hands and feet.
Five Revelations Toward a Knee Pain Solution
Knee pain is the achilles heel of many sport, work, exercise and armchair warriors. Typical (and often unsuccessful) treatment consists of the big three: strengthening the vastus medialis, prescribing orthotics and taking anti-inflammatory medications. When they fail, consider the revelations listed below.
- Weak muscles cause most cases of knee pain! Weak muscles require strong muscles to compensate for their lack of function. This extra work causes strong muscles to become tight. Tight muscles can be painful and their tension changes joint alignment. Misaligned knees are prone to ligament and meniscus damage as well as arthritis.If your medial knee pain is being caused by a tight vastus medialis, the solution is to find out which of the remaining three quadriceps heads are weak and strengthen them. The vastus medialis will recover and lengthen once the burden of compensation is removed. Furthermore, strengthening weak muscles counters the pull of strong muscles and alignment improves.
- Your knee pain may be caused by tight hamstrings. Tight hamstrings, wrongfully associated with back pain, are too often overlooked in regards to knee health. An overworked lateral head of the hamstrings (biceps femoris) is often the origin of lateral knee pain. Tight hamstrings also shut down opposing muscles within the quadriceps and hips. This initiates the cascade of issues associated with compensation. Again, strengthening the weak heads (without affecting the strong heads) within the hamstrings group will reduce pain and dysfunction. As an aside, stretching the hamstrings as a group is a waste of time – each head must be isolated. The heads of the hamstring have very distinct functions!
3) Knee pain can originate at the hips. Their distance from the knees often precludes the hips from consideration in issues regarding knee health. However, a tight gluteus minimus or tensor fasciae latae can radiate pain far from their origins – extending all the way down the leg to the knee. Strengthening weak weak synergists as well as corrective loading restores hip balance and alignment. Using the foam roller on the IT band is a (less than) half-assed solution. Strength is the key!
4) The calves are a major key to knee health! Somehow health practitioners have forgotten that gastrocnemius crosses the knee joint. The calves directly affect knee health! Tight gastrocs alter knee alignment and reciprocally shut off heads within the quadriceps muscle group. Try stretching your medial and lateral gastrocs prior to squats or leg extensions and you will notice a significant improvement in strength – this practice alone can eliminate knee pain.
5) The look of your legs lends clues. Postural tendencies such as bow legs or knocked knees are part of the knee health puzzle. From the shape of your legs you can deduce which muscles will be strong and which will be weak. Ligament and meniscus stress is also predictable. Legs that tend to be knock kneed, for example, will feature a weak vastus medialis (a chief “anti-valgus” muscle) and will be prone to ACL and lateral meniscus injury. Postural tendencies are the result of the body balancing itself over its base. Corrective loading, which moves our centre of gravity, is crucial to the management of leg appearance.
The above revelations have their basis in very simple logic. What is obvious is very often overlooked. However, with fundamental knowledge in functional anatomy anyone can start to see the connections. If you want to learn more stay tuned to tarodo.com or connect with me via tarokurita@hotmail.com. Seminars and certifications are coming soon!
Six Tips For Preventing Injuries and Staying Fit For Life
Len At Nearly Seventy
1. Periodize
Legitimate fitness programs are periodized. Periodization, quite simply, is change. Fitness programs must change to rotate stress. Continually stressing the same joints, muscles and physiology leads to injury. Make a plan that regularly changes your short-term goals, exercises, rest intervals, volume and intensity. Periodized exercise programs cannot be created haphazardly – too much change and you will lose sight of long-term goals.
2. Manage Your Posture and Muscular Balance
The foundation of musculoskeletal wellness is posture and muscular balance. A well aligned body with balanced strength will evenly distribute stress. This resilience is lost when the body shifts alignment to compensate for gravity. For example, when a load is held in front of the body the spine will curve toward the front. When a load is held to the right side of the body the spine will curve toward the right. A load to the left side of the body shifts the curve to the left. Finally, a load held behind the body results in the spine curving towards the rear. Spine movement is controlled by the coordinated action of muscles – some becoming tight while others relax. Unfortunately, shifts in alignment tend to persist causing a host of problems. Tight muscles become overused and injured. Uneven wear occurs on bony surfaces and joints become either too narrow or spread apart. A return to good alignment and muscular balance requires the introduction of corrective loads as well as a system of stretching tight muscles and activating relaxed muscles. Simple postural cuing (such as “keep your chest up with shoulders back”) will accomplish very little. Tarodo Gravity is the cutting-edge system for managing posture and muscular balance. Stay tuned to this website for seminars, videos and future articles.
3. Warm-up properly
The most effective warm-up rehearses target movements while activating weak muscles. For example, progressive squatting (multiple sets of squats which get incrementally heavier ) is the best way to prepare your body for high-intensity squatting. With each warm-up set, improve strain distribution by activating weak muscles (those that are specific to your posture). Warming up in this manner can turn a brutal squatting session into a workout that actually helps heal!
4. Eat Well
We all know eating well is essential for losing fat, gaining muscle and performing intensely. However, I believe many people fail to make the association between nutrition and injury prevention. A prudent diet should include quality whole-foods from both animal and vegetarian sources. Eat whole eggs, organic red meat, fish, dark greens and berries to ensure a vigorous quality of life! Specific foods and nutrients that have shown up in research regarding soreness and recovery include: tart cherry juice, caffeine, blue berries, curcumin and tomato. Cycle foods and nutrients into and out of your diet to discover which works best for you.
5. Find a Great Soft Tissue Practitioner
Not all soft tissue techniques are created equal and practitioner ability varies tremendously. Personally, I have found Active Release Techniques, as developed by Dr. Leahy, to be a great tool. Find a master of ART and stick with him/her. Combined with the concepts above, no soft tissue issue will be insurmountable!
6. Be Patient
Know when to delay striving for a goal in favour of rest and recovery. Value your longevity above all else. A planned short-term layoff is always better than an unplanned long-term layoff!
Change Your Posture
Somewhere I read (in an article, forum or dream), that holding a barbell behind the back could help manage excessive lower-spine curvature (known as lordosis). Initially, the idea failed to evoke any interest and it was filed into my subconscious. A few months later, while watching a huge construction crane in operation, I was suddenly struck by a moment of clarity: our skeletal system compensates for our center of gravity! When our center of gravity is consistently drawn forward of our hips (when we deadlift or lift boxes like a crane) our body maintains balance by shifting weight to our rear (behind our hips). Unlike a crane, with its huge counterweight blocks, the human body increases back-end load by tilting the pelvis forward. Anterior pelvic tilt, one of the hallmarks of postural lordosis, extends the moment arm behinds the hips and puts the glutes and hamstrings into a strong position to exert force.
To reduce lordosis, therefore, it makes sense to move the body’s center of gravity behind the hips. A load behind the hips (provided by a barbell for example) eliminates the need for a postural compensation. The pelvis would tilt toward the posterior and a more neutral posture would be restored.
Anterior tilt of the pelvis caused by a load being held in front of the hips
Posterior tilt of the pelvis caused by a load being held behind the hips
While the crane model applies most obviously to a posture affected by lordosis, all levels of the skeleton will move to offset loads and create balance. The scapula, for example, shift in a manner similar to the pelvis. A load forward of the thorax shifts the scapula into anterior tilt and a load behind the thorax shifts the scapula into posterior tilt. Similarly, the spine, knees, elbows and feet will all change alignment to balance the effects of gravity.
The theory of skeletal compensation for center of gravity is a vital clarification. Posture, it seems, is a motor program controlled by the nervous system and not merely an arrangement of tight and loose muscles. Just stretching and strengthening individual muscles will not change the motor program and significant posture change will not occur! The ultimate solution to postural stress is to combine stretching and strengthening with modification of the body’s center of gravity. Come to a Tarodo Gravity seminar to learn emerging details of this process!
The ability to modify posture is a vital tool. Postural stress results in conditions which include tendinitis, muscle pulls, muscle tears, nerve impingement, osteoarthritis and inter vertebral hernias. These conditions can become chronic. Modifying postural tendencies can help relieve pain as well as improve resiliency, appearance and performance.
Posture – The Foundation of All Exercise Programs
Perfect posture suggests a skeleton with perfect bone placement. Every bone would be optimally aligned and symmetrically spaced. All stresses imposed on the body would be distributed evenly – minimizing wear and energy expenditure. Unfortunately, perfect posture does not exist. Every human on the planet is off kilter! Differences in limb length and the need to maintain balance result in misaligned and asymmetrical bones. Features most people associate with posture include uneven hips, hunched shoulders and exaggerated spine curvature. However, posture also includes the position and status of the ankle, knee, scapula and hand. Off-kilter posture can cause a number of problems:
- Strength imbalances: A shift in posture requires a bias in muscle activity. Some muscles remain chronically active while others are turned off. Not only do active muscles bare the burden of postural maintenance they also tend to bare the burden of movement and physical work. Hard working muscles are prone to overuse conditions such as tightness, strains, tendonitis and tears.
- Development imbalances: When active muscles become tight they shut down the muscles opposite to them. “Reciprocal inhibition” stops muscles from firing optimally and creates “stubborn muscles” – muscles which will not grow or change shape despite dedicated exercise.
- Inappropriate bone on bone contact: Off-kilter posture means bones are out of optimal alignment. Poor alignment causes contact on sufaces not designed for high amounts of frictionor impact. The damage to bone and other connective tissue results in conditions such as osteo-arthritis and chondromalacia patella.
- Impingements: Nerves and tendons become squeezed when the spaces they occupy become narrowed by bone movement. This can cause a host of problems including shoulder impingement syndrome and sciatica.
- Intervertebral hernias: Curved spines result in vertebrae that are squeezed together on the concave side and spread apart on the convex side. High pressure between vertebrae on the concave side cause intervertebral discs to bulge toward the convex side (where intervertebral pressure is lower).
Since muscle tension affects bone position, these problems can be easily ameliorated or aggravated by stretching and strengthening programs. The key is knowing which muscles to stretch and which to strengthen! Programs which successfully manage the effects of posture improve muscular balance as well as bone alignment and symmetry. Athletes, clients, patients and workout warriors will experience enhanced recovery, resilience, performance and aesthetics. Posture, without a doubt, should be fundamental knowledge for anyone who designs exercise programs!
Learn to Stretch Like an Expert
Workshop!
Learn the fundamentals of expert stretching.
Stretching is far from dead. While new soft tissue techniques (such as self myofascial techniques, ART, Graston etc.) are becoming popular the utility of stretching still reigns supreme. Here is why:
- Stretching is the ultimate tool for improving the firing power of weak muscles (make stubborn muscles finally grow by stretching tight antagonists!)
- Stretching is the ultimate tool for improving muscular balance
- Precise stretching assesses tissue status and can be a reliable diagnostic tool
- Stretching predictably increases range of motion
- Stretching is non-invasive
- No special tools or technology are necessary. Ultimate convenience and portability.
- Stretching is pleasurable to most and adds tangible value to client/patient sessions
- Stretching will fit into the scope of practice of any health and fitness professional
Forget previous notions of stretching technique. This is an introductory workshop into how to isolate individual muscle heads. At a tarodo workshop a singular hamstring stretch does not exist. Rather, there are four stretches! (one for each head of the hamstrings). This workshop will give you unparalleled insight into muscular function. This is just the beginning – get a head start now!
Because this is a very short-notice workshop the usual cost of 200.00$ per person is being discounted to just 100.00 $ The remaining information is as follows:
Where: Openmat MMA, 593 Yonge Street, Toronto Ontario
When: October 24th 2 pm to 5 pm
Registration: email Coach Taro at tarodomuscle@gmail.com
Hope to see you there!
Coach Taro
Six Revelations About Neck Pain
A great scourge has descended upon the athletic and sedentary people of the land. Many people are being seen roaming the fields and streets with cockeyed posture. Closer inspection reveals the issue – the people cannot hold their heads high! At first, a widespread lack of self-esteem was blamed for this affliction. Now, after much fruitless introspection, it has become apparent the cause is physical. Men and women of all types are suffering from neck pain! The short-term solution economy is thriving on neck pain. Pain-killing pills, lotions and potions are selling at an all-time high. None address the root cause. Read the following revelations and take a (upright) step toward a neck pain solution.
1. Neck pain has a mechanical basis
The structure of the neck is formed by hard bone and elastic muscle. The alignment of bone and the state of muscle depends upon imposed physical demands. The neck will not change without mechanical stimuli! Drugs and other force-less therapies are not long-term solutions for neck pain. Stretching and other soft tissue mangement techniques combined with exercise are the best weapons available for battling neck pain.
2. Blame your balance!
The body alters bone alignment to keep its mass evenly distributed. If the head moves forward of the body’s centre of mass the thoracic spine moves back to compensate (causing characteristic rounding of the shoulders). Fat on the stomach also shifts weight ahead of the centre of mass. To balance itself, the body pushes the sacrum out towards the rear (causing the glutes to stick out or “duck butt”).
3. The curves tell the tale
Spinal curvature often dictates the health of bone and surrounding tissue. For example, the inside part of a curve (where the edges of the vertebrae are compressed together) can feature arthritis, pinched nerves and shortened (tight) muscles. The outside part of the curve (where the edges are spread apart) can feature inter-vertebral hernias, strained ligaments and lengthened muscles.
4. In general, you should be trying to reduce excessive spinal curvature
Keep in mind that the spine can bend front to back as well as sideways. When addressing pain, sideways curvature often takes priority! Curve management can be accomplished by strengthening lengthened muscle tissue and stretching shortened tissue. Also, balance your spine’s exposure to off-centre loads.
5. You can’t do the same thing on both sides of the body!
To straighten a bend the status quo must change! In simple terms, the inside of a bent spine must be stretched and the outside must be strengthened. Symmetical exercise won’t change anything! The most effective therapies treat the left and right side of the body differently.
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6. Maintenance is required!
The body always gravitates toward the same tendencies. Lifetime pain management requires a lifetime committment to appropriate strength training and stretching. Luckily, this approach to pain management is painless, straightforward and devoid of the side effects of invasive therapies!
Neck pain can cause a lot of frustration and anxiety. Logical, anatomy-based solutions absolutely exist. If you want to learn more you must attend a tarodo seminar! The empowering effects of knowledge will have you holding your head high!
How to Heal Without Changing Your Workout
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