Shared by: Dr. Kevin Ross .. KRoss777@aol.com DETAILED REASON FOR THIS INFORMATION TAKEN FROM „RECHARGE-THE PROGRAM¾ You are an athlete...treat yourself as such. before you start work, or your day, you should stretch and warm up. It is no different than an athlete going to the track to run. They would never start a workout without first warming up. But what do we normally do? We come in five minutes late, cursing traffic, tense, muscles tight, the only breakfast being a cup of coffee and a doughnut and then jump onto the track of work full speed and don¼t take a break all day! Is it any wonder we get stiff and sore, can¼t concentrate and end up with injuries? By taking the time to stop and do the suggested stretches and breaks, you will be allowing your body to counteract the stresses of the day and of life. To do this allows the body to heal better and stronger. By eliminating the stresses of working at the computer you can allow yourself the opportunity to work free of pain or diminish the pain that ruins concentration and productivity... Start the day with stretching and then take a break once an hour to relax tense muscles. Counteracting the stresses of the day and stresses from working at the computer can help keep your body at peak performance! ANATOMY introduction: („make an option that has do not show this introduction again¾) Normal, healthy muscles and spines should not be tender to the touch. You should not have muscles that are tight and tender on one side more than the other. Our bodies seek balance and should be balanced side to side and top to bottom. The ears should be at the same level as should the shoulders and hips.insert basic picture(photograph) of normal posture front to back and side view. The posture of the body should reflect this...it is a mirror to what is happening on the inside of the body. From the side the ear should be in line with the shoulder, the shoulder in line with the hip, the hip in line with the knee. Deviations from these normals can indicate a problem is developing or has existed for some time. It will not take much discussion for you to realize that our bodies are very intelligent...they have an inborn wisdom to heal themselves often referred to as „innate intelligence¾. cut yourself...What happens? without any thought of yours the body know where the cut is, moves the right cells there to fix it and to make new skin... How does the body do it? The brain is aware of every function and need of the body every moment of the day and works to fix all the problems it can by directing the body to heal itself. We are constantly exposed to stress in our daily lives. Gravity, thoughts, activity, etc. The body is used to these „stressors¾ and will do everything to heal the body from them. The problem arises when we expose our bodies to stressors greater than what the body can bear. The stupid things we do to our bodies that the body was not designed to do are the things that creates problems for the body. The more we can learn about those stressors in our lives and limit them, we will help the body deal with, counteract, and heal from those stressors. The better our body can heal and deal with them fewer problems we will experience. Very simply, in life and health, if you understand what normal is... everything else is not. So, We will give a brief explanation of the different segments involved in stretch break so you can understand why the different work is important to you. FOREARM AND MUSCLES (insert picture of arm bones and of muscle anatomy) There are two lower arm bones and many of the muscles for wrist and hand motion attach up at the elbow. to feel this, put your thumb at the outside part of your elbow, below the joint, then wiggle your fingers and move your wrist. You will feel the muscles move and tighten up. this is the action used in typing or mousing or writing. Most of the lower arm is tendons leading to the muscles. The basic shape of the forearm shows this. So to over simplify... When the muscles of the arm are normal the two arm bones are in normal alignment. But, if those muscles get too tight or go into spasm they will squeeze at the top part of the forearm. This will change how these bones articulate;ate (how the joints move on each other) with the wrist (Carpal) bones. To understand why this is important you have to understand a normal mechanism of the body. We had said previously that the body tries to heal itself but it ALSO protects itself from getting worse. It does this through inflammation. Inflammation is a normal process of the body reacting to damage. Often time the body will use it as a splinting mechanism to keep a part of the body from moving more and being injured further. Pain is another mechanism the body uses to get us to stop and activity that is causing the body injury. They are both healthy reactions of the body to tell us something. Returning to the wrist. If the tight muscles squeeze and cause the bones to change articulation the bodies normal, healthy response is inflammation. This will keep us from causing more injury. In this case the inflammation is not the problem but the body¼s response to improper articulation. In this case, the muscle work for the wrist is to help normalize the muscles of the arm so the arm bones can return to a normal articulation thus allowing the soft tissues to return to normal. Usually this can be done without any drug intervention. Is this a „Cure All¾? no. But, in many people, this keeps the tissue working normally. Many symptoms of Carpal tunnel syndrome and other wrist and hand and elbow complaints are quickly alleviated through this simple work. PSOAS (insert picture) ***For caregivers...a video is available to train to do a simple yet profound muscle work to care for the psoas.... Click here to get more information on ordering. As the world discovers this much overlooked muscle we will need people trained in working on this muscle. This will give you the information to confidently evaluate and work with the psoas muscle.*** This is a muscle group that few have ever heard of but is VITAL for our bodies. The muscle group is actually two muscles the „Illiacus¾ and the „psoas¾ often referred to as the „Iliopsoas¾...we will simply refer to the psoas. the psoas muscle attaches to the front of the lumbar spine and also to the disks of the spine (the pillows between the vertebra). The muscle then passes deep down in the abdominal cavity and passes under the inguinal ligament. It then attaches to the top portion of the leg bone below the hip socket. The major job of this muscle is to flex the body on itself, or to bring the thigh to the chest. So, when you sit the muscle shortens.... A principal of muscles is that a muscle that shortens, and stays that way, it will tend to stay that way. You have seen this in action if you have ever had your arm in a sling the took it out at the end of the day and tried to straighten it...It takes work. When you sit for long periods the psoas muscle shortens. When you are standing upright the muscle has to lengthen. If it does not lengthen easily due to tight muscles it can pull on the lumbar spine and create stress, discomfort or outright pain. If it is tight on one side more than the other this can create torsion of the spine and possibly cause the spine to misalign. The stretch in this program is designed to help break the cycle and help keep the muscle stretched out through the day. The classic presentation of a psoas problem is a person that is fine sitting and they are fine when upright but, „when they go to stand up¾ they find they are slow and often have to climb their hands up their thighs to get to the upright position. Once they are upright they are off and running. A side note on this is during situps the first 30 degrees of motion (basically clearing the shoulders off the floor) the primary mover is almost entirely the rectus abdominus muscle. (the 6 pack muscles of the stomach) After 30 degrees, the main muscle involved in the sit up is the psoas muscle and the rectus abdominus becomes just a minor mover. This is why doing crunches for the abdominals is best and why full sit ups will often lead to back pain or that feeling of burning in the back while doing sit ups. Also, for balance sake, if you do crunch sit ups, roll over and do an equal number of extensions. This is when you lay on your stomach, put your hands on your low back and lift your chest off of the floor. BREATHING You will notice throughout Recharge that breathing is emphasized...deep breathing. There are several reasons for this: 1) breathing helps to increase oxygenation. When we sit we tend to breath shallow. Deep breathing helps to expand the lungs, increase oxygenation and helps to „clear the brain¾ and increase energy. 2) simply it is a good way to count! A good stretch is about 15 seconds. Three deep breaths is about 15 seconds. Pretty easy, huh? SOME ADDITIONAL BASICS 1) MOTION IS LIFE! Most people have never realized that a joint cannot have a direct nerve or blood supply (the joints coming together would crush them). Instead, the joints get their nutrition from the surfaces moving on each other! WOW! When a joint stops motion it starts to starve. Like us, though, if we stop eating now we don¼t feel the effect right away. But, given enough time we would start to see the outward symptoms of the lack of food. The joints are the same way. They rely on a constant supply of food...that comes form motion...Get your body moving...any motion...to keep the joints healthy! Stop activity and have seditary lifestyle and your joints and health slowly waste away. 2) THESE ARE TRULY THE BASICS RECHARGE was designed to give the basics of counteracting the stressors of the day and of time at the computer. We at RECHARGE encourage you to take the initiative to get yourself moving. Take a walk at lunch. Get up 20 minutes early and briefly stretch and take a short walk. Ride a bike to work. Shut off the TV and dance to the radio. Whatever you can do to keep your body moving will help keep your body healthier! 3) SMILE! 4) BREATH! 5) Remember your posture: Sit tall, Stand tall, Think tall