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The question to worried tinnitus sufferers is if an acoustic neuroma can cause an intermittent “ringing in the ears.” (more…)
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Why Women Should Do Tire Flipping for Exercise
Flipping tires is a great strength training and fat burning exercise for women; why should only men flip tires?
And we’re talking the big tractor tires, too, not the little car tires!
In the grand scheme of things, few women flip tires for exercise. Few men do this, but the number of men who do, compared to women, is vastly larger.
Benefits to Women Who Flip Tires As a Form of Exercise
Full-body workout. If you’re looking for a great full-body routine, you’ll get it with flipping a tire. The entire body gets worked.
This will have tremendous appeal to anybody who’s short on time.
Carries over to real life movement. Once your body begins transforming from consistent tire flipping sessions, you’ll find that any task you do in everyday life will begin getting easier.
• Picking up and carrying young kids and babies
• Caregiving to a disabled person
• Gardening
• Housework, yardwork, shoveling snow
• Rearranging furniture
Fat burner. Because nearly every muscle gets worked in one movement (whether it’s fluid or in stages), a lot of calories get burned – much more than if you spent the same amount of time doing crunches, sit-ups, dumbbell kickbacks, biceps curls and walking lunges holding light dumbbells.
Even if you use a light tire, one that makes you think on your very first flip, “Gee, that was easy!” the task of flipping it over and over and over will quickly become taxing simply because of your body position at the start of the movement.
How to Flip a Tire Safely & Efficiently
• The form at the beginning is similar to that of a deadlift.
• Avoid excessively hovering over the tire in the starting position.
• You want to be almost sitting back in the starting position.
Shutterstock/MilanMarkovic78
• Avoid rounding your lower back as you begin the lift, and your chest should be facing ahead as much as possible rather than facing down at the tire.
• You’ll be lifting with the legs rather than with your lower back.
• Place hands under tire, then rise, powering up with the legs, assisting with the arms.
• At some point you’ll need to transition your arms from their starting position to a pushing movement.
• There’s no precise point at which to do this, as long as you maintain good form with your lower back.
• If the tire is heavy enough, you’ll be tempted to nudge it upright with one of your legs. This is fine.
• When the tire is upright, knock it over and repeat.
Muscles Worked
• Every muscle from the waist down
• Back
• Shoulders
• Core
• Chest
• Triceps
• Biceps
The legs, glutes (butt), core and back will get worked the most.
Tire flipping can be stamina based, purely power based or something in between. You can find a tire that’s light enough to flip continuously for a minute or two.
Or, you can work with a tire that’s so heavy that you can flip it only three times before having to take a good rest.
Any permutation goes. Women should not think of tire flipping as an exercise reserved just for CrossFit enthusiasts.
You KNOW you’ve been itching to flip that big tire at your gym! Just do it!
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Shutterstock/Africa Studio
Five Strength Training Moves Considered Overrated that Aren’t
Yes, there are five strength training exercises that many consider to be overrated…but they aren’t.
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Have you noticed that your watchband or bracelet leaves indentations in your skin after you remove it?
Does this alarm you because you think it’s edema – the same kind of edema that can be caused by inadequate pumping of the heart or some malfunction of the kidneys? (more…)
Can a Thin Girl Become Anorexic or Must She Be Overweight ?
Believe it or not, it’s very possible for a naturally thin teen girl or woman to develop anorexia nervosa; this disorder doesn’t just affect overweight people.
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Weighted Backpack, Treadmill Incline: Holding On Defeats Purpose
I hope you aren’t unwise enough to don the weighted backpack, jack up the treadmill incline, then HOLD ON as you “walk,” thinking you’re preparing yourself for a backcountry hike!
I couldn’t believe what I saw today at the gym: A young man with a weighted backpack walking on a treadmill incline – but holding onto the front bar!
What kind of hike or backcountry trek was he preparing for?
Or maybe he just wanted to add some intensity to his cardio workout?
Even if that’s the case, gripping the bar is just the most backwards thing to do at a gym.
Wearing a weighted backpack or vest while walking a treadmill incline is a fantastic heart pumping workout – IF YOU DO NOT HOLD ONTO THE TREADMILL.
Yes, I had to shout that out, because I just cannot believe how many people hold onto the treadmill and think this will train their bodies for hiking or backpacking.
Training for Backpacking Requires Simulating the Activity
• In outdoor backpacking, you’re not holding onto anything in front of you for support.
• Thus, it stands to reason that indoor training means don’t hold onto anything for support.
• I don’t know of any mountain trails in which a bar is moving a few feet ahead of the hiker so that they can keep their hands on it for support.
Walking around with a weighted backpack, let alone hiking with one, puts stress on the low back muscles.
This is why many unprepared hikers soon get an aching low back when wearing a weighted rucksack.
Holding onto an Inclined Treadmill Denies Training to the Low Back Muscles
“Holding onto the rails of a treadmill while training with a weighted backpack certainly defeats the purpose,” says Dr. Tom Carpenter, corrective exercise specialist, certified personal trainer and chiropractor, inventor of Stand Corrected™, a portable harness-like stretching tool that helps alleviate back, neck and shoulder pain.
Dr. Carpenter continues, “Instead of engaging the strength and balancing mechanisms required to walk with a backpack, holding on eliminates the need for the core muscles to engage adequately (providing the necessary counter balance to the added weight). Instead, the load is transferred to the arms and chest.”
• When walking an incline outdoors or one indoors without holding on, the low back muscles must work to keep your body vertical, to prevent it from toppling backwards.
• Over time, walking an incline without holding on will strengthen and condition the low back muscles.
• If you hold onto the treadmill, even while wearing a weighted backpack or vest, your arms, as Dr. Carpenter points out, will take over the task that the low back muscles are supposed to perform.
• As a result, your low back muscles will “learn” to become inefficient at inclines.
So if you keep walking on a treadmill incline, wearing a weighted vest or backpack – AND holding onto the machine … sorry folks, but your first backpacking trip will be a nightmare for your low back.
I used to be a member of a mountain club. Prior to joining, I had made a regular habit of walking inclines on a treadmill – never holding on.
However, I never wore a weighted vest or backpack, either.
Interestingly, when I went on my first backcountry hike, wearing a backpack, out in the wilderness for hours…my low back never got sore.
This was because all that incline walking, without holding on, even without adding the weighted rucksack, provided sufficient conditioning to my low back muscles.
However, if you’re planning on some major backpacking ventures in the near future, anticipating heavy loads, I recommend wearing the weighted rucksack or vest during some of your incline treadmill workouts.
BUT DO NOT HOLD ON! If your low back starts killing you, then lower the incline and/or speed of the treadmill.
The goal is to mimic a real outdoor excursion. Holding on will totally defeat the purpose!
Photo credit: Aleesia Forni
Based upon 30+ years of experience, Dr. Carpenter’s practice approach reflects his belief that restoring optimum health and function will enable his patients to enjoy a much greater amount of vitality and wellness. Chiropractic care is true health care, not sick care!
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Top image: ©Lorra Garrick
15 Percent Treadmill Incline, 5 mph & Death Grip: Benefits ?
Are there any benefits or training effect if you death grip a treadmill while “walking” 5 mph at 15 percent incline?
First off, you’re setting your hips up for injury.
When I was a personal trainer at a major health club, my biggest pet peeve was the “grippers.”
I made it a point to inform two or three people every time I was there to remove their hands from the treadmill – and I gave them in-depth reasons why.
One day while walking on a treadmill to wind down from a strength workout, I was flabbergasted at the man on the machine next to mine.
• 15 percent incline
• 5.4 mph. Yes, 5.4 mph.
• Death grip, complete with hard yanking with each step.
• He wasn’t jogging; he was forcing himself to walk.
• His eyes were shut for most of this.
“This scenario creates poor body mechanics and disrupts the normal kinetic chain,” says Dr. Tom Carpenter, corrective exercise specialist, certified personal trainer and chiropractor, inventor of Stand Corrected™, a portable harness-like stretching tool that helps alleviate back, neck and shoulder pain.
“It displaces most of the load to the lower body, denying the mid-core muscles of engaging in order to assist in balancing the entire body during the gait mechanism,” explains Dr. Carpenter.
Because he was forcing a walk at over 5 mph while clutching the front bar of the treadmill and leaning way back, his hips were forcefully – and very unnaturally – over-rotating.
This unnatural, ballistic joint action puts him at risk for a repetitive stress injury in the hips.
But let’s suppose that never happens. He would still be setting his feet up for injury. Each step was slamming down on the belt in an unnatural way.
His entire motions from shoulders to feet were ridiculously unnatural and thus, there was no benefit to what he was doing.
Hanging hard to the treadmill, even at 15 percent and over 5 mph, will not produce a training effect that will carry over to real life.
In other words, if this is how he’s preparing for the hiking season, he’s in for a shocking surprise when he starts climbing hills – where there’s nothing to grip onto – and his low back starts killing him.
Holding on with straight arms makes the body tilt back AT THE SAME ANGLE AS THE INCLINE. Note the angular relationship of 90 degrees between the walker and the tread surface. This is the SAME angular relationship with a ZERO incline. The right figure is not holding on. This changes his body’s angular relationship to the tread surface, replicating the natural angle he’d be at if walking up a hill outdoors.
Incline Walking without Holding on Engages the Low Back Muscles
• The low back muscles (erector spinae) work to prevent you from falling backwards.
• This work is nullified if you hold on; your arms take over, freeing your low back from this important task.
• If your low back is used to being freed up from work in this fashion, then once you hit the hills outdoors—the real thing—your back will pay dearly for it.
Must all exercise be applicable to real life movement?
No. I myself do a few routines that have zero carryover to real life movement. For instance I do lateral crossover raises for deltoid work on a dual cable machine.
But this is for refinement of my “caps,” i.e., the sculpt of my deltoids.
Why do you think the man was on the treadmill at 15 percent incline and 5 mph?
• To isolate a muscle for sculpting
• To train for hiking
• To improve cardiovascular fitness
• To look ridiculous
I’ll bank on bullet 2 and/or 3. We already went over 2. But what about 3? Well certainly, his heart rate was elevated. In fact, he was sweating.
If you jar your body enough for 30 minutes, you’ll sweat, but some people sweat a lot more than others. The presence of sweat does not indicate efficacy of the exercise.
Furthermore, there is no need to put your hips and feet at risk for repetitive stress injuries in order to get a cardiovascular workout.
What to do if you want to exercise at 15 percent incline and 5 mph?
• Employ interval training rather than sustained (steady state) movement.
• Interval training would mean jacking the treadmill up to 5 mph for maybe 20, 30 or 45 seconds, at 15 percent incline, and jogging (no need to force a walk) this speed – WITHOUT HOLDING ON.
• After this brief burst (it may even be a minute or two full minutes, depending on your fitness), knock the speed down to a recovery-interval pace, perhaps 1 to 1.5 mph, while keeping the 15 percent incline.
• Or, you can also lower the incline if you want the recovery pace to be a little faster.
• After a few minutes of the recovery pace, return to the 15 percent, 5 mph setting.
• Do eight work intervals, without holding on, then warm down and you’re done!
• And all without imposing unnatural forces on your hip joints and feet.
• And all without looking absolutely absurd!
Think of how you’d do hill workouts outside. Would you hang onto anything? No.
There’s nothing to hold onto. So if you do incline workouts on a treadmill, why would you hold on?
Photo credit: Aleesia Forni
Based upon 30+ years of experience, Dr. Carpenter’s practice approach reflects his belief that restoring optimum health and function will enable his patients to enjoy a much greater amount of vitality and wellness. Chiropractic care is true health care, not sick care!
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
Acoustic Neuroma Endoscopic Surgery: Removed thru Ear Canal
Finally, endoscopic surgery for the removal of an acoustic neuroma has arrived, in which the tumor is removed through the ear canal using an endoscope. (more…)
Best Kind of Exercise for Sufferers of Congestive Heart Failure
Congestive heart failure does not mean you cannot or should not exercise.
In fact, it’s just what the doctor ordered.
You should know what the best kind of exercise there is for your condition.
One might say that the best kind of exercise for heart failure patients is whatever kind of exercise they “enjoy.”
But expecting exercise to be enjoyable may be quite unrealistic for many CHF patients.
Nevertheless, you certainly don’t want to attempt to adhere to a type of activity that you dread, either.
You Can Learn from Rats
Research done on rats, who share quite a few proteins and genes with humans, shows that a particular kind of exercise is beneficial for the chronic heart failure patient.
The study was conducted at the University of Colorado at Boulder and demonstrated that exercise of a low intensity may very well delay significantly the onset of congestive heart failure in people.
The rats that were used in this research were specifically bred to suffer from spontaneous high blood pressure and congestive heart failure.
The rats’ life expectancy was boosted 10-15 percent. The conclusion is that exercise of a low intensity nature will be beneficial to people with early congestive heart failure, assuming that the rat study is applicable to people.
The study report appears in the November 2005 American Journal of Physiology — Heart and Circulatory Physiology.
Since then, however, differing views of what the ideal exercise is for men and women with long-standing heart failure have popped up.
You’ll want to discuss exercise options with your cardiologist rather than just settling for only dietary and pharmaceutical management of your disease.
Nevertheless, the study points out that onset delay of congestive heart failure in these genetically manipulated rats, via “moderate” or low intensity exercise, was achieved in the absence of lowering the animals’ blood pressure.
This is important because the majority of humans with early congestive heart failure have high blood pressure.
Another interesting element of the research was that early on, several rats died after their treadmill speed was jumped from 10 meters/minute to 17.5 meters/minute.
The speed was taken down to 14 meters/minute for the remainder of the investigation, and there were no additional deaths.
Early Heart Failure
The paper points out that for those with early disease, low intensity (also referred to as “moderate” in this study) exercise could delay the need for costly drugs — but that eventually the drugs would be needed.
Starting an Exercise Program
If you decide to use a treadmill, avoid the bad habit of continuously holding on. For momentary balance checks, DO hold on, but then once you’re re-steadied, swing your arms naturally. Otherwise you’ll be encouraging bad posture and inefficient walking. Credit: Shutterstock/This Is Me
Get going. Don’t make excuses. The housework you’ve been doing for years does not count.
Same with any activity you’ve been doing on the job or in the yard.
You need to add a variable — a new level of activity to your life.
You also need to accumulate more steps throughout your day — ANYTHING to be up and around on your feet more.
• March in place during TV commercial breaks.
• Buy a stationary bike and pedal while watching TV.
• Join a gym and take up strength training.
• Participate in low impact group fitness classes.
• Take up tai chi or yoga.
• Double the length of time you take to walk the dog.
• You may also want to seriously consider hiring a personal trainer.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified by the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained clients of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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