10 Reasons Never to Hold onto the Treadmill
Do you know the 10 reasons it’s wrong to hold onto the treadmill while walking or jogging?
As a former personal trainer, I have observed — with a lot of interest — how people use the most popular piece of gym equipment: the treadmill.
And the vast majority of them use it wrong. What? Use a treadmill wrong?
How can anyone use such a simple piece of equipment incorrectly? Well, believe it or not, it is used wrong all the time.
And when you exercise with poor form, you put yourself at risk for repetitive stress injuries, and you’ll get very little, if any, results.
Most treadmill walkers hold on. And not just older people. Even young people do this. It’s very wrong, especially from a fitness and weight loss standpoint.
It burns far fewer calories (the calorie display is a computer that automatically shows numbers, based on the speed and incline only); and can wreck your posture.
Here are 10 reasons why you should not hold on.
1 Holding on burns about 20 percent fewer calories than letting go at the same speed.
2 It will throw off your walking gait and posture. Look at the man in the photo above.
That is so unnatural and does absolutely nothing to improve mobility or coordination once he’s off the treadmill.
Maybe that doesn’t matter to a young jock, but it gets more relevant as one gets older.
“To get the most out of a treadmill workout, it is important to maintain an upright posture and correct walking or running form. This will help to improve measures of fitness as well as prevent unwanted injury from incorrect equipment use,” says Jacque Crockford, MS, CSCS, an ACE certified personal trainer and an ACE exercise physiologist.
The feet can suffer, too: “Changing of the gait can always lead to injuries especially soft tissue injuries such as tendonitis,” says Dr. Oliver Zong, DPM, a foot specialist and surgeon based in New York.
“To the extent that holding onto the treadmill changes one’s gait, this could happen,” he continues. “Clearly it is better to walk or run naturally with a natural gait pattern.”
3 It can cause repetitive stress injuries in the hips and shoulders. I once had a new client who complained of mysterious shoulder pain.
I found out she always held onto the treadmill while walking. I told her to let go. After she began walking hands off, after a few days, the shoulder pain disappeared.
4 When you hold on, you are not really, truly walking, because in everyday walking, you’re not holding onto anything for support.
Many people — including young — walk on a treadmill like this. Whether it’s being intenionally modeled or not, IT IS WRONG. It’s fake walking. Depositphotos.com
So if you hold onto the treadmill, your body is not being trained to do anything. In fact, it’s being UN-trained.
5 It UN-teaches your body how to balance. Your balance will become worse if you hold on.
When you hold on, the machine becomes an external support system to your body. This teaches your body to rely on an external agent for balance.
So when you’re outside somewhere, and you have to balance or walk on uneven surfaces, or step around things or go down stairs, etc., your body won’t be efficient at handling the demands of self-support without that external agent to hold onto.
6 Holding on at fast speeds can raise blood pressure, because you are gripping at something. A tight grip, especially, will raise blood pressure.
7 You will be tricked into thinking you’re far more fit than you actually are, because no matter how high you set the incline, even at a fast speed, if you hold on tightly enough, you can keep up with the tread without any challenge if you hold on.
This will fake you out into thinking you can handle actual hills outdoors.
8 Holding on can aggravate a pre-existing back problem or knee problem. When you hold on, the entire kinetic chain is disrupted.
9 Holding on creates a false sense of accomplishment. You’re not really doing anything. Even the most frail person can use a treadmill if he or she grasps the machine.
10 It looks…well, quite silly. One of my clients even pointed that out to me and stated, “Some people call that walking! That isn’t walking!”
Jacque Crockford is also the exercise physiology content manager at ACE (American Council on Exercise) and has been an personal trainer for 15+ years.
Dr. Zong, a foot and ankle surgeon, has appeared on national and local TV programs such as “Good Morning America” and “The Doctors.”
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: Depositphotos.com
Fat Burning Zone vs. Cardio Training Zone: Which Burns More Calories?
Fat burning zone vs. cardio training zone for burning fat?
Do you ever wonder what the difference is between the “fat burning zone” and the “cardio training zone”?
Surely you’ve seen these diagrammed in some way on cardio equipment, and perhaps you’ve noticed that the fat burning zone is an easier zone to work out in.
But when you work harder and get your heart rate up higher, the zone becomes “cardio training,” or “athletic training,” and no longer “fat burning.”
So in an attempt to lose weight, you make sure to remain walking, stepping or pedaling comfortably in that fat burning zone.
But have you ever wondered how it is, that exercising harder burns LESS fat? How can this be? This shouldn’t make any sense.
You’ve probably heard that a greater percentage of fat is burned during the fat burning zone, which is also known as the aerobic burning zone.
So surely, the best way to melt off fat is to stay in that fat burning zone, and to make sure you don’t get too out of breath or too worked up, right?
WRONG.
The fat burning zone, indeed, burns a greater PERCENTAGE of fat, relative to total calories burned.
But the higher intensity cardio or athletic training zone burns more TOTAL calories for the same length of time.
This means that the total amount of fat that’s burned with these calories, actually comes out higher than the total fat burned during easier “fat burning” work.
Let’s do the math. Suppose on Monday, you use the elliptical trainer machine for 60 minutes.
You stay within that target heart rate that correlates to the fat burning zone. You burn a total of, let’s say, 200 calories.
I choose 200 here arbitrarily, just for mathematical purposes. Everyone’s metabolism is different, and calorie readouts on machines are based on an average-height, 150 pound male. You may be a 5-2, 170 pound female.
So keep in mind the mathematical concept here, rather than how many calories your particular body might burn up in 60 minutes.
So, you burn 200 calories in 60 minutes in the fat burning zone. Now, about 50 percent of those calories will be fat. 50 percent of 200 is 100. Remember that: You’ve burned 100 calories of fat.
Now, let’s say on Wednesday, you get on the same machine, but train in the cardio zone. You pedal faster at a higher pedal resistance. You drip sweat.
You hear yourself breathing hard. You huff and puff. After 60 minutes, you’ve burned 300 calories.
In cardio zone training, about 40 percent of the calories burned will be fat.
Note: 40 percent is a smaller number than 50 percent. HOWEVER…what’s 40 percent of the 300 calories that were burned?
It’s 120! Your total fat-calories burned were 120! This is 20 percent MORE fat burned, than what you did in your fat burning session on Monday!
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: ©Lorra Garrick
Why Old Men Have Skinny Arms & Legs but Big Bellies
It’s common to see old men with thin arms and legs, but fat bellies…
Ever notice how many old men have skinny legs and arms, but plenty of fat in their bellies?
In fact, as they age, men typically lose mass in their legs and arms — they get thinner, while their belly just gets fatter and fatter.
There is a perfectly logical, and quite simple, explanation for why, as men get older, their bellies get bigger while their legs and arms get thinner or scrawnier. It has to do with the metabolic furnace.
This phenomenon happens to men who don’t perform weight-bearing workouts on a consistent basis.
To put it another way, the increasing stomach size and decreasing leg and arm size will happen to nearly every man who doesn’t exercise, as he gets older.
The only exceptions are very underweight men, and it’s rare to see an old man with scrawny arms and legs and a flat firm tummy.
The metabolic furnace is the body’s muscle.
For inactive men (and women), beginning at about age 30, the body begins losing muscle mass. As muscle mass decreases, metabolism slows down.
A slower metabolism means that the rate at which you burn calories from food slows down.
A man, who was never into working out, as he approaches middle age, continues to lose muscle, about five pounds’ worth per decade.
By age 50, this sedentary individual has lost around 10 pounds of muscle.
This shows in thinner legs and arms; they’ve lost muscle mass. The butt sags. The thighs look, pardon my bluntness, pathetic.
So why does the belly in these men get fat?
Because the muscle they used to have in their legs and arms, which is no longer there, is no longer there to burn some of the food they eat.
Muscle burns more calories than any other body tissue; muscle is the body’s metabolic furnace.
The less muscle you have, the slower your metabolism (even though it may still be on the fast side, but relative to what you had when you had more muscle, it is slower nevertheless).
So food that used to get used by the muscle that was once in the legs and arms, is now getting stored as fat, and the first place men store fat is in the belly.
This phenomenon doesn’t just happen to skinny men as they get older.
A medium or even portly man will notice that as years go by, their belly just keeps getting bigger and bigger, while strangely, once thick legs are now smaller.
These men no longer have the muscle mass in their arms and legs to support their daily food intake, and thus, the non-used calories get stored in their belly as fat.
I might also mention that the muscle loss also occurs in their chest, back and shoulders.
However, loss of muscle is most evident in the legs and buttocks.
The fat belly in an otherwise “healthy” (free of disease) aging man is entirely preventable through strength training workouts.
Shutterstock/Straight 8 Photography
I see this all the time at the gym: old-timers with washboard abs, strong sturdy shoulders and backs, muscular arms and strong, toned legs.
Men over 30 who have noticed an ever-growing belly of fat can reverse this situation 100 percent in many cases (depending on variables including age).
The best way for men to lose the paunch is to hit the weights for their legs, back, chest and shoulders, and not camp out – yes, I said “not” – at the crunch machines.
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.
How to Lose Weight Before Your Total Knee Replacement
Here is a guide on how to lose weight with exercise even if you can’t do aerobics or leg workouts and need a total knee replacement.
A person who needs a total knee replacement can still lose weight in time for the surgery by engaging in the right kind of strength training exercises coupled with a specific technique that optimizes fat loss.
Obese men and women are at greater risk of complications following total knee replacement surgery.
For this reason, weight loss prior to the procedure is strongly advised.
“When considering losing weight before your TKR, one must have reasonable goals and means by which to achieve these,” says Marc F. Matarazzo, MD, a board certified orthopedic surgeon with Total MD Family Medicine & Urgent Care.
“A weight loss of 5-10% would be a reasonable goal to start.
“In general, low impact exercises along with resistance training exercises and proper diet are recommended.”
- Examples of low impact exercise are use of a stationary bike and elliptical trainer.
- Walking with hand weights and a good arm pump is another option.
“It is also recommended to seek medical advice and assistance in losing weight, as there could be medical ramifications involved,” says Dr. Matarazzo.
For example, if you have high blood pressure or diabetes, these conditions will alter how you should approach an exercise program.
“Effective treatment for weight management and obesity related to musculoskeletal symptoms can include 30 to 60 minutes of moderate intensity exercise three times per week.”
What if lower body exercise causes knee pain?
First off, you can try walking laps in a pool. However, this would only be the beginning of a weight loss plan — as there’s a more effective way to shed the pounds that should be prioritized over any water activity.
That more effective way is strength training the upper body, since lower body work would not be wise for someone with advanced osteoarthritis of the knees.
You’ll be able to engage in this in a maximal way, provided that you’re free of shoulder problems and have no other comorbities that can warrant restrictions such as lower back pathology or chronic heart failure.
The protocol for maximal weight loss via strength training is to use a resistance load that enables you to complete at least eight repetitions — but not more than 12.
This is called an eight to 12 rep max. It’s that sweet spot for maximizing the fat burning effects of strength training.
If the weight load is light enough for more than 12 reps — and you end up doing 15 or more — this will dilute the fat burning effect, while possibly increasing the risk of tendon injury due to the prolonged repetitive nature of the set.
A Closer Look at this Sweet Spot for Weight Loss, Even if You’re New to Strength Training
1) Use heavy resistance so that eight to 12 repetitions are very challenging — so challenging that the entire set requires concentrated effort.
If you can carry on a conversation while doing sets, the weight simply is not heavy enough!
Furthermore, conversation will distract you from focusing on correct form!
Bench press. Shutterstock/ LightField Studios
2) Maintain good form throughout the set. Avoid swinging or rocking your body.
If you’re not sure about your form, then ask a personal trainer to demonstrate.
3) Avoid exercises that isolate the shoulders, triceps and biceps (e.g., biceps curls, triceps kickbacks), as these will burn far less fat than will compound exercises that work several muscle groups at once.
Examples of compound exercises are any barbell press or dumbbell press, any machine where you push handles outward, and any pulling motion such as with equipment in which you have a seat and pull handles down towards your neck from above or horizontally towards your chest.
Narrow-grip pull-down. Zennis Se/Pexels
4) Avoid crunches and sit-ups. These are a waste of time and will not help you lose any weight. All they’ll do is make it easier to do crunches and sit-ups.
5) Make an objective to keep lifting heavier and heavier over the course of time so that you’re always in that zone of 8-12 rep max.
6) Perform these routines twice a week, e.g., Monday and Thursday, or Tuesday and Saturday.
Overhead press. Freepik
Avoid dietary measures that are not sustainable in the long run. The best dietary approach to sustained weight loss is that of portion control.
- Replace juice with whole fruit.
- Replace soda with water.
- Replace processed foods with foods in more of a whole or natural form. For example, get fresh cuts of chicken and fresh broccoli rather than a frozen chicken and broccoli dinner that has sugar added to it.
- Replace white flour foods with whole grains; replace white rice with basmati or brown rice.
- Limit sweets.
- Unfollow any influencer who says it’s “fatphobic” to want to lose weight.
Dr. Matarazzo specializes in sports medicine and related injuries. He performs minimally invasive and complex reconstructions, and joint replacements, of the shoulder and knee. Dr. Matarazzo is certified in the MAKO robotic-assisted knee replacement system and has 20+ years of orthopedic experience. He has a special interest in cartilage restoration and preservation.
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: Rama/reativecommons
Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121024141631.htm
Pedal Backward on Elliptical Trainer for Knee Pain Treatment
If you have knee pain, try pedaling backwards on the elliptical machine and see if this doesn’t alleviate your joint discomfort.
Most people don’t pedal backwards on the elliptical trainer, but this may actually alleviate knee pain, according to a study.
Most people don’t pedal backwards on the elliptical presumably because it taxes the quadriceps muscles of the thighs more, and also because most people do not think outside the box.
However, the leader of the study, Elmarie Terblanche, PhD, says that those who pedaled backwards experienced much greater gains in thigh and hamstring strength when compared to those who used the equipment going forward.
The stronger the quadriceps, the more stable the knee joint. The study also showed that those who pedaled backwards on the elliptical had greater aerobic function than those who moved forward.
The study subjects represented numerous knee injuries and were randomly assigned to forwards or backwards pedaling on the elliptical for a series of supervised sessions. Terblanche urges “do it backward!” for those with knee pain.
What people don’t realize is that only five minutes of backward pedaling are all it takes to produce a training effect and help alleviate knee pain, as well as strengthen knees in people without pain in this joint.
Next time you use the elliptical machine, toss in some backwards pedaling here and there for several minutes.
Don’t clutch onto the rails and lurch forward. Keep your back vertical to force your core to be engaged. Try not to hold on.
Move your arms in synch with your body and keep the back straight. By focusing on balance and good posture without holding on, you will burn significantly more calories.
For a deeper “burn” in the quadriceps, lower yourself to increase the bend in your legs.
This isn’t necessarily recommended for those with knee pain, but just as a general way to modify the exercise.
Remember to keep erect, straight posture and try not to hold onto the rails.
Fitter people should raise the pedal tension to increase the intensity of going backwards on the elliptical. Holding onto the rails will reduce pedal tension.
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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Top image: Dreamstime/Orangeline
Source: http://www.acsm.org/about-acsm/media-room/acsm-in-the-news/2011/08/01/moving-backward-helps-injured-knees-move-ahead
How Important Is Weight Loss Before Total Knee Replacement Surgery?
If you have a total knee replacement surgery planned, you’d be doing yourself a huge favor by losing weight before having this procedure done.
A report in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (Oct. 2012) says that obese patients are at higher risk of complications following total knee replacement surgery.
To date, there are no studies showing that having a slender build is a risk factor for postoperative complications of knee replacement surgery.
Thus, we have a major difference between the “health” of a very overweight individual and that of a slim individual.
This particular element is completely overlooked by many body positive enthusiasts who keep insisting that there is no difference between the health of obese people and that of thinner people.
These complications (including infections) are correlated to the need for revision surgery.
A Problem that Doesn’t Exist with Thin Knee Replacement Patients
The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery paper states that total knee replacement (TKR) can be technically more difficult to perform on obese patients.
The body positive movement focuses on the very easy-to-obtain health metrics from one’s doctor: blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol and the results of other routine exams such as peering inside the mouth, up the nose and in the ear.
Routine physicals don’t cover the technical challenge of performing TKR on obese people. Many obese people are walking out of doctors’ offices with a “normal” annual physical, believing that obesity does not negatively impact health.
Body Positivity Won’t Make Knee Replacement Surgery Easier for the Surgeon
If you’re plus size, and your knees aren’t feeling too good lately, you should put aside all the Instagramming on “self-love” and being body positive, and commit to losing some weight.
- What IF your knees hurt due to osteoarthritis?
- What if one day you’re told you need a TKR?
- Wouldn’t it be great if at the time you’re informed of this, you’ve already lost a lot of weight?
Body positivity is a process of improving one’s body and becoming the best human machine you can be, rather than settling for a slow, lumbering big body.
The paper points out that very overweight TKR patients have a higher rate of postoperative infection and a doubled rate of surgical revision on that original TKR.
Being Body Positive Means Being Knee Positive
Be good to your knees: Commit to a weight loss program of portion control and replacement of junk foods with healthful foods.
The report also advises that obese people, who are scheduled for a total knee replacement, should make a plan to lose weight prior to the procedure.
This is because even a 10% weight loss will make a different.
How do you lose weight if your knees hurt?
When I was a personal trainer, I worked with overweight clients who has “bad” knees. Some indeed told me that they’d been diagnosed with osteoarthritis (wearing down of cartilage).
- If you have this condition, you CAN exercise.
- It’s just that you need to avoid certain kinds of exercise.
- One need not jog, hop or jump in order to lose weight.
- Get off the aerobics bandwagon and get on the strength training bandwagon. Strength training is your ticket to weight loss — and feeling much more positive about your body.
Upper body strength training can be done in a seated position, sparing pain in the knee!
You can also lie on a bench for some exercises, such as the bench press and “skull crusher” (bringing a dumbbell with both hands behind your head, then bringing it back up above your face).
A complete strength training program for the upper body, combined with portion control of food, will result in weight loss, better body composition and a stronger, fitter upper body. Now THAT’S body positivity!
Strength Training Exercises for People Facing TKR Who Need to Lose Weight
Bench Press and Seated Chest Press
Overhead Dumbbell Press
Lat Pull-Down
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: Shutterstock/Suzanne Tucker
Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121024141631.htm
Why You Have Pain Soon After Revision Knee Replacement
Is your knee pain worse after revision surgery even though at first it wasn’t so bad?
A knee revision surgery is when a failed or loosened implant is replaced in part or whole by new hardware, but what does it mean if soon after this procedure, the knee pain is a 9 or 10 out of a 10 pain scale?
Might this mean that the knee revision surgery failed? My father recently had a knee revision surgery.
In the several days after the knee revision surgery, while he was still in the hospital, he reported that everything felt fine, other than the surgical pain, which is to be expected with these procedures.
He spent four days in the hospital. The fourth night after the knee revision surgery, he slept at his house, and next morning, reported that the knee felt good (there was pain, of course, but this was related to the procedure).
However, next day, he said it was hurting bad and became concerned. I noticed that he wasn’t walking as much (the doctor told him to use a walker for the next three weeks, then a cane for three weeks after that).
The next day it was still worse, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the knee revision surgery actually failed, even commenting that maybe something in there was loose.
Interestingly, his physical therapist, who came to the house, noted some oozing from the incision, and decided that this, in combination with the severe pain, might mean an infection.
The PT contacted the surgeon’s office; he was told that my father should report to the emergency room.
I drove him there. The ER doctor said the knee didn’t appear to be infected. An X-ray was normal.
A blood test also was normal. An orthopedic physician’s assistant then examined the incision, feeling the joint, and said everything was normal. So what was up with all the pain?
The P.A. explained that after knee revision surgery, the patient is up and walking within 24 hours. Each day after, the patient walks a little more, feeling “great.”
Then come maybe the fifth or sixth day after knee revision surgery, the patient reports an increase in pain, sometimes dramatic.
This is because, said the P.A., the joint has become overworked. The patient typically cuts back on walking and becomes more inactive. This gives the joint a chance to recharge.
When the pain diminishes, the patient eagerly begins walking again, and may again overdo it, bringing on a resurgence of the pain.
It’s an up and down cycle, said the P.A., that can persist for a few weeks, but over time, as the joint heals, it won’t respond so much with pain from all the walking.
My father had a follow-up visit a few days after with his primary care physician, who basically said the same thing.
The joint looked perfectly normal, and that pain comes from walking too much (which doesn’t necessarily mean a marathon — remember, knee revision surgery is very traumatic to the joint, and what seems like normal walking about the house can easily qualify as “overdoing it”).
If you’ve recently had knee revision surgery and the pain has suddenly gotten worse, this might be due to “overdoing it,” but get a prompt follow-up with your primary care doctor to be sure.
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: Dave Haygarth
New Pain After Epidural Steroid Injection: Cause, Solution
Perhaps you’ve had an epidural steroid injection for a herniated disc which solved the sciatica pain, but now you have a new kind of discomfort.
Have you recently had an epidural steroid injection to relieve the pain of a herniated disc (lumbar), and even though the shot worked for the original discomfort, you now have a new kind of pain?
This happened to my mother. The doctor said that the new “soreness,” as my mother initially described it as, was the result of the injection itself and that it would be temporary.
The original pain of her herniated disc was in her buttocks and the back of her upper leg (sciatic nerve).
After the epidural steroid injection, my mother reported that the sciatica problem was gone, but there was a new pain that had not been there prior to the procedure. The “soreness” didn’t seem to be going away as days went on, either.
It was bad enough to dampen her spirits, take painkillers and use cold packs. For almost two weeks this new pain persisted, and finally, my mother was prescribed gabapentin, also known as Neurontin, a drug for nerve pain.
However, her primary care doctor, as well as the doctor who had performed the epidural steroid injection, did not diagnose this new discomfort as being related to the sciatic or any other nerve.
The day of the epidural steroid injection, the doctor did mention that there’d be post-procedural discomfort caused by the volume of the injected medication within the confined space of my mother’s spinal canal.
As the medication “finds its way around,” explained the doctor, it would produce pain, and this would be normal, he added.
Well, how long was it supposed to take for the drug to find its way around and work its way through the region?
My mother was at first reluctant to try the Neurontin after finding out what the potential side effects were.
On the other hand, every medication she’s ever been prescribed had a litany of potential side effects that were unnerving to read through.
Several days after getting the prescription, she decided to try the Neurontin, and it worked like a charm; the new pain vanished and she’s back to normal.
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
Herniated Disc Treatment: Conservative or Decompression?
The big question is: At what point does conservative treatment for a herniated disc switch over to decompression treatment?
A herniated disc can be treated with conservative means or with a technique called percutaneous disc decompression.
A herniation is when part of the disc, the sponge-like shock absorber between vertebral bones, protrudes or bulges outside the space that it’s supposed to be confined to.
The protruding portion then presses on nerves coming out of the spine, namely the sciatic nerve.
Conservative treatment is typically physical therapy, epidural steroid injections, muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory drugs.
In disc decompression, the disc is deflated. This gives the nerve root space, mitigating nerve root irritation, alleviating the patient of pain.
The disc is deflated by first puncturing it with a needle and then removing some of it, or using energy to dissolve some of the tissue.
Disc decompression is an outpatient procedure utilizing local anesthesia. Patients usually can resume normal activities within 30 days.
Conservative Treatment of a Herniated Disc vs. Decompression
“In general, surgery carries risks associated with it including death, so conservative treatment is always better initially if possible,” says Melissa Franckowiak, MD, an anesthesiologist in Lockport, NY.
“This includes rest, ice and analgesics. Conservative treatment is also unlikely to improve many work-related injuries or automobile related injuries, with some studies showing only one-third of patients improving, one-third with no change in symptoms and one-third getting worse in these populations.
“Many times, however, once the swelling and inflammation of the acute injury settles, surgical decompression becomes unnecessary.
“However, if a disc herniation is large enough, and the disc contents are extruding through the posterior spinal structures, even rest and anti-inflammatories are unlikely to completely relieve the pain.
“Surgical decompression can improve the symptoms dramatically when they are severe and acute.
“Additionally, if there is neuropathy, chronic, longstanding muscle weakness from nerve compression, or acute compression causing bowel or bladder dysfunction, surgical decompression may be required emergently.”
- Always try a good course of multiple conservative approaches first for your disc herniation before considering any kind of surgical technique.
- Be faithful to your physical therapy exercises; don’t skip any or else you’ll never know what the outcome may have been.
- Get a second, even third opinion if the situation becomes vexing.
Dr. Franckowiak is the inventor of two patented medical devices and the CEO of Pneumaglide, providing airway solutions to the surgical services and emergency medical services communities. A fiction writer under the name of Melissa Crickard, she is the author of “The Labrador Response” and “Another Five Patients,” available on Amazon.
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: BruceBlaus/CreativeCommons
How to Handle Menopausal Hot Flashes when Strength Training
Oddly, I couldn’t find any online information about having a menopausal hot flash while strength training, so I decided to be (apparently) the first to write on this subject.
I have had many hot flashes (menopausal) while lifting weights. It’s not that the exercise causes a hot flash.
Or at least I don’t believe there’s a connection. It seems as though the hot flashes occur randomly, and sometimes, I just happen to be in the gym when they happen.
And here’s what I do when it happens: nothing.
That is, I continue with my exercise as always. The only time a hot flash becomes an issue during a strength training session is when it’s time to do another deadlift set.
This is because the hot flash makes my palms sweaty, and the deadlift requires gripping a barbell from the floor and pulling it up to hip level. I don’t use gloves or chalk.
If you have this same problem, the only thing you can do is wipe your hands on a towel and/or shake them out in the air before gripping the barbell.
As a personal trainer, I don’t recommend gloves because they cheat you of developing natural grip power. Chalk will help with the sweat.
Or, you can wait for the episode to pass, if that doesn’t interfere with the timing of your sets and rests.
Other than interfering with grip in the deadlift, I don’t see how the menopausal hot flash can disrupt exercise other than just making you hotter and drippier than you normally would be.
At one point, I stepped outside into the cool night air. At one of the chain gyms I go to, there’s a door to an outdoor balcony that’s right off one end of the training area.
It was literally just feet from the training floor that I was using, and the cool night air felt great against my in-the-midst hot flash.
You can always stand before a fan if your gym has one. If not, simply proceed with your training.
You may want to have a towel with you. You’ll want to wipe sweat off your face. You may feel sweat dripping down your chest and back.
To that I say, so what. Menopausal hot flashes happen. Nobody in the gym has to know this, either. Just keep on doing what you’re doing.
I’ve had them between sets of bench pressing, chin-ups, leg presses, overhead presses and squats. I let them run their course and conduct my workouts as usual.
I don’t cease strength training just because I’m having a menopausal hot flash, and I don’t recommend that you do this, either. Just keep on training.
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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