corenergy

Lower Back Pain?

2011-11-24T15:12:00.000-08:00

Lower back pain, we all have. Some feel it others are just carrying it silently. The is no escaping it, it is the modern world syndrome. Corenergy has the technology to prove it!

Every Injury I see and treat is effected by what I call the number one killer, the seated posture.

From a movement specialists point of view there are very few people who are not corrupted in some way or form by it. It runs rampant in kids through to elite athletes. We all sit on seats and in the western world we practically spend more time sitting in the chair than anything else we do by a considerable margin. Kids don't even walk to school anymore!

'Everybodys' performance suffers from it, be it on the playing fields or in the work place. To us the seated posture is the picture of our society today. We call this the Seated Posture Syndrome. Can we do better?

Well try these three very simple stretches with one analysis position to allow you immediate feedback. This is the technology to allow you to immediately get feedback to how much pressure your lower back is constantly under. This is what holds you back and eats up a large chunk of your energy.

Corenergy's Seated Posture Syndrome Evaluator

1. Prone Cobra

Lie face down, supporting upper body on your elbows. Hold for 10-30 sec.

This is your gage for all your mobilisation. Noticing how much pressure you have on your lower back. Number it out of 10.

2. Lying horizontal Quad stretch

Lie on your side head support by underneath arm, underneath leg is bent 90° at the hip and at the knee, the up leg is bent and held by upside hand pulling ankle to butt. Think alignment and length through body.

Hold 30-90 sec

3. Back to the Prone Cobra

Notice the relief it has brought to your lower back?

Mark out of 10.

4. Half kneeling lunge (hip stretch)

Start on both knees, take one leg in front in a lunge position. Brace kneeling legs hip.

Tricks of the trade - hold arms over head (OH) to increase stretch, tap front leg on and off the ground, feel the hip load supporting one body weight. Then mimic sensation in bracing the butt muscle to gain a stretch in the hip flexor (front of hip).

Hold for 10 sec x 3-9 reps

Repeat the other side

5. Back to the Prone Cobra

Notice the relief it has brought to your lower back again.

Mark out of 10.

6. The table top (anterior arm & chest stretch) Sit on bum, both arms behind you on the ground, feet flat knees bent, drive chest to sky, hips will follow. Majority of weight is in the arms.

Hold for 10 sec x 3-9 reps

7. Back to the Prone Cobra

Notice how much more proud your chest is in this position. In other words your are curving your spine much more than before.

De-stress you body before going to bed for a better nights sleep.

Where movement is concerned come and learn more about when you release pressure, as in above sequence, you must then re-program good form movement so pressure build up stays away.

Stay tuned.

Recovery

2011-09-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

In a 24hr cycle our bodies need to recharge. It is a rhythm that our bodies have been programmed from millions of years of development and still persists even in the absence of external cues.

To me this is where most people fall short in health, fitness, performance and wellbeing. We have a body clock and body environments that have specific rhythms, designed by nature and when distracted and over stimulated we tip the scales of balance, which has a cost – your health.

The body is a masterpiece and it is important to get an understanding that the sun has programmed our bodies. Sunlight sparks our hormonal status, which secretes hormones such as cortisol into our system and puts us in ready mode to deal with the day ahead. This is the wake cycle and you know exactly when you wake up if you are ready for the day or not. (Most of us start cursing that we should have gone to bed an hour or two earlier the night before!). The vicious cycle starts with caffeine in-take to kick-start the system. We form a habit!

The sleep cycle allows our body physical and psychological repair. And it is this change from wake to sleep cycle that can be disrupted and so damaging. Our bodies have been designed to wind down over the afternoon before going to bed at around 10pm. Man made stimulants such as bright lights, TVs, computers, sugar, caffeine re-ignite the wake cycle and inject cortisol levels back into the system which then has a barrier effect to the repair hormones to run their cause to re-energising the body.

Nutrition it self plays a huge role in our active/passive and wake/sleep cycles. Where a diet isn’t right results in large fluctuations in blood sugar levels. Where there is a high sugar blood level it will be followed by a low sugar blood level. When the body’s blood sugar level is low the body turn’s to emergency levels and asks of the liver to counterbalance with the release of stored glycogen; sugar blood levels are restored. However with modern conveniences so readily available our mind has already talked itself into having a snack bar or more caffeine, which elevates our sugar blood levels above normal again. This cycle keeps cortisol levels high and in the evening doesn’t allow our body to unwind to ready ourselves for the sleep cycle.

It is our body environments that have been designed to be dynamic to allow us to perform in all environments by establishing a unique way to balance internal and external stressors on our systems. Therefore it is us that have to maintain this dynamic element to keep us ahead of the game.

We experience Physical, Chemical, Electromagnetic, Psychic, Nutritional and Thermal challenges everyday. It is the knowledge of knowing what is good and bad for us where common sense does prevail. However it is not as simple as it may seem anymore as our society gets more complicated, as we are exposed to thousands of man made chemicals unbeknown to us and electromagnetic radiation, nutrition which isn’t true to our make up, under and over prescribed physical activities we cannot escape and social boundaries that are ever more complicated and stressed.

All in all it is a balancing act which is highly complicated if you do not listen to your rhythms and implement them into your daily life, then health suffers which then has another vicious circle on the whole balancing act. All of this can be avoided and a benchmark to not getting ill with common symptoms throughout a year should be tried to be uphold without the help of medical drugs.

Corenergy shows you the magic of our masterpiece, the function of the body and how to balance the act whilst pushing the boundaries along your life journey.

Hydration

2011-09-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

Water is the most vital nutrient and is the solvent in which all chemical reactions of life take place.

Drinking water gives you energy; it carries nutrients and oxygen to your cells.

Water is the key catalyst in digestion, enzymatic actions and energy production throughout the body. It also acts as a natural cooling system, provides a protective cushion for your tissues and is essential to the removal of metabolic waste production through perspiration and urine.

When you don’t drink enough water, the fluid volume in your system decreases, your blood thickens and it becomes very difficult for your body to detoxify or your cells to receive adequate nourishment.

Many of us are unaware that dehydration is a very widespread problem. The few that are aware still fall prey to the breakdown in fundamental physiological processes.

Symptoms may include

Headache

Fatigue

Chronic pain

High blood pressure

Digestive disturbances

Hunger is commonly mistaken for thirst and one glass of water can shut down on hunger pangs. A dry mouth is the advance stage on dehydration. A high intake of juices, sodas, tea, coffee, alcohol and other beverages are not adequate substitutes for pure water and take more water to process it through the body than they deliver.

Drinking water has become far more complicated with the added pressure we have exposed our water supplies to in modern living. Herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, acid rain, heavy metals such as arsenic and lead, radioactive wastes and thousands of industrial chemicals have heavily contaminated the water supply.

The best solution is to have an end user purification system. There are three types of water purifications systems: - filtration, distillation and reverse osmosis. All purification systems have their limitations. For more information get in touch and we will point you in the right direction.

The soundest advice is to purchase glass bottled organic spring water. It is alive and kicking with nutrients and is the best long-term use for vitality.

On average be sure you drink at least two litres of water through out the day in-between meals.

On hot days and with intense training, when perspiration is experienced, a higher in-take of water is needed and isotonic replacements will help better function.

Stay hydrated. Stay focused.

Nutrition

2011-09-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

It is not us at fault personally when nutrition is involved. Very like movement is affected by modern living, nutrition is affected by what we are supplied.

Your body craves for certain things however 9 out of 10 you supply it with completely the wrong nutrients. Why? Because the nearest thing to grab when the signals are strongest is poor nutrition, most probably a snack bar camouflaged with sugar somewhere to make it taste good!

The oxygen we breathe, the sunlight, the food we eat and the water we drink are vital nutrients necessary for all life-sustaining metabolic processes. They allow our biological chemical factory to fire into existence. It provides our immune, recovery and energy systems the necessity to thrive and grow, whilst our body organs supply a service the chemicals need to flourish in.

Nutrients are the chemicals that organisms need to live and grow from. Therefore it is essential that your food source be the best you can get. If the food is lacking vital nutrients as in processed food, food from over cultivated land or food that has been genetically changed, then the body will be starved of its right to function well. This is one of the main causes of over eating.

The introduction of sugar has been the single most devastating influence to healthy populations. Dental records record within a generation of sound healthy tribes exposed to a western sugary diet of processed food, end up with common dental problems us westerners all take for granted.

It must be said that not one diet is right for all the people. The saying goes – ‘One mans meal is another’s poison.’ Why because we all have different chemical genes passed on from our own individual ancestors. It was their main stable diet they lived on over hundreds of thousand of years, which built the building blocks to your genetic build. For instances if you put an Eskimo on our diet here in the UK which is built up of grains, diary, vegetables and farmed meat he would rapidly fall below par and over time would experience everything we associate with being unhealthy. Why? The Eskimos are designed to fire up on the nutrition that is provided in their environment as their stable diet. These are animals that survive in the Arctic conditions.

By finding out what metabolic type you are, you find out a whole lot more than just what nutrition can do to recharge your true biological age. With performance it is an early indication too how much training load your body make up can take in the world of sport science.

Even in the knowledge your metabolic typing, still true to all of us is what and when we eat. It is fundamental to our energy. If our food supply is weak in nutrition (not fresh, local, organic nutrient based soils, naturally fed animals) then less nutrient dense food will only make you crave more because the body is starved of its vital biological foundation.

When we eat is up for much discussion also. Three square meals might not be right for all of us. The more in tune you become with your awareness to your body the more you discover what works for you.

At corenergy we help you find that place.

Movement

2011-09-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

Life Fit

Getting the fundamentals right only elevates and enhances the life you live. It is hard to listen to our own bodies especially amongst the hectic daily life’s we run. At corenergy we instill awareness to all the calling signs our bodies constantly send us to keep us efficient in all that we pursue which leads to the joy of living.

Corenergy’s Life Fit program is a transformative course that gives you a lifetime of strength, beauty and grace that we all have in us to maximises health, fitness, performance and wellbeing.

We believe Life Fit is having the energy and efficiency to be ready for any eventuality and we know it takes a multi-disciplinary approach as nature designed.

In this first posting we discuss movement. Then follow the next few postings on nutrition and recovery to get an idea of what we mean by a multi-disciplinary approach is.

Movement

Movement is absolutely necessary to the functioning of our body. Without it we are dead! The more fluid and efficient we are the better our body can perform its daily tasks. We have been designed for intense labor but on the other hand we have been designed to be in complete relaxation. There is no getting away from our design; it is our biological make up. One does not live wholly without the other; it is our Ying and Yang.

In movement it is our fundamental movement patterns that are the foundation to more complex movement patterns. A baby creeps then crawls then sits then crawls on all fours then stands with assistance and so on before walking and running.

A child will automatically choose a squat to pick things up off the ground. Why? Because the mechanics of the proper squat is super efficient on dispensing load throughout the body without compromising the weaker structures such as the spine. Unlike the bend pattern, which only loads the posterior chain (the back of our body), can put undue load through the weaker structures to achieve the same job. Why we choose to bend instead of squat comes down a decision in the metabolic cost, every movement has its price and so does faulty movement with injury!

Fundamental movement patterns have to be maintained to keep the kinetic chain in check and in balance. Asymmetries appear with over repetition of poorly chosen movement patterns and then these turn into faulty movement patterns due to the over loading in isolated areas which then corrupts all our movement. We enter a vicious circle of imbalances that will eventually or suddenly erupt to an injury. This is more prevalent than ever in our modern society as we get locked into partial range of movement because of the convenience of the seat and transport.

When you are mastering your pursuit for example like in martial arts there will be many fundamental movement patterns that you will endeavor to keep maintained through special routines. If you lack this discipline and movement isn’t a big part of your life, you will be surprised how much off the fundamentals you have forgotten. It is more noticeable to someone when they take leave, for a moment, from their pursuits and return to be amazed how much they have lost.

This is the importance of purposeful training. By turning what you do during the day into special routines, like the martial artist. In other words to be Life Fit we must dance at work! Or there abouts depending on what your line of work is. Our Life Fit course allows you this understanding.

But first because the majority of us have fallen into the trap of faulty movement patterns, hardware and software changes must be approached first if the body is to have any chance of success.

Walking, running, sprinting are movement patterns we couldn’t have survived without. They are the very make up of who we are. They all have different postures and rhythms for biomechanical reasons. These without doubt are the building blocks to all other more complicated movement patterns experienced in other activities, which build on who we are. However the majority of us haven’t even mastered these fundamentals yet, which is the very foundation to health, fitness, performance and wellbeing.

As with any hierarchy of needs, at corenergy we address these issues first to allow greater success in the future.

A welcome change

2011-09-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

Aloha and a warm welcome from corenergy.

The corenergy blog is where you will find information that rings total sense. We have spent a lot of time researching and studying. What filters to you, has filtered through our practice first. Our practice runs on conceptual science, which must make sense to the physical and natural laws of the universe.

We thrive on movement, games, sport, adventures, arts, music, singing, pushing the limits, rhythm, skill, rapport, connection, sharing, training the body, mind and spirit all for the love of it and to gain greater purposes. It fascinates us!

The beauty of being young is our ability to tap so readily into our natural instincts. As the years roll on the wiser we become of the importance of what was natural is truly worth hanging onto.

Our Core principles;

Movement

Nutrition

Recovery

are all that it takes to be Life Fit. Further reading, which is posted, will give you a good understanding of them all.

For further information and to keep on top of it all get signed up to our News Letter or get in touch we love to chat and help where we can.

Only by having a clear picture can you action what you desire.

Corenergy