The Power of Posture

The most underrated, yet influential, aspect of our health and wellness is our POSTURE.

We all know the mind and body are connected, but it is far more incredible and powerful than we give credit. Not only does posture affect our physical health and function but very importantly, posture affects our mental health and vice versa – think confidence, happiness and the ability to handle emotional and stressful situations. 

Two things to think about: How posture affects our mental state, and how posture affects our physical health and ability to move.

Consider what your posture looks like when you are feeling sad, blue or insecure in a situation. Our body pulls inward towards a fetal, self-protective positioning. Think about your posture during your daily activities – maybe you're sitting here reading this while hunched over your blue-lit screen of choice, slouching with rounded shoulders and a forward head carry, at your desk, in your car or on your phone .. these positions can negatively impact your happiness, your ability to deal with stressful situations, AND how you move and function. 

When we sit or stand with this poor posture, physically, we are compromising our ability to breathe deeply and fully, move properly, and ultimately down the road will lead to micro-trauma, muscular imbalances and injury such as neck, shoulder and lower back pain. Having a strong skeletal and muscular alignment allows the body to function at its best – efficiently, effectively and safely – minimizing the risk of injury and again, vice versa, improving your emotional state. 

Consider what your posture looks like when you are happy, excited and confident in a situation. Shoulders back, chest open, head up, core engaged and feet firmly planted on the ground. When we stand with a powerful posture – even when we don't feel so confident and powerful, there is a positive chemical shift in the brain which will ultimately shift our mood. AND, you guessed it, we can move safely and efficiently.

Through awareness and small adjustments to your routine, you have the power to change your energy and mood as well as your physical appearance, how people perceive you and your resilience to stress, injury and trauma.

For the sake of your physical and mental health, let's get in line. Exercises to promote strong posture coming your way.

Push-Up Perfection

Push-ups might seem like an incredibly simple exercise, but there is SO much more to it than simply bending your elbows and pushing yourself away from the floor.  And if you've never been able to do one or never learned how to do a proper push-up, these tips can help you get on your way to building the strength you need to complete your first one or simply perfect form. I use push-ups not only to build upper body strength, but to increase trunk stability, correct muscular imbalances and teach the body how to work as one unit. 

If you've worked with me before, you know I'm a stickler for proper form and technique in order to prevent injury and help you get the most out of your effort.

(Modifications: To decrease the intensity, perform push-ups on an incline with your hands on a stable platform (bench, table, sofa, etc). Elevate your body to a degree that allows you to perform with excellent form and decrease the angle as you get stronger, working closer to the floor.)

ALIGNMENT! is KEY to performing a safe and effective push-up

STARTING POSITION - PLANK

Upper body: Place your hands slightly wider than shoulder distance apart with your index fingers parallel to each other and align your shoulders with your wrists. As you press your hands into the floor, draw your shoulders away from your ears and down your back and visualize spinning the hands away from your torso to engage the lats and serratus anterior. This action will help you stabilize and maintain a strong upper body throughout the movement. 

Spinal Alignment: Maintain a neutral head position so your body forms a straight line from the back of your head all the way to your heels. (It can be helpful to visualize a broomstick along the backside of your body - in contact with your head, upper back, hips and heels). 

Focal Point: Pick a spot about one foot in front of your hands and maintain that focal point throughout the movement to help maintain the proper spinal alignment.

Core/Lower Body: Draw your navel up towards your spine to engage the abdominals; draw your bottom ribs and frontal hip points towards each other to fully engage the anterior core muscles; press your thighs towards the ceiling to engage the quadriceps; squeeze your glutes to help neutralize the pelvis and minimize stress to the spine; squeeze your inner thighs and ankles together to assist in engaging the entire lower body and core.

YEW! That's a lot to think about and we haven't even moved! 

BREATHWORK

Your breath is so so so important as you perform this exercise (any exercise for that matter!), giving you more power and stability for each repetition. As you sit here and read this, give this a try - take a deep breath in and exhale ALL of your air out until you feel empty. Notice how the core fully engages. 

When to breathe: INHALE as you lower your body towards the ground and EXHALE on the effort of pushing yourself back up to the starting position.

NOW THE PUSH-UP (THINK OF IT AS A MOVING PLANK!)

As you inhale, visualize slowly lowering your chest towards the floor, maintaining the alignment from your plank position. Elbows should be angled and pointed back to 45 degrees rather than directly out to the side. Use the strength of your legs and core to resist gravity and slow you down as you lower. Do not let your muscles relax. Pause when you find your edge that you can hold for a second and maintain alignment.

As you exhale, visualize lifting your body back up in a straight line as one solid unit, lifting your navel towards your spine. This movement should feel like a total body exercise, not only a chest and upper body exercise. If you lost ANY of your alignment lowering or coming back up, decrease the distance that you lower until you find you can maintain excellent form throughout. 

REMINDER ONCE AGAIN - if this feels too challenging or you cannot maintain proper alignment, elevate your push-up to an incline and perform as described above. As you increase your strength, decrease the angle of your incline to move closer to the floor. 

NO GO GET 'EM! Let me know if you have ANY questions - so happy to answer and help you perfect this universally amazing exercise.

Cheers! KM

Recovery + Nutrition: Eat This!

Injuries happen. And they stink, right?

As science tells us over and over again, our workouts and healing are only as good as our recovery - and that not only means what we do, but what we eat. So here's the scoop.

(Side note on me: on January 2, 2016, the last day of our little holiday vacation in BC, I had a tumble filled with multiple 'pops' and 'snaps' while clenching my teeth wanting to scream 'F$!%#!!!!!!!!!!' Our trip ended with a sweet heli lift out of the backcountry and a completely re-torn ACL accompanied with an MCL that looked like a dried-out, stretched-out rubberband. Blech.)

It's been 5 weeks of non-stop recovery for me and I want to share with you my top priority when recovering. Did you know that WHAT you eat when healing from an injury can play a huge role in your recovery and be extremely beneficial in combating those aches and pains? Here's why.

Any time you experience an injury, there are:

Three Phases of Tissue Repair

Inflammation | Repair | Remodeling

These phases happen not only during post-injury, but immediately after your intense workouts as well. Every time you train hard (while incredibly beneficial in the long term) you are creating tiny tears and breakdown of the tissue (in a good way!) and it requires proper rest, recovery and nutrition to help rebuild and increase strength. I bring this up to encourage you to apply some of the tidbits below to your workout recovery as well. Being conscious of a balanced diet helps support this repair and may also help prevent future injuries. BONUS! 

The inflammation Phase

The Response:

The inflammation phase begins immediately after an injury and lasts for 3-5 days. This phase, while uncomfortable, is an essential period of healing consisting of pain, swelling and immobility. Adding in certain anti-inflammatory foods during this time will help with this healthy inflammation without impeding the internal repair, which is key.

During this immobilization phase, there is also a decrease in muscle protein synthesis, therefore leading to muscle loss (atrophy), making it imperative you get adequate protein to support the healing.

Nutrition Focus: 

OMEGAS - A diet high in monounsaturated fats and omega-3 fats will be anti-inflammatory. Omega-3 fatty acids – the best sources of which are found in oily fish (salmon, mackerel, sardines, herring, trout), olive oil, avocados, flax oil, and mixed nuts and seeds.

BROMELAIN: Found in Pineapple - 2 cups of fresh pineapple per day or 500-1000 mg in supplement form. Not only is Pineapple high in bromelain - an enzyme believed to have powerful anti-inflammatory properties and promote muscle healing - it's also high in Vitamin C.

QUERCETIN: CHIVES AND GREEN ONIONS - Quercetin helps to increase circulation, bringing more blood flow to and from the injured tissue and manages inflammation.

ANTI-INFLAMMATORY HERBS AND SPICES: Manage your inflammation with some (NOT ALL) of the following. We don't want to suppress the inflammation response completely, we just want to manage it:

TURMERIC/CURCUMIN - Turmeric contains anti-inflammatory properties that can help with joint pain. Studies have shown that 2 g of curcumin daily was just as effective as 800mg ibuprofen for improving knee pain. 7 teaspoons/day or 400-600 mg 3x/d in the form of a supplement. 

GARLIC - 2-4 cloves per day or 600-1200 mg extract

GINGER - 2-3 g per day in powdered form. Studies have shown that women taking 3g/day of ginger or cinnamon had a significant decrease in muscle soreness.

FLAVANOIDS - Flavonoids, which are potent antioxidants like Vitamin C (citrus) and Selenium (blue-purple berries, tart cherries, green tea extract and cocoa) are effective for wound healing and inflammation management.

COCOA - Eh-hem. Just the perfect excuse to eat chocolate. 

CONSUME ADEQUATE PROTEIN: It is incredible important to ensure you are getting in enough protein to help rebuild tissue (this can be as simple as a portion of lean meat or fish the size of the palm of your hand with each meal)

*Attempt to eat fewer pro-inflammatory foods such as processed foods, foods high in trans fats and vegetable oils

The Repair/Proliferation Phase

The Response:

This phase begins roughly 5 days post injury and lasts for 4-6 weeks. As the inflammation goes down, your body begins to lay down collagen (scar tissue) to replace the damaged tissue structure.

(Think about it like this: spread your fingers wide on your right hand and lay it flat on the table or over an injured joint (like your knee) as if it was a sticky spider web, and then take your left hand, spread the fingers wide and lay it directly over your right hand but at a diagonal to create a cross-pattern. Visualize this repeating over and over, creating this sticky, adhesive, messy webbing. That's collagen. It's messy, but it's protective.) 

When we are fearful of pain or are experiencing pain and restricting our range of motion (ROM), as the body begins to lay down this collagen, it will start to bind the muscle fibers together as well as bind the connective tissue to the muscles and joint and in the end you'll be left with painfully restricted ROM. No bueno. 

Nutrition Focus:

Continue consuming foods from the Inflammation Phase above.

VITAMIN C - Vitamin C is crucial for collagen synthesis – the protein found in connective tissue, tendons, ligaments and muscle – and is also a potent antioxidant, enhancing immune cell function. Since the body can't store Vitamin C, it should be consumed throughout the day from high sources such as bell peppers, dark green leafy vegetables, parsley, brassicas and citrus fruits. 

ZINC - My favorite excuse to eat oysters! Zinc, essential for tissue regeneration, is obtainable from shellfish, lean beef or lamb and pumpkin seeds and nuts (such as almonds - which also provide copper) for collagen synthesis. 15-30mg/d. If taking zinc, balance it with copper - an excess in one can cause a deficiency in the other.

SUPPLEMENTS TO CONSIDER: Supplementing with LYSINE, ARGININE and GLYCINE 2-4 weeks post-injury to help with re-establishing collagen, COPPER 2-4 mg/d during the first few weeks and VITAMIN A 10,000 IU/d for 1-2 weeks post-injury.

The Remodeling Phase

The Response:

During the third or fourth week, strength training becomes so important for a full recovery and lasts about six months. (This is where I am right now!) This is the time where stressing the muscles and connective tissue improves your function and stimulate growth.

Nutrition Focus:

• Continue all the powerful and healing superfoods you've added in during the first phase

• Adjust portion sizes for adequate energy consumption

• Focus on a healthy nutrient-dense diet, incorporating healing foods

• Consume protein with every meal

• Eat a balance of healthy fats

• Avoid processed foods

• Eat the rainbow for micronutrients involved in healing

• Consume herbs and spices for anti-inflammatory support

• Add in the below micronutrients for enhanced support and strength

 

Anytime

chlorophyll

The building blocks of plants are filled with detoxifying and anti-inflammatory nutrients and not to mention this gorgeous, colorful, tasteless, magnificent powder (or liquid) you can add to ANYTHING. 

heal up babies. i'm doing my best, now you do yours.