Revisiting Bone Broth

Bone broth has been something I've been reading about since the book "Deep Nutrition."  It has some remarkable health benefits and the book even boldly states some of the increase in connective tissue injuries is a direct relationship to our decrease in the ingestion of this food.

I recently found a place that will sell all natural bone broth and am going to start experimenting with the adding this into my weekly consumption.  If you live in Grand Rapids, MI, the store is called Nourish.

Ben Greenfield just did an excellent podcast on some of the health benefits of Bone Broth as well as does a very nice job of providing what seems to be some pretty easy recipes for cooking your own broth, stock (there is a difference) and how to incorporate that into your culinary lifestyle.

1. Joint Health.  We have all heard of glucosamine (supplement).  Well thats a supplement because joint surfaces need something we shorten to as GAG.  It's always better to get in whole food form as we digest and assimilate this more.

2.  Skin Health.  Anything that has collagen.  Skin, nails ect..

3.  Digestion.  It improves the small intestine health.

4.  Liver Detox:   I've never heard of this, but supposedly the broth can help create a healthier liver.

Here is the podcast from Ben Greenfield.  A quick easy 40 min listen, worth it to just know how the best guy in the "broth" world  makes his broth.  "What is Bone Broth"

Importance of Air

I did the longest running mountain bike race yesterday in the State of Michigan at Pando Winter Ski park.  Check that, I did 20 min of a race, before a flat tire ended my day early.  Lack of air really sucks.  It took me about 45 min to walk my bike back out of the course.

That is a long time to think.  Air is crazy important.  I had been training correctly, my hydration and nutrition were in check,  my bike was ready.  No air.

This could be the same thing with our bodies.  Your sleep is solid.  Nutrition is top notch.  You do the right exercises.  Your programming is smart.  You suck at breathing though.  Pretty common.

The more I see people with anything that gives them pain or decreased performance the more I find that they don't really know how to use the diaphragm.  They don't know how to get air.  They can brace, but not breath.  They can breath, but not brace.

They can breath and brace until they are tired.  Then it all goes back to chest breathing and shoulders coming up like they are shrugging trying to breath.

Air is important.  You won't go far without it.

Finding Joe Movie Trailer

I grew up loving all the stories that I later realized were straight archetypes of Joseph Campbells Hero Journey.  I really enjoyed this documentary on the man and what the Hero's Journey means.

Engineer Your Ideal Day

What makes a good day?  I keep track of what I really enjoy, sometimes they change, sometimes they stay the same.  Try to hit most of them per day.  No particular order.  Usually when you recognize what really makes you happy, it's easy to put them in your day, even if its just for a little bit.

Drink Coffee.
Work Out.
Read.
Help Someone.
Play with my Kid.
Play with my dog.
Write something.
Learn Something.
Hang with Cool People.

The more things you enjoy in your day, the more likely it's a good day!  The more good days you can string together, the more likely a good life.   Engineer your Life.

Foot Function and Fascial Lines Webinar

Emily Splichal put out a very nice webinar about the foot function and fascia as it deals with the first ray.
Here is the link off Facebook.  I think it will take a few days to put into the EBFT archive folder.
Foot Funciton and Fascial Lines. Part 1  Foot Function and Fascial Lines.  Part 2.

Most fascial lines cross the bottom of the foot.
Deep Front Line:  (main ones)  Tib posterior, adductors, pelvic floor and psoas.  This is how the foot interacts with the core.
Post Tib.  Attaches to a lot of stuff!  Navicular, 9 other osseous structures.  All the metatarsals but the first ray. All the tarsal bones but the talus.  Peroneus longus tendon and flexor hallucis brevis muscle.

Spiral Line: Rhomboid and Serratus, oblique muscles, tibialis anterior and peroneus longus.
Ant. Tib:  90% of on medial cuneiform, 10% on base of first metatarsal.
Peroneus Longus:  10% on medial cuneiform, 90% on base of the first metatarsal.
This is significant for 1st ray biomechanics.

Intrinsic muscles adductor hallucis and abductor hallucis control transverse plane stability.

1st MPJ Dorsiflexion:
Flexor Hallucis Longus (Deep Front Line) :  Holds the distal hallux to the ground.
Flexor Hallucis Brevis (Indirect Deep):  Pulls sesamoids proximally.
Abductor Hallucis:  Maintains 1st MPJ in transverse plane.
Plantar fascia (Superficial Back Line)  Stabilizes 1st MPJ.
Peroneus Longus (Spiral Line) Maintains 1st ray MPJ in sagital plane.

Is the spiral line balance:  Tib Anterior vs Peroneus Longus tension and strength.

How to enhance?
Stability > Mobility
Intrinsics > Extrinsics
Deep Line>Spiral Line

Practice the short foot.  (tons of info out there if you don't know what short foot is )

If you have great ROM laying down in the big toe, but when you put weight on the foot and it all goes away, check the peroneus longus.

Training and Practice

One of things I think a lot about lately is movement.  It struck me the other day that I'm not really training when I'm practicing movement.  Training has a harsher concept in my head.  I'm practicing movement.  I have a movement practice.  It's not something I can't do because I suck at a movement and it's not something that once I accomplish it, I can move on or switch my practice.  You still practice whether you are awesome or whether you move like a robot without oil.

I train a deadlift to allow me to express stronger movement.  I practice movements to allow my joints and muscles to explore motions that aren't used in routine life.

I train on a bike, going faster or further to get better at riding for a race.  I don't practice my bike.  I train it.  Practice movement, train your goals.  If your goals happen to be better movement, then you're doing both!

Start thinking of having a movement practice.   I think GMB (Gold Medal Bodies) does a great job of helping you create a movement practice.  I also think Animal Flow by Mike Fitch does an amazing job.  Functional Range Conditioning does an amazing job of bridging those two worlds.  What you are training for may only be attainable by having better movement.

Either way, start a movement practice and enjoy it.

Saving Brains, A Grand Challenge

"Fed Up" Documentary Review

I recently finally got around to watching the documentary "Fed Up."  I've seen it's advertising on Facebook for quite awhile and saw the buzz from a few friends for months now.

First, I did find it entertaining.  At an hour and half it kept my attention.  I think it did a good job of portraying the growing obesity crisis and how are kids are at risk.  Our greatest resource, our youth, are definitely in danger.

I was surprised at how new and correct information is still not making it into the general public.  They do a series of interview (perhaps picked to show a point) with people and cereal and orange juice are still considered a healthy meal.  Running and other endurance activities are considered great "calorie burners."  Information like this seems so ancient and plain wrong that you wonder if you should even mention stuff like this to people anymore and this show basically shows that, yes, that info needs to be heard still.

They pretty much demonize sugar.  At this point in my life, I don't think anything should really be demonized.  Yea, sugar isn't that healthy for you.  But, please don't compare it to cocaine.  They do an info graphic where sugar and cocaine get lit up in the same part of the brain.  If you don't know, anything pleasurable will light up that part of the brain!

They make a big spoof of how tomato paste is a vegetable.  Tomato paste is actually pretty healthy.  Heating a tomato actually allows the lycopene to be absorbed better.  But, pizza shouldn't be considered a vegetable.

They do a great job of portraying how powerful sugar and soda beverage companies are.  This part is always a little shocking to me.  They do an excellent job of showing how much added sugar is in foods that really don't really need to be there.  Why do we need high fructose corn syrup in our ketchup?

They show how low fat became thing a few years ago and because of this sugar was added to take up the flavor.  It's just gone downhill from there.  But through this all, they don't mention that we as a country are consuming 150-300 calories more per day and burning 150-300 calories per day fewer.  So thats a big chunk of valuable information missing.

All in all it was an enjoyable documentary.  Sum it up,  anything that is made, has sugar and other weird ingredients in it, shouldn't be a major part of your diet or a consistent part of your diet.

Joel Salatin — Folks This Ain't Normal!

A little on the long side at 1.5 hours.  But, if you have never heard Joel Salatin talk about food, farming practice and current state of farming, it's well worth the time.

Sunday Reading

Here are some interesting articles to look at this Sunday afternoon.

Thought this was a cool summary of Osteopathy.  It really gets you thinking about the importance of increasing blood flow for healing.

Here is some great summary of the latest tendon research.  Tendinopathy Research.

Nerve Signals are actually sound!  Study Confirms That Nerves Signals are Sound Impulses.

What is Reactive Neuromuscular Training.  This chapter gives a great summation of what is called RNT training.

Dorsiflexion and Hamstring Strength

Often times a lack of dorsifleixon will prevent a full stretch of the biceps femoris muscle.  Without the full stretch the biceps femoris can't be recruited as heavily in hip extension.  This can lead to a decreased glute max as well.  When both are decreased an increase in hip rotator activity may be present.  Since the sciatic nerve is present between the superior gemelli and piriformis, compression of this nerve can be present.

Thinking more regionally, this can also lead to an increased activity of the medial hamstrings.

Biceps femoris tends to be a weaker muscle in relation to the other hamstring muscles, but perhaps instead of targeting lateral hamstring exercises, check the dorsiflexion of the ankle.

I often see lack of motion between the tibialis anterior and the peroneal group.  This will require some sort of soft tissue intervention.  A talus that has shifted anterior.  A mobilization from a health practitioner or doing some talar glides against a wall to get some more motion.

Next time you see limited dorsiflexion realize that their can be ramifications into the lateral hamstrings.  Next time you see sciatica check the biceps femoris and dorsiflexion.

Great Presentation about Motor Unit Recruitment from Chad Waterbury

I'm always amazed at some of the quality of information you can gain for free from the Internet.  I watched this awesome presentation from Chad Waterbury last night through the NCAA.  It's all about motor unit recruitment.  Strength, power, fat loss and muscle gain all are dictated by motor unit recruitment.

Maximize Motor Unit Recruitment.

Some notes:
The most important thing is to recruit more motor units.
3 ways.
1. Lift heavy (over 85% of max)
2. Lift Sub maximal fast (50-85%)
3.  High Tension activities.

Must have high nervous system drive.  Fight or flight drives nervous system.  Some muscles are more prone to have higher motor units, for example hamstrings.

If intent to lift fast is needed, does tempo training make sense?  Probably not.  It slows the tempo down and instead of thinking about the weight, you're counting.

As soon as you get past 10 sec, the motor unit recruitment goes down.

You were probably told when the set gets hard and those last few reps are grinders that you are recruiting more motor units.  This is completely false.  Does this make sense then do drop sets?  Probably not!

High tension activities that can't last longer then 10 seconds.  Example is rings.  Rings allow to place the body in unusual angles that require a tremendous amount of tension to control.

Shoulder Screen for Overhead Pressing

An easy way to assess on yourself if you should be pressing a weight over your head.  Grab a furniture slider and place under your hand.  Two hand positions will be used.  Take your shoulder through a full ROM from the hip to overhead.  Keep constant pressure on the slider.  Keep the lower back in contact with the floor.  This ensure that the anterior ribs don't flare up.  Essentially this keeps you from arching your back, which is a cheat for lack of shoulder ROM.  You can see me pause at the 2 o'clock position.  That's me lacking a little motor control.  With enough repetitions this should iron out.  If you can't do this without arching your back or you can't apply pressure that is a sign to no go on over head lifts.  This will save your lower back or anterior shoulder pain.  Also, at no point should there be pain behind the shoulder.  This is closing angles pain and should be addressed by a health professional.

Where Can You Get Better

It's an interesting concept to improve your craft from someone or something that doesn't have anything to do with your craft.  How does a musician train?  If I was an Ironman athlete, what could I learn from them?

If I was a teacher, what can I learn from a personal trainer.  You get the idea, how can something outside of your box, influence and improve your outcomes.  Something to think about.  I just read an article about the Philadelphia Eagles coach Chip Kelly.  He brings in academics that have nothing to do with sports and ask them how he can produce a better football team.

He's looking to learn maybe one sentence or one idea that can help him and the organization be better.  This article from the Wall Street Journal "Kelly Secret Coaches," talks about this process.  Explore interests that have nothing to do with your profession, I bet you will be able to cull a few nuggets of wisdom and perspective that will help with your profession.

Some Common Organ Referred Pain

Most of the time a local pain is just that, a local pain.  Shoulder pain is most often something to do with a musculoskeletel problem, but it's always good idea to at least know what other things may be causing pain in the body.  Perhaps something to keep in the back of your mind if you have something that come up suddenly without any explanation or something that just doesn't go away.

Liver, gall bladder, spleen and lung may refer pain to the shoulder.  They believe this is from the organ being dysfunctional and the diaphragm being a conveyor of impulse through the phrenic nerve C3,4,5 that the brain can misread as a shoulder problem, as 4,5 are large innovators for the deltoid.  The right tip of the scapula can also be present.

Gastric problems can refer pain to between the shoulder blades.  T5,6,7.  Again these are some nerves that innervate the stomach.

Appendix will create right lower abdominal pain.  

Constipation can create lower lumbar pain. 

Heart is the most commonly known referral pain.  Left arm pain that can lead into the hand. 

Pancreas can have pain in T5-9 and also left shoulder pain.

Prostate can refer pain to the abdomen, lower back and calfs.  

Brain Freeze can happen when the Vagus nerve cools.  (I get this severely)  

Kidneys can refer pain to the lower back right below the ribs and also into the groin.

Adrenals can refer pain to the inside of the knees.  

Diagonal Sits for Glute Activity

The first couple reps are where you would begin.  Progressions would then go to the full reps shown at the end.  After this, we can then add resistance.

Review of Derrick Johnson "King of Weightlifting" Seminar

I headed over to the east side of Michigan to the Crossfit Switch gym to hear and participate in their seminar.  I was impressed that a crossfit gym reached out and got someone like this to come and present.

First, I really don't have any interest in learning to refine my Olympic Lifting technique anymore.  My elbow's lack of flexion precludes me from any type of clean and front squat.  I occasionally will play around with the Power Snatch.  But, it never hurts to learn from one of the best to help others that are.

What got me to dish the cash and the time in the car,  was knowing that Derrick has been under the care of Dr. Craig Liebenson in LA.  Dr. Liebenson is one of the guys I gravitated towards in school to increase my knowledge base.  His book "Functional Rehab of the Spine," helped change the way I think.  I had heard the first two hours was all about drills and warm up that Dr. Liebenson has implemented that put Derrick back on track for medals.

Derrick talked about how before he started doing things like this warm up, he had battled back injuries and several knee injuries.  Cortisone shots and Ibuprofen were common.  After the implementation of smarter training and getting the glutes/core firing, zero.  Pretty cool.

The warm ups and drills weren't anything ground breaking, in fact, nothing new to me.   What I came away from was new doesn't mean better.

I need to to appreciate the basics much more.

The magic isn't in the exercise, it's in the concentration of the performance.  Subtle corrections.

My left Glute is way under performing.  Always nice to learn new chinks in your own armour.  My endurance in certain positions was extremely lacking.  So I have things to work on.  Fun stuff.

Here is the list of the warm up we went over.

IRON ADDICTS: Olympic Weightlifting & bodybuilding | Derrick Johnson - M...

I'm off to see this guy,  Derrick Johnson, talk about lifting, injury prevention and mobility.

Guest Post Up at Salsa Bikes

I did a guest post up at Salsa bikes.  Figured I would just share the link.  It's a combination exercise to help bikers stay healthy and perform better.  I've often seen that what helps a biker will help someone that sits at a desk all day.

Walk and Crawl for A Better Bike.

Upper Back Mobility: Sledgehammer as a Mace

Posterior Delt

Most people have a very anterior Delt dominate movement.  This is why there tends to be a lot of irritated anterior Delt and biceps tendon soreness on palpation.  The Delt should be a fully developed tri head, pennate (fiber orientation) muscle.  This pennate allows for force production as well as force absorption.   It absorbs the rotation of the thoracic spine while walking so that the cervical spine (neck) can maintain the posture with less effort. 

Often the posterior Delt is so weak that it can't do much in terms of helping centrate the joint so we get a forward translated humerous.

This exercise that I've posted on instagram will help bring up the strength of the posterior upper back.

http://instagram.com/p/sxP2ddlvUZ/

The Underappreciated Role of Muscle in Health and Disease — Jamie Scott ...

Think this a very important concept that is under appreciated and not talked about enough.

Functional Range Conditioning Revisited

About a year ago I was watching my oldest daughter, now 2, squat.  The more we played, the more we squatted and looked at rocks and bugs and anything else that a 2 year old finds wonderful.  I was struck at how incapable I was of doing a 3rd world squat.  Heels on the ground, hanging out.  It became a goal.  I looked around and found some crazy info about a guy named Dr. Andreo Spina that did some stuff called Functional Range Conditioning.  I signed up and went to a seminar and was blown away by the quality of information and teaching.

I can now do a third world squat with tremendous concentration and effort.  My body will allow the position, but man I'm working for it!  This next chunk of time is to refine it, make it less Sympathetic and more Parasympathetic in nature.  I still need a good warm up and get into the groove.  I'm what is called "Renting" the movement.  I'm working on "Owning" it.

Here is the thing.  FRC is hard.  It's not rolling on balls and rollers and attaching some bands to hips and thinking about what your going to do later.  It's intense concentration, feeling motion.  Working on capsules.  There is a system to work though.  In a few minutes you will be sweating.  You may cramp. You will find out if you really want more mobility or just thought you did.

Increasing a ROM that you have not had or haven't had in a long, long time takes effort.  Real effort.  But if you are committed FRC is an amazing tool to help you get the mobility you are looking for.

Sunday Ramblings

Reading though "Born to Walk" a hypothesis was stated that perhaps H.Sapien outlasted H. Neanderthal because of the semi circular canal in the ear.  It improved the H.Sapiens lateral line.  Interesting.

The more I watch Dr. Mark Chengs Prehab/Rehab, the more I realize the importance of slight modifications.  Paying attention to one thing can dramatically improve the outcome.  Don't be lazy in your warm up, in your correctives.  Work it.  Which brings about another key aspect.  The brain is the biggest user of glucose in the body.  The more you make the brain "work" the more you sweat, the more metabolic demand is placed on the body.  That's why you can do an air squat and feel nothing, but then do a highly concentrated corrective squat and be out of breath and sweating.  I also think this is a good way to keep the brain young.  Stress new movements.  Quality movements.

If you want a fascinating science read.  "How Horseshoe Crab Blood Saves Millions of Lives."  Wow that was interesting.  They have blue blood and are being used to test certain drugs and vaccines.

I had my first cyclocross race of the season.  Very fun, very intense, a crazy blend of aerobic/anaerobic fitness and skills.



I signed up to head over to Switch Crossfit seminar featuring amazing Olympic lifter Derrick Johnson in Clinton, MI.  I'll definitely be doing a large write up on the event.  I know he does some training under Dr. Craig Liebenson so I'm sure he will be loaded with great info.  Half the seminar will be devoted to warm up and mobility work.

Dr. Mark Cheng Prehab/Rehab Videos

I just finished the first DVD download of Dr. Mark Chengs Prehab/Rehab available from Movement Lectures.  It was quality teaching.  These days when I purchase any educational material whether video, book or seminar, I'm looking to gain just a few nuggets of knowledge or a new way of looking at something.  If you can gain a few new pieces of information it's worth it.  I'll buy books for a single chapter of info.

This one is loaded with practical information that has a few twists I've never seen before.  For example, I've known and used the diaphragm importance for awhile.  Dr. Cheng shows a unique kettlebell across the lower abs to facilitate better breathing that I've never seen used before.  Tried it this morning and works wonderfully.  This is something I can use Monday Morning in clinic.  Stuff like that.  Very cool.

He has some awesome Sphinx positions that I thought looked pretty easy until I tried.  I realized how stiff my upper Thoracic spine has become.  Nice progressions for every level.  This is more and more important the more you work with people.  Often the things that help an 80 year old grandma is the same stuff that can help a 25 year old professional athlete, it just needs to be scaled correctly.  Principles stay the same, the method will change.

I recommend this for the health professional.

Random and Fun

This was a tremendous article by Juggernaut Strength.  "The Best Damn Squat Mobiity Article."

I thought this article about Julie Foucher a Crossfit games and Med School athlete pretty interesting.  Watching the progressions of strength and skill.  How Julie Foucher became Julie Foucher.

Thought this was a great review/synopsis of Dr. Mark Cheng Prehab/Rehab seminar.  This is something I would like to attend.  Overview of Seminar.

The Gut; Diet, Flora, Health and Disease — Michael Ruscio, D.C., B.S. (A...

I'm not sure you can ever learn to much about the Gut!

Daily Awareness

I always ask my patients how their daily activities may be leading or causing some of the discomfort they present with.  Most blame a new exercise or sitting for to long etc...surprisingly this usually isn't the culprit.  It's something that has been done quite a bit of and is a small enough irritant that it ends up causing "a bigger event" to be the one that gets blamed.

I was dealing with a nurse maid type knee for most of the summer.  It would swell a bit and be annoying.  Not really painful unless I put full weight of my knee cap on the ground.  I'd manage it and would get better and then I'd think I did some squat wrong and it would get irritated again.

Well I started to take my own advice and have some awareness throughout the day on what my knee was doing.   When I'm working I'm thinking pretty hard about anatomy and movement and how things are playing about, feeling for tension, getting proper depth...it doesn't usually lend time to introspection.  Which I'm guessing why it took me so long to figure out.  I for some reason developed a habit of bracing my knee that is being irritated right into the side of my chiropractic table.  It didn't cause pain, but over the course of 6-7 hours a day for weeks, was enough to irritate it.  So that when I put a major load into it, it flared up.

Pay attention to how you are using your body.  Pay attention to how that feels.  Realize it is often the small micro movements that are creating the big movements that get blamed for your painful tissue or joint.

Understanding Hip Retroversion/Anteversion

I found this article by 5 Rings Athletics an excellent synopsis on what exactly hip retroversion and hip anteversion is.  Why trying to improve one in a patient and athlete may be futile and why your athletes and patients may actually be hurting themselves if they are going against their anatomy to try to improve a perceived lack of ROM.

A Case Study of Femoral Retroversion



An anteverted hip wouldn't want to be trained into external rotation.  For example, don't sumo deadlift with an anteverted hip.

Labor Day Reading

Hopefully you are able to enjoy the last days of summer and if in the US have a great Labor Day.  One of the things I've always loved since I could remember is reading.  This picture was from the graffiti artist Banksy twitter page.  I think it sums up the ability of reading and books like no picture I've ever seen.  I like having lots of books to read depending on my mood, my interest at the moment and my patients that I've seen that week.  I've also found that if I'm reading something fiction that I enjoy it facilitates me reading more textbook type material.  I find it hard to find fiction I enjoy though, so if you have any suggestions I'm all ears.  I just finished The String Diaries amd thought it was an excellent read.