I've been hearing more and more about this NuVal Nutritional Scoring System, so I had to learn a little about it. If you haven't heard, NuVal is a nutritional rating score given to food in the grocery store that allows you to make better choices when you go grocery shopping. It was developed by nutrition and medical experts that are independent from the food industry. I think this is amazing and will help consumers make better choices and hopefully create competition within the food industry. Foods are rated on a scale of 1-100 with 100 being the most valuable to your health. Not many grocery stores have this system in place, but I did see Tops Friendly Markets on the list (grew up shopping there) and this list should grow with time. To find out which grocery stores have NuVal, click here. To see a sample of the scoring, click here. You may be surprised by some of the foods you are buying now! Please share so that we can all BeneFIT! www.ScottRusin.com
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Your job demands long hours and most of it is sitting behind a desk or sitting at meetings. Not to mention, you had to sit in your car and drive to and from work to later go home and sit down to eat dinner. You're exhausted after and give in to any thought of exercise. Let me help. First of all, your health is at risk. "Alpa Patel's 2010 study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology (Leisure Time Spent Sitting in Relation to Total Mortality in a Prospective Cohort of US Adults), which found a common link between physical inactivity and cardiovascular disease mortality even after adjusting for smoking, body mass index, and other factors." (MoveForwardPT.com) Got your attention?! Yes, sitting at a desk all day is now being compared to the mortality rates of those who smoke. Not to mention, the harmful effects on your posture which leads to muscle imbalance and later back, neck and shoulder pain. The computer has provided us physical therapists with job security because of the amount of people affected. What do we do? There are several things we can do, most of which won't get you fired. You obviously will have a difficult time getting your boss to buy you a treadmill desk, so a cheaper alternative would be the DeskCycle Desk Exercise Bike Pedal Exerciser By DeskCycle (the long way of saying bike that fits under your desk, or just the pedals). It is on Amazon for $150, small price to pay for your health and if you don't have a gym membership, there you go. Other options include taking short breaks and walking the staircase a couple times, going for a walk at lunch, doing cardio exercises in place (jumping jacks, jogging, mini-squats, etc.), just close your office door! Posture is also important. Prolonged sitting causes atrophy of your postural muscles and tightness of the large muscle groups that round your shoulders and tilt your pelvis forward, both of which are major contributors to upper and lower back pain. To improve neck and shoulder discomfort, step into your door frame of your office, put your elbows on the frame at shoulder height, gently lean in and feel a stretch in your shoulders and chest (don't stick your head out like E.T. either), hold for 30 seconds at least 3 times, a couple times during the day. Grab a thera-band palms up with both hands at shoulder width and rotate your arms outward maintaining a 90 degree bend at your elbow while squeezing your shoulder blades together. Do not use your upper traps (shrug) to compensate, squeeze your shoulder blades down and back for high repetitions greater than 30. Also, follow the link about shoulder pain to help with your posture at 850health.com. Thera-bands are great for your office because they do not take up any space and can give you varying resistance to be effective with several exercises. No thera-band? Sit back against the wall with your knees at 90 degrees and just hold for as long as you can or just simply sit and stand from your chair until you fatigue. It is easy to give in to the long hours, but you will find yourself more efficient at your job and at life if you get active! Take care of your body, it's the only one we get! For more exercises, email me at srusincscs@yahoo.com or stop by our office at Sandestin Executive Health and Wellness Center! Otherwise, please share so that we can all BeneFIT! www.ScottRusin.com Contemplating a total joint replacement? Hopefully, I can help in your decision. After teaching joint replacement classes, the pre and post op, I've made several observations while doing so, but I would like to start by saying that pain will change your decision making and some tolerate it better than others. Sometimes, it will drive you into the quickest pain reducing decision which is understandable. I think we can all agree that keeping your original "parts" is always the best option and exhausting all of the conservative treatments prior to surgery should be recommended by your physician. One of those treatments should be physical therapy. I've spoken about mechanics in the past and how they influence the wear and tear on your joints like the tires on your car. If they are not balanced properly, you will get less life out of them. The hip musculature is often overlooked in knee rehab and is crucial in knee health because it controls the rotational forces at the knee. Ever stand up from a chair and feel like your knees want to move inward? That's glute weakness - yes, your butt is weak! Your knees, of course, do not want to move in that direction and it will cause stress on the structures surrounding the knee. Strength of the lower extremity will also help to distract the knee joint providing increased joint space. Just because your x-ray shows decreased joint space, that does not mean it is the source of your pain. If I had a dollar for everyone who said they had "bone on bone" in their joints, I would have my student loans paid off! You could x-ray the entire population of those over 55 and find poor joint space on x-ray, but it does make a good selling point. In health care, we need to start treating the patient first and not the imaging. There are several structures that surround the hip and knee joints that can mimic your pain and believe it or not, your physical therapist is trained to figure that out! I'm not here to discourage you from having a joint replacement, I just want to educate you on your options. You have to go through the extensive rehab after and you will benefit greatly from doing some strengthening before, so why not try therapy and possibly avoid the surgery altogether?! Thank you for reading and please share so that we can all BeneFIT!!! www.ScottRusin.com It is pretty often that I see people rub their shoulder while they are at the gym working out. They appear healthy and most often have no mechanism of injury, meaning that nothing traumatic has happened to the shoulder to create the pain. It is what us physical therapists call, insidious onset. Well, guess what? Your gym routine is probably the cause of the pain. How? Most gym routines focus on the big movers, the muscle groups that are the largest and are the so called, "show muscles" (pecs, lats, deltoids). These large muscle groups are big internal rotators of the shoulders and therefore, turn the shoulders inward or round out your posture. This is a problem for the shoulder because it causes impingement symptoms, which is the pinching sensation you get when you lift your arm. It is your body's way of telling you that the muscles that do the opposite motion, external rotation, are not doing their job. They be can strengthened easily through exercise and I will provide a sample of exercises. Another problem that seems to have emerged is the repetitive use of kettle bells when lifting overhead. The unnatural movement of the wrist forces the shoulder to impinge on the soft tissue in the shoulder, most commonly in those who have not developed the proper rotator cuff strength. The muscles of the posterior (back) shoulder are very important in shoulder health and often neglected in workouts. They help to open the space between the bone on the top of the shoulder, the acromium, and the head of the humerus, the ball and socket joint. In therapy, we often stretch the large muscle groups and combine that with scapular strengthening (muscles of the upper back). The muscles of the rotator cuff are small and delicate, requiring low resistance and high repetitions to strengthen. You don't want to train these muscles like the pecs and lats because they can tear. Also note that during any lat exercise, try and squeeze with the shoulder blades to encourage the upper back to engage. I often include the door stretch for periods of longer than 30 seconds, multiple times. This is effective in stretching the pecs which may become dominant from too much bench press. I also like to include external rotation exercises like the one here. It doesn't have to be this exercise because there are several that you can benefit from, but these therabands seem to be in most gyms. High repetitions, low resistance. Make sure you keep the shoulder from lifting up during the exercise. Keep both shoulder level at all times and make the shoulder blade move the arm instead of the arm moving without the shoulder blade. These are just two exercises to get you started. Please share so everyone can BeneFIT! Any questions, please ask in the comment section or email me at srusincscs@yahoo.com.
Another ingredient to avoid when purchasing supplements is magnesium stearate. Manufacturers like to add this ingredient into the development process because it prevents substances from sticking together or to the machine doing the processing. So, if you could imagine, saving money is always priority over consumer health. Magnesium stearate is also used to bind sugar in hard candies like mints, and is a common ingredient in baby formulas. Magnesium stearate is not a source of magnesium and has no benefits, but may have a detrimental effect on your immune function as stearic acid has been linked to suppression of T cells. The filler also stimulates your gut to form a biofilm, which can prevent proper absorption of nutrients in your digestive tract! It seems to be pretty common. After this was brought to my attention, I started to skim the supplement isles and found it to be included in almost everything. If you do not know where to look, every supplement should have an ingredient list somewhere on the bottle. Stay healthy people! Please share so that we can all BeneFIT! While working as director of the rehab department for Twin Cities Hospital 2 years ago, I did a talk for a group of city workers that performed some labor intensive work. My topic was low back health, something that I had already spent a lot of time teaching to new employees at the hospital. I raised the question, "how many of you have low back pain?". There was well over 60 people in front of me and to my surprise, 90% of them raised their hands. So, my curiosity led me to my next question, "What do you do for it?". I had two responses, chiropractor and pain pills! I'm not here to pick a fight with chiropractors, but I will with pain pills! Lets get something straight, most low back pain is simple mechanics, muscular balance, and a little strength. The sooner you address it, the easier it typically is to fix. Pain pills will help you deal with the symptoms, but the pain is most likely to return because the underlying cause of the pain is not addressed. Often, what we find in older, chronic low back pain is tightness in the front of the hips from a lifestyle that encourages extensive sitting combined with weakness of the glutes (butt muscles) from a lack of activities that target these muscles. I cannot say this for all backs as each individual is different, but generally speaking that is something I see very often. Upon initiation of treatment by a physical therapist you should see progress within the first couple of visits and not have to sign up for 6 months. Refer also to my trigger point blog because there are also trigger points deep within the hip rotators that can mimic sciatic pain. You can crack and pop a joint all that you want, but once again, the mechanics have to be addressed at some point. In physical therapy, we incorporate soft tissue work in the form of myofascial release, massage, trigger point release etc., combined with stretching of the musculature or joint mobilizations to assist restricted joints. We follow that up with exercise to re-educate the musculature to do its job properly. Who else legally does that? We have progressed as a profession into movement specialists and continue to advance. The most recent research is starting to prove that physical therapy is more effective than surgery in some instances. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions regarding back pain. My email is srusin@sehwc.om or set up an appointment at Sandestin Physical Therapy Services (850)267-6755.
Please share so that we can all BeneFIT! “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” - John Bunyan Sorry if I offended you with my title to this blog, but I'm sure it caught your attention! I came across something alarming while writing about the caramel coloring in soda drinks. It was the fact that microwave popcorn was rated one of the worst foods you can eat! Sounds like a healthy snack, but there are some pretty harmful chemicals in the bags of microwave popcorn. Most of these popcorn bags are coated with perfluorochemicals linked to various cancers, reproductive system damage, thyroid disease, ADHD and other illnesses. The problem with perfluorochemicals is that they stay in the body for long periods of time once ingested. That is not all, one of the most acutely toxic popcorn chemicals, diacetyl, the fake flavor used to create a buttery flavor, has been linked to lung damage in microwavable-popcorn factory workers. They are also finding that genetically modified foods (GMO's), such as corn, are being linked to long term health problems such as tumors, another reason to buy organic. I didn't mean to ruin your fun, but I'm just trying to raise awareness about a food industry that doesn't seem to be out for our best interest. If you are going to eat popcorn, eat the real stuff! Please share so that we can all Bene Let me just begin by saying that what I'm about to discuss is true science and not something made up from fantasy land. I've spent some time writing about the mind body experience and how your thoughts determine the world you live in. I followed it up with quotes from several brilliant minds and could follow it up with many more from Jesus Christ to Einstein to Buddha to Eckhart Tolle and on and on. They all discuss how your thoughts determine and lay the foundation for the world you live in. One famous quote that you may have heard by Norman Vincent Peale, "Change your thoughts and you change your world." What if this was backed up by science? Would you believe then? Quantum physics may take you there. It is a branch of physics that deals with physical phenomena at nanoscopic scales, where the basic rules of physics falls apart. If you have the time watch "What the Bleep Do We Know, Through The Wormhole" on YouTube, prepare to see another side of the world you didn't know existed. The most intriguing theory relating to quantum physics, to me, is the Observer Effect. It states that by the very act of watching, the observer affects the observed reality. You read that correctly. In other words, the tiniest of particles behave differently from when they are not being observed compared to when they are being observed. It's best that I leave it up to Morgan Freeman to explain in this video, but you have to watch it to the end. Any thoughts on that? Again, the smallest particles in nature that make up all things is randomly scattered, but once it is observed, their behavior changes. How we think about things, events, etc., may shape our reality according to actual science! Hopefully, I didn't lose you on this one.
I hated physics in college, but there is something mysterious about quantum physics that has to make you wonder. Thanks for reading and please share so that we can all BeneFIT! We as consumers seem to be catching on to the harmful products being added to our foods and beverages. It seems that every time I check my Twitter account, there is another article about an additive and its harmful effects on the body. You may have heard about the recent uproar regarding Subway and the use of the same chemicals found in yoga mats being found in their bread. All of this is to save money and add shelf life (maybe that is why my clothes smell after I spend greater than 5 minutes in that place!). The difference in quality is not that much better because of the use of these products. I just wanted to educate you on the caramel additive in most soft drinks that is found to be carcinogenic in mice. That ingredient is caramel coloring. Caramel coloring gives drinks their brown color so you will not find it in Sprite or Mountain Dew, but you definitely will in Pepsi and Coke. Some types of this artificial coloring contain a potentially carcinogenic chemical called 4-methylimidazole (4-MeI) and is the single most used food coloring in our food. Under California’s Proposition 65 law, any food or beverage sold in the state that exposes consumers to more than 29 micrograms of 4-MeI per day is supposed to carry a health-warning label. Consumer Reports did some homework on the levels found in these different drinks and discovered that they still contained higher levels in these drinks than California had allowed and if they tested levels in New York they were even higher because of the lack of regulation. There are four types of caramel coloring, only the two made with ammonia compounds can contain 4-MeI. However, manufacturers can use the general term “artificial color” interchangeably with “caramel color”. We have to stay educated on the trickery used by the food industry if we want to eat healthy. Soda drink sales are declining as people seem to be catching on to their harmful effects. Please share so that we can all BeneFIT! |
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iPerformanceCenter www.ScottRusin.com 850Health Facebook Page Dr. Mark Giovanini Neurosurgeon AuthorScott Rusin is the Director of Physical Therapy at the Sandestin Executive Health & Wellness Center in Sandestin Resort, Miramar Beach, FL. He has a degree in Physical Therapy, is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) and Nike Golf NG360 Performance Specialist Powered by the Gray Institute. Archives
November 2015
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