shoulder pain

Extremities

Extremities

Shoulder Pain: How to Find Relief

Your shoulder is the most unstable and moveable joint in your body. Its wide range of motion occurs due to four primary muscles and their tendons, which together are called the rotator cuff. If your shoulder becomes inflamed or an impingement happens, you may make the mistake of trying to avoid using your arm to help it heal. It may surprise you to learn that not moving can actually contribute to more pain or even lead to a frozen shoulder. Controlled movement is one of the best ways to heal.

Why it Matters:

The most common source of pain in the shoulder is the tendons. Your tendons attach the muscles of the shoulder to the bones. If a tendon becomes trapped, it can result in shoulder impingement. If a tendon becomes inflamed, you may hear it referred to as tendinitis or bursitis. And if a tendon becomes torn, you guessed it; you have a rotator cuff tear.

  • Shoulder Bursitis: If the sac of fluid that cushions your shoulder becomes swollen and painful due to repetitive motions, you may have bursitis.

  • Shoulder Impingement: If your tendons get pinched between or under the bones of your shoulder, it can lead to impingement. Lifting overhead repetitively can cause impingement, and it can result in swelling and pain.

  • Rotator Cuff Tear: Your rotator cuff can become damaged due to overuse, injury, or age. Tears usually cause pain when you try to lift things, and you may hear a popping sound as you move.

Your shoulder and spine work together. While it may seem like they are two completely different areas, it’s been discovered that postural abnormalities can play a significant role in your likelihood of developing shoulder pain. Maintaining a full range of motion in your shoulder and spinal joints of your neck and mid-back can help reduce your chances of dealing with shoulder pain. If you notice shoulder discomfort or restricted movement, contact us for a complete evaluation. We’ll work to create a movement-based plan to help you find long-term relief.

Your Hip vs. SI Joint: What’s the Difference?

It can be extremely confusing to figure out the difference between hip and SI (sacroiliac) joint pain. But being able to identify which one is the culprit is crucial when you are looking to find relief. Your SI joint is the connection between your tailbone (sacrum) and your pelvis. The SI joint is very fibrous and only moves a few millimeters. On the other hand, your hip is much less stable and allows your entire leg to move in every plane of motion.

Why it Matters:

While the hip and SI joints are very different in structure and function, they share similar pain patterns, making it difficult to tell one from the other. It’s common to have SI joint pain mimic low back pain. Bending backward usually aggravates SI joint pain due to the compression that happens in the joint as you move. Hip pain is more likely to occur when you walk or if you try to bring your knees to your chest.

  • Hip Pain: characterized by pain with walking, weight-bearing, and rotating the leg

  • SI Joint Pain: characterized by difficulties while standing, walking, climbing stairs, getting out of the car.

  • Low Back Pain: characterized by pain that radiates into the buttock or leg and may travel down to the foot

Suppose you’ve felt discomfort and aren’t exactly sure if it’s your hip, SI joint, or low back- it’s important to find a chiropractor who will provide a complete evaluation and treatment plan. The reason this is important is that our hips tend to become degenerative as we age, and if your doctor is only looking at a hip X-ray to determine a plan of care- you may find yourself getting treatment for a problem you don’t have. We take a holistic approach to our evaluations, and our movement assessments ensure that we can pinpoint your challenges so that you get the best care plan to live your highest quality of life.

Are You At Risk for Chronic Knee Pain?

Knees hurt? You’re not alone. Chronic knee pain is thought to affect up to 25% of adults and can significantly limit your mobility and quality of life. Your knee is a hinge-joint that primarily moves back and forth (flexion and extension) and allows some twisting or rotation. Every step you take places stress and strain on your knees, so it’s no surprise that trauma, misalignment, and degenerative changes can all take their toll.

Why it Matters:

While knee pain may not be entirely preventable, there are steps you can take to keep your knees as healthy as possible. At the top of the list is to watch your weight. For every pound you are overweight, your knee must absorb an extra 4 pounds of pressure when you walk, run or climb stairs. In addition, the cartilage in your knee is designed to last a lifetime if you take care of it. Here are a few additional ways to keep your knees healthy and strong.

Warm-Up Before Exercising: Stretching your quadriceps and hamstrings before and after you exercise is a smart way to reduce the chance of a flare-up of knee pain

Find Adequate Foot Support: Every step you take transfers force from the bottom of your foot to your knee. Therefore, your shoes should provide the support you need to keep your knees healthy for at least 10,000 steps per day.

Maintain a Full Range of Motion: Ensuring your low back and hips are moving freely is essential to overall knee health.

The joints of your body should have a balance of strength and flexibility through their full range of motion. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for people with back issues to find themselves struggling with knee pain after limping around for a few weeks. We encourage our patients to be proactive with their health. Use the strategies above to help reduce your chances of knee pain, and be sure to call our practice if you notice any pain or restricted motion.

Tennis Elbow? But I don’t even play tennis!

Tennis elbow isn’t just for athletes. Lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow) is a painful condition that occurs when the tendons in your elbow are inflamed and overloaded due to repetitive motion. Because of the motion that occurs when swinging a racket, it’s commonly referred to as tennis elbow, but anyone who has a job that features repetitive arm motions may be at risk.

Why it Matters:

Tennis elbow can become a serious issue because of the pain and weakness that make it difficult to perform your daily tasks. Because it’s an injury caused by repetitive motions, and since many of these motions are essential to your job, finding ways to decrease the inflammation and improve biomechanics is critical. Three natural ways to help reduce the pain associated with tennis elbow include:

  • Rest: Giving your arm time to rest is important to stop the cascade of inflammation and pain Ice: Icing, a few times per hour, is a smart strategy to reduce pain and inflammation

  • Technique: Be mindful of how you are moving your arm, use proper ergonomics, and use a brace for a short time if necessary

Tennis elbow is usually not a condition that will go away on its own. However, we’ve found two key strategies for reducing the pain associated with tennis below. First is receiving a plan of care that includes at-home exercises to strengthen your supporting muscles. The second is receiving adjustments, when necessary, to improve the motion and movement of your elbow joints. If you or someone you know has struggled with tennis elbow, give us a call so that we can provide you with a plan to find relief.

 

Science Source:

Immediate Effects of Spinal Manipulation on Shoulder Motion Range and Pain in Individuals With Shoulder Pain: A Randomized Trial. J Chiropr Med 2019

Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction. Spine-Health 2021
Chronic Knee Pain. Healthline. 2021
Tennis Elbow. Orthoinfo by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. 2021


creating healthy habits and resolutions

Healthy Habits and Resolutions

Healthy Habits and Resolutions

Setting Smart Health Goals

Have you ever felt like you were working hard but weren’t making any progress toward your goals? You’re not alone. Most people feel that way each year around their time. They set goals, take a few action steps but never seem to accomplish very much. Often the problem isn’t a lack of motivation- it’s just that you haven’t set smart goals. Smart health goals can help you clarify your thoughts, focus your efforts, use your time to your advantage, and increase your chances of not only achieving, but surpassing your expectations.

Why it Matters:

Living a healthy life requires more than just being free from pain. Setting health goals, stretching your comfort zone, and celebrating small wins are important parts of a fulfilling life. As you plan your New Year’s resolutions for a healthy year, plan smart goals. Smart health goals are an effective way to provide the clarity, focus, and motivation you need for success. By setting a completion date, you are more likely to reach your goals.

S – Specific- make your goals specific for more effective planning

M- Measurable- define how you are making progress

A- Attainable- make them reasonable to accomplish

R- Relevant- your goals should align with your values

T- Time-Based- set a date of completion

If you struggle to follow through on your New Year’s resolutions each year, try setting health smart goals. There is no better time than right now to begin setting goals to improve your health this year. Living a healthy life is a journey, so don’t forget to celebrate each step of your progress. Our practice is here to help guide you along the way. If you have a health challenge or an ache or pain that’s holding you back from reaching your goals- let us know- we’ll be happy to help!

How to Cultivate a Positive Mindset

Mindset is the #1 predictor of success. Often, the conversations that you have with yourself determine your growth (or lack thereof). Whether you believe you can or can’t do something, you’re probably right. Thinking that you can’t do something can become a self-fulfilling prophecy that prevents you from taking action and making the decisions you need to live your best life.

Why it Matters:

The good news is you can change your habits, beliefs and transform your thinking. When you do, you’ll be able to look at the world with a new perspective, which empowers you to become the person you know you can be. Take some time this week to think about the thought loops that play in your head. Be more conscientious about what you tell yourself. Each day, identify what thoughts you can switch to cultivate

a more positive mindset.

Positive thinking can help with managing stress and improve your health

A positive outlook can decrease your likelihood of a heart attack or cardiovascular event by over 30%

Negative emotions may weaken your immune response

Cultivating a positive mindset isn’t just a woo-woo, granola way to approach life. A positive mindset has been shown to improve your overall health and well-being. New research on the mind-body connection has proven that our mental health impacts much of our physical health.

Moving Your Way to Better Health

You’ve heard it before, but regular exercise is good for your physical and mental health. Daily exercise can help you lose weight, lower your risk of future health challenges, reduce your stress, and improve your mental outlook. But, if you’re like many people, over 80% to be exact- you aren’t getting enough exercise each week.

Why it Matters:

As a chiropractor, we focus on three types of movement- segmental (your body’s individual joints), regional (your neck, low back, leg, etc.), and whole body. All three types of movement are essential for you to stay well. Full body movement is general exercise such as running or walking. Regional movement may be the stretches and smaller exercises you perform daily. Segmental motion is what we focus on here as chiropractors. To generate the benefits of regular exercise, your body needs all three types of movement.

Whole Body: daily exercise can improve your mood, sleep and lower your risk of chronic disease

Regional: dynamic stretching can improve your range of motion, biomechanics, and energy levels

Segmental: adjustments can positively influence the function of your nervous system, decrease aches and pains, and relax your muscles

Millions of people make New Year’s resolutions to get more active each year. And each year, they seem to come up short. But this year, you have the tools and resources to succeed. By setting smart health goals and cultivating a positive mindset, you can begin moving your body towards better health this year. If you notice yourself struggling to stay on track, or sidelined by chronic aches and pains, let us know. We’re here to help you get active, stay healthy, and reach your goals.

Increasing Your Energy

Have you found yourself tired and drained at the end of each day? It may be easy to grab a second (or tenth) coffee or energy drink, but boosting your energy level doesn’t mean you need to rely on caffeine’s short term effects. Short term bursts of energy can often lead to a crash. Creating smart, healthy habits each day can increase your energy level, mental focus, and endurance.

Why it Matters:

Walking through a store, you’ll notice dozens of products that are designed to increase your energy level. Many of these synthetic stimulants aren’t very healthy, and some can even become addictive. Instead of a daily quick fix, it’s better to consider the effect that stress, exercise, and diet can have on your energy levels.

Stress: being stressed out consumed a ton of energy. Discovering ways to decrease your mental stress with meditation or physical stress with chiropractic care can help increase your energy levels

Exercise- daily exercise will help you sleep better, elevate your mood, and circulate more oxygen in your body

Diet: eating foods with a low glycemic index (where sugar is absorbed slowly) can help you avoid a crash after eating and keep you more energized throughout the day

A lack of energy is often a symptom of a more significant issue. Too much stress, less than ideal food choices, and a lack of exercise are major factors on your energy level. Developing an awareness of your daily habits and making small changes can result in big changes. Try to avoid using caffeine as a crutch and make positive lifestyle choices instead. If you’re struggling or would like specific natural supplement recommendations, let us know, and we’ll be glad to help.

 

Science Source:

MindTools. Smart Goals: how to make your goals achievable.

Mayo Clinic. Positive thinking: Stop negative self-talk to reduce stress. 2020

Johns Hopkins Medicine. The Power of Positive Thinking

Cleveland Clinic. 80% of American Don’t Get Enough Exercise. 2018

The use of spinal manipulation to treat an acute on field athletic injury. The Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association. 2016

Harvard Health Publishing. 9 tips to boost your energy — naturally


spinal discs

Spinal Discs

Spinal Discs

What are Spinal Discs Made Of?

We all know spinal discs are important- but to understand why, the real question is; what are they made of? Your spinal discs are little cushions that sit between the bones or vertebrae in your spine. Each one of your discs is made up of a tough, fibrous outer layer (annulus fibrosis) and a jelly-like inside layer (the nucleus pulposus). The tough outer layer contains and protects the softer inside layer. These small discs have a big job. They enable your spine to move in all directions.

Why it Matters:

The nucleus pulposus (inner layer of the disc) is mostly made up of water. The high water content helps your discs stay supple and moveable. It acts like a small swivel to allow your body to tilt and rotate. As you get older, your discs tend to lose their high water content and can become degenerative. Degenerative discs don't move as well, are more prone to cause pain, and even contribute to compression on your spinal nerves.

  • Your spinal column has 24 moveable bones with spinal discs between each pair

  • Spinal discs are designed to help your move in all directions

  • Movement of your spine can help keep your spinal discs healthy

Movement is one of the best ways to keep your spinal discs healthy. Since your spinal discs don't have a very good blood supply, movement is how they bring in nutrients. Moving your spine helps your spinal discs get in nutrients to stay healthy and push out waste contributing to pain and inflammation. If your neck or back hurts, give us a call- we'll help you get your life back from pain.

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inflammation

What Causes Inflammation?

What Causes Inflammation?

Chronic inflammation is one of the most significant health issues many of us will face today. It’s been linked to everything from chronic pain to a wide range of other mild and serious medical conditions.

It’s important not to mistake acute inflammation for chronic inflammation.

Acute inflammation describes your body’s natural defense mechanism against injuries or toxins. When your immune system is constantly stressed, it can then lead to chronic inflammation which in turn can lead to other conditions.

 

Why it Matters:

In 2014, it was estimated that over 50% of people had at least one chronic condition, and 40% had more than one.

Chronic inflammatory diseases can include respiratory and heart disorders as well as diabetes.

The majority of these disorders are linked directly to our lifestyle choices. Each day you have the option to either increase or decrease your state of inflammation.

Here are some fundamental ways to start taking your life back from chronic inflammation:

  1. Eat right. Fruits and vegetables are high in natural antioxidants and may protect the body against inflammation.

  2. Get enough rest. Maintaining a regular sleep schedule can reduce your physical and emotional stress levels, which has been linked to a lower risk of chronic inflammation.

  3. Stay active. Exercise can lower the amount of pro-inflammatory chemicals in your body and benefit your cardiovascular and mental health.

 

Reducing your risk of chronic disease and inflammation begins with the choices you make each and every day, and we’re here to help you make the best decisions to help you live a full, active, and healthy life.

If you believe you’re not eating, sleeping, or moving as well as you would like, be sure you have an appointment scheduled with us. Together, we’ll analyze your habits and create a plan to get you and your well-being back on track.

Most Chronic Diseases are Linked to Inflammation

One of the most important health discoveries of the past 20 years has been that the immune system and inflammatory process are involved in nearly every mental and physical health problem we encounter today.

It’s safe to say that chronic inflammation is a leading cause of chronic disease.

Why it Matters:

Chronic inflammation is a condition that can affect your immune system and can influence all of your organs, tissues, and cells.

Unlike the normal inflammatory response that happens after an injury and goes away within a few days, chronic inflammation is an abnormal response that can last years.

Here are just a few of the ways chronic inflammation can affect your body.

  1. Chronic inflammation can cause your immune system to function sub-optimally.

  2. Fatigue, increased blood pressure, insulin resistance, and poor appetite have also been linked to chronic inflammation.

  3. Heart disease and other neurodegenerative disorders have been linked to long-term chronic inflammation.

 

It’s true. It’s impossible to prevent chronic disease completely, but you have the power to reduce your risk every day.

Taking action steps like eating right and exercising each day have been shown to dramatically decrease chronic inflammation and your likelihood of developing a chronic disease.

Know we’re here to help you live an active and fulfilling life. We understand that it’s hard to get enough exercise each day when you’re in pain. We hope you’ll take a moment to schedule a movement assessment with us so we can create a plan to help you start moving and feeling better..

Let’s take the first step towards reducing your risk of chronic disease together!

How Inflammation Affects Your Body

Inflammation is like a check engine light for your body. It tells you that something isn’t quite right, and you should pay attention.

The first step in discovering the cause of the problem is determining whether you have acute or chronic inflammation.

Acute inflammation is short-term and plays a critical role in healing and injury repair. Chronic inflammation on the other hand describes a condition where your immune system continues to produce white blood cells and chemicals even after the injury is gone.

Why it Matters:

The combination of chronic inflammation and an excess of white blood cells can cause some problems for your immune system. In some cases, your immune system may even begin to target healthy cells and structures.

If sustained over a long period of time, you may experience changes in your cells, tissues, and organs that can increase the likelihood of disease.

Of course, one of the most significant challenges is that chronic inflammation can be invisible unless you know where to look.

Here are a few of the most common signs of chronic inflammation.

  1. Insulin resistance. Insulin helps control the sugar level in your blood, and inflammation could affect how well your insulin works.

  2. Muscle weakness. Chronic inflammation can cause your immune system to mistakenly attack and inflame your muscles, which could make you weaker.

  3. Fatigue. Fatigue is a sign of long-term inflammation and common in inflammatory diseases like fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis

 

If you’ve been living with muscle weakness, fatigue, or other nagging pains, you may also be living with chronic inflammation.

It’s often your daily habits that contribute to this state of chronic inflammation.

Know that our team specializes in helping you create a healthy lifestyle through daily habits that combat chronic inflammation.

We invite you to take the first step towards better health by scheduling your next visit with us today so we can work together to help you feel and function at your best.

How to Reduce Pain and Inflammation Naturally

While the inflammatory process is extremely complex, the solutions aren’t. Reducing pain and inflammation naturally is simple with the right strategy.

Maintaining a healthy weight, eating a balanced diet, getting enough sleep, and exercising regularly are all ways that have been shown to effectively reduce pain and inflammation naturally.

Why it Matters:

Your diet and daily exercise routine play a huge role in managing chronic inflammation because each influences your weight and sleep patterns.

Foods high in antioxidants (like berries, turmeric, green vegetables) can lower your overall inflammation and provide you with more energy. Daily exercise can help protect you against conditions such as heart disease and obesity, which have both been linked to chronic inflammation.

Did you know…

  1. Antioxidants known as polyphenols can lower inflammation.

  2. Even 20 minutes of daily exercise can have an anti-inflammatory effect.

  3. Proper sleep patterns encourage recovery and can lower stress and inflammation levels.

 

Reducing pain and inflammation naturally starts with your ability to move your body and exercise daily.

If you notice an injury or pain is slowing you down, take a moment to schedule an appointment with us today.

Our expert team will work with you side by side to help you move better, and once you start moving better, everything else becomes easier!

Give us a call. Let’s make chronic inflammation a thing of the past.

Science Source(s):

Chronic Inflammation in the Etiology of Disease Across the Life Span. Nature Med. 2019.

Chronic Inflammation. StatPearls. 2021.
Signs of Chronic Inflammation You May Not Expect. WebMD. 2019.

Understanding Acute and Chronic Inflammation.

Harvard Health Publishing. 2020. Understanding Acute and Chronic Inflammation. Harvard Health Publishing. 2020.


cause of low back pain

What is the Cause of Low Back Pain?

What is the Cause of Low Back Pain?

What Causes Low Back Pain?

Low back pain is the number one reason people worldwide visit their doctor and miss work. If you’ve dealt with it in the past (or maybe even right now), you know back pain can change your life in an instant. Not being able to enjoy hobbies, difficulty in your ability to work, and a sneaking suspicion that you may never get “back to normal” are all normal when you’re experiencing a bout of back pain. So why do so many people struggle with back pain?

Why it Matters:

In many cases, your daily habits are a big contributor to your back pain. Repetitive stress, nagging injuries, a diet filled with inflammatory foods, and a lack of daily exercise and movement can contribute to an increased likelihood of back pain. Here are the three most common causes of back pain:

 

  1. Sprain/Strain Injury: Repetitive stress can create inflammation and lead to sprain/strain injuries

  2. Spinal Disc Issues: Disc bulges and herniations can cause back pain that travels by pressing on your spinal nerves

  3. Arthritis: As you get older, your body will go through degenerative changes, but if your spinal joints get inflamed, you may notice pain associated with arthritis

 

For over 80% of us, back pain will be something we deal with at some point in our lives. And while it may feel like you’ll never get back to your old self, chances are you will. An overwhelming majority of people recover from back pain naturally or with a little additional help from a chiropractor. Even if you recover by taking it easy for a few days, it’s still a smart decision to visit a chiropractor to discover the specific steps you can take to reduce your chances of experiencing back pain in the future.

 

How to Move Your Way to Back Pain Relief

Movement is one of the best ways to recover from back pain. Science has shown us that medications and rest are a few of the least effective ways to find relief. Your body is designed to move, and often it’s a lack of daily movement (or chronic postural changes) that causes back pain to begin in the first place. Discovering the right movements and exercises can help you recover more quickly and prevent future back pain episodes.

Why it Matters:

Your body has three types of movements: Segmental, regional, and whole body. Segmental motion occurs between the individual joints of your body. Regional movement occurs in a body region such as your neck, mid-back, or low back. And whole-body movement is typically what we think of as exercise. All three types are essential and work together to keep your spine and musculoskeletal system healthy and functioning at its best.

 

  1. Segmental Movement: moving the individual joints of your body is what chiropractors are specifically trained to do. Proper segmental movement can help reduce pain, improve your range of motion, and influence your central nervous system

  2. Regional Movement: dynamic stretching with regional range of motion exercises can reduce low back stiffness

  3. Whole Body Exercise: daily whole-body exercise can help your brain and body feel better as well as improve your rest and recovery at night

 

The foundation of all movement is segmental. If your joints aren’t moving correctly, then you’ll never be able to optimize your regional or whole-body movement. Moving may be the last thing you want to do if you’re struggling with back pain. But top research organizations have proven that proper movement and exercise are two of the best ways to find relief from back pain. If you’ve dealt with back pain, call us today. Our team will be happy to provide you with a complete movement assessment and personalized movement and exercise plan to help you get (and stay) well for years to come.

Is My Leg Pain Coming from My Back?

It may seem weird to think that leg, calf, or foot pain can often be traced back to a low back problem. But if you’ve had pain in your leg or foot, a pinched nerve in your low back may be creating your issue. Pain that travels along a spinal nerve is called radicular pain, and it’s one of the most common types of pain that occurs as a result of spinal nerve compression.

Why it Matters:

Your spinal nerves can be pinched or compressed by bone, disc, or ligament. Facet hypertrophy or bone spurs sometimes grow large enough to pinch your spinal nerves. Disc herniations or bulges can invade the space of your nerves and cause narrowing of the canals. And ligament hypertrophy can happen with age and injuries and ultimately cause your nerves to get squeezed. Whether your pain is coming from bone, disc, or ligament, it’s important to know that all have a great chance of recovery without the need for drugs or surgery.

 

  1. Bone Spurs- bone spurs or osteophytes form due to joint damage associated with osteoarthritis

  2. Disc Herniations- disc bulges, herniations, or tears can cause inflammation and pressure on your spinal nerves

  3. Ligament Hypertrophy- ligamentum flavum hypertrophy or overgrowth happens due to biomechanical stress and aging

 

Leg pain that begins in your low back can start with an injury or for what seems like no reason at all. Either way, your body is telling you to Pay Attention Inside Now! Every day our practice helps people regain their quality of life from compressed nerves. Reducing inflammation, establishing proper motion to your joints, and taking proactive steps to reduce the likelihood of the pain coming back are all part of our care plans. If you’ve felt leg pain- give us a call today.

 

Why Medications Aren’t Recommended for Low Back Pain

A staggering 100,000 people each year are hospitalized due to NSAIDs. Just because these medications can be purchased over the counter doesn’t mean that they don’t have risks and dangers. Leading healthcare organizations have taken note and now recommend that movement-based care options, such as chiropractic, are explored for most low back issues before any medications. The added benefit is that most people who explore chiropractic care take far fewer medications than those who don’t. Why? Because it works.

Why it Matters:

Over the past twenty years, we’ve seen the effects of low back pain change our healthcare landscape forever. The numbers of people with low back pain have remained the same even as we’ve lost millions to the opioid epidemic and hundreds of thousands more due to complications from NSAIDs. The good news is that major healthcare organizations have updated their guidelines, and the care that chiropractors deliver ranks at the top of nearly every list.

 

  1. Over 100,000 people are hospitalized each year from NSAID related complications

  2. Each day, over 100 people pass away due to Opioid overdoses

  3. Leading healthcare organizations now recommend the care delivered by chiropractors as the best first-line treatment for low back pain

 

Medications are designed to mask the pain, not fix the problem. Receiving a complete and comprehensive evaluation is the first step towards finding relief. After discovering the cause of your pain, we can work together to craft a care plan that will help you reach your health goals. If you know someone struggling with low back pain, call us today.

Science Source:

Mayo Clinic. Back Pain Symptoms and Causes. 2020

Harvard Health Publishing. 5 Steps to a Pain-Free Back. 2016

Johns Hopkins Medicine. Radiculopathy. 2021

Annals of Internal Medicine. Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians. 2017


Fertility

How Fertile are You? | EP 92

Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado

Episode 92

How Fertile are You?

With Sarah Jane Sandy and Dr. Antonio Gurule


EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

[6:04] fertility is 1/3 male, 1/3 female, 1/2 we don’t know

[6:32] women are more likely to take charge and find out solutions than males

[7:06] Sperm count on a 60% decline since the 1960s

[8:14] Males need a sperm analysis, blood analysis, and hormone analysis.

[9:49] What are some of the lifestyle things that you’re seeing that may be attributing to the 60% decline of sperm count and males and or just things that we’re seeing now? **Our toxic and chemical exposure has been increasing and continuing to increase

[10:49] We can only change what we have control over **food, water, air (what goes in your body)

[12:22] Hormone imbalances: We do not live they way our bodies are intended to live by

[15:07] Nutrition advice **If consuming animal products, you want to source the highest quality you can find and afford **animals store toxins as well in fat tissue (just like humans) **Avoid Dirty Dozen **Look into the Clean 15

[17:20] Think about your grandparents; would they recognize what you are eating?

[18:15] KISS (keep it simple)

[19:01] Protein needs to be massively increased during pregnancy **Soils have been losing their nutritional value and are not rich in nutrients anymore

[20:34] Top 4 supplements for most people (omega-3, Vit D, Mg+, Probiotic)

[23:01] Weight Loss is in the kitchen

[25:33] Changes take time **think about how long it took your body to get here, it wont take the same amount of time, but it does take time for your body to adjust and makes changes

[26:16] Life Cycle of egg and sperm are about 90- days

[27:20] Stress is a major factor for infertility in both men and women **cortisol steals nutrients for healthy fertility, lowers progesterone and testosterone

[31:28] Best ways to manage stress **Meditation (stress negotiation) **Pleasure (Get lost) **Nature (reconnect)

[34 :43] Steps to connect

**Newsletter

**blog

*fertility code

**daily fertility check list

CONNECT WITH SARAH:

https://www.instagram.com/sarahjanesandy/

https://www.thefertilitycode.com/

Home

https://www.facebook.com/SarahJaneSandyCNT

 

Connect With Antonio and the Live LOUD team:

hello@liveloudlife.com

Subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/LiveLoud

Visit the website: https://www.lifeloudlife.com

Like the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/liveloudchiropractic/

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/live.loud.life/

 

Guiding you to the adventurous life you were made for! . If you dig this give it a like ❤️, if you’re loving it let me hear you with a comment 🗣👂, and if you know it will help someone or anyone out please share 👥📲 Live Loud Chiropractic and Coaching Top Chiropractor and Physical Therapy in Lafayette Colorado Serving Boulder County Boulder, Longmont, Louisville, Erie, Broomfield, and Arvada Colorado


About Sarah Jane Sandy

Sarah Sandy

Background:

  • Certified Nutrition Therapist
  • Fertility & Women’s Health Expert

About Dr. Antonio

Nutrition Building Blocks Broken Down

Background:

  • Father
  • Doctor of Chiropractic
  • Owner of Live LOUD
  • Personal Trainer & Health Coach

Anthony Gurule  00:00

Hey what’s up guys, welcome back to another episode of the Live LOUD Life podcast. My name is Dr. Antonio, I’m your host of the Live LOUD Life podcast. My wife and I, we co-own Live LOUD Chiropractic and Coaching here in Lafayette, Colorado. We are just outside of Boulder, Colorado in Boulder County. And our mission is to help families. We want to help make families stronger, so that we can build a stronger community. We want to help guide you to the adventurous life that you and your family were meant for. And we do this through chiropractic and coaching. chiropractic, obviously being more of a hands on approach, more of a clinical conversation, clinical diagnostics, but the coaching aspect is really what we believe is, you know, the foundation of what our system methodology, whatever you want to call it is, because a lot of this comes around through just coaching suggestions and recommendations. also, you know, obviously within that comes into clinical prescriptions of certain things to eat or supplements, so on and so forth. But it’s coaching a lifestyle, it’s coaching, it’s coaching a philosophy and a foundation about how to live an active healthy life as an individual, and setting an example of a healthy active life for your family, for your immediate family, for your friends, and more importantly for your community. So stronger families to make a stronger community as a whole would be a win win, right? And that’s what we want to be able to do. we want to be able to help fill in the gaps in the holes that you’re maybe not getting from, from other roles and conditions.

 

Anthony Gurule  01:43

And today that’s in particular where we’re going to talk about. it’s going to be a little bit more of a shorter episode because this is more of a quote unquote, you know, just discussion around how to lay out a framework and a better understanding of how to work out or what exercises are safe or maybe not safe during pregnancy. This is a very, very common question that we get.

 

Anthony Gurule  02:12

My wife Nichelle has created a mini course that has some workout ideas, recommendations, and prescriptions than laid out into a workout. She guides and  educates other clinicians on how to broach this topic as a chiropractor, how to better serve prenatal patients through chiropractic care, but also exercise recommendations and prescriptions, having recommendations with other personal trainers within the community whether that’s CrossFit whether that’s Orange Theory, chatting with coaches and owners and saying hey, if you have prenatal patients and they’re having these types of symptoms, or this has happened, here’s some better recommendations, not modifications. We call them lateralizations–you’re just you know, you’re doing something something different or something else we you know, we borrow that term from Charlie Weingroff, who’s a physical therapist and strength conditioning coach. But it also and also doulas, right, doulas and midwives and OBs who are directly involved with the prenatal process from nearly conception all the way through, having this conversation. we know that exercise is important during pregnancy,

 

Anthony Gurule  03:19

There are so many different studies that talk about the benefits of exercising during pregnancy, not only for the mom, but also for baby, which is quite interesting. They’re seeing increased cognitive-what’s the word I’m looking for? Excuse me, their cognitive output as a as an as a child through as they age is actually better from moms that actually worked out during pregnancy.

 

Anthony Gurule  03:50

Now this is tough, right? How do you define working out or exercise? it’s different for everybody. But we want to, and we encourage that, and yet we’re sympathetic to the different stages of life, aches and pains, so on and so forth, which obviously would limit what you can do from an exercise perspective. So you know, it’s a bit of a gray area on determining what is working out? what is exercise? What are the physical guidelines or recommendations for pregnancy? And without getting into the like, nitty gritty detail of every single thing. And obviously, every potential situation, if you had this versus this, what could happen? we’re not gonna be able to do that. What we just want to lay out is what is what are we trying to accomplish here, and we want to encourage you to stay as physically active as possible.

 

Anthony Gurule  04:41

And one of the things that constantly comes up is, well, should you add something in that you have not already been doing? Let’s say for instance, someone just through the stages of life with work and kids or whatever that is, they were not able to work out as much before they got pregnant, but now that they’re pregnant, whether they have more time or they understand the importance of exercises during pregnancy, well, would we say, “Well, you haven’t been exercising, so you shouldn’t do too much.” No, that doesn’t, that doesn’t really make sense. Now, we would encourage not to do too much, there’s obviously, you know, a too far swinging the pendulum of the other way. But we wouldn’t say “no, don’t exercise because you weren’t doing something before,” we just have to find those first few stepping stones to help them start to gain some momentum. and help hold their hand, if you will, So that their technique and they feel confident about lifting, or how far they’re walking or whatever that is. And that’s an important topic, because a lot of times people want to add things in, but they weren’t quite ready or weren’t doing them before. And they then assume that they’re not able to do them at all. So you do have to take that in consideration, there is a ton that you can do, and that you can still add, even though you weren’t doing them prior to pregnancy.

 

Anthony Gurule  05:54

Now on the big questions is, is it safe? you know, outside to contact sports, or different things like that the majority of what you’re going to do is safe for pregnancy, right? Rock climbing, we have pregnant patients that have been rock climbing before, obviously, there’s a certain inherent risk with certain sports or activities. You know, you could fall off riding your bike, you could fall over running, right, so we’re not encouraging any of these by any means. We’re just kind of, you know, setting some suggestions, if you will. And you have to take into consideration.

 

Anthony Gurule  06:31

Now, there are certain things to consider when you’re talking about like weightlifting, and how heavy and the intensity that you’re doing. And if you’re doing Valsalva movements, which is essentially holding your breath to maintain a more rigid or stiff torso, as you’re seeing changes in blood volume and blood pressure, you know, you do have to take that in consideration. And that is again, of course a conversation with your provider that is managing your, your pregnancy, but we recommend Mama’s weight lift, or do resistance training. During pregnancy, again, we talked about about load management and the intensity and things like that, but you can still lift and do fairly intense things. And it’s a fairly as a you know, as a scale and a wide range during pregnancy and see a ton of benefit from that. Now, are we trying to hit one rep maxes and PRs during pregnancy, I mean, some would argue yes, but I would argue, why, that’s not really an accurate representation of what your strength is anyways. So you know, you do have to to kind of keep manipulating the numbers and the weights and the intensity and the sets and reps in order to do it. But weightlifting and resistance training is safe, and it is effective. Now, outside of that, there’s not a lot of unsafe things to do, again, outside of contact sports, or things that would elicit, you know, potential trauma to you or baby based on impact we’ve had, again, not our recommendations, but some have tried very just easy scheme, because they’re in the winter months, and they wanted to and they felt very confident about not falling. So you know, you have those types of things.

 

Anthony Gurule  08:16

Overall, again, we’re talking about movement. You need to move, and it’s good to get your heart rate up. And it’s good to breathe hard. So that doesn’t mean just because you’re pregnant, you can’t do HIIT training or circuit training or CrossFit or Orange Theory. But you do have to listen to your body and understand certain signs that would indicate that things might be too much, right? Now those are going to be different for everyone, but a lot of this comes down to you know, lightheadedness, you know, breathing too hard. Certain aches and pains within lower extremity, chest, abdomen, so on and so forth would be obviously like your more extreme ones. If you’re becoming pale or anything like that, I mean, again, these are the same criteria, though, that would be if someone else was working out or training too hard. So it’s realistically the same thing. It’s just that your threshold level for all those most likely have gone down. And depending on what type of an athlete you were before, you’re going to be maybe a little frustrated that you’re not able to do the things you were able to do previously, which makes sense. But if you’re someone who wasn’t exercising before, you’re probably going to be a little bit more hyper aware of that, of just feeling that shortness of breath or that uneasiness. So again, we’re not saying you have to push through that because we’re not trying to set yourself up for a strength and conditioning program to increase your metabolic capacity to increase your strength and conditioning during pregnancy. We’re trying to help you maintain a healthy active pregnancy.

 

Anthony Gurule  09:54

Now, walking. walking is great. but in general, we encourage you to do something above and beyond walking. Obviously, again, certain things would dictate that you would not be able to do so. And this is again, any exercise. Any exercise that you do during pregnancy needs to be consulted with and work through and have a conversation with the primary physician who is managing your pregnancy, whether that’s your nurse practitioner, your midwife or your OB or obstetrician, right. But we would encourage more than just walking. walking is fantastic, but that’s kind of like your baseline minimum, right? Just like our activities, or recommendation activity guidelines. We want a few days a week of where we’re kind of just doing this steady state getting our steps in, you know, kind of pushing ourselves, we’re huffing and puffing, but still just kind of at that conversational level, but you’re not really getting a lot of benefits outside of that.

 

Anthony Gurule  10:55

So if you’re just walking, high five. kudos. can you do something more? Can you do some bodyweight squats? Can you do some bodyweight, you know, good mornings? can you do some walking lunges? do you have a suspension training, we’re able to do some bodyweight rows? Do you have some bands that you can do some rows with? You know, there’s a lot that you can do that allows you to get a little bit more out of that. Now, again, this all comes back down to preferences of exercises that you like to do, because that’s gonna allow you to maintain the most consistency, but then also the intensity that you like to do. And we do encourage having an open mind and at least being willing to try some high intensity things that allow you to still get your heart rate up a little bit. And it’s okay to lift more than five or 10 pounds. And not saying that that is a bad thing. There’s programs out there where it’s all directed around that where it’s lighter weight, high rep, but I just don’t want individuals and mamas to feel like they’re not able to do more and or being ashamed because other people are just saying they should back off because they’re pregnant. “why would you need a lift that much?” It fits within your strength, and your comfort, and your wheelhouse, that is totally fine.

 

Anthony Gurule  12:05

Again, you if you’ve been doing that enough, you understand the risk reward ratio and having a conversation with your practitioner has driven us to kind of help navigate and guide as you start to get further through pregnancies, what things maybe we need to change or manipulate. But that’s totally fine. Now outside of that, the question around safe also comes up around core exercises. diastasis recti, pelvic floor strength, so on and so forth, we want to enhance the capability of understanding how to control tension within your abdominal wall and your pelvic floor through pregnancy, because the pressure is increasing due to baby taking up more space. But we’re not we’re not necessarily we’re not gaining more strength, right.

 

Anthony Gurule  12:45

And so what a lot of people assume it’s when we’ve seen this, is “I don’t want diastasis. So I’m doing more core work to prevent diastasis from happening.” diastasis recti will happen in 100% of moms, it’s estimated at the week 35 Everyone will have some form of it. Now it is technically not a quote unquote diagnosis, though, until 12 weeks postpartum, because it is a normal thing that everyone will get. So you can’t diagnose someone with something that everyone will get–doesn’t make sense, right? So after that, though, if you still have weakness or spacing issues, then we can have a you know, a stronger conversation about putting a diagnosis on that.

 

Anthony Gurule  13:26

But what we’re trying to enhance and help is what exercises are quote unquote, not safe versus unsafe, but adding too much pressure or tension into the abdominal wall or the pelvic floor and creating more laxity. again, as that pressure for as baby’s growing starts to put more pressure on the pelvic floor and the abdominal wall. If you’re doing more things that increases the pressure within the within the abdominal cavity that’s going to push on that separation even more and/or push on that pelvic floor even more, creating potential incontinence or prolapse issues and/or more bulging and doming within the abdominal wall stretching out that separation or that gap even further, potentially making the recovery process more challenging or slightly longer. I’m not saying that it will but potentially, so we do have to take that in consideration. So we go through activation exercise of the pelvic floor, of the abdominal wall so that you better understand how to control those pressure increases while you’re lifting or exercising so that you simply can stay at a management level.

 

Anthony Gurule  14:28

And that in turn, helps you get through pregnancy of understanding how to lift up your older kiddo, having to lift up dog food or anything like that. It’s just managing and controlling pressure. So there’s really not anything that I would say that safe or unsafe. Now, things that we would advise against for core exercises is sit ups or crunches. You know a lot of those things that create like hanging knee raises and different things like that during pregnancy. A lot of those things that create a lot of intra abdominal pressure and tension. and especially during a flex position, that tends to put a lot more pressure on the abdominal wall, the separation where diastasis will occur as well as the pelvic floor.

 

Anthony Gurule  15:09

So, you know, while we never say never, there’s definitely a category of things that we definitely urge against because the risk/reward benefit and again, risk not being “injured,” But risk of potentially putting more pressure and making the recovery process  on the other side harder, is not is not something that we find to be as advantageous. But you can still get the benefits of quote unquote, core exercises through full body movements such as goblet squats, such as deadlifts, you know, depending on the phase that you’re in, push ups, which are, you know, a dynamic plank. or being able to do a TRX row, which is a reverse plank as you’re just lifting yourself up. three point rows where you’re on, you know, two hands or doing like a row on a bench, where you’re in a tabletop position that’s adding anti rotation exercises. So there’s a ton that you can do that still highlights and isolates, the core isolates, sorry. that highlights and will emphasize core activation, but through a full body compound movement. And what’s great about that is during pregnancy, depending on your energy levels, it’s hard to do all the little isolated accessory and all these separate exercises as it is. So it’s kind of nice being able to combine everything, so you get more bang for your buck, especially if you’re a parent and you’re on and you’re on baby number two or three, right?

 

Anthony Gurule  16:31

So what exercises are safe for pregnant women to do? All are. reduce or eliminate for sure contact activities, different things like that. the increased risk activities of you know, trauma and things like that. Outside of that you’re managing pressure, I would definitely encourage reducing anything that’s heavy lifting, that’s, that’s requiring you to do Valsalva moves, you’re having to hold your breath for an extended period of time. that changes blood pressure, so on and so forth. But outside of that, Pregnancy is a completely safe time to do all exercises. we definitely as we highlighted, urge and encourage, you know, certain things over other ones just for you know, added bang for your buck or full body movements, so on and so forth. And that, but outside of that you are free to do what you want.

 

Anthony Gurule  17:19

If you want guidance, though, you know, there are there are trainers out there that work specifically with prenatal patients. we would love to be able to have that conversation with you if that’s something you want to bounce back or navigate. Because we do want to encourage as much as we can. A very, very active pregnancy through exercise working out or however you want to describe that. So if you found this beneficial, please like share, subscribe. if you’re pregnant, I hope you can utilize this and take some of the information for you and yourself. If you have anyone else you know… a relative a family member, a friend who is pregnant and they’re unsure they’ve been you know asking this question what things I don’t know what things I can do. I don’t know if it’s safe for baby share this video with them. We’d love to be able to provide a better frame of reference and or context to be able to ask better questions so that they can find the workout program  or the movements that work best for them during their pregnancy. Until next time guys live loud .if you’re currently pregnant, Congratulations, and we look forward to helping and serving in the future.


weights wont make you bulky

Weights Won’t Make you Bulky EP|91

Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado

Episode 91

Weights Won’t Make you Bulky

With Dr. Antonio Gurule


EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

[2:13] What does it take to get bulky?

[4:40] You can have mass and size in different ways.

[6:06] The definition of one rep max.

[7:53] Functional strength and hypertrophy.

[9:49] General hypertrophy training intensity.

[11:42] Nutrition is a key factor.

[13:03] Building muscle mass with moderate weight.

[15:08] Exercise Recommendations.

[17:02] Layers of complexity.

 

Connect With Antonio and the Live LOUD team:

hello@liveloudlife.com

Subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/LiveLoud

Visit the website: https://www.lifeloudlife.com

Like the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/liveloudchiropractic/

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/live.loud.life/

Guiding you to the adventurous life you were made for!

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If you dig this give it a like ❤️, if you’re loving it let me hear you with a comment 🗣👂, and if you know it will help someone or anyone out please share 👥📲

Live Loud Chiropractic and Coaching Top Chiropractor and Physical Therapy in Lafayette Colorado Serving Boulder County Boulder, Longmont, Louisville, Erie, Broomfield, and Arvada Colorado

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About Dr. Antonio Gurule

Nutrition Building Blocks Broken Down

Background:

  • Father
  • Doctor of Chiropractic
  • Owner of Live LOUD
  • Personal Trainer & Health Coach

0:00 Hey what’s up guys, welcome back to another episode of The Live Loud live podcast. My name is Antonio, your host of The Live Loud live podcast updates, not a lot of updates from our end. When this airs we’ll get we’re gonna be here I’m pretty dang close to having baby number four. So when are we supposed to be the ad is what are like early February we have about a month as I’m filming this, and it shows about 33 weeks pregnant, again row film some more content around being pregnant. So doing some exercises, some some recommendations and or some cueing and some coaching around how to move and what not when pregnant. 0:52 So be on the lookout for some of those if you’re not already following her most of her content on Instagram, which I’ll put in the show notes, but it’s Dr. Underscore Nichelle girly, I think I should know that I apologize. It’s just right there on hand, so I never really know what it is. And then also just a couple more just, you know, video style stuff, talking about ins and outs, and we haven’t decided yet, but we’re gonna have, you know, a videographer for a startup photographer for birthday and videographer. So we’ll see, depending on how everything looks, what if anything, must share out of that. But also, you know, we do want to highlight because this is our this is a lot of our world. And this is not what we’re talking about today. But as a side note, is just just ways that that that we approach, labor and deliberately labor and delivery, we have a partner’s body work course, talking about how you as a partner, get more involved in helping your pregnant partner with massage and bodywork to help them not only with their aches and pains, but also they’re also birth preparation. 1:58 So I’ll put the link in the show notes for that as well. It’s a free, it’s a free PDF with some videos, that tells you what to do. Right. It’s, and I apologize when I say this, but it’s not rocket science. It’s you know, it’s it’s booked your hands on them to communicate, talk pressures on and so forth. But it but it has tremendous power and profound effects for for, for your brain and partner. Now, that being said, in a few weeks, come postpartum Nichelle is going to be getting back into working out in training and postpartum recovery, so on and so forth. And one of the big things that we consistently get from people who are wanting to start lifting weights, everyone’s like, Yeah, I know, we live things. And is good. But I don’t want to get bulky. But I want to tone muscles, but I don’t want to get bulky. But you know, like, like, I want to have some definition. But I don’t want to get bulky. And I don’t think a lot of people realize what it actually takes to like actually get bulky. It takes a lot. So what we want to talk about this is going to be a very, very short episode. 1:58 But we just wanted to talk about a few of the things that would help you get bulky and or not bulky, depending on what your goals may be. Now, with anything, you have to do some form of resistance training. Resistance training simply means your muscle is loaded and doing some form of work. Now, if anyone has seen some of those like street workout guys, or calisthenic, dudes, they’re jacked, as many of them are jacked as can be, and they just use your bodyweight. Right and yet, they have a lot of definition and a lot of hypertrophy and a ton of strength depending on the goal and task. So when we’re talking about these things, like most things, there’s many roads to Rome, a lot of research has obviously been performed and done to kind of talk about the best strategies that would help but there’s a lot of factors that go into this, the person itself, recovery time, nutrition, so on and so forth. So the best thing to do is depending on your goals, is work with the coach if you don’t know what to do, like if you’re like well I wanna you know, I want to live but I don’t want to get bulking I’m not sure get a coach. 1:58 Right, they might, you might not have to do a whole program but there’s a lot of coaches out there who just do one of con consultations and just spend an hour with you and kind of walk you through a meeting to be done. And if you need some more help the program for you, be accountable for you so on and so forth. But it’s but it’s showing like you can have mass and size and tone and definition and a number of different ways. And another thing to note is so much of this is also just body type dependent. Certain people their muscles are just shaped a certain way which gives them a certain amount of depth. Nishan and look, when they do get bigger, certain people, they just naturally have a lower, excuse me, a lower body fat percentage, just based on sheer genetics where other people have a slightly higher, you know what I mean? So, again, many factors and different things to consider. 1:58 But what we’re going to break down here is just looking at my notes here, very briefly, a kind of working table set. And again, this is from taking some notes from a number of different resources, Supervisory Committee conditioning manual, different online resources during different research articles that talk about strength and hypertrophy, so on and so forth, and kind of just came down to like, what are all these seen, and what are the rough ranges of like sets and reps and intensity, so on and so forth. So we’re gonna walk through that, okay. So when we’re talking about strength and power, right, strength in power in order for you to get stronger, right. And interestingly enough, you don’t always have to be bulky with it. But in order for you to get stronger, which a lot of that has to do with neural adaptation, as well as you have to be training at higher intensities. 1:58 So you’re going to be lifting closer to what might be your one rep max. Now, for those of you saying like, well, I don’t know what my one rep max is, well, what we’re looking at here is one rep max is like an all out intensity, right? So let’s say for instance, you’re doing a squat, and we put a weight on and you were you, you were only able to do one sample, that would be your one rep max, right now, you don’t necessarily have to go out there and test it. But based on there’s other, there’s other tables, actually, I have this here, I have this old clipboard here, this thing, it gives you an idea of what your what’s your, what’s your one rep max might be based on, you know, maybe maybe being able to do a three rep max or a four rep max or something like that. 1:58 So there’s a number of different tables out there, this one’s just actually on a clipboard, right? There’s a number of different tables out there that you can just Google and look look at is, if I was to lift this amount for this many reps, what would be my estimated one rep max. And then you can then implement that information into the program that you’re doing, right, because oftentimes, these are based off percentages of one rep max. More sophisticated programs are based on RPE scales, which is rate of perceived exertion, which takes into consideration how you feel that day. So let’s say for instance, you didn’t have a good night of sleep or your diets been off. And unless you feel more fatigued and tired, it wouldn’t make sense for you to be pushing yourself at that higher level, because you might run the risk of injury in your zone of adaptation, actually, that perceived exertion seems higher than what it should be. 1:58 Okay? Now, that’s, that’s kind of a separate conversation. But when we’re looking at strength training, we are doing upwards of like 7580, more to like 85% and higher of your one rep max, and you’re doing total work sets of three to five and rep ranges of one to three. So a few other people that we follow, talk about not doing any more than 10 reps when you’re talking about a strength set. So if I want to do back squats, I’m either going to do two sets of five, five sets of two, three sets of three, or you might even do like 10 sets of one or eight sets of one, right? You’re just doing singles because they’re heavy. 8:35 But they’re but again, the emphasis for strength and power is heavy, 80 85% of you one RM Okay, now we go down, functional strength and hypertrophy is what this category is called. People can argue that whatever you want, I don’t really care is we’re looking at strength and hypertrophy. Right? So, again, the whole term functional kind of gets thrown around a little a little easy, but what we’re looking at is working sets of, again, four to six. So this would kind of be you know, people that are, you could do three with higher rep range. But we’re looking at four to six sets with ranges of four to six, right, so you’re seeing how things start to increase. So if we’re doing if we’re on the higher end of doing six sets of six, well, you know, do the math out on that, right. If you’re doing four sets of six, you’d be doing five sets of five let’s 25 reps, which is kind of right in the middle of this, which is which is a very common, functional and full quote unquote, functional training and hypertrophy type of rep scheme, five sets of five is an awesome place to be. Now the the key here is you’re using intensities of 75 ish percent 85%, right. Some could even argue 70 up to 85. 9:49 Again, this is nothing written in stone. There’s there’s catered there’s some gray area, but indicating you are now decreasing your intensity in order to be able to form more reps and as you’re able to perform more reps trouble to be under load longer. Increasing time under tension not only increases strength but also hypertrophy. Okay, so cute, a few key points to take away on that. Now general hypertrophy. This is where again, you’re going to see different things across the board. This is three to five sets, but seven to 10 reps. I’ve, I’ve seen programs and things out there where they’re doing five plus sets, and you’re doing usually 1015, or 20. But again, depending on what your rep ranges, there’s a general hypertrophy training intensity, 65 to 75%, and argumentatively could even be lower. But a lot of times what you see for hypertrophy is you have to be doing a ton of reps at a at still a moderate weight 6065 70 75%. 10:54 A lot of general hypertrophy, though, 75% on that higher end, they’re dropping those weights down still at a very challenging amount, though, but they’re getting what we call like a pump, they’re maxing out oftentimes, that muscle to elicit a growth response. And that growth response is just, it’s just overloading it really, really well, at a manageable level that allows you to just again, accumulate a lot of reps. And then oftentimes on top of that, they’ll do a drop set or a superset where he then you’re pumping out the muscle even more with the intention that you’re then going to recover, you’re going to blast a muscle group, that’s the way you’re this is where you’re often see like chest a back day, leg day, push day, press A whatever that might be, because you’re a maxing out a certain body part of our region, and then you’re giving it multiple days of rest. Okay, that’s a key factor here, where most of us were wanting to get strong tone and not bulk. We’re doing stuff every single day, if you were to take this approach, you wouldn’t be able to do it, you’d be run the risk of injury and overloading within the first two weeks, you know what I mean? And, and so we have to, we have to look at this from what is it again, what are we trying to elicit here, and how did the sets and rep ranges break down based on the intensity that you’re doing to actually elicit bulking now, one of the things we did not go into great detail here, but is you have to then supplement with nutrition, not supplementation itself. 12:19 But supplement this program of lifting with nutrition, you have to fuel the muscles with the necessary building blocks, which is a lot of protein, in order to elicit muscle growth. Sometimes people will throw things on there such as BCAAs, and creatine to allow you to work out more to elicit a greater growth response, so on and so forth. This is not a nutrition talk today, though. But what we’re indicating is most people are not eating enough protein as it is let alone enough protein to elicit hypertrophy within the muscles giving the muscle actually more protein to build upon. So the moral of the story is, it is very unlikely. Now some people have a body type where they just build muscle. But it is very unlikely that if you’re doing just an orange theory, or you’re trying to get into to three days of general lifting with lightweight or high wraps are even moderate weight that you are going to bulk up. And if anything, you’re going to get more of that you want. Because by increasing the muscle mass, you actually have this more toned quote unquote, or cut look without the bulk. So you’re actually doing yourself a disservice by not even trying because even then let’s say for instance, you did bulk up based on the stimulation that you’re giving the muscles. The for the majority of us the moment you stopped doing that those your body wants to kind of homeostatic ly regulate to a point that is like, Okay, well, I have enough muscle to do the activities that I want, I have enough body fat. This is kind of the body mass index that I have and the weight that I have, based on the activities and requirements that I’m giving you, you’re going to start to lose that muscle if you’re not stimulating it. 14:02 You know what I mean? You’ll see bodybuilders year down the road that are that are still fairly big, because they’ve just done it for so many years. But even then you see you see him, you just shrink down a little bit, right. And so you have to you have to keep stimulating that muscle growth or maintaining it if you want to do that. And again, most of us who are wanting to just get toned and fit in a little stronger, you are not going to bulk up. Again, it takes a very takes a specific body type takes a very specific program. As we have already indicated there’s and this is when I say program, this is not programming. This is like a very, very rough estimate of just how certain things are laid out. If you want to get bigger you have to take all these factors in consideration rest, sleep, nutrition, recovery, how many sets and reps that you’re doing in total load some people actually calculate out on the total week and then how that rolls over and carries over. 14:59 You can See how calculated this could be. So you’re not going to get bulky, right. But you do need a lift still. Exercise recommended guidelines is at least two to three days a week where you’re actually lifting some weight that makes you grunt a little bit. And there are seasons of life where you go through different phases. Like right now, I’m doing less actual resistance training with kettlebells and barbells, just based on a couple of like little tweaks and aches and pains that I have, but I’m trying to break it back down and can do more calisthenics stuff. Now and with calisthenics, what’s interesting is if, let’s say, for instance, you don’t have weights. Again, this all comes back down to math, let’s say for instance, your body weight, and I’m just using a round number of 150 here. And let’s say for instance, you can do a push up with 150 pounds, well, then you would incline that you do incline push ups to reduce the amount of gravitational force that your body actually feels to allow you to do similar sets and reps based on your goals. If it’s strength, again, you’re only going to do three to five sets of one to three rep range. So if I want to get stronger within my chest to be able to bench or push up, I’m going to be at a position that allows me to do no more than 16:06 Well, that might you could do more, but I’m going to be doing total sets of about 10 reps. So I might be at an incline push up on a countertop on a chair on a bench. And I might do three sets of three, five sets to two sets of five, right? A couple times a week, right and put that into but again, but then it’s the whole program. So you’re seeing how the math is oftentimes the same. It’s just then how do you make your bodyweight either lighter or heavier? Based on what’s available for you? Right? So for instance, a benchpress on that similar conversation is like, Okay, well, I’m stronger than just what my bodyweight is doing standard veterans, well, then you would elevate your feet, or you do a decline pushup, right, you could add tempo, more time under tension, which would elicit a different, it’s taking your body weight, but like multiplying it, because you’re holding it for a longer period of time. 17:02 So this gets this. It doesn’t have to get complicated, but it does have layers to it, depending again, on your goals. Now, for most of you who are listening, based on what we know are based on what we know our audience is, is again, you’re looking at, hey, I have some weight, to have my body weight, I want to do some lifting, I’m not quite sure what to do. That’s when again, I would encourage you either through us or somebody else, find a coach, get some programming done. But if you if all you took out of this was push pull, hinge squat, carry, there’s bodyweight with legs gets a little bit more complicated weights are helpful for that. And you take these sets and rep ranges, and you start implementing this 234 times a week, you’re gonna see some positive results. Now, as we indicated in the last episode, talking about goals, is if you’re not getting the results while you need to either change the map, change the techniques, change, map sets and reps, change that technique, change what equipment you might have, in order to make your life easier, as you know, invest in a coach to help you out. Okay, there is not a shortage of health and fitness and personal trainers out there. I 18:12 guarantee you that. So I hope this was helpful because I know many people are kind of worried about again, I don’t want to get bulky. I want tone I want chi want stronger, right? Sometimes you don’t get a choice on that. Just focus on more about function. How do you feel? How do you look to a certain degree is that’s always important, right? But do I have less aches and pains? Do my joints and my body does it operate the way that I wanted to when I wanted to like those are extremely important and oftentimes more critical factors and worrying about a couple extra pounds of muscle mass or something here and there. So keep lifting, keep training, keep running, keep playing keep jumping. Keep loving the lab guys Transcribed by https://otter.ai


Why you can't follow through

Why you Can’t Follow Through with Your Goals EP | 90

Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado

Episode 90

Why you Can’t Follow Through with Your Goals

With Dr. Antonio Gurule


EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

[2:33] Systemizing and automating your life.

[5:17] Focus on a few components of the wellness wheel.

[7:57] Creating clarity of what you actually want.

[10:07] How to formulate systems that work for your season of life.

[12:24] Patient’s first steps.

[14:22] The importance of doing the basics.

[17:01] Gaining clarity on what you want to do.

[19:42] Setting realistic weight loss goals.

 

 

Connect With Antonio and the Live LOUD team: hello@liveloudlife.com

Subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/LiveLoud

Visit the website: https://www.lifeloudlife.com

Like the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/liveloudchiropractic/

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/live.loud.life/

Guiding you to the adventurous life you were made for!

.

If you dig this give it a like ❤️, if you’re loving it let me hear you with a comment 🗣👂, and if you know it will help someone or anyone out please share 👥📲

Live Loud Chiropractic and Coaching Top Chiropractor and Physical Therapy in Lafayette Colorado Serving Boulder County Boulder, Longmont, Louisville, Erie, Broomfield, and Arvada Colorado


About Dr. Antonio Gurule

Nutrition Building Blocks Broken Down

Background:

  • Father
  • Doctor of Chiropractic
  • Owner of Live LOUD
  • Personal Trainer & Health Coach

0:00 Hey what’s up guys, welcome back to another episode of The Live Loud life podcast. My name is Antonio, your host of the lives out life podcast. It is January 11, I hope you guys had a wonderful Christmas season. Wonderful New Years. And we’re going to it’s a little bit about what we’re going to talk about today. New Year’s and goals and different things like that. But it’s not your standard, how do you set goals and different things like that, but it is going to be some advice around that, because that is something that has been a type of conversation for us with a lot of our patients, a lot of our clients, so on and so forth. And the questions they’ve asked, I think are really important questions, it’s questions that I’ve had myself, and kind of just talking a little bit about what were my goals are and what I’m kind of thinking about, and laying out that kind of thought process, if you will, and see if that’s helpful at all for you. Now, I will preface what I did. My mother in law is a Strength Finders coach. And for those who don’t know, Strength Finders, I think is a wonderful, wonderful evaluation and assessment tool. And it’s one of the many ones out there, you know, the Myers Briggs all those types of things, excuse me. But, um, it gives you it gives you the strength and one of my top strengths was adaptability. And, and I did a previous podcasts about this. And this just came to mind when I said this is how your strength can sometimes be your weakness. And for me, this notion of being it was almost like this pride point of being adaptable, I could roll with anything, and do whatever I want. And you know, be able to, you know, transfer here and there. Which is a which, which is actually a very important thing to be able to do. But I use it as an excuse to not create goals. Let’s just see what happens. Now, there’s some freedom in that. You know, when when you don’t, when you don’t want to be anywhere, you don’t want to go anywhere, you know, it’s not too bad. But as you start wanting to do something, and be somewhere and achieve things, using just your adaptability to figure out your way is not going to get you there. And that was a big deficit for me for many, many years. And to be honest, I didn’t really turn the corner on until just more recently. And, you know, I don’t have like specific metrics on where I’ve been able to get after I’ve kind of made those choices. But I’ve seen a transition over the, over the years, which I think is pretty cool. As far as updates for us, I think this will come out before I’ve been I haven’t been one of my walls, let’s just jump right into it. One of my goals for this first quarter of 2023 is to start to systemize create more processes and try to automate as best as possible. My my life right. And again, something that is not a strong suit for me like creating systems and processes, that is not something I am good at, at all, at all 100% and and again that seeing the limitations of not having those things in place, whether it’s certain things not getting done in our in the business or in clients or patients not saying I’m having more stress and different things like that, as a result of just not having these systems and processes coming down is something I’ve been talking about the email for a while. But again, it’s one of those things I just my mind doesn’t think that way. And it was always a struggle for me to put that down into words the papers on and so forth. And and to be honest, it was what I listened to. I love the ED my lead show for those of you have not listened to that podcast before or any of his content is phenomenal. But he had robbed your drink on their fan. It’s fantasy factory ridiculousness, Rob Dyrdek skater. And it was probably one of the most enlightening and really hit home shows her episodes that I’ve listened to in a long time. And the way he evaluates his life and his time, more importantly, is absolutely phenomenal. And it got me thinking right and it got me thinking of how I can change certain things in my life and how to better system and process, anonymize those so we can or automate some of these things so I can get more out of it. Right because the whole point is that time resource and that is been my biggest struggle and so with that my one of my big goals for this year and again, it’s not I don’t have an I should write as they maybe talk about this is like how many like what do I want to systemize specific and different things, but for me, it’s just taking everything right our business in our life and really just pouring into this and trying to formulate as many systems that we can get down. Because come March, we had baby number four coming in, and I want to have just a little bit more clarity, and not control, but more clarity, and systems and processes around that. So that when we have more things going on, we feel like we’re still kind of maintaining that, that, that momentum in that groove that we have. And I apologize that kind of threw me off on that top process. But but with that is when we’re when we’re talking about these things, and this has come up again, with so many of the patients, as many people are just kind of like, I want to do these things. I don’t maybe have a specific goal. And a lot of this is obviously relates relates to health and fitness. But this could really be anything, right? It’s like we have this direction, I know I want to get over there, I know I want to be able to do these things, more income, more real estate, grow the business, more revenue, improve relationships. But yet, it’s kind of like, you know, times busy, this is going on, and I’m making these excuses up in my head as well, because it’s the same stuff. I’m saying too, with some of these categories, right, we’re looking at this wellness wheel, I’m trying to better fulfill this wellness wheel up in all avenues where I tend to focus on just a few components of that. And just maxing that out. And forgetting there’s a there’s a balanced equilibrium to that. So sometimes you don’t know where to go. And this was prompted were many of us are guilty of doing this right. And, and this is where it hit home to me as I was listening to. We were at church the other day listening to the sermon at Flatiron church, and here in Lafayette. And Ben was talking about how many of us start when we start to implement something new with these new strategies or intentions is things just get out of control. And so bringing this down, it’s like how do we how do we redefine and kind of hone this in right. And so the example we use is like, alright, well, January 1, my wife and I really want to wake up at 530 in the morning. And you know, we’re going to talk about our goals, we’re going to talk about this and want to start doing all these things really just start living this better fulfilled life, right? And then it starts going, Okay, we’ll wake up at 530, that’s before the kids get up with minds will work out. So if that’s the case, want to wake up at 430. And while we’re you know, while we’re at it, we’re gonna work out, that means we’re gonna start eating better, and we’re gonna start eating better, that’s going to cost us a little bit more. So let’s go in and look at our budget, well, okay, we’re a little shorter on our budget to be able to do those things to be able to eat healthier and buy those things. Right, we might have to pick up like a second side hustle or something like that, all of a sudden, it came down to just like, hey, let’s talk about what that next phase looks into. And all sudden just got completely, completely off track. And all of a sudden, you don’t even know what you’re talking about anymore, right? There’s too many things going on. And this is and many of you can attest to this, right? This is that thought process that goes on. And I’m thinking I was just doing this today, and Michael cable did this, and then this can do that. And then if that happens in my thinking 10 steps down the road, when I haven’t even taken that first step. And that adaptability in me. You know, I kind of always lean on that. But I can’t think 10 steps ahead. It’s good to be you know, this is kind of an end game. But you’re putting that cart before the horse oftentimes, right? And, and so a few of the goals that I want you to think about and this is the goal of this conversation, not in general, right? is creating just more clarity of those things that you actually want, right? And in asking them the five of the seven why’s well why What about you know, this? Isn’t this well, why this isn’t this right? So ultimately for me, right, and it’s coming up with four kids, we’ve been grinding and grinding in our business. And it’s done. I feel very proud of what we built and where we’ve been. I definitely feel that it could be further along. There’s different things that we missed along the way that we’ve learned and but ultimately comes down for me is now having four kids, homeschooling, teaching them more about how the world operates and different things like that. They’re still very young. So it’s very superficial level, right? But it’s just that time factor, right? Again, coming back to that time. And in that, like when you keep going down to those wise, that’s that’s it. So like, what would allow me to have the freedom to be able to do that, okay, well, I’m gonna need to be able to be able to generate X amount of revenue to be able to do that I’m gonna need need to be able to carve X amount of time out and strategize and put that in. So we can do that I’m going to I’m going to need to be able to rely on certain support and different things I might need to hire more support to offload some of that time for all those things that we’re doing right and Just coming back down again to the clarity of it off. And with that there’s this fantastic book and I apologize. I should always have I’m gonna look it up here. 10:12 Because I do want to give the right thing here 10:22 like, type Gary Keller, that’s what it is The One Thing by Gary Keller, I apologize, Gary always missing, I’m always missing. But the one thing, right, so the clarity allows you to then boil things down, is the one thing might be that first step, right? While we want to implement X, Y, and Z these things down the road, one step, right, what’s the steps that you can start making to then formulate the systems or the habits that work for you based on your season of life. And as a side note is, this is one thing that you know i constant struggle with, because I am torn between these thought processes of you know, this, this contention of life is I wish I do want to present agree life is amazing. And it’s great, we’re bringing another child into this earth, our family is growing, I’m growing, our relationships are growing. But yet on this other side, so much of what I follow and are trying to learn about is how to 10x right how to get Matt to get more out of life, how to how to how to generate more revenue, how to make more impact, how to create more value to this world, and finding that you know, that equilibrium based on our season of life of how can I push push, push, push, push and do this and then still have take taken and really, really soak in the contention of like, I’m like, I love this life. And I’m super content about it right? With that, right is like that, that 10 next concept is looking at people like will start success leaves clues. And this is why that Rob deer Jack episode was so important to me is just a while I do not have the millions and millions and millions of dollars that he has of just talking about the systems and processes and automations to gain back what that is, and it’s gonna be different for all of you, right, we might not be able to hire a personal assistant. We’re not hiring in personal senses. But yet there’s other roles that I should be hiring to offload so much of the things that I’m doing that’s taking so much of my time and energy away. Okay, so as adopt, so excuse me, apologize. 12:37 So, again, Gomez, that first steps, I’m gonna talk about patient line, his name is Greg. So Greg was coming at me, he’s just coming off of an intensive kind of, I want to get better at running, I want to improve my aerobic capacity, he has some heart conditions within his family. And you know, just you know, I just want to strengthen my heart from like, an aerobic capacity level. And he’s doing a ton of running, which was fantastic. But after a while, he kind of like am kind of getting over it. I do know that strength is important working on some mobility, some stability issues, flexibility, so on and so forth. And he knows it. And he’s had the time because he was running before. But running was easier because he’s like, Oh, well I had to do is like, Okay, well, I don’t think about anything, I’m just gonna go for a run, just go for a run 4030 45 minutes an hour. But now yet, he didn’t really know what to go. He knew he wanted more flexibility, strength. He’s done lifting before but yet, it seemed like this completely vague concept that he just cannot put into like, this is what it needs to be. And this is again, what has happening with so many people is just like, Well, yeah, but then this, this and this, and I don’t know how this fits in. So my conversations with nearly everybody, when they’re when I’m asking about either resolutions or goals are just like, hey, are you planning on changing anything for your health and fitness for this for the turn of the year, is just giving some basic guidance on launch strategic planning to get this done. Right. So it was like, in his case will stay with? It was great. Because like, Okay, well realistically, we’re not running right now. Because you don’t want run because you get kind of burned out from running, which was fine. And you want to be able to do some strength training. Realistically, how many days of the week? Can you get this done? He all he owns his own business. He has two kids, a little bit of property. So a little bit of land with some animals that he’s cats, you know, and as they say we all have the same amount of time. Seasons of like, did take just different things right? And he’s like, I got three, Mike Wonderful. Okay, so let’s start as basic as we can. You’ve done squats before, right? You’ve done deadlifts before you know how to do a push up or benchpress in you know how to do some sort of a row or even a pull up right. And you have some way to undo some carries. Classic Dan John, push pull hinge squat carry, right. I want you to just just do though don’t overcomplicate it with you know different movements. in different things that look cool and look sexy, we’re gonna do the basics. And we’re gonna do the basics well, and we’re gonna challenge ourselves with the basics three times a week. Now he is a, he is a very analytical guy, right? So we talked about, okay, well, you analyze your week on a date on a weekly basis on a daily basis. So when you’re setting up your weak time, block it out, just like you do with your running, right, this is no different than anything else you’re doing, right? It’s just finding that time. And you and I both know, when we’re looking at the one thing or trying to find that clarity, and really boiling it down is, okay, well, if we really just take a minute and do that intentional audit, you will know and find out the majority of the time, what needs to be done, when it can be done, so on and so forth. Now, sometimes, as I was just coaching with Craig, we need an outsider’s perspective, nothing wrong with just a nutrition coach, any sort of coach really just has that kind of outside Coach’s Eye in that that kind of thought process of helping people navigate those things, you might not even know and you could ask your personal trainer, if he’s a good personal trainer and be like, Hey, I’m having I’m having trouble implementing this, it might not even have to do with health and fitness or movement, I have a feeling he’s gonna have some some words of wisdom that might be able to help you. But indicating is like, this is a good time when some sort of coach could be super helpful to just help you navigate to help lay out the plan. And then you can implement the plan based on the the clues that success leaves, and the repeatable processes and systems that work for you. Now, it’s a little bit of trial and error, right? You might try something back and it’s not working, and then you just again, it, you will run through those roadblocks and those speed bumps is just okay, well, now I gotta, I gotta lateralized I got to come over here and I’m going to do it that way, I have to change the time then to do it, so on and so forth. So it really just, again, depends on a number of different factors. But boiling down, right is helping more than anything, is gaining the clarity on those things that you want to do. So I personally, I have not thought I have ideas about what quarter two, three and four look like for this year. But like my sole intention and focus is so that I don’t get overly bogged down is focusing on those systems and processes with still a little bit of the content creation, of trying to produce value because because that boils down to it, right? If we create, we’re creating a system around content generation, how it’s being put up, who’s still going to create that and figure out how our systems working to get that done for us, right? Because we don’t want everything to just shut down as we’re focusing time and attention over there. And again, that’s it’s a pretty broad spectrum mind systems and processes like them, there’s something for everything that we’re doing, right. And we’re starting with the business and you know, there might be a few things that we’re going to have to figure out the width family, whatnot. But realistically, we’re not too concerned about that. Because as the fourth comes, there’s going to be just an adjustment period. And we’re not going to stay super rigid on anything about that. So I hope this was super beneficial for you guys. Again, if you don’t know where to go, success leaves cute clues. If you there’s I guarantee there’s someone in your life right now to who you look up to you respect. In your gym, a family member, a practitioner that you see, that’s doing things already that you want to be able to do, or is living in a way that you want to be living. And all it takes is a question, right? You might have to hire them, you might have to pay for their time, you might have to provide some value to them. But it’s just like, hey, you know, the conversation might simply go, Hey, I really like how you’re doing this, or I’m amazed at the fact that you’re able to do all these things while still doing this. And this is something that I find would be super useful for my life just can’t figure that out. Can we chat about that? Right. And that’s how the patients approach us. Or, you know, we kind of like help prompt it to because we want to encourage people to live out loud life, and they sometimes need a little bit of a boost and encouragement. But, but again, success leaves clues looking for those repeatable processes and systems, finding that clarity and boiling it down to the one thing, right, and then being able to put that into that, that machine and just let it turn. And and again, auditing it. I don’t know what the KPIs would be the key performance indicators. Those would be those would be completely determined by you, but is what you’re doing actually creating results because again, you might have to tweak and change things up. Right. If it’s weight loss, you might just be okay. Well, the only thing I could realistically do right now is work on my diet based on kids work, travel commute, adding a 45 minute workout in everyday just not going to happen. So I’m working on nutrition. Okay, well if you’re doing good then on your nutrition goals, but you’re not hitting your weight loss goals. You got to add something else in you can’t you can you can only make the nutrition right, you’re gonna have to add some other elements in. Even then it might be okay, well, I’m just doing aerobic training, I’m just running on top of eating well, not seeing those weightless call goals yet. Okay, well, you might not actually need to add some resistance training, building up some muscles to help increase your metabolism and just increase your lean body mass, right? Okay, well, I’m not reaching my goals yet. Okay, well, we might actually have to bring in a nutritionist or someone who understands hormones a little bit differently to see if there’s anything that might be throwing off your weight. Either way, just because you didn’t hit that goal, which was an interesting thing, because I heard this today on a different talk is oftentimes they talk about, we expect to hit our goals, right? We set realistic goals, because we want to be able to check it off. But in reality is oftentimes our goals should be larger than that, so that it pulls us. It pulls us in that direction of making these habits and changes. So for instance, this individual, while we started eating better, we started implementing exercises, that exercise included aerobic capacity and strength training, oh, we actually learned that we might have a hormone imbalance, we’re actually able to tack that even though you didn’t hit the maybe the weight loss goal, and then the number on the scale that you want to hit, you made drastic changes within your life that have that will have positive effects, not only today, but years down the road. And maybe in your family itself, because your kids or your family or a brother or sister or a relative was watching and doing and watching the work that you were putting in and then making positive changes yourself, right. So I think that’s a fantastic thing to be able to share with other people. You know, you can share your journey on the world wide web as they call it on social media, blog about it, film about it, and so on and so forth. So, I hope this was helpful for you guys, especially if you don’t know maybe where to go. A few couple thoughts to think about a couple questions to ask yourself to mull around and hopefully provide you a little bit more clarity on that. So thanks for tuning in guys live. Transcribed by https://otter.ai


should you stretch or move first?

Should You Stretch or Move First? | EP 89

Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado

Episode 89

Should You Stretch or Move First?

With Dr. Antonio Gurule


EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

 

[1:56] How structure and function influence function.

[3:21] What is the cause of osteoarthritis in patients

[4:37] It’s not the structure but the function that is the issue.

[5:56] Change function, change behaviors – for the positive.

[7:12] How to improve your function.

 

 

Connect With Antonio and the Live LOUD team: hello@liveloudlife.com

Subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/LiveLoud

Visit the website: https://www.lifeloudlife.com

Like the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/liveloudchiropractic/

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/live.loud.life/

 

Guiding you to the adventurous life you were made for!

.

If you dig this give it a like ❤️, if you’re loving it let me hear you with a comment 🗣👂, and if you know it will help someone or anyone out please share 👥📲

Live Loud Chiropractic and Coaching Top Chiropractor and Physical Therapy in Lafayette Colorado Serving Boulder County Boulder, Longmont, Louisville, Erie, Broomfield, and Arvada Colorado


About Dr. Antonio Gurule

Nutrition Building Blocks Broken Down

Background:

  • Father
  • Doctor of Chiropractic
  • Owner of Live LOUD
  • Personal Trainer & Health Coach

Anthony Gurule  00:00

Hey what’s up guys, welcome back to another episode of the Live LOUD Life podcast. My name is Dr. Antonio, I’m your host of the Live LOUD Life podcast. My wife and I, we co-own Live LOUD Chiropractic and Coaching here in Lafayette, Colorado. We are just outside of Boulder, Colorado in Boulder County. And our mission is to help families. We want to help make families stronger, so that we can build a stronger community. We want to help guide you to the adventurous life that you and your family were meant for. And we do this through chiropractic and coaching. chiropractic, obviously being more of a hands on approach, more of a clinical conversation, clinical diagnostics, but the coaching aspect is really what we believe is, you know, the foundation of what our system methodology, whatever you want to call it is, because a lot of this comes around through just coaching suggestions and recommendations. also, you know, obviously within that comes into clinical prescriptions of certain things to eat or supplements, so on and so forth. But it’s coaching a lifestyle, it’s coaching, it’s coaching a philosophy and a foundation about how to live an active healthy life as an individual, and setting an example of a healthy active life for your family, for your immediate family, for your friends, and more importantly for your community. So stronger families to make a stronger community as a whole would be a win win, right? And that’s what we want to be able to do. we want to be able to help fill in the gaps in the holes that you’re maybe not getting from, from other roles and conditions.

 

Anthony Gurule  01:43

And today that’s in particular where we’re going to talk about. it’s going to be a little bit more of a shorter episode because this is more of a quote unquote, you know, just discussion around how to lay out a framework and a better understanding of how to work out or what exercises are safe or maybe not safe during pregnancy. This is a very, very common question that we get.

 

Anthony Gurule  02:12

My wife Nichelle has created a mini course that has some workout ideas, recommendations, and prescriptions than laid out into a workout. She guides and  educates other clinicians on how to broach this topic as a chiropractor, how to better serve prenatal patients through chiropractic care, but also exercise recommendations and prescriptions, having recommendations with other personal trainers within the community whether that’s CrossFit whether that’s Orange Theory, chatting with coaches and owners and saying hey, if you have prenatal patients and they’re having these types of symptoms, or this has happened, here’s some better recommendations, not modifications. We call them lateralizations–you’re just you know, you’re doing something something different or something else we you know, we borrow that term from Charlie Weingroff, who’s a physical therapist and strength conditioning coach. But it also and also doulas, right, doulas and midwives and OBs who are directly involved with the prenatal process from nearly conception all the way through, having this conversation. we know that exercise is important during pregnancy,

 

Anthony Gurule  03:19

There are so many different studies that talk about the benefits of exercising during pregnancy, not only for the mom, but also for baby, which is quite interesting. They’re seeing increased cognitive-what’s the word I’m looking for? Excuse me, their cognitive output as a as an as a child through as they age is actually better from moms that actually worked out during pregnancy.

 

Anthony Gurule  03:50

Now this is tough, right? How do you define working out or exercise? it’s different for everybody. But we want to, and we encourage that, and yet we’re sympathetic to the different stages of life, aches and pains, so on and so forth, which obviously would limit what you can do from an exercise perspective. So you know, it’s a bit of a gray area on determining what is working out? what is exercise? What are the physical guidelines or recommendations for pregnancy? And without getting into the like, nitty gritty detail of every single thing. And obviously, every potential situation, if you had this versus this, what could happen? we’re not gonna be able to do that. What we just want to lay out is what is what are we trying to accomplish here, and we want to encourage you to stay as physically active as possible.

 

Anthony Gurule  04:41

And one of the things that constantly comes up is, well, should you add something in that you have not already been doing? Let’s say for instance, someone just through the stages of life with work and kids or whatever that is, they were not able to work out as much before they got pregnant, but now that they’re pregnant, whether they have more time or they understand the importance of exercises during pregnancy, well, would we say, “Well, you haven’t been exercising, so you shouldn’t do too much.” No, that doesn’t, that doesn’t really make sense. Now, we would encourage not to do too much, there’s obviously, you know, a too far swinging the pendulum of the other way. But we wouldn’t say “no, don’t exercise because you weren’t doing something before,” we just have to find those first few stepping stones to help them start to gain some momentum. and help hold their hand, if you will, So that their technique and they feel confident about lifting, or how far they’re walking or whatever that is. And that’s an important topic, because a lot of times people want to add things in, but they weren’t quite ready or weren’t doing them before. And they then assume that they’re not able to do them at all. So you do have to take that in consideration, there is a ton that you can do, and that you can still add, even though you weren’t doing them prior to pregnancy.

 

Anthony Gurule  05:54

Now on the big questions is, is it safe? you know, outside to contact sports, or different things like that the majority of what you’re going to do is safe for pregnancy, right? Rock climbing, we have pregnant patients that have been rock climbing before, obviously, there’s a certain inherent risk with certain sports or activities. You know, you could fall off riding your bike, you could fall over running, right, so we’re not encouraging any of these by any means. We’re just kind of, you know, setting some suggestions, if you will. And you have to take into consideration.

 

Anthony Gurule  06:31

Now, there are certain things to consider when you’re talking about like weightlifting, and how heavy and the intensity that you’re doing. And if you’re doing Valsalva movements, which is essentially holding your breath to maintain a more rigid or stiff torso, as you’re seeing changes in blood volume and blood pressure, you know, you do have to take that in consideration. And that is again, of course a conversation with your provider that is managing your, your pregnancy, but we recommend Mama’s weight lift, or do resistance training. During pregnancy, again, we talked about about load management and the intensity and things like that, but you can still lift and do fairly intense things. And it’s a fairly as a you know, as a scale and a wide range during pregnancy and see a ton of benefit from that. Now, are we trying to hit one rep maxes and PRs during pregnancy, I mean, some would argue yes, but I would argue, why, that’s not really an accurate representation of what your strength is anyways. So you know, you do have to to kind of keep manipulating the numbers and the weights and the intensity and the sets and reps in order to do it. But weightlifting and resistance training is safe, and it is effective. Now, outside of that, there’s not a lot of unsafe things to do, again, outside of contact sports, or things that would elicit, you know, potential trauma to you or baby based on impact we’ve had, again, not our recommendations, but some have tried very just easy scheme, because they’re in the winter months, and they wanted to and they felt very confident about not falling. So you know, you have those types of things.

 

Anthony Gurule  08:16

Overall, again, we’re talking about movement. You need to move, and it’s good to get your heart rate up. And it’s good to breathe hard. So that doesn’t mean just because you’re pregnant, you can’t do HIIT training or circuit training or CrossFit or Orange Theory. But you do have to listen to your body and understand certain signs that would indicate that things might be too much, right? Now those are going to be different for everyone, but a lot of this comes down to you know, lightheadedness, you know, breathing too hard. Certain aches and pains within lower extremity, chest, abdomen, so on and so forth would be obviously like your more extreme ones. If you’re becoming pale or anything like that, I mean, again, these are the same criteria, though, that would be if someone else was working out or training too hard. So it’s realistically the same thing. It’s just that your threshold level for all those most likely have gone down. And depending on what type of an athlete you were before, you’re going to be maybe a little frustrated that you’re not able to do the things you were able to do previously, which makes sense. But if you’re someone who wasn’t exercising before, you’re probably going to be a little bit more hyper aware of that, of just feeling that shortness of breath or that uneasiness. So again, we’re not saying you have to push through that because we’re not trying to set yourself up for a strength and conditioning program to increase your metabolic capacity to increase your strength and conditioning during pregnancy. We’re trying to help you maintain a healthy active pregnancy.

 

Anthony Gurule  09:54

Now, walking. walking is great. but in general, we encourage you to do something above and beyond walking. Obviously, again, certain things would dictate that you would not be able to do so. And this is again, any exercise. Any exercise that you do during pregnancy needs to be consulted with and work through and have a conversation with the primary physician who is managing your pregnancy, whether that’s your nurse practitioner, your midwife or your OB or obstetrician, right. But we would encourage more than just walking. walking is fantastic, but that’s kind of like your baseline minimum, right? Just like our activities, or recommendation activity guidelines. We want a few days a week of where we’re kind of just doing this steady state getting our steps in, you know, kind of pushing ourselves, we’re huffing and puffing, but still just kind of at that conversational level, but you’re not really getting a lot of benefits outside of that.

 

Anthony Gurule  10:55

So if you’re just walking, high five. kudos. can you do something more? Can you do some bodyweight squats? Can you do some bodyweight, you know, good mornings? can you do some walking lunges? do you have a suspension training, we’re able to do some bodyweight rows? Do you have some bands that you can do some rows with? You know, there’s a lot that you can do that allows you to get a little bit more out of that. Now, again, this all comes back down to preferences of exercises that you like to do, because that’s gonna allow you to maintain the most consistency, but then also the intensity that you like to do. And we do encourage having an open mind and at least being willing to try some high intensity things that allow you to still get your heart rate up a little bit. And it’s okay to lift more than five or 10 pounds. And not saying that that is a bad thing. There’s programs out there where it’s all directed around that where it’s lighter weight, high rep, but I just don’t want individuals and mamas to feel like they’re not able to do more and or being ashamed because other people are just saying they should back off because they’re pregnant. “why would you need a lift that much?” It fits within your strength, and your comfort, and your wheelhouse, that is totally fine.

 

Anthony Gurule  12:05

Again, you if you’ve been doing that enough, you understand the risk reward ratio and having a conversation with your practitioner has driven us to kind of help navigate and guide as you start to get further through pregnancies, what things maybe we need to change or manipulate. But that’s totally fine. Now outside of that, the question around safe also comes up around core exercises. diastasis recti, pelvic floor strength, so on and so forth, we want to enhance the capability of understanding how to control tension within your abdominal wall and your pelvic floor through pregnancy, because the pressure is increasing due to baby taking up more space. But we’re not we’re not necessarily we’re not gaining more strength, right.

 

Anthony Gurule  12:45

And so what a lot of people assume it’s when we’ve seen this, is “I don’t want diastasis. So I’m doing more core work to prevent diastasis from happening.” diastasis recti will happen in 100% of moms, it’s estimated at the week 35 Everyone will have some form of it. Now it is technically not a quote unquote diagnosis, though, until 12 weeks postpartum, because it is a normal thing that everyone will get. So you can’t diagnose someone with something that everyone will get–doesn’t make sense, right? So after that, though, if you still have weakness or spacing issues, then we can have a you know, a stronger conversation about putting a diagnosis on that.

 

Anthony Gurule  13:26

But what we’re trying to enhance and help is what exercises are quote unquote, not safe versus unsafe, but adding too much pressure or tension into the abdominal wall or the pelvic floor and creating more laxity. again, as that pressure for as baby’s growing starts to put more pressure on the pelvic floor and the abdominal wall. If you’re doing more things that increases the pressure within the within the abdominal cavity that’s going to push on that separation even more and/or push on that pelvic floor even more, creating potential incontinence or prolapse issues and/or more bulging and doming within the abdominal wall stretching out that separation or that gap even further, potentially making the recovery process more challenging or slightly longer. I’m not saying that it will but potentially, so we do have to take that in consideration. So we go through activation exercise of the pelvic floor, of the abdominal wall so that you better understand how to control those pressure increases while you’re lifting or exercising so that you simply can stay at a management level.

 

Anthony Gurule  14:28

And that in turn, helps you get through pregnancy of understanding how to lift up your older kiddo, having to lift up dog food or anything like that. It’s just managing and controlling pressure. So there’s really not anything that I would say that safe or unsafe. Now, things that we would advise against for core exercises is sit ups or crunches. You know a lot of those things that create like hanging knee raises and different things like that during pregnancy. A lot of those things that create a lot of intra abdominal pressure and tension. and especially during a flex position, that tends to put a lot more pressure on the abdominal wall, the separation where diastasis will occur as well as the pelvic floor.

 

Anthony Gurule  15:09

So, you know, while we never say never, there’s definitely a category of things that we definitely urge against because the risk/reward benefit and again, risk not being “injured,” But risk of potentially putting more pressure and making the recovery process  on the other side harder, is not is not something that we find to be as advantageous. But you can still get the benefits of quote unquote, core exercises through full body movements such as goblet squats, such as deadlifts, you know, depending on the phase that you’re in, push ups, which are, you know, a dynamic plank. or being able to do a TRX row, which is a reverse plank as you’re just lifting yourself up. three point rows where you’re on, you know, two hands or doing like a row on a bench, where you’re in a tabletop position that’s adding anti rotation exercises. So there’s a ton that you can do that still highlights and isolates, the core isolates, sorry. that highlights and will emphasize core activation, but through a full body compound movement. And what’s great about that is during pregnancy, depending on your energy levels, it’s hard to do all the little isolated accessory and all these separate exercises as it is. So it’s kind of nice being able to combine everything, so you get more bang for your buck, especially if you’re a parent and you’re on and you’re on baby number two or three, right?

 

Anthony Gurule  16:31

So what exercises are safe for pregnant women to do? All are. reduce or eliminate for sure contact activities, different things like that. the increased risk activities of you know, trauma and things like that. Outside of that you’re managing pressure, I would definitely encourage reducing anything that’s heavy lifting, that’s, that’s requiring you to do Valsalva moves, you’re having to hold your breath for an extended period of time. that changes blood pressure, so on and so forth. But outside of that, Pregnancy is a completely safe time to do all exercises. we definitely as we highlighted, urge and encourage, you know, certain things over other ones just for you know, added bang for your buck or full body movements, so on and so forth. And that, but outside of that you are free to do what you want.

 

Anthony Gurule  17:19

If you want guidance, though, you know, there are there are trainers out there that work specifically with prenatal patients. we would love to be able to have that conversation with you if that’s something you want to bounce back or navigate. Because we do want to encourage as much as we can. A very, very active pregnancy through exercise working out or however you want to describe that. So if you found this beneficial, please like share, subscribe. if you’re pregnant, I hope you can utilize this and take some of the information for you and yourself. If you have anyone else you know… a relative a family member, a friend who is pregnant and they’re unsure they’ve been you know asking this question what things I don’t know what things I can do. I don’t know if it’s safe for baby share this video with them. We’d love to be able to provide a better frame of reference and or context to be able to ask better questions so that they can find the workout program  or the movements that work best for them during their pregnancy. Until next time guys live loud .if you’re currently pregnant, Congratulations, and we look forward to helping and serving in the future.


Low Back Pain

3 Things I Would Never say to Someone with Low Back Pain | EP 88

Live LOUD Life Podcast
Lafayette Colorado

Episode 88

EP|88 3 Things I Would Never say to Someone with Low Back Pain

With Dr. Antonio Gurule


HIGHLIGHTS:

[0:09]What I would never say to a patient.

[2:03] What to do when you have lower back pain?

[4:13] What adjustment and manipulation can do for you.

[6:07] The importance of proper assessment and evaluation.

[7:55] More than alignment, we need function.

[9:38] Have a good assessment and evaluation with your provider.

 

Connect With Antonio and the Live LOUD team: hello@liveloudlife.com

Subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/LiveLoud

Visit the website: https://www.lifeloudlife.com

Like the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/liveloudchiropractic/

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/live.loud.life/

Guiding you to the adventurous life you were made for!

.

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Live Loud Chiropractic and Coaching Top Chiropractor and Physical Therapy in Lafayette Colorado Serving Boulder County Boulder, Longmont, Louisville, Erie, Broomfield, and Arvada Colorado


About Dr. Antonio Gurule

Nutrition Building Blocks Broken Down

Background:

  • Father
  • Doctor of Chiropractic
  • Owner of Live LOUD
  • Personal Trainer & Health Coach

Anthony Gurule  00:00

Hey what’s up guys, welcome back to another episode of the Live LOUD Life podcast. My name is Dr. Antonio, I’m your host of the Live LOUD Life podcast. My wife and I, we co-own Live LOUD Chiropractic and Coaching here in Lafayette, Colorado. We are just outside of Boulder, Colorado in Boulder County. And our mission is to help families. We want to help make families stronger, so that we can build a stronger community. We want to help guide you to the adventurous life that you and your family were meant for. And we do this through chiropractic and coaching. chiropractic, obviously being more of a hands on approach, more of a clinical conversation, clinical diagnostics, but the coaching aspect is really what we believe is, you know, the foundation of what our system methodology, whatever you want to call it is, because a lot of this comes around through just coaching suggestions and recommendations. also, you know, obviously within that comes into clinical prescriptions of certain things to eat or supplements, so on and so forth. But it’s coaching a lifestyle, it’s coaching, it’s coaching a philosophy and a foundation about how to live an active healthy life as an individual, and setting an example of a healthy active life for your family, for your immediate family, for your friends, and more importantly for your community. So stronger families to make a stronger community as a whole would be a win win, right? And that’s what we want to be able to do. we want to be able to help fill in the gaps in the holes that you’re maybe not getting from, from other roles and conditions.

 

Anthony Gurule  01:43

And today that’s in particular where we’re going to talk about. it’s going to be a little bit more of a shorter episode because this is more of a quote unquote, you know, just discussion around how to lay out a framework and a better understanding of how to work out or what exercises are safe or maybe not safe during pregnancy. This is a very, very common question that we get.

 

Anthony Gurule  02:12

My wife Nichelle has created a mini course that has some workout ideas, recommendations, and prescriptions than laid out into a workout. She guides and  educates other clinicians on how to broach this topic as a chiropractor, how to better serve prenatal patients through chiropractic care, but also exercise recommendations and prescriptions, having recommendations with other personal trainers within the community whether that’s CrossFit whether that’s Orange Theory, chatting with coaches and owners and saying hey, if you have prenatal patients and they’re having these types of symptoms, or this has happened, here’s some better recommendations, not modifications. We call them lateralizations–you’re just you know, you’re doing something something different or something else we you know, we borrow that term from Charlie Weingroff, who’s a physical therapist and strength conditioning coach. But it also and also doulas, right, doulas and midwives and OBs who are directly involved with the prenatal process from nearly conception all the way through, having this conversation. we know that exercise is important during pregnancy,

 

Anthony Gurule  03:19

There are so many different studies that talk about the benefits of exercising during pregnancy, not only for the mom, but also for baby, which is quite interesting. They’re seeing increased cognitive-what’s the word I’m looking for? Excuse me, their cognitive output as a as an as a child through as they age is actually better from moms that actually worked out during pregnancy.

 

Anthony Gurule  03:50

Now this is tough, right? How do you define working out or exercise? it’s different for everybody. But we want to, and we encourage that, and yet we’re sympathetic to the different stages of life, aches and pains, so on and so forth, which obviously would limit what you can do from an exercise perspective. So you know, it’s a bit of a gray area on determining what is working out? what is exercise? What are the physical guidelines or recommendations for pregnancy? And without getting into the like, nitty gritty detail of every single thing. And obviously, every potential situation, if you had this versus this, what could happen? we’re not gonna be able to do that. What we just want to lay out is what is what are we trying to accomplish here, and we want to encourage you to stay as physically active as possible.

 

Anthony Gurule  04:41

And one of the things that constantly comes up is, well, should you add something in that you have not already been doing? Let’s say for instance, someone just through the stages of life with work and kids or whatever that is, they were not able to work out as much before they got pregnant, but now that they’re pregnant, whether they have more time or they understand the importance of exercises during pregnancy, well, would we say, “Well, you haven’t been exercising, so you shouldn’t do too much.” No, that doesn’t, that doesn’t really make sense. Now, we would encourage not to do too much, there’s obviously, you know, a too far swinging the pendulum of the other way. But we wouldn’t say “no, don’t exercise because you weren’t doing something before,” we just have to find those first few stepping stones to help them start to gain some momentum. and help hold their hand, if you will, So that their technique and they feel confident about lifting, or how far they’re walking or whatever that is. And that’s an important topic, because a lot of times people want to add things in, but they weren’t quite ready or weren’t doing them before. And they then assume that they’re not able to do them at all. So you do have to take that in consideration, there is a ton that you can do, and that you can still add, even though you weren’t doing them prior to pregnancy.

 

Anthony Gurule  05:54

Now on the big questions is, is it safe? you know, outside to contact sports, or different things like that the majority of what you’re going to do is safe for pregnancy, right? Rock climbing, we have pregnant patients that have been rock climbing before, obviously, there’s a certain inherent risk with certain sports or activities. You know, you could fall off riding your bike, you could fall over running, right, so we’re not encouraging any of these by any means. We’re just kind of, you know, setting some suggestions, if you will. And you have to take into consideration.

 

Anthony Gurule  06:31

Now, there are certain things to consider when you’re talking about like weightlifting, and how heavy and the intensity that you’re doing. And if you’re doing Valsalva movements, which is essentially holding your breath to maintain a more rigid or stiff torso, as you’re seeing changes in blood volume and blood pressure, you know, you do have to take that in consideration. And that is again, of course a conversation with your provider that is managing your, your pregnancy, but we recommend Mama’s weight lift, or do resistance training. During pregnancy, again, we talked about about load management and the intensity and things like that, but you can still lift and do fairly intense things. And it’s a fairly as a you know, as a scale and a wide range during pregnancy and see a ton of benefit from that. Now, are we trying to hit one rep maxes and PRs during pregnancy, I mean, some would argue yes, but I would argue, why, that’s not really an accurate representation of what your strength is anyways. So you know, you do have to to kind of keep manipulating the numbers and the weights and the intensity and the sets and reps in order to do it. But weightlifting and resistance training is safe, and it is effective. Now, outside of that, there’s not a lot of unsafe things to do, again, outside of contact sports, or things that would elicit, you know, potential trauma to you or baby based on impact we’ve had, again, not our recommendations, but some have tried very just easy scheme, because they’re in the winter months, and they wanted to and they felt very confident about not falling. So you know, you have those types of things.

 

Anthony Gurule  08:16

Overall, again, we’re talking about movement. You need to move, and it’s good to get your heart rate up. And it’s good to breathe hard. So that doesn’t mean just because you’re pregnant, you can’t do HIIT training or circuit training or CrossFit or Orange Theory. But you do have to listen to your body and understand certain signs that would indicate that things might be too much, right? Now those are going to be different for everyone, but a lot of this comes down to you know, lightheadedness, you know, breathing too hard. Certain aches and pains within lower extremity, chest, abdomen, so on and so forth would be obviously like your more extreme ones. If you’re becoming pale or anything like that, I mean, again, these are the same criteria, though, that would be if someone else was working out or training too hard. So it’s realistically the same thing. It’s just that your threshold level for all those most likely have gone down. And depending on what type of an athlete you were before, you’re going to be maybe a little frustrated that you’re not able to do the things you were able to do previously, which makes sense. But if you’re someone who wasn’t exercising before, you’re probably going to be a little bit more hyper aware of that, of just feeling that shortness of breath or that uneasiness. So again, we’re not saying you have to push through that because we’re not trying to set yourself up for a strength and conditioning program to increase your metabolic capacity to increase your strength and conditioning during pregnancy. We’re trying to help you maintain a healthy active pregnancy.

 

Anthony Gurule  09:54

Now, walking. walking is great. but in general, we encourage you to do something above and beyond walking. Obviously, again, certain things would dictate that you would not be able to do so. And this is again, any exercise. Any exercise that you do during pregnancy needs to be consulted with and work through and have a conversation with the primary physician who is managing your pregnancy, whether that’s your nurse practitioner, your midwife or your OB or obstetrician, right. But we would encourage more than just walking. walking is fantastic, but that’s kind of like your baseline minimum, right? Just like our activities, or recommendation activity guidelines. We want a few days a week of where we’re kind of just doing this steady state getting our steps in, you know, kind of pushing ourselves, we’re huffing and puffing, but still just kind of at that conversational level, but you’re not really getting a lot of benefits outside of that.

 

Anthony Gurule  10:55

So if you’re just walking, high five. kudos. can you do something more? Can you do some bodyweight squats? Can you do some bodyweight, you know, good mornings? can you do some walking lunges? do you have a suspension training, we’re able to do some bodyweight rows? Do you have some bands that you can do some rows with? You know, there’s a lot that you can do that allows you to get a little bit more out of that. Now, again, this all comes back down to preferences of exercises that you like to do, because that’s gonna allow you to maintain the most consistency, but then also the intensity that you like to do. And we do encourage having an open mind and at least being willing to try some high intensity things that allow you to still get your heart rate up a little bit. And it’s okay to lift more than five or 10 pounds. And not saying that that is a bad thing. There’s programs out there where it’s all directed around that where it’s lighter weight, high rep, but I just don’t want individuals and mamas to feel like they’re not able to do more and or being ashamed because other people are just saying they should back off because they’re pregnant. “why would you need a lift that much?” It fits within your strength, and your comfort, and your wheelhouse, that is totally fine.

 

Anthony Gurule  12:05

Again, you if you’ve been doing that enough, you understand the risk reward ratio and having a conversation with your practitioner has driven us to kind of help navigate and guide as you start to get further through pregnancies, what things maybe we need to change or manipulate. But that’s totally fine. Now outside of that, the question around safe also comes up around core exercises. diastasis recti, pelvic floor strength, so on and so forth, we want to enhance the capability of understanding how to control tension within your abdominal wall and your pelvic floor through pregnancy, because the pressure is increasing due to baby taking up more space. But we’re not we’re not necessarily we’re not gaining more strength, right.

 

Anthony Gurule  12:45

And so what a lot of people assume it’s when we’ve seen this, is “I don’t want diastasis. So I’m doing more core work to prevent diastasis from happening.” diastasis recti will happen in 100% of moms, it’s estimated at the week 35 Everyone will have some form of it. Now it is technically not a quote unquote diagnosis, though, until 12 weeks postpartum, because it is a normal thing that everyone will get. So you can’t diagnose someone with something that everyone will get–doesn’t make sense, right? So after that, though, if you still have weakness or spacing issues, then we can have a you know, a stronger conversation about putting a diagnosis on that.

 

Anthony Gurule  13:26

But what we’re trying to enhance and help is what exercises are quote unquote, not safe versus unsafe, but adding too much pressure or tension into the abdominal wall or the pelvic floor and creating more laxity. again, as that pressure for as baby’s growing starts to put more pressure on the pelvic floor and the abdominal wall. If you’re doing more things that increases the pressure within the within the abdominal cavity that’s going to push on that separation even more and/or push on that pelvic floor even more, creating potential incontinence or prolapse issues and/or more bulging and doming within the abdominal wall stretching out that separation or that gap even further, potentially making the recovery process more challenging or slightly longer. I’m not saying that it will but potentially, so we do have to take that in consideration. So we go through activation exercise of the pelvic floor, of the abdominal wall so that you better understand how to control those pressure increases while you’re lifting or exercising so that you simply can stay at a management level.

 

Anthony Gurule  14:28

And that in turn, helps you get through pregnancy of understanding how to lift up your older kiddo, having to lift up dog food or anything like that. It’s just managing and controlling pressure. So there’s really not anything that I would say that safe or unsafe. Now, things that we would advise against for core exercises is sit ups or crunches. You know a lot of those things that create like hanging knee raises and different things like that during pregnancy. A lot of those things that create a lot of intra abdominal pressure and tension. and especially during a flex position, that tends to put a lot more pressure on the abdominal wall, the separation where diastasis will occur as well as the pelvic floor.

 

Anthony Gurule  15:09

So, you know, while we never say never, there’s definitely a category of things that we definitely urge against because the risk/reward benefit and again, risk not being “injured,” But risk of potentially putting more pressure and making the recovery process  on the other side harder, is not is not something that we find to be as advantageous. But you can still get the benefits of quote unquote, core exercises through full body movements such as goblet squats, such as deadlifts, you know, depending on the phase that you’re in, push ups, which are, you know, a dynamic plank. or being able to do a TRX row, which is a reverse plank as you’re just lifting yourself up. three point rows where you’re on, you know, two hands or doing like a row on a bench, where you’re in a tabletop position that’s adding anti rotation exercises. So there’s a ton that you can do that still highlights and isolates, the core isolates, sorry. that highlights and will emphasize core activation, but through a full body compound movement. And what’s great about that is during pregnancy, depending on your energy levels, it’s hard to do all the little isolated accessory and all these separate exercises as it is. So it’s kind of nice being able to combine everything, so you get more bang for your buck, especially if you’re a parent and you’re on and you’re on baby number two or three, right?

 

Anthony Gurule  16:31

So what exercises are safe for pregnant women to do? All are. reduce or eliminate for sure contact activities, different things like that. the increased risk activities of you know, trauma and things like that. Outside of that you’re managing pressure, I would definitely encourage reducing anything that’s heavy lifting, that’s, that’s requiring you to do Valsalva moves, you’re having to hold your breath for an extended period of time. that changes blood pressure, so on and so forth. But outside of that, Pregnancy is a completely safe time to do all exercises. we definitely as we highlighted, urge and encourage, you know, certain things over other ones just for you know, added bang for your buck or full body movements, so on and so forth. And that, but outside of that you are free to do what you want.

 

Anthony Gurule  17:19

If you want guidance, though, you know, there are there are trainers out there that work specifically with prenatal patients. we would love to be able to have that conversation with you if that’s something you want to bounce back or navigate. Because we do want to encourage as much as we can. A very, very active pregnancy through exercise working out or however you want to describe that. So if you found this beneficial, please like share, subscribe. if you’re pregnant, I hope you can utilize this and take some of the information for you and yourself. If you have anyone else you know… a relative a family member, a friend who is pregnant and they’re unsure they’ve been you know asking this question what things I don’t know what things I can do. I don’t know if it’s safe for baby share this video with them. We’d love to be able to provide a better frame of reference and or context to be able to ask better questions so that they can find the workout program  or the movements that work best for them during their pregnancy. Until next time guys live loud .if you’re currently pregnant, Congratulations, and we look forward to helping and serving in the future.