8 Things That Could Cause Neck & Back Pain

8. Flip-Flops

They’re a summer staple for many, but the structure of the shoe, including having to “hold” it on with your toes as you take each step, actually alters your gait. Not only can this cause issues with your lower legs, knees and hips, but also wearing flip-flops can cause back pain.

7. Your Wallet

Do you keep your wallet in your back pocket? Sitting on this can throw your spine out of alignment, leading to muscle imbalances and tension that cause back and neck pain. A wallet in your back pocket can also compress your sciatic nerve, leading to sciatica and its related pain in your lower back or legs.

6. Your Couch

If you slouch or sit in an uncomfortable position, your muscles and ligaments can become overstretched, fatigued and strained over time.

Sitting actually puts more pressure on your back than standing, and when done for long periods, especially in an improper position such as with your neck craned to see the television, it creates muscle imbalances that are at the root cause of many cases of back and neck pain.

5. Shoulder and Piggyback Rides

Carrying your child on your shoulders or via piggyback is practical and fun, but the lifting process can easily stress and strain your back, neck and shoulders. Over time, this simple act can lead to muscle imbalances that cause chronic pain.

4. Sleeping on Your Stomach

This is arguably one of the worst positions to sleep in from a pain perspective, as it forces your head to turn to one side or the other, virtually guaranteeing that you’ll wake up with a sore and stiff neck. Ideally, try to sleep on your back or side instead, but if you’re a devout stomach sleeper, a soft thin pillow that allows your head and neck to stay in a straight line with your spine is best.

3. Neckties

If your necktie is too tight, it can easily increase muscle tension in your back, neck and shoulders. How tight is too tight? If you can’t slip a finger between your neck and your shirt collar, your tie is too tight.

2. The Wrong Chair

The average American spends anywhere from eight to 12 hours a day sitting, but doing so in a chair that causes you to sit up straight at a 90-degree angle can actually cause chronic back problems.

This is because sitting too upright places strain on your spine, which in turn causes your spinal disks to move and become misaligned. Many office chairs on the market will, unfortunately, keep your posture fixed in the 90-degree position, thereby potentially making your back pain worse.

Ideally, your chair should be designed in such a way that it reclines slightly and prevents you from slouching; only the best ergonomic chairs will do this.

1. A Long Commute

Do you spend a lot of time driving? If so it’s imperative that your seat is at the proper angle to your steering wheel to avoid back and neck strain. If you slouch forward at all in order to drive, muscle imbalances will inevitably result, and these are a key underlying factor in many cases of back and neck pain.


Mark Harris, PhD
Exercise Physiologist/Nutritionist
TexasMetabolics@gmail.com
Texas Metabolics

The 3 Cycles of Periodization Training

Periodization is the process of dividing an annual training plan into specific time blocks, where each block has a particular goal and provides your body with different types of stress.
This allows you to create some hard training periods and some easier periods to facilitate recovery. Periodization also helps you develop different energy systems during various phases of training (e.g., aerobic, anaerobic). Most significantly, periodization is the best way to promote the training effect, which consists of changes in your cardiopulmonary and musculoskeletal systems that result in greater speed and endurance in all aspects of competition and training. To develop an effective training program, it is important to understand the foundation of periodization. This foundation consists of three cycles: macrocycles, mesocycles and micro cycles.

The Macrocycle

The macrocycle is the longest of the three cycles and includes all four stages of a periodized training program (e.g., endurance, intensity, competition and recovery). Because macrocycles incorporate all 52 weeks of your annual plan, they provide you with a bird's-eye view of your training regimen and allow you to facilitate long-range planning.

For example, if you want to peak for a national championship event one year from now, you can mark that date on your calendar and work backwards to create a program that allows you to peak at that time. You can use the same process to identify several major events throughout the year and develop a plan that facilitates multiple fitness peaks. Remember, because of its length, you will always make changes to your macrocycle throughout the year.

The Mesocycle

The mesocycle represents a specific block of training that is designed to accomplish a particular goal. For instance, during the endurance phase, you might develop a mesocycle designed to enhance your aerobic endurance (the ability to use oxygen to produce energy for the muscles over an extended period of time). This mesocycle might consist of three weeks of increasingly long rides, and one week of recovery.
Similarly, you could develop a mesocycle for the intensity phase that is designed to improve your functional threshold power (the highest average power, measured in watts that you can sustain for one hour). This mesocycle might include three weeks of lactate threshold intervals followed by a week of recovery.

During the competition phase, you could develop a mesocycle that improves your neuromuscular power, which is the ability to pedal a very big gear, at a very high cadence for a short period of time (i.e., sprinting). This mesocycle might include four long sprint interval workouts and four short sprint interval workouts over a three week period.
You can even develop a mesocycle for the recovery stage of training. Of course, the primary goal of this mesocycle will be to rest and recuperate, but it will also include a series of easy rides designed to enhance the recovery process.
Mesocycles are typically three or four weeks in length. Two very common mesocycles consist of 21 and 28-day training blocks. For example, a 25-year old experienced competitor might use a 23/5 training pattern (i.e., a 28-day mesocycle). This consists of 23 days of relatively hard work followed by 5 days of recovery and easy spinning. Conversely, an older or less-experienced cyclist may opt for a 16/5 training pattern (i.e., a 21-day mesocycle) that includes 16 days of hard training followed by 5 days of recovery.
If you are unsure about which option to choose, I suggest you begin with a 21-day mesocycle and shift to the longer option when you are ready for a harder challenge. Conversely, if you are currently using a 28-day mesocycle and are dealing with recurring fatigue, use the shorter mesocycle, which provides you with more time to recover.

The Microcyle

A microcycle is the shortest training cycle, typically lasting a week with the goal of facilitating a focused block of training. An example of this is an endurance block where a cyclist strings three or four long rides together within one week to progressively overload training volume.
Another example incorporates block training, which consists of very hard workouts for two or three consecutive days followed by an equal amount of recovery (days off or very easy rides). This would constitute an intensity microcycle where the goal is to improve key physiological abilities such as lactate threshold (the highest intensity a fit cyclist can maintain for 60 minutes) and aerobic capacity (the maximum amount of oxygen the body can consume during high intensity exercise). Generally speaking, three or four microcycles are tied together to form a mesocycle.

For more on Periodization training contact us today and book your time for a personal assessment, 713-870-6960.

Mark Harris, PhD

Exercise Physiologist/Nutritionist

TexasMetabolics@gmail.com

Texas Metabolics

Adrenal Fatigue!

Adrenal fatigue is a surprisingly common affliction, with some experts stating that 80 percent of the Western world can expect to be affected at some point in their lives. Whether they recover from it's effects is highly dependent on their general constitution, the amount of chronic stress that they inflict upon themselves and the level at which they nourish their body. Many people drift through life in a tired haze, unaware that it's not normal or healthy to feel so abnormal and unhealthy.

Ignoring the symptoms is the number one reason people do not recover from adrenal fatigue. Accepting the low spells during the afternoon, the night after night of restless sleep and the diet-resistant accumulation of abdominal fat seems so illogical, yet why do so many of us do it? Is it because the doctor runs a brief thyroid test and tells us we're OK? Or because we're just too exhausted to do anything about it?

Whatever the reason and whatever your doctor thinks, adrenal fatigue is highly prevalent. It is also treatable. However, without any 'standard of care' attached to the adrenal fatigue label, a world of conflicting suggestions and unsuitable advice fills this void. Countless individuals fall into this trap and convince themselves that they are saddled with this state forever, when the opposite is true.

Your approach to supplementation makes a huge difference to the healing that occurs at the adrenals. The 'shotgun' approach, where a veritable cocktail of adaptogenic herbs. adrenal extracts, and high-dose vitamins and minerals are chucked down the throat is likely to end up causing unexpected reactions. Imposing a solution without considering what the body requires does not help the adrenals. Equally, relying on food alone in the hope that the body will heal itself represents an equally naïve strategy; expecting a weak body with impaired digestion to find sufficient nourishment from devitalised food grown thousands of miles away is overly hopeful, to say the least. In any case, the adrenal gland's requirements for nutritional support are increased at this time. Thoughtful, but not random, supplementation of vitamin C, B5, licorice root, adrenal extracts and an array of minerals is a prerequisite to successful recovery.

Providing the right ingredients is not enough, though. Taking away the triggers is just as important. You may be able to convince yourself that your light nights in front of the laptop make the following day easier to manage, but your adrenal glands think otherwise. The alcohol that you tell yourself 'helps you unwind' is still ruining your sleep. If your relationship with a significant other consists mainly of gritting your teeth and fulfilling your duty, then you really don't need someone else to point out that this relationship is doing you no good. If you have adrenal fatigue and you are training for a marathon, stop.

Most of these problems are factors that most of us are already aware of, but may still ignore. Those who choose their short-term wants over their long-term needs have plenty of time to consider the wisdom of their approach. However, a major obstacle in the way of recovery is rarely considered.

Chronic infection alters the function of the immune system. Not only does this directly tire the individual concerned, the secondary effects are that the adrenal glands get hit hard. Immune cells communicate with one another through the release of localised hormones called cytokines; the only problem is that these cytokines increase the pituitary gland's signal to the adrenal glands, and directly challenge the glands themselves. This all adds up to a heavy workload for the adrenal glands, who were already struggling to keep pace with menial day-to-day demands. The irony is that adrenal fatigue makes fungal infections much more likely, as discussed here. The bottom line is that, regardless of how well you remove psychological stressors and nourish your body, if your adrenals are being hammered all day from the effects of a chronic infection you are unlikely to get anywhere.

Everyone's requirements are different, as is the protocol required for efficient recovery from adrenal fatigue. Stressing the importance of appropriate supplementation and the changing of bad habits stands about amongst the best advice for adrenal fatigue sufferers. However, simply ignoring it and hoping for the best is still the worst choice possible.

The Adrenal Fatigue Cocktail:

What is important is that this mixture should be taken at least once or twice/day, and please be sure that it is taken away from food to have the optimal benefit.

1. 4 Oz. of Orange Juice – fresh squeezed is best, but not essential (the Vit-C makes sure that the minerals noted below get to the Liver to then nourish the Adrenals)
2. 1/4 tsp of Cream of Tartar (this is an excellent source of Potassium)
3. 1/4 tsp of fresh ground Himalayan Sea Salt (this is an excellent source of Sodium & other minerals).

Mark Harris, PhD

Exercise Physiologist/Nutritionist

TexasMetabolics@gmail.com

Texas Metabolics