Health

Psychological Stress Leads to Physical Pain

Posted by abraham.williams@gmail.com on in Back Pain, Health, Studies

The more I dig into back pain, the more I come into the concept of inflammation. It’s amazing to me the number of people in the US who have chronic back pain but don’t have any sign of injury. For these people (I was one of them), the pain has just appeared over time. It’s about 8 out of 10 adults over the course of a lifetime.

The more I dig into inflammation, the more I come across cortisol. Recently, I came across this study over at www.pnas.org. It’s an unfortunate acronym, but I digress.

It reported that immune cells become resistant to cortisol when that stress hormone is chronic. This means the immune system becomes deaf to the “turn off” signal that cortisol is providing and inflammation gets out of control driving disease and pain. This sounds similar to type 2 diabetes where too much insulin from consistently high blood sugar deafens cells when signaling nutrient storage.

The study points out relationships with specific diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, asthma, autoimmune diseases, and type 2 diabetes. Other startling references are a downstream pathway from parents who have chronic stress to children who have cancer. It also points out people with high levels of loneliness have this chronic cortisol issue.

Diatribe begin:

Holy crap. Watch the stress. Start saying no to things. Meditate. Identify any neuroses and eliminate them because they are chronic behaviors. Consider how to change chronic stress into a more positive fight-or-flight response that releases beneficial epinephrine, norepinephrine and adrenaline that tell the cells to let out their energy stores for quick action. Then take a bath. Go watch a movie. Spend time with friends. Do something fun and relaxing. Go to the beach. Surf. Yes, surf.

So much of our go-Go-GO culture is telling us how to keep going and to do even more. We see articles on how to not procrastinate and how to get more done in a day. I think procrastination is real and putting off hard things happens. However, let’s not confuse procrastination with exhaustion.

How long do you need to operate “outside of your comfort zone”? I’d say not for long periods. No chronic stress. Do hard things briefly, then recover. When forced to be in a chronically stressful situation, then expect to do diligent work to reframe it as a positive challenge and seek out the bright spots. Do focused efforts on hard tasks and then take breaks.

This is a critical study. We would do well to consider its implication in our lives.

 

9 Common mistakes for back pain sufferers and how to avoid them

Posted by abraham.williams@gmail.com on in Back Pain, diet, fitness, Health

Welcome to the straight and unconfused path to getting out of back pain and getting back to a healthy and athletic life. If you are reading this, then you have taken the first step to getting out of pain and back to your kids, friends, sports, and fun. Back to your  life.

I used to suffer from terrible back pain and even had surgery that didn’t fix my pain. Through a lot of trial and error, I have found the principles necessary to get out of pain. Now, I’m sharing.

What follows are the key mistakes I have found both with myself and from interviewing other sufferers of back pain. Check these out and make sure you stay well out out the mistake zone!

Mistake #1 – Not getting help

By far, the biggest mistake that back pain sufferers make is to try and go it alone. For some reason, asking for help is just not in the cannon. For some reason, people will think they can solve it on their own. Rather than looking for someone who can help, they will try stretches and then wonder why in the world this horrid pain has been bestowed upon them. The best thing you can do is to go and get checked out by a doctor and not a very confident but incorrect friend.

Mistake #2 – Not getting educated about the back

This is huge. People do not seek out information about how the back works and what treatments are available. When you know nothing about what might be going on in the back, then whatever treatment that is finally pursued is based on “feel”. People don’t know what treatments are most effective. As a result, people effectively guess what might work and then try that for a few wasted months. Enter your name and email on the right to get educated. 

Mistake #3 – Not being proactive

When you have chronic pain, it can be very hard to do something about it. The pain is very limiting and all encompassing. Quickly the victim mentality can set in. This is very understandable because the pain can wreak havoc on your mental state. They key here is to channel that sadness into an aggressive desire for relief. It is completely possible to get that relief and you must drive towards it with positive aggression not accepting what won’t work. Get proactive.

Mistake #4 – Doing the same ineffective thing over and over

This is a tough one. You’ve been seeing your back person and doing the scheduled follow ups but you are not getting any better. If this is happening, then the treatment is not effective and you need to stop and find another option. However, see mistake #1 and #2 above. Not knowing what the issue is will again lead to another guess on what might work. Take stock of where you are and if you are making progress. Cut out what’s not working and get educated. 

Mistake #5 – Accepting weak and injured as an identity

For people who have back pain that is chronic and severe, it’s awful. Terrible. Awful. It can destroy your mental and emotional state because the pain wears you down. If there is no relief from the pain and it goes on for days or even weeks, it’s hell. Part of that is the idea that you can’t do anything about it. This is completely untrue. It’s a mindset that has grown from the pain. You can switch that mindset to one of overcoming the pain and drive energy towards that outcome. Do it now!

Mistake #6 – Stretching incorrectly after sitting

If your low back is hurting, forward bends are likely to make it worse. If there is a kyphosis of the lower spine accompanied by pain from long periods of sitting, then a forward bend is going to multiply the pain by intensity and time. Don’t do it. Get educated about the hips and do movements and stretches that will activate the neuromuscular motor units in the right musculature…in this case the muscles of the anterior hip joint. An iliopsoas stretch may be the right one to employ. 

Mistake #7 – Being inactive

The more you are inactive during pain, the longer the pain will last. The movement pathway in the nervous system is the same as the pain pathway. While you really should take it easy if there is an injury and you need to keep that area immobile to heal, often with chronic back pain there isn’t an injury from a particular incident or the major healing has already taken place.

Once the severe pain period is over, doctor approved light everyday activity needs to happen. Blood flow to the area will help it feel better. Movement will help it feel better. Often the common prescription from doctors is to take acetaminophen and stay active. This is often the least followed advice but the most effective.

Mistake #8 – Believing there is no exercise you can do

When you are immobile, there are other areas of the body that can be exercised. If you can’t lift something, you can probably do leg extensions or a chest press or a pull down in a gym. You can ride a stationary bike or you can swim. There is movement you can do and that movement will help you get out of pain and heal. Find movements that you can do. Email me if you need help at abe@backathletic.com.

Mistake #9 – Overlooking a huge thing you can control – diet

If you can’t get up because of back pain or you can only walk to the bathroom, then one very powerful thing you can work on is your diet. You can skip bread, crackers, cookies, sweets (including fruit), and anything starchy and eat vegetables, nuts and seeds. This is a very simple thing in concept you can do to lose weight while you are inactive. The most effective way to lose weight is with diet changes switching to  lower energy or lower-glycemic foods. It also happens to be something that is very easily done when you are unable to be active. It’s just a decision and then chewing.

That’s it! These are the 9 common mistakes of back pain. Do the opposite! Be the person who doesn’t make these mistakes. Commit to getting help and getting educated. Don’t waste another minute of your life believing you can’t do anything about your back pain and take action. Learn the right movements and stretches that will help you. Get active and stay active to prevent back pain. Remove starchy sugary foods and eat healthy vegetables so you can improve whether you are in pain or not!

Your partner in ending back pain,

Abe

 

 

DIY Soylent

Posted by abraham.williams@gmail.com on in fitness, Food, Health
Eating clean can be hard. Eating and measuring amounts so you can see food effects is also hard. It takes time. My daily life requires a lot of time and energy already. So, I’ve switched to a meal replacement plan that is pretty easy to manage. In today’s terms, it’s called DIY Soylent.

I got myself a NUTRiBULLET blender for convenience and spend about 10 minutes making my Soylent in the morning. Here’s my recipe that gets me a considerable portion of my calories, and I can knock out two meals with. I do my higher carb shake post workout. Note: the quinoa was key to feel satiated.

I also include the following in my protein mix…

High Carb Soylent

Protein Carbs Fat
Protein 2 scoops 40
Quinoa 1 cup 24 109 10
Carrot 6
Banana 27
Peanut butter 8 8
Total 72 142 18

Low Carb Soylent

Protein Carbs Fat
Protein 2 scoops 40
Quinoa .5 12 58 5
Carrot 6
Banana 27
Peanut butter 8 8
Total 60 91 13

German Volume Training

Posted by abraham.williams@gmail.com on in Health, Workouts 4 Comments
Since about 2002, I have eschewed body building training protocols. Functional strength and mobility were my main priority. Functional hypertrophy was a maybe. For some reason, I thought of it as the first-wave of physical training and only relevant as a movement toward vanity and too much self-adoration. Although, at one point around 2009, I became concerned that sarcopenia would be a problem as I age and did the GOMAD experiment to see how quickly I could gain muscle. In one month, I gained 22 lbs and increased my lifts to a level I had never achieved prior. I gained muscle and fat. That experiment left me irritated though since it took 3 full months to eliminate the extra fat I added.

Now that I’ve sampled many different kinds of training, I’m back to hypertrophy. There are so many benefits to ample muscle, and I can stay out of the injuries. I’ve normally been around 160 lbs and around 12% body fat. My aim is to add 10 more pounds of muscle and get my lifts back into strong for me zone (double body weight squat).

I’m halfway into my 6 weeks of German Volume Training (GVT). It’s a bit deceptive in its effect. First and foremost, it is a hypertrophy protocol over strength. It’s claimed that one can expect 5 to 10 lbs of muscle over a 6 week period. The protocol is 10 sets of 10 reps, resting 90 seconds between sets, and varying tempos dependent on the lifts. Example: 3 seconds eccentric, no pause, 1 second concentric, no pause. That’s written like 10×10, 3010, 90. You may use a 60% of your 1 rep max (1rm) in order to complete 100 reps or somewhere just a bit above or below that percent.

It’s deceptive in that it feels light in the beginning. When things feel light, one can doubt whether the training is intense enough. It gets hard in the later sets but you finish the workout wanting to train more. Normally, when  you feel like you want to train more, you feel like you didn’t train hard enough. This is where it’s deceptive. The next day a great soreness reveals itself. For me, it can last a couple of days. It’s taken a few of these sessions for me to learn how much they impact they have on the body. In the beginning, it was hard to not train more, but it’s not a problem now. I get it.

I started 8/4/15. Weight was 157 lbs and 13% body fat according to Withings. I seriously doubt this measurement given how defined my midsection is, but it is a measure from start to finish.

On 8/23/15, I’m 161 lbs and 15% body fat (again, according to my maligned scale). We’ll see where I end up at the end. 

Training as Meditation

Posted by abraham.williams@gmail.com on in fitness, Health, meditation 4 Comments
I train physically. I love it.

I’ve done all kinds of physical training outdoors and indoors….running, mountain biking, open water swimming, body building protocols, circus arts, parkour, crossfit, obstacle racing, strong lifts 5×5, barstarzz, surfing, and gymnastic bodies (GSB).

Each had it’s effect.

  • Running and mountain biking were great lung builders and meditative
  • Swimming in open water was an effort of the mind and completely emptied me
  • Body building built confidence
  • Circus arts was just fun
  • Parkour was explosive but full of injury
  • Crossfit was a magnificent emptier but fried me
  • Obstacle racing was OK but race courses were usually more running than obstacles
  • Strong lifts got me a lot stronger than I’d ever been 
  • The paddle out at Ocean Beach in SF is HARD, but on the other side it’s just surf bliss
  • Barstarzz was fun with flow but also a source of injury
  • GSB developed strength and mobility in a way you didn’t notice until you progressed

It was all work though. Tough and demanding work of the body and the mind.

Each one has a different kind of meditation to it’s process. A lot of it is a kind of work where I have to push myself mentally or physically. Working at a startup with a commute and raising twin girls, I need to unwork and not push anymore.

For me, after work, I ride in the most beautiful place I think one could ride. It’s the greatest feeling of flow I have ever felt physically. The undulating trails covered in pine needles give feelings of just pure flow. Here’s a view of one particularly magnificent ride I frequent. It’s exercise but I don’t really notice it. Just flow. When I’m done, I feel like I’ve been gone. Tired but recharged. Just perfect.