Bad Karma: How Yoga Can Lead to Serious Injury

Sloppy teaching and overly competitive students are giving yoga lovers serious and scary injuries.

I remember only one pose from my first yoga class seven years ago: a modified seated forward bend known in Sanskrit as Paschimottanasana. I sat on a mat with my legs slightly bent in front of me, my arms wrapped beneath my thighs as my forehead reached toward my toes. It was about an hour into class, and my body felt like a stuck door slowly easing open.

A warm current of something—call it blood, call it chi—coursed from shoulder to shoulder. I felt the muscles unfurling from my spine; then, in the other direction, the vertebrae unsticking from each other—click, click, click. It was a sensation of freedom and release I remember as vividly as the first time my husband touched me. This was how I was supposed to feel.
(more…)

Do You Exercise to Look Good or Feel Better?

No More Food Deserts

We applaud First Lady Michelle Obama for tackling the problem of childhood obesity in our nation.  This problem involves more than childhood obesity; it involves childhood hunger too.  And the crisis of hunger and obesity involves adults as well as children throughout America. 

The poor access to healthy, affordable food in our inner cities and rural communities is partly to blame.  These nutritional wastelands offer families fast food chains and convenience stores, with no opportunity to shop at a supermarket for fruits and vegetables.  While dining in the local restaurant, patrons are frequently offered the one “healthy” food choice:  an entrée salad made with iceberg lettuce and blue cheese dressing, a meal containing all fat and no nutrition. (more…)

A Call to Fitness Professionals

Meeting the Physical Activity Guidelines – A Call to Fitness Professionals

Physical activity has been shown to improve cardiovascular and muscular fitness, mental health, and the ability to perform activities of daily living.  And though I hope it’s of no surprise, this holds true for everyone.

For the most part, the guidelines for people with disabilities are not much different from the guidelines designated for “active” adults.  The main difference seems to be the incorporation of the phrase “who are able to” into the specific recommendations as well as the removal of the suggestion that individuals should continue to increase or progress activity to reap even further health benefits (i.e. “the more the better”).  There is also an additional recommendation for people with disabilities to consult a health-care provider about the amounts and types of physical activity that are appropriate for their abilities. (more…)

Some Tips For Preventing Cancer

Possibly no word strikes greater fear in people’s hearts than cancer. So it is important to employ every possible strategy that may prevent you from ever hearing it in connection with your health.

(more…)

What REALLY Happens When You Exercise

I want to revisit the subject of exercise.  I’ve made a few observations and feel they’re worthy of recording.
1. No one ever wants to start exercising after enjoying a lifestyle of sloth.

2. “Because it’s good for you” will never convince a person they should start exercising. You have to appeal to their vanity or remind them that one day they’re going to die and if they don’t get on the wagon, they’ll get run down by it. (more…)

« Previous Entries