Lisa has always had a passion to help others live a full and productive life, focusing on the healing power of movement.  Lisa has been a licensed physical therapist since 1981, working with clients at all stages of life, in a variety of rehabilitation settings.

She has also been a pediatric physical therapist at NEIS with 22 years of experience working with children with special needs. As a certified practitioner of Yoga for the Special Child she received training directly from Sonia Sumar, a world-renowned yoga instructor and creator of Yoga for the Special Child. This program is an integrated system of yoga poses designed to increase motor skills, strength, balance, and coordination in typically-developing children and children with a diagnosis. Yoga stimulates all the areas necessary for a child’s development. Yoga for the Special Child™ is designed specifically to benefit children with Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Attention Deficit Disorder, Learning Disabilities and other developmental delays.

Lisa also teaches a gentle flow yoga class and an introductory level yoga class for those people with special health concerns such as injuries, arthritis, joint replacements, difficulty getting to the floor or re-entering an exercise program. The entire class can be done in a chair.

Lisa teaches at The Yoga Center in Reno, Nevada
Gentle Flow Yoga – Mondays:  11:45 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Yoga for Every Body – Mondays:  1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Yoga for the Special Child – by appointment
Contact Lisa:  lisaeb3@sbcglobal.net

Celso R.F. Carvalho Ph.D., P.T., P.E., did research on the benefits of aerobic exercise training in patients with persistent asthma.  He found that aerobic exercise training can be performed even by patients with severe asthma if they are clinically stable (without crisis).  During the study, some patients complained that they could not walk two blocks without experiencing asthma symptoms; however, after three months, most were exercising at high intensity without any symptoms. 

Dr. Carvalho gave three suggestions to other healthcare professionals: 

1. It is important that all health professionals prescribe/indicate/orient their patients to keep moving.
2. We must gradually dispel the misconception that most asthmatic patients should be restricted from physical activity during their lifetime.
3. We should perform other studies to evaluate the benefits of other types of exercise, allowing patients to choose specific sports that they enjoy and that will benefit them.

Exercise recommendations for people with asthma

• Schedule your exercise session at a time when you’re least likely to experience an attack, such as mid- to late-morning.
• An extended warm-up and a gradual cool-down may help reduce the likelihood of developing symptoms.
• Realize that it might take up to six weeks to get used to your routine and figure out what works best for you.
• Be prepared to adjust your workouts according to changes in weather and fluctuations in your symptoms.
• Start slowly and gradually progress the intensity and duration of your workouts.
• Take frequent breaks during activity if needed.
• Talk with your healthcare professional before starting an exercise program and ask for specific programming recommendations and possible changes to your medications.
• Take all medications, as recommended by your physician.
• Your exercise program should be modified to maximize the benefits while minimizing the risk of aggravating your health condition.

Exercise cautions for people with asthma

• Avoid extremes in temperature and humidity.
• Walking and jogging, particularly in warm, dry climates, may produce more asthma symptoms.  The same is true for cold-weather, high-intensity activities.
• If exercise aggravates your symptoms, immediately stop all activity and contact your healthcare practitioner as you may need more intensive medical management for your asthma.
• Limit your activity on days when pollen counts are high.
• Don’t be concerned if you are unable to reach the higher end of your target heart-rate range–you still experience significant benefits from physical activity.

Source:  Exercise is Medicine
 

*Celso R.F. Carvalho Ph.D., P.T., P.E., Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy, School of Medicine, at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Active Voice:  Understanding Physical Activity for Asthmatic Patients.  American College of Sports Medicine – Sports Medicine Bulletin.

World Asthma Day – May 3, 2011

Exercising with Low Back Pain

• The goal of exercise training is to improve overall fitness (cardiovascular, muscle strength and endurance, flexibility, coordination and function).
• Talk with your healthcare practitioner before starting an exercise program and ask if they have specific concerns about you doing exercise.  Most people do very well with regular exercise and sufficient time, but some need surgery.
• The goal of exercise training is to improve overall fitness while minimizing the stress to the lower back.
• Choose low-impact activities, such as walking, swimming and cycling.
• Strong abdominals, back, and leg muscles are essential for helping you maintain good posture and body mechanics.  Once the acute pain subsides, you can begin doing light strengthening training exercises designed to help posture.
• Yoga and tai chi may help relieve or prevent lower back pain by increasing flexibility and reducing tension.  Be careful, however, not to do any poses that could exacerbate your condition.
• Start slowly and gradually progress the intensity and duration of your workouts.
• Do low- to moderate-intensity cardiovascular exercise for 20 to 60 minutes at least three to four days per week.

Cautions for Exercising with Low Back Pain
 

• Avoid high-impact activities such as running.
• While low-impact aerobic activities can be started within two weeks of the onset of lower back pain, exercises that target the trunk region should be delayed until at least two weeks after the first sign of symptoms. 
• Never exercise to the point of pain–if something hurts, don’t do it.

Source:  Exercise is Medicine

Strong scientific evidence shows that the risks of moderate-intensity activity done by healthy women during pregnancy are very low, and do not increase risk of low birth weight, preterm delivery, or early pregnancy loss. Some evidence suggests that physical activity reduces the risk of pregnancy complications, such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes, and reduces the length of labor, but this evidence is not conclusive.

During a normal postpartum period, regular physical activity continues to benefit a woman’s overall health. Studies show that moderate-intensity physical activity during the period following the birth of a child increases a woman’s cardiorespiratory fitness and improves her mood. Such activity does not appear to have adverse effects on breast milk volume, breast milk composition, or infant growth.

Physical activity also helps women achieve and maintain a healthy weight during the postpartum period, and when combined with caloric restriction, helps promote weight loss.

Women who are pregnant should be under the care of a health-care provider with whom they can discuss how to adjust amounts of physical activity during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Unless a woman has medical reasons to avoid physical activity during pregnancy, she can begin or continue moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity during her pregnancy and after the baby is born.

When beginning physical activity during pregnancy, women should increase the amount gradually over time. The effects of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity during pregnancy have not been studied carefully, so there is no basis for recommending that women should begin vigorous-intensity activity during pregnancy.

Women who habitually do vigorous-intensity activity or high amounts of activity or strength training should continue to be physically active during pregnancy and after giving birth. They generally do not need to drastically reduce their activity levels, provided that they remain healthy and discuss with their health-care provider how to adjust activity levels during this time.

During pregnancy, women should avoid doing exercises involving lying on their back after the first trimester of pregnancy. They should also avoid doing activities that increase the risk of falling or abdominal trauma, including contact or collision sports, such as horseback riding, downhill skiing, soccer, and basketball.

In fact, a 2008 Harris poll of a cross section of 5,000 Americans found that 6.1 percent — which would translate to nearly 14 million adults — say their doctor or therapist recommended yoga to them.

Yoga is an ancient healing practice that has become increasingly popular in our modern, stressful world as a powerful way to stretch and strengthen the body, relax and calm the mind, enhance energy and lift the spirit. Doctors often recommend yoga to people over 50 because it can help lower blood pressure, ease pain and improve balance. But people stick with the ancient practice because they find it improves their mood, reduces stress and, simply put, makes them happier.

Cancer survivors, better work up a sweat.

New guidelines are urging survivors to exercise more, even — hard as it may sound — those who haven’t yet finished their treatment.

There’s growing evidence that physical activity improves quality of life and eases some cancer-related fatigue. More, it can help fend off a serious decline in physical function that can last long after therapy is finished.

Consider: In one year, women who needed chemotherapy for their breast cancer can see a swapping of muscle for fat that’s equivalent to 10 years of normal aging, says Dr. Wendy Demark-Wahnefried of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

In other words, a 45-year-old may find herself with the fatter, weaker body type of a 55-year-old.Scientists have long advised that being overweight and sedentary increases the risk for various cancers. Among the nation’s nearly 12 million cancer survivors, there are hints — although not yet proof — that people who are more active may lower risk of a recurrence. And like everyone who ages, the longer cancer survivors live, the higher their risk for heart disease that exercise definitely fights.

The American College of Sports Medicine convened a panel of cancer and exercise specialists to evaluate the evidence. Guidelines issued this month advise cancer survivors to aim for the same amount of exercise as recommended for the average person: about 2 1/2 hours a week.

Patients still in treatment may not feel up to that much, the guidelines acknowledge, but should avoid inactivity on their good days.

“You don’t have to be Lance Armstrong,” stresses Dr. Julia Rowland of the National Cancer Institute, speaking from a survivorship meeting this month that highlighted exercise research. “Walk the dog, play a little golf.”

But how much exercise is needed? And what kind? Innovative new studies are under way to start answering those questions, including:

Oregon Health and Science University is training prostate cancer survivors to exercise with their wives. The study will enroll 66 couples, comparing those given twice-a-week muscle-strengthening exercises with pairs who don’t get active.

Researchers think exercising together may help both partners stick with it. They’re also testing if the shared activity improves both physical functioning and eases the strain that cancer puts on the caregiver and the marriage.

“It has the potential to have not just physical benefits but emotional benefits, too,” says lead researcher Dr. Kerri Winters-Stone.

Demark-Wahnefried led a recent study of 641 overweight breast cancer survivors that found at-home exercises with some muscle-strengthening, plus a better diet, could slow physical decline.

Duke University is recruiting 160 lung cancer patients to test if three-times-a-week aerobic exercise, strength training or both could improve their fitness after surgery. Lung cancer has long been thought beyond the reach of exercise benefits because it’s so often diagnosed at late stages. But Duke’s Dr. Lee Jones notes that thousands who are caught in time to remove the lung tumor do survive about five years, and he suspects that fitness — measured by how well their bodies use oxygen — plays a role.

People with cancer usually get less active as symptoms or treatments make them feel lousy. Plus, certain therapies can weaken muscles, bones, even the heart. Not that long ago, doctors advised taking it easy.

Not anymore: Be as active as you’re able, says Dr. Kathryn Schmitz of the University of Pennsylvania, lead author of the new guidelines.

“Absolutely it’s as simple as getting up off the couch and walking,” she says. Exercise programs are beginning to target cancer survivors, like Livestrong at the YMCA, a partnership with cycling great and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong’s foundation. The American College of Sports Medicine now certifies fitness trainers who specialize in cancer survivors. But anyone starting more vigorous activity for the first time or who has particular risks — like the painful arm swelling called lymphedema that some breast cancer survivors experience — may need more specialized exercise advice, Schmitz says. They should discuss physical therapy with their oncologist, she advises. For example, Schmitz led a major study that found careful weight training can protect against lymphedema, reversing years of advice to coddle the at-risk arm. But the average fitness trainer doesn’t know how to safely offer that special training, she cautions. Mary Lou Galantino of Wilmington, Del., is a physical therapist who specializes in cancer care — and kept exercising when her own breast cancer was diagnosed at Penn in 2003. Then 42, she says she was on the treadmill within 24 hours of each chemo session, to stay fit enough to care for her two preschoolers. “You can feel more energy” with the right exercise, says Galantino, a physical therapy professor at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. “I was giving my body up to the surgeons and chemo, but I could take my body back through yoga and aerobic exercise.” 

Editor’s Note – Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

Written By LAURAN NEERGAARD
Washington (AP)  June 28, 2010

The Healing Moves Foundation will be offering special classes for women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer.  Look for the upcoming training class for fitness professionals, nurses, and physical therapists in Reno, Nevada on October 9 – 10. 
Pink Ribbon Program

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.
Years of hunching over my computer had left me stiff, almost breakable. One false move—getting out of bed too quickly, tying my shoe—could lay me flat on a heating pad for days. Friends and family commented that my shoulders were rounding, my back curving, my chin protruding beyond my chest. Sometimes I’d see little old ladies hobbled over canes, their tiny bodies twisted and contorted, and I’d wonder, Will that be me?

Now I knew it wouldn’t. After a series of yoga classes, I gradually began to stand up straighter and move through the world more easily without hurting myself. If the hunch in my back was a measure of how hard I was working at my job, my new upright alignment served as testament to how hard I was working on myself. Yoga had become my salvation.

Until it became my damnation.

In 2005, I was at my first yoga class in quite a while, as my busy life had been getting in the way of my routine. I took a class open to all levels; after all those years of doing yoga, I didn’t think to reenter with a beginner class that took things more slowly. That would have felt like a demotion of sorts, as if I’d been put back a grade in the middle of the school year.

The class went fine until we neared the end. The teacher directed us into Plow pose (Halasana): on your back, balancing hips over shoulders while your toes touch the floor behind your head. If done properly, Plow pose has the power to straighten your shoulders and lengthen your neck; at least, that’s what it always felt like to me. I remember exalting in the tension release across my upper body, the liberation of muscle from bone that through my practice I had grown to depend on, almost addictively.

Then I felt the throbbing. It started at the base of my skull, like a slow burn crackling down my neck. Within a week, I couldn’t toss a tennis ball before a serve or pick up one of my baby cousins. My husband had to carry my weekend bag. After a few weeks, I went to a sports medicine specialist to see what I’d done to myself. We looked at my MRI together. “This mass right here is a bulging disk. It’s pinching your nerve, which is why you’re having pain down to your fingers,” said Jordan Metzl, M.D., a sports medicine physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. That Plow pose was likely to blame. “Your disk could have been bulging before,” Dr. Metzl said, noting that premature osteoarthritis (something I’d had no idea I had) was weakening my neck and spine. “But hyperextending your neck while putting weight on it most likely made it bulge even more, which pinched your nerve.”

Several weeks of physical therapy later, my arm was functioning normally and painlessly. Still, I felt disillusioned. How could my beloved yoga have turned on me?

As it happens, I’m not the only one feeling done in by my practice: Nearly 4,500 people ended up in the emergency room after yoga injuries in 2006, slightly fewer than the year before but still up 18 percent since 2004, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (which tracks sports injuries even when they don’t include equipment). Most often, the damage includes strained muscles, rotator cuff tears in the shoulders, exacerbated carpal tunnel syndrome in the wrists, torn cartilage in the knees, and lower-back and neck injuries such as herniated disks. “In my practice, I’ve seen a significant increase in yoga injuries in the past five years,” says orthopedic surgeon Jeffrey Halbrecht, M.D., medical director for the Institute for Arthroscopy and Sports Medicine in San Francisco and a specialist in knee and hip problems. And it’s not only those in the recent wave of newbies who are getting hurt, Dr. Halbrecht says: “I’ve treated more experienced yogis than rookies.”

Overall, yoga has far more potential to heal than to hurt: Studies suggest it can help relieve chronic lower-back pain, depression and anxiety. And students tend to think of yoga as gentle and healing, even when done rigorously. But the fact is that the most basic of yoga poses—as with dance, gymnastics or any type of physical activity that requires strength and flexibility—call for a certain amount of skill and training to do properly. And when strength isn’t a necessity, proper alignment is; sometimes the most benign-seeming poses, or asanas, can cause injury if hands, arms or legs are placed incorrectly. Devotees are even more vulnerable if they go through poses more quickly than their body can handle or push themselves too hard in an effort to keep up with the teacher or compete with other students. “Yoga is marketed as such an innocuous thing,” says Loren Fishman, M.D., assistant clinical professor of rehabilitation medicine at Columbia University in New York City. “But without care, injuries can absolutely happen.”

Susan Eaton, a 45-year-old physical therapist in San Francisco, has always been athletic. She runs, hikes and lifts weights, and started doing yoga in 2000. Even though she knew better than to push her body into an asana that didn’t feel right, there was a part of her that wanted the challenge. “I was very competitive with myself,” she says. “I felt that if this is how the teacher presents a pose, then this is how I want to perform it.”

Eaton’s spirited approach to yoga served her well for the two years she practiced two or three times a week. But toward the end of a class she took in December 2002, something went wrong.

The class was in Fish pose, a position that involves the student lying on her back, her spine arched, her chest up and open, the top of her head resting on her mat. In a modified version, the student supports herself with her elbows on the floor; in the advanced incarnation that Eaton did, more weight is borne by the head and neck. “It’s a hyperextended neck pose that as a physical therapist I later questioned,” Eaton recalls. “I had done this pose before, but this time I was uneasy, as though I knew I might be pushing myself to the edge.”

Over the next three days, Eaton experienced intense head, neck and jaw pain. Then, on the fourth night, she woke up alone in the middle of the night to flashing lights and a popping sound in her head. She slipped out of bed and fell to the floor, the entire right side of her body limp—a symptom she recognized as a sign of a stroke. “I knew that if I let myself pass out, I’d probably die because no one would have found me until I didn’t show up for work,” she says. She dragged her body to the phone to dial 911. It took five tries before she succeeded.

Rushed to a nearby emergency room, Eaton slipped between cognition and confusion, alert and focused one minute and unable to remember her daughter’s name the next. She had torn her left carotid, one of the two arteries located in the front of the neck that supply the head with blood; a clot had then formed and traveled to her brain. And her doctors agreed that the likely cause of the tear was yoga.

Such a thing is unusual but not impossible. In 2001, The New England Journal of Medicine published an article that cites yoga as one of the many possible causes for arterial dissection in susceptible patients. “It’s not likely, but if you extend your neck and look toward the sky, you can tear one of the carotid artery’s layers,” says Eaton’s neurologist, Wade S. Smith, M.D., director of the Neurovascular Service at the University of California at San Francisco. “These things can happen spontaneously, and you don’t want to falsely accuse a form of exercise. But in this case, it makes sense that yoga was involved in the tear because they were so closely coupled in time.” Dr. Smith adds that Eaton tested negative for tissue disorders that might have predisposed her to the event.

Eaton was put on blood thinners to prevent clotting and remained in the hospital for three days. It was three months before she could return to work full time and ease into exercising again. Today, she is fully recovered, although she still sometimes has problems recalling words and numbers that should be familiar. “It was an accident,” Eaton says. But one she learned from. “I adore yoga, but you have to be mindful when doing these things.”

Not all teachers emphasize this mindfulness, the idea that students need to know their body’s limits and heed the signals that it’s time to cool it. The concept can be understandably hard to grasp for many women, who are rewarded for a can-do attitude in every aspect of their life. Dr. Fishman recently conducted a worldwide survey of more than 33,000 yoga teachers and therapists to investigate the most common injuries and their causes. He found that among the major reasons for injuries are inexperienced teachers and “egotistical,” competitive students who push themselves too hard.

“The ambitions of the yoga student have changed,” Dr. Fishman says. Many students come looking for a workout akin to aerobics or sports, with only ancillary meditative benefits. But, explains Terri Kennedy, founder of Ta Yoga House in New York City, “yoga is about intention, attention and breath.” In soccer, the mere intent to get the ball in the net won’t score you points. In yoga, your movement toward, say, touching your toes is what matters, not whether you are able to wrench your body into that position. “If you keep the breath steady, then you can begin to steady the mind,” adds Kennedy, chairwoman of the board of Yoga Alliance, a national organization that sets standards for yoga teaching. “That’s the essence of the practice. It’s not about a perfect-looking posture.”

In the tradition set forth roughly 5,000 years ago in ancient India, yoga instruction was one-on-one and individually tailored, the passage of a sacred discipline from guru to student. Today, of course, classes are a group affair—and packed; 15.8 million Americans practice yoga, according to Yoga Journal. More than 2 million get instruction at the gym; many experts feel students who learn at a specialized yoga studio are more likely to be taught the subtleties that can head off injury. “Some of today’s yoga teachers have been recruited from the vast army of the unemployed, the kind of people who used to become waiters and waitresses while figuring out what to do with the rest of their life,” says Dr. Fishman, who was once an expert witness in the lawsuit of a yogi who could no longer walk up stairs after she tore the cartilage in her knee doing a Hero pose. “That includes people who are eager to do the right thing but don’t have the anatomical knowledge, physiological understanding, caring attitude and experience to be able to teach.”

No certification or specific training is required before a person is allowed to teach yoga. Yoga Alliance recommends teachers get a bare minimum of 200 hours of training and has built a registry of teachers and schools that meet its standards. But participation is voluntary; teachers can just as easily get certified in weekend or online courses. “If you are a Spinning teacher and you want to tack on yoga, then you can take a two-day training,” Kennedy says. “You may think you are qualified, but that has its challenges.”

These quickie courses teach poses but not necessarily the nuances of proper alignment nor the ideal, noncompetitive mind-set. And they likely won’t train teachers how to suss out previous injuries and medical problems that yoga could worsen. A preexisting arterial tear, often signaled by dizziness and neck pain, puts you at risk for a stroke; leg pain could warn that a bulging disk in the back is putting pressure on your sciatic nerve. If you have undiagnosed glaucoma, you can go blind doing headstands or shoulder stands.

Shula Sarner, a 37-year-old medical writer in New York City, thought yoga would be a “peaceful and gentle” complement to her regimen, which includes weight lifting, kickboxing and marathon running. A former aerobics instructor—and one with a history of rotator cuff injury—Sarner made a point of telling the teacher it was her first class. She didn’t mention and wasn’t asked about the old injury, which she considered healed.

When the class did headstands, the teacher told Sarner she didn’t have to do them. But when a series of Sun Salutations, including multiple Downward Dogs, began to bother her arm, he didn’t notice her stopping and stretching. Sarner carried on through the end of the class; her play-through-the-pain attitude had served her well in other activities. “There were people around me of all shapes and sizes, and I figured if they could do it, I should be able to,” she says.

Within a few hours of class, Sarner’s left arm was incapacitated, her rotator cuff reinjured. All those sports she thought yoga might complement were off-limits for months. “Here I was, this competitive athlete, and it was yoga that hurt me,” Sarner laments. “If I had to do it again, with hindsight, I’d have stopped doing the poses that bothered me.”

Students need to be wary of a teacher who conveys, either explicitly or through implication, that anyone can do every pose if she only tries. “Many of these positions aren’t relevant to every body,” says Gary Kraftsow, author of Yoga for Transformation (Penguin). Ashtanga, the popular fast-paced discipline often called power yoga, was originally designed to develop children’s flexibility and joint strength, Kraftsow says. Although that doesn’t mean a 40-year-old can’t build the strength to do it, at that pace, even basic poses such as Downward Dog and Cobra pose will put much more of a strain on her joints than it would on a child’s.

Elena Brower, founder of the Virayoga studio in New York City, has made regular trips to other studios to observe teaching styles. “I literally watched injuries happen,” Brower says. “I saw hands that were turned in too far and sinking shoulders just begging for rotator cuff or wrist injuries. Over time, the tiniest misalignment of even a quarter inch can make the difference between something that is injurious and something that is healing.” Alyssa Cooper, a 36-year-old television producer in New York City, put so much stress on her wrist in yoga classes that she developed a painful ganglion cyst (a liquid-filled pouch). A hand surgeon wanted to aspirate it, but a yoga teacher had another idea: better alignment. Five private sessions later, Cooper had learned how to put less pressure on her wrist as well as on an ankle she had injured skiing. The cyst went away on its own. “It’s kind of amazing that a few adjustments helped turn something that was hurting me into something that healed me,” she says.

Even without private lessons, it’s possible to reap the benefits of yoga and avoid limping off your mat. Look for small classes, taught by an instructor registered with Yoga Alliance. Make sure you inform the instructor of any physical problems you have, and ask her for the modified versions of a pose. A good teacher, Kennedy says, will “teach in stages,” explaining a posture bit by bit, so a student can stop when she is at her personal limit. “If a teacher says, ‘Let’s all get into a headstand now,’ a student might feel bad if she can’t do it. Instead, I say, ‘Let me teach you how to get in a Dolphin’”—which involves the same arm positioning. “I tell them, you can remain right there, if that’s what feels right for you today.” Most important, Kennedy says, is to listen to your body. If you find yourself holding your breath in a pose, that’s a simple sign you should ease up.

After her stroke, Susan Eaton avoided practicing yoga for roughly a year. “I felt betrayed by yoga, and the hardest thing was to return to my mat,” she says. Rest and medication had helped heal her body. But now she needed to face her fears and regain her confidence.

She did so by becoming a teacher herself—the right way—training for 500 hours over the course of a year and a half with a Yoga Alliance–registered program. “I modify poses like headstands to avoid compression of the spine and hyperextension of the neck,” she says. “And even in poses that don’t affect my neck, I don’t push anymore. I don’t go to that place of uneasiness, and that’s what I teach my students. Yoga is about practicing mindfully in your own body—and your body is different from everyone else’s.”

This article was written by: Jennifer Wolff Perrine, Self
Original article posted on Self

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.

So let’s break this down: 

• Physical activity provides the same benefits to everyone. 
• Everyone should work toward performing the same amount and types of physical activity on a daily basis.
• BUT, if you have a disability, you should find out how to do so. 

Sounds simple.

But how do you find out how and where to exercise if (for example) you were born with spina bifida and the only person that you have ever seen for exercise (physical therapy) is at the rehabilitation hospital 2 hours away?  PLUS, you use crutches to ambulate to work so don’t have enough energy reserve to take additional walks around your neighborhood but there are no curb cuts for using your wheelchair on the sidewalks.  PLUS, your local gym doesn’t have any upper body machines or staff members who seem comfortable with your disability.  PLUS, you have trouble regulating your body temperature and are concerned that any exercise will exacerbate your spasticity or other neurological symptoms. 

That doesn’t make it sound so easy, does it?

People with disabilities may find more difficulty than most in meeting the recommended Physical Activity Guidelines based on the barriers they face when seeking out physical activity.  Barrierscan be architectural (there is no curb cut), programmatic (chairs are not available in exercise classes), or attitudinal (assumptions based on a diagnosis or the use of an assistive device). 

Studies show that physical activity can be done safely when the program is matched to an individual’s abilities.  We all have different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses, different levels of activity, different needs, different interests, etc.  As fitness professionals, we have the opportunity of a lifetime to provide a much needed and appreciated service to millions of people (with and without disabilities) by becoming trained, knowledgeable and willing to adapt activities to address society’s differences, regardless of the existence of medical diagnoses.

So what do we do now?  Here are a few suggestions:

1. Look at what the person can do, not their limitations.
2. Seek training and educational opportunities. 
   1. For example, there is a new specialty certification from the American College of Sports Medicine and the National Center on Physical Activity and Disability called a Certified Inclusive Fitness Trainer
3. Expand your marketing.  The world of disability is a large one, 54 million, and it is also a well connected.  Often one member/client will mean many more to follow.

 For more information about physical activity for people with disabilities, go to www.ncpad.org.

 What else can fitness professionals do?  What are you already doing?
Reposted on February 25, 2010 from:

Organization: National Center on Physical Activity and Disability
Website: http://www.ncpad.org/
City: Chicago
State: IL
Country: United States

About the Author:

Blythe works as an Information Specialist and Exercise Physiologist for NCPAD, an organization dedicated to providing information and resources to consumers and professionals so that individuals with disabilities have the opportunity to be as physically active as they want to be.  She is an inexperienced blogger but excited to be making her blogging debut by bringing disability and related topics to the physical activity table.

His assumption was a common one. Whenever I mention liver problems, most of my patients think of cirrhosis (associated with excessive alcohol consumption) or hepatitis, a viral disease with particular risk factors. They assume there’s not much else to worry about when it comes to liver health. Perhaps it’s an assumption you’ve made yourself.

But just because you are not at risk for cirrhosis or hepatitis, that doesn’t mean you’re doing all you should for your liver. The liver performs many vital functions related to digestion, energy production and detoxification. So there’s a lot more to liver maintenance than avoiding alcohol.

Control Yourself!

One of the liver’s most important jobs is to produce bile, which aids in the digestion of fats. So it’s no surprise to learn that overeating is the most common cause of poor liver function. If you’ve got a healthy liver, the occasional binge at holiday time isn’t going to cause significant damage. But habitual overeating, which seems to have become common for many Americans, overworks the liver as it struggles to aid the digestion of all that extra food.

A poor diet in general also plays a role in liver malfunction. Too many of the wrong kinds of fats and carbohydrates, fried foods and too little protein all hinder the liver’s ability to repair itself.

If bad habits result in obesity, you may develop non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The liver cells fill up with fat, and your liver cannot function properly. If there’s no inflammation, it’s called steatosis. The treatment? Lose weight! If the liver becomes inflamed, the disease is then called non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Although it can be treated, and sometimes reversed, NASH may lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer or liver failure. Obesity, diabetes and an inactive lifestyle all put you at risk for NASH.

Get Rid of the Toxins

But, what if you don’t overeat and you don’t eat lots of fat? Is your liver in the clear? Not really.

Your liver also filters out toxins–pesticides, food preservatives, chemicals in tap water, and drugs, to name a few. Too many toxins can overwhelm the liver and cause damage.

But if you lessen your exposure to toxins, you’ll ease the stress on your liver. Eat mostly organic, whole foods, for example, and drink filtered water. Avoid the use of medicines, and seek out natural remedies when possible. And if you find it difficult to avoid toxins or medications, consider doing both a colon and a liver cleanse.

Food for a Healthy Liver

Whether you want to promote healing or simply to strengthen your liver, begin by evaluating your diet. Use the following guidelines and be ready to make some changes.

Include plenty of raw fruits and vegetables, especially leafy greens which are high in vitamin K. (People with liver disease often lack sufficient K.) Artichokes contain a compound called silymarin, which supports and protects the liver. And, according to recent research in Japan, avocado protects the liver from damage. Other fruits containing similar properties include watermelon, kiwi, grapefruit, fig, cherry and papaya.

Eat lots of legumes (beans and peas) and seeds, which contain arginine, an amino acid helpful in detoxification.

Get plenty of fiber to avoid constipation. When your colon doesn’t eliminate properly, toxins build up in your body, making your liver work overtime. In addition to raw fruits and vegetables, good sources of fiber include 100% whole grains, nuts, seeds, sweet potatoes, beans and prunes.

Plenty of omega-3 fatty acids in the diet provide further protection for the liver and may prevent liver cancer. Eat more grass-fed beef, walnuts, olive oil, flaxseed and cold-water fish.

Liver Supplements

If you’re trying to heal your liver, there are many dietary and herbal supplements that might help. Primrose oil and L-carnitine, for example, help control fatty acids, and garlic aids in detoxification of the liver and blood. Both vitamin B complex and andrographis aid in proper digestion and nutrient absorption as well as overall protection of the liver. Poor liver function caused by drugs or environmental toxins often responds well to grape seed extract and milk thistle, which both promote detoxification. And if you’re concerned about liver cancer, try glutathione for protection.

Take Action Now

If you have specific liver problems, or suspect liver disorder, see a physician who can order the necessary tests to confirm disease or malfunction. Ideally, find one who will include dietary and herbal guidelines tailored for your condition, in addition to any necessary medications.

As with most diseases and disorders, prevention is the key. So don’t wait until you’ve got symptoms! And please, don’t make the mistake of assuming your liver will be fine just because you don’t drink lots of alcohol. Take steps now to keep your liver healthy.

Author:  Mark Rosenberg, M.D.

Institute for Healthy Aging

http://www.vitalmaxvitamins.com

http://www.vitalmaxvitamins.com/blog

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