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Health-Related Fitness and Parkinson’s Disease

/7 August 2017/ All MFN blog/

When people hear the words “Parkinson’s disease”, they don’t often think of health-related fitness as a simultaneous condition. However, many people with Parkinson’s are in fact very physically fit! As a Care Advisor for Neuro Challenge Foundation for Parkinson’s, I have met Parkinson’s sufferers and Parkinson’s fighters. The fighters know very well the benefits of exercise and strive to maintain their health and fitness to the best of their ability despite the challenges they face.

Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease that is marked by tremors, slowness of movement, stiffness of muscles, and unsteady balance. Dr. Dean Sutherland, Director of the Southeastern Center for Parkinson Disease states that “exercise is as important as anything you can do for Parkinson’s.” How can you become a Parkinson’s fighter? The first step is to understand the five components of health-related fitness and how they affect functionality.

The first component is maintaining a healthy body composition. What does this mean? Your weight should be appropriate to your height and you should strive to have more lean muscle mass than fat mass in your body. You can find out your body mass index by going to the Center for Disease Control’s website and accessing their BMI calculator. Excessive fat in the body can result in loss of muscle mass, and muscle is something people with Parkinson’s should strive to maintain.

The second aspect of health-related fitness is muscular strength. Having strong muscles improves posture, decreases the risk of musculoskeletal injuries, improves balance and decreases the risk of osteoporosis. Muscular strength helps people with Parkinson’s maintain independence.

The third component important for health-related fitness is muscular endurance; or the ability of a muscle or group of muscles to work repeatedly over a period of time. An example of muscular endurance would be the ability of the leg muscles to ride a stationary bike for 30 minutes. People with Parkinson’s will experience better posture and stability if they are able to sustain muscular endurance. They will also be able to have more fun doing recreational activities!

Fourth, health-related fitness is greatly enhanced by good cardiorespiratory functioning. This is the ability of the heart, blood vessels and the lungs to work effectively together to deliver oxygen to all the cells and muscles in the human body. Activities of daily living are more easily performed with strong cardiorespiratory fitness, and cognitive functioning is enhanced as well.

Finally, the fifth component of health related fitness is flexibility, or the ability of joints to move through a full range of motion. People with Parkinson’s who maintain good flexibility experience enhanced postural stability and balance, and are less like to fall. Being flexible also makes it much easier to perform simple tasks like bending over to tie your shoes, pull a shirt on over your head, or swing a golf club.

It’s never too late to begin a program towards improving your health-related fitness. Your body is designed to last a lifetime, and you can help influence how well it performs for you. Always get a physician’s clearance before beginning an exercise program and if you are new to exercise, enlist the supervision of a certified fitness professional.

Carisa Campanella, BA, AS, is an ACE Health Coach and ACSM Personal Trainer. She is the Program Manager at the Neuro Challenge Foundation for Parkinson’s. Neuro Challenge provides ongoing monthly support groups and educational programs, individualized care advising and community resource referrals to help empower people with Parkinson’s and their caregivers.

finger-touch

Success in Life & Business… It’s a Matter of Touch

/3 August 2017/ All MFN blog/

I am sure you would agree that effective communication plays a significant role in relationships with clients, customers, patients, partners, family members, colleagues, friends, etc. But what about when those individuals are away from you? Do you fill that void effectively and systematically or do you leave it to chance?

Maximizing success in life and in business is dependent upon a complete relationship. To optimize your success you must see your time away from others just as important as the time you spend with them.

Let me explain. Your spheres of relationships are continually changing from both your perspective and from the perspective of others. As a result of these shifting viewpoints, the strengths or weaknesses of these bonds fluctuate and unless you systematically inject yourself into the relationship, you leave success and happiness to chance.

So how do you step-up and make sure you are not rolling the dice when it comes to your success? Simply put, by implementing real, honest, and effective “touches” you can maintain your presence the way that you want it to be. These “touches” are small, short, targeted, and balanced communications that fill the relationship gap that will maintain and even grow trust, loyalty and commitment. Found in various forms, these individualized gems can be phone calls, text messages, video calls, written letters, cards, etc. And the frequency? This depends on each situation but I recommend 14 to 21 days as the sweet spot to offer the best balance.

Remember, to maximize your success, “touch” everyone regularly in a way that will positively inject your influence and not allow chance to control of the outcome.

Reprinted with permission from Dr. Steve Feyrer-Melk.

Steve Feyrer-Melk, MEd, PhD, is a powerful, passionate, and trusted authority in Lifestyle Medicine who is bringing an innovative, refreshing, and successful approach to proactive health care. Dr. Steve co-founded the Optimal Heart Attack & Stroke Prevention Center where he crafts and hones real-world programs for immediate impact. Dr. Steve also serves as the Chief Science Officer of Nudge, LLC, a lifestyle medical technology company.

aging-hands

The Objectification of Our Aging Population

/1 August 2017/ All MFN blog/

Some nonagenarians compete in triathlons while other ninety-year-olds face jail time. Some octogenarians study the game of Chess on the streets of New Orleans and others in their eighties travel across the country headed for baseball diamonds. Some septuagenarians are affected by dementia, live in memory care centers and receive aid with their daily activities; meanwhile, others in their seventies can be found in University lecture halls, sitting on faculty council, and contributing original research. This might read as part of scripted entertainment, however, it’s not. Rather, these images are even funnier when we see them floating in a sea among the tide of what we think of as “the elderly.” Why so funny?

I am not concerned with entering into the conversation about who is elderly, or these new hip ideas about saying 100 years young (this expression can be equally oppressive as the objectification of “the elderly”).

If we travel back to Britain in 1875, we can read in the Friendly Societies Act, where old age is defined as “any age after 50.” We can also turn to our nation’s leader in aging research and health promotion, The National Institutes of Health and Aging, where many topics are geared toward those of us ages 50 and greater. And so, it’s not a matter of age classification that concerns me, rather it is the objectification of a marginalized group that is of far greater importance. I’m also not particularly interested in developing a categorical understanding of the precise age of the person we are referring to when we say, “The elderly.” Rather, I’m fascinated by some peoples’ use of “the” when referring to a single person and then also ascribing a set of assumptions based on a singular experience or interaction. Yesterday, while standing in line at a local print shop, I heard one person remark to another, “You know how the elderly are…slow and crochety.”

Slow and crochety are common adjectives used to describe people who are elderly. In the Oxford English Dictionary you will find worse-for-wear, moth-eaten, and long in tooth as synonyms for elderly. What happened to using respectful, kind and caring words to define someone who is your elder? We needn’t live in extremes where we ascribe words such as venerable, esteemed, wise, grand or dignified. Although this might apply to some people who are our elders, using these words without license can be just as damaging as the objectification of “the elderly.”

Although common place in the body of literature on aging; the terms “the elderly”, “the old” and “the aged” are frequently used synonymously. What is it about the use of the word ‘the’ that rolls off our tongue so easily when referring to some groups, yet is incredibly offensive when used with other groups? ‘The’ creates a rigid and inflexible view of lives that are dynamic, complex, multidimensional and ordinary. ‘The’ presents a watered-down version of people based on caricatured qualities. ‘The’ creates an assumption of similarity among members. Also, the last of these, “the aged” suggests a past tense, a process having been previously completed. A life already lived. As far as I know, we are continually aging unless we are dead and in which case our subject of interest becomes “the dead”. ‘The’ is embedded in an otherness, a separation, no longer living. And since I’m living, then “the elderly” must be the other.

By saying “the elderly”, we are reducing defining features and valuable contributions of members of our community to singular stereotyped anecdotal evidence. ‘The’ suggests a devaluing of humanness or a perception of less than. Use of the word “the” is paramount to maintaining the age binary: young-old. Yet, this concept of binary is ill-informed. We have coupled two parts of the lifespan that are not guaranteed. Just because you are young, this does not suggest you will be old. It is only when you are old that you can say, “When I was young…”

Age categorization can create a space, a chasm, a divide between us and them. We are gripped by fear of them because we fear we too will become like them, when in fact, becoming elderly is a gift. Not everyone alive now, reading these words, will be so privileged to receive this gift of age. One of the greatest accomplishments in the past 150 years, according to University of California, Berkeley and Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Human Mortality Database, is an increase in life expectancy from birth. If more of us are becoming them, then why does a looming fear lurk in the air? Is it because there are more of us alive now than ever before who are adding to the collective fear? Plausible. Is it as Zygmunt Bauman articulates on fear, that aging is a process that happens and so we desperately grasp at the air for psychological consolations? Perhaps.

It’s purely a matter of shifting times that allows us, as a nation, to acknowledge the disrespect in using people as instruments for, in the case of “the elderly”, a continued glamorization of youth. It was not long ago when the proverb “children should be seen and not heard” was quite popular indeed. Dating back to the 15th century, children, and particularly young women, were understood to stay silent unless spoken to or asked to speak. First appearing in Mirk’s Festial , published by a clergyman about 1450, “A maid [young woman] should be seen, but not heard”.  In present day U.S. culture, we can see a similar treatment being delivered to our elders to an even greater extent. People who are elderly are not seen and not heard. We don’t want to see them for fear of becoming them, because we have learned to equate aging with death.

All living matter experiences aging from the moment of entering this earth. Just as surely as we age, we too experience death. The two are not correlated, birth and death, yes but age and death, no. Yet, in a culture that denies death, age masquerades as death. Age and death are two distinct processes that are both gifts bestowed upon anyone who is born. In order to untangle these webs of death and aging, fear and loss – we must extract ourselves from an obsession with youth.

By maintaining such strict adherence to youth standards, we further objectify people who age and who are unable to perform youthfully. Conversely, when we are ridiculed, or do the ridiculing, for “acting old”, there are many damaging effects this can create, one of which is internalized ageism.  The idea that the only interesting elderly people are either “dazzling or drooling” further reinforces this age binary and a fetishizing of youth. Tina Turner sings, “we don’t need another hero”, but what we need is a recognition of the diversity among people who are elderly. Old comes in many forms.

As well-intentioned measures are created to protect people who are elderly from abuse, flu and fraud, sometimes these very policies further objectify the people they are intending to help. Headlines read: “How to care for the elderly” Really? There’s a one-size-fits-all approach for caring? I didn’t realize all members of the elderly needed caring for. According to Education First, world leaders in International Education since 1965,“Use the [emphasis in original] with adjectives to refer to a whole group of people.” One of three examples given on their website is: “The elderly require special attention”. How would our world be if we offered special attention to everyone?

On a broad scale, we have witnessed a linguistic shift when referencing minority groups, by many people dropping the definite article ‘the’. Further, some find offense to hearing references like: ‘the blacks’, ‘the gays’, ‘the whites’, ‘the Muslims’, etc.  Let us continue with our inclusive practices and start referring to people who are elderly as the individuals they are. If you have the privilege to be compassionate, then please adjust your word order the next time you refer to a vital member of our community and emphasize the person rather than a group to which we assume they belong. If you are involved with policy development, consider suggesting a rewording using more inclusive language. Encourage your local transportation company to entertain ideas of changing stickers on mass transit to read “please reserve the seats for anyone who looks like they need a seat” instead of “for the elderly and the disabled.” And please, omit from your language the phrase: “Wow, you look good for your age.” We all age differently. And some, don’t age at all. They die.

And so, in this massive sea of wonder, awe and possibility, some stay ashore, some wade into the water clinging to their raft of thanatology, while others playfully splash about with exuberance and glee. Come splash with me and people who are elderly. Soon you will see there are differences and similarities between you and people who are elderly.

Adrienne Ione is a cognitive behavioral therapist and personal trainer who integrates these fields in support of people thriving across the lifespan. As a pro-aging advocate, she specializes in the self-compassion of dementia.

Website: yes2aging.com
Guided Meditations: insighttimer.com/adrienneIone
Facebook: silverliningsintegrativehealth

 

women-lifting

7 Common Workout Injuries and How to Avoid Them

/28 July 2017/ All MFN blog/

As my ruthless and merciless coach always says, “No pain, no gain and you have to risk it to get the biscuit.” True as this may be when it comes to making physical progress in your workouts, there are exceptions you need to keep an eye out for.

I mean, you are human after all and there is only so much punishment that your body can take… even machines wear out. So, here are 7 common workout injuries that you should know about and great tips on how to prevent them from happening in the first place.

  1. The Famous Ankle Sprain

This commonly affects runners and joggers. Not only does this hurt like hell, it could also bench you for an entire month. If you’re a fitness fanatic like me, then that is a nightmare of profound proportions. You can easily get this running outside in uneven terrains like a rocky pathway.

Jumping on and off a pavement can also mess you up pretty badly. Even the treadmill doesn’t keep you safe from this: classic causes include jumping off too quickly or mistakenly stepping half on the belt and half off of it while it’s still running – ouch!

Preventive Measures:

The first and most important tip is to get yourself a quality pair of running shoes. The next thing you want to do is pick out a good old ankle brace just to be on the safe side. Once those are in check, you may need to rethink the terrain you run in.

Though running through the forest is a fantastic idea, make sure the path you pick is even with no rocky features or too many roots popping up all over the place.

And if you have to run indoors on your treadmill, then it is highly recommended that you get one with a clip that attaches to your clothes so that it turns off when the clip detaches from the treadmill.

  1. The Excruciation Shin Splints

You will know you have this when you get a sharp pain on the inner side of your shin bone every time you put weight on your leg. This is another common one among runners.

Although other activities that involve a lot jumping, like rope skipping, can also give you these. It is caused by a muscular inflammation and is the result of suddenly bumping up the volume of your current workout regimen.

Working out on hard, paved surfaces or using old, worn out shoes can also give you problems. You may need a doctor’s opinion once you start getting the symptoms. Some painkillers and a few weeks off should get you back up and running.

Preventive Measures:

As with ankle sprains, you will also need a good pair of running shoes for the splints. Next up, make sure that you stretch and warm up properly prior to your workout.

A few light bodyweight exercises and dynamic stretches are always a good idea. Make sure you use static stretches after your workouts to cool you off as well. As for your workouts, take it easy with the intensity increments. Don’t go higher than 10% percent with your frequencies or volumes every time you decide to take things to the next level.

  1. The Agonizing Lower Back Strains

A sudden pain in your lower back accompanied by some tenderness could be a sign that you’ve hit the threshold. This happens when you tear the muscles or ligaments in your lower back, especially the lumbar muscle.

Squatting and dead lifting with improper form or with excessively heavy weight could definitely put you at high risk. Skipping warm ups and stretches and doing side bends can also get you to this unpleasant point. Another reason could be a hunched back that causes you to overcompensate by bending backward by the lower back for upward presses. Worst-case scenarios include developing nerve compressions and herniated disks.

Preventive Measures:

First thing’s first, never skip your pre-workout warmup sets and stretches. These will get the blood flowing down lower back so that it can absorb all the stress from your workout. If you have a hunched back, then you need to start doing wall squats.

It is highly advisable to superset all the exercises in your workouts with this so as to fix your problem. Variety is key here so be sure you keep switching between workouts to improve the endurance of your lower back muscles. Lastly, your form for squatting and deadlifting should be flawless, done with the weight that you are comfortable with.

  1. The Busted Rotator Cuff

This one is common among weight lifters in the gym (or anywhere else for that matter). If you’re having pain in your shoulder every time you raise your arm over your head or reach behind your back, then this is probably the culprit.

It is made up of 3 muscles that attach the edge of the scapula to the top point of the upper arm. The work of these muscles is to rotate your shoulders externally.

The pain we are talking about here occurs because of a strength imbalance between these muscles and the deltoids. This results in an impingement or a tear in one of the muscles of the rotator cuff.

Preventive Measures:

This is a highly neglected muscle for most weightlifters. It is very rare to see anyone do any kind of external rotation exercise in the gym. This is where all the problems start. So, you need to integrate external rotation exercises to balance out strength between the rotator cuff and the deltoids. Exercises such as side-lying external rotation with dumbbells should become a staple among your shoulder workouts.

  1. The Classic Pec Tear

This happens when you tear either your chest muscle or the tendon that attaches it to the upper arm – quite the agonizing ordeal. This also happens among weight lifters within the famous benching community.

Every time you make up your mind to bite more than you can chew by adding too much weight on the bench press or chest flyes, you run the risk of getting this dreadful injury. You will feel the tear immediately when it happens before your upper arm turns color to blue-black.

Preventive Measures:

This has been said so many times, it feels cliché saying it all over again. But I’m going to say it anyway – leave your ego outside the doors of the gym. Just because overload causes muscle growth doesn’t mean you should go all Hercules with the weights.

Choose the weight that’s right for you, especially for the dumbbell bench press and pec flyes. It is also a good idea to have a spotter around so you don’t end up dropping the dumbbells behind you, causing you to overstretch your pec, resulting in the tear.

  1. The Old Rupture of the Bicep Tendon

If you are a curl junky, then you need to pay close attention here. This happens when the tendon attaching your bicep to your forearm tears and curls upwards.

It is extremely painful and it is caused by curling too heavy and uncontrolled movement that causes the arm to drop suddenly with the dumbbell or barbell in hand. If it happens to you, your bicep will become larger than usual with a blue-black coloration.

Preventive Measures:

As we said with the Pec tear, keep your ego in check and lift what you can handle. You will also want to control the weights on the way down – very important. In fact, it is this portion of the exercise, the eccentric, which comes with the most gains. So don’t neglect it. It will give you great gains and keep your bicep tendons rupture free.

  1. The Dreadful Hernia

Whether this is grosser than it is scary, I’m not very sure. It involves swelling, mostly around the belly, caused by protruding organs that tore through their encasings (ie, fascia). This is common among lifters and calisthenics enthusiasts. It happens when you hold your breath as you lift heavy objects.

This results in increased pressure that causes organs, like intestines, to pop through their encasings resulting in the bulge. Rotating your torso during one-arm dumbbell rows can also get you here. You most definitely want to dial 911 if this happens.

Preventive Measures:

Again, keep your ego in check and only lift what you can handle. The next thing you want to do is learn to breathe out through the concentric part of any exercise and breathe in during the eccentric. Also, keep your body from rotating every time you do those one-armed dumbbell rows.

For the long term, it is a good idea to strengthen your abdominal muscles so that your core is strong enough to even out imbalances that could lead you to get a hernia.

Tony John is a blogger and main Co-founder/ Editor at the BoostBodyFit.com. He loves fitness and bodybuilding. Follow BoostBodyFit on Twitter @boostbodyfit.

running-sunrise

Take Charge of Your Future Health & Fitness Future: Become Relentless

/26 July 2017/ All MFN blog/

It occurred to me recently that the only true answer to the question of how can we best accomplish our health and fitness goals consistently – and save our own lives – was to “become relentless”. I recognized this trait in myself as a boy on Maui and today I know that it is how I have maintained a high level of fitness over more than six decades of my life. I decided early on to never let myself “get out of shape”. I always wanted to be fit. In making this choice I became committed to my purpose: Never make excuses and treasure the physical gifts I had been given by always training as though today were my last on earth.

This article addresses three key principles to becoming relentless and exercising the control over your choices that only YOU can make. Nothing in life is more important than our health and if we lose it – we may never be able to get it back. We also cannot become fit because our health is a precursor to overall fitness achievement. I understand that we are confronted every day by challenges and that some of the circumstances we face are beyond our control. However, I also DO believe that the power we exercise in making our choices is always within our control. Do you want to live a fulfilling and healthy, happy, and fit life – or not? The choice is yours!

NO EXCUSES!

In my world there are no such things as excuses. We either commit to our own health and fitness future – or we don’t. There is no “in between”. I am asked frequently by people at the gym how many days I work out and my answer is always the same”. I train EVERY day if I am not sick or injured because I never want to “go backwards” and lose all the gains I have made. Every new day presents each of us with the opportunity to train mentally, physically and spiritually. What do you do to plan your day with your health and fitness needs in mind?

Most Americans are eating and sitting their way to an early death by not considering these important needs. It is as though they have turned off their brains and disconnected them from their bodies. I see this behavior every day and this pattern of “thoughtlessness” WILL become chronic if not changed. This “way of thinking” by parents then gets passed down to their children.

I see potentially obese children stuffing their faces with French fries while their parents model behaviors that are truly unhealthy. Technology is a now a major part of how

we interact with one another and this poses additional challenges for a healthy exchange of ideas and knowledge. We are “buried in our devices”!

The KEY here is NEVER MAKE EXCUSES! There is ALWAYS time to exercise your mind, spirit and body. MAKE the time. If you are not sick or injured commit yourself to your own “renewed” purpose: Train every day and NEVER LOOK BACK! Today is all any of us get. Do you want to waste while in making excuses about why you couldn’t take that walk, eat that salad, or meditate for a few moments on what you are grateful for in your life? I hope not. Regret is a terrible burden to carry into your future. Be Relentless!

LIGHT YOUR INNER FIRE!

The only true motivation is “inner inspiration”. I was inspired as a boy through my swimming coach at the time to strive for excellence and to use my talent to its highest potential. He saw me as a potential champion – even at the age of 8 – and I trained accordingly. The “fire was lit” by his belief in me and his encouragement during our training sessions. He gave me the strength to endure the many hours of repetition that it took to become skilled for competition.

I remember the joy I felt when I met with my teammates before practice. We were all friends and were close in age. The training was difficult at times but it gave me the understanding of how to become a better swimmer and maximize my talent. I knew the hard work would pay off and it did when we competed against other teams. I loved the competitive “fire” within me because it gave me purpose and a feeling of accomplishment when the training came together during our races.

This “inner fire” cannot be given to you. It has to be generated from within you. You have to “own it”. We can hire coaches to help us by inspiring and encouraging us but we have to do the work of “lighting the fire” for ourselves. It IS within each of us and this is our POTENTIAL. Don’t short change yourself. We ARE capable of accomplishing great things if we believe in our potential. This is what my swimming coach on Maui gave me when I was just beginning life as a swimmer: The belief in myself that I could become a champion.

I never forgot these lessons or his belief in me. I carried this “fire” within me during the many years that followed all the way up to this – my 71st year. I am capable of so much more today because I believed in myself and knew that every day was a gift that I could use to move myself forward – or I could have let my circumstances let me “slip” into obscurity and mediocrity. I REFUSE to live in mediocrity and I encourage you to not let this thought overwhelm you and stop you from pursuing excellence in your own life. Be relentless!

STAY THE COURSE!

Once you have decided to commit yourself to your health and fitness goals – STAY THE COURSE! Never let excuses or sloppy thinking prevent you from reaching for the “greater within you”. I have suffered badly these last 6-8 months from painful feet (plantar fasciitis) – a debilitating inflammatory condition at the bottom of both my feet characterized by searing pain. “It is often referred to as an “overuse” injury. Fifty three years of running can have this type of effect and it DID catch up to me!

It progressed to swelling in my right calf and ankle brought on by what I suspect was tearing of the soft tissue. I have not been able to run during this time so I substituted the lifecycle for cardio training and as a form of rehab it has served its purpose but I miss running very much. I KNOW that I am improving with the addition of my stretching program and new strength training methods but this time has served as a reminder to me that no matter what we do we are vulnerable to age, injury, and pain.

I have stayed the course with my training but I also know that at 70 I am not going to escape the possibilities of additional injury. I believe in the benefits of training so deeply, however, that I will NOT let anything stop me from my appointed training sessions. My time as a swimmer taught me that every action we take in support of our goals can propel us to becoming more than we ever dreamed possible.

What is your dream and what are you willing to do to fulfill it? I am willing to do what is necessary to see mine come true: Help the world become “more” by focusing all our energy on becoming happy, healthy and FIT! Be relentless!

IN CONCLUSION

Take time TODAY and review your mental. physical and spiritual needs and desires. Make an appointment with yourself that you WILL “show up” each day to work on advancing your health and fitness goals. DECIDE today to never let a moment “slip away” from you that could have moved you closer to becoming the person you were meant to be.

DECIDE TO BECOME RELENTLESS! Don’t make excuses, not the light the fire within you or NOT stay the course that you have set before you. Decide to be EXCELLENCE and pursue that idea every day – regardless of the circumstances or challenges you face. My feet will run again but I am taking the time right now to appreciate all that they have done for me over past 70 years!

Appreciate and be grateful for all that you have been given and start your day in gratitude and forgiveness. These two traits alone are omnipotent. I never will take today for granted because it is all I have. Your journey – and mine as well – has just begun. Cherish every moment and BE RELENTLESS!

Originally printed on HealthyNewAge.com. Reprinted with permission from Nicholas Prukop.

Nicholas Prukop is an ACE Certified Personal Trainer & a Health Coach, a fitness professional with over 25 years of experience whose passion for health and fitness comes from his boyhood in Hawaii where he grew up a swimmer on Maui. He found his calling in writing his first book “Healthy Aging & You: Your Journey to Becoming Happy, Healthy & Fit” and since then he has dedicated himself to empowering, inspiring and enabling people of all ages to reach for the best that is within them and become who they are meant to be – happy, healthy and fit – and be a part of a world where each person can contribute their own unique gifts to life.

business-thumbs-up

What Makes a Successful Corporate Wellness Program?

/24 July 2017/ All MFN blog/

More and more companies today are rapidly and actively taking part in improving their employees’ wellness. It’s a positive development in the corporate environment because many of our daily habits are actually harmful to our health. Multitasking and continuous exposure to technology—two of the most common things we do at work—can overwhelm and end up making a person feel unproductive. Even worse, these circumstances can lead to other bad habits and more serious health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. Not only the employees, but the company will also suffer. Inflated health care costs and decreased productivity are only some of the effects of poor employee wellness.

A corporate wellness program is a solution to remedy these undesirable effects. It can be implemented in many different ways, but the most important thing to remember is the employees are the focus of this program. Healthy and happy employees are the foundation of a successful company. Now, what does a good corporate wellness program look like? What are the factors that determine its success? And how can you design a program that actually works for your company?

A good corporate wellness program shouldn’t add to the complexity of office life. In other words, it should be simple and practical. It should also be integrated into the company structure and involves all employees. Employers must offer motivation and support to maintain the continuity of the program and therefore guaranteeing its success. Below are several concrete suggestions that you can do to implement a wellness program at your office.

Nutrition and Overall Well-Being

“Weight loss starts in the kitchen.” Don’t take this quote so literally, but look at the point it makes: good nutrition is at the core of getting healthy. With this in mind, here are some of the things you can do at your company:

Stock healthy snacks and drinks
An employee with diabetes can cost the company tens of thousands annually in health related non productivity, and that is just one single employee! Swap the candies and sodium-laden chips with fresh fruits and nuts. Stop supplying vending machines filled with soda and other sugary drinks and encourage workers to drink more water instead. Another way you can motivate workers to eat more healthily is to have lunch together so it feels more like a group effort.

Opt for stand-up desks and ergonomic chairs
Sitting for an extended amount of time can carry negative side effects, not the least of which is obesity. A Mayo Clinic study concluded that workers who sit less gain little to no weight compared to those who sit all day. Stand-up desks help employees to move from sitting to standing position easily, hence increasing physical activity. When they do have to sit, ergonomic chairs will help to support the lower back, maintain good posture, and prevent and reduce back pain.

Offer incentives to quit smoking
Studies show that smokers miss more workdays compared to non-smokers, which will eventually affect the company’s productivity. To help employees stop smoking, the company can offer financial incentives that are shown to be 3 times more likely to achieve success. [1].

Physical Health and Fitness

Be creative and turn your office supplies into workout equipment.
Anti-slip chair mats can serve as a yoga mat—a great way to get your employees moving.

Organize group activities.
Hold morning stretching and yoga sessions at work, or encourage workers to cycle to work.

Wearable technologies.
If you have a bit more budget, technologies like FitBit can help monitor workers’ activity level, fitness, and sleep quality.

Mental Health and Self Development

Let your workers socialize
Socializing can provide a small but much-needed break from routine and help workers to clear their head. A collaborative workspace will encourage and increase the workers’ chance to socialize whenever they feel necessary.

Post inspirational quotes around the office
Properly-placed motivations like quotes and appreciation of achievements fill the brain with positivity and in turn increase productivity.

Provide an open library
To help with workers’ personal growth, a company can supply various self-help and self-development books. If you’d like to be even more organized, you can arrange a book club where people can read and review books.

Revitalization

Create an employee lounge
Let your workers have a shut-eye moment to rest their brain from the hectic work hours. A short nap time can increase creativity and productivity, and also improve the memory.

Schedule break time and recess
Encourage your employees to take 5 minutes per hour to get up from their workspace and do something other than work. They can walk around, socialize, or grab some water and healthy snacks from the kitchen.

Offer extended vacation days
You can reward your employees by giving them the day off on their birthday or a short sabbatical for the best employee of the month.

Office Fun

Basically, you want your employees to enjoy coming to work. You can make this happen by holding some events at work, impromptu or otherwise, such as:

Setting up a chair race
If done properly, there’s no downside to this method. It’s fun, adrenaline-filled, and competitive at the same time!

Casual Friday
It doesn’t have to be Friday, really, but make sure to set aside one day where workers don’t have to be formal all the time. Bringing a little bit of ourselves to work is a lot of fun!

Play some music
Music is well-known to reduce depression, improve mood, and boost creativity. Make sure you choose soft tunes—loud music can be distracting.

As your organization learns to embrace healthier office habits, it can only improve employee wellness. You’ll notice that these suggestions are not overly complicated and most of them involve a group activity. But most importantly, all of them serve as a much-needed resource for your employees. You can choose which ever ones suit your company and your budget best—it doesn’t need to be this exact program.

So, are you ready to try them? Here’s a tip: start small. Implement just one of these ideas and before you know it, you’ll have healthier and happier employees, a better office environment and contribute to reducing health costs while increasing productivity.

JasonL has the people power and infrastructure to deliver office furniture from a single chair to an entire office fit-out. We are “Yes” people and have trained sales persons, interior designers, installers and office movers to make your furniture journey easy and enjoyable. You can find premium stand up desks at Jasonl.com.au

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2017 Sports Nutrition News from ACSM

/20 July 2017/ All MFN blog/

In this era of highly competitive sports, more and more runners, cyclists, soccer players and other serious athletes are eagerly seeking information on how to fuel optimally. Performance nutrition is also of interest to Marines, special operations troops such as the Navy Sea, Air and Land (SEAL) teams, and others in the military who need to perform at a very high level to both survive and to carry out their missions. Hence, effective fueling practices are a topic of great interest and research for the US Armed Forces.

At this year’s annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (the nation’s largest group of sports medicine professionals, exercise scientists, and sports nutrition researchers; www.acsm.org), civilian as well as military exercise scientists presented the results of their recent nutrition research, some of which I have highlighted below.

This information might be of interest to you, whether you are a competitive athlete or soldier who trains for hours in the summer heat, winter cold, at high altitude, or for in preparation for a strenuous event—be it a military mission, Ironman triathlon, or an adventure race. Regardless of your reason for exercising, fueling your body wisely and well can greatly impact your ability to perform optimally today as well as invest in your future health and well-being.

Highlights of research on nutrition for military performance:

• To become a Navy SEAL, you have to go through SEAL Qualification Training. A survey of 264 of these serious “military athletes” indicates their diets rated only 56 out of 100 on the Healthy Eating Index. This is slightly lower than the score of 59 for the general US population. To the disadvantage of these trainees, their dietary patterns were low in health-protective fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish, but high in health-eroding refined foods with added sugar, fat and alcohol. This type of eating pattern promotes inflammation. By improving their food choices (more colorful fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats), they could reduce systemic inflammation, which could enhance recovery from training, boost immune response, and help them maintain better health. As you know, an injured or sick soldier or athlete is not an asset to any team.

• Marines in training for acceptance to Special Operation Forces exercise extremely hard during their training program. One might think they would suffer from long-term undesired weight loss. Not the case. After each period of intentional severe food deprivation, the trainees manage to restore the significant amount of weight they lost. For example, in the toughest part of the 261-day training program (days 115-123), the men burned about 6,400 calories a day. They had access to only 2,400 calories of food. That’s about 4,000 calories a day less than they needed! They lost, on average, 11 pounds (4.9 kg). The Marines intuitively returned to their baseline weights after that training period, when they had access to adequate fuel. As an athlete who has dropped weight, only to regain it, you may have seen first-hand how the body works hard to defend a genetic weight. Weight is more than a matter of willpower.

• Speedy recovery from strenuous exercise is of key interest to military personnel. Beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate (more commonly called HMB; a natural by-product of protein/leucine metabolism) has been shown to enhance muscle recovery from high intensity exercise. Would HMB with supplemental probiotics (gut microbes that enhance protein absorption) be a way to enhance soldiers’ muscle recovery? To find the answer, soldiers took HMB + probiotics during 2 weeks of intense military training (carrying ~77 pounds (35 kg) of equipment while marching 16-19 miles (25-30 km) per night in tough terrain). Results of this study suggest that HMB supplementation reduced the inflammatory response to intense training. Combining HMB with the probiotic Bacillus coagulans was even more beneficial than HMB alone in maintaining muscle integrity during the intense military training.

The question now arises: Can athletes who eat a high quality diet with leucine-rich food (meat, fish, chicken, cheese, whey) + probiotic-supporting fiber-rich food (vegetables, fruit whole grains) reap the same benefits? Sounds like a winning combination to me!

• Staying healthy is important for soldiers and athletes alike; neither have time for illness due to upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) such as colds. Would taking a high does of Vitamin D, which has been shown to improve immune function, offer protection? To answer that question, Marines in basic training received daily for 12 weeks either 1,000 IUs of Vitamin D-2 (the RDA is 600 IU) or a placebo. The majority (72%) of recruits reported getting a URTI during the 12 weeks. The high dose of Vitamin D did not offer a protective effect in this highly stressful environment. Perhaps you could instead focus on having clean hands and getting adequate sleep.

• Now that women can perform combat duty, a question arises: How well can the women perform physically compared to the men? To find the answer, 302 marines underwent comprehensive testing including strength, flexibility, balance, power, agility, and physical fitness tests (pull ups, push ups, sit ups, bench press, 2-mile run, etc). They then were stratified into three groups according to the test results, regardless of sex or body fat: best (all men), middle (mostly men), worst (mostly female).

When compared by sex, the men, understandably, tended to have less body fat—except when compared to the best performing women. The amount of the male or female marines’ muscle-mass determined athletic performance more so than their body fatness. The best-performing men and women in groups one and two had significantly more muscle than the men and women in group three. The researchers concluded that muscle mass may have a stronger association with performance during strength, aerobic, and anaerobic tests than does percent body fat. This is a good example of how the leanest athlete is not inherently the best athlete. For some athletes, building more muscle might be more important than losing body fat.

Sports nutritionist Nancy Clark MS RD CSSD has a private practice in the Boston-area (Newton; 617-795-1875), where she counsels both fitness exercisers and competitive athletes, teaching them how to eat to win. Her popular Sports Nutrition Guidebook, and food guides for marathoners, cyclists and soccer are available at nancyclarkrd.com, as well as information about her online workshop and teaching materials.