Injury Free- Box Jumps

Box Jumps are a fantastic way to exercise.  It's a whole body exercise that works on your strength, power, conditioning and burns fat.  Unfortunatley many people struggle with them and end up hurting themselves.  Here are a few quick tips to get you in performing box jumps without hurting yourself (and having better performance too!)

1.  Swing Your Arms
        When one jumps, it's not the ability to push the ground down that has you jump high.  People with huge squat one rep maxes aren't the people that can jump the highest.  It's the ability to coordinate all your forces upward while transferring your forces through your core.  A highly effective way of accomplishing that is by getting a great deal of momentum going with your arms.  The more force your arms create, the less your hips, knees and ankles have to.  It's a fantastic way to keep the stress off your body.

2.  Don't Let Your Knees Travel Inward

Whether its your takeoff, or your landing, don't let this happen.  You might even want to concentrate on having your knees travel to directly away from each other, as this increases stability in the foot, ankle, knee complex.  It will minimize the stress on your body.

3.  Step Down
         Now if you're a highly competitive Crossfit type you might not like this one.  It's true that if your just going for performance, jumping down is faster.  However it adds so much force to the calf, achilles tendon, ankles and plantar fascia that it significantly increases the chances of you injuring yourself.  Alternating which foot you step down off the box will allow you to minimize the stress on your body without wearing down either leg.  

If you have any questions or are injured, please email me at drscotthoar@gmail.com.  If you are in the Boca Raton area, you can visit us at www.Mobility-4Life.com

CryoSauna Therapy

There's an exciting new option available in the sports medicine community for those that are looking to recover quicker and have their bodies feel better.  It's called CryoSauna therapy.  In just 3 minutes, you give your system the jolt that it needs without any chemicals or harmful ingredients.

Cryo therapy has been around for years in the form of Ice Baths (Picture old time NFL players).  The purpose was to decrease inflammation in the body, stimulate increased healing rates of old injuries and improve overall energy in the body.  To read more about the historical ice baths click here.

CryoSauna therapy benefits

• Prevents Injury
• Speeds Recovery
• Keeps Muscles Limber
• Clears the Meridians 
• Repairs Muscle
• Decreased inflammation
• Feels Good Afterwards
• Decreased Muscle soreness/stiffness
• Decreased joint pain
• Burn 500-800 calories in 3 minutes!

But now we have the ability to get even better benefits from way less of a commitment.  The CryoSauna delivers all the same benefits in just 3 minutes by spraying subzero gasiform Nitrogen onto the skin and getting the desired reaction.

Now there is some controversy these days regarding ice therapy vs. heat therapy and if ice therapy is even beneficial to people.  At this point what we recommend is that it is for some people, and it's not for everyone.  Some people swear by ice therapy and feel as though they get fantastic results.  If that's not you...then this isn't for you.

The theory of this treatment is that when the cold nitrogen is sprayed onto the skin, the body thinks it's in a subzero environment and blood flow gets altered from the extremities, into the internal organs.  While it's in the internal organs, the blood gets oxygenated from the internal organs and lung blood vessels which carry the highest oxygen content of blood in the body.  Once the treatment is complete, the highly oxygenated blood is re-delivered to the extremities leaving you feeling like a million bucks.

It's like a highly effective RE-SET button on your body!

This gets great results with runners, triathletes, football players and anyone else that is putting a great deal of stress on their bodies.

If you have questions or are interested in CryoSauna therapy, you can call our office at 561.997.8898 or email me directly at drscotthoar@gmail.com.  To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com

9 Rules to Returning to Exercise after Injury

So many of us get injured and have questions and concerns about how we should approach ramping up our activity levels to pre-injury levels after we start feeling better.  So I thought I'd make some general rules to follow.  Trainers, I'd suggesting posting this on your gym wall so your client have some future reference.

Rules to Return to Activity After Injury

Rule #1 - Get yourself checked out by a sports medicine professional.  This is their expertise, you don't want to end up hurting yourself further or again.  This will significantly speed up the process.

Rule #2 - If you feel pain, don't do it.  Don't even do a movement in which you even 'feel' the affected area, without  pain.  I think you know what I'm talking about.  When you exercise in pain, you will automatically compensate.  Why is that a bad thing?  I'll explain later.

Rule #3 - Start with non-weight bearing, non-painful exercises.  This might include rowing, or swimming, walking, cycling, or elliptical.  Getting some serious blood flow to a recently injured area can do great things as far as speeding up this whole process.

Rule #4 - Next step, body weight exercises.  This could include push ups, or air squats, lunges, pull ups, etc.  Make sure you're doing full range of motion.  Don't move on to the next step until you have full range of motion.

Rule #5 - Don't add weight until you perform the most provocative movement (if it hurts to squat, squatting would be the provocative movement) with just bodyweight, pain-free without any asymmetries of any kind.  Ask your local trainer or a gym friend that you know has a great deal of knowledge of exercise and technique.  Have them evaluate your movement from all angles.

Rule #6 - Work the opposite extremity - If the injury is to your right foot, workout the left foot while you're recovering.  This works for the upper extremity as well.  Studies show that the more this is done, the less atrophy and muscle wasting occur of the injured extremity.

Rule #7 - DON'T COMPENSATE!!!!! - This is the biggest one.  It should be number one.  "I can run if I just step towards the outside of my foot" or "I have to extend one arm before the other".  This is huge.  When you compensate you rapidly start wearing down other parts of your body.  Don't do it.  That's why you want a trainer to make sure that your exercise movement is completely symmetrical.

Rule #8 - Perform other exercise/activity.  This is a great time to do some kind of cross training.  Performing exercises you wouldn't normally perform (as long as they are completely pain and compensation free) is a great way to workout and diversify your program.  I.e. if it hurts to swim, then jog...or if it hurts to do cleans, do snatches.  Explore some yoga!

Rule #9 - Don't wear braces.  Now take this with a grain of salt.  Sometimes they are necessary in the short term.  However, braces create stability for joints which is good for acute injuries, however it creates 2 things that we don't want.  #1- dependence on the brace.  Since it's creating stability in that joint, your muscles don't have to stabilize and the stronger you get, the more dependent you will become leaving the door open to future injury.  #2 - Braces limit your flexibility in that joint which, in the long term, will create more compensation in surrounding body parts.

I hope this is helpful.  For anyone wanting to know if they are ready to return to exercise, please call my office at 561.997.8898 or email me at drscotthoar@gmail.com.  To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com

Can Kettle Bells save your shoulder?

Have you ever seen one of these?

In our clinic we heavily utilize kettle bells in the treatment/rehabilitation of shoulder pain.  We do this for several reasons:

1) It teaches your shoulder how to stabilize as a group.  You have 4 rotators cuff muscles.  When we need control in our shoulder, we need all 4 cuff muscles to work together.  So why have we grown up doing those tired old band exercises for our shoulders?

2) Working your grip helps rehab the shoulder.  A kettle bell naturally utilizes grip strength, otherwise you'd drop the weight.  In the medical field we measure grip strength as an indicator of overall neurological health of your shoulder and arm.  So working your grip is working your shoulders,  especially when you can't raise your arm overhead due to pain.

3)  Kettle bells teach you the best way to use your shoulder.  When you fall out of ideal alignment while holding a kettle bell, your arm automatically starts shaking.  So without thinking about it, it teaches you how to realign your shoulder and minimize the stress on your body.

QUICK TIP

Here's a quick trick I like using to warm up my shoulders before exercise (or as a rehab exercise on it's own).  Pick up the heaviest kettle bell (or dumbell if you don't have one) that you can handle.  Hold the kettle bell by your side (the way it naturally hangs) and rotate your arm left and right as far as it will go in either direction.  This utilizes all of the strategies above to help rehab your shoulder by improving alignment and control of the rotator cuff.  Hold for 30 seconds.

To have you shoulder checked out, please contact me at drscotthoar@gmail.com or dial 561.997.8898.  To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com

The Best Exercise to take away your Neck, Back and Shoulder Pain

This is my favorite exercise to do on my own to keep my low back and shoulders feeling good.  I teach it to a bunch of my patients that are experiencing similar conditions.  It's fantastic for increasing the flexibility in the upper back to relieve stress on the neck, shoulders and low back. They're called:

Can Openers

To perform this:

• Lay in the side-lying position with your top knee bent and in front, with the knee higher than parallel to the hip
• Extend both arms in front of the body with the hands together, even with the shoulders.  
• Rotate the arm, head and eyes to look behind you as far as possible without the knee coming off the ground.  NOTE - keep your eyes fixed on your thumbnail as you reach behind you.
•  SECRET - Press into the ground with the top knee and stationary arm.  This will provide stability and allow for increased flexibility of the upper back without involving the hips or lower back.
• Once you've gone as far as you can go, return to the starting position.  That's one rep.  Perform 6-12 reps on each side.

This is a perfect warm-up before doing other more strenuous exercises.  This will result in decreased stress on the shoulders, neck, and low back.

For any questions or to schedule a personal appointment in Boca Raton please email me at drscotthoar@gmail.com or dial 561.997.8898.  Keep moving!!!!  To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com

Staying in Shape While Injured

Maintaining you physique and fitness levels while injured can be a tricky thing to do.  I always recommend substituting non-painful exercises for the ones you know bother you, or you just don't do so well.

Here's an article to check out regarding how exactly to do that.  http://www.backtothebox.com/how-do-i-fit-my-prehab-or-rehab-into-my-physical-performance-program-4/  

This is a bit 'Crossfit-oriented' but his template can be utilized in any exercise program you choose.  Happy reading!  

If you have any questions please contact me at drscotthoar@gmail.com.  To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com

I'm Getting Too Old To Work Out and I'm Getting Fat

Is this you?  Is the scale in your bathroom creeping up?  Are you a plumper version of your old self?  AND/OR.....do you have injuries/pain which are keeping you from being able to workout the way you used to?

Ok, well....you're not alone.  I promise.  I hear it all the time.  I have a suggestion for you.

Find 10 different movements that you can do pain free.  Here are some suggestions:

Push Ups
Lunges
Squats
Step-Ups
Jumping Jacks
Jumping Rope
Jumping w/o the rope
Box Jumps
Running
Elliptical Machine
Stair Climber
Exercise Bike
Bike
Burpees
Box Dips
Wall Push Ups
Push Up Position Shoulder Taps
Calf Raises
Planks
Sit-Ups
Bird Dogs (cross crawl)
-there's an endless list of exercises that could be included

This is a version of step ups....most people can perform these pain free

-Pick One Each day
-It has to be a pain free exercise

Now do the exercise for 30 seconds, as many repetitions as you can.

Now rest for 30 seconds.

30 seconds on, 30 second off.  Go for 6 minutes.  Work your way up to 10 minutes.  Even 12 minutes.

Get your heart rate up.  Count how many reps you perform in each 30 second segment.  Attempt to match or top that in the next segment.

This is called High Intensity Interval Training.  There are many forms of it, this is just one option.  You can google "High Intensity Interval Training" and come up with thousands of options.

It's the most effective form of burning fat and maintaining muscle available.

Push Up Taps: Tap your hand to the opposite shoulder and switch.

I highly recommend this if your age 10, age 70, or any age in between.  Just don't do it if it hurts, select a simpler exercise.  Don't let pain or injury or age stop you.  Keep moving!

If you have any questions about any of these please email me at drscotthoar@gmail.com.  To schedule a personal appointment in Boca Raton, Fl dial my office at 561.997.8898.  To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com

Your Shoulder and Surgery

Hope this isn't too gross for you guys!

 Shoulder surgery is very common these days.  Typically it's repairing a torn rotator cuff or an arthroscope for degeneration.  Typically after you have surgery, your orthopedic doctor recommends you complete a rehab progression with a physical therapist.  I agree with that.  But what happens after that?  (This approach really applies for surgeries throughout the body, not just the shoulder)

After about 5-6 weeks, broken bones have stabilized.  After about 2 months, most soft tissues will have stabilized. (Nerves can take much longer but you're dealing with a neurosurgeon at this point so that's a different conversation).  What do I mean by 'stabilized'?  I mean you should be free to put weight on the area, to start exercising the area and so on.  Normally your physical therapist is in charge of that and will do a fantastic job for you.  My advice?  Go to physical therapy!!!

But now you've done your course of 3-6 weeks of physical therapy.  They're released you from care, but the area just isn't the same.  And you wonder what to do?  The answer?

A soft tissue chiropractor!  I'd highly recommend one that performs Active Release Technique (A.R.T.), Graston Technique, and utilizes corrective exercises and Rehab.  Surgery and other serious injuries leave you with scar tissue, which can be viewed as a rubber band (muscles) that suddenly feels like a piece of leather (scar tissue).  The techniques described above help to restore the scar tissue to it's normally quality.  When the tissue quality normalizes, the alignment of the shoulder (or wherever else in the body) is able to return to normal and you can start using your shoulder again.

In the mean time?  Wall Walking is always great for range of motion at home.  Here's a video with a pretty lengthy description if you have four minutes:

If you have any questions feel free to call my office in Boca Raton, FL at 561.997.8898 or email me directly at drscotthoar@gmail.com.  To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com

Burpees

The Burpee has gotten so much press the last number of years that even though I've touched on it twice before, I think it deserves it's own post.  It's literally one of my favorite exercises out there.  Why?  You don't need any equipment and it tones, conditions, and shreds people!  Plus, I always have a tendency to like exercises that really expose people's mobility and stability shortcoming.  That's why I like Overhead deep squats too.  You have to have all regions of your body working well to do it well.  But I digress.  Burpees.

Burpees are a combination movement where you start in a standing position, jump down to a lowered pushup position (chest touching the ground), kip your feet to a full squat position, then jump up and clap your hands above your head.

I love burpees because if I have an extremely full day when I know I won't be able to get to the gym,  I know I can do 4 minutes of burpees and get a hell of workout and feel good about myself the rest of the day.

Here's the problem.

People don't do them very well.

The main issues I see that would lead to injury is that people do not come to the full deep squat position.  When they jump up they have the feet too close together, their heels are elevated, and all the stress of the movement goes straight to the knees and the quads.  When you are in a deep squat position (like you should be) the stress of the movement goes to the glutes and the hips (which can handle the load without causing injury).

If you notice that you can't get in a full squat position, then there is something wrong with either your foot, ankle, hips, or body control and you need to be evaluated by a movement professional.  If you're in the South Florida/Boca Raton area you can schedule your own personal evaluation either at 561.997.8898 or by emailing me personally at drscotthoar@gmail.com. To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com

Kettlebell Swings

I am ready for the world to stop doing isolation movements while working out.  Bicep Curls, Triceps Extension, Hamstrings Curls....oh c'mon really?  That was what the 90's were for.  "I do chest and tri's Monday/Thursday and I do Back/Bi's Wednesday Friday.....Tuesday is for my left calf and Saturday is for my right calf....."

Alright that might be going a little too far with it but still I'm ready for the exercise community to fully embrace full body movements aimed at strengthening, stabilizing, and conditioning as opposed to 'really hammering that specific muscle'.  Full body movements lead to greater hormone releases (which is what leads to muscle growth), better cardiovascular conditioning, a more proportionate build, and less fat.  What's not to like?

So today I thought I'd preview one of the best exercises out there:  The Kettlebell Swing

The Kettlebell swing is a fantastic whole body exercise that utilizes hip extension (remember your butt?)  to initiate a force that transfer up your spine(a great core exercise), out your arms (shoulder and arm strengthening) and into a kettlebell that swings over your head.  It requires a bit of coordination because the bell will swing back down for you to repeat the process as much as you can.  The more you do, the better your conditioning is.

Troubleshooting 101
The most common mistake I see is that people don't use hip extension to initiate the momentum of the swing.  They use a squat and their lumbar spine.

Rule #1 - Don't squat, keep your hips at the same level at all times

Rule #2 - Make sure the hips pop first, then the kettlebell swings upwards, not the other way around.


For any questions or concerns, please contact me at drscotthoar@gmail.com, and to schedule an appointment in Boca Raton, FL please dial 561.997.8898. To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com

Exercise Selection

(Exercise videos at the bottom)

Two days a week, my partner and I treat former college football players for Tony Villani's XPE group as they prepare themselves for the NFL combine coming up in a few weeks.  We do this at Jaco Hybrid training center in Delray Beach, FL.  I love going to Jaco Hybrid.  Why?  Because it's the most hilarious gym I've ever seen (and it's great for 'people watching).

It's got so many different stereotypes of fitness people.  You've got the crossfitters in the back, with their bad form and high reps.  You've got the meat heads doing ridiculous exercises to 'really feel the burn' so they can kiss their biceps afterwards.  You've got the girls on the cardio machines with their headphones and cellphones in hand.  You've got the yoga and Tae-Kwan-Do studios.  They also have a huge MMA ring and training center where the 'Blackzilians' as they call themselves, train for MMA style fighting.  Their movement for the most part is so primitive, they really look out of control with their bodies.

I highlight this because there are so many different kinds of exercise people could engage in to try to improve their health and fitness.  There question I probably get asked the most, 'how can I workout to burn fat and have the kind of body I want?"

People are starting to realize that straight cardio alone is not enough.  Have you ever run into those 'skinny fat people' as I call them?  Overall they are not fat, but their body composition isn't firm.  They're skinny, yet fat.  AND, they're more prone to injury because they don't have good enough control of their body.

The exercises I recommend are full body exercises that end up giving you a firmer body, while burning fat.  There are ways to get bigger muscles, but that involves a lot of protein and a lot of lifting weights.  I'm talking about quick effective methods of getting firm.  These are full body exercises.

1.  Burpees

2.  Kipping Pull Ups

    -for a video to this, check out www.crossfit.com

3.  Walk the Floors

4.  Box Jumps
    -jump up on a box

5.  Push Ups
    -you know how to do these....

6.  Hand Stand Push Ups (advanced, beginners can start with handstand posing while leaning against a wall)

7.  Push Up Rows

8.  Turkish-Get ups

9.  Kettlebell Swings

10.  Dumbbell Floor to overheads

For any of these exercises.  You could literally just do as many of them as possible in 4 minutes, and you'll give yourself a killer workout that will both burn fat and add proportional muscle to your frames.  If your not in a gym, these are great starters for your exercises program.

For any questions, concerns, or to schedule any treatment  in the Boca Raton area for problems doing these exercises feel free to contact me at 561.997.8898 or email me at drscotthoar@gmail.com.  To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com

Movement Compensation

This blog is all about life long, pain free activity. I'd have to say that the number one enemy to that is compensation. For the purposes of this post, the definition of compensation is:  A movement in which you change where the stress of the body is because of an inadequacy in another area.  It's literally the "silent killer" to your body. Why? Compensating adds overall stress to the body which leads to injury and early degeneration. 

Now here's the bad news....we all do it and we don't even know it!   Whether it's while sitting at your desk at work or during deep overhead squats, you compensate in some fashion. However, the secret to life long health and well-being is addressing your mobility and stability shortcomings to minimize the stress on your body.

Example.

A crossfitter comes down with lower back pain after a few months of training; he doesn't know one specific moment that lead to his injury but he feels the pain days after he deadlifts.  He also wonders why he can't squat below parallel like the other people at his gym and can't seem to have very good deadlifting technique.  He enters my office and we clean up his lower back with muscle and joint techniques like active release technique (ART), graston technique and chiropractic joint manipulations. He's feeling better after 5 treatments but "it's still in there", aka it still hurts a bit. So we perform a full body functional compensation assessment (we call this the selective functional movement assessment or SFMA).

We find that his hips and upper back are pretty inflexible. This would be an example of a compensation. Any time he tries to squat low, he doesn't have the hip flexibility to do so.  And anytime he tries dead lifting, he doesn't have the hip flexibility to keep his back upright.  Therefore the stress of the movement goes to the low back and the darn thing won't feel better until we get the hips and upper back moving better. Every time this guy works out, his low/mid back receives twice the load that a similar person with flexible hips and upper back.

If he had better hip flexibility, he could keep his back more straight!

 So we addressed the hips and upper back with corrective exercises and manual therapy, and after 4 more visits the low back is pain free, and suddenly the man is able to sit lower in his squats and have a personal record in his Squat snatches and isn't worn down after dead lifting anymore!

notice the angle of spine is a nice 45 degrees!

 The way to break your own compensation patterns is to have your own compensation assessment, then address them through manual therapy and corrective exercises like we outlined above.

 To have your own personal 'compensation assessment' to identify any possible future injuries visit us at www.Mobility-4Life.com