Are You A Halloween Skeleton….Or A Sports Car?
By Bill Murphy, MD, Medical Director, Turquoise Springs Medical Spa
Practicing medicine for over 40 years allows one to settle on a variety of stories and analogies to explain various complicated medical issues. I have seen my patients’ faces go blank and their eyes zone out after 30 seconds of too much medical jargon and $5 words. Communication is a key to success, so I tend to lean on anecdotes, short stories, and comparisons to which we can all relate. As I talk with people of all ages with aches, pains, sore joints, and other maladies, I must battle their tendency to think that inactivity or rest is required for all healing. While this is true if there is an acute injury, a broken bone, a surgical incision, or a head injury, inactivity is not the answer for most chronic issues.
Staying active is optimal for being and staying healthy. An active lifestyle is also best if you have chronic issues you are coping with every day. Sitting down, staying still, being sedentary, or maintaining a constant state of rest is bad for your body, your health, and your mental state. So what is my first analogy?
Your body is like a sports car. What happens if you park a sports car in the driveway, under a tree, and don’t drive it? The rubber of the tires and the window seals becomes brittle and cracked. The tubing of the gasoline system corrodes, and the oil becomes thick and full of sludge. All the joints in the carriage become dry, creaky, and squeaky. The same thing happens to your body if you park it and don’t drive it. A beautiful Corvette is meant to be driven, not parked. Your body is the same. You must take it out for a spin on a regular basis!
My time with you today is not about how exercise or physical activity benefits heart health, lung health, or even mental health. A full article could be written about each of these topics and how important movement is to preserving health and wellness in those disparate body systems. Today, I wish to write about muscle strength, flexibility, core strength, and posture. Therefore, I will present my second analogy about how important muscles are to maintaining health and decreasing chronic pain.
As I am writing this in mid-October, the Halloween holiday is almost here. Plastic skeletons are hanging from the trees all around my neighborhood. Those skeletons have no inherent strength. Individual bones are strong, but the joints of the Halloween skeleton move however the wind blows with no resistance. They move in and out of proper position and clank and clink. The model skeleton is pulled in whatever direction the wind, gravity, or the tree limb moves. Without strong, flexible, trained muscles, we are the same.
If we are physically weak, we are impacted by whatever forces attack us over the course of a day, starting with gravity. Our joints move in and out (subluxation), which causes stretching and wear of the tendons and joint cartilage. Posture suffers as the neck bends forward, the shoulders slouch, and the walking or gait pattern becomes unbalanced. Strong muscles, large and small, around the joints allow proper positioning, range of motion, and proper posture and gait patterns.
I prescribe resistance exercise to all of my patients, regardless of their varied issues. I did not say “only weight training”. Body weight exercises can be resistance training, as all you need is gravity. As your muscles get stronger, you can add resistance with bands, dumbbells, machines, or even a can of peas. Proper lifting techniques and avoidance of too much weight are important to avoid injury, so using a trainer, instructor, or even a YouTube video is ideal.
I also use advanced, state-of-the-art muscle stimulation technology for my clients and patients. It is called TruSculpt Flex by Cutera. I have used muscle stimulation for 30 years, but it has never been as effective as now, with this device. I am able to provide multidirectional stimulation to multiple muscle groups to build strength, tone, and flexibility.
This can be accomplished with a 15-minute session once or twice per week. I can stimulate arms, legs, abdominal muscles, back muscles, and buttocks. It is intense, yet painless and incredibly effective to augment and improve your gym workouts, tone and shape your body, and improve posture. The FDA recently approved this technology for the treatment of back pain, muscle aches, and rehabilitation of injuries to muscles and joints. Flex has shown amazing results in my practice for the treatment and strengthening of abdominal muscles after delivery of a baby, even if by surgical delivery, and recovery after back, hip, and knee surgery.
Exercise and movement is natural and healthy for our bodies. If you need a plan, advice, or even feel you would like to try our new technology to help get you going, I would be honored to meet with you to devise a plan. Call me at 210-253-3313.
