Posts by Randall Holmes
Range of Motion Determines Quality of Life
The difference between active and passive range of motion
It is important to know the difference:
- Active ROM refers to range of motion that is achieved with effort or input from YOU. It is you actively moving your own joints through their respective ranges of motion.
- Passive ROM refers to someone else moving your joint for you, as in during spinal mobilization.
Active ROM is obviously the more prevalent of the two for most people- if you are unable to put your own joints through full ranges of motion, life can be significantly more difficult. People with degenerative conditions that prevent them from moving their joints through full ROMs can benefit from having health professionals provide passive ROM in order to reduce pain and improve function. So what can you do to enhance your innate range of motion on a daily basis? Read on to find out.
Relaxing your Spine to Improve Mobility
The importance of relaxing your back
In the adult spine, there is a near-constant cycle of tension accumulation and release. But depending on the balance of our lifestyles, the factors which contribute to tension accumulation can win out. When this happens, our spines suffer- from compression of intervertebral discs and spinal nerves, to shortening and loss of strength in the muscles, almost everything about the tension cycle tends to reduce our spine’s innate mobility. One way to fight back against this cycle is to use relaxation to promote spinal mobility on a daily basis.
Healthy Hips Make for a Happy Spine
Healthy hips are hard to come by
The hip flexor is a group of five muscles that connects the femur to the pelvis and forms a pivotal part of the connection between your upper and lower body. Because of their location, the hip flexors can either be a blessing or a curse- while they are essential for healthy movement and the transference of forces, they can also be implicated in poor posture. The fact is that poor posture most often originates in the lower body, particularly here in the hips, and not in the back as we would think. When we sit all day, our hip flexors remain overly tightened, losing their flexibility in the process. As we will find, this causes a number of problems relating to posture and spinal health.
Protecting Your Spine Against Osteoporosis
Protecting the members of our community who live with bone loss in the spine
When it affects the bones in the back, osteoporosis becomes one of the most serious spinal conditions in the human experience. Even simple motions like giving a hug come with the potential to cause a broken bone in the spine. With this in mind, being proactive about strengthening and stretching the muscles that support the spine is of signal importance. However, any plan for exercising with osteoporosis must be undertaken with an immense amount of care and consideration. At Holmes Chiropractic, we help people with osteoporosis care for their spines by developing exercise plans that avoid potentially hazardous movements and maximize the strength of the supporting musculature.
Where a Woman’s Back Hurts
Certain back pain conditions affect women much more than men
To begin with, women have a greater diversity of primary body shapes than men:
- Apple- triangle downwards; broader shoulders and bust than hips
- Pear-triangle upwards; broader hips than shoulders
- Banana- straighter body type, with a waist that is less than 9 inches than the hips or bust
- Hourglass- triangles opposing and facing inwards
These terms refer to a woman’s skeletal structure and give us key insights into where her body distributes weight, both from muscle and fat; we use this map of weight distribution to determine the source of certain forms of back pain. No matter what your gender or body shape, weight control is an integral part of back care. Yet, as we will find, women are still disproportionately at risk for other back pain conditions.
Commuting More Comfortably in Houston
Houston is infamous for its traffic
This article states that the average worker spends 51 minutes commuting, making Houston the city with the 11th longest average commute in the nation. What’s more, another survey placed Houston 6th in the nation in the category of most stressed out commuters. One of the the more silent victims of our commuter culture is your spine! Most cars are not designed with the human spine in mind; they are often ergonomically negligible. We then combine this lack of support with poor posture and high stress levels which pose a significant threat to our musculoskeletal balance. 51 minutes represents an opportunity or a curse for commuter spines across our community- read on to find out how you can protect your spine against the daily commute.
Mindful Food Choices for Chronic Back Pain
Are you squandering an opportunity when it comes to managing your back pain?
Nutrition, along with exercise, is the best way to manage chronic, daily back pain. Because your embattled spine needs all the support it can get, we are really doing ourselves no favors when we don’t take advantage of nutrition.
Nutrition is the best way to:
- Mitigate inflammation
- Maintain a healthy weight
- Provide your spine with the vitamins, minerals and micronutrients it needs to repair and restore itself
- Support healthy repair and rebuilding of the supportive musculature
So why would we choose foods that literally do the opposite: increase inflammation, body weight and back pain, without giving us anything but a temporary pleasure? The instant gratification of the western diet has many of us trapped in its jaws where it wants us to stay, regardless of our back pain. It’s time to stop squandering this golden opportunity and make the right choices- we can promise you, your back will thank you!
Lower Back Pain Relief: Focus on Food
Nutrition is a powerful way of influencing your spinal health
Along with exercise, nutrition is the best way to manage your back pain on a daily basis. Whether you are looking to keep pain away, or if you are living with chronic back pain, choosing the right foods allows you to provide embattled parts of your body with the nutrients they need to heal and maintain strength. It is also a key way of maintaining a healthy target weight that prevents you from overburdening your spine with excess pounds. The basic dietary formula to account for back pain includes plenty of water, lots of lean proteins and healthy fats. Complex (not simple) carbohydrates are also important for providing vitamins, minerals and fiber to the diet.
Why Ignoring Back Pain Is A Big Mistake
Ignoring your back pain is the worst thing you can do
Humans have an incredible capacity to live with pain, especially the kind that accrues slowly over time like the back pain and dysfunction related to our job. We can ignore it, or worse mask it, and move on with our daily activities; this approach sets us up for a lot of pain and degeneration in the future, but these considerations are subjugated to the importance of the task in front of you. It is amazing how we will let spinal flexibility, resilience, stability and posture fly out the window just because we have to get the job done. At Holmes Chiropractic, we believe that ignoring or actively blocking pain signals is the wrong way of going about things.
Healthy Habits for Hurting Hands
Stiff, sore hands are not something to take lightly!
Tenderness and pain in the joints and tissues of the hands is ubiquitous among office workers due to the repetitive trauma inherent in computer work. If you spend a lot of time interacting with a computer, it behooves you to take measures that will protect your hands so you can avoid conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis. At Holmes Chiropractic, we start with ergonomics- are you setting your hands up for success or future pain? Depending on the level of your wrists and how they rest on the desk, you could be adding more strain than is necessary to your hands. Once ergonomics are in place, you need to be proactive about taking care of your hands. Read on to find out how.