MYOTHERAPY NATIONAL HOTLINE 1-800-221-4634
Master Myotherapist tells his story of discovering Myotherapy and how it has effected many because of his discovery.
John has given to others over 40,000 sessions to empower and relief their own pain 9 minutes
Trigger Points Visually Explained
4 minutes
Stop shuffling along after your hip replacements
Bonnie Prudden how to use your walking tools for exercise. 1 minute 50 seconds
Bonnie Prudden explains Full Range Of Motion Warm-Ups
6 minutes
Laura Lee Master BP Myotherapist demonstrates Myotherapy Proactive Self-care for Torso and Legs using Trigger Points and passive stretches to relieve or remove muscle pain symptoms
7 minutes Enjoy! Love Life And Life Will Love You Back!
It’s important to know a little bit about the woman who started it all Bonnie Prudden was a leading American rock climber in the 1940’s and 1950’s with thirty documented first ascents to her credit in New York’s Shawangunk mountain AKA”The Gunks,” one of America’s perimer rock climbing areas.Along With Hans Kraus, Bonnie Prudden was a pioneering advocate of physical fitness and later developed a form of trigger point therapy called Myotherapy. Using a fitness test devised by doctors Kraus and Sonja Weber of new york Presbyterian Hospital, Bonnie began testing children in Europe, central American and the untied states. The Kraus Weber test involved six simple movements and took 90 second to administer The children tested in Italy, Austria and Switzerland exhibited an eight-percent failure rate In Guatemala the failure rate rose up to twenty-one percent. But it was the Untied states, the richest country in a the world, where failure rate was a whopping fifty-eight percent. Bonnie personally carried her test results to president Dwight D. Eisenhower.Prudden’s report was responsible for the establishing the President’s Council Youth Fitness (now called the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.It also was the beginning of a radical change in America attitudes toward physical fitness.Prudden wrote nineteen (19) books on physical fitness, recorded six exercise albums, hosted the first regular spots on national television , had a syndicated television show, and set up many exercise and fitness programs in schools,hospitals camps, factories ,prison mental institutions and social clubs. In 1992 she moved to Tucson Arizona, where she ran the Bonnie prudden Myotherapy Institute. This remarkable woman died in Tucson, Arizona on December 11,2011, at age 97.
DO YOU HAVE THAT COMING APART FEELING?
Become more in control over your own vitality by learning and experiencing Myotherapy and Natural Healing Proactive Self-Care.
Is it time for you to roll up your sleeves and get on the most amazing journey Natural healing can take you? b Sometimes a whole new World opens up for people, because they don’t realize what is available to them.
Are you or someone you know suffering from headaches, neck aches, back ache, leg ache, or let’s just say any sort of human body ache there is?
If you are?….MYOTHERAPY is one of the secrets to rescue your aching body.
What is MYOTHERAPY?
“Myo” means muscle….”Therapy” means heal…Myotherapy equals “muscle Healing”.
I am a C.B.P.M. (Certified Bonnie Prudden Myotherapist) muscle doctor. I’ve been working with people in pain for over 23 years. The success rate of Myotherapy depends on the person in charge, YOU! 85% of pain is muscle related, muscle are a good place to start.
I can help you, to help yourself get out of pain completely or reduce it tremendously. As a Myotherapist I work with Trigger Points and Passive Stretches.
Trigger Point work stops the pain-spasm-pain cycle at its beginning.
Passive Stretches re-educate the muscles.
A Myotherapist releases and re-educates the muscle to a normal resting state, so the muscle will have a starting point from a neutral position instead of a contracted position which will allow more movement capacity. Muscles have “memory” so muscles can also “forget” what the neutral position is, because the muscle has been in and out of a spasmed state, or has been holding the same spasm for a long, long time. Which by the way takes up a bunch of our energy for the day, holding contraction uses a big portion of our daily energy level.
Muscles can be overused or injured, through repetitive motion such as one receives with sports activities, construction workers using a hammer, playing musical instruments or any work related movement that might cause carpal tunnel syndrome, etc.
Are you or someone you know, suffering from painful, life-altering symptoms? then this is your lucky day. You have just found a pro-active self-care approach to address your pain-generating situation. Myotherpaist’s work with a de-triggering technique with your clothes on and no oil is used. It is not massage. stated simply: Myotherapy is Trigger Point work with Passive Stretches.
You give the therapist feedback while the therapist is working on your muscle by applying ischemic compression to de-trigger the Trigger Point. When the Trigger Point is erased or gone, the start of the cycle has been addressed or stopped.
You may have heard that muscles have memory, so they can forget, and will go back into the spasm if you do not include the follow-up simple passive stretches that only take minutes throughoug the day. It’s said that repetition is the mother of skill so a retraining needs to be established. Between removing the Trigger Points and re-educating the muscles, the person in pain becomes pain-free or their pain is substantially alleviated.
We call this, “active Therapy,” which essentially means:
1) Feedback to the Myothrapist for the location of Trigger Point.
2) Performing the Passive Stretches throughout the day between sessions, only takes two minutes per set four times daily, until pain is gone.
To effectively alleviate pain usually takes around three to six Myotherapy sessions. The goal, is to learn the technique and use it for the rest of your life, to maintain your own muscles. We are soft beings in a hard World, but we have the ability to manage our muscle health and live a vital, healthy, full life.
When you are young, you tell your muscles what to do. When we get older our muscles tell us what to do. They need self-care. furthermore, it’s vitally important to put back into our bodies what is taken out, similar to a deposit/
withdraw system. your health is up to you! Love life and life will love you back.
http//www.:naturalhealingsoulutions.com
Ease your pain coaching offers a special Holiday Special where you get together with 3 of your friends at your home and two therapist a Myotherapist and a Massage Therapist come to your home and offer the experience of a combination of a specific Pain Relief Technique (Myotherapy) with professional massage. It is a phenomenal experience to become proactive in your own self care. Package of $200 or $50 each. 1/2 hour Myotherapy 1/2 hour massage for one full hour each We also bring detox tea. Minimum 4 people call today for ease of your
Baseball injury? Ouch Do You Hurt?
Soulution to Baseball injury with Laura Lee
Ahhhh Myotherapy erases pain
LL Hikers Myotherapy
Laura Lee Waldorf explains the value of “just doin em” while you are engaged in your activity. Passive Stretches and Pro-Active Self-Care go a long way. So while you are on your Hike you can take a break when you ache, and join the many that avoid the
mad- muscle syndrome.
Myotherapy which is addressed Trigger Points along with passive stretches gives you the confidence that you can put the
mad-muscle syndrome to banish.
Just makes sense: get rid of the pain-spasm-pain cycle, then re-educate the muscles so they get to a baseline point, so they can continue doing their job of seperating the bones so we can stand erect. Taking pressure off of the tendons, and ligaments as part of that team. Have fun with these, and also know the power of these exercises when used consistantly. Natural loves consistancy!
REMEMBER: These are only Range Of Motions exercises, if it is taking you much longer then 2-5 minutes, make sure you are doing them correctly, these are not a stretch where you hold, that is strengthening, are goal at this point is to let the muscles get to their normal RESTING STATE, then stretch for strengthening, never forcing the muscles.
Stay tuned for the next video on muscular care for the lower body muscle tips for hikers issues.
TENNIS ANYONE?
Laura Lee Waldorf and Astoria Waldorf demonstrate and explain what can happen to your muscles when it comes to TENNIS. If you are missing out on your game due to muscular injury or pain this is a technique that you can learn to utilize on your own if so desired. Proactive Self-care is key no one but you takes care of your health, and it is all about choice, and taking back 100% responsibility. Yahoo!!
Laura Lee Waldorf Myotherapist explains the passive Stretches for UPPER BODY WARM-UP
Laura Lee Waldorf Myotherapist explains the passive Stretches for SHOULDER/ARM/HAND
Laura Lee Waldorf Certified Master Bonnie Prudden Myotherapist explains the passive Stretches for Hip and Knee pain.
Laura Lee Waldorf Master Myotherapist explains the passive Stretches for Shoulder Pain.
Laura Lee Waldorf Certified Myotherapist demonstrates the passive stretches for Low Back problems. Proactive Self-Care is one of the answers to muscular pain.
Laura Lee Waldorf demonstrates passive stretches for Neck Pain erasure
Laura Lee Waldorf Master Myotherapist explains what to do about Leg,Ankle,Feet pain via passive stretches.
Laura Lee Master Myotherapist explains what to do about Torso Pain via passive stretches.
To find a Myotherapist that will teach you to take care of your muscular pain call:
MYOTHERAPY HOTLINE PHONE NUMBER 1-800-221-4634 OR BonniePruddenMyotherapy.com/LIKE us on FACEBOOK
LL demos Myotherapy For the conversation, therapy Low Back Pain #2
LL demos Myotherapy Tools explained #1
http://www.lauraleewaldorf.com
http://www.naturalhealingsoulutions.com
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LL demostrates Myotherapy tools explained #1. Laura Lee Waldorf a Master Bonnie Prudden Myotherapist demostrates tools that are utilized for self application of Myotherapy. Which is a technique that works with Trigger Points and Passive Stretches which is simple to apply and can give much relief NOW. So be proactive in your own and your loved ones health care by learning this simple technique that can save you a lot of pain and muscle dysfunction. Next video starts with low back pain relief.
Laura Lee Waldorf a Bonnie Prudden Master Myotherapist gives helpful demonstration of working on your own Trigger Points (which cause a lot of muscle spasms). Learn how to apply to yourself and your loved ones to give instant relief of muscle pain.
Laura Lee lets you know the “how to’s” for getting your shoulders back to: before they started to crack-pop-and be stuck which you now live with daily. Learn how to free up your muscles and do the activities you love without limitation!
http://youtu.be/qJum7jO1JuI
805-439-0882
Laura Lee a Certified Master Bonnie Prudden Myotherapist. Demonstrates how to remove TP’s, which are the main source for muscular spasms. Full Range Of Motion exercises keep those muscles reminded of their normal resting state.
Trigger Point Release + Full Range Of Motion= No Spasms! More info: NaturalHealingSoulutions Facebook
Laura Lee a Certified Bonnie Prudden Myotherapist explains Trigger Points for the Low Back.
If you are in any pain that might be muscular Trigger Point work with Full Range of Motion stretches will get you feeling like a new person, with the added bonus of proactive self-care so you can be empowered if your back goes in and out of spasm.
Astoria demonstrates Myotherapy “go home and do exercises for #1 your back”
1) Either get in the habit of doing them daily (for prevention of injury)
2) Doing them as needed, you can’t move your back due to overuse or injury.
This is just part of a series of demonstrating different injury points.
Next are the Neck home exercises. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMcmmIDHO84&feature=related
Pro-active self-care is the main theme when utilizing BP Myotherapy.
Laura Lee explains the benefits and a little bit of the experience when you participate in this form of empowering yourself by doing self-care techniques for your muscles.
Her daughter and her also give free exercises classes on the beach at Avila Beach, CA in front of the Avila Bay Spa & Retreat (next to grocery store) every Saturday from noon to 1pm as a community service, her daughter 10 yrs old is also instructor. Just look for the pallapa (EZ UP) with a Dolphin tied to it. Stop by and she will answer any questions you have on Myotherapy or Natural Healing, she is there until sunset. More info: LauraLeeWaldorf.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4s_KIgFtDE&feature=mfu_channel&list=ULdatetime=”2011-09-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_dXreeyFZM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4s_KIgFtDEv=1vVtezaq_rw
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Come learn practical ways to manage your own and your families health issues!
For more information please call or write to:
Laura Lee Waldorf
Natural Health Consultant
Certified Myotherapist/Exercise Therapist
To The Elks #322 San Luis Obispo
March 2011 Yell Newletter
This months topic is “How To Create Weight Loss” Herbal secrets to transition the body into balance, for ideal individual weight, which is way different then a Diet. Most Diets have you lose weight, lose health, get sick, and give up.
A better plan is to work with your individual body and lifestyle. To integrate lifestyle changes not force them upon you unnaturally, because that is just no fun and the weight usually comes back.
There are individual programs that work naturally and are easy, if it is not easy people quit, we all know that creating ideal weight in such a abundant society is not easy at all.
So lets make it easy, get results and go from there.
You are welcome to come join me and others at the monthly Elks Health Corner on the first Friday of the month during the fish fry in the atrium. You can enjoy your meal and learn tips on health that you might not know is available. It is not about giving up the foods you enjoy, it is about helping your body with your choices.
Health is not a commodity, you have to pay back what you withdraw or expect from your body, make the balance happen by proactive nurturing behaviors and your benefits are huge. Enjoy, I a look forward to serving you with more information in the near future. Because it is not about giving up anything it is about integrating health into your lifestyle, and everything will balance itself out.
May we all be blessed with good health.
Laura Lee Waldorf
805-439-0882
naturalhealthllw@gmail.com
Myotherapy Complete Guide to Pain-Free Living by Bonnie Prudden
How Your Choice Of Occupation sets you up for pain later in life, instead of hurting you can choose to stay on top of your collection of Trigger Points so you can avoid all of that pain stuff.
If I was allergic to anything it would be pain. So avoiding it, just makes life easier.
Myotherapy has kept me feeling pretty great at 52 and I have played a lot of sports, etc. so Myotherapy for me is a life style saver. I know now what it means when it is said that “You ache in the places you used to play”. It is great to know pro-active self care so I can keep on being pain-free and still participating fully in the game of life.
ACCOUNTANTS
To begin with, the accountant is a perfectionist. She directs, orders and controls figures all day, every day. Accountants are accountable. They have enormous responsibilities and pressure. They don’t move out of their chairs, and they are usually bent over their troops of numbers, which represent a very important ingredient in our lives: Money.
Bookkeepers have many of the same personality traits as accountants. They are certainly tied to their chairs and they don’t look forward to payroll day.
Accoutants and bookkeepers and others like them do close work in resposible posiotions, allowing little latitude for error. They suffer from headaches, stiff necks, and shoulder and arm tension that often takes in their writing hands. They can, of course, get low-back pain if their abdominals are weak and their back and hamstring muscles tight. So can anybody.
take the Kraus-Weber minimum musclular fitness test (see exercises) in this blog. Then you will know what muscles are in spasm/weak. Do daily exercise regulary.
Do snap and stretch and backstroke exercises often throughout the day and shrug your shoulders between clients. Check your posture for round back, and if yours has begun to round, check with your Myotherapist to get de-triggered and learn specific exercises you will need to relieve yourself of your pain. Same for a potbelly.
ARTS AND CRAFTS PEOPLE
Arts and Crafts people often suffer from some of the same charcteristics as accountants. They too are perfectionist, but theirs is monitored from within, whereas the accountant is monitored by her balance sheets. If the figures come out right, the accountant can relax and the tensions are off. The Artist (like the writer) usually wants to do the work over immedicately, because it’s not quite what was envisioned. That is the “never-satisfied syndrome.”
Potters develop round backs, and if they turn their wheels with pedals, pain will eventually attack both the legs and the lower back. Since the chest is rarely stretched, they take in less oxygen than they need. Painters who stand at easels all day often develop low-back and leg pain. They blame the latter on varicose veins. Standing also brings on hemorrhoids. those who do miniatures are like the jewelers in their neck, shoulder and hand pain. The sculptor who works with hammer and chisel injures his hands with micro-damage all day.
Arts and Crafts people often ignore sports altogether, since their psyches are fed by the creativity in their work, but who can created well when hands are either twisted with pain or numb? What potter can turn out a lovely vase if he can’t stand straight anymore and is tired all the time from a lack of oxygen and the strain of holding spasmed muscles even partially in line? Overused arms, hands, upper backs, shoulders and chests. Snap and Stretch and Back Stroke are good to do as often as possible or on the hour.
You might try a vigorous warm-up followed by some stretching exercises and see what it does for your arms and hands…….and your work.
Check the surface on which you stand all day. Is it tile over cement? Can you substitute wood?
Most arts and crafts do not of themselves provide releasing movement: quite the opposite, and concentration often builds up to cause unbearable tension in the back and shoulders. The pain and disability, howeer, may show only in the hands and wrists. Don’t wait for pain to signal a problem. You have a problem if yuou have been at your work for more than a few years. Use Myotherapy to tell you where your trigger points are hiding, and get rid of them. follow with the stretching and strengthening exercises and a daily fifteen-minute program designed by you for you. Keep in mind that for you it would be better to exercise for three minutes five times a day than a straight fifteen minutes. Then watch what you new regime does for your Art.
CARPENTERS
Carpenters represent the many builders of our World. Most of them too are perfectionists, for when they are less, nothing fits.The carpenter is luckier, howecer, than say, the mechanic and the mason, because the craft requires hjim to use many muscles in various ways, and you certainly can’t build a house while sitting in a chair. The job has a built-in physical-fitness program.
When the carpenter does hurt, however, it is usually her shoulders, lower back or legs. Myotherapy should become part of her life, every ache and pain followed up, giving special attention to the legs. Deep knee bends should be done often during the workday to keep the legs strong and well flushed.
If one must stand long hours, blood has a tendency to pool in the legs. The results of poor circulation can be seen in ugly, crusty toenails, swollen ankles and slow healing. Since the carpenter works for strength all day, but does nothing for flexibility, a good fifteen minutes will be needed for warm-up and stretch. Running in place None of the carpenter’s work causes increased heartbeat rate or hard work for the lungs.
It is usually the carpeter’s back that is strained and hands that are injured. Keep the arms, chest and upper back free of trigger points, so that should an injury be sustained, healing will be fast and pain kept to a minimum. for the carpenters The points for the carpenters low back are usually under circles 1,2 and 3,with extra attention to 11.
CLEANERS
Cleaners, whether they be housecleaners or commercial cleaners, have a better shake in one way than those who sit for their work. They have to move. The living creature fares better when it moves than when it is sedentary, whether the reason be occupation, hobby, age or condition.
The dangers in cleaning jobs come from having to move furniture if the back is already a refuge for trigger points. If yu get up from a kneeling position and put your hands in the small of your back praying for “quitting time”, you bought the problem to the job, you didn’t get there. Remember: the “precipitating incident” is rarely the cause of the pain. Check your whole body with seeking massage and get your trigger points erased, and then set up a fifteen-minute a day exercise program using the exercises your Myotherapist suggests.
DENTISTS
Dentists and violinists have the same trigger-point patterns, because they assume similar awkward postures for their work. Both hold those positions for many hours a day. Both do very fine work requiring enormous concentration. the violinist is better off, however, because no one is afraid of her.
The dentist stands next to her chair or half leans on a stool, and the lbood pools in her legs. This gives her heart an extra load. Her back is strained and so are her neck, arms, wrists and hands. Many dentists complain of wrist pain so bad it could lead to the operation for “carpal tunnel syndrome”, which rarely gets rid of the pain, because that wasn’t the trouble in the first place.
The dentist will have trigger points at the back of the head under the skull ridge, right down the neck on each side where the muscles attach to the vertibrae, shoulders and all over the upper back. The chest will need work, for, like the potter, the dentist contracdts the pectorals. The low-back pain is no different from anyone else’s low-back pain. The trouble will be in the gluteals and the groin. The dentist’s arms and neck will need doing, but the arms of the dental hygienist will be everfn worse than the dentist, because she constantly rotates the lower arm as she scales teeth, roughtly between ten and thirty-two to a customer.
Both these professionals need to do deep knee bends between patients, and waist twists and flexibility bounces whenever they leave the office for any reason. Walking would be a great help to offset standing and leaning all day; the least they can settle for is fifteen minutes of calisthenics.
DRIVERS
In America everyone is, was or wants to be a driver of something. People who drive cars for an occupation and sit long hours with one foot on the pedal get low-back pain and “sciatica.” Truck drivers who sit with one foot on the peddle and one foot on the clutch shifting up and down all day, get low-back pain and sciatica. Both have shoulder tension and, quite often, stiff necks Give most occupationalodrivers the ROM test for the neck, even though they don’t have pain…..yet. Work on the neck, the upe]per back, the axilla, pectorals, arms and hands. If you do it for them when they get in from the trip asnd again before they take off, you can help a lot. They will have to do the ecercises, and if you can get them to do exercises for one week often during the dsay, they may feel so good they won’t need a nursemaid asking if they’ve done their exercises. Give them a BODO to keep next to teh flashlight. Both are for emergencies.
Low-back pain and “sciatica” need back, groin and leg work. Lee out one of the triad and the pain will be back the next day becore you can drive to the first customer.
Pilots belong in a class with cab drivers and bus drivers. They are all locked in., they all deal with the public and there is danger in all their jobs. All three develop low-back pain and shoulder pain, but the bus driver who uses a door lever every few blocks ruins his upper back first.
For all these people, trigger-point work is esential, as is a bodo handy should a trigger p9oint heat up while en route. Warm-ups from time to time for ever a few partial warm-ups would help. Waist twists, snap-and-stretch and backstroke, flexibility bounces, and deep knee bends are essential. Teh person who sits all day hinders circulation as much as the one who stands. The thighs are squeezed, the legs work mostly from teh groin and, while the gluteals are contracted over and over, they are never stretches. Nor is anything else.
ELECTRICIANS
These people are in a very risky business for one special reason: the screwdriver. The electrician moves around a lot, but the moves her hands and arms make are small, usually screwing and unscrewing fixtures. Sometimes there is so much spasm in the electrician’s arms that she cannot straighten them at the elbows. Start trigger-point work in the chest, upper back and axilla. Move down the arms when you have finished those areas. The every-day-and-often exercises would be the snap and stretch and the backstroke plus the arm twist.
Most electricians, like most men are very inflexible and while it did not seem to matter to their PE teachers it will matter very much to the man who developes back pain and still has two houses to wire before his assistant gets back from vacation. Female electricians are usually more flexible, as are women in general, but their arms will be exactly in the same danger.
EXECUTIVES
Mr. and Ms. Executive have all kinks of pressure, which makes them tnese,and tense muscles shorten. In the corporate gym you can work out on the machines, which consist of weight, treadmills, stationary bikes and rowing machines. Nothing, however, is done for the three very real needs: flexibility, rhythm and relaxation.
Take to the stairs when you can, and walk when you can. Ask yourself itf you can tae some time off, and if yourself says, “No way,” call a meeting. Get yourselves all together, you the decision maker… and look across the table at you the tnese, tired, overweight or drawn worker with the backaches, weekly migraines, “tenniselbow” that ruined your game…and exhaustion. What’s it all for?
If your life is sedentary, prepare for your sport. If you do play golf, know that it’s not enough. Tennis tightens muscles, and so you need both calisthenics andstretch. If you jog, get off the road. If you ride horseback, your legs need stretch and your lungs and heart a different workout. If you musht stay in there pitcfhing, then be physically fit of the fight. If you aren’t, something else may give and it could be your joie de vivre.
One thing more: the fit person is usually aggressive. Does your job call for the aggressive approach? You bet it does.
FARMERS
Farmers’ work is never done, and that’s the crux of their problem. they strain backs lifting feed saacks, they wrench shoulders trying to get stubborn cows to git-on-out or -in. Every part of them gets rattled on the tractor, and their hands are bruised from writst to fingertip. The trouble is, there’s no way they can stop what they are doing, because every day there’s sunup; Nature doesn’t take vacations.
Farmers are usually inflexible too and have been that way since childhood chores stared their muscles into tight patterns. Warm-ups should be followed by lots of stretch exercise. Farmers’ problems could be anywhere and everywhere, and while the job keeps them moving and strong, they do need (like the weight lifter) to stretcfh after each chore. Do flexibility bounces and the snap and stretch plus backstroke. Many farmers have shortened pectorals from overwork, and consequently, rounded backs.
HAIRDRESSERS
Hairdressers combine the worst of three jobs: psychology, dentistry and ars and crafts. They stand at an awkward learn all day. Their craft will be judged within the hour of, every hour. And women pour their troubles,hopes, fears and angers all over them. The Barber is better off; all he hears is game scores.
For an awkward stance there is one help: get a chair that goes up and down. For the conversation there is really nothing, but at least know how valuable you are. Better by far than Valium, and without you there would be many more suicides. you ar often the only one who appears to listen and the only one who really looks and then says a kind word. A hairdresser that says “Your good for another 1,000 miles, every time he finishes a client. They could shoot him, and sooner or later they go elsewhere. I also know one that never forgets what her clients say, she knows their worries and all about their loves, where they are going and who is coming to dinner. They all want her to do their hair…or is their hearts? , and for it, it is exhausting and for it you need strength, a good back and good legs. Don’t forget the hairdresser has the artist’s hands.
The hairdresser needs 15 minutes a day of calisthenics to music. In addition, do deep knee bends in between clients. The body is held erect all day facing straight forward and needs waist twists. Every time you go for supplies, do the flexibility bounces.
MEDICS DOCTORS/NURSES
The word covers a lot of people. Surgeons stand all day on cement doing concentrated work often under pressure. They get backaches. The anesthetist is either bored to death or in a panic. Some of the worst catastrophes in surgery happen when the anesthetist pulls the wrong plug. They all know it and live with the anxiety. They also wear heavy lead aprons to protect them against X rays. An anesthetist’s days are very sedentary indeed.
One shortcut to better health is to leave the elevators to the patients. You need at least a half hour a day of exercise to offset your job. Nurses often have to lift heavy patientsp that jeans back pain for most. They have to lift heavy patients; that means back pain for most. They walk on cement all day every day: leg pain. They stand on cement and their feet hurt. They came out of high school, where the had no P.E. and right into nursing school, where the administration is not one bit smarter than the one in the high school and there is no thought given to physical improvement. When we tested nurses with the Kraus-Weber minimum muscular fitness test, over 50% couldn’t pass.
The nurse neeeds a daily exercise program. And stay away from “aerobic dance” unless you want to add insult to injury plus shin splints. Weight training could give the edge necessary for lifting. This is expecially important for those working with the handicapped, who have very unpredictable movement habits.
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Then there is the X-ray technician, who lifts patients all day long and also walks and stands on cement;; the phychiatrist, who sits in a chair all day; the pathologist, who peers into microscopes; and the hematologist, who does the same thing. If you run the gamut of medical personnel, you find that they are more at risk then many of their patients. Their record of drug addiction, alcoholism and suicide speaks eloquently of unbearable stess. One of the brs ways to lower stress levels is with physical outlets, Medical schools, too, have been criminally negligent about the young people within their halls. It is almost as though they have not yet discovered that the body is in league with the brain for good or evil.
See if the most important doctor, nurse or technician in your world doesn’t deserve a little care and pampering. The only patient who can’t do without you is you.
MUSICIANS
Musicians are a very special breed. They are artists, with all the discontent of the a artists; they seek perfection, like the accountant; they are the athletes of the art world, and they are sinned against by ignorant teachers fromt he very start. There is no physical education provided for the musician in the American school system. The musician dares not use valuable, highly trained fingers for the games of baseball, basketball or football. Even something as dull as volleyball with twenty to a side (the usual fare) has the potential for ruining a hand. And that is usually the end of the program.
Music schools are no better when it comes to caring for the young artists than schools for nurses and doctors. So from the start the sturdents lack full range of motiion, so necessary for health and art.
If you have youngsters in your family who show promise as musicians, start now to provide physical outlets. They can walk, hike, swim, run (cross-country), not on the road, or you’ll do in, their legs and backs). bike, dance and do exercises to music. They can jump on their mini-tramps and they can jump rope. For the artist, remember; full range of motion every day for every muscle and joint. No traction and no slings unless Myotherapy fails, which it has not done so far with musicians. Since well-known pianist was returned to the concert stage by Myotherapy, we have had hundreds of musicains flocking to our clinics. They want to save their careers and they want to play without pain. You are the only one who can do that for you.
Most music teachers, like too mayn doctors, do not realize that the whole body is involved and that the entire body is interdepentdent. The whole child comes for a music lesson, and the whole artist plays the concert too and just a little weakness in merely two little fingers is as good as a death knell.
If you are the theacher, read this with a finger pointed straight at yourself. If you are good enough and the right pupil comes to you, you may develop a Rubenstein. Many artists in the past lost their art to muscle spasms. Their teachers were no help in saving them. but you, the teacher, can take precautions and help your students. Teach them that the body is not composed merely of hands. teach them to exercise it, to care for it and to keep the muscles free of spasm. Each of them is and has an Amati, the whole beautifully fashioned, strung and tuned body. The only instrument that is really and truly one’s own.
PAINTERS
Painters have innumerable danger areas. When they paint overhead, they damage the shoulder, upper back, axilla and arm. Simply holding the paintbrush constantly in the same hand and using it the same way over and over again injures many muscles with micro-damage over the yeras. Paintes rarely, if ever, sit down; worse, not only do they stand up, they stand on ladders. Ask anuone who has balanced on ladders for a lifetime of work, what the fronts of his legs are like. If they look all right when you ask, question further: “Did you ever have sores or calluses on the fronts of your shins?” Of course she did. How else but by putting pressure on the tipped down-feet and the rung-supported lower leg can he stand up there? The anterior tibilalis will have plenty of trigger points and may well be causing the leg pain he’s had for ten years. Then there’s the lean-out from the pelvis and the lean-over supported by one leh and the opporsite hand. All of it is strain. Intermittent strain the healthy body can usually stand. Constant strain is different; it’s like Selye’s stress. He says that stress is like carrying a pain of water in one hand. At first the body adapts. It rearranges its normally balanced self to accommodate the uneven strain. For a while it seems to do fairly well, but actually isn’t doing well at all. Here and ther, parts breaks down and ultimately exhaustion sets in. shortly after that, if nothing is done to relieve the stress, the organism dies of exhaustion. The painter hangs out, in and over for years.
Then there’s the back. Very few painters survive without at least one encounter with a runaway ladder. The ladder runs away when it is being moved a few feet along along a wall or around a corner. The taller the ladder the better the chance for a runaway. The base is lifted from the ground for the move while the upper end of the ladder is pulled away fromt the roof. All it takes is a misstep, an errant breseze or an error in judgment as to the angle, and the ladder can tip sideways or over backward, or, worst of all, start to swing around in either direction. Sometimes the tired back can’t interrupt the tip or swing. It’s exactly the same as trying to keep the car on the road to prevent an accident. The holding can tear up the back. Such damage can be far worse than what might happen if the car rolled into the ditch.
Painters need stretch, and while they probably think calistenics are for the birds or ballet dancers, they often do them very well and come to enjoy the swinging movements. If you watch them paint, many of them keep time to the radio as they work.
Do trigger points on painters as you would for a professional athlete, always when comes off the field and the other off the house. Always too when either complains of an ache anywere. Watch for sustitution. That’s when they begin to make awkward movements. trying to do th job with an arm that won’t reach full range anymore, or, heaven forbid! a hand that can’t hold on. You may not see it on the job, but check when teeth are brushed in the morning or hair is combed: they take pictures, and they develop them. In order to take pictures, they need equipment, and the
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Most photographers do two terrible things to themselves; they take pictures, and they develop them. In order to take pictures, they need equipment, and the equipment today is even heavier than in ancient times, when it consisted of a tripod, a black sheet, a box and plates. The camera man who is afflicted with a MiniCam, such as news photgraphers carry on one shoulder, is like the “aerobic dancer” and the football player. He can’t say to himself, “If I get hurt; he has to say, “When I get hurt.”
Camera people have deadlines, and they may get only one chance at the shot. Those are both causes for tension. Where will the tension hit? Sonce he or she stands on cement, or tile over cement, most of the time, it’s bound to be legs and back. But then there is the problem of carrying a heavy weight over one shoulder for hours each day. That pain could be shoulder, arm, neck, ear, jaw, hand or upper, mid or lower back…or groin.
The good thing about taking pictures is the many angles the body is forced into and out of in search of still better angels for shots. Photographers need some other activity besides carrying a camera case with four special lenses and enough film for any emergency. He or she, and most of the time she is more flexible than he but just as vulnerable, needs calisthnics, mini-tramp, jumping rope, stretch exercises and a dear friend who will “do” the back after “one of those days.”
PLUMBERS
Plumbers do a lot of things designed to hurt the human frame. They thread pipes and strain the pectorals. They turn themselves into pretzels and crawl around hot pipes. They run into live steam and wrestle heavy coduit, they slip on wet or greasy floors, they take pratfalls with machines in their arms and fall off of unsteady platforms. When a plumber is called on in an evergency, it’s usually due to a valve that’s already under four feet of water or every pipe in the house is frozen and the toilet bowl is cracked.
The plumber, whatever else hurts, will have trigger points in the pectorals, the trapezius, the axilla, both arms, both hands and the small of his back. I know there are female plumbers these days they will hurt in all the same places. It isn’t the sex that determines the pain, it’s the job. Condition does matter, however,and the weak or inflexible plumber who gets hurt all the time should take up another profession. There’s no such thing as a weak plumber—only ex-weak plumbers.
To be safe, clear the danger areas of trigger points. Build strength with weight bags used in every direction. Don’t forget warm-ups and stretch.
POLICE
“A policeman’s lot is not appy one…..” and several police staff agree. They sit, ost of their days, patrolling in cars. When actionis fcalled for they havce to start from a sitting position after perhaps hours of almost total inaction. The aciton is often dangerous, scary and extreme. Such action tears up cold muscles, although in the heat of the fhase, they may not discover the injury. This is true also of soldiers in battle. The most incredible deeds are done with severely wounded muscles, and then later, when the danger is past, the pain sets in and one is made to “notice” that something has happened. In the case of the policeman there may ve a Charley horse to contend with and then, a few days later, it will be forgotten. Forgotten by the policeman or woman but not by the muscles. They don’t forget anything. Years later, a slip, even a trip, and the back gors into extreme spasm, hospital-bed kind, called “clinical”.
Police are not happy with their image, any more than dentists are. I’m scared of the dentist before I even get there. I am also scared when I hear that siren. Most of the time, neither of them mean me any ill, but I can’t get something inside to accept that. The frightening image bothers some cops, and then of course there’s that gun at his side and the billy club and all those stories. Police don’t like those, either. They are very aware that some nut could end everything for them, and what salary is worth that? There’s a lot of tension and not much respect or remuneration. Small injuries and tense situations unite to cause much-more-serious injury, with pain to match. Finding potentially painful spots in seemingly OK muscles would help. How do you know where the potentially painful spots are? You use seeking massage.
The physical buildup at the police academy was good, but then what? Did you keep it up? Are you ijn good enough shape to handle most things? If not, there are plenty of exercises to choose from. Do them with weights and don’t forget that other side of weight training: stretch.
SECRETARIES
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Secretaries have a good image, but rarely the one they want or deserve, and this takes a toll. Secretaries work at a desk sitting in the same positiion hour after hour, making little letters fall in line as accountants make figures come out even. They too are perfectionists or they lose their jobs. If they lose too many jobs they have no references. They are underpaid for what they do most of the time, and their days are so predictable. “Living from day to day is so daily”. But: that’s the emotional side. The physical side comes in two words joined with a hyphen: micro-trauma. If you type away hour after hour, you use one set of muscles only, and you use them only one way. There is never any stretch to offset the constant contractions. If the secrfetary copies material, she always turns her head in the same direction. The desks are built that way. Her chair allows for no change of positon. Her desk doesn’t either. If she uses a computer video terminal, her eyes fight reflection. If the corporation has a gym and she goes, she will almost certainly be bored. It wasn’t meant for her. If she is “of a certain age” she won’t go near the place. She feels it’s for the younger set, in the shorts and tight T-shirts. She is probably right. Few go for fitness, and if they did they probably wouldn’t find too much of it. But, whats a secretary to do? Find something that is fun and engaging, there are so many ways to keep moving, pick one or more and embrace them.