5 Important Self Care Suggestions for Higher Muscle and Joint Well being

The Betty Rocker (00:16):

What’s up, rockstar Coach Betty Rocker right here. Thanks a lot for becoming a member of me. It’s nice to get to spend a while with you at present. I used to be simply interested by, you already know, how usually we simply leap right into a exercise after which once we’re accomplished we race on to the subsequent factor on our record. <chortle>, on this tremendous busy world with limitless to-do lists, it’s very easy to overlook that the vessel that carries us by way of all of it actually does want some tending. Typically the one time we spend in our our bodies is the time we spend exercising, however actually taking the time to take care of our our bodies really units us as much as have higher outcomes from our exercises, to stay longer and to expertise rather a lot much less accidents and setbacks, and in addition to return again stronger after we’ve perhaps had an damage or a setback. So, you already know, growing extra proactive self-care practices could not sound just like the quick monitor to health, however I guarantee you it’s an integral part, particularly as soon as we hit perimenopause and key hormones, significantly estrogen begin to decline.

(01:18)
We simply don’t bounce again as rapidly from our exercises at that time. We wanna, you already know, actually begin taking note of not over coaching as we had been speaking about in one other latest podcast. And we additionally wanna begin simply paying extra consideration to the well being of our joints as we’re making much less collagen and elastin than we used to. Any stage in life is an effective time to be proactive with conserving your muscle tissue wholesome, however it’s actually important for ladies in peri and publish menopause. It’s possible you’ll want just a little extra of a warmup even earlier than your exercises than you used to. And should you’re coaching at a better quantity as in resistance coaching with heavier weights or doing numerous excessive depth interval coaching, you positively wanna be warming up going into your exercise as this can actually assist stimulate that synovial fluid that lubricates your joints and warms up the encircling tissue so as to simply transfer higher.

(02:10)
And generally, you already know, you should use the start of a exercise to heat up by easing into it at a low depth. That’s a very nice and simple technique to have a warmup. However if in case you have the time, you already know, attempt getting on a foam curler and spending a couple of minutes warming up the fascial connective tissue and making ready to your coaching or do some dynamic warmup strikes that stimulate the muscle mass you’re making ready to coach and, and simply mobilize your joints just a little bit. So should you’re resistance coaching, as an example, it’s at all times advisable to do a lighter set while you’re simply beginning out. And should you’re unsure what to do for a warmup, take a cue from the exercise itself and easily carry out a number of the strikes of the exercise with your individual physique weight and, and stretch and bend and transfer round dynamically or at a decrease depth than plan to coach at.

(03:00)
I positively don’t counsel numerous static stretching earlier than a exercise. You wanna save that for after your exercise when your muscle mass are already heat. And talking of post-workout, that could be a nice time to do this. Calm down stretch, your muscle mass are heat out of your exercise so you’ll be able to maintain your stretches longer and simply breathe into them extra. And this can be a actually wholesome technique to transition from an intense exercise session and convey your coronary heart price down. And it additionally helps your joint well being and your mobility. And mobility simply means the vary of movement a joint can undergo. Flexibility is the quantity we will stretch our muscle mass since muscle connects to tendons that cross joints, mobility and adaptability are actually intimately linked and we wish to deal with them each in our self-care. Our estrogen ranges impression the stretch capability of our ligaments and tendons and our capability to strengthen our muscle tissue.

(03:51)
In order these ranges begin to decline, together with the declining ranges of collagen that assist help the cartilage and bone tissue, we wanna be interested by our common practices that help our muscle and joint well being. That’s why including issues like mobility drills or yoga classes on relaxation days is admittedly nice too as a result of you already know, enhancing your flexibility helps your muscle tissue keep supple and attentive to resistance coaching and retains your joints wholesome too. In case you’re following one in every of my Rock Your Life Problem applications, not solely do you may have customized tracks for each program primarily based on which stage of life you might be in, you may have devoted practices for self-care, like yoga and mobility constructed proper into your coaching applications. Plus you even have entry to all the class library that features tons of stretching movies, mobility drill lessons, and yoga practices. So you’ll be able to at all times simply add that in as a bonus.

(04:44)
I additionally wanna point out that you already know, staying hydrated is admittedly necessary to your muscle and joint well being as nicely. So preserve ingesting water all through the day and drink extra while you’re exercising. And I’m positive you already know the significance of normal motion all through the day, but it surely’s value mentioning that we wanna be conscious of our posture in our day-to-day life. Because you’re right here with me proper now, let’s take a second and simply sort of examine in with ourselves, tune into the posture you’re sitting in or standing in as you might be listening to me. Possibly you’re strolling or driving or doing one thing else, however you’ll be able to positively simply tune into your posture and see how are you holding your head and neck and what posture are your shoulders in? How are your hips proper now? Since our eyes are in entrance of our heads, a lot of the issues we do in our day-to-day life occur in entrance of us.

(05:32)
So we’ve got this kind of ahead movement tendency from driving to shoveling the snow and raking the leaves to gardening, utilizing our pc, consuming, sitting on the sofa, ingesting tea. We’re at all times in these ahead dealing with positions with our arms in entrance of ourselves. So should you sit at a desk or a pc for work, you wanna take into consideration the posture you’re in there. And should you regularly are wanting down at your telephone, you wanna actually take into consideration the posture that your head and neck and your shoulders get into as a result of the muscle mass which can be working whilst you do all of these issues in entrance of you might be your chest muscle mass and the opposite muscle mass within the entrance of your physique that make these ahead actions. And that’s simply effective. They’re meant to do all of these actions. However what occurs once we’re in these postures for lengthy durations of time and we don’t use the muscle mass on the alternative aspect of our physique as a lot, is we begin to get a bit stronger within the muscle mass that work on a regular basis and a bit weaker within the muscle mass that don’t do very a lot work.

(06:32)
And we additionally begin to tackle these kind of recurring postures of these positions in our actions outdoors of our work or outdoors of the occasions we’re habitually in them. And we begin to create these patterns in our our bodies and the muscle mass which can be just a little extra used begin to pull extra on the bones that they connect to. So we’ll, we’ll preserve speaking concerning the shoulders for example. That shoulder joint or your rotator cuff is a really shallow ball and socket joint. So you’ll be able to image the pinnacle of the humerus because the ball head and it sits on this very shallow dish of your shoulder and, and we’ve got this good big selection of movement that’s out there at that joint consequently, proper, that that joint can transfer very freely in a pleasant large circle. And the steadiness of this joint depends on the muscle mass that come and encompass that joint from all of those totally different angles.

(07:23)
And a number of the muscle mass that connect to your shoulder come out of your chest, some come out of your again and a few come from beneath your arm in your armpit space. And it’s the relative power of those muscle mass to one another that impacts the steadiness of this joint. So again to our instance, if we’re at all times utilizing the entrance physique muscle mass as a result of we see in entrance of us and barely utilizing the again physique muscle mass, the shoulder joint slowly turns into imbalanced as a result of we’re inadvertently strengthening these entrance physique muscle mass continually and the issues we do with out utilizing the again muscle mass as a lot. And that’s the place that relative power begins to grow to be unstable. You possibly can most likely image an aged particular person, somebody who walks with their head tilted ahead and their shoulders rounded ahead. And that is an instance of what can occur to us over time once we’re in postures of ahead movement. So chronically with little or no to no motion within the opposing route. So you already know, what’s the answer? Effectively, first we will simply tune in once we’re sitting for lengthy durations of time and easily reset our posture by bringing these shoulders again and down opening our chest. Possibly you wanna take a pleasant deep breath in proper now with me,

(08:37)
Take one other good deep breath in. And on this subsequent breath discover as you breathe, how that buoys your chest opens you up, naturally brings your shoulders again and down. Do this once more.

(08:52)
And the subsequent breath that you simply do with me as you breathe out, simply maintain your physique in that place that you simply felt as you breathed in and also you expanded your chest. So go forward and do yet one more good deep breath. After which simply as you exhale, discover the place of alignment that your physique can come into as you breathe, as you are taking that good deep breath. And keep in mind that respiratory extra totally and deeply is admittedly useful for our physique and, and our mind and our considering capability. So we actually wanna watch out of not being in that continual rounded head ahead, continual rounded, shoulder ahead collapsed chest, which impacts our breath and our capability to get sufficient oxygen and, and we will rise up and we will stretch our chest open extra, which helps relieve and loosen up these hardworking muscle mass. And, and also you won’t really feel like they’re working tremendous exhausting due to course you’re, you’re simply at your desk otherwise you’re your telephone or all the issues that you simply’re doing together with your arms in entrance of you, they aren’t particularly train, however these repetitive motions over time do name on these muscle mass greater than the opposite muscle mass that encompass the shoulder joint.

(09:59)
So going past that, we wanna simply begin extra mindfully coaching and strengthening these again physique muscle mass in our train routines. And being conscious we’re not over coaching our entrance physique muscle mass in those self same train routines as a result of what I see occur generally are issues like pushup challenges or plank challenges, and immediately we pile on prime of our day by day posture of ahead movement and train that additionally targets those self same muscle mass for like the subsequent 30 days contributing to additional imbalance. Or, you already know, say we begin a brand new exercise program, even a balanced one, however as a result of we’re not considering of how we’re utilizing our our bodies day by day outdoors of the gymnasium or outdoors of our exercises, we find yourself growing extra power within the entrance aspect of our physique and the bottom by no means catches up. We would have an imbalance from taking part in a sport once we had been youthful or an outdated damage that by no means fairly acquired higher.

(10:51)
Typically folks will even really feel ache of their shoulder after they’re understanding and ignore it, considering that that’s the great ache you’re alleged to get from train. However really we’re simply focusing on the identical muscle mass which have continued to be overworked from our day by day actions and even our job and the again physique muscle mass can’t sustain and so they stay unable to structurally steadiness out the shoulder joint. So we find yourself with an much more compromised joint and that misalignment begins within the shoulder after which it begins to translate down into the elbow and even the wrist as a result of once we do these pushups as an example, and our shoulder isn’t in the fitting place, say it’s ahead, we’re additionally now weight bearing down by way of the elbow joint and into the wrist joint in a compromised place. This isn’t inevitable in fact, and it’s not taking place to each single particular person.

(11:35)
I simply share this particular instance with the shoulder joint as a result of rotator cuff accidents are so frequent. And I believe it actually helps to listen to how issues can develop as a result of it’s not simply the shoulder joint the place this collection of occasions can play out. I’m simply utilizing it for example. I imply, take into consideration legs and your hips and pelvis and the motions that you simply use day after day. Possibly you’ve even had a previous damage and have scar tissue buildup that restricts your motion patterns or a automotive accident that impacted your vary of movement. The underside line is that what we wanna do is bear weight on a aligned joints, whether or not we’re simply strolling round bearing our personal physique weight or we’re loading ourselves up with dumbbells or barbells as a result of our muscle and skeletal methods are interconnected because the muscle mass connect with our bones. So if muscle develops in an imbalanced means throughout a joint and never solely pulls that joint within the route of the stronger aspect, it could possibly additionally create these compensating motion patterns all through different elements of your physique in addition to ache.

(12:37)
And because of this we simply actually wanna tune in and be extra conscious of our day by day posture and alignment in addition to the alignment we’re in with our exercises and our common proactive self-care practices like stretching and our mobility drills and all of those useful ideas that we had been speaking about. Now in case the shoulder occurs to be a joint that you simply personally wanna carry extra stability to, you can tune into strikes that I educate rather a lot like cactus arms. That’s the place you both lie in your again or stand in opposition to a wall together with your arms again in a cactus place or goalpost place, and then you definitely slowly elevate them up and down whereas your elbows, wrists, and shoulders are touching that floor. And also you discover how this opens and stretches your chest whereas additionally activating your again muscle mass. You can even begin including in additional rows of every type, like vast grip rows, excessive pull rows, slim grip rows, single arm rows and strikes like reverse flies, superwoman lifts, swimmers, all of these strikes that concentrate on and strengthen your again muscle mass.

(13:40)
And also you’ll see these in all of my totally different exercise applications. There are fundamental strikes that I actually like to do regularly the place you stand simply together with your arms out at your sides at shoulder top and also you level your thumbs behind you and pulse them again. That is gonna interact the muscle mass between your shoulder blades as nicely and open and stretch your chest. You can even do that very same place holding a stretchy band to provide your self just a little extra resistance to drag in opposition to and even additional interact these again muscle mass. So all of these kinds of workout routines can actually aid you to activate the opposing muscle mass in your shoulder joint that act in the wrong way of that ahead motion. And that may actually aid you begin to carry steadiness into the shoulder, uh, and the rotator cuff. You can even tone down the depth of chest workout routines in your coaching program should you’re working in the direction of balancing out that again physique power.

(14:34)
If that is one thing that you simply suppose impacts you, you’ll be able to simply extra mindfully stretch your chest muscle mass, particularly should you sit for lengthy durations. Like should you’re working together with your arms in entrance of you at a pc and you already know, simply begin to actually be extra conscious of, of the, of how intensely you’re, you’re doing chest workout routines together with again strengthening workout routines in your total exercise plan. You may wanna tone it down on the chest stuff and perhaps tone it up with the the again stuff that may be actually useful. So this this, if this is applicable to you, I simply wished to share this since we had been speaking about rotator cuff and, and that’s one thing that’s actually frequent for lots of people. Bear in mind, in case you are sitting and dealing for lengthy durations of time, you actually wish to tune into your shoulder alignment, carry your shoulders again and down, try this respiratory exercise that we simply did collectively a couple of minutes in the past.

(15:26)
Reset your head and convey it upright should you’re kind of rounding or dropping it ahead. Take a look at your place of your pc should you’re a pc rather a lot and ensure that it’s at eye degree and also you’re not having to look down. You wanna rise up and stretch and transfer round just a little bit extra. And you already know, your head and neck are a giant a part of this dialog, that recurring ahead head posture is usually a enormous downside for those that causes complications and neck ache. So actually work in your physique consciousness and your exercises of conserving your head and neck aligned together with your backbone and convey that into your day by day life as nicely. The entire muscle mass in our our bodies that act on joints have an agonist and antagonist or muscle mass with opposing actions like flexion and extension. This helps create stability round your joints, your biceps and your triceps are one instance that’s simple to image.

(16:14)
Your quads and hamstrings are one other one. And each of these examples cross two joints so the biceps and triceps connect throughout your shoulder and elbow joint, as an example. So imbalances within the shoulder joint can impression the best way you’re utilizing these muscle mass, which is likely one of the causes I say instability within the shoulder can translate down into your elbow and even your wrist. Your quads and hamstrings cross each the hip and the knee joint. So should you sit rather a lot, your hamstring is in a shortened place and your quads are in a lengthened place. And over time that shortened hamstring can pull your pelvis out of alignment, inflicting again ache and restriction of your vary of movement. So that you may contemplate the place your ft are in all through the day. How is the footwear you may have on and the way is that impacting your foot and ankle alignment and the way is that translating up by way of your knee and into your pelvis?

(17:03)
In case you’ve come to any of my lessons, you most likely have seen me coaching barefoot. And one of many causes I do it is because I simply discover it simpler to steadiness and convey power into my ft and ankles after they’re transferring freely all through my exercises. With out the interference of like a typical sneaker, I generally will put on a barefoot shoe, which additionally permits my toes to separate as a result of that’s one other a part of foot stability and ankle stability. And when your toes are capable of separate, say you’re leaping, it’s the muscle mass in between your toes that had been made to really take in shock from weight bearing strikes. Now in fact, the physique wasn’t actually made to leap on actually exhausting non-GI surfaces like concrete or asphalt and a sneaker can actually assist present a few of that shock absorption that we’d like if we’re on these kinds of surfaces rather a lot.

(17:50)
However you already know, should you aren’t leaping on a tough floor, you won’t want that very same quantity of absorption. And should you can start to strengthen your ft and also you do attempt, resolve to do some barefoot coaching, I I simply actually counsel easing into it. And don’t, don’t simply begin all, all of sudden as a result of your ft will want just a little time to develop the power. And also you’ll additionally wanna tune into your foot alignment, identical to we’re speaking about with any of those different joints. And we simply wanna ensure that we could have some, some patterns in our ft and underdeveloped muscle mass that make it more durable to be steady as we’re beginning out. In order that’s simply an space to experiment with and take gradual. However the backside line is your ft and their alignment, whether or not you’re barefoot or in a shoe, goes to affect the best way that your knee joint traces up and the best way that your pelvis traces up.

(18:36)
The pelvis could appear to be a set kind of tilted bowl, however really it’s separate bones which can be linked by actually sturdy ligaments and it could possibly transfer and shift. As an illustration, should you’ve had youngsters, there’s a particular hormone launch to loosen up the muscle mass and joints and ligaments throughout being pregnant and assist your physique stretch and accommodate the start. Nevertheless, after you’ve had youngsters, the pelvis could not have merely gone proper again to its unique place and it may be barely rotated or a bit off kilter. One thing related can occur to the pelvic bones should you’ve been in a automotive accident or had an damage. And until you’ve obtained care to realign these constructions, it could find yourself staying that means or sort of coming again to hang-out you. That’s really my scenario. I nonetheless go to bodily remedy to assist me overcome a number of the patterns that occur in my pelvis from outdated automotive accidents and bike crashes I had in my teenagers and twenties.

(19:28)
And talking of bodily remedy, that’s simply one of many methods that you could be wanna contemplate addressing underlying issues that you might have. Getting some arms on care may be such a recreation changer. Each, you already know the stuff you find out about your motion patterns and the best way it helps you get extra aligned. The difficult factor about getting arms on care may be that each state and nation too has various kinds of coaching and necessities for various sorts of practitioners and on what kinds of therapeutic practices they’ll use in your care. So the kind of practitioner who will help you probably the most can range relying in your wants and the place you reside. And naturally your medical health insurance if it covers it or if you already know you’re searching for protection. Many practitioners go actually do go above and past getting persevering with training and have a couple of device of their toolkit or they’re working with complimentary practitioners out of their workplace.

(20:16)
As an illustration, a chiropractor is, goes to regulate your bones, but when your muscle mass connect to your bones and they’re patterned a sure means or you might be chronically overtrained in a single route, these muscle mass will proceed to drag the bones out of alignment and exert their pulling stress. In case you’re solely seeing a chiropractor who solely works in your bone alignment, you’ll most likely must preserve seeing them. You already know, some chiropractors provide complimentary remedies to deal with smooth tissue issues or have that sort of care out there proper of their workplace. And you might also see a therapeutic massage therapist for enjoyable functions or for them to work in your muscle tissue. There are a lot of various kinds of specialties throughout the therapeutic massage discipline as nicely. In case you’re searching for particular structural work that addresses muscular imbalances, I, I like to recommend searching for medical therapeutic massage, myofascial launch set off level or sports activities therapeutic massage and smooth tissue manipulation that particularly addresses your situation.

(21:11)
Bodily remedy additionally does have numerous specialties inside it, that’s why I carry it up rather a lot. You may consider it primarily as rehab for an damage and that’s actually one of many methods it could possibly serve you and that’s how lots of people get launched to it. However you can even search it out as a proactive hands-on method to supporting you as an lively lady to examine in your motion patterns, deal with any imbalances that you simply’re coping with, which may come from having a dominant aspect and overusing these muscle mass or day by day motion patterns like we talked about earlier than. Or, you already know, checking in on outdated damage patterns that you simply’ve corrected however can sort of come again to hang-out you later in life should you aren’t diligent in maintaining together with your steadiness and coaching or simply because the, the physique ages and we’ve got much less, you already know, reserves to, to deal with the pressures and forces in our our bodies.

(21:57)
Usually a a bodily therapist is considerably interdisciplinary of their method and so they can check your motion patterns and prescribe corrective workout routines that will help you reset your patterns and do hands-on work to launch caught bones and muscle tissue and deal with imbalances round your joints. Different kinds of defend practitioners may also do numerous this stuff. So it simply actually is determined by the practitioner. I see my PT each couple of months and I’m usually reviewing my motion patterns and issues that I do commonly for coaching, like squats and deadlifts simply to make sure that any of my outdated patterns, particularly my pelvis aren’t pulling me out of alignment or placing me in a compromised place. I’m usually checking in with my shoulder alignment as nicely as a result of I, my proper aspect is my dominant aspect, so I are inclined to have just a little bit extra of a rotation on that aspect.

(22:45)
That’s why I’m usually instructing you mobility drills and how one can open up and check your rotator cuff and, and open up your shoulder joint. These are actually necessary issues to observe commonly your self and be proactive about in order that should you do go see anyone, I imply, any nice practitioner goes to provide you homework and ask you to do issues by yourself. Any nice physician is gonna be asking you concerning the life-style decisions that you simply’re making round their care as a result of that’s solely going to make what they offer you simpler. So get probably the most bang to your buck in case you are spending the cash and going to see anybody to take the steps to be proactive in your individual self-care as a lot as you’ll be able to so as to actually get that, that profit out of, out of the work that you simply’re, that you simply’re doing within the time you’re spending.

(23:31)
It’s simply a good suggestion to have somebody like that should you’re getting back from an damage to just be sure you get stronger safely and also you aren’t going too quick or compromising that therapeutic tissue. And actually, should you select to work with any sort of hands-on skilled, keep in mind that it ought to really feel supportive and which you can change practitioners if it’s not an excellent match, you’re in management. Whilst you could not must see anyone in any respect, I do need you to concentrate on your physique and the common posture and motion patterns you might be in. So after you end listening to this present at present, be certain you retain bringing your consciousness to how you progress and the alignment of your physique and your exercises. In case you’re coaching with me and my coaches in one in every of my applications otherwise you’re in Rock Your Life, we’ll proceed to give you actually particular type cues and aid you keep current in your physique by way of all the exercises that we do collectively.

(24:18)
However keep in mind to make use of these ideas outdoors of your exercises as nicely in your day by day life as you’re sitting and bending and standing and carrying issues. Use good type and simply keep proactive together with your self-care stretch and do your yoga days and your mobility days and keep hydrated. I extremely suggest utilizing my Foundations of Useful Health Workshop collection. It’s free it, it’s a collection of movies you’ll be able to comply with over 14 days the place every day we break down for you totally different key actions like deadlifts, squats, pushing, pulling, barefoot coaching, yoga basis’s, core and again activation, and a lot extra. It’s an effective way to actually immerse your self within the type you wanna be tuning into while you prepare so as to keep protected and wholesome over time at all ages. You could find that over@thebettyrocker.com slash ff or simply go to my web site and scroll down in the direction of the underside of the web page.

(25:09)
You’ll see the spot to enroll proper there, and also you’ll get it despatched to you day by day as an electronic mail with a video you’ll be able to comply with. And naturally, should you’re in Rock your Life, this whole course is constructed proper in together with all the opposite bonus programs and supplies so you’ll be able to reference at any time. And hey, thanks a lot for spending this time with me at present. Rockstar. I hope this gave you some good insights and causes to be extra proactive together with your self-care and I, I actually stay up for connecting with you once more very quickly. So till subsequent time, I’m Betty Rocker and you might be so superior blossom and wonderful. Bye for now.