|
The Art of Good Health
Ready, Set, Good Health
By Terri L Jones
Photography by Christopher Winton-Stahle
Cheers… To Your Health
There will be few things more precious to us going forward than our health.
What will we do with it?
The times we’re living in offer a surplus of temptations to take us off the healthy path.
On the other hand, medical advances allow us to live a longer, better life. The average lifespan for those born in 1900 was just 49 years; for someone born in 1960, it was 70 years. It’s not just extra years on the planet, either. Our knees, heart, and other parts of the body often can be repaired or replaced. We can feel better while being alive.
Some things we know already about healthy living: eat right, exercise and get proper sleep. But beyond that, with fast moving medical changes, it’s difficult to know what is available and what we need to prioritize in doctor’s visits and procedures.
We’ve consulted experts in the field. This series, looking at the overall body, is meant to give you snapshots into the vitals of many different medical fields, a sort of checklist for proceeding with your health care. (And don’t forget to consult a doctor with any concerns.) Alongside are stories of people who are making the right lifestyle choices.
What will you do with the information?
ABOUT THE MODE: STEPHEN CHANTRY retired earlier this year after more than 33 years working for Virginia’s public schools system. Chantry has been running competitively since high school. He is a two-time Individual Track and Field World Champion and a nine-time USA Track and Field National Champion for Masters track (age 40-plus). He is married and the father of three.
ABOUT THE MODEL: KERA O'BRYON is an Emmy-nominated actress, singer, and voice talent with more than 25 years of experience. Her work ranges from film, television, and radio commercials, to promotional and corporate videos, to industrial, training and marketing videos, voiceovers, and more. Locally, she has been seen in commercials for the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce, Universal Ford, Eagle Construction, PestMasters and Union First Market Bank. For more, visit keraobryon.com.
Fitness and Preventing Injury
Identify your areas of weakness before they become a problem
Exercise is not what it used to be. In our childhood and teens we play all day, running, climbing and jumping. As the years pass by, with a growing family and career, we try to stay healthy by eating right and regularly exercising. The sense of need increases as we become aware that we want to experience our life to the fullest, without pain and illness.
You can take steps to help reduce the risk of being injured. Healthcare is more than illness and injury care; it includes wellness.
But when it comes to wellness, the information available is abundant, at times even overwhelming. Part of the reason is because there are numerous components of wellness: balance, flexibility, cardiovascular or aerobic exercises, muscular endurance, strength and power, as well as nutrition.
EVALUATE YOUR BODY TO LEARN YOUR LIMITS
How do you reduce the risk of injury? It begins with assessment. You can’t reach a goal without knowing your starting point. It begins with discovery of current limitations. When you know which areas are weaker, you can address them before they become a problem.
For example, a patient came to see me with muscular length and flexibility limitations: He had low back pain that occurred whenever he bent forward to pick up things from the floor.
When a patient comes in, I try to produce the pain and relieve it to reveal the source of the pain. So I had this gentleman bend forward. He did and his pain re-occurred.
His back moved well while he was bending forward. However, his hamstrings were very tight. The hamstring is the big muscle in the back of the thigh. In this case, as he bent forward towards the floor, his hamstring muscle limited him from bending forward at his hip. This man became pain-free after increasing the length of his hamstrings and re-learning how to bend forward at the hips to reduce the stress on the low back.
IMPROVE EXERCISE BY PRACTICING PROPER POSITIONS
The odd part of this scenario is the man says he stretched his hamstrings daily. Why did the tightness persist? In this case, it was because of his improper stretching technique. To understand how to isolate the hamstring muscles when stretching, understand the importance of the position of the pelvis – where the hamstring attaches.
He moved his lower back into forward bending well. Therefore, he will likely compensate and move there (at low back) rather than the hamstrings. Water and electricity flow in the path of least resistance. The human body does the same thing and moves in the easiest path. So, although he stretched regularly, he did not improve the flexibility in the hamstring muscles.
The human body will find a way to move to get you from A to B. However, inefficient movement strategies may lead to tissue damage. Assessment of current limitations and consistent performance with proper exercise technique are important aspects of preventing injury and optimizing performance.
How you walk, run, squat and reach are other important movements that should be analyzed prior to beginning or adding exercise to your lifestyle.
Kevin Ford, DPT, OCS is a doctor of physical therapy and board certified specialist in orthopedic physical therapy. He works at Virginia Center for Spine & Sports Therapy and can be reached at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
Success Stories
Three who changed their lives and are reaping the rewards
STEEP LEARNING CURVE
Allison Ward just kept coming back
Allison Ward was diagnosed with diabetes 20 years ago. After she found out, she changed her lifestyle and lost weight. But later, when her focus shifted to raising her two girls, her unhealthy habits returned, along with the pounds.
Then she saw her teenage daughter working with a trainer for field hockey conditioning, and Allison decided she would do the same. That was April 2008.
“The first day, I could do literally nothing,” Ward says of her first personal training session. “I was doing crunches and on the second one, I threw up. That’s how out of shape I was.”
She continued with her training, even though the learning curve was steep. “Nobody on the staff thought I’d come back,” Ward says. “And I came back! My hour workout just never got to an hour for, like, months because I literally couldn’t do it.
“And I just kept coming back.”
She says the staff at her gym was a huge help in her progress.
“They were all really supportive, but they never let me be a slacker,” Ward says. “They always kept pushing me and it was always attainable. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t sore. I couldn’t move the next day ...
“I started to see results pretty fast with the diabetes.” But she knew that she needed to take her fitness program to a higher level.
“I wasn’t losing weight,” Ward says “I was gaining muscle and I could see that. But I had to put the cardio underneath it, and it took me a long time to find a cardio activity that I really liked.”
She tried line dancing and fell in love with it. Now she goes line dancing for a fun source of cardiovascular exercise up to six nights a week. That, coupled with two personal training sessions per week, has helped her shed the extra weight.
Now that she feels healthier, she finds herself eager to get to the gym.
Of course, her results are also the product of changing her eating habits as well. “I saw a nutritionist because, to me, that made a whole lot of sense,” Ward says.
Ward controls her caloric intake, and has cut back on white flour and soda. But she still rewards herself with a treat such as a handful of potato chips or the occasional doughnut. “If you don’t do that, then what’s the rest of the week for? You’ve got to be good to yourself,” she says.
And her advice to those who want to follow in her footsteps:
“Take baby steps,” Ward advises others. “If you try to do it all at once, it isn’t going to work because nobody’s perfect.”
LIFE CHANGING
Deborah Stanley dances the pain away
Deborah Stanley’s life of dancing started 11 years ago, when her son decided he wanted to give it a shot. She figured if she had to drive him to class, she should be able to get in on the fun. But she probably didn’t know then just how much it would change her life.
“I asked the studio owner if she had adult classes,” Stanley, 45, says. “She says she didn’t, but that I was perfectly welcome to take classes with her 8-year-olds. So there I was, in my mid-30s, with way too much weight, in a black leotard and pink tights, taking class next to the 8-year-olds. And I can’t say who was more scared – me or them.”
Once the fear subsided, she fell in love with ballet and kept dancing through the first half of her next pregnancy. But unfortunately, after the birth of her daughter she was sidelined with severe sacral dysplasia, a pelvis injury that she says was brought on by not getting enough rest after giving birth.
“They said I’d never walk normally again.”
She went through about a year of ineffective treatment, and even a mistaken diagnosis of cancer, before finally getting some helpful physical therapy. The trouble wasn’t over there though, and she was soon suffering with a spinal fluid leak from an epidural steroid injection.
She credits her final recovery to treatment from an osteopath, called osteopathic manipulative therapy. This alternative approach to treating her injury led Stanley to finally be able to return to the dance studio.
“If I have a ballet class at least three days a week,” she says, “I can do anything I want.”
Since then, the student has become the teacher, as Stanley now operates her own non-profit dance studio. She uses yoga and pilates to stay flexible and strong, and while ballet is still her true passion, she has recently welcomed a new dance into her repertoire: Zumba.
At first, becoming certified to teach the workout craze based on Latin-infused dance was an economic decision. But as soon as Stanley tried it, she loved that it wasn’t similar to jazzercise or dance aerobics.
“So I went to take a Zumba certification class and I really enjoyed it. The thing I like about it is that it really is dancing.”
So in just over a decade, Deborah Stanley has gone from barely being able to walk, to being a certified dance teacher who runs her own studio. And she has some advice for others who want to make a health and wellness turnaround: “Try everything twice. That way, you know for sure if you like it.”
And once you’ve tried enough, “Find what it is that makes you really feel great.”
BOOMER COVERMAN
For Stephen Chantry, it’s all about making it last
Stephen Chantry, featured as a model in this issue’s cover story, says his children tease him about holding on to things too long, but that philosophy works well for his 56-year-old body and his hugely successful running career.
“It’s not just about fitness,” Chantry says. “It’s, in general, my way of life. I take care of myself.”
Chantry retired earlier this year after more than 33 years working for Virginia’s public schools system. “Now that I’m retired, all I do is eat, sleep and train,” Chantry says.
Chantry has been running competitively since high school, and he’s a two-time Individual Track and Field World Champion and a nine-time USA Track and Field National Champion for Masters track (age 40-plus). Those accolades merely scratch the surface of his running resume.
But it certainly doesn’t come easy. “I train about 10 days a week, sometimes 11,” Chantry jokes.
A father of three and a husband of one, Chantry manages to fit in a training schedule that usually consists of two sessions per day. His running schedule usually has him clocking between 60 and 100 miles per week. That’s not including his strength workouts, which have kept him strong enough to do up to 30 pull-ups every day since college.
“I live like a clock,” Chantry says. “I get up at the same time every >108 morning; I do the same routine every morning. And I don’t want it to sound boring because it’s not, but there are certain routines that I do all the time.”
He credits his longevity to this sense of routine. “As we age, and we get older, and things get harder to do, sometimes we stop doing them. But I don’t. I fight through it.”
And he says no matter your age, lasting changes to your habits are required for lasting changes to your health. “It has to be a lifestyle,” Chantry says. “I don’t diet; I eat healthy. I don’t exercise; I train. That’s just my way of life.”
When it comes to preventing injuries as he ages, he credits good form and efficient training.
“Running doesn’t hurt your knees. Improper running does,” Chantry says. “Too much running all at once does. And when you’re overweight and heavy, it puts a lot of extra stresses on joints. Those are causes for injury….
“The key to preventing injury is maintaining flexibility and also variability in your training.”
Chantry regularly switches between different running styles and even alternates the type of shoes he wears.
But one thing he doesn’t plan to change is his drive to keep running.
“I don’t really plan on stopping,” Chantry says. “It’s something that I not only love to do, but it’s just part of my life.”
Doug Callahan is a former newspaper editor and a graduate of James Madison University and Virginia Commonwealth University. He is currently a production coordinator for Ross Publishing.
|
