If you find that you can't take your hips through the exercises found in my exercise routine for hip pain and stiffness, you might need to spend time improving internal rotation of your hip joints.
When internal rotation is limited due to a hypertonic ligamentous capsule, the head of the femur doesn't have the necessary freedom to optimally swivel within the acetabular fossa of the pelvis, which limits all other ranges of motion of the hip, including flexion, extension, external rotation, abduction, adduction, and circumduction.
This progression of stretches to improve internal rotation of the hip joints is similar to the sleeper stretch that one can use to improve internal rotation and overall function of the shoulder joints. Read more
If you experience intermittent neck pain and/or stiffness, you may benefit from a simple routine of stretching and strengthening the dozens of skeletal muscles and ligaments that line your neck.
The most important requirement for healthy ligaments and muscles is steady blood flow to these tissues. And stretching the ligaments and muscles that line your neck is the most effective way to promote and maintain a rich supply of blood in this region. Read more
Where there is shoulder pain due to impingement, frozen shoulder, or subacromial bursitis, an often overlooked root cause is a tight shoulder capsule.
What is your shoulder capsule?
It's a series of ligaments that surround and stabilize your shoulder joint, which is where your upper arm bone (humerus) attaches to your shoulder blade (scapula). Read more
Healthy blood circulation is an absolute must for healthy tissues. Strong and steady blow flow allows for constant exchange of nutrients and waste at the cellular level, and also promotes healthy flow of fluid through your lymphatic system, a key component of your immune system. Read more
If you embrace the adage about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, you'll want to review the following information about your pelvic region, including four simple stretches that, if performed daily, may spare you many of the strains, sprains, and aches that are often attributed to aging. Read more
There's no question that it's healthy to engage in exercise and activities that create and maintain muscle mass. Beyond warding off osteoporosis, regular exercise that builds up and sustains muscle can significantly decrease risk of diabetes type 2, as skeletal muscle acts as a storage reservoir for excess sugar that makes its way into your bloodstream. Put another way, the more skeletal muscle mass you maintain, the greater capacity your body has to prevent diabetes and other types of cardiovascular disease. Read more
As you age, all of your ligaments and tendons become more susceptible to injury. This is just a fact of life. Once you stop growing, you start degenerating; all you can control is the rate at which you degenerate.
One of the most effective ways to slow down the rate at which you experience degeneration is to regularly stretch your muscles and tendons. Stretching these tissues helps prevent scar tissue buildup and promotes healthy exchange of nutrients and waste products via steady blood circulation. Read more
There are many potential causes of hip pain and stiffness, and as anyone who has experienced significant trouble with a hip joint will tell you, inability to walk or even sit cross-legged without pain is a real killer of quality of life. Read more
That pop you sometimes hear when you stretch your joints comes from gas leaving the lubricating fluid that surrounds all of your joints. This fluid - called synovial fluid - is a thick liquid that acts as a lubricant and medium of transport for nutrients and waste products for the bone surfaces, ligaments, and tendons that make up your joints. Read more
For over sixteen years now, I've been recommending two basic stretches to the vast majority of my clients. Stretches to help keep the soft tissues in the lower and mid back regions flexible and well supplied with healthy blood flow. In my experience, no other stretches more effectively keep the trunk and pelvis healthfully limber. Read more
As the Indian proverb tells us, sometimes, the wrong train can take us to the right station. May we breathe deeply and count our blessings from moment to moment.