Water Exercise for Arthritis

Get Set, Get Wet, Get Fit!

Beginning a fitness routine by using water exercise is a good way to start because water is buoyant and provides a supportive environment for the joints to work out.

Would You Benefit from Water Exercise?
Although water aerobics is certainly beneficial for mature people, water exercises benefit a sizeable population. The following list gives an idea of who benefits from water exercises:

• People wanting to maintain low-impact cardiovascular fitness
• People with joint issues such as arthritis
• People with back pain
• Overweight people


• People wanting to maintain fitness following injury and during recuperation

Water exercise basics
The basics of water exercise for fitness includes a number of fitness routines done in water that is shoulder deep. The types of exercises done include calisthenics, aerobics and other movements than can only be performed while partially submerged in the water. The following are some of the tools used to bring variety to water exercises:

• Kick-boards – build leg strength while swimming
• Water noodles – for strengthening
• Fins and water shoes – to increase leg strength

Benefits of water exercise
Water exercise for fitness provides both an effective resistance workout and a cardiovascular burn. Resistance workouts are a good way to build stability and strength in the muscles and helps with balance, maintaining mobility and increasing range of motion. These abilities many seniors lose if they do not perform some form of regular fitness routine.

Water exercise helps prevent falls
When adults experience a combination of osteoporosis (thinning bones) and a diminished balanced ability, they fall very easily and this often leads to serious injuries. Water exercise offers a supportive environment to develop strength and balance to decrease both fall and injury risk.

Water exercise, joint protection and arthritis
Water exercise is especially beneficial to people suffering with arthritis. Traditional exercise, such as aerobics and running, places severe pressure on the joints, the back, and the knees every time the feet meet with the ground. In water exercise, the joints are protected in two different ways.

The water’s buoyancy supports the weight of the body and eliminates extra weight on the joints. Also, the resistance of the water slows the movement of the joints and stops repetitive stress injuries and hyper-extension of the limbs. The supportive buoyancy of the water allows adults who would normally experience pain from arthritis to decrease pain and swelling. 


Star of Functional Fitness airing to over 45 million on PBS TV and licensed occupational therapy practitioner, Suzanne Andrews guides you in the only doctor recommended Arthritis Water Therapy kit that comes with a water resistant booklet to instruct you poolside. Arthritis Water Therapy offers you the only medically designed therapeutic exercise kit to help relieve pain in your neck, shoulders, back, hips, knees and hands. Learn more now at
http://healthwiseexercise.com/shop.aspx?p=5263&k=Arthritis-Water-Therapy-SALE!

 

How Breathing Exercises and Meditation Help You Lose Weight

Breathing exercises may be the answer to your weight loss dilemma if you eat as a reaction to stress related incidents.   Suzanne Andrews, featured in the best selling book, Is She Naturally Thin or Disciplined by Sally Shields, reveals just how breathing exercises and meditation helped her lose over 60 lbs and how you can lose the weight and keep it off.  

Sally Shields, in her book, Is She Naturally Thin or  Disciplined?

offers a motivational book sharing how 101 women share how they stay slim and trim, despite busy work schedules and time consuming family demands.  She didn't forget the baby boomers either.  Let's face it - what do you think when you see a 20 something slim beauty.  Well I don't know what you think, but I think, "of course, she's slim - she's only 20!"  Sally Shields interviewed women all the way up to age 60 plus and each reveals insider secrets of the sexy and slim!

Why Breathing Exercises Help COPD

If you or a loved one have asthma, Bronchitis, Emphysema, or get short of breath from everyday activities, breathing exercises will help you function with your day to day living.  That’s something we Occupational Therapy Practitioners specialize in – increasing peoples ability to perform Activities of Daily Living.    COPD is a severe lung disease associated with airflow obstruction.  Asthma, also a disease that affects your airways affects all ages. There are currently 20 million Americans with Asthma.   COPD, a more serious and generally fatal disease can be slowed down with proper treatment and reduce the severity of your symptoms and can increase your lifespan. 

   

COPD stands for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and it affects your lungs and airways.  Chronic means you will have this condition the rest of your life.  So what can you do to manage it?

 

My patients who have COPD often mistakenly believe that they can’t exercise.  Exercise is essential because the less active you are, the weaker your muscles get.  Weak muscles need MORE oxygen and this causes a chain reaction of being short of breath.  By practicing a COPD  program, following a good nutrition plan and doctors plan of care, some patients who were on continuous Oxygen Therapy were able to come off the oxygen and just use it as needed with their Doctors approval.  I measured their oxygen intake with an oxpulsimetor before and after the breathing exercises and their oxygen gradually increased to a normal level.

Did you know your diaphragm is a muscle?  This muscle,  crucial for breathing, can be made stronger and help you get more air into your lungs to increase your lung capacity. When you strengthen your breathing muscles with exercises and breathing exercises, you can have some control over COPD instead of it taking charge of you. 

Fast Food Lovers Diet

If you've seen the movie Supersize Me, where Morgan Spurlock follows a 30 day diet of eating only McDonald's food, you watched as he gained 24 and 1/2 pounds, a dangerous cholesterol level of 230 and fat accumulation in his liver.  It was fascinating to watch, but only offered a one sided view.  Obviously, if you just eat junk food every day, no matter what fast food establishment you choose, your body will react. He also didn't exercise  the entire time which contributed to his weight gain.  That being said, no amount of exercise in the world can protect your body from a constant diet of saturated fats.  To remain functionally fit we need to practice good diet and  get out there and move.  So what do you do when you find yourself at McDonalds?  Here's a healthy choice menu to make it easier for you to decide.  I wonder what would have happened if Spurlock ate the healthy options and exercised 6 days a week.  Now that would be interesting to see.

McDonalds Fast Food Healthy Choices Menu

 

Premium Grilled   8 oz

Chicken Classic   (226 g) 420 calories

Sandwich              10 Grams of Fat

Snack  Wrap ®      4.3 oz  (With no dressing)

 (Grilled)               270 Calories

                              10 grams of Fat

Premium                  12.3 oz

Southwest Salad      320 Calories

with Grilled             9 Grams of Fat

Chicken

Premium Caesar      11 oz

Salad with Grilled   220 Calories

Chicken                   6 Grams of Fat

Snack Size Fruit   1 Package

& Walnut Salad    210 Calories

                               8 grams of fat

Newman's Own®  1.5 oz

Low Fat Balsamic  40 Calories

Vinaigrette              3 grams of Fat

Brain Power Exercise You Can Do Now

Want to lose 3 pounds right now?  Stop using your brain power.   Your mind weighs approximately 3 pounds and if you don’t use it, you lose it. Well maybe not the weight, but its amazing ability to help you move, to think and remember. Most of us have it backwards.  We age and therefore stop moving. It’s more like, stop exercising and you age.  If you could hear your body-mind talk, the conversation would go something like this, “Get a move on and stimulate my brain power cells to grow, connect and keep me young.”

Contrary to age old beliefs, aging does not have to come with loss of memory, mental decline and decreased brain power.  Scientists now believe that decreased mental capacity comes from diminished stimulation to the brain. 

A healthy neuron is linked to literally tens of thousands of other neurons, creating a  hundred trillion connections – each with the ability to perform 200 calculations per second! But neurons don’t only connect with other neurons, they connect with muscles at a little meeting place called the neuromuscular junction and this is vital to your ability to move.  The great news is you can stimulate fresh neurons in old age because brains have what is called ‘plasticity,’ the ability to change, to grow and to adapt to the challenges you feed it.  Mental decline due to age usually is often a result of physical inactivity and a lack of mental stimulation.

The word exercise means to ward off.  How appropriate:  because when you exercise, your blood circulation increases: sending more oxygen and brain feeding blood sugar (glucose) to your brain. This results in a domino effect of increasing blood vessels in your brain. Your choice of exercise doesn’t have to be strenuous.  Although one that is specifically designed for the brain will give you better results.  Studies have shown that people who are reasonably active have a significant advantage regarding memory over people who are sedentary.  Occupational therapists (therapists who specialize in improving people’s function) have also studied specific exercises to find that certain type of exercises increased both brain functioning and decreased brain attack by 57%. 

Specific exercises have even shown to be successful as a preventative measure to Alzheimer’s. Even more interesting is that couch potatoes are twice as likely to develop dementia.  In order to reap the benefits of increased brain power, mental alertness, and neuron growth, you need to unlock the door to exercise - period.  Open your mind and give yourself the opportunity.  You are what you believe to yourself to be.  No matter what your age or your fitness level.   Whether you are 40 or 70:   prevention is the doorway to a healthy mind. I just gave you the key.  Take Charge and be Healthwise, Exercise.

Back from the Brink: The Power of Meditation

My journey to a new body and a new life began with a difficult pregnancy and an emergency cesarean section birth. By the time I gave birth, I was a size 18 and 61 pounds overweight. At 5’2”, I was putting a tremendous strain on my knees and hips.

The simple act of walking was an arduous task. Walking places a force of 3 times your body weight on the critical joints of your body. At my height and size, I was burdening my body with 528 pounds of pressure. Every step was excruciating. I developed bursitis in my hips creating an inflammation so severe that I couldn’t walk without flinching. I suffered through two miscarriages and eventual gall bladder surgery. My condition had gotten so severe that I couldn’t even play with my newborn without becoming winded. Exercise was out of the question. I could barely see my toes—being able to touch them was a fantasy. 

My wake-up call came two years later, at my son’s birthday party. When I saw the videotape of the celebration, I didn’t even recognize myself. It was time to make a change. I was starting to understand why I had no energy. Staring me in the face, right there on the screen was the reason my hips and back ached so terribly. Every day was another dose of my harsh reality. Commuting to work on the bus was a humiliating experience, as I had to endure the cruel snickers when I couldn’t fit into the seat. I had enough. It was time for a change. 

While I was working at CBS on the Geraldo show,

a guest panelist and psychologist told me about how meditation could benefit me. I was skeptical, but desperate to try anything that would make me feel whole again. I needed to be there for my son. I decided to give it a try. At first I didn’t understand how a sedentary activity like meditation could help me to lose weight. It was not long before I discovered the secret---during meditation your mind is the CEO and your body the dutiful employee. You tell your body what it needs to do and it follows suit. 

The ritual of meditation was the spark that jumpstarted my weight loss plan. I felt energized to exercise daily, choose healthier options and control my portion sizes. The meditation motivated me in ways I never thought imaginable, helping me lose the excuses and get on the track to better health. I started with gentle yoga combined with low impact exercises. This not only helped me to start shedding pounds, but also made my day-to-day tasks more manageable. 

Meditation saved my life, and prevented my son from becoming an orphan at 10 years old. I credit my success to the incorporation of mind, body and spirit that meditation encourages. The same breathing techniques that I used to control my appetite and regulate stress also helped to develop my lungs and give them power. It was those same healthy, powerful lungs that delivered me from the brink of death, when a medical miscalculation caused my heart to stop on an operating table. As doctors frantically fought to revive my lifeless body with CPR, my body started to shut down, turning my lips, hands and feet a chilling blue. Near death, I was transported by ambulance to the intensive care unit. My body was on the verge of giving up. My kidneys shut down and my veins constricted so tightly that doctors could not administer a lifesaving intravenous line. My body and my spirit were determined to live. I would not die. I would live. I would see my son again. I started to meditate. After five minutes of willing myself to survive and using my meditation skills, my body started its journey back from the edge. My kidneys started functioning again. My pulse strengthened and my veins opened up. Later, my cardiologist would proclaim in amazement, “I’m an Indian doctor and my patient is teaching me how great meditation is!”

After that day, I had a renewed sense of purpose. I had to motivate others and help other people struggling with weight find their purpose. My weight could have been a death sentence, but meditation and determination was my pardon. My life has been changed since that day.

 Doors have opened for me. I went from being introverted and soft spoken to a confident, capable and dynamic woman ready to embrace life. I have made it my mission to help others on their journey to finding the healthy and slim person within. You are the CEO of your health.  Exercise and be healthwise. Take care of your body and your body will take care of you.  

Live Longer Through Cardiovascular Health

Aching muscles, heavy breathing, sweat poring off you. You ask yourself, "how will I get through this"? It's the sacrifice needed to stay healthy, strong and functional. When you really think about it, it's no different than any other kind of work. Getting up early, into the office, meetings at 8AM, paperwork to complete, staff to discipline, inventory to check, budgets to keep. How will I get through this? You did it and you did it well. You might be retired now and all the effort paid off. Your life is more secure because you decided to sacrifice and achieve goals. 

This weeks Motivational Moment

Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.
Viktor Frankl

If you are fit enough to run or jog, continue to do so but make sure you have supportive shoes. If not, get up and go for a walk. Now, I don't mean a gentle stroll to take in the evening air. I mean a power walk. Get your breathing up, take big steps at a brisk pace and swing your arms. Some controllable hand weights would be a good idea too. Wear good fitting shoes with shock absorbing soles.  Start around the block, then around the neighborhood and then just keep walking around. Your body loves oxygen. The more you take in the healthier you get. Your heart is a muscle. When you put it to work it gets larger and stronger just like a bicep when lifting weights. This makes it pump more blood that's full of oxygen through your body even when you are at rest. Sweat releases toxins from the body and acts as a natural coolant.  A big glass of cool water before and after a walk helps to keep you properly hydrated.

Why walk? Every person over 90 is always asked, "How'd you do it"? And every person over 90 responds, "I kept moving, kept working and didn't smoke and drink myself into oblivion. That's it". Your body is a biological machine. If you let it sit around for years unused and neglected, then try to start it up it's going to cough, wheeze, sputter and come to grinding halt. But if you work it, maintain it, nourish it with premium fuels, it will stand the test of time. 

Healthiest blessings,

Suzanne Andrews