For me, it's been a professional preoccupation to get the public to realize the human body requires maintenance just like our teeth. It occurred to me decades ago that the average person spends more time taking care of their teeth than they do the rest of their body. The American Dental Association has done a much better job than the American Physical Therapy Association in getting people to think about health maintenance and disease prevention. Most of us brush multiple times per day, floss regularly and get in for cleanings to keep our teeth healthy. But few stretch daily or do basic strength work and nearly no one ever sees a physical medicine clinician to learn where they need to focus preventative care measures for their bodies.

 

Our mostly sedentary lifestyle leaves our bodies weak and tight creating dysfunctional movement patterns that injure soft tissue structures and damage joints. Even for those who exercise daily, the body remains motionless for the majority of their day and inactivity has been shown to cause cellular changes throughout the structural tissues of the body.

 

Recently, I have realized that while my campaign to get adult people to do basic body maintenance with simple stretching and strengthening exercises has been difficult until they get injured, the message has been received and taken seriously by the younger generation. First I was struck by how much our young Olympic athletes do for themselves to stay healthy. When I first began working with Olympians in the 1980's the number of gold medals won by individual athletes were directly proportional to the number of times a week I saw them in our clinic for health maintenance. Jackie Joyner Kersee came in for preventative care the most and she won five Olympic medals, FloJo was a close second and she earned four Olympic medals. Through stretching, massage, icing and other  recovery modalities we were able to prevent most injuries and when problems did occur I would often be able to detect and treat them before they became full blown injuries. The Olympians we work with today do much of their own body maintenance, working out tight muscles and scar tissue with foam rollers, softballs and home ice baths.

 

 

Most excitedly, these self-help strategies have not only been adopted by the professional athletes in their quest to stay injury free, but now I see the foam roller has become a regular tool for many in the gym. When I recently witnessed a young teenage swimmer going to practice with his orange foam roller attached to his backpack I began to think there is hope for the younger generation to save their joints and achieve their highest athletic potential, injury free.

 

 

Free Lecture on "New Treatments for Joint Pain "
The topic of this free lecture will be new treatments for joint pain comparing The Regenokine Program, Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy and Stem Cell Treatments. Clinicians are welcome.

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