Message from the CEO

  

Healthy Running Step by Step, by Robert Forster, PT, and Roy M. Wallack, is due out this Fall and is a must-read for runners of all ages and abilities.

Stop the Insanity

 

The gym should be a place where we get better; better health, better performance, and a better state of mind. It certainly should not be where we get injured and become frustrated with the loss of health and fitness.

 

Every day we see more extreme "fitness programs" advertised with high-intensity workouts and volumes of work that even my elite athletes would never hold up to. And every day, we see the injuries in the clinic that define these workouts as ill-designed, dangerous, and unsustainable. What most recreational athletes and fitness buffs don't realize is that elite athletes spend more than half of their time in the gym on injury prevention, and the rest of the time on performance enhancement. Safe and effective stretching and injury prevention workouts might not be spectacular to watch, but they allow athletes to work harder at their sport and in the gym on performance enhancement.

 

In this issue you will find information on the importance of these training adjuncts that really should be your number-one mission in the gym. Everyone knows how to work hard -- it's those who work equally hard on stretching, recovery, and injury prevention who reach their highest genetic potential in sport and in health.

>> Read each week's CEO Message here 

Special Offer: Pre-Order your copy of Robert Forster's new book, Healthy Running Step by Step, due out this Summer by Fairwinds Press, and receive a free signed copy of the best seller, The Complete Water Power Workout Book by Robert Forster, PT and Lynda Huey. Bring in your online pre-order receipt to Forster Physical Therapy or Phase IV and receive a free, signed copy of the water book, a must-read for runners and anyone who wants a great workout that's easy on your joints! 

Stretching For Your Health

by Robert Forster, PT

 

Flexibility is the best complement to strength in preventing injuries, and requires just as much attention to maximize the benefits.

   

Part 1

 

It has occurred to me that most people spend more time taking care of their teeth on a daily basis then they do the rest of their body. The human body is a mechanical device that requires maintenance just like any other machine. You would never think that your car, lawnmower, or bicycle could be used consistently day in and day out without some effort to keep it in good working order. Yet, too many of us think we can get by with little attention to body maintenance. 

 

After 40 years of helping people get past injury and achieve their health and fitness goals, it is my opinion that stretching is second only to movement itself in maintaining good physical health. While athletes and those who exercise regularly have heard that stretching is important, few understand why and most non-professional athletes think they don't need to stretch at all.

 

Movement is Life

 

Movement is life! We were made to be in nearly constant motion. From early man up to the industrial revolution, our ancestors spent most of their waking hours in nearly constant movement. The search of food, water, and shelter required it. 

 

Accordingly, for the body we have inherited, movement is vital to every bodily function from healthy digestion to proper brain function. Although our bodies were engineered for very efficient movement, the largely sedentary lifestyle we have adopted since the industrial revolution has robbed us of the efficiencies built into this otherwise economical machine. The average American is sedentary for far too many hours every day to not expect problems. Add up all your active hours and subtract those from 24, and you will see that your sedentary time ranges from 18-20 hours a day (7-8 hours of sleep every night, 1-3 hours commuting in the car, 6-8 hours at your desk, and then home for TV on the sofa or some combination thereof).

 

Without movement, tissues lose their extensibility, and research has shown that even those who spend 90 minutes a day at the gym experience detrimental changes at the cellular level with all the time spent motionless each day. Many of these sedentary hours are spent in the sitting position fighting gravity to remain upright. In this slumped forward posture, the joints of the hips, shoulders, and trunk are rounded forward, allowing the soft tissues in the front of our bodies to become tight over time. Poor posture begins as bad habits but becomes fixed as the connective tissue elements of our body adapt to the poor alignment. Joints operating in poor alignment suffer damage and premature aging. To understand why this occurs and how to prevent, it we must look at the physiology of connective tissue.

 

 

Read More . . .

 

>> Pre-order Healthy Running Step by Step here

Special Offer: Bring in your online pre-order receipt to Forster Physical Therapy and receive a free, signed copy of my first book, The Complete Waterpower Workout Book. 

Forster PT and Phase IV's Maria Sharapova wins French Open

Maria Sharapova, who sought treatment with Forster PT and Phase IV's Robert Forster, PT to overcome career-disrupting injuries, triumphed in this weekend's French Open. Photo courtesy CNN.

 

Paris, France (CNN) -- She's been called "beautiful," "hot" and "sexy" but when it comes to tennis, the most apt description for Maria Sharapova has to be "tough."

 

The Russian rallied from a set down three straight times to reach this year's French Open final and then prevailed in Saturday's thrilling three-hour finale against rising star Simona Halep, 6-4 6-7 6-4.

 

"This is the toughest grand slam final I've ever played," Sharapova, who was contesting a ninth such match, summed up as she collected her trophy.

 

>> Read the original article here

Pre-Order Healthy Running Step by Step

Pre-order Healthy Running Step by Step before its arrival in stores and online in August.

Click here to pre-order Healthy Running Step by Step, the new book by Robert Forster, PT, and Roy M. Wallack, due out this August from Fairwinds Press, and gain automatic entry into a raffle for a free VO2 test!

 

(Click here for more information on VO2 testing.)

 

Don't let an old injury keep you from enjoying races, morning runs, or attaining fitness goals. In the first part of Healthy Running Step by Step, authors Robert Forster, PT and Roy M. Wallack recommend the best training based on your fitness goals, including strength training, cross training, sprints, yoga, and plenty of rest. Part two goes a step further from other books by addressing the most modern methods of treatment -- including current studies on the amount of rest required, new and controversial surgical operations and injections, the newest and most effective gear, and barefoot/minimalist running as a form of healing. If you are recovering from an injury or want to prevent becoming injured in the first place, Healthy Running Step by Step is a must-have guide.

 

Available in stores and at Phase IV and Forster Physical Therapy this Fall!

 

• Format: Paperback
• Publication: August 2014
• Pre-Order Price: $24.99

Phase IV and Forster Physical Therapy, the Exclusive Physical Therapy provider for the LA Marathon, are now the Exclusive Providers of EC3D gear in Los Angeles!

 

Scan with your iPhone or Android to call Phase IV for more information, sizing, or to order your EC3D Compression Gear.

 

Find us and join some of our social networks for scientific health & training tips and advice as well as chances to win  Phase IV services and products:

Forster Physical Therapy

Office: 310-656-8600  www.forsterpt.com

Phase IV Scientific Health and Performance Center

Office: 310-582-8212  www.phase-iv.net

Click Here to view archived newsletters  

Anatomy of Overuse Injuries

Book excerpt from Healthy Running Step by Step, by Robert Forster, PT and Roy Wallack

Unless you fall down and break a bone or step wrong and sprain your ankle, the vast majority of running injuries you are likely to suffer are overuse injuries. Overuse injuries occur when we outpace our body's ability to adapt to the stress of training. The micro-trauma suffered by the tissues during training, which would normally heal and make us stronger with adequate recovery, instead builds into a macro-trauma with back-to-back hard days and weeks of training.

By the time pain arises, the typical overuse injury may be weeks or months in the making. The injured tissue most likely had been struggling to heal for quite some time, but the repetitive stress of running stalled the healing process.

The chain of physiological events that is put in motion to repair the damaged tissues begins with the inflammatory response. This is a characteristic reaction set in motion to first clean up the debris of the damaged cells and then begin the healing of the injured area with scar tissue.