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Blue Dunn - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
Blue Dunn: Originator of Flextasy! the Functional Flexibility System".
Since 1991 I have been teaching variations of Flextasy!" to my personal clients, massage therapists in training at numerous massage schools in San Diego, and to people from all walks of life at two Sharp Hospital Centers.
During this time I have had the opportunity to study thousands of random bodies, in every stage of distortion and chronic pain, attempting to get out of pain and ... [More]
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- My Understanding Of, and Experience With, Far Infrared Saunas
[Health-and-Fitness] The heat produced by a Far Infrared Sauna is a completely different kind of heat: Radiant Heat. Radiant Heat is a form of energy that heats objects directly through a process called conversion, which heats an object without having to heat the air in between it and the heat source. Radiant Heat is also called Infrared Energy. The sun is the principal source of Radiant Energy that we experience daily.
- Infrared Sauna Therapy
[Health-and-Fitness:Alternative] An infrared sauna is a sauna that heats its occupants with heaters that emit far infrared radiant heat. Unlike traditional Finnish Saunas, infrared saunas do not use steam, (which heats the air, and thereby the user) but instead use infrared energy to directly heat the user. In an infrared sauna the infrared heater produces radiant energy, which is the same as the heat from the sun, only without the harmful ultraviolet rays.
- Yoga, Flexibility
[Health-and-Fitness:Yoga] A comprehensive flexibility program can be used as a stand alone exercise program. But if you are going to pursue other forms of exercise, Flexibility exercises should be considered a prerequisite to all forms of exercise. This means that before undertaking any rigorous workout routine (this includes yoga), you need a bottom-line level of flexibility and body awareness which a good flexibility routine provides. This routine allows for continued improvement in any activity by keeping you loose and insures against commonly occurring injuries.
- Address Hip and Back Pain With Structural Release Foam Rollers
[Health-and-Fitness:Back-Pain] Perhaps the major, negative factor contributing to hip problems is tension in the leg muscles. Think about it; if the leg muscles: quadriceps, illio-tibial band (I.T. band), adductors, and hamstrings are shortened, and all of ours are, then the hip (and knee) joint they cross will be compressed and distorted. Those muscles never shorten symmetrically and so the joints are always compressed asymmetrically; and this is where the degenerative wear and tear comes in. By releasing those muscles from each other and the bone, and by lengthening and organizing them, the knee and the hip joints (*along with the low back) are allowed to decompress and reorganize. Foam exercise rollers are the simplest, most effective all-around self-maintenance tools you'll find for releasing tension in all the major chronic pain problem areas of your body. They will release and organize your musculature and release and align your skeleton.
- How to Gain Flexibility
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] With flexibility come an increase in vital energy as trapped, stagnated energy in the joints and soft tissue is freed and released by the movements. This is a key factor in your search for health and well-being . Alignment of the body will occur naturally as the skeleton limbers up with a regular practice of Flexibility Movements. By keeping the body squared (paying attention to the horizontal and vertical planes) as you slowly go through the movements you will be gently bringing the skeleton to its rightful alignment in gravity. As the tissue decompresses and lengthens by virtue of these movements, space is created in the joints and hinges. The body loosens up, chronic holding patterns are broken, and a new freedom of movement will be experienced. Another benefit of Flexibility Movements is that it is an indispensable prerequisite to any and all forms of exercise. From cycling and running, to yoga or sports, if you move doing it, you will benefit immensely from the increased flexibility and body awareness which will be yours through a comprehensive flexibility routine. You will gain an awareness of body mechanics, how your skeleton was meant to move.
- Some Thoughts on Functional Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] The detrimental distortions caused by repetitive linear exercises (magnified exponentially by the use of heavy weights) are so obviously apparent, through visual observation, palpation (touch), and functional de-formation through the joints the "strengthened" muscles cross. It doesn't require Einstein to notice that a weightlifter soon loses noticeable mobility throughout the body, achieving less range of motion through all of the joints, resulting in less flexibility with every workout.
- Perfect Antidote to Inflexibility and Aging
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] Remember: you don't get stiff and inflexible because you age, you get stiff and inflexible because you quit moving in all the ways your wonderful body is capable of moving. The adage: "Move it or lose it!" holds true for the structural body. Combine that with the destructive consequences of repetitive exercises and it's no wonder that physical therapy clinics are full, chiropractors are thrilled, and sports medicine is a booming business. It's also not surprising that people I would call functionally flexible are few and far between. And as stated at the beginning, it's flexibility, or the lack of it, which determines our structural age, and most importantly, our daily experience.
- The Ab Ball - Instructions For Releasing Tension in the Psoas Muscles Abdomen Organs and Colon
[Health-and-Fitness:Pain-Management] he Ab Ball is the most effective tool I know of for releasing tension in the abdomen. It releases tension in the abdominal muscles such as rectus abdominus and the obliques, as well as releasing tension in the fascial web supporting the organs and releases tension in the colon and the organs themselves, thereby promoting organ health. Perhaps the most important release work in this area happens with the Psoas muscles, which tie your spine, ribcage (diaphragm), pelvis, and legs together and are the muscles primarily responsible for your upright posture and affects most movement.
- 3 Tennis Balls in a Sock
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Put 3 (preferably new) tennis balls in a tube sock and tie a knot in the sock. The balls should be pushed in tight and the knot tied as close to the balls as possible. As the sock stretches you can retie the knot again to take out the slack.
- The Ape Walk
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] This is one of 3 extremely effective movement exercises which I call Power Moves. These would be the equivalent of Nutrient-Dense Super Foods, such as Bee Pollen, Dulse (a very tasty nutritious seaweed), Green Powder Drinks (like Pure Synergy Greed SuperFood), etc...
- Senior Citizens - Flexibility Exercise Vs Weight Training
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Ignoring flexibility moves you backwards in your quest for fitness. We joke about the well-developed muscleman who can't scratch the back of his head. And I've met amazing long distance runners who could not touch their toes, sit cross-legged on the floor, or perform a dozen other simple functional flexibility movements.
- Rebounder - Rebounding For Health and Fitness
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] I've been rebounding off and on for 20 years, but something happened in 2002 that changed my life! The Rebounder I'd been using, like the half dozen or so that I went through, was an inexpensive, cheaply made model. Of course, I didn't realize that until I finally got inspired to buy a quality model.
- What is Sprouting?
[Health-and-Fitness:Nutrition] Sprouting is home-farming. It's a practice and a skill which is worthy of a very high ranking on your Righteous Prioritity List. Sprouting every kind of imaginable organic seed is one of the most empowering things you can do with your time, your space, and your imagination.
- Flexibility Exercise - Full Body Spinal Roll Downs
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Here is an exercise I've developed you'll want to add to your daily routine; it's at the top of my Self-Maintenance Moves and is the most effective way I know to release ridiculous amounts of tension and strain from your entire body, restructuring and reorganizing it as well. This is one of my favorite movements, one that is extremely effective for dismantling, mobilizing, and articulating the entire spine, ribcage, and shoulder girdle. If not done daily then it should at least be done regularly.
- Exercises to Address Your Foot Pain Including Corns, Bunions, Callouses and Other Foot Problems
[Health-and-Fitness:Pain-Management] High arches, fallen arches, pronation, corns, bunions, callouses, and most anything else that can go wrong with the feet can be positively affected by a simple (non-surgical!) procedure. If your feet hurt I can guarantee you need to use this inexpensive self-maintenance tool. In all the years and thousands of feet I've worked on, I have never met anyone who can''t benefit from these. You can fix your feet!
- The Danger of Repetitive Exercise
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] One-sided repetitive exercise creates tight muscles, but they are only a symptom of the real problem. When the skeleton is pulled out of alignment, out of whack, the quality of movement changes and the options of movement diminishes in kind. The missing link in all the activities rampant in our culture is Flexibility. Flexibility is not just the ability of the body to move in strange, rubbery ways. The main reason you want to achieve, and maintain flexibility is because it reverses the distortion to the skeleton caused by over-shortening muscles and decompresses the poor, thrashed joints.
- Functional Flexibility Exercises
[Health-and-Fitness:Anti-Aging] The foundation of functional flexibility lies in the ability of the pieces of the skeleton to interact inter-dependently with each other; the spaces between the bones decompressed sufficiently, and symmetrically capable of free and easy, geometrically accurate fluid movement. For this to occur the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and most importantly, the cartilage, must be decompressed, fluffed-up, separated, and organized; this does not happen by indiscriminately stretching muscles.
- Hip Pain, Back Pain
[Health-and-Fitness:Back-Pain] So many people these days experience chronic hip pain and /or low back pain; many of these people having one of the most drastic and intrusive surgeries possible: hip replacement, or something even more common but intrusive and dangerous nonetheless: disk surgery. The Good News: I've discovered that through movement, and the use of self-maintenance tools, you can learn how to access the pain and distortion of your musculature and your skeleton, and then release it. This is a longer course of action but it allows you to undo and correct all of the structural distortions that are the foundation upon which your problems are built.
- The Difference Between Stretching Exercises and Release
[Health-and-Fitness:Exercise] Aggressive stretching is a tease, and actually a threat, to the tissue being addressed. It is painful and frustrating, with very little (if any) reward of change, and unlikely to be pursued with persistence. Release is the vital concept and component capable of transforming your body, your relationship with your body, and your relationship with your movements and all of your activities.
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