Transcription of Stephen Anderson for the show Summer Sports Injuries #47
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 47, ‘Summer Sports Injuries’, airing for the first time on August fifth, 2012 on WLOB and WPEI Radio Portland, Maine.
Here in the studio with me today is my co-host and wellness editor for the ‘Maine Magazine’, Genevieve Morgan. Hi, Genevieve.
Genevieve: Hi, Lisa.
Dr. Lisa: Genevieve, sports injuries. You have two boys, I have three kids. Things are different on the summer time.
Genevieve: It certainly seems as if injuries are on the rise in kids, but also with our population like people weekend warriors and from all of us who are going out and maybe taking a jog after work. It just seems like a lot of people are having back issues, joint issues, more breaks and falls and concussions. I’m hearing a lot about it. How about you?
Dr. Lisa: My practice of course has got an acupuncture aspect to it and addition of Chinese medicine. Yes, I see a lot of injuries. I see people that go out and maybe just overdo it a little bit too much. As you said, weekend warriors, they don’t do much during the week and on the weekends, they are a little bit too intense. I also see people who want to keep playing adult team sports into their 40s, 50s and they just aren’t quite as careful as they might need to be.
I think that there are some things that people can do that aren’t that hard.
Genevieve: There’s prevention and then there’s rehab. Just a funny story yesterday, a friend of mine asked me if I’d go water jogging with her, something I had never done before. I guess it’s a great rehabilitation practice, and you put a little floated belt around your middle, and you go into a pool and you basically jog in the water for an hour, punching the water and stomping grates on the bottom. You do it for long enough time until you’re tired. It actually is quite tiring, but it’s impact-free.
Dr. Lisa: I am very familiar with water jogging when I had my multiple knee surgeries back 11 years ago. I also did water jogging and, yes, there are some really interesting ways that they go about doing rehabilitation. Today in the studio, we’re going to have Dr. John Herzog who is an orthopedic surgeon with a very interesting approach to injuries and sports and a very unique way of treating injuries.
We will also have Stephen Anderson from The Body Architect who’s going to talk to us about remaining strong and flexible, and what types of things we have to think about in the summertime with regard to our bodies.
Genevieve: I guess it’s slow and steady and strong that wins the race.
Dr. Lisa: Slow, steady, strong, flexible. I think all of these things are things that we need to take into consideration. In fact, one of our shows last fall, we talked about strength, and then we talked about resilience, and the fact that if you are going out and just doing weight lifting, that’s not going to be as helpful to you as doing weight lifting and stretching. In addition, you want to do some endurance work, and in addition, you want to do a little bit of speed stuff.
Stephen Anderson is very good with taking the whole body into consideration. In fact, he even teaches Qigong, and trying to help people get and stay balanced at his training facility up on the east end, The Body Architect.
Genevieve: It sounds like a really interesting show.
Dr. Lisa: I think it’s going to be a really fun show, and it’s nice that we’re able to offer this on our new station, WPEI. We know that there are people listening to WPEI who themselves are sports fans. Welcome to our listenership and we hope you enjoy the show.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is pleased to be sponsored by the University of New England. As part of our collaboration with the University of New England, we offer a segment we call ‘Wellness Innovations’. This week’s Wellness Innovation comes out of Chicago.
Neuromuscular warm-up is associated with reduced lower extremity injuries in adolescent female athletes. Integrating a coach-led neuromuscular warm-up prior to sports practice appeared to reduce the risk of lower extremity injuries in female high school soccer and basketball athletes according to a report in the November issue of ‘Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine’. In the study, they sought to examine if lower extremity injuries in adolescent female basketball and soccer athletes could be reduced by incorporating a neuromuscular warm-up prior to every practice and game.
The authors invited coaches from Chicago public schools to participate. Coaches were randomly assigned to either the intervention group or control group. Coaches in the intervention group who instituted a neuromuscular warm-up attended a two-hour training session which included progressive strengthening, balance, plyometric and agility exercises, as well as an educational component where coaches provided feedback to athletes to promote safe jumping and landing techniques designed to help avoid strain on the anterior cruciate ligament or ACL which can cause knee injury.
There were 755 athletes in the control group and 737 athletes in the intervention group. The control group had 96 lower extremity injuries compared to 50 lower extremity injuries in the intervention group. Leading researchers do report findings that suggest neuromuscular training should be routine in girl’s high school soccer and basketball.
For more information on this Wellness Innovation, go to ‘Doctorlisa.org’. For more information on the University of New England, go to ‘Une.edu’.
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa. In the studio today, we have with us Stephen Anderson of The Body Architect. Stephen came on before to talk to us about, I believe it was ‘Light’. Is that right?
Stephen: Yes it was.
Dr. Lisa: You’re on the light show.
Stephen: I was in the light show.
Dr. Lisa: The light show from last fall.
Stephen: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve subsequently been profiled in ‘Maine Magazine’.
Genevieve: With the Wellness issue in April.
Stephen: In April, yes.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve become a local celebrity.
Stephen: For a bit, yes.
Dr. Lisa: Yes, so we think it’s perfect that you’re going to talk with us about summer sports injuries, and the fact that we’re now on the FM dial on WPEI which has a sports affiliation. You have a very long history of interaction with athletes and being an athlete yourself.
Stephen: I do, yes. I do. A lot of my clients that come to me, they may come from referrals from physicians or they may have had their own injuries, so we look at each individual case and we develop a plan accordingly.
Dr. Lisa: Talk to me about what you see in the summertime, when people come in to The Body Architect. What types of things are they hoping to accomplish in the summer?
Stephen: We have a lot of members who are golfers. That seems to be a very popular sport. They’re looking for not only reduction of weight, but to improve performance in a sport. Obviously in the summer, a lot of the children are on vacation, so sometimes parents will bring their children in just to improve their performance. It’s a lot of rotational movement.
The things that I see that are really debilitating is hydration levels in the summer. With the heat, people don’t tend to drink as much as they normally do. Things that lead to hydration, injury is very prominent.
Dr. Lisa: What’s a hydration injury?
Stephen: Hydration, when people don’t have enough hydration is like a cycle. It starts and it’s a chain reaction. They start getting headaches and they may not eat as well. They may not rest as well. Their performance really starts to suffer. When we turn that around like I mentioned last time that I was here that oftentimes, a lot of people that come in, they say they’re quite hydrated, I get them on my scale and they’re quite dehydrated.
Even though they think they’re drinking adequate amounts, they’re probably not doing enough because their bodies are eliminating perspiration even when they can’t see it happening, so it’s going through the entire system. Things like headaches, stamina, endurance issues are really big.
Dr. Lisa: When you are an athlete and in training in the summer, there were probably other more significant things that were happening with dehydrated athletes as well.
Stephen: There were. I remember because I ran across country, so that’s something that’s even more aggressive I hate to say in those days, but we had to take salt tablets. Again, it’s not only the water, it’s the electrolytes in the water. The body has to be … I like things to be bioavailable so they can use their hydration. It may not be just enough for water, they may need to have some electrolytes.
However, in my opinion, most of the sports drinks aren’t the way to go. Adding a little pinch of good quality salt to your water could give you the electrolytes that you need to make that more available to the system so that can be transferred into performance.
Genevieve: Is one of the symptoms of dehydration muscle cramping?
Stephen: Yes, very good point. For some training sessions, sometimes as we get halfway through, there may be some cramping. To me, it’s a red flag. It’s about hydration. The body is just responding to that, is trying to give you a signal say, “Hey. You got to do something about this. Fuel me with the proper hydration or I’ll keep giving you a signal to make you stop the movement basically.” It’s a safety issue.
Dr. Lisa: In the news, we’ve seen athletes, I think football players tend to be in that group that don’t get enough water, and then that leads to heat exhaustion and eventually could be even heatstroke and death.
Stephen: Clearly. Yes.
Dr. Lisa: It’s a significant issue that people really do need to be paying attention to you.
Stephen: It is. It’s a very real thing, and you don’t have to be a professional athlete and a lead athlete. In those cases, they can be fairly severe, but nobody is immune from it so it can address anyone. It depends upon with their baseline is as well. As a normal baseline, I suggest to people they drink at least half their body weight in ounces. Knowing that they may not do that, but if there’s enough of a buffer zone, they’re going to get into a safety, a safer zone a well.
I’m a big fan of coconut water because of its electrolyte properties as well. The body really … it superflex that water. It takes it in. It really recognizes it as something that’s beneficial and healing. Even if you don’t like the taste of it and a lot of people don’t, they do make them flavored. That wouldn’t be my first choice, but it’s a better choice than other things, so there are some options out there.
Dr. Lisa: You mentioned that at your facility, at The Body Architect here in Portland, you have a machine that you use to measure people’s body water.
Stephen: We do. It’s called a ‘Bioimpedance machine’. People stand on this, we plug in specific information and it calls back out to us different information inclusive of body fat and BMI and total body water. For me, that’s the most important thing. I know people get pretty hung up on percentage of body fat. For me it’s what is your total body water, because if that is lacking like we were talking about earlier, that could be one of the side-effects, it may be difficult for one to let go of weight because their hydration level is so low that regardless of their attempts, they may not be able to shed those pounds that they’re looking to do.
If you just increase that water intake, it again can start knocking off all these things. You see, the better it gets, the better it gets. If people start sleeping better, then they make better eating choices, they make better movement choices, they make better stress management choices. The whole chainsort of like it can spiral down, but it can spiral back up as well.
When I look at that chart, that little ticket that the machine gives me, my most concern is the total body water, so I look at that. Men should be in a range of between 60 and 70%. Women, 50 to 60%. Most people are well below that. See, if you can just do one thing, just increase your hydration level, then I think a lot of those other little nagging things that are poking up people will start taking care of themselves. That’s what we want to do.
Just want to basically put the body in an environment where it can heal itself. It knows what to do, sometimes, they just have to get out of the way and allow that to happen. Something as simple as hydration could really affect to so many other problems.
Dr. Lisa: I know that you recently return from the Kripalu Institute, and you received additional training in Qigong.
Stephen: Yes. Correct.
Dr. Lisa: This is something you’ve been doing for a long time, you just mentioned the body healing itself.
Stephen: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: Remind people who didn’t get to listen to your ‘Light’ show the fall what is Qigong and why does that help the body heal itself?
Stephen: The thing I like about Qigong, and I think in one word, balance and equilibrium. If the body can start to harmonize, get back into a sense of equilibrium and balance, then the energy pathways open up. It’s very similar to the work that you do with needles. You’re opening energy pathways so that the energy can of course freely and unobstructed through the body.
Qigong, chi stands for breath or vital energy. Gong is practice or work. In essence, it’s breath, work, breath, practice, energy, practice. Qigong is just a series of movements and there are 10,000 forms. I’ve been doing it for probably 15 years. I would consider myself an infant in terms of being a Qigong. It’s funny, we’re talking to this gentleman who is teaching this class, and he says, “We use the term master way too much in the western.” They don’t do that in China or in the east as much. Everybody just assumes that.
For me, it’s a continual growth process. I really come to experience the benefits so I speak from someone who has a knowing about it. I first started Qigong because in my profession, my body was way too stiff, and so it was blocking of a lot of my vital energy. I was introduced to Qigong as a way to create suppleness and let flow go through my body. I was better able to use my breath because my philosophy has always been effectiveness and efficiency.
Qigong is really economy of effort, economy of movement. It teaches the body how to move correctly, and you start saving your energy instead of spending it. Now, I’m just as guilty as everyone else because I also tend to spend my energies a little too much, so Qigong has been a savior for me. I think one who is more active or more external, they need more internal work.
The saying goes that “The more internal you do, the less external you’ll choose”, or at least you’ll prioritize that. I know for me personally, as I have of all, I would always choose Qigong first because Qigong is about longevity and feeling good, and internal that’s going to be with you, whereas the physical portion is also very important, the body changes regardless age does take its toll.
It’s not about extending, it’s about quality movement. When I do Qigong exercises, it just places the body in positions where the energy can open up, then the body can take care of itself, because again, the greatest healing instrument is our body. It knows what to do. We just want to get it in that place and the reason according to my reading and my past research, the Sages, who developed these movements, they were into meditation, creating stillness.
Stillness has a lot of magic. They found the stillness alone, their bodies got too weak, so they weren’t able to hold the positions as long to gain all the magic from the meditation poses. They developed Qigong as a compliment to get their bodies strong so they could stay in meditative postures longer.
When I do a Qigong class, it always consist of a preparatory phase, then the exercises and then the stillness. We do the exercises to get to a point where we can create stillness in the body, and that’s where the magic happens. It also happens to feel good. It’s far more user friendly than a cousin like Tai Chi which tends to be more choreographed or sequenced. Qigong is just a little more user friendly. You really can’t do it wrong because it’s your body interpretation.
I’ll oftentimes tell people that it doesn’t matter what your expression looks like. If you just come in, if you are not feeling well, and you wanted to come in and sit down while we’re doing a Qigong class, you will benefit from the Chi that’s being created because Chi, being vital, being life essence, there’s nowhere that it’s not so it permeates all around. If you’re just in the environment, you’ll start to feel good, you may not know why. Once you start to feel good, then you make better decisions on again how you move and how you sleep and what you eat.
That’s the magic because there really is no one magic bullet. It’s the combination of all these things. You put them all together and you have wellness or well-being, and that’s what we’ve been professing. You do it in your practice, I see it, and it’s just another way to do it.
Dr. Lisa: Stephen, I know that one of the things that you keep talking about is the benefit of a healthy environment. That’s what you have at The Body Architect.
Stephen: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: I mean you really have made an effort to be mindful about your space.
Stephen: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: One of the things that happens in the summertime is you expand out onto your deck.
Stephen: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: Was it purposeful or did you just happen to think, “It’s pretty out there”?
Stephen: It was purposeful. We really enjoyed being outside. Doing Qigong or anything is really wonderful to really take in that fresh air. We are very fortunate in that our direction faces the mountains, and it faces a body of water as well, and there’s a lot of greenery so we have a perfect storm. If I do Qigong when the weather permits, I have people focused on strength of the mountain, fluidity of the water, the gentleness of the trees and the warmth of the sun. That’s very helpful.
However, people will just go out and do their own exercise patterns. When we first moved in, we saw that this was available and we thought it would be just a wonderful addition.
Dr. Lisa: They also do yoga out on your deck. Is that true?
Stephen: They do. They do. Yes, some of the classes. Middle part of the day is a little oppressive out there depending upon, but who knows? We’re getting in the fall, that’s really wonderful. Everyone that comes in after a class on the deck, they really report a greater sense of euphoria. It just feels good to them. I think because most of the movement, most of exercise is conducive to deep breath, and we can take in deep breath and is fresh. Boy, that’s so magical for me because Qigong is all about breath. Exercise is all about breath as well.
If people focus on the deep breath and I’ll say during the session with me which typically last an hour, you’ll probably take a couple of hundred deep breaths. I think that in and of itself is the most important thing you can do. The exercise portion I believe, you’ll read the benefits of that, but in my estimation or in my opinion, it’s secondary. The breath is fist. We need the breath first.
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For more information, visit ‘Orthocareme.com’ or call 207-781-9077.
Dr. Lisa: How do you feel about stretching to prevent injury?
Stephen: Stretching, another great question. This time of year, people need to systemically warm their bodies. I prefer that people stretch from a warm to position, and I also, just like I like functional training, I like functional stretching that simulates the movements that we do. I’m not a fan of just doing only static stretching, and I also don’t shy away from movement stretching. There’s a lot of a movement, and I also think about the body as a whole. I’m not trying to isolate a part when I stretch because you don’t simulate that in every day activity.
When I do a stretch and perhaps the hamstring which is very popular, maybe my primary objective, I’m stretching the whole body to accomplish that so nothing is left out, and that’s the way that I strength train as well so you’re able to use it. People who are participating in a sport, the best way to prepare is to simulate the sport at a lower level intensity. That’s the best way to prepare and try to I think avoid injury is a very strong word.
There are no guarantees. All we want to do is reduce the likelihood of an injury, as well as, if somebody does receive an injury, the severity may not be as much have they not prepared for it, and so therefore their recovery is a lot quicker.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve spoken about yoga, we’ve spoken about Qigong. I know you have also massage at The Body Architect?
Stephen: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve talked about bioimpedance and drinking water.
Stephen: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: I think I’d like to remind listeners that you have a very integrative approach. You also have TRX machines.
Stephen: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: You have other machines that are very traditional, I’ll just call it a ‘Fitness facility’ or a gym.
Stephen: Right.
Dr. Lisa: Having been through a training session with you, I can attest to the fact that you draw a lot from a lot of different areas.
Stephen: Yes. I think the main philosophy and the main purpose is that we want to work the body in an integrated fashion, and those pieces of equipment that you just listed really help us, as well as, that’s not the only answer. That’s a very small piece of the pie. Things like massage really help to alleviate any lactic acid. It’s just as important as other pieces of being well. Cardiovascular, the wonderful work that you do as well, just opening people up, placing them in wonderful position so the healing can take place.
We wanted to create that environment at the studio, and we still get reports today when people come through the elevator, they feel good about being in the environment. To me again, that’s the most important thing because anybody can do movement, anyone can do exercise, but it’s the environment in which you do that in and your interpretation of that that’s most important.
Having a great team that has this philosophy of which you’re now a part of, and I’m very grateful for that, it’s really helpful because congruency for me is huge. I want to make sure things that I say or things that I do and things that I believe in, and people that we have at The Body Architect share that same vision.
Dr. Lisa: I also noticed that in my workout with you, it was fun. I mean, not all of it is fun, but the Kettlebells.
Stephen: Yes. Yes. Yes, and I apologize for those moments.
Dr. Lisa: No, that’s all fine. The Kettlebells, the ball, the balance ball, I mean, you actually incorporated things in. I am a long time runner, so my workout was upper body, and it was something I was a little intimidated by.
Stephen: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: When I came in, you were very gentle, you made it interesting, and I think I’m somebody who gets very bored from doing weights, but you integrated a lot of things and you did it in a very efficient manner, so fun and efficient. Talk to us about efficiency.
Stephen: It’s very important because I like to talk about being in the moment. When a person is doing their workout, it’s their time, so that also has a lot of healing property. If they’re thinking about other distractions, it takes away from the physiological benefits or gaining from the workout. It really puts you in the moment.
When you are trying to balance on a ball, oftentimes, I’ll try to take balance away so that the body comes back to running reflex. It knows what to do again, but you’re not thinking about those things. You’re thinking about survival in a fun way. It’s like an adult playground. We have all these wonderful toys, and we’re just trying to unbalance you a little bit and can you come back to center. It’s equilibrium, because again, as you’re moving in space, the better balance you can get, then the likelihood of you getting the injury really starts to diminish.
I try to keep it fun in those, but not for sake of variety, because it has to have a purpose. Your response is very typical. A lot of people come and say, “Gee, we just did an upper body today.” The legs were involved in a lot of it, but you just didn’t realize that. It was just happening. It’s sort of this global sensation that happens. That’s a very typical response.
Dr. Lisa: I can tell you, it wasn’t my legs that were sore after the workout.
Stephen: Ouch. Yes.
Dr. Lisa: It’s something that I think about a lot, because I turn 41 in January, and I have pretty good endurance, I can bike, I can ski, I can run, but I think not unlike many women, the upper body and the arms is something that I’ve never really focused on.
Stephen: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: The way to go in there and rebalance was very helpful.
Stephen: Very important because if you focus on those activities, and you put time on that repetitive motion, but other pieces are missing, then it’s just a matter of time before the triangle collapses. When we start focusing on the strength, then it will allow you to do the running for longer, for more enjoyment, also to really try to cut back on the likelihood of an injury.
Oftentimes, in women in particular, I see strength training as a missing link oftentimes because I think it’s just been very intimidating in our culture and our society, and the traditional facilities may have something to do with that. This gets you back into playing. Things are strengthening and again, I always go back to “You’re only as strong as your weakest point”, so when we get that weak point stronger, the organism gets stronger. Everything becomes easy.
Again, I think the most important part is not the time that you spend there in the exercise or in the actual activity. You want to prepare so that your life flows smoothly all the time no matter what because it’s a 24-hour day basically, it’s not a one or two so you get it all.
Genevieve: It’s been such a warm sunny summer this summer, kind of different for a lot of us who’ve grown up in the summers here. Is there a better time to exercise in summer with all the things we’ve been talking about, hydration, warm body …?
Stephen: Right. There probably is I find that is very unique to the individual. It really has to meet their lifestyles. When it’s really warm, obviously in cooler parts of the day are going to be best, so a lot of people are morning exercises, others like evenings, so it becomes a personal preference. What I’ve also experienced over the years that if people for the most part, if they don’t get their exercise done in the morning, in the A.M., then they find too many excuses get in the way. Life gets in the way as it does. We suffer from the human condition, so it’s important.
I think once you make it an integral part of your lifestyle, then just see how it fits in and make sure they get it done, and also realize that everything counts. You wouldn’t also have to do the full exercise. There are different components, you have the cardiorespiratory and then muscular strength and endurance and flexibility. Oftentimes, they can be woven together, but you wouldn’t necessarily have to do them in the same setting.
In other words, if you wanted to go out for a run in the morning and then do your resistance training in the late afternoon, that would be okay as well. They’re different categories. They don’t have to be sandwiched together. It really comes down to personal preference and when it fits your lifestyle. Clearly, when it’s that hot, you really want to be careful because the quality of the air isn’t greatest, and when you’re exercising, obviously you’re grabbing for more air.
Dr. Lisa: Stephen, how can people find out more about you and The Body Architect?
Stephen: They can go online now which is ‘Thebodyarchitect.com’. They can give us a call. Our number is 207-774-2196. We have a virtual tour on our website as well, and that’s been revamped. Again, I’m not the one to ask for the technology portion of it. However, it will give the people a virtual tour and all the information that they need.
They can also stop by and see us at any time. We’re in hours of operation facility.
Dr. Lisa: Genevieve, how do they read more about Stephen?
Genevieve: The profile came out in April, 2012 issue of ‘Maine Magazine’ which is online. I feel as if we’ve written a lot about you.
Stephen: You have. Very appreciative. Thank you so much. It’s great.
Genevieve: I think there’s going to be an article about Dr. May coming out soon.
Stephen: Wonderful. Great.
Genevieve: I think just logging on to ‘Themainemag.com’ and typing your name into the search facility.
Stephen: Yes. Good connection. It’s great.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve been talking with Stephen Anderson of The Body Architect who is again local celebrity, but you heard him first here. Go back and download the podcast from the fall on ‘Light’ and hear what he had to say on that topic. He happens also to be one of my colleagues now as that’s where my acupuncture and Chinese medicine practice is located.
If you stop by and visit Stephen, then you can visit with me too and we thank you for being here today and talking about sports injuries.
Stephen: Thank you for having me.