Warming up is of paramount importance during winter Think of your muscles as a rubber-band ball- tightly wound. Now think of that rubber-band ball sitting in a refrigerator! While this is a slight exaggeration, your pre-workout muscles are tightly wound and they start colder during the winter time. If you initiate a vigorous work out…

As mentioned in my last blog, dieting is an immensely effective tool for fending off the fatigue of winter. Chances are, you are already consuming some of the ingredients you need to stay energized, just maybe not in the correct amounts or at the right time! An initial key is to trade off the sugar…

Winter fatigue Winter fatigue is so common: do you ever feel like days can be more of a slog during the cold winter months? There is a biological reason for this: less sunlight and fewer hours of it lead the body to produce more melatonin, a hormone that makes us feel sleepy. Indeed, people that…

Cooling Down The cool-down is the oft-neglected sibling of the warm-up and, while its importance is perhaps secondary, it can be utilized to great effect for anyone hoping to round out their exercise on a positive note. By focusing on breathing and slowing down the heart rate, we can transition out of exercise mode and…

Winter is fast approaching, and as the cold winds come, you will hear the echoes of your Hackensack chiropractor urging you not to throw out any health and fitness progress you may have made during the warmer months. We generally work out less in the winter because our motivation to go outside is lessened: the…

Let’s make this very clear: we need to stop using the lower back to perform the functions of the hips and posterior muscle chain! When we forget how to use hip joints, a very common and potentially dangerous domino-effect occurs: muscles that are usually activated fall by the way side and weaken, but the range…

Planking: what is it good for? Quite a bit, it turns out: so much has been made of this relatively simple exercise, especially on Youtube and pop culture, but from a fitness (and a chiropractor’s) perspective, the plank deserves a place in the pantheon of excellent exercises. When done properly, the plank targets and conditions…

Do you have a plan in place for when pain strikes? Even the healthiest of athletes is prone to a flare of back pain that can sideline them for an indefinite amount of time. Many people are familiar with the “crick-in-the-neck” that results from a night spent sleeping awkwardly on the pillow; this kind of…

Have you performed a check on your lung capacity lately? Studies are showing that Americans are chronically short in this regard, due to factors and circumstances of their own creation: pollution, poor diet, poor posture, too much sitting, not enough exercise. What’s worse, awareness is down across the board as well, meaning that with every…

What can you do with 2 minutes? When we stop and break up the day into miniature blocks of time, you can see that a lot can be accomplished in 120 seconds and this is an important tool when it comes to stress management. It is easy to stay swept away in the washing machine…