Podcast 55: Cold Joints, Gluten Brain & Toilets

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-The Neurophysiology of your Joint Pain and Problems

A. Link to our server:

Direct Download: http://traffic.libsyn.com/thegaitguys/pod_55final.mp3

Permalink: http://thegaitguys.libsyn.com/podcast-55-cold-joints-gluten-brain-toilets

B. iTunes link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gait-guys-podcast/id559864138

C. Gait Guys online /download store (National Shoe Fit Certification and more !) :

http://store.payloadz.com/results/results.aspx?m=80204

D. other web based Gait Guys lectures:

www.onlinece.com   type in Dr. Waerlop or Dr. Allen,  ”Biomechanics”

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* Today’s show notes:

3 neuroscience pieces this week:
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‘Gluten Brain’: Wheat Cuts Off Blood Flow To Frontal Cortex 

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/research-wheat-cuts-blood-flow-brains-frontal-cortex

Influence of midsole hardness of standard cushioned shoes on running-related injury risk

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blishahead/Running_Shoes_Increase_Achilles_Tendon_Load_in.98153.aspx
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Case From a blog reader
Hello, 
I’m a swedish elite cross-country skier and newly graduated physio and I find your podcasts very interesting and informative! I have a question about something I’ve never heard you talk about, and which has been a problem for me for the last year.
It’s about the IP-joint of the big toe. I’ve had discomfort/pain in the joint for the last year, mostly after my workouts. It’s a bit swollen and there is crepitus to some degree(especially when I manually flex the toe while compressing it and at the same time have a pressure downwards/ventrally of the distal phalanx. I think it may be coming from a trauma I had 4-5 years ago when I stubbed my big toe really hard in a rock in an orienteering competition, which caused me to rest from running for a week or two.
So, my question to you is if you have any suggestion for me or others in my situation? Treatment? Which types of shoes to use? How would a future joint-fusion affect my running?
I’m only 23 years old and I’m really worried that this ache/discomfort will just get worse and worse.. I’ve asked a lot of great physios here in Sweden, but most of them don’t know much about what to do.
I’d be really grateful if you could take the time to give this a thought and share it.
Thanks!
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Another reader case:
 

Good morning. I am a former collegiate runner, I competed at Eastern Michigan University and Grand Valley State University, my father is a Chiropractor in northern Michigan. While in school I was recalled to active duty in the reserves after 9/11 and was unable to finish my eligibility. I am now 32, living in North Carolina, and trying to make a comeback to running and competing in Triathlons. At 6’2” and 170lbs. during college  I was competitive at the collegiate level  but always a step behind the true elites in the distance races in college, probably just because of my size, etc. competing against guys carrying 30 less lbs.

I train with a team called Without Limits  (iamwithoutlimits.com ) in Wilmington NC. My coach had mentioned that I had a really long loping stride which felt normal to me, but I cannot remember if I ran this way in college or not. When I finally counted, I had a cadence of 140 steps per minute rather then the optimal 180…

Long story short, I got really out of shape, now getting into pretty good form again, but I am having problems with the IT band and pain in the knee on the right leg. I never ever had this in college training at very high levels (90-100 mile weeks in the off and early parts of each season) …so now I have the bike component that I am working on, but being a larger distance runner I am trying to fine tune my gait/stride and see if I can improve my running that way and also figure out what is going on with this IT band issue as I am only running 30-40 miles/week now but on the bike and in the pool a lot. I am back down to 175 and pretty lean but carrying a little extra muscle from biking and swimming.

Would you be interested, if I could send you several high quality videos from different angles, in taking a look at my gait (or even riding the bike on the trainer) and see if you notice anything ? I have been working on improving my cadence since the IT band issues began, and found your videos online while doing research.  I understand this would be better done on a treadmill or in the parking lot at your office where you could watch up close, but if you are interested, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you.

 Sincerely,

 Tim

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The sedentary life affects your neurons !

http://www.outsideonline.com/news-from-the-field/Sitting-Still-Is-Bad-For-Your-Neurons.html

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A 3rd case this week, on Dystonia

Do you guys have any recommendations for analysis and treatment of acquired focal and gait dystonia?
It started as a splinting mechanism with a very loose right si and some L5 radiculopathy over 5 years ago.  The dystonia would come and go then eventually stuck all the time.
All the dystonia is on the right side and I don’t have any systemic neurological disease.
Forward walking, stair climbing, running (although barefoot running in grass and in particular undulating surfaces is ok in small amounts, asphalt or treadmill
brings on dystonia within seconds) are all a problem. Can cycle, run in water for 40 minutes or so no problem, so I think Si may still be hypermobile.  Walking backwards no problem.
Dystonia presents as stiff right leg with knee hyperextension, right eccentric weak, right glute medius weak, sticky posterior weight shift, but full and
painless movement through complete range of hip and knee.  I do have some focal dystonia as well mostly knee extension with hip flexion and foot supination and eversion with hip and knee flexed.

There must be someone who deals with this somewhat locally to me, Virginia Beach, VA.  Hoping you all may have some contacts on the east coast.
Thanks,
Sally

Get This: A Smart Toilet That Aims to Correct Poor Posture, and Even Detect Pregnancy and Disease | Entrepreneur.com
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/231344

Stop Doing Kegels: Real Pelvic Floor Advice For Women (and Men)

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This web article just came out today and we felt it was important to share. 

Nicole Crawford did a nice job with the article (LINK) and you need to read it.  The pelvic floor is a complicated place. There needs to be balanced muscular contraction and there has to be neutral pelvis and lumbar spine.  We have to agree with her comment:

A Kegel attempts to strengthen the pelvic floor, but it really only continues to pull the sacrum inward promoting even more weakness, and more PF (pelvic floor) gripping. The muscles that balance out the anterior pull on the sacrum are the glutes. A lack of glutes (having no butt) is what makes this group so much more susceptible to pelvic floor disorder (PFD). Zero lumbar curvature (missing the little curve at the small of the back) is the most telling sign that the pelvic floor is beginning to weaken. An easier way to say this is: Weak glutes + too many Kegels = PFD.

 There are too many people who have a shallow lumbar spine lordotic curve. These folks often hold the pelvis as neutrally as they can by keeping a constant squeeze of the glutes to “push” the pelvis “tipped up or levelled up” in the front when in fact the lower abdominals should “hold” them up in the front, to a notable degree.  It is easier for many to push the pelvis up with the glutes particularly when so many individuals are lacking in the abdominal compartment. 

We have so many of our patients learn the “potty squat” where the buttock is pushed backwards in a proper squatting technique.  We do this to reteach gluteal work, hamstring length in an environment of proper abdominal bracing. IT takes time to get the technique down, but it is worth it.  And, Crawford’s article gives it even more validity with its effect on the sacral posturing and impairing pelvic floor tension.

There is much good information in this article by Crawford.  It is worth everyone’s read. If you have been here with us on The Gait Guys for awhile you will know that we hold the mighty glutes on a high pedestal.  They are absolute key in gait and many folks do not use them properly.  After a few rough weeks practicing going gradually deeper as tissue length and strength is earned many of our patients have an epiphany of how little they were using their glutes, and how poorly they squat and how weak they were in the lower limbs.  Even our elderly patients in their 70s and 80s benefit from early shallow potty squat progressions.  We just put a chair behind them in case they fall back. It is never shocking to see what a few weeks of propper “potty-ing” will do to a person.  Do them alot, and do them often.

Good potty-ing to ya’ll.

Shawn and Ivo………Kings of our own Potty Thrones

Here is Crawford’s article link once again.

http://breakingmuscle.com/womens-fitness/stop-doing-kegels-real-pelvic-floor-advice-women-and-men

Oval Track Running Injuries, Part 2. The Details.

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Last week we did a blog post on the problems that oval track running can set up in terms of injury and promoting asymmetry, LINK).  We wanted to briefly go back to that article to hit some details that many folks did not put together. 

Keep in mind as you read on that the scenario is the typical counterclockwise oval track running.  As it said in the study, “analysis indicated that the left (inside limb) invertors increased in strength significantly more than the right (outside limb) invertors while the right evertors increased in strength significantly more than the left evertors.”

What this means is that someone who runs repeatedly counterclockwise on an oval track will drive skill, endurance and strength (the 3 basic tenets to solidifying a motor pattern) into the inside limb invertor muscles. This means the tibialis posterior, medial gastrocsoleus complex, flexor hallucis longus (likely) as well as some of the medial foot intrinsics. Because they are invertors, they are fighting the pronatory eversion forces on the track surface. These muscles will help to keep the ankle and foot neutral and slow the rate of foot pronation.  When these muscles are weak we see posterior shin splints in the left foot/ankle early in the track season. 
Whereas, the outside limb will be staving off the forces that want to launch the person off of the curves and off the outside of the track. Hence this limb will constantly redirect the forces inwards into the center of the track so that centripetal forces can continue to act to keep the runner on the curve (centripetal force is defined as a force which keeps a body moving with a uniform speed along a circular path and is directed along the radius towards the center). This means that the evertor muscles of the outside leg will be gaining skill, endurance and strength with every lap of training.  Hence, improvements in the peroneal group, the lateral gastrocsoleus namely.  Without these improvements the outside ankle would eventually fail and the forces are synonymous with inversion sprain mechanics.  Remember, here as well, these improvements in these muscle groups are designed to try and hold the ankle in a safe neutral biomechanical position and avoid inversion injury via the imparted forces.

It is also imperative to point out that the inside foot will see more ankle (mortise) dorsiflexion and eversion and the outside ankle will be seeing more (mortise) dorsiflexion and inversion.  We know that there are two heads to the tibialis anterior, one helps create more eversion and one more inversion.  Do we also want to see an imbalance and experience differential there as well ? If you have been with The Gait Guys for the last 4 years you will know that we harp on symmetrical ankle rocker range and function.  How can we expect to stay injury free with all this purposely driven asymmetrical skill, endurance and strength ?
Then one must remember that these muscular chains do not stop locally. If the inside foot invertor muscles are strengthened it is likely that the tonus and capabilities of the inner leg chain will be improved upon let alone the spiral chains as well.  Inner thigh groups including the adductors improve lower abdominal function from what we see in decades of clients. But remember, the outside leg is not seeing this same chain of muscles getting ramped up, rather it is seeing the lateral chain higher up improving which included the right gluteus medius to name just one. Furthermore, and we have talked about this until blue in the face, when  you have asymmetrical lower limb function you have asymmetrical upper limb swing.  We see shoulder and neck imbalances in our track athletes all the time.  And, then think about this, on non-track days what to many track athletes do ? They then go and drive massive strength into these asymmetries by going into the weight room and drive the problem deeper.

Our point here is that we are driving massive asymmetry into the human track machine. As as with any machine, loosen one bolt on one side and tighten the same bold on the other side and there will be a price to pay in the function of the machine. In the short term it will be one of performance, in the slightly longer term it will be one of injury.  As this study suggested, “ a high incidence of lower extremity injury (68%) occurred in this sample of runners, corresponding to an injury rate of 0.75 injuries per 100 person-hours of sport exposure. Although sample size was limited, secondary analysis indicated that strength changes were not significantly different for injured (n = 17) and uninjured (n = 8) runners (p > 0.05)”. Our response to the later statement is “give it time!”.  If you are one of these track athletes and are not injured, we like to say that you are likely lucky……. for now.
If you are a coach or an athlete, for the sake of your feet and legs……. use your head.
Shawn & Ivo
details, details, details……… because details matter.
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Clin J Sport Med. 2000 Oct;10(4):245-50.

Asymmetrical strength changes and injuries in athletes training on a small radius curve indoor track.

Beukeboom C, Birmingham TB, Forwell L, Ohrling D.

Abstract

OBJECTIVES:

1) To evaluate strength changes in the hindfoot invertor and evertor muscle groups of athletes training and competing primarily in the counterclockwise direction on an indoor, unbanked track, and 2) to observe injuries occurring in these same runners over the course of an indoor season.

DESIGN:

Prospective observational study.

SETTING:

Fowler-Kennedy Sport Medicine Clinic, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario.

PARTICIPANTS:

A convenience sample of 25 intercollegiate, long sprinters (200-600 m) and middle distance runners (800-3,000 m) competing and training with the 1995-1996 University of Western Ontario Track and Field team.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:

A standardized protocol using the Cybex 6000 isokinetic dynamometer was used to measure peak torques of the hindfoot invertor and evertor muscle groups of both limbs using concentric and eccentric contractions performed at angular velocities of 60, 120, and 300 degrees/sec. Changes in peak torques between the preseason and postseason values were calculated and compared using a repeated measures analysis of variance test. Injury reports were collected by student athletic trainers and in the Sport Medicine and Physiotherapy clinic.

RESULTS:

Primary analysis indicated that the left (inside limb) invertors increased in strength significantly more than the right (outside limb) invertors (p = 0.01), while the right evertors increased in strength significantly more than the left evertors (p = 0.04). A high incidence of lower extremity injury (68%) occurred in this sample of runners, corresponding to an injury rate of 0.75 injuries per 100 person-hours of sport exposure. Although sample size was limited, secondary analysis indicated that strength changes were not significantly different for injured (n = 17) and uninjured (n = 8) runners (p > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS:

The observed small, but statistically significant, asymmetrical changes in strength of the hindfoot invertor and evertor muscle groups can best be described as a training effect. Altered biomechanics proposed to occur in the stance foot while running on the curve of the track are discussed in relation to the observed strength imbalance. A causal link between strength changes and lower extremity injuries cannot be inferred from this study, but suggestions for further research are made.