Tag Archives: Wellness

improve athletic performance

How Can I Improve My Athletic Performance

Achieve Your Fitness Goals with the Right Plan and the Wellness Support Your Body Needs

As we settle into a new year, many of us are turning our attention toward our own wellness goals. While resolutions can seem cliché, this time of year encourages us to reflect on the current state of our health and fitness. Many of us want to get in shape, improve cardiovascular health, or simply improve upon our current levels of athletic performance. If you have your sights set on making this year your healthiest yet, you can do it with the right help. Here are just a few ideas to help you get started:

  • In conjunction with your larger aims, be sure to set small, achievable goals for yourself. Seeing those little victories along the way will help fuel your motivation, and serve as benchmarks for your progress.
  • Create a plan that uses concrete training principles to improve athletic performance. If you are asking yourself, “How can I improve my athletic performance?” find a training plan that applies to your sport of choice and level of fitness. For example, if you want to up your running game, many free apps are available that address concepts of speed, distance, or all-terrain training. Research is your best ally when it comes to creating a successful training plan.
  • Make sure to get a check-up with your healthcare provider. You want to get a good idea of your current level of health so you can incorporate any pressing issues into your training plan, or make adjustments as needed. You want to ensure that you are not ignoring nutrition or safety recommendations that will help keep your body safe.
  • Keep track of your progress and be sure to take notes on your workouts and nutrition. For example, if you have a bad day, be sure to document where or when you were struggling in your workouts so that you can identify and overcome obstacles.

What If I Hit a Wall in My Training?

As you progress, you may face many obstacles like soreness, stiffness, injury, or simply the feeling that something just isn’t working correctly. Even with modifications and stretching, you still feel like your body is not living up to the potential you know is in there. If this happens, it may be time to look at an alternative cause: problems with your fascial system.

Your fascia, or connective tissue, runs throughout your body and helps your bones, muscles, and organs work together. Occasionally, parts of your fascia become tough or fibrous, thereby pulling your body out of alignment and hampering your performance.

The good news is that these issues can be corrected through a series of deep tissue bodywork called Rolfing®. This practice corrects these aberrations, and restores range of motion and springiness to your movements. In fact, Rolfing is considered to be one of the essential tips to improve athletic performance by professional athletes and dancers. They often turn to Rolfing for rapid recovery from sports injury, improved flexibility, or better form and posture.

About Author: In our area, Certified Advanced Rolfer® Bob Alonzi helps people of all fitness levels achieve their goals and improve personal wellness. As you begin your own journey toward your healthiest year, consider adding Rolfing to your self-care plan. To learn more, or to schedule a consultation, contact Bob Alonzi’s practice today at 310-451-3250!

3 Rules to Live By

SOUL FOOD

Feeling good has a lot to do with what we eat. But it begins with forging the right mindset.

By Rose Nyad Orrell

 

Eating right all the time and working out five days a week is supposed to position you for a long, healthy life. Yet, there you are: stressed and stuck in a rut.

From my perspective as a certified holistic health practitioner, the concept of wellness has been rewritten to suit our goal-oriented nature. Eat this many calories, exert this much energy and none of the rest really matters. But it does. And so does our approach. Balance is key. There’s no one-size-fits-all regimen when it comes to achieving a sound mind and body. But there is a blueprint.

 

Back to basics

Over recent years, our diets have grown increasingly acidic. The most common culprits: fried and processed foods, sugar, dairy, white flour, coffee and alcohol. What they do is trigger inflammation. When that happens often enough, it’s no longer your body’s healing response but its natural state. And when you’re inflamed all the time, you open yourself up to a host of ailments. Tip the balance back in favor of alkaline foodstuffs—veg; most fruit, including blueberries, dates and apples; and certain whole grains, like quinoa and amaranth—in the neighborhood of 80 percent and your body will regain its sensitivity.

 

In defense of bacteria

Probiotics are getting a lot of play these days, but they’re being sold as a cure-all because it accommodates our pared-down version of wellness. In a healthy body, think of the intestines (a.k.a. the gut) as the engine and the probiotics, the fuel. They facilitate the growth of good bacteria, which primes the intestines to more easily breakdown and absorb food. And the more efficient the operation, the stronger the body’s immune system becomes. However, indulge too often in pizza, fried chicken and gelato and the intestines become gunked up with bad bacteria (yes, there are two kinds), which hampers digestion and weakens our immunity. Simply countering that with the occasional Greek yogurt is like trying to cool off by standing in a puddle. Start by eating more alkaline foods, then begin incorporating live-cultured things, like sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir and fermented coconut water. With the foundation already in place, the good bacteria will be free to flourish.

 

Peek under the hood

Our bodies have the incredible ability to adapt—as long as we get out of our own way. The point of the first two steps is lost if they feel like a chore. After all, true wellness, as it’s described by the World Health Organization, is “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Read: This is always going to feel like a work in progress, but a sound mind will keep it feeling like this is the way it should be, rather than this is the way it has to be.

We tend to suppress our emotions so we can deal with them at a later time, when we’re better equipped. Which, of course, never happens. When it goes on long enough, this inner turmoil starts to manifest in physical symptoms. If you’ve been bothered by a persistent ache, or worse, consider what you’re harboring and start to work it out.

And sometimes the sources of our stress are obvious—a dead-end career, a neglected marriage—but no easier to deal with. Change can feel incredibly daunting, but for the same reason we dread it—it’ll change the landscape of our lives—it’s also the single-most empowering act we’re capable of. And in order for this to have any permanence, bold moves are required.

 

Rose Nyad Orrell is a New Hope-based certified holistic health practitioner.