Foundations of Fitness

Hey everyone, Dr. Chris here. Today, I’m talking about the FOUNDATIONS OF FITNESS - tips for how to stay healthy long term.

To begin, I’d like to say that in my opinion, there is a very BIG DIFFERENCE between what most people THINK IT TAKES to be fit and healthy, and what it ACTUALLY TAKES to be fit and healthy.

Very often, we’re given misleading information and oversold products and services that are unnecessary in the journey to live our best and healthiest lives. I want to re-educate you and dispel some of those myths.

Yes, my biggest goal as a doctor - but more specifically, as a orthopaedic and sports medicine surgeon (WRITING ON BOARD) - is to give people tools for how to best cultivate health and fitness on a regular basis.

I want as many people as possible to be self sufficient in terms of their health, and I want to keep people OUT of my office. I have more than enough patients even if most of you don’t get hurt thank you very much.

Yes, as a physician AND gym owner myself, you may think it’s strange, but I don’t want anyone to actually NEED my help. I don’t want people to get injured if they can at all help it and in many cases, those injuries CAN be prevented.

As for the gym, sure, it’s a good place for inspiration, support and for like-minded people to gather and share information, but in the end, it shouldn’t be a place you NEED to go to stay fit. You shouldn’t need my gym, or ANY gym for that matter. I’ll tell you why in a minute.

In today’s day and age - especially with less access to healthcare - it’s critical for people to know how to take care of themselves and to know their bodies as much as possible.

Plus, you don’t want some “unnamed” fitness facility soaking you for ten grand on personal training sessions if you know what to do on your own. Can you say rip off? I’ve witnessed this kind of thing first hand with some patients I have treated and I think that this type of predatory marketing is shameful.

So let’s get to what I think are the foundations of fitness. I suggest you take notes.

Principle number 1. The first thing you need to understand is that THE HUMAN BODY IS NATURALLY HEALTHY AND FIT.

In most instances, you were born healthy, and if treated properly over time, you will stay this way. Sure, there are some exceptions. People do get disease and have accidents, but a lot of suffering is unnecessary and preventable.

The thing is, you need to be proactive to enjoy that natural state of health. The world as we know it is working against you. First and foremost then, you need to make your health a priority.

Of course, and I do, you say. Do you really though? So many of us will put almost everything above our health, namely our jobs and relationships, how we look, what we wear, how we live, etc. You know as well as I do though that without health, you have nothing. If you’re sick, you can’t function or you’re dead. It’s really that simple.

Secondly then, you need to educate yourself about what being fit and healthy really means.

You need to look out for yourself. Big businesses certainly won’t, and doctors and other people in the medical system are so overworked that they don’t have time to do everything for you to ensure your health.

Bottom line: you CANNOT be complacent. You’re the one who will suffer if you are. It’s a sad fact, but it’s true.

Thirdly, you need to get to know your body, to pay attention to what it’s telling you.

It’s vital to learn to listen. If you feel bad or sick or “off” in any way, it’s important to reflect and ask yourself why this might be happening, and then make the appropriate changes.

What did you eat, what have you been doing, what changes did you make to your routine that may have caused this feeling?

I truly suspect that most people don’t even know what it feels like to be healthy in the first place. This is a huge problem.

Lastly, you need to actually CULTIVATE health by not succumbing to all the things in this world that will make you sick, and there are a LOT of them - cigarettes (most of us know this one), alcohol, soda, processed foods, and other products that you may put on or in your body, environmental contaminants, etc.

Basically, you need to understand that there are a lot of people and companies out there trying to sell you things and make money off you that you DON’T need and that will inevitably take years off your life if you use or consume them.

Be proactive. Keep your life as simple as possible. Don’t believe everything you see and hear, and make every attempt to take ownership of your health.   

It’s also important to keep in mind that being healthy includes your mental state. Stress has a huge and direct impact on your physical body.

It’s important therefore to be selective with your social circles, who you spend most of your time with, and to monitor your intake of social media and other forms of entertainment.

If something is making you consistently feel bad or doesn’t serve you well, you should remove it from your life if it’s at all possible.

OK principle number 2. What I’m about to say next is VERY IMPORTANT so I want you to listen carefully.

It’s probably the MOST important piece of information that I’m going to tell you here today to help you stay healthy. Most people don’t know this and it’s time they did.

Here it is: THE HUMAN BODY WAS MADE TO MOVE, regularly over time and consistently throughout the day. In our modern world, this is something we just don’t do anymore.

WE SIT WAY TOO MUCH. You workout, you say? Good for you. There’s still one big problem. Going to the gym and training - even if it’s an hour or more every single day - is NOT ENOUGH to keep you healthy if the rest of the time, you sit or remain inactive.

Why is movement so important? IT’S ALL ABOUT YOUR BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS. The more active you are overall, the lower your blood sugar levels stay. There are studies to show this.

Consistently high blood sugar levels lead to many of the conditions that increase mortality like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic illnesses.

The more you move your body, the lower your average blood sugar levels become. This is because your cells require energy, and as you move, they consume glucose that’s in the blood that comes from food.

Without movement, glucose remains stagnant in the bloodstream and ends up being stored within fat cells and in and around organs, which can cause your body to malfunction. This is when we get disease.

Yes, very low blood sugar levels are bad for you as well. What I’m talking about here is trying NOT to have excessively high blood sugar levels most of the time, which seems to be the norm more often than not these days.

It’s always about balance and that’s what we’re trying to achieve by eating right and including more physical activity in our day to day lives.

Of course, food is a contributing factor to this issue. What you eat, how much you eat, and when you eat can also affect your blood sugar levels. In a world where we eat too much, too often and typically consume processed food, this is also problematic.

Yes, our bodies need sleep and rest to recover, but - and this is a HUGE BUT - we’re not built to spend our days sitting for hours and hours at a time at a desk, or in a car, or in front of a television or computer screen, or anywhere for that matter. We’ve tipped the scales too far in the direction of inactivity. We’re made to move throughout our waking hours, and move frequently. 

Now, I’m not telling you that you need to be working out all the time. That’s NOT what I’m saying. It’s the small incidental movements like walking, biking, gardening, working around the house, playing recreational sports and games, even fidgeting (STRETCHING IN THE OFFICE), any kind of activity that has the body moving, even in the smallest, seemingly inconsequential ways, that counts in your quest to move more and stay healthy.

General, frequent, consistent low to moderate level physical activity. That’s what’s we’re talking about here. That’s what you should be aiming to do in your day to day lives.

How to achieve this? Well, the first thing is KNOWING IT’S IMPORTANT, which you do now. Second, is making conscious attempts to change your lifestyle bit by bit to incorporate it. Set a timer at work to take a break every half an hour or so. Even if it’s just to stand up and stretch for thirty seconds. Do a few squats. Walk down the hall to the water fountain.

When you’re out and about, take the stairs instead of the elevator, (BIKING) park further away from the mall entrance, ride your bike to a friend’s house. Most of us have heard these suggestions - likely when you’re wondering how to burn more calories - but what you might not have known (until now) is just how important it is to do them for disease prevention. Find activities that you enjoy. Take a dance class, play road hockey with your kids or grandkids, plant a garden, etc.

Basically, do NOT rely on your workouts alone for good health, because if exercising is all you do, the ratio of “time moving” to “time not moving” is too one-sided, and it’s simply not enough. 

OK, now that you understand all of that, what else can you do to stay healthy?

Principle number 3. Use your workout time to strengthen your weak areas and balance your body.

Most of us are typically weak in certain parts of the body, mainly due to the fact that we sit so much. We have weak backs and hips from too little activity. Or maybe you have some kind of job that requires repetitive movement, or you play a competitive sport and it’s your shoulders or knees that are the problem. Your workouts should prioritize strengthening (SCAP PUSHUPS) whatever areas YOU think need the most attention (SUPERMAN PULLS)

Also, if you think about principle number two - moving more in general - this changes what you might do for your workouts. Yes, they should include strength, mobility and aerobic training, but the amount of time you spend particularly in the aerobic area won’t be the same if you’re active the rest of the time.

You can get your cardio when you’re active doing things like biking, walking, dancing, swimming, playing sports, stuff like that. Dedicated workout time then could be an hour a few times a week (SHOULDER CIRCLES AGAINST WALL) directed at specific weakness-based and general strength and mobility work. In my opinion, that would be sufficient, given you’re active outside that time. Because remember, YOU NEED TO BE.

One easy injury prevention strategy that I tell my patients and gym members that you can add to your workouts is to train the back of your body more than you train the front (GLUTE BRIDGES). Most of us have weak posterior chain muscles, upper and lower back, glutes and hamstrings.

Again, this is from sitting so much, but also because everything we do is to the front of us. In an effort to balance the body - and a balanced body is a healthy body - we need to spend more time strengthening the back (HAMSTRING ON BENCH). Be aware of that and work out accordingly. 

Principle number 4 to staying healthy and fit longterm.

When you’re out there being more active, make sure you do A VARIETY OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES (MACE TRAINING). This is to keep overuse injuries under control. I know lots of us pick one thing and then run with it - literally - but let me repeat that last part for all you weekend warriors, marathon runners and non-athletes who think that doing any one activity to an extreme is necessary, healthy, or even good for you. It’s NOT.

Please realize that athletes are often plagued with injuries. I cannot tell you how many knee scopes and ACL repairs I’ve done on football, hockey, soccer players and runners, etc. Athletes don’t train to be healthy per se, although there are some elements to health that they take into consideration. No, they train to compete and to make money.

For you, a regular person who doesn’t want to have a hip or knee replacement by the time they’re fifty, being healthy in a sustainable, long term way does NOT involve going balls to the wall doing any ONE thing - however “cool” it may seem to say that you can run twenty-four miles straight. Being healthy and fit does NOT mean training until you get hurt. Can you say Crossfit? [shrugs shoulders]. It means not even coming close. So yeah, variety in your movement practices is key.

OK, so these first four foundational principles of fitness are the big things you need to remember. Besides educating yourself, moving more in general, breaking up sitting time, practicing weakness-based training, and cultivating a variety of fun physical activities, there are a few other tips that I have in terms of health and fitness.

Tip number 5. Exercise for REAL LIFE.

When you’re working out, train in ways that improve your everyday function. Focus on overall movement patterns like pushing, pulling, balancing, squatting, and rotating (KETTLEBELL SQUATS). You want to move better day-to-day? Practice the movements that will facilitate this.

Tip number 6: As you get older, your body is on the decline in terms of muscle mass, bone density, coordination, proprioception, etc.

Therefore, you should always be CHALLENGING YOUR BODY JUST A LITTLE BEYOND WHAT’S COMFORTABLE in order to slow down that deterioration process. In terms of strengthening the muscles, many of us pick an exercise and just do it the same way or use the same amount of weight indefinitely.

To reduce that decline slope, it’s important to gradually load your exercises in a progressive manner (ELEVATED PUSH UPS), whatever level that happens to be at the time. And just as strength training is for the muscles, impact training is for the bones (SKIPPING).

Yes, you want to push past comfortable, but let me remind you what I said about variety. The trick is not to subject the body or any one part of it to too much stress. It’s about finding that fine line between fitness and injury. The more active you are, the more you’ll know where this means. But let me make it simple: If your’e doing things and you find yourself always getting injured, do something else.

Tip number 7: Did you know that the one year mortality rate for hip fractures is 30-60% depending on the study between 30 and 60% (which is a lot no matter if it’s at the low end or the high end of this range), meaning that if you fall, 30-60%there is an up to 60% of you will die within a year.

This speaks to the overall poor health of our society. You don’t want to fall? Make sure to purposely TRAIN BALANCE (CLOCK TOES AROUND) as well, and do some sort of PLYOMETRIC WORK (BROAD JUMPS) in order to maintain your fast twitch muscles for optimal reaction time. Because falling is no joke especially as you get older, let me repeat that. TRAIN BALANCE and DO PLYOMETRIC WORK to optimize your reaction time in adverse circumstances.

Tip number 8. Rather than just going through the motions or trying to “get your workout over with,” think in terms of MOVEMENT MASTERY.

Focus on the details of your exercises. Try to get better at them, rather than just completing them (FROG LEG LIFTS). Remember, it’s quality over quantity. Moving better means having better control over your body means less injuries in general.

Tip number 9. When you’re exercising, training, slow down in the STICKY POINTS.

Don’t rush through exercises or parts of exercises that you find difficult. You’re indeed only as strong as your weakest link (HAWAIIAN SQUATS). Strengthening the areas and movement patterns that you find challenging is exactly how you get stronger and definitely what you need.

Tip number 10. Train in ALL DIMENSIONS and even in AWKWARD POSITIONS (KNEES IN SQUAT).

As we’ve seen, most of us like to favour forward movement, and the front of the body because that’s what we see. But in order to stay healthy and injury free, you must practice moving forward, backward, sideways, and rotationally. Accidents don’t usually happen in a linear plane. It’s when your body is forced into a position it’s maybe never seen that you end up hurt. Try to expose your body then to as many positions as possible (BACK BENDING). If your body COULD technically do it, then you SHOULD do it.

Tip number 11. GO BAREFOOT to strengthen the intrinsic muscles in your feet (BAREFOOT).

Get out of what I like to call “foot jail.” I’m not saying to do aerobics or go hiking barefoot - after years in shoes, that’s too extreme - but spending some time without shoes while you walk around the house or in your yard or even while you do some strength work is a good idea. Your feet are the foundation upon which the majority of your movement is based. They need to be strong.   

Tip number 12. HANG from a bar (SCAP PULLUPS).

This is one movement modality that we have lost in our modern age, but humans - like monkeys - were made to do it. Again, if we were made to do it, then we probably SHOULD do it. Hanging from a bar can improve grip strength and it’s great for shoulder mobility and upper body strength in general. You want to be able to move like a kid again, then you need to practice doing what kids do.

Tip number 13. DON’T NEGLECT THE LITTLE THINGS because these are often what end up injured, for example wrists, ankles, fingers, toes, and neck (TOE STRETCHES AND NECK STRETCH AND FINGER PUSHUPS).

They play a big role in overall fitness. If you’ve ever had a broken toe or wrist or a sore neck, you’d know how incapacitating it is to lose function in those areas. Don’t want them to be hurt? You can’t ignore them. Train them as well so they are less likely to get injured.

Now for a quick note about diet. Like your fitness, eating healthy MUST be a priority. Since you actually ARE what you eat, it’s important to MAKE TIME to cook your own meals, be mindful and eat smaller portions, fast occasionally, and remember that what you put into your mouth should be as close to its natural state as possible.

As Michael Pollen - activist and author of many books on the socio-cultural impacts of food - says, “Eat [real] food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Food is a much larger topic than what I can cover here. I will tackle that in a future video, but if you can make a few changes for me, stop drinking soda pop and juice altogether, and greatly reduce your consumption of alcohol and refined sugar in the form of candy, baked goods, etc. Those would be really good places to start. 

Well, that’s a lot of information for now. Hopefully, some of it was helpful. Stay tuned for my video where I demonstrate exercises that I think EVERYONE should include in their workouts to stay healthy and prevent injury. Check out our other videos right here on the channel for more medical tips, exercises, and follow along workouts.

Pass this video along to anyone you think needs to hear these messages - which is everybody, I think - and visit me on my main channel Chris Raynor MD where I talk about a wide variety of social topics and provide (what I call) medical edutainment. That’s it for today. As always, that’s been a word from Dr. Chris, not your everyday ortho.