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Hemp Kale Salad
Lee Petrie, NTP
Ingredients:
1 bunch dinosaur kale [aka lacinado kale]
1 scant tsp celtic salt
2 Tsp lemon juice or raw, organic apple cider vinegar
3 Tbl olive oil or flax seed oil, or hemp oil, or a blend
1 large tomato, diced
¼ c. hemp seeds* [or other seeds or nuts as desired, preferably soaked and dehydrated -- pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, for example]
Remove main part of kale stem and finely chop leaves into bowl.
Add salt and massage with your hands well until kale wilts [about 3-5 minutes]. Add lemon juice and massage again for a minute or two.
Add tomato and hemp seeds or other seed or nut and toss.
Finally, drizzle oil and toss final time.
Serves 2-4.
The order in which you add ingredients is crucial !!!! If you add oil too early, the kale will not wilt as well.
*Hemp seeds don’t need to be soaked
Adapted from Gabriel Cousens’ Rainbow green Live-Food Cuisine
Sinus Congestion and Allergy Relief with the Neti Pot
Augusta Swift, N.D.
Are you suffering from chronic infections behind the nose, commonly known as sinusitis, hayfever, or allergies? Do your symptoms flare up occasionally depending on the season when the inflammatory reactions in the sinus area increases? The nasal lavage is an excellent remedy to clear the passages, reducing the chronic infection and inflammation, so the body can repair itself and return to a normal and balanced state. It does take time and must be repeated regularly to see results. Frequently antibiotics are not able to resolve these infections, and allergy medications help temporarily but often have long-term side effects. The long-term use of the nasal lavage may prove to be extremely beneficial.
The nasal lavage is a simple and effective home treatment for the following complaints:
Materials Needed:
Directions for use:
The technique may seem unusual at first. However, once learned, you will quickly realize how beneficial this treatment is for sinus problems.
If it’s not the KNEE’s fault then whose fault is it?
Kevin Colling, D.C.
When I think about injuries that happen to the knee it reminds me of a quote that most of us used in our childhood. "It’s not my fault, they made me do it" Although injuries to the ACL, MCL, collateral ligaments and patellar tendon are well known, it is not as well known why they occur. Yes, it’s easy to deduce that when a 280lbs linebacker lands on the back of your knee and you hear a pop that that is what tore your ACL, but most ACL injuries and other knee injuries are not the result of one specific trauma. The knee is stuck between the foot and the hip and it can only react to what happens above it and below it. The motion of the foot dictates the motion of the tibia and fibula (the lower bones of the knee) and the hip joint motion dictates the motion at the femur (the upper bone of the knee).
Most knee injuries are the result of repetitive micro-trauma’s usually involving foot and hip joint dysfunction. As I described in the last newsletter, the heel must properly dorsiflex, and move down and in (pronate) to allow the tibia to rotate medially. If this motion does not happen properly then the muscles up the kinetic chain are not stimulated to contract and without muscular support, the ligaments of the knee must take on more of the load. Over time this can lead to a tear. Similarly, the hip joint motion must be within normal limits to have proper knee function. When the foot strikes the ground the hip should flex, internally rotate and adduct. This motion lengthens the powerful muscles of the buttock stimulating them to contract in order to stabilize the knee and then bring the tibia out of internal rotation and into external rotation. Like problems with the foot, problems with hip can cause the ligaments and tendons of the knee to take on extra loads which can cause tears.
The good thing about knee injuries is that if you can identify the area of greatest restriction or greatest mobility you can address the true cause of the pain. Dr. Colling has a series of functional diagnostic tests and treatments which are specifically designed to identify the body’s true area of weakness. He can provide effective treatment and exercise protocol’s to help prevent knee pain and to help recover from major knee injuries. It is interesting to note that, often knee pain issues can be treated successfully without treating the knee itself. So in many cases of knee pain, "it is not the knee’s fault, something else did make it hurt."
Freedom for the Hamstrings
Kirsten Schumacker, LMT
Who do you know that seems to have especially tight hamstrings? I find that tall guys with flexible backs and teen boys who have just been through a growth spurt often have the tightest hamstrings, and it seems these people characteristically feel little reward or productive result from trying to stretch them. My father, my uncle, and my father-in-law all experience tightness through the back of the thighs, and so do many of the young men I know who are about to step out into the world on their own. So in honor of Father’s Day and all the June graduations, I’d like to share with you my favorite remedy for tight hamstrings, the "bent-knee hamstring stretch."
Of course, it’s not just the tall guys who can benefit from this particular stretch. Many runners, bikers, or people who spend lots of time in chairs also feel chronically restricted through the hamstrings. I personally feel the most benefit from this stretch after a long day of airline travel or several days in a row of sitting at the computer, or right after a long run.
If you are in a hurry to explore the bent-knee hamstring stretch, scan to the end of the article and read the section "How to Find a Productive Stretch." For those of you with a bit more time, let me start by explaining hamstring anatomy from a Structural Integrator’s perspective.
Anatomy of the Thigh
We can think of the thigh as divided into three main muscle compartments: quadriceps group in the front, adductor group at the inner thigh, hamstring group in the back. You can compare these compartments, and the individual muscles within the compartments, to sections of an orange. Each of these muscles is wrapped in connective tissue called fascia (FAH-shuh). [Fascia actually wraps around and supports all of our organs, bones, nerves, and blood vessels; it weaves through muscles and is the primary substance forming tendons and ligaments. Fascia is the fabric of the body that holds our parts in relationship to one another.]
The fascia wrapping around one muscle (equivalent to the membrane around an orange section) lies against the fascia wrapping around an adjacent muscle, forming a double layer. There should be some gliding movement allowed between these layers, but if they are closely adhered, the muscles will have a hard time moving independently. In the posterior thigh, fascial adhesion between the hamstrings and the underlying adductor magnus, will limit the extent to which they can lengthen separately from one another. Because fascia wraps around and supports the nerves and blood vessels that run between muscle compartments, there is extra intermuscular fascia associated with branches of the sciatic nerve running between the hamstrings and adductor magnus, and this is where we find another important factor contributing to persistently tight hamstrings!
Tethered and trapped nerves
When adjacent muscles are glued too tightly together, the nerves that run between them are tethered so snugly within the intermuscular layers of fascia that movement or stretching can then put sheer stress upon the nerves. A slight amount of sheer stress, caused by neighboring muscles pulling in different directions, might help release accumulated fascial tethering, but lots of sheer stress can trigger neurons to fire. Stressed motor neurons can cause muscle fibers to contract, increasing the tone of the muscle, shortening it, and making it harder for the person stretching to find a release. Additionally, stressed sensory nerves may elicit pain. Pain and unresponsiveness to stretch are clues that it is time to modify the stretch, so that it more effectively targets the area where the muscle layers are glued together.
How Layers of Fascia in the Thigh Become Glued Together
Every night new hydrogen bonds develop between collagen fibers in the fascial layers, and over time these bonds accumulate. Stretching and exercise tend to break the hydrogen bonds gluing together adjacent layers. So, moving every day helps the layers retain enough freedom to glide against one another. However repetitive activity that moves in only a few limited directions (e.g. biking and running, which require minimal lateral movement) won’t release these hydrogen bonds as effectively. If adjacent muscles, such as the hamstrings and adductor magnus, always contract and lengthen in unison, there is minimal tug or shear stress on the intermuscular fascial layers, and in time, they become more and more glued together. Inactivity and compression (e.g. sitting in hard or confining chairs) further contributes to the glueyness between these fascial layers.
In the back of the thigh, the hamstrings and adductor magnus can do similar work—both cross the hip joint, and therefore they are both involved in hip extension and can act to stabilize the pelvis from behind. However, the hamstrings cross the knee joint, so they are shortened by bending the knee and lengthened by straightening the knee, while the adductor magnus is not lengthened or shortened by knee movement. The problem with “tight hamstrings” is not so much the length of the hamstrings, but the relationship between the hamstrings and the adductor magnus. A straight-knee stretch may not change the relationship between the layers, whereas a bent-knee stretch can begin to free the hamstrings from the underlying adductor magnus, thus reducing sheer stress on many local branches of the sciatic nerve, which allows both muscles to gradually release. Read on, and then try out the following stretch to understand how it works.
How to Find a Productive Stretch
First select a chair or the arm of a sofa, something you can put your foot on while you stand on the other leg. (You might want to position yourself near a wall, so that you can put your hand on something for support and balance.) Make sure that you start with a big bend in the knee of the leg that is propped up. Bend it at ninety degrees to start and fold forward so that your belly and chest rest on your thigh. Bend your knee even more, if your belly is not touching yet. Now, KEEPING that relationship between belly and thigh, and resting your body against your thigh, flex your ankle upward (move toes toward your knee), and slowly slide your sitting bone backward. This will BEGIN to have a straightening effect on your knee.
Stop moving and hold your position as soon as you feel a stretch in the middle of your posterior thigh. If you are tight in the hamstrings, your knee should still be quite bent, and yet, you will feel a significant stretch or a pull in the muscles. This is where you want to be. In this sequence, you are first lengthening adductor magnus; then you are starting to lengthen the hamstrings. In doing so, you are asking the hamstrings to glide past the adductor magnus, which begins to differentiate the two layers of muscle and free those branches of the sciatic nerve. Linger here for a few full breaths, then try shifting your hips toward your other leg, and feel how the stretch changes. Experimentally shift your hips the opposite direction, then find the angle at which you feel the strongest stretch. Hang out there for a couple more full breaths, then slowly return to standing on both legs.
You can go into a regular forward bend now, hanging down to test the sensation in the back of your legs. Likely, you will feel less pull in the leg that just did the bent-knee stretch. If both legs still feel similarly tight, check your hands visually to see how far each one hangs toward the floor. This should tell you that the side you just stretched has lengthened a bit. Now try the same sequence on the other leg.
Whether you are a tall guy or not, I hope that this stretch offers you a new way to get at your tight legs. As the layers in the back of your thighs release and stretching actually becomes more productive and pleasurable, it is possible to find significant hamstring relief and freedom. Many back injuries, pulled calf muscles, and even foot problems can be helped (or prevented) through release of tightly adhered fascial layers in the posterior thigh. So if you find this approach feels satisfying to you, I hope you will teach it to your dad, your son, or one of your friends who seems to have chronically tight hamstrings. Good luck, and remember to stretch regularly!
Feel free to email me with questions, or give me a call if you would like to schedule a session. With hands-on work, we can further increase your range of motion, improve your posture, and help you to experience a renewed sense of freedom and vitality in your structure.