Chapter 10
Core muscles are extremely important to our bodies and we need to keep them strong and healthy. Our core muscles are NOT just our abdominals so crunches and sit ups is no going to be enough to strengthen them, the muscles also stretch to our backs. The core muscles connect to our spine and pelvis which are very important to the overall health of our bodies considering we use both of them everyday and need them to be able to move around. If someone is slouching or always seems to have back pain they more than likely have weak core muscles that cannot support them like a person who stands tall all the time and doesn’t hurt their back often. It is important to exercise these muscles along with the rest of our bodies to keep them from being over worked which leads to pain in the lower back. A couple ways to strengthen your core are yoga, pilates, and tai chi which all work in different ways to help your core. While tai chi and yoga both work with stretching while combining body with mind they focus on different aspects of the body. Yoga is more of breathing and stretching for 30 seconds or more for each pose along with some meditation so free your mind of stress. Tai chi focuses more on reducing muscular tension through gentle movements that are continuous. Pilates uses more stretching with resistance focusing on strength of individual muscle groups. Everyone finds one better than another or doesn’t like any at all and find their own ways to strengthen their cores. Another useful tip from chapter 10 is how to prevent injuries along with steps you should take if you do get injured. Make sure you have appropriate footwear for the exercise you are about to do such as running don’t try to run in boots you will get yourself HURT. Also if your are going to be playing a sport lets say football make sure all of your equipment fits properly and they are going to work for you such as:
Helmet must be snug to your head do not want wiggle room that’s how you break your nose or worse get a concussion
Shoulder pads protect your whole chest and are down 2 to 3 inches on your shoulder to prevent dislocations or AC joint injuries
Finally knee pads and thigh pads make sure they fit your legs and stay in place they are very important even though people find them annoying.
That was just an example of how you should examine your equipment before using them to help keep yourself safe from injury. A very common injury that is hard to prevent is shin splints a common runners injury they way you want to go about treating this type of injury (Overuse injury) is going to be through ice and heat along with light stretching when pain goes away. continue this until you no longer have pain in any area you overuse.
This chapter can relate to my health aspects because the reason I am trying to eat healthier is because I was seriously injured in football. If I had followed my own steps in this blog I would not have hurt myself but instead I took shoulder pads that were too small for me because I could move better in them and im paying the price now for it. If you ever play any pick up sports make sure everything you are going to use works correctly otherwise you might not like what happens.
Chapter 11
Cardiovascular diseases are a very serious thing to be looking out for in yourself and in others you love. There are things you can look for that are modifiable risks to some ones health such as smoking, inactivity, stress and poor eating habits.These all contribute to cardiovascular diseases and put lives at risk because of poor choices. The most prolific of the cardiovascular diseases is a heart attack as it as know as the “silent killer” claiming about 1 in 7 people approximately 360,000 people a year. This means a lot to me because my father had a heart attack years ago but he was able to pull through from it but his was caused by stress from work. Make sure you or a loved one doesn’t fall victim to this killer by taking the correct steps: quit smoking, exercise, eat healthier and get rid of stress when possible. There are also non modifiable risk factors such as genetics that can lead to cardiovascular diseases and or cancer in which you have to take better care of your body and void any other risks. It is said that if you quit smoking 10-15 years later your lungs and body return to normal and that your risk of heart diseases are cut down to that equivalent to a non smoker. That is huge and should be taken advantage of by everyone who is capable of doing so to prolong their life so make sure to try and help others who struggle to quit and support them during it.
This chapter made it more clear to me as to why I need to quit smoking, I had no idea smoking was linked to heart issues and that is something I don’t want to mess with. I have modifiable risks I can take control of and are taking steps to do so I have started eating healthier by cutting out soda and fast food along with cooking with olive oil instead of anything else. Also I have cut down on my smoking drastically over the past month.
Chapter 12
Our immune system is the main thing to keep us protected from antigens and viruses as it fights the sicknesses that try to enter our bodies. The immune system works as collective and protects us from harm within our own bodies it has good bacteria and white blood cells that help to fight off the pathogens that enter us. Unfortunately for some the immune system doesn’t work the same as they have autoimmune disease which struggles to fight off antigens and pathogens as they tend to become sick more often. Vaccines help our immune systems to fight off diseases for they shoot a small portion of the strain into the body to allow the system to fight it off and know how to destroy it if it enters again. There are different types of diseases such as viral infections, bacterial infections and pathogens. All have different forms and more serious diseases that are harder for our body to fight off such as the pathogen of a parasidic worm. it feeds off the nutrients we take in as it grows and makes us more hungry no matter how much we eat and need to taken care by a physician and not self medication. There are some diseases we can self medicate and others we can not such as we can self medicate a common cold but we can not do the same for the flu.
Ryan's health blog 