Hip pain can be very annoying and frustrating. It can limit not only your mobility, but many other activities as well, since it makes it difficult not only to walk, but even to sit or sometimes lie down.

In order to reduce hip pain, the first thing to do is see what the cause of your pain is and take care of that. Some of the most common causes are: arthritis, trochanteric bursitis, back condition, tendonitis, hip fracture, muscle strains andosteonecrosis, and a few other conditions. Hip pain can also be caused by sore feet or knee pain. Pains that are left untreated often transfer to other parts of your body. For example, if you have pain in your knee, you will most likely begin to alter your walk to take pressure off the knee joint. But this way, your hips are no longer in proper alignment and before long you will begin to feel the ill-effects of this. (If you are interested in reading a great article about how to prevent and reduce knee pain, follow this link: http://blogs.wellnesspartners.com/?p=142 )

An efficient way to reduce hip pain produced by various causes is to increase strength and flexibility of the muscles that support the hip. The strengthening exercises will help support the joint better and have less stress on the hip. Increased flexibility can also reduce pain, by relieving the stress on the joint. It is also recommended to consult a physical therapist who can evaluate your condition and prescribe a program that is appropriate for your specific condition.

Some easy exercises that will strengthen the muscles of your hip are:

LEG LIFT

Lie on your left side, with your left leg bent and the right one resting on the ground. Slowly lift your top leg 2 feet off the ground and hold 5 seconds, then slowly lower the leg. After you repeat this 5 times, change legs.

HIP FLEXION

While standing up straight, lift one leg off the floor and bend it so that you create a 90-degree angle at the hip. After 5 seconds slowly lower the leg. Repeat 5 times, then change legs.

WALL SLIDE

Stand upright with your back against a wall and feet shoulder width apart. Slowly bend your knees, sliding your back down the wall for a count of 5 until your knees are bent at a 45-degree angle. Do not bend too much further so as not to strain your knees. Hold this position for 5 seconds, and then begin straightening your knees for a count of five, sliding up the wall until you are fully upright with knees straight. Repeat this exercise 5 times.

In order to increase the flexibility of your muscles, you can do various stretch exercises. A few of them are:

LEG SWINGS

One easy leg swing exercise consists of simply lifting one foot and swinging your leg backward while standing. Hold for 2 or 3 seconds and return your foot to the starting position. Repeat 5 times with each leg. It is recommended to do this exercise while holding on to something to maintain balance.

The above exercise can also be done swinging your leg forward.

A similar exercise consists of swinging your leg to the side. While doing this, don’t allow your torso to rotate.

INTERNAL ROTATION

While lying on your back bring your knee to your chest, clasp your hands on the front of your shin and internally rotate the hip while keeping the pelvis as flat as possible.

Low-impact activities such as walking, biking and swimming, are great for people suffering from hip pain. A revolutionary new trainer that provides great exercise for people with mobility limitations is the GlideCycle. For more information and to see some amazing videos, visit http://www.glidecycle.com/

Staying healthy and in a good shape is mostly up to you. And all you need for that is available to you. No, I’m not talking about a magic pill, nor about a super plant that will cure any illness and make you stay young forever. Staying healthy is a lifestyle.

You don’t need specific foods for specific ailments. A healthy diet incorporating a variety of nutritious vitamin rich foods will help you maintain your weight , fight disease, and live longer. One thing all these foods have in common is that they are going to be “real” (unprocessed) food. “You don’t find fortified potato chips in the superfood category” says nutritionist Elizabeth Somer, author of Nutrition for a Healthy Pregnancy and The Essential Guide to Vitamins and Minerals.

“I’d say that 50% to 70% of suffering could be eliminated by what people eat and how they move: heart disease, diabetes, cancer, hypertension can all be impacted”, Somer says. “Even people who are healthy can make a few tweaks and the impact will be amazing”.

Another important thing is how we combine the foods we eat. Eating foods in the correct combination helps us get the most out of them. For example, adding unsaturated fats such as olive oil, nuts or avocados to the salad helps release the antioxidants in the vegetables. Using herbs and spices to marinade meat reduces carcinogenic compounds grilling can cause. And the list could continue.

To find out more about what some healthy foods are and what the best way to combine them is, watch this video:

One of the key elements that make a successful athlete is high speed. Nine times out of ten, the teams or athletes with the most speed are going to win.

While everybody agrees on the importance of speed in order to be successful in sports, not all coaches focus on developing the skill of speed as a preliminary element of their training. Arguably the biggest myth in all of sports says you can’t coach speed -that athletes are born with “it” or they aren’t.

Speed, strength, flexibility, coordination and endurance are all skills requiring specific attention during practice and those who do not train focusing on these elements are simply not prepared to compete at high levels.

Speed can be taught and improved. There are training strategies and overspeed training equipment that can help coach speed. Because some people aren’t “naturally fast” some coaches wrongly assume there is little they can do about it. While it’s true not every athlete can be an Olympic 100 meter runner, most athletes have never been taught how to run or move correctly. As they improve their technique and practice focused training, the athletes will operate at a much higher percentage of their full potential.

The best type of trainers that helps athlete get the most out of speed training is unweighted training equipment.

The unweighted training equipment allows you to run at a fraction of your body weight.

There are several different unweighted training devices, but the basic idea in all of them is that the athlete is supported in a harness or an inflated enclosure and this way he/ she can run on a treadmill or on a track without pressure on his/ her joints and ligaments and without his legs having to support his full body weight.

Exercise physiologists reckon that it’s easier to “teach” muscle cells to function at accelerated firing rates if the nerves and muscles don’t have to simultaneously worry about supporting full body weight.

Unweighted training devices:

The Alter-G treadmill creates a seal around the user’s waist and then inflates to create a pressurized environment that can take away up to 80% of the user’s body, lessening the pounding to the joints. The running speed and incline can be adjusted, along with what percent of weight should be removed.

The GlideTrak is basically a specialized metal frame that goes over pretty much any treadmill. The athlete is strapped into the metal frame and runs on the treadmill with virtually zero impact. The straps are parachute grade 8,000 lbs tested, so the device is very stable and secure.

The GlideCycle is similar to the GlideTrak, but it is an outdoor device. The athlete is again supported by straps in a seat, but the frame he is strapped into has two wheels, just like a bicycle. The GlideCycle has no pedals, so the rider pushes himself/ herself forward using his/ her legs.

We will be publishing more posts on speed and overspeed training, so keep an eye on our blog.

For more information on the above mentioned devices, click on the links in their names. You will be taken to pages where you can find more information, pictures and lots of videos.

ScienceDaily (Jan. 12, 2010) — A new study reinforces the potential value of stem cells in repairing major injuries involving the loss of bone structure.

The study shows that delivering stem cells on a polymer scaffold to treat large areas of missing bone leads to improved bone formation and better mechanical properties compared to treatment with the scaffold alone. This type of therapeutic treatment could be a potential alternative to bone grafting operations.

“Massive bone injuries are among the most challenging problems that orthopedic surgeons face, and they are commonly seen as a result of accidents as well as in soldiers returning from war,” said the study’s lead author Robert Guldberg, a professor in Georgia Tech’s Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. “This study shows that there is promise in treating these injuries by delivering stem cells to the injury site. These are injuries that would not heal without significant medical intervention.”

In this picture:

Micro-CT (top) and X-ray (bottom) images of bone formation in massive bone defects that received a polymer scaffold alone (left), a scaffold seeded with bone marrow-derived mesenchymal adult stem cells (middle), and a scaffold seeded with amniotic fluid fetal stem cells (right). (Credit: Image courtesy of Robert Guldberg)

Details of the research were published in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on January 11, 2010. This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

The study was conducted in rats in which two bone gaps eight millimeters in length were created to simulate massive injuries. One gap was treated with a polymer scaffold seeded with stem cells and the other with scaffold only. The results showed that injuries treated with the stem cell scaffolds showed significantly more bone growth than injuries treated with scaffolds only.

Guldberg and mechanical engineering graduate student Kenneth Dupont experimented with scaffolds containing two different types of human stem cells — bone marrow-derived mesenchymal adult stem cells and amniotic fluid fetal stem cells.

“We were able to directly evaluate the therapeutic potential of human stem cells to repair large bone defects by implanting them into rats with a reduced immune system,” explained Guldberg, who is also the director of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech.

Micro-CT measurements showed no significant differences in bone regeneration between the two stem cell groups. However, combining the two types of stem cells produced significantly higher bone volume and strength compared to scaffolds without cellular augmentation.

Although stem cell delivery significantly enhanced bone growth and biomechanical properties, it was not able to consistently repair the injury. Eight weeks after the treatment, new bone bridged the gaps in four of nine defects treated with scaffolds seeded with adult stem cells, one of nine defects treated with scaffolds seeded with fetal stem cells, and none of the defects treated with the scaffold alone.

“We thought that the functional regeneration of the bone defects may have been limited by stem cells migrating away from the injury site, so we decided to investigate the fate and distribution of the delivered cells,” said Guldberg.

To do this, Guldberg labeled stem cells with fluorescent quantum dots — nanometer-scale particles that emit light when excited by near-infrared radiation — to track the distribution of stem cells after delivery on the scaffolds and completed the same experiments as previously described.

Throughout the entire study, the researchers observed significant fluorescence at the stem cell scaffold sites. However, beginning seven to 10 days after treatment, signals appeared at the scaffold-only sites. Additional analysis with immunostaining revealed that the quantum dots present at the scaffold-only sites were contained in inflammatory cells called macrophages that had taken up quantum dots released from dead stem cells.

“While our overall study shows that stem cell therapy has a lot of promise for treating massive bone defects, this experiment shows that we still need to develop an improved way of delivering the stem cells so that they stay alive longer and thus remain at the injury site longer,” explained Guldberg.

The researchers also found that the quantum dots diminished the function of the transplanted stem cells and thus their therapeutic effect. When the stem cells were labeled with quantum dots, the results showed a failure to enhance bone formation or bridge defects. However, the same low concentration of quantum dots did not affect cell viability or the ability of the stem cells to become bone cells in laboratory studies.

“Although in vitro laboratory studies remain important, this work provides further evidence that well-characterized in vivo models are necessary to test the ability of regenerative tissue strategies to effectively integrate and restore function in complex living organisms,” added Guldberg. “Improved methods of non-invasive cell tracking that do not alter cell function in vivo are needed to optimize stem cell delivery strategies and compare the effectiveness of different stem cell sources for tissue regeneration.”

Guldberg is currently exploring alternative cell tracking methods, such as genetically modifying the stem cells to express green fluorescent protein and/or other luminescent enzymes such as luciferase. He is also investigating the addition of programming cues to the scaffold that will direct the stem cells to differentiate into bone cells. These signals may be particularly effective for fetal stem cells, which are believed to be more primitive than adult stem cells, according to Guldberg.

Lessons learned from the current work are also being applied to develop effective stem cell therapies for severe composite injuries to multiple tissues including bone, nerve, vasculature and muscle. This follow-on work is being conducted in the Georgia Tech Center for Advanced Bioengineering for Soldier Survivability in collaboration with Ravi Bellamkonda and Barbara Boyan, professors in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

Other authors on the paper include Andrés García, professor and Woodruff Faculty Fellow in Georgia Tech’s Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience; Georgia Tech research scientist Hazel Stevens, Georgia Tech graduate student Joel Boerckel; and National University of Ireland medical student Kapil Sharma.

Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Injuries are inevitable in sports, and weather you have a pulled muscle, a sprained ankle or a broken leg or foot, the first thing the doctor will recommend is REST. And that sets the athlete back in his/ her training and conditioning, separates him/ her from the rest of the team and can affect his/ her performance. Exercising in spite of the pain can cause more severe injuries.

Fortunately, there are several trainers that can help the injured athlete get back in shape while recovering from lower body injuries. The most beneficial type of exercise in this case is low impact exercise and there are three trainers that are recommended in this situation:

• AlterG
• GlideTrak
• GlideCycle

The AlterG and the GlideTrak are indoor trainers and are used with a treadmill (virtually any treadmill works with the GlideTrak, but you will need a specific treadmill for the AlterG). The GlideCycle is very similar to a GlideTrak, but it has two wheels and is designed for outdoor use.

All three trainers allow the athlete to run without putting strain on his/ her joints and ligaments, by reducing their effective body weight. The AlterG achieves this by inflating an enclosure which the athlete is zipped into. Air pressure elevates the user’s body, counteracting the force of gravity. As for the GlideTrak or the GlideCycle, they achieve the same “unweighted” state by suspending the athlete in a saddle which is adjustable and allows the pressure on the lower body to be taken away in various degrees.

The AlterG, the GlideTrak and the GlideCycle

• reduce direct and cumulative impact on a runner
• can be used after surgery on knees, hips, ankles, etc.
• can be used to increase aerobic conditioning even if you have knee, hip or back problems
• can be used for neurologic retraining
• can be used for weight control and reduction

These “anti-gravity” trainers are also great for cross training. By reducing the wear and tear of conditioning, they can help extend an athlete’s career. They also provide an excellent way to do exercise that prevents injuries.

Even if different in appearance, all these three devices offer similar benefits and can be used towards the same goals.

To see a side by side comparison of these trainers click here.

Ruth Taylor

Just a few days ago DailyNews published an article about a very interesting piece of fitness equipment, called AlterG.  Developed at NASA Ames Research Center more than a decade ago for exercising in space, this treadmill has seen more athletes than astronauts lately. What makes it a great training device for athletes is the fact that it reduces the force of gravity on your legs. This way, injured athletes can train on it and stay in shape while recovering from injuries. At the same time, due to its anti-gravity properties, it is great as a cross-trainer, that helps reduce the impact of running on injured muscles and tendons.

How does AlterG work?

The AlterG treadmill creates a seal around the user’s waist and then inflates to create a pressurized environment that can take away up to 80% of the user’s body weight, lessening the pounding to the joints.

Is AlterG unlike anything else on the market?

I enjoyed reading the DailyNews article about this interesting device, the history of its creation and its success with various sports teams, and I surely agree with all the benefits of low-impact exercise. One thing I would have to argue about though is the statement that the AlterG is “the only machine of its kind on the market.” The GlideTrak is another new revolutionary low-impact trainer that brings the same exercise benefits as the AlterG, but at a much more affordable cost.

AlterG & GlideTrak/ GlideCycle –similar benefits

Just like the AlterG, the GlideTrak facilitates a movement that’s like “a walk on the moon”. And it also comes in a GlideCycle form, which gives you the ability to experience the same great feeling while enjoying the outdoors. The GlideTrak’s/ GlideCycle’s virtual zero impact running allows athletes to maintain cardio/aerobic fitness levels while recovering from injuries.  The GlideTrak/ GlideCycle also provides excellent cross training, balancing the body and preventing hamstring injuries. The use of these trainers can extend an athlete’s career by reducing the wear and tear of conditioning while keeping him or her physically fit. They are ideal for performance enhancement, especially in running athletes, for improving and maximizing stride length, for power and speed training, and for a comfortable mode of difficult-to-achieve conditioning for larger athletes.

As you can see, these products are very much similar in the type of exercise they provide and they offer quite the same benefits.

And now comes the big difference:

The prices for AlterG run from USD $24,000 to $75,000 or leases for about $500 a month.

The price for the GlideTrak is USD $2,449 and only $1,649 for the GlideCycle.

To see a side-by-side comparison of the AlterG, GlideTrak and GlideCycle click here

Mobility scooters seem to be growing in popularity. There are ads on TV showing everybody how great they are and what easy it is to get one. And when you search them on the internet, there are quite a bunch of sites praising them and selling them. But there are only a few voices out there speaking of the dangers mobility scooters come with.

Most times senior citizens would get a mobility scooter because they have difficulty walking. Their upper body is still functional for most of them, even if it is less strong than it used to be. When they start using a mobility scooter, not only their lower limbs, but their upper body as well is forced into a harmful sedentary state. And from this point on, they lose whatever strength they have left in their body, put on weight and become more prone to various health problems. So, as convenient as it may sound, a mobility scooter may, in many cases, not be the best solution. And the same things apply for a powered wheel chair.

It is vitally important to keep the body moving –whatever parts can still move- throughout all phases of life. Shifting from walking (which is great exercise) to using a mobility scooter or a powered chair will most probably lead to a weight gain, since far less calories will be burned. And even if weight gain does not happen, becoming inactive will cause your body to atrophy (lose precious muscle), will increase your risk of various diseases and shorten your life span.

What are the alternatives?

One solution would be to get a manual wheelchair. Maneuvering a wheelchair involves considerable use of the shoulders, arms and even hands, which provides great exercise. And, at the same time, manual wheelchairs are designed to be easily rolled about and maneuvered by people with limited upper body strength.

The GlideCycle Trainer

Mary Margaret was looking to buy a mobility scooter because, due to various health problems that accumulated over years, her ability to get up out of chairs and walk around was very much reduced. Just then, she came across the GlideCycle. She started using it and now, only a few months later, she is running 3-4 miles at a time several times a week. She obviously is in a much better shape and feels younger. She is now able to perform her daily tasks, she can go shopping with her friends, run with her granddaughter and her dog –so, even her social life has improved a lot. It is not an exaggeration to say that the GlideCycle has changed her life, as she herself confesses: watch Mary Margaret’s testimony

Different people have different ideas of what the perfect Christmas scenery would look like, but most would agree on a few common things: Christmas trees and decorations, nicely wrapped up gifts, fire in the chimney and lots and lots of snow. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

But as much as we like snow, many of us live in areas where it never snows.

With Snowrific you can get snow anywhere anytime. Well, it’s not real snow, but it looks very much like it. It is actually so realistic that it is being used in indoor snowboarding parks throughout the world. Snowrific will not melt or ice up, and it is a safe, non-toxic powder that expands 100 times its original size to create fluffy soft snow.

It’s amazing to see the snow that you create in seconds! And it is great for parties, holiday displays, decorations, movie sets, or in school science labs as a way to turn students onto the industrial applications of super absorbents.

All you have to do is place a small amount of Snowrific into any container. (Keep in mind that this instant snow will expand 100 times its original size, so not a lot is needed.) Fill it up with water and watch the snow grow right before your eyes!

To learn more about Snowrific or order some go to: store.wellnesspartners.com

Watch these kids having so much fun with Snowrific:

Are you experiencing

• Difficulty starting urination
• Weak urine stream
• Stopping and starting while urinating
• Dribbling at the end of urination
• Straining while urinating
• Frequent need to urinate
• Increased frequency of urination at night
• Urgent need to urinate
• Not being able to completely empty the bladder
• Blood in the urine
• Urinary tract infections ?

These are all signs and symptoms of benign enlargement of the prostate or benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).

By the age of 50, 3 out of 4 men already have enlarged prostates, and 1 in 3 men have cancer cells in their prostate. This, therefore, is not an “old man’s disease” at all. BPH is actually a very common medical complaint.

The two main medications for management of BPH are alpha blockers (which include doxazosin, terazosin, alfuzosin, tamsulosin and silodosin) and enzyme inhibitors. Unfortunately, along with easing the BPH symptoms, these drugs also produce side effects like orthostatic hypotension, nasal congestion, asthenia, decreased libido and ejaculatory or erectile dysfunction.

Taking these into account, it is easy to see why people seek herbal remedies for BPH. Several are approved in European countries, but none in the USA.

The most powerful, proven, and effective nutritional supplement for prostate health is a common plant alcohol called beta-sitosterol. Beta-sitosterol is found in literally all of the vegetables you eat, but the most important plant sources of beta-sitosterol are wheat germ, rice bran, flax seeds, peanuts, soybeans, pumpkin seeds and corn oil.

There are dozens of classic double blind studies done with men regarding the effects of beta-sitosterol on BPH.  I will only enlist a few examples:

In a study carried at the University of Dresden , Germany, Doctors Klippel, Hilti and Schipp studied 177 BPH men for 6 months. Half the men received a placebo and half received the prescription extract Azuprostat containing 130 mg of beta-sitosterol. To substantiate their research, 32 references were cited. They carefully screened all the men, who were tested extensively during the study. They concluded that “these results show that beta-sitosterol is an effective option in the treatment of BPH.”¹

Another study was carried at the University of Bochum in Herne, Germany, where Dr Berges and his associates used puree beta-sistosterol with 200 men, over the course of a year, half of whom received a placebo. They concluded that “Significant improvement in symptoms and urinary flow parameters show the effectiveness of beta-sitosterol in the treatment of BPH.”²

At the Veterans Administration in Minneapolis doctors did a very thorough review of the research on beta-sitosterol, going back over thirty years and including 32 references. They concluded that beta-sitosterol had “the greatest efficacy amongst phytotherapeutical substances.” They also concluded that “Beta-sitosterol improves urological symptoms and flow measures.”³ A review like this is very impressive, as it uses many studies condensed in one comprehensive presentation.

Beta-sitosterol also has many other health benefits, such as promotion of healthy cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and may have great potential in areas such as blood clotting, ulcers, cancer prevention, tumors, immunity, inflammation, diabetes, and other diseases.

ProstatePure Plus from WellnessPartners is a great beta-sitosterol supplement. If you want to read customer reviews scroll down on this page:

ProstatePure Plus Reviews

To order ProstatePure Plus go to ProstatePure Plus order or call the toll free number 1-(888)-779-7177

Notes:

1. British Journal of Urology, v. 80 (1997), pp. 427-32
2. Lancet, v. 345 (1995), pp. 1529-32
3. Current Therapeutic Research, v. 55 (1994), pp. 776-85

Reference:

Mason, Roger –The Natural Prostate Cure –A Practical Guide to Using Diet and Supplements for a Healthy Prostate, Ninth Printing, Revision Summer 2006