Aging Backwards_10 Years Lighter and 10 Years Younger in 30 Minutes a Day

by Miranda Esmonde-White

  While it’s unfortunately impossible to actually reverse damaged cartilage, we can take all the compression away from the damaged area, thereby totally relieving pain. We can also prevent further grinding and damage of the cartilage.

  Forms of arthritis include:

  •osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease

  •rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis, autoimmune diseases in which the body is attacking itself

  •septic arthritis, which is caused by joint infection

  •gouty arthritis, which is caused by uric acid crystals in the joint that cause inflammation

  Osteoarthritis, the most common form, occurs most often following a trauma or an infection of the joint. Because of the initial trauma, the muscles surrounding the joint become compressed as they lose their flexibility, usually owing to atrophy. As the muscles shrink, they tighten, compressing the joint, and thus flattening the synovial membrane and squeezing out the synovial fluid. When the joint is compressed, with limited or no lubrication, movement is painful and difficult as the bones rub together (acting like sandpaper) and cause degenerative damage to the joint. That damage and pain in the cartilage are known as osteoarthritis.

  As with all joint compression, in order to prevent further damage and relieve the pain, the joints need to be pulled apart, or decompressed, enabling the synovial fluid to enter into the synovial membrane (synovial sack). To prevent further damage, the muscles are strengthened in a lengthened position, decompressing the joint and permitting the synovial fluid to reenter.

  Passive stretching and massages are useless for permanent pain relief in arthritic joints. They offer initial relief when a joint is pulled apart, but the moment the person stands up and puts his or her full weight on the joint, the pain will return. The muscles must be strengthened in the lengthened position to be able to prop up the muscles surrounding the joint and keep the joint decompressed. They were created to give that support, and that’s what they were like before they atrophied. The lengthening and strengthening required to relieve osteoarthritis are the basic technique used in every ESSENTRICS workout.

  Osteoporosis

  Bone is the hardest material in the body, except for the nonliving enamel of the teeth. Bone is made up of complex crystalline calcium (with magnesium) salts, which give it the necessary hardness, and is interspersed with strong fibrous strands creating a living matrix. The design of this matrix gives resilience and some elasticity to the hard calcium component.

  Bone is a living tissue; cells (called osteocytes) maintain its functional integrity. Bones also have a rich blood supply and bleed when injured, like any other living tissue. Your bones react to exercise in much the same way as your muscles. Exercise leads to increased bone strength; lack of exercise leads to bone weakness. Exercise is the means by which calcium is delivered into the bones. A withdrawal of calcium from the bone leads to loss of density, known as osteoporosis. Fit people can safely subject their bones to stresses and strains in the course of life’s many activities, but for someone suffering from osteoporosis the same stresses could lead to fractures.

  Bones tend to become weaker with age, particularly in women going through menopause who experience a reduction in the sex hormone estrogen. (But while women are four times more likely than men to develop the condition, men can also have osteoporosis.) We also see osteoporosis far too often in young women who suffer from eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia. In spite of their light body weight, their bones suffer from a loss of fibrous strands in the living matrix, and this loss causes the bones to become brittle and vulnerable to stress and other fractures.

  Osteoporosis is a debilitating condition that can be prevented and, in many cases, reversed. Any bone can be affected, but the most common fractures are in the hip and spine. A hip fracture almost always requires hospitalization and major surgery. It can impair a person’s ability to walk unassisted and may cause prolonged or permanent disability.

  Regular weight-bearing exercises and a diet rich in calcium are necessary to keep the bones healthy and strong. Many prescription drugs also help reverse osteoporosis (weight-bearing exercise should accompany medication!). But contrary to what most people think, weight-bearing exercises do not require lifting weights. “Weight-bearing exercise” simply means that you put sufficient stress on the full skeleton to gently stress the bones on a daily basis. And the human body is a substantial weight all by itself.

  Weight-bearing exercises require you to bend your spine forward, backward, sideways, and rotationally to stress the bones of your torso. We have to stress every one of our 200 bones, not just the most obvious, big ones. We need to bend and straighten our fingers and our feet; we need to lift, lower, bend, and straighten our arms and legs. Lots and lots of big, full-body movements as well as tiny movements are needed to stress the full body’s bones!

  In addition to stressing the bones, we need to get calcium crystals into them. The combined requirements of stressing the bones and delivering the calcium minerals into them can be met most easily and effectively with large full-body movements, which create a pumping action that enhances the circulation of blood into the bones. And in case you’re think your morning calcium pill has you covered, know that being sedentary and taking a calcium supplement is not nearly as effective as taking that same supplement and maximizing it with some exercise.

  Hip Pain

  Because of the amount of force required to walk or jump, the hip joint is required to support many times the weight of the body. This makes hip health very important and hip pain very serious for a person’s overall well-being.

  The hip joint attaches the leg to the torso. The head of the thighbone (femur) swivels in a socket made up of pelvic bones, called the acetabulum. While many causes of hip pain can arise from the joint itself, there are other parts surrounding the hip that can also be the source of pain. An imbalance in the muscles that attach the leg to the torso can also be the cause of hip pain. Overuse of the hip joint in high-impact activities can lead to compression-related damage of the joint. There are many specific sources of hip pain, including arthritis, injuries to the IT band, fractures, sprains, sciatica, and overuse injuries.

  The hip muscles, bursas, and ligaments are designed to shield the joint from the forces it must withstand. When these structures are inflamed, the hip cannot function and pain will occur.

  Gentle full-body stretches are generally the fastest way to relieve hip pain like sciatica because they loosen up the contracted muscles that are causing the tension and squeezing of the nerve. Doing nothing—unless so advised by a doctor or physiotherapist—will lead to more shrinkage, atrophy, and increased pain.

  Knee Pain

  The knee joint joins the thigh with the lower leg, and it’s actually two joints—one between the femur and the tibia, and one between the femur and the patella. The knee supports the whole weight of the body and is the joint most vulnerable both to injury and to the development of osteoarthritis.

  Injury can happen to any of the ligaments, bursas, or tendons surrounding the knee joint. Injury can also happen to the ligaments, cartilage, menisci (plural of meniscus), and bones forming the joint. The complexity of the design of the knee and the fact that it is an active, weight-bearing joint are factors in making it one of the most commonly injured joints and very prone to pain.

  The causes of knee pain include fractures, tendinitis, meniscus tears, ligament tears, cartilage damage (often caused by a sedentary lifestyle), and injury to the ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), a common sports-related injury.

  JOINT REPLACEMENT

  Over the past few decades, joint replacements have become as commonplace as having a cavity filled. We can avoid these dangerous and costly procedures if we protect the joints from damage in the first place. It’s time to learn from the past and focus on prevention by examining what we as a culture are doing to create such a high demand for hip and knee replacements as we grow older.

  There are three main r
easons for joint replacements: overweight, underused muscles, and overused muscles.

  1.Overweight causes trauma to joints: The human body is simply not designed to handle obesity. The joints were not designed to bear excess weight, so overweight causes compression from trauma and joint damage. Eventually the joints wear out and need replacing.

  2.Underused muscles compress joints: In every group of muscles in the body, including the knees and hips, underused muscles cause compression from atrophy and joint damage. Eventually the joints wear out and need replacing.

  3.Overused muscles compress and cause trauma to joints. Overused muscles are often found in athletes who excessively strengthen the muscles surrounding the joints while both engaging in and training for a sport. The repetitive strength training and constant impact trauma from the sport compress the joints, and the compression leads to joint damage. Overused joints are also found in people who walk heavily, pounding or slamming the ground with each step. Any repetitive abuse will lead to joint damage. If the abuse doesn’t stop, eventually the joints wear out and need replacing.

  Back Pain

  Back pain strikes 80 to 90 percent of the North American population at some time in their lives. Back pain costs the economy billions of dollars in time off work and costs consumers billions in medical bills, medication, visits to therapists, and other treatments.

  Although there are many medical causes of back pain, the most common cause is mechanical—unbalanced muscles. As we age, the jellylike substance within the disks of the spinal column slowly dries out and shrinks. When a disk shrinks unevenly, one side of it dries out faster than the other and it takes on a wedge or pie shape. The uneven shrinkage may be due to many things: leaning to one side more than the other, carrying a heavy bag on the same shoulder, carrying a child on the same hip, or throwing or catching a ball with the same arm. Whatever the cause, whenever the disk is lower on one side than the other, the result is the same chain of events. As the spinal muscles try to keep the spine straight, one side has to work to pull the dropped side up, leading to an overworking (and resulting imbalance) of those muscles.

  When the overworked muscles become exhausted, they freeze, creating a splint. This involuntary spasm is excruciatingly painful. The surrounding muscles all participate in protecting the exhausted muscle until the back muscles have gone into a rock-hard state of full spasm. When this happens, you may endure an average of 10 days before the muscles release this painful contraction. Anyone who has ever experienced this will attest to the pain and would be willing to do anything rather than experience it twice.

  A spasm is the body’s way of protecting itself by inhibiting any movement of the exhausted muscles; in effect, a spasm gives the exhausted muscles a rest. Ironically, the body’s means of protecting itself is also the source of excruciating pain. The process of disks drying out can begin in our mid-twenties, and ends in our mid-sixties; this is why back pain strikes 25- to 65-year-olds most often.

  A full-blown spasm can sometimes last for up to 14 days. After the spasm has been released, we need to focus on preventing a future attack. In order to do this (assuming that the attack was one of the 80 percent caused by unbalanced muscles), we need to keep our muscles permanently balanced. When muscles are balanced, one muscle group will no longer be overloaded. Since 80 percent of back pain is caused by biomechanical imbalance of the muscular skeleton, there is an 80 percent likelihood (statistically) that someone suffering from back pain has unbalanced muscles.

  ESSENTRICS was developed partially to relieve back pain. Many sufferers claim that after doing the program, they stopped having acute bouts of back pain. Many people have claimed to be “cured,” but back pain is not a disease—it is a condition. You don’t cure it; you control it. Control can feel like a “cure,” but if you stop exercising, the back pain will most likely return.

  If the cause of the pain was an uneven disk, that problem won’t go away until the disk dries out completely and becomes even again. Anyone who has ever tried them knows that—just as with most injuries—regular stretching and strengthening exercises are the easiest and fastest way to get rid of back pain.

  You’ve learned so much about what ESSENTRICS does for the body; now it’s time to learn how to do it. In Part III, you can choose from several different workouts, each designed to help you with specific conditions, and each one guaranteed to help wake up your mitochondria, ignite your metabolism, prevent chronic diseases, generate new brain cells, give you more energy, and help you develop a long, lean, dancer’s body—all in 30 minutes a day. Let’s get started!

  PART III

  THE EIGHT AGE-REVERSING WORKOUTS

  CHAPTER 9

  HOW TO DO THE WORKOUTS

  Many of us want to look 10 years lighter and 10 years younger than we do today. We need good posture and strong and flexible muscles to succeed. We want to reverse any atrophy that might be making us feel weak or inflexible or less energetic. The first thing we have to do is to reverse the atrophy with a series of flexibility and strengthening exercises.

  I’m excited to share these workouts with you, because I have seen such amazing results in everyone who has ever committed to doing ESSENTRICS for 30 minutes a day. You’ve seen the research: You know that the eccentric approach to exercise is the safest, most efficient, and most powerful means of stretching and strengthening. You know that your body will become more balanced and flexible, and you’ll remain injury-free. You know you can develop the “dancer’s body” you’ve always wanted, with longer, leaner muscles and a much higher concentration of energy-producing, fat-burning mitochondria powering your cells. You’ll wake up every muscle in your body, reverse the aging process, tell your DNA you’re alive and you need every single cell in your body—no premature cell loss for you! You are ready to Age Backwards.

  When starting these exercises, take your time and don’t overexert yourself. For the first week or two, do your 30 minutes a day but make sure you are moving gently and relaxing while doing the exercises. Actually, you will strengthen faster if you don’t try to strengthen the muscles. Staying relaxed will get you a lot further than overpushing yourself and getting discouraged and quitting!

  If you are in great shape, you may wonder if these exercises could possibly strengthen you. Remember the story of Anik, the injured ballet dancer who came back even stronger after two weeks of doing ESSENTRICS? Try it! The results will speak for themselves.

  If you are out of shape or weak or suffering from any degree of atrophy, any exercises will be more difficult. But please don’t get discouraged. Your arms will feel as if they weigh a ton. You might find that just straightening your back even a small amount will make you sweat profusely, and shake. Keep trying 20 to 30 minutes a day, not more. From my experience, within 2 weeks these exercises will suddenly become easier and you won’t sweat anymore.

  I am always so impressed by how resilient the human body is; how ready it is to be revitalized when given half a chance, no matter how bad a shape we might be in.

  BE A SMART EXERCISER

  These ESSENTRICS workouts are designed to be done every day for approximately half an hour. The human body responds well to half an hour of daily exercise that does not cause injury or make you a fitness fanatic. All you need to stay in shape is 30 minutes of these full-body stretching and strengthening workouts. Doing too much, like doing too little, can create its own series of problems. The important thing is consistency.

  If you feel a sharp, “knifelike” pain when doing any exercises, stop immediately. Knifelike pain is a warning that your body is incapable of doing the exercises safely; continuing might lead to injury. However, if you just find them difficult and tiring, keep going; they are supposed to be challenging.

  As you try these workouts, take note of how quickly your body responds to the challenges. Marvel at how remarkably receptive the human body is to stimulus, and how it adapts itself quickly and efficiently anytime new demands and stresses are placed upon it. Miraculous! Eve
n if you have never exercised in your life, or have allowed your body to stagnate with inactivity, your muscles will respond rapidly to strength and flexibility training, and the benefits of this training will fuel your desire to keep progressing and challenging yourself.

  TWO RULES TO FOLLOW IN EVERY ESSENTRICS WORKOUT

  Rule 1: Use Circular Movements

  ESSENTRICS is based on a functional concept of interlocking circles or wheels. We recognize that the body is not flat but three-dimensional and capable of moving in a circular-type motion. This program is designed to reflect the reality of natural circular movement of the body: that the arms perform a circular motion within the sockets, that the torso performs a circular-type motion using the flexibility of the spine, and that the legs perform a circular motion within the hip sockets.

  Rule 2: Balance the Body

  ESSENTRICS improves your posture and tones your body overall. However, in order for this program to work there is one unbreakable rule; the entire body must be worked out in the same session so as to completely rebalance all muscles and joints. In order for us to achieve the overall long, lean look of ESSENTRICS, every muscle must be equally engaged.

  MAKING EXERCISE A HABIT

  The best time to exercise? Anytime you will do it! Work with your biorhythms to find the time of day when you enjoy exercising the most and are least likely to let it slide. Doing your exercise first thing in the morning will help you build a consistent habit. After all, if you do your workouts before anything else, the rest of your life won’t have a chance to get in the way! But if lunchtime is better, or an hour before bed works for you, go with that—just commit to your 30 minutes a day, no matter what. Do it for your cells, your heart, your muscles, your brain! According to a study at the University of Copenhagen, just one session of intense exercise will improve your long-term memory.47 But consistency is essential, and those brain benefits, while impressive, will wear off if you don’t keep exercising.