CORE MUSCLES PROTECT VITAL ORGANS & KEEP YOU UPRIGHT

YOUR CORE: EXACTLY, WHAT IS IT?

Usually, when we talk about “the core” we refer to the entirety of your torso between the sternum and the pubic bone.  In the world of fitness, the word "core" often conjures up an image of abs, which is short for abdominal muscles.  But that term is interchangeable, or at least gets confused, between the abdominal wall, abdominal cavity, abdomen, abdominal muscles, and abdominal organs.   

Your abdomen is that part of your core that contains the digestive organs:

the part of the body of a vertebrate containing the digestive organs; the belly.  In humans and other mammals, it is bounded by the diaphragm and the pelvis. 

So your abdomen is part of your core.  But what I want to draw your attention to are your core muscles, which form the connective tissues that join to your ribs, to your hip, and which give you the ability to turn, twist, bend, and so forth, all the actions that we take for granted.  

It's easy to know what our bones do.  Our vertebrae, ribs, femur, etc. all keep us upright.  Olga Kabel explains that 

our core musculature [is] a tightly wrapped package protecting the internal organs. Here you have muscles running across the body (transverse abdominis), diagonally (external and internal obliques) and from top to bottom (rectus abdominis at the front, quadratus lumborum and erectors at the back). So this is the first purpose of your core musculature – organ containment and protection. 

Pointing out the obvious, she adds that

Structurally we will notice that this part of your body doesn’t have many bones (except for the spine and some floating ribs), yet it contains many important internal organs that need to be kept safe and sound. Without the bony structure to rely on, the entire area needs to be wrapped up tightly to maintain the integrity of its contents. 

Let's take a look at the muscles that make up your core.

1. Rectus Abdominus: These are the muscles people usually mean when they talk about the ‘abs.’ They are a flat band of muscle that runs from your sternum to your pelvis. This is the muscle that produces that obvious, six pack look.

2. Internal Obliques: These muscles run from your lower rib cage into your pelvic iliac crest. Your iliac crest is the top, outer part of your pelvic bone. They are located underneath the external obliques.

3. External Obliques: These muscles run in a diagonal from your lower ribs to the iliac crest, along the side of your torso.

4. Transverse Abdominus: This is the deepest of the ab muscles and wraps around your spine to provide your body with stability.

[The photo below is intended to show the layers of abdominal muscles.  Note how the layers are cut in that diagram.  That is for effect.  Do not imitate that in your own life.  Surgery should be the last resort, a kind of survival effort that keeps you from dying.  And while it's true that doctors and surgeons might sell a surgery in that light of "your survival depends on it," be careful.  For once you have a surgery of any kind it means that you cannot get that tissue back and that area is actually weakened.  So don't get cut.  Get well.  Exercise instead.]

The following video does a good job of showing you where they're located in contrast to other muscles and what function they serve. 

CORE MUSCLES CONTINUED

Latissimus Dorsi: These muscles connect from your lower spine, along your lower back and into your lower ribs. They are the largest muscle in the back. These muscles help with rotation of the shoulder joint and help with extension and lateral movements in the spine.

Trapezius: These are triangle shaped muscles that run from the mid back into the shoulders. These muscles help with shoulder movement and rotation.

When building your core, you cannot neglect strength and stability which is why it is supremely important that you focus on all these muscles, the obliques in particular. Some great moves that use all these muscles are things like planks, v-sit ups, kettlebell swings, and bicycle crunches.

What's interesting about the structure of our core is that it is organized "vertically, horizontally, [AND] diagonally."  Olga Kabel explains

Because of the way our core musculature is organized (vertically, horizontally and diagonally), it allows a great range of movement in the trunk. It allows us to bend forward, backwards, sideways, twist and do combinations of those.

This video is worth a few minutes.

Modern lifestyle contributes to a weak core:

It is therefore important to work on your core.  Why?  What's the big deal if we don't, and what are the benefits if we do?  If we don't work our core, whose most important function is to expel things, like a bowel movement, babies, and air, these muscles get weak and are unable to perform vital functions.  So there's that.  Here's a short list of everyday things we do with these muscles.  Reminder: strengthening these muscles can keep you looking and moving young.  

From HealthHarvard.edu. 

Everyday tasks 

Bend to put on shoes or scoop up a package.

Turn to look behind you.

Sit in a chair or simply stand still.

Bathing or dressing, for example, call on your core.

On-the-job-tasks

Jobs that involve lifting, twisting, and standing all rely on your core muscles.  

Sitting at your desk for hours engages your core as well. 

Phone calls, typing, computer use, and similar work can make back muscles surprisingly stiff and sore.

Balance and Stability.  Your core stabilizes your body, allowing you to move in any direction, even on the bumpiest terrain, or stand in one spot without losing your balance.  Viewed this way, core exercises can lessen your risk of falling.

Good posture.  Weak core muscles contribute to slouching.  Good posture trims your silhouette and projects confidence.  More importantly, it lessens wear and tear on the spine and allows you to breathe deeply.  Good posture helps you gain full benefits from the effort you put into exercising, too. 

So work on your core. 

BUILD YOUR CORE

1)  Try surfing exercises.

2)  Strengthen your Posterior Pelvic Tilt.  

3)  Strengthen your Anterior Pelvic Tilt. 

4)  Start out with knee lifts and graduate to leg lifts.  Keep going. 

THERE ARE 10 DIFFERENT METABOLIC TYPES

Had never heard of Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez until this week.  Yesterday, I listened to his overview on trophoblasts, which are the cluster of cells around an embryo.  Turns out that the trophoblasts are the stem cells.  Not only is it a fascinating presentation, but if you want to listen to one of the best commands of a topic and how to present it through intelligent repetition due to the complexity of the terms, this is it.  I like it for his ability to trace from the 19th century through to the 20th and 21st how very smart scientists made terrific insights but who've received very little credit.  Dr. William Donald Kelley, a dentist by training, is one.  The other is 

Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez writes

The embryologist Dr. John Beard proposed in 1906 that pancreatic proteolytic digestive enzymes represent the body's main defense against cancer, and that enzyme therapy would be useful as a treatment for all types of cancer. (1) Particularly during the first two decades of the twentieth century, Dr. Beard's thesis attracted some attention in academic circles, and several case reports in the medical literature documented tumor regression and even remission in terminal cancer patients treated with proteolytic enzymes. (2-6) In 1911, Dr. Beard published a monograph entitled The Enzyme Therapy of Cancer and Its Scientific Basis, which summarized his therapy and the supporting evidence. (7) In my book The Trophoblast and the Origins of Cancer (co-authored with my colleague Dr. Linda L. Isaacs), I review Dr. Beard's work from the perspective of contemporary molecular biology.

After Dr. Beard's death in 1923, the enzyme therapy was largely forgotten. Periodically, other practitioners have rediscovered Dr. Beard's work, and used pancreatic proteolytic enzymes as an alternative cancer treatment. (8)

Dr. Beard believed the enzymes had to be injected, to prevent destruction by hydrochloric acid in the stomach. However, recent evidence demonstrates that orally ingested pancreatic proteolytic enzymes are acid-stable (9), pass intact into the small intestine, and are absorbed through the intestinal mucosa into the bloodstream as part of an enteropancreatic recycling process. (10,11)

Okay, so the non-allopathic remedy to cancer is pancreatic enzymes. 

WHAT ABOUT THE PROTOCOL?  

Dr. Gonzalez explains

The main anti-cancer supplement is a specially manufactured pancreas product (containing naturally occurring enzymes) made from pig pancreas.

Kelleys Nutritional-Metabolic Therapy

(c) 1993 by Richard Walters

(Excerpted from Options: The Alternative Cancer Therapy Book, Avery Publishing)

Over a twenty-five year period, Dr. William Donald Kelley, a dentist by training, developed a complex approach to treating many chronic and degenerative diseases, including cancer. The three main elements of his metabolic program are nutrition, detoxification, and supplements of pancreatic enzymes. Although the controversial Kansas-born practitioner was condemned as a charlatan by the orthodox medical establishment, thousands of severely ill patients sought his advice and followed his program, many with reported good results. Today, a number of practitioners claim to be using the Kelley regimen, though whether they actually are is open to question.

Interest in Kelley’s therapy has increased dramatically in recent years, largely due to the work of Nicholas Gonzalez, a New York City physician who treats cancer patients in advanced or terminal stages using a modified version of the Kelley program. A graduate of Cornell University Medical School, Dr. Gonzalez undertook a five-year case study of Kelley’s own cancer patients who had done well on the program.1 Gonzalez’s 500-page study was prepared under the sponsorship of Robert Good, M.D., Ph.D., then president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. It is “widely regarded as the finest case review ever conducted concerning an alternative cancer therapy,” according to Misinformation From OTA on Unconventional Cancer Treatments, by Robert G. Houston.2

“Gonzalez has given us convincing evidence that diet and nutrition produce long-term remission in cancer patients almost all of whom were beyond conventional help,” wrote the late Harold Ladas, Ph.D., a biologist and former professor at Hunter College. “Because the cases [in Gonzalez’s study] represent a wide variety of cancers, the implication is that the paradigm has wide applicability to cancer treatment…. What should happen is that ACS or NCI should immediately follow up with a half million dollar study to evaluate the rest of Kelley’s cancer patients. But don’t hold your breath,” added Ladas, who concluded, “The evidence is in, and it is stunning. Kelley is vindicated.”3 Dr. Gonzalez’s findings on Kelley’s patients are discussed later in this chapter.

William Kelley held that a root cause of cancer is the body’s inability to metabolize (digest and utilize) protein. “The person gets cancer because he’s not properly metabolizing the protein in his diet,” said Dr. Kelley. “Then, to make matters worse, the tumor has such a high metabolism that it uses up much of the food which is eaten.” If a person’s disordered protein metabolism is not corrected, Kelley continued, “it will give rise to more tumors in the future, even if the first one is successfully removed. This, by the way, is the unfortunate reason why so many seemingly successful cancer operations end up in recurrences a year or two later. The tumor was removed, but the cause-improper protein metabolism-remained.”4

Dr. Kelley linked faulty metabolism to a deficiency of pancreatic enzymes, which he regarded as a fundamental cause of cancer. He believed that certain pancreatic enzymes, especially those that are proteolytic (protein-digesting) enzymes, are the body’s first line of defense against malignancy. This theory stands in marked contrast to conventional medicine, which holds that the immune system, with its natural killer cells, protects people against cancer.

WHOA!!! COFFEE IS SAFE AGAIN

BREAKING: California moves to declare coffee safe from cancer risk, counters a recent state court ruling that found it should carry warning labels. https://t.co/5IbgUZy0Qo

— The Associated Press (@AP) June 15, 2018

 But it's not cancer that you have to worry about.

WALK FASTER, LIVE LONGER

I get that maintaining health and vigor may not be as easy as people say. In that regard, nothing anyone says is ever as easy when you actually have to do something. But the rewards you get from exercise far outweigh any hardship that you expend.  Whether you're trying to get in shape or using exercise to recover from ill health or an injury, exercise truly is the magic bullet.  If you want to boost the impact of that magic bullet, eating right helps but supplementation really is where the benefits pour in.  So exercise.  Don't want to get out and exercise?  

No problem.  Do push-ups.  Start with 10.  Do these throughout the day.  Work up to 12 to 15 then to 20.  An immediate benefit that exercise provides is protection.  Here are some other benefits:

1.  Push-ups protect your shoulder joints from injury or weakness.  Dips while hanging from parallel bars provide similar protection.  Don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on parallel bars or create a small-scale gym inside your home or apartment?  Fine.  Check out the price and size of this Dip Station.  
2.  Push-ups also support your posture.  
3.  Push-ups strengthen the lower back.  Check out this video to find more benefits of push-ups. 


If you'd like to do chin-ups and pull-ups but don't feel that you have the strength for it or the endurance or that your core isn't built for it yet, then try this move on a parallel bar.

Just remember that exercise works a group of muscles and not individual muscles.  That's important.  Push-ups, for example, are great for stabilizing the shoulders which is important for, well, everybody.  

And if you walk on a daily basis, remember that it is better to walk as fast as you can to get the benefits.  

Proof that walking too slow is bad for you https://t.co/8EqpJ0uqWD

— MarketWatch (@MarketWatch) June 9, 2018

Nothing new here.  Just great reminders.

A recent Harvard University study concluded that you could add 10 years to your life by following five habits: eating a healthy diet, exercising 30 minutes or more a day, maintaining a healthy weight — a body mass index between 18.5 and 24.9 — never smoking and drinking only a moderate amount of alcohol.

In that study, the researchers analyzed 34 years of data from approximately 78,000 women and 27 years of data from more than 44,000 men. The authors predicted that women who adopted these five habits would see 14 more years of life, and men would add 12 years. 

VIOLENT BEHAVIOR: A [NUTRITIONAL] SOLUTION IN PLAIN SIGHT

from the Sentinel-News in Northern Utah.

We live in violent times. Americans are seven times more likely to die of homicide and twenty times more likely to die from shooting than people in other developed countries.1 Between 1984 and 1994, the number of young murderers under age eighteen in the U.S. increased threefold.2-4

In the 1990s, a new form of deadly violence raised its head in America. The first mass school slaying occurred in 1992 when Wayne Lo killed a student and a professor at a remote school in Massachusetts. This act set the stage for an escalating pattern of chilling destruction aimed at students and carried out by students, violence that increases every year. From the 1999 Columbine shootings in Colorado to the recent shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, Americans are desperately searching for answers.

In his book Confronting Violence: Answers to Questions About the Epidemic Destroying America’s Homes and Communities, George Gellert, (1997), MD, discusses “tested strategies to prevent violent crime” without providing any evidence that any of these strategies—electronic tracking, hotlines, education, and training―have actually worked. In fact, it is obvious that they have not.5

The disturbing tendencies we see today contrast strongly with Dr. Weston Price’s descriptions of harmonious, well-nourished primitive cultures—from smiling, joyful South Sea Islanders to highly spiritual Gaelic fisherfolk to Swiss villagers celebrating “one for all and all for one” during their summer festivals.6 Likewise, Dr. Francis Pottenger described peaceful, harmonious behavior among well-nourished cats. Both cats and humans degenerated into disharmonious behavior patterns with the change to foods devitalized by heat and processing.7

Modern commentators are blind to the solution, a solution that is in plain sight: clearly defining good nutrition and putting it back into the mouths of our children, starting before they are even conceived. . . because food is information and that information directly affects the emotions, the nervous system, the brain, and behavior.

FAT-SOLUBLE VITAMINS

The brain and nervous system require specific nutrients to function properly, and the evidence is overwhelming that nutrient deficiencies can lead to aggression and violent behavior. Let’s start with the fat-soluble vitamins, vitamins A, D3, and K2, so important in the diets of primitive peoples.

Preformed vitamin A, called retinoic acid, is critical to brain development. Receptors in the amygdala, hippocampus, and other paralimbic brain regions suggest that vitamin A signaling plays a vital role in cognitive function.8 When vitamin A is lacking during gestation, as it is for most mothers in our fat-phobic society, children may be set up for abnormal behavior patterns later in life.

In animals, vitamin A deficiency results in problems with spatial learning and memory. Vitamin A deficiency may lead to dopamine receptor hypo-activity and the typical symptoms of schizophrenia, such as flat affect, apathy and lack of insight, as well as hallucinations and delusions. 9 Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe and serious brain disorder. People with schizophrenia hear voices and believe people are controlling them.10

Recent studies from the U.K. show that low levels of vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) are associated with increased risk of depression and panic. Researchers from the Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, California, defined the role of vitamin D in neurological health, pointing out the wide distribution of vitamin D throughout the brain. The vitamin affects portions of the brain involved in learning and memory, as well as motor control.11

Vitamin D is very much involved in production of serotonin, the molecule of willpower, and delayed gratification. Decreased serotonin activity can lead to an inability to create and act on well-formed plans.12

There are many vitamin D receptors in the brain. Bright light going through the eyes increases serotonin production―sunglasses block this effect―and sunscreen blocks the vitamin D formation in the skin.13

Studies with rats show that the production of serotonin is directly related to duration of bright sunlight. Sunbathing and exposure to bright light during the day can have a similar effect to antidepressants and, of course, are far safer. Other ways to boost serotonin in the dark of winter are exercise, massage and happy memories,14 and, of course, vitamin D-rich food.

Calcitriol, the hormonally active form of vitamin D, accumulates in the adrenals, and this stimulates the production of the gene for tyrosine hydroxylase, which is involved in serotonin production. Serotonin synthesis is thought to be dependent on the duration of light exposure the previous summer.15

Less is known about the correlation between vitamin K2 status and behavior. However, research has shown that vitamin K2 is involved in the biochemistry of nervous tissue and is needed for the formation of myelin.16,17 Vitamin K2 contributes to the biological activation of proteins Gas6, which are involved in many cellular functions such as cell growth, survival, and apoptosis. In the brain, vitamin K2 also participates in the synthesis of sphingolipids, an important lipid present in high concentrations in brain cell membranes. Vitamin K2 can affect psychomotor behavior and cognition.18 Weston Price cured a child of seizures with high-vitamin butter oil, rich in vitamin K2.19

All these vitamins were consumed in very high levels in primitive diets.19 Today, due to disastrous dietary advice, most people avoid the dietary sources of these critical nutrients—egg yolks, butter, organ meats, meat fats, goose and chicken liver, cod liver oil, fish eggs and oily fish, and some fermented foods like sauerkraut.20

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