Fashion or Fascia? That is the Question

Re-printed with permission from Yoga Tune Up® Blog 

Fashion or Fascia? That is the Question

By: Dinneen Viggiano | Wednesday, March 13th, 2013 Category: Back Pain, Shoulder Pain, upper back pain |

Did you know that in 2007 The American Chiropractic Association reported that purse-related injuries surged 30%?  The average woman’s handbag weighs 5.2 pounds these days and the UK’s Daily Mailreports that the average “Man Bag” weighs almost 13 pounds!  That’s like hauling around 5 to12 one-pound bags of sugar.  The results are not so sweet.

Just this morning I observed a Fashion-savvy woman furiously text messaging on the subway.   From her texting arm hung a 10-12 pound bag and from the opposite shoulder hung another bag twice as heavy.  Her head hung forward about 6 inches, her cervical spine in wickedly deep flexion while her fingers ravenously danced over her Blackberry keyboard.

It’s hard to say which is worse, carrying a huge bag on the elbow joint or carrying on the shoulder since both purse-carries have detrimental effects:

The Arm Bag Carry

The Huge Handbag that hangs off the elbow joint can damage the superficial radial nerves that stretch from the elbow to the hand on the anterior side of the forearm.  As we daintily bear the weight on our forearm, our digital flexors and pronator teres become tenderized.   Alas, it’s not uncommon for those who’ve never played tennis to suddenly acquire a Tennis Elbow diagnosis as the olecranon bursa and/or the tendon attachments become inflamed.

The Shoulder Bag Carry

The Shoulder Bag Carry is not much improvement:  Strapping a giant bag on one shoulder can aggravate tender rotator cuff muscles and degrade the highly susceptible shoulder joint capsule, resulting in pain.  Furthermore, this big bag hanging off one side of your body may result in acquired functional spinal curvature as your muscles and spine are forced to counterbalance the weight, creating repetitive stress on the axial skeleton.  Again, the result is pain, usually in the back.

So, what’s the fix? Read my post on Friday to find out!

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About This Author

Dinneen Viggiano, E-RYT 500, P-RYT, NC, CHHC is an Integrated Certified Yoga Tune Up® Teacher and has been teaching yoga in New York City for 13 years, empowering her students to improve their movement and lifestyle patterns in a way that is structurally appropriate for their yoga practice and their daily life. She is also a Certified Nutrition Consultant, a Certified Holistic Health Coach and a CranioSacral Therapist. She advocates, educates and coaches for a plant-based, holistic lifestyle through her company, PHYTOLISTIC and she is an active Board Member for the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food. www.phytolistic.com

PART 2

5 Ways to Avoid Huge Handbag Injuries

By: Dinneen Viggiano | Friday, March 15th, 2013 Category: Back Pain,

1.Switch bags often.  This way your body isn’t maintaining a bad structural habit day after day.

2.Stabilize your core and bend your knees when lifting anything, even your bag.

3.Carry two smaller bags instead of one large one.

4.Practice Yoga Tune Up® joint mobilization and stabilization exercises, such as the Pranic Bath, Shoulder Circles, Shoulder Flossing Variations 1 and 2, Epaulet Arm Circles, Long Head of Triceps Arms, and Matador Circles, just to name a few.

5.Use Yoga Tune Up® Therapy Balls to soothe and restore slide and glide to aching muscles (try the exercise in the video below).

Many of the exercises on the Yoga Tune Up® Quickfix Rx: Upper Back Series DVD can help restore, soothe and stabilize the neck, upper back and shoulder muscles.

So the question is:

Will you be a Fashionista or a Fascianista?

One honors fashion, often at the expense of structural integrity; the other honors FASCIA (the soft fibrous connective tissue that is the aqueous scaffolding of our structure) at the expense of fashion.

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Cauli-Crust Pizza (Paleo, GF, V)

This pizza recipe is for all of us who want to eat more vegetables because we recognize that phytonutrients are the key to a long and healthy life:  Long live Phyto Pepes!

It also just so happens to work marvelously for vegan, gluten-free and paleo people too!  

A traditional pizza is already a great platform for piling on the vegetables, but what about putting vegetables IN the crust?  Pizza Hut puts cheese in their crust, right? So how about putting some cauliflower in your crust? The end result is not as yeasty and not as bready.  This creation is oh-so moist, slightly sweet and dare I say it....Nutritious and Delicious!

Ingredients:

1 cup Cauliflower
1 1/2 - 2 cups Almond flour (or chick pea or GF flour)
6  tablespoons Arrowroot, or potato starch
3 tablespoons Flax meal (non-vegans may prefer to use 1 egg instead of flax meal)
1 teaspoon Baking powder
3/4 teaspoon Himalayan Salt
1 1/2 teaspoons Garlic powder
1 teaspoon Basil, dried
1 1/2 tablespoons Oil

Directions:
Pulse the cauliflower in food processor until it resembles grains of rice.  Then steam your rice cauliflower for 3 minutes.  Allow the rice to cool, then drain in a fine mesh strainer (or a nut mylk bag).
While the cauli-rice is cooling, preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment or oil up your pizza baking stone.
Mix cauli-rice with remaining ingredients.  The dough will be thick and sticky.
Oil your hands so that you can spread the dough 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick onto your parchment-lined baking sheet, then bake the crust about 15-20 minutes or until it starts to turn a toasted golden color.
Remove pre-baked Cauli-crust and arrange toppings of your choice.
Bake another 10-15 minutes.  

The pizza shown here is topped with Kale Shreds, basil, mushrooms and Daiya (non-dairy/no soy/no casein) cheese.  Always a hit!

Jules Cooks for Kids: Brussels Sprouts

Yes, that's a real paring knife

See the VIDEO HERE

In January, we drove up to visit to our cousins in New Hampshire.
Big Jim and Little Jim both admitted as soon as we walked in that they're really not "sprout guys", but in honor of our visit, my awesomely generous and considerate cousin admitted that while at the market he was compelled to buy a bunch of these kooky vegetables just for me.  At the dinner table my cousin told this very endearing story about how he hated brussels sprouts as a kid.  A terrific storyteller, Jim provided vivid imagery about how mushy and smelly and disgusting the brussels sprouts of his youth were.  Jules roared with laughter at the faces and sounds Jimmy made as he recalled the smushy grossness of his last foray into brussel sprout land sometime back in the '70's!  We took a vote at the table to see who had ever tasted them before and lo and behold, none of the four Petruccelli's had ever had fresh  roasted brussels sprouts.  Nor had my son, Jules.  One by one, each of them tried the mysterious green vegetable and one by one they came back for more, mmmm'ing and yum'ing.  Charmed by the story and his bigger cousins' process, Jules joined in, had a taste and sure enough he LOVED them.   Before long, everyone had had their second helping and although we were out of brussels sprouts I've got to say we were all a bit giddy on the whole adventure.
To keep the excitement for brussels sprouts going back in NYC, I told Jules that we could have brussels sprouts for dinner if he prepped them.  He jumped at the opportunity to use a real knife and midway through he exclaimed, "This is so much fun. I just love this."
Jules has decided he would like to have his own cooking show and he's calling it "Jules Cooks for Kids".  The video above was one take and it's our first go at videotaping Jules doing his thing in the kitchen.
My apologies here because there is a Part 2 video on how to dress the sprouts.  Part 2 includes the highly anticipated Sprout Shake Dance, but unfortunately technical difficulties won't allow the upload to youtube. Hopefully we'll be able to re-post Part 2 sometime soon.
We hope you enjoy this, our first vlog and we encourage you to share it with the kitchen-curious kids in your life!

RECIPE

1 pound Brussels Sprouts
1/3 cup Olive Oil
1/2 teaspoon Himalayan Sea Salt
Pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
Preheat a (non-greased) baking sheet in the oven to 375 degrees.
Prep Brussels Sprouts, according to Jules' video instructions.
Dress Brussels Sprouts with oil.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
Place cut sprouts on hot baking sheet (so they sizzle), cut side down for 15 minutes or until caramelized and crispy.
Enjoy.