Our hips extend and knees bend due to a group of three muscles located in the back of the thigh called the hamstrings. These muscles, if not stretched properly prior to exercise can stretch too far, pull, or even tear. These are very common in athletes and often occur during running, jumping, and in sports like basketball, soccer, wrestling, where stopping and starting occur in spurts. Pain associated with a hamstring strain can range from a mild irritation to a severe pain that leaves one unable to stand. If you feel a sudden snap, pop, or pain in the back of the thigh, it is most often the hamstring.
The hamstring muscle group crosses over and effects the hip and knee joints but it also affects the legs, and back. Hamstrings that are not stretched properly prior to running and exercise can not only cause leg and knee pain, but also lower back and hip pain. Hip pain can come in the form of burning, dull aches, or a popping sensation. Hip pain can affect mobility and compensating for the pain causes strain on other muscles.
Even though hamstring strains are one of the most common injury that athletes face, there is still not a definitive answer on how to manage them. Doctors have looked to plasma-rich platelet (PRP) injections for a possible treatment. Platelet-rich plasma is plasma that contains 5 to 10 times greater the amount of platelets than in blood. Platelets promote healing, prevents blood loss, and tissue repair. To obtain the PRP, blood is drawn from the patient and is then centrifuged in a machine that separates the plasma from other blood cells. The plasma is recombined with the rest of the blood and injected into the patient.
A controlled trial using platelet-rich plasma injections (PRP) was done on twenty-eight patients each having an acute hamstring injury. The purpose was to see if this treatment had any effect on pain management, along with shortening the healing time. Patients were divided into two groups, one group receiving PRP injections combined with a rehabilitation program, while the control group was given rehabilitation only. Those receiving the PRP injections and rehabilitation recovered fully and return time to their activities was 26.7 ± 7.0 days, while those in the control groups return time was 42.5 ± 20.6 days. Lower pain severity scores were recorded throughout the trial, although the difference of pain scale between the two groups was not significant. The end conclusion is that PRP injections in addition to a rehabilitation program is more effective than a rehabilitation alone for treating acute hamstring injuries. This is extraordinarily promising.
Hamstring and hip pain can be avoided by properly stretching before activities. Not all injuries occur due to sports, simply gardening and chores can result in an injury if muscles are tight. Routine stretching is an effective tool against hip pain and hamstring tears. If you are concerned about hip pain, contact our renowned sports medicine orthopedists to be evaluated at Orthopedic Surgery San Diego.
CLASSIC LIST
ACL injuries or Knee ligament injuries are seen commonly by the best orthopedists in town, as these injuries often times occur in aggressive or elite level San Diego athletes that yearn to return to play.
Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries or simply ACL injuries happen to hundreds of thousands of people every year. ACL injuries usually end play and can be extraordinarily painful. Although debilitating, they are treatable. You just have to make sure you know how severe your injury is and what you can do to treat the problem.
ACL injuries are actually quite common among people who participate in high action cutting sports, such as:
- Soccer
- Football
- Basketball
- Lacrosse
Levels of Severity with ACL Injuries
There are three categories of injuries based on what kind of damage has been done to the ACL:
- Grade 1 ACL injuries: This is the easiest ACL injury to heal. A grade one ACL injury is the result of the ligament stretching slightly. It does not cause the knee joint to become unstable.
- Grade 2 ACL injuries: This grade of injury is in the middle, and the least common of all knee injuries. A grade two type of injury happens when the ligament stretches to the point where it is unstable. It is more commonly known as a partial tear.
- Grade 3 ACL injuries: This ACL injury is the most severe. A grade three injury is labeled when the ligament is completely torn in half. This can cause the knee to become extremely unstable. Severe knee pain and an almost impossible time walking are common symptoms.
At the end of the day, the grade doesn’t really matter. To an orthopedist this injury boils down to those athletes that are able to compensate (ie, their knee is functionally stable) and those that can’t (ie, their knee is functionally unstable). Having a functionally stable knee means that that athlete is able to return to his/her level of customary play in cutting sports without the knee giving out. Generally speaking, one third of athletes will be able to return to play despite their injury with little to no intervention; one third of athletes will be able to return to play after engaging in directed physical therapy without surgery; one third will require surgery in order to return to play due to continued knee instability despite physical therapy.
Treatments for ACL injuries
Non-Severe ACL Injuries
If you only have a mild injury, you can, usually, use physical therapy to treat your injuries. Your physical therapist will have you go through a series of exercises and motions to help you regain full control of your knee again. It can take some time to heal completely, depending on the injury type.
Since this is so common with sports athletes, there are specialists who work specifically with athletes. The goal is to help them get back into their sport of choice as quickly as possible.
Severe ACL Injuries (ie, unstable knee)
One third of the athletes will require surgery to regain a stable knee, despite having engaged in physical therapy. With a physical examination and an MRI scan, a well-trained sports medicine surgeon can anticipate the need for treatment of various concomitant injuries: cartilage damage, meniscus tears, etc. 
ACL reconstruction can be done in a variety of ways. First decision to be made is whether a patient chooses to use their own tissue or donor tissue to reconstruct the ligament. If a patient chooses their own tissue, the options are bone-patellar tendon-bone, or hamstring tendon, or quadriceps tendon. Although some surgeons may argue that one type of tissue is superior to the other, many studies have looked at this and there is little to no clinical difference.
If you have been told that you have an ACL tear or are concerned about a knee injury, contact our award winning sports medicine doctors at San Diego Orthopedic Surgery Clinic.
Exercise can lead to knee injury or hip pain if done so with poor technique. This is commonly seen with weight lifting and shoulder pain. It is common for the recreational gym enthusiast to ponder whether to lift and then bike or vice versa. Recent research indicates that lifting weights before or after engaging in cardio exercise can be beneficial, according to a New York Times “Well” blog.
The evidence is contrary to the advice many people have received. It is widely believed that workouts involving both types of exercise are not as effective as doing cardio and resistance training separately.
A study the Journal of Applied Physiology published in March involved people riding stationary bicycles with one leg, then doing resistance exercises with both legs. Some of the participants performed the two kinds of workouts in the opposite order.
Researchers looked for differences between the leg that did both exercises and the limb that only lifted weights. They found that, after five weeks, both legs had gained similar amounts of muscle and strength. Cycling before lifting weights did not adversely affect the benefits of the resistance workouts. The same results were reported for participants who did resistance training before cycling.
Biopsies were performed on the subjects before and after weight training to assess the size of the vastus lateralis and quadriceps muscles in both legs. The researchers took muscle samples to assess citrate synthase activity and glycogen concentration. Muscle size increased at a greater rate in participants who performed both types of exercise, compared with those who did only resistance work.
Another study, conducted in 2012, showed that inactive, middle-aged men had good results combining cardio or aerobic exercise with weight lifting. The research failed to show that one type of exercise diminishes the value of the other kind.
The lead researcher was kinesiology professor Stuart Phillips of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He reported positive changes in myofibrillar and mitochondrial protein fractional synthesis rates, and other indicators, for the eight men involved in the study.
The participants did leg-extension repetitions, followed by riding stationary bicycles. Biopsy analysis suggested no “interference effect on muscle protein subfractional synthesis rates, protein signaling or mRNA expression,” the researchers wrote.
While the medical terminology is complicated, the message is clear: Combining cardio with weight training does not reduce the effectiveness of either workout. The research indicates that doing both can produce positive outcomes, regardless the order in which the exercises are performed.
If you have sustained an injury while lifting weights or during a cardio workout, contact our top notch orthopedists at San Diego Orthopedic Surgery Clinic.
At San Diego Orthopedics we strive to promote a healthier lifestyle and in our quest we not only write about dealing with knee pain or shoulder injuries but also about leading a healthy lifestyle.
Anyone hoping to read that heart attacks in men (and women) can be prevented by eating fast food, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, drinking moderately, and living a sedentary lifestyle will be very disappointed by the next few paragraphs. Everything we know that is bad for us, is bad for us for a reason. Smoking cigars or cigarettes, along with eating poorly, causes a myriad of problems, compound that with little or no exercise, and you are a ticking time bomb for a heart attack. While you may have a perfectly healthy 99 year old uncle that has eaten a pound of bacon and a bottle of whiskey every day for 70 years, he is very much the exception.
Believe it or not, but 4 out of 5 heart attacks can actually be prevented by eating healthier, managing weight, cutting out cigarettes, and keeping alcohol to a minimum. It looks easy on paper, but in reality, it is difficult to maintain and often requires conscious effort. Less than 2 percent of Americans actually make healthy life choices on a daily basis. An unhealthy lifestyle can lead to more than just heart attacks. Extra weight on the body can cause knee pain and back pain, along with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and other chronic diseases.
A study done in Sweden on 20,000 men over 11 years showed that not smoking lowered men’s risk of heart attacks by 36 percent. Eating healthy lowered the risk of heart attacks by 18 percent, the risk for men having less than a 37 inch waist was lowered by 12 percent, and those who exercised about an hour a day had a 3 percent lower risk. If a man does all of the above combined, his percentage of a heart attack decreases by 69 percent.
Not only will keeping a healthier lifestyle reduce risk of heart attack, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol (which clogs arteries and causes heart attacks), but it will keep the bones healthier and stronger. Extra weight puts pressure on the knees which can lead to a trip to an orthopedist for pain due to knee osteoarthritis, which can eventually turn into a knee replacement. While older men may put off knee replacement surgery due to their age, having it done can be a literal lifesaver.
Think about this: an overweight, older man who smokes and is not very active begins to have knee pain. The knee pain grows worse, which causes the man to move around even less. His sedentary lifestyle leads to more overeating, overeating leads to more weight gain, and now there is even more pressure on the knee. The risk of heart attack is increasing each day.
If you are a gentleman 45 years or older your risk of having a heart attack becomes greater every year. While leading a healthier lifestyle seems like hard work now, your heart will thank you in the end.
The Collegiate Scare:
Knee pain felt by the La Jolla tennis player or San Diego soccer player is no different than the pain felt by collegiate athletes.
The athletes that are fortunate enough to make it to the professional level require a number of things: Physical gifts, talent, mental toughness, work ethic, and sometimes most importantly, luck. There have been many college athletes who were destined for greatness but had that destiny changed after a devastating injury. Navy’s star quarterback Keenan Reynolds can breathe a sigh of relief as he nearly completely dodged the injury bug. Last week Keenan Reynolds led his Navy team to victory over Temple, but with a serious scare as he took a helmet directly to the side of his knee. His knee twisted and from the looks of it the injury had the potential to be serious. As it turns out, his injury was just a simple knee contusion, or in layman’s terms a knee bruise.
Knee contusion
Knee contusions are typically due to direct contact to the knee. In the case of Keenan Reynolds, this was a helmet to the knee, but for others this could be due to the knee hitting the ground during a fall. Symptoms of a knee contusion involve pain, tenderness, swelling, and bruising on the surface of the skin. The actual bruising on the surface of the skin is caused by damage to blood vessels in the knee.
A knee contusion generally does not require any additional medical attention. However, similar symptoms can exist in more severe injuries such as ligament damage and muscle damage, so if you fear that the injury is severe, please visit your family physician or your osteopathic doctor.
Treatment for a knee contusion is pretty standard and utilizes the RICE method: Rest, ice, compress, and elevate. It is important to rest the injured knee to prevent ongoing strain and worsening of symptoms. You should apply ice for 10-20 minutes at a time, each hour. You can slowly reduce the frequency you ice it as the symptoms regress. Utilize an elastic bandage for compression and be sure to keep the leg elevated as much as possible. The RICE method is a good way to reduce the pain, swelling, and inflammation associated with the bruised knee. If the symptoms persist for more than a few days for a minor contusion it is best to get checked out to eliminate any confounding problems such as ligament damage or damage to the muscles that surround the knee. For severe contusions, the symptoms can last weeks, but if managed properly there should be a noticeable improvement during that period.
Thankfully, Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds dodged a bullet, walking away relatively unscathed after taking a helmet to his knee. If he follows the treatment guideline of rest, ice, elevation, and compression, there is a very good chance we will see the star quarterback on the field this weekend against Western Kentucky.
Whether a recreational competitor or the very best soccer player, athletes participating in cutting sports are vulnerable to knee injuries that are a result of ligament tears.
Within just a two-week period the NFL has witnessed one of its premier veteran running backs and one of the best young rookies both go down with knee injuries. First it was San Diego Chargers running back Ryan Mathews who went down last week and now this week Pittsburgh Steelers rookie linebacker Ryan Shazier joined him. Both players left their respective games early and did not return. Later the teams released reports that the injury sustained was a sprained MCL (medial collateral ligament).
The knee is made up of bones and ligaments that work together to support the knee and its range of motion. These bones are the thighbone (femur), the shinbone (tibia), and the kneecap (patella). These bones are joined together by ligaments. The collateral ligaments connect the femur to the tibia and fibula (which is a smaller bone in the lower leg). The MCL is the collateral ligament toward the inside of the knee, i.e., the one that is closest to your opposite knee. This ligament connects the femur to the tibia. As expected from the anatomy, the collateral ligaments act to support and control any sideways movements of the knee.
Injury to the MCL is typically sustained via direct contact to the outside of the knee. If the contact is forceful enough the MCL will stretch beyond its means and may become sprained to varying degrees. The severity of the sprain is diagnosed into three different grades. Grade I sprain is very minimal and while the MCL has been stretched abnormally, there is no structural damage to the knee. Grade II sprains are a bit more severe and involve the MCL actually becoming loose due to excessive stretching. Grade III sprains a very severe and involve a complete tear of the MCL into two separate pieces. Even a grade I sprain will cause some discomfort, pain, and swelling on the inner knee. The more severe sprains will cause feelings of instability as well.
Luckily for Ryan Mathews and Ryan Shazier, MCL injuries rarely require surgery. The only time that surgery would be required is if the MCL is so severely damaged that it cannot heal itself or if the injury is compounded by additional ligament tears in the knee. The non-surgical road to MCL recovery involves a combination of ice, immobilization, and physical therapy. Icing the knee helps to reduce the swelling associated with the injury. Preventing the knee from sideways movement via a brace and crutches prevents the ligament from enduring further stress and gives it the opportunity to completely heal. Lastly, exercises designed to strengthen supporting leg muscles should be used to regain strength and stability. Once the rehabilitation, a return to activity should be completed gradually to avoid any re-injury or aggravation. For Ryan Shazier and Ryan Mathews the timeline for their return is approximately 4-5 weeks. This is prototypical timeline for a Grade II MCL sprain and as long as they do not rush back too early, they should be good to go come mid-season.
Contact our top ranked orthopedists at San Diego Orthopedic Surgery Clinic for an appointment today.
AC Joint sprain Shoulder injury is extraordinarily common for over-head athletes. This includes the best La Jolla tennis players and the recreational Carlsbad yoga enthusiasts alike.
There are very few players in the NFL who are as explosive as Washington Redskins’ wide receiver Desean Jackson. Fortunately for Desean Jackson, his most recent injury should not have any affect on his explosiveness. Unfortunately, it is very hard for a wide receiver to catch the ball when he has a “separated shoulder.” Desean Jackson’s injury occurred during the game against Jacksonville last week and the diagnosis of was a sprained AC joint. However, he was surprisingly, able to play and perform very well despite the injury. But let’s take a look at the injury that threatened his Week 3 availability.
The AC joint connects the shoulder blade (acromion) and collarbone (clavicle). Ligaments surround and act to stabilize the AC joint. These ligaments are typically damaged if you fall and land directly onto the shoulder. This is a very typical injury in sports and often happens when players dive to make a play and cannot flip onto their back for the landing. Like many sprains the severity of the injury can vary. Grade I sprains would involve tears of microscopic fibers of the AC ligaments. Grade II sprains are more severe but typically only have cause slight alignment issues. Grade III sprains are complete tears and often involve both the AC ligament and the CC ligament. A severe sprain would put the AC joint significantly out of position. Symptoms of an AC joint sprain include pain at the top of the shoulder, swelling, bruising, decreased range of motion, and deformity.
AC Joint Sprain Shoulder injury Treatment:
Mild AC joint sprains do not require surgery and generally can heal completely with time and use of ice packs and slings. Grade II sprains, the AC joint can heal without surgery as well, but if there is any deformity involved with the injury, there may be ongoing pain in the AC joint. This pain could be due to arthritis development, injury to cartilage between the bones, or abnormal bone-to-bone contact. Grade III injuries with severe deformity typically require orthopedic surgery for complete return to form. The surgeon can reconstruct the damaged ligaments surrounding the AC joint. After a period of immobility and rehabilitation most people are able to return to form without much trouble, although as discussed above, lingering pain may persist. Even in mild AC joint sprains, shoulder exercises should be utilized to regain flexibility, strength, and range of motion. Some of these exercises include shoulder blade squeezes, pendular exercises, wall crawls, and static rotator cuff extensions. As the AC joint becomes stronger, more intermediate and advanced exercises can be utilized.
Desean Jackson and the Washington Redskins got pretty lucky that Jackson’s injury was not more serious. His injury was likely somewhere in between a grade I and grade II sprain. Through limiting weekly activity and pain management, Jackson was able to tough it out this weekend against his former team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He managed to have a very good game and the Washington training staff will likely install a similar regimen for this upcoming week, although the Redskins have a short turnaround, playing on Thursday night.
If you are faced with a shoulder injury, have our nationally recognized sports medicine physicians at San Diego Orthopedic Surgery Clinic care for you. Call for an appointment.
ACL injuries or Knee ligament injuries are seen commonly by the best orthopedists in town, as these injuries often times occur in aggressive or elite level San Diego athletes that yearn to return to play.
Anterior Cruciate Ligament or ACL injuries happen to hundreds of thousands of people every year. This knee ligament injury usually ends play and can be extraordinarily painful. Although debilitating, they are treatable. You just have to make sure you know how severe your injury is and what you can do to treat the problem.
ACL injuries are actually quite common among people who participate in high action cutting sports, such as:
- Soccer
- Football
- Basketball
- Lacrosse
Levels of Severity with ACL Injuries
There are three categories of injuries based on what kind of damage has been done to the ACL:
- Grade 1: This is the easiest ACL injury to heal. A grade one ACL injury is the result of the ligament stretching slightly. It does not cause the knee joint to become unstable.
- Grade 2: This grade of injury is in the middle, and the least common of all knee injuries. A grade two type of injury happens when the ligament stretches to the point where it is unstable. It is more commonly known as a partial tear.
- Grade 3: This ACL injury is the most severe. A grade three injury is labeled when the ligament is completely torn in half. This can cause the knee to become extremely unstable. Severe knee pain and an almost impossible time walking are common symptoms.
At the end of the day, the grade doesn’t really matter. To an orthopedist this injury boils down to those athletes that are able to compensate (ie, their knee is functionally stable) and those that can’t (ie, their knee is functionally unstable). Having a functionally stable knee means that that athlete is able to return to his/her level of customary play in cutting sports without the knee giving out. Generally speaking, one third of athletes will be able to return to play despite their injury with little to no intervention; one third of athletes will be able to return to play after engaging in directed physical therapy; one third will require surgery in order to return to play due to continued knee instability.
Treatments for ACL injuries
Non-Severe ACL Injuries
If you only have a mild injury, you can, usually, use physical therapy to treat your injuries. Your physical therapist will have you go through a series of exercises and motions to help you regain full control of your knee again. It can take some time to heal completely, depending on the injury type.
Since this is so common with sports athletes, there are specialists who work specifically with athletes. The goal is to help them get back into their sport of choice as quickly as possible.
Severe ACL Injuries (ie, unstable knee)
One third of the athletes will require surgery to regain a stable knee, despite having engaged in physical therapy. With a physical examination and an MRI scan, a well-trained sports medicine surgeon can anticipate the need for treatment of various concomitant injuries: cartilage damage, meniscus tears, etc.
ACL reconstruction can be done in a variety of ways. First decision to be made is whether a patient chooses to use their own tissue or donor tissue to reconstruct the ligament. If a patient chooses their own tissue, the options are bone-patellar tendon-bone, or hamstring tendon, or quadriceps tendon. Although some surgeons may argue that one type of tissue is superior to the other, many studies have looked at this and there is little to no clinical difference.
If you have been told that you have an ACL tear or are concerned about a knee injury, contact our award winning sports medicine doctors at San Diego Orthopedic Surgery Clinic.
Baseball pitchers, tennis players and others whose activities entail repeatedly reaching above their heads are vulnerable to a relatively rare condition called suprascapular neuropathy. It causes shoulder pain and dysfunction.
As Dr. Dana P. Piasecki and associates noted in a review article for the journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the Suprascapular Neuropathy results from the stress that arm stretching and rotating movements place on the shoulder. The suprascapular nerve is injured by excessive stretching, kinking and friction.
The nerve extends from the neck to the back of the shoulder, in a narrow passageway through bones and ligaments. The nerve can become compressed, or entrapped, at several points. Ganglion cysts and masses of soft tissues are sometimes responsible, though much of the time the compression is an overuse injury resulting in Suprascapular Neuropathy.
Retracted rotator cuff tears can cause Suprascapular Neuropathy in older patients. Nearly one-third of the time, suprascapular nerve injury is associated with shoulder dislocations or humerus fractures, according to the article.
More than 80 percent of those with suprascapular neuropathy report pain and spinal weakness. Patients have described the discomfort as a dull, ocassionally burning, ache in the shoulder that sometimes extends to the neck and arm. Reaching across the torso, or rotating the shoulder, may be particularly painful.
Most patients who undergo nonsurgical treatment for Suprascapular Neuropathy enjoy reduced pain. They regain shoulder function by modifying their physical activities, taking anti-inflammatory medication and receiving physical therapy.
For others, “muscle bulk and motor strength may be irreversibly lost” due to atrophy, Piasecki et al noted. Surgery might be necessary to allow for shoulder function to return. The procedure typically involves widening the spinoglenoid or suprascapular notch, points at which the nerve tends to sustain injuries. This can be done as open surgery or arthroscopically.
A study by Kim et al, involving 31 patients, found that the procedure produced long-term pain relief and restored strength in more than 90 percent of the Suprascapular Neuropathy cases. In another study, arthroscopic suprascapular notch decompression significantly helped all 10 patients. Surgeons sometimes perform open spinoglenoid decompression while arthroscopically repairing related labral tears.
In research featuring patients with spinoglenoid notch entrapment resulting from ganglion cysts, all six participants reported that they no longer felt any pain after undergoing decompression surgery. Another study showed that the procedure resulted in significant nerve recovery, pain relief and restored function for patients diagnosed with suprascapular neuropathy and large rotator cuff tears.
Orthopedists tend to advise against overly sedentary lifestyles. Although overzealous exercise can lead to profound knee pain and possibly to knee osteoarthritis, most orthopedists advise patients to simply ‘stay active’. Two recent studies provide further evidence that a lack of physical activity, characterized by many hours of sitting every day, has disastrous health consequences.
Researchers reported that spending less time in a seated position prevents premature aging and promotes good health, according to a “Well” blog by Gretchen Reynolds published Sept. 17 in the New York Times.
She pointed out that the typical American sits for eight hours or longer daily. This is true even for many people who engage in regular exercise. Whether at work or at home, most activities involve sitting in a chair.
Previous studies have shown that sedentary behavior leaves people more vulnerable to cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and obesity. Years of inactivity also may result in osteoarthritis and other orthopedic conditions, which can cause debilitating pain in the hips and knees. Some patients require knee or hip replacement surgery to regain strength and range of motion in their joints. Sedentary adults are likely to die at a younger age than active people.
The British Journal of Sports Medicine this month published one of the studies cited by Reynolds. Swedish scientists recruited 68-year-old male and female participants. Half of the volunteers engaged in regular exercise programs, and made an effort to spend less time sitting. The other participants were told to carry on with their usual routines.
The scientists monitored the physiological effects. They especially wanted to know the impact of sedentary behavior on telomeres, compound structures attached to the tips of individual strands of DNA. When telomeres begin to decay and become shorter, it is evidence of premature aging in the cells. Illnesses, obesity and other conditions speed this degenerative process. Reynolds noted that “some evidence suggests healthy lifestyles may preserve telomere length, delaying cell aging.”
When the researchers analyzed participants’ blood after six months, they learned that telomeres had lengthened in the active volunteers and become shorter in the control group. The cells of the active group appeared younger.
The study suggested that avoiding the seated position is more important than exercising. Those in the active group who spent the most time standing, rather than sitting, had healthier telemores than the volunteers who worked out the most strenuously.
“Reducing sedentary time had lengthened telomeres, the scientists concluded, while exercising had played little role,” Reynolds reported.
The May issue of the American College of Sports Medicine’s journal contained the other recent study regarding the effects of excessive sitting. The lead researcher was Peter Katzmarzyk, a public-health professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La.
He analyzed survey results regarding the physical activity of Canadians, and compared the data with death records. He wrote that “mortality rates declined at higher levels of standing (rather than sitting).”
It appears that rigorous exercise is not necessarily required to fend off illnesses, diseases and early death. The two studies indicate that simply getting out of the chair, and spending more time erect than in a seated position, produces significant results.
If you have been told that you have knee arthritis or have pain that has persisted, contact Dr Robert Afra, award winning orthopedist.
