Core Strengthening Exercise #5 – Side Bridges

Core Strengthening Exercise

This is exercise #5 in our series on Core Strengthening Exercises – the side bridge. If you do all of the exercises in this series daily your core will be super strong… But like with everything in life you do need to do it daily for it to be effective … you got to do it and keep doing it to stay strong.

Instructions

so as always follow the video below – but in general don’t forget to brace and do these steps:

lay on one side
prop yourself up on one elbow
support your shoulder with the opposite hand
bend your knees to 90 degrees
brace
lift your hip off of the floor and keep your body in a straight line
hold 10-20 seconds
repeat 5-10 times at first
repeat on other side

Video

Final words

if you have any questions as usual please don’t hesitate to call or send an email!

March 30, 2018

Detox Friendly Vegetable Curry

Detox Friendly Vegetable Curry Recipe

This recipe was given to me by a friend and amazing Chiro friend when I asked for help since dad is still in the hospital…

it actually came from a link from this website and you can find the original recipe here:

https://detoxinista.com/detox-friendly-vegetable-curry/

More awesome detox recipes

Actually that site looks awesome – I am going to have to recommend it and make a bunch of things from there now… let me know if you do and we can post more!

Recipe Ingredients:

2 cups steamed sweet potato chunks
1 teaspoon butter or coconut oil
1/2 yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/2 cup water
1 Tablespoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon Garam Masala
1/2 teaspoon salt

Any veggies you like, for serving
Rice, or cauliflower “rice,” for serving

Instructions

In a saute pan, heat the butter or coconut oil over medium heat. Add the diced onion and garlic, and saute for about 5 minutes, until tender. (You can do this while your sweet potato chunks are steaming!)
Transfer the onions, garlic and sweet potato chunks into a blender, and add the rest of the ingredients. Blend well, scraping down the sides, until everything is creamy. Adjust seasonings to taste and set aside– this is your curry sauce.
In a separate pot, saute any veggies you like until they are nearly tender. (I included sweet potatoes, broccoli, zucchini, carrots, and onion.)
Once your veggies are nearly cooked, pour the curry sauce over them.
Bring the sauce to a simmer, then reduce the heat and cover, to let the flavors blend for about 5-10 minutes. Your veggies will be nice and tender, while packing a huge punch of flavor!
The best part of curry dishes, if you ask me, is eating it the sauce with rice, so even if you’re not eating grains, you can still enjoy this curry sauce over a bed of cauliflower “rice!” (Simply pulse raw cauliflower in a food processor, until you have a rice-like texture.) Pour the curried vegetables over the rice and serve warm.

March 23, 2018

Core Strengthening Exercise #4 – Proper Crunches

Doing Crunches the right way

We love core strengthening right? So I bet you think you know how to do a crunch right? Are you sure? Hmmm. Maybe not…. to do crunches properly and make sure you are really strengthening your core as much as you need to read on…

Instructions for proper core strengthening with crunches…

step by step instructions are easy and almost exactly what you have always done with one or two new twists…

These extra bits make all of the difference in activating the proper muscles including a muscle called the transversus abdominus which really helps to activate the whole core (anteriorly and posteriorly).

Here are the steps:

Lay on your back with your knees bent
place one hand on your belly
place the other hand behind your neck with your thumb and fingers spanning your neck to the upper back
brace (this is exercise #1 – told you that you would need it again)
put your tongue on the roof of your mouth (yes you read that right)
crunch and lift your shoulders slightly off the floor without moving your neck into flexion.

Ok so why with the tongue thing? It makes it so you can’t engage your neck muscles and you have to use your core. This is the way you were always supposed to do crunches. Who knew right?

Video

for a step by step how to please see my YouTube video below!

Questions, Comments and Queries

And as always, if you have any questions or need more help with something please don’t hesitate to call our office. If you aren’t sure this one is for you please also ask us. If you have an injury this may not be appropriate for you — yet. I always give this exercise to my lower back pain patients but it usually requires some treatment first before we can get to this point. If you have pain, please seek treatment first – Pain is your body’s way of letting you know something is wrong… go get it looked at and fixed! Let us help…

March 23, 2018March 23, 2018

Ketogenic Broccoli and Spinach Soup Recipe

Ketogenic Friendly Recipe: Healthy Broccoli Soup

This recipe is one I invented and posted last weekend – for broccoli and potato soup with more green than I am used to as I added spinach! It turned out great and I have a ketogenic twist on my original recipe that worked really well!.

AND it has the added bonus of deliciousness!

Ingredients

– large freezer bag full of broccoli stalks

-2 potatoes or 2 turnips for the ketogenic equivalent

-Stilton cheese or other blue cheese

-1 large box baby spinach

-chicken stock or bullion cubes (2 litre equivalent)

A Brief Explanation

I tend to collect the ends off of my broccoli and freeze them and once I have collected enough I make a soup – way better than throwing it all out! I just cut the stalks into smaller pieces and cut the hard woody end off of the bottom and voila! extra meal…

Instructions

Throw everything except spinach into a pot and boil, making sure the water/stock covers the veggies fully. Boil until everything is really soft and at the very end throw in all spinach and wilt. Then place all chunks and liquid in blender and blend until smooth.

There you have it a healthy, green, ketogenic friendly if needed home made delicious soup!

Enjoy!

March 15, 2018

Auntie Janet’s Creamy Salad Dressing Recipe

Another Recipe from my Auntie Janet – an alternative to store bought creamy dressings that have way to many chemicals and additives. This one is great over spinach and any type of salad you like a creamy dressing on. If you are doing paleo/keto diets you can omit the sugar. You can also use home made mayo which I think I posted a recipe to previously (really easy to make and stores well)

Here is a nice creamy salad dressing:

Ingredients

1 clove garlic, minced

2 Tbls chopped chives

2 Tbls finely chopped capers

1 Tbls chopped parsley

4-5 Tbls mayonnaise

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 cup olive oil

2 Tbls white wine vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Directions

Mix all ingredients and pour over spinach.

Yep. It’s that easy.

March 15, 2018

Core Stability Exercise #3 “Resisted Side Steps”

Resisted Side Stepping

In our series on core stability we are on week number 3 which brings us to Resisted Side Stepping. This is a great core stability exercise and this chiropractor gives it to many of her patients to build good core strength. Good core stability helps prevent lower back pain.

If I am really lucky I have finally figured out how to get my own YouTube Channel, upload this video and imbed the link in this blog post. I have been trying to make my videos short but feel rushed and they end up being too long for this site so hopefully this is a tech solution for this chiro who is trying to learn the tech!

Equipment

Ok so for this exercise you do need one piece of equipment and that is a resistance band. You can use a large rubber band like I have in this video or something like theraband which is easily found at a sports store or your chiropractors office in many cases. Start with a light resistance because this silly little exercise can be quite challenging. If you have no idea what I am talking about when I say resistance or exercise band see the picture below – it is essentially stretchy material that will provide resistance at the ankle level during this exercise.

How to do this Core Stability Exercise:

Start by bracing – that is contracting your stomach muscles (see exercise #1).

Then hands on hips, band around ankles and bend knees.

Take steps to the side one direction 5-10 times and then the other.

Make sure not to waddle!

Video

For the video please click on the link to my YouTube video link below! (guess I got really lucky and figured this out!)

Summing up

So this is core stability exercise #3 – as always if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to call and ask or contact us for more information or help.

March 11, 2018

Spare Rib Recipe

This recipe came from a good friend of the family my Auntie Janet – it is my mom’s recipe for spare ribs which I don’t even think I have so what a treasure!

I remember eating these as a kid and they really are amazing – they were a once in a while treat for us that my family still remembers fondly.

I hope you guys like it too (and remember moderation is the key as this one isn’t what I would call my normal healthy recipe post but there is something to be said for the foods of our childhood)

Mom’s Spare ribs via Auntie Janet

3 lbs spare ribs

1 clove garlic, minced

3 Tbls bacon fat

3 onions, sliced

Sauce:

1 cup catsup

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1 tsp curry

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp chili powder

1 Tbls brown sugar

1 cup consommé

1/2 tsp salt

Pepper

1/2 tsp dry mustard

1. Brown the ribs with the garlic in the bacon fat.

2. Place meat in a baking dish

3. Place sliced onions over the meat

4. Pour sauce over the meat

5. Bake at 350 for 1-1/2 hours

March 8, 2018

Core Stabilization Exercise #2 of 5 Bird Dog

Core stabilization is super important – in keeping with out theme here is exercise #2. Please watch the video below click the words “Bird Dog ” that are underlined and a video screen will pop up. This is the weird name of the exercise… once you get your legs going and it is easy for you, for an increased challenge add the opposite arm. For an even more difficult exercise hold for 10 or more seconds in each posture.

Bird Dog

The important thing to know here is that one side will be harder to do than the other side. You will want to cheat when raising one of your legs and drop your hip to achieve it. This is because the gluteus medius is weak or not activated and this exercise helps us reactivate it. This in turn also turns on the Transversus Abdominus muscle… that is all chiro speak for core stabilization. These muscles, if strong, lead to more stable cores and less back pain. So just do it already!

As always, if you have pain, stop. If you have questions, please call me 🙂

Happy Stabilizing!

March 5, 2018

Grilled Corn Salsa

Here is a healthy recipe all the way from a family friend in Florida – sounds super yummy. Thank you to Auntie Janet (who, by the way is an awesome cook and I still make her lemon rice recipe I got from many years ago – I promise to post that one soon – amazing with grilled white fish)

4 cobs of corn, grilled (on the BBQ or under the broiler)

2 tomatoes. chopped

1 cup of red onions, chopped

1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 cup lime juice

Salt and pepper to taste.

Grill the corn until kernels are browned. Cut kernels off the cobs with a knife and place in a bowl

Add all the other ingredients and season to taste.

Let marinate for 3 hours before serving at room temperature. Nice as a side to anything.

Credit to my amazing Auntie Janet who is a realtor in Florida – here is how to contact her:

Janet McCullough, CDPE, e-Pro, GRI, TRC, IRES, SRES
Realtor
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty
2363 SE Ocean Blvd.
Stuart, FL 34996
Cell: 772-291-3224
Fax: 772-286-2548
Email: Janetmccullough@msn.com