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In This January Edition... Andrew completes Dopey Challenge VIDEO: Humble Thanks....You and I Are Rich! Naps in NYC Your CHANCE TO WIN (not quite the billion $$ PowerBall!) VIDEO: How to Avoid Shoveling Injuries Top 3 Warning Signs of Overuse Injury Peak Performer of the Month December Contest Winner Andrew Completes the Dopey Challenge! (Disney's Dopey Challenge is an incredible 48.6 miles of running over four days...a 5k on day one, then 10k, half marathon, and finally a full 26.2 mi marathon on Sunday. Make sure to ask Andrew what possessed him to take on the Dopey!) "When I first signed up to run the Dopey Challenge in Walk Disney World, I didn't know exactly how my body would tolerate the high mileage in 4 days. I have run one marathon prior in 2014 but competing in 3 additional races the days preceding were a personal feat of its own. I signed up to run with a good friend of mine which gave me a greater incentive to train and prepare. My friend Ben (seen in the photo) competes in multiple marathons a year and I am proud too announce his 9th place this year on marathon Sunday. The most exciting thing about running through Walt Disney World were the character stops along the course. Almost every 1-2 miles, you could find a Disney Character with music playing and a photographer ready to take your picture. It was amazing to see other runners after 21 miles stop to wait in line for a photo with the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland! Believe it or not, what made the races more difficult was the lack of sleep prior to each race. Both the half and full marathon started promptly at 530am which meant leaving the house by 4am latest to avoid traffic from the other 26,000 runners and numerous spectators. Running the Disney Marathon was an amazing experience and I would recommend it to anyone interested in escaping the cold in Rochester for 70 degrees in Florida!" NAP's Family in NYC... The Napierala clan turned things around a bit this year and decided to take our annual family Christmas gathering to our NJ contingent. We were able to get an Air BnB house in Spanish Harlem that accommodated the whole crew and served as our home away from home for a few days as we trekked NYC to see Times Square, caught a show - STOMP (crazy percussion show – must see if you’re at all into music and sounds…incredible ingenuity), hiked through Central Park, saw Rockefeller Center at night with the Christmas tree and skating rink, that massive light show on the side of Saks, the Highline Park walkway, some playground workouts across the street from us, and let’s not forget…$175 in parking tickets for Mike over just 3 days! Watch the signs closely…stay far from any fire hydrants…look for empty spots at 2 am, avoid parking next to schools, and walk if you can! YOUR CHANCE TO WIN! While it's not the famed PowerBall jackpot at 1.95 billion $$, Peak Performance is back with the famous Newsletter Misspelled Word Contest! Be one of the first FIVE past or present patients to find THE misspelled word in this January newsletter and come in to the office with a dictionary (or show Sheila a dictionary app on your phone) to declare the secret password "You guys need a dictionary!" and we're gonna surprise you with a valuable GIFT CERTIFICATE that you can use yourself or share with someone you care about! Make sure to call in first to make sure you're still one of the first five! TOP THREE WARNING SIGNS OF OVERUSE INJURY... Being Your Own Best Friend “I felt fine while I was doing it” she proclaimed confidently. Probably a day doesn’t go by without this sceanrio popping up in the clinic. I figured it’s worth sharing in our blogs so more of you can benefit. Think of your injury process as a STORY of sorts. How you arrived at hurting….how you got to be less capable and lacking confidence – it oftentimes was a process. Sure, some of you twisted your ankle stepping off a curb or were in a car accident or got your knee twisted up during a game. But the majority of troubles we see come from something that went wrong OVER TIME. A story. Here’s Mary’s story… Mary (ficticious name, to protect the …guilty!) just the other day came in with worse hip pain than she’d been having. She shared how she recently started going to the gym and doing her favorite cardio equipment exercise for about 20 minutes every single day, faithfully. Mary really missed her fitness routine and all the benefits it brought. Her recent knee surgery put a stop to all that and she was eager to get back to the gym so she tried it out on her own. While Mary’s knee was actually fine with the exercise it was her old hip problems that reared their ugly head. But she was a bit perplexed that her cardio escapades could be at fault. “I felt fine while I was doing it” she proclaimed confidently. You know, so very often if you look back on your history of a problem starting off, it might have only hurt after an activity. Later on as things progressed it may have hurt when first doing an activity but then it “warmed up” and felt fine. Still later, eventually, it just hurts no matter what and warming up doesn’t relieve the pain or limited performance. If that’s how these “microtraumas” start out, then certainly those same stages can apply to the recovery process. I always tell patients that as they go back to an activity they’ve got THREE TIMES they have to ask themselves “How’s it going?” And, it’s critical that you look for PATTERNS of pain vs just random occurences that might not be tied to what you thought it was. Once a pattern of increased trouble is clear then you know you’re on to something! So here’s some reminders I gave Mary…and that might help YOU too HOW AM I FEELING… 1. DURING THE ACTIVITY If you’re hurting WHILE you’re doing something that’s often a pretty big red flag right there don’t you think! There are actually studies that show that in some cases, at least, that it doesn’t seem detrimental to continue participating through some minimal symptoms while doing rehab, but undoubtedly when you first get pains and you haven’t seen anyone yet and are trying to decide what to do you should start off with “respecting” your pain, rather than ignoring it. If it goes away in a few seconds or a few minutes and you’re otherwise performing totally normally then proceed with caution but maybe no need to stop. 2. AFTER THE ACTIVITY In the hours after an activity if you have a patterned increase of symptoms then that STILL COUNTS! All too often I have patients who feel fine once warmed up…only to report later on that they had an unusual increase in pain rising from a chair or climibing the stairs or reaching to a shelf – yet never put 2 + 2 together to realize that their activity hours prior was the culprit. Sometimes it’s hard to look in the mirror and be honest with yourself…admitting that the activity you missed so much, the thing you so dearly wanted to resume, is still and once again causing problems. But why rewrite a bad chapter again? If you could’ve only seen it coming from a distance the first time you might have backed off and never had it take you over the deep end into needing actual Dr visits and tests and Physical Therapy and med’s…etc, etc. 3. THE NEXT DAY Yep…that’s right. Sometimes that warning sign the body had too much doesn’t come til the next morning or day. Remenber, patterns are key! If you normally wake up and are fine but the day after resuming some activity you oddly wake up hurting and limping or unable to perform normally…but you may quickly come to your own defense with “it didn’t hurt while I was doing it,” right? But remember – patterns are key. They’ll reveal the truth. If your typically good response or time of day becomes poor, and this happens in a “pattern” relative to some increase in activity, then you’ve got to respect that. And…you can TEST it out by not doing and then doing the activity and checking your responses. Back to Mary… Mary realized this after I shared these 3 Key Questions with her. You could see the ligkt bulb go off in her mind. You could see the disappointment at realizing that yes, she did definitely fee worse AFTER those cardio sessions…and, that although having no symptoms DURING was an improvement and definitely encouraging, that it just wasn’t enough to keep it up at 20 min every day. I shared with Mary some tweaks to try before totally giving up on her stationary bicycling that might help her find a happy medium. IF YOU’RE CONTINUING TO FEEL PAINS WITH YOUR DAY TO DAY OR WORK OR FUN ACTIVITIES AND IT’S NOT RESOLVING YOU SHOULD PROBABLY CUT BACK A BIT OR STOP ALL TOGETHER TEMPORARILY SO YOU CAN DETERMINE IF RESTING WILL RESOLVE THOSE COMPLAINTS. IF YOUR TROUBLES ARE PERSISTING YOU MAY BENEFIT FROM SEEING A PROFESSIONAL! YOU SHOULD CALL US at 218-0240 if you’re having pains during or after activity that aren’t making sense or you need help with! A thorough evaluation lies at the heart of figuring out what might be causing your pain but sometimes even more importantly…WHY that happened and HOW to fix it. Make sure to keep an eye out for Part II where we’ll touch on Reconditioning Pain…which turns out NOT to be a bad chapter rewritten all over. Things are never as simple as they first seem right? It’s a key part of not mistaking those aches and pains you’re likely to get as you resume activity, especially after a chronic problem. DECEMBER PEAK PERFORMER OF THE MONTH: Charles Infantino (Husband, father, weightlifter) Charles came to Peak PT : • 7 months of lower back pain from weight lifting and driving • Stopped wt lifting for 6 mo • Pain with remodeling new house in Rochester Charles now: • Powerlifting once again, with better posturing and technique • Increased his core/hip strength. Bending without troubles! Charles Says...”I started getting results almost immediately after coming to Peak Performance. I trusted in the treatments and stuck with them. Mike believed that I would have a full recovery even when I had no confidence at all. Now I’m pain free and back to living a normal life, including playing with my three kids, taking care of my sick wife, and powerlifting again!” Mike Says..."Charles had some success with traditional PT work out in California. He really impressed me with how he “bought in” to the different, more functional approach I recommended. He had a lot going on in life in those early weeks but he “trusted the process” fully and he steadily made impressive gains. Congrats Charles – it’s great to see you fully back to yourself for your family and to the weigtlifting you love so much!" December Contest Winner: Nick Muir Nick was the King of Guessing in December (or maybe it was just his keen eye combined with superhero like physics abilities in calculating M & M's per square inch) - he was the closest without going over in December's "How Many M & M's are in the Jar" contest. Nick took home some Christmas gift wrapping goodies. Congratulations Nick!