Bethesda, MD – The heat of summer is rapidly approaching, and feet everywhere are happily stepping out into warm, sunny weather. Flip-flops, a summer clothing staple for many, have again walked their way off of the beach and into our day-to-day lives. However, opting for the wrong pair of this carefree kind of footwear can lead to blisters, tendinitis, and other foot problems. The American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA) urges consumers to think before buying to avoid falling victim to a “flip-flop fiasco.”

“Just because a flip-flop has a fun look does not mean it is healthy for your feet,” said APMA President and podiatrist Dr. Kathleen Stone. “As a general rule, most flip-flops on the market should not be worn excessively during the day. Wearing them in moderation is key.”

Lack of support in a flip-flop can leave the wearer susceptible to sprained ankles and ligament injuries, and the limited protection offered to feet can mean a higher chance of cuts, scrapes, and stubbed toes. The following APMA flip-flop “do’s” and “don’ts” will keep consumers from falling victim to flip-flop related foot problems this summer:

• Do gently bend a flip-flop from end to end, ensuring it bends at the ball of the foot. Flip-flops of any kind should never fold in half.
• Do look for the APMA’s Seal of Acceptance on flip-flops. Many companies, such as FitFlop, Chaco, and Orthaheel, have certain flip-flops or sandals that have been awarded the APMA’s Seal of Acceptance for demonstrating proper support. For a full list of all APMA Accepted flip-flops, click here.
• Don’t re-wear flip-flops year after year. Inspect older pairs for wear. If severe signs of wear are found, discard them.
• Don’t wear flip-flops if you have diabetes, as the footwear leaves feet susceptible to cuts and scrapes that may lead to serious injury. Instead, opt for lightweight footwear that covers and protects the toes.

For more flip-flop tips, visit www.apma.org/flipfloptips.

For more information:
Mike Kulick, Public Relations Specialist
(301) 581-9220
mskulick@apma.org

Follow APMA on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/theAPMA
On Twitter: @APMAtweets

Founded in 1912, the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA) is the nation’s leading and recognized professional organization for doctors of podiatric medicine (DPMs).  DPMs are podiatric physicians and surgeons, also known as podiatrists, qualified by their education, training and experience to diagnose and treat conditions affecting the foot, ankle and structures of the leg. The medical education and training of a DPM includes four years of undergraduate education, four years of graduate education at an accredited podiatric medical college and two or three years of hospital residency training.  APMA has 53 state component locations across the United States and its territories, with a membership of close to 12,000 podiatrists.  All practicing APMA members are licensed by the state in which they practice podiatric medicine. For more information, visit www.apma.org.

After years of conquering the treadmill and bench press, I am now striking poses and performing movements that I had always considered “girly,” and the difficulty of it is humbling.

Core strength can help straighten posture, reduce risk of back and joint injury, and improve athletic performance. But many men fail to incorporate it into their fitness routines. WSJ’s Kevin Helliker gets a lesson in some exercises to improve core strength.

The regimen is called “core strength,” and it’s all the rage in fitness. Elite athletes from marathon runners to baseball pitchers are adopting core-strength workouts—that is, bolstering the muscles encasing their torsos from shoulder to thigh—in pursuit of improved performance and fewer injuries. Fitness trainers are preaching it to the masses. Books like “Core Performance,” by NFL Players Association chief fitness trainer Mark Verstegen, hawk its benefits.

Yet when the sales manager at my gym asked about my core-strengthening program, I blanched. Wasn’t it enough that I was running 30 miles a week, swimming and lifting free weights?

That’s too much, she replied, suggesting that I cut back on running and add core-strengthening exercises. I wasn’t even sure what she was talking about.

Of course, I knew about crunches—what we used to call sit-ups—and how they could toughen your abdomen. But it turns out that the abdomen is only as strong as the back, thighs, buttocks and shoulders, the other parts of the pillar. Too many crunches, in combination with running, bench pressing and sitting at a computer, can make a body so front-heavy that it pulls forward into a slouch.

Core-strengthening exercises seek to bolster all the muscles of the torso from top to bottom and front to back, creating a balance that enables athletes to stand tall, limbs in alignment down to their feet and hands. The particular exercises that strengthen core muscles involve stretching and balance routines that also enhance flexibility.

The benefits of core exercises, which are found in predominantly female disciplines like dance, cheerleading, yoga and Pilates, may be particularly unfamiliar to men. In the U.S., about three-quarters of yoga participants are women, as are 90% of Pilates participants.

Men tend to prefer activities that are easily measured and thus turned into competitions. How fast did you run that mile? How much did you bench? You don’t hear them talking much about how well they held their form while balancing on a bosu—a half-ball/half disc contraption—doing lightweight bicep curls.

“Guys in particular have tended to be into quantity, and strengthening your core is about quality of exercise,” says Mr. Verstegen, the pro-football trainer.

So far, only limited scientific support exists for the highly touted benefits of core-strengthening exercise. “Core stability programs in prevention of athletic injuries have not been well studied [and] core programs have not been proven to enhance athletic performance,” University of Colorado School of Medicine researchers wrote in the February 2008 Current Sports Medicine Report.

But, of course, running was good for the heart before scientific research ever proved it so, and research on core strength is relatively new.

Many sports-medicine specialists expect core-strength exercises to become the third leg of public-health recommendations in regard to workouts. Just as cardiovascular exercise is promoted for heart health and resistance training for strong bones, experts expect core-strengthening movements to gain public-health favor for avoiding muscular-skeletal pain and injury, particularly of the neck, back and hips. “In the sports and fitness worlds, the benefits of core strength exercise are accepted facts,” says Bill Sonnemaker, a personal trainer and spokesman for IDEA Health & Fitness Association, an educational association for fitness professionals.

Core training doesn’t require the big equipment that dominates most gyms, such as treadmills and squat racks. It can be done mostly on a mat, often using dumbbells, exercise balls and a bosu. But while I never needed anybody to teach me how to run on a treadmill or slap plates on a bench press, I had no idea how to go about using those aids to help me strengthen my core. So I took the sales manager’s advice and hired a personal trainer, at no small price: $2,490 for 32 sessions, or $78 each.

A trainer isn’t necessary. There is plenty of do-it-yourself literature available on how to strengthen your core, including Mr. Verstegen’s tome. But even if you know which exercises to perform and how, it can help to have a trained eye watching you and correcting your form. Bad form not only diminishes the value of the exercise but can cause injury.

The first time she met me, my trainer, Bridget Curran, said I had bad posture, and after interviewing me said it was probably because of my exercise regimen. Obsessed with running, bench-pressing and crunches, I had front-loaded myself with muscle. She said I needed to strengthen my backside muscles all the way from shoulders to the buttocks.

Also during that first session she noticed that my right foot veered to the right whenever I walked, ran or stood still, as if it wanted to go off by itself. Kicking my foot straight, she said, “We’re going to correct that.”

“It’s been doing that all my life,” I said. “No way that’s going to change.”

My training sessions with Bridget take place twice a week for an hour. A typical session involves about 10 exercises that I do three times apiece. The exercises typically involve lifting weights—and sometimes my own body—from a position that imposes a need for balance.

For instance, I rest the back of my head and shoulders on a large physio-ball, knees bent so that my torso becomes a table top, each hand holding a 30-pound dumbbell. Then I rip off 30 chest presses. On a bench, the burn from a chest press is concentrated in the arms and upper body. But without a bench, that burn extends down the abdomen into the thighs, which start shaking with effort to stay balanced.

The need for balance gives these workouts a mental benefit. A treadmill doesn’t always get my mind off duties and obligations. But if I start thinking about the office during a core-strengthening exercise, I’ll lose my balance and fall on the mat. “You have to be present in the moment to do these workouts,” says Mr. Verstegen. “You can’t be thinking about work.”

After three months of two core-training sessions a week, my body-fat percentage is down five points. My cruising speed on the treadmill has risen a full mile per hour, even though my weekly mileage plummeted to make time for the core exercises.

For the first time since the invention of the Internet, my shoulders are free of the knots that come from crouching at a keyboard, and my neck is free of stiffness. Whenever a mirror surprises me these days, what I notice about that dude in the glass is that he has decent posture.

Most surprising to me, my right foot is no longer splaying to the right, a bad habit that probably explains why I’ve had trouble with that leg, including knee surgery. Down the road, an inefficient gait could pose a risk for hip trouble, experts say.

All it took was about 24 sessions with Bridget, who continually kicked that foot straight.

I thought it was pretty funny until I found that I also could make an authentic-looking bagel with my stomach. After two pregnancies, it was time to do sit-ups.

But sit-ups, I later learned after performing them religiously with no visible effect, are the last thing women should do after they’ve had a baby. Instead of firming and tightening the stomach, they actually can lead to a bulging and protruding abdomen.

During pregnancy, as the abdominal muscles stretch to accommodate the growing fetus, the most superficial abs — the rectus abdominis, or six-pack muscles — can split down the middle like a pants seam.

This is a good thing because it allows room for the growing baby, said Cynthia Neville, director of women’s health rehabilitation at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. But when the split is too wide, exceeding 2 to 3 centimeters, it creates instability in the abdomen, trunk and pelvis.

It’s thought that the split should spontaneously reduce to less than 2 centimeters within a few weeks after delivery and that any urine leakage should cease within a few weeks after giving birth.

But if the core muscles, which include the pelvic floor muscles and the deep abdominals, are not working as a team, then “women may continue to have flabby, bulging, weak abs, or they may leak urine, or both,” Neville said. (Women who undergo Caesarean sections have a different challenge because of the way surgery affects the abs.)

What women need to do is to retrain the abdominal and core muscles to be strong and coordinated so they work at the right time.

The core should be the first muscles to kick into gear; if they’re not and you’re doing ab exercises that focus on the six-pack muscle, your stomach may bulge, Neville said.

A certified Pilates instructor can help with retraining the deep transverse muscles. It starts with learning to maintain a neutral (not too arched or flattened) position of the spine and pelvis.

Then you must learn how to contract the pelvic floor and the birthing muscle — the flat sheath of muscle that wraps around and attaches to the ribs, abdominals and pelvis — while moving the arms and the legs.

“The key is to ‘remind’ the core to be the first to contract to prepare for the extremity movements until it becomes automatic,” Neville said — and not just during exercise but during everyday movement, such as lifting the baby or pushing a stroller.

Once these basic exercises are easy, move on to leg lifts, curl-ups, bridges and planks. These exercises are demonstrated in Erin O’Brien Denton’s DVD “Postnatal Rescue.” Denton, a personal trainer, recommends lying on your back and doing “bridges” (articulating the raising of the pelvis off the ground) for the first three months after delivery “to teach the abs to lie sleekly against the abdominal wall.”

She also suggests a modified Pilates 100s exercise, which is simply lifting the head and shoulders while pulling in the abdominals.
For additional articles on the success of post natal Pilates visit the Pilates Blog to find a Certified Pilates professional in the Kansas City Area call (816) 741-3211

Experiencing movement in this way has marked effects on circulation and breathing, affecting both the nervous and endocrine systems. Since you cannot affect one part of the body without affecting the whole, Pilates can also enhance your mental and emotional well-being. If you truly commit to this incredible method, you’ll notice that it will affect everything you do in your life. Your new awareness will transfer into the way you walk, sit, move, speak, think, react, respond, relate and recover. When this happens, you will truly know what it means to embody Pilates!

In his book, “Return to Life,” Joseph Pilates wrote about how the process of taking control of one’s body and health also revitalizes the mind and spirit. By becoming more aware of your bodily sensations, you develop a heightened awareness of yourself. This can unlock the wisdom you need to realize your full potential. Whether you want to acquire a skill for movement, overcome mental and emotional fears surrounding past pain or injury, or just feel so fantastic in your own skin that you truly believe you can accomplish anything, the Pilates Method can help you accomplish this!

History Of Pilates

Joseph H. Pilates
(1880 – 1967)

Mary Pilates LeRiche qualifies as an expert and probably was Joseph’s earliest disciple as she had worked in her Uncle Joe’s exercise studio as a young woman in her 20’s. A now famous photograph of Pilates’ exercise studio at 939 Eighth Ave., NY, NY displays a long rectangular room with at least four Reformers (the original group sessions?) in a line. Joseph stands between two, his wife, Clara, in her nurse’s uniform, by another, and his niece Mary at yet another Reformer. Mary relocated to South Florida in the 1960’s and continued teaching fitness as her uncle had taught her. Even today, at 81 years young, she will demonstrate the “only way” the exercises should ever be done. That would be just the same way it was done in the 1940’s.

“People won’t understand the brilliance of my work for 50 years.” That is a quote from Joseph, himself, about 50 years ago. Mary LeRiche says that her uncle would be quite happy and surprised at just how much impact his work is having on the world. Today, healthcare professionals are studying and implementing his work into their healing therapies. Medical doctors are writing prescriptions for their patients: Pilates. His clever exercise apparatus designs are virtually the exact designs used by today’s equipment manufacturers. How many of the exercise machines found in today’s traditional gym setting can accommodate hundreds of exercises on one single piece the size of a twin bed? The Wunda Chair doubled as a small living room side chair that when flipped upon its back becomes a gymnasium with two bedsprings. Pilates felt that every home should have one.

As a child he had suffered with asthma, rickets, and rheumatic fever. Even as a young adolescent he made a life-altering decision that he would restore his own health. He studied the Eastern disciplines of yoga and martial arts and blended them with Western forms of physical activities such as bodybuilding, gymnastics, boxing, and recreational sports. At the young age of just fourteen years he had sculpted his physique so well that he was posing for anatomical charts.

As a young man he moved from Germany to England where he became a boxer, circus performer, and self-defense instructor. When World War One erupted he, and other German nationals, were incarcerated in Lancaster as “enemy aliens.” Pilates influenced the other detainees to follow his exercise regime which he called, “Contrology.” His fitness program was so beneficial that he and his fellow compatriots survived the 1918 influenza epidemic that took the lives of thousands of people. He attributed their survival to their physically fit lungs! Hence, the Pilates Principle of Diaphragmatic Breathing!

Pilates was later sent to the Isle of Man to work as a nurse orderly caring for the war wounded. One can imagine the condition of many of these soldiers; some had probably grown weak from lingering in hospital beds for months, their muscles atrophied, further inhibiting their potential for recovery. Unable to participate in Pilates’ floor exercises, these men benefited by Joseph’s cleverly designed apparatus to rehabilitate them right from their hospital beds and wheelchairs. Looking at the Cadillac one can see the table as the hospital bed; plumbing pipes create the canopy and borrowed bedsprings become first assistive and then resistive exercise tools. Despite whatever injuries the wounded may have had, Pilates was able to strengthen their muscles and restore them to their potential good health.

After the war Joseph returned to Germany but became disenfranchised with the political direction his country was taking. He decided to immigrate to the United States of America. He met his future wife, Clara, on the ship. Clara was a nurse and they realized that they shared the same interest of wanting to restore the good health of others. When they arrived in New York they decided to open up a physical fitness studio.

Joseph Pilates’ method of physical and mental wellness has been a best-kept secret of the dance and entertainment world since the 1920’s when his studio was discovered by Martha Graham, the mother of modern dance, George Balanchine, the artistic director for the New York City Ballet, and Rudolf von Laban, founder of Labanotation. Dancers such as Hanya Holm and Romana Kryzanowska, along with prizefighters, actors, actresses, and traveling circus performers embraced his methods both for the total body conditioning needed for the rigors of their work and also for rehabilitating the injuries that often plague dancers, performers, and athletes.

Dance companies all over the world use Pilates’ exercises to keep their dancers in top form. Many dancers go on to become Hollywood celebrities; Patrick Swayze and Madonna to name only two. Due to the attention the mainstream public gives to Hollywood celebrities the name Pilates is now a household word. If Madonna does it, it must work.

Romana Kryzanowska entered Pilates’ world as a young dancer in New York. Pilates regarded her as his disciple; she had absorbed and could express the essence of his work as if it were coming from him. She continues his legacy today in New York and has generously shared her knowledge with the world through her students, books, videos, and lectures.

Joseph’s obituary, appearing in the New York Times in 1967, reads like an advertisement for his methods. He is described as a white-maned lion with steel blue eyes (one was glass from a boxing mishap), and mahagony skin, and as limber in his 80’s as a teenager.

Joseph and Clara operated their exercise studio for over 40 years. He had dedicated his life’s work to restoring the health and vitality of others. Gone now for thirty-five years, the essence of his work continues on into the 21st century.

The most effective Pilates clothing is generally composed of the same three materials. It is a combination of cotton, nylon, and spandex. The cotton keeps the clothes comfortable for the movement your body will be doing.

The nylon and spandex are for flexibility and are essential in order to do the exercises. Without the stretch of these materials, you might as well be doing the stretches in the clothes you’re wearing right now! It would be very difficult and the clothes would not move with you, which is one of the most important aspects to remember when choosing your Pilates clothing.

If you are not comfortable while doing the exercises, you won’t want to continue them. Pilates is all about the physical and MENTAL parts of fitness. The exercise clothing needs to be breathable and have non-resistant.

Along with the stretch of the Pilates clothing, it is also very important that you do not buy clothes that are very loose-fitting. Of course, you don’t want them to be too tight, but in the same breath, it is important that they are close-fitting.

Why is this so important?

The foundation of Pilates has a lot to do with proper alignment. Snug fitting clothes gives you Pilates Professional the ability to clearly see your alignment while you are executing each exercise. A little bit out of alignment makes a big difference on the effectiveness of each exercise.

Also lot of the exercises are done on your back with your legs up in the air and your Pilates professional standing over you looking down. They are not interested in looking at you under garments. Men should ware bicycle shorts. You need something that won’t get in your way but also something that allows you to move.

Remove all fancy buttons, pins. belts and jewelry as they could become extremely inconvenient while bending, stretching and so on.

As in all other types of body and mind exercise regimes, it is important that you are comfortable with what you wear, while at the same time the clothing should permit stretching and bending without creating any type of inconvenience to yourself or to others. We have provided links to everything you will need at our online Pilates Boutique store powered by the worlds most respected online retailer Amazon and Gaiam…….Enjoy