Roll a Joint, Feel Better. Part 1 CARS

 It should come as no surprise that everyone needs to have healthy joints. Range of motion of a joint can greatly affect your quality of life. Anyone who has a sedentary lifestyle is going to be affected by lack of range of motion let alone strength. You wake up from laying down, you walk to the bathroom, you sit down, you walk to the kitchen to get breakfast, you sit down, you walk to your car, you sit down to go to work, you walk to your work station, you sit down... you get the picture. It's not the sitting that's bad it's the the “lack” of movement your joints get. Considering humans evolved from hunter gatherers and we are built to search and forage and be moving all day, a lot of horrible side affects start to occur because we are not using our body like we have evolved too do. It is estimated that our original joints have the ability to last 120 years (according to Starret) if kept healthy and we make sure to only do things that the tissues of our bodies can heal from or are strong enough to do.

Your body is kind of a jerk, if you don't make it do the work. It loves efficiency and hates wasting energy. If you stop using a function of your bodies potential physicality the body doesn't think you need to keep that area healthy and doesn't regenerate the tissue there as much, or it shuts down the unused range of motion in that area by building scar tissue, loss of strength or other restrictions. Unlike children that are in complete balance and their bodies can adapt very quickly to new stresses adult bodies are have to go through a much greater process of laying down new soft tissue that takes a lot longer.If joints are not moving they degenerate, usually they can be restored, but sometimes the best we can hope for is to maintain them so they don't get worse. The good news is that it is fairly simple to maintain your range of motion. I can't say it is easy to regain, but the method for doing so is simple and there has been a lot of development in this area in the past decade to support the methods. Better control of your joints and greater range of motion means you can do cooler things with your body. It's not enough to just passively stretch. You need to map out the controlled range for your body/mind to work together.

The video below is the first part of a series of vids that will set you up with simple ways to start maintaining your joints and hopefully build you more range of motion. For any questions please feel free to contact me. Train Safe, Train Smart, Have Fun.

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Ok ok what gives with the title. Some of you know that I have never smoked a joint in my life, so why on earth would I give this small article the title “Roll a Joint Feel Better” it's kind of hypocritical, right? First of all people need to let go of this thought that people are perfect and that everything we say is what we do. From time to time I will probably do the exact opposite of what I tell others to do. This has nothing to do with not leading by example, but more to do with that everyone needs someone else to help keep them in check, this will make more sense when I write the article “everyone needs a coach” now as far as the title, it's double entendre. Both rolling a joint (your joints on your body) and rolling a marijuana joint do the same thing for you in the end. They both release cannabanoids.(forgive me Physical Therapists, Chemists, Botanists, Psychologists and Biologist as I butcher this with my pseudo explanation of how it works) Canabanoids are a chemical that bonds to certain specific receptors in the brain and in response to this you get a “high” sensation. Ever had a runners high, or the feeling you get after exercising just the right amount? That's the same thing, though maybe not as potent or strong, as what the cannabanoids from marijuana do, as there are many uses for this plant, but that's another topic. So in a nutshell, your body is literally rewarding you with internally stored and naturally produced chemicals from exercising and or moving. It's saying “this is good, do this more often and I'll give you more rewarding chemicals” So when I say “Roll A Joint Feel Better” Chill your roll homie, because you literally have to move your joints (rotating the joints is a good way) in order to get your reward.

For more information on the explanation behind this article I highly recommend looking up Dr, Andreo Spina and Functional Range Conditioning. The scope of this topic took over 16 lecture hours and lots of online courses to explain to me at a beginner level and I highly suggest researching it yourself.