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How To Deal With Sciatica and Knee Pain - You Need A Stronger Butt?? As many of you know, I have been struggling with sciatica for a long time. In fact, in a previous post we talked about how rolling and doing deep tissue on sciatica issues is actually not as helpful as many people think and can even be detrimental at times (due to the fact that what feels like muscle pain is actually nerve impingement referring down the buttocks and leg). Unfortunately, my sciatica has been flaring up again recently, and at the same time my old knee injury...

The Surfer's Secret to Happiness "They don’t seem to regret all that time they don’t spend actually riding waves." Surfer: @kalei.fukuda A while back a visitor from the mainland stopped into Hawaiian South Shore and told me about an article called “The Surfer’s Secret to Happiness.” I eventually ended up finding the article, in “The New York Times,” and thought that it was pretty cool. It talks about how, as surfers, we only spend the smallest fraction of our time standing up on our boards and actually “surfing,” but how, despite the fact that most of our time is spent...

How To Address Sciatica   I’ve been struggling with sciatica for years, and for anyone who has suffered through that in the past, you know that it involves horrible radiating pain down the buttocks and into the lower leg. Sciatica is caused by impingement of the nerves in the lower back and can quite frustrating. Activity and movement are supposed to help, but when you are debilitated by the pain, how are you supposed to go out and get some activity? People who struggle with sciatica often spend much of their life to mitigate the symptoms. I know I did!...

A Near Miss and an Important Lesson Learned We talk about health a lot in our newsletter, from exercise regimens to healthy diets and everything in between. As I get older, I am becoming acutely aware of how important health is, and how letting our bodies go can affect us in a myriad of ways, from getting in the way of surfing and other hobbies to putting us in the hospital.  But sometimes even if you take good care of yourself, you still end up having a medical crisis. Sometimes it’s genetics, other times it’s just plain bad luck. Last...

THE LOWER CROSSED SYNDROME By Spencer Chang, MD Sports Medicine Fellowship Trained Orthopaedic Surgeon at Straub Medical Center WSL Orthopaedic Consultant   The lower crossed syndrome (LCS) is the result of imbalances in the lower half of the body. In LCS, there is an overactivity and hence tightness of hip flexors and lumbar extensors (lower back muscles). In addition, there is an underactivity and therefore weakness of the deep abdominal muscles and the gluteus maximus and medius (butt muscles). Hamstrings are also commonly tight. Consequently, the imbalances result in an anterior tilt of the pelvis, and increased curvature in the lum-bar...