Combining Personal Training and Chiropractic [Interview][Transcript]
Guest: Shawn Wing
Presenter: Neal Howard
Guest Bio: Shawn Wing is Owner and CEO of Defined Fitness and also A Rehabilitative Manager at Georgetown Family Chiropractic in Georgetown, Kentucky USA.
Segment overview: Shawn Wing discusses combining chiropractic with personal training.
Transcription
Health Professional Radio – Chiropractic
Neal Howard: Hello and welcome to Health Professional Radio, I’m your host, Neal Howard. Thank you so much for joining us today. Our guest in studio today is Mr. Shawn Wing, Rehabilitative Manager and Specialist in Personal Training, Owner and CEO of Defined Fitness here in Georgetown Kentucky and also Rehabilitative Manager at Georgetown Family Chiropractic also in Georgetown. How are you doing today Shawn?
Shawn Wing I’m doing well Neal. How are you sir?
N: I’m doing well. Thank you so much for giving us some of your time today. As a Personal Trainer, you see people who are either trying to develop, maintain a healthy lifestyle or recover from an injury of some sort. How important is it to make sure that the stretching takes place properly long before any of the exercising techniques are perfected?
S: One of the main things to get our focus on how patients and clients, just anybody really focusing on trying to increase their range of motion is the types of stretching that you perform have to be adequate for the activity that you’re getting ready to do. There’s three types of stretching, basically ballistics, dynamic and static and those types of stretching vary depending on. What phase of the workout program that you’re in, what’s you’re warming up to compete in or training for. It really just depends on whatever our goal. So I tell a lot of my clients, when you focus on warming up, you want to make sure that there should be maximum mobility, mobility is basically like jumping jacks or pushing up … or walking on a trail, some other might think active, so not just going through the motions. And then you also make sure you incorporate one of those three types of stretching. Now Static stretches, you see lot of the guys or anybody healthy walking into the gym and see you might be doing a stretch. We usually do it holding it for 10 – 15, sometimes a little bit longer seconds and that’s usually done prior to their workouts when really that type of stretching needs to be done post workout due to the fact that when muscles are stretched, basically you’re increasing the blood flow which increases the muscle elasticity in those fibers. So when you really stretch out a muscle really, really good before your workout, you’re actually starting to focus more on the recovery phase which tells your boy “Okay, I need to strengthen out or stretch out the muscles, allow more blood flow and allow more nutrients to start the repair phase.” And a lot of times that actually gets people hurt, gets people injured because their muscles are too elastic going into the workout.
N: Shawn, if I can interrupt just for a moment. Now are we talking about, this technique that you’re describing right now, is this something that needs to be implemented across the board when it comes to stretching post exercise? Or is this technique or this philosophy something that needs to be considered based on, as you said before, what activity you’re involved in or is this one of those things like ‘seatbelts save lives?’
S: No, this is more of the activity specific. It also depends on the timing that should do. So the type of stretching that I was just referring to, some call it Static stretch. Static stretch is where you hold the stretch for anything greater than 10 – 15 seconds which usually helps the body start to the recovery phase. The Dynamic stretch however is something that you’re gonna want to do before the exercise begin, that shorter bouts of stretching, still stretching the muscles but maybe holding it 2 – 5 seconds. That’s more of a Dynamic stretch which actually tells your body “Okay, let’s wake up. Let’s go ahead and actually start to learn the process of the movement”, and that’s kind of how that will inhibit part of you to be able to stay more active.
N: Alright. Let’s talk about these stretching when you’re not necessarily about to run a marathon or about to play ball or about to address the rehabilitative process of an injury. You’re getting out of bed, you just want to get your day started and you’re really just gonna drive the subway, that’s what you’re gonna do but you still want to stretch when you get up. What type of stretch would you recommend for the person who just wants to loosen up a bit but not necessarily embark on some vigorous exercise routine?
S: Dynamic stretching quick 2 – 5 second bouts of exercise, something you get up in bed you just go raise your arms for a couple of seconds and that’s an example of a stretch and that helps wake up the body, wake up the musculoskeletal system, you let them know, hey it’s I’m back today.
N: And it’s just to activate, not necessarily play a game or football right?
S: Right, exactly. Something to just kind of wakes you up a little bit or something that you’ve been sitting in the chair, driving for too long, you get up and walk around, that’s a form of kind of stretching.
N: Now are there different types of stretches that you would apply say to, say a person who sits at the computer all day, that’s their job and they’ve got this constant, chronic pain in their neck throughout the day. They get up, they stretch it, it goes away, they go right back to their job. Is there something you can recommend for that type of a situation that’s gonna be ongoing but you need relief because you can’t not sit at the computer?
S: One of the sayings… they want to focus on, anybody has a sedentary job…you want to focus on blood flow. Because when you sit down there, your heart has to work a little bit harder trying to keep the blood flowing into the body because the muscles are not pumping the blood so if you can’t do anything and you can’t get up, move your arms around, flex your muscles a little bit, flex your calves, flex your quads, these are the muscles of the legs, flex your arms a little bit that will kind of act as a natural pump. Overall that’s what your gastroc which are your calf muscles, those are actually designed to help increase the flow of blood back up into the heart that’s why those muscles are so large because they help pump the blood, to back up the body. So, someone who sitting down for quite some time, maybe if you can’t get up and you can’t move, just start focusing on flexing or contracting the muscle and that’ll help with that circulation and blood flow.
N: When it comes to nutrition, as a personal trainer on the Defined Fitness side, how much advise or information do you offer your clients that is nutrition based in conjunction with your personal training and the exercise to end of it?
S: Nutrition aspect of it is kind of all different ballgame as far as living a healthy lifestyle. You’ll hear a lot of trainers say “training is only 20% or training is only 30% of the actual fitness lifestyle”. That’s true and that’s false, depending on what you’re training for. If you’re training for strongly completion, you better believe it’s more 50-50, maybe even more 60-40 for your training. So let’s say your training is 60% what’s more important, your diet’s 40% more important, that will change the closer you get to your competition day. But for the general population, diet is probably gonna be by 80%, someone who’s looking to stay healthy, stay relatively active, slim. There are…aspect 20% training, 80% diet give or take 10% or so, but that’s where it breaks down exactly the quality of food you eat. How many meals that you eat a day, what are you eating like skipping breakfast, what do you eat before bed, stuff like that, that’s kind of what it breaks down to. I always preach to my clients to making sure you hit your macros are very important, macros are macronutrients: carbs, fats and proteins. So basically making sure that, let’s just say a good journal example, one pound is equivalent to one gram of protein and that’s normally what you want to take in just to maintain a relatively healthy lifestyle. Carbohydrates, depending on the goal it can range from .5 up to, maybe 1.5 to 2.0 grams per pound of body weight and then your fats, your fats you can arrange depending on like I said the goal that you’re focusing on anywhere from .25 to even .6, .7 grams per pound of body weight but that’s way more involved in what general population should know about, carbohydrates, fats and proteins. But, giving an overall general healthy diet and making smart choices is extremely crucial to the longevity of your life.
N: In your experience as a Personal Trainer, have you noticed or been told that the type of exercise program that you work out with the person, does it change some of the nutrients that they crave as opposed to being told what nutrients to put in to maintain health?
S: That’s a very funny question because at times you will crave things that you don’t even like when you go on let’s say a competition diet for example, if I’m using me for example, I don’t get up on stage and… similar activities in the gym that will represent strong men, represent body building or stuff like that. I try to focus on a pretty healthy diet and what’s I’m speaking on my personal behalf, but for example I ease to not like chocolate chip cookies for the longest time and I had a really bad experience when I was younger and I ended up getting sick on them anyway. So as you focus on eating clean and eating healthy and weighing out your meals and making sure you get your…Your body is going to crave stuff that you haven’t had for a while, let’s say sweets or chocolates, or what not and it’s kind of funny that the body will feel that and sometimes someone will say it’s important to listen to the body and it’s body’s way of saying “Hey let’s go and have a little bit.” You know what? There’s nothing wrong with that and that goes on to the other point that everything is okay in moderation but you got to moderate it. That’s not the same thing.
N: You have to moderate. Without moderating then moderation is nothing, right?
S: Exactly.
N: You’ve been listening to Health Professional Radio, I’m your host Neal Howard. We’ve been in studio talking with Mr. Shawn Wing, Personal Trainer and Rehabilitative Manager at Georgetown Family Chiropractic in Georgetown, Kentucky. Defined Fitness, Shawn’s personal business, Personal training is also located in Georgetown, Kentucky. We’ve been here talking about some of the important aspects of stretching, both before and after exercising and stretching simply for stretching’s sake, the importance of that as well. It’s been great having you here with us today Shawn.
S: Thank you Neal. Thank you so much for having me.
N: Thank you. Transcripts and audio of this program are available at healthprofessionalradio.com.au and also at hpr.fm and you can subscribe through our podcast on iTunes.