Swimming great Michael Phelps, NFL Pro Bowler Tony Richards, Tour de France Winner Vincenzo Nibali, and 18-time NBA All-star Kobe Bryant are just a few of the elite athletes who receive regular acupuncture, cupping and/or tuina treatments. How can you benefit from the same level of support at your own level of fitness thanks to acupuncture for sport medicine? And did you know I have an extensive and far reaching background in endurance sports?
Pain ranges from mild, localized discomfort to agony: it has both physical and emotional components. It may be contained to a discrete area, as in an injury, or it can be more diffuse, as in disorders like fibromyalgia. Behind the scenes, specific nerve fibers mediate pain and carry impulses to the brain. Similarly, pain is present in various conditions such as back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, knee pain, menstrual pain, and headaches, including migraines. Acupuncture for pain management is always a first line treatment for the treatment of pain and/or the underlying condition when appropriate.
Having a long and extensive experience in ultra endurance sport medicine in rather extreme environments I find it useful to share selected endurance blog posts from the last 10 years. What applies to endurance and ultra distance sports also applies to wellness and everyday health. What if you would consider your life to be a long distance event? Would you make the same decisions all along knowing that it’s possible with a rational and disciplined approach to cross the finish line and do it again the next day? You might not want to think about it but how will you cross the finish line? I can help you look at your wellness, health and goals from a recovery or performance standpoint. Check out also how TCM is a great sport medicine modality.
NFCE 50 + 2013 Review2013 ended pretty nicely with The North Face Endurance Challenge 50 mile run in Marin, north of San Francisco. With the UTMB in particular (and 100s of miles of mountain running) 2013 has been a great running year for me. The TNF50 was a good cherry on the cake since it was a beautiful cold day in the Marin Headlands and I also got a PR on that course (by 1 hour and 25 minutes no less!).
I first ran the course in 2011 and it was my first ultra marathon. It was fantastic and although I was a little slow (and I was hurting at the end quite a bit!) I pledged to come back. I went back in 2012 and the weather was so awful that they shortened the course to 46 miles.
This summer I decided to plan for my next level of outdoor emergency care. I was faced with the choice of taking a WFR (Wilderness First Responder) course or OEC course (Outdoor Emergency Care). I have always been interested in volunteering in a ski patrol I opted for OEC. It also seemed that the training was similar in nature to WFR. OEC is the National Ski Patrol mandated course, meaning that all NSP ski patrollers need to be OEC certified (some are EMTs it’s the same training, standard of care).
After looking for a class on the NSP site I found that the patrol I wanted to join in Mammoth did offer a class in Burbank and it seemed very convenient except that I was going to be out of town for too many classes (running UTMB for instance) and I wasn’t sure I could commit to two nights a week (and teaching also two nights a week).