by The Forge Collective | Sep 1, 2018 | Client of the Month, Sport Performance
Client of the Month: Adrian Smith
September’s Client of the Month is Adrian Smith, Team Lead at Canopy Growth, Physique and Classic Bodybuilding Competitor, Personal Trainer at Industry Fitness (Check him out here!) and new dad! Plus he’s got the coolest sleeve I’ve ever seen – it’s a little hard to see under the spray tan, but it’s all Marvel Comics Characters!
Adrian has an upcoming debut as a classic bodybuilder in the coming weeks – watch out for him at The Ottawa Regional Championships on November 3!
Bodybuilding – I entered my first show last year as a physique competitor, and am really excited to debut in the Classic Division on November 3!
I suffered a devastating injury during training for my original physique competition that had put me in a position that had me even struggling to walk. I remember taking almost 5 minutes to get up and move 10 feet forward. I couldn’t straighten my body and I definetly could not train and prepare for my competition I had been preparing for. Even further than that I could not perform day to day tasks. It was a mental and physical hardship.
After a couple weeks worth of sessions I was not only back to training for my competition, I was feeling better than before I was injured. Not only physically but mentally and emotionally. I have also benefitted from increased flexibility, improved mobility and better health.
by The Forge Collective | Aug 12, 2018 | Sport Performance
Fish Oil for Concussion Prevention
With school sports seasons coming up, most athletes have begun preparing physically and mentally for the game. But one of the most important and often overlooked parts of preparing for high-contact sports is preparing the brain itself.
Texas Christian University’s football team put players on a preventative regimen of DHA (an omega-3 fat most commonly found in fish oil and algae) and regularly measured markers of neuronal injury found lower levels of markers of neural injury throughout the season in players taking DHA than those not taking the preventative dose. This is controlled for the exposure to contact, which had a positive correlation with markers of neuronal injury.
Of additional interest, while performing this study, the football team noted less than half the expected amount of concussions for a team of their size and calibre, compared to past rates.
Micheal Lewis, MD, author of When Brains Collide and Founder of the Brain Health Education and Research Institute, recommends one daily dose of 3,000 mg combined EPA and DHA. While different brands and formulas of fish oil may vary, this will be equivalent to 5 capsules/day of most common brands of fish oil. For vegan and vegetarian athletes, brands of algae-derived EPA/DHA supplements do exist.
Keep in mind that female athletes may be considerably more likely than their male counterparts to suffer a concussion, so while this is important for men, it is equally, if not more important that female athletes across all sports begin preparing their brains for play.
by The Forge Collective | Aug 8, 2018 | Corporate Wellness
Reducing Office Temperatures to Improve Cognitive Performance
It’s been a hot summer, but keeping cool at the office can be an important part of helping your employees keep their cool, and their performance.
A 2014 study showed that high temperatures in the workplace have a negative impact on attention span and reaction time. A 2018 Harvard study amongst students had similar findings, students who had access to air conditioning scored better on tests measuring selective attention, processing speed, cognitive speed, and working memory. The AC group were exposed to temperatures 4.9 degrees celsius lower than the group without AC (21.4 degrees vs 26.3 degrees).
This means that by keeping the office a few degrees cooler you’ll be getting better performance from your employees. Helping those employees that are present be more productive can be a big deal in a business, especially during the summer when many employees are away on vacation.
While reducing temperatures can be one quick, simple way to help reduce workforce inefficiencies, there is always more that can be done! For help with Workforce Optimization in your office, please fill out our corporate contact form.
by The Forge Collective | Aug 1, 2018 | Client of the Month, Sport Performance
August’s Client of the Month is Spencer Crowe, an avid golfer, volleyball player, and Financial Analyst with the Canadian Government. Spencer is currently studying to attain his CPA designation while balancing work and life.
Golf, Volleyball, Hiking, Badminton, & Swimming.
Originally sought out of curiosity, and how the benefits one receives through various Applied Kinesiology techniques can vary from person to person. I have always benefited from Chiropractic care, and wanted to explore a unique avenue for continued positive bodily health. Applied Kinesiology has benefited me greatly, and I’ve noticed immediate results. I feel better both physically, as well as mentally.
During the Month of January, 2017 I took a ski trip to Whistler, BC. I had a pretty severe ski accident that injured my knee, making even simple tasks like tying my shoes very difficult. Like most people, I believed if I ignored the injury it would go away, but this was not the case. In discussing my ongoing pain, I was reassured that Applied Kinesoiology was an avenue worth pursuing, and I subsequently booked my first (of many) appointments. Within a single visit, my knee felt better and I had full mobility, the likes of which I didn’t have prior.
My mind feels clear, and I have felt more focused when performing my work responsibilities. When playing both competitive and recreational sports, I feel more confident and agile. I will be a lifelong supporter of this approach to bodily health and encourage others to try it for themselves.
Giftology – Cut through the Noise, Increase Referrals, and Strengthen Retention
by The Forge Collective | Jul 31, 2018 | Chiropractic
I wrote this a few years ago while I was in school, published here, and I still end up having the discussion often enough that I thought this was worth circling back to:
Throughout the history of chiropractic, stroke has been an undesirable effect attributed to chiropractic adjustments. This assertion is based on a few case studies in which a vertebral artery dissection (VAD) has been diagnosed following cervical manipulation, and while this is a fair assertion as there truly have been case studies in which a manual treatment for neck pain precedes the diagnosis of a VAD, the idea of causation needs to be further explored.
However, drawing conclusions from this may be more challenging. The purported cause of a chiropractic adjustment causing stroke is that cervical manipulation might stretch the vertebral artery to the point of failure in the rare cases of a VAD. This idea was explored in a prospective study was published by Piper et al. in 2014 assessing the force placed upon the vertebral artery during cervical manipulation therapy found that the strain on the vertebral artery during manipulation is substantially less than the lowest reported load causing failure of the artery, and considerably lower than even the strain placed upon the artery while going through active range of motion. In laymen’s terms, this means that a chiropractic adjustment does not produce the necessary force to cause a VAD, and is less likely to contribute to a VAD than looking over one’s shoulder to back out of a parking space, or looking at the person sitting next to them at a dinner table.
Neck pain, as a symptom that may cause an individual to present to their chiropractor (or physician or other type of manual therapist), may also be the only symptom of a VAD, that it is entirely plausible that a patient experiencing a VAD might present to a chiropractor seeking treatment for neck pain, only to develop further symptoms following treatment, and to be diagnosed with a VAD post-treatment.
The 2008 Cassidy study, a massive landmark study concerning a stroke diagnosis following care for neck pain, both of chiropractic and medical care, looked at these outcomes based on vast amounts of data collected from insurance companies. The study discovered that patients presenting for neck pain to a chiropractor were equally or sometimes less likely to develop a VAD following treatment than patients who had reported to a medical physician for the same symptoms, who would not have provided a manual adjustment. An update to this study in 2017 had similar findings: that there was a similar increased incidence of carotid artery stroke following both chiropractic visits and PCP visits, and that these risk factors were also related to neck and headache pain related diagnoses. This further supports the idea that an adjustment does not cause a stroke, but rather patients present to their chiropractor with early symptoms of an already occuring stroke, and later develop more significant symptoms.
Far riskier treatments exist for neck pain exist, and are surprisingly accepted by the medical profession much more readily than chiropractic is. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), often prescribed for general aches and pains, including neck pain have been associated with 321,622 strokes per 100 million patient years (adjusted from 377 strokes per 117,218 P.Y.) reported by the British Journal of Medicine, compared with 818 strokes per 100 million patient years associated with cervical adjustments (this coming from the Cassidy Study). And despite the evidence that a stroke is not caused by chiropractic adjustments, stroke is commonly considered the most serious complication of chiropractic manipulation. On the contrary, it is listed among other serious complications of NSAIDs, which also includes heart attack, as well as having detrimental effects on the liver and kidneys. In addition to these other risks, NSAIDs provide a potentially slower and less complete recovery from pain than cervical manipulation, according to a 2003 study of 115 people.
Any conclusion that cervical manipulation should be recommended against, due to the risk it poses, remains unfounded and may be doing injustice to patients who might otherwise not receive relief from neck pain, while being forced into riskier treatments. Doctors and care providers of all specialties should feel confident in recommending their patients having their cervical spine adjusted as a treatment for neck pain.
(I know the puppy picture has nothing to do with this, but stock photography was challenging to find that actually related to this)
