Presenter 1: On Today's Health: fixing common injuries with exercise, from stress fractures
to knee injuries and back pain.
If you've got aching body parts, the best way to heal may be to get moving.
Presenter 2: Dr. Sonu Ahalla is the clinical --
Presenter 1: Ahluwalia Presenter 2: Ahluwalia, is the chief of orthopedic
surgery -- I just actually fractured his name -- at Cedars Sinai Medical Center.
Doctor, good to see you.
Dr. A: Good to see you.
Presenter 2: Exercise we know is important but obviously, besides keeping yourself in
good health, it helps prevent problems later on.
Dr. A: Some sobering statistics.
As far as kids are concerned, one in five kids are overweight or obese in our country,
okay?
That's really sad.
The CVC has suggested that kids do an hour of moderate to vigorous exercise a day.
And it seems like a third of our kids are not doing that.
When I was young, my mother had to pull me in but now we have to encourage our kids to
go out, and that's become a problem.
Presenter 1: Now we have video games.
But not these beautiful young ladies here; they're with the ALA school and they're students
of Lisa Adel's, doing ballet.
What age do you suggest parents start pushing their kids to taking on activities, whether
it's ballet or another sport... soccer?
Dr. A: The earlier you start the better, right?
It's a behavior that we want our kids to be encouraged to do.
And as they get older, it becomes harder and harder with the iPads and TV; we do a lot
of sedentary stiff now, so encourage kids to do it this young.
As far as valet is concerned, it's a good exercise.
It's social, kids get out of the house.
But there are certain things; when their feet are growing, we don't want them to go en pointe
and do certain other things -- but encourage exercise, that's the most important thing.
Presenter 1: Let's move on to teens and basketball over here, Come on, Willy, get going here
with your teammates.
Now as they get a little bit older, you've got to start thinking about injuries, right?
And young girls actually have a much higher injury rate, right?
Dr. A: We found that girls have higher incidence of ACL tear, 2:5, really.
So girls have a wider pelvis so there's an anatomical sense that the knees go inwards,
so that's why they can tear their ACL.
There's some evidence of hormonal influence, because hormones change at a certain time
of the month, they can be more susceptible.
The other thing is that girls' hamstrings are a little bit weaker than guys, so the
ligament has to actually hold the knee in place.
I'm going to show you something right here...
Presenter 1: Okay.
Dr. A: What happens is when women jump, the actually land differently.
So when they come down, the knees go inward and there's more stress on the ACL.
So what we're trying to teach girls is how to jump and land, which is that the hips should
be above the knees, which should be above the ankle.
And the other thing is land as light as a feather.
So you want to just jump and land, okay?
And there are these plyometric exercises with jumping and strengthening your legs, which
-- Presenter 1: A lot of the side to side step,
too.
Dr. A: Exactly, which can reduce the incidence of ACL injuries.
Presenter 1: Okay, let's move over to the elliptical machine over here.
I'm going to get on this right here.
And by the way, I should point out the reason I'm wearing these shoes.
Now tell me about these shoes that I'm wearing.
Dr. A: It's interesting; there was a book called Born to Run.
Presenter 1: Yes, yes.
I did read that, it was a great book.
The barefoot running became a huge phenomenon as a result, right?
Dr. A: traditionally, we think that we have an advantage over animals because we can run
endurance running.
But the problem is these shores, or barefoot running has become very popular, but we've
grown up wearing regular shoes and our feet are used to them.
I don't say it's a bad thing, but be careful; start slowly.
The other thing is when we have foot problems, like, minor problems, we can adjust them with
our shoes.
We have orthotics, we have all that kind of stuff.
We can't do that with these shoes.
So be sure that you don't have any problems before that.
Presenter 1: So women in their 30s and 40s.
the elliptical is a great -- Dr. A: Absolutely.
Presenter 1: A great piece of equipment.
A great way to get that cardio.
Dr. A: And the advantage is that you do upper body as well as lower body, right?
So that's a good thing about the elliptical.
Presenter 1: Let's go with Al over here because we don't have much time.
This is...
Presenter 2: These are the incumbent bikes.
Presenter 1: These are for 40 to 50-year old workouts, right?
Dr. A: The incidence of lower back pain is much higher as we get into our 40s and 50s.
And part of the reason is how we sit, how we work, our posture; those are the things
we need to watch out for.
What we wanted to show today is that if you have lower back pain, which almost all of
us at some point do have, there are certain exercises we can do to alleviate that and
those are the things that I want -- Presenter 1: To strengthen the core.
Dr. A: The core's the most important thing, right?
So all right, Al, here we go.
On all fours.
Presenter 2: All fours...
Dr. A: All right, here we go.
So what we want to do is arch our back up and then bring it down and bring the back
up.
There you go.
Presenter 2: And how many times do you do that?
Dr. A: About 10 times.
Presenter 1: Meow when you do that, Al.
Dr. A: So these are certain exercises that we can do.
All right, here we go...
Presenter 1: What else?
Dr. A: Then there's an exercise on your back, here we go...
Presenter 2: Just watch it...
Dr. A: So we lay down, and we want to lift our hips up just slightly, okay?
Presenter 2: That's great.
Dr. A: That's the exercise we're doing.
Presenter: How many times do you do that, doc?
Dr. A: Ten.
I'm tired already Presenter 1: Dr. Ali...Ahluwalia... now I
fractured your name.
Thank you very much; appreciate it and I love that we turned this into a whole fitness studio
this morning.