The
Fixa U™
School Of Medicine
Department of Silly Syndromes
© Jolie Bookspan MEd, PhD, FAWM
"Mundus vult decipi" - The world wants to be deceived
Welcome To The Humor Page Of My Web Site DrBookspan.com
My work is evidence-based sports medicine and physiology to make medicine, fitness, and health care healthier.
I developed and run the School of Healthy Medicine - The Academy of Functional Exercise Medicine. One of our health programs, the Health Care Reform School, has a Department of Silly Syndromes. I appointed our resident funny guy Paul Jenkins as fearless leader of the department, with all the rights and privileges, of which there are none. The Department of Silly Syndromes keeps the FUN in function.
Come in person for appointments and classes with me, and read my books for more. More about me in Adventure Medicine.
SITE MAP. At the bottom of this page (and every page) are main navigation links to other articles, links to send in your stories and ideas, and buttons to SHARE, TWEET, and LIKE.
Why Is My Academy Also Called The Fixa U?
In the 1960s Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon, Bullwinkle Moose attended the Wossamotta U (or, WhatsaMatterU), joking pronunciation of "What's the matter [with] you?"
We KNOW Wossamotta U. We FIXA U!
About The Department of Silly Syndromes
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM
Laughter is the language of the Gods, according to Buddhist saying.
Like every skill, humor needs exercise to be healthy and strong. Exercising your sense of humor is also part of keeping *you* healthy and strong.
When I read medical studies claiming positive medicinal effects from humor and laughter, they are numbingly humorless. When I visit medical fitness programs and gyms where people are exercising for health, everyone looks miserable.
I appointed Paul Jenkins of Michigan as my Academy Director of the Department of Silly Syndromes. He is our Enlightening Rod, in charge of our Please Force and Director of our UNfocus Groups and Ad Hokey Committees, saving us from Truth Decay and maintaining a strong Farce Field around our Jestive system, preventing Idiotpathic pain and Ridiculopathy, and keeping us in stitches. I have Primary Souse doctors to remove the stitches, or you can suture self.
My department backup singers are "The Fifth Dementia."
Muses are the human conditions, Absurdities, Stupidities, and Inanities.
Our posture prompter is Sister Mary Smackham Witherstick of the Royal Order of Order.
My testing and curriculum coordinator is Betty U. Study.
My statistics checker is Russell Papers.
My hyperbarics team is the Gang Green
Our professor of trading anxiety for cheerful action is Ann Hedonia. Come to her Hokey Pokey Clinic and Turn Yourself Around.
Our registered dietitian is Émile For-awl.
Not-So-Hot Yoga classes with Guru Golly-Ji. Come stimulate your spiritual growth hormones in our FullFILLment center.
Swim for your knee rehab in our Knees Creek.
Our beachwear tailor is Kay Sarong Sarong.
Our Dance Department teaches tap dance for senior citizens. One lively group is "The Clogging Arteries." Another is "Tapaholics Phenomenous - We Do More Than 12 Steps." See a video of tapping on my Clinical page. Scroll down to: "Get your life back and enjoy it - The Fixa U."
For our Literature of the Illiterati, I wrote my Orthopedic Horror Thriller: The X-Rays of Dorian Gray. Inspired by Oscar Wilde's perceptive novel, it deals with a vain fitness enthusiast who looks beautiful on the outside, but whose unhealthy orthopedic deeds take him to Medical Care From Hell. My next novella is The Headless Hamstring - The Legend of Hamstring Hollow inspired by Washington Irving's short story. Pop exercises can injure hamstring heads. The resulting pain often mimics sciatica and there may be a tell-tale sulcus or hollowing, but personal trainer Ichabod can't tell the real cause from fictional stories by supplement companies of discs and syndromes. He keeps doing ineffective hamstring stretches that leave him increasingly haunted.
(In the original American Literature, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" tells of a dishonorable man who made a Faustian deal whereby he stayed forever young while his portrait showed his actual ugliness from years of misdeeds (it also seems that jokes about Dorian Gray never get old either, yuk yuk). In "The Headless Horseman - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," shallow Ichabod was frightened by a menacing apparition, and he could not tell if it were as it seemed, or something entirely different.)
Ongoing Investigations - Responsible behavior in sales, speech, advertising, and manufacturing is crucial to protect consumer mental and physical health. Laws prevent harm to people from medical products and practices that are not healthy. There are also lobbies who want to stop laws for accountable healthy behavior, and allow harm in the name of "free speech, free marketplace, and deregulation." My report of entities using unprincipled techniques to sell unhealthy things is in the chilling account of "The SUBORN Identity." (The Bourne Identity is a Robert Ludlum novel of clandestine CIA conspiracies, made into a 2002 Matt Damon action thriller).
Also check my Aquatic Rehab Program, "20,000 Legs Under the Sea" in honor of Jules Verne, and Our Lady of Perpetual Quadriceps.
Come join me at our HippoCampus location for brainy fun to be healthier and happier. Don't wait. Strike While The Irony is Hot!
How To Join The Fun
Josh Billings (pen name of humorist Henry Shaw) summed it up, "There ain't much fun in medicine, but there's a heck of a lot of medicine in fun."
We promote critical thinking - "The Other National Deficit." Identify common unhealthful fallacies, pseudo-science, dogmas of pop fitness and medicine, and Fix them. Send your Fixes in stories, pun-toting verse, funny photos, observations, and movies. I will pay you exactly twice what I earn doing this needed work to make the world a better healthier place. I will even pay you double what I make. Best ones will appear on this page. Here is how to send, and help by sharing:
E-mail your great thing to me through Project 7 on the Projects page.
Tweet @TheFitnessFixer. We treat Irony Deficiency Disease, and High Falutin levels. Tweets particularly ironic have hashtag: #SmackYourHeadDept Get retweeted and "win a year's supply." Tweet
More sharing buttons are at the bottom of this page.
Labeling predictable and common collections of results as "Syndromes" attracts vulnerable populations to spend time and money needlessly, thinking they have some thing that needs an external to "treat" it.
Don't fall for medicines to treat side effects of medicines and bad health practices, devices to "hold" you in place, or "health foods" that do the same as real food only more expensively. Understand that many common products and maneuvering the body around to "realign" areas that cannot anatomically go "out of place" are "woo-woo medicine" - pseudo-science or unfounded wishful thinking, or even snake-oil (quackery) for money and power. Keep your money and power.
Somebody Please Do My Personal Responsibility For Me!
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM
A couple was buying a house. The real estate agent told them a problem with the house was that it was near the train, rumbling by noisily every night. It would take the first two weeks to be able to sleep through it. "No problem, said the couple, we'll spend the first two weeks in a hotel."
How long does it take to stop slouching, or stop herniating a disc, or stop knee pain that comes from slouching your knee crookedly, or to stop paying money to eat food that is bad for your health?
It takes as long as you want to continue injurious ways. It won't happen if you don't participate, and instead, pile on medicines and devices so that you never stop the cause of your problem.
Letters come in to me daily: Some miss the whole point, hoping for magical externals to do it for them: " Can I use a posture brace until it works? … Is it until my shiatsu starts working? … My body worker says it takes 6 weeks for massage to make me aware of my body… My yoga teacher said the pain has to be worked through so I bend wrong to get used to it… OK, bending right does fix my pain, but every time I go back to bending wrong the pain comes back. I do the exercises 10 times. How long until the exercises work?... "
The "martyrs" blame externals:
"It is not possible to control how I stand or sit, I am fat / weak / large chested / too thin to have muscles / too old / too young / a person of privilege…
You're wrong, the slouching just comes back by itself. …
You're wrong I have gone to a chiropractor three times a week for years and I have to go or the pain comes back, that proves he is helping me and I can't change the pain…
Another web site (which sells these kinds of things) said to get a thousand dollar mattress and that will fix it… "
The whining is comical:
You can't expect me to actually try to remember that…
You're wrong, my body FORCES me to slouch…
I have read all your articles and you didn't mention posture or answer readers when they asked (for new readers, you can fall over laughing at that)…
Don't you know that it hurts my back to sit at a desk to read your book on fixing pain?..."
Excellent readers send the brains:
You expect me to actually get free exercise using my muscles to make my own life better?? Congress will hear about this!…
I can move my own body? Shocking!…
Burn more calories, free, and be healthier and stop disc pain by moving and sitting in healthy ways so that my back does not hurt? I won't, I won't, I WON'T!!! ..."
Where to Start (if you want to, no one is making you):
Read the True Patient Inspiring Stories from real readers.
Check the Clinical page for lists of more free summaries on fixing pain.
Keep reading, more below.
Thank you for Personal Responsibility photo by kd7irj
If you do trendy exercises that are not good for you, and your joints ache or start to wear, you don't have "Ibuprofen Deficiency Syndrome."
Save Money, Fix Pain, Do More Exercise, Get Fit Faster - Strengthen Personal Responsibility
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWMHere is a quick route to healthier fitness - Reduce reliance on gimmicks, medicines, potions, expensive paraphernalia, and repeated treatments for the same problem.
How long does it take to stop slouching, or stop herniating a disc, or stop paying money to eat food that is bad for your health? It takes as long as you want to continue injurious ways.
Academy Director of the Department of Silly Syndromes, Paul Jenkins, explains:"A few days after you left for your medical conference, something in the news caused me to start thinking you should be in the news……."In other news today, scientist Dr. Jolie Bookspan is prescribing doses of Personal Responsibility and Activity for various joint pain conditions. Her work along with regular doses of PR & A will result in curing many forms of back pain, knee pain and foot problems. She has also gone so far as to suggest its off-label use may cure non joint ailments as well."Since PR & A is neither a pharmaceutical nor a medical device, companies that normally engage in the distribution of free pens have not found the financial benefits of PR & A.
"Many doctors have not seen PR & A in their patients or on pens, and therefore are not familiar with its indications."
It is up to the person's view of their own body - do they want to stop damaging themselves and do beneficial things, or must they have others change them with constant treatments, sessions, therapies, adjustments, "somatics," (etc). Get free exercise of body and mind by taking personal responsibility for your own slouching.
If you throw trash, it is no mystery when the world is trashy.
Stop doing unhealthy things (thoughts and actions) and you will feel better.
Ongoing treatments are not shortcuts, but the long, indirect route.
Thank you fooleryland.com for drawing
If you drink energy drinks, commercial "sports" concoctions full of dyes, chemicals, and stimulants, take medications, drink alcohol, and colas, don't get enough exercise and fresh air, smoke, take Eastern or Western drugs and herbal pills, teas, and remedies full of additional unsettling side effects then have trouble falling asleep, you don't have DDS - "Delayed Sleep Syndrome." You are drugged into irritability. The answer is not more drugs. Your results are preventable. The fix is free. Save money and health by avoiding unneeded purchases and chemical dependence.
Neck and Upper Body Pain:
Forward Air Head Syndrome - Doing Sets and Reps and Missing The Point of the Exercise
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM
A "forward head" is a bad posture that causes much neck and upper back pain. Degenerating discs of the neck and damage to the joints of the vertebrae called facets can also eventually result from the bad posture of a forward head.
1. No exercises are needed to stop bad posture, Changing how you allow your bent forward neck and upper body is, in most cases, as simple as straightening your elbow from bent position. You don't need exercises. You decide where to move and how much. No muscle tightening is needed, or other dysfunctional movement habits. End of story, no whining.
In the drawings below, see the forward head on the left, and neutral neck at right
2. In some cases, people are so stiff or tight from slouching that they can't straighten comfortably. When they follow "posture rules" to straighten they make as much or more pain and damage forcing it than if they slouched. My specific stretches to make healthy position comfortable and possible are on the Neck Pain Page. Then holding healthy position feels right and easy, and using it stops damage, not makes it. No exercises or stretches or yoga, no matter how expensive or hawked by celebrities, will "give" you good posture.
3. Often people do their posture stretches and exercises, then go right back to their forward head. They are mystified when pain returns. They pay for ongoing acupuncture, massage, and treatments, and insist it works because pain temporarily subsides. That usually happens because they are lying down. Not because of the treatments.
Paul Jenkins, Academy Director of the Department of Silly Syndromes, explains:"The Department for Silly Syndromes has determined that Forward Air Head Syndrome is closely related to Cerebral Detachment Syndrome (CDS) that occurs in patients that read the writings of Dr. Bookspan:
"The patient knows how to read and understands words; however after reading Dr. Bookspan’s writings, a detachment in the cerebral cortex seems to occur often affecting the patient’s ability to think and type. The patient exhibits some of the following symptoms:The patient will do some stretches, go back to the slouching and bad movement habits that caused their original pain, and write to Dr. Bookspan that the stretches do not work.
The patient will do some healthy stretches, but also use influencer/ celebrity exercises that cause neck pain, and write to Dr. Bookspan that the stretches do not work.
The patient will write to Dr. Bookspan, "I read your work on how to fix neck pain, will your stretches work?" and similar instances of missing the point.
"The recommended treatment for those suffering from CDS is to watch the movie ‘What About Bob?’ This may not cure CDS however it should temporally delay the effects of CDS." (In the movie, a psychiatrist gives his nice but overanxious patient a book to understand and solve his own problems. Instead, the patient drives the psychiatrist insane with repeated pleas for the same information, and destroyed his previous doc with the same).
Drawings of Backman! copyright Dr. Bookspan
If you slouch your shoulders and they hurt, or overly tighten and yank your chin inward or or crane your neck to "stand straight" and you hurt from tightening, you don't need treatments and medicines for a mysterious thing called "Upper Crossed Syndrome." Your body aches from slouching or overly-tightening. Both preventable at no charge.
BIPOD - Prescription for Healthier Feet
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM
BIPOD is a way to happier feet that you can do yourself at home.
For Background:
Many people are prescribed orthotics, however orthotics themselves are a common source of hidden pain of the feet, knees, even hips, months later.Orthotics are hard shapes, specially fitted by a trained orthotist or sometimes a physical therapist with orthotic training. Orthotics usually cost a few hundreds of dollars. Orthotics are rigid forms to hold your feet in a specific position. There are also hard inserts sold "over-the-counter" at various prices, with a molded arch or other area, advertised to change your foot posture. It is established that orthotics and hard inserts can make more pain, or don't change the source of the problem.
Cushioning is different from orthotics. Many shoes benefit from better cushioning and even a cheap soft flat insert for cushioning, costing one dollar, can help. A shoe insert is any pad of any size, shape or quality that you put in your shoe for various reasons. Orthotics are different.
Most of the time, for non-paralyzed people, if the orthotic can make your foot change to a healthy position, you can do the same using your own muscles and sense of positioning.
Using your own brain, and feet and ankle muscles is often healthier, more comfortable, and more likely to yield long term results.
Now, our Director of Silly Syndromes Paul J's intelligent prescription:
Bookspan Invisible Pain-free Orthotic Drops - BIPOD. Now you can walk, run, or stand without the pain of traditional hard orthotic inserts. BIPOD will revolutionize the way you stand. Read and follow product instructions, failure to do so will render this product ineffective. Attempts to walk, run, or stand without BIPOD is not recommended by our accountants.
Follow the directions to make BIPOD at home:
Inactive ingredients: Dihydrogen monoxide DHMO
Active ingredients: Cognitive synchronicity CS - Position your own arches in healthy position so they don't hurt.
Inactive Ingredients - DHMO:
- One tablespoon of cold tap water.
- One tablespoon of tap water from hot tap, before it gets hot.
- Mix for 4 seconds in a container that can hold 2 tablespoons of liquid.
- Put 1 to 2 drops on each arch daily and proceed with the directions for active ingredients.
- The left over mixture maybe placed in the refrigerator for later use or discarded in most plants.How does thsi work? Use your brain to get the point that you use your own muscles to put your own ankles and feet in healthy posiiton so that they don't hurt. Don't get bogged down on purchasing machines and devices that reduce your own body's involvement in your life, supplements that do not work, or trivial details of exercise "form." Get the big picture of easy healthier ways and enjoy improving your life.
Thank you for drawing - Jumping Brain by Emilio Garcia
"lapolab" via Flickr
People who drone on and on that they are the victims of a Syndrome instead of seeing what is causing the collection of effects and stopping those causes, have Syndrome Syn-drone. People with Syndrome Syndrone can go to the 12 (exponential) step group:
On and On Anon.
When Did Health Become Thinking Out of The Box?
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM
For several years, I taught a medical school elective.
Before starting my work there, I worried that my information - use healthful movement for real life not just exercises, eat real food not only supplements and processed celebrity concoctions, get exercise, "and all that," would be so known and obvious to the bright young medical students that it would bore them. Instead, it was called, "Out of the box."
When did health become "Out of the box?"
I spent years of my career in a lab as a serious, intensely number-checking research scientist. I worked to ensure that we knew what truly worked, and what was hype, unrelated, or just wrong. I made certain that what I discovered and developed for patients was squarely right, practical, and in the best interest of the patient (and fun too, which is health). All I pursued was The Truth. Matt Cartmill once said, "As a youth I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life. So I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet women."
Why is bypass surgery, angioplasty, stents, obesity, diabetes, and medications with uncomfortable, unhealthful side effects considered normal, while eating less meat, and less total awful junk, is labeled wacky and extreme, when it is medically documented to stop and prevent heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other prevalent conditions that rob people of joy in life?
In my lectures, I wanted students to see how physiology works and how it relates to many things in and out of medicine, not just dictate lists of conditions to memorize. I showed slides, asking them to identify why an injury would happen during one way of running or doing the same exercise, and not another, and why. I told them that if they understood, they would not have to memorize. I just wanted them to think. As my father once enlightened me, "Jolie! You're asking a lot!"
In the orthopedic lectures, I teach about fixing pain and making large physical improvements without making counterproductive pain and injury. After one of my lectures, students scattered for personal time, while a few stayed in the lecture hall, bent over laptops. They sat hunched, rubbing sore shoulders. Eventually one nudged the other, "Get the doc, she's right here."
After some indecision, one student asked me to give him stretches to fix the pain of working at the computer. I told him you can sit and work without getting pain in the first place, and why didn't I show him that instead of a stretch as an "antidote." He protested that the computer made his neck hurt. I agreed that the way he was sitting would do that, and repeated that you can easily sit and work in a way that doesn't cause the pain in the first place. More protests came, that as students they had to work on the computer long hours. I asked him again if he would like to work, sit, and study in a healthful way that doesn't hurt in the first place. He whined that he had a condition called Upper Crossed Syndrome. That means your neck and upper back hurts from slouching - see the Neck article near the beginning of this page, an entire page on this web site explaining it - Fixing Neck Pain Page, and the page on this web site for Healthy Sitting.
Medicine is not supposed to consist of causing bad things to happen so that you can call it a Syndrome then charge to do a cool procedure to try to reverse it.
It turned out that most of the young, active, outdoorsy, academically talented medical students had muscle and joint pain. So did many of the top ranked physician faculty. Several told me they thought their pain was normal from their activities, from studying, their fallen arches, or body structure. They regularly took anti-inflammatory medicines, many other prescription drugs with side effects of body pain, many supplements which interact to make achy irritable symptoms, yet they thought they needed special shoes.
You probably have heard since you were a child to not slouch. That easy medicine hasn't changed. You heard to eat vegetables for health and an apple a day to keep the doctor away. I think only a few of the medical students I was teaching caught on, and will help others with what they learned. It can be so easy. Are you doing unhealthy movement while you exercise for health?
Who is the one who is out of the box?
Thank you fischerhuder for cat in the box photo
http://flickr.com/photos/fihu/7773275/
If you drink coffee at night, tea, and colas, and eat chocolate treats before bed, take common medicines, and your legs twitch, you don't need medication for "Restless Leg Syndrome." Your results are obvious and preventable. The cure is free - potentially saving you money on unneeded purchases - when you don't eat stimulant substances before bed.
How Many Sets And Reps Does It Take?
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM
Countless patients and students have asked how many "sets and reps" of exercises and stretches will fix their various problems. The answer is in a story my Mother told me when I was small:
A young boy in school persistently made the same grammar mistake in English. Instead of the proper "I have gone…" he always mistakenly said, "I have went."
The teacher told him to stay after school and write 100 times on the chalkboard, "I have gone, I have gone, I have gone…" The boy wrote "I have gone" the required 100 times. When he finished writing, he saw the teacher had stepped outside.
The boy left the teacher a note, "Dear Teacher, I wrote "I have gone" 100 times, and now I have went home."
The answer is that repetitions are not the entire answer - you have to understand and use the result. I am asked the question so many times of how many "reps" (repetitions) of a rehabilitation or training exercise are needed, that it has become a "light bulb" joke - How many (whatever) does it take to change a light bulb?
Readers ask:
Q. How many sets and reps of upper back exercises does it take to straighten round shouldered posture?
A. None, you just straighten up right then and hold it.
A2. Or you can say one repetition is enough. Then use that one all the time.
A3. Or until you actually use it - Note the person slouching with a forward head and rounded upper back (photo below) to measure posture.
Photo - The teacher has terrible neck and upper body position while assessing the student for posture.
Q. How many sets and reps of back exercises does it take before my disc pain stops that I got from bending over wrong to pick up things?
A. None if you stop bending wrong to remove the cause.
A2. A whole lot more than if you stopped bending wrong.
Q. How many sets and reps of good squats with heels down does it take to get enough stretch in the Achilles tendon to be able to squat well?
A. Doesn't matter, if you use good bending in your ordinary day, you will get hundreds of Achilles tendon stretches throughout the day and it will be built in for you. You aren't supposed to stop your day to do a number of repetitions, then go back to heel up squatting, or bending over wrong.
Q. How many sets and reps of squats does it take before I can squat right to bend right?
A. Until you do it right.
Q. How many sets and reps of your exercises should I do?
A. Until you remember them.
Q. How many sets and reps of your exercises should I do?
A. Until you remember that you are supposed to do them in real life not as exercises.
Thank you Neeta Lind for for posture photo
http://flickr.com/photos/neeta_lind/2216071054/
If you rely on e-devices rather than your memory, and don't know that good concentration comes from practice, then find that memory and concentration tasks are hard, you don't have "Busy Life Syndrome" for which Memantine (Namenda) is commonly prescribed - a drug for moderate to severe dementia.
Fitness Myths - How Many Legs Does a Dog Have If You Call the Tail a Leg?
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?
Four.
Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
~ Abraham Lincoln
Myths! Hype. Fitness and Health have many. Time to set some myths straight.
People argue over who is right about health, often with unhealthful mental state.
They argue things they have don't funny understand but only repeat wrong dogma. They will argue over things they have not themselves researched or even seen, such as as muscle fibers or blood flow or metabolism. Things they read or heard from someone else, who read or heard them from someone else, who had also not actually seen or measured them.
Even medical books are often written by people who have not researched it themselves (in a laboratory themselves), but compiled popular consensus. Doing "medical research" does not mean "read it in a book or on the Internet."
Below are some articles from my former column The Fitness Fixer, (tm) which appeared on Healthline.com from 2006-2010. When the column ended, the Healthline company removed most of the needed illustrations and also cut the articles in half, sometimes putting the second part first (I have no idea why) so some are not as clear as originally written. Then Healthline started removing my articles and redirecting links for my articles to theirs.
Here are some of the articles that used to appear:
Three Common Swimming and SCUBA Myths in the News Again
Fixing Fitness Myths
Fixing More Fitness Myths
Beware of Hype in Training Methods - Includes Mark Spitz' MustacheFixing Posture - No Exercise Needed
I am looking for the Blogspot archive where they and the rest may still be. Check back.
Here is a partial Blogspot archive for a few of the articles to understand fitness myths: http://healthlinefitnessfixer.blogspot.com/search/label/myths
Thank you for dog tail photo by Amelia Jean via Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15777077@N00/91207476
If you undermine others by giving them the opposite of what they need from you, you don't have a psychiatric disorder called "Oppositional Defiant Disorder" You are a JERK.
COMING SOON
Does an Exercise Ball Make You Sit Straight?
More For You
Helpful Reminders to exercise your sense of humor to reduce unhealthy stress and daily troubles:
Fun photos from the Fixa U and a short video of my mother, then 84 years old, tap dancing. Also the results of my entering the I LOOK LIKE MY DOG Contest - Click here http://drbookspan.com/clinical#Enjoy Or click my Clinical page and scroll down to "Get Your Life and and Enjoy it."Individual Care Online Consult. Personal written answers to your questions.
Study WIth Me - Learn In Person. Learn top training. Fix your pain. Group CLASSES and Private Appointments for yourself or your private groups.
Patient Success Stories. Not testimonials, but tutorials so you can do it too. Read how others fixed their own pain and see how to send yours.
Adventure Medicine - Higher, faster, stronger, smarter, funnier.
Fix Your Pain With Fitness as a Lifestyle (Functional Fitness). Not reps of exercises or purchasing training "plans" and devices, but how you move all day, making your daily real life into your own mental, emotional and physical playground of strength mobility and health for knees and the rest of you.
Free Fix Pain Articles on This Web Site. Fix Back Pain, Knee Pain, Leg, Foot, Hamstrings, more. Click the Clinical Page and scroll down to "Start Right Now."
Academy of Functional Exercise Medicine - Fellow Advancement, Awards, Better Earth through Dr. Bookspan's Academy.
TWITTER Tweet nice notes and success stories how you are better, which is my big reward. Prizes for the best ones. Follow me on Twitter @TheFitnessFixer for health updates, quick & short. More sharing buttons at the bottom of this page.
Mental & Emotional Training - a page of Dr. Bookspan's short articles for stronger emotional health.
The Fitness Fixer™ - Dr. Bookspan IS The Fitness Fixer. My column ran on Healthline from 2006 to 2010. After that, they took them all away in favor of their own articles that sell medicines and treatments, The BlogSpot archives still have some of them. Check for articles on Achilles pain, foot, shoes, orthotics, knees, back, nutrition, and more by alphabetical listing. Click here for fun Index. Updates through Twitter, above.
Bookspan Basics - Quick training drills for yourself and your groups. Set up healthy movement training programs for schools and groups, eventually as part of my nationwide program.
Open our RESORT for healthy life training - maybe at your campus, studio or cruise ship? Also join fun and instructive Dr. Bookspan projects - design our Academy logo, be in my next book, write rap and songs about back pain fixes. Click Projects.
Cool T-Shirts, Mugs, Mouse pads, More. T-shirts for teachers and slouchers, mugs that remind healthy neck for drinking, Learn and promote functional health with UNcommon sense gifts from the Academy.
Mailing list. I don't send out any newsletters or keep any lists. For updates, info, articles, fun helpful stuff whenever you want, look at my TWITTER page. No sign-up or log-in needed. If you join ("follow") then you can ask questions too: www.Twitter.com/TheFitnessFixer.
TYPOS - Are You A Helpful Reader? - If you found typos, broken links, or things needing correction on my site, tell me so I can fix them to help everyone, with my thanks: Scientist@DrBookspan.com.
All my books together cost less than your pain killers,and show you how to stop needing them and be healthier than before. Fun, easy to read, illustrated, immediately helpful. Order links directly from Amazon and the publishers below. More book descriptions and info, signed books straight from the author, eBooks, Kindle, and more CLICK my BOOKS page:
Healthy Martial Arts
Top level book for all athletes to train thinking, spirit, and top performance. Healthy Martial Arts is the top of the line book (of my books) for exercises and athletes. Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" is the classic strategy manual in business and power. "Healthy Martial Arts" is the strategy manual for your life. For everyone, not only martial artists, who want to move, live, eat, and be happy in healthy ways. Direct from Amazon - Healthy Martial Arts.Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery
Neck pain, back pain, shoulder and hip pain, knee pain, ankle and foot injuries, wrist pain, and "when everything hurts," featuring actual patient stories in every chapter. Many common exercise contribute to pain and aren't natural movement patterns. Learn fun healthy ways to get healthy movement back as part of your real life.
Print edition from Amazon.
Print and eBook Instant download from the publishers, Healthy Learning and Coaches Choice: https://healthylearning.com/m-1422-jolie-bookspan.aspxStretching Smarter Stretching Healthier
Fun, innovative, immediately useful. Almost 200 simple fun line drawings zero in on each concept.
Print and Kindle from Amazon and instant eBook download from Kobo Books.The Ab Revolution Fourth Edition - No More Crunches No More Back Pain Print 4th Edition.
Core training the way your body actually needs. Part 1 - Learn neutral spine to stop a major form of lower back pain. Part 2 - Apply Part 1 for functional strengthening from simple moves to the toughest you can get. Parts 1 and 2 let you get started quickly and clearly. Details on the anatomy and physiology are expanded and moved to Part 3, plus other improvements in photos and organization in the 4th edition.
Print and Kindle from Amazon.Health & Fitness THIRD Edition
Fix pain plus healthy living - How to be happy healthy and fit for the rest of your life. One book with everything to get started. More photos, clearer descriptions than previous editions.
Order from Amazon.
Print and eBook Instant download from the publisher: https://healthylearning.com/m-1422-jolie-bookspan.aspxDiving Physiology In Plain English
New BLUE cover edition. The diving cult classic. Hard to find. Written by Dr. Jolie Bookspan, the Navy researcher who did the work in the field. BLUE cover is the latest edition. (Green was old) Get the new BLUE. Signed collectors edition, order directly from author, plus other diving and hyperbaric medicine books and resources - through the BOOKS page.
Thank you to my readers who call my work "the no-nonsense approach"
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
- Howard Aiken
That said, Be Healthy - Respect Copyright
This article is here to benefit the world and to Make Exercise Healthy Medicine™
Information, drawings, and photos are © protected copyright. To cite this article or any parts, put author Dr. Bookspan, and link to this site DrBookspan.com at the top and bottom of your reprinting. A suggestion to get my books is also nice. No Derivative Works License means no changes to content, wording or links.
Drawings of Backman!™ copyright © Dr. Jolie Bookspan from the books Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier, Fix Your Own Pain, and others.
More LEGAL waivers, reprint info, etc here.
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