Relieve Low Back Pain | Reduce Low Back Pain | Canada's Leading Authority in Human Movement | Dev Chengkalath

I’ve been in the health and fitness business as a physical therapist and human movement specialist long enough to have learned an important lesson.

Health doesn’t sell.

On one hand, everyone cares about it. But on the other hand, it’s just not sexy enough.

You don’t see major corporations touting health as a major benefit of their products, unless their product is inherently unhealthy and they want you to think otherwise.  

So if health isn’t what everyone is after, what’s the holy grail? What’s everybody looking for?

Jamie Eason

Looking good naked.

Can you deny that?

I know I can’t.

Can you honestly say that with every grueling workout you push through, you don’t think of the benefits to your physique before you think of the benefits to your health?

I know I can’t.

And that is the fallacy of exercising solely for health. 

Keep on moving to look good naked.

Dev Chengkalath.

Feel the burn. 

Well folks, that’s exactly what I did. And did it burn. 

In fact, the chorus of Disco Inferno kept running through my head. 

“Burn baby! Burn!”

The saddest part: there was no iron involved!

Here’s the story of Day 1 of my journey of movement. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I actually do, because it really was just yesterday. Since I’ve recently moved into a new apartment, there is a serious lack of furniture in my living room. In one sense, this should cause me distress as I have nowhere to sit, but in another, this leaves me with quite a bit more room to “train” at home.

What my muscles were singing

I use the term train loosely as it wasn’t more than about 25 minutes of bodyweight movements. But it sure felt like the minutes kept ticking. Slowly. Ever so slowly. 

I started with some basic warm up movements, similar to those outlined in my free report. Got my glutes warmed up. Got my heart rate up a bit. Activated my scapulae. That was the first 6-7 minutes.

The next 18 minutes of doom involved me going through various circuits of lunges, squats, planks, burpees, push ups and dynamic quasi-yoga poses. 

“Burn Baby! Burn!”

There was that familiar refrain dancing its way through my mind’s ear (if your mind can have an eye, shouldn’t it have ears as well?). 

As quick as a winter snowsquall, it was over. As with a winter snowsquall, it left its mark. 

These were not used in my workout.

Usually I find it takes about 2 days for DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness-you know that deep muscle ache that causes descending stairs to become the bane of one’s existence, that lingering malaise when seating oneself onto the toilet seat-you know the one!) to set in. 

No such luck! I had IOMS. Instantaneous Onset of Muscle Soreness. And today, it goes much deeper. Every movement, every action, every hop, skip or jump, I’m reminded that I brought this onto myself. 

AND I LOVE IT!

This is my journey. Thanks for coming along. 

Dev Chengkalath

When you don't move

Being a movement guy, I get a lot of email relating to, well, movement.

Just today, in fact, I was emailed a link to an article which discussed why exercise alone is not the solution to the obesity epidemic.

No surprise there, as we all know that nutrition plays a fairly large role.

However, in this article, the author was discussing how a few hours a week of exercise was still not enough movement.

I agree.

This is where NEAT comes into play.

NEAT is the acronym for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis and represents ALL of your daily movement that’s not intentional exercise.

This includes puttering around your house (or your desk), walking to the mailbox, around the grocery store, to the dry cleaners or even your fidgeting.

Just move.

According to this article, in the past 150 years, we have dropped NEAT related calorie burn by about 2000 calories a day.

If you think that seems like a lot, it’s because it is!

We’ve stopped taking the stairs, we drive everywhere, we use remote controls and have automation everywhere. Technology is playing its part in making us fatter. 

Take a stand. And move. 

Dev Chengkalath

Looking for a quick and easy way to relieve the stress that builds up in your neck and shoulders from an unrelenting work day?

As a high performance physiotherapist in Toronto, I see people come in with stiff, painful and sore upper backs, necks and shoulders all the time. These people usually haven’t hurt themselves doing crazy exerises or through sports, but rather through their daily routines. They’ve been working for years at the computer, driving or commuting, lounging on the couch watching TV, to name a few.

Here’s one of the easiest moves to release those tight achy muscles. As an added bonus, it takes only a few seconds and requires no equipment other than a wall and a small amount of space.

Stand up tall facing the wall. Rest your forearms against the wall while keeping your head and chest up and in neutral position. Basically, don’t be looking up and don’t be looking down. Slowly slide your forearms up the wall while flexing your shoulders up. At the highest point, take a deep breath in and slowly exhale all the way. While doing this, let your shoulders drop down and relax completely through your upper back and neck. Take another deep breath in and slowly exhale. This time, still keeping your neck, shoulders and back relaxed, let your arms be pulled down to the starting position by gravity. Repeat two to four times and you’re ready to face that computer workstation again.

Now go out and move.

Dev Chengkalath

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.

Victor Hugo

Over my lifetime in sport and fitness, I’ve picked up many lessons and missed out on just about as many. I’ve gone through the same ups and downs you have. I’ve been injured. I’ve had near misses. I’ve been lucky. I’ve set new personal bests. And I’ve failed more times than I can remember. Or care to remember. 

Through it all, I’ve learned many lessons.

Though the soccer pitch or the dingy gym called the “armpit” may not be a place of learning in the traditional sense, the lessons learned were no less important.

It may not be “school”, but teachers are all around us, if we care to learn.

Not all lessons are taught in the classroom

Coaches, teammates, opponents, physical therapists and trainers. Each has contributed in some way. Some forcing me to prove them wrong. Others forcing me to prove them right.

“Sorry Dev, you didn’t make the team, you’re not big enough, not strong enough.”

“Dev, we need you to nail that penalty kick. Don’t let us down!”

Sport granted me the basic tenets to continue to be active throughout my life and how to interact with others. It taught me basics such as discipline, determination and teamwork. It made me work my ass off to compete with those lucky or gifted or tenacious enough to be stronger, better or faster.

The iron taught me something different. 

It taught me to look within myself. To dig a little bit deeper, to go beyond losing fat, building six pack abs and big bench presses.

It taught me to defy gravity.

And isn’t that the purpose of being human? 

To move and fight against that unseen force?

When we stop moving, we start dying.

So keep moving.

Dev Chengkalath