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MuscleDoctor

by Gabor Lingauer

110 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0381; ISBN 1-55369-568-2; US$15.95, C$24.88, EUR16.20, £11.30

Proper nutrition and muscle maintenance should be regarded as two basic forms of medicine. MuscleDoctor serves to fill a deep void left by the United States' health-care system which neglects and sidelines people's musculature and nutritional needs. We tend to believe there is grandness only in sophistication; simple things are frequently overlooked. We must not ignore fundamental solutions. Without them, even the most advanced medical treatments are completely useless.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts or Table of Contents      catalogue info

About the Book MuscleDoctor presents indisputable solutions to enhance the quality of life, achieving longevity and chronic well-being as well as preventing injury and disease by recognizing the human musculature as a medically treatable and maintainable unit of the humam body. The book is highly controversial in its focus on the failure of "modern medicine" regarding their approach and ineffectiveness in treating, stress tension, neck and backaches, migraine, arthritis, sciatica and repetitive motion injuries, such as tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome. MuscleDoctor provides simple, straightforward solutions to remedy and prevent the above mentioned problems along with other muscle related conditions.

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About the Author About the Author Gabor Lingauer is a native of Hungary. After coming to the US in 1982, he became certified as a massage therapist and he now owns a massage studio with his wife. He is intrigued about how the human musculature affects your physical and mental health, and appalled at how the US medical industry regards pill popping as disease prevention. In his spare time, you can find him enjoying nature and various outdoor activities with his family, such as hiking, bicycling, and kayaking.

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Sample Excerpts or Table of Contents

Excerpt from MuscleDoctor's Introduction:

Preventing illnesses and disease and keeping a nation healthy is not as profitable for the medical industry as curing advanced diseases. Although the US has the world's most technically advanced health-care system, it is far from being the leader in other areas. Researching our bodies’ basic operating principles in regards to our well-being would serve as a deterrent to most illnesses. Yet, while medical groups and pharmaceutical companies boast about medical breakthroughs and wonder drugs, they can’t be bothered to research how observing our bodies’ basic operating principles would prevent illness, injury, or disease. Prevention is not in the financial interest of doctors, lawyers, and pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Issues and solutions that pertain to everyone's health should be the highest priority on the nation's agenda. Those who preside over our nation's health-care system lack knowledge about the body's maintenance needs, or even worse, they withhold that information from the public, allowing aches and pains to go unresolved.

Until the (irr)responsible parties, such as the surgeon general, Food and Drug Administration, and the Education Department, wake up and take action to improve this nation's health, I would like to present my own ideology, facts, and solutions. I guarantee positive results.

Scientific research data, statistical and news reports, and my practical experience form the basis of this book's information. My desire to tell the truth inspired me to piece these together in a logical, straightforward fashion. Because you are reading this book, you must take great interest in your own health and the well-being of your loved ones. I am certain that you'll be able to relate to my stories and examples of the medical industry's shortcomings. My most sincere hope is that I'll be able to answer and make sense of many common and unanswered questions regarding the role of muscles and nutrition in your health.

I hope this book will assure those of you who are proactive about your own and your loved ones’ healthcare. I will prove that nutritional education and massage and muscle therapy deserve to be recognized and implemented as mainstream medical modalities. Without them, the overall health of this nation will continue to decline. Proper nutrition and muscle maintenance are the most effective methods of preserving, maintaining, or regaining excellent health. The alternative is giving up responsibility of your health to strangers or synthetic drugs.

From Chapter 1, Internal Hygiene

The Body's Basic Operating Principles
Here is some basic information about the way the body works. This will give you a general understanding of how to keep your body healthy.

Fuel
Ensuring proper nutritional and water intake is one of the first steps in internal hygiene. An efficiently burning fuel is less likely to leave harmful unused deposits behind and a hydrated system helps to flush out any unwanted byproducts.

Scientific research has shown the connection between longevity and healthy cellular activity. The human body is an internal combustion engine. The refined food is mixed with oxygen and burned within every cell in the body to produce heat and energy. Imagine the stomach as the body's fuel refinery. There, the food we eat is broken down into tiny particles of nutrients and muscle sugar, which are then absorbed into the blood through the intestines. Blood is responsible for picking up and transporting oxygen, muscle sugar, and nutrients to all cells in the body. These nutrients are the building blocks of healthy new cells. The refined fuel and oxygen mixture is ignited within the mitochondria (the combustion chamber within every cell) by coenzyme Q10 (the equivalent of the spark plug in your automobile's engine). This is how the body creates heat and energy to move its muscles, while at the same time eliminating broken down, old cells from its structure. This process is commonly known as metabolism.

If the fuel and oxygen mixture is balanced, the byproducts will exit the system without leaving harmful deposits behind. An unbalanced mixture (excess amount of fuel and insufficient amount of oxygen) guarantees toxic residue accumulation, starting in the body's muscular system. Eating too much and neglecting physical activity causes an unbalanced mixture.

A study published by the American Medical Association in June 1998 stated that 56 percent of Americans are overweight; of those, 29 million are at risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease due to their obesity. In January 2001, a similar study by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that 61 percent of the population is overweight. Yet experts at the FDA and CDC aren't certain how to control this obesity epidemic. How about focusing on improving internal hygiene through nutrition, oxygenation, and muscle maintenance?

Unburned toxic residue such as fat, arterial plaque, lactic acid in muscles, and feces that stick to the colon's wall are poisoning the human body from within. This toxicity has killed more Americans than smoking.

Sleep
Study after study shows that Americans are one of the most sleep-deprived people in the world. In early 2001, research scientists declared that insufficient sleep contributes to more rapid aging, obesity, and an increased risk of developing diabetes. Sleeping has a tremendous purpose. While you're asleep, your body has a chance to catch up with its cleansing duties. If you let your body complete its cleansing cycle, you'll wake up rested and energized. If you wake up before your body is ready, the cleansing cycle is still completing its process, so you'll feel physically and mentally tired.

If you consume caffeine and sugar to overcome the fatigue, a new day's bodily trash will pile up on yesterday's junk. For millions of people, the next sleeping and cleansing cycle will never be long enough;b so much trash will pile up that the body breaks down from exhaustion or from disease. A body full of waste products cannot produce enough young, healthy cells to replace the old ones. It's no wonder that a tired body ages so rapidly.

Nutrition: Guidelines aren't enough
In October 1999, the American Heart Association (AHA) released the results of a 14-year study in which they concluded that obese people have a greater chance of dying at a young age even if they don't drink or smoke. With all due respect to the AHA, the same conclusion could have been reached in 14 days, not 14 years, just by walking through retirement communities. Try to find an obese person in their seventies. You won't easily find one. Finding an obese person in their eighties or nineties is like finding a needle in a haystack. Of course, a 14-day-long study wouldn't justify the millions of dollars worth of grants given in the name of science and research.

In October 2000, the AHA released their new nutrition guidelines. They declared that Americans should not be too concerned about daily percentages of fat, carbohydrate, and protein in certain food groups, but rather everyone should use common sense about their nutrition. Excuse me for one second! We can only use our common sense if we have basic knowledge about how our systems operate.

Apparently the AHA lacks this knowledge too; they haven't yet prevented heart disease, the number one cause of death in the US. Common sense would dictate to implement a nutritional program to all those interested in maintaining their good health. People should be concerned about how much fat, sugar, carbohydrate, and protein they take in. Everyone should know how these substances, fat in particular, affect your heart's health. Athletes, astronauts, fighter pilots, as well as many ordinary people know these basic tenets, so they use common sense about their nutritional needs.

It would be reasonable to expect the AHA to use common sense by having extensive knowledge about regular muscle maintenance. The heart, which is a vital organ and pure muscle, requires the body's muscles to circulate blood to provide nutrients and oxygen to the body's cells and tissues. Unhealthy, rigid, and fatigued muscles cannot perform as they should and the heart must then work harder. This decreases the heart's life span. The AHA hasn't been able to slow the increasing numbers of obese because they don't seem to know how to use common sense. Releasing such a vague, unscientific statement about nutrition and taking 14 years to determine that being overweight does not promote longevity is irresponsible. Does the AHA lack nutrition and muscle maintenance knowledge or couldn't they research this a little bit harder? I dare to say, AHA, that your common sense approach is just not good enough for me; you've got to do much better than that!

From Chapter 11, Stretching for Fitness
By now, every health-conscious person should realize the critical importance of clean, flexible, and healthy muscles. We have discussed the value of therapeutic massage in detail, but as I always emphasize to my clients, muscle maintenance cannot stop after they get off the massage table. You must develop and frequently practice (preferably daily) a stretching routine to prolong and maintain the benefits that massage therapy provided.

Whether you are physically active and athletic or cooped up in an office all day because of your business or career, sooner or later muscle tension will adversely affect your life. Stretching holds the greatest potential to prevent or eliminate muscle tension. Your body will warn you that an impending tension is developing into a potentially chronic, painful condition. But you must be able to understand what your body is telling you. Listen to your body.

Regular stretching will help you become more aware of your muscles’ elasticity and joints’ flexibility. With stretching, your body parts will have a greater range of motion. Your physical and mental energy level will increase as you maintain unrestricted blood circulation. Your body's ability to resist and fight off disease will increase as you maintain clean muscles. Elastic muscles will let the body flex, while tight, rigid muscles will strain, tear, injure joints, and let bones break. Stretching will give you confidence and the knowledge to live a pain-free life, no matter how much you demand from your body; and that is true fitness. Muscles that are regularly exercised respond to massage and stretching more quickly. Well-toned muscles regain elasticity and flexibility much quicker because they don't have tension and lactic acid in their tissues.

I receive several calls a week from new and infrequent clients about their lower back, shoulder, and neck pain. Without exception, they tell me about the most impossible ways they think they "injured" themselves such as "I slept wrong." They think just by lifting a light box, brushing their teeth, sneezing, coughing, picking up the telephone, or just turning around in the bed or the office chair causes their symptoms. They say they never used to have back pain, neck pain, and so on. I know when someone is in pain (I've been there myself) and I know it is difficult for them to listen to a brutally honest reply, which, coming from me, is somewhat like this: "It is not what you've done now or how you did it, but rather what you haven't been doing all these years, which is not taking care of your muscles."

To stay fit and injury free, you must undertake a regular and progressively dynamic muscle maintenance routine through massage and stretching. Massage is an effective treatment but it is almost impossible for anyone to receive one daily because of time and cost. Stretching, however, is always as close and available as your own body. Depending on your frame of mind and available time, you can do it as little as one minute or as long as an hour and a half at a time.

Muscle tension always builds from within. Muscle tissues that are closest to bones, joints, and tendons tighten up first. Tension builds until it reaches the muscle group's outer layers, close to the skin where the stiffness is obvious by touch. During a massage treatment, therapists must break up the tension by starting at the muscle group's outer layers and, layer by layer, break up the tension until they can reach deep tissue. Normally, this process takes several intense massage sessions. Regular stretching, on the other hand, would encourage the entire muscle group to move in unison, therefore helping the inner layers become dislodged and loosen up along with the outer part of the muscle group.

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Catalogue Information

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