... continued from cover No. 4: ‘THE MARKY
were to walk in on you doing these “exercises,” they may think you’d completely lost it. No. 2: ESTELLE GETTY — YOUNG AT HEART — BODY CONDITIONING “Congratulations, you figured out how to turn on your VCR,” says Estelle Getty at the begin- ning of this clip. “That’s the hardest part of this exercise video.”Normally, claiming that sticking a VHS in the machine and hitting play was more difficult than the workout itself would be seriously false advertising. But that’s not the case with Estelle’s body conditioning. When the exercises themselves include such back- breaking movements as raising your hands and saying, “I feel lousy,” the only sweat you’ll break is from trying to figure out how the heck this video came to exist. No. 1: COUNTRY HIP-HOP DANCING What do you get when you mix line dancing instruction, a fitness program, and a healthy
dash of ‘90s hip-hop flavor? Diane Horner’s “Country Hip Hop” of course. We can neither confirm nor deny whether these fresh-to-death moves ever gained a foothold at square dances nationwide, but we’d love to see them in action. Watch this clip so you can break out the “country version of the running man” at your next dance party.
MARKWORKOUT’
Today, Mark Wahlberg is an Oscar-nominated actor and respected member of the Hollywood elite. In the early ‘90s, though, he was known solely as the chiseled leader of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Nobody would’ve wanted Wahlberg to create an instructional singing video, but they certainly wanted his abs. To help regular folks like us achieve his look, Wahlberg created “The Marky Mark Workout” in 1993. If you like your fitness routines to include both sexual innuendo and dated ‘90s hip-hop slang, this is the workout for you. No. 3: ‘CRAZY FUNNY FACE LIFT EXERCISES’ Do you skip leg day? Never? Good for you. What about face day? Wait — you mean you’ve never heard of face day? You clearly haven’t watched this indescribably wacky video from the late ‘80s urging women to hold ridiculous face poses in order to fight wrinkles and other signs of aging. Let’s just say that if somebody
HONORABLE MENTION: NEARLY EVERY GIMMICK FITNESS PRODUCT EVER
In the era before “Shark Tank,” there were no celebrity investors to laugh your cockamamie workout product out of the market. As a result, we’ve seen inventors create everything under the sun in order to make a fast buck from those trying to get in shape. If you have ever seen advertisements for ThighMaster, Shake Weight, or Sauna Suit, you know exactly what we’re talking about.
Why Exercise Therapy Should Be the First Step in Recovery Amid an Epidemic, PT Helps Curb Opioid Abuse
Studies show that physical therapy may have the potential to dramatically reduce opioid reliance, abuse, and overdose. In one 2017 study published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, researchers discovered that, in cases where doctors referred patients suffering from low back pain to a PT as a first-line treatment, the odds that the patient ended up needing an opioid prescription decreased significantly. Other studies have also reinforced the same trend for treatment post-surgery: When physical therapy is the first recommendation, patients tend to use fewer opioids and actually spend less on treatment in the long run. The evidence seems clear: If patients follow the recommendations of the CDC and consider physical therapy before taking pills, they substantially lower their risk of dependence on and abuse of prescription drugs. Of course, you should always follow the advice of your doctor, but consider requesting a referral to PT first — it’s just a safer, more consistent, and less expensive option. And who knows? It might just save your life!
Today, a startling number of Americans suffer from opioid addiction. According to a report published in the Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology, more than 4 percent of U.S. adults misused prescription opioids in 2018. Prescription drugs can lead to enough tragic overdoses on their own, but as the physical aspects of addiction set in and prescriptions dry out, addicts desperately turn to more serious drugs like heroin and fentanyl. Opioid addiction is indiscriminate; it can strike anyone of any social class, race, gender, or economic standing. This is one reason the overprescription of opioids over the last two decades, coupled with a more recent flood of street opioids, led to more than 70,000 deaths in 2017. In an effort to stem the tide of opioid-related deaths, the CDC issued a set of new recommendations to doctors in 2016. They questioned the effectiveness of opioids for the management of chronic pain and encouraged physicians to instead focus on physical therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and other nonopioid pharmacologic options for long- term intervention.
2 • www.ThomasPhysicalTherapy.com
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