The week absolutely flew by. Time only accelerates in the few weeks before finals. In fact, it’s already Monday (it seems as though last Monday just ended) and I just finished an interactive class with the Florida campus, in which I learned about the magical properties of beets.

Beets are known to improve multiple aspects of athletic performance
(Image Source: hawaiirunningproject.wordpress.com)

Beets can improve your VO2 max by about 15%, which can greatly improve athletic performance, as well as treat mild anemia. Botanical medicine is a class that has produced some informative epiphanies about the medicinal properties inherent to many foods. As part of the curriculum for both DCs and NDs, it’s another facet for creating a doctor that is proficient, both in traditional chiropractic and primary care — indeed, excelling in the world of internal medicine as well.

Prior to finding myself in the middle of another Monday, the past week marked the beginning of the end. We started our final section in many classes. In Radiology of Arthritides, we started our trauma section, in which we discussed the very topical subject of mandibular fractures (as the Florida DC blogger just had his jaw broken in a soccer game a few weeks back). As students of healthcare, I find it eternally fascinating that the conditions that peak our interests the most are the ailments in which we have some sort of vested interest. Whether we have a loved one afflicted with an issue or, perhaps, we have been fighting a battle of our own, it is those conditions that really draw us in. I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all, I think it is a boon to learning. The more complex the issues that are close to us are, the more we learn in the process of self-treatment.

As for me, my ears definitely perked up as we breached the complex subject of shoulders in E&M Extremities as I’ve separated my right AC joint multiple times and continue to have chronic issues with it. I’ve learned, in the long process of trying to fix it, that the root cause is not singular. The true cause lies within the complex interaction of movement patterns, posture, fascial planes, and of course, structural changes. Through my own struggles, I’ve learned great ways to help future patients with shoulder problems, which are exceedingly common. One of the things that I’ve found to help is yoga, and this past weekend, I forayed into aerial yoga with a few classmates.

Aerial yoga at its finest

One of my friends, Andrea, is an aerial yoga instructor and offered a few of us a private lesson at the studio where she works. This form of yoga is extremely low impact, with a wide range of therapeutic applications. The inversions did get to me after a little while, but the utility of the lesson did not escape me. In addition to being an exquisite core workout, it can be used to mobilize joints in the absence of potentially degenerative body weight. As usual, there’s never a dull moment here, at National University.