The Early Show

Stay In Shape With 'FrameWork'

By Tatiana Morales

November 29, 2005 / 7:24 AM EST / CBS

Many people may think of themselves as young at heart, but their bodies may be saying otherwise when they feel aches in their muscles, bones and joints.

Although the average life expectancy in the United States has nearly doubled in the past 100 years to an average of almost 80, our bodies were not designed to last that long.

In a new book called "FrameWork: Your Seven Step Program For Healthy Muscles, Bones And Joints," orthopedic surgeon Dr. Nicholas DiNubile gives advice on how you can help your body last as long as you do.

He visits The Early Show to explain.

Read the following excerpt from his book:

INTRODUCTION

Putting Your Frame First

This book offers the first medically based fitness program for your bones and joints. It's a complete workout combined with diet and lifestyle advice designed to address the No. 1 reason Americans visit the doctor — problems with the musculoskeletal frame.

Who's it for? Elite athletes, complete couch potatoes and all of you in between.
Seriously.

I don't want to sound like a zealot — or a naïve author — but this is a program for everyone, because everyone with a body needs to exercise. But, more to the point, everyone, including — maybe even especially — serious fitness enthusiasts who use their bodies a lot, needs to exercise smarter! The FrameWork way is the only way to make sure you're getting all the benefits of the time you spend working out and that you aren't doing more harm to yourself than good.

Most fitness programs focus on getting you buffed and trim and, no question, this one is going to help you look great in a swimsuit. But FrameWork is not just about looking good. It's also about how you feel and function. It's about durability. It's fitness presented from a medical, healing perspective, the perspective of an orthopaedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist who knows that exercise is a strong medicine. But like any strong medicine, it requires a managed dose.

Your frame is the foundation for every other kind of fitness. Your frame is the anchor for all your muscles, the structural support for all movement. And yet, until now, your bones and joints had to be causing you real trouble before they ever got any attention.

With FrameWork, I want to change all that. It's a fitness program designed to give your frame the attention it deserves, building strength and suppleness that will increase your performance, and your enjoyment, of just about everything you do.

The FrameWork Program teaches you to pay attention to what your body tries to tell you about the exercise dosage it needs: when it needs to move, when it needs to rest, what it needs for fuel, and when it's being challenged by a special problem, whether that problem is a heel spur, a bum knee, or stress on the job.

FrameWork offers techniques for building strength and flexibility, for maintaining range of motion, and for stretching, as well as techniques for avoiding reinjury that athletes usually learn from their orthopaedic surgeon, athletic trainer, or physical therapist only after they've been hurt.

For couch potatoes, this program is a smart way to get you going without hurting yourself. For athletes and fitness buffs, it's the way to keep going longer and stronger than ever before. For the young, FrameWork is the way to learn to exercise right, from the start, to avoid needless wear and tear as well as injury. For anyone over 30, it's the way to work around those dings you've already picked up, to strengthen them, and to make sure you don't reinjure them and put yourself on the sidelines. (In one study of adults involved in a medically supervised fitness program, one-fourth of all exercise participants sustained a musculoskeletal injury. Of these, one-third permanently discontinued their exercise! That is definitely not the way to stay fit and healthy.)

Many years ago, as a youngster with faraway dreams of becoming a doctor, I developed a passion for exercise and fitness. When I was around 10, long before bodybuilding had become mainstream, my parents gave me a set of free weights and dumbbells from Sears. I was hooked. I saw something magical about the ability of every individual to sculpt his or her own body. What impressed me then influences me now in how I help others. But I also learned some lessons the hard way. As a teenager, I shattered my collarbone and missed an entire football season. Several years later, also playing football, I fractured and dislocated my knee. More recently, while horsing around on the beach (as a matter of fact, I was tackled by a well-known fitness guru — you'd think we both would know better by now), I managed to damage a vertebra in my lower back.

So as I work out, I have plenty of weak links I have to work around, which is why it pains me to see people who continue to exercise in a hit-or-miss fashion that invites injury. Others are trapped in the "no-pain, no-gain" mindset that leads to "Fix-Me-Itis," the cycle of injury and repair that qualifies them as the frequent fliers of orthopaedic medicine.
Don't get me wrong — I'm cheering for anyone who makes a commitment to staying in shape. I just hate to see them limping to the sidelines when it doesn't have to be that way. As a doctor as well as a fitness buff, I've learned that you can certainly create problems for your body just as easily in the gym or training room as on the playing field.

I've watched too many runners punish their lower backs and lower extremities. They may have fabulous cardiovascular systems, but too often they have minimal flexibility, which gets them into trouble. Swimmers overdue it with their shoulders. Weight lifters usually overwork their upper bodies and neglect the rest. Golfers and tennis players get back problems and tendonitis.

And I suspect you know some of these people. They're your buddies who can make a social gathering sound like a recovery room, going on about their meniscus tears or rotator cuff problems. Next time you see them, you can tell them for me that most of this damage is entirely predictable — and preventable!

Stop the madness!