Interview with Neil Rampe
I first met Neil Rampe when I was looking for someone to help me work through some nagging injuries. My chiropractor told me to refrain from some really basic movements for the rest of my life, and had provided me with a handy booklet of exercises I could do a million reps of quite easily. I felt these weren’t really helping me get stronger and work through some muscular imbalances.
At the time, Rampe was a strength and conditioning coach working for the University of Arizona basketball team. I was searching for a midway point between what my chiropractor told me (which was way too easy) and the seemingly easy core-strengthening exercises that left me in agonizing pain. I thought Neil Rampe really helped bridge the gap. Apparently the Diamondbacks thought so too, because they stole him from us. So here’s a bit about Neil Rampe and what he’s about.
Q: So you used to be the strength & conditioning coach for the U of A basketball team and now you work for the Diamondbacks… what exactly do you do?
Organic: To Buy or Not to Buy?
Let’s face it. While eating 100% organic food is an ideal many strive for, a variety of circumstances (such as financial constraints or simply convenience) make it impossible not to sometimes fall short. But how do you juggle the desire to minimize your consumption of pesticides with limited organic produce selections and your dwindling pocketbook?
The Dirty Dozen (and the Clean 15)
Luckily for us, the Environmental Working Group has put together a list of the most heavily contaminated fruits and vegetables. Their research has found that those eating from the Dirty Dozen list consume an average of ten pesticides a day. These are the fruits and vegetables you’ll want to always buy organic, or otherwise avoid entirely. So make sure your spinach is organic, Popeye. Vegetables included in the dirty dozen are celery, spinach, kale, bell peppers and potatoes. Fruits that are sprayed heavily are much more prevalent and include peaches, strawberries, apples, blueberries, nectarines, cherries and imported grapes.
Esther Gokhale
Esther Gokhale has been called the Michael Pollan of posture, but perhaps a comparison to nutrition pioneer Weston Price would be more accurate. Weston Price was a dentist who conducted ethnographic nutritional studies across diverse cultures, synthesizing dietary principles held in common by cultures that were not ailed by modern diseases. Gokhale looked to native people, ancient Greeks and young children to synthesize what kinesthetic
principles led to their ease of movement and back health.Gokhale, a Harvard and Princeton-trained biochemist (as well as an acupuncturist), suffered from back pain in her 20s. She was awake every two hours, walking around her neighborhood in a vain attempt to relieve the agonizing pain she was in due to an L5/S1 disc herniation. Because she was nursing, pain medications were not an option. Although Gokhale had back surgery for the herniated disc, her sciatic pain returned a couple of years later and the doctors recommended a second surgery. Gokhale, instead, studied at the Aplomb Institute in Paris, took anatomy and anthropology courses at Stanford, and travelled all around the world; observing, interviewing, photographing and filming people in countries where back pain is virtually unknown. Gokhale also looked to babies, ancient statues and
photographs from the past to better understand the blueprint of our skeletal structure, the laws of nature that are being ignored and leading to back pain.
