More often than most of us would like pain interferes with our highest ambitions regarding goal-scoring (or saving) glory. Old injuries from past glorious (and not so glorious) victories can come back to haunt us leaving you open to the ?washed up has been? teammate back talking. I know you?re as good as you think you are, in fact, you?re better! If only that sore knee, or back, or shoulder would get better, you would be scoring goals in no time!

As a Naturopathic Physician specializing in Prolotherapy, I see aspiring athletes everyday denied of their latest glory due to injury. As we get older we often obtain more and more battle scars opening us up for, yes you guessed it, more injury.

The good news is that there are solutions. Being healthy is the first and most obvious one. A healthy diet full of vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds and lean protein such as chicken and fish is a great place to start. Remember that your body is built with what you eat so you don?t build a championship physique with burgers and pizza. Supplements also can be helpful. For starters, I recommend everyone regularly takes a good quality fish oil, multivitamin, and for those of you in pain, MSM and glucosamine.

Useful treatments to reduce your pain are manipulation (no not your spouse, but your spine), acupuncture; massage therapy and a variety of injection techniques. I often advise active athletes to see a good massage therapist at least twice a month if you want to stay on top of your game. A tight muscle is a soon to be injured muscle – not only that, it is also weaker and will hamper your performance. Spinal manipulation is also an important part of your overall wellness. Spinal segments need to have optimal mobility to allow for your body to function at its full potential. Manipulation will help maintain a healthy spine and go a long way for back and neck injury prevention. Finally, for those of you who are falling apart (or so it seems), you will usually need some prolotherapy to repair some of the old injuries to your ligaments and tendons. Prolotherapy involves an injection of dextrose (glucose sugar) and local anaesthetic into various ligament attachments to speed up repair. Unfortunately, ligaments and tendons tend to hold grudges and have a hard time letting go of past abuse. After 6-10 treatments the tissues improve in strength and usually dramatically improve pain.

If you are sick of hearing your teammates snicker when you are busy taping yourself together in the dressing room, it may be time for some rejuvenation to see if you still got the stuff!

For additional information on Naturopathic Medicine, or to find a Doctor of Naturopathic in your area, please visit www.cand.ca. To contact Dr. Gallant directly, please visit www.doctorgallant.com. We would love to hear your feedback regarding this exciting new arena of medicine, and welcome your comments in our Forum!

Flowers have much more importance that just for conveying your feelings to someone. Every country has its own national flower. It depends upon their traditions and beliefs. Countries like the US and UK have a common national flower – The Rose while India has Lotus.

The Chamomile is the national flower of Russia. Now there are reasons why Russia chose it as its national flower. You have to read a lot about local history and traditions. Chamomile is available in bright colors and has a pleasant fragrance. It grows at most areas here and in some other countries.

It looks very beautiful with white petals along with a inner yellow core. People often gift this flower to their relatives and friends on various important days. It also commands respect and sends feelings of love.

Chamomile is gifted to relatives and friends but it is also used for its health benefits. It is very important medically and it has been proven to cure various conditions. So it is used as a herb.

Chamomile is recommended for patients suffering from Hysteria and nervous disorders. It is also effective in typhoid patients and those suffering from sprains and bruises. It can also heal calluses in patients.

The oil squeezed from the Chamomile flower is also used for many purposes. It is used as a calmer. It can also provide relief from toothache. It is also recommended for people suffering from cough and cold. It is even helpful for asthma patients.

These can be kept for more time after drying them. These are mixed in water before using them for bathing purposes. The Chamomile flower oil is used as hair oil too and it works well for those suffering from sleeplessness.

So there is a lot of importance of Chamomile. It is rather a valuable herb that is effective in treating many health conditions. It can be abundantly found in Russia and deserves to be the national flower.

In this article we are going to provide you guidance about our first scale, the Minor Pentatonic scale. Pentatonic is a remarkable scale to learn, specially for guitar. It is normally the 1st scale. It is pretty simple, and it works very well over simple chord progressions, and is a great place to start practicing improvisation for soloing.

The fundamental information about the Minor Pentatonic Scale

Pentatonic scale has 5 notes (hence the Penta- in its name). This is the first scale. It is very interesting because most scales you will learn in the future have 7 notes in them. It has only 2 notes on every string and this makes the pentatonic scale easier to play. The Pentatonic scale includes both major and minor – we will concentrate on the Minor Pentatonic musical scale in this lesson.

In the scales intro any scale can be described by a plain numeric pattern, and the pentatonic scale can also be described in the same fashion.

Its formula is: 3 2 2 3 2

Lets see how this works in an example, for example G Minor Pentatonic.

We start with G as our base note, and add up every step of the rule to find the next note:

G + 3 semitones is Bb Bb + 2 semitones is C C + 2 semitones is D D + 3 semitones is F F + 2 semitones is G

So there you find G minor pentatonic notes that are G, Bb, C, D, F, G. This rule can be applied with any other base note for the exact scale wholly depending upon your selection.

Furthermore, you can move these patterns up and down the neck. For example, if you want a minor Pentatonic, then you work it out as follows:

The base note A is 2 semitones up from G, so just move every of these rules up 2 frets and voila, you will find patterns for A minor pentatonic.

Also, the patterns repeat up the neck after the 1st five – therefore if you want to climb up higher, start once again with the 1st rule played with the G root note played on the 15th fret instead of the 3rd fret.

The Blues Scale

Another scale, very closely related to the minor pentatonic scale is the blues scale which is used in blues. An attitional leading note to the pentatonic scale is commonly added by the blues players which is technically known as a flattened 5th – that means an additional note in between notes 3 and 4 of the pentatonic scale. When this note is added to the minor pentatonic scale you acquire the blues scale. The formula changes when you add that extra note to it and it becomes like this: 3 2 1 1 3 2, and our example G minor Pentatonic becomes G, Bb, C, Db, D, F, G when rewritten as the blues scale.

The Minor Pentatonic Scale in Action

Now we are going to talk about that how to play the Minor Pentatonic and the Blues scale. Both the Pentatonic and the Blues scales are suitable for playing Rock and 12 bar blues with. Lets focus on 12 bar blues – a very pretty simple concept that is considered as a source of some awesome music over the years.

The chords you apply are a type of I, IV, V progression – what that means isn’t really critical at this point, but the chords you would use with a G minor or Pentatonic scale would be as follows:

G – G – G – G – C – C – G – G – D – C – G – D This chord sequence enables you to play sequences of notes from any of the pentatonic boxes and you will acquire a bluesy kind of improvisation going.