Author Archive
Stress Relief
Posted by: | CommentsWe have at our disposal the ability to have stress relief in an instant.
Each day our muscles respond to the demands or lack of demand we impose upon the muscles, even if we aren’t exercising.
Stress Relief, Use it or Stress
If your walking and crossing a street, you body will react to the hurtling speeding objects of a car by raising your shoulders up. Next time you go on a walk, feel if this happens. It may be a slight or imperceptible sense, yet this is how stress in our muscles add up.
Little by little, day by day, our muscles respond and add up frequent stress user points. Now if only we had a credit card which would take these stressful moments into account, we could all fly around the world many times over.
Yet with all the stress we accumulate, how often do we give ourself stress relief measures?
Stress Relief Made Easy
Instead of waiting till later, we can use a simple brain process the way healthy animals naturally take care of stress. After all, they have to deal with being eaten or work very hard to eat. Imagine how stressful that is.
Well animals use a stress relief method called a pandiculation. When our muscles tighten up and accumulate stress, we feel the associated stiffness and other noxious signals that comes with the territory of modern day living.
Vertebrate animals know how to bring muscles back to length, not by stretching as we once thought, they go about it by pandiculating their way to health.
They make stress relief look easy since they have to keep their muscles ready to be used in case they need to instantly flee.
We can use our brain and do the very act animals do to keep our muscles and feelings of tension and tightness at bay.
Stress relief is like a lost art. Did you know that most of us actually did this very animal act in our mother’s womb? Somewhere on the way to becoming an adult, we lost this healthy sense and process yet we can get it back on track with a little practice.
Stress Relief Online Class
Somatics exercises are used successfully to give us the ability to stress relief ourself at will.
When we feel the accumulation of stress, all we need to do is apply our lost sense and use our muscles in a way which will instantly create chemicals of relaxation.
This kind of stress relief is our natural way to self-adjust the overworked, stressed out muscles.
To remember how easy this is to do, please join us for an online stress relief class.
Stress relief is natural using the brain’s cortex so we can rest easy, rev up and relieve our ourself, again and again.
Fit Over 50
Posted by: | CommentsStaying Fit Over 50 isn’t all about hard work. Are you ready to keep on rockin’ once you hit 50? Don McGrath and myself are going to share how you can be…
Fit Over 50
You can join our Fit Over 50 live phone call for free and find out:
• How to be confidently active
• Specific techniques successful athletes use
• Ways to be injury-free
Don interviewed and wrote, “50 Athletes Over 50″ and will share what he gained from that experience. He’s also the creator of the “21 Day, 7 Habits Program” which gives us the body and energy we need.
Getting out of physical pain and recovering quickly from injury is what I do as a seasoned Hanna Somatic Educator and recent gold medal winner at the Washington State Senior games. I’ll share with you specific things to do to remain agile, limber, pain-free and have the ability to move like a healthy animal any time you want.
Being Fit Over 50 is easy
To be fit, you have to have the know-how and use the tools we’re gonna share with you on this call.
We’ll give you the specific techniques that you can use to move well beyond 50 too.
Register for the Free Call for Fit Over 50
We’re going to rock the house, like 50 year olds still can.
We’ll even throw in a surprise when you sign up for the Fit Over 50 call, so sign up here.
Coordination exercise
Posted by: | CommentsDid you laugh at this coordination exercise?
Coordination exercise for natural flexibility
Things which look easy take a lot of coordinating actions and natural flexibility.
Developing this kind of flexibility can be achieved via a learning process using the brain’s intent to create movement patterns and experience them in novel ways which releases any holding or compensatory patterns we carry.
When we’re stiff and too contracted or not as mobile as we’d like, a movement like that coordination exercise may seem to take a lot of effort.
Coordination exercise to build strength
We can naturally and quickly develop the requisite strength by setting up the building blocks of movement so a coordination exercise such as the one in the video… becomes effortless.
Strength can be achieved in many ways. Somatics exercises lead us down this path as we need the requisite freedom in movement of our smaller muscles to move the larger ones.
Coordination Exercise Class
We’ll do more than just that particular movement you saw in the video in this week’s online class, though not on a table like you saw. We’ll give it a whirl on the ground instead.
You’ll get the chance to see and feel how your hamstrings and back will lengthen
by doing a simple test at the beginning and end of class.
What sets up our ability to do a coordination exercise easily and naturally is accomplished using the pandicular process which is at the heart of somatics exercises.
Please join me in this week’s online coordination exercise class for the hamstrings, back, knees and more.
Hamstrung by Hamstring Exercises
Posted by: | CommentsHave you been hamstrung and tried all sorts of hamstring exercises lately?
Hamstring Exercises
Those muscles behind the back of the legs can be tight and stiff in spite of our attempts to loosen them by stretching.
Is it possible to release other muscles associated in a causal chain of movement which will allow the hamstrings to be more comfortable?
Somatics hamstring exercises focus on the brain’s ability to release chemicals of relaxation so the hammies are free to move about without all the stiffness or tightness we carry around with us.
Hamstring exercises and a tight back
Many times, a stiff back is what prevents hamstring exercises from being effective. You can actually tighten things without realizing it, if you push contracted muscles beyond their set limits.
Freeing up the back is often necessary for the hamstrings to function more effectively.
Not only that, we may need to free up the shoulders, which if left too contracted, can have adverse effects all the way down to those screaming hammies. Ouch!
Somatics hamstring exercises class
Instead of the usual hamstring exercises and approaches, somatics exercises work with the brain’s cortex to release held muscular contraction levels which frees up the hamstrings.
Having a more flexible back, looser shoulders and a freer neck allows the hamstring to work in concert with certain patterns of movements.
Hamstring exercises while all well and good, may not provide the necessary connection towards freer movement overall.
Join us this Friday for some online hamstrings exercises and more.
Somatics is often the reverse of most approaches out there since we use the brain to focus on freeing up movement rather than the brawn of exercise.
Hamstring exercises can be fun when we coordinate entire movement sequences which will ultimately free the hamstrings and undo being hamstrung.
Hip and Knee Pain
Posted by: | CommentsEasing hip and knee pain
Was that an easy move for your hips, knees and your back? To ease hip and knee pain, the back needs to be supple and flexible.
While some people will argue the case for strengthening the core, we can find ways to ensure the middle of our self is loose enough to have the requisite mobility to move easily.
Hip and knee pain can often be alleviated when our middle, the spine, begins to unwind itself from holding patterns which prevents us from moving our hips and knees comfortably.
Better mobility lessens hip and knee pain
Hip and knee pain sometimes go hand in hand when the hips have lost their mobility as well as the spine. Our knees may continue to get pounded in the same manner day in, day out when our mobility is less than optimal.
To move the knee around comfortably is to regain the ability and mobility we once had. Since movement is a memory, we can refoster those memories by going back to the well – of youthful movement in the artful ways in which somatics exercises remind us to move easily and with the least effort.
Natural flexibility allows hip and knee pain to abate
Instead of hard work or over zealous exercising, somatics exercises offers us a reverse way into the brain by slowing things downs so our hip and knee pain gives as we regain our natural flexibility once our mobility returns.
This week, you can join me for an online somatics exercise class where you’ve already seen the last movement. Now all we have to do is do the steps before that so the hip and knee pain abates when our movement software is updated.
We can learn to our way back to getting out of hip and knee pain by regaining the mobility we had and rediscovering our natural flexibility…otherwise you can kiss your knees hello!
Chronic Pain
Posted by: | CommentsLiving with pain we feel in our muscles, nerves, joints, organs and even our skin which hangs around for more than six months is a doorway to chronic pain.
I lived with strange nerve and chronic pain while enduring sciatica, inflammation, tenderness, soreness and stiffness which all attributed to an ongoing state of unhappy muscles, nerves and limited painful movement. It even felt as if I couldn’t get enough breath into the muscles to move easily.
Chronic pain is a thing of the past
When I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, it was a relief to learn that the uncomfortable feelings I had been having in my 20′s and 30′s had a name to it.
As a kid, I remember looking at the muscle magazines learning what I needed to do to make this skinny kid into a muscular powerhouse. Even while living in chronic pain, I went to the gyms, stretched, lifted weights, thinking this would be a way out since exercise is usually considered a good thing.
Muscles and Chronic Pain Need Not Co-exist
Unfortunately, lifting weights and stretching didn’t solve the pains. Eventually, movement provided the key to getting the muscles and chronic pain to no longer co-exist in order to comfortably move.
There are many approaches to helping people naturally overcome chronic pain. You can find out about some of those in this month’s Max Sports & Fitness where yours truly has finally made it in a muscle magazine.
Living with Chronic Pain
Our brain and body can serve us naturally to ward off the stiffness, aches, and pains we feel in our muscles and elsewhere. Through a long series of trials and errors, I stumbled onto how animals naturally self-correct and move so well.
While I believe in a natural aproach of pandiculating, the process animals use. This has been systematized as somatics exercises which offers a key to un-lock muscular stiffness, improve mobility and take us to a place of natural flexibility.
There are other complimentary approaches which can take us a step closer to a life not full of chronic pain. Being free in our body and moving well is our birthright.
Sometimes we need a little help and a plan to get out of chronic pain with the desire we can return to all the fun activities life has to offer.
Knee Problems
Posted by: | CommentsKnee problems are sometimes not always where we think.
We often think of knee problems happening, well obviously at the knee, yet in some cases, where the pain is, the problem ain’t.
The knee is designed primarily to bend like a hinge. It can twist a little too.
The muscles below and above the knee impinge upon it when we compensate or substitute with other muscles for instance, when we hobble around after an injury.
The muscles below the knee can be overly contracted or not functioning as well as they could be. Tight calves or restrictions in the front of the lower leg may not only rob us of energy, we may have to work that much more in order to walk and our knee problems can compound.
Knee Problems at the waist?
Often times, knee problems can occur much higher in our body than we think. You can do all the knee bends you want or turn your foot in or out to help with torsion issues.
Yet other parts of ourself can cause us to bear our weight differently. In times of injury, we can compensate by holding our side tight or cringing to the side using our waist muscles.
If left unchecked, contracted waist muscles can have some bearing on the function of the knee and the knee problems persist.
Free the waist, free the knee problems
The practice of somatics exercises, which is usually quite the opposite of other approaches, uses the brain to release contracted areas and improves the function of the muscles so we move more effortlessly and easily.
In this week’s online somatics class, you can learn how to release some muscles below the knee as well as those at the waist.
Rather than doing standing exercises or using weights, we’ll focus on different relationships with gravity and noticing how our entire body moves, not just the knee.
Many knee problems can be solved by addressing our body as a whole moving unit instead of just the part where we experience our pains and discomforts.
Live Somatics Workshop
Posted by: | CommentsJoin us on Saturday, October 15th for a live somatics workshop. Join us in person live or on the webcast.
3 Hour Somatics Workshop
Somatics is defined as the body experience from within. In this workshop, we’ll explore the mind, body and talk of the spirit.
Somatics Presenters
Pamela Ziemann,international book winner and author of “Giving Voice to Your Cause” will teach us how to use your voice passionately to draw people to your cause.
Daniel Webster, “The Science of Yourself”, will teach us how you work, more specifically how you think, how you feel and where you put your focus and how these parts of you interact with the world around you.
Ed Barrera, Hanna Somatic Educator, will teach us how to use the power of pandiculation so we can move like an animal again and restore our health and well-being naturally.
Look here.
Ready to register, look no further.
When: Saturday October 15th
Where: Bellevue, WA or live on the web.
Why: Somatics is fun.
Exercises for Feet
Posted by: | CommentsCan exercises for feet bring back the love?
Don’t you love your feet? As a soccer player, I’ve got no choice but to love the feet since I rely on them to create all the magical moments I get to experience.
While exercises for feet can have positive effects on the knees and hips…differentiating the movements leads to a more comfortable sense of walking… free of aches, stiffness and pain.
Do exercises for feet create lighter legs?
When we free up the feet, our knees tend to be more comfortable. When we use the brain which is what we do with somatics exercises, we are delving deep into our sensory-motor system to find out “if” we do indeed experience our self differently.
Describing our internal experiences is unique. At times, we don’t have the words to rightly describe the feelings and sensations we are aware of. Just as moving gracefully is art in motion, we can use mindful specific exercises for feet to get closer at noticing how we experience what the brain can do for us in a matter of minutes.
Using the brain for exercises for feet
Instead of the usual ways we exercise the feet, we can change how muscles respond using cortical pathways using our awareness to facilitate changes. We can feel those changes which will guide us towards more comfortable movement.
We can also self-correct using simple exercises for feet so the knees and hips don’t have to feel so heavy or restricted or leaden in some cases.
You can try a couple of somatics exercises in the video above… and you can spend a little more time exploring how quickly your brain can change the feelings of the feet, knees and legs, by getting this class on somatics exercises for feet.
Just as we did as children, if we can still reach the feet… we can love those feet with simple somatics exercises for feet.
Exercises for face muscles and more
Posted by: | CommentsLet’s Face It. Can exercises for face muscles help you move easier?
A looser jaw helps if you’re a runner and exercises for face muscles may be something you haven’t considered.
Did you know that in some countries they actually target future runners by seeing who has the loosest jaw? If they only had some exercises for face muscles, maybe there would be a surge in competitors or at least, we could have freer jaws.
Somatics exercises, a different set of exercises for face muscles
Somatics exercises are usually the reverse of most approaches since we work with changing the brain’s output to the muscles.
By decreasing high levels of muscular tension, these special exercises for the face muscles work with 1/3 of the brain’s sensory-motor cortex.
Using the brain to change how muscles respond is naturally what we did as children through the process of what is known as a pandiculation.
Exercises for face muscles and then some more…
In this week’s online class, you also learn how to have a more mobile spine to go along with those exercises for face muscles.
Besides, you’ll learn 2 simple movements which will also help you sit more comfortably crossed-legged or in the lotus posture.
So please join us on Friday and find out if somatics exercises for face muscles can set you free.
