Archive for Exercise
Stretching is even bad news Down Under
Posted by: | CommentsAt Victoria’s University School of Sports and Exercise Science in Australia, James Zois sees the same epidemic I’ve been raving and kindly reminding you about – stop stretching!
Some people keep on stretching and are wedded to the concept.
Look at this poor guy stretching
By attempting to stretch his hip flexor, he’s actually tightening his hamstrings, the muscles behind the leg.
He might be even contracting his back muscles to be able to get that foot to the buttocks.
Maybe he can still sit on his heels, but the point is… a stretch such as this is still done at professional levels and worse, high schools and even middle schools kids are being led down this lazy and counter-productive route.
Lazy on account of research moving on. Athletes do not need this to warm-up.
Divorce Counselor for Stretching
As a divorce counselor for stretching… you can rest easy, there are other ways to lengthen muscles and warm them up.
For instance, healthy vertebrate animals aren’t stretching either. It’s not what you think.
They consciously contract and then release themselves.
By refocusing your attention on what muscles are designed to do, that is to contract, we can reset them and ready them at the same time.
Stretching is Over
Leave it to the folks who’ll continue to argue about it saying it makes them feel good rather than understanding it’s a waste of time and we can use our intelligence to reset things rather than pulling us apart.
Even for us 50 year olds, stretching is over.
Exercise workout plan
Posted by: | CommentsAn exercise workout plan is useful to promote well-being.
Feeling well in our body is satisfying when have useful tools which allows us to move more freely and easily.
A daily exercise workout plan
Before we think about exercising, we ought to consider what sets us up for exercise in the first place.
When we get up, we are naturally stiffer since our muscles shorten overnight.
Oh what to do? Start with an exercise workout plan.
Instead of traditional stretching, which we know harms us, we can move ourself simply.
Simple, easy movements to articulate our joints primes the muscles for our larger movements throughout the day. After all, you won’t see Fido stretching nor hitting the weights in his exercise workout plan.
Instead, Fido reprograms the muscles first.
The most important exercise workout plan
According to Mel Siff, who wrote the book, “Facts and Fallacies of Fitness”… the most important exercise is reprogramming the central nervous system. He considered this to be more important than strength training and aerobics.
This makes obvious sense. The brain, which can reset our muscles, needs a continual updating of its movement software.
We’ve got to take out any stiffness and tension we accrue.
This is why healthy vertebrate animals naturally reset themselves periodically throughout the day.
When we naturally reprogram our muscles, they are left more functional and ready to be used since they’ve been given the cue to let go of any residual holding tension.
Muscles which are less tense, move far easier than the ones which keep us bound up, throwing our parts around like we’re a hobbling zombie.
Our brain’s cortex can do the job to reset the muscles. This is why we can use the un-exercise approach of somatics exercises anytime to feel better.
Exercise workout plan class
There exists a delightful set of somatics exercises which are known as either the cat stretch or daily maintenance routine.
This exercise workout plan sets the body up for movement for the day.
This week, I’ll be teaching a version of that particular exercise workout plan.
By modifying certain elements, the very exercise routine we accustom our self to, becomes enhanced.
Join our somatics exercise online class. This set of movements can be quite the useful exercise workout plan.
Back Pain Relief
Posted by: | CommentsBack Pain Relief 24/7
Why live with back pain when we can do something by our self to get the back pain relief we need, when we need it.
Simple, easy gentle movements change the brain. By changing the brain, we can directly change the comfort levels of our back muscles which many of us have experienced with great displeasure.
The constant, gnawing, seizing signals I lived with in my 20′s and 30′s didn’t give me any moments of significant back pain relief, it was just grief.
“Learn to live it” was the motto I heard and bought into.
Whadya gonna do about back pain relief?
Like many people I tried a number of approaches… the hot tub “was” one of my favorites. The heating pad, those ice packets and tens units didn’t get the job done. Nor did the pain meds either.
Well, what did I know. I had no idea I could use the brain to change those discomforting signals to finally feel the back pain relief I thought I deserved while having fibromyalgia to contend with.
Those recalcitrant and tight back muscles didn’t wanna seem to budge other than remaining taught with tension.
All the lathering of tiger balm, icy hot and other gels while soothing couldn’t shake the beast of living with chronic tightness.
Heck, even the stretching routines I had learned… would not solve the riddle. But what did I know. I had no idea that stretching was compounding the problem as today’s research points the fallacy of this method. Who knew the back pain relief I truly wanted was not to come by stretching.
Back Pain Relief Class
Shifting our internal state of discomfort can be remedied when use the brain’s ability to reset the resting levels of our muscles so we can truly feel the back pain relief we think is possible.
This is well within our natural ability. It’s a matter of getting back on track through a learning process which somatics exercises are the avenue for.
A systematic approach of un-doing muscular tension and un-locking tigthness, inflexibility and the rigiidty our back muscles have accumulated shifts with simple, easy movement done with a particular kind of awareness.
To experience this simplicity, you can join us for our online back pain relief class where you’ll learn 35 movements to free up both the lower back and the upper back.
Your brain is better and more effective than a hot tub. These natural sets of tools are available 24/7 for back pain relief.
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.
Improve Eyesight, Loosen the Neck
Posted by: | CommentsWhat can we do to improve eyesight, lessen jaw pain, and improve the neck’s ability to move comfortably even though we may be sitting at a computer for long periods of time.
Improve eyesight… free up the neck.
There are any number of eye exercises, diet considerations and things you can do for the eyes. Sometimes getting up and drinking some water is enough to take out the strain.
Sitting at a computer for longer periods of time is not a way to improve eyesight since our range of vision and motion is compromised into a smaller space. Unless of course, you are working on building shorter, more contracted eye muscles.
Simple neck mobilizations and moving the eyes just a little differently are enough to ward off hours of limited motion.
Improve eyesight in just a few minutes
Relaxing the tension from hours of using our eyes in a small space or holding our neck a certain way, takes just a few minutes. Yet how many of us are really going to spend the necessary few minutes to take care of it.
Don’t we usually wait until the jaw pain or neck immobility becomes too great before we act. Pain is a great teacher, but why wait for our body to get locked up and not be able to lessen the accumulated tension and muscular stress.
Just a few minutes of careful self awareness combined with releasing the tension as naturally as any animal will do, allows us to keep on doing the things we human animals think we need or want to do.
Healthy animals do things like yawn. Well they contract their jaw muscles so it looks like a yawn. Go ahead, give yourself a big yawn and pay attention to all the muscles in your neck your tightening up.
Somatics exercises improve eyesight
The way to let go of tension and improve eyesight is to do what animals do. Thank goodness we’ve systematized what animals do as somatics exercises.
We’ve borrowed the very same process which is done in movement, not a static hold and release for a certain period of time.
With periodic self-adjustments and self-corrections, our neck will be freer, our jaw will be looser and we can improve eyesight simply.
Why hold all the tension in place when we can consciously learn to let it go with a little simple practice of awareness and easy movement patterns.
If you want to learn more, please join me in this Friday’s somatics exercise class to improve eyesight, free the neck and ease a tight jaw.
Better Walking
Posted by: | CommentsBetter walking by not walking?
I remember when I could barely walk 50 feet and my shoulders would sear in pain and my ongoing tight back… well it would simply stiffen more as I trudged my way through it like a trooper. Why oh why?
Good news is, I was moving. The bad news, it wasn’t getting better and so after some time I just learned to continue to move painfully and suck it up.
So what can we do about better walking?
To be able to facilitate better walking, just imagine those lost feelings we had of childlike, easy movement.
We all know how well a panther can move.
Setting up movement is what all healthy vertebrate animals do before they have to run away or go after the prey.
Walking with stiffness like a zombie scared a lot of us as kids. Why did we lose our childlike feelings of easy, effortless movement? Is this the reward of aging or forgetting to move like an animal.
Better Walking by Not Exercising
The other side of the coin is using our brain, the one big muscle, to facilitate better mobility, agility and flexibility naturally as all healthy vertebrate animals do.
Simply through the conscious act of a pandiculation which has been systematized as somatics exercises can we move more effectively.
Somatics is not exercise in the traditional manner since all we are doing is using the brain to decrease excessive muscular contraction levels.
By decreasing those levels, we can move more easily so better walking is accomplished through the release of held muscular positions that we consciously can’t let go off or those that we aren’t aware of in the moment.
So please join me this week, Friday, September 16th as I’ll be offering some ways to move which will afford you better walking in the days to come.
Be your own bodyworker
Posted by: | CommentsWouldn’t it be great if you could be your own bodyworker and release tight, stiff, sore muscles yourself?
Somatics exercises uses the field of gravity so you can use the brain to get muscles to lose tension and relax more quickly. This is one way to act as your own bodyworker.
Doing a pandiculation, which is at the heart of somatics, is what we do when we do somatics exercises. When a trained somatic bodyworker works with your muscles this is called an assisted pandiculation.
Bodyworker and assisted pandiculations.
Hanna Somatic Educators are trained bodyworkers and movement experts who help people restore the function of muscles with either bodywork or specific exercises or a combination of both.
This training takes place over the course of three years since even for the so-called experts, there is a shift in learning how the body responds neurologically and well let’s face, the practitioner needs a lot of practice to fully understand the thousands of combinations we all move in and how we articulate ourselves.
In the last decade, I’ve noticed many shifts of internal organization as I too have learned my way out of compensatory habits and established newer, easier movement patterns which evolve and continue to surprise and delight me as I age.
A hands-on bodyworker in cooperation with a person has to figure out what needs to be released. By assisting a person with a pandiculation, both parties can sense a result taking place.
These assisted pandiculation often turn into the self-pandiculations that a person will do as the somatics exercises or homework to keep improving mobility, flexibility and the diminishment of panful signals.
Become your own bodyworker
As you become familiar with the somatics exercises, you can learn how to become your own bodyworker using gravity as the load or weight of resistance when you move yourself in the variety of movement patterns to restore function and improve coordination.
You can also use your own hands to provide the resistance with some of the somatics exercises. It’s best to be led by a Hanna Somatics Practitioner who can give you the idea or guide you along this path to help restore balance in the muscles.
When we use our own hands as a bodyworker on our self, we may be able to learn how to modulate our efforts with a little bit of practice.
Be your own Bodyworker Class
Reminding the movement system as to how it moves is what all healthy vertebrate animals do to keep themselves moving well. After all, what kind of bodyworker can they go to themselves?
For the most part, nature has set it up so all vertebrates can move well merely be reminding the nervous system to reset, or reboot if you will.
Fortunately, we can apply a systematic approach through the somatics exercises and use these tools to be our own bodyworker when needed.
This Friday, August 19th, I’ll be offering an online class in somatics exercises so you can do your own pandiculations in the field of gravity.
You’ll also learn how to use your own hands and be a bodyworker so you can do things like sit more comfortably crossed legged and free up your hips and hip flexors.
When we use our brain and neurology in novel ways, we can foster growth and education in the ways in which we move. We can actually move better as we age.
Now I’m only saying that when I compared myself to a group of 55 high school athletes and few if any had the hamstring flexibility of someone 3x their age.
Register for this Friday’s class. Find out for yourself how free you can be. Sign up and be your own bodyworker.
Exercises for Lower Body
Posted by: | CommentsExercises for lower body can come in handy when you’re a senior athlete.
Instead of preparing to run or lift weights for this past weekend’s Washington State Senior Games, I chose to do some un-conventional exercises for lower body.
Exercises for lower body. The other side of the coin.
As a senior athlete, I’m very interested in how my muscles can return to function as quickly as possible. By working with the space between our ears, namely the brain’s cortex, we can reset the muscles back to a comfortable resting place so they won’t ache, complain and need any ibuprofen.
Getting the gold is one thing, being able to be comfortable afterwards and ready to play again is another.
Rewiring the brain with exercises for lower body using somatics exercises takes out any compensations and substitution patterns.
Since many of us substitute or compensate with our muscles, to regain better function through a re-wiring process with our given structure… takes time.
It is in the very time of now, we can observe how we can change our self.
Taking steps to increase our function with exercises for lower body even during an event can allow us to move well especially after the competition is over.
Limping to the car and looking forwards to the hot tub is what some people will do.
Athletes who struggle with compensations are like the many people who have to be athletic just to move their body around by pulling themselves or trying to move rather than it being more effortless, easy and comfortable.
Undo the compensations with exercises for lower body
Are we all so far away from graceful movements? Hardly, if only we were to re-program the muscles, then we’d get to experience that youthful wonderful movement we once had or were denied.
By working with the brain, we can lessen the negative output to the muscles. We can take out the stress and excessive tension.
What I mean is the excessive tension and holding patterns that muscles will do based on habits, shortening of our muscles and even things like dietary issues and medications which compound how we can effectively move.
Exercises for lower body can be done with the least effort when our brain organizes movement in an efficient manner. We can regulate this time and time again.
To manipulate ourself well in space, to move as well as you can… doesn’t require hard work, just focused attention on how well you can move.
As we become consistent, then we restore our natural ability to do what all healthy vertebrate animals do which is moving with awareness.
The quieter we become in ourselves, the more we’ll notice… and there’s a lot beneath the surface if we dare to venture inwards. We can sense how our compensations can unwind with unique exercises for lower body.
Unlike stretching or strengthening, with somatics exercises you are engaging the brain’s motor cortex where the learning of movement occurs as well as the resetting of the muscle’s length.
Exercises for lower body to un-lock muscles
With the number of substitution patterns and compensations we’ve created, we can still unlock and unlearn those so we can improve our movement patterns which is vital to moving well for the long run.
Even certain training habits and the usual exercises for lower body where we’ve been cued a certain way may have fostered a furthering of compensations unless we took the time to release those compensatory habits.
Moving with natural patterns rather than conditioned patterns allows us to return to moving freely. Then, we use those conditioned patterns in the games and activities we enjoy.
With our 600 muscles and 17 layers of muscles, it’s no wonder some of the aches and concerns we have remain a mystery or are left un-resolved.
We can help resolve things with unusual exercises for lower body. We can go back into our sense of movement and notice the adjustments which take place.
By noticing our own self-adjustments, we can master the art of moving well before, during and after our competitions, games and dances.
Becoming aware of how we hold ourself, we can truly let go and return to moving effortlessly and easily with some unusual exercises for lower body known as somatics.
Want to change the quads, psoas, and other leg muscles in a very different and easy way?
Join us this week, Friday August 5th for an online class on exercises for lower body.
