Archive for Health and Fitness
Upcoming Blog Talk Radio Interview
Posted by: | CommentsNext Tuesday, February 7 at 8am (pst) I’ll be appearing on Susan Rich Talks, Blog Talk Radio Show, Rich and Gluten Free.
While I’m a big fan of a gluten free diet, we’ll be talking about living pain free, getting rid of our aches, and losing stress & stiffness as we successfully age using an approach noted as far back as 1680.
Blog Talk Radio – Women 4 Women Network
As the guy who lived with the so-called women’s disease (fibromyalgia), I’m grateful to be asked to be appear on the Women 4 Women Network. They are empowering women both in business and life.
3 Steps to Getting Out of Pain on Blog Talk Radio
I’ll share the 3 simple steps it takes to change those painful signals to ones of pleasure so you can get back to doing what you want again with your body.
You’ll learn some moves you can do. All you have to do is listen and follow along and feel yourself in the 3 step process of what is known as somatics exercises.
Blog Talk Radio and the Divorce Counselor for Stretching
When I was told to stretch to keep myself limber, little did I know I was actually taking myself backwards – even though I spent as much as 2 hours per day doing it, thinking this would help limber me up.
Whew, I had to come through the looking glass with regards to stretching and helping people find their way to aging gracefully. See you on Susan Rich’s blog talk radio show.
Head Movements
Posted by: | CommentsSimple, easy head movements can give us a more comfortable neck and shoulders.
Head movements don’t have to be difficult
In fact, our neck, shoulders and head oughta move freely and easily.
If your head has been stuck by either tight neck muscles or tensed up shoulders, there is a natural way to release the built up muscular tension.
You can try the head movements below just for fun.
Fun head movements to try
See, that wasn’t so hard. Or was it difficult to keep your head facing forwards or not tweaking yourself.
When we’ve endured enough head and neck pain, that movement among others can prove to be difficult. I remember when my neck pain felt like a hard sore block that wouldn’t budge or let me move freely. Turning my neck seemed like it was one of the hardest things to do.
Yet when we consciously remind our body of the available movements that we can do, our brain can release neurochemicals of relaxation while we are regaining function so we can enjoy the mobility we richly deserve.
Not moving in a variety of directions begins to limit our body and perhaps our thinking too.
The head movements connection to the rest of our body is evident when we have to feel or sense our self not only at the movement of the head sliding along the surface… but how it relates with the rest of our body.
We are one piece, last I checked and the more we check-in, the far easier it is to self-correct naturally.
A somatics exercise class on head movements
When we move somatically, we can experience the freeing up of pain, stiffness and aches when we tune further and deeper into ourselves. This most natural act is what we did as babies, as a child and if we’re lucky… remember to do for a comfortable life.
Re-learning to move easily and effortlessly requires a quiet internal observance done in a specific slow manner. If you’re game to be more comfortable, you can learn some head movements to free up the neck, shoulders and more.
Please join me for an online class on head movements where all you’ll have to do is… listen, easily follow along… and notice whatever happens… usually the muscles, aches and pains let go. Isn’t it about time to live with easy head movements?
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.
Letting Go
Posted by: | CommentsThe art of letting go
Letting go of tight, restricted, stiff, tense muscles is easier said than done.
While the advice to just let go sounds like a good idea, our muscles may have
forgotten how to relieve the tension and remain tight as a drum.
It’s possible our muscles have forgotten the art of letting go.
Letting go of muscular tension
When we were young we could easily bound down a hill. Today, as an adult so many of us brace our way down the hill or stairs instead of easily letting go.
When we begin an activity from a place of already being contracted, we accumulate more contractions and move further away from letting go of the muscular tension we’ve added.
When we are in pain, we are often wary. If we happen to stretch a contracted area, then the brain will send a message to re-contract afterwards. Things tighten up once again and letting go doesn’t happen.
Even in a traction device, our muscles will re-contract afterwards so hanging upside down to lengthen muscles may feel temporarily good, yet the brain will do what it does to reset the muscular tension levels back to its set points.
Instead, if we consider our self as a self-adjusting organism, we don’t need any contraptions or devices, just our self and gravity since this is the field we happened to have things go awry in.
In the practice of somatics, we aren’t necessarily focusing on the muscles, we are working with the lines of communication from the brain to the muscles. The pathways or information from brain to muscle is where we play and change both the brain and body.
When we experience a painful signal – this can be our greatest teacher since we can locate a movement above, below, to the right or left or forwards/back of it – which we can release by being careful.
Regaining the ability of letting go
If you believe you can improve yourself, we know today from neural plasticity, the brain and thus the body can change itself.
With a little know-how we can relearn the lost art of letting go.
By easing our way into greater range of motion rather than force, we’ll end up being stronger simply by letting go. If we push it, our brain will naturally re-contract the muscles.
To go easy is like untying a knot gently. If you tug too tightly, the knot will tighten.
Please join me in an online class which offers you the simple art of letting go with easy, fun, simple moves done in a different way of focusing on movement and using the brain to reset our self naturally.
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.
Groin Stretch. Oh why, oh why.
Posted by: | CommentsThe groin stretch is yet another one of those lame stretches we’ve been advised to do to get the inner leg muscles to lengthen.
Groin stretch no more
In spite of what we know about stretching, many people and especially athletes lamely attend to the muscles which pull the leg inwards or keep the thighs rotated inwards.
Groin stretch, the other side of the coin
Our attempts are most often futile since pushing on a tight area actually causes the brain to send a message to re-contract and tighten the tissues.
This violation of the stretch reflex happens everyday and prevents the groin muscles from truly being reset back to comfortable levels with minimal tension.
The pains we feel are often reflected in higher than normal resting tension levels.
Some people will even lie down and attempt to do a groin stretch passively… afterwards the brain has to re-contract to get back to its set point.
While the set points serve us, they can be held in shortened positions. By pushing a shortened position, the brain sends messages to re-contract and pull back to the set point thus not effectively lengthening the muscles we are targeting.
Muscles respond to messages from the brain and even the spinal cord when we quickly and reflexively pull away. When we shift to using the brain’s cortex, our muscles can be reset through a cortical process which re-regulates tension in the muscles.
Instead of the groin stretch, we can use those groin muscles to gain not only length, we also remind our muscles of their function.
This way the muscles are ready to be used and have been reminded how to relax. A relaxed groin area is far more ready to be used than the tight, screaming groins that many people endure.
The not groin stretch class
So instead of a groin stretch, we can learn how to artfully move the inner leg muscles in a variety of ways which will allow us to feel better at any time.
Tight inner legs may cause us to feel a tight band feeling around our back and even assist turning “on” the burning sensations of sciatica.
However, muscles don’t move in isolation so we can play with coordination sequences which engage both the legs and upper body.
When we’ve been pulled out of alignment through high tension levels, we can reset other areas in our body to bring us back towards balance.
A groin stretch itself is not enough to regain lost function and improve how well we can move without discomfort. We need integrated patterns which takes us to the next level of using the brain’s cortex to reset our global movements.
By making little changes, we affect how we move as a whole, healthy being.
Please join our not groin stretch online class and learn how the brain improves brawn.
Better Breathing by Not Breathing
Posted by: | CommentsThere are many techniques for better breathing.
Simply paying attention to our breathing doesn’t seem like it could be of any significance or help.
Better Breathing Helps Us Relax Easy
Belly breathing or diaphragmatic breathing is quite often beneficial. Taking a few moments to breathe deeply and easily gives us a respite from life’s busy activities.
Not paying attention to how we breath is a sure-fire way to limit our self unconsciously. Why bother when we have so much else to do?
Conscious Better Breathing
Many conscious methods focus on breath work with a variety of ways to play with our breath. These pursuits are enjoyable activities to explore adding to a chest of useful tools for healthy living.
On the other hand, somatics exercises are quite often the reverse of most approaches as we engage the brain and it’s bodily connections.
Through patterns of movement which are similar and slightly different, our brain thrives with new and distinct learning. Small differences gives us the ability to free our self where we would otherwise not consider and remain restricted.
Better Breathing Class
For instance, instead of focusing on better breathing, we can be better breathers by doing a simple movement which involves our diaphragm.
When we couple this pattern to the actions in our spine, ribs, shoulders and even our hips, we can actually “not breathe” and discover if better breathing results.
Join me in this week’s online class for better breathing by not breathing.
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.
