Archive for Health and Fitness
Foot Work
Posted by: | CommentsDid you know that a little mindful foot work could help our troubled feet and knees? I’m not talking about fancy foot work either. More like what preceded our baby steps as we developed.
Do you have sensitive feet, the ones which don’t like to walk over stones or rocks. Ouch! I remember those days as a kid. Now past the half-century mark, I relish how supple good foot work feels.
Foot Work for All Ages
As children we did some very interesting foot work. We loved to pull on our toes. Little did we know we were in a very receptive state of learning and coordinating the little piggies so we could get to a market with our own feet.
These days many of us simply drive to the market and keep our poor painful feet wedged in shoes all day long. Can’t imagine how life would be if we were all to wear glove liners and mittens all day. What would happen to the function of our hands if we did the same?
What are we doing to our feet? That fleet foot work we used to have is a long distance memory as we have aged and bottled up those poor lowly feet.
Now we’re left with mangled toes, foot pain, orthotics, and the search for the right kind of shoe. While shoes have certainly advanced, did our foot work remain in the dust.
Do we really need an orthotic? Maybe we could do some foot work and remember to move well once again.
Foot Work, Handiwork is it the same?
Most likely you can still fold your hands. So try this. Lie on your back, and take your hands behind your head and interlace your fingers. Then once you’ve settled in, switch the position of your fingers and hold your hands the other way.
For some of you, that’ll be no problem and then for some us that could feel strange, awkward as if someone else is holding our hands.
Our habits which we groove in over time are necessary. We may forget small differences help us use our self a little bit differently so we don’t wear our self out as fast. Slight adjustments and little differences lets the brain thrive. It thrives on subtle differences to renew us.
As we readjust to a newness, we change both our body and brain. Now try doing the same with your toes. Yes, try and fold those toes together. Whadya mean you can’t reach down there anymore?
Maybe this is where some of you are now at. Others of you really had to work it to even get the toes to wedge together.
Awhile back I made a video on some foot work. Try this move if you haven’t given it a try. For those of you who did, did you keep working it so this type of foot work is now improved and easy.
That type of footwork can come in handy to change the function of the feet and even the knees so you can walk more comfortably.
Another Foot Work Class
Many times I’ve taught foot work movements to soccer players which had them laughing about how what appears simple isn’t as easy as thought. Though with a little practice, our movement system remembers to move and improve.
We can rekindle the feelings of childlike movement which felt good and free since we have a sensory-motor feedback loop which allows us to reset and readjust tension levels.
We can get back in this loop so our balance improves, our feet feel lighter and our knees can lose their aches simply through subtle readjustments to move us to higher levels of coordination and integration so we manage those formerly painful stones and rocks.
You can join me for an hour’s worth of foot work online, by phone, or even get the replay this Friday where you’ll learn to free up the feet, lower legs and knees so you can dance and move easily again.
In the meantime, just go ahead and pull those toes so your foot work doesn’t get left behind.
Exercises for Rotator Cuff
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Pains in the shoulder, stiffness, weakness and even pain while sleeping on the side can be lessened with a simple set of exercises for rotator cuff. Over time, the situation can become chronic or if you’ve had surgery, it may be necessary to keep the shoulder functional.
The rotator cuff area allows us to both internally and externally rotate our shoulders while also letting us move the shoulder away, out and up to the side.
A Different Set of Exercises for Rotator Cuff
Normally both stretching and strengthening exercises are recommended by doctors, and orthopedists. Physical therapists will have you follow this protocol.
They may want you stretch after doing a reach up the wall or have you strengthen in between the shoulders. While the idea is good, we can go about it in a more intelligent fashion and manner so that the muscles lose their restriction and regain their function.
Instead of the heresy of stretching, we can pandiculate the tight, restrictive areas so those areas regain both both function and remain limber.
Somatics exercises for rotator cuff, on the other hand, use the process of pandiculation to regain mobility and give us back our function so that we can comfortably move the shoulder area back and forth and up and out to the side in this case.
A Diversity of Exercises for Rotator Cuff
With a number of stretches and strengthening exercises for rotator cuff, you learn to hold things for a period of time or do numbers of repetitions.
With somatics, we target the brain’s motor cortex. It can reset the muscles so they “remember” their function. This higher level of intelligence doesn’t require the physical strain that most people endure, instead we use our awareness of the quality of the movement. We can sense the connections we use when we move our shoulders about. This gives us a better range.
Exercises target muscles where intelligent movement takes care of the movement system which includes more muscles since we are of one piece. One integrated movement system, rather than the parts, which allows for greater cohesion and more effortless movement in general.
This gentler yet highly intelligent approach, gives us the ability to create more options to move despite the very ones we’ve guarded against or haven’t done on account of the binds holding things together.
Exercises for Rotator Cuff Class
A diversity of movement lets the brain thrive too. By going cortical, the brain creates more cells, it releases chemicals of relaxation, and we restore and recover naturally rather than forcing, straining or pushing our way through it.
“Being” with our movement system is another tack or way to move more comfortably about. To be free and regain our strength is simple.
You can join us in this week’s somatics class: Diversify Your Movement Portfolio – Exercises for Rotator Cuff. You may join us either online, by phone or get the replay.
In the little over an hour class, you’ll learn a number of different ways and movement patterns to experience how simple somatics is and yet how much power you can have.
The diversity found in the exercises for rotator cuff class will give you plenty of intelligent ammo to keep the shoulders and more, happy for life.
Wall of Fame
Posted by: | CommentsI didn’t exactly make the Hall of Fame, yet I managed somehow to survive the nearly 20 years of fibromyalgia (chronic pain) and make the Wall of Fame at the University of Texas.
The Wall of Fame houses the pictures of students who won various intramural sports competitions.
Little did we know we were headed for the Wall of Fame
Back in ’79, amidst the days of unrest of the Iran hostage crisis, the last 11 guys who didn’t make the soccer team formed an intramural team.
We beat our fellow University of Texas club soccer team in the semis and played against a raucous crowd of Middle Eastern students in the finals. We had to go to a penalty shoot-out to win the coveted burnt orange t-shirt.
University of Texas Wall of Fame T-shirt
The celebration lead to my dorm room where there happened to be a very large bottle of spirits that we managed to finish off early in the morning. Somehow I made it through the 3 final exams the next day. Ah, to be young again.
My playing days got interrupted with what at the time seemed to be mysterious chronic pains. Eventually, the diagnosis of fibromyalgia gave me something to wrap my mind around during that nearly 2 decade struggle.
Fortunately I came out of it and learned very valuable lessons to pass onto others.
The University recently sent a Wall of Fame t-shirt commemorating our efforts. In a box, I discovered I had the original t-shirt we won in ’79.
Wall of Fame Moves
In those days, I was taught to stretch. It was something I never liked to do even though I would go for nearly 2 hours per day during my bouts of chronic stiffness and pain. Fibromyalgia was a 24/7 event.
Years later, I became a Hanna Somatic Educator and gave up my stretching ways and learned about the marvelous ways we can reset our muscles through the natural process of a pandiculation.
This simple reset brings our muscles to rest, lets us lose our stiffness, decreases tension and by magic, releases our physical pain.
There is really no magic about it. All it takes is 3 simple steps. Done with a gentle, easy conscious awareness. Our brain will reset muscles back to rest for comfortable movement.
Please join me either by phone or online this week as I offer some Wall of Fame moves where you’ll learn to release the inner leg muscles (groin), chest, diaphragm, and waist.
As we get older, we can move with greater ease. Life doesn’t have to be a struggle, at least this Wall of Fame individual knows it to be true and so can you.
Cool Somatics Move
Posted by: | CommentsSomatics is the reverse way to lengthen muscles. Instead of stretching, you can use the brain’s motor cortex to reset the muscles back to comfort.
Here’s how somatics works
You target the area you want to lengthen. You contract those those tissues by being mindful of what it is you are doing.
With somatics you pay attention to how you release yourself. In some instances you can immediately notice if there is any physical change.
As an example, many people will bend over to lengthen their back.
This could lead the back to bump the switch of the stretch reflex and get the muscles to reflexively pull back, even into a back spasm.
Try the somatics movement below. This particular somatic movement can relieve the back and hamstrings of its excess tension.
In less than 2 minutes feel what happens. You might want to listen through the first time and then replay it again.
Otherwise, all you have to do is listen and follow along:
Check out this somatics move
Did you gain any length?
Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t yet isn’t this a far different approach than stretching.
When we voluntarily use our muscles, our brain’s cortex can reset the length of the areas we target. It’ll actually create chemicals of relaxation so we relax our self back to comfort.
Somatics movement classes
Each week we offer 45 minute to one hour online somatic movement classes where you use your brain to release the muscles.
All you have to do is listen, follow along and let your muscles go along for a somatics journey which can give you the reverse way to feeling free once again.
Anti Aging
Posted by: | CommentsDon’t let the young punks think there aren’t any things we can’t do in terms of anti aging.
Anti aging at 86
While trying to find a means to anti aging may be filled with ideas on what to eat, what exercises to do and what good company to be in contact with.
Watch this 86 year old women. You think she’s got a bead on anti-aging?
Moving well as we age is one of our anti aging antidotes. It looks like Johanna Quess has got it down.
How can we continue to move well as we age or move well in the first place if we’re already struggling?
Simple. Learn to move well by refreshing the muscles the way nature intended.
Our brain can be used to reinvigorate the muscles. The brain thrives on learning. By paying attention to the quality or lack of quality of our movement patterns, we can re-establish comfortable and successful movement at any age.
Anti aging is a misnomer
Instead of trying to defy aging, it may be high time to get with the program of using the brain and the nervous system to work for you instead of against you.
Muscles will atrophy with disuse. The muscular system will slide ever so slowly downhill as we age yet we can remind our nervous system how to remember to reset itself.
Aging gracefully comes with practice. Who says you’re too old to learn?
Best anti aging products
You can spend your time looking for anti aging creams, anti-aging supplements, anti aging lotion, etc.
No worries though. A number of 15 and 16 year olds can no longer touch their toes. They are well on their way to being programmed to buy anti-aging products long before their time.
Understanding the very organ we can learn to harness to remain supple does require a few moments to use it.
The best anti aging product is the very process you were born to use. By employing the brain, anti aging happens naturally so we can move well at any age.
Core workout
Posted by: | CommentsWe often hear about a core workout. So how do we go about knowing what to do and what will help us?
The middle of our self is what many call the core. How we move the core and translate our coordination out to our extremities is important. We can then move easily, agilely and powerfully when we need to.
We used to believe our muscles were attached to the bone. Now we’ve come to understand our muscles are attached to other muscles. We generate movement with our brain’s intention. We let it coordinate our actions and we know whether or not there is room for some improvement.
A Complete Core Workout
The core is generally considered to use the muscles of the spine. In the front, muscles such as the abs, and in the back, those muscles which run from the neck to the lower back. On our sides, we can use our waist muscles.
A core workout wouldn’t be considered complete if we left out the hips or pelvis muscles. A typical core workout could be doing a variety of ab crunches so we can help stabilize the spine and protect the back.
Can a core workout be too much of a good thing? Certainly some people specifically focus on the abs. If you want a core workout such as this, just hold your breath. That way you can develop your six-pack abs and stabilize all you want.
Too much of core workout centered on the abs can eventually pull the chest wall down and leave you with a tight stomach, a sunken chest or less mobility. The other way to achieve this is to sit too much and let gravity take care of it.
On the other hand, the one big muscle, the brain, controls the resting levels of our muscles. Mel Siff, the author of Facts and Fallacies of Fitness, noted that reprogramming the brain was more important than strength training or aerobics.
Instead of stabilizing our spine for a base of support we can use our dynamic movement system for easy, comfortable movement. When we need more power, we can use our ability to generate it with a seamless transfer throughout our entire coordinated being.
A core workout for good posture
To be able to sit comfortably with a good posture takes the requisite amount of balance of tension. Too much on one side and we could be pulled too far forwards, shifted to one side, rotated or slumped back.
Maintaining our mobility so we can move comfortably lets us use our natural flexibility to be strong. Lose the flexibility, diminish the mobility and now the posture will struggle to keep upright or even walk comfortably.
When we shift towards a brain based way of reprogramming tension levels, then sitting and walking becomes more effortless. A good posture is maintained by the signals we can self-corrects through our sensitivity of this fine balance in tension levels.
A simple easy core workout can be the reminder it takes. Minor or micro-adjustments can be the shift we need or have forgotten to remember to use to be able sit comfortably upright without a back support. The best back is the one you have and can maintain with ease.
Rock around the clock core workout
Simple, easy movement using an intention to move uses our brain’s intelligence to rewire the nervous system so our muscle to muscle system is enhanced. This enhancement is how healthy vertebrate animals naturally reset themselves and remain agile and powerful.
You can join me in this week’s online core workout where you’ll learn how to rock around the clock and free up the front, back, sides, and length of the spine. We’ll also get those hips and pelvis involved.
All you have to do is lie down, listen and follow along. It’s “oh too simple”.
A core workout doesn’t have to be arduous, we can simply move and coordinate our own powerful actions to leave us both relaxed and ready.
Dr. Blaylock and Excitotoxins
Posted by: | CommentsDr. Blaylock, the author of Excitotoxins, has caught the eyes of folks like Bill Maher who thinks this merits some credibility. There is of course the establishment who will counter what they call pseudo-science based medicine.
Dr. Blaylock – The Taste that Kills
Dr. Blaylock contends what we don’t can kill us or is a pointer to what may ail us in what we eat.
Whether or not Dr. Blaylock is correct, our body experienced from within is our own gauge, which if we listen to it, we can heed its feelings of wellness and signals for help, though it can be tricked and seduced. Where’s my chocolate!
The book is a fascinating read and may have you checking the food labels a little more closely.
Here’s a video on what Dr. Blaylock has to say:
Our kids aren’t a big fan of Dr. Blaylock
I know our three children are tired of seeing us put back items on the shelves. Our motto is, if we can’t reasonably explain it to them, we’ll investigate further before we eat it. They’re not a big fan of Dr. Blaylock but we were doing that long before we heard about him.
Of course, they’re tired of the story I repeat, that in the pre-historic 60′s when we were thrilled with a transistor radio that sort of worked. We all knew the one fat kid and we all the knew the kid who was hyped up.
Have you walked around the school halls today? There isn’t just the one kid anymore, is there?
It amazes me that our youngest gets rewarded in primary school with candy of all things. With candy machines and the prevalence of too much sugar readily available by teachers and all the other children who have it on hand, we’ve learned we’re the meanest parents on earth.
We don’t get a chance nor stand the chance to provide a sweet to enjoy because we know the sugar overload is evident besides, we don’t know what’s in natural flavors.
But hey, eat that food stuff, just don’t check those labels.
Has your health deteriorated because it is supposed according to the commercials on tv? Do I really need a pill for what ails me? Or is Dr. Blaylock and others onto something? Is it in the food supply?
Cancer survivor on Dr. Blaylock
Jerrold Sessor who survived cancer talks about Dr. Blaylock and the book Excitotoxins:
Thomas Hanna who coined the term, Somatics, defined it as the body experienced from within. The more we pay attention to our experience, we can do as Hippocrates may or may not have said, we can let our food be our medicine. Is Dr. Blaylock close to the truth or pseudo-science as some are saying?
Help Me Get to Sleep
Posted by: | CommentsAre you awake at night wondering, “help me get to sleep”. There are any number of strategies for sleeping well, yet nature has already set it up for us to get a good night’s sleep.
Waking up 60x/minute – Help Me Get To Sleep
I remember taking an overnight sleep study at the sleep center where I didn’t even get to finish it. They told me to go home in the morning after informing me I was waking up 60x per minute. No wonder it felt like a mack truck hitting me every morning when I groggily awoke.
I needed some help with sleep since I was living with lots of stress in my muscles on account of being diagnosed with fibromyalgia. The chronic pains I used to live with were enough to keep me awake at night even though I slept with a tens unit to quiet some of the muscles down, a heating pad to soothe the back and an ice pack wrapped around my neck to ease those aches… all this after a long soak in an epsom salt bath.
Little did I know Fido had the answer to help me get to sleep.
Help me get to sleep sooner rather than later
Healthy vertebrate animals like Fido sure know how to sleep. Ah to live the happy life of a dog, yet he does something to get the tension out of his muscles so he can sleep easy.
Those cute little maneuvers he does is not a stretch, it’s called a pandiculation. He’s contracting a series of muscles and letting them release. This procedure gets the brain to send chemicals of relaxation to the targeted areas. Fortunately, we’ve systematized this as somatics exercises where you “remember” how to access this natural process.
Yepperdoodle, as our 5th grader would say. When we were children, we would do that morning stretch which we had begun to do in our mother’s womb. We were programming our muscles for both function and a relaxation response.
We got older and forgot about it. We’ve been told to stretch to keep limber. Well stretching as we know it is dead wrong according to the research. Don’t freak out, I happen to be a divorce counselor on the side.
We can go about it another way which is to use our brain to get our muscles relaxed so we can sleep better.
This might sound a bit counter-intuitive but you won’t be thinking help me get to sleep when you doze off by doing some simple somatics exercises that anyone can do.
Like Fido, when we do somatics exercises we are doing that “p” word, getting the brain to make relaxation chemicals. As we do some simple movements, we’ll begin to do things like yawn and get sleepy… all without a lot of effort either.
Help Me Get to Sleep – Online Class
Join me in a Help Me Get to Sleep Online Class, which you can download so you won’t have to lie there thinking, “help me get to sleep”.
You’ll learn how to safely and easily let go tense or tight muscles and quiet them and the mind – just in case that gets in the way too.
With simple easy movements known as somatics exercises, you’ll get to relax muscles in the chest, arms, waist, and belly so the hips, shoulders and neck will be freer to rest the spine and your entire self.
Since 1680, we’ve known that muscles can come to rest with the “p” word. Who knows you might be able to say “help me get to sleep no more” by knowing how the brain and body can un-lock the code to help with sleep.
Exercise Programs – Exercise vs. Movement
Posted by: | CommentsExercise Programs
The word exercise often connotes sweat and hard work. Movement on the other hand is about changing a position.
So many people in the gym are exercising and are still in pain rather than being able to move freely and comfortably. Are their exercise programs serving them?
When it comes to exercise vs movement to get us out pain, I’m going to have to side with movement at this point in my 50 year old life.
The other side of exercise programs
Somatics exercises which are often the reverse of most exercise programs out there, changes pain and discomfort levels using the brain rather than the brawn of exercise. This can be a challenge when we’ve accustomed our self to pushing, straining and over efforting.
Without sufficient awareness, the simple somatics movements can become exertion and exercise and not bring about the change we want away from pain.
So in both types of exercise programs, problems can occur not because of exercise itself but how we move our self in this ever present field of gravity. After all, you don’t need a weight to cramp yourself.
A learning process to move more comfortably is highly involved, though anyone can do it when we are mindful and not rushed. This lazy approach appears on the surface to be too simple, yet is complex in terms of feeling our way through the various connections and sensations we can perceive.
These sense perceptions lead us to move more comfortably so that it’s possible you’ll never have to go through arduous exercise programs again.
After all, I can go play soccer, ski, ride a bike, and walk comfortably along a trail without the uncomfortable strain, stress and high tension levels I used to live with while living with fibromyalgia.
Of course there is a debate whether the condition even exists yet there are many millions of people with inexplicable pain. But some of us no longer have the pains which racked our nervous system to pieces where a good nights sleep is so sought after.
The treasure of sleeping well comes to us more easily when we are relaxed enough, namely the tension levels which can lower themselves either by the thought of a breath or the ability to let go – which for many, many, many folks no longer is the case.
So naturally we attempt to use exercise programs to exercise stress away. I’m not opposed to exercise yet as I said, when I play a 90 minute game of soccer, it’s all about the movement, the dance on the field, being able to avoid getting crunched and being able to take a hit and recovery quickly… but these are the games I play. What’s yours?
Exercise Programs – An Alternative Choice
Each week I offer online somatics exercise – using simple movement which can be thought of like as the reverse of an ab crunch or inner thigh lift for strengthening.
To come through the looking glass of exercise vs. movement is a novel way to experience what a difference a change of position can foster rather than forcing or pushing our self.
You can use this learning, then do your exercise in a reverse manner and discover for yourself if alternative exercise programs like somatics may be one of the missing links.
Art of Movement
Posted by: | CommentsDoes Fido understand the art of movement better than us?
The Art of Movement Loosens Stiffness
Aging seems to come with a price of more stiffness, less mobility and flexibility which is a long forgotten memory. So why does Fido continue to move well as he ages?
Simply put, he pandiculates. He sets himself up for successful movement when he practices what appears as those morning stretches. Instead of stretching, he is contracting himself along a series of muscles in order to gain both relaxation and function.
This art of movement practice virtually goes unnoticed by us yet is key to moving well.
Free Muscle Cramps with the Art of Movement
When is the last time you saw Fido run and get a muscle cramp? All we have to do is rollover in bed… and out go the lights. Ouch!
To free a muscle cramp or muscular spasm is no big deal when you come to understand the art of movement which will easily and surely release what seems to be a mystery for many.
A tight, tensed up muscle releases itself not by pulling away in the opposite direction. This forceful method continues to be the way most people go at it.
On the flipside is to use an internal switch by learning how to tune down the built-up or holding tension. This is done by subtle movements in the direction of the offending signal.
Obviously there is an art of movement required here, yet anyone can learn how to successfully release a cramp.
The Art of Movement At Home
Good news is you don’t have to travel far to regain or master the art of movement.
Please join me for an online somatics exercise class where you’ll gain access to the art of movement using the power of subtlety to erase stiffness, regain mobility and restore the lost sense of flexibility.
Youthful movement isn’t just for the young. The art of movement can be practiced at any age.
