Stretching and Fascia

We commonly relate to stretching as a muscle based practice.  I invite you to consider that there are other tissues of the body that have the ability to stretch and benefit from specific stretching practices.   All your tissue are plastic and have the ability to stretch, change and move, including the bones.

Fascia is considered to be the main tissue that holds the structures of the body, not the muscles and the bones.  Fascia is a system in itself similar to that of all the other major systems like the cardiovascular, endocrine, GI.  If you were to remove all your fascia it would still look just like you because it holds everything together.  I have heard it thought of as a structural "one-sie", by Marc Drobnick.

The most profound thing about fascia is that it is everywhere in the body and can move, change and communicates.  Becoming aware of the feeling of fascia is one of the first ways to sense the interconnectedness of all the tissues that form you. If you move one part of you all other parts will be effected.

The idea of moving and stretching more than just muscle is common place in practices like Yoga and Qigong/Tai Chi.  The view of the body is expanded, instead of emphasizing muscles, all the tissues of the body are concentrated on and have a relationship to one another.

Tai Chi movement or Yoga poses can be specifically effecting an entire energy meridian from head to toe. When you do a forward bend you effect the entire backside of the body as well as the Kidney channels that are embedded in the fascia.

Bing Lee, Tai Chi/Qigong Teacher in Denver Colorado explains that the energy meridians are embedded in the fascia and if you move the fascia you move the energy. If the fascia is not moving the energy is not.

Fascia is a system that is well known to all physical therapist, massage therapist, craniosacral therapist, personal trainers, and hopefully doctors.

by Wendy Woods

How to Create a Lasting Exercise Routine and Enhance your Performance

Imagination is a powerful force that enhances your performance of anything you do especially exercise.  This has been known by top athletes for years.

If you hate working out and dislike how your body feels afterwards, than it becomes less likely for you to workout again.

Studies show that when you associate a positive feeling with an action it is more likely for you to choose that action again.  We associate feelings with actions.

Freud first spoke about this neuroplastic idea in 1888 but today it is referred to as Hebb's Law.   Freud theorized that when two neurons fire simultaneously, this firing facilities their ongoing association.  Freud emphasis that what links neurons is their firing together over time (neurons control movement). Neurons that fire together wire together.

You can improve the way you feel about exercise by recalling a very positive memory during your workout that results in a palpable feeling in your body or even make you smile. Then take on that next exercise while maintaining that good feeling.

This is why imagination and feeling that you like your workout, during and after, is important factor in maintaining and creating a healthy lifestyle.

Is Technology A Distraction?

Imagine this:

True Story. You are in the middle of a a great workout and you are just about to start your box jumps.

Anonymous
is standing in front of the 2 1/2 foot box, he is getting psyched up and just as he starts his leap his phone rings.  It distracts him just enough so he is not able to get his feet onto onto the box and in mid flight his shins crash into the box and his body folds over the box.

My friend who shared this will remain anonymous and was able to laugh at his scrapped up shins in the end.  And of course he realized that he needed to pay more attention.

So the answer is YES, techonoly is a distraction.

Sustainable Fitness

If we loose the ability to bend over and garden then we loose the ability to eat.  Yes I know most people get there food from the grocery store.  However, as the food quality standards change, so will our ability to meet our nutritional needs.

The ability to do Primal Movements allows a person to be able to sustain their life by giving them the strength to grow and harvest food and take care of daily chores essential to being able to live and sustain their life.

Primal Movements are defined as movements that up sustain us from infancy throughout our lives.  They begin as reflexive responses in utero and develop into well coordinated complex movement patterns that are the foundation for giving us strength, function and good body mechanics.

These Include:

1. Rolling Over  2. Crawling  3. Squat  4. Push/Pull  5. Reach/Grasp  6. Lift/Carry 7. Stillness/Yield

Qualities Needed:

1. Endurance  2. Strength  3. Recovery  4. Focus

***Note: there is a wrong way to do these above movements

Common Daily Activities That Can Become an Exercise

Common Daily Activities That Can Become an Exercise
by Wendy Woods

I love my profession because my regular exercise program is still a part of my daily life routines.  This was true for folks that lived before gyms and desk jobs too.

People say "Oh you can't get a workout from cleaning or doing house chores!"  This couldn't be more false, especially, if you are using good body mechanics.  Using good body mechanics educates your body and increases strength and function every time you do the movement.  The problem is do you know when you have an opportunity to increase your fitness ability.

7 Daily Opportunities for Exercise:

1.  Sit to Stand
2.  Pick Up The Sock
3.  Carry It
4.  Get up From The Floor
5.  Roll Over
6.  Reach For It
7.  Stairs

Most of us overlook these important 'transition movements'.  Instead we drive, use our arms to stand, lurch or throw our bodies in our attempt to "take the easy way out" and lose our ability to perform the daily movements with good form.

One of the first things I teach my clients is how to sit down and stand up in a beneficial way, increasing longevity and decreasing possible injury over time.

Awareness Practice- How do you get into your car?

Sitting risks: How harmful is too much sitting?

What are the risks of sitting too much?

Answer

from James A. Levine, M.D., Ph.D.

Researchers have linked sitting for long periods of time with a number of health concerns, including obesity and metabolic syndrome — a cluster of conditions that includes increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels.

Too much sitting also seems to increase the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer.

One recent study compared adults who spent less than two hours a day in front of the TV or other screen-based entertainment with those who logged more than four hours a day of recreational screen time. Those with greater screen time had:

• A nearly 50 percent increased risk of death from any cause
• About a 125 percent increased risk of events associated with cardiovascular disease, such as chest pain (angina) or heart attack

The increased risk was separate from other traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as smoking or high blood pressure.

Sitting in front of the TV isn't the only concern. Any extended sitting — such as behind a desk at work or behind the wheel — can be harmful. What's more, spending a few hours a week at the gym or otherwise engaged in moderate or vigorous activity doesn't seem to significantly offset the risk.

Rather, the solution seems to be less sitting and more moving overall. You might start by simply standing rather than sitting whenever you have the chance.

For example:

• Stand while talking on the phone or eating lunch.
• If you work at a desk for long periods of time, try a standing desk — or improvise with a high table or counter.

Better yet, think about ways to walk while you work:

• Walk laps with your colleagues rather than gathering in a conference room for meetings.
• Position your work surface above a treadmill — with a computer screen and keyboard on a stand or a specialized treadmill-ready vertical desk — so that you can be in motion throughout the day.

The impact of movement — even leisurely movement — can be profound. For starters, you'll burn more calories. This might lead to weight loss and increased energy.

Even better, the muscle activity needed for standing and other movement seems to trigger important processes related to the breakdown of fats and sugars within the body. When you sit, these processes stall — and your health risks increase. When you're standing or actively moving, you kick the processes back into action.

Create a Balanced Exercise Program

Many people approach exercise from a fight or flight survival approach.  No blame, this is our current education model.  I watched chickens the other day.  One dominate chicken, when it came time to receive food, pushed all the other chicken out of the way.  In essence the dominate chicken was a bully.  This dominate chicken is living from a pure survival mechanism in the brain which was established by a older evolutionary part of our brain.  Not bad, just out dated. 

Creating a balanced exercise program is all about the Approach, Process and Recovery.  If one of these is off, then we will not experience exercise as beneficial and we will be less likely to enjoy and maintain an active lifestyle.  

The 'Approach' is our warm up or how we begin to sense our body in motion.  Listening to the parts and how they are coordinated together. Sensing our areas of tension or weakness.  What parts of us are playing and which parts are out to lunch? Are we having a fun experiencing of our strength and ability to move and challenging ourselves? Or are we beating ourselves up, programing more self defeating thoughts and creating more suffering?

The 'Process' is the choice of what exercise we do, why we do it and how.   The choice of what exercise to do is the beginning of creating a completely personalized program that is like a fingerprint, total unique.  A balanced, truly, personalized exercise program is based on how you feel first and for most.  Run experiments.  Do a movement, notice the results.  If the movement is done well you will be able to notice the benefit. Aches and pains are not normal, they are signs and symptoms that something is wrong.  We all know lots of exercise "moves" but what do they do?  Slow down and notice your journey before its too late.  

The 'Recovery' is where we analyze the results of our exercise. Integrating and balancing the tensional matrix of our body back to a feeling of relaxed whole-ness .  This includes reestablishing parasympathetic function with breath and stillness, stretches, foam rolling, dynamic integrated movements like Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, and Tai Chi/Qi Gong.

Have Fun finding your Kinesthetic Delight!

Wendy Woods

What is Being Mindful

According to the Rick Hanson, being mindful is simply having good control over your attention.  Your attention can be placed where ever you want it to be.  When your attention is steady so is your mind explains Hanson.  With steady attention your mind is not hijacked by what ever pops into your awareness. Monkey mind is the traditional critical term to for skittish attention.

"Attention is like a spot light and what it illuminates streams into your mind and shapes your brain.  Gaining control over your intention is perhaps the single most powerful way to reshape your brain and thus your mind. You can train and strengthen your attention just like any other mental ability, Hanson.

Methods for deep contemplation, concentration and mindfulness are included in all traditions.    Typically one practices focused attention where your attention becomes absorbed in a something such as the breath.  Absorbing your attention completely on your breath for 1 breath cycle and then increasing up to 10 will help to train your attention.  Try this and notice what your mind does.  Are you able to hold your attention on the breath or do thoughts come in and interrupt the process?

Incorporating mindfulness into your life with not only enhance your physical fitness program but every other aspect of your life.  

Rick Hanson is author of the Buddha's Brain: Th Practical Neuroscience of happiness, love and wisdom.

http://www.rickhanson.net/