Stuff I Wrote

5 Things To Look for in a Shoe

OMG Shoes.

One of the most frequently asked question I get from clients and random folks on the internet is, “What kind of shoes do you think are the best?”. (obviously the ones that are 300 f#@*!&g dollars).

First, you don’t want to wear the shoes that I think are the best, because you’re not me.

Second, “best” is going to be different for everyone.

Third, no one can tell you flat out what is “best” for you, in any area of life, but also with shoes. Getting guidance is good, blindly following shoe advice is bad, and having a system to learn how to choose for yourself is the best.

And I have to confess that at the time of writing this, I am experiencing pain in my right foot such that I have to wear squishy slippers to not be in agony. Me forcing myself to go barefoot around the house won’t “Strengthen” my foot and eliminate the pain. Its a little more nuanced than that.

But, this isn’t about me. This is about you becoming a person who can think better about shoe choices.

So, are you wondering about what to look for in a shoe? Are you wearing minimalist shoes when it might not be in your best interest? Are your shoes keeping you stuck in pain or moving inefficiently? Read on.

Are you looking to join a barefoot shoe cult to justify your beliefs? Wrong blog post.

Are Your Shoes Working For You?

Two summers ago, I did my first ever online Movement Nerd Hangout called Are Your Shoes Working For You?, in which I presented a simple system to test the impact different shoes can have on your individual movement options.

A sneaky screenshot from one of the participants. Apparently my feet cannot pronate in my hiking boots. Sheeit!

Assuming the universal goal is “I want my body to feel WONDERFUL”, there are definitely a few key things to keep in mind when selecting a shoe.

First, check out this snippet from the shoe hangout in which I discuss the 5 things I look for in a shoe (and the whole hangout session is almost 90 minutes of shoe/foot/body detectivery, if you have the time for that).

5 Things I Look For In A Shoe

In summary:

  1. Your feet need to be able to pronate and supinate in the shoes.
  2. Try to choose soles that are as thin/flexible as possible but as thick/supportive as necessary.
  3. Toe box should wide enough to accomdate the foot’s natural spreading in pronation,
  4. Your body mechanics should not be negatively impacted by your shoes (this is where the Does My Body Like My Shoes? system comes in handy)
  5. You must like how they look. Seriously. Live life in style šŸ˜‰

The Does My Body Like My Shoes? System

Going back to point 4 above, how do we know if your body mechanics (and thus gait) are being negatively affected by your shoes?

I’ve got a super simple 3 step system you can try right now, based on the assessing motions your body needs to be able to access while you walk (Anatomy in Motion style). I actually stole this from Gary Ward. All credit to him.

Step 1: Do the movement self-assessments and get your barefoot baseline data on how your body can move.

Step 2: Put on a pair of shoes and see if your movement assessments change- better or worse- compared to your baseline.

Step 3: Categorize your shoes based on whether they mess with your body or not and choose accordingly to your goals.

You can do this with your orthotics as well to check if they are (or ever even were…) helping you.

At first I dismissed this system because it seemed too simple. But when has over-complicating things ever helped?

Want to try it? Grab a few pairs of shoes, and check out this snippet from a little later in the shoe hangout as I take the participants through the system.

The Does My Body Like My Shoes? system (patent pending… JK share this with all your friends and spread the love)

I also made a super handy workbook you can use to collect your data and categorize your shoes. Download it here.

I definitely learned something new about how my shoes are impacting my body.

For example, I learned that my favourite hiking boots actually restrict my ribcage and neck range of motion, but improve movement at my hips. And my Vivo Barefoot shoes improve movement at my ribcage and neck.

This information is useful for me to have so that I can track weird neck and ribcage symptoms (of which I haveā€¦) to whether or not I wore shoes my body didnā€™t like and failed to unwind with some self-care afterwards.

Knowledge is power, guys!

Of course there are other things to consider. Like if you have a dropped metatarsal head. Or a neuralgia. Or a bone that sticks out more on one side and rubs. Or an open flesh wound. But this is a nice starting point.

But the most important thing has nothing to do with the shoes you’re wearing…

Because if your body can’t move well, there’s not a shoe in the world that can teach your body to move differently. Only You can. And it helps to know if your shoes are in support of that trajectory, or against it. (And by “support” I don’t mean orthotics, in case that wasn’t clear…)

In addition to using my ultra-sophisticated shoe-choosing system, it is important to:

  1. Have strategies to proactively make your body robust to any shoe you choose, and
  2. Help you unwind after wearing crappy shoes.

That’s called “doing the work”.

Doc Martens, Chuck Taylors, and Vivos… All impact my body mechanics differently, and my work is to get my body to a state of unfuckwithableness to all shoes

Don’t outsource your personal power to the Shoe People

Repeat after me:

From this day forth, I am an empowered shoe-wearer. I solemly pledge to do the work necessary to become more resilient to all shoes. I will not blame my shoes for my body’s issues. I will then make informed decisions about my shoes from a place of logical reasoning.

Deal? And be OK that this might take a while. I’m not sure how long it will take me to figure out why my right foot hurts, but I’m committed to the process, and until I feel ready, imma keep wearing my slippers.

And now, because I know you’re still going to ask about minimalist footwear…

I want to tell a story about a client of mine (who will remain anonymous).

She is one of those barefoot idealists. I’m all for barefoot/minimalist shoes… I just wish my body could tolerate them.

And I wish her body could, too. But she’s in a bit of denial about that.

She had a pretty gnarly ankle injury when she was young, and when I assessed her, that poor foot was holding a dramatically caved in (pronated) posture, and could not supinate (create arch).

She had tried switching to minimalist shoes because she read it was the magic fix for all foot problems. I’m sure you’ve heard that rhetoric, too.

She also became one of the loudest proponents for minimalist shoes, going as far as to be a retailer of a prominent barefoot shoe company and posting videos of her doing barefoot running and hiking on her social media.

Thing is, she still had ankle problems.

After 4 sessions, we saw some nice changes in her ankle, but she asked me, “Do you think I should stop wearing minimalist shoes? Are they holding me back? Because… sometimes I think they are, but I love the idea of being barefoot”.

And my honest reply was, “Yeah they might be preventing you from making progress, and the only way to find out is to try not wearing them for a while and see what happens”.

Do you think she stopped wearing them? No…

Note that loving the IDEA of something doesn’t mean that it is something you should or can do. I love the idea of being able to eat 15 cookies everyday without consequences. But I can’t. Because that would be ignoring facts.

I haven’t seen her since, so I don’t know if she’s still having the same trouble with her body.

But what I’d like your to appreciate is that sometimes our bodies are NOT robust enough to tolerate minimlaist shoes, but maybe one day they could be.

When I tried to wear barefoot shoes, I quickly noticed that my right leg could tolerate them, but after 20 minutes of walking, all my left leg symptoms flared up.

All that to say, beware the loudest preaching people on social media, because what worked for them might not actually be working for them. OR they have some financial/emotional investment and aren’t being honest with themselves. Also, they are not you.

On the flip side, I have had a client switch from wearing heels everyday at work to rocking Vibram Five-Fingers, and noticed a huge reduction in her plantar fasciitis.

You can also check out an Instagram post recently by my pal from the UK, Helen Hall, in which she did some objective(ish) testing of how different pairs of SOCKS influenced her running mechanics , using her fancy shmancy force-plate/treadmill 3D analysis set up.

So I’ll leave you to make your own informed choices.

How to become robust to every shoe?

Ongoing commitment to getting your body moving more efficiently, and not just your feet. Because your feet have a movement relationship to every other part of your body, and without that relational harmony, a localized foot-centric exercise might not have the desired global effect.

And you’re in luck, because helping people (and their feet) move more efficiently is what I’ve dedicated my life to šŸ™‚

A good place to start is my 4 session online workshop, Liberated Body.

anatomy in motion

I created Liberated Body to help you get to the source of your body’s problems so you can move and feel better (and wear all the crappy shoes you want).

I guide you through a step by step process to identify your body’s restrictions and give you back the movements it is currently missing.

You can participate anytime, at your own pace. Go HERE to register for the home-study (which I also help you through along the way in real time from the comfort of my couch. Thanks internet!).

Conclusions?

Just three.

  1. Be honest with yourself.
  2. Don’t believe what people say on social media about what you should do with your feet/shoes/life
  3. Do the work to make your body robust to all shoes and make more informed choices.

I’m here to help with #3.

The Anti-Fitness Manifesto

Fitness goals…The only good reason to have them is so you can stop having them.

Why not skip to the part where you just stop having goals?

Trust me. I’m a fitness professional šŸ˜‰

Trust Me I'm a professional - Why not zoidberg? | Meme Generator

This January, while everyone else is making resolutions, doing some version of a “kickstart-being-healthy-in-30-days-fitness-challenge”, would you like to join me in my Anti-Fitness Challenge?

Free yourself from the expectation of getting fitter and healthier. And discover the joy of honest movement. Free from “shoulds”, and “have-tos”, and “I’m-bad-if-I-don’ts”.

Reclaim permission to move without needing it to be intense exercise. Without needing to get something out of it.

Reclaim movement free from utilitarian function.

What would that feel like?

Welcome to anti-fitness livin’.

But without fitness goals won’t I become an unhealthy slob?

I’m not saying become a blob.

I’m inviting you to become more aware of your unconscious motives for exercise.

Having goals for your body can be useful in that they can set a direction. But what if you’re going the wrong direction? Are your fitness goals ones that You came to on your own, that are meaningful for You?

I’d much rather people have no clear goal at all than to have blindly adopted a goal that was someone elses’ idea.

Not goals you picked up from Mom. Or your evil ballet teacher. Or the bullies you thought were your friends in highschool. (Oops I’m talking about myself…)

Remember that the person pursuing the goal has more value than the goal itself. In the process of working towards the goal, the goal setter ought to exist. The goal shouldn’t stifle your existence.

It’s quite possible that most of your fitness goals got accidentally chosen for you, without you knowing it. Think about that…

Can you think of one goal you had/have for your body that came uniquely from You? Or has every goal you’ve had for what your body should be able to do, feel like, and look like come from an external source?

Your parents. Friends. Social media influencers who really do care about you living your best life (as long as you’re wearing their clothing line…).

Everyone’s got “fitness shoulds” they believe and preach. But shoulds and goals are not the same.

You should be X% bodyfat to be healthy.

You should work on mobility with this or that trendy stretching routine.

You should build muscle mass, especially your butt.

And you should wear a particular shoe (or no shoes) while doing it all…

How do you know these “should-ers” aren’t just propagating the fitness goals (i.e. shoulds) THEY originally bought into, which gave them a sense of control by manipulating one teeny variable in the ever-increasing entropy of existence?

If you’ve ever felt out of control because you gained 5 pounds and can’t bear to face the world out of fear of being judged as a failure, you know exactly what I mean.

This January 2022… Just. Stop. Fitness. Goals.

And discover who is this You that keeps making fitness goals?

Screw that “new year new you” crap. This year, remember You. The original You. Untarnished by the opinions of others.

Everyone is trying to convince everyone else to care about the things they care about, which might not actually be the thing You care about.

And then we feel bad for not caring about the things that we feel we’re expected to care about. And then we feel worse for failing to to accomplish goals we don’t actually care about. Ironic, isn’t it?

Just admit you don’t care.

In the words of my spirit animal, Richard Feynman:

“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you want to accomplish. The others’ expectation of you is their mistake, not your failing.”

Surely You're Joking, Cartoon Richard Feynman

What if every fitness goal we’ve ever had is based on a learned moral judgement that isn’t true? “If X is right and Y is wrong, I need to get to X because I don’t want to look wrong”. That says nothing about whether it is healthy for you.

But what if trying to be “right” and “healthy” is making you unhealthy and sad?

What if my “healthy” decision is actually your “wrong” decision? What if my “wrong” decision is the best thing YOUcould ever do for yourself?

For example, I read a book recently that advised to eat a lot more vegetables (among other things). I already eat a lot of vegetables. But I started believing I needed more instead of asking if it was true. It kind of hurt my guts, but I kept going with it. I got more and more obsessive and orthorexic. I started avoiding social situations in which I couldn’t follow the author’s specific (unreasonable) guidelines, because I bought into his version of “healthy”.

But for someone else, getting a little more interested in eating vegetables might be the switch they need.

Can you see how we just can’t compare ourselves with eachother?

No one can tell you what is best for you. We have to figure out our unique version of health, fitness, and whatever else, or we can get swept away in the flood of shoulds and expectations and comparison.

What hidden motives lurk in your background?

The first point in the Anti-Fitness challenge is to consider that every fitness goal you think You came up with on your own might actually something you picked up (like that particular virus that shall not be named).

The second point is to look into whether your fitness goals actually have nothing to do with fitness, but you’re telling yourself, and everyone else that they are?

That’s called confabulation. And we’re all doing it.

I’ll illlustrate this fitness-confabulation-theory using myself as an example (I’ve been an expert confabulator all my life).

Until age 25, I don’t think I made one single self-aware, self-sovereign choice for what to do with my body. (I’m still not sure I’m able to think for myself, but I’m working on it.)

Here’s a short list of the things I did and the hidden motives I had for them:

When I was a wee lass, my parents put me into gymanstics, soccer, swimming, dance. None of it was my original choice. In the end I stuck with dance, but not because I loved it. I wanted to quit when I was 14. I stuck with it because I felt guilty about being a quitter. (that said, I do appreciate and feel very fortunate for being exposed to a variety of movement forms. Thanks, for realz, mom and dad.)

Then, in highscool, I felt pressure to join the curling team because on of my best friends was the skip (look it up) and I wanted to be worthy to be her friend. And I feared that any time I spent not around her was time she would forget about me and make other friends, and I would be all alone… Ahh teenage angst. So I pretended to like curling, but it wasn’t MY self-sovereign choice. It was a choice based on fear of abandonment and moulding mysefling into who I thought she wanted me to be..

I picked up guitar (a thing you do with your body, even if not “exercise”) because I wanted to look cool. People who play guitar are cool, right? It wasn’t MY choice. I picked up the belief that being cool is important. But I actually found the lessons stressful because I didn’t deep down want to play guitar. The body positioning also flared up shoulder pain. So why would I keep doing something stressful and painful? Looking cool is important. Obviously.

I joined the weightlifting club in grade 9 because I felt I had something to prove. I wanted to be “different”. Turns out weightlifting is actually pretty boring and no one cares.

I joined the cross-country running club because there were some popular people in the club and I thought I could be popular, too, by association (but I didn’t inherently enjoy runnning. I’m no Helen Hall…). 

Later in university, I started running again to prevent myself from getting fat. Running what I used to was to make up for all the crap I was eating, to calm my anxiety about being “too fat” to be a dancer.

Then I started high intensity interval training (HIIT) when running didn’t “work”, because I read in a book that “women should do treadmill sprints, not lift weights, to achieve their best physique, because squats and deadlifts build too much unsightly muscle bulk”. The book was written by a man… So I adopted some random man’s expectation for what I should look like and do with my body. And then I pulled my hamstring. Doh.

D'oh - Wikisimpsons, the Simpsons Wiki

After university, after quitting dance, I started powerlifting because I wanted to be perceived as someone powerful and capable of success to compensate for years of feeling weak, and “failing” at my dance career. It had nothing to do with “fitness”.

Then when I started learning about corrective exercise for pain, I naiively bought into everything I was told would “fix” my pain: You need to stabilize your core. You need stronger glutes. You need to stretch your hip flexors. I did it blindly and rationalized it was working (even though I still felt shitty). I became an advocate for neutral spine and glute activation drills, but in reality I was trying to find a sense of control.

Worse, I wanted to convince everyone else to care about being in control, too. Because that made me feel more in control when everyone adhered to my definition of control and life could be predictable and stable.

Kind of like being in prison…

Guilt. Worthiness. Needing to look a particular way… Do any of those sound like joyful reasons to move?

Not ONE single thing on this list is something I did for ME, uninfluenced.

Not one thing was for the joy of movement. Or was linked to something that genuinely fulfilled me. It was all about meeting expectations. Control. Appearences.

This is NOT the kind of state one ought to be making goals from.

I don’t know about you, but I’m no longer comfortable making goals drenched in expectation.

Any goal set out of expectation or shame will eventually lead to duress. Injuries. Deep fatigue. Sadness and depression. A sense of being lost and confused…

And I am sharing this with you today because when I realized the extent to which I had given up my right to choose for my own body, and convinced myself so thoroughly that I even liked it that way, it came as a shock.

It felt… gross, to recognize that lack of self-respect. To realize that I couldn’t identify ONE thing I’d done with my body that was for Me, by Me.

How about you?

What’s your thing?

90s kids will remember this PSA:

By pure luck I found My thing with Anatomy in Motion.

The movement practice I developed based on AiM isn’t something I do to please anyone. Not as an exhibition to post about on social media. Not to control my weight. I do it because it makes my body feel good. It satisfies my soul’s curiosity for learning about movement and anatomy. I am genuinely a nerd about it. 

In fact, in my early days of exploring AiM people said that what I’m doing is weird, and that I should stop.

One colleague actually went out of his way to sit me down privately and tell me that people don’t understand what I’m doing and it is off-putting so I should consider just doing what everyone else is doing in the gym, and stop doing this AiM stuff so that I’ll fit in.

And he claimed to be saying this because HE CARED ABOUT ME.

I don’t know what he actually cared about, but if he truly cared about Me– the being who wants to explore and learn- he wouldn’t have tried to place his goal of fitting in with everyone else onto me.

So you know what I said? Thank you and fuck that.

THAT’S when I knew I had found something that was mine to explore for Me. 

And I’m not sharing this because I think YOU should do AiM, or care about moving efficiently. I’m not trying to sell you on any movement form or value system or eating more vegetables.

I’m trying to sell you on YOU.

That’s what the Anti-Fitness Challenge is all about.

How would you move if it wasn’t about exercise or fitness or how your body looks?

What fitness goals are leftover when you drop all expectations?

Do you have a hunch about what that might look like?

I once asked this question to a client and she started crying. The idea that movement could be something enjoyable, non-utlitarian, wasn’t something she’d felt since she was a kid. Me too…

I think rediscovering the joy of movement is something we are deep down longing for permission to do, but there’s so much fear that moving for the sake of moving is a waste of time. Why would you move if there was no external goal? If there’s nothing to get out of it?

Maybe because you love yourself. How about that part?

On that note, if it vibes with you, I invite you to my life’s mission: A commitment to an awareness of when I feel an outward expectation for what I should do with my body- How it “should” look, move, be. And just say… Fuck that. 

Pause, and before going for that run, picking up that weight, kicking up into that handstand, ask: 

Is this Meaningful?

Is this Enjoyable?

Is this Sustainable?

Is this Healthy? 

And make a self-empowered choice for Me, by Me. 

Just some thoughts today šŸ™‚ 

The Anti-Fitness Challenge might be something I formally put together. But mostly, its for me. Because i need it. If you’d like to do it with me, shoot me an email and maybe I’ll put some structure to it. Could be fun? (probably not…)

Current Exercise Obsession: Supine Neck Decompression

After last week’s free Movement Nerd Hangout: Get Your Shoulders Off Your Ears, I experienced an unexpected and pleasant shift in how my creaky ol’ neck felt. So today I’d like to share a snippet from the session with the exercise I’m curretnly obsessed with, in the hopes it is helpful for you, too.

99.9999999% (not an actual statistic, don’t call the fact-police) of folks I’ve worked with need this movement at some point of another (but be fore-warned: Some people DON’T need more neck decompression! So if it feels bad in any way, please desist).

First, why should you care about neck compression/decompression? Specifically, compression of the occipital-atlantal joint (OA joint). Check out this quick intro snippet from the hangout that explains in a nutshell:

Ok, so OA joint compression can make your neck not feel awesome, limit range of motion (think, shoulder-checking whist driving), and isn’t very aesthetically pleasing (not that that really matters). Other considerations:

  • Blood supply, and therefore oxygen, gets to your brain through there
  • Spinal cord passes right through the occiput’s foramen magnum (“big hole”)
  • Cranial nerves pass through there, too (compression of which can make you feel all sorts of “off”)
  • Headaches- muscular tenstion and pressure-related can stem from OA compression
  • Reduced pumping of cerebrospinal fluid (which has ramifications for the health of your nervous system)
  • Some may experience depression (in my Upledger Craniosacral Therpay training we were taught that OA compression is a component of some presentations of depression that don’t have a clear root in chemical imbalance or trauma)
  • Via whole body movement connections, restriction at the neck can impact on EVERYTHING else: Feet, knee, hips, back, shoudlers…
File:Atlanto-occipital joint posterior.png
The space between the occipital bone and the arch of atlas is what we’re looking to open up

The next snippet is from the part of the hangout in which the audio quality went to shit.

Fear not. I’ve made subtitles and some sketchy video edits that I hope are helpful for you to follow the instructions effectively to participate along!

Give my current exercise obsession, supine neck decompression, a go:

This movement is inspired by the work of Svetlanta Masgutova, through the training I have been doing in her MNRI curriculum (Masgutova Neurosensorimotor Reflex Integration). The intention of this exercise is to decompress and elongate the back of the neck with an extension through the spine.

Did you try it??? Go do it now before reading more šŸ™‚

But now this brings us to a wee little problem. This is an example of looking at one part of the body in isolation.

Isolation and integration: When does neck decompression happen in connection with the rest of your body?

There is a specific time and place for every single joint motion.

The next step we need is to integrate WHEN and HOW this motion of neck decompression fits in with every other body part. So you’re doing the “right” motion, but are you doing it at the right place and time for your body to move most efficiently?

For example… Can you answer these questions about how your neck and your body should ideally move together?

  1. What does the rest of your spine do when your neck decompresses? (flex or extend?)
  2. What do both your feet do when your neck decompresses? (pronate or supinate?)
  3. When you bend your knees,what is themost efficient thing for your neck structures to do? (compress or decompress?)

Understanding these connections between your neck and other distal parts of the body are what help us take an isolated neck exercise, and use it as a whole body learning experience.

anatomy in motion

The problem is, our bodies might have gotten so far off course that its a challenge to know what is “right” and “wrong”. Where’s North and South on the map? Wait… Where’d my map go!?

Well, I happen to teach a handy map of the human body in motion in my Liberated Body workshop (you’ll be able to answer all three questions above after lesson two and feel the benefit of a more coordinated, connected body).

Having a map of how the whole body moves, as an interdependent system, is what helped me get my body out of pain. I wish the same for you. That’s why I put Liberated Body together. And you can do it online with me without having to brush your teeth.

So if you’re keen to learn more about whole body movement beyond this one little part of your neck (and how this one little part of your neck has HUGE influence on the rest of your body), sign up for my upcoming workshop Nov 17th.

GO HERE TO REGISTER FOR LIBERATED BODY NOV 17/21 šŸ™‚

But even if you don’t join in the movement goodness, give this neck thang a try. Maybe commit to practicing everyday, and see how it feels for your whole body. I’d love to hear what you observe šŸ™‚

A FINAL THING TO REMEMBER… This disclaimer about the neck decompression exercise:

There’s a lot of important tubes and structures (nerves, blood vessels, lymph, etc) housed in your neck. Be gentle. Don’t force things. Harder is NOT better. Go small and smooth and quietly. Use only 20% of your total strength. Use the effort you’d use to pat a kitten. If something feels bad, don’t continue. If things hurt, get help from a professional. It is IMPOSSIBLE to know if this exercise will be useful for you through the screen, and I am NOT a medical professional telling you that you MUST do this exercise to fix your neck problems. I cannot give you specific medical advice. My intention is to share a movement that may inspire you to take better care of your body and find new ways of moving it. I am not claiming this WILL FIX YOUR NECK. Just to be clear… šŸ˜‰ Use your common sense, and do this at your own discretion.

“Brake Hard Once in a While”: What Regenerative Braking Can Teach us About How We Get Injured

A few weeks ago I went on a canoe trip with my dad to the beautiful Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park.

View from our canoe-in campsite aka no trace of humanity… Take me back!

On the 2.5-hour drive, my dad told a story about “that time I had car trouble and blah, blah, blah…” (you know the kind your parents tell that you smile and nod through, but aren’t actually interested in?).

To my delight, his story contained an unwittingly wonderful insight from a Toyota dealership mechanic explaining why we get injured, and a simple heuristic for how not to.

Turns out listening to what your folks say is useful sometimes.

To get started, we need a basic primer on how the brakes work in hybrid/electric cars (trust me, this is going somewhere…).

The Problem With Regenerative Braking

My dad has a hybrid-electric car. A Toyota Corolla, to be specific.

Hybrid vehicles are built with mechanisms that make you morally superior save you fuel and battery life beyond all those other gas-guzzling, Earth-poisoning, death-mobiles.

One such mechanism is called regenerative braking.

What's the Difference Between Friction and Regenerative Car Brakes? | Machine Design

What is regenerative braking?

Unlike conventional friction braking systems, which work by physically clamping the wheels to stop them from turning, regenerative brakes work by running the wheels “in reverse” to slow the car down. Simply taking your foot off the gas pedal initiates the regenerative braking mechanism. Additionally, the resistance created by the motor charges the battery. Cool, right? I thought so!

But here’s the important part: This mechanism causes the car to slow down a lot faster than a non-hybrid/electric, and so you don’t need to step as hard or as frequently on the brakes.

Just a little tap, taparoo.

LADbible on Twitter: "Happy Gilmore who? ļøā›³ šŸŽ„: _kvng_snappy (IG)ā€¦ "

Apparently some regenerative braking systems as so highly sensitive that just taking your foot off the gas pedal is enough to trigger the brake lights.

Sounds like a win-win-win, right? Saves your brakes the wear and tear, preserves the battery life, and gives you more miles per gallon.

But… And this is an important but. There is an ironic darkside.

A lot of hybrid and electric car owners (such as my pop) find that their brakes are actully wearing out in spite of using them LESS. What the heck?

This is when my ears perked up in my dad’s boring car story. Wait, what? Why would brakes wear out if the system is set up so that you use them less??

Use it or lose it

The “use it or lose it” principle is usually discussed in the context of the brain, neuroplasticity (the brain’s capactiy to re-wire neural circuits based on new inputs) and body- If you consistenly stop exposing a particular set of neural circuits or body parts to stimuli, your system interprets there is no need for them, and you “lose” access.

Or remember Wolff’s law. Bone remodels and lays down new cells based on the forces imposed upon it. This is why after a bone fracture force needs to go through, i.e. bear weight on it, it to stimulate new tissue development and heal.

This is also how bone spurs develop- Muscles pulling excessively on a bone will stimulate it to grow.

Ross Road Physiotherapy Clinic, Chartered Physiotherapists - LAWS OF LOADING šŸ’ŖšŸ‹šŸ»ā€ā™€ļø Wolff's Law VS Davis's Law . šŸ“– Wolff's Law - Bones in a healthy person will adapt to loads under which
Basically the same thing that happens when you wear a pair of pants that are too tight, and by the end of the day they stretch out a little and fit a bit looser, based on the forces of your body on the pants.

This is also part of why some folks get osteoporosis. Lack of weightbearing exercise with high enough forces to stimulate bone to grow. If you don’t use it, you lose it.

*NOTE: See a completely unrelated story about a 97-year-old-woman and her osteoporosis at the end of this post.

The remedy for use it or lose it is to start using it again (and this becomes harder and more daunting the longer you wait).

What does this have to do with brakes?

Apparently, the use it or lose it principle applies with regenerative braking. Because the system is set up for inherent disuse (ironically positioned as a key benefit), the brakes are prone to corrosion because they don’t get used often enough.

You’ve seen how a bike chain rusts and stiffens if you leave it out all winter. Use it or lose it.

If you don’t deliberately “exercise” the brakes frequently and forcefully enough, when the time comes you actually DO need to hit them hard, say, to avoid running over a kitten, those rusty rotors might fail under the new load.

Don’t run over kittens. I just started fostering this cat. Look into her eyes and solemnly swear you’ll take care of your brakes.

As the mechanic at the Toyota dealership told my dad’:

“If you have a hybrid car, you won’t be using the brakes as hard. You don’t really use them as much as you would in a regular car. So what you kind of have to do once in a while is deliberately brake really hard to make sure they aren’t getting stagnant from disuse and accumulating corrosion”.

All I could think was, well isn’t that just how bodies work…

Bodies get “corroded” from disuse, too, and then wear out “suddenly” when exposed to a demand they weren’t adequately prepared for.

Or, as Gary Ward expresses the equation: Injury = You + Rate of change

What do you think? See Gary’s IG account @garyward_aim for more nuggets like this.

Another example you might relate with…

Were you super excited to get back to working out after a year of lockdowns? Did you mayyybe go back to your prior routine full-force like no time had passed? But all year long you didn’t once “tap the brakes” to keep all your body parts moving? (as a bodyworker/trainer, I saw a lot of this in 2021…).

And how many other so-called “syndromes” and “diseases” might actually have roots in disuse? Some types of arthirits? “Frozen” shoulder? Ankylosing spondylitis? Is disease the reason for disuse? Or is disuse the cause of disease? How do we count our chickens and eggs??

I’m not a medical professional, just a lowly bodyworker, and what I observe is that many labels are nothing more than fancy ways of saying, “a thing that stopped moving and now hurts and we’re not sure why…”. (and I also recognize that many labels are genuinely useful and liberating).

So if the problem is that you just stopped moving it, maybe try… Moving it? Sensibly, of course (that’s where people like me come in to help ya).

And much like the regenerative brakes on your uber-efficient hybrid/electric car, nothing seemed wrong, until…

It just came out of nowhere!

It didn’t come out of nowhere. You just weren’t aware of how little that body part was actually moving prior to the issue.

Disuse is a perfect set up for corrosion, mechanical damage, and malfunction of the non-moving parts. For your body, and your brakes.

Ankle sprains are a good example. Lots of people have sprained at least one ankle.

If you spend most of your life never exposing your ankles to the demands of ankle-rolly bumpy terrain, the soft tissues supporting your ankles (muscles, tendons, ligaments) are just like your car’s disused brakes: Slowly “corroding” away from disuse, but you don’t even notice because it’s so gradual, and you never put yourself in situations in which you even need to know your ankles exist, let alone use them in a challenging situation.

And then, one fateful day, whilst out walking your beloved pooch, you randomly trip, roll over your ankle, sprain your deltoid ligament, and realize how cushy your life has been.

Ankle Joint - Physiopedia

Did that injury really “just come out of nowhere?” Or were you setting yourself up for it for years because you didn’t ever deliberately use the structures that would have (should have) checked your ankle from rolling over and causing damage?

Look at all those amazing ligaments (ie “brakes) in your ankle and foot! Use ’em or lose ’em.

How many of our injuries that just came out of nowhere are the result of the “regenerative braking paradox”?

Joints act, muscles react

I am reminded of Gary Ward’s second big rule of motion: Joints act, muscles react.

And how are muscles reacting? To decelerate excessive joint motion away from center.

This is why his work centers around helping people discover the eccentric loading (the muscle contraction as it lengthens) of their muscles to manage (slow down) joint motion. This is akin to “tapping the brakes” at every joint in their body, to check excessive motion that could end up in an unsafe, potentially harmful range of motion. Like in our ankle sprain example.

If you can teach your body to move based on the joints act, muscles react thought process, then you are keeping your intrinsic regenerative braking system responsive, healthy, and on-point.

I encourage you to read more about this, and the other 5 big rules of motion in Gary’s book, What The Foot.

What the Foot?: A Game-Changing Philosophy in Human Movement to Eliminate Pain and Maximise Human Potential: Gary Ward: 9781907261084: Books - Amazon.ca

Conclusions?

I LOVE that what I anticipated would be another boring “that time the car broke down” story actually turned into an amazing analogy for how to keep our bodies resilient and healthy.

If you don’t deliberatedly use all the bits and pieces you are built of with enough frequency and force to keep them at peak function, you risk losing function of said bits and pieces. This has been my general movement practice philosophy for years, and I was tickled that it has a parallel in an area I know nothing about: Car brakes.

If you don’t use the brakes often enough to know if something’s not functioning well, you’ll never even know there’s potentially a problem.

Do you deliberately use your ankles often enough to know they can manage a roll?

Do you explore using your wrists often enough to know they can support you in a fall?

Do you purposefully flex your spine often enough to trust it can tolerate sneeze #55837? (apparently the average person sneezes ~70000 times in their life… Don’t ask me if that’s an accurate stat)

A car’s brakes manage it’s motion, just as our body’s soft tissues are like brakes that manage our skeletal motion. A movement practice based on “joints act, muscles react” trains the body to effectively decelerate potentially threatening wayward motion. This is NOT the same things as stretching and strengthening.

I am also reminded of how counterintuitive it can be to know how to care for ourselves…

Did the folks who built regenerative brakes intuit that they would create the disuse problem and lead to many cranky customers wondering why their brakes were shot even though they barely used them?

Did the folks who built the comfiest, thickest-soled, most ankle-supportive shoes ever intuit that it could cause a disuse problem and the plague of immobile ankles and feet? “But I never DO anything extreme to cause damage and I always wear my orthotics! Why are my ankles so shit?” (that’s exactly it, my dear…)

If only our bodies came with a user manual, and a well-informed, honest mechanic from the dealership…

Well, fortunately there are people in this world who are dedicated to helping you write your own body-owner’s manual.

People like me. And I am just one of many.

My aim is to empower people to learn about their bodies so they can rely less on therapists. And at the very least, be able to better communicate with them so they can get the collaborative care they need.

In fact, this is the most frequently reported benefit from my Liberated Body students: “I can communicate with my physio/massage therapist/chiropractor better now and it feels more like teamwork than blind faith”.

This is important, because advocating for our health is not easy when we don’t know anything about the thing needing fixing, leading us to naiively believe that we need to come back to the friendly chiropractor to get our neck adjusted every week for the rest of our lives… Don’t buy it.

If you’d like to learn more about how your body is built to move so you can systematically explore and prevent the disuse problem discussed in this blog post, I recommed checking out my online course Liberated Body.

anatomy in motion

Liberated Body is a series of four movement lessons based on the teachings of Gary Wards’ Anatomy in Motion. You’ll learn how your body is meant to move through the gait cycle (how you should be able to walk), and then compare whether or not YOUR body can access all those mechanics correctly.

Check out Liberated Body HERE. You can do it as a self-study, or look for the next live (online) workshop date.

Or whatever. Just make sure you keep tappin’ those brakes ahrd every once ina while to make sure they still exist.

*THE STORY:

If you have osteoporosis, can you improve your bone mass? Some people say that you can’t, you can only slow it’s wasting. I thought so, too. But then one of my clients told me a story about a 97 year old woman she knows with osteoporosis who made it her mission to build her bones back. Apparently she did exercises for 3 HOURS DAILY (I forget if it was for a year, or less), and when she went back to get her bone density tested again, it had gone up! I think only by a few percentage points. But how inspiring is that? And honestly, if you’re 97, you’ve definitely got the time and no excuses to commit 3 hours per day to rebuild your bones. And now the running joke when she says something can’t be done is, “Just put in 3 hours a day”. No excuses.

Movement Myth: You Need to Fix Your Anterior Pelvic Tilt

So, your trainer/physio just told you you have an anterior pelvic tilt that needs to be corrected because it’s bad. OMG. You’re doomed! Right? Or… Maybe not? Is an anterior pelvic tilt actually bad? And posterior tilt good?

5 Exercises to Correct an Anterior Pelvic Tilt - Live Love Fruit
On the left: Anterior pelvic tilt (tailbone lifts up)
On the right: Posterior pelvic tilt (tailbone tucks down)

Repeat this as your mantra: There’s no such thing as an inherently good or bad movement.

Have you ever been told that you have the dreaded “anterior pelvic tilt”? And it’s the cause of all your body’s problems? I have. And I believed it, too.

Most of us have been taught that some movements are universally “bad” and we need to fix them. Anterior pelvic tilt is nothing more than three words describing a movement a healthy body should be able to do, not a life sentence to pain, misery, and moral judgement.

Don’t listen to Dr. Google

I did a Google search for the neutral term “anterior pelvic tilt” and the first result tells me it’s something I should care about correcting! WHAT??! What if I didn’t even know what a pelvis is, and now the first thing I’ve learned is that mine might be wrong…

Just check out these results from the frist page of Google:

Anterior Pelvic Tilt: What It Is & How To Fix It. - Complete Fitness Design
If you’re a pilates teacher no doubt this was drilled into you
Just a sampling of fix-yer-dang-pelvis-AT fear-mongernig from first page of Google

Contrary to what you may read from Dr. Google about fixing your pelvis AT, any movement we avoid (deliberately or unconsciously) will limit us. Labelling movements as “bad” and avoiding them, our bodies will, ironically, become less free, less efficient, less flowing (and less fun!).

Pelvis anterior tilt is but one example. Another one is foot pronation. So is shoulder blade (scapula) protraction.

I, Monika (trust me, I’m a movement proefessional), hereby give you permission to do all of those things with your body, not that you need permission. In fact, I ask people to reclaim these “bad” movements in my Liberated Body Workshop.

Does an pelvis anterior tilt need correcting?

Now you know: No. Your body needs to be able to do an anterior tilt well, and do it with every step you take.

And there’s more to an anterior tilt of the pelvis is more than jamming your tailbone up to the ceiling. If it hurts your lower back to do an anterior tilt, you’re probably doing it wrong. Don’t avoid it, learn how to do one well.

Why?

You need an anterior tilt to load your extensor chain (glutes and hamstrings).

You need an anterior tilt to absorb shock through your hips and spine with each foot step.

And, you even need your pelvis to do an anterior tilt well if you want your jaw to be able to decompress. (Do you wear a night guard for bruxism? Hmm, maybe you’d like to assess your pelvic tilting as part of a hoistic strategy?)

The idea we need to “correct” a pelvis anterior tilt because it is bad and causes back pain is just an idea that is based on an incomplete, compartmentalized understanding of the body in motion. We can do better.

The truth? We need to be able to do an anterior tilt WELL just as we need to be able to do it’s opposite- posterior tilt, well. BOTH matter for the health of your hips, spine, and well, your whole body (and your life).

Think of it this way: If you could only choose to turn left or turn right for the rest of your life, which direction would you choose? Is one better than the other? Or would you like to do both? If Zoolander taught us one thing, it’s the pain of living a life with only the option to go right.

“I’m not an ambituner… I can’t turn left”

Case Study

A few days ago I worked with a client with lower back pain. He is a former high level curler šŸ„Œ. His back pain feels worse when he does a pelvis anterior tilt.

Traditional thinking would have us believe that we should avoid anterior tilting his pelvis like the plague and get him to squeeze his butt and tuck it under, right??

Not so fast…

As you’ll see in the video below, he actually has HUGE amounts of pelvis tuck-ability (posterior tilt). Wayyy too much. And you’ll hopefully see how it is dragging his spine backwards behind his feet and into a ton of flexion.

I’d also like you to observe how his pelvis anterior tilt pushes his whole torso forward, like a tree tipping over, putting his head well in front of his feet. This is the movement that is flagging up his back pain because he is shearing forward from one segment in his lumbar spine, instead of evenly articulating across all joints to make a healthy extension.

Check out the analysis I did below: Pelvis tilts BC (Before Cogs)

https://youtu.be/5rlDViqaTtM

If you’ve been studying the newly released Anatomy in Motion online course from Gary Ward and co.: Closed chain upper body biomechanics in motion, then in the first chpater you will have learned that for healthy spine motion in upright gait we’d like to see your head stacked on top of your pelvis when it moves into AT and PT. Not swaying you forward and back like bamboo in the wind.

We call that stacked up pelvis on ribcage on skull organization on-axis. I also like to call it a shishkabob. Your spine is the stick. Mmm… Kebab…

In my clients’ case, his entire torso is being pushed forward by a pelvis anterior tilt, which shows us a few important things:

a) This person is not able to access an actual pelvis anterior tilt (and therefore there’s nothing to “fix”, it’s a movement to re-discover!)

b) This person probably has a imitation in intervertebral articulation into spine extension, which is needed to keep his head over his pelvis (actual movement between each individual joint in the spine, instead of being a tree trunk) This is important for spine health. And for giving the abdominal muscles something to do. Want abs? Add being able to anterior tilt to your list.

Now check out THIS second video, which I took after doing 10 minutes of corrective exercise to help him and his body re-learn what both pelvis anterior and posterior tilts with proper spine articulation feel like.

Pelvis tilts AC (AFTER Cogs)

https://youtu.be/EbxkPxqsMmo

Can you observe the cleaner pelvis and spine articulation, and less forwards/backwards swaying of his whole torso? He also reports no more back discomfort. Booyah!

What did we do?

Cogs: Our favourite exercise in AiM world. Which I’ve written about before.

Check out THIS video of me doing some floor cogs for an example of what I took my client through (or learn more in day 1 of Liberated Body with me :)).

And I can’t say enough about the Upper Body Biomechanics in Motion course, which has an amazing section on cogs if you’re an uber nerd and want the technical details.

Such a good course! I’m biased and I strongly recommend šŸ˜‰

Now, what is important to understand is that in the AFTER video, my client is not consciously trying to do “good” pelvis tilts because he now knows what it should look like.

I’m not saying, “Hey Bob, based on what I told you about pelvis motion, can you make that happen with your mind-power?”

I’m asking, “Hey Bob, show me what happens if you ask your body to tilt your pelvis both ways without over-thinking how you’re doing it”.

Can you appreciate the difference?

This is a representation of his body having better unconscious access to a new way of moving that takes LESS control, less forcing, less micromanaging, and less energy. More likely to happen naturally in each step.

What are the take-aways?

If anyone tells you that a movement is bad, don’t believe them. BUT, sometimes movements can become unhealthy- asymmetrical, excessive, too small, too slow, too fast, unorganized with the whole, etc- then we need to re-train the bdoy how to perform it, coordinated with the rest of the body.

Whhile a pelvis anterior tilt was a trigger for my client’s back pain, the “fix” wasn’t to eliminate pelvis anterior tilt from his life. The problem was that he couldn’t do one at all, and was shearing from his spine too much, instead.

Too much posterior tilt can be just as much of an issue as too much anterior tilt. My client in this post is is case in point.

We need our bodies to be able to access both posterior AND anterior tilts of the pelvis. Remember Zoolander.

The better we become at observing movement, the better was can get at finding solutions that help us reclaim our options for moving better.

So… how well can your pelvis move? šŸ¤”

Want to learn more?

Movement myths abound in the worlds of fitness and therapy.

Knowing what a human body should be able to do and having a safe, non-judgemental space to explore how your body moves so you can understand what healthy movement feels like for you is so important for getting out of pain and optimizing performance.

Want to learn more about optimizing how your body moves, based on gait and the teachings of Anatomy in Motion? This is the kind of things I help folks with in Movement Detective School .

If you’re ready to stop wasting time with generic exericses and stretches, and youā€™re serious about learning how to undo the patterns you have adopted over the years due to past activities, sports, repetitive postures, injuries, and accidents, I’d love to work together on that šŸ’Ŗ

I’ve dedicated the past 10 years of my life to learning how to get my body out of pain by exposing it to the truth of how our bodies move in gait, and I have so much about that process to share. Shoot me an email if you have any questions šŸ™‚

Happy pelvis tiltin’.

Is Elton John a Movement Detective?

This is chapter 1 of The Movement Detective Manifesto, the “textbook” I’m creating for Movement Detective School. Want a PDF version of this blog post? GO HERE. Print it out or put it on your e-reader, because eye strain due to screen-time sucks!

Hereā€™s an obvious and undeniable fact about life: Youā€™re going to feel pain and that will suck.

But donā€™t let that depressing introductory sentence get you down (please keep reading, it gets better, I promise) šŸ™‚

In fact, pain is an amazing mechanism that has kept me alive long enough to write this, and you to read it. Imagine not being able to feel pain. As delightful as that initially sounds, think of how easy it would be to die. 

Congenital insensitivity to pain is just that. While extremely rare, sadly, many individuals stricken with it tend not to survive the bonks, burns, and boops of childhood. In this regard, pain is actually our ally. We shouldnā€™t want to live completely numb from it.

This brings me to the topic for today, and my biggest, burningest question for the past 10 years: How does one get out of pain? 

At age 22 I was quite sure I was on the fast track to getting a hip replacement in my 40s, and I wanted to know what to do to prevent that future from becoming my life. I just wanted to enjoy walking again.Ā 

And you know what, I succeeded. Walking is my greatest, simplest joy. Iā€™m pretty sure my right hip will last the rest of (or at least most of) my life. How did I do it?Ā 

Is there a ā€œget out of painā€ X-factor?

Why do some people succeed at getting out of pain, while others donā€™t? Why are some people crippled by it ’till the end of their days, while others make ā€œmiraculousā€ transformations, bouncing back stronger, fitter, better than before? 

Take Tiger Woods for example. He’s faced multiple serious, career-threatening injuries, and then came back to totally crush his competition. What makes him so special? (hint, it is not because he’s a wealthy celebrity).

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA - APRIL 14: (Sequence frame 5 of 12) Tiger Woods of the United States celebrates after making his putt on the 18th green to win the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club on April 14, 2019 in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

There are obviously a mind-breaking number of factors involved. Some we can control, many we canā€™t. 

But the ā€œxā€ factor, so to speak, is one that we all actually have power over: How we consciously respond to our pain.Ā 

This is where I think things get interesting. And tedious. And nuanced.

For example, most commonly, folks will respond by trying to ignore their pain. Why? Lots of reasons.

Maybe because they genuinely donā€™t have the resources (which was once my case as a poor student). Or perhaps because they are afraid that acknowledging the issue makes it too real (and reality is a drag, I know). Or because ā€œI donā€™t have the time for this I’ll deal with it laterā€ (and if I wait long enough maybe the problem will resolve on it’s own?).

But ignoring pain has a cost. Like, an actual costs-you-money cost. 

According to this paper:

 “…total financial cost of pain to society, which combines the health care cost estimates and the three productivity estimates, ranges from $560 to $635 billion... the annual cost of pain was greater than the annual costs in 2010 dollars of heart disease ($309 billion), cancer ($243 billion), and diabetes ($188 billion) and nearly 30 percent higher than the combined cost of cancer and diabetes.”

Yikes. That’s fine for the folks who do have liberal amounts of cash to throw at their pain. And there is no shortage of therapies, surgeries, and drugs promising relief (which may or may not relieve anything).

Sadly, less affluent, desperate people can go into massive debt paying for pain solutions. Some people will develop debilitating drug dependencies, out of no fault of their own (which costs them even more later in the arena of mental health support). 

Then there are the DIY-minded types of people who, rather than spend all their money (like a sucker), search the web for low-hanging fruit: Generic exercises on Youtube for x, y, and z. Consumer-grade gadgets like lasers and massage tools. They might even deep dive into what specific foods to eat to fix their pain (an anti-inflammatory, fish-oil-based, gluten-free, dairy-free, zero-fun diet).

But here’s a cautionary tale: A gentleman I met on a course watched a video on Youtube about how one’s ankle can get “stuck” and cause problems for the whole body. So he got the bright idea to DIY it, and used a sledge hammer to “knock his ankle free”. Needless to say, that made things worse. DIY is admirable, but not always effective…

The frustrating thing is that despite all these efforts, clever tactics, and dollars spent, none of the above can guarantee you’ll actually even get out of pain. Why the heck is that? 

Hereā€™s a weird question that I think neatly states the point of this manifestoā€¦

Is Elton John the kind of person who can get out of pain?Ā 

Elton John Announces The Return of His Iconic Elton John: Farewell Yellow Brick Road The Final Tour ā€“ BC Place

On the morning that Iā€™m writing this, I saw this post from Elton John (age 74!) reshared on Facebook: 

ā€œAt the end of my summer break I fell awkwardly on a hard surface and have been in considerable pain and discomfort in my hip ever since. Despite intensive physio and specialist treatment, the pain has continued to get worse and is leading to increasing difficulties moving. I have been advised to have an operation as soon as possible to get me back to full fitness and make sure there are no long-term complications. I will be undertaking a program of intensive physiotherapy that will ensure a full recovery and a return to full mobility without pain..ā€

Read that last sentence again: ā€œwill ensure a full recovery and return to full mobility without painā€. 

Those are confident words. What do you think makes Sir Elton so sure of his success? 

Think of another 74-year-old you know- Your lovely, retired, elderly neighbour, Gina. What if Gina fell and needed hip surgery? Are her chances higher or lower than Eltonā€™s to ā€œreturn to original performanceā€ in two years? (and by the way, 2 years is a period of time considered to be a minimum standard for completing a healing process, in some therapeutic communities.)

First, letā€™s state the obvious. Elton Johnā€™s got the cash, and really should have no excuse to fail from the “buy-pain-away” perspective.

He can clearly afford the most expensive, highly qualified rehab team in the world. He isnā€™t shackled to a blue-collar day job, so he can dedicate every minute of each day, and all his natural physical resources towards rest and recovery. He has a team of people who can do things for him so he can let his body heal.

So what hope is there for Gina next door, living on a wee school-teacher’s pension? Or even yourself- What chance do you have if you donā€™t have the financial, temporal, or physiological resources to get well?

Well I have a potentially bold statement to make: Having wealth as vast as Elton John cannot guarantee you will heal from pain. In fact, it might even get in your way unless you are the kind of person who can heal.

Elton John is obviously a crazy talented, successful musician with near-infinite resources to devote to getting out of pain but is he the kind of person who can do it? I guess weā€™ll find out in 2023 (and I personally think he is, for reasons youā€™ll read about further along).

I argue that low economic status is not a good enough excuse for being stuck in pain. Iā€™ve witnessed people in meager financial situations get well, without spending even 0.0001% of Eltonā€™s budget. And I’ve witnessed wealthy people spend far too much money on therapies and get zero relief, but keep spending anyway, simply because they can.

In his book Behave, Robert Sapolski investigates the correlation between low socio-economic status (SES) and poor health.

Behave by Robert M. Sapolsky: 9780143110910 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Summarizing the SES/health gradient situation, he writes:

ā€œ…the ā€˜socioeconomic status/health gradientā€™, in culture after culture, the poorer you are, the worse your health, the higher the incidence and impact of numerous diseases, and the shorter your life expectancyā€

But how does one explain this phenomenon? I think what Sapolski writes next is interesting and empowering:

ā€œ…itā€™s not so much being poor that predicts poor health. Itā€™s feeling poor- someoneā€™s subjective SES (e.g. the answer to ā€˜How do you feel financially when you compare yourself with other people?ā€™) is at least as good a predictor of health as is objective SES.ā€

Whoah. So could it be that how you feel about your ability to get your body out of pain is the ā€œx-factorā€? Not money? Not education? Not access to healthcare?Ā 

Could it be that what it really takes to get out of chronic pain isnā€™t something you can buy: Itā€™s how you are. 

Meet Person 1 and Person 2

There are two kinds of people (regardless of socio-economic status):

Person 1: Wants to stop feeling their pain, right now.

Person 2: Want to become the type of person who can get themselves out of pain, now, and in the future.

As the cliche goes, Person 1 just wants the fish. Person 2 is willing to learn to catch their own fish, even though they might have to start with a stick with a string tied around it, DIY-rod humble beginnings.

Person 1 is into immediate gratification and fast results without considering long-term consequences.

Person 2 accepts the need to make changes to their most fundamental lifestyle habits and belief systems. And in my humble observation, Person 2 is the one who succeeds in freeing themselves from chronic pain in the long-game, where Person 1 fails to accomplish anything sustainable or healthy. 

Ironically, Person 2, while less likely to have vast amounts of cash to inject into the problem, is more likely to solve it. Why? Because they have no other choice. They canā€™t fall back on money to fix something money canā€™t actually fix: Who they are. 

The irony is that having lots of money gets in the way of healing because Person 1 can feel very productive throwing money at their bodyā€™s problems, but they are still Person 1 with the sole focus on not feeling pain (i.e. distracting oneself).

Person 1 will almost always live with a degree of pain because they havenā€™t learned the skills and characteristics, or put in the effort required to truly liberate their body. And no, being very good at ignoring something is not the same as freedom from it. 

Person 2 is an empowered, independent person, with a DIY spirit. I call person 2 the movement detective. 

This manifesto is an invitation to discover, cultivate, and master the inner discipline it takes to become a movement detective in your own right, and take ownership of your path out of pain. 

I hope to empower you to consider the value of this path, regardless of economic or educational status.

Its not about the things, its the person

Most people in the movement and therapy world arenā€™t talking about the inner discipline required to get out of pain. Most people are touting their specific things: Exercises, modalities, gadgets, pills, surgeries, orthotic devices, courses, and diets.

 Most people are blaming external things like their mattress, job, and non-ergonomic chair, instead of putting the onus on the person laying on that mattress, working that job, and sitting in that chair.

Yes, all of the above matter, but the tool will only work in the hands of the person who knows how to use it. No one thing is guaranteed to work, unless you are the kind of person that thing will work for. 

And that’s not something you can buy, thus I have nothing to sell you but on the power you have within yourself. Or maybe one day I’ll endorse a chair…

Iā€™ll wrap this chapter up by saying that this manifesto is for you if youā€™re curious to learn what this process of learning how to trust Yourself to look after You looks like. To cultivate a state of sovereignty. Maturity. Physical mastery. A realization that how You are is the only way your body (and your life) can be.

So what about Elton John? I personally think he is Person 2- a movement detective. He just seems like a man with a vision, doesnā€™t he?  

Stay tuned for chapter 2 in which I’ll unpack what it means to be a movement detective, share some practical strategies, and tell some stories I think will convince you that movement detectivery is a worthy, fulfilling path.

PS What’s Movement Detective School? It’s where I hope to empower you to learn how to use gait-based exercises as part of a holistic, individualized, healing movement practice, so you can rely less on other practitioners to “fix” you.

Movement Sleuthing Challenge: Your Jaw vs. Your Hips

Fancy a little movement detectivery you can do for free, from the comfort of your own home?

Well, not completely free… You need the internet (and I don’t know about you, but my rates just went UP!). And you’ll have to stand up and use your brain and your muscles a bit, so it might not be as comfortable as sitting on your butt.

Regardless, if you have jaw issues, hip issues, or both issues, I think you’ll appreciate this little piece of biomechanical investigation. The video below is a simple way to test if your jaw’s resting position (which may be a lil’ off center), is messing with how your hips and pelvis are able to move.

Can you see how when I shift my jaw one way it makes things looks really discombobulated? What’s up with that huh?

The Jaw vs. Hips Test Explanation

In this video I’m testing if the resting position of my lower jaw (mandible) is impacting on my ability to hike my pelvis on either side (and thus adduct/abduct my hips- which needs to happen with every step we take for efficient gait).

The Mandible - Structure - Attachments - Fractures - TeachMeAnatomy

Ideally, our pelvis hikes and drops with each foot step we take. We also want our bodies to move as evenly as possible on the right and left sides: Pelvis hike on the right should be pretty dang close to the hike on the left.

In this assessment, we’re looking clean and clear (and under control…) frontal plane motion, meaning purely up and down motion. Not a pelvis rotation. Not a pelvis thrust. Pelvis bones ought to move like elevators, not a washing machine.

In this assessment, pelvis hiking is accomplished by gently bending one knee to allow the opposite side of the pelvis to hike up on it’s own. I’m not trying to use my side-abs to pull my pelvis up with a muscular contraction. This is an assessment of how your pelvis reacts to a knee bend, NOT trying to see how high you can jam your iliac crest into your ear like it’s a contest.

Start by evaluating how each side hikes with your jaw doing it’s natural thang. Note any differences. This is your baseline.

Next, slide your jaw to the RIGHT (like a type-writer). Repeat your pelvis hikes. Notice if that changes anything. Better, same, or worse?

Lastly, slide your jaw to the LEFT. Repeat your pelvis hikes. Notice if that changes anything. More even right and left? Less even? Any discomfort?

Did one of those three jaw positions make your pelvis hikes more even? More comfortable? Worse? Or no difference?

The Results

If you are perceptive, you can probably see which jaw position helps my pelvis and hips achieve more balanced, clean motion.

(FYI my right and left sides are reveresd. My tattoo leg is my right leg…One of my online students actually remarked that it was great to have my right leg so clearly denoted because it helps her keep track of the rights and lefts in class! Yes… I got that tat for exactly that reason… ;))

Here’s the video again, to save you some scrolling:

Round 1: Jaw in it’s default resting position. My pelvis hikes look pretty even right and left, eh?

Round 2: Jaw shifted LEFT. When I hike left side up, I shift off of that leg. And when I hike right, I rotate towards the right instead of hiking. This is NOT clean motion, meaning I have poor access to both pelvis hikes.

Round 3: Jaw shifted RIGHT. This looks very similar to round 1, but in my body it feels smoother and happier.

So, if I had to pick one jaw position that promotes optimal hip motion, jaw shifted right is the winner.

Interpretating the Results

Okay, so what’s the point of this, and what, if any, useful information can we glean from it in the name of better, pain-free movement?

Jaw position is kind of a big deal.

Interestingly, our mandible’s position in our skull dictates a lot about how we’re able to move our hips and pelvis in gait (among other things… THAT’S a rabbit hole of a lifetime that will make you very disappointed in humanity and yet empowered to pay attention to your oral-facial health and tell everyone to shut their dang mouth while they breathe. But don’t get too high on that soapbox…).

We can consider the jaw to be a “leveller” of the body- A mid-line structure with a significant impact on whole body mechanics. What if your body took part of it’s cue for where its center is, based on where your jaw is? What if this had an impact on which phases of gait you can and can’t access (it does)?

So when you notice your jaw is “tight” or clicky or you clench it, know that this is not just a jaw problem- It’s a whole body problem.

What I haven’t mentioned yet is that my jaw’s default resting position is already shifted to the left.

So in round 1 of the test, my jaw is actually sitting slightly left of center. I think it’s been that way since I was at least 3 years old. Why do I think that? Because I have a photo of me on my third birthday in which my jaw looks like it’s pushed farther back on the left side.

Like this:

Its subtle, but can you see the left side of my jaw shoved back farther than on the right? Happy bday to me!

In round 2 of the test, when I slide my jaw to the left, my pelvis and hips have no clue how to move in the frontal plane! What’s going on here?

As mentioned earlier, hiking the pelvis needs to happen with each footstep. It’s part of our bodies’ shock-absorption mechanics that happens when our foot pronates on the ground, loading the lateral glutes medius and minimus (this is suspension phase of gait for the AiM folks, loading phase for the rest of y’all).

So too does the jaw have it’s own coordinated movement with the whole body in gait for optimal efficiency.

In gait, when the pelvis hikes on one side, the jaw actually needs to slide over and gap (teeth come apart) on that side as part of a whole body pattern for efficient movement.

In another moment in gait, when the right heel hits the ground (heel strike), the jaw actually shifts to the left. Interestingly, right heel strike is a phase in which I experience right hip and SIJ pain sometimes. In fact, right hip pain was the first chronic pain symptom I ever remember having.

So this gets me thinking… How long has my jaw been messing with my hips? Has my resting-left jaw tendency predisposes me to having the hip problems that I did/still do? Have my hips really been on a path of destruction since I was three years old (or even earlier?). I don’t think this is random, or coincidence…

What do you do with this new data?

Let’s say you’re like me, and if you shift your jaw left your pelvis doesn’t know the meaning of “hike”.

Let’s look at the data:

  • Where’s my jaw at rest? Shifted left.
  • When I shift it MORE left (deeper into default) I can’t hike either side of my pelvis, when I shift it right, things improve.
  • Thus my jaw being positioned left is highly likely to be giving my hips and pelvis some grief
  • Solution? Getting my jaw to not be stuck to the left all the time and have a more centered default position would likely have a beneficial whole body effect.

The journey from here- what you decide to do, will vary based on the tools you have in your toolkit to reorganize your jaw. Manual therapy, movement re-training, goofy looking face stretches, all can be useful.

For the past 3 years I’ve been on a journey of levelling my jaw. It’s been a fascinating, enriching, and frustrating project.

Here are a few interesting things I’ve noted along the way that have helped me un-leftify my jaw, and significantly improve how my hips feel:

  • I prefer to unconsciously chew on the left side. It’s my happy place. I try not to always chew in my happy place.
  • When I am in social-anxiety-producing situations, I unconsiously clench my jaw and shift it to the left. It’s where my jaw goes when I’m trying to cope with stress. Now I’m at the point that I’m conscious of it happening. Sometimes I can even NOT DO IT.
  • Oral-facial integration techniques (a la MNRI) and craniosacral therapy have been super helpful for me. I can do these manual therapy techniques on myself because our faces are easily within hands-reach. Learning these two modalities have been game-changing.
  • Understanding how jaw motion couples with the rest of our bodies in gait, as per the Flow Motion Model taught by Gary Ward in his Anatomy in Motion courses has been crucial for me to use whole body movements to re-integrate my jaw with my body in a meaningful context, i.e. walking. Do you know what your jaw should be doing in three dimensions with a pelvis hike? Well mine isn’t doing the right thing! And reorganizing that has been key.
  • I used to get weird popping and ringing sensations in my left ear, especially under stress… Now they are almost gone, but come back when my jaw is more to the left (which happens when I’m under stress).
  • Making funny faces is an awesome and important part of changing the way you move šŸ˜œ I mean, this is serious business, but that doesn’ t mean we can’t have some serious fun with it.

My invitation to you

Are you feeling like a Movement Detective? This is the kind of stuff I like to share with my students in my secret Movement Detective School. Oops, not so secret anymore…

Give this test a try and see if your jaw could be impacting the motion of your pelvis and hips.

It is quite likely you have one position in which your jaw discombobulates your hips.

Is that the same side you have a clicky, poppy jaw? Is that the same side you chew on primarily? Is that the same side you got smoked in the face by some aggressive jerk in a hockey match? Is that the same side you had a traumatic experience getting your wisdom teeth removed?

Let me know what you find. What if you could free your jaw, free your hips, and free your life? (you can!)

PS I share little videos like this from time to time on my Instagram page. I think social media sucks 90% of the time, but I like to use it to share the nerdy movement things that I do. Feel free to follow me @monvolkmar

Five Books That Changed Me

In my 3 Essential Tools resource (a must-read for budding Movement Detectives) I extolled the importance of continous learning. Education is truly one of the most valuable tools for helping our bodies move with more ease and less pain.Ā If you don’t know what a healthy body should be able to move like, how are you going to get yours to move better??

Education comes in so many forms: Attending courses and workshops (online and in person), diploma and degree programs, working directly with mentors, doing independent research, and reading. If you’re me, lots and lots and lots of reading.

I confess… I have a reading problem.

Not that I can’t read well, but that I have a tendency to get so stuck into reading a book that I might shirk my more pressing life resonsibilities. This can get me into trouble when I actually have important shit that needs getting done. Adulting is hard sometimes…

That said, some books have literally changed the trajectory of my life.

Has that ever happened to you? After reading a book, something actually woke up in you that forever changed how you think and engage with life?

Ā It’s rare… Most of the time, embrrassingly, I struggle to summarize just three key take-aways after finishing one chapter. Reading a LOT of books clearly doesn’t equate in me actually absorbing the content.

And then there are some books after which the trajectory of your life shifts a few degrees.Ā 

Have you heard of the 1 in 60 rule in aviation? It states that a one degree change in direction can result in a disproportionately large shift in final destination: Each degree off over a distance of 60Ā nautical miles translates to 1 nautical mile off course. Think about the crazy implication this has for where you might end up… A completely different city, or country, or even continent!

Some books push us that one degree (hopefully in a meaningful direction…). How amazing is that?

So I’ll stop blabbering now, and get to the point. I’d like to share five books that stand out in memory as having changed the trajectory of my life. I don’t expect that they’ll have the same life-changing effect on you, but one of these titles might lead you somewhere new that you wouldn’t have explored otherwise.

5 Books That Changed Me

What the Foot?: A Game-Changing Philosophy in Human Movement to Eliminate Pain and Maximise Human Potential: Gary Ward;: 9781907261084: Amazon.com: Books

What the Foot- Gary Ward

Well of course this is at the top of my list. I don’t know who or where I would be right now had I not read this book. Is has had the largest impact on both my professional and personal philosophies for working with human bodies in motion, including my own.

WTF is a mind opening read that made me question the conventional fitness and therapy paradigms around stability and core training, foot mechanics, and the utility of stretching. Like the tagline says, “A game changing philosophy…”. This book also led me to take the plunge and take the six day Anatomy in Motion immersion course (7 times…) which at the time was a big financial investment. Now, I am working with Gary and Chris of AiM as both a mentee and mentor to help other AiM students learn more deeply.

Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance: McGill, Stuart: 8601409972480: Books - Amazon.ca

Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance- Dr. Stuart McGill

Here’s a story I’ve never told here before: When I was 21 and getting hamstring rehab, my physiotherapist lent this book to me, and it was the inspiration to create a program to help banged-up dancers with back (and other) problems build strength and prevent injuries (The Dance Training Project).

This is the book that first got me interested in learning about my own body. Up until then I’d never given much thought to the notion that I could have any effect on changing my reality. This book inspired hope in me that, with this new information about how the spine works, I could take responsibility for my back problems and get myself well. Honestly, I haven’t referenced this book since I was 21, though I’m sure there are some excellent golden nuggets to review. But the biggest thing I got from this book was the sense of empowerment that came from learning something new about my body that I previously had zero awareness of: It woke up my inner Movement Detective.

Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness– Erich Schiffmann

This book denotes a major pivot in my life: The moment I learned what it meant to feel “good” after moving my body. I was 19 or 20 at the time, and decided on a whim to take a yoga class. It was the first time I actually breathed while moving- What a concept. It challenged my body in a whole new way comapared to my dance training. And after the class, something felt very different. I was used to feeling broken down after dance and exercise, but that day I left the studio feeling clear headed, calm, aligned, and “good”. I didn’t know what good actually felt like until then!

Intrigued, I went to a local indie bookstore, and this book jumped off the shelf at me. The first section the author’s story, his journey into yoga and meditation. I had never considered trying meditation before, and I gave some of his exercises a try. It was a gradual shift, but this was my initiation into observing my own thoughts, and that movement could feel restorative, not punishing. I began willingly observing myself. Slowly, I started to value awareness and self-inquiry. I don’t know if this book is anything special compared to other yoga books (haven’t read other yoga books), but it was the exact book I needed at that moment in time.

Loving What Is- Byron Katie

This lovely book gave me practical tools that helped me reduce my neuroticism to a level that made my life much less sufferable. In her book, Katie outlines “The Work”: A four-question process for investigating the sneaky beliefs and thoughts that are keeping us stuck in the same old cycles of emotional reactivity, and holding us back from evolving in all areas of life.

I remember the first time I used her framework I immediately felt as if a weight had been lifted. I realized for the first time the depth to which my unconscious belief-systems were ruling my every thought and decision, repearing the same behaviours over and over. I can’t recommend this book enough for anyone looking for a structured, systematic way of compassionate self-inquiry.

The Art of Asking– Amanda Palmer

Amanda Palmer is a musician who began her performance career as a “living statue” street-performer (and made more money than she did at her “real job”). Her story has nothing to do with the body, but it heart-warmingly covers important themes common to all humanity: Defning your personal version of success and marrching to the beat of your own authentic drum. The courage it takes to risk being vulnerable. The value of human connection, and nurturing relationships (which I often still take for granted). The magic that can unfold when you put your trust in people and life and your intuition, even when things are uncertain. That sneaky little “fraud police” character within that can sabotage us from taking action towards our dreams. And so much more (in fact, after reading this book I was inspired to start writing my book Dance Stronger).

Disclaimer: These books probably will not change your life. Don’t get your hopes up šŸ˜‰

I think books find their way into our hands at the exact time we need them, for eactly where we are in our lives at that moment, for the exact lessons we personally need to learn. Life works in mysterious, magical, and serendipitous ways.

It is 100% possible (more like, probable) that you could read one of the books and get absolutely nothing useful from it. Boring. A waste of time. And that’s ok šŸ™‚

Anyway, I’d love to hear if you’ve read any of the books on my list, and then what the top five books are on YOUR life changer list šŸ™‚ Because I can always use more book recos.

*BE AWARE: Some of the book links are Amazon Affiliate links, which means that if you click through and happen to purchase one of the books, I get a microscopic % of the profits. I’m not doing this because I’m a greedy-pants person, but because every litte bit helps support me spending hours of my time writing this blog. I am ever so grateful if you do wish to purchase one of these books, that you choose to go through one of my links, and help support me writing more for this blog (and simultaneously divert some $$ from Amazon into my pocket). Thank you! šŸ™‚

Does Getting Stronger Fix Pain?

I had faith that strength training would cure my pain.

Me, 2013ish. Total strength training nerd. Also, this photo somehow ended up in a T-Nation article about single leg deadlifts, without my permission. I took it as a compliment, but no one ever replied back to me about it…

What do you think? What role does strength training play in healing from injuries and chronic pain? 

I don’t necessarily have answers, but I have some humble thoughts.

When I first started working (customer service) at a gym in my early 20s I heard all kinds of things from trainers like:

“Your core is weak, thatā€™s why your back hurts.”

“Your butt is weak, thatā€™s why your hips are tight.”

“Your knees hurt because they are too unstable.”

Naive and impressionable, riddled with acute injuries and chronic symptoms from my dance training, I translated this to ā€œI am in pain because I am weak, therefore getting strong and stable will fix my bodyā€.

Long story short, I was wrong (and I will elaborate on the long story in this blog post).

The strength-healing fallacy

I think there is a logical fallacy here we can observe:

Training to become stronger will not necessarily result in healing, but physical strength is inevitably a by-product of a healing process.

I have an acquaintance that lives this fallacy out perfectly, to whom I will give the gender ambiguous name, Frankie.

Frankie thinks their 20+ years of chronic back pain is related to being weak. Because their back is in pain, they can’t workout to build muscle and strength like they used to. However, Frankie also thinks that a direct cause of their back pain is because of not working out and losing muscles and strength- Two panaceas for pain.

Frankie fears that losing strength and muscles will make their pain worse, therefore going to the gym to workout is the solution. Then Frankie is astonished when it doesn’t make things feel better. Worse, in fact.

I’ve done this, too! Been there, done that. How about you?

What if strength and health have an asymmetrical relationship? One supports the other, but the other doesn’t necessarily support it back.

The actual definition of strength: The capacity of an object or substance to withstand great force or pressure. 

Think of strength as a quality or a state of potential one can develop when one is already in a state of well-being, not necessarily an act that will produce wellness. 

Frankie was convinced that strength would produce healing and health, instead of seeing that first becoming well would allow him to restore his strength.

Now, what is healing?

“Healthy” is a BIG word and I think the definition is a little different for each of us. I won’t even try to tackle it right now.

The old English root of the word ā€œhealā€ is actually ā€œwholeā€.

My sense is that healing and well-being have more to do with the state of our system moving towards ā€œwholenessā€ and integration, not as simple as being strong or weak.

Having access to our whole body must precede trying to strengthen it. Bodybuliders know this- You can’t stregnthen something you don’t have a neural connection with. The first 6 weeks of a strength training program is more about strengthening neurological pathways to our muscles than actually building them up in size and contractile ability.

We cannot strengthen what we cannot access.

So the 64000$ questions is: What has caused us to lose access to our bodies?

Injuies. Accidents. Periods of chronic pain. Learned movement skills, deeply ingrained. Habitual ways of moving (or not moving). That weird ear infection after which nothing felt the same again…

Could real healing be a process of reclaiming access to the individual parts we ignored, neglected, or never rescued from harm? And then a process of integrating them into context with each other, to work together as a whole?

And then in a whole, more structurally balanced state, there will be less pressure and strain from our bodies getting pulled asymmetrically to one side. Muscles that were stuck short get permission to lengthen, and visa versa. Joint spaces that were closed can begin to open and allow blood flow where previously it was impeded. The narrow pathways through which nerves must travel can deliver their signals can do so with less structural roadblocks.

So is access and integration are important for healing, how do we do this, if not by strengthening things?

What’s in a healing process?

Here’s a chart I found on Symmetry Physical Therapy’s website:

It takes a real duration, weeks to months, for tissues to repair from mechanical damage, but that doesn’t imply completion of a whole process (involving the whole body).

Time elapsed doesn’t mean anything happened in the space of that time. It’s like a teacher saying, “you’ll need to study for 5 hours for this exam”, so you stare at the textbook for 5 hours thinking you’re engaged in the right action required for learning.

Are you engaged in the right action required for healing?

If I’m being honest, I’m still engaged in a process of healing my left hamstring. The injury happened 10 years ago. I’m quite sure I’ll be worthing with it for another 10 years, at least. There are so many factors impacting on this… Stories for another time šŸ˜‰

After tissue repair, access to that body part needs to be reclaimed and integrated with the whole body again, as close to original instructions as possible. If we don’t attempt to do so, our body learns to move with a “dis-integrated” body part, disconnected. Mechanically attached, but not truly belonging to us like it used to.

And then we (and I am referring to myself) decide to lift some heavy-ass weights… Can you see a problem?

So could the real question be…

What’s preventing our bodies from healing?

Could it be… Us?

Could we be blocking our own capacity to heal by imposing a greater stress -strength training, upon it before we are ready, because of some idea we have- like the one I picked up at the gym about strength, but convinced we are making our system more resilient?

Could the effort of strength training actually be an output blocking our bodiesā€™ innate healing processes? And why are we doing that? 

Personally, the aggressive manner in which I attended to getting stronger (more on that story below) only served to reinforce the wonky mechanics and false beliefs that were keeping me stuck with pain. Yeah, the number of pounds I could lift showed I was objectively pretty dang strong… However, I was not very healthy, and still in a lot of pain. 

So, what do we make of this? Theorizing aside for now, I’d like to offer my story and lived experience, for whatever it is worth…

Getting strong felt really great (until it felt worse)

I remember the exact moment I realized I was stronger. 

I was 21 ish. One day I bent down to get something from the bottom shelf of my fridge (probably a tub of I Canā€™t Believe Itā€™s Not Butter, because I was addicted to that stuff. Iā€™d mix it with pure white sugar and eat it with a spoon…), and when I stood up, I actually felt some oomph in my legs Iā€™d never noticed before. 

Fabio Plays With an Epic Toaster in New I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Ad
If Fabio eats it, it must be healthy

Whoah. What theā€¦ Am I getting stronger? This feels amazing! What ifā€¦ Maybeā€¦ Could it be… that how I feel in my body is more important than how it looks?? 

ā€œStrongā€ was a weird, new sensation for a person intent on making herself smaller, who had formerly, distortedly, associated weakness with success (thatā€™s what a calorie deficit feels like- Profound, inner weakness).

This feeling of power in my body was an important reminder: That perhpas reclaiming my personal power was more important than fitting an unreasonable physical standard- What a body should look like.

But I ruined this beautiful insight by rationalizing that getting stronger could be the new correction of everything I believed was wrong with Me.

And if weakness is the problem, and being strong feels good, then logically absolute strength is the solution. 

Whatā€™s the most linnear path to absolute strength? Powerlifting. Anyone who can lift 225lbs off the floor canā€™t possibly be in pain. Right??

Hmmmā€¦ Not really.

Here I am, 2014 I thihnk, lifting 225lbs, and I still have problems (I just can’t feel them). Ignore the Five Finger shoes… šŸ˜‰

Did getting strong help with my pain? Yes… For a while, but only because I forgot my pain was there. 

And then… things started to crumble. 

My lower back pain began to flare up after back squats. Pushups would exacerbate my back and shoulder pain. Something as seemingly innocuous as a single leg deadlift, without any weight, produced deep, grindy pain in my right hip and SI joint.

Gradually, I was left with a smaller and smaller pool of exercises that I could actually do pain-free (sort of):

Hip bridges and planks felt OK (and by ā€œOKā€ I mean didn’t make things worse).

My upper body could only tolerate rows and horizontal pulling (but to be honest, still hurt my shoulders, just not in an existentially threatening way. And the internet said ā€œrows are good for shoulder healthā€, so I kept at it). 

But despite all actual evidence otherwise, I still had faith that strength would set me free. Why? 

Strength: An amazing tool to ignore lifeā€™s problems

I remember a meditation teacher once said to our class that being busy with something unimportant that feels productive is a form of laziness. Laziness not being limited to simply sitting on oneā€™s butt, but using something as a distraction from what is actually important. 

Paradoxically, my laziness manifested as strength training, and it was an amazing way to distract me from facing some of the uncomfortable facts about how I was living my life.

Here’s a few ways I learned that strength training can be used to ignore my body’s (and life’s) problems:

First, when strength is a novel stimuli, it will take center stage. 

It’s how our nervous systems are wired. The new physical strength I was building, manifesting as the pleasant body-feeling of power, was so novel as a sensory experience that I was able to push all my noisy joint (and life) pain into the wings.  

Too, the novel and productive pain of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) was a sensation that distracted me from the more subtle, nauseating feeling in my solar plexus. You know, that visceral senes that somethingā€™s wrong, but you can ignore it if you keep busy enough? 

If my body was tightly gripped in a neuromuscular stress reaction 24 hours a day, I couldnā€™t tell, because my muscles were constantly sore from working out and I felt powerful. It felt useful.

The pain of building strength was a pain I chose to endure. A pain I can put myself through is preferable to a pain I cannot control, like the pain I had in my spine, hips, and SI joint, to which I felt like a helpless victim. 

Iā€™d willingly suffer the micro-trauma to my muscles, rep after rep, knowing that the by-product would be a pleasant, empowering body feeling that could temporarily numb the pain in my joints. 

During the grueling, physical exertion itself, endorphins- our natural pain-soothing peptides, circulating into my bloodstream, helped me to numb out the unpleasant feelings in my body. 

Strength- building it and languishing in its nice-feeling by-products, was a good diversion from my pain signals. The consequence, however, is that I became disconnected from the afferent signals my body was sending up to my brain about the actual state of affairs: ā€œMonika, youā€™re just a few steps from self-destructionā€¦ā€ 

Second, it felt very productive to occupy myself with learning about how to get strong.

Having let go of my identity as a ā€œdancerā€, I craved to replace it with something else. I chose ā€œlifterā€. This meant filling my mind with as much information as possible on the subject so I could talk the walk.

Reinforcing an identity feels very productive, doesn’t it? And feeling productive, I discovered, was another great way to ignore that awful feeling in my gut that I was on the wrong path.

So I immersed myself in a pth of intellectual conquest. I read the fitness ā€œliteratureā€. I took courses. I spent countless hours on Youtube becoming indoctrinated with not only WHAT exercises to do, but WHY being strong would make me a better person.

A strong butt, in particular, was directly correlated with a higher moral state. The video below is a good example of this. Why YOU NEED strong glutes:

Beware oversimplifications like this, which cam, ironically, come accross as incredibly complicated. Glutes are no more or less important than any other muscle, unless we place that importance upon them.

Third, through powerlifting I found a sense of acceptance from gym people. 

I loved having a supportive crew of powerlifting pals, but if I’m being honest, my lifting crew was enabling me further to use training as an escape from my life.

The trap was that it felt so positive and inspiring. We were each othersā€™ cheerleaders. “Add 5 lbs more!”, “You can do one more rep!”. It all felt very uplifting. But it wasnā€™t helping me face my facts.

The fact was, unbeknownst to these people I considered my friends, they werenā€™t actually interacting with Me, they were talking to a sleepwalking representation of who I wanted you to see. 

They were talking to a robot with a body moulded to look and perform like a lifter. The conversational content limited to information I’d accumulated about lifting. And by that representation alone I thought friendship could be forged.

The fact is, underneath the image of heavy-ass-weight-lifting person, I had no real social skills- Iā€™d  been avoiding developing them by building up this ā€œacceptableā€ appearance that could compensate for it. And I had no idea.

They could not have known that underneath the persona of lifter, there was nothing even there to interact with. Try to have a conversation with Me, not the lifter, and I would have had nothing to say.

If I look like someone youā€™d like, isnā€™t that the same as Being someone youā€™d like? I donā€™t have to work at being a friend if I can just look like a person youā€™d want to be friends with. 

They could not have known my hidden motives. It is even possible they were doing it, too.

And lastly, to actually become strong requires discipline, control, and manipulation, which can be addictive

Control and structure feel very productive. 

In my addiction to control, I poured all my energy into manipulating every facet of my life that would support my identity of power-lifter, and telling everyone about it:

  • Keeping a strict training schedule
  • AĀ strict, ā€œhealthyā€ nutritional plan (aka orthorexia in disguise)
  • Fine tuned sleep schedule
  • Avoiding social events that would expose me to “bad” food
  • Taking supplements
  • Reading, learning, studying all things to do with strength development.Ā 

Sounds all good and healthy, right? Not if you knew it was all a compensation to avoid honestly looking at Me. And the consequences were that I became numb in a new way. Isolated. Out of touch with reality.

The consequence was that I became completely disconnected from my body’s natural state of well-being. I wasn’t healing. I was forcing myself into a persona that wasn’t Me, thinking it would fix me. Becoming more and more split. More numb to my pain.

And in a numbed-out state, any action that feeds an identity is likely to only reinforce becoming more and more numb through that identity.

Today, I’d rather feel my pain and face my facts than be “strong” and numb. But that’s a state that took a long time to accept. And is still a work in progress that takes daily committment.

Iā€™ll end the story here for today. There is more to share another time.

Can you relate?

Have you ever used a movement practice or form of exercise as a distraction from pain, and misinterpreted that distraction as a solution for it? 

Have you ever used a solution for your body’s pain as a fix for your life’s problems?

Working for a physical quality: Strength, flexibility, even becoming more ā€œrelaxedā€ using meditation and breathing techniques, can be an escape. A means to feel in control. A way to numb out from the body sensations that are communicating to us that something’s not right.

For example, what if one says ā€œI need to exercise for my mental health!ā€ This may be true…

But perhaps more clarity could come from asking, “What is causing my mental health to suffer and I feel the need to use exercise to correct?ā€ i.e. compensate for.

(Which is not to say that there isn’t evidence supporting exercises’ role in brain health- The book Spark by John Ratey is an excellent book about just that- Just that we ought to be clear on our intentions and honest with ourselves about it).

But we ought to question, is exercise the escape from seeing the root of the problem? The attempt to correct a problem that originally had nothing to do with exercise? A problem that has ntohing to do with being strong or weak or fit in any way? And if you attended to that, would you still feel the need to exercise? 

And how does one become grounded in the actual experience of our bodies, without using exercise as a way of pretending to have already attained to that? 

These questions, among others, are ones I think I might explore for the rest of my life. 

I have more to write on this topic, but thatā€™s another post, for another day. I’d love to hear your thoughts and answers to the above questions, if you’re open to creating this space for honest discussion around our relationships with exercise, and our bodies.

Please leave a comment below! Or shoot me an email! Or follow me on the IG (@monvolkmar), if you’d like to keep this conversation rolling šŸ™‚

Center of Mass Management: A Missing Link in your Assessment Toolkit?

If you’re reading this, it’s probably because some part of your body hurts, and it don’t make no sense.

I get it. I had(ve) mysterious symptoms that baffled and frustrated me for years. And then I was introduced to the concept of mass management, and things finally started making sense.

No, I’m not talking about weight management…

The Simpsons was my babysitter growing up…

Center of mass (CoM) management. Physics. Not physiology šŸ˜‰ Not that I’m an expert in either…

Your body has it’s own personal, unique, unconscious CoM management strategy. Understanding it is a powerful tool to help your body get well.

If you have a goal of moving with more ease and less pain, I hope today’s blog post will serve as a useful introduction to what CoM management is, and why it matters. Because whether you like it or not, you’re managing your mass right now, even if you’re sitting on your butt…

Further down in this post I have a video with a simple assessment you can follow along with to start making sense of your personal CoM management strategy in your own body. Or just skip ahead to it, whatever.

Ready?

What is center of mass?

Here’s the technical definition (which is not necessarily easy to grasp unless you enjoy physics, which I do NOT, thank you Mr. Smith for ruining it for me):

“The center of mass is the point on an object at which the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zeroā€”the point about which objects rotate.“

Translation…?

Consider a sphere- Its CoM would be right smack in the middle. As the sphere rolls along the ground, the middle point (CoM) of the sphere doesn’t actually move relative to the edges of the sphere, but remains constant as the axis of rotation.

But bodies are not spheres. They are little more complex.

center of mass ā€“ Physics of Taekwon-Do
Bodies are way more cool (and complex) than spheres

Imagine if someone were to tie a rope around your wrist and dangle you from the ceiling. Then (after being let down for a break), you were dangled from your ankle from the same ceiling rig. The center of mass of your body would be consistently in the same loaction no matter which limb you were dangled from.

You can also imagine it as the central axis through your body while doing a cartwheel- An axis of rotation through which no actual motion occurs relative to your limbs.

So where exactly is this central point located in our bodies?

The location of the human body’s CoM is slightly different for each individual, depending on proportions. Some say it is roughly 10cm below your navel. I’ve read it to be anywhere between L3 and S2 vertebral segments. There seems to be a lack of concensus, and probably requires exact measurement for each individual.

But ain’t nobody got time for that.

So as a general estimate, if you were to put your finger somewhere between your belly button and pubic bone, and imagine a point at the depth your spine, that ought to be good enough.

What is CoM Management?

When you walk, your body has to transfer its entire weight from one foot to the other. I tihnk its pretty increadible that we even can do it without falling down. Silly bipeds. But somewhere in our evolution standing upright and growing our brains became more useful than being on four legs, so here we are. Every step a leap of faith.

The reason we don’t fall down is becaues we have specifically sequenced and timed body mechanics that help us manage the chaotic journey we call walking. A journey in which our CoM bravely shifts from right foot to left.

In gait, the center of mass of your body needs to get all the way from one foot to rest over top of the center of mass of the other foot.

The center of mass of the foot is the 2nd (or intermediate) cunieform.

Bones of the Foot and Their Names | Pivotal Motion Physiotherapy

Full weight-bearing on one leg happens when the CoM of our body sits directly over top of the CoM of our foot (2nd cuneiform).

This ideally needs to happens in the loading phase of gait (or suspension phase, in AiM terms). This is when the highest amount of force will enter that limb, which makes it a critical moment in time to have our body mechanics set up in an organized way to absorb the shock.

Except a lot of the times our bodies are not so organized…

Disorganized, distorted, off-center, our CoM makes a different sort of journey.

Maybe it doesn’t quite get over 2nd cuneiform. Maybe we find a strategy that puts extra strain on different parts of our bodies to compensate for that. Maybe we spend a higher percentage of time with our weight on one foot. Or more total mass on one leg than the other.

That is the essence of CoM management: The particular way your skeleton organizes the journey of getting it’s CoM over to the opposite foot, and back again.

You could think of it as your unique “swagger”.

Why care about CoM management?

If it is true that there is a particular set of mechanics with which we’d ideally like the body to use for optimal, flowing, efficient gait (and I believe that there is), the million dollar question is: How close to that “ideal” is your body currently able to use?

This is why I think taking a presonal interest in learning about movement mechanics is a critical tool for anyone interested in actually getting well. Most of us get busy fixing things before taking the time to understand the problem.

But rather than rant about that…

Using the lens of CoM management we get different information than assessing joint range of motion, “functional” movement patterns, and strength testing alone, such as:

  • Can your CoM move equally onto either foot, or is there a leg you don’t trust to weight bear into fully?
  • Why don’t you weight-bear fully into one leg? Do you avoid it due to a past injury or accident?
  • Which past injuries or accidents might be part of that strategy(ies) and need help now? Ankle sprain?
  • What problem areas today might actually have began as solutions for a past problem?
  • What body parts are you using to shift your CoM from right to left instead of actually getting your CoM to travel through space? Ribcage? Arms? Head?
  • Do you stand evenly on both feet at rest? If no, how could this be putting extra pressure, compression, or tension on some parts of your body more than others?

Admittedly, this is a qualitative study, not quantitative. But that doesn’t mean it is not useful, or can’t be reasonably objective. It just requires a different way of thinking.

Like, using your whole brain.

A whole brain approach

Assessing individual body parts’ movement capabilities is synonymous with our left brain hemisphere’s limited observational style- Looking at facts in isolation and disregarding their relationship to the whole.

The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist

As Iain McGilchrist has written about in his book The Master and his Emissary, there is much evidence to suggest that we are biased to process the world around us predominantly via our brain’s left-hemisphere, which limits us to a narrow, incomplete perception of reality, dominated by hyperrationality, an affinity for the familiar, and a tendency to deny when it is wrong.

Bodies are complex systems. To appreciate their magnificence, and the impossibility that we could ever fully understand their complexity is a function only our right brain is wired for: The ability to contemplate the unknowable and find delight in paradox and contradiction.

Only via our right hemisphere can we view our bodies’ state, not as a state- one that is static, but as dynamic. How we move is not reduced to a mere utility (left brain’s view), but has an intention within a bigger context.

Our right hemisphere understands that our bodies are much more than the sum of its individual parts’ discrete abilties, in isolation from one another. Each individual body parts’ isolated performance matters, but only has meaning in context with the body as a whole.

Relationships between parts matter to the right brain, not to the left, which wants only to isolate, categorize, measure, and judge.

Our right brain can ask why THAT particular mass management strategy? How is that currently serving me? When did that begin? The left brain can only interpret individual, static moments in time, zooming in, getting the details, but missing the big picture.

Probing curiously into the unknown (asking “why”) is the realm of the right hemishphere. Fixating on what we think we aleady know (“my trainer said my iliopsoas is the problem!”) is what the left brain does best.

Understanding CoM management demands a whole brain approach.

What do you call that part of the Brain that connects the right and the left hemispheres? - Quora

Despite structural or functional distortions and imbalances, our bodies WILL find a way to get us from one foot to the other.

It may not be perfect, but…

…whether you like it or not, shift happens

That’s a saying we have in the AiM community. It means that your body WILL find a way to shift it’s mass from one foot to the other (if you have two feet…). How efficiently your body is able to make that leap of faith, is the question.

Has your body been forced to to distort itself in a way that protects an old site of pain, keeping it safe, but creating weird movement habits in the process?

If we aren’t considering CoM management, we are likely to be providing only a temporary solution because we truly haven’t taken the time to consider WHY the body has chosen the mechanics it is using.

Is there a leg YOU don’t trust?

Enough philosophizing… This information is only useful if you can put it into practice.

You probably trust one leg more than the other. Want to find out which one?

The short video below will help you start thinking in terms of mass management. The goal is to see if your center of mass unconsciously reacts, in the appropriate direction, to you moving your spine from right to left:

a) Moves towards front leg
b) Moves away from front leg
c) Does nothing

Note, for the sake of simplicity, we will correlate your CoM with your pelvis, even though I know that’s not entirely accurate.

(This is a snippet from the Movement Deep Dive my all-access members are studying this month- A study of their frontal plane, i.e. side to side, hip/pelvis motion).

So… What did you find out about yourself? Is there a leg you don’t fully trust?

Why would you not trust a leg?

This is the question I leave you with.

Why would one lose the ability to fully commit to one leg? Or to put pressure only in one particular part of their foot?

Injuries. Accicents. Repetitive movements and postural habits. Things your mom told you. Trained movement skills, sports, etc.

What has your body been through? What needs attention now?

What if, like me, your body avoids one leg because of incomplete healing of an old (hamstring) injury? Unconsciously, I avoid committing to that leg. With each footstep, I reinforce a less efficient protective strategy to get from one foot to the other, which ends up making my neck sore.

Could this be keeping you stuck with limitations and pain that “stretching” and “strengthening” won’t help? Can you stretch out a CoM management problem?

Does your movement practice consider CoM management in your exercise selection?

These are the questions that I think are more useful than: Which exercise should I do? Or, how many reps? Or “what muscle should I blame?”

These are questions for your right hemisphere šŸ˜‰

A final note: The goal of the video and the information in this post is not meant to “fix” your body. Simply provide an alternative way of thinking about why things feel the way they do. A tool to help you observe your body through the gestalt of your right hemisphere- More than the sum of it’s parts, but for the harmony with which those parts communicate.

All complaints the body makes stem from some kind of movement problem. Overuse, underuse, misuse, or disuse. And all movement problems will show up in gait. Gait won’t tell you what the problem is, but it will guide you where to look. And CoM management via gait analysis is an incredibly useful tool for making sense of it.

Oh, and if you’re not sure you can tell if there’s a leg you don’t trust, guess what… Sometimes it’s BOTH šŸ˜‰

To learn more about CoM management, you may like to check out Liberated Body (a self-guided online workshop, avec moi)