Stuff I Wrote | Page 4 of 8 | Monika Volkmar Bodywork and Movement Education

Are You Moving Honestly? This Fundamental Concept Will Change the Way You Move

This week I’d like to share a fundamental concept if you are trying to improve the way your body moves and feels.

Move. Honestly.

What does it mean to “move honestly”, and why is it important to understand and apply to your movement practice?

Grab a cup of coffee and hang out with me for 13 mins asI tell the story of a client and his scapulae to illustrate the concept of honest movement:

The above was originally a Facebook Live (you can see the unedited original here).

On the go? Listen to the audio-only version while you’re washing the dishes, saving the world’s bee population, waiting for your dog to take a poop, or whatever you do while listening to podcasts/radio/audiobooks.

What is moving honestly?

First, don’t feel bad… Not moving honestly doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s not a moral judgement. Simply a lack of awareness. And it’s OK, we’ve all got blind spots.

But, to quote Mark Manson’s PSA to millenials from his book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: “It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility”.

Book Review and Questions on The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F — *I really enjoyed this book when I read it as a 20-something year old*…

Now that you know moving honestly is a thing, it’s your responsibility to be aware of it. Sorry (not sorry), to burst your bubble.

Professor Google defines honest as: “Free of deceit and untruthfulness; sincere.” (Although I’d argue that honesty has a quality inherent to it that can’t be defined by the lack of something. Similarly to how “health” is more than simply the lack of illness… )

How can movement be insincere or deceitful? (again, I’m not implying you’re trying to deceive to people with movement… Unless you’re actually telling lies via sign language, or playing an evil character in physical theatre)

When you can convince yourself that the current way of moving is all there is, the best way there is, and there’s nothing else to learn. Especially true when we’ve worked very hard to learn a skill, like ballet. Don’t ever tell a ballet dancer that they’re allowed to turn their legs in 😉 Just kidding…
When your body has adopted a compensatory way of moving that you don’t even realize you’re doing– You think you’re moving the thing you’re trying to move, but you’re not…
When you willingly compromise quality and accuracy of a movement to achieve an aesthetic, a fitness result, or an athletic goal, without considering the long-term implications. A client of mine who is a dance teacher really related to this. She reported that her students have no qualms sacrificing the alignment of their hips to make it look and feel like they are more flexible than they reallly are.

My definition of moving honestly: Moving in such a way that what your perception of what your body is doing is in alignment with what you’re actually doing, why you’re doing it, and you’re not denying that your current way of moving isn’t all that there is.

So it’s not moving “perfectly”. It’s about moving with awareness, as much self-objectivity as possible, and being open to what more could be available.

Perception vs. Reality

A good word to use is “actually”.

Profession Google defines actually as: “The truth or facts of a situation; really.”

Are you actually moving your spine or are you just shifting your weight around on your feet?

Are you actually rotating your shoulders externally or are you twisting out your forearms and wrists instead?

In the case of my client’s story, are you actually retracting your scapula or are you finding three other ways to do it that don’t remotely involve moving your scapula?

A little farther down in this post I’ll invite you to try the move-your-scaps-honestly challenge (as I described in the video… did you watch it to the end??). You might like to take a video of yourself, and check your perception vs. reality. What is your actual movement strategy?

How did we begin to move DIShonestly?

Why do we lie about anything? Because for some reason it served us.

We found a way to get what we wanted while conserving more energy: Taking short-cuts without understanding the repercussions.

Sometimes these are conscious choices. Sometimes a result of injury. Sometimes necessary for athletic performance.

As an example from my own life, the three most dishonest ways of moving I lived out:

Lots of passive stretching when my structure couldn’t actually tolerate it: Being insincere to my golgi tendon organs. Sitting in the splits for 30 minutes straight is not very smart.

Golgi Tendon Organs and Muscle Spindles Explained | ACE — *Sorry, muscle spindles, for the years of thrashing*

2. Lots of heavy deadlifts when I couldn’t actually flex my hips without lumbar extension: Failing to see my true biomechanical needs and abilities. I got pretty strong, but at a cost. Working with a coach earlier would have helped.

3. Lots of high intensity exercise when what I actually needed was to rest and recover from injuries, but I was scared by the dance-world’s focus on being thin: Not being true to me, and using exercise to control my appearance, based on how I thought the dance-world wanted me to look.

Do any of these resonate with you?

Moving dishonestly can range from a simple lack of awareness easily remediated with a technical cue, to a more severe, systemic issue in which our entire movement practice is out of congruence with our values, needs, and goals.

Biomechanical honesty

Biomechanical honesty refers to being able to move every bone and joint as per its original intructions, with awareness.

Movement based on the actual joint architecture. According to our anatomical set-up. The shape of the bones themselves dictate how they are able to move.

Dishonesty happens every time we lose an option to move as per our original instructions, and replace it with something else less precise, less pure, less “true”, without us knowing.

Or every time we put our faith in someone elses’ movement system that is not congruent with the actual movement possible based on the articulating surfaces of our bones, and the lines of pull of our muscles, because their biomechanical understanding is hazy.

For example, THIS representation of the gluteal muscles:

So be careful who you learn from (even me…).

Speaking of glutes, I once believed that squeezing my glutes as I walked was a good way to “activate” them, because I heard someone say that, and started doing it. Not really how the body works, but my naive self didn’t know better at the time…

So what causes us to lose an option for honest movement?

Injuries not completely healed that we learn to adapt around
Trained movement skills (sports, yoga, etc)
Being told to stand and walk a particular way (don’t walk pigeon-toed, stand up straight)
Long periods of being mostly sedentary
Repetitive habits (like always sitting with one leg crossed)
Early childhood sensory-motor deprivation
Weird birth experiences

All of the above experiences can distort our perception of how we’re moving because they all will result in the distortion of our movement mechanics from its original instructions.

Not “bad”. Just not how we came in our original packaging.

Harrison Ford Signed "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi" Han Solo Action Figure in Original Packaging (PSA LOA) | Pristine Auction — *You gotta step out of the original packaging to live your life… But at least try to remember what it was like!*

Judgement and attachment in motion

Sometimes we get overly attached to particular ways of moving and deliberately avoid movements we were taught are “bad”.

As a ballet dancer, I believed for years that hip internal rotation was bad, and refused to consider otherwise. External rotation was a badge of honour, even if it was hurting me.

You might also have been told that slouching is bad, letting your pelvis hike in the frontal plane (sassy hips) is bad, or pronating your feet is the devil.

In fact, I had a client once tell me that as a yong woman, she was shamed for appearing “too sexual” by authorities in her Christian community for letting her pelvis hike while she waked. So she deliberately stopped doing it. Now, years later, our work together involves helping her re-experience this movement with the understanding that its actually crucial for shock absorption mechanics in gait. Oops…

Moving honestly, for her, means embracing, de-vilifying, and remembering her original instructions for pelvis movement.

The confabulating body

Confabulation is when we’re lying but we think we’re telling the truth. We don’t even know we’re being dishonest because we lack sufficient information to know any better!

Our bodies are excellent confabulators. And thank goodness they are!

Like my client who stopped hiking her pelvis, her clever body figured out multiple strategies to make up for it because our bodies are always 100% functional to keep us moving.

Threfore, the better you are at confabulating, it is a sign of just how functional your body is.

But there comes a tipping point at which the number of confabulations becomes too high and your body can’t keep up with the demand.

Like if you’ve ever tried to lie to 10 different people at once, each with a different story, and you lose track of your stories and eventually get caught and things blow up in your face…

So what happens when your body exceeds its capacity to confabulate? What if you run out of available body parts to subsitute with?

This is the law of compensation and adaptation: As long as compensation is possible, progression of the problem is imperceptable. It is when all the adaptive processes have been exhausted that the symptom suddenly appears. (from osteopath Jean-Pierre Barral’s Visceral Manipulation textbook)

The solution is to strip things back to their original instructions, so that body parts are both independednt and interdependent, not co-dependent, caught in eachothers’ web of lies.

This is challenging when multiple body parts are engaged in what Anatomy in Motion instructor Chris Sritharan calls a “negotiation”. How does one resolve a negotiation? Lots of honest, open, conversations…

Which isn’t fun and sexy… But rewarding, if you do the work.

The move-your-scaps-honestly challenge

Would you like to give this “honest movement” thing a try, and give your body a chance to have an honest conversation between its various parts?

In the video at the beginning of this post, I invited you to try the exercise I gave my client: To find pure, honest scapular retraction without using any confabulatory strategies.

Are you up for the move-your-scaps-honestly challenge?

Here’s a version of the exercise I gave my client to explore scapular retraction and protraction. Try it out and see if you can do it honestly 😉

As you go through the exercise, try to be aware of whether or not you are using any of the following strategies:

Elevation of your scapulae
Depression of your scapulae excessively
Rotating or bending your whole body to one side
Extending your lumbar spine excessively
Pulling your arms behind you
Probably other stuff!

Using a mirror or filming yourself might help to catch your blind spots.

Remember, it’s not about BIG movement. It’s about moving differently, accurately, purely.

This might mean moving througha smaller range of motion, but more purely and precisely, with the actual body part you intend to move.

Or maybe finding an entirely new pathway for movement that you didn’t know existed.

4 guidelines for moving honestly

As you do the honest scapular motion challenge, these four guiding principles for honest movement might help. They are very similar to Anat Baniel’s 9 guidelines from her book Move Into Life.

Move Into Life: NeuroMovement for Lifelong Vitality: Baniel, Anat, Waldman, Mark Robert: 9781519438881: Books - Amazon.ca — *I really enjoyed reading thsi book, until I had to stop and remediate my book addiction.*

4 Guidelines for Honest Movement Exploration

Move slowly. When you move quickly, all you can do is move the way you already know how. Slow. Down. Think milimeters per second, not miles per hour.
Move with moment to moment awareness. Pay attention to the bones and joints your’re trying to move. Can you visualize and feel them moving? What muscular sensations do you notice? How are you distributing your weight in your feet? Are you doing werid things with your neck? Are you clenching your jaw? What new sensation of your body in motion can you tune into today? What new detail about your body’s preferred movement strategies can you disccover?
Use external boundaries for feedback. Like I did for my client with my hands, it can be helpful to set up your environment with bumpers and boundaries for external feedback so that you can move honestly without hurting your brain. Chairs, walls, bands, etc. There are a ton of creative ways to create an environment condusive to honest movement, when you know it likes to confabulate 😉 This is also where a movement coach or guide can be of great assistance.
Move small and subtle. Much like moving quickly, when you move big, all you can hope to do is what you already CAN do, just bigger. Lasting freedom is unlocked milimeter by milimeter.

These four guidelines will help you reduce your tendency to use cheaty strategies, and confabulate, and help you to move more honestly.

Conclusions?

The more honestly you can move, the less strain there will be on your system, with each body part being able to do what it was originally designed to do, in isolation, and integrated with the whole bdoy.

Just like the chronic liar who gets caught in the stress of having to keep up with all the stories and webs of lies… Life is easier when we’re being honest. With ourselves, our bodies, and how we move.

Start by trying the move-your-scaps-honestly cahllenge a try, and let me know what you find.

Get help from a coach or movement professional when necessary.

And remember, it’s not a moral judgement, just a call for higher awareness, and to investigate if there could be a more useful way of moving.

Want more help moving honestly?

I’ve pretty much dedicated my life to practicing honest movement (a brutal, life-long process for me it appears…) So I created a workshop with that in mind 🙂

My workshop Liberated Body guides you through an exploration of your body’s movement mechanics based on what it ought to be able to do through the gait cycle (if you still had your original packaging).

The next 4 week workshop is coming up on November 23. You can learn more about it and register HERE.

Liberated Body is a little different than other movement workshops. The goal isn’t even to move “better”, but let your body decide for itself what “better” means, based on honest investigation into your current options for movement. What more is possible? Only one way to find out…

Two of my students, Garrett and Maggie, sent me deligftul videos describing the process they went through doing Liberated Body. And while they didn’t use the words “honest movement”, I think that’s exactly what they’re describing.

Check out their sucess stories, they really made me smile and blush:

That’s all for now folks. May you move inquisitively, honestly, and with ease 😉

Calcaneal Motion 101: A Movement Detective’s Complete Guide to Setting the Heel Bone Free

Last Friday my weekly Movement Deep Dive session was all about calcaneal motion: Let Your Heel Bone Slide!

Before you read the rest of this blost, take a moment to get in the mood with da Maestro himself:

I’m not sure WHICH of the 33 vertebrae Maestro is referring to by “backbone”… But for today I will opportunistically pretend he’s talking about the pelvis (including the 9 total vertebrae of the sacrum and coccyx), because that makes for a smoother segway into today’s topic…

A movement detective’s comprehensive guide to calcaneal motion!

In today’s post and series of six tutorial videos, we’ll be covering:

What is the heel bone (calcaneus)?
What motions does this bone do in three dimensions when we walk? And can your calcaneus access those triplanar motions?
How should calcaneal motion couple with pelvis and skull motion in the gait cycle for more ease and efficiency?
Could a movement restriction at your calcaneus be impacting on movement of your pelvis of skull (reducing or liberating)?

If you don’t want to read, simply follow along with the videos and explore your own calcaneal motion- The embodied learning approach is better anyway 😉

But first… The basics.

What is the calcaneus?

The calcaneus is the big sturdy bone at the back of your foot.

It articulates with the talus above, the cuboid on the lateral side, and the navicular on the medial side.

Its the bone that first meets the ground in the heel strike phase of gait, so it has a nice cushy layer of fat to help it absorb the shock from each foot step.

CalexFit, Foot Pain Relief Center - Conditions - Fat Pad Atrophy — The heel bone: The one place you want to be fat.

The achilles tendon, plantar fascia, along with 9 muscles of the foot and lower leg attach to the calcaneus, including soleus and gastrocnemius (the two big juicy calf muscles).

So whenever there is an issue with any of those muscles, like achilles tendinitis, plantar fasciitis, or any other “itis” of the foot, we should get on our detective hats and look at how well the calcaneus can move.

Got a big toe issue, like a bunion? Hammer toes? Limited big toe extension? Other weird toe stuff I’ve never heard of?? The infamous flexor hallucis longus (flexor of the big toe) does not actually attach to the calcaneus, but has its own special groove that runs along the medial side of the calcaneus, behind the sustentaculum tali.

Flexor Hallucis Longus Tendonitis - PhysioAdvisor

Your calcaneus should be able to move in three dimensions while you walk so that all it’s attaching musculature and tissues can lengthen and contract with every step you take.

Motion of the calcaneus, and its neighbour the ankle, also play an important role in venous return– Pumping the blood back up to the heart, because gravity makes that a little harder.

rfumsphysiology / Cardiovascular Response to Stressor

One reason people may get varicose veins is because of an increase of blood pressure in the venous system because the blood isn’t pumping effectively back up to the heart. Making sure the heel and ankle complex can move optimally to prevent venous blood backflow can reduce the chance of varicosity and distortion of the veins.

So… Calcaneal motion is kind of important!

Unfortunately many of us have restrictions in one or more planes of calcaneal motion (me included!), which can lead to a multitude of whole body issues, not only locally at your foot.

What if your heel bone can’t slide?

As mentioned above, one could experience any number of effects, ranging from local stuff such as a knee issue or plantar fasciitis, to distal issues like neck restriction and discomfort (stay tuned for how to assess that in part 6 of this calcaneal motion 101 video series).

The following two videos are clips, from Friday’s Let Your Heel Bone Slide session, to acquaint you with your calcaneus.

And now let’s take a look at the tri-planar movements your calcaneus ought to be able to do, and how to name them. We’ll be using the same langauge we’d use to name the movement of the pelvis (if you took my Liberated Body workshop, or are an Anatomy in Motion student, this will be familiar):

Being able to name and feel the motions a part of your body should be able to do is important in healing our bodies, and re-patterning movement. However, a barrier can be that every school of thought seems to use their own preferred anatomical langauge, and when everyone’s using different words to describe the same movements it can be super confusing!

The nomenclature I chose may not be the most “text-book-technical” anatomical verbiage, or sound fancy, but it is accurate and specific to describing the bone’s motion. So for those of you who are interested, here’s a little “univeral translation” chart:

TRIPLANAR CALCANEAL MOTION:

	Sagittal Plane	Frontal Plane	Transverse Plane
Pelvis language	Anterior and posterior tilt	Hiking and dropping	Rotation right and left
Anatomical language	Plantar and dorsiflexion	Eversion and inversion	Internal and external rotation
Foot pressure distribution	12 o’clock: Front (anterior)	3 and 9 o’clock (medial and lateral)	3 and 9 o’clock (medial and lateral)

I really don’t care what words you use. You can make up your own terms, as long as you and your body know what’s happening.

Also note that in the video I am exagerating the size of calcaneal motions. In reality, they are much smaller. Calcaneus motion also happens concurrently with motion of the rest of the foot (and the rest of the body…), not in isolation, to give us pronation and supination.

Let’s move along and look at how the backbone and heel bone slide together.

What motion relationship do the calcaneus and pelvis have in gait?

This is where can start to have a little fun (if you’re a movement nerd like me).

The pelvis and calcaneus have a specific movement relationship in gait that should happen unconsciously for efficiency with each step.

Before I say more, check out this next clip:

In case you didn’t watch the video: When you walk, your calcaneus, pelvis, and skull move in the same directions, in all three planes of motion, at all times. Cool right?

So…

When your pelvis rotates right (which happens whenever you step forwards with your left leg), both heel bones, and your skull should also be rotating to the right right.

When your pelvis anteriorally tilts, so too should your calcaneus and skull.

Now, I know you’re dying to check and see if these movement relationships are present for your body, right? 😉

The next three videos are guided check-ins will help you do that:

#1 How well can your calcaneus move?
#2 How well does your calcaneus move in harmony with your pelvis?
#3 How could a lack of calcaneal motion impact (restrict or liberate) motion at your pelvis and skull?

Calcaneus movement check-in

This first little check-in is to feel if your calcaneus moves appropriately while you are weight-bearing onto your leg.

Could you feel the movement from back, outside corner to front-inside corner of your heel when you bent your knee? Or did you skip right forwards into your forefoot and toes?

Now let’s bring your pelvis into the equation…

Pelvis and calcaneus movement check-in

In this next video, we’ll be checking in to see if your pelvis and calcaneal movements are synced up for ease and flow as you walk.

It’s not enough just to be able to move your calcaneus on its own. Does it move in the right relationship with your pelvis? Follow along and see what you find:

Are your pelvis anterior and posterior tilts synced up with your calcaneus anterior and posterior tilts? How about the hikes, drops, and rotations? What’s missing from your movement map?

Lastly, let’s tune in to see if your calcaneal motion has an impact up the chain, at your pelvis, neck, and skull.

How does calcaneal motion impact on neck motion?

What if a movement restriction at your calcaneus, due to an old ankle sprain for example, could be related to a movement restriction at your neck?

This final video is by far the most fun to play along with! Give yourself 10 minutes to geek out on how movement of your heel could be influencing stuff all the way up to your neck:

My personal findings:

To use me as an example, in the chance it helps you interpret your own data…

If I prop my calcaneus into more anterior tilt it frees my neck in both flexion and extension in the sagittal plane.

When I nudge my left calcaneus into a left hike- outside edge higher, more pressure on the inside edge (ie eversion) my neck motion into lateral flexion to the right (left skull hike) feels much happier.

So when I give my calcaneus(es) (calcanei?) back what’s missing, it has a positive effect on structures above.

So could it be that a “neck problem” might have a component to it that involves the foot?

Could it be that a hip problem is related to a heel that can’t move?

These things are good to know so we can approach any issue at one part of the body as a whole body issue.

This has become the over-arching intention of my Movement Deep Dive sessions: Let’s understand, explore, and restore the body’s potential for movement, one part at a time. Zooming in, zooming out, and integrating it all as a whole.

Conclusions?

Your calcaneus moves in three dimensions as you walk. Unless it doesn’t 😉

This three dimensional motion should occur in a specific interaction with pelvis and skull motion: Your heel, pelvis, and skull travel in the same direction, in all three planes, with every step you take.

A neck restriction could be related to a calcaneal motion restriction, and wouldn’t you want to know abut that? I sure would, so I can stop stretching my neck and get to the real root of the issue.

If you would like to learn even more about foot mechanics and how to use your “calcaneus influecing tools” more effectively, I recommend you check out Gary Ward’s online course Wake Your Feet Up. You’ll even get a set of official AiM wedges mailed to you, and more instructions for how to use them. But in the meantime, I’ve found that socks and towels work just fine 😉

Using AiM wedges to promote new foot motion in pronation. A rather exterme example of wedge use for a rather extreme set of feet… Don’t start here.

This leads us into to one final important question regarding footwear..

Are you wearing shoes that could be messing with your pelvis and neck?

It’s quite possible…

If a foot motion restriction could lead to a neck restriction, then could a shoe that restricts foot motion also restrict motion elsewhere? For sure!

In fact, I have a system you can use to check that out for yourself.

My inaugural monthly Movement Nerd Hangout in September was dedicated to testing out whether your shoes or orthotics are working for you, or messing with your body.

Check out the entire 90 minute session, Are Your Shoes Working For You? for free, and get the PDF handout I created to test and document allll of your shoes.

That’s it for today folks 🙂 I hope you had fun exploring your bones and practicing your DIY movement detective skills with me today.

Feel free to share this blog post and video series with people in your life with stiff feet, or if you think it offers a useful perspective. And let me know what you discovered about YOUR calcaneal motion when you have a spare moment 🙂

Current Exercise Obsession: 8 Reasons Why I Love the Forearm Press

I don’t usually write blog posts to romance one particular exercise, but today I need to confess my love for the forearm press.

The trouble with putting any exercise on a pedestal is that one person’s best exercise is another person’s worst. One person’s medicine is another’s poison. So take this all with a grain of salt 😉

Before I say more about why I love the forearm press, and why it’s a staple in my current movement practice, check out this quick tutorial by moi:

I edited this clip from one of my weekly Movement And Strength Training Foundations online classes, also known as “Struggle-Along With Monika Doing Basic Bodyweight Exercises”.

Because the basics never get old…

To the outside observer, this exercise looks like the most boring thing in the world. Internally, however, its very exciting.

Don’t be deceived by the simplicity or basic-ness of the forearm press!

As many of my clients will attest, this exercise is not just chilling-out on your forearms, its freakin’ intentional work. And the benefits are in the details.

So the rest of this blog post is allll about the details.

You can build shoulder health and strength simultaneously

In my own journey to shoulder health and strength, I did pretty much everything wrong.

I just wanted to be able to do pushups and chin ups and over-head pressing and one-armed handstands, but I didn’t even know what a shoulder was, nor was I doing anything useful to prepare my shoulders for the movement capacity and positional integrity those exercises require.

You can learn from my mistakes.

The forearm press is where I wish I started my arm-strength jounrye.

It is an awesome way to set that foundation and build a solid AF shoulder girdle so you can do all the upper body things.

So here’s the top 8 reasons why I’m loving the forearm press right now as a shoulder health and strength development exercise.

8 reasons why I love the forearm press

1. Get a “neck stretch” while you get stronger

This exercise builds mad shoulder strength while giving you a great upper back, upper trapezius, and neck stretch at the same time. In fact, feeling the neck and upper trap stretch is an indicator that you’re in a good position.

If you set up the forearm press corretctly, you should be able to feel a bit of stretch on the back of your neck and your upper traps. Isn’t that a great bonus?

In fact, in the forearm press, a lot of the work you will feel is coming from muscles working in a lengthened position- An eccentric muscle action.

Here are some of the muscles that are getting this lovely stretchy, worky opportunity in the forearm press, besides your neck and upper traps:

Triceps (via elbow flexion, shoulder flexion)
Rhomboids (via scapular protraction, upward rotation)
Posterior deltoids (via scapular protraction, arm horizontal adduction)
Lats (via shoulder external rotation, shoulder flexion)
All the traps- upper, middle, and lower (via scapular protraction and depression)
Cervical spine extensors (neck flexion, scap depression)

If you’d like to really nerd out, some muscles will be working in both a long and short position at the same time, in different planes of motion. Fun eh?

Let’s take the lats, for example: You should feel a bit of lat stretch by virtue of the scapular protraction and the fact that your arms are in front of your body (shoulder flexion). However, at the same time, your lats need to act concentrically to hold your shoulders down from your ears (scapular depression).

Two Minutes of Anatomy: Latissimus Dorsi - YouTube

What I hope you can take away from that is that it is often more productive to cue yourself with joint movements (push the floor away, scaps towards your butt pockets) than muscle actions (engage your lats!).

If I say to you, “Use your lats!”, what joint action it that asking for? This muscle crosses multiple joints… Which joint are we even talking about?? Should you “use your lats” eccentrically or concentrically? (And now you know the answer is BOTH).

2. Scapular protraction strength: Push before you pull?

Note that the forearm press is a pushing exercise.

Pushing implies you DO NOT want to squeeze your shoulder blades together. The main joint action in the forearm press is scapular protraction, which you get by pushing the floor away to spread your scaps wider apart.

Contrary to what some folks think, shoulder blades back and down is not the epitome of shoulder health, stability, or “good posture”. In fact, in any arms supported work, we want to spread those scaps and push the floor down (protraction).

What about the 3:1 pull to push ratio?

I don’t know if this is a thing anymore, but when I first began working as a trainer I was taught that in an optimal training program, one should have a 3:1 ratio of upper body pulling to pushing exercises.

So for exmaple, for every push-up, there should be three rowing exercises.

I don’t know if I agree with this.

I feel that a lot of folks can get more out of initially working on pushing, rather than starting with pullling. But that doesn’t mean be silly like me and start with 26 different push-up exercises…

Here’s my main case for push first, and how the forearm press serves as an awesome pushing experience:

Muscles lengthen before they contract– Gary Ward‘s 2nd rule of movement.

This refers to how, in gait, muscles are stimulated to generate a contraction from their fully lengthened position. Like pulling back an elastic band in order to project it forward. Muscles load to explode.

While this is describing muscles in the context of gait, I think it also applies to strength training.

When we push, and protract the scapuale, the muslces of retraction (like the rhomboids, middle trapezius, and pals) lengthen, loading them eccentrically (like pulling back the slingshot).

Top 3 Exercises for Stronger Scapular Retraction and Depression - Shoulder Blades Back

So if we are strategically thinking ahead, we can prepare the muscles that retract the scaps (pictured above) by first training them to load eccentrically, using pushing movements that protract the scaps.

Give the rhomboids and traps no option but to contract, by first lengthening them.

It’s not about “stretching” them. The stretch is simply an indicator of scapulae that are actually protracting, giving the the muscles of retraction the stimulation to contract from a more lengthened position, ultimately improving their strength and function.

But what about developing rounded-forwards shoulders?

Many of us have been given and idea that to stand with “good posture” is to pull our shoulders back. And yet many folks have shoulder problems because of this.

I can recall two recent clients in particular with severely retracted scapulae who could barely budge them apart from each other, and had “shoulder and neck stiffness”.

Upon asking, one of them told me she was raised by nuns who demanded “shoulders back” all day long. The other is a lady in her 70s who was perpetually told by her mom not to slouch when she was a kid.

Got shoulder problems? Blame the church and your mom 😉 Just kidding…

Pushing exercises that demand scapular protraction, can help us find a more balanced, centered way, naturally, by showing our shoudler girdle to both ends of the the shoulder girdle protraction to retraction spectrum.

I like the forearm presss for this because it helps liberate both our mind and body from learned postural propaganda.

Here’s another little video clip on the topic of “good posture” (from one of my Movement Deep Dive sessions):

One of my online students actually remarked how it felt like her shoulders were in a more naturally “held back” position, even though the forearm press deliberated asks you NOT to squeeze your shoudlers together: Protraction, not REtraction.

Another friend/client of mine gave this feedback afte doing this exercise with me in one of my online classes:

So that is why I like to use pushing exercises before pulling (rows, chin-ups, etc). And the forearm press accomplishes this nicely.

3. Awesome preparation for more advanced upper body weight bearing exericses

Mastery of this position will build a foundation for anything else that requires weight-bearing into yours arms with a solid shoulder girdle.

For example:

Static beast and crawling progressions (for the Animal Flowists)
Plank and push-up variations
Dolphin, forearm stands, and headstand variation, and other arm balancing postures common in yoga, like crow and crane
Handstands (my current training obsession)
Other fun floor-based flowy movement stuff, a la Ido Portal, or Animal Flow.

4. Safe exercise for most folks with wrist complaints

Many of my in-person clients are women. Most of them are in their 50s/60s and are learning to support themselves on their arms for the first time ever. Back in the 1950s-70sish days, strength training wasn’t a thing many women were encouraged to do.

Well times are a changin’. And developing arm strength to hold onesself up off the floor is an uber empowering thing for all genders.

However, due to never actually training hand supported positions, many peoples’ wrists might not be comfortable in extension with their bodyweight loaded on top of them.

Being on the forearms makes weight-bearing through the arms possible even for people with cranky wrists, so they can start training their shoulder girdle position and strength without putting compressive strain on their wrists.

5. You get great feedback from the floor and no fancy equipment or expensive coach required

I love my daily floor time (the floor is actually one of my top 3 favourite tools for moving with more ease and less pain, I wrote about in my 3 Essential Tools PDF resource, have you read it yet?).

Putting our forearms or hands on the floor creates a closed-chain environment.

Closed-chain upper body exercises gives us amazing feedback about our body position, no coach or special equipment required.

In the forearm press, here’s a few ways the floor can give you great feedback to help execute the exercise with better quality and precision without someone like me hovering over you, yelling commands:

Deliberately push against the floor: The real work and intensity comes from pushing your forearms down into the floor really hard, like you’re pushing right to China. Or if you live in China, push your way to America (but not so hard you strain and hyperventilate…).

Notice your body position in relation to the floor : As you hold, get your position cues from the floor:

Do you see the floor moving closer to your face? This might mean your head is changing from it’s start position, drooping lower. Don’t let the floor get closer to your face.
Can you push your chest up higher from the floor- maintain the “press” part (scapular protraction)?
As you do the rocking forwards variation (did you watch the tutorial?), use the floor as something to aim your forehead for to gauge the distance you’re moving. Every time you practice, try to rock farther towards the floor.
Feel your hand and arm contact against the floor: Can you get all 5 hand knuckles on the floor? How about your wrists? Do your hands slowly start to move more and more inward of your elbows as you hold? Try to hold firm contact of all knuckles, wrists, and elbows- It changes the way it feels and helps you develop a more powerful push.

Being aware of where all your body parts are on and in relation to the floor helps you helps you be your own best coach. Since many of us are working out at home these days with no outside eye, the floor is a great tool, built into the forearm press, at no extra cost 😉

6. Tons of fun progressions to challenge your whole body

There are endless forearm press variations to play with when you’ve mastered the basics and are ready to progress the challenge level!

Here’s one progression that’s been a staple for me for the past couple of months: The knees hovering elbow bend (don’t have a fancy name for it…). Welcome to tricep city.

View this post on Instagram

Something I've been playing with for a few weeks: Knee hovering forearm press. A nice exercise for when you want your triceps and quads to suffer. Lovingly suffer 🙂 I can do 4 reps😂 And shout out to @zeropointtattoo who did the artwork on my arm. He's back at work now for those of you who are itching to get ink 🙂

A post shared by Monika Volkmar (@monvolkmar) on Jul 1, 2020 at 1:57pm PDT

I originally stole this from Lizette Pompa, realized how hard it was, and reverse engineered it back to the forearm press, because that was honestly where I should have started. Basics…

Here’s Lizette making it look oh-so effortless. And notice how she can do it without rocking her butt back to her heels, like I have to do, making it a more pure upper body exercise:

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✨ Bodyweight Workout There will always be ways to challenge yourself without equipment and these 4 moves will give you that. The second one is tougher than it seems. You can find this one on my app now (link in bio). ▫️3 Rounds ✔️10 Hovering Tabletop Elbow Taps ✔️10 Seated Tricep Extensions ✔️20 L-Handstand Shoulder Taps ✔️10 Pike Push-ups Finishing with 3 Rounds of: ✔️10+10 sec Single Arm Forearm Plank Hold. Let me know if you give it a try. _ #lizettepompaworkouts #tricepextensions #lhandstand #forearmplank #bodyweightexercises #bodyweightworkout #uppsala #yogauppsala #yogaiuppsala #uppsala

A post shared by Lizette Pompa (@lizette_pompa) on Oct 1, 2020 at 11:30am PDT

7. Ability to self-modulate the intensity purely with your intention

Working out at home without equipment means we have to find other clever ways to modulate exercise inensity than adding external resistance (weights).

As I often say to my clients/students, you can make this exercise as hard or as easy as you want simply through your intention to do so.

Find your own specific intensity threshold at which you can perform the exercise with good quality, maintain your structural integrity, and still be able to breathe (use your quality of breathing to gauge your intensity threshold, ie if you start to hyperventilate, you’re done).

Push down the floor more (make it more intense) or less (less intense).
Hold for longer (more breath cycles) or shorter.
Focus on keeping your body more forward on your arms (harder), or back slightly off your arms (easier).

Little tweaks to where you’re focusing and fine-tuning your body positioning help this become harder or easier without even having to move to a more “advanced” variation.

8. Becomes a lovely way to tune into breathing mechanics

In this position we can get a few really nice things, breathing mechanics-wise:

With scaps protracted, all the muscles of the upper back are lengthened, and the area called the posterior mediastinum can open up. The posterior mediastinum (see photo below) can get a little squashed, and some vital tubes and things pass through this very small region. Keeping it open and breathing into it is important for both general health and movement reasons. Push the floor, expand your upper back, breathe into it, and enjoy the extra space between your lungs and spine.

With the head a bit lower than the hips- a slight inversion, this position also helps enhance the “pump handle” breathing action of the upper chest- Forwards and upwards expansion. See what I mean by pump-handle in this cool animation of breathing mechanics

The forearm press position makes it easier to hold the ribcage slightly “exhaled” and down, which helps to more easily access the abdominal muscles and create greater intra-abdominal pressure. This helps one to access a better diaphragmatic breating pattern, without flaring open the ribcage excessively with each breath, with better abdominal co-contraction, which means hello abz.

Conclusions?

I love this exercise because it makes my shoulders and neck feel awesome. Like I got a great workout and an upper trap stretch at the same time.

But you are not me…

Most people don’t have any problems with it, but if you do, don’t force through it! Get some help if you have pain with this or any movement.

The forearm press is wonderful for both shoulder health and strength, and is also a gateway to more advanced arm balancing exercises, like headstands, and handstands, if that’s a thing you have on your movement-goals-list.

So if you want to build a solid handstand from the ground up, I would start here, with the forearm press. Basics, basics, basics!

Want to be able to do push-ups really well? I would start here.

Even just to be able to do set your shoulder girdle up for a perfect plank position, I would start here.

Don’t be like silly, young Monika. Start your shoulder strength journey from the ground up, and enjoy more linear progress because you won’t have to go back and work on the basics later, after experiencing discomfort, like me.

Give it a try, and let me know how it goes for you! I’d love to hear how the forearm press feels for you. Love it or hate it? Probably a little of both 😉

In my Movement and Strength Training Foundations online classes we worked on the forearm press for four weeks straight. If you’d like to learn more about these classes or try one out, shoot me an email 🙂

Sacroiliac Joint 101: What is the SIJ and How to Self-Assess (in less than 8 mins)

Do you have a deep achey painy thing between your butt and your back, and you’re not sure if it’s lower back pain or butt pain?

That’s probably your sacroiliac joint. And we can totally figure it out 🙂

In this blog post I’m going to share some video clips from my Troubleshooting the SI Joint (part 1) Movement Deep Deep session from Sept 18 2021 help you work with that poor, misunderstood SI joint of yours.

*Yes I am an excellent photo editor*. *Check out my IG account for more excellent work like this @monvolkmar*

How to be a DIY SIJ Detective

Quick back-story: I became a self-appointed DIY movement detective by sheer necessity.

At age 22 I was broke and broken from my career in dance (marry rich, one prof told us).

I had no money to get physical therapy (literally like $500 in my account, the remnants of my student loan not even my own money), no future as a dancer, and a part time customer service job at the local Goodlife Fitness (when they changed the title “Customer Service Rep” to “Motivator” and I knew I had to get out of there…).

What I did have was time and hunger to understand my body.

The insight struck me as I limped to the physio clinic one day to get yet another ineffective treatment: I have to become my own best therapist. No one can do this for me, or care more about me more than me.

That limp was my victory march, and the beginning of my journey as a DIY movement detective.

As the beloved Buddhist teacher Pema Chodran wrote in her book, When Things Fall Apart, “We’re here to study ourselves. Studying ourselves provides all the books we need.”

When Things Fall Apart : Pema Chodron : 9781570621604 — *A fantastic book for anytime, but particularly for right now*

I’ve come to see my body is my best textbook. All the info I need is within it.

Saying this because if you’re in a similar place- you’ve realized that only YOU can figure you out, then what I have to share today will help your investigations.

So before you hop on Youtube and do a search for “How to make my SIJ stop hating me”, let’s see if we can help orient you to your SI joint by opening the textbook of You.

Time to get off the lacrosse ball you may be sitting on, cursing your pririformis as the root of all evil, and get to learning 🙂

SIJ Made 10-Year-Old Simple

I’m not claiming I know everything about the SIJ. Not even close…

My hope is that the two video clips in this post will help orient you to 1) What your SIJ is and, 2) Why it might feel like it does from a movement perspective.

From there, you can make better informed decisions about WHAT to do about it.

This first clip covers:

What the heck is the SI joint anyway?
How much movement does it actually have?
What primary purpose does SIJ motion serve in gait?
What two simple terms can we use to name SIJ movement that even a 10 year old can understand?

Want to see the 60 second version? Check it out here on my Instagram account.

Side note: After editing this video I’ve now heard the word “SI joint” so many times it doesn’t even sound like a real word anymore and I never want to hear it again.

In case you didn’t watch the video, here’s the quick summary:

Gait is my favourite context to observe movement within. All joint motions our bodies can do happen while we walk. Unless they can’t 😉 This gives us a fabulous set of joint interactions to assess movement quality of.

The SIJ has it’s very own role in gait. Is yours performing that role based on its original instructions?

In gait, we’re interested primarily in the ability of the SIJ to compress and decompress at the appropriate times with each footstep to help us with shock absorption.

This is similar to how your foot goes through pronation and supination to give you that “bounce” in your step, but getting stuck in either position all the time can cause trouble.

Let’s move into how to self-assess your SIJ as your pelvis moves in three dimensions..

A Comprehensive Gait-Centric SI Joint Self-Assesssment in Less Than 8 Mins

AKA: The SIJ self-assessment a 10-year-old can follow along with (I hope…)

Here’s the second video clip from my Troubleshooting the SIJ (part 1) session: Dynamic assessments of SIJ compression and decompression in gait.

Here’s a quick recap of what is happening at the SI joint space during pelvis motion:

You should now have a better idea about:

Which pelvis motions are flagging up your SIJ stuff
Whether its a compression or decompression
In which planes of motion it’s happening

So what did you discover? Are you like me: Compression in two planes, and decompression in the other? Compression in all three planes? Decompression causing most of your problems?

Now you know more about your SIJ than most therapists will be able to tell you, beyond, “Your piriformis and hip flexors are tight”. Can you see why this isn’t enough information to change the movement habit keeping you stuck as you are?

So… Now you have your data. What do you do with it?

4 Steps to SIJ Relief

A few important notes.

First, there is no one-size fits all approach. I don’t think its wise or responsible to advise on what exactly to do in a blog post, so I’m not going to 😉

Second, this is only ONE perspective. If it resonates with you and feels useful, that’s great.

In the full 90 minute Movement Deep Dive session I shared 5 exercises to try out. Their intention is simply to help you explore and reclaim the triplanar movements your pelvis might be missing, and then integrate these motions into two lunge-y, gaity-y exercises.

The reason I hesitate to share the specific exercises here is not because I’m a selfish jerk…

To fully appreciate them, a fundamental understanding of the body’s movement mechanics through the gait cycle is key. This is why I like folks to go through my Liberated Body Workshop FIRST before attending my Movement Deep Dives sessions. Otherwise, the exercises will have no context, and you won’t get anything useful from them other than a face workshop from making confused faces.

But I can provide a thought process to get you started with right now.

STEP 1: Understand in which planes of motion your pelvis has movement restrictions or discomfort: Sagittal, frontal, or transverse (we already did that).

STEP 2: Note whether or not each of those motions correspond with compression or decompression of the SIJ (we already did that, too).

STEP 3: Experiment with exercises to give your pelvis, as a whole, the experiences of movement, compression, and decompression it is missing in ways that feel safe and comfortable.

For example: Are you missing the ability to posterior tilt your pelvis and could this be why the anterior tilt feels compressive? Explore some posterior tilt exercises and see what happens.

Experiment with different body positions. Supine? Prone? Standing? Handstanding?? (just kidding.. kinda).

The HOW is even more important than the WHAT. This means moving slowly, paying attention to details, and valuing quality of movement, such as:

Is the issue because you’re deviating from the plane of motion you’re trying to move within? For example: You’re trying to rotate your pelvis, but instead you’re deviating into an anterior tilt, compressing your SIJ. Could finding a way to make that movement more pure, clean, and honest be the solution?
Is the issue that you think you’re moving your pelvis, but you’re actually moving something else, like your spine, or ribcage, in an attempt to move your pelvis?
Are you doing the right movements the wrong way? Too intense. Too fast. Too little awareness. Too many reps. Too big. Too small… These are things it helps to have an outside eye with.

STEP 4: Integrate these missing pelvis motions with the rest of the body, the way we should see it in gait, so that the body learns to walk-IN the new movement options, not walk it off.

Show your body how these movements fit back in with your original instructions. Otherwise it’s just another novel experience.

Want MORE?

The clips from this blog post are from Troubleshooting the SIJ PART 1. But… There are two more parts, and I’ve compliled all three together into a little workshop for you: Troubleshooting the SI Joint

PART 1: What is the SI Joint? What movements of the pelvis create SIJ compression and decompression? How can we assess this? And a movement exploration to bring awareness to our pelvis motion and restore all movement possibilities that should be available to it (the topic of this blog post).

PART 2: What lower body influences could be contributing to SIJ crankiness? How do movements of the feet, legs, and hips impact on how our SIJ feels?

PART 3: What upper body influences could be related to how your SIJ feels? How do movements above from the spine and ribcage play into how our SIJ feels, in terms of com back. Stipulation: You have to write me a 500 word essay about your experience 😉

I hope you enjoy this guided exploratory series of movement sessions to get to know your pelvis and SI joint better 🙂

If you are an anatomy nerd/movement professional, and want to learn more about gait mechanics, check out Gary Ward’s closed chain biomechanics of the lower limb online course. SO good!

Conclusions?

This is certainly not the definitive guide to SIJ mastery, simply one perspective for understanding what’s up with YOUR SI joint, through the lens of gait mechanics.

Knowledge is power. You deserve better than a generic, glute squeezing, lacrosse-ball-sitting approach. You deserve to understand your body mechanics to make an informed choice.

Decompression isn’t always the answer. Sometimes our symptoms are due to decompression, and we won’t know until we assesss! Could you be compressed in one plane, but decompressed in another? Again, knowledge is power! Before chooseing an intervention, know your specific intent based on your body’s true demands.

This is an investigation of YOU, by you, for you. This is the creed of the DIY Movement Detective. No one can do your work for you, but you don’t need to do it all alone. There are folks like me interested in helping you figure your body’s shit out. I don’t want to tell you what you should do, only to help you think more critically, and give you more avenues to explore so you can find your own answers.

Seek professional help when you’re stuck. Massage, physio, acupuncture, movement coaching. If you have a structural/tissue restriction, or your nervous system is a little too triggered to feel safe enough to do any movement exploration, I strongly recommend finding a practitioner you trust to help you out. Even DIYers like me need a little guidance and support sometimes 😉

What did you discover about your SIJ?

I’d love to hear if you discovered anything new (or remembered something old) through this exploration. Was this useful? Is there anything that you want more clarity on? Shoot me an email or leave a comment on this blog post and let’s chat 🙂

So You Finally Embraced Foot Pronation, But Are You Doing it Wrong?

If I had only 15 minutes with someone to help them move and stand with more ease, but was not allowed to assess anything or ask about their injury history, I think the most impactful thing to do would be…

Teach them how to pronate their feet.

Pronation is not the devil, but the devil is in the details.

The Devil Is In the Details - Small Business Trends — *I’m here about the pronation!*

Pronation is an important motion the foot must be able to do as we walk. Contrary to what your orthotics person may have told you.

With each step, the foot gets just one chance to pronate. Could you missing out on the important benefits of this moment in time? (more about that below, read on!).

At some point in my work with most clients, I know I’ll do eventually take them through an exercise to show them how to access a healthy pronation, its just a matter of when.

I think that the world of therapy and movement professionals is opening up to the idea that pronation is a healthy movement to promote, with much thanks to the work of Gary Ward. Which is awesome.

However…

Just rolling your foot IN is not the same as pronation.

Do you know the difference?

Eversion (rolling onto the inside of your foot… I know, it seems like it should be called INversion, just deal with the counterintuitive language), is the frontal plane component of pronation, not the whole shebang.

My intention with this blog post is to highlight the diffrences between pronation and eversion of the foot, so that you can liberate your feet and wake up their muscles instead of living with a problematic chunk at the end of your leg.

So before you read any further, stop what you’re doing (unless you’re saving your baby from being eaten by a dog or something) and follow along with the video below. Let’s see how well your feet move. Are you just everting, or are you actually pronating?

The clip is from day 2 of my Liberated Body workshop: Foot mechanics day, in which we explore healthy pronation and supination of the foot.

In fact, embracing pronation is often the biggest take-away for my students. One said: “I was convinced that pronation was a horrible thing until this class!”

Pronation is a tri-planar movement

Eversion describes only the frontal plane aspect of pronation

The main difference between pronation and eversion, in super simple terms (because my brain needs things to be simple):

Do you roll inwards on your foot, dump your knee wayyy inside of your big toe, and lose contact with the 5th metatarsal head on the floor? That’s eversion of the whole foot, not pronation.

Check out these images:

ankle inversion eversion foot | b-reddy.org — Accurately labelled. Notice the loss of 5th met contact in the eversion photo, and likewise, the loss of 1st met contact in the inversion photo. No tripod, no pronation.

BSMSanatomy on Twitter: "Foot pronation/supination.Pron++=flat feet,Sup++=high arches.Its midtarsal jt mvt vs in/eversion=SubTjt #m204anatomy… " — Yes, these are also labelled accurately: Notice how the calcaneus (heel bone) is rolling into eversion, but it appears that the whole foot tripod is still in contact with the ground. Got tripod? That’s a pronation.

Improving Turnout for Irish Dance - Part 2: Foot Alignment — Notice how the labels in brackets underneath that say pronation and supination are not accurate, because the foot is clearly rolling off the floor, losing tripod contact.

Are you doing the right thing the wrong way?

As with anything, attention to nuance is the key for success. We could be doing the “right” thing the wrong way,

Like when I first tried a low carb, high fat diet in 2013ish because that’s what the whole internet was doing… No one told me how easy it was to eat 12483275939 calories of fat a day and gain weight on a “fat-loss” diet. Oops.

Could you be thinking you’re pronating, but just smashing the shit out of your first met by dumping all your weight onto it, with no muscles managing the situation?

Here’s one more nuanced pronation “DO” and “DON’T” that I hope you picked up from my video: We DO want the knee to go slightly inward to access foot pronation, but we DON’T want the knee to dump inward so far it generates eversion.

Check out this video by Gary Ward (which he created to illustrate the concept from his book What the Foot, that knee over second toe is not a thing we should get dogmatically locked into because it limits foot movement in gait):

Here’s your pronation vs. eversion check-list for success:

Eversion:

No articulation between foot bones
Foot “log-rolls” inward as one chunk
Loss of tripod (5th metatarsal head lifts from floor)
No change in muscles length or experience loading/stretching under foot
Joints remain in same position, nothing decompresses/compresses

Pronation:

Articulation between the foot bones with each other and the ground
Tri-planar motion of the foot (sagittal, frontal, and transverse plane components- eversion is just the frontal plane component of pronation)
All three points of the tripod in contact with the floor
Muscles on the bottom and inside surfaces of foot, and back of the ankle load and lengthen
Joints on the bottom and inside surface of the foot open and decompress.

Here’s a slide from my Liberated Body workshop day 2 presentation that outlines what we’re looking for in healthy pronation and supination:

Why is pronation actually useful?

Just to clarify: PronatING is great. Being stuck in pronaTION, the noun, is not so great.

Pronation is like going to Wal-Mart- Get in, get what you need, and get out as quickly as possible.

Here are a three amazing things our body gets from healthy pronation (but does not get from rolling in, aka eversion):

Natural lengthening and loading of the muscles under the foot with each step: Got tight feet? Stretching not really helping? Rolling fascia out feels good, but not changing anything? Foot pronation is the movement that naturally allows the muscles under your foot to lengthen with each step. Got plantar fasciitis? Letting your feet pronate could be a game changer for you.

Extensor chain (dem glutes) load: Looking for more ease and power with each stride? Or to explode up from a squat position? Or land from a jump with more control? At the same moment in time that we pronate our foot in gait, the entire extensor chain of the lower body loads up. Calves load to generate plantarflexion, distal quads load to generate knee extension, and proximal glutes and hamstrings load to generate hip extension. Want to jump better and run with more ease? Make sure your feet can pronate well.

Free your neck and jaw: Got jaw tension, TMJ issues, and a stiff neck? At the same moment in time that your foot pronates in gait your jaw and cervical spine decompress. Could lack of pronation be one piece of your cranky neck puzzle? I wrote a little thing/made a little video about this so you can self-asess this for yourself.

And more…

Conclusions?

Pronation and eversion (rolling in on the foot) are not the same. One is a useful experience for the whole body, the other just feels uncomfortable.

Eversion is just one component (frontal plane) of a healthy, three dimensional pronation.

Losing the foot tripod makes or breaks a pronation. And a tea towel might be your new best friend.

Pronation has important movement repercussions for the body, such as allowing us to mobilize our feet naturally with each step, helping us engage our glutes better, and even freeing our neck and jaw tension.

Wal-Mart sucks.

Want to learn more?

I think you’ll really love Wake Your Feet Up, an online course by Gary Ward that teaches foot mechanics in a way that even my simple brain can comprehend.

He designed this course for folks who want to learn more about their foot mechanics and explore exercises to give their tootsies back their full movement potential. This online course is appropriate for all humans with feet, not just movement and therapy professionals who can speak biomechanics.

Ok I realize this post makes me seem like a huge Gary Ward fan-girl. I kinda am. Deal with it. I think he was my dad in a past life.

That’s all for now, movemet pals. I’d love to hear if you discovered anything new about your feet: Are you pronating well, or just everting? And if you can get your feet pronating well, what does it feel like for your feet, and the rest of your body?

Leave a comment, or shoot me an email, and let me know 🙂

Feeling Stuck in Your Exercise Routine? Here’s How to “Audit” Your Movement Practice

Do you have one of more of these problems with your current exercise routine?

You feel generally stuck in your exercise routine.
You don’t know what exercises to do for your goal so you default to the same shit even though you don’t particuarly love it.
You don’t really know what your goals are or should be so you’re just going through the motions
You’re just going through the motions but the spark, joy, and fulfillment are gone.

I’ve been there, too, my friend. Many times.

If you said YES to any of the bullet points above, then I invite you to do a Movement Practice Audit.

In the 30 min video I’m going to introduce the MESH framework I used to audit my own movement practice, to strip away the useless garbage, keep what was working, and reconnect with my “why” that keeps me moving (because, “exercise is good” isn’t a good enough reason…)

Need to audit your own movement practice? Follow along with the video:

Want to listen while you’re on the move? Here’s an audio version:

What is the MESH framekwork?

Does your movement practice MESH for you? MESH helps you audit four key areas of your movement practice to see what works, and what needs to change.

What works for you right now is not fixed. Auditing yourself every 6 months to a year is a good way to check in and make sure your movement practice is still serving you.

M= Meaningful

“Why am I doing this?”

Does your movement practice support your highest values? Or are you just moving because someone told you exercise is a thing you should do. Let’s discover what makes movement actually meaningful for you.

E= Enjoyable

“Do I even like doing this?”

Life’s too short to spend time doing shit you hate. And if you don’t enjoy it, you’re not going to be able to do it in a way that is sustainable. If you hate jogging, why are you forcing youself to do it? Could you find something comparable, that meeds your needs, and that you actually like?

Also note that you can learn to like something if you can connect it to your highest values. You might not love something in the moment, but you can start to connect with how it makes you feel, or that you like the feeling of mastery you get, or you like what it enables you to do as a result.

S= Sustainable

“As my movement practice is now, could I do it for the rest of my life?”

If the naswer is no, it’s not sustainable. Not that your practice should stay the same for ever. Sustainability takes into consideration that you will evolve and your practice will change, and that you are not getting locked into one paradigm for movement.

Also consider Dr. Peter Attia’s Centennarian Olympics thought experiment: What do you want to be able to do if you were to live to be 100, and how are you gonig to train for those, like they are Olympic events. Don’t just hope for the best.

Like my favourite shirt says… Train For Life.

Amazing shirt is by Toronto company Screaming Monkey Apparel

H= Healthy

“Am I meeting my body’s demands?”

Healthy means so many things to so many people. I like think of health as an act of meeting our bodies current demands.

Is your nervous system sympathetic dominant? Health might mean meeting that demand.

Do you have joint movement restrictions that are keeping you stuck in pain and lethargy: Health might mean meating that demand.

And many other factors that I couln’t possibly cover in a video.

So how did you do on your audit?

Understanding the MESH framework is a great place to start. From here, we can go deeper.

The MESH audit is just one tool of many that I’ve been developing for the past 2 years, and I’ll be putting it out slowly in a series of videos like this one over the next several months.

I’m going to be putting together an in depth program called Physical Mastery in which I’ll be taking a group of folks through all the steps of my movement practice audit. Not sure when it will be a fully actualized thing, but the gears are in motion.

Physical Mastery is for anyone feeling stuck with their body, uninspired, energetically depleted, and not sure what to do to get out of the physical and mental funk.

The Physical Mastery program will help you to connect more deeply with your body by understanding, healing, and deepening your relationship with it. You’ll discover what’s holding you back from inhabiting your body with more ease and joy through a series of practical and conceptual exercises. The end result is to have all the tools you need to build a movement practice that inspires you, and makes you feel energized, resilient, and grounded to take on the world.

Sounds pretty good, right? I think I created this program because it’s exactly what I needed when I was going thourgh a quarter life crisis and needed to get myself out of the hole I was digging for my body and my life: Eating disorder, compulsive exerciser, multiple back injuries, trying to meet everyone’s expecatations and dismissing my own needs.

Sound like you? I’m looking for a group of “beta” participants to give the Physical Mastery Program a test drive!

If you are looking for clarity in your movement practice so you can feel more energized, connected with your life’s purpose, and in better relationship with your body, shoot me an email to get in touch and be one of the beta participants.

Here’s How Dancers Can Optimize Their Turnout Using Gait Mechanics

This past Friday Sept 11th was my second free monthly Movement Nerd Hangout, and this one was specifically for the dancers: Troubleshooting Turnout.

This workshop is a little different… Why? Because we flipped the conventional “here’s how to improve your turnout” script upside down. Instead of just practicing more and more exercises focusing directly on mobilizing and strengthening hip external rotation, we looked at an overlooked, yet powerful tool….

Gait mechanics: The gaitway (haha see what I did there??) to better everything movement related.

Optimizing how our hips accesses external and internal rotation in the context of how we walk serves as the foundation upon which all other skills, like dance, can be layered.

Want to feel what I mean? Grab your notebook, pens, and fluffy socks (you’ll see… ;)), and follow along with the complete workshop replay:

Aand as a bonus, I made a free resource of top turnout #protips from some amazing dance educators around the world. Check it out:

Here’s what we covered in the workshop

There is a 35 ish minute lecture covering:

Hip mechanics 101: The most simple anatomy lesson ever. What is the hip joint? (hint, it’s nothing but empty space…)
The 5 ways to externally rotate a hip: Why the “hip dissociation” in turnout is just one way to access the hip, but not the complete picture.
Introduction to Gary Ward’s rule of motion “Muscles lengthen before they contract”: Why hip internal rotation is so important for optimizing turnout.
What is the diffrence between “accessing” a joint, vs. stretching or mobilizing it? Why stretching and eccentric load are two different things, with different goals and outcomes.
Why we should embrace our turnout compensations: Stop demonizing compensations, and instead find straategies to improve our buffer to tolerate them, and use them to our advantage.

The movement session includes:

Self-assessment: What’s your functional turnout? Where’s your turnout coming from? Can your hips perform the basic joint interactions that we want to see in the gait cycle?
Movement exploration: I guided 5 exercises to feed in new movement potential to the hips, spine, pelvis, knees, feet, and ankles, based on gait mechanics.
Re-assessment: Did anything improve?

Speaking of which, check out MY before and after photo of the functional turnout assessment:

*Before… Behold my amazing functional turnout.*

*After! Can you guess which leg I workked on in the workhop?? And yes, my slippers are awesome.*

Apparently I needed this workshop 😉 Now I know what to do to prepare my return to the dance studio.

I’d love to see YOUR before and after. Please email to me if you want to share your results after the wrokshop.

I appreciate everyone who made it through to the end! Believe me when I say I really tried to keep it ~60 mins. I failed… The workshop is almost 2 hours long. I didn’t even get through all of the material I originally planned. AND we only did the exercises on one leg!

Smarten up, dancers

Seriously. Don’t be like old-Monika…

liberated body workshop — *Back in the day…*

I remember doing everything possible to improve my hip external rotation, at the expense of my body’s well-being, including:

Sitting in the splits for 30 mins straight, and then not being able to stand back up.
Getting people to sit on my butt while I was in a frog position (and not being able to stand back up…)
Torquing my knees out to give the illusion of better turnout (why are my knees sore now??).
Saying “Screw using functional turnout! I’m just gonna force my feet out, and I’ll deal with the consequences after!”

Do any of those sound like you?

Then you will get a lot out this workshop. You might not get more total range of hip rotation, but nearly all workshop participants reported more ease accessing the turnout they already had.

I hope you’ll give it a try 🙂 Please share this workshop with your dance pals who could use some help with their hips.

Remember to pick up the free turnout resource that I compiled, too. You’ll get the top DO’s and DON’Ts from 22 amazing dance educators (I’ll admit, I am guilty of almost every single one of the DON’Ts…)

Who AM I?

Hey, I’m Monika.

I used to be a dancer until I got injured one time too many and had to quit.

But I found something I enjoy even more to do with my life: Learn about movement mechanics and teach people to become their own best expert on moving better and getting out of pain.

I embarked on what I call my “DIY journey to pain free living” (because I was too broke to afford a therapist, and had sabotaged my dance career, so the best hack seemed to be to start a new career in a field that forced me to learn to heal myself).

I like to say I’m a disciple of Gary Ward’s Anatomy in Motion (AiM) which is a framework for working with the body to enhance performance and releive strain on the body based on how it moves as we walk. What makes it so unique and effective is how the AiM model pays particular attention to the relationship the mechanics of the feet have with everything up the chain.

In 2015 I wrote a book called Dance Stronger to help spread the AiM philosophy to the dance world, and help dancers learn how to strength train and practice self-care.

improve turnout — Click the image to get a free copy the book (email me to ask about the strength training program)

Through exploring the AiM model of gait mechanics (what all your body’s joints should be doing at the rigt times while you walk), we can see where your body is missing the appropriate joint mechanics, and use specific exercises to give them back.

It’s cool stuff. And it’s been the most effective thing I’ve found so far on my movement learning journey.

I’ve been learning and sharing this work with my clients in person in my bodywork and movement therapy practice, and recently, since COVID, online in my Liberated Body Workshop.

13 Reasons Why You’re Not Making Time For Your Exercises

A Liberated Body student recently asked me this question:

“I find myself not really taking the time to do the exercises we went through and continuously do my stretches, I’m not really sure why there is such resistance. Does this happen with your clients?”

Ummm YES. 100% this was me. Does this feel familiar to you, too?

This student is essentially asking: I know this work is important, so why am I not prioritizing it? I answered her question in a video:

I didn’t realize I was talking for an hour! So if you’d like to listen while you’re on the move, I have an audio-only version for you:

Audio quality isn’t fantastic, but I wasn’t really planning to make it into a “podcast”. Next time I’ll use my mic!

Originally, did this video on a Facebook live, my first time ever doing that (you can check that out here in all its unedited, awkward glory).

Do you need to practice the “middle finger mudra”?

Usually if there is something we want (like to move better with less pain) but we aren’t taking the action to get it, it’s because a form of resistance is in the way.

Identifying your resistance will show you exactly what action you need to take. What story you’te telling yourself that you need to say a big F*#K YOU to. Starting today.

I find the middlge finger mudra very helpful here 😉

Go 100% into the resistance. Give yourself no option. Stop thinking, just do the thing. No matter how small that first step is, go into it 100%. Worst thing that can happen is you’ll quit and things will stay exactly the same.

So there’s really nothing to lose! Just take the next little step.

If you haven’t tried this meditation yet, do it now (and use that special middle finger mudra to embody it…)

Do you need a little help with that first small step to taking ownership? Need some accountability to make sure you don’t back out again? Or feel like you need a “reset” to help start a new movement practice or routine?

I invite you to join my next Liberated Body workshop.

I make the process of doing your work less big and daunting, showing you exactly what to do and how to do it. And hopefully fun, too 😉

Not sure if its right for you? Email me and we can figure that out.

Anyway, below is a complete breakdown of the stuff I rambled on about in the video, in case you’d rather read the bullet notes.

Enjoy!

Why am I so dang resistant to doing the work?

In the video I cover:

What is resistance?
6 step framework to get from facts to results
13 of the most common mindset blocks that are keeping you from actually doing dang exercises you know you should be doing.
3 step process of awakening: Consiousness, witnessing, awareness
How behaviour influces our attitude, not the other way around

What is resistance anyway?

That voice in our head that says:

This isn’t important
I don’t want to do that
I don’t know how
It’s too overwhelming
I don’t have the time
It’s too complicated
I’m not motivated
I’m too tired
I’m scared
I’m embarassd
What will people think
I have this other thing that’s more important, I’ll do it later

The 6 step framework

Using this framework can help take you from seeing the facts to getting the result you want.

Let’s say for Annie, the result is she wants to get out of pain so she can do her work better- Acting, dancing, and living without fear of flaring stuff up.

What does her six step framework look like?

Facts→ truth→ demand→ effort→ transformation→ result

What are the facts? Annie is in pain and can’t seem to get out of it.
What’s the truth? Annie can’t bring herself to prioritize the work. To put bluntly: The work isn’t important enough to her, yet.
What’s her demand? To see the importance in the work she has to do. To do this, she must have a clear vision of the result she will have in her life when she is no longer living in pain.
What’s her effort? What’s the Sadhana- The daily effort to undertake. Not perfection. For her this might mean putting in her calendar 5 minutes everyday to start working on just one exercise.
What’s the transformation she needs to make? From someone who isn’t able to give herself even 5 minutes a day to focus 100% on her, to someone who can face her facts with confidence, and be disciplined to do the work, put herself first, prioritize her body’s demands for recovery and healing, while saying no to everythign getting in the way.
The result? Annie is able to live a pain free life. The result is also bigger than just her. It’s also a blessing for all, when she are living out the vision she has for herself. Annie becoming pain free and modeling ownership of her body’s needs is a blessing for others who meet her. Seeing the blessing relinquishes the sense of guilt or feeling selfish that can arise.

I encourage you to define what these 6 steps look like for you, right now.

13 common forms of resistance: Which do you identify with?

Disclaimer: I’m not a psychologist. Far from it! I’m definitely not claiming I know what’s going on in your hear. These are simply some of the common things that come up, that I’ve observed in my clients, and in myself.

You think you need more information, or something external to happen before you can get to work. In reality, what is necessary is to put 100% of the focus on YOU. Putting 100% of your focus and attention on you, might be scary because you see how much of a mess things really are, how much effort it will take, so you abort mission. Are you treating your body like I treat my taxes?
“I can’t change”. Nope. The only truth is that change happens. So we need to be very selective about the tpes of stimuli we expose ourselves to.
“I don’t have the time”. AKA this is not yet important enough to me. Do you know your values? Can you link doing the work to one of your actual highest values
It feels too overwhelming and you don’t know where to start. What is overwhelm? It’s the failure to organize something complex into a system with easy to follow steps. Are you not willing to ask for help, or do the research to break the process down systematically? Is there a book you can buy? Is there a program you can enroll in? Do it! You just have to start! The longer you put off doing the work the more it builds up and it seems daunting and you don’t know where to start so you convince yourself its not important anymore.
The fear that if you commit to getting the result, your entire life has to change. Becoming the new version of yourself can be utterly terrifying because you’re so attached to the comfort and familiarity of the routines and habits and structures you’ve built for yourself, even though they might be keeping you in pain. Are you numbing yourself to this? What are you using to numb out the fear of rising to the new demands?
“I don’t think it will work for ME”. AKA do you think you’re special and the rules of “put in the work, reap what you sow” don’t apply to you? Or that if it doesn’t work instantly that it doesn’t work at all? Are you addicted to instant gratification so that if something doesn’t immediately make a change, you dismiss it? Sometimes this work takes time. This might be a long term process. It will work for you if you do the work.
“I’m afraid that things will get worse because I might do it wrong, so I don’t do anything”. Well they’ll get worse if you do nothing, so you might as well start doing something so you can rule in and out what works for you and what doesn’t.
“I don’ thave the motivation”. Motivation is relying on something external. Inspiration is when something wakes up inside and says “I need to do this, and I want to do this”. When we can see the situation clearly- the facts- and wake up to the demand, something WILL automatically spark in us to take action.
Are you worried about what other people will think? We get invested in the image people have created of us. Maybe taking time to do self-care isn’t part of your identityand you worry what people will think of you. Will it look selfish? Will I look weird? Will people think I’m weak? Could trying to be who you think people want you to be keeping you stuck? Two options: Stop caring, or get new friends.
Is your identity built around moving and exercising in only one particular way? And do you put up a wall against anything that isn’t that thing, because it’s not in line with the current image of yourself you’ve built? Are you addicted to intensity? Unwilling to try a gentler way because the only way you can feel something is when its 100%, hardstyle? We can’t toperate at 100% all the time. What if you aimed to operate at 20% effort, 80% of the time, to build a reserve?
Does taking the responsibility for your body feel too scary? Do you think life shouldn’t be scary sometimes? This is called delusion… Do you just want to escape into fun, and when things get too hard, or aren’t interesting do you quit? Use this resistance as the cue to do the thing. Stop thinking about it and just do it.
Do you see doing the work as punishment, or as an act of self-love? Can reframe it? Can you make YOU sacred, and the work your ceremony? Can you see this work as love, not punishment?
Are you unwilling to say no to the things and people you need to say no to, in order to say YES to doing this work? To do one exercise for just for 5 minutes a day, what will you have to ssay no to? Mindless scrolling on your phone?

Thats’ definitely not a complete list. And I’m certainly not trying to psychoanalyze you, or Annie, or anyone else. I simply hope that this helps you identify if any of these patterns exist in you, right now.

Now your turn… What forms of resistance did you identify with? I’d love to hear. Shoot me an email back, or write a vomment on this post. Or is there soemthing else I didn’t mention? I’m genuinely curious 🙂

Books and stuff I referenced:

Dance Stronger ebook and training program

The Values Factor, book by Dr. John Demartini

The meditation teacher I mentiond: Dhyan Vimal

In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts, book by Dr. Gabor Mate

The Flinch, book by Julien Smith

Liberated Body Workshop

Want more movement nerdy goodness? Come hang out with me in one of my monthly free Movement Nerd Hangouts, every second Friday of the month. Check the schedule here and get on the VIP list.

You Can Become an Ankle Sprain Whisperer

Have you ever had an ankle sprain?

That’s a silly question… If you’re a human, your answer is most proabably yes.

If you’re a dancer, like I am ~~currently having an identity crisis about~~, statistically, ankle sprains are one of the most common injuries.

The problem is that most of us disregard our past ankle sprains as being unimportant and unrelated to any of our current aches, pains, and chronic niggles.

And then our bodies woes become this mystrious thing, a senseless cascade of symptoms of source unknown.

I work with a lot of folks in this situation, and I often see the impact of an an old, forgotten, ignored ankle sprain, on their body’s current state.

The way their body is moving now has become their solution. Their current set of movement options is an adaptive strategy in response to that sprain.

Could this be you? (chances are likely, yes)

How do you know if your old ankle sprian is still messing with you, and what can you do about it?

You can totally figure this out…

On one condition: You’ve got to stop trying random shit you found on Youtube and instead, find a system to investigate your ankle/body as objectively as possible.

I’ve been blessed to have been shown such a system, and I want to share it with you, step by step. And it’s not rocet surgery.

You can become your own ankle sprain whisperer.

But first, there’s a bit of background info to get familiar with, so I made a little three part video series (all the clips are from my most recent Liberated Body Movement Deep Dive session, called: The Ankle Sprain Retrospective)

Ankle Sprain Whispering: The Preliminary Theory

I love those two words together: “Preliminary theory”. Feels so sophisticated, doesn’t it?

This first video describes why it is important to consider how an old, forgotten ankle sprain could be messing with other distant parts of your body.

There is a system you can use to determine how many other issues your ankle sprain may be linked to (and I’m going to share that system, just a little farther along. Oh how I love a good system, don’t you?!).

So if your neck feels restricted, and 5 years of neck stretching hasn’t helped, should you keep doing those streteches? Or is it time to get curious about the real source of that neck issue? Is your neck being affected by your ankle?

We can totally figure this out!

6 Important Considerations for Ankle Sprain Significance

Video two is to help you consider how significant that ankle sprain was, so you can truly give it the time and attention it needs.

Most people under-appreciate the impact of an injury, because while their minds may have forgotten it, their bodies still remember.

This next video outlines a few important considerations to develop an appreciation for the amount of time, attention, and care that old sprain might need now, so we can move forwards and heal appropriately.

*NOTE my audio turned off as I was speaking about the first consideration (tbh I actually dropped my phone in my toilet right before recording the session… Guys, you don’t need your phone in the bathoroom with you. Learn from my mistakes!), so the video begins at #2.

Not on the video, consideration one is,“How old were you at the time of injury?”. Consider that the younger you were when the sprain happened might make it more significant, not less. THis goes against how we usually think.

Consider that 20 years of adaptation and habit formation around that sprain is more impactful than one year. Just because you were young and you healed, doesn’t mean it didn’t have a significant effect on your body to this day.

The 6 considerations in a nutshell:

How old were you at the time? *see note above
What was your emotional/nervous system state?
Did it cause you to cease activity for a period of time, and did you respect that?
Did you receive the appropriate rehabilitation or complete care needed at the time?
Did you personally, or other authority figures take it seriously or did you ignore it and push through it??
Did any new symptoms, of unknown cause, at other parts of your body pop up weeks, months, or even years after the ankle sprain?

And then a little rant about the standard medical system and how it so often dismisses us when doctors don’t have answers. All too common…

The Ankle Sprain Whispering System

Ok, now let’s look at a practical system we can use to rule in or out any suspisions about how and what that old ankle sprain is affecting.

This system is based on the Anatomy in Motion check-in process, which is a self-assessment of the motions your body should be able to do during gait. In AiM philosophy and practice, we think of gait as:

a. One of the most objective movement assessment tools we have

and,

b. A highly meaningful context to reintroduce missing movements to restore effiency and ease to the body

To be honest, I didn’t assess myself prior to recording the session, so I had no expectations, and I was quite surprised to find that my left ankle was affecting my left shoulder and neck range of motion. Well shit! Didn’t know that until I checkd in…

Give yourself about 20 minutes to participate in the “Ankle Sprain Whispering Check-in System” (patent pending… jk, this is not my work, it’s adapted from the teachings of Gary Ward and Chris Sritharan, through my AiM studies, and I consider it to be a necessary chapter of the “how to have a human body user’s manual”, so please share far and wide).

The Ankle Sprain Whispering System steps:

Check in with your baseline mechanics. We want to know:
– Where is your center of mass resting ( based on your foot pressures)?
– Which leg do you trust/not trust to stand on?
– What is the current movement potential of your body telling you about which leg you like to stand on more (pelvis shifts, rotations, stepping forwards)?
– Does your ankle have its full set of movement options?
Manipulate ankle variables (the towel “hug”, inversion, and eversion) to determine what else in your body is being affected by your ankle’s current state. Do your mechanics improve when your foot is more everted? More inverted? When “give it a hug”?

Simple.

What did you find? I’d love to hear.

What do you do with the data?

So maybe you found, like me, that your body has some unresolved issues with your old ankle sprain, and now you’re wondering, what do you do about it?

We want to restore movement options at your foot and ankle so that it can be an independednt, self-actualized body part, no longer interfering with mechanics above. Only when your ankle can know itself and its potential can it then be re-integrated with the whole body, in harmonious relationship.

Restoring missing movement options to a locked down, or hypremobile ankle will help it continue and/or complete its healing process, thereby not needing another part of the body to make up for its loss of options.

We also want to ensure that other parts of your body no longer have to make up for a lack of motion below. For example, if you’re like me and your left humerus external rotation is affected by your left ankle, I also want to do some work on restoring some missing movement to my humerus.

In a nutshell: Can your foot ankle pronate and supinate? Dorsiflex and plantar flex?

If you give these movements back to your system, then re-check with your body’s mechanics, you just might find that your neck problem, at its root, was really more the result of an ankle problem.

That’s what it means to be an ankle sprain whisperer: You are fluent in speaking, listening, and interpreting your body’s language.

How do I restore movement options?

Restoring movement options should also be done in the context of a system (I reallllly love systems because I’m super lazy), and therfore I hesitate to share specific exercises out of context, as they may become yet another random thing someone finds on Youtube and misinterprets.

So if you want to learn more, get the context, and get the system to make the exercises effective, I’m going to invite you to join my next Liberated Body online workshop, in which I share allll the things.

The next one is coming up on Sept 19th 2020, and registration is now open 🙂

In Liberated Body, I make understanding the complexity of gait mechanics simple for anyone, regardless of your background in movement and anatomy, so you can get results with it.

We cover your whole body’s movement mechanics based on its original instructions for the walking cycle. Day two is where we cover foot and ankle mechanics.

It’s a lovely experiential study of your anatomy to troubleshoot why your body feels the way it does, and find strategies to make it feel better, move with less pain, and do all of the things you love with more ease.

Shoot me an email if you want to chat more and learn if this workshop is a good fit for you right now 🙂 Or if you’re ready to register right now, sign up here.

How good of an ankle sprain whisperer are you?

How did that process go for you? Did you discover anything new?

I didn’t even know my left ankle was related to my lef arm until I recorded that session! Crazy! There’s so much to explore…

I’d love to hear what you found. Write a comment below or send me an email about your experience with this ankle sprain business.

You CAN be your own Ankle Sprain Whisperer!

All the best with your ongoing movement explorations 🙂

Want to explore this nerdy stuff with me live every month?

You should join one of my free monthly Movement Nerd Hangouts. See the full topic schedule here, and sign up below so that I can email you when registration opens for the next hangout 🙂

Are You Wearing The Right Shoes?

The topic for the inaugural edition of my monthly free Movement Nerd Hangout series was: Are Your Shoes Working For You?

We spent over and hour and a half geeking out on whether or not you’re wearing shoes that work for you, or if it’s time to let go.

As a bonus, I made a free PDF workbook to go with the session, because there’s a lot to keep track of! GO HERE to download the workbook and use it as you follow along.

We went through a 4 step process to learn about what makes a shoe a good fit, and discussed why its important to make sure you have strategies to make sure your body is robust to any shoe you choose.

I recorded the whole dang thing, and I invite you to participate along with it when you can make the time! (or just sit back with some popcorn and enjoy the show…)

Here’s what we covered:

1) What 5 things should you look for in a shoe that is good for your body?

2) Can your feet currently pronate and supinate well outside of a shoe? (let alone in one?)

3) Test out a few pairs of shoes with the “Does My Body Like My Shoes?” system, based on Gary Ward’s Anatomy in Motion model of gait mechanics.

4) How you can use the system for the rest of your life for all future shoe purchasing situations, and how to find “post-shoe unwind routines” for when you DO wear shoes your body doesn’t like.

The purpose of the session is to help you become an empowered, informed, wearer of shoes

I definitely learned something new about how my shoes are impacting on 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 have…) to whether or not I wore shoes my body didn’t like and failed to unwind with some self-care afterwards.

Knowledge is power, guys!

To see the full schedule of my Movement Nerd Hangouts, go here and sign up to attend live (and live attendees get free stuff!)

Now if you enjoyed this hang-out and are wondering how you can learn more about your foot mechanics, create your own “post-shoe unwind routine”, and unravel other myseteries in your body’s movement system, this is exactly what we do in my Liberated Body Workshop.

Liberated Body is a movement workshop to free your body from the shackles of inefficient, compensatory movement habits, formed over the years. Sports, habitual postures, injuries… All have an effect!

Over the four days you’ll learn how the human body was designed to move through the walking cycle (gait mechanics), and be guided through a step by step process to restore this movement potential where it is missing so you can get out of pain and do what you love.

If you want to talk about whether this workshop is right for you, I’m happy to chat. Shoot me an email 🙂

Liberated Body is not a one time workshop to solve all your body’s woes. It’s a system that helps you engage in the life-long project of taking care of your body.

It’s not a class to stretch and strengthen, like a pilates or yoga class- But it will help you perform better at pilates and yoga with more access to your body’s movement potential.

Anyway, let me know how things go with your shoes. I’d love to hear what you discover about how your foot wear could be impacting on your movement potential.

Move. Honestly.

What is moving honestly?

Perception vs. Reality

How did we begin to move DIShonestly?

Biomechanical honesty

So what causes us to lose an option for honest movement?

Judgement and attachment in motion

The confabulating body

The move-your-scaps-honestly challenge

4 guidelines for moving honestly

4 Guidelines for Honest Movement Exploration

Conclusions?

Want more help moving honestly?

A movement detective’s comprehensive guide to calcaneal motion!

What is the calcaneus?

What if your heel bone can’t slide?

TRIPLANAR CALCANEAL MOTION:

What motion relationship do the calcaneus and pelvis have in gait?

Calcaneus movement check-in

Pelvis and calcaneus movement check-in

How does calcaneal motion impact on neck motion?

Conclusions?

Are you wearing shoes that could be messing with your pelvis and neck?

Would you like me to email you when I create new blog posts and videos and things?

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Because the basics never get old…

You can build shoulder health and strength simultaneously

8 reasons why I love the forearm press

1. Get a “neck stretch” while you get stronger

2. Scapular protraction strength: Push before you pull?

3. Awesome preparation for more advanced upper body weight bearing exericses

4. Safe exercise for most folks with wrist complaints

5. You get great feedback from the floor and no fancy equipment or expensive coach required

6. Tons of fun progressions to challenge your whole body

7. Ability to self-modulate the intensity purely with your intention

8. Becomes a lovely way to tune into breathing mechanics

Conclusions?

How to be a DIY SIJ Detective

SIJ Made 10-Year-Old Simple

In case you didn’t watch the video, here’s the quick summary:

A Comprehensive Gait-Centric SI Joint Self-Assesssment in Less Than 8 Mins

4 Steps to SIJ Relief

Want MORE?

Conclusions?

What did you discover about your SIJ?

Teach them how to pronate their feet.

Just rolling your foot IN is not the same as pronation.

Pronation is a tri-planar movement

Are you doing the right thing the wrong way?

Here’s your pronation vs. eversion check-list for success:

Why is pronation actually useful?

Conclusions?

Want to learn more?

What is the MESH framekwork?

M= Meaningful

E= Enjoyable

S= Sustainable

H= Healthy

So how did you do on your audit?

I compiled this bonus resource after surveying 22 dance educators from around the world for their turnout #protips. Want to get the free PDF?

Here’s what we covered in the workshop

The movement session includes:

Smarten up, dancers

I compiled this bonus resource after surveying 22 dance educators from around the world for their turnout #protips. Want to get the free PDF?

Who AM I?

Do you need to practice the “middle finger mudra”?

Why am I so dang resistant to doing the work?

What is resistance anyway?

The 6 step framework

Facts→ truth→ demand→ effort→ transformation→ result

13 common forms of resistance: Which do you identify with?

Books and stuff I referenced:

Have you ever had an ankle sprain?

You can totally figure this out…

Ankle Sprain Whispering: The Preliminary Theory

6 Important Considerations for Ankle Sprain Significance

The 6 considerations in a nutshell:

The Ankle Sprain Whispering System

The Ankle Sprain Whispering System steps:

What do you do with the data?