Dealing with the Bad while Pursuing the Good

Good evening interfriends
            

I feel it is time for an updated blog! A lot has changed for me in the last 6 months, and I feel that writing can sometimes alleviate the inevitable anxiety I experience that accompanies change. Warning, this is an extremely long blog post… for those that make it to the end… good for you! Gold star :)

This isn’t really a blog to update my life on the interwebs per say. Anyone who follows my social media pretty much knows on the surface how things have been going in Byn world. Instead, this blog post is going to get at a more serious topic that underpins my life. That is dealing with PTSD (depression, anxiety, a fucked up childhood and adolescence/whatever you want to call it) and all of the accompanying symptoms that go along with it while trying to move forward and live the life I feel I deserve (or want to deserve.... it’s complicated).

I’m not sure why I feel an urge to blog about this now. I have wanted to publicly discuss this area of my life for a long time, but always couldn’t bring myself to put my fingers to keyboard for fear of being viewed differently or judged by my peers (don't judge me fuckers).

I’ve always danced around the topic of mental health in my previous blogs and tended to keep an “arms-length” distance between my writing and my personal struggles. I feel I am ready now to share, as I find myself finally living and actually (in my mind) achieving my dream as a professional, overcoming what I felt I could never do, but wanting to be completely open and honest with myself and others in the hopes of helping those who find themselves living with similar experiences to mine but stuck in a cycle of treading water psychologically and behaviourally.

The idea of “treading water” is not new to my blogs. In working with people in a variety of health related environments for the last 8 or 9 years I have seen the same cycle over and over again of people struggling with inertia and being unable to unload the psychological baggage and trauma they carry with them, and I always truly relate with these people. Let’s face it, for a good percentage of the population, life kinda sucks… a lot sometimes, and the way our society is built it can make us feel oh so very alone.

Without getting into the nitty gritty details of my own life (we can grab a tea or margarita if you want to hear the nuances sometime), I have suffered a fair amount of what can be labelled as “trauma”. I have been physically and mentally abused by my mother and her boyfriend, sexually assaulted, and have been through 2 serious car accidents, in which the second one I really shouldn’t have survived (good ol’ survivors guilt).

My experiences are most likely to varying degrees very similar to you, the reader. We all go through trauma because life sucks. That is because life is also beautiful and great beauty cannot exist without great suffrage in my humble opinion. These traumas can bog us down and taint (hahaha I said taint) how we view the world, behave, as well as how we treat ourselves and others… but only if we let them.

So on that note…. I’m going to share five insights I have learned while dealing to overcome my past to achieve my future despite the cards I’ve been dealt (or have dealt to myself)

1. Be reflective on your behaviour and what you stand for: If you have been through some nasty shit in your life, you are most likely going to try and self-sabotage your future. I don’t know why we do this to ourselves (I have my theories), but in my experience, it is terribly difficult to out run our past lives and if people have made you feel like nothing, you will for whatever reason behave in a way that will consolidate your own poor view of yourself. I find this was particularly hard for me to overcome as I experienced trauma repeatedly at a very young age. However, I have learned to really analyze my behaviour and when I feel I have not performed at my best in regard to what is in line with my goals (see #2) I sit back and reflect. In a late night (and wine fuelled) conversation with my wonderful father, he once said to me “Rob, one day you will look yourself in the mirror and will really examine the worst parts of yourself….. and you’ll cry, but in order to become a better person this is a painful step you’ll need to take”. If you are looking for growth and are finding yourself treading water… I suggest you try this out (warning: it sucks, a lot). You cannot move forward without truly being honest with your weakness.
   
   
2. Determine what you want out of life and what matters most to you (and be happy with that): For those of us with traumatic pasts that have struggled to find our true identity this is another difficult step (or at least it was for me). This world is large and complex, and it’s hard to find our place and where we belong. Trauma and a lack of love discolours our view of the world. It makes us feel we are “less than” and only deserve what others have lead us to believe through others unkind actions and words. However, I have learned that if you want something, and want it bad, you will do whatever you can to achieve your dreams. It won’t be easy, as you will tend to self sabotage (see #1) and due to trust issues not ask for help/push others away (see #3). For me, it was to help people. By helping people, I find self healing and peace. I have held on to that goal tightly in hard times and it has helped me overcome my barriers.
   
   
   
   
3. Take help when it’s there (and find it if you don’t think it’s there): Relying on others when you have been hurt badly is extremely difficult. It’s hard to trust people, and people can be unreliable at best. It is even more difficult when you do not have a strong family unit/have family trust issues to form a solid base for to stand on. This has been (and continues to be) the biggest barrier to my success and overcoming my self-sabotaging tendencies. However, the few times I have actually been able to fully trust someone and believe they like me for me (and not my social mask) have been extremely rewarding. In regard to how to make this step…. I’m really unsure. Saying “put yourself out there” is so cliché, but it’s kind of the truth. Ask someone out for coffee and don’t be scared for them to get to know the real you.
   
   
4. Allow yourself to grieve: This doesn’t just apply to trauma, but also bad choices and behaviours. There have been instances in which I have not performed at my best, self-sabotaged, pushed people away, and behaved poorly. The hard part is being reflective of these behaviour and allowing yourself time to grieve and learn from the mistakes you have made (as well as your past traumas). This doesn’t mean sitting in your pyjamas every night eating ice cream and feeling sorry for yourself and your life. It’s about allowing yourself to truly feel all of the emotions that come along with being a dink sometimes but also moving forward in learning. I find the second part is where most people get stuck. We seem to be very good at wallowing in our own self-loathing of our various fuck-upperies, but have trouble with the “well, I’ll learn from this and try harder” part. Being aware and open to the idea of emotional grieving is the first step to overcoming the cycle.
   
   
   
   
5. Critique your inner critic: Negative self talk is the worst. I seriously feel sometimes I have a little Robyn sitting in my head dressed all in black with wet hair and a cigarette going “well, you sure made an ass of yourself there” or “no wonder no one calls you, you’re really no fun”… that Robyn is a bitch. Apparently (at least from my readings) for those of us that have been through some stuff, negative self talk can get a little out of control… or more in control! Learning to ignore this automatic (and they really are automatic) tape recordings that go off in my brain in certain (usual social) situations has really been a major break through for me in improving my inner self worth and overall life quality. The way I started to do this (I don’t need to do it as much anymore after 3 years of practice), was every time emo Robyn would chime up from her dimly lit bar stool in the corner, I would simply say to myself “there my brain goes again”. Eventually my negative brain chatter became progressively quieter, which has allowed me to focus my energy on more productive things than hating myself.
   
   
   So there you have it. I actually feel a bit of anxiety posting this to the world, but it’s time. Hopefully it can help someone else out there that is struggling with this whole life thing.
   
   
   Stay Strong
   
   
   Byn

Playlists for this week!

Hey Everyone!

I have some awesome playlists that Ima share, incase y'all are looking for some music inspiration....
I'm not gonna share my workouts cuz I'm lazy/don't know if anyone still reads my blogs, but if you want them...comment below.

Spin: (they are different formats because I recently updated iTunes)


Spin 1:

Spin 2

Spin 3

Bootcamp

TRX/Heavy Weights

Enjoy!!!


Stay strong

~Byn

Importance of a Good Warm Up!

Good Morning Interfriends!

I haven't written post in a very long time but my workout yesterday made me want to share something that I've known for a while, but do not practice as much as I should.

~The importance of a good warm up and how that can help your workouts!~

Now, not all of my workouts are SUPER HARD, but at least 2 a week are. Yesterday I had the opportunity to go to the gym half an hour before my TRX/Kbell class and decided to warm up that entire time and man oh man was my workout way better!

I found this made me be able to get more out of my workout and I handled the entire class way better than I usually do.

Now, I'm not saying that you need a half an hour warm up before every workout, but when you know you're going to hit it hard... it's probably not a bad idea if you have the time (even 15 minutes is better than 5)

So what did I do in that time... great question! When I warm up I general hit 4 areas

1. Cardiovascular system: This is just getting my heart rate up. I will intermittently perform some light cardio at various times during my warm up. I go long enough so I feel like I'm working at a 6/10 by the end of my cardio "bout".  For me at the moment that usually equals about 100-150 rotations of skipping or so when I'm not warmed up.

2. Hips: I will focus a large portion of my warm ups on just opening my hips. That's because mine are VERY tight (at this point I'm actually thinking it's genetic, or at least that's what I tell myself). I generally focus on external rotation, flexion, and extension. Each exercise I do for about 30seconds-1 minute. I'm not as concerned with repetitions, more of the movement and how that movement feels.

This results in the following generally:

A) Wide base body weight squats: Feet out side of hips, feet forward, knees not over toes. I focus more on letting gravity progressively bring me lower to the ground. Be aware what your trunk and pelvis are doing.

B) Side lunge: Wide WIDE legs, one foot pointed forward, one pointed out (warrior 2 position for you yogis). I move in and out of the position and ad a spinal side bend over head after about 30 seconds for another 30 seconds then repeat on the other side.

C) Hip Width Squats: I then will try narrower squat form thinking about the same form cues as A and looking to see where more form needs work/body needs mobility.

D) Long Lung Hip Flexor-Hamstring Warm Up: I really don't have a better name than that for this exercise. I go into a long lunge with a straight back leg. Keeping my back long and straight I flex at the hips forward and push my pelvis forward thinking about slight posterior rotation of the pelvis to hit my hip flexor origin (front leg is bent), then on my next exhale I straighten my front leg and move backwards slightly to hit my hamstring..... that sounds confusing... lets see if I can find a picture on the inter webs.....

Here's the lunge one I do

And the hamstring one

3. Spine: Ensuring you are properly mobilizing and warming up your spine is super important when your lifting, twisting, jumping... and doing stuff. If you are more of a bendy-kid mobilizing may not be as necessary, but I would encourage you to focus on stabilization in different spinal ranges.

For warming up my spine in terms of mobility, I generally add range of motion exercises to my hip and shoulder series (see side B in hips). Some other exercises I particularly fond of because my upper back moves so terribly are.....

A) Supine Thoracic Spine Rotation: you essentially lie down in the fetal position on one side (people look at you like you're fricken nuts at the gym when you do this FYI) then open up your chest by bringing your top arm across your body and try and get your shoulder to the ground. DO NOT FORCE THIS MOVEMENT... use gravity to assist you but don't force the rotation, you could hurt yourself. Do about 15-20 each side

Supine thoracic rotation

B) Cat-Cow to Bird Dog: You're on all fours for both of these exercises. For bird dog keep in mind to make sure both hip bones are facing the ground and you do NOT feel anything in your lower back. If you do, your not engaging your core properly. I do about 1 min of cat cow, then 15-20 bird dogs each limb... They look like this...

Cat-Cow

Bird Dog

The google machine can also help with this

4. Shoulders. I do lots of stuff for my shoulders. Scapular setting, RCT activation, proprioceptive training, serrates anterior and lower trap activation both dynamic and statically. Due to the complexity of the shoulder I feel that explaining these exercises is beyond the scope of this article. If you have specific questions you can always e-mail me at robynbertram@gmail.com

NOTE: if you are unsure of how to do any of the following to maximize your form 1-2 sessions with a qualified professional will go a long way! (e.g., physiotherapist, athletic therapists, CSEP or NSCA trained personal trainer).

I'm not just saying that because I'm advocating for my profession, but I did not learn how to properly warm up just from reading stuff.... very smart people who have lots of education and experience in the area of movement and performance helped me :)


So that's a little of what I do when I know I'm gonna have a hard-ass workout. If you want to learn more feel free to leave a comment, email me, or talk to me outside of the inter webs if you know me like that.

Stay strong!

~Byn

2 New Cardio Playlists and 1 New TRX/Resistance

Good Afternoon Interfriends

Super quick blog post today due to time limitations (I must shower and finish my problem based learning tutorial questions!)

As requested by some of my spinners/regulars here are my recent playlists. All of these bad boys can be found on the youtube. I put a considerable amount of time into preparing my playlists for my classes, so I'm sure you'll love them!


First - The CARDIO PLAYLISTS

• These are designed to be spinning playlists so there are some slower songs for hills/resistance

Super Awesome

Yea!!!!

Second- TRX/Resistance!!!!!

Get your lift on

Enjoy!!!!


Stay Strong

~Byn

The Industry of Comparison?

Good 2015 to everyone reading this… hiiiiiiii

This is going to be more of a rant than informational, may some food for thought to chew around in your brain. Or just pure entertainment.

Something has been bugging me lately, well not really lately per sey, but more of a growing nagging brain itch over the last 3 or so years.

Maybe I spend too much time on social media (probably true) but I think there is some truth to this, and we are all guilty of it to some extent (including my self). I have run into the rare human flower that does not partake in the following in the health and fitness industry, and they are rare and wonderful creatures indeed.

What I am painfully building up to is: has the health and fitness industry become the industry of comparison?!?!

Maybe it’s always been this way, maybe I have been naive until becoming completely immersed in health and fitness as a passion and career. However, I read a lot, and I find a lot of the messages being put fourth by completely different training modalities and health/fitness philosophies seem to be very similar…

“THIS IS THE BEST AND EVERYTHING ELSE IS SHIT.”

I don’t like these messages. I think they are de-motivating and perpetuate the idealistic ivory tower that can be pushed health and fitness professionals (and those that partake in the exercises).

So I’m here to encourage you as the reader to try and change these messages (I know a lot of my readers or in the health and fitness industry) or not listen to them if you’re coming here for fitness advice.

Then what are you suppose to listen to if you can’t listen to anyone!!!

It’s a really simple answer in my opinion…. Yourself J

If you’re seriously looking to change your health behaviours (I’m going to avoid saying “for the good” because I also think this perpetuates the idea of “I am better than you because I do x”), you need to seriously ask yourself what do YOU want?

What are your values? You only have one life (that we know of) unfortunately, so why not spend it doing what you enjoy and value.

I did a similar rant on behaviour change that you can peruse at your leisure here.

The long and the short of it is… there are A LOT of health, fitness, and training philosophies out there. Some of them lead to different results compared to others. Being muscular doesn’t make you better than the bendi yogi, being injured sucks, but if you had a hell of a good time getting injured, I really can’t see how that’s a bad thing, it’s your body.

And if you want to stay injured that’s your choice, if not, there’s lovely health professional people that can help. And if those lovely people tell you to stop doing something you love to do, that’s really your decision to make, that’s when it’s time to revisit your values and assess if your behaviours align with your overall view of yourself and what you stand for.

To me, that’s more motivating than messages like “lose 50lbs in 30 days” and “people that do Zumba suck, it’s not real training” and “I don’t understand spinners, sitting on a bike for an hour doesn’t make sense” and my favourite one that I hear around this time of year “don’t make New Years resolutions, just CHANGE, you’re doomed to fail if you make a resolution”… those messages don’t help anyone, make people self conscious, and just de-motivate those trying to have fun and try their best in this world.

So the end of my rant is… don’t be a dick buzz kill bro.

However, the ironic part of my rant is by listening to me are you really listening to you? I guess if you enjoy being a judgmental, demotivating, meanie person, you can do that to….

I guess.

Ok that’s all for now,

Stay strong and amazing

~Byn

The Importance of Mobility Training…for Pretty Much EVERYTHING

Good mornings to you interwebs

I thought it was due time for a blog post. As the title eludes, the topic today will be on mobility training. Specifically, I will provide an introduction to what mobility training is and isn’t, why and when we should be working on mobility, and some tips to get you started on the journey to increased bendyness.

I’m happy to see people to start talking more about mobility, especially the heavy lifters and even more recently the YOUNGER heavy lifters (you know who you are).

When I first started in the health and “fitness” industry, there really wasn’t a lot of focus on mobility training, other than what was practiced in yoga (either that or I just didn't know what was going on). 

Stretching seemed to be always secondary to the “main workout”.  However, it is becoming increasing clear how imperative mobility is as I, and the industry in general, learn more about injury prevention and optimal performance.

I. What is mobility training?

·      In short, mobility training is any modality/activity used to maintain/increase the range of motion in your joints.

·      This includes not only what people “traditionally” think of when they hear the word “joints” (e.g., elbow, knee), but also less obvious joints such as the intervertebral/spine joints, ankle joints, the joint where the spine meets the pelvis (SI joint), and even finger joints. 

    To get your geek on, I would recommend looking into some anatomy literature to really get a good understanding of the different structures that may cause restrictions in certain joints

·      

    There are a variety of different tissues/anatomical structures/physiological processes that mobility training seeks to improve, keep moving, and maintain health, which generally includes….

o   Muscles

o   Fascia (the shrink wrap that surrounds muscle)

o   Joint capsules (these are less pliable then muscle and fascia)

o   Joint surfaces, which receive nutrients through movement and loading

o   Increased blood flow, which helps with healing and recovery

Now, I find a common misconception with mobility training is that it only involves stretching. Although “traditional” static stretching, (i.e., where you hold a position for say, 20 seconds) is important, it is not necessarily the best or most efficient method for increasing mobility, depending on what joint/tissue structures you’re seeking to manipulate. Efficiency or the most “bang for your buck” is important, considering time is a major concern for most people when it comes to physical activity.

Before I get into the different ways you can start to increase your mobility, I’d like to talk briefly about the potential issues that can occur due to immobility. For the sake of simplicity, I will focus on the traditional lifter, as these people tend to be the most immobile due to the type of training. OBVIOUSLY, this is a stereotype and I’m not suggesting that if you lift heavy then you don’t do mobility training, that’s just silly.

II. Why should I do mobility training?

The short answer is: Mobility Training decreases the chance of tissue wear and tear and/or damage/injury:

If you are regularly active… well existing, keeping your movements as fluid as possible should be a main priority (although it’s really up to you, no one can tell you what to do).

In other words, maintaining optimal range of motion in all joints (or as many as you can) will keep your movements and anatomical strutures healthier for longer and decrease the chance of injury. The way I explain this to people is using the following analogy…

Imagine you have a door in front of you. You don’t open that door very often, and eventually the hinges start to get “stiff”. You don’t oil the hinges and only open the door wide enough so you can fit through it. One day you try and fit a new couch through the door, so you open it wider than it has been in years. Because it hasn’t been moving, the hinges aren’t ready for the load and they will ultimately break. Also, the hinges will sustain more wear in general as they move only through a short range, thus less force distribution is occurring through the structures on a day to day basis.

So, in a human example, say you do not keep optimal flexibility in your upper back and hips, yet you lift a LOT of weight (although through a sub-optimal range). When you go to help your friend move his couch, and you need to get down to the ground to lift, you’re more likely to hurt your upper back, lower back, and hips, because your body isn’t used to the range.  A wham, you’re injured for 8 weeks. There goes all your gains bro!

Also, if you’re not moving your hips and back through full range when lifting, you are stressing the structures over and over in a short range, which will decrease force distribution in your tissues, and increase wear and tear over time.  It may not seem like a big deal now, but trust me when I say that in 20-30 years you’ll probably be wishing you treated your body in a different way.

Mobility training has other benefits other than just preventing injury and joint wear and tear… such as…

• Reducing stress
•  Increasing recovery (if done appropriately)
•  Improving performance WHEN you are lifting/training/competing

III. How do I do the mobility trainings?

There are SO MANY WAYS/METHODS out there for mobility training. The short answer to the afore mentioned question is: It depends

I cannot tell you, the reader, exactly what mobility training you should be doing because I would need to do a formal assessment to identify where your restrictions/limitations are and go from there.

I can however guide you in the right direction towards begin to incorporate mobility training into your training regime/life.

Tip 1: Find a physiotherapist (or similar type-health professional): I know this is kind of self advocating since I’m in PT school, but seriously, we can help in this area.

Clinicians that specialize in movement can get you perform what you usual do in the gym (snatches, deadlifts, squats), analyze your movement, then provide suggestions on ways your body has been adapting/moving to account for mobility limitations and how to overcome these deficits.

If you are not injured, or have sneaky overuse injuries creeping up 1-2 sessions with a PT (depending on how restricted you are) can provide you will some basic tools to help increase your flexibility.

ALSO: PTs, registered message therapists, myofacial release specialists, some chiropractors, and osteopaths can provide manual hands on techniques for some areas that are known to be difficult to release on your own: like the hip flexors, damn those things are hard to stretch and roll out

Tip 2: Do some reading

If money is an issue for you, there are a lot of resources on the interwebs that can help you with beginning to target your restricted areas. For example, a simple search term of “myofacial release” can do wonders

The trick is, is navigating what is good information, and not-so-good information on the net.

Tip 3: Do NOT over do it!

Mobility comes with time (like everything good in this world). Unfortunately, as humans we tend to adopt the “all or none” mentality, especially when it comes to health and fitness, instead of the “one step at a time” mentality. I’m hoping to see a change in this mentality as the industry progresses and demands more education of it’s professionals, but that’s a rant for another day.

Lets go back to our door analogy, but instead of stiff hinges, lets say the door is attached to the frame with tight rubber bands. Now obviously body tissues have much different properties in terms of self healing then a rubber band, but if you want to “Stretch out” that rubber band, doing it super quick with a lot of force is not going to be very effective (you could actually break the rubber band).

Instead, applying gentle pressure, gradually, within a force range that the band can handle is the most effective. There is also a point (as there is with any structure) where if there is TOO much flexibility/give then the other structures are at an increased risk of injury. We often see injuries in athletes like gymnasts because they have “too much” flexibility.

So what are you suppose to take from this tip? Well if you’re overwhelmed and feel like you don’t know where to start, I highly recommend returning to tip 1.

Tip 4: Stay hydrated and eat well

What does this have to do with mobility training, well pretty much everything. If you are looking to improve your range of motion and adapt your tissues to be more elastic, being hydrated and having the right amount of nutrients is super important.

This is NOT my area of expertise (yet?) but I know enough that if you are dehydrated your tissues are more “brittle” (for lack of a better term), and you are more likely to become injured if the tissues are stressed too far.

Tip 5: If all else fails….

If the first four tips aren't doing it for you, I would recommend joining a mobility based fitness class led by an educated and highly qualified professional.

Some common exercise class formats that can enhance overall mobility are….

1. Yoga: Yin, Hatha, hot yoga..etc.  I would stay away from power yoga type classes for enhancing mobility if you are starting out and are very stiff/restricted 

2. Pilates: Especially the reformer based classes, and try pick classes that focus on whole body rather than just core work

3. Tai Chi

4. Functional movement/mobility based classes: Look at what certifications the instructors of these classes have first

Give yourself a solid 1-3 months of regular gentle practice to start to see mad gains bro. Again, gaining/regaining mobility is a marathon, not a race!

I think I’ll leave it there!

So I hope this helps shed some light on the topic of mobility training!

MERRY CHRISTMAS/FESTIVUS/HAPPY HANUKKAH etc…

And of course…

Stay strong

~Byn

Evolving your body: More than what you think

Good Thursday to you Internet Friends

I haven't written in awhile due to lack of inspiration/time. However, once again I find myself at a point in my training life where I find that my perspectives are evolving and I think it may be beneficial for some of my readers (if there are still any!) who currently find themselves in a rut with their workouts/body/performance.

I recently had the opportunity to have a six week placement at a fantastic private physiotherapy clinic in Burlington, Ontario with an extremely talented and knowledgeable clinician with over 20 years in the field. This preceptor has done an incredible job at helping me continue to fine tune my approach to looking at the body, including my own.

I won't mention their name, as I haven't asked their permission to blog about them, but this physiotherapist has a strong Pilates, yoga, and manual therapy background and does an excellent job at combining all three to give patients what they need to get better and avoid injury in the future.

My first day in this clinic I was excited and apprehensive to see 4 Pilates reformers staring me down. Now, I've always turned my nose up at Pilates proclaiming "Pilates is bad for your lower back, and is not an efficient form of training...it's just another fitness fad to make money".  However, I thought why not give my preceptor's evening reformer class a go, since it was better than sitting on my but charting.

All I can say is … holy potatoes! I engaged muscles I never knew I had and have finally had a deep abdominal "a ha" moment. In school we are taught how to engage the deep stabilizers of the pelvis in one or two ways on our back and on all fours. My preceptor quickly taught me that engaging those muscles in isolation is all well and good, but if you cannot engage them when they count during everyday movement and exercise then they are essentially useless…. Pilates taught me just that.

Another wonderful thing I discovered about Pilates is that it is like yoga… but more… flow-ey, at least the way my preceptor taught it. We used our muscles in a way to lengthen and engage full range of motion. I found that after the class I felt fantastic. It is a great adjunct to my overall training.

Upon some reflection I had another a-ha moment. I had always dismissed training such as Pilates proclaiming that building muscle and functional strength is the "only" way to train. However, as I age (as we all do), strength training can only bring you so far without mobility.

I'm seeing something interesting happening in the fitness world with the heavy lifters. I don't know if it's because my friends are becoming older along with me, or if this is a true evolution of the industry, but mobility training is starting to become an essential part of over all body health and performance.

I kind of always knew this in the back of my head, and about 5 years ago made a solid effort to increase my flexibility. However, the more and more I learn about the body from a functional and injury prevention/rehabilitation perspective, I find that mobility training is way more than just stretching.

So to avoid further rambling, I'm going to put in point form some stuff that I have learned since last September on incorporating mobility into your sport/lifting/training program.


1. Breathing is way more important than you think it is: After I wrote this, it seemed kinda silly. Of course breathing is important Robyn, you need breathing to live and stuff. However, I've noticed through observation of myself and clients that we often do not breathe properly. Breathing seems pretty straight forward. However, as you are moving, working, stretching.. etc notice how you're breathing. Here are some common things I have noticed that contribute to inefficient breathing...

• Holding your breath: no brainer, don't hold your breath. However, pay more attention to your breathing during the day and notice when you do so (it's probably more than you think). Also, when people hold their breath they tend to tense their neck and upper back… bad news bears.

• Upper chest breathing: a lot of us, especially when stressed/working hard, breath with the top of our chest (think everything pec/boob up). Efficient breathing involves the entire lung, including the lower half (think belly button to bottom of pec/boob). When stretching/lifting/stressed out think about breathing from your belly, mid-chest, then upper chest last.

• Inhalation/exhalation timing: Some people will exhale when the abdominal cavity needs stabilization naturally. However, a lot of us don't or simply don't think about it. This is even more likely to happen during everyday movement. It feels weird at first to be constantly thinking about when to exhale, but eventually it becomes habit. The idea is simple…. we want the spine and pelvis to be as stable as possible when moving and lifting, so, ideally, we want to be exhaling and thus engaging the deep abdominal muscles during these movements. For example, when getting up from a chair, ideally, you should exhale and engage your deep abdominals (that's a topic for another day). The amount of exhalation and deep abdominal activation will vary on the amount of load you are moving (your body vs. deadlifting weight).

2. What is your body actually doing?!: This is something that I see as being a subtle/often overlooked contributor to overuse injuries. To go into depth on this topic is way beyond the scope of this blog post, so I'll just use this point to put a little birdy in the back of your head to pay attention to your body when you're using it.

• Cervical spine and head: your c-spine is your neck and your head is… attached to your neck. A lot of the time slight changes in your head and neck position during movement can lead to injury/pain over time. Something common I see is people "leading with their chin". This is especially apparent when people deadlift or squat. When going into a deep squat or deadlift the body actually needs quite a bit of thoracic (upper back) extension and hip flexibility (which a lot of us are deficient in since we SIT too much). Therefore, the body will naturally compensate by "poking" our chin out and extending through the neck. It looks like this….

Holy neck strain batman

VERSUS

Some sneaky chin poking/c-spine extending moments can also occur when driving, working on the computer, and going from seated to standing. So pay attention to what that head is doing!!!

• Thoracic Spine: Ohhh the t-spine. My love hate relationship. The t-spine can cause all sorts of problems. I actually contemplated going straight to lumbar spine/pelvis because mines so terrible and I'm not sure how the picture will turn out. As mentioned previously, lack of t-spine flexibility causes all sorts of issues in the head and neck (i.e., the head and neck will extend to obtain the extension lacking in the t-spine). Climbers and people with crazy back muscles I'm talking to you! If your t-spine is hypomobile/inflexible this will effect things above and below your upper back and just make everything so much less efficient. An example of an inflexible t-spine is when you generally look like this….

Notice the considerable rounding of the subjects upper back contributing to forward head posture and overall generalized sadness

So instead of being a douche-bag  unhelpful and just telling you to "stand up taller and don't round your back", how about I give you a simple thing to do to help your back extension.

First you need two towels (or a foam roller if you have one)….

two towels

Second, fold the two towels in half and then roll them tightly into a log type situation….

old-school foam roller

Finally, place the log towel down longitudinally (along your spine) and lye down on it starting at your bum all the way to your head. You can put your arms over your head to increase upper back extension or make your arms into a cactus to open the chest…. as so….

arms above head (not in cactus) for ease of viewing 

I would keep your knees bent to support your lower back. Here's some cactus arms….

Muther fudging cactus arms

If this position is too easy for you (the towel longitudinally along your spine that is), you can alternatively put it horizontally across your upper back. I like to do this with a foam roller at various hypomobile sections of my upper back. Cactus arms/arms over head still apply to this towel position.

Ok jeeze. I think I'm gonna leave it there. I'm not sure how this blog post started about me now loving Pilates and turned into me taking pictures of myself with a towel, but it is what it is.

There are, indeed, other parts of the body that we must be aware of (like everything below the belly button) that I'll try and make a post on before the ridiculousness of my 4th unit of physio-school ensues.

Any questions/comments are always appreciated. They actually keep me motivated to keep posting.

Stay strong!

~Byn