Oak Hill Fitness is a sweet little indoor and outdoor gym located on Old Bee Caves Road, just about a mile off west 290/71. We will be working alongside some great trainers and coaches who offer Yoga, martial arts training, personal training, and group workouts… What I’m most excited about is they have a nice outdoor obstacle course!
Oak Hill Fitness
7401 Old Bee Caves Rd
Austin, Texas 78735
This new space will give The Art of Fitness Austin Texas the opportunity to continue growing and expanding the level of top notch pain elimination, injury prevention, movement skill development, and athletic performance services we offer our wonderful clients. Speaking of expanded services… Are you aware of just how much our services have grown? Check out our updated website and see for yourself.
I’m Going To Go Over The Edge…You Can Help!
The Art of Fitness Austin Texas is raising funds and awareness for Make-A-Wish® Central & South Texas by joining 200 people on June 13 & 14, 2015, to go Over The Edge – literally! Jesse James Retherford will rappel 38 stories down W Austin in the heart of downtown.
More than 350 children in central and south Texas are diagnosed each year with a life-threatening medical condition. Last year, Make-A-Wish® Central & South Texas granted more than 230 wishes for local children. You can help Make-A-Wish® reach more of these children and create hope, strength and joy in their lives. Money raised by rappellers goes towards granting these wishes.
Help The Art of Fitness Austin Texas conquer Jesse James Retherford’s fears (yes repelling over the edge of a 38 story building sounds kind of scary) and raise money for Make-A-Wish Austin. We need to be one of the first 200 to raise $1500 and Jesse James will get to rappel the W Austin in Downtown Austin. We don’t want to miss out.
If you donate just $10 or more, you would help us achieve this death defying goal, and make a huge difference in the lives of children who need it most!
Please share this post with your friends. Make-A-Wish is a worthy cause.
Offering Pain Elimination, a Pain Free Future, and Warrior Care
It is our passion to help each of you move and feel better in your body and in your life. By following this passion I continue to dive deeper and deeper into what IS natural human movement and how to develop the movement skills that not only eliminate pain right now, but also keep us pain and injury free well into our advanced years.
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Personally, I want to be able to get up and down from the floor with ease and grace; climb trees; and crawl on the floor with my grandchildren well into my 90’s. I know that to have these skills later in life, I must develop them as a practice right now.
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This has lead me into taking some amazing course work; studying walking and running gait analysis, movement assessment, and advanced natural movement workshops; and mentoring with some of the top trainers, anatomists, coaches, and movement therapists from around the world. It has expanded the level of movement therapy that I offer. The results are really paying off with the results I am seeing with clients and I would like to share with you the new level of services I am offering. Check out updated The Art of Fitness Austin Texas website or better yet give me a call.
The Art of Fitness is your local NeuroKinetic Therapy Austin TX therapist
Instead of chasing the symptoms of muscle tightness, soreness, and/or pain which can become a guessing game; NKT identifies the root cause of pain through direct assessment of the relationship of painful compensation patterns in the nervous and musculoskeletal systems.
In essence, an NKT movement assessment is asking the body:
“why does it hurt when you move this way? What do we need to do differently to make this movement non painful?”
The answers to these questions determine the specific patterns of imbalance, dysfunction, and compensation that are leading to pain and injury.
During an NKT session, we will assess the specific movements that are causing pain or dysfunction. As an example:
Your knee hurts when you run
We will analyze your walking/running gait as well as assess the function of specific muscles involved in a running from head to toe. Much of this work is done on the table. We perform hands on manual muscle tests to determine the compensation patterns i.e. which muscles are overworking — compensating, and which ones are underworking — inhibited. Once these compensation patterns are determined, we perform a Hands on massage therapy release on the compensating muscle and immediately strengthen the inhibited muscle with a corrective exercise to reprogram the nervous and musculoskeletal systems. We will then reassess the original movement, walking and running, for improvement. Once a primary compensation pattern is determined, you receive a daily personalized exercise program. The daily exercise program reprograms, trains, and reinforces this renewed efficient pain free movement as a permanent habit. You build a renewed way of moving and being in the world… Pain free.
If you ever experience pain or discomfort, perhaps caused by an acute injury or from simply living life, email or call The Art of Fitness and schedule a free NeuroKinetic Therapy Austin consultation. We will work together to craft an individualized set of treatments for you, so that you can eliminate pain, feel better, move better, and live better.
Recently, I received a wonderful question on The Injury Corner — a Facebook group I moderate that provides advice and guidance for anyone dealing with chronic pain and injury.
A podiatrist has told me that I have arthritis in my big toe. It’s painful to fully flex it and it’s throwing off my gait, which as many of you know, is foundational to proper function. He didn’t have any suggestions for correcting it other than giving it space (said I’m too young for surgery as that surgery is so debilitating). Any suggestions here for either alleviating it or working around it?
I love this question because it touches upon something I hear frequently. “I am in pain because I have arthritis.” This is a statement that I do not fully agree with–primarily because it sounds an awful lot like “It’s because I’m getting old!” — which I write about here.
There are two main reasons I disagree with the commonly held belief that arthritis = pain.
1. The Failure Prescription
2. Arthritis is a symptom, not the problem
The Failure Prescription
I’ve borrowed this phrase, “The Failure Prescription,” from one of my mentors, Dr. Kathy Dooley. Most people, when told they have arthritis, assume there is nothing they can do about the pain, other than treat it with drugs, topical pain relievers, injections, and/or surgery. This is not a treatment prescription to thrive–it is a prescription to fail. In the case of a failure prescription, there is little strategy for change, help, healing, recovery, and most importantly…hope. A failure prescription suggests that pain is just the way life is supposed to be and there is nothing to be done about it.
I don’t believe in failure prescriptions. Call me an idealist, but I believe there is always hope for some sort of meaningful change. As a Movement Therapist and a life changer, I do not write prescriptions to fail. Instead I offer hope.
Degenerative Arthritis = Symptom, not problem
Just as I’ve written before about pain being our body’s way of alerting us to an underlying problem, so arthritis is a marker of a larger issue. The underlying problem responsible for both the arthritic condition and the pain is simply how well, or not, you move.
In my experience, osteoarthritis and pain are both caused by dysfunctional movement patterns and are primarily related to gait — i.e. the way you walk and run. In the world of movement therapy, gait is huge. It is the movement pattern used most frequently and with the longest duration of any other movement pattern in a human being’s life. From the moment we are born, every movement made prepares us for walking upright. Once a person does begin to walk, every movement thereafter is built upon this gait foundation.
If you have inefficient movement anywhere in your body, it will show up in your walking gait. When this inefficient movement is assessed, corrected, and cleared from your gait by a skilled movement therapist, you will see greater efficiency and quality return to other movements. The positive side effect of this type of therapy? With healthier, higher quality movement you will experience less wear and tear on the joints and more importantly, less pain.
Arthritis
There are two main types of arthritis, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that can cause inflammation of joint tissue. As a Movement Therapist, I do not work with autoimmune disorders, as they are outside my zone of expertise. For the purpose of this discussion, I will be specifically addressing osteoarthritis.
Osteoarthritis or degenerative arthritis is the most common form of arthritis. Osteoarthritis is the degeneration of the bone and cartilage caused by “wear and tear” of a joint, and is generally blamed for pain and stiffness in the knees, hands, hips, and back.
It is helpful to note that arthritis is not always symptomatic with pain. Many people have arthritis with no pain at all. In fact, “up to 60% of people with radiographic knee osteoarthritis may not complain of pain.” For example, I have degenerative arthritis in my surgically-repaired right knee. The degeneration can be seen in x-rays, but I don’t experience arthritic pain in my knee.
Also, just because pain is present and arthritis is present, doesn’t mean that arthritis is to be blamed. There is a correlation between the two, but that doesn’t always equate to causation. This is an important distinction to make. If a symptom is diagnosed as the problem, you will waste time, money, and frustration chasing relief for something that doesn’t resolve your pain. Your pain and injury can become further aggravated if invasive interventions such as injections, orthotics, and surgery are used to treat the symptom (arthritis) and not the problem (how you move).
Let me reiterate: arthritis is not the problem. How a person diagnosed with arthritis moves is the problem.
This is the primary reason I recommend exhausting all non-invasive options prior to undergoing surgery or other invasive procedures. I frequently hear from clients who’ve gone through 1, 2, 3, or more surgeries–and yet their pain hasn’t improved. Prior to seeing me, many of these people had unnecessarily resigned themselves to a life of chronic pain. Thankfully they continued looking for help and are now not only able to move with less pain, but are also returning to the activities they love. Here is an example of a woman who was able to recover from eight years of painful “arthritis”.
Mobility & Stability
For healthy efficient movement to happen you need both mobility and stability throughout the body. Mobility is simply the ability to move freely. It is the wide range of movement your body is capable of performing. The greater the range, the greater the mobility. Defining stability can be a bit trickier.
I used to think that stability meant rigidity. But as I’ve learned from another great mentor of mine, Gary Ward of Anatomy in Motion (AiM), with human movement, there is no such thing as rigidity. We are always moving, constantly passing back and forth through a state of being neutral. In this context, “neutral” is just a moment in time between two opposing extremes. For example: try standing still, and feel yourself sway back and forth and side to side. Now try to prevent this swaying. Notice that the more you try to prevent the movement, the harder it becomes and the more you actually move? In our natural state of constant motion, it’s impossible to completely still movement in/of the living human body.
With this in mind, stability does not mean rigidity. Rather, stability is dynamic–it is the braking mechanism of motion. Imagine stability like the brakes of a car: it is the ability to decelerate joint movement against gravity to prevent excess or unsafe motion.
At first, it may appear that mobility and stability are antagonistic to each other, fighting and at odds with one another. But in reality they are not. When your body is moving well, mobility and stability work like two beautifully choreographed dancers: giving and taking in perfect balance, neither one more dominant nor important than the other. Mobility and stability working in tandem allow graceful, precision movements through wide ranges of motion to take place.
Then where is the breakdown?
When injury enters into the body, movement becomes inefficient. What used to be perceived as a safe movement become unsafe. When this happens, the body will sacrifice mobility for greater stability. In an attempt to protect, the body creates excess stability either in the soft tissue, such as tightening up a muscle, or in the skeletal structure through joint compression. Joint compression can lead to arthritis.
In the example from The Injury Corner referenced above, I would expect that the joint of the big toe is compressed similarly to this picture. Compression is an excellent stabilization strategy for your body to protect itself from harm; it’s like an internal bracing system, similar to wrapping a sprained ankle or knee. If a joint is unstable due to muscle weakness or inhibition–stemming either from an injury or repetitive poor movement–the joint can compress, making itself rigid and stable. Some of the range of motion of the joint is lost, but the compression allows for continued movement.
Generally one joint goes into a stabilization strategy to protect movement within itself or for another joint above or below it that may be hypermobile and unstable. To prevent further injury and keep the body moving, your nervous system locks down the joint, preventing too much load on an unstable structure. Note that the stiffness or rigidity at this particular joint is a bracing strategy that allows dynamic mobility and stability to take place in the rest of the body. (A rather important strategy since movement is key to survival!)
This joint compression then occurs with each step taken–and when a joint compresses, it squeezes out nourishing and lubricating synovial fluid. As a result, the joint no longer tracks smoothly or efficiently, surrounding tissue can become inflamed, cartilaginous tissues become brittle, and the overall structure of the joint itself will experience greater wear and tear.
It is this excess stress of joint compression that is the cause of pain in arthritis sufferers. It is this lack of nourishment and joint health that is the underlying cause of osteoarthritis. Arthritis is not the cause of the pain, it’s a symptom.
Poor movement quality is thus the underlying problem that created both symptoms of arthritis and pain. Healthy efficient movement is The Healing Prescription, and it is possible. In contrast to The Failure Prescription, arthritis can instead present the opportunity for hope–a call to alter your movement patterns in a way that can fundamentally change your life for the better.
To do this, you will need help from someone who specializes in movement therapy. For optimum results, I recommend seeking out a highly skilled movement therapist specifically trained and experienced in assessing muscle function, joint compression, and gait mechanics (i.e. the way you run/walk). Ask around, interview several therapists, get multiple opinions, be picky, and ultimately choose the person who best addresses your needs and goals.
The Healing Prescription
With a different “diagnosis,” there comes a new “prescription.” If the problem is caused by a dysfunctional movement, then it can be resolved by correcting the dysfunctional movement patterns and replacing them with healthy, efficient, pain-free movement. A skilled movement therapist can help you learn ways to move better. Better movement = less joint compression. Less joint compression = less symptoms of both arthritis and pain.
You have the ability to heal. By shifting your perception of arthritis, it is possible to see that it is not a prescription to fail. This is your prescription to thrive.
When I had my first and second knee reconstructions, I didn’t know where to go or who to talk to. I was making life changing decisions for myself while I was in a state of fear, anger, and self judgement. At the time, I was in the Navy in San Diego, CA sleeping on a friends couch. I was half a continent away from my family, and my best friend was going through BUD/S training to become a Navy Seal. I felt alone and isolated. I didn’t have a team and I did not know how to ask for help. I needed a recovery support team.
We all experience those times in our lives where we need the help of others. Healing from pain and injury is one of those times. It makes a huge difference to have family, friends, coaches, therapists, doctors, etc focused specifically on helping you recover. The stronger and more supportive the team, the faster and fuller the recovery. When I look back on those days 17 years ago, I wish I had someone in my corner like Heidi Armstrong of The Injured Athletes Toolbox.
Heidi is an amazing person. She is incredibly gifted and passionate about helping people heal and recover from the devastating effects of pain and injury. Her gifts lies in her huge beautiful heart, but more importantly in the fact that she has been there. She has experienced it, lived it, and is living it today. I love her story. She is inspiring. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to ask her a few questions about her work. This is her story. It should be shared with any friend or family member experiencing pain and injury.
Thank you Heidi for sharing.
~Jesse James Retherford
Tell me a little about yourself and your story? What was your path to becoming an Injury Recovery Coach and what inspired you to create Injured Athlete’s Toolbox?
Jesse, you’re incredibly gifted at connecting with people, and you’re the first person I’ve met who shares a similar philosophy about the mental aspects of injury. I appreciate you offering this space to talk about my work as an Injury Recovery Coach.
Fifteen years ago while racing my mountain bike, I had a spectacular crash resulting in a complicated knee injury. In an instant, my identity changed–from an athlete to injured and broken.
At the time I was living with my best friend, Christine. Cassette tapes changed my life–in the year 2000. Why I had a righteous cassette tape collection in 2000 is another story. I was supposed to be elevating a very swollen post-operative knee. Instead, I did what any agitated and irritated injured athlete would do–I grabbed a bottle of Windex and sat on the floor cleaning my cassette tapes, with all the passion of my Italian ancestry. Christine walked in from work and looked at me with a combination of shock and disgust. “What the heck are you doing?” she said. “I’m cleaning the cassette tapes!” I declared. “Um. Aren’t you supposed to be laying down with your leg elevated?” she said. “Well. If I don’t clean these cassette tapes, who will?” I said, undeniably winning the debate.
I was overdue for an intervention–that or Christine was going to toss me off the balcony. “I’m going to my bedroom for 10 minutes, and when I come out we’re going to talk.” Christine said. She emerged, sat in front of me and said, “You know I love you, right?” “Yes.” I said. “This (she pointed to my mess of Windex, paper towels, and cassette tapes) isn’t going to work anymore. You need to find another way.”
My good friend, Erick, and me reliving the months when I could barely go up and down stairs
I was in a deep, dark hole, unable to see daylight through pervasive anger, impatience, bitterness, and frustration. I was largely incapacitated, barely able to do daily living activities. For a while, I even talked a firefighter friend into carrying me downstairs just so I could be outside.
Christine’s intervention forced me to make radical changes. Over subsequent months, I inefficiently but inexorably established a team of people to help–a new orthopedic surgeon, a new physical therapist, and a psychotherapist among others. With their guidance I climbed out of the hole armed with a positive attitude and life tools that still serve me daily. I immersed myself into creative endeavors like photography and writing. I began volunteering. I wasn’t able to ride my bike, but I could practice yoga and walk a bit. I dealt with issues from my past that haunted me. I focused more on can than can’t, and I created a daily mental training program to replace my cycling regimen. Had I ignored Christine, my lengthy recovery would likely never have been successful and surely destroyed me mentally.
After witnessing my dramatic improvement in attitude, the same healthcare providers who helped me began calling–“Heidi, I have an injured athlete-patient. He needs someone to help him out of the hole. Can I give him your number?” Over the past 13 years, I’ve appreciated helping injured athletes refocus their focus from training and racing to recovery.
Heidi with Dr. Steadman at The Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado
For several years, I enjoyed a complete recovery and then, as [bad] luck would have it, I suffered a severe and obscure fracture to the same knee while Nordic skiing in 2010. The fracture led to arthrofibrosis–a rare and chronic scarring condition. Very few doctors know how to treat arthrofibrosis. It’s a tough road for surgeons, let alone the patients. After two surgeries in Austin that distressingly just made my condition worse, I traveled to see the best–Dr. Richard Steadman in Vail, Colorado. At my first visit he gave me a 20% chance of being normal. It’s 3.5 years later and I’m still working hard to finish in that 20%. I’ve had six surgeries in Vail, and have learned to walk again multiple times. I’ve spent more than two years on crutches, and more than a year sleeping in a CPM (a device that slowly bends and straightens my leg). Every nook and cranny of my life has been upended.
Reaction to my first steps off crutches in two years with my PT in Vail, Luke
The tools I used to emerge from my first injury journey mentally sound and stronger are the same tools I use to navigate my current journey. I learned how to manage injury the right way only by doing it catastrophically wrong the first time. Injury is a most unforgiving and rewarding teacher, much like the nuns who taught me to read and write.
Saying goodbye to my CPM, a happy day indeed.
In 2012, while spending months at The Steadman Clinic with other patients of all stripes, I had a realization: irrespective of age, sport, level of proficiency, and gender, injured athletes suffer in similar ways and achieve success through similar tools. I had a brainstorm–what if I could uncover the common behaviors and paths to success and turn my passion for helping other injured athletes into a career?
I tested my idea by interviewing a diverse group of healthcare practitioners who work with injured athletes. It didn’t take long to identify a gap in our health care system. Many providers and coaches had neither the time nor the experience to mentally and emotionally support a frustrated and impatient injured athlete. Most had no idea what to say when a patient broke down during an appointment.
What do you do as an injury recovery coach and how can you help injured athletes? Talk to me about how you work with clients. And what can a client expect when working with you?
About half way through my research, I re-defined what makes an athlete. To me, an athlete is anyone who uses movement to connect with themselves or their life. No movement leads to disconnection, and that’s where things come unglued.
Athletes face different and unique emotional challenges following injury. What I hear most often includes: I feel worthless and without purpose; my social network is gone; what if I can’t compete again; I’m jealous of my friends; I’m angry; I don’t want to ask for help or be a burden; I have to move to feel balanced and relieve stress.
Through Injured Athlete’s Toolbox as an Injury Recovery Coach, I work with injured athletes from around the world to: empower them to overcome the emotional fallout of injury; recommend a proper care team of skilled providers who understand athletes; identify activities that are injury-friendly and physical therapist-approved; prepare for doctor’s appointments; navigate our [nightmare of an] insurance system; provide swimming and cycling instruction.
Empower
We’ll work together to identify your physical and mental barriers and your goals. Are you pervasively frustrated? Does your family find you insufferable? Feeling impatient? I know how to find your patience, even if you, like me, were never particularly patient to begin with.
We’ll talk about the gritty part of injury–the emotional roller coaster–that only another injured athlete can understand. Together we’ll create a plan to make concrete progress toward your goals. We’ll work together, making you more resilient.
Care team
We’ll work together to find the best physician, physical therapist, and additional practitioners based on your injury. I can teach you how to interview healthcare providers, ensuring you get the best support for your injury.
Identify activities that are injury-friendly
Despite injury, you still want to move. We’ll identify activities that are friendly to your injury but liberating to your soul.
Prepare for medical appointments
We’ll create a plan for healthcare appointments, enabling you to communicate the salient facts of your injury. I can also attend, take notes, and review with you afterward. Did you know studies show we remember only 30% of what happens in a doctor’s appointment? It’s likely you won’t get to visit with your doctor as much as you’d like, so it’s important to make the most out of each appointment.
Navigate our insurance system
What do you do when you get an $85,000 hospital bill in the mail that was rejected by insurance? I’m not making that up. It happened to me. Together we’ll determine a strategy for engagement with your insurance. No doesn’t always mean no. Together we’ll get more yeses.
Provide swimming and cycling instruction
I have 20 years of experience in both swimming and cycling, including swimming at a university and cycling for a national level mountain bike team. I can help you learn these activities that are often injury-friendly.
I work with each client one on one, in person if they are in Austin and via Skype if they’re not. Together we’ll brainstorm the challenges at hand and your goals. We’ll create a focused and structured plan including: proven therapeutic activities that will keep your mind occupied and help you work toward your goals; mental exercises to regain and maintain an optimistic outlook; physical exercises that are enjoyable and PT-approved. Throughout your journey, you’ll have a guide when you’re feeling lost and someone to talk to who gets it.
Injured athletes who meet my coaching with time and diligence can expect to feel empowered, more patient, hopeful, mentally and physically connected, less frustrated, and more resilient.
Who can you help?
When I initially meet clients, they often feel impatient, frustrated, without the self-confidence their sport reinforced, and lost. They feel broken down and unmotivated. They want to talk to someone who gets it–someone who will help them move forward. If I hadn’t experienced the dark side of injury, I’d be unable to truly connect with and coach other injured athletes. I’m comfortable jumping in the hole with clients I coach because I know the way out. A typical case involves working together over the course of 8 weeks.
If: the preceding paragraph describes you; you’re making poor choices that dishonor your injury; you aren’t improving physically and need a new care team; you need to find ways to move that are injury-friendly; you require help preparing for medical appointments; you’re feeling lost dealing with insurance…I can help you.
With 20/20 hindsight and specific to your path of injury, healing, and recovery what is it that you are most grateful for?
In an interview for an article in the Austin American-Statesman, Pam LeBlanc asked me something similar. She said, in just a sentence, can you tell me what you learned from your own injuries? What have they taught you about yourself? What good came of them?
My answer to Pam is the same answer to your questions: Through my injuries, I discovered talents and interests that expanded my world and enabled me to become more mentally balanced and graceful.
Anything else?
I tell clients: You may feel somewhat hopeless right now. You do have hope; hope is a conscious choice. Perhaps it’s squirreled away in some dark corner of your soul covered in cobwebs and dust. Dust it off and breathe new life into it by practicing a new mental approach to injury. The only way out is through, and I’ll be with you every step of the way.
My best friend bringing the party to me, writing a haiku on my TED hose. It reads: White compression socks…Make me feel eighty years old…So thankful for you.
Jesse, thank you again for allowing me to share my journey and my work here. Most of all, thank you for being you.
“Wow, I have a balance problem.” “No, You have a fear the wobble problem.”
Last week I was working with a personal training client. The exercises I had her doing became super challenging to her balance. She began to wobble and said, “Wow, I have a balance problem.” My response was “No! You don’t have a balance problem. You have a fear the wobble problem. Your balance is doing exactly what it is supposed to. It’s working! And that’s a good thing.”
For many of my clients, falling is a real concern. A fall can lead to bruises, broken bones, pain, and chronic injury. Most of my clients have an understandable fear of falling. This is the main reason I get my clients out of their comfort zone and focus a great deal of attention on including balance challenging exercises into training sessions. Balance is a skill, and just like any skill it improves when practiced well and diminishes when ignored.
Don’t Fear the Wobble
With a fear of falling comes a fear of being off balance… or a fear of the wobble. The “wobble” is my term for the neurological edge of where we still have control of our body in space before gravity takes over pulling us down to the ground with a loud and uncomfortable thud.
Fearing the wobble is understandable. An injury due to a fall can be devastating. However, there is a problem when the fear of the wobble or fear of a fall leads a change in movement behavior. The fear of the wobble means we are less likely to explore movement that is anywhere near our neural edge. Instead we pick smaller ranges of movements that are stable and safe. We stay within our “comfort zone”. We are less likely to move into physical spaces that makes us feel wobbly. This means that over time, we move less and explore smaller ranges of our movement potential. When we don’t explore the spaces outside of our comfort zone… our comfort zone literally shrinks. Eventually, the edges of movement that once felt stable begin to feel weak, unbalance, and wobbly. Again we retreat our movement even further back into a “safe” zone. This becomes a cycle that feeds into itself until standing and walking become wobbly, where the neural edge has become the distance of each step.
Next time you are at a grocery store take notice of how people 10, 20, or 30 years older than you move and walk. Notice how many people shuffle along. They don’t shuffle because they are old (which I write about here). It is because their comfort zone as well as their neural edge have grown so small. You can see how the fear of falling resides with each step. Even at advanced age, this can be improved significantly.
When the simple act of walking becomes wobbly we are at our greatest risk of falling. The unfortunate irony of this fear the wobble cycle is that instead of being safer the risk of falling actually increases. The smaller the neural edge, the less time we’ve spent training within specific fundamental movement patterns. If on our way through the parking lot, we slip or trip, the less time and room our nervous system has available before we reach the event horizon or point of no return. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I incorporate exercises that challenge the skills of balance into every personal training session. It is in these wobbly edges that our nervous system lights up, becomes re engaged, and challenged to support and prevent falling. By exploring the wobble, in a safe way, our edge expands wider providing a larger, more stable range to safely move. In essence, we push the event horizon further and further out. I want my clients to explore the wobbly edge in a SAFE environment where they won’t fall. So that when in “real” life, when they find themselves in an “unbalanced” position, and they truly need the ability to find balance… they have the skillset available to find it. But this means they must move and train outside their comfort zone.
Our comfort zone feels safe. In it we feel strong and capable. It’s called a comfort zone for a reason. This is where we have been successful for a long time. It’s where we spend the most time. This is not a good thing. When we remain inside our comfort zone for too long, we become rigid and inflexible. The world in which we move becomes smaller. Our strengths diminish. We become less capable and ultimately less successful. There is no growth by remaining in the comfort zone. You must push beyond fear the wobble resistance, and move outside your comfort zone to expand, grow, and evolve.
Much of the work I do involves moving people beyond their comfort zone. I want to challenge them. To do this, I set up a safe environment to challenge this fear and insecurity. I want them to see their fear, step forward into the wobble, and move freely beyond it. It is at the edges of our comfort zone that our nervous system gets really charged up. We work harder, break into a sweat, and feel challenged. This is where the magic happens. This is where we grow. In 10, 20, or 30 years do you want to shuffle in a small comfort zone fearing each next step? Do you want to fear the wobble? Or do you want to explore a world of movement with no edges?
Vibrams Settlement: People who bought these Vibrams FiveFinger shoes may be entitled to a refund
Last week, the Vibrams Settlement story blew up on my Facebook page. I was immediately asked for my opinion on the Vibrams settlement by several different people. Here are my thoughts.
People are making a big of a deal out of this Vibrams settlement, but in my opinion it is a total non story. It’s pretty simple. Vibram made a claim they couldn’t back up with scientific research. The basics of the claim was that simply wearing Vibrams Five Finger minimalist shoes would strengthen the muscles of your foot and decrease injuries. The fact that Vibrams settled has nothing to do with whether the claim is true or not. And since Vibrams hasn’t admitted any guilt or wrong-doing, we really don’t know why they decided to settle. It’s possible that Vibrams felt it was cheaper to settle than to fight this lawsuit further.
The reality of barefoot shoes is this: If your structure is solid and you have NO MOVEMENT DYSFUNCTION, then training barefoot/minimalist will make your feet stronger than training in highly structured shoes. If you are a loyal reader of my blog, you will know I consider this kind of a no brainer. If the intrinsic musculature of the foot is allowed to function properly, it will get stronger with training. Just like with any other muscle. And if you brace a joint (which is what an arch support does), the muscles of that joint will grow weaker. So with perfect structure and good bio-mechanical movement, Vibrams claim is true. However…
If you do have dysfunction in your structure and you train with this dysfunction, you highly increase your risk of pain and injury. Your shoes, any shoes from five fingers to Hokas, will not fix this problem. They may help hide the pain for awhile, but eventually the dysfunction will rule movement.
The reality is that If you have dysfunction in your structure and in your bio-mechanics, then It does not matter what is on your feet (minus a few obvious shoe choices such as high heels and flip flops, but that is another story altogether). It’s not the shoes that are the problem, it’s the dysfunction in the structure and mechanics that needs to be addressed. Add barefoot/minimalist shoes to a poor structure and poor mechanics, and you’re going to exacerbate problems and actually increase your likelihood of injury.
So if you have dysfunction in your structure and biomechanics, then the Vibram settlement claim is not only false, but also potentially harmful. Training minimalist/barefoot, will actually increase your likelihood of injury. To truly get the benefit out of moving barefoot/minimalist, you have to treat your underlying structural and bio-mechanical issues first.
I do recommend a conservatively slow transition into barefoot/minimalist shoes for people with solid structural mechanics. I look for a shoe that does not control your natural movement, but allows natural movement to take place. Here are a couple of my favorite shoes that I recommend regularly Luna Sandals and Soft Star Shoes (affiliate links).
If you are interested in transitioning into a barefoot/minimalist lifestyle, here are a couple of articles I wrote that may help with your transition here, and here.
If you’re injured, don’t look for barefoot/minimalist shoes to fix your problems. There are no magic fixes. It takes work and you’ll need the help of a movement therapist. This is the type of help that I offer.
My biggest goal of The Art of Fitness is to help change the lives of as many people as possible. In order to do this, TAO-Fit must grow. So I’m excited to announce– I’m hiring.
I am seeking a personal assistant. If the description below fits, you’re interested in joining The Art of Fitness, and helping change lives, then please respond to this post.
Please forward this job description to any top notch friends or family members who you think may be interested.
This is a part time position working one-on-one with the primary therapist at The Art of Fitness. For more information on Jesse and The Art of Fitness, visit his website: https://tao-fit.com.
This is a contract position starting at 5-10 hrs/week. This position has the potential to expand and grow in both hours and pay.
This position provides support in four main areas:
1) Client Management
•Tracking appointments
•Updating client lists
2) Online Presence •Editing and creating content for newsletters, social media, and blogs
3) Outreach •Coordinating events/workshops
•Seeking opportunities to collaborate with local businesses/organizations who also have a focus on recovery, fitness and wellbeing
4) Business Development
•Expanding business opportunities
The perfect fit will have the following skills: •Strong written communication. From blog posts to appointment reminders, you should feel comfortable focusing on a topic and connecting it to your readers. Much of the writing will be transcribing or editing from Jesse, but having the skills for creating strong original content is a plus.
•Strong verbal communication. You should be adept in connecting with local businesses, organizations, and individuals with the purpose of scheduling events, networking, and general outreach needs.
•Professional familiarity with Google Docs, Mailchimp, Facebook, WordPress, Twitter. These are the primary hosts of TAO-Fit’s online presence.
•Ability and willingness to brainstorm with Jesse and take initiative in developing a project
•Event planning/organization
•Marketing/Business experience with online product development and release
•Entrepreneurial Spirit
•And because this work is all about helping people live as well as possible through movement therapy, a personal interest in movement/exercise/health is very helpful
Position begins early May. Some remote work possible, but weekly check-ins and in-person work is preferred. Pay begins at $12+/hour depending upon experience.
To Apply: Please visit the website https://tao-fit.com and then write a one page cover letter stating:
1) why you are a good fit for this position and
2) one thing that interests you from the website.
•Email cover letter and resumé to [email protected] with the subject “PA Job”
One of the most important keys to the healing and recovery process is building a solid health care team. If you want your team to be stellar, Heidi is the first place to start. She will help you develop a plan, provide you with new tools to assist in your recovery, guide you through the insurance maze, find great medical professionals, and help you ask them the right questions. Most importantly she will help you move through the emotional setbacks that come with pain and injury. I highly recommend you check out Heidi’s website and blog.
Why a Movement Specialist is a Key Player on Your Recovery Team
I have been a movement professional for over 15 years. In that time, I’ve had the pleasure to help hundreds of wonderful people move better and feel better, reach their fitness and health goals, and create positive change in their lives. I work with an incredibly diverse clientele of athletes and nonathletes, moms and dads, runners, cyclists, Yogis, and much more. I have worked with kids as young as 8 and as old as 94.
Over the years of working, there is something that I’ve noticed. The younger clients (roughly under 35) tend to blame their pain issues on specific traumatic injuries, e.g. sports injury or car accidents. When it comes to my over-35 clients, however, the most common reason given for why they are in pain is:
“It’s because I’m getting old!”
Each time I hear this statement–and unfortunately I hear it a lot–I cringe. Why does it make me cringe? Because it is a perpetuated myth that pain and movement dysfunction are simply caused by the aging process and we have no control over it. I have news for you: this myth is total BS. What’s worse, buying into it limits a person from proactively exploring the body’s ability for full, healthy, pain-free movement–regardless of age.
It’s not that age isn’t the primary factor in pain; age does play a role. But not in the way you think. Age plays a role because the older we get the more time we’ve had to practice poor, restricted, unhealthy, and eventually painful movement patterns. I call this The Movement Equation: Time x Repetition = Improvement. I will explain this in more detail in a bit.
Why we hurt The majority of chronic pain and injury in our culture is due to how we move. The body has an immense range of healthy movement potential such as squatting, lunging, crawling, climbing, jumping, and so much more. If you do not move to your fullest potential on a regular basis you slowly lose the ability to move fully into it. I call this the
shrinking movement box.
For example, can you do any of the following: squat with your butt to the floor, reach behind and touch the base of your opposite shoulder blade evenly with both hands, reach overhead while rotating your trunk. If you cannot perform these functional movements without pain or restriction, you’ve lost some of your functional movement potential.
Losing functional movement means you are slowly being wrapped tighter and tigher into an ever shrinking movement box. Eventually, when you must move outside the box — e.g. bending over, lifting something over your head, or reaching and turning backwards, you experience pain and/or injury. The injury results because your body no longer feels safe moving outside of the box. Exacerbating the problem, many people who experience this kind of pain, due to the fear of making thing worse, move even less–thus shrinking the box that much more.
Due to this reaction, once your movement box begins shrinking it will continue to shrink. This brings me back to the movement equation.
The Movement Equation: time x repetition = improvement In this equation, Time is how many days, months, or years you’ve been moving in either good or poor movement patterns; repetition is literally the number of times you perform a movement pattern during the entire specified time period; and as you know, whatever you practice leads to improvement— in this equation, improvement is not necessarily a positive or negative thing. e.g. healthy practice (moving fully into your potential) improves healthy movement, and unhealthy practice (moving within an ever-shrinking box) improves unhealthy and restrictive movement.
The time portion of the equation is where your age comes into play. The fact is that most of us have been moving poorly for years. Each year as we age, we move less and less. This translates into more and more time spent experiencing less and less healthy movement. Now multiply this effect by 10, 20, 30, or more years: the older you get practicing poor movement, the more hardwired that poor movement has become. And with that hardwiring comes higher incidences of pain. In the movement equation, practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanence. Is that box starting to feel a little uncomfortable?
The good news is that in this case “permanent” is only until you make the decision to change your movement patterns. In other words, you can use the movement equation in your favor– regardless of how old you are. If you introduce quality pain-freemovement and practice it daily, over time you will experience greater and greater quality, pain-free movement in your life.
Now…are you ready to change how you move? Great! The first step to is to change your mindset–this is arguably the most important step.
This is from a previous post It Hurts When I Run:
“The path to quality, pain-free movement begins by changing your mindset around how you move. It begins with a simple understanding:
If I am in pain, then the way I have been moving is hurting me. If I want to feel better, I must change the way that I move. To do this, I must change.”
This change begins by no longer buying into the self-limiting beliefs that your pain is caused by your age. It is not. The pain is caused by your movement choices.
With a new mindset to re-establish your health and vitality, it is time to work on restoring pain-free movement. This part can also be quite challenging. In our culture, we are not taught healthy, restorative movement-based exercise. So knowing where to start is incredibly difficult.
With my clients, I begin by slowly integrating healthy pain-free movement. Each day, slowly explore your full movement potential. If it hurts, then move to the limit of your pain-free range–no further!–then expand into fuller ranges over days, weeks, and months. As Scott Sonnon, one of my favorite movement practitioners, often says, “Move to the tension, not through the tension.” For help restoring movement, I highly recommend you check out his IntuFlow DVD Series. I love this program because it focuses on joint by joint, full body, integrated movement. I’ve been utilizing it for myself and clients as a daily practice. It moves slowly into your healthy pain-free limits, slowly expanding into greater movement over time. I can’t think of anyone who would not benefit from it.
Seek help from a movement professional Remember, the pain you experience daily has developed over years and years. Pain-free movement will not be restored overnight. It will take time and it is important that you grant yourself the patience to re-learn healthy movement patterns. The help of a movement professional who can assess, treat, and provide a corrective exercise protocol can rapidly speed up the process. I often see significant shifts in a client’s movement quality and pain reduction within a few sessions. I send them home with corrective exercises which provides daily repetition to further reinforces these positive changes into powerful life changing improvement.
If you have questions about a specific movement issue, I invite you to join The Injury Corner on Facebook, and post it there. For help finding a movement professional in your area let me know. I will do my best to connect you to the best health care team available.
The above link to the Scott Sonnon DVD is an Amazon affiliate link. I have chosen to support it because I believe in its value.
I would love to hear from you. Please share your experience of pain, injury, and The Movement Equation in the comments below.
This past week on The Injury Corner — a Facebook group I created to offer guidance and support for people dealing with chronic pain and injury — there was a great discussion with some helpful nuggets I wanted to share.
We talked about whether barefoot running can help heal low back pain and instability to the sacroiliac (SI) joint, and the difficulty of being told the activity you love may be hurting you.
I find these two subjects to be especially valuable and important both professionally and personally. As a movement specialist, I see many people struggling with the issues of pain while performing the activities they’re passionate about. As an active former athlete, I’ve struggled with the exact same issues myself.
It hurts when I run. Does barefoot running help heal low back pain and potential instability to the sacroiliac (SI) joint?
I have lived a barefoot/minimalist lifestyle for over five years. However, I have been unable to run consistently for the past three. I have gait dysfunction connected to 5 knee surgeries, and a long list of other injuries associated with sports, stubbornness, and my reckless youth. The gait dysfunction shows in my body’s ability to absorb the impact energy of footfall as it transfers up the kinetic chain through my ankles, knees, hips, spine, and shoulders.
Some quick anatomical mechanics: As you can see in the pictures above, the arches of the foot create a spring leaf suspension system similar to that of a truck. This system absorbs the energy of each step, distributes this energy equally throughout your fascial system, and re-releases the energy through the propulsion phase of your gait.
With this dysfunction in my suspension system, the arch is unable to act like a nice shock absorbing spring, and my foot lands stiff and solid. Instead of spreading the energy load throughout my fascia, the impact goes directly into the harder tissues of bone and joint structures, which don’t have the ability to absorb impact as well.
Based on my personal and professional experience, both as a barefoot runner and through helping other runners transition into a barefoot lifestyle, I don’t believe that barefoot running will help heal your SI joint. If anything, there is a really good chance that in the short term it will make things worse. SI joint instability is a mechanical-structural issue, which means the relationship between how you move (mechanical) and how your structure is able to mobilize and stabilize through movement (structural) isn’t functioning in its most efficient state. The problem has little to nothing to do with what is on your feet, whether you are running barefoot or shod. It is a problem with the mechanical-structural relationship of your running gait.
It is not an issue of whether you should run barefoot or shod, but rather should you be running at all? In my professional opinion, you should not.
Now I want to take a moment after that last statement. If you’re a runner currently running through pain, did being told you should not be running kick up an emotional response? Tune in; do you feel anger, fear, judgement, dread? If you feel any kind of emotional process, please take a deep breath and let that move through you before continuing on.
Being told a certain movement isn’t best for your body is a hard pill to swallow. Believe me, I know how hard a pill it is to swallow. Over the past three years, I’ve repeatedly attempted to get back into running. Each time, three or four weeks in I would get painful calf spasms and I’d be out for weeks again. It has taken me years to change my mindset around exercise. I had to let go of the ego drive to do what I wanted to do (run), and instead focus on the quality movements that my body needs and desires to allow it to heal.
The path to quality, pain-free movement begins by changing your mindset around your fitness, health, exercise, nutrition, and so much more. It begins with a simple understanding:
If I am in pain, then the way I have been moving is hurting me. If I want to feel better, I must change the way that I move. To do this, I must change.
Change is a scary thing. It is a hard pill to swallow indeed. It often brings with it some big fat emotional processes such as noted above. However, If you find the deep desire to change, you have made the first step toward fundamentally changing your life.
With a desire for change, the next step is to begin checking in with your body and asking yourself some important questions about exercise and movement. When you hear yourself saying “It hurts when I run!” Here are a few questions you can ask:
Is this movement safe?
Is this movement healthy?
What is my motivation to continue to perform a movement that hurts me?
What can I let go of from my old paradigm of movement?
What movement is safe, healthy, and loving to my body?
These are questions that must be asked every day and for each exercise based movement you feel a desire to engage in, whether it is yoga, running, resistance training, swimming, cycling, etc. One day a movement may be healthy for your body, and the next day it may be unsafe or unwise to do. Even exercises which you would consider “gentle” can be too much, and yes, this can change from day to day. By getting in the habit of asking these questions each day you will learn how your body communicates with you through pain, and you will develop a new relationship and understanding with your body. This is a beautiful thing that will then shift to other areas of your life.
Pain-free running and beyond I hope to be able run regularly again. But only when running is a healthy movement choice supported by my body. Only then will I even consider the question of whether to go barefoot or shod. To help me achieve this long-term goal to run again, I am receiving regular assessment and treatment from one of the top movement specialists around.
As long as you are saying “It hurts when I run”, running is not a healthy movement choice. At least not until the inefficiency of movement in your running gait has been fully assessed and corrected. To do this I highly recommend finding a highly skilled movement professional who specializes in gait assessment. This would not be a shoe salesperson!
If you need help finding a movement professional in your area, please let me know. I will do my best to connect you to the best health care team available. If you are in Austin, Texas, contact The Art of Fitness for walking and running gait assessment so we can get you running pain free again.
Do you have a frustrating or inspiring injury related question or story? Please share in the comments below.
We are happy to announce that The Art of Fitness Austin Texas will be partnering up with Oak Hill Fitness beginning March 1st, 2015!!!
The Art of Fitness Austin Texas is raising funds and awareness for Make-A-Wish® Central & South Texas by joining 200 people on June 13 & 14, 2015, to go Over The Edge – literally! Jesse James Retherford will rappel 38 stories down W Austin in the heart of downtown.
It is our passion to help each of you move and feel better in your body and in your life. By following this passion I continue to dive deeper and deeper into what IS natural human movement and how to develop the movement skills that not only eliminate pain right now, but also keep us pain and injury free well into our advanced years.
