Movement Video Diary Archives - Page 4 of 5

January 28, 2018January 27, 2018

Much Needed Self Care – Jan 26

It was a tough, challenging, and overall good week. With the second week of school (the first full week without ice days), my schedule has blown up. I love school. I love my work. I love being a father. These things fill my cup and keep me going. They also stress and strain me physically, mentally, and emotionally.

I haven’t filmed my movement as must this past week, which means I haven’t been moving as much as I’d like. Not only has my schedule become super busy (16+ hour days), but my knee has gotten worse. The irritation in the joint has been slowly increasing over the past few months. It’s bad enough that I made a trip to the doctor, got x-rays, and an ortho appointment scheduled for two weeks. I

Pain sucks. It sucks to hurt. It makes it hard to move. I feel a little down all over. There have been times when I would feel depressed. It sucks, and it’s a fact of life. A reality for this body that I inhabit. When I physically hurt, it doesn’t matter how great I’m feeling in life as a whole, a part of me is sad and frustrated.

I have taken a break from the balance challenge over the past four days and have reduced squats and split squats at repetition to give my knee a rest. I’m hoping the inflammation will go down. I’ve been moving at every little opportunity possible, but this is the first dedicated movement session I’ve had all week. I’m feeling stressed physically and emotionally. I needed a session to really be soft and check in with my body.

I focused on deep breathing and allowing myself to feel the week I’ve had. I felt my whole body open up physically and emotionally. It was just what I needed.

This is a really nice spinal mobilization Chair Yoga. I picked this up from one of my teachers, Joseph Schwartz of Applied Anatomy (you should totally check out his material).

I love this simple little routine. I express my spine pretty fully through flexion and extension, lateral flexion and extension, and rotation.
I think that anyone who spends any amount of time in a chair needs to actively move their spine in all three dimensions from the seated position. I can feel nice long connected stretches from my fingertips to my shoulders, thoracic and lumbar spine, hips, and knees. I have more of an instructional on this movement series on my client’s playlist.

January 24, 2018

Morning Dose of Movement Caffeine – Jan 22

“I don’t have time” is something I hear in the back of my mind often (It is often a response from clients too). I can easily buy into it. My schedule is busy. Between being a full-time dad, full-time student, running a private practice, and having some semblance of a social life (which is almost non-existent), time is a most precious resource that I am often fighting with or squandering. But just because my “time” is precious, doesn’t mean I don’t have time to spend on caring for my self. The “story” that I don’t have time to care for my self is a total lie; a fabrication born through resistance, and I don’t have to buy into that story.

The simple reality is that It doesn’t take much time to practice self-care. A minute here and there; sometimes more; and 30-60 minutes when the opportunity arises.

This is a really quick and simple eight-minute movement session I did in the morning. It could have easily been 3-5 minutes long, but it felt good, so I kept going.

Once I was finished, my body felt connected, integrated, opened up, and energized. I like to call this a dose of movement caffeine.

Have you had your morning shot of movement caffeine?

January 23, 2018January 22, 2018

Using Climbing as Rehab – Jan 21

It’s been seven or eight months (maybe even more) since I’ve been able to do a pain-free pull-up… I’m still waiting. I do a chin up here, but it is painful on the way down. It’s not tendinopathy pain, it feels more like the inability for the Flexor Pollicus Longus to eccentrically lengthen (a possible precursor to tendinopathy). It’s actually been a few months since I’ve even been able to bring my feet to the bar, so this feels like a huge improvement.

In this video, I’m working on basic climbing exploration, stressing the hand to shoulder complex just enough without eliciting pain. This is great for grip strength and developing scapular stability. After I noticed the pain with the pull-up, I grabbed a bench to unload some bodyweight and grove the movement with less load and no pain.

This is the best my right hand/elbow/shoulder have felt in a long time, but there is still a ton of room for improvement.

Using Climbing as Rehab

Self Massage using a Foam Roller

I am a big fan of self-massage using tools such as a foam roller, Yoga Tune up ball, Yamina ball, Thera-cane, etc. I don’t get into the science and/or pseudoscience of why I love it. My practical experience of self-exploration self-massage, as well as hands-on experience touching others, tells me that there is definitely a value in massage therapy. What that value is and how it works are definitely up for debate.

When I was first introduced to the foam roller over 12 years ago, it was a godsend. I became addicted to it. I would spend 1-2 hours rolling and stretching almost every night. This daily personal exploration is what lead me towards getting my massage license so I could legally touch my clients.

It is also what moved me into the direction of natural movement. I realized over time that every night I would roll out my pain and feel temporarily better and wake up the next morning with the exact same pain. I wasn’t interested in temporary results. I wanted to feel better and slowly learned that I needed to move better. This only took me about 10+ years to figure out. Well to be perfectly honest, I’m still figuring it out.

I no longer get on the foam roller nightly, although I do like to get on it just to adjust and mobilize my spine. I find that somewhere between once a week and once a month I like to do a full body self-massage session. It is a great way to feel what is happening within my body on the tissue level.

This past week, I have ramped up the volume of movement to my body. I started swimming again, went on a bike ride, hiked, as well as walking back and forth across campus with a 30-40 lb backpack. My body was more than ready for a focused self-massage session. This felt really good.

I finished up with a few minutes of movement restoration. I could really feel a difference in my hips (particularly with the pigeon position).

Note: I have over 12 years of experience with a foam roller. I know my body very well. The movements I am doing are not recommended for beginners to intermediate users. You can hurt yourself on a foam roller. Please use caution. Or better yet, hire someone who is highly skilled as a movement therapist to teach you.

January 22, 2018January 22, 2018

The Process of Being a Human Mover

I like to think about the process of being a human mover. Not just the actual moving, but also the creating of intention; set up of a space whether permanent or temporary; type of music that influences movements or no music at all; and what is in my heart (am I feeling resistance to moving my body; am I angry; am I trying to beat myself up for some perception of fault in my being; etc)

This video is my process of moving on a Friday. I have a nice open studio space to practice movement and there is a setup ritual I go through. I like to think about things such as the rituals of movement and the contextual nature of different environments such as soft, hard, abrasive, etc and how these different environments are an ongoing conversation with the sensory system of the body. I like to set up my mats for most of my floor work because they provide soft feedback while I’m doing soft focused work on myself.

I don’t take appointments with clients on Fridays. It is a day to study, do housework, run errands, and most importantly practice some self-love. This was an hour and ten-minute self-love making session (non-sexual). I tended to both my body and my heart. In these sessions I allow myself to feel where there is tension, restriction, resistance, and pain in both my physical body and also my emotional body. Sometimes these sessions bring tears, sometimes rage, and always a sense of gratitude, love, and empathy for myself. Now that I am videoing and posting these sessions, it has brought a new level of checking in. I don’t want to perform for the camera, which means I have to pay even greater focus on how I am feeling moment to moment, as well as why I am choosing to move the way I move. I feel incredibly vulnerable. This is the movement practice that I’ve developed in isolation for years. This is what I do alone. I’ve never shared it with anyone, much less social media. My work is to remain completely authentic to myself even though I am sharing my process with others. It feels powerfully strong to expose my vulnerability. There are a ton of other things about this session that I really loved. I used the foam roller, not to mash muscles into control, but to release movement patterns that I was struggling with. I felt the re-integration of my core in specific patterns. I completely smoked my legs on the balance board. And I had a nice little restorative session after the board to reset my body.

Someone asked me a few days ago about whether my feet, ankles, and calves are smoked during/after these balance sessions. My answer at the time was no, that I’ve been integrating balance work for several years, and my intrinsic musculature was a strength, and it is the big movers (quads and glutes) that have been undernourished over the past year and a half due to my knee injury.

Well, in this session, my feet, ankles, and calves were totally smoked. Everything was harder about this session, possibly because I’ve added a lot of intensity to my movement schedule the past week. I had to put extra focus on maintaining my position on the beam and wasn’t always successful, which made this a Great balance session. I pushed my edges, placing a significant challenge to the muscular and vestibular system.

It is on the edges where I see the most benefit of this type of work. It is where my nervous system learns. If I don’t push the edges, I can remain on the board the entire ten minutes, but what does that gain me? The gym space is a laboratory – a safe space – to push the edges. In this setting, I WILL see failure frequently, simply because I can keep failure relatively safe and it’s a learning opportunity. That is the entire point. To allow my body to learn where the edges exist.

I can then take this knowledge into the natural environment and move within the limits my body knows it can handle. I develop a better sense of balance; improve the depth of positions that don’t cause pain and/or injury; build confidence in my movement competency, core integration, and strength.

I finished my day with a short swim. Swimming is something new I’ve added back in this week. I love swimming as a movement but didn’t have a membership to a pool that I could frequent regularly. So I haven’t had the chance to swim much over the past year. With my elbow and shoulder feeling much improved, swimming feels like exactly the type of physical stress my structure needs to get me beyond the next level of recovery. I have to take it slow. I can only handle about 15 minutes of work in the pool. I’m looking forward to building my swim conditioning to 30-45 minute sessions.

January 18, 2018January 18, 2018

Quick Movement Prep for the day – Jan 17

Quick Movement Prep for the day

My morning appointments have either canceled or rescheduled due to the icy conditions. Which means I get a free morning to play, practice and get some work done.

Sometimes five minutes is all it takes. This is a little five-minute movement session to prep my body for the day and to take notice of anywhere things aren’t moving smoothly. This is like movement caffeine awakening my body and mind. What a great way to start the day.

Deep Squat Mobility

This is a really nice deep squat mobility routine that I love. They have really helped develop my deep squat. Just a couple years ago, I couldn’t even get into this position without falling backward. Once my clients can get into a deep squat without pain, we start to integrate these types of movements to open up their squat even more.

I begin with my heels on the 2×4. My deep squat is not super clean with heels flat on the floor. The 2×4 is a bit of a cheat. It allows me to find my “perfect” deep squat. I like to find where I move well from and then grow my movement from there.

Here are brief descriptions of each movement:
-Cat/cows – moving my spine through flexion and extension. As I come into spinal extension, I am trying to be as long as possible through my spine from hips to the top of my head.

-Deep shoulder rotations – I drop my shoulders as low as I can. From this deep shoulder position, I lift one shoulder to the ceiling while looking up with my eyes alternating between shoulders.

-Overhead reach – Stacking hands on the floor, I reach my arm up towards the ceiling (feeling the opening of my ribcage and abdomen) with my eyes following my fingertips to the ceiling.

-Twist – Sitting into both heels, I place one hand on the floor behind me and reach as far as I can with the opposite hand, alternating side to side.

-Hip Openers – Sitting as deep and tall as I can in my squat, I reach my knee out to the side allowing my foot to roll to the lateral side. I alternate hips and if I’m feeling really open, I’ll do both hips at the same time.

I then do the same movements without the 2×4. Off the board, my squat is not nearly as clean looking (or feeling).

Ten minute Balance Challenge

I came up with this ten-minute balance challenge as an exercise to strengthen my legs to support my knee.

I had knee surgery the day before Thanksgiving 2016. I have regained 99% of the function back to my knee, but that last 1% is a painful and easily aggravated space. That 1% of pain prevents me from any kind of significant loaded lifting. I just can’t place heavy load and repetition on a joint that is easily inflamed. I felt like I needed to strengthen full body movements around my knee to give it the support to hopefully release that last bit of recovery. Since I can’t do loaded work, the only other option is body-weight work, but I would need high repetition, and that is seriously boring.

So I came up with this challenge. Something that took my mind off the repetition and is fun. Plus it does so much more than just strengthen my legs. There is also a significant vestibular challenge, core integration, and flow potential.

In this session, I’m focusing on getting as many squats, split squats, and deep knee bends as possible. It’s a bit less flowy than other sessions. I find that when I am in a split squat with my left leg behind (surgery leg), I feel it opening the space in the medial meniscal compartment where the 1% of pain is located. It generally relieves some discomfort, restriction, or tightness I may feel in that area. Which feels beneficial.

If you’re up for the challenge, give it a try. The goal is 10 minutes per day for 30 days balancing on a 2×4, balance bar, slackline, or other balance tools (variety is your friend). If you’re up for it, film it, and share it. I’d love to see and hear about your progress.

Would you like to see this video at a slower or faster speed? Please send me a comment. I’ll post the link in the comments.

January 17, 2018January 16, 2018

Ice-day equals free movement day

I did not move as much as I wanted today. It was supposed to be the first day of class for the Spring semester, but everything was shut down due to ice. No school and all my clients canceled. It felt like a free day. An extra day added to my holiday. It was glorious.

I got to sleep in till 8:30am, sipped some hot bulletproof coffee and moved very slowly from there. This is a short little movement session that I had to force myself to do before getting sucked into computer work. I was hoping to get a bigger workout in, but the day slipped away from me. It was still good though. I hiked over to pick up my son from his momma’s house. We hiked back to my house to hang out and read and then I hiked him back. I love being outside when it’s below freezing. Water and ice create such cool effects.

January 16, 2018

Post Travel Movement Re-integration – Jan 15

Traveling is tough on the movement practice. No doubt about it. We left early morning Thursday for New York and returned early morning Sunday. It was a stressful, fully packed, and incredibly fun trip.

I left with a focus on maintaining my movement practice as much as possible through the trip, which I feel I did pretty well at. I got a lot more movement at the beginning of the trip, but as sleep deprivation, lack of movement space and time, and just overall exhaustion elevated, the movement became harder to come by. This is just the reality of travel. It will always be harder to focus on what my body needs than when I’m in the luxury of my regular life.

I made a point to squat and move as much as possible every opportunity I had. It made a difference. I am worn out from the trip but no worse for wear than when I left. My neck is still uncomfortable in specific movements but overall improved.

This video is the from Sunday evening after getting back. I’m exhausted and just want to go lie down in bed. I did a ton of walking around the city with my son and mom, which means I played the pack-mule with a 30-40 lb backpack filled with food, water, and clothes for each day. My knee and back are tight and achy. I know if I didn’t get at least a short movement session tonight, I’ll be paying for it over the next several days or weeks.

My focus is on mobilizing the entire body with the micro joint-by-joint movements and integrating into the macro full body. It really felt good to connect movements from my hips into my neck and head. I was going to add some balance play but felt this was enough for the night.

January 12, 2018January 11, 2018

Travel day – Still need to move

Kimberly Vogelsang, LMT, PMA Certified Pilates Instructor - Travel day

Today is a travel day. Traveling to the big apple. Yesterday was not a great movement day. I was busy with morning sessions, midafternoon errands, getting packed for NY, and meditation workshop. I did get a much-needed massage from my good friend Kimberly Vogelsang of Birdsong Bodyworks & Pilates.

With such a busy schedule, it has been a challenge to get bodywork. There are only a handful of people I allow to work on my body. Kim is one of my favorites. If you are in the Austin area, I highly recommend getting a session with her.

My neck feels much better after the massage yesterday, but the pain is still there. Overall, I feel decent. Pain level today is around 3-4 on a scale of 10. As soon as we got to the airport I found this little space and spent a couple minutes moving. It is amazing what two or three minutes can do to awaken my body. It’s like a physical dose of caffeine.

Pre-flight

When traveling, it is incredibly easy to just sit. It is what everyone is doing. I like to find the little open spaces in the airport and move. I may look weird to everyone else, but I have to live in this body. A day of traveling without moving today will equal a much more painful day tomorrow and the next day.

This video is from our layover in Nashville after two hours on a plane. This is just five-minute movement session, but it feels like a body saver. As the day wears on, it will be harder and harder to take the time out to move. So fitting it in when I can is super important.

Layover

My mom lives on the ninth floor. I could take the elevator… or I could take the stairs. Whenever I have the option of stairs and I am physically capable of climbing stairs… I take the stairs. Cause that’s how I roll!

Flight of stairs - Travel day

January 10, 2018January 10, 2018

Neck still hurts movement sessions Jan 9

I woke up this morning still feeling pain in my neck, but it has reduced down to about 30-40% from yesterday. The fun thing about chronic pain is that there is always something that hurts. Last week it was my back and this week it is my neck.

The challenge is how to continue to move and grow in the face of pain. My natural inclination is to retreat, lie down, give in to the story of pain, and do nothing. The reality of my life is that I don’t have the option to give in. Life moves forward whether I am in pain or not.

Last year I gave into the story. I was too busy with school, I had to study, had to see clients, had to do homework, had to do, and had to do. Everything was more important than taking care of me, the basic human. I didn’t move enough. By the end of the year, I was a wreck recovering from knee surgery, shoulder and elbow tendinopathy, as well as neck pain and back pain.

This year I have “accidentally” happened upon this movement video diary project and so far, I am incredibly grateful. In a little over a week, I’ve moved more than I normally would have and my body feels really good because of it. I still obviously have pain, but I also have relief, I can find flow, I can be playful, and I feel human. Pain is not the only story today… For this I am thankful.

I spent all day yesterday explore movements in relationship to my neck. It made a little bit of difference, but not enough. This suggests to me that the neck pain problem isn’t coming from my neck.

In this short 15 minute session, I am focusing less on my neck and more with how my spine and hips move/feel. I spent a little time on the foam roller partly to mobilizing my spine, and also to see where there was muscle tension. I’m noticing some restriction in my left side lumbar area with rotation. This will be a focus throughout the day. I finish the session with some nice deep squat opening.

This was a really fun session. I did a 30-minute bike ride earlier in the day. I haven’t ridden the bike in months. It felt really good on the legs.

I still have pain in my left side neck with a couple of specific patterns. I worked on exploring the edges of my non-painful neck mobility. I am being really soft and gentle in these edges, pushing the discomfort to a 3 out of 10.

The V-sit exploration felt amazing through my hamstrings, hips, and back. Especially followed by the frog stretch, get up play, 3D stretching.

I look ridiculous through much of this one and it was super fun and hard. After going through some intense movement restoration, my vestibular system felt challenged. My focus in this session was squats and chaotic flow. Considering this body has experienced six knee operations, I felt pretty good about this session. I was sweating by the end of this one. I’ll update tomorrow if my knee gets angry with me.

Have you tried this 10-minute 30-day 2×4 challenge? I’d love to hear your feedback.

January 8, 2018January 9, 2018

Neck Pain Movement Restoration Session

I experience daily chronic pain. Every day something hurts, although it isn’t always the same thing, nor at a consistent pain level. Most days, pain is low on the spectrum (1 or 2 on a scale of 10). Other days, it can be high (8 or 9). It stems from a laundry list of insignificant to majorly significant injuries throughout my life (I detail them a bit in my about me page on my website).

Yesterday I spent an hour and a half on my motorcycle and another hour or more in the car. I did explore movement a bit, mainly balance play on the balance bar and slackline, but I did not do a Movement Restoration session. Today I woke up with a decent pain spot on my left side neck. It hurts to turn my head to the right and a few other movement patterns elicit pain. When I do not do at least a few minutes of full body restoration movements each day… I pay the price the following day.

My first appointment canceled due to illness which gave me the opportunity to move and reset my neck. In this session, I am exploring movement through my spine paying attention to how it relates to my neck. I popped out my trusty Theracane to work on some sticking points in the neck and then reintegrated movement.

My neck is still a bit twingy, but the discomfort was reduced by 60-80%. I’ll continue to work on it throughout the day. I expect by tomorrow it will be down to 10% of what I felt today.

Balance Sessions

What do you do when you’re watering the trees and it’s amazeballs beautiful outside?

Evening Routine

The neck pain is still bothersome. It mainly hurts turning my head. Thankfully, it isn’t the kind of pain where it just bears down on everything. All the residual tension associated with the neck pain is gone. It’s been reduced to a very specific spot around the scalenes on the left side.

When I shot this video, it was 10p, it’s been a long day, and I’m ready for bed. I got a decent amount of movement today, but because of the neck, feel like I need a little more before turning in for the night. I took a nice long hot bath prior to starting this session, so my body feels heated, soft, and relaxed.

In this session, I focused on shin box explore (which felt amazing), exploring the full range of motion of my neck through multiple positions (including off the floor), and finished up with a little deep squat work.

Even though it’s late and I’m tired, I felt so much better after this session.