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It is time to change my story.  It is not easy for me to admit this, but I have weaknesses.  Quite a few of them.  Maybe you haven’t noticed, since I do a pretty good job upholding an image of “Strength.”  But it is only a facade. I keep it in place to protect myself from deeper feelings of fear and insecurity. Feelings that make me feel weak and vulnerable. Instead of exposing my vulnerability, I put on an imaginary suit of armor and carry myself as though I were Superman, when in fact I may be feeling as awkward and clumsy as Clark Kent. 

The external facade is only the cover story. I believe in it.  It makes me feel comfortable and invulnerable.  With this image I feel like I am in control. But this facade is not my truth.  It is not the story that I want to live.  In truth I am vulnerable… I am not in control… I don’t always have it together. In fact, at times I feel like I am falling apart, emotionally and physically.  This is my true story. And in this truth, my weaknesses are where I find my greatest strengths.  Following this old story – that I am, and that I have to be, strong – keeps me weak and is ultimately one of the primary sources of much of the chronic pain and injury I have. I am not alone in this. This is something we all do.

How does this translate?
I love to workout intensely. When I workout, I go hard. I want to feel my heart pump out of my chest and my muscles burn. Lately when I make time to work out, this is the workout that I choose. It feels good, I am in my comfort zone and I feel “strong.” I am in control. I also work hard. I spend 50+ hours each week either working on people or on my business, fulfilling my “role” as father and provider for my family, while devoting very little time to taking care of myself. All of these things reinforce my cover story at a great price. The problem is that, right now, I need to commit time to taking care of myself, body and all. Hard and intense is not the type of work or workout out my body needs.  The type of work that I do is intense and repetitious.  Add that to my injury history, and you will know that I have structural weaknesses and that I am in pain. What my body needs is for me to focus on the weaknesses: some serious time doing foam roller therpy, deep tissue massage, full body flexibility, corrective exercises and functional training. But these aren’t very glamorous, they’re not sexy, and they do not fall in line with the image of “Strong” that my story prefers.

You see, most of us spend the majority of our training time on our strengths, whether in the gym, at work, or in our personal life. We spend so much time focusing on these things because we are good at them. Doing them gives us comfort and makes us feel capable. And it maintains the cover story that we have control in our lives. The trouble is that by placing so much time and energy into training our strengths we are not getting stronger.  In most cases we are actually making ourselves weaker. When we work on the things that we’re already good at, there is only a small amount of room for improvement or growth.  We expend tremendous amounts of energy on our strengths, doing the same things over and over again.  All too often this leads to an injury affecting our ability to do the very things in which we feel strongest. The key to developing a physically and emotionally strong body is not to focus on your strengths, but on your weaknesses. It is in your weaknesses that you have the greatest room for growth.

You are only as strong as your weakest link.
Weakness makes you less stable, emotionally and physically. When you work or train too hard, without much focus on your weaknesses, you simply reinforce instability. Eventually this will lead to pain and injury. It is like running head first towards a wall. Eventually you will hit it and the wall always wins.  In the end, if you blindly follow a story of “strength” you will end up weak.

To be strong and fulfill your maximum potential takes a determined focus on your weaknesses. You will have to move beyond your comfort zone and be willing to face failure, over and over again. It is not always fun. In fact, at times it will be the hardest thing you will ever do. But with hard work, you will improve, you will get better and before you know it… that weakness becomes your strength. You will no longer be living a story of “strong.” Strong will become your truth. It begins by recognizing the cover story, owning your weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and taking responsibility.

I have weaknesses. I am willing to address them. Instead of maintaining my cover story, I am ready to face my weak links and turn them into my strengths. I will take the extra time and focus on correcting dysfunction and allow myself to heal. As I heal I will become more stable which will allow me to do the things I love. I will be able to workout heavier and harder without fear of hitting the wall.

The Human Body is a mechanical work of art.  By design it is capable of a ridiculous amount of movement patterns, all at different degrees of intensity, from slow and steady to explosive and short. The ability to crawl, walk, run, jump, and climb each require an amazingly sophisticated movement system.  This system sets us apart from all other species on the planet. But there is one catch… If you don’t use it you literally lose it.Why you lose it
One of the reasons your body is so special is its ability to heal itself. Within your fascial tissue are cells that create fascial adhesions around an injury to provide extra stability and restrict painful movement while the damaged tissue is repaired. The restricted movement is just enough to facilitate the healing process while at the same time allowing you some freedom to move. In the ancient world where the human body was forged, this healing process took place over the course of a few days or weeks.  Movement was a necessary and key factor in the healing process. Early man did not have the luxury to spend a few days in bed to fully recover. He had to move to survive, and so he had to heal while moving, which is why this process of building fascial adhesions is so special. Movement works in unison with the circulatory system as a secondary mechanical pump and flushes the injured tissue with fresh blood. This flush of blood flow removes waste by-products, brings in fresh nutrients and speeds up the healing process dramatically. As the injured area recovers, the body once again is able to utilize full, pain free, movement patterns that completely break down the fascial adhesions.

Today we have a problem: we no longer live in that ancient world. Our cultural landscape has dramatically changed our lifestyle over the past 100 years – especially in the last 20. Instead of hunting, gathering, and harvesting our food, utilizing our body in daily acts of survival, we spend most of our time sitting, in front of a computer or in a car. Compared to a mere couple hundred years ago, the lifestyle of even the most active person in any industrialized country today would be considered relatively sedentary.

When you do not get adequate functional movement, you no longer put your mechanical pump to use.  This slows down the healing process as restrictive adhesions do not get broken down. Instead, lack of movement communicates to your body that you are still injured and so it continues to build up even more adhesions to further stabilize and restrict motion around the supposedly injured areas. Over time, these fascial adhesions become so thick and strong that you permanently lose your full range of motion and function. Examples are: losing the ability to fully turn your head in one or both directions to see behind yourself while walking or driving; the ability to raise your arms fully over your head while maintaining a stable spine and scapula; the ability to do a deep squat with your feet flat on the floor; the ability to walk, run or sprint without pain. Without enough functional movement your body assumes you are in a continual state of injury. Eventually this becomes a full-time reality. This is the primary reason that I find deep tissue massage therapy, such as myofascial release, to be so important. I can manually break down fascial adhesions and increase functional range of motion.  I can prime the mechanical pump, facilitating waste product removal and nutrient delivery back into the tissue. In essence this removes years of fascial buildup and facilitates a speedy return to functional movement.

Not Just Any Movement, What you need is Functional Movement
A sedentary lifestyle means we do not use our bodies the way a human body was designed to move. This has become the reality of our lives.  On a daily basis, we fail to utilize the vast array of movement patterns that are possible.  Plus the intensity of our movements has softened. All kinds of technologies have made our lives much easier in most regards.  This means that we must go out of our way to move our body the way it must functionally move.

Functional movement training is vital. You cannot not get the movement your body needs to maintain pain-free health and vitality by sitting in front of a computer. You must move. I am not talking about the traditional types of exercises that are likely coming to your mind. I’m not talking about running for hours on end on pavement in a straight line.  I’m not talking about lifting weights while sitting on a nice cushioned bench or using a machine. Your body needs functional movement. It needs to move the way it was designed to move. Running and traditional weight training are small portion of functional training and tend to be overly repetitious in very specific movement patterns.  They do not utilize the postural stabilization and functional movement patterns your body craves. To your body not using a functional movement pattern is almost the same as not moving. And as I said earlier, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Even if you run or lift weights 7 days a week, if you do not lift your arm over your head, over time you will lose the ability to do so. Your body recognizes this as an injury and begins the healing process discussed above, but now to your detriment.

What is Functional Movement?
My definition is simple.  You have a body for a reason.  Functional movement is what happens when you use your body to meet all of its designed purposes: flexing, extending, pulling, pushing, rotating, changing directions, running, walking, jumping, sprinting and climbing. If you are designed to do it, then use your body to do it.  If you don’t, you will eventually lose your ability to do it, which will lead to a higher risk of chronic pain and injury in your life.

As a personal trainer and deep tissue massage therapist, my entire focus is on functional movement – no exceptions. From the start we make sure you have pain free, functional range of motion with a stable posture. We make use of deep tissue massage, flexibility and corrective exercises (you can see examples of corrective exercises here, here and here) to open up your neck, chest, and shoulders so you can turn your neck to check your blind spot, or lift a box overhead without pain or injury.  We increase flexibility in your hips so you can easily squat deeply without knee or back pain.  We get you to walk and run comfortably again – no more dread of a painful trip up the stairs, to the mailbox, or to the car.

Once your functional range of motion and postural stability are improved you get to start having some real fun. In these workouts you fine tune this high performance machine that is your body by working it to meet all of its designed purposes. You will sweat, burn calories, build muscle, get stronger, move better, have more energy, become more capable and productive in your life, look better, reduce body fat, reduce stress, pain and injury, and most importantly: you will feel better in your body.

 

When I started this blog, my goal was to share knowledge and self-care tips on the treatment of chronic pain and injury. Until now I have focused my discussions on deep tissue massage therapy, self-massage using foam roller therapy, corrective exercises and barefoot walking and running. Now I would like to introduce myself and tell a bit of the story about why I do what I do.

You live how you feel
The quality and fulfillment of your life is directly related to how you feel – physically and emotionally. Pain is directly related to how you move, or don’t move, each day.  It is related to the fuel you feed your body, to the quality of the sleep you get each night, how much you work, how much you relax, and how much you prioritize your emotional and spiritual health.

I am on a path of personal healing.  I have experienced pain for much of my life. Not long ago, I began to believe that my pain was a life sentence. Thankfully, I was confronted with a choice.  I could either buy into the story that said “I will always be the victim to pain,” or I could listen to the pain, do something about it, and change the story. I chose the path of change. The focus of this path is to heal myself: my mind, my body and most importantly, my heart. I have pursued this path unconsciously from my earliest memories, and over the past couple of years it has become not only a conscious effort, but the overwhelming priority of my life.

How it all started
Like so many around me, I did not have an easy childhood. In many respects it was emotionally painful. As I grew older, emotional pain grew inside of me and manifested itself outwardly – in the way I felt, looked, acted, and in the important decisions I made. Ultimately it manifested itself as physical pain. Due to the emotional pain I carried inside, I did not have a healthy self image, and I did not treat my body with respect. I pushed my body to its limits and beyond, often leading to injuries, many of which were physically and emotionally devastating.

I have spent nearly six months in a hospital bed since the day I turned 18.  When I flew over the handlebars of my motorcycle at 70+ miles an hour, it took a week of iodine whirlpool baths to clean the dirt and asphalt from my wounds, and effectively ended my college basketball career. Five surgeries on my right knee (including 2 PCL reconstructions and an ACL reconstruction) kept me hospitalized for several more months. I developed a very intimate relationship with physical pain. On a level I was addicted to it. The more physical pain I could endure, the less emotional pain I felt.  Since my emotional pain was so deep, I unconsciously pursued physical pain through self destructive behaviors. Some of the other injuries I’ve had are concussions, dislocations, and sprains. By the time I turned thirty, my body was pretty jacked up physically and emotionally.

An AHA Moment
I made the decision to become a personal trainer after my second PCL reconstruction. I was in the process of being discharged from the Navy and I had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.  One day I found myself working out in a gym on a Naval base in San Diego – attempting to rehab my body so I could once again play basketball. In the middle of a set of dumbbell chest presses I had an “AHA” moment. I felt at home right where I was.  I knew that I loved the gym and that I loved people. The idea of helping someone realize their fitness and health goals excited me. I thought, this is where I want to work. I got up from the bench and grabbed the flier for a personal trainer certification course that I saw posted on the community board.

From the start there has been something supporting and guiding me to where I am today.  This much is obvious to me even though at the time I had no idea the significance of it all.  The support and guidance only continued in the classes I took, in the gyms where I worked, and from my fellow colleagues. I studied exercise and sports science with a minor in business management at Texas State University. I spent nine years working in gyms with some incredible coaches and therapists.  It was an incredible learning environment, a great place for me to grow up. There was no competition.  Knowledge and information was shared freely. I gained what I consider the equivalent to eight more years of college level education and experience in the exercise sciences. This became the foundation of my work. I learned about anatomy, exercise physiology, posture, kinesiology, physical therapy protocol, and was introduced to deep tissue massage and self-massage using the foam roller.

Pushing Through Barriers
I took almost all of this knowledge and put it into practice on myself trying to fix or alleviate my pains and injuries.  After my fifth knee surgery in 2006, I designed my own physical therapy protocol. I spent the six months before surgery doing intensive “pre-hab” to build up the strength in my knee and body.  A few days after the surgery I started simple physical therapy exercises. My goal was to run a half marathon six months after the surgery. The physical therapy was intense, but I pushed on. Four weeks after the surgery I was running on 50% of my body weight using a body weight support harness system. I did corrective exercises until I had the knee strength to support my full body weight.  Three months after the surgery I was doing full resistance functional training workouts.  I built my running base and spent lots of time every week on a bicycle. Every night I would spend hours doing full body self-massage on a foam roller followed by flexibility training. And after six months, almost to the day, I ran the 3M half marathon in Austin, Texas, splitting the last four miles at a 7:30 pace. Since then, as I have maintained my own health and fitness protocol, my knee has not given me any problems.

Throughout this season I focused on deep tissue massage, flexibility, corrective exercise, and functional training.  My mind and body became stronger and I started feeling better physically. As my body healed, my heart began to heal as well. It became clear to me that if I wanted my physical body to feel better over the long haul, I needed to heal emotionally, on the inside. This is the conscious path that I am currently on. Through this process of emotional healing I have found that I have become more engaged, present, productive, and capable as a father, as a partner, and as a therapist. It has been beautiful.

A Different Path
There are many things that I learned, and continue to learn, in the process of healing myself. I have incorporated these lessons into the coaching program I bring to my clients. I shifted my training style from being workout based to lifestyle based. I now recognize that every person struggles with pain. This is pain that, unless they change paths, a client will suffer under for the rest of their life. And so, instead of training my clients to be more muscular, or look better in the mirror or to fit into the right clothes, I train them so they can move and feel better in their body.

One of the biggest lessons that has become a significant part of my training philosophy is this: what is seen on the outside is merely a reflection of what resides on the inside. Issues of weight, poor posture, and physical pain are merely the symptoms of deeper issues.  They reflect how we feel on the inside. This is why I specialize in the treatment of chronic pain. I focus my massage and personal training that I might help my clients feel better. I teach them a variety of techniques to empower them with the ability to care for and heal themselves. I know that as we heal we move better.  The better we move, the better we feel about ourselves, which ultimately leads to being more engaged, present, productive and capable with our family, friends, and career. This, without fail, makes its way to the surface and we look so much better on the outside.

 

I would love to hear your personal story of pain. Please post it to the comments below.

This is the final installment of my series on Posture. A few weeks ago, I described posture as the absolute need for stability.

“It is from stability that all healthy movement is derived.”

I keyed in on the feet as the foundation and the hips as the ballast of the body. Today I will discuss the body’s most mobile joint: the shoulder, and more specifically: the scapula – otherwise called the shoulder blade. The scapula is the mast and sails of the body. Where the scapula goes, the head and torso will follow.

As I said a few weeks ago, “stability is king.”  When it comes to the shoulder the scapula is the King of stability. The scapula is the anchoring point for the postural muscles of the shoulder; it provides the stability necessary for a huge combination of movements. This large range of motion is something that distinguishes us from all other species on the planet. The shoulder is designed to provide for the movements of climbing, crawling, lifting, throwing, pushing, and pulling; and aids in the movements of running and jumping. None of these movements would be possible without the scapula’s amazing ability to stabilize.

 

At home and in the workplace we do not regularly engage our shoulders to meet their designed movement patterns, and what you don’t use, you lose. Instead we sit for 8-12 hours each day in front of a computer, TV or in our cars – and most of us sit with our head and shoulders forward. This posture pulls the scapula out of a position of leverage, where it is capable of providing the greatest amount of stabilization to the body. Over time, the postural muscles that are responsible for scapular stability are shut off (just like the postural muscles of the lower core and hips that I addressed in What is Posture and The Hips). Once the postural muscles are shut off, the body must recruit stability from mobility muscles such as the biceps, pecs, and trapezius. As these muscles take over, they lock the scapula in an upward rotation, and prevent the body from packing them down where they function most effectively.  When the scapula are stuck in upward rotation, they lose their functional range of motion and true stabilization of the shoulder becomes difficult.  And remember, where your scapula goes, your head will follow. Once the stability of the scapula is lost, the shoulder, neck, and lower back are put in a position of stress with a greater risk of pain and injury.

Keys to Regaining Shoulder Function

Scapular stability is vital to reducing pain, preventing injury, and improving your overall postural health. Here are the keys to regaining scapular stability and function:

The first and most important step to increasing the functional range of motion of the shoulder joint is through myofascial massage therapy. And deep tissue massage therapy (such as myofascial release and self-myofascial release), when paired with foam roller therapy, will help break down restrictions in the fascial tissue. These often overlooked steps will improve tissue health, reduce chronic pain, increase functional joint range of motion, and prevent injury.

Immediately following a series of deep tissue massage treatments with a full body flexibility or stretching program will help to permanently establish the newly regained range of motion. Yoga, Pilates, Egoscue and Active Release Technique are just a few examples of effective flexibility programs you can try. I highly recommend hiring an experienced and qualified coach or therapist to ensure proper form and the best approach to a flexibility program that will meet your individual needs.

As range of motion improves, the next step is corrective exercise. The goal of corrective exercise for the shoulder is to train the shoulder’s postural muscles to maintain proper position and stability and, as demonstrated in the video above, the ability to pack the scapula down.

Once the three pieces of the postural puzzle (the feet, hips and shoulders) are trained to, once again, provide stability, your body is ready to integrate functional movement training. These are exciting, challenging and often butt whipping workouts (which I love), and they will be the topics of discussion over the next few weeks.

Here are a few self-massage exercises for opening up the shoulders. Find a painful spot, stop and visualize the soft tissue as melting butter and the foam roller as a hot knife. Allow pressure into the tissue and within 30-60 seconds you will notice a significant reduction in pain. Once the pain reduces significantly (20-30%), move on to the next painful spot and repeat.

From a seated or standing position, clench your toes and do 30 circles in each direction.

Balancing on one leg, lift opposite heel towards the ceiling. Try to keep the inside ball, outside ball, and heel of the foot in contact with the ground. Keep your hips and shoulders parallel to the ground, don’t let your hip rotate up towards the ceiling. Do 12 on each leg.

Walk using each foot position making a 10 foot circle in each direction. Example, walk on the outside of your forefoot to your left, making a 10 foot circle, then turn around and make the same 10 foot circle to your right before switching to the inside ball of your foot. There are six foot positions walked in each direction making The Twelve Walks.

Last week I defined posture, not as an ideal position, but as the necessary stabilty from which all healthy movement is derived. Today I am talking about the first step in re-engaging postural control.How did we get here?
The human body is awe-inspiring. It is capable of moving with speed, power, agility, stamina, and grace — in an amazingly wide range of motions. It is also capable of adapting to the demands that are placed upon it. Unfortunately, most of us no longer move the way our body was designed to move.  We weren’t trained to.  The training grounds that once shaped The Human Body no longer exist. What we have instead are cars, couches, computers and ergonomic chairs. These are the new “training grounds” and our body has adapted to them well.  For many, it has adapted too well.
In this training we sit for long hours each day. We do not utilize movement that engages our postural system the way it was designed to be engaged. Over time, these muscles become weak. They atrophy. They fall asleep and quit functioning. They no longer provide the essential stabilization that is so important to movement. In time, our body adapts to this new environment and develops bad habits.  The most prominent example is the recruitment of mobile muscles to provide stability. Let’s revisit the analogy of driving your car with the brakes and the gas pedals pressed down at the same time. How well would your car move? Not well at all.  Driving like this is extremely damaging to the car.  The same is true for your body.  The pain you feel in your body is the indicator light telling you “stop driving and visit a mechanic.” A mechanic in this sense would be a “body” mechanic, a deep tissue massage therapist, postural movement coach, or physical therapist. I recommend somebody with advanced knowledge and experience with the fascial system and how it relates to pain.

What is next?
Before you can sit up straight or intentionally hold your body “in good posture,” you must re-teach your body to stabilize, but how is this accomplished?

You have heard the phrase, “stand up straight and pull your shoulders back.” For most of us this is our cue to establish “good” posture. There is something inherently wrong with this method and it lies in a concept that we have conscious control over our posture, when in fact we do not.

You do not have conscious control over your postural muscles. Your postural muscles are controlled by a part of your sub-conscious system. If you had conscious control over your posture you would be unable to do anything else. For example, while you are reading this, you probably aren’t consciously thinking about holding your head off your chest, or keeping your body from collapsing to the ground.  The reason is… you don’t have to. Your nervous system does the job of maintaining your posture naturally – without you even thinking about it.Regardless of this natural ability, we are taught to think or be mindful about our posture. We are told to hold our heads up, have our shoulders pulled down and back, and our abs pulled in tight. But since we do not have conscious control over our postural muscles, the act of consciously engaging our muscles to provide postural support activates the mobile muscles that we do have conscious control over. Over time, these movement muscles become neurologically trained to function as stabilizing postural muscles. This is not what they were designed to do. As our movement muscles are re-programed to provide postural stability, they become less efficient at providing movement. All this happens and our postural muscles remain inept. The result is the significant loss of range of motion which will lead to dysfunction, pain and injury…

Compared to five or ten years ago, how well can you fully open up your hips and chest; reach your hand behind your back as if to scratch an itch between your shoulder blades with both hands; or bend over at the waist to touch your toes?

Change in the ability to perform prior movement patterns is another indicator light signalling… Visit mechanic.

Pain
If you are currently suffering from acute or chronic pain, the first step is to treat the pain. Pain prevents or changes movement. There is no such thing as healthy movement with pain. Pain is the signal that something is wrong and you need to see that mechanic.What does this mean?
It means you have to stop thinking and move. Your body needs to be retrained to move healthy. It means, on a regular basis, moving your body the way it is designed to move, every muscle, every joint, with full range of motion, in every direction, at all speeds, performed with agility, power and grace. You don’t want movement where you have to think about your posture. You must challenge and train your body to once again think for itself.

With my clients, I create a program of deep tissue massage therapy to re-establish healthy fascia, show them how to do self-myofascial release using a foam roller, teach them full body flexibility and corrective exercises, and create a training protocol which incorporates barefoot walking and running combined with functional exercise. This has proven successful in breaking down pain patterns and establishing pain-free healthy movement.