Liberated Body Podcast

Todd Hargrove is talking about what happy movers have in common, how learning better movement is more like sculpture than painting, the feather-ruffling information that posture does not predict pain levels- and how posture still matters and why. We also dig into motor control, cortical maps, the neuromatrix model, and all kinds of wild things about how perceptual tricks affect our brain and our perception of our body which gets us asking, “What is pain really?”. Of course we also discuss what our nervous system wants from us in order to keep it from creating pain and dysfunction in the first place so that we can all be happier in our bodies.

  I talk with Jill Miller, co-founder of Tune Up Fitness Worldwide and creator of the corrective exercise formats Yoga Tune Up and The Roll Model Method about her recent book by the same name (The Roll Model), the current pain epidemic in our culture, why self-care is health care, the difference between good pain and bad pain, and what it takes to remodel your “fascia suit”. We also talk about many of the profound and touching stories of people who recovered themselves through this method, including Jill’s own journey.

I’m talking with Gary Ward who is the founder of Anatomy in Motion, and the author of the book What the Foot?. He talks about how Anatomy in Motion is based on understanding how the body moves- or what the body does and when it does it, why change can happen in minutes instead of months, why Gary is not a fan of stretching, redefining “neutral” as “center”, how we need to learn how to have better posture in a subconscious way, what nobody-ever-moved-me-itis is, and of course, plenty about the feet as the gateway to appropriate movement everywhere else.

  Anne Tierney and I talk about Ki-Hara Resistance Stretching,what the advantages are of this kind of eccentric training, why alleviating global imbalances is the name of the game, how all of this can lead to a pain-free life, the dangers of overstretching, and why the results of this kind of work are more lasting.

This episode includes outtakes from interviews I did with Jules Mitchell, Dr. Dawn McCrory, Jillian Nichols, and Rachel Bernsen for the Liberated Body Guide to Short Hamstrings. We get into the what and the why behind persistently unyielding hamstrings including why they feel like an emergency brake, how your nervous system is the limiter, why strength training is more effective than static stretching, what posture and alignment have to do with it, what some of the important things are to rule out, and how more global patterns- including but not limited to butt gripping and knee locking- create a heavier workload for your poor, put upon hamstrings.

Katy Bowman, biomechanist and founder of Restorative Exercise talks with us about her most recent book. Move Your DNA. We get into what diseases of mechanotransduction are, the profound ways our environment shapes us, why exercise and movement are not synonymous, how cardio can be harmful in our sedentary times, and how we are animals who have put ourselves in our own cages. Plus much, much more.

Constance Clare-Newman and I talk Alexander Technique, the difference between un-doing vs. doing (or relaxing into expansive support vs. propping oneself up), tensegrity concepts, the support relationships within our body, and (hey, why not!) what makes for good sex vs. “meh” sex.

  Jonathan Fitzgordon, creator of the CoreWalking Method, talks about the uniqueness of the psoas muscle, how its connected to trauma and uprightness, and how and why to release it. He also gets into gait patterns, what the most common dysfunctional gait patterns are these days, and how changing your walk can actually resolve your pain and discomfort issues (and more). Last but not least we also get into one of my favorite topics- why we all need to stick our butts out more and what that means.

Bo Forbes, clinical psychologist, yoga teacher, and integrative yoga therapist talks about what Integrative Yoga Therapy is, interoception, relaxing rather than corralling into expansion, why vinyasa and restorative yoga fit together on a continuum, and how using momentum when we get uncomfortable can get us onto some pretty slippery slopes.

  Darryl Edwards, founder of the Primal Play methodology and author of Paleo Fitness, talks about some of the research on inactivity, the subtle yet proliferating messages in our environment that warn us that movement might be dangerous, how his acronym PRIMALity spells out a thoughtful take on what our movement programs should address, and what a play-based lifestyle looks like.

Steve Haines talks about Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, body maps and how they become strange or distorted, interoception and why there is more pain in areas that we have less interoception about- or are more poorly mapped, and the huge role the vagal nerve plays in our bodies and our sense of well-being.

  Judith Hanson Lasater talks about being one of BKS Iyengar’s first students and, especially in light of his recent passing, some of his teachings that have stayed with her the most through the years. We also discuss why she has become one of Restorative Yoga’s biggest proponents, what her take is on the explosion of yoga today and how it differs from the yoga she first studied, the how and the why of anger, anxiety, and depression being our most pervasive cultural issues, and, last but not least, why we all need to stop tucking our tailbones!

  David Weinstock, founder of Neurokinetic Therapy, talks about motor control theory, how we create healthy and dysfunctional patterns, what our scars can tell us about ourselves, how eye movements facilitate muscle movements throughout the body, and TMJD including the hips/pelvis/jaw connection.

Picture the standard old-person shuffle that we have come to assume is the norm. Why do we assume this is what happens to a body over time? What are the beginnings of these patterns and how can we catch them in their early stages? And, of course, how can we avoid them? Valerie Berg talks about the precursor signs, symptoms, and outcomes of structural aging, and how it can begin to happen at any age (and more and more is happening at young ages). We get into how a gradually increasing fear of movement contributes to this, what the most common symptoms are to show up first as the structure begins to age, how visual perception affects everything, and how we can get more multi-planar movement into our daily lives.

  Tom Myers, founder of Anatomy Trains and Kinesis Myofascial Integration, talks about the history of Anatomy Trains and how he came to chart connections through the fascial fabric, where Newtonian biomechanics fall short, fascia as the 3rd big autoregulatory system,  what Kinesthetic IQ is and why it matters, common misconceptions about fascia, and more. Phew! Lots of good stuff!

www.liberatedbody.com/matthew-lacoste-lbp-010 Matthew Lacoste of www.thetouchtrail.com talks about the epic journey that he is kicking off next month. He’ll be traveling the world following the history of massage. On a bike. That converts into a massage chair. Using massage as his primary currency. Wow! He’s sure to get an up close view into how massage affects many different kinds of people’s lives, as well as charting how touch has influenced society throughout history.

http://www.liberatedbody.com/jules-mitchell-lbp-009  I get a chance to talk with Jules Mitchell right after she turned in her Master’s thesis in the science of stretching. Jules’ work blends biomechanics with the tradition of yoga to help people move better, and while looking into the research on stretching she discovered some pretty eye-opening things! For example, the idea that we can persistently stretch a muscle and have it grow longer, it turns out, is not exactly true. We get into many other myths of stretching- and it seems there are plenty- what really works, what’s really risky, and what a better model of viewing the body might be when we put aside the “stretch tight bits to make them looser” paradigm.

  Nancy DeLucrezia, founder of Neuro-Structural Bodywork and of The Kali Institute, talks about the importance of connecting fascial release with neuro-muscular re-education, or how to address both the hardware and the software of our bodies. She also talks about breathwork and somato-emotional release, and her own process of becoming embodied and of healing.

Britt Johnson of The Hurt Blogger  talks about life with autoimmune arthritis, how movement helped her to rehabilitate her body, her work to facilitate more patient-centered care as a bio-consultant and e-patient scholar, and her ambitious training to meet her mountaineering goal of one day climbing Denali.

www.liberatedbody.com/matthew-remski-lbp-006 Matthew Remski discusses his WAWADIA (What Are We Actually Doing In Asana) Project. We get into if yoga was ever really intended as a physically therapeutic practice, what the Hatha yogis may have actually been after, injury rates in asana practice, the bias towards flexibility, and what a yoga practice can offer us.