Category: Tami Wise

Toning and Stretching for Your Diaphragm: The Basics

9/2/2022

Photo by Elaine Bernadine Castro from Pexels

“The beauty of freediving. It gets you experiencing the underwater gardens up close in just a single breath!...It’s like scuba diving, but without an air tank – just yourself, your pair of lungs, and thousands of fish species,” writes free diver, David Hamburg. Free divers take breath training to the limits; with training, they are known to be able to stay underwater for minutes at a time–experienced free divers are able to last as many as 10 minutes (I just choked on my saliva). While dives like these take more than stretching the diaphragm, when you start to stretch your muscles of breath, you can radically open up the potential of your human body!

Last month, we had the opportunity to map the diaphragm, with the support of 2 graphics to give you a sense of how the human diaphragm looks, where it is located, and finally how it influences ease and/or tension in the hips, in the shoulders, and in the global sense of feeling tense and tight in your body or more relaxed and at ease in your body. While the diaphragm should always work (since this is the main muscle of breath), one's ability to control how the diaphragm works is a great tool to develop. A while back Carla and I took the opportunity to record a video teaching diaphragmatic breathing, to help the viewer practice finding their own diaphragm and controlling the breath with it–hence mapping the diaphragm.

This month I wanted to build on some ways to provide that muscle with tone and stretching. As with any other human muscle, there are ways to tone, condition and stretch your diaphragm. There is a lot of room for play with this work, so our aim today is to drive home the foundation of what challenges the diaphragm to work well, and receive stretch.

Training for your diaphragm:
When it comes to toning the diaphragm, taking time to work with the breath practice taught in our video linked here, for increasing sets of time, will set you on the path to habituating effective diaphragmatic breath control, and toning that muscle. Likewise, once you have a good connection with this practice lying on the floor, you may also practice it seated, so you could take a moment during the day and artfully breathe while seated, at work perhaps.

In the video below I will take diaphragmatic breathing through a set style activity, and then we will challenge our ability to inhale into the diaphragm by lengthening the torso, or by twisting as you try to pull a full inhale. Finally you will experience how to stretch the psoas and iliacus area of your pelvis, using the same breath techniques covered at the start of the video.

Stretching Your Diaphragm Video

Breath practice and breath practice in combination with movement can relieve tension and impairments associated with prolonged sitting. If you really want to get weird, try searching how free divers turn hyperventilation into a tool to stretch their diaphragms and in turn, turn their bodies into deep sea diving wonder tanks. Have a question about anything covered in this piece, or previous blog posts, my email address is always accepting queries!
[email protected]

In robust health!
Tami

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Map Your Marvelous Diaphragm

8/1/2022

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The diaphragm (the orange colored organ in the 3D image above) is a muscle nestled up under your lungs--by design. When the diaphragm contracts and relaxes, with the help of the intercostals (muscles between the ribs), it causes air to move in and out of the lungs.
If you look at both the above 3D image and this illustrated image of the diaphragm, you can see how the expansion and contraction of the diaphragm will impact the viscera of the belly (your guts) and the psoas muscles that reside behind the guts. In fact, tension in the psoas can restrict deep diaphragmatic breathing, and conversely, the inability to take a deep belly breath can inhibit hip function. Perhaps this is why some like to title the diaphragm as possibly the most important muscle in the body–I vote the heart, but I’m a born-lover. I contrast the 2 images above to underscore why if you hold tension in any one of 3 zones, diaphragm, psoas, or belly viscera (by way of the fascia casing around the organs) you can restrict range in one of the other zones.

There are a host of everyday behaviors and environments that can lead to tension around these areas. Slouchy prolonged sitting can lead to restricted shallow breathing behaviors and a shortened psoas muscles, you can find such behaviors at the work desk, watching TV, long car trips. Experiences that send the nervous system into high alert/attention may also engage tension in one of these zones. For these reasons, there is value in spending some time being clear on the range of diaphragmatic breathing available to you, feeling the movement of your diaphragm as it expands and contracts (the mapping), and also knowing a couple ways to stretch the diaphragm.

Carla plays a big role in my awareness of this concept and work. To map the diaphragm, Carla and I teamed up back in 2020 to create an introduction to breath work video, that aims to help you witness the breath, assess the state of tension in your abdominal area, and then your ability to soften/dissipate tension where you find it.

Breath Awareness & Three Part Breath Video with Tami and Carla (11 mins)
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/aUUmmmbNCa8ndvzwb7T7izVHVtlU5dzB4xHOQZ4Vi5IGnrXILl1_1uwJVdF8us00.xlQ-p33GD38Yvt71

As the "motor muscle of breath, it can be automatic, forced, or controlled in its movement;" that makes it a rather unique motor muscle. The diaphragm also has both local and global effects on the functions of your body systems: directly it affects breath, but breath influences our body systems in ways we are only recently able to understand and explain. Breathing and breath practice can influence a host of shift in things like cortisol production, insulin production, O2 absorption in the blood, lymph system movement, cues to digestion--to name but a few of the systems influenced by the activity that can be impacted by your connection to your respiratory motor muscle, the diaphragm. Awareness of tension in these areas and your ability to move this tension is a tool you deserve!

Next month I will continue this segment with more stretches for each of the 3 zones, not only more for the diaphragm, but the psoas as it is influenced by the diaphragm and the fascia that surrounds the viscera of the belly.

To space and ease of breath~
Tami

If you have any questions please email me at [email protected].

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Got Tight Summer Feet? You Have Options!

6/30/2022

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Summer is here! It draws us out into the great outdoors! In the warmer months we have more opportunities to stand for extended periods of time, watching a local parade, socializing at a block party, attending a festival, watching our team dominate the other team. Or perhaps we are on a ladder painting or window washing, and it is likely many of us are mowing the lawn!

These summer classics are also culprits in the creation of tightness of the calves, ankles and feet of your body. Standing in one place for a period of time, or standing with little walking, or lots of small-step walking-like in a crowded type situation, much longer than the muscles and fascia of your legs are conditioned for, can leave these areas tight. Likewise, a lot of activity in the heat may leave your body a bit dehydrated (another way to tightness, or worse, muscle cramps).

This month I thought we could quickly review a few ways to restore supple happy feet, calves and ankles after a demanding summer day. All you need is a few found-objects: a tennis ball (of course if you have a fascial release ball, that’s a bonus), a yoga mat (foam half-round, if you have one), and an old t-shirt (Yoga Toes, if you have a set).
To support better leg energy, and to reduce wear to the joints of the toes/ankles/knees/hips/low back, it is worth the time to assemble practices that can loosen the feet, exercise the ranges of the ankle, and loosen the calves.

Toe stretching can have a surprising restorative effect on tight feet, simply by weaving an old, soft t-shirt between the toes and kicking back for 15 minutes while the space between your toes opens up a bit. This gives the toes more ability to spread and disperse forces to the foot when you stand/walk with them.
Learn more…

Using a tennis ball to roll out the arch of the foot as well as roll out the tight places in the calves can help hydrate the fascial web of these parts, and help loosen tight calves.

Using a rolled up yoga mat like a half round, can help with calf raises , calf stretching, and “mashing the arches.” Mashing the arches is the glorious feeling of pressing the arch of your foot into the arc of the rolled up yoga mat--sometimes doing what I also call "typewriter walking"; the practice of taking tiny little steps (for approx. 1 minute), side-by-side from one end of the mat roll to the other (have a wall nearby, or a chair back for balance). You are essentially kneading the bottoms of your feet…heaven.
Learn more here

Finally, as the summer heats up you have to hit the water, a-plenty! It seems that a well hydrated body is the product of consistency. You have to adapt (train) your body to absorb water. Drinking a consistently plentiful amount of water every day trains your body that you are safely near water and it can calibrate to utilitze, say all 100 ounces, that you drink. In the absence of consistent conditioning, you may not appeal to you bodies sense of survival, and it may send water it deems excess right on down-river. Likewise, during heat spikes, or higher work load in high heat (yard work, cardio) we can often benefit from some form of electrolyte support to encourage our bodies to better utilize fluids.

Between the festivals and the parades, I am here to answer any questions all summer long.
Just email me at [email protected]~

Stay loose, keep fluid, and be ROBUST!
Tami

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The Interval

6/8/2022

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The best way to get where you’re going is to feel good along the way.
~words Tara Styles used in her blog at some point

As we break into the warmer months of Summer and the daylight gives us space to be out and about, it is in step with nature that we pick up our cardio respiratory operations (aerobic fitness training). At its base, cardio respiratory exercise draws copious amounts of oxygen into the body and bathes the cells in energy, the energy your body needs for effort(s). That is what aerobic fitness training is, breath controlling the amount of oxygen that gets to your muscles, oxygen that fuels the motor of your locomotions.

Meaningful cardiorespiratory fitness gives us the sense that we are in connection with our flame! When you feel in connection with your cardiorespiratory fitness, you know that you ‘can-do.’ It’s the assurance that you can keep up with the herd, young and younger; it’s also the moxie that you can take down the challenge.

What is also good to remember is that Rome wasn’t built in a day. As we shed the darker months of Winter and pare back the less free-range nature of the pandemic, perhaps it is a good time to revisit interval training. Interval training offers a fine interest-factor to the repetitive aspect of effective cardio respiratory exercise, as well as giving us gobs of ways to slide beads all about your fitness abacus! The interval can be used to support a person trying to restore base level endurance after surgery, or it can be used to safely push intensity, or aggressively safely push intensity. Gobs, and gobs of options–all you have to know is your interval training builders.

Interval training is the project of alternating segments of TIME and INTENSITY. The simpler part of the equation is time. You may choose to track time in minutes, as with this example: walk 3 minutes at a regular gait pace and 1 minute at a faster gait pace for a total of 30 minutes. You may choose to track time by landmark, as in this example: on a 400 meter track, walk the straights, run the curves.

When you seek to influence intensity, remember there is a sort of micro/macro aspect. You program for the challenge of effort AND for how long you challenge that effort. Sally wants to increase her happiness walking for several hours to prepare for her European vacation. She wants her body to show up without complaint so she can be present for the sights and experiences of her vacation. She anticipates walking 2-3 hours at a time, which is outside of her life custom currently.

Sally sets up phase 1: walk 45 minutes straight, first phase. That feels solid, she recovers on the same day as the activity, so she shifts to walk 3 minutes at a regular pace, and then walk 2 minutes faster than regular pace, and she does this for 45 minutes. She feels a bit stiff from this shift, but after a couple weeks that is no longer the case. Next she adds 15 minutes more time to this same interval, and finally she switches the interval to more fast walking than regular walking. In Sally’s case, after 3 months of interval training, she feels in her bones that she is ready for a good 2-3 hour segment of touring before taking a break.

With effective interval training, you use your gobs of options to influence your body to some artful outcomes. You increase the amount of oxygen you are taking into the cells of your body, and with consistent demand, the mitochondria will multiply to meet demand and you will have more ability to recruit fuel for your muscles. The greater the density of mitochondria in your muscles, the more oxygenated blood you can connect through that muscle which influences your muscles ability to recover and restore for round-next. Interval training also gives the muscles, bones and connective tissues of the body a better stress-equation. You can condition those tissues with manageable amounts of demand, rather than crush them with constant use that they then make into dysfunctions–like itis’s, fractures, and ruptures. Win/WINNER!

Of course, with all the options there is a case for analysis paralysis. I’d say start with your desire, and try to suss out a plan on paper. If you feel you still have questions as to what intervals to plan for, to help reach your desired goal, please email me at [email protected].

We will figure out how to feel good along the way.

In robust health!
Tami

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Basic Self-Release Work for your Sinuses

3/31/2022

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Recently, March 20th, we observed the Spring Equinox. It is time for life, both underground and dormant to surface, shake out the pollen and bring forth more life. For some of us, our sinuses struggle in the presence of such wonder.

Over the years I have become very familiar with the support that decongestants offer, or the saline sprays, the antihistamines and even anti-inflammatories can help relieve symptoms of sinus congestion. I have used all of the above, sometimes in combination, to mitigate heavy congestion. However, as I grew in my understanding of stretching in both muscle and fascia, I realized that these concepts can be applied to softening the muscles and fascia of the face, head and neck. Release work to these areas can also greatly shift congestion and tension in and around our sinus cavities.

With this being the month we focus on the Flexibility Key of EQUIVITA’s 5 Keys of Fitness, it occurred to me this may be a good time to briefly diagram the location of your sinuses and discuss what techniques you can use to promote circulation within your sinuses, move congestion, create drainage, as well as keep you connected to how much tension you may be concealing in your scalp, jaw and neck.

Your paranasal sinuses:
Below you will see the 4 air filled cavities in the skull, located behind the forehead, nasal bones, cheeks and eye orbits. Apparently there’s not a firm consensus on exactly what functions the sinuses provide to the body. Possible rolls the experts offer are: that sinuses reduce the weight of the skull, they serve to regulate the temperature and humidity of inspired air, they absorb heat and insulate the brain, they give your voice resonance as the air vibrates, they protect your face in case of trauma, and they ‘scrub’ for germs and particulates that try to enter the body as we breathe.
The mucus that shares space with the air that flows through these cavities is there to keep the spaces from getting too dry and to flush the crud. When irritants inflame the lining of the sinus cavities they swell and it becomes more difficult for the mucus to flow, rather it gets stagnant and thickens and creates uncomfortable pressure and is no longer able to flush the crud but rather becomes the crud.

As these sinus chambers build in pressure, the muscles and fascia surrounding them are stretched and triggered to tighten. Additionally, the more tension you hold in the fascia or the muscles of your scalp, jaw, or neck, the greater the challenge to free the flow of mucus in your sinus cavities (in fact, I am one that believes that tension in these areas is sometimes a symptom and sometimes a cause of sinus pressure). All to say, having a basic understanding of how to apply the techniques of facial fascial head and neck release can work to relieve a sinus pressure headache, as well to prevent the onset of thickening mucus associated with seasonal allergies.

Sinus pressure relief practice basics:
Here’s a fairly basic process that I like to consider with sinus support. I always try to maintain the fullest breathing pattern I can achieve, full, relaxing nasal breathing (even if I’m faking it till I make it). Once I have established full, relaxing nasal breathing, I begin to try to warm up the area where I want to ‘melt’ congestion. To influence muscle type tension, use finger tips or knuckles to rub small circles over the sinus area to stimulate blood flow and create heat. To move fascial tension, you would apply more of a pinch and roll approach, or a gentle held pull which can help restore the ‘crimp’ of your fascia so it can re-hydrate any stretched out distended patches.

Next, and still with big breathing, I apply strong pressure to one or two spots in the warmed region to force a pressure shift in the cavity and move held fluid pressure. Perhaps briefly uncomfortable, but effective.

Finally, and still with full breathing, I like to apply a larger movement that acts to ‘push and pull’ a much larger area, like head tilts from side to side, or exaggerated circles of the skull over the shoulders. These movements gently compress and release our soft tissues from the scalp to the shoulders to reduce accumulated tension in these areas.

Maxillary sinus relief series:
First, you want to try to breathe through your nose for the whole process. Ok, now find the little indentation on the sides of your nostrils, and with your finger tips, press firmly into that indentation and make circular motions for about a minute. Our aim here is to melt the muscles around your maxillary sinus cavity, or start to warm the area to encourage drainage of this cavity. Next you're going to get in there with your knuckles and hold a decent pressure right on that indentation point and count to about 45. You can now choose to use an even smaller pressure point after the knuckles press, by switching to your thumbs and pressing in, with a slight angle up, and hold nearly uncomfortable pressure this way for an additional count of 45. Now take a few deep inhales and exhales. Relax your face, relax your shoulders, drop your hand to your sides, palms facing outward. Now drop your ear to your shoulder, one side and then the other. Continue this rhythmic side-to-side tilting movement for approximately a minute.
Frontal and Ethmoid sinus release series:
First, you want to try to breathe through your nose for the whole process. Now you want to make your hand like a blade and press the index finger of this blade right into the deepest crevice between the eyes, then take your other hand and apply a firm controlled pressure to that point between the eyes, and count to about 30. Next, slide the hand slightly right to left (or side-to-side), back and forth while also pressing in and up into the brow bone and count to 30 again. Get your pinchers ready, grab hold of the inside of each eyebrow with a pincher and start to pull and roll outward, while working your pinchers across the brows to the outside of them and then use the same pinch and roll movement to come back to center. Do this twice, back and forth. This is a fascial pulling application, and we are using it to soften the fascia around your frontal and ethmoid sinus cavities. Finally, we layer in a larger movement, taking a few deep inhales/exhales. Relax your face, relax your shoulders, drop your hand to your sides, palms facing outward. Finally, make some big circles with your nose, using all the edges of your range of motion, take your nose all the way back to the ceiling and all the way around to the floor and back up. Big circles, for about a count of 45.
I hope you can successfully visualize your sinuses, and connect with your own ability to relieve both pressure in the sinus cavity and move held-tension in/around the area of your sinuses. I hope that you connect how tight shoulders, a tight neck, tight jaw, and a tight scalp can lead to recurrent sinus issues, AND that when you apply some of the pressure relief basics with consistency you can employ the power of blood flow and the power of movement (just like any other musculoskeletal system) to achieve greater health to your paranasal sinus constitution! If you would like great video suggestions for 15 minute practices that can lead you through release practice for all four of the sinus cavities, please email me at [email protected].

In robust, deep breathing, health, happy Spring!
Tami

I love this Sam Webster: he is responsible for my quick revisit to paranasal sinus anatomy for this segment! He can teach you all about anatomy! (btw: this is strictly an anatomy education video, not one of the release videos) Enjoy
Paranasal air sinuses

Maxillary Cavity Sinus Release Series

Frontal and Ethmoid Sinus Release Series

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Synovial Joint Series - Part 2, Weight Lifting and Joint Health

1/21/2022

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"At all costs, gain a better understanding of how to maintain the health of your soft tissues and joints. That’s going to be your biggest limiting factor for making gains and it also limits your quality of life. People who performed at a high level at any time will all tell you they can’t now because 'It’s my knees, my neck, my back, my shoulders.' Maintain the connective tissues and your likelihood of achieving all your goals is much higher."
John Wolf creator of Onnit Academy Education Center

Like the Rogue company here in Columbus, Onnit has grown to be a highly successful fitness equipment company in Austin, Texas. Onnit specializes in the making of the steel mace, kettle bells, Indian clubs, battling ropes and other very demanding options in physical training. This type of equipment certainly does not appear to support the ‘best practices’ for synovial joint health deep into the life of a human body. Yet, John Wolf, who is clearly not in his 20's (or even his 30's), and yields a thick and brilliantly powerful physique, that also moves with grace and fluidity, stresses that the education center at Onnit teaches strength training that supports performance goals, AND makes longevity of performance a non-negotiable tenant of their strength training education and coaching.

As we return to the Resistance Key of EQUIVITA’s Five Keys of Fitness, I want to look at how lifting supports the cartilage in your joints, not only when you’re 20, but decades and decades of life’s wear later! It is becoming increasingly hard to support the outdated ideas that osteoarthritis means we suspend robust training, and that robust training stops in your early 40’s. NO, no it does not, does it Jack LaLanne… does it, Mick Jagger? Does it Cher? Does it Dick Van Dyke? Does it Adam Milligan?

Using MRI machines we are able to record the behavior of cartilage in ways that we have never known until recently. We are learning that cartilage thickness does have a relationship to load. Which is to say if we don’t maintain a behavior of loading force through the cartilage matrix of our synovial joint, and give it the opportunity to push synovial fluid all around the cartilage surfaces, the juicy collagen matrix of joint cartilage isn’t getting much love. The most drastic example of this came from images taken of the knee joint of a recent paraplegic individual who, 6 weeks post injury, revealed remarkable thinning of the cartilage in the knee joint, but no change to the cartilage in the still active shoulder joint.

Moving load through a joint, to the greatest extent of that particular joint’s range, seems like a good general baseline for us humans and our synovial joints. Lifting gives us such options to choose from. You can select lighter or heavier load, you can change the pull against the joint based on how you position the movement of a particular exercise against gravitational pull. You can really tailor your exercises to restore range of movement, then increase load of movement.

In the last synovial joint article we covered how the joint capsule teams up with ligaments and muscles in a variety of arrangements to allow for movement in many directions (pivot movements, rotation movements and hinge movements, to name a few). When the interplay of the muscles that cross a joint to inform movement is out of balance, the joint can become overloaded and the result is irritation, or perhaps damage to the cartilage of your joint.

Let’s follow the person that tries squats for the first time after years of inactivity and they find a body squat hurts the knees. While there are a host of posture imbalances that can limit the joints ability to disperse force with low friction (the job of the joint…it’s whole job), and we would first aim to determine if your imbalance was due to the muscles arranged to allow for a pivot movement, a hinge movement or a rotation movement, I’m going to select the pain is due to poor balance with your hinge movement. To straighten the leg, while doing a squat, hurts your knee. You might consider starting with a seated leg extension using only one leg at a time, so you can focus on a straight aligned contraction of the quad muscles that support the knee joint. As you progress, and you restore your ability to straighten the leg without pain to the knee joint, then you add weight to the ankle and build strength. After time, perhaps you try your body weight squat again, but now you are working with better performing muscles, and your ability to increase range and load to the joint capsule has started to cultivate a healthy circulation of synovial fluid to the cartilage of the knee joint. Otherwise stated, the old behavior of limited sensitive movement around the knee joint is, hopefully, eliminated, or more top of mind. Change becomes the choice to avoid poor movement patterns, not to avoid moving.

Likewise, the more I read about synovial joints and their particulars, I start to question if it is aging alone that stiffens the joints, or is it that we adapt to habits of routine movements that do not often incorporate full range movements or consistent diet of dynamic movement by which our joint collagen matrix is dependent upon for moving synovial fluid lubricants around, in effort to nourish and cultivate thick smooth cartilage? Let’s plan around the second explanation for stiffness.

Finally, let’s address the long standing belief that creeps in regularly, if you have sensitivity in your knees, if an image shows that you present osteoarthritis in a joint, that load, and especially higher load, is going to progress this condition. Intuitively it sells, but great news! This is not the case. At this point I am committed to the teaching that biomechanical imbalances/features that prevent a joint from force dispersion, progress dysfunction. High levels of activity do not progress arthritis, it’s the joint imbalances that need to be addressed. Joints are living tissues, they adapt to use. We now know that the joint, although not directly connected to blood for its nourishment, has synovial fluid and it is capable of healing.

In a recent interview I heard the physical therapist Steve Kashul state this: "If you want to stay active and less symptomatic, choose accordingly. But do not be confused by the sensitivity of symptoms as leading to disease progression.” At EQUIVITA, we all agree that the pain associated with loss or impeded movement is worse than the sensitivity you work through till you restore meaningful balance in your body's joints. I absolutely listen to pain, it’s full of good information. It’s a cue that you, that we, may need to gain a better understanding of how to maintain the health of your soft tissues…which I believe is how this all started.

Exercise is continually proven to be the most important, effective means of staving off osteoarthritis, and to that, weight training gives you a tremendous ability to restore power while also maintaining control of how the joint feels in the process. You gain an ability to determine/influence the amount of symptoms that works for where you are in your plan for robust health!

You commit to staying active, and we will always endeavor to help you choose accordingly for yourself. At our foundation, this has always been the fitness operation, this is EQUIVITA. So let’s get at it! If you have any questions please email me at [email protected].

Happy New Year!!! Stay ROBUST!
Tami

https://www.onnit.com/academy/meet-john-wolf/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2100201/
https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/ijms/ijms-21-09471/article_deploy/ijms-21-09471.pdf
https://sportsmedicineweekly.com/2021/06/15/ep-18-osteoarthritis-orthobiologics-with-dr
-brian-cole
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3967437/

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Core of the Human Core

9/2/2021

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Breath and movement training is an area of our work as fitness training professionals that has my attention these days. I suppose I found a pivot point, more recently than I care to admit, in how I see the relationship of breath work to the goals of building strength (which easily gets my attention) and the imperative goal of training motor control and communication (blah, blah, blah...who cares?). Well, let’s start with back pain...

The reason for me to care is this: I see the confusion in the clients I support on what it means to have a ‘strong core’ to help resolve their back pain. The clients I work with regularly bring in interesting questions and reading content that they have found that may be of help/interest to myself and my partners here. All to say they are also working to find solutions, they want to do something that can help to make their core work to support their back.

When I turn to the best place to find information these days – Google!...and let’s say I Google ‘core exercises for back pain,’ I start to see an opportunity to help clear up the conversation.

The terms core training and core strengthening have been used interchangeably in the fitness industry for years and often the same exercises are given indiscriminately to everyone, regardless of how their core is functioning. Is core training the same as core strengthening? Are core stabilization exercises the same as core strengthening exercises? Do you know the difference? Is there a difference? Finally, it seems simple, but what is the core?

I think there’s been a sizable evolution in how we talk to and work with the systems that inform the core in the past 20 years. I think our understanding of what core awareness is, how to program the body to learn/relearn awareness, and then how to carry that awareness into increased support for our back and hips, and to get strong with all of it, is as good as it has ever been--I hope I’m not a victim of the Dunning-Kruger Effect (psychological tendency to assess their abilities as much greater than they really are.)

Where is your core...all of it?

Currently, I teach that the core is found between the diaphragm and the pelvic floor. It’s easiest for me to visualize the core as ‘deep core’, a term which is used with consistency, and then the ‘outer or superficial core’ that’s also identified as the ‘abs’ or ‘midsections’.
The deep core is made up of the transversus abdominus, the multifidus, the pelvic floor and the diaphragm. Years ago, Anna Pattitucci, pelvic floor PT, explained that the diaphragm and the pelvic floor had a timing between them, and when that was out of sync, or compromised, the ability of the deep core to anticipate and prepare the core to support the body for movement was also compromised. The goals she talked about for core training were focused around training compliance of the 4 parts of the deep core. The exercises for this space are not crunches or pelvic lifts but rather they are focused around restoring communication, often cueing with breath work plays a large role here.

The outer core... ‘midsections’ are again the transversus abdominus, the internal and external obliques and the rectus abdominis. They are more the doer’s. They help you sit up out of bed, and brace well to throw a ball far...and any other thousand movements. They support the back with their power and support but they do not anticipate. They are obviously more under your control, like when you get out of bed, you essentially do a ‘crunch’ to pull yourself upright. Another feature of the midsections in this category is that they can and do support the hips and spine, and they can do so without much input from the deep core...but I’m not sure you really want that.

To train the deep core you would find yourself having exercises for the core that focus on timing and co-activation with other muscles. I recall Anna used to train a breathing pattern for women postpartum, so they could get off the floor, from say playing with their newborn child, without leaking urine. The diaphragm would deflate to tighten the pelvic floor and now there was support to the body in its rise against gravity that gave control over peeing one’s pants. Although there are professionals (and I am not one of them) that only teach breath to movement, and yoga certainly has a relationship to this ‘mode’; in my current form as a trainer, I do try to incorporate more opportunity to teach clients to move with their breath--one basic example: exert with exhalation and rest or hold on the inhale.

Here’s the challenge: the body can do everything without a responsive relationship between the diaphragm and the pelvic floor. Nothing will look different, your running gait will look the same, your deadlift will look similar, your driveway shoveling will look identical. However, over time, a deficit in the deep core often means adding load through the trunk, legs or arms that will break down joints and tighten muscles.

When you gain awareness of this deep core, the pay-off is you can reduce/change stress to joints and muscles that are impacted by the whole human core. Once you can activate the deep muscle system synergistically, it is time for core strengthening exercises. NOW, by adding loads through the trunk, leg or arms you will functionally strengthen a pattern of movement that keeps you going, rather than loading patterns of movement that are wearing to your back and hips. Whatever you come to call the muscles discussed in this article, they don’t train the same way, and both merit attention.

Ultimately everything does connect at your core. If you have any questions please email me at [email protected].

In robust health!
Tami

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Meh...Languishing has hit many Americans in the course of the COVID 19 pandemic--so now what?

5/3/2021

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There seems to be a lot of buzz on the word ‘languishing’ in communities around the United
States, filled with people weary from the COVID pandemic. The theme of this month’s
newsletter met me with thoughts on the ‘nourishment’ of this state of the mind.

Adam Grant’s article, “There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing
The neglected middle child of mental health can dull your motivation and focus — and it may be the dominant emotion of 2021” was published on April 19th 2021, and has created quite a
dialogue in this country. I encourage you to review the article for yourself, the passage below
details the state of languishing as:

"Languishing is the neglected middle child of mental health. It’s the void between depression and flourishing — the absence of well-being. You don’t have symptoms of mental illness, but you’re not the picture of mental health either. You’re not functioning at full capacity. Languishing dulls your motivation, disrupts your ability to focus, and triples the odds that you’ll cut back on work. It appears to be more common than major depression — and in some ways it may be a bigger risk factor for mental illness."

As a movement practitioner, I seek to want to move this right on out of the way. I understand why naming states of mental function help us as humans. As I read more, and listened to people react to this state of languishing, they felt relief that there is an official medically named space that outlines/depicts the struggle they feel with those feelings or behaviors that express them as a diminished-individual. Feeling diminished is a mighty powerful state even in the smallest dose. We see the effects of this embodied in the clients we serve--sometimes in protective posture that leads to tense head/neck/shoulder situations, sometimes in muscles that feel fatigue under little demand, no endurance, difficulty holding balance, or that real risky space when the person believes that pain in their body is just the way their body is going to operate--the new norm.

I want people to thrive. You don’t have to work in our field to want that for a human, AND it is a value of the team that I work with, AND as such, we discuss the pitfalls around this state of languishing with some regularity. What we have seen over the years, is that people get return on any size of plan and process they consciously move towards.

It’s dicey in this America, because our culture, both overtly and also obscurely, really makes the value in the effort only about the achievement it’s tied to. That's sludge on the human spirit. What happens when only goals with a conspicuous, remarkable profile are worthwhile? I think your builders get ignored or laid off and you stop growing because you have forgotten where growth actually comes from.

At a base level, what makes people of value is that they are a force of life. I fear that without plans and process in place, we are at risk for embodying diminished being ‘posture’. Plan and process are tools to the human that mold what that precious life force gets to do. It would be silly to think that you could value certain atoms of your body over others in terms of what made your ‘bestness’ possible. I kind of think that all the many acts of plan and process we practice as humans serve to amplify our spirit/life force, forming an offering of what we provide our community and ourselves.

Just like we always revere the power of movement, it’s true in mental work too.
Multidirectional movement makes for longer-stronger-stunning expressions in a human.
Any movement has value when you consciously decide to activate it.
Get it!

In robust growth!
Tami
[email protected]
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.html

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A foot exercise for strength...from your foot to your NAVEL!

4/1/2021

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In this newsletter, the staff of EQUIVITA focus on the Resistance Key of EQUIVITA’s Five Keys of Fitness, and this 3rd segment will demonstrate/examine the training of the foot using "short foot" exercises. The goals that influence this article arise from my personal interest in having a strong body for as long as I want one. Strong, smart feet feel important to that goal, AND I think our understanding of the importance of feet as it relates to powerful movement and/or movement longevity is poor, outdated, and littered in marketing myth.

The protocols that are feet specific, whether it be stretching the toes, or agility/flexibility drills or Short Foot exercises are recommended by most practitioners I have studied, to be performed every DARN day. In my observation many of us do not give our feet much provision in either training or consideration, we merely wear "good shoes" which may be the creation of largely outdated understandings that are a cost to the sensory function of our feet. Likewise, shoes can be seen as a structure of constriction that do not allow the foot to move force with power but encourages it to wither in braced, over padded, over lifted construction. So let’s power up.

Enter Short Foot

Short foot exercises are noted as the creation of a Czech physiotherapist named Vladimir Janda. By training the foot with Short Foot work, we can improve the control of the foot muscles and in turn create a more stable base of support for the leg, hips and the rest of the body. The ability to make a “short foot” is little about strength of the foot muscles, rather it’s more to do with the ability to use and control the intrinsic foot muscles. In other words, the ability to have these muscles “turn on”.

The words "turn on" nod to the way the intrinsic muscles of the foot--defined as group of little muscle that run mostly through the plantar arch--message upstream to the deep core to assist your body with the work of balance in motion. The deep core or inner core (goes by either) is made up of the pelvic floor, the diaphragm, the transverse abdominis and the multifidus. The deep core muscles, while only technically hosting one known Ab muscle, time off one another to assist you in staying balanced and up right during vertical movement of your body.

I find it very intriguing to continually learn how our amazing bodies stabilize us as we move like swift jungle cats on only two legs...it’s so interesting AND very lengthy to explain, so I have tried to lace this stuff together in the drawings below to provide some visual assistance. I have layered the deep front line of fascia with the muscles of the deep core and the intrinsic muscles of the foot, found mostly in your arch. I hope this seeds an image of why footwork and artful active control of the foot influence your best movement. When you practice the short foot exercises in the video instruction that Dr. Spichal has created, it is possible to feel the tightening in your lower abdomen when you draw the big to into a short position.

READY, SET...SHRINK

To begin, you may be seated or standing.

First roll a ball through the fascia of the foot. Dr. Emily Spichal recommends pressing the ball into the various places on the foot for a brief 5 count hold and moving around various places through the plantar arch, the heel and the toe box. I use a decent slow drag pressure roll, the point is to hydrate the fascia of the foot so it can better perform work and for that I think both likely get the job done.

Next wake up your toes by simply spreading the toes as wide apart as you can, if at first you need to assist the spread of your toes by using your hands, please do, the goal is to create new range opportunity towards widespread toes, and sometimes this requires assistance.

Now you are ready to isolate the big toe and the 4 toes separately. Press the big toe into the ground and lift the four toes and then press the four toes into the ground and lift the big toe. Alternate these foot positions 4-5 times--this exercise was also used last month in Top-quality Cardio Feet.

NOW you are ready to better engage Short Foot training. For this work I am going to direct you to a video created by Dr. Emily Spichal. She is a veteran at this training, and I think this does a great job covering a deceptively sophisticated concept, in clear, easy to follow instructions. She makes it clear how the foot communicates to the core, and I think if you practice with her video, you have a strong shot at feeling/strengthening the connection of your foot to your core.

HOWEVER, this video is shot so you can see her whole body, and I find it useful to see the foot close-up, to get the best results out of your short foot training. Please refer to the foot selfies below before linking to the video!

As you view the foot images here, notice that you only slightly lift the pad below the big toe. Dr. Emily states that you only want to contract at about 20% of your power, that cue should help the user keep the toes tugging against the ground without curling under...toes crossed!

Short Foot Exercise & Foot Activation with Dr Emily Splichal

Kick butt, with the strongest foot you got! If you have any questions about any of the content in this article, I am interested! Please feel free to email me at [email protected].
In robust health!
Tami

Sources:
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/49/5/290
Images:
https://www.theopclinic.com/op-explained/3-1-the-deep-front-line/
Myers, Tom. Anatomy Trains, Elsevier Ltd. New York, 2014
Special, Emily. Barefoot Strong: Unlock the Secrets to Movement Longevity, Dr. Emily Spichal, 2015

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Top-Quality Cardio Feet: Upgrade for Your Whole Life!…Functional Feet Part 2; Toes andAnkles in motion…(wah, wah)

3/1/2021

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Spread the toes wide, hold for a 3 count and pull them back together. Repeat for 7 reps.
Tap flat bare feet on the floor for 30 seconds, like flippers, then start to press the big toe into the floor and lift the four toes, and alternate lifting your big toes off the floor and pressing the four toes into the floor. Do this for 10 sets.
Loop a resistance band around the toe box area of the foot and flex and extend your foot for 30 seconds. Do that for two sets, alternating feet each time.
Loop your band around both feet. Next will want to rotate your foot at the ankle joint, back and forth. Or evert and invert the foot for 30 seconds.

Find a balance support, like a wall or the back of a chair, and begin with 30 calf raises using both legs (image not included). Next, stand on one foot and do try to do 20 calf raises through one foot at a time. Try this for several sets alternating right side and left side. To increase the challenge of step 5, use a stable prop, or a stair or the edge of an olympic weight plate and drop the heels below level. This can be performed using both feet together or using a single foot. Sets using both feet together should range from 20 to 30 reps each, for 2-3 sets total. Sets using one foot may range more like 15 reps each, for 2 sets, maybe 3. You want to feel some burn or fatigue set in, whatever it takes. :)
To increase the strength and responsiveness of the feet, you will notice Carla is hopping from foot to foot in the first image. In the second, Carla hops at a wider distance AND she executes an increased heel lift at the end of her hop. Perhaps start drills like this for 20 second intervals, resting for 5 count between, for 3 sets. Eventually see if you can hop around for 1 to 2 minutes. Take your time, allow your body to condition to this.

The exercises profiled in this article were chosen because I feel they have value and can be safely engaged by a broad body of humans with feet. Qualifier, foot care is most "straightforward" when you still sit in a place of prevention with the feet you have. If your feet experienced scar tissue, fracture or strain they most surely require steps for strength and mobility, but with slightly more specific considerations. When it comes to starting any new movement begin using a small range, at a slow speed, and as you teach your brain where your movements mobilize you can increase your range of motion, or reach, you can increase your speed or duration. Variables a plenty! If you have questions about any part of this content on toes and ankles in motion, please email me at [email protected].

In good health!
Tami

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Toning and Stretching for Your Diaphragm: The Basics

Map Your Marvelous Diaphragm

Got Tight Summer Feet? You Have Options!

The Interval

Basic Self-Release Work for your Sinuses

Synovial Joint Series - Part 2, Weight Lifting and Joint Health

Core of the Human Core

Meh...Languishing has hit many Americans in the course of the COVID 19 pandemic--so now what?

A foot exercise for strength...from your foot to your NAVEL!

Top-Quality Cardio Feet: Upgrade for Your Whole Life!…Functional Feet Part 2; Toes andAnkles in motion…(wah, wah)

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