Day 90-Dwight is Right

A couple of years ago, a hula hoop student of mine hobbled into hoop class, barely able to walk. When asked 'why?', she replied, "Oh, CrossFit. It's killing me."

I asked, "Um, are you telling your instructor when it hurts?"

To which she replied, "Yeah, once, but he said that 'pain is weakness leaving the body'."

Pain is weakness leaving your body. 

I was floored. Speechless. But, if you know me, you know I spoke anyway. And I said, 

"Bullshit. Pain is your body's warning system."

Pain IS your body's warning system.  

If you place your hand on a hot stove burner, do you leave it there while your skin crisps and sizzles like thin-sliced Canadian bacon? No, you jerk your hand away the second your brain registers the PAIN IN YOUR HAND. If you didn't, then you would burn. A lot. 

Pain would save you from doing this. 

Pain signals us that something is wrong. Emotional and physical. Today, I'm only going to discuss the physical part. Although when dipshits like the CrossFit instructor say things like that, I do get emotionally pained. 

I cried tears of joy when I found this on the IntraWebs this morning.

But I digress. 


If your neck aches, something is wrong. If your hip hurts, something is wrong. If your shoulder pains you, something is wrong. These pains are your body's way of saying, "Hey, man! Knock it off! Do something different and fix this because I'm telling you, it's not working!"

Ignoring these everyday aches and pains is folly, and I frequently see folks who have let those easily ignored warning signs go too far, until they are in serious, acute pain. Usually, they end up twisted in a chiropractor's office or lying on the couch with ice on their backs, their bodies pumped full of anti-inflammatory medicines or pain killers. 

Been there. Done that. It's dumb. 

When, after a day of working, your feet hurt, what goes through your head? Gee, maybe I've got the wrong shoes? Maybe I was standing in poor alignment? Maybe I need to stretch those muscles? 

If your shoulder is bothering you, do you consider examining and changing your daily habits and movements? 

Or do you just look the other way and learn to live with those warning signals? Think about it another way: 

If you were sitting in your house, and the smoke alarms started blaring, would you narrow your focus on the book you're reading and ignore the loud, incessant buzzing?

No, you wouldn't.
 
But some of us do it with our bodies every day. 

For years. Chronic pain is not a birthright, but many carry it as if it were theirs. 

Are you? 

Did you know that it's likely that you can fix/correct/heal/ease what's ailing you, perhaps easier than you may think? 

But first, you have to listen to your warning system, or you won't just burn your hand. You'll burn the whole house down, and then, where would you live?

Listen, 
Dani

Day 78- What are you practicing?

 

prac·tice  [prak-tis]

1. repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency: Practice makes perfect.

2. the action or process of performing or doing something: to put a scheme into practice; the shameful practices of a blackmailer.

 

In my line of work, I help people restore natural human movement to their lives, giving them simple, easy exercises and movement patterns to correct their poor everyday movement habits and ease them out of chronic pain. 

 

It's a great job. 

 

Sometimes. 

 

But often, simple solutions are met with serious resistance. 

 

I get people coming to me who are in pain, I mean, serious pain. I assess what they're doing wrong, give them 5-30 minutes of daily corrective, restorative exercises and stretches to do--many of these require little space, no equipment and little effort--and send them out the door. 

 

When I see them three weeks later, I ask about their progress. 

 

"Oh, I liked how it felt at first, and I was really good about it, but I didn't really have time to practice it."

 

 

Okay. 

 

You didn't have time to practice feeling better. 

 

To practice living healthier. 

 

Ruminate on this:

 

You are always practicing something. 

 

Really think about that. 

 

You are always practicing something. If you're not practicing walking, then you're practicing not walking, but rather, you're practicing sitting on your rear end.  If you're not practicing flossing, then you're practicing not flossing. Instead, you're practicing gum disease.If you don't have time to practice feeling better, that means you're actively practicing feeling overworked, stressed, unhappy, uncomfortable, out-of-whack, in pain.

Does that seem harsh? 

 

I'm telling you the truth. If you want to fix, change, do something, be good at something, then you must practice it. Otherwise, you're practicing NOT DOING IT. Is that really something you want to be good at? 

In our household, we never say, "Practice makes perfect." That's stupid. Who wants perfection? 

Instead, we say, "Practice makes you better."

Because it does. If you're not practicing getting closer to your goals, then what are you practicing?

Life is now. 

Dani

Special thanks to Katy Bowman, who said the words, "You're always practicing something." and changed the way I present things to myself and my clients. 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 24-Your little piggies need you now.

I need you to pay attention today. Everything I say matters a great deal to YOU and I don't want you to miss anything. I'll make it short, but I want you to chew on what I'm about to say for quite a while. 

The 52 foot bones make up for almost 25 percent of all the bones in your body. 

For reals. 

Look at the picture. 

The human foot has 26 foot bones, 33 joints, 107 ligaments, 19 muscles and tendons. These intricately designed structures have the potential to be as dextrous as your fingers. When I was a kid, I could scoop up peanuts with my toes and put them in my mouth! I could hold a stemmed wineglass steady in my toes and bring it to my mouth to drink. Of course, I wasn't drinking wine, but a stem glass was easier to hold than a tumbler.

How often do you consider your feet? When they ache? When you need a pedicure? 

Where would you be without them?

(I'm pausing dramatically and frowning a little so you can really digest the gravity of this issue.)
 

I'm going to gradually enlighten you about your feet. I want you to reconnect with your feet. I want you to love, love, LOVE your feet. And then I want you to start taking care of them like you take care of something you love.

So, for today and until I write about your feet again, consider this: Your fingers can do many, many wonderful things. Play piano, pick your nose, knit, draw, flip the bird, type, write, craft, build...on and on and on. 

Forget pulling out your wedgie with these suckers!

BUT...if I put thick, heavy mittens on your hands, how much of that stuff could you do? Make it leather mittens that prohibit the movement of your fingers up and down, side to side? Dang it, that pretty much reduces us to crouching in the corner, banging our heads against the wall until an orderly comes to feed us our pudding cup, no?

Try this, please: with your shoes on, move your toes up and down. 

How's that? 

Now take your shoes off and move your toes up and down. Do your feet move with them? Can you move your toes independently of your feet and then, independently of each other?

No?

What if that seriously reduced dexterity and movement was occurring in your fingers? You'd poop yourself, I bet. I know I would. 

And good luck wiping with mitten hands. 

Don't fail your feet. If you do, and they fail you, here's what's next:

And I'm pretty sure Zappos doesn't have free delivery on these. Yet.

We'll talk more, much, much more about your feet and how you can reclaim what you were born with. I just wanted to really, truly consider your feet for a few days. 

In tough love, 

Dani

Day 8-Talking the Walk

Today’s walk was fairly short---I spent all morning at my Exercise Rehab office downtown, trying to wrangle some new scheduling software. It was productive, but I was chomping at the bit to get outside and get my daily walk in. It seems to be a unanticipated benefit of Walk the Year. I can’t wait to walk. Hmm…how ‘bout that?

Since my brain had already worked pretty hard this morning, no brilliant ideas for books or profundities snuck into my head while I strolled. So, I won’t be able to pass any of my Jack Handy-esque Deep Thoughts your way today, but I can teach you something about walking. As in, the actual mechanics of good walking. I think I’ll do this every once in awhile. It’s good for me to verbalize what I know and have learned, and it’s good for you to perhaps learn something concrete about this absolutely perfect form of exercise. 

As long as you’re not on a treadmill.

That’s what I said. Get off your treadmill.

I know, I know, it’s irresponsible of me to dissuade you from exercising, right? Well, what if I told you that the same motion on a treadmill as the one you do outside uses fewer muscles? Wait! Don’t we want more muscles to burn more calories and help keep us in better alignment?

We do.

The “tread” on a treadmill moves in a constant circular motion so that you don’t walk into a wall. Unfortunately, as the “ground” rolls away from you, you’re not using all your muscles to “push off” in a natural gait pattern. You are simply lifting your leg (and using too much of your hip in the process!) and letting it fall again. This strain on your hip flexors, not to mention the complete under-utilization of your butt muscles (which are already seriously under-used due to your desk time), results in other parts of your body OVER-COMPENSATING which leads to…ahem…pain. 

Show Them Roundies Some Love! Get Off Them and Move Better!

Next time you try going it on the treadmill, pay attention to what your body does, and how it feels during and after. Then compare those feelings after a walk around your neighborhood or through the forest. 

For reals. 

I hope you enjoyed using all your muscles on your walk today, 

Dani