Speaker 1: Welcome to Moving Conversations, a podcast for movement professionals, by
Speaker 1: movement professionals. If you coach, train, or teach movement, plates
Speaker 1: or fitness, then this podcast is for you. With more
Speaker 1: than sixty years of experience and fitness and pilates. Your host,
Speaker 1: Brian Ritchie and Norse Saint John explored to science of
Speaker 1: human movement, diving deep into the backs, myths and common misconceptions,
Speaker 1: hoping to spark thought and conversation about how we view
Speaker 1: fitness and movement. Now let's jump into Moving Conversations and
Speaker 1: welcome back to Moving Conversations and Brian Richie joining me
Speaker 1: as always is Norse Saint John. Morning.
Speaker 2: Nor How you doing very well? Brian. I'm just about
Speaker 2: to head off to Raleigh, North Carolina to do a
Speaker 2: little advanced movement principles for the upper body. It will
Speaker 2: be hot, it will be sticky, but I'm looking forward
Speaker 2: to That's a really nice group, great group of people,
Speaker 2: a great studio, alec fortising at a little bit of
Speaker 2: the East coast, a little moment on the East coast.
Speaker 2: How about you? How's your weekend?
Speaker 1: I'll the safe wrong timing to come to the East
Speaker 1: Coast is all I'm saying yes, but you know what,
Speaker 1: it's actually not going to be that bad. The heat
Speaker 1: is going to supposedly dissipate. We had massive thunderstorms yesterday,
Speaker 1: so hopefully they will calm things down a little bit.
Speaker 1: My weekend was good. I spent the teaching. I was
Speaker 1: at Serene Pilates in Vienna, Virginia, teaching Anatomy and three
Speaker 1: dimensions to a bunch of new students, and it was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. It's always it's always interesting teaching
Speaker 1: new students because you and I teach a lot of
Speaker 1: advanced things and a lot of advanced students. So people
Speaker 1: who have been teaching for a long time, so to
Speaker 1: be around people who are just starting that there's in
Speaker 1: their infancy in their career path to pilates, it's really
Speaker 1: interesting to sort of see where they're at and go, huh, okay,
Speaker 1: some people know more than you think, some people know
Speaker 1: less than you think, and it's just an eye opening
Speaker 1: experience to be reminded of that and say, look, we
Speaker 1: all started somewhere.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and just for any of you out there who
Speaker 2: haven't done the anatom and three demand if you're any
Speaker 2: kind of have any interest in anatomy really at all.
Speaker 2: This program has absolutely changed how I see the body,
Speaker 2: how I understand the body. I've taught it a billion times,
Speaker 2: as says Brian, and building the muscles in clay on
Speaker 2: a skeleton is like, oh, oh that goes there, Oh
Speaker 2: that goes there. And I always say, it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: whether you know it or not, even whether you can
Speaker 2: remember the name or even the place, just the fact
Speaker 2: that you have an internal like that tenesthetic sense of
Speaker 2: the structure is just really great. So anyway, I'm so
Speaker 2: glad you're teaching that, Brian, and I'm just super excited
Speaker 2: that you're taking over that program and going to move
Speaker 2: it forward because it really is so valuable for all
Speaker 2: of us and the movement professions.
Speaker 1: Well, I think I told you the first time I
Speaker 1: took the class, you forced me to take it. I
Speaker 1: just I had walked in on one of your classes figuring, oh,
Speaker 1: hang out and here in the back, and you basically said,
Speaker 1: fit here and do it, yes, ma'am. And I did it.
Speaker 1: And I did six years of anatomy at university. I
Speaker 1: went all the way up as high as you can
Speaker 1: pre med with all the other pre med students, and
Speaker 1: this was the first class that I thought, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I am learning so much more on such a deeper
Speaker 1: level because most anatomy is taking off. It's the removal
Speaker 1: of even doing cadaver work is the removal of this
Speaker 1: is putting it on. So you start at the deepest
Speaker 1: level and build your way out. And that was mind boggling,
Speaker 1: which is why afterwards I said, I gotta do it.
Speaker 1: I gotta teach this class. This is it just blew
Speaker 1: me away. So I highly recommend it to anybody who
Speaker 1: hasn't taken it. Take it, even if if you have
Speaker 1: any interest at all in anatomy, any interest at all.
Speaker 2: And very simple, like when you talk about the difference
Speaker 2: and how I think of the differences because I've done
Speaker 2: a lot of Cadavra work and you've done a lot
Speaker 2: of Cadeva work as well. That's a destructive process, yes,
Speaker 2: and it's a little for me. It's a little bit
Speaker 2: like the difference of demoing a room in your house,
Speaker 2: if any you've ever done that, demo takes a day. Right,
Speaker 2: you just go in there and you just slash, burn, cut,
Speaker 2: slat whatever you have to do, right, throw the stuff
Speaker 2: in the dumpster and you're done. With whatever you're doing.
Speaker 2: Creating is the hard part, like having to make choices
Speaker 2: and decide what does that go? Here? Does that go here?
Speaker 2: Is that this shape or is that this shape? That's
Speaker 2: where the learning happens because you have to make all
Speaker 2: of those decisions with your hands, with your mind, with
Speaker 2: your brain, with the whole thing. And that's that's just
Speaker 2: that's a creative process as opposed to just tearing down.
Speaker 2: And yeah, again, dissection is incredibly valuable, do not get
Speaker 2: me wrong. Seeing a real body and what the real
Speaker 2: things look like and you know, in a dead body
Speaker 2: is incredibly valuable. But this this really put all the
Speaker 2: work I did there in context and gave it structure
Speaker 2: inside my brain that I can now use as my
Speaker 2: kind internal roadmap when I'm problem solving or trying to
Speaker 2: figure something out.
Speaker 1: And that problem solving is kind of what we're going
Speaker 1: to be talking about today in a great degree, because
Speaker 1: when you understand the structure, where you understand what's going
Speaker 1: on and how everything attaches Like I say, I've taken
Speaker 1: so many different classes at university and you learn origin insertion,
Speaker 1: but until you actually see it and build it and
Speaker 1: see exactly oh it attaches on this part of the book.
Speaker 1: Oh so it does this, So when the body's in motion,
Speaker 1: it does this and that, and it, as I said
Speaker 1: many times this weekend, no muscle works in true isolation.
Speaker 1: There are lots of things helping it. There's so much happening.
Speaker 1: And you and I were talking beforehand, and you brought
Speaker 1: up a subject that keeps coming up in your you know,
Speaker 1: advanced movement principles are muscular and balances, and I thought
Speaker 1: this is a perfect opportunity for us to go a
Speaker 1: little deeper into that and talk about, you know, some
Speaker 1: of the more common ones, but also what do you
Speaker 1: do about them and how do you deal with that?
Speaker 2: I get this question all the time, And as you know,
Speaker 2: both fitness and pilates have a ten see to be
Speaker 2: bilaterally symmetrical, you know, like especially traditional pilates or traditional fitness,
Speaker 2: you know, squats and lundons and things are done equally
Speaker 2: on both sides, and a lot of things are done
Speaker 2: with both arms or whatever. And one of the things
Speaker 2: that I realized early on, and I'm sure you did
Speaker 2: as well, is we all have a dominant side. We
Speaker 2: all have a stronger right leg or a stronger left arm,
Speaker 2: and it could be a little bit stronger, it could
Speaker 2: be a lot stronger, depending on all kinds of things.
Speaker 2: And changing that or even just trying to bring the
Speaker 2: weaker side back into a little closer to the other
Speaker 2: sides so you have more balance through the structure is
Speaker 2: actually way more challenging than I thought it was. I
Speaker 2: was a young teacher, you know, and some of that
Speaker 2: goes back to how our brains develop, right.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's amazing when you watch people move. The last
Speaker 1: client I had to today, she's a big time mover.
Speaker 1: She's a plates instructor. She is a big time mover,
Speaker 1: but she has some muskinner balances as well, and I
Speaker 1: was having her do certain exercises and I was seeing,
Speaker 1: oh wow, okay, there's you know, when you first see something,
Speaker 1: I think the first thing you sort of as we
Speaker 1: look at something is kind of like sort of like
Speaker 1: a dog that hears a funny sound. It sort of huh.
Speaker 1: You know, your head cocks to the side. You're like,
Speaker 1: something does.
Speaker 2: Something's off, something's different, right.
Speaker 1: And especially for people who are beautiful movers, there are
Speaker 1: some people out there who you could see their dysfunction
Speaker 1: from across the street, you know, mile away. But when
Speaker 1: it's someone who is a good mover, and some of
Speaker 1: you are going to be working with dancers or athletes
Speaker 1: or whatnot. It's a little harder to spot sometimes, so
Speaker 1: you're you're sort of do I see that? Or am
Speaker 1: I imagining it? So you have to sort of dig
Speaker 1: in and you ask questions, and you you start start
Speaker 1: piecing things together and go, oh, okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Then and you start, you know, piecing things together again
Speaker 1: and go back to the anatomy, go back to motion,
Speaker 1: and think, okay, how can we work on that? How
Speaker 1: can we work on just one side of it, you know,
Speaker 1: so that we're not going to be so bilateral. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's a great challenge and a wonderful
Speaker 1: thing that we get to do, but a lot more
Speaker 1: challenging than I think people ever think it's going to be.
Speaker 2: Things that I noticed. So I have a lot of
Speaker 2: you know, little little children around me, great newss and
Speaker 2: nephews and stuff of various different ages, most of them
Speaker 2: on the younger side. And I've just had a really
Speaker 2: enjoyable time. Many of you have kids, know this, watching
Speaker 2: them develop, watching them learn how to crawl and then
Speaker 2: learn how to walk, And one of the things that
Speaker 2: I will never forget is watching one good friend of
Speaker 2: mine's child when they were probably seven or eight months
Speaker 2: something like that, and they're really starting to kind of
Speaker 2: crawl and motivate themselves around the room on their belly.
Speaker 2: And this child from eight seven, eight nine months somewhere
Speaker 2: in that rain was basically crawling with one side like
Speaker 2: reach with the right arm and then the left knee
Speaker 2: and hip would flex and kind of they'd reach forward
Speaker 2: with that arm and they'd pull themselves up and the
Speaker 2: left hand would do about a quarter of that, and
Speaker 2: then the right hand would reach and then the left
Speaker 2: hand would do a little bit of that. This was
Speaker 2: from this was the beginning motor pattern for this child, right,
Speaker 2: And I could see, oh, that right side of dominance
Speaker 2: is happening now as we speak, right is developing at
Speaker 2: that moment. And that was just so interesting to me
Speaker 2: because when I've worked with those dominance patterns and myself
Speaker 2: or with my clients, it is that deeply wired that
Speaker 2: one side is going to just be in charge and
Speaker 2: the other side will do what it's told. And that
Speaker 2: deep neurological wiring is I think, why it's so hard
Speaker 2: to change. Yeah, you know, I think it's all in
Speaker 2: sort of nervous system based that their nervous system just
Speaker 2: goes right, right, right, right, left, right, left, right right.
Speaker 2: That's just I think that's how it's built wired.
Speaker 1: And if you think you want to go back to wiring,
Speaker 1: I forget who it was. But somebody a long time ago,
Speaker 1: probably in one of my university classes, said okay, cross
Speaker 1: your arms, and everybody crossed their arms. I see, now
Speaker 1: do it backwards, and you can literally see people not
Speaker 1: knowing how to put there are and finally they do it.
Speaker 1: And I think it might have been a neurologist who
Speaker 1: was talking, you know, lecturing for this class, and how
Speaker 1: did that feel? And you can just see all everywhere weird.
Speaker 1: Now do it with your legs, Yeah, everyone has one
Speaker 1: side that And now that I've gotten older, you can
Speaker 1: really see it in clients as well as with myself.
Speaker 1: One side is so natural and just sort of floats
Speaker 1: over there, and the other side little stick here, doesn't
Speaker 1: move quite as well, and you can really see, Wow,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of imbalance that occurs over a lifetime.
Speaker 1: But your patterns that you do over and over and
Speaker 1: over again do really set you on a path and
Speaker 1: sometimes you got to put up some roadblocks a little
Speaker 1: bit and say, okay, we to reverse this path or
Speaker 1: else it's going to be this way literally forever, or
Speaker 1: even if you.
Speaker 2: Can't reverse it at least like a lot of times,
Speaker 2: my experience has been it's really hard. I've got a
Speaker 2: real difference in the two sides to bring the lesser
Speaker 2: side or the weaker side up really up to match
Speaker 2: the other side. But oftentimes just bringing it up some
Speaker 2: just helps to balance those forces out. And so I
Speaker 2: talked about this being kind of like neurological development, but
Speaker 2: it also happens with sports. And I think about, you know,
Speaker 2: two of the upper body athletes that I worked with,
Speaker 2: the one who was a minor league pitcher and one
Speaker 2: who was a discus thrower, and watching them like they
Speaker 2: both had trained heavily one sided from young right from
Speaker 2: very young to a very high level of skill, and
Speaker 2: you know, I knew them twenty years after they'd given
Speaker 2: up those sports. But those imbalances were just profoundly still there.
Speaker 2: That right side was bigger. All the muscles of the
Speaker 2: arm and the leg were bigger the right director's. They
Speaker 2: were bigger on both of them. For a while, balanced
Speaker 2: body had this thing called a rocking reformer, which reformer
Speaker 2: that was on, and it was hilarious because if I
Speaker 2: put either of them on the rocking reformer, it would
Speaker 2: fall to the right because literally the right side of
Speaker 2: their body was that much heavier, wow, in this case
Speaker 2: from their earlier activities. And clearly they were dominant the
Speaker 2: right side anyway, which is why they they they you know,
Speaker 2: through with that side. But it was just interesting to
Speaker 2: see that, like, oh, okay, this is kind of deeply
Speaker 2: ingrained in your structure as we speak.
Speaker 1: Here and what you do regularly. You you talked about
Speaker 1: sports that are very unilateral. Coming from Hawaii, I've worked
Speaker 1: with UH surfers and for them, they have some of
Speaker 1: the best best developed lats I've ever seen, because it's
Speaker 1: a lot like the butterfly stroke. But yeah, great thorastic
Speaker 1: extension because lying on the board they have to lift
Speaker 1: their head to watch the wave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're.
Speaker 1: Using both our simultaneously. It's not one after the other
Speaker 1: for the most part to generate power. You see them
Speaker 1: really a lot of times in both arms.
Speaker 2: It really is almost butterflyish.
Speaker 1: Yeah. A lot of them, not all, but a lot
Speaker 1: of them will do that, especially as they're really powering
Speaker 1: through and their lads are their their shoulders, their scapula,
Speaker 1: everything seems to be fairly well balanced. And on the
Speaker 1: other side, I had a client who was a professional bodybuilder.
Speaker 1: She'd gotten her pro card, and I've probably told you
Speaker 1: this story before. I was looking at her neck and
Speaker 1: one side of her trapezius was a little larger than
Speaker 1: the other, her right side, and you kept looking at that,
Speaker 1: thinking that looks very odd, because it was. It was significant.
Speaker 1: But she's very bilateral. You watch all the exercises she does,
Speaker 1: and one day I said, I'm just going to watch
Speaker 1: you work out, and literally followed her around, and I
Speaker 1: realized that every time she did tricep work and pulled
Speaker 1: down work and things, she did it on a certain
Speaker 1: machine because she liked the way that the lights hit
Speaker 1: her body in the mirror, and so she could appreciate
Speaker 1: her form at this mirror really well, and so she
Speaker 1: always cocked her head to the side throughout the whole god,
Speaker 1: every repetition. And I'm watching this and I went, this
Speaker 1: is it, and she said, what do you mean. I said,
Speaker 1: try it on the other side of the machine. And
Speaker 1: you could see she was uncomfortable because she had grooved
Speaker 1: this again, she'd been at this for fifteen years or
Speaker 1: so at this point, right, and the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over and over, and she realized, Wow, something that subtle.
Speaker 1: But again she's building muscle and her head is cocked
Speaker 1: to the side the whole time observing herself. Created that imbalance,
Speaker 1: and we sort of, Okay, now we have to sort
Speaker 1: of see what we could do to balance that out,
Speaker 1: because I'm not sure if we can undo fifteen years
Speaker 1: on one side, but we did our best to try
Speaker 1: and balance things out.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's a great example of detective work right,
Speaker 2: detective work right. And it's also great a great example
Speaker 2: of what Eric Franklin says, which is practice doesn't make perfect,
Speaker 2: practice makes permanent.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: You know, whatever you do, whatever little things you do
Speaker 2: habitually over time, fifteen years of that particular pattern does
Speaker 2: something right. The repetition changes things. Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I see it all the time working with clients.
Speaker 1: I can often tell you if they work on a laptop,
Speaker 1: or if they work with their monitors slightly to the
Speaker 1: side on their desk, or you know, therapists, Okay, you're
Speaker 1: going to cross your right handed, you cross your left,
Speaker 1: your left leg over your right leg, you rotate to
Speaker 1: this toward that leg, and you write on that thigh.
Speaker 1: And so they have this curvature and this roundedness and
Speaker 1: everything is twisted, you know, thorastically to the left. And
Speaker 1: you watch them and you try and put them on
Speaker 1: something that is unstable and it starts to turn. Literally
Speaker 1: put them on things before where they're on a balanced
Speaker 1: disc that's on a very you know, thin point, you know,
Speaker 1: while holding onto something, and their whole body starts twisting
Speaker 1: and they're like, what's happening? Well, where am I going? What?
Speaker 1: And because they're not trying their bodies right wrist, but
Speaker 1: that those patterns begin to take shape just by holding
Speaker 1: onto some balance things, she's like, I'm turning? Why am
Speaker 1: I turning? I was like, well, that's exactly yeah. And
Speaker 1: it's funny to watch because it's like, all right, and
Speaker 1: you can see they go what happened? I said? Okay?
Speaker 1: And balance and you know those balanced discs are wonderful
Speaker 1: that you put someone on that and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden their feet will start twisting and they're like, I'm turning?
Speaker 1: Why am I turning? I don't know why I'm turning.
Speaker 2: Or you trying to have them say okay, so now
Speaker 2: rotate to the right, like do the twist, like we
Speaker 2: do these on roadchet of desks all the time. And
Speaker 2: it's like once I was like, way, I can go
Speaker 2: this way, and you try to go the other way,
Speaker 2: They're like, they'll look at you and they can't. Actually
Speaker 2: they keep trying to go, but they keep the same direction.
Speaker 2: I can't even get in the opposite direction, ye, right,
Speaker 2: because those things, again, those are those are built in.
Speaker 2: Another situation that happens in terms of just creating in
Speaker 2: balance is certainly habit motor controlled, you know, all the
Speaker 2: development things, but also after an injury. So you know,
Speaker 2: I think of a lot of my clients who've had
Speaker 2: something like a serious knee surgery, ACL repair or something,
Speaker 2: and so they've been number one, injured for a while
Speaker 2: before the surgery, so probably limping or not putting as
Speaker 2: much work on that leg. Then they have the surgery,
Speaker 2: they're typically not doing a lot for a period of time,
Speaker 2: and by the time you may get them after that
Speaker 2: or years later, sometimes you will still see a deficit
Speaker 2: from that surgery that could have been five years ago,
Speaker 2: but that leg never quite caught up, and especially if
Speaker 2: it wasn't the dominant leg before. If it was the
Speaker 2: dominant leg before, I find you will sometimes catch up.
Speaker 2: If it was never the dominant leg, It's like it
Speaker 2: will just leg a little farther behind where it used to.
Speaker 1: Be, and it could be. It's so significant that a
Speaker 1: lot of times after when I get someone and they've
Speaker 1: had a surgery, like you know, let's say their knee,
Speaker 1: I'll literally measure right to left their quadrucep bulk because
Speaker 1: that is the easiest way. And I've seen upwards of
Speaker 1: multiple inches two to three inch differences between sides because
Speaker 1: is it visible from the front, Yes, if you know
Speaker 1: what you're looking for, you can see that one slightly smaller,
Speaker 1: and you wouldn't think. You wouldn't think that many inches
Speaker 1: it would be because it just looks because you're looking
Speaker 1: at it from one angle, oftentimes from the front. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, that side looks a little smaller, and down
Speaker 1: towards the knee is usually a little bit more narrow.
Speaker 1: You can see it come to more of a point.
Speaker 1: They don't have as much bulk. And then you do
Speaker 1: the measurement, you know, you do exactly halfway up the
Speaker 1: thigh to start with, and sometimes I'll do a quarter
Speaker 1: away up the thigh as well to see if vassist mediatis,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, and you can definitely see a
Speaker 1: huge different sometimes and they don't They don't even notice it.
Speaker 1: They don't even notice it. I say, you don't notice
Speaker 1: that your genes are tighter on one side than the other. Oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't even think about that, But yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: they are. I said, Okay, this could be part of
Speaker 1: the reason. So that's one assessment that I'll do for
Speaker 1: that body part. You can do it for the upper
Speaker 1: body as well. Biceps, triceps, you know, measure that bulk
Speaker 1: as well, and sometimes you can spot it and think, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: we need to we need to work on all of this.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that I do a lot
Speaker 2: for the center of the body is look at the
Speaker 2: erectrospin a in some any kind of prone exercise or
Speaker 2: in our little standing motif that I work that we do,
Speaker 2: or somebody's prone unless they're doing prone pulling straps on
Speaker 2: the reformer or they're doing a swan somewhere, they're need
Speaker 2: some kind of back extension work. And you look and
Speaker 2: you'll see, like one side is much more developed than
Speaker 2: the other. And so that's again upper body, lower body center.
Speaker 2: All of them and one thing is all of them
Speaker 2: can be consistent or you can have those diagonal patterns.
Speaker 2: R right arm and left leg are the pattern. So
Speaker 2: it's always looking at is it just one side, one limb,
Speaker 2: one side or is it a cross body pattern? You know,
Speaker 2: where are they in terms of those imbalances.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you'll have the imbalance, especially with the spine
Speaker 1: I find the erectrospina. You'll see one side might be
Speaker 1: a significant amount of hypertrophy. When they're lying lying in
Speaker 1: the prone position, you can feel on their back one
Speaker 1: side is a lot higher. Now that side might actually
Speaker 1: be weaker because that side might be locked up. That
Speaker 1: may be where they'd had the pain for years. You
Speaker 1: don't know that. We're not here to diagnose that, but
Speaker 1: you can definitely see all right, there's definitely an imbalance
Speaker 1: between the sides. One side is a lot larger than
Speaker 1: the other, so either it's got to be stronger or
Speaker 1: there's dysfunction there. So that's when the detective work can
Speaker 1: say which side has been You know, did you have
Speaker 1: a back injury? Which side did you and oftentimes I'll say,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, and when they explain it, you say, okay,
Speaker 1: so we need to work on this side, We need
Speaker 1: to stretch this side more, we need to work on
Speaker 1: the other. And that's when you really do have to
Speaker 1: sort of be very detective like. But truthfully, that's one
Speaker 1: of the best ways you can do it. You just
Speaker 1: put your hands on it and you'll feel one side.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. If there's a difference, it's it's pretty obvious. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So now those are like all the many things that
Speaker 2: come into one sidedness, all the many reasons. Now what
Speaker 2: do you do? What strategies do you use in your
Speaker 2: programming to work on that? So let's let's first talk
Speaker 2: about kind of limb imbalances, okause I think they're a
Speaker 2: little bit easier than core imbalances. So what where do
Speaker 2: you go? How do you progress? Talk me through your strategies.
Speaker 1: I believe it if first of all, I'm going to
Speaker 1: work a lot harder on the side that needs it.
Speaker 1: So if let's say they've had their we're going to
Speaker 1: say it's on their non dominant legs. So they've had
Speaker 1: knee surgery or hip surgery on their left leg, its
Speaker 1: their non dominant side and I see a difference in
Speaker 1: quad bulk, I'm going to work that side probably three
Speaker 1: times more than the other. And when I say that,
Speaker 1: I mean unilateral work. So if they are already out
Speaker 1: of pain and we don't have to do a lot
Speaker 1: of those basic exercises, I like things like lunges and
Speaker 1: step ups and all of that, but I may do
Speaker 1: three sets on one side to one set on the
Speaker 1: other to see if I can eliminate some of that.
Speaker 1: I still want the other side to get strong, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, but I will still focus on getting
Speaker 1: that side to catch up if possible, if possible.
Speaker 2: So more basically, more reps, more sets on the weaker side.
Speaker 1: I think that's also that's absolutely useful, and that might
Speaker 1: be if they have a significant imbalance in this regard
Speaker 1: of let's say strength. If I do a single legged
Speaker 1: you know, leg press or a single legged squad or whatever,
Speaker 1: and one side their dominant side or the side that's stronger,
Speaker 1: let's say they're able to do, I'm just gonna round
Speaker 1: up and say one hundred pounds on a leg press
Speaker 1: type device on one side and the other side is
Speaker 1: seventy five pounds or something. Well, truthfully, I'm going to
Speaker 1: try and max out the weaker side, but I'm not
Speaker 1: going to necessarily max out the stronger side because I
Speaker 1: don't want both of them getting stronger at the same time.
Speaker 2: I don't want to keep that in balance going exactly
Speaker 2: right at the same right, just keeping that in balance going,
Speaker 2: but both sides getting stronger, yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, But I will still challenge it. So if it's
Speaker 1: max is that hundred pounds and that's what they're comfortable doing,
Speaker 1: whatever number of repetitions I've decided, I'll keep them there
Speaker 1: for a while because I don't want them to get weaker.
Speaker 1: I don't want them I don't want the other side
Speaker 1: to be the limiting factor because then you'll see not
Speaker 1: one side get stronger and the other get weaker. That's
Speaker 1: that's not good. So I'd rather have no So I
Speaker 1: keep that side at where it is, and then I
Speaker 1: focus on the weaker side, and I, like I say,
Speaker 1: I'll do at least two to one ratio a lot
Speaker 1: of times three to one ratio to see if I
Speaker 1: can catch up or at least get them closer to balance.
Speaker 1: Quad bulk may never come back one hundred percent, especially
Speaker 1: if it's in the non dominant side. But if I
Speaker 1: can get the strength back at least so that they're
Speaker 1: pushing equally on both sides, then okay, that can be
Speaker 1: a huge game changer for how they function in life.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so I think that's a that for me is
Speaker 2: like the beginning point, right, is just working the others,
Speaker 2: working the less active side or the less dominant side
Speaker 2: or the weaker side more. And you know, in pilates,
Speaker 2: this means working on single sided work, asymmetrical work, which
Speaker 2: we don't always emphasize in pilates, but that's that's where
Speaker 2: I go. Single egg footwork, single egg knee stretch, single
Speaker 2: egg footwork on the chair, things like that. One other
Speaker 2: thing that I've found, which I've also found to be
Speaker 2: pretty useful is having them focus on the less active
Speaker 2: side in all of their bilateral work. So just like, look,
Speaker 2: so they're doing a squad or they're doing footwork on
Speaker 2: the reformer with both legs, just think about the less
Speaker 2: active side. Just think about the left side or the
Speaker 2: right side, whichever one it is, and then keep focusing
Speaker 2: on that. Just pay attention to that less active side.
Speaker 2: I've found, like for things like feet and straps, where
Speaker 2: a single like fet and straps are relatively advanced on
Speaker 2: the reformer for someone who doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 2: core stability, So I'm not necessarily going to do single
Speaker 2: eg feet and straps, but I might say lead every
Speaker 2: movement with your weaker leg, you know, so if you're
Speaker 2: doing circles or whatever, just think left, think left, think left,
Speaker 2: and they'll they'll find generally like, oh my god, that
Speaker 2: leg is so much more tired, just from the mental
Speaker 2: focus on it. So that's another technique that I use
Speaker 2: a lot in terms of just trying to get that
Speaker 2: balance going a little bit more.
Speaker 1: And something that I noticed especially I do bilateral work.
Speaker 1: If they're in a machine or something like that, they're
Speaker 1: locked into position. Even on the reformer, a lot of
Speaker 1: times they're going to be more locked into position that
Speaker 1: if they're doing a free squad for instance, or getting
Speaker 1: up out of a chair or something like that, where
Speaker 1: their body they have to stabilize from the ground up,
Speaker 1: and do they lean, do they shift their weight from
Speaker 1: one side to the other, And I'll let them do
Speaker 1: a couple of repetitions, because sometimes their body's just trying
Speaker 1: to organize, so that can take a repetition or two.
Speaker 1: But three, four or five reps. Those numbers, I start
Speaker 1: watching and I'll put their awareness as to what I see.
Speaker 1: So with my client this morning, when I saw that
Speaker 1: there was a little imbalance in her hips, I would
Speaker 1: saying I wanted her to focus more on that side
Speaker 1: and put her attention into it. And again, she's a mover.
Speaker 1: She understood exactly what I said. But sometimes it's as
Speaker 1: much as I want you to think about pushing a
Speaker 1: little harder with your left leg. It could be something
Speaker 1: as simple as that. Yeah, and or can you see
Speaker 1: your belt? A great thing to do is if they
Speaker 1: can wear a belt, or if you have a belt
Speaker 1: that you can put around them and make sure it's
Speaker 1: even on both sides based on you know where their
Speaker 1: hips are, and say, okay, I just want you to
Speaker 1: watch this belt as you do this exercise and do
Speaker 1: you see it tilting to one side? Wow? Yeah, Say okay,
Speaker 1: let's keep it balanced. Let's try and keep that straight.
Speaker 1: And what you're going to find is it's going to
Speaker 1: reduce their range of motion. Because a lot of people
Speaker 1: have it and have something in their head about I
Speaker 1: need to do this to full range of motion, whatever
Speaker 1: that is for the person I'm not saying right or wrong.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: They may have some preconceived notion. So I'll say go
Speaker 1: half that, go half that. As soon as I see
Speaker 1: that start to change, I say, okay, that's your limiting factor.
Speaker 1: Let's stop there, yep, and let's do twenty reps. Let's
Speaker 1: try and groove this. And you put your focus on
Speaker 1: the weaker side. And I find sometimes having that visual
Speaker 1: because not everybody's kinesthetically aware, but having that visual can
Speaker 1: actually make them say, oh I see that, I see that,
Speaker 1: and that really helps, especially and you get into some
Speaker 1: corese stuff and pelvic stuff and you know, hip stuff,
Speaker 1: because you're going to see that belt line start to
Speaker 1: sink one side to the other when they're doing certain exercise.
Speaker 1: You'll be like, okay, get that straight, get that belt
Speaker 1: line straight, come on now, or tucking your shirt and
Speaker 1: you can see it at their belt line and their
Speaker 1: pats sort of thing, say I want that balanced, and
Speaker 1: that can bring them aware visually, and sometimes that can
Speaker 1: really make a world of difference.
Speaker 2: So that brings us to kind of the second key principles.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: First one is just do more on the weaker side.
Speaker 2: But what you're talking about here is not just that
Speaker 2: it is improving the movement pattern on the less active side. Right,
Speaker 2: So that's that next level. Right, first thing is just
Speaker 2: do more, because I think doing more is part of it,
Speaker 2: for sure, But the other one is doing more better. Right, Yes,
Speaker 2: just doing more but doing it better. And so for me,
Speaker 2: one image that I often use there is the idea that, like,
Speaker 2: you're too sides are two individuals. They're not twins. They're
Speaker 2: not identical twins. Then maybe fraternal twins. So what I've
Speaker 2: got somebody really has those imbalances. I said, rather than
Speaker 2: thinking of this as the bad side, and this is
Speaker 2: the good side, because that's almost always a language every
Speaker 2: client will.
Speaker 1: Show up with everyone.
Speaker 2: I say, okay, so this is Louise and this is Alice.
Speaker 2: These are my own particular right and lefts. And I say, now,
Speaker 2: when I'm working on my right leg, which for me
Speaker 2: is my dominant side, what does it need? Like just
Speaker 2: ask the question, like what do I need to make
Speaker 2: this side work its best? It needs this, this, and this.
Speaker 2: When I go to my weaker side, what almost everybody
Speaker 2: does is like first they just get frustrated and angry,
Speaker 2: like why doesn't it do what the other side does?
Speaker 2: Like there's all these really weird, not helpful psychological pieces. Right, well,
Speaker 2: you're just stupid, like some parties going this side is
Speaker 2: just stupid. Why isn't doing what it's supposed to do.
Speaker 1: Why can't you do it?
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, exactly, you idiot. Instead it's like, what
Speaker 2: are you doing? What do you need to do this better?
Speaker 2: And as an and as an educator, as a teacher,
Speaker 2: I'm also looking at what do they need on that
Speaker 2: side to do that better? Because sometimes that dominance is
Speaker 2: because they have more hip range of motion so they
Speaker 2: can't control it as well. And maybe they have less
Speaker 2: ankle range of motions so they can't go as deep
Speaker 2: in that squat, so all their mechanics are different on
Speaker 2: that leg, right, So it's not just the difference in more,
Speaker 2: but also why if there is a why why is
Speaker 2: that leg not working as hard? And if is there
Speaker 2: something I can do to help it work harder, increase stability,
Speaker 2: increase mobility, work on alignment, correct some other piece of
Speaker 2: the situation.
Speaker 1: And that in my brain comes down to the next
Speaker 1: stage of sort of detectiveness, which is, okay, what exactly
Speaker 1: is the imbalance? Because if we just say, let's say
Speaker 1: we're working with the thigh, for instance. Well, a lot
Speaker 1: of people say, well, it's obviously going to be, you know,
Speaker 1: one side versus the other. Well maybe, but is it
Speaker 1: the quadricep, is it a part of the quadricep, the
Speaker 1: lateral or medial? Is it quadriceps versus hamstrings? Is it
Speaker 1: the adductor versus the abductor. There's a lot of balance
Speaker 1: that happens within that one limb, and sometimes one of
Speaker 1: those is super strong, but another one is the weak link.
Speaker 1: And unless you can sort of identify that and say, oh, wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're actually not weak in your ab doctors, your glutes
Speaker 1: are actually fairly strong, but your adductors, man, they just are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are not nearly strong enough exactly. So it's affecting
Speaker 1: everything else. But if all you think about is I
Speaker 1: need grouts, I need my groups to be stronger, well
Speaker 1: that might be part of it. And at the beginning
Speaker 1: it is just okay, we need gross strength. But down
Speaker 1: the road you have to really sort of figure out, okay,
Speaker 1: what else is necessary? What of those all those muscles,
Speaker 1: which is the weakest link. Let's start focusing on that
Speaker 1: one specific.
Speaker 2: Right, So we've just gone from a gross general, do
Speaker 2: more on the left leg, or do more on the
Speaker 2: left arm, or whatever it is to improve in the
Speaker 2: movement pattern and identifying why that movement pattern is or
Speaker 2: isn't doing what you wanted to do to that next
Speaker 2: level of or that a deepening of that which part
Speaker 2: of that area isn't working for you, right, and then
Speaker 2: trying to correct that as much as you can that
Speaker 2: precise imbalance. I mean, a classic thing I think of
Speaker 2: is a lot of the diagonal patterns that you're actually
Speaker 2: stronger on your left quad and your right hamstring yep,
Speaker 2: right that there's oftentimes those kind of patterns or even
Speaker 2: more commonly, your right ab doctors and your left ad
Speaker 2: doctors are dominant and your other two are like out
Speaker 2: to lunch. If there's a little hip imbalance or there's
Speaker 2: a little hip shift, or there's a pelvic rotation, any
Speaker 2: of those things are going to create those kind of imbalances,
Speaker 2: and those are more subtle right Like in that case, Okay,
Speaker 2: I've got to really get your left ab doctors going
Speaker 2: and your right ad doctor is going, for instance, and
Speaker 2: then working on like like not just more on one
Speaker 2: leg because the left of the less size acting weaker
Speaker 2: not just more on the left, it's more of these
Speaker 2: on the left, more adductor work on the left, and
Speaker 2: more ad doctor work on the right. So that's again
Speaker 2: we're just like deepening those layers of understanding to try
Speaker 2: to get as focused as we can. But in all
Speaker 2: those circumstances, you need to do more of what isn't working.
Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely, And I think those are some of the
Speaker 1: things that people miss h And you said it perfectly.
Speaker 1: When you're looking at the lateral line. While that right
Speaker 1: gluteous medius may not be strong, but that often means
Speaker 1: that that left a adductor group is also not quite
Speaker 1: as strong. So but people don't see that side, so
Speaker 1: all they're doing is working on the gluteaus. Media is
Speaker 1: doing all the sideline work, stepping sideways, all of those
Speaker 1: type of exercises without addressing part B, Part B or
Speaker 1: even part C. It's not necessarily the primary, you know,
Speaker 1: limiting factor, but it's contributing to it, especially in walking,
Speaker 1: in balance work, in stepping up you know, stairs, all
Speaker 1: of those type of things, and people don't always put
Speaker 1: that together. So, like you said, if the quad on
Speaker 1: one side is strong, the hamstring on the other side
Speaker 1: may be well, reverse that and maybe focus on that
Speaker 1: a little bit. And you're right, those diagonal patterns, when
Speaker 1: we see those, it's sort of ah okay. So if
Speaker 1: you see one thing that's you know, short, you know,
Speaker 1: shortened up on one side and not really strong, see
Speaker 1: if the other side, if there's something missing there too,
Speaker 1: because that diagonal pattern might be it.
Speaker 2: And that gets us into a bit of my lower body.
Speaker 2: We've talked in many different things about assessing and understanding
Speaker 2: that this gets into the core a bit, because that's
Speaker 2: where you really see those diagonal patterns, yes, a lot, right,
Speaker 2: just as you talked about your wonderful case example earlier
Speaker 2: of the rotation.
Speaker 1: Yep, you know.
Speaker 2: So if you are familiar with the bounce spider language
Speaker 2: on this, the anterior and post, your oblique slings, or
Speaker 2: the muscles that go from right shoulder to your left
Speaker 2: hip and your left shoulder to your right hip in
Speaker 2: the front and in the back, those are really what
Speaker 2: control and manage the rotation of the torso. And very
Speaker 2: often just from daily life, from driving, from mousing, from
Speaker 2: your point being a therapist, from pitching, you get really
Speaker 2: wound up in one sign and not in the other,
Speaker 2: and that creates different forces through the spine, different forces
Speaker 2: through the neck, different forces through the hips and everything
Speaker 2: else down and up the chain, right, So that's that
Speaker 2: next piece is then how do you look at those
Speaker 2: rotations and how do you balance out some of that
Speaker 2: in the core.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about the oblique slings because I
Speaker 1: think understanding those is very important. And I find the
Speaker 1: posterior oblique sling is usually the weakest because often a
Speaker 1: lot of spinal you know, rehabilitation work with people. So
Speaker 1: the glutes oftentimes are going to be one of the culprits.
Speaker 1: They're not that strong, but it's the opposite lat So
Speaker 1: if it's my right glute that's not strong, and you
Speaker 1: can often see that again if you put them in
Speaker 1: a prone position, one side of their glute looks like
Speaker 1: it's hypertrophed and the other side looks like it's kind
Speaker 1: of saggy. Oftentimes that me an indication, oh, I need
Speaker 1: to focus on that side a little bit more. But
Speaker 1: one other one of the way tin this thing, friend.
Speaker 2: One other way I see that is when people stand up,
Speaker 2: you'll see that the high perture feed glute, that glue
Speaker 2: you'll fold that bottom of the butt is higher. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you see it prone, but you'll also just see it standing.
Speaker 2: I just want to throw that out there. Carry on.
Speaker 1: So when we're talking about that POSTERI oblique sling system,
Speaker 1: a lot of times what I'll do is I will
Speaker 1: want to again do more rotation work, shortening that side.
Speaker 1: So after I've already worked the glute, maybe I've done.
Speaker 1: And you can even do this through Britain Jin. If
Speaker 1: you get to the point where you're doing one legged bridging,
Speaker 1: well guess what if you push down with the opposite
Speaker 1: arm into the ground, and I like to do it
Speaker 1: with a bent elbow, so I'm pushing my elbow into
Speaker 1: the ground.
Speaker 2: I find that like your back of your whole upper
Speaker 2: arms in it. Yeah, I mean yeah.
Speaker 1: A lot of people will push with their hand and
Speaker 1: that's okay, but I find that they start rounding their shoulder.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: If i'm hand the hand gets more pecky, and if
Speaker 2: I really push back, I can get more la laddie.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. And it's a little bit more of an
Speaker 1: isometric because the range of motion is quite small within
Speaker 1: the hip and you're really being isometric in the lad However,
Speaker 1: it can begin to wake that area up a little bit,
Speaker 1: and then once it's woken up, I can take them
Speaker 1: to doing some standing work, and I love doing standing work. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll take them into a staggered stance where if it's
Speaker 1: their right glute that's weak, I'll take the right leg back,
Speaker 1: left leg forward, and I'll do a row with my
Speaker 1: left arm so that every time I pull with my
Speaker 1: lat guess what, my glute is also going to have
Speaker 1: to stabilize on that side. And I'll add rotation on
Speaker 1: that side, adding more rotation because again we have a
Speaker 1: tendency to think of rotation being for the core, for
Speaker 1: the abs, and we do forward flection with rotation, but
Speaker 1: we really want to do more rotation in an upright
Speaker 1: position because if I have to open the refrigerator, if
Speaker 1: I have to close the door, if I have to
Speaker 1: whatever I'm doing, I'm often going to be in a
Speaker 1: standing position.
Speaker 2: Really my line down absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I like doing the unilateral work that way,
Speaker 1: and I will do two or three sets on that
Speaker 1: side versus one set on the other. And again it's
Speaker 1: mainly for the core, so I'm not necessarily thinking about
Speaker 1: I'm building my posterior shoulder girdle on that side. A
Speaker 1: lot of times it's more about the rotation and it's
Speaker 1: just grooved that rotation. And I'll do a lot of
Speaker 1: repetitions just to remind the body this is what I want.
Speaker 1: So I might do twenty twenty five repetitions with a
Speaker 1: medium weight, not anything too heavy, and change from cables
Speaker 1: to springs to bands to everything, because every resistance is
Speaker 1: going to feel a little bit different.
Speaker 2: And so I love that. I love absolutely how that works.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I focus on a lot
Speaker 2: with those imbalances like you is the posterious sling is
Speaker 2: just thinking about that back shoulder to the back opposite glute,
Speaker 2: and I even work on that, just that imagery in
Speaker 2: any kind of oblique abdominal work. And kind of my
Speaker 2: favorite way to do that is putting a small ball,
Speaker 2: small inflatable ball under the rib cage, support the head
Speaker 2: with the hands, just you know, you're in a curl
Speaker 2: position and you're not all the way up, You're like
Speaker 2: halfway up into your curl, and take your rotations from there.
Speaker 2: And this is more about the lab but this will
Speaker 2: also gets a little bit into the glute. But basically
Speaker 2: it's like working on rotating, but instead of thinking of
Speaker 2: front shoulder to front hip or front rib case to
Speaker 2: front hip opposite side, I think of that back shoulder
Speaker 2: to that back hip, and also think about really rotating
Speaker 2: from the spine and keeping it centered. And when I
Speaker 2: even just add that queuing in to any of my
Speaker 2: oblique work, number one, people tend to go a whole
Speaker 2: lot farther. Like they get more range because they're using
Speaker 2: more of the body. They wake up that back sling,
Speaker 2: which is usually pretty sleepy in that position because you're
Speaker 2: slightly flexed. And it also really helps to keep the
Speaker 2: toruso more centered over the pelvis. If you think of
Speaker 2: most people when they do an oblique abdominal of some kind,
Speaker 2: they really sidebend a lot. They tip back and forth
Speaker 2: and that's usually what you'll see. And this, especially with
Speaker 2: the ball, really helps them to have that rotation, be
Speaker 2: a little purer around that rotational component and getting that
Speaker 2: back slang going. But I love the standing work. I
Speaker 2: think is really the most effective. Our version of that.
Speaker 2: All the applaudes people would be like standing on the
Speaker 2: end of the trap table with the springs, same idea.
Speaker 2: We can do all that work.
Speaker 1: Yep, And you can even do it on the reformer,
Speaker 1: standing off the reformer to the side with a relatively
Speaker 1: light spring, or and do it that way as well,
Speaker 1: because then it turns it into sort of a cable machine,
Speaker 1: which you're using the springs. Your range of motion is
Speaker 1: going to be not as great as let's say a
Speaker 1: cable machine or a band. Just be aware it's going
Speaker 1: to get hard faster. But it is another option that
Speaker 1: you can use in the plot's world. I have something
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up with you and a little
Speaker 1: sidebar here. Okay, talking about the postterial bleak sling. A
Speaker 1: long time ago, someone mentioned that doing opposite arm and
Speaker 1: leg rays is really getting at the postterial bleak sling.
Speaker 1: So your quadruped, you're down on all fours, you lift
Speaker 1: one leg and the opposite arm forward, and it made sense.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you're really lengthening your lat
Speaker 1: you're really not shortening your lad. And so I've had
Speaker 1: I've had many conversations and arguments here and something that
Speaker 1: I'll sometimes do is instead of having them take the
Speaker 1: arm forward, I'll have them take it out to the
Speaker 1: side instead start getting a little bit more. I don't
Speaker 1: have them rotate. And if they have one side that's weaker,
Speaker 1: I'll just have them hold that side for five seconds.
Speaker 1: The other side maybe hold for one one and a
Speaker 1: half seconds, and just have them do a little longer
Speaker 1: isometric hold in that regard. And I kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to hear what your thought was on that being the
Speaker 1: posterterio oblique sling when the arm is going forward, when
Speaker 1: you're stretching out the lad and not necessarily contracting it
Speaker 1: into the opposite glute, what do you think? You know?
Speaker 2: I've had that thought many times.
Speaker 1: You too, right, Okay, I'm not the only one, you know, And.
Speaker 2: I've kind of like walked around that conflict in my brain.
Speaker 2: So well, you know, hey, you do that, you just
Speaker 2: like and you just zip around that little doubt that
Speaker 2: shows up in your head. So yes, I have had
Speaker 2: exactly the same moment. So let's think about that. One
Speaker 2: thing that I think about is as a general thing,
Speaker 2: is that the slings are, uh, you know, the way
Speaker 2: the way that I've kind of taken them from Diane
Speaker 2: Lee and expanded them slightly from my own purposes and
Speaker 2: for our purposes a movement, the slings are are again
Speaker 2: still metaphors for all the things that are involved in
Speaker 2: those moves, and I know when I'm going to lift
Speaker 2: up my let's say I'm in all fours and I'm
Speaker 2: doing an opstarm a leg reach or bird dog, whatever
Speaker 2: you want to call it, and I'm reaching my right
Speaker 2: arm up and my left leg up. I am definitely
Speaker 2: activating the back of my body from that right arm
Speaker 2: to the left hip. Right lat is maybe part of that.
Speaker 2: It may be contracting in an elongated state right because
Speaker 2: it is elongated there.
Speaker 1: But it also can be it can you know, can be.
Speaker 2: Active there anyway. And of course other things are working.
Speaker 2: Our retrospin a and you know, our postory deltoid, a
Speaker 2: lot of other things are kind of in action there
Speaker 2: m h. And so some of me just thinks, well,
Speaker 2: it may not be exactly the muscles that we talk
Speaker 2: about for the postteri obilique sling. But I also think
Speaker 2: think about swimmers, all right, because again you've worked on
Speaker 2: with swimmers after a lot with swimmers, and their lats
Speaker 2: are gigantic, to your point with your surfers, right, their
Speaker 2: lats are gigantic. And yes, a lot of it is
Speaker 2: that that stroke, that that crawl stroke or that butterfly stroke.
Speaker 2: Right arm forward and then you pulled back with the lat. Well,
Speaker 2: there's a there's a there's a piece of that that
Speaker 2: that you know again comes up overhead and then comes
Speaker 2: back down, and so that that lat is in action.
Speaker 2: It's sort of eccentric concentric, eccentric concentric or right concentric eccentric,
Speaker 2: eccentric concentric. And part of my feeling is that that
Speaker 2: works east centrically or eccentrically as well as concentrically.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1: Thought, yeah, the gang, we're literally spitballing here. And the
Speaker 1: only reason I bring this up is because this is
Speaker 1: something that Nora and I would do on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: you know, throughout our whole careers. We'd sit there and say,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this, and so this is something
Speaker 1: that I never brought up with you, and I thought,
Speaker 1: you know what, this is a good opportunity since we're
Speaker 1: talking about this what I've told people, because I've had
Speaker 1: I've had students ask me this, as I say, think
Speaker 1: of it as an anti rotation type of exercise. As
Speaker 1: soon as I lift my arm up on that side
Speaker 1: and the opposite leg, my body really wants my limbs
Speaker 1: to go down. So I have to elevate that to
Speaker 1: prevent that rotation. So I say, so, technically, I'm working
Speaker 1: those muscles of rotation on you know, the torso, the
Speaker 1: upper torso on one side and the lower torso on
Speaker 1: the other side, so it's more of an anti rotation
Speaker 1: static hold. And when I've explained that, I've gotten people thinking, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: now again, could I be making something up and pulling
Speaker 1: something out of somewhere odd out?
Speaker 2: However, if it works.
Speaker 1: Made sense in my brain. It made sense in my
Speaker 1: brain at the moment, and I just said okay, and
Speaker 1: I played with that again. I also will teach that
Speaker 1: move with the arm out to the side because it
Speaker 1: also challenges more of that rotation, so it adds to
Speaker 1: that de rotation factor. So these are just again I
Speaker 1: wanted to throw that out there because we are talking
Speaker 1: about correcting those imbalances. So if you can have them
Speaker 1: hold longer on one side when you're trying to get
Speaker 1: the posterial o blick sling, for instance, you can really
Speaker 1: sort of get that to wake up a little bit more.
Speaker 1: So maybe a three to five second hold versus a
Speaker 1: one second hold on the other side. I find that
Speaker 1: that sometimes can just wake it up. And I think
Speaker 1: for the core especially we're talking about the slings, we're
Speaker 1: not always talking about a hypertrophy situation or a string
Speaker 1: situation as much as it's a neurologic and a reprogramming
Speaker 1: and patterning situation.
Speaker 2: Exactly, an activation and coordination situation. Yeah, And what I
Speaker 2: like what you're just saying. I wanted to amplify that
Speaker 2: just a little bit. One of the things that I
Speaker 2: do a lot is things like isometric holds for an
Speaker 2: area that's asleep. You know, whether it's a vassist mediallist
Speaker 2: contraction for the quadriceps, or in this case, it's like
Speaker 2: a rotation where you hold that rotation or an anti
Speaker 2: rotation like you're doing, you know, being on an unstable
Speaker 2: surface for example, or what you're just talking about, and
Speaker 2: just holding that and feeling what's working in that moment.
Speaker 2: And I do this, honestly, this all the time on
Speaker 2: myself with my particular imbalances. Is I just hang out
Speaker 2: on the side that doesn't do the job and try
Speaker 2: to figure out, like, what isn't working, what this is
Speaker 2: just from an internal perspective, but I do it as
Speaker 2: a teacher as well, what's not working. What's it different
Speaker 2: on that side? Can I get that energy moving through?
Speaker 2: Let's say for me it's my left biceps wacky and
Speaker 2: my left bicep attendant is always a little wacky, Like,
Speaker 2: can I get that energy move there? Can I hold
Speaker 2: that and then find that scapuld replacement for example, and
Speaker 2: just find it and then move out of it and
Speaker 2: then move back into it. So it's also that self
Speaker 2: for me, self identification of where the differences are and
Speaker 2: then again issymmetrically waking them up and then working them.
Speaker 2: And that wake up and then work is another classic
Speaker 2: thing for all of this, because if if you've got
Speaker 2: a weak side, a particularly like with erectrospine, if you
Speaker 2: don't wake it up, it won't do the job. It
Speaker 2: will never wake up on all these things will not
Speaker 2: wake up on their own, It's been my experience. So
Speaker 2: you have to do something to give them a little
Speaker 2: a little slap in the face to get them to
Speaker 2: actually pay attention. Then they'll start to participate in the move.
Speaker 2: But without a little wake up call, sometimes they don't
Speaker 2: ever really wake up. They just don't.
Speaker 1: And I think this sorty goes on to the next
Speaker 1: point if for me, which is awareness. I want to
Speaker 1: make the client aware of what are you feeling. Let's
Speaker 1: face it, our clients in general, and maybe some of
Speaker 1: you even out there listening, aren't really aware of how
Speaker 1: your body feels, what's working, what's not working. People sort
Speaker 1: of sleep walk through life, and it's because they're just
Speaker 1: moving unconsciously, which is fine. In a perfect world, we
Speaker 1: would all move perfectly through an unconscious movement pattern. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: we're not all perfect, and that's okay. But to bring
Speaker 1: someone's awareness to it, and you just said it yourself.
Speaker 1: When you hang out there, you're asking yourself what do
Speaker 1: I feel? And sometimes you can do it through body sense,
Speaker 1: where you say, can you feel this with this arm?
Speaker 1: How about the here? You know, put your hands on
Speaker 1: both hip bones and do this movement. Do you see
Speaker 1: how one's not working the same as the other? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel that? Or can you feel how one side
Speaker 1: of your erectors just bulges up really big to the
Speaker 1: other side. When you can do that and give them
Speaker 1: that awareness, suddenly you're giving them the responsibility. So you
Speaker 1: can give them homework and you can say, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: going to work on this, and you're gonna do this
Speaker 1: for one minute a day. Don't give them too much
Speaker 1: because obviously they won't do it. But by making them
Speaker 1: aware and putting them into the respons giving them that
Speaker 1: responsibility and so that they're taking an active part in
Speaker 1: their healing, their recovery, or they're you know, trying to
Speaker 1: lessen the imbalances. I'm not going to say eliminate, but
Speaker 1: lessen the imbalances to hopefully get them out of, you know,
Speaker 1: some dysfunction. I think that's valuable to give them that.
Speaker 2: It's critical And to your point earlier about the belt,
Speaker 2: it's like, if they if they can't feel it internally,
Speaker 2: can they see it visually? Can they you know, can
Speaker 2: you put them on a roll or where they feel
Speaker 2: like they fall over to the right or it's harder
Speaker 2: to balance on their left, like enhance their proper reception
Speaker 2: through vision, through internal sensation, you're putting them on unstable surfaces,
Speaker 2: changing the pressure tactile with your hands or their hands,
Speaker 2: like all the different ways that we've talked about another
Speaker 2: podcasts about helping them to feel it. That's the key
Speaker 2: thing because if they can be aware that their left
Speaker 2: arm is not doing the same thing as their right arm,
Speaker 2: for example, then then if they're aware of that more
Speaker 2: of the day, then they can take different choices of
Speaker 2: how they pick that thing up, how they you know,
Speaker 2: maybe they always lean on their right arm, right, maybe
Speaker 2: they start leaning on their left arm. Or to your point,
Speaker 2: they cross their arms one way, what if they cross
Speaker 2: their arms the other way.
Speaker 1: If they always mouse.
Speaker 2: With their right hand, what if they mouse with their
Speaker 2: left hand right. So, just finding those ways to bring
Speaker 2: that awareness to their daily activities, because that's you know,
Speaker 2: when you change habit, you change bodies. You can change
Speaker 2: what they do every day, you can change everything. If
Speaker 2: you don't change what they do every day and you
Speaker 2: only work with them that one or two hours a week,
Speaker 2: you know, you make some change, but not the same
Speaker 2: that you will if they're paying attention more of the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I find with that too. You got to make
Speaker 1: them care because yeah, it has to be meaningful. It
Speaker 1: has to be meaningful. That's a great way to say it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And we may see the imbalance and we may think,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, that's the reason that X, Y and
Speaker 1: Z is happening, and that's the reason for this and this,
Speaker 1: and we can see it. But unless they buy in
Speaker 1: and they believe it and they see that there's value
Speaker 1: in doing this thing that I don't know why I'm
Speaker 1: even doing this, but they say it's okay. One of
Speaker 1: my clients this morning was talking to me about the
Speaker 1: physical therapists. She will email the physical therapists, I want
Speaker 1: you to do this and this at home, and she's
Speaker 1: thinking that has nothing to do with this, and she'll
Speaker 1: do it and she says it helps. I said, exactly,
Speaker 1: it's okay. Just do what they say sometimes and you
Speaker 1: don't always have to buy in. But now she's worked
Speaker 1: with this physical therapist for years and trust them knows okay,
Speaker 1: they say to do it, I'm going to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we have to find that same level of trust
Speaker 1: with the client that Okay, this is going to help
Speaker 1: and it's not going to take all day. It's not
Speaker 1: going to it's sort of take you a minute or
Speaker 1: two a day. But once you sort of establish that trust,
Speaker 1: then you can say, okay, now I want you to
Speaker 1: do this, and they're just going to do it without
Speaker 1: questioning everything. Give them a reason. But they may not be,
Speaker 1: as you know, doubtful or I don't know why I'm
Speaker 1: doing this silly thing, so you got to make it meaningful,
Speaker 1: and then when they start seeing a little bit of progress,
Speaker 1: then they will buy in even more. That trust begins
Speaker 1: to build when they have success.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so this was a this was a wide ranger.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of things in here and a lot
Speaker 2: of I think pretty practical things because again, we work
Speaker 2: with these imbalances absolutely all the time, and you know
Speaker 2: that first step is just do more. Just do more
Speaker 2: on the week side, figure out whether what the differences
Speaker 2: are in the movement patterns, like why is that side weaker?
Speaker 2: Maybe it's an old injury, maybe it's whatever it is
Speaker 2: an activity they do. Try to really identify where that
Speaker 2: imbalance is coming from. Mobility, lack of mobility, lack of stability,
Speaker 2: lack of strength, what's it doing? Hone in really really
Speaker 2: be precise, and then awareness and buy in for the client.
Speaker 2: You know, those are all all pieces that we want
Speaker 2: to bring together whenever we're working on in balances.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and these are all practical. These are things that
Speaker 1: you can do with your clients because you're going to
Speaker 1: need to. You're going to need to or even on
Speaker 1: yourself if you experience we all have imbalances. Let's face it,
Speaker 1: we all have imbalances. I've been working on mine for years,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you've been working on yours. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we all have. I mean we're not twelve anymore. Bodies
Speaker 1: are sort of yeah, we're human, human the patterns. But
Speaker 1: when you can do that and make yourself you've been
Speaker 1: aware of it, you can start to make some significant
Speaker 1: change and some growth. And so hopefully we've given you
Speaker 1: some ideas on ways to begin to progress in that direction,
Speaker 1: and hopefully it'll help. That's at least what we're continuing
Speaker 1: to try and do for ourselves and our clients. That's right.
Speaker 1: Oh well, thank you guys so much for listening. We
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. Hit that like and subscribe button. As
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Speaker 1: with us, Moving Convos at gmail dot COM's the best
Speaker 1: way to get in touch with us. If you have
Speaker 1: any suggestions of show topics or any specific questions, hit
Speaker 1: us up. We'd be more than happy to talk with
Speaker 1: you and maybe discuss some of the things that you
Speaker 1: guys are thinking about. So until next week for Nora
Speaker 1: Saint John, I'm Brian Richie. We'll see you then.
Speaker 2: Hi, guys, no