Whole-Body Integration

New Year's Resolution: Exercise for a Healthy Brain

As we move past the winter solstice – allowing our dark Seattle days to gradually become lighter! – and into 2014, my mind is on my vision for the new year, which includes improving my level of health and fitness. I found some great support for that today in a blog post by The New York Times health and fitness writer Gretchen Reynolds. She surveys research that links the evolution of the human brain and cognitive capacity to the development of physical fitness and endurance, suggesting that "if physical activity helped to mold the structure of our brains, then it most likely remains essential to brain health today." 

Sounds great, especially as there's also reams of research linking physical activity to longevity and happiness and quality of life. As you engage in any new activity or increase in your current level of activity, it's important to avoid injury so that your program is not derailed. Here's a few words of advice from my professional background and training in bodywork and movement:

• Any increase in activity or training needs to be gradual and intelligent: don't "just do it" but listen to your body and what it tells you as you move, as discussed here. Work out in a harmonious relationship with your body, not as its dictator.

• As you add in or amp up strength training or cardio workouts, be sure to stretch as well. I recommend yoga (particularly  Viniyoga) and Scott Sonnon's Intu Flow (which you can learn from  this dvd or on YouTube in this video and others.) I'll be writing more about Intu Flow in the future as I work with it myself, but my initial impression from doing it for about 6 weeks is that it is an awesome methodology for joint health and mobility, plus it is fun to practice.

• To support your physical activity, you may want to consider bodywork, particularly Rolfing® Structural Integration and manual therapy for the nerves to open up stuck fascia around the muscles, joints, and nerves. These "gunky" shortened areas will be challenged as you increase your level of activity, and you may feel restrictions there as either tension or pain that will make you lose heart rather than stick to your program. Some quick tune up sessions can easily jump start your range of motion and make it easier to stay on track.

• For the truly inspired, you may want to consider the Rolfing Ten Series, a ten-session protocol that I describe as "a 50,000 mile tune-up for your body." 

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2014!

 

 

In the News: Rolfing® SI Helps Hockey Player and Gymnasts

Here's a quite good news story from a couple of days ago that describes how former professional hockey player Mark Howe of the Philadelphia Flyers credits Rolfing® Structural Integration with improving his game and extending his career after an injury. The text can be read here. There's comments from a Rolfer and testimonial from Howe, his father Gordie Howe, and two young gymnasts who discuss how it helps them to stand up straight with better posture and to relieve pain.

 

A Dancer Speaks of His Body, a Rolfer Interprets

Here is a beautiful video, "Body of a Dancer," a cinematic poem about Tim Persent, a South African dancer based in the Netherlands. While it is stunning to watch, there's so much wisdom in the words he shares, which I'll discuss through the lens of my experience as a Rolfer™ working daily with people and their bodies, their injuries, their pain, their posture, and their transformations.

I was struck by so many of the things Persent says about his relationship to his body. While I'm not a dancer, it parallels what I have learned from my own trajectory of embodiment, and from my work as a Rolfer with so many other bodies. Let's start with Persent's opening statement: "I am a dancer – my body is my instrument. I take good care of it. It has treated me well. I have been dancing for the past twenty-five years." There are so many key ideas here, I want to parse it out:

• "I am a dancer – my body is my instrument." For all of us, our bodies are instruments. Most basically, they are our vehicles through life, but more than that, they immediately express our presence, our energy, our emotions.
• "I take good care of it." How many people take good care of their bodies? And what does good care mean? To me, good care is more than just the right food, sleep, and exercise, good care is about a dialogue and relationship with your body. This is something that many people awake to only when their bodies fail them, when an injury or illness prevents "business as usual." But has the body failed them, or is it trying to say something? (More on the dialogue with the body coming below.)
• "It has treated me well."  This is an expression of gratitude, not rejection. How many of our statements about our bodies reflect appreciation and gratitude, rather than rejection and complaint? From so many of my Rolfing® Structural Integration clients I hear negative statements, things like"I hate my legs," "I don't like how I look," or "Because of this injury I can't do xyz." What if we instead spoke of our bodies in a relationship of appreciation? If you are in relationship with a person and only complain, how good will that relationship be? A relationship benefits from scrutiny, but also from efforts to improve it and to enhance the appreciative elements.
• "I have been dancing for the past twenty-five years." I would venture that part of the reason Persent has been dancing so long is that he has treated his body so well, and that has allowed him a long career.

After this opening statement, Persent describes how he warms up, and how he "asks" his fingers to relax. This is so important! When we ask our body something, and listen for a reply, we are in dialogue. If the body says something hurts, we listen and attend to it. If it says it's tired, we find ways to rest. If it says it wants to move, we allow that. If we try a new form of exercise, we ask the body how it feels, and modify the activity accordingly.

This type of feedback loop is the antithesis of the Nike slogan "Just do it," which encourages us to force ourselves and our bodies to do things along a one-way circuit without feedback. I see many clients who have injured themselves through this attitude, and who delay their recovery by continuing to "just do it" even though the bodies is saying "I can't run ten miles right now." Thankfully I also see many clients who are working with their bodies and dialoguing and learning what is uniquely right for each of them. For one Seattle Rolfing client, the Nike attitude and her friend's encouragement got her to sign up for a Boot Camp exercise program. Through the pain and muscle tension that were aggravated, her body told her to find a different form of exercise, at least for now, while her body was releasing old patterns through Rolfing sessions and learning how to regain length and flexibility.

Persent says he imagines his fingers to reach out so they become longer. Thus, even in stretching there's a gentle touch and an invitation to the body, through the mind, to expand. This is very different from an ethos of stretching that sees the body as a series of mechanical levers (bones) and muscles to be pulled on as if objects. In asking the body, imagining, and listening for a response, he is working with the mind-body as a unity, an embodied, intelligent presence. As Persent states, "By thinking an idea, something will happen to the body." Yoga and tai chi are wonderful body disciplines because they invite you into an idea (an asana, a form) with a mindfulness that works this mind-body loop, but mindfulness can be present in any activity, whether eliptical at the gym or a charge down the basketball court.

Persent also says, "Dancing is spirit made flesh: it physicalizes ideas, emotions, thoughts. That's why it is beautiful, powerful, and freeing." As a bodyworker, I see daily how many of us use out bodies to either contain and restrain our energies and emotions. The fascia, or connective tissue, that I work with as a Rolfer is the shrinkwrap that locks the muscles and bodies in physical constraints, and often those physical constraints involve a history of emotions, or injuries, of old self images. We could call this the "personal history made flesh." In freeing the fascia, we free those energies and emotions and make space for a new self image. In doing a Rolfing series, or any transformative bodywork, there is potential for every body to be more "spirit made flesh." This is a renewal, so it's also spirit and body made fresh.

While the average body, not trained for years in dance, will never be able to do many of the things Persent can do, we all have the potential to evolve to experience our bodies with the presence, consciousness, and embodiment he exemplifies. 

A Rolfer's Thoughts on Barefoot Running

There's been alot of talk about barefoot running since Christopher McDougall published his book Born to Run a few years ago. The premise is that humans walked and ran barefoot for millenia, and that running injuries were not the plague they are now until the "sports shoe" industry developed all those high-fallutin' shoes with cushioned heels. McDougall himself had had to give up running due to injuries, but tossing his running shoes and learning to run barefoot allowed him to resume running without pain or injury. To help understand why, read this article about barefoot running, and watch the video with Harvard scientist Daniel Lieberman (chairman of the human evolutionary biology department) showing the impact of heel strike in a shod runner versus a barefoot runner. 

Not everyone wants to run completely barefoot, and in response to the barefoot running premise, new minimalist sports shoes have been developed, the most well known being Vibram FiveFingers®. Such shoes have a thin rubber sole that lets you feel the texture of the surfaces you move on, and also lets all the joints in the feet have mobilty and play.

I ran some in my 20s, but haven't run for years - especially since my surgeon for a lateral tibial plateau fracture in 2003 advised against it. I became curiuos when other Rolfers™ on our community email forum began talking about barefoot running after reading McDougall's books. They reported that barefoot walking and running were completely synergistic with the ideas of Rolfing® Structural Integration: in our form of bodywork we are concerned with the natural alignment of the body, and the mobility and integration of body segments. They reported that in barefoot walking and running, your toe hinge functions as it should for push-off, because the toes are not engaged in a wad of leather and rubber. And they reported that the increased mobility of the foot was working its way up through the chain of muscles, fascia, and joints and improving issues with knees, hips, and low backs. At that point I went out and bought a pair of Vibrams, to give barefoot walking a try.

I remember my first walk in them. It was late evening, a damp and cold autumn night in Seattle, and I was tired and reluctant to go out, but I hadn't walked my dog yet. So I put on my new Vibrams, put the furry girl on a leash, and headed out for our usual 20-min loop around the neighborhood. Astonishingly, within a couple of blocks, I felt pure unadulterated joy surging through my body and I was wide awake. It seemed like having my feet in such deeply felt contact with the ground was awakening dormant energy and enlivening me. I've always believed in the mind-body-spirit connection, - it's what drew me to Rolfing - but this still surprised me, the intensity and immediacy of the response. I spend the entire work day barefoot, yet something about being "barefoot" and actually striding and moving with a purposeful gait was waking up my feet and my energy in startling ways. I've been a convert to barefoot walking ever since, and I've also noticed improvement in my knees. I'm even starting to run tiny bits again.

Besides McDougall's book, there's alot to read on the web about barefoot running, including this article from today's New York Times, where McDougall updates the barefoot running world on the importance of form for good effects and also mentions Dr. Lieberman's research on unshod runners in Kenya. In other words, it's not just the shoes (or lack of shoes), you have to re-learn how to move so that you minimize heel strike and move more to the forefoot. I believe that Rolfing sessions can greatly assist in this process as part of what keeps us in habitual movement patterns is the familiar tension patterns in the body. So I would recommend that anyone transitioning to barefoot walking or running read up on the available literature, but also schedule a session with a local Rolfer to work on, especially, the sole of the foot, the calves, the knees, and hips. Getting more freedom through these areas will make for an easier transition and quicker benefits, and also help to attain proper running form.

I have recommended minimalist shoes to any number of my Seattle Rolfing clients, and many take me up on the idea. (I recommend REI locally, because they have a great selection of minimalist shoes (not everyone likes the toes on the Vibram FiveFingers, and a shoe that fits like a second skin is key to the benefits), and because you can return shoes if you don't like them, even if they have been worn. One friend who switched to Vibrams has also found that she no longer has flat feet. This makes total sense, as the arch of the foot is based on a balance of muscles and fascia through the legs. Rolfers have known this and worked to "create" arches through balancing fascia, but my friend's story shows it can also be done through proper foot mechanics from barefoot running.

 

 

 

Rolfing® SI Helps NFL Players Stay in the Game

As we are in the football season, I thought I'd share some memories, thoughts, and resources for those interested in how Rolfing® Structural Integration can help professional athletes.

I personally am not a football fan. I've never tried to learn the rules of it, so I see large men clobbering each other to advance a few feet on the field, then everyone takes a break. I hear there's alot of strategy involved for those in the know that makes it compelling. While my interest in the game is minimal, I am nevertheless fascinated by the bodies.

Many years ago, when I was doing deep-tissue massage at a spa on Maui, I had the privilege of working on two NFL players. I say "privilege" because professional athletes' bodies are like fine-tuned sports cars, anatomy developed to a specific, driven purpose. One was a linebacker, and he was built like a tank. I knew enough about football to know that his job was to jump on the other guys. I worked around this gigantic muscular form for an hour, not getting much response but grunts. I was gratified later when one of the spa attendants told me, "I asked him how his massage was, and all he said was "Damn!" I figured that meant I'd made an impact. (I had a reputation for being able to go really deep.)

The other gentleman was a wide receiver (apparently that year's Heisman trophy winner). The body type couldn't have been more different. Again, fantastic muscular development, absolutely sculpted, but this guy was lithe like a ballet dancer. Not knowing about football, I had to ask him what a wide receiver did that he was not built with bulk, and he helped me to understand that his job was to run fast, not get jumped on, and catch the ball and run more. So bulk would not have been in his favor, but man he needed those glutes and leg muscles.

That's about the extent of my understanding of football and my experience working with pro players, but here's a video of a Rolfer™, Wayne Henningsgaard from Minnesota, who has made working with NFL players a niche element in his practice. It's old, but has some nice interview time wth Wayne and video of him working on some Vikings.

 

As Editor-in-Chief of Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute®, I knew Wayne's reputation in this area, and a few years ago I invited him and his wife Sandy (also a Rolfer) to write about their Rolfing work with NFL players for our publication. That article can be viewed here. It's quite an interesting read, about how they work with athletes in training, the time demands of working during the season, and a charming story about Sandy coming home one day to find three Vikings playing football in her backyard with a passel of eight-year-old boys (it must have made their day!).

The upshot is that Rolfing sessions can help any athlete with faster recovery from injuries that occur during training and play, and can prolong a career that depends on optimal functioning of the body. Likewise, for those who are not athletes but have careers that are physically demanding in other ways – like construction, supermarket stocking, massage therapy, long-distance trucking – Rolfing sessions could be a way to help you stay in your game.

 

 

 

 

 

Great Article on Fascia and Sports Injuries

What is behind sports injuries that won't quickly heal? Running Times Magazine published a great article on the rolf of fascia, and you can read it online here, including information on how Rolfing® Structural Integration can help with fascial injuries and problems.

The article starts with a great explanation of what fascia is, summed up in this quote from Rolfer™ Tom Myers: "While every anatomy [book] lists around 600 separate muscles, it is more accurate to say that there is one muscle poured into six hundred pockets of the fascial webbing." What this means is that any injury or stress to an individual muscle will affect the fascial webbing as a whole. Think of a snag in a knit fabric; it will be most gnarly in the area of the snag itself, but it will create a pull through the fabric that can distort the whole. Resolving the problem means fixing not only the area of the "snag" but also it's compensating patterns in other areas of the fascial net / body. 

The article goes on to explain that new research shows that fascia is not just wrapping, but tissue that can "contract, feel, and impact the way you move" - meaning that it can be negatively impacted by lack of activity, chronic stress, poor posture, injuries, and repetitive movements. While this is new news to mainstream healthcare and media, Rolfers have known this for years, and in my Seattle Rolfing® practice I see many athletes with fascial issues that can be helped, as well as many non-athletes whose fascia has become tight or imbalanced from other activities - like hunching over a computer for hours a day, carrying young children around, auto accidents, and the like.

The article mentions Rolfing in a section on fascial care. The things you can do on your own to maintain healthy, flexible, resilient fascia include staying hydrated, streching, and not pushing through injuries. Outside help includes movement education and seeing a "fascial specialist." I think it's fair to say that Rolfers were the first fascial specialists, as Ida Rolf was one of the first people to 1) credit fascia with its proper role in the body and to 2) develop work to lengthen, sculpt, and balance the fascia. Many other practitioners will be trained to work with a local injury, but not necessarily know how to work with the pattern as it extends through your whole body. (I wrote about that here in a blog post about how Rolfers work with fascia differently than massage therapists, but the same thinking applies also to Rolfing versus physical therapy.)

If you are interested to learn more about fascia and how Rolfing could help you, feel free to call me if you are in the Seattle area for a phone or office consult, or visit the Rolf Institute® website for a list of Certified Rolfers and Certified Advanced Rolfers in your area. Like some other Rolfers, I also practice visceral work, craniosacral work, and nerve work. While these use a lighter end of the touch spectrum, they are also fascial-based modalities as fascial strain patterns are behind visceral strain, cranial strain, and tethered nerves. 

All in all, Running Times Magazine has published a great article, well worth reading to understand more about your body and fascia in particular.

Viniyoga: This Rolfer's™ Favorite Form of Yoga

Rolfing® Structural Integration and yoga make a perfect pair. The Rolfing work gets your body aligned and open, freeing both surface and deep restrictions, and yoga is the perfect practice to keep you body supple, elastic, and toned. Yes I have clients who don't do yoga – or other stretching – and that's ok, they just need Rolfing tune-ups a bit more frequently. That's beneficial for my business bottom-line, but my real business is to help clients become more embodied, and a yoga practice increases body awareness and reduces your reliance on outside help from chiropractors, Rolfers, massage therapists, physical therapists, etc. 

There are many types of yoga, suited to different body types. If you are young and flexible and energetic, power yoga may be for you. Many of my clients, however, need to 

• recover from an injury or get help with chronic pain,
• reduce the impact of aging,
• regain lost mobility, or
• reduce stress

My favorite form of yoga to recommend to these folks is Viniyoga, and my favorite Viniyoga studio in Seattle is Whole Life Yoga in Greenwood. Whole Life Yoga has a new blog, and one of the early posts is "What Makes Viniyoga Different?" She outlines the 4 main factors, which I'll explain below from a Rolfer's perspective.

1. Adaptation – This means the yoga asanas (poses) are adapted to fit your body – you don't have to become a pretzel to fit a strict form. This is important for me in recommending Viniyoga to my Rolfing clients who have had injuries that limit flexibility, range of motion, and the like. It's a form of yoga that works for all bodies.
2. Use of Repetition and Stay – In a Viniyoga class you do sequences that move you in and out of a pose a number of times before holding it. I support this as a Rolfer because it prepares the body for change by gradually signaling stretch receptors in the muscles to give a little more, then a little more. You are also working your awareness of your body in motion, and noticing the changes with each repetition. If you can't notice something, you can't embody it – that's why at the end of every Rolfing session I ask my client to "stand up and see what you notice, what's different." Repetition helps to focus the mind and enhance awareness. 
3. Moving with the Breath – It sounds so simple – as you breathe in, move this way, as you breathe out, move that way – yet coordination of breath and movement is magic balm for the nervous system. I see hypertoned (too tight) bodies every day in my Rolfing practice, and a portion of that tightness comes from a wound-up nervous system. As you coordinate your breath and movement you automatically slow down, become more fluid in your movements, and bring your nervous system back into balance.
4. Sequencing – Viniyoga practice combines poses intelligently into a fluid moving practice based on class goals. For example, I often recommend that clients with back pain try out Tracy Weber's Yoga for Healthy Backs as I know that her Viniyoga training has taught her to string poses together in a way that will pose-by-pose prepare the body to gradually and sensitively open painful areas. (Tracy owns Whole Life Yoga; you can read here how yoga resolved her severe back pain.

If you see me for a session, be sure to ask me for a free class pass for Whole Life Yoga, to experience for yourself what Viniyoga is.

 

 

 

Save Costs on Rolfing and Craniosacral Work with a Flexible Spending Account

This very useful article from The New York Times explains how you can use a flexible spending account to save significantly on the cost of getting bodywork – one-third or more in some cases. First you need to set up and fund a flexible spending account:  you contribute to the account from your income, and this money is not taxable but must be used the same year. You then get a doctor's prescription for the bodywork, and submit a receipt to your plan. In effect, you are paying for bodywork with pre-tax dollars.

The article also offers useful guidance on navigating this with plan administrators by pointing to a study showing the beneficial effective of massage and noting that the government's flexible spending account will approve reimbursement for massage that doctors prescribe as medically necessary. Most doctors will recognize the value of Rolfing® Structural Integration, craniosacral work, massage, and other well-known forms of bodywork as treatment for pain, scoliosis, injuries, stress, TMJ, headaches, repetitive motion injuries, postural problems, and the like.

In many states, including Washington state where I'm located, Rolfing® Structural Integration is grouped in with massage for licensing, so I can work under massage prescriptions.

How Rolfing® Sessions and Movement Work Can Help Musicians

Today I want to expand on the topic of Rolfing® Structural Integration and other bodywork modalities for musicians. (Yesterday I posted about Leon Fleisher, the renowned pianist whose career was truncated by focal dystonia until he found a way to manage the disorder through Rolfing® Structural Integration and botox injections to the affected muscles; you can read that here.)

The positioning of the body to play many musical instruments is asymmetrical. For example, playing a guitar or double bass, one arm is up, and one is down, and each does something different – fretting versus plucking, strumming, or bowing. Or the violin, where the head and chin tuck to the instrument. While playing the piano seems symmetrical, I found it interesting that in Fleisher's interview he attributed his focal dystonia to the fact that the affected fingers – the fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand – play the keys that hit the piano lyre's shorter strings. Shorter strings have less resonance, and the fourth and fifth fingers are generally weaker, so Fleisher says you have to work harder to play these keys.

Focal Dystonia

Fleisher's ailment is focal dystonia, a neurological movement disorder that has no cure but can be managed by a regimen that includes botox injections and Rolfing sessions. Fleisher reports that 10,000 musicians around the world suffer from focal dystonia. 

Repetitive Motion Injuries / Tendonitis

More typically with musicians I see issues akin to repetitive motion injuries and tendonitis. Practicing and playing hours a day will use the same muscle groups over and over, with the potential for contracted muscles, localized fascial shortening around them, and entrapped/inflamed nerves. This type of situation responds well to hands-on Rolfing Structural Integration sessions, as well as manual therapy for the nerves. This work is best done in conjunction with movement therapies for reasons discussed below.

Rolf Movement® and Other Movement Modalities

In an article in Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute, Rolfer™ Elmar Abram reported working with a few musicians who had the diagnosis of focal dystonia, but whose limitations disappeared when they were coached to play their instruments differently using Rolf Movement® Integration techniques. In some cases it had to do with how they played their instruments in terms of posture and alignment, in other cases there was a deeper mind-body issue involved. This shows how much habit affects function, whether it is back pain from a habit of poor sitting posture or other body issues from the habitual way a musician holds and plays his instrument. And it is not surprising that there can be mind-body issues involved, particularly with professional musicians who are under tremendous pressure from an early age to develop and master their craft.

Besides Rolf Movement Integration, I would highly recommend Alexander Technique, the Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education, and Aston® Kinetics, three other sophisticated movement modalities that have helped many musicians and other performers. 

 

 

Rolfing® Sessions Help Renowned Pianist Leon Fleisher Cope with Focal Dystonia

Today I listened to an interview with pianist Leon Fleisher where he discusses his memoir My Nine Lives: A Memoir of Many Careers in Music and discusses how Rolfing® Structural Integration is one of the two primary therapies he uses to keep his right hand functional, despite suffering from focal dystonia.

In 1963, Fleisher was a renowned pianist scheduled to tour Russia as soloist with a leading U.S. symphony. He had to cancel the tour because he lost the use of the fourth and fith fingers of his right hand, obviously devastating for a musician. The problem was focal dystonia, a neurological movement disorder, although it wasn't diagnosed for years. As he could no longer perform, he had to switch his career to teaching music, conducting, and learning to perform the one-handed repertoire for piano. To try to regain use of his right hand, he tried many therapies over thirty years. Although there is no cure for focal dystonia, Fleisher has found a combination of therapies that allowed him to once again play and perform with two hands: he gets Rolfing work the day before performing, and botox injections to the contracted muscles every four months (this paralyzes the contracted muscle, which allows the opposing muscle to function). Fleisher reports that "Rolfing is a very healthy modality of physical therapy, thanks to both of them i'm a functioning two-handed pianist."

The Wikipedia entry for Leon Fleisher notes that when he received the 2007 Kennedy center honors he was described as "a consummate musician whose career is a moving testament to the life-affirming power of art." Although a devastating injury or ailment may change one's external reality, Fleisher shows us what can be accomplished with passion, adaptability, and the curiosity to explore alternatives. 

Another longer audio interview by Diane Rehm is here, where Fleisher and his co-author share much more about his background as a musician, and how he tried "everything from aromatherapy to Zen Buddhism" to heal his focal dystonia. You can read an earlier interview here, from Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute.