In my last post I discussed how pain is created by your brain, not your body. With an injury, pain is usually temporary or acute, lasting for a short period of time. But many people experience chronic pain that seems to never go away, and today I want to talk about chronic pain resulting from injuries.

I’m pretty sure I’ve said it before, but it’s always a good reminder — pain is created by your brain, not by your body. What does this mean? It means that your brain is in charge of deciding whether or not to create the sensation of pain. This decision-making process involves two steps.

One participant stated at the end that her neck pain (which she had been experiencing for a couple of weeks) disappeared for the remainder of the class simply after rubbing the area with a towel. And this is a great reminder for all of us! Sometimes, just providing different or new sensation to an area that might feel stiff or be in pain can make an HUGE difference to how our brain and body feel!

I want to talk today about the difference between proprioception and interoception, especially when it comes to movement. First, let’s define the two. Proprioception is the ability to sense your body’s movement and position. Interoception is the ability to sense how your body feels.

I’ve posted before about hypermobility, but today I’m going to talk specifically about hyperextension of the knees. I have always had hyperextended knees and it has been drilled into me “don’t sit into your hyperextension.” So I didn’t. But through my Z-Health studies I realized that, if I have a certain range of motion in my body, I need to know how to control it — THAT is the way to keep the joint healthy.

I used to think that our sympathetic nervous system, the one in charge of our body’s “fight, flight or freeze” response was bad, and that it was the culprit for things like poor sleep and poor digestion, interfering with our body’s normal functions. However, this not a very accurate picture.

I’ve touched on this topic before in a previous post — by adding load or resistance to something, what was originally a smooth movement becomes jerky and less coordinated. But what I did not experience at the time was how this can identify side-to-side imbalances and differences. And boy did I see that here!

I love games and have a pretty strong competitive streak, even with myself. So when I learned about a way of training that involves more of a game-like approach, I knew I would enjoy it!

By doing visual exercises that target these particular visual skills, you will be increasing activation of the PAG and potentially decreasing your pain experience — pretty cool!

I was aware of the importance of peripheral vision, and knew that when we have more sympathetic nervous system activity (fight-or-flight response) our brain will narrow our peripheral field to keep our focus on the dangers in front of us. I thought that to gain back a wider peripheral field, we might need to first consider/decrease our level of stress.

One more look at the ankle this week — this time, instead of focusing on a linear motion with an ankle tilt, we’re going to look at a circular motion.

Today’s video is an extension of my previous post about ankle tilts and their importance. But instead of rolling the ankle out, today we’re going to look at rolling them in. This particular direction is more challenging — we already have less mobility in this direction than in the other, and the tendency is to use the rotation of the leg to create the movement.

These ankle tilts (see video below) were one of the first things I learned when beginning my training with Z-Health Performance, and I was reminded why they are so important when, after doing the exercise, my client’s function and movement showed a significant improvement.

There is a lot of research out there on the importance of nasal breathing for good health, but at times, when we are talking, singing, or in the midst of some intense physical activity, mouth breathing is necessary due to the activity and/or to increase oxygen intake. While I knew this, it never occurred to me to observe clients’/students’ breathing patterns while doing different combinations of nasal/mouth breathing.

Given that our eyes are at the top of the neural hierarchy, and our brains consider them to be critical to our health and survival, working with the eyes has the potential to create huge changes in our movement and pain. So, I started with a simple pencil push-up, having her stare at the tip of a pen as she brought the pen into the bridge of her nose.

We know our spine is important — not only does it provide the vertical support we need to be upright, but it allows for range of motion throughout our entire torso. The spine also protects the spinal cord, which is an essential job. When our spine isn’t functioning optimally, we may feel stiffness and/or pain, often in the low back/lumbar region.

I had a conversation with a student recently in which she asked me “should I be rolling out my IT band?” A common topic among dancers and many others, and one that, ten years ago, I would have answered MUCH differently.

I posted at the end of May about the idea of finding the right kind of exercise for YOU, as opposed to just falling into whatever “they” say is good for you, and just this past week, a new study came out essentially reinforcing this idea of the importance of individualized exercise. More specifically, the study looked at sets of twins and determined that even among twins, responses to exercise varied widely and could therefore not be attributed strictly to genetics.

I’ve been posting several videos lately of very specific joint movements, partly because it never ceases to amaze me how challenging they actually are! But different loading situations (body weight, resistance band, no load, etc) will create different experiences. When I do the ankle circles I posted about previously, they no longer feel all that challenging.

In combination with the exercise I demonstrated in my last post, I often do these wrist movements. Starting linearly, then moving into circles, this is harder than it looks (at least for me) but my wrists and forearms feel great afterwards!