Jill Miller: Increase Flexibility & Relieve Pain with Breathwork & Myofascial Release

0:00 The science and practice of enhancing

0:02 human performance for sport, play, and life.

0:07 Welcome to Perform.

0:10 I'm Dr.

0:10 Andy Galpin.

0:11 I'm a professor and scientist and the executive

0:13 director of the human performance center at Parker University.

0:16 Today I'm speaking with Jill Miller.

0:18 Jill is an expert in everything from mobility to breath

0:22 work to body work and especially in what's called selfmyofascial release.

0:27 Now, in this episode, you're going to learn more about what these things

0:30 actually are and how to use them best.

0:33 There are many broad applications of these techniques that extend

0:37 beyond just pain relief and range of motion and mobility.

0:41 Jill will talk about things like the role

0:43 of the fascia and some of the science that's

0:45 emerging and how that's regulating everything from your digestive

0:48 system to your pain to your physical performance, strength, and power output.

0:53 And so I know that whether you are dealing with pain yourself,

0:57 or you like yoga, you're into body work, breath work, or anywhere in between,

1:03 you're going to find something in this episode

1:05 that you may have not heard before, or at least you find tremendous value in.

1:09 So with that said, please enjoy today's conversation with Jill Miller.

1:13 Jill Miller, thank you so much for coming and chatting today.

1:16 Hey Andy, so good to see you.

1:18 My introduction to your work uh was, I think, from Kelly Star, right?

1:22 probably 15 years ago or more, Brian McKenzie.

1:26 But what really grabbed my attention was I had dabbled a lot

1:30 and and paid attention to the world of we'll call it yoga.

1:34 Okay.

1:34 And for the most part threw it all away.

1:36 I just thought like there's just nothing here for what I'm doing.

1:39 I had gone through several experiences and didn't really appreciate it.

1:43 And then I saw what you were doing and I like thought this is the extraction.

1:49 This is the stuff we should have I wanted to get out of yoga.

1:51 just me personally and I thought this this girl's nailed it.

1:55 You're all over it.

1:56 So my thoughts of you still to this day are that it is

2:00 the best parts of yoga that again for me personally what I was looking

2:03 for in myself and clients and and the scientific experience as well as there's

2:09 just so many other ways we can go about self-care the physical body recovery.

2:14 There's just there's so many ways it can get to and I've

2:17 yet to see anybody put it together better than you.

2:19 So, as an introduction, there was no question there,

2:21 but it was just letting you know framing when I think about

2:24 the reasons why I was dying to get you in here for this conversation.

2:28 It is all that stuff.

2:29 And I have a I have literally three pages

2:32 of notes in front of me as you can see.

2:34 And I'm super excited to go into that stuff.

2:36 So, if it's okay with you, I would love to talk a ton about all

2:39 those things um in a bunch of different areas.

2:41 I'm down for all of it.

2:42 That's great.

2:43 I'm so glad that you connected with what I

2:46 was offering because I think what I um did

2:49 and do in the yoga space was very radical

2:52 and frankly heretical back when I started teaching it.

2:56 And um not a lot of people got it.

2:59 And it's really nice to see that it did finally um find those people

3:04 that it was meant for and act as a bridge back and forth between um training,

3:10 pain management, yoga, self-care, and all those things.

3:14 Great.

3:15 I have uh both your books.

3:16 I have many of your products.

3:18 I've been to your courses.

3:19 I'm like such a Jill Miller fan.

3:20 It's ridiculous.

3:22 All that to say, I thought maybe we

3:24 could just start directly with this first idea.

3:26 Okay.

3:27 When I traditionally had always thought of foam rolling,

3:30 it was just compression.

3:32 It was if your hamstring is tight, you smash it and it gets untight.

3:36 And I don't know if the science works

3:38 or I don't care how it works, the physiology.

3:40 I just know if I smashed it on there,

3:42 like I felt a little bit better in those moments.

3:44 What is the difference between that compression

3:47 is what I'll just keep calling it.

3:48 And and maybe that's the wrong term,

3:49 but let me know style of foam rolling versus other options.

3:55 and and maybe actually we'll just start right

3:56 there like what is the compression stuff doing?

3:58 What do we know about it?

3:59 How's it working?

4:00 Is it working?

4:01 And then from there, let's explore some of the other ideas and ways

4:04 and strategies we can actually maybe do things better.

4:07 Okay, so um foam rolling has become the deacto term that is

4:14 now used I think in most places that refers to self myofascial release.

4:19 So selfmofascial release as a category

4:22 in the self- treatment space or recovery space

4:25 is where you use an implement which

4:29 technically is called a stress transfer medium.

4:32 So we're talking about rolling sticks.

4:34 Uh we're talking about foam rollers.

4:36 We're talking about different balls.

4:38 Um even pokey tools like uh just single things that have knobs on them.

4:44 So anything like that is is a implement that is

4:47 trying to influence tissue in a variety of different ways.

4:51 These implements are trying to mimic somebody's hands, right?

4:58 So this is something that you can do on your own.

5:00 You don't have to hire somebody.

5:02 You don't have to go out of pocket.

5:04 You can do it any time of day you want, wherever and whenever you need it.

5:09 Um, so what are they doing?

5:11 What are these implements doing?

5:12 they are sometimes compressing tissue like you said,

5:16 they're um inducing local stretch.

5:19 So, if I just lay on a ball or lay on a foam roller,

5:22 I'm really just um putting pressure into that local region.

5:26 But what happens if I stroke that implement with my body weight uh either

5:31 in a reclining position or up against a wall or in myriad other arrangements?

5:37 What happens if I take that implement and I move it along the line

5:40 of pull of a muscle or across the line of pull of a muscle?

5:44 Or what happens if I do um a different type of compressive rolling?

5:49 What happens if I um pivot the implement or pivot my body

5:53 so that it creates traction and creates like a pinching sensation?

5:58 What are all those things doing?

5:59 They're they're affecting different stretch receptors

6:02 in different ways and they're affecting

6:04 different layers of your body in different ways from skin to deep

6:08 and um one of my deep interests is in the fascial

6:12 tissues that it annoys uh what is it doing to those tissues?

6:16 It's doing a lot of different things.

6:18 Um, so I recently wrote a narrative

6:22 review of the scientific research on selfmyofascia release

6:26 and there are a lot of things that these implements are doing to your body.

6:30 Um, one of the I think things that we can almost all

6:35 the systematic reviews can agree on is it improves range of motion very quickly.

6:40 So it's somehow dampening some of the sympathetic feedback into your body.

6:45 So you can very quickly improve your sit and reach test

6:49 or shoulder overhead or spinal movements or even you know jaw movements.

6:53 Just depends on what is your target.

6:55 What is your joint target?

6:56 What's your tissue target?

6:57 What's your intention?

6:59 Um so that range of motion improvement is really exciting.

7:02 Um, but some of the other research that really excites me,

7:06 especially I know I'm on the podcast called Perform and um,

7:09 people want to get more out of their workouts here,

7:12 is that not only is the rolling improving this range of motion,

7:15 but it's also improving force output.

7:19 It's improving torque.

7:20 And that's really helpful,

7:23 especially if you want to be able to lift more over a range, right?

7:28 So maybe you, you know, you're you're deficient in your overhead

7:33 and you're overusing certain muscles again and again,

7:37 but what the rolling does, it'll restore a range of motion,

7:40 plus you'll be able to get more out of those muscle fibers.

7:44 They'll be able to pull more or push more um depending

7:47 on what it is the the movement that you're trying to do.

7:50 Um the rolling also happens to dampen sympathetic overflow.

7:56 So the tools happen to increase parasympathetic reactivity.

8:01 So that's really beneficial if you're trying to calm down,

8:04 you're trying to gather your thoughts,

8:06 um you're trying to uh minimize your anxiety.

8:11 Um the balls and tools and foam rollers.

8:15 I always say the balls because I'm a ball dealer.

8:17 Uh but I have to note that these things

8:19 also happen with foam rollers or rolling implements.

8:23 um they also improve your vascular flow.

8:26 So when the rolling implements um

8:29 interface with fascial tissues in specific ways,

8:32 your fascia releases nitric oxide.

8:34 So we get these local improvements of vascular stretch and nitric oxide release.

8:41 Um I could go on.

8:43 There's many many other benefits to rolling.

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11:47 I think if you were to ask most people,

11:50 massage foam roll, does it help range of motion?

11:54 You'd probably say, oh yeah,

11:55 I again I rolled in my hamstrings and I stretched afterwards.

11:57 I felt better.

11:58 If you ask them about does it reduce pain,

12:00 muscle soreness, again you would maybe see some conflicting results,

12:03 but a lot of people say, "Yeah, like I was really tight and sore.

12:06 I'm not as sore." One of the best ways

12:09 to use the rolling is to offset delayed onset muscle soreness.

12:14 So what they found, what Yan Wilkkey in Germany has found is

12:18 that the inflammation of your delayed onset

12:22 muscle soreness isn't in the muscle cells,

12:24 but it's actually in the fascial fabric surrounding the muscle.

12:27 This is called the epimeium.

12:29 But what they found is people who did rolling prior to a workout

12:33 had less of this inflammation in that 48 hour time frame afterwards.

12:39 So, and one of the other fascia jokes that the fascia

12:43 researchers say is we shouldn't be calling this DOMS,

12:45 we should be calling it doths because the because

12:49 the inflammation really is in this fascial envelope.

12:52 Um, and that's also where these pain sensing neurons are picking up on that.

12:56 So, if you want to offset your delayed onset, you can roll afterwards.

13:03 Um, you can roll the next day, but really it's what the research is showing it's

13:07 better to roll prior to to offset the DOMS.

13:10 Yeah.

13:10 Okay.

13:12 So, the data on muscle soreness specifically is probably the most

13:17 pronounced in terms of the most studies in this area,

13:20 if we're talking all things fascial,

13:21 if we're talking all things myofascial release,

13:24 if we're talking all things kind of this whole area.

13:27 But when you get outside of muscle soreness then the questions start

13:32 arising like what other benefits am I getting from again we'll just collectively

13:37 call all these things there a lot of questions a lot of different

13:40 areas but I want to start at the very very very top

13:43 right so we know that this compression stuff works let me start

13:47 off with a couple of misconceptions okay or I'm not things I'm not

13:50 sure on when I'm doing a foam roll when I'm doing a massage

13:54 what is actually happening right there am I breaking up scar tissue.

13:58 Are my fibers misaligned and I'm rolling them back together?

14:01 What is actually happening at the tissue level?

14:04 That explains any of those other benefits

14:05 that we're going to get to way way later.

14:08 What's the mechanism here?

14:09 I think we have to start with describing some of the elements

14:12 of fascia in general before we go into what is

14:17 the tool doing to the fascia because I think what a lot

14:20 of people may not understand is how alive your fascia is.

14:24 I mean, your whole body is alive.

14:25 There's nothing really inert or fixed about your body in general.

14:31 And your fascial tissues are comprised of so many

14:34 different cell types um and so many different fibers.

14:37 And even though it's in general a slow to change tissue, it is very active.

14:45 Fascia is your seam system.

14:48 Got it.

14:49 Fascia connects everything in your body from foot to face,

14:53 cell to skin, and everything in between.

14:56 It suspends your structures.

15:00 It interconnects them.

15:02 But it's not just seams.

15:04 It's also the stitches of the seams,

15:07 but it's also not just stitches or seams because it's not just fibrous.

15:11 It's also fluid and it's self-filled.

15:15 It is also invested with 250 million nerve endings.

15:22 Wow.

15:22 So your fascial tissues are also a major sensory organ of your body.

15:29 I I didn't realize the nervous system

15:30 connection or the actual nerve connection into fascia.

15:33 It's mindboggling.

15:36 So just wait there's more.

15:39 Oh, I'm sure.

15:40 But you have your skin.

15:42 Yeah.

15:43 Your skin and you have your muscle.

15:44 But when we think of these areas again stretching and massage and I'm in pain,

15:50 my muscles are sore before your work and before

15:54 paying attention to all the stuff in fascia.

15:56 My assumption when it was that these were muscle problems.

15:58 My muscle is sore.

16:00 People think that they've got micro damage in their muscles after workouts.

16:03 What is this fascia stuff?

16:05 So the fascia Yeah.

16:07 In in your original model,

16:10 you could say the fascia is the in between all of it stuff.

16:12 It's the that's the seams.

16:14 That's the connection, right?

16:15 That's the way through.

16:16 So, if I'm looking at like your jean jacket right now, yes.

16:18 Like the jacket is my skin potentially.

16:21 Your body is underneath that.

16:22 And the seams literally are the things connecting the muscle to the skin.

16:26 And well, from toe to toe to chin, right?

16:29 Toe to chin, everything within.

16:32 So, so we can think of fascia in a in a few different ways.

16:36 And there are many different uh fascia

16:39 researchers that model it in different ways.

16:41 Um, I like to think of it like a stratda or like a lasagna.

16:44 I think this is an easy model for people to grasp.

16:47 So, you have your your skin and then

16:50 directly underneath your skin, you have I mean,

16:53 most people just think this is your your fat your fatty layer, but it's not.

16:57 Within your fatty layer,

16:58 you actually have a continuous membrane called the superficial fascia.

17:03 And this superficial fascia actually subdivides

17:06 your fatty layer into two different layers.

17:08 Did you know that you have superficial atapost tissue

17:10 and then you have deep atapost tissue underneath this this membrane?

17:14 Yeah, you did.

17:15 That's great.

17:16 Of course.

17:16 Um, but the superficial fascia also spawns

17:19 these really interesting poles called retinacular cutudis.

17:24 So, we have all these little tent poles between our skin,

17:27 the superficial fascia and between the superfascial fascia

17:30 and what's below that which is called the deep fascia.

17:33 And so these these tent poles are part of what gives um our our fluffiness,

17:38 the buoyancy to our shape.

17:41 So underneath this these tent poles of the superficial fascia,

17:46 we have sliding layers called loose fascia.

17:51 This is a fascial interface.

17:52 And you can find that right now.

17:54 I'm covered with my jean jacket, but you can just pinch your forearm and you

17:57 could you can actually move this right, left, up, down.

18:00 You can even twist it.

18:00 You can even pull it away.

18:02 So we have um an area called loose fascia that's between

18:07 the superficial fascia stuff and what's known as the deep fascia.

18:11 The deep fascia is the fascia that I think most people recognize as fascia.

18:17 And part of that is because this is a lot of the mechanical model of movement.

18:22 Um, a lot of Tom Myers's anatomy trains um sort of uh pays homage

18:28 to these continuities of these gigantic collagen strips

18:31 that run from, you know, foot to face.

18:33 And you can really see these in dissection.

18:36 Um, so the deep fascial tissues, they are surrounding our muscles,

18:41 but we don't just have one layer of deep fascia,

18:44 we have multiple layers of deep fascia that glide upon each other.

18:49 Um and then we can get into the interior architecture of a muscle itself.

18:54 Your each muscle you have is comprised of additional multiple layers of fascia

19:00 and these are subdivided like each muscle cell

19:02 is surrounded by an endomium right that's like

19:06 if you have one little orange ju you know in the orange you have

19:09 the little tiny segment and it's surrounded

19:12 by that cellulose filament and inside it's just juice.

19:15 The same is an analog for your muscle and its endamesial fascia.

19:19 Then when you have groups of these muscle fibers,

19:23 um you're wrapped in yet another layer called parramsium.

19:26 But you must be able to have movement

19:28 between these epimesial sliding filaments and the parramsium.

19:35 And then the parramium gathers together in lots of bundles.

19:39 And then we have a we have a real muscle

19:41 and that's wrapped in even more fascia that's called the epimesium.

19:44 Um and these epimesial bundles is what we call a muscle.

19:48 And that muscle and its epimesia must move.

19:52 It must have differential movement amongst the other muscles that it's next to.

19:58 And this is called glide.

19:59 We have glide between all these different things.

20:02 And so when you invest a tool into these tissues,

20:07 we're stimulating cells called fibrolasts which

20:11 produce the collagen and elastin environment.

20:14 Uh we are stimulating cells called fascia sites

20:17 which are chiefly responsible for keeping you slick inside.

20:21 They produce an abundant amount of a substance called hyaluron.

20:25 Um you're also um manipulating fibers.

20:29 You're creating tension with your compression.

20:32 You're creating stretch, tension,

20:34 pull on these different fibers that these fibroblasts are sensing.

20:38 And when the fibroblasts start to sense activity,

20:42 they will start to realign things or tear things apart

20:47 depending on um depending on what you're trying to do.

20:52 So for example, one of the I guess the old myths that people kick

20:58 around all the time is is massage or self massage breaking off scar tissue?

21:04 Well, yes and no.

21:06 Scar tissue is comprised of very very strong fibbrals of collagen type one

21:12 and it is necessary to be there to stabilize an area that had been breached.

21:18 The scar itself on the surface may look bumpy and weird and a little bit ugly.

21:23 And there are some things we can do with friction that can

21:26 adapt that tissue that can maybe soften the scar a little bit.

21:30 But the scar is necessary to act

21:32 as a permanent suture for the rest of your life.

21:35 Um, but typically what we're seeing on the surface of the body,

21:38 the scar is really the tip of the iceberg depending

21:42 on how far down that wound was into the body.

21:46 Now, if we have a breach that goes all the way to the bone,

21:49 like I'll use myself as an example.

21:51 I had a total hip replacement almost eight years ago.

21:54 And so, you know, they had a they had a saw

21:56 that greater trunker off and there were many layers that were breached.

22:00 So, there's a scar path that goes from skin all the way to deep.

22:03 Even though it was a very elegant surgery,

22:05 you're left with a scar path um postsurgery.

22:08 And ideally, you want to be able

22:11 to do movements and massage that allow the fascial

22:16 tissues to restore glide so that the muscles

22:20 can return to their correct length tension relationships.

22:23 So, when we are stimulating these tissues,

22:28 we're doing uh many different categories of things.

22:31 Um, one of my personal favorite reasons to do selfmyofascial

22:36 release or to do foam rolling is to enhance one's propriception,

22:41 to enhance one's ability to know where they are

22:44 in their own body and be able to know

22:47 how to move forward or how to take the next step to know where you are in space.

22:52 That propreceptive enhancement has been shown to also

22:56 have an inverse relationship to pain perception.

22:59 So when we exaggerate or tickle these propriceptive nerve endings

23:04 like rfini endings or pachini corp pusles or muscle spindle

23:08 or even golgi it has an enhancement of improving our sensory

23:13 motor awareness but dampening down our pain perception which is great

23:18 because we do we have this analgesic effect and we

23:21 have a window that we can train in in better coordination

23:25 offsetting or at least putting at a distance um some

23:28 of these pain signals And that means that when we train,

23:33 we can then train in a better position and over time optimize our physical

23:39 body so that the pain doesn't have a place to sit in our body.

23:43 Right?

23:44 So when we hopefully part

23:46 of your your your pain management is having healthy muscles,

23:51 helping healthy strong movement patterns.

23:53 Um, and that is one way that doing the foam rolling or self

23:57 myofascia release or self massage can be a a boon to pain reduction.

24:04 And there I got to include all these different uh nerve endings as well.

24:08 This is actually amazing.

24:10 What you're saying is if you were to do that prior

24:12 to your workouts and this has some sort of a pain dampening effect,

24:18 you could then train closer to that pain ceiling but below it.

24:23 Um, is this deadening the nerves?

24:25 Is this getting them that the pain se receptors calm down more?

24:28 Like is this exactly what you were talking

24:30 about as a way for your pain management strategy?

24:32 When we're in pain, we are not

24:34 at our best in terms of our movement coordination.

24:38 And that poor movement coordination tends to be

24:42 get even more movement coordination and leads to accidents.

24:46 And so we can use the tools like a selfmy fascia release tool to um essentially

24:53 have a state change physically from the tissue

24:56 but also it helps to create this mental swipe.

25:01 And the temporariness of that is you know in in the research

25:05 right now is showing that there are a lot

25:07 of these acute changes um and that these things can also happen

25:12 in long term but you have to do them again and again.

25:16 You can't just do it once and hope for the best and it's all good.

25:20 You need to have a discipline about your approach to self- rolling,

25:25 foam rolling, as well as the corrective work.

25:29 The foam rolling in and of itself is not going to take care of everything.

25:32 You still have to change the body's behavior around

25:35 why that pain set about in the first place, right?

25:38 And so that is the physical management that comes

25:41 along with proper exercise and whatever other things,

25:45 nutrition, sleep, all of that.

25:47 If I, and I've seen people do this a thousand times,

25:50 if I were to take a tennis ball and put it

25:53 underneath the bottom of my foot right now, maybe a baseball,

25:57 a harder one, and I would roll on that for two minutes,

26:00 I would probably stand up, and if I were to bend over and touch my toes,

26:03 my range of motion would be greater.

26:05 Right?

26:05 This is the fascial connection.

26:07 Right?

26:07 So, I've undone some of the fascia,

26:09 however you want to think about this, in the bottom of my foot.

26:12 And since they transferred all the way up to the back

26:14 of my spine and then or well the back of my head,

26:17 hopefully that has created uh some change in in range of motion.

26:22 How long does that last?

26:23 A few minutes, a few hours.

26:25 What do we know about the length

26:26 of a single acute session for that range of motion?

26:29 And is that range of motion, if that's all I did,

26:32 is that going to have any chronic effect?

26:36 So, one of the things that rolling on an an area like the foot.

26:41 So, is there a morphological change when I roll my foot?

26:44 Probably not.

26:45 The research is showing that you're probably not

26:47 actually changing the fascial tissues in and of themselves,

26:51 even though it we can improve glide.

26:53 We can improve um an a relative glide amongst many different tissues um even

26:59 in a a pretty relatively short period of time within 60 seconds to two minutes.

27:04 But one of the things that the research is also saying is probably that the one

27:08 of the things the rolling is doing is it's adjusting your discomfort to stretch.

27:14 So it's adjusting your pain pressure threshold to stretch.

27:18 So there are these fluid changes, there's heat changes.

27:22 Um but in a way you're inoculating

27:25 yourself to the discomfort of the forward bend.

27:28 And so that is allowing for a little bit more movement.

27:31 But there's also some of these neural changes

27:33 such as the rolling is um enhancing parasympathetic features.

27:38 So perhaps um there is less muscle

27:41 bracing in your range of motion check afterwards.

27:44 So there are you know there's a cascade of things that are happening.

27:49 I don't think we can only say oh it's

27:50 the fascia that's letting me get that extra range.

27:54 It's a part of it, but I think there's a few

27:57 other things going on neurologically and um in terms of fluid mechanics,

28:02 and that makes a ton of sense.

28:03 It would be pretty silly to think if I

28:05 were to roll on a foam roller for 2 minutes

28:08 and then all of a sudden I get up and I

28:10 have a structural change in the anatomy of my quad.

28:13 It's a miracle.

28:14 That would be pretty ridiculous to think, right?

28:17 So, how long is that typically going to last?

28:20 A few minutes?

28:21 A few hours?

28:23 As you alluded to earlier,

28:24 if your only strategy is foam rolling or whatever the case is,

28:27 it's probably not correcting it.

28:28 So, what other stuff do I have to do?

28:31 What things can I tack on that give me

28:34 a higher likelihood of this being a more permanent change?

28:36 So I I haven't seen any research that like

28:39 they did the rolling and then you know they check

28:42 it five minutes they check they check it 30 minutes

28:47 and then you're like you're also wondering well I bet

28:50 that stretch at 5 minutes helped with the stretch

28:53 at 15 show up at 30 minutes but then they didn't

28:56 say okay now go ahead and go to your classes

28:59 and come back in six hours and let's recheck you.

29:02 So, I haven't seen something like that, but I

29:05 I certainly know anecdotally with the clients

29:08 that I work with, we usually are rolling for a considerable amount of time.

29:13 We're not just doing a two-minute roll and then hoping

29:16 that our range of motion is changed for the day.

29:18 We're doing strategies that are really trying to affect certain

29:22 conditions or certain systems of the body or certain pain patterns.

29:26 And people will have hours and hours if not days

29:31 of improvement after some of these very deep and um

29:36 disciplined ways of decompressing certain areas of the body or fluffing

29:41 tissues as I like to say offloading um compacted tissues.

29:46 I want to know what a a sample model of that could look like.

29:50 But before we do that, I got

29:51 a couple of quick questions on this particular topic.

29:55 We asked about duration.

29:58 Uh my assumption is the harder you press,

30:02 the more pain you're in, the better things get here, right?

30:05 Let's talk about that.

30:06 That's how I that's how I really get these things changed, right?

30:09 And I'm I'm not actually joking because that was actually my strategy.

30:12 Thank you, Kelly.

30:12 Starrat pain cave was was my approach.

30:15 And I always thought the more pain I'm in, the more it's solving the problem.

30:20 It's causing the release, whatever was working.

30:23 So what do we know about the dosage that how long does it have to be?

30:27 How hard do I have to press?

30:29 More pain, less pain.

30:30 Give me the quick rub down on that part

30:32 of it before we get into these more comprehensive strategies.

30:34 Okay.

30:35 So there's a few different things to talk about.

30:37 One is tool hardness.

30:41 Okay.

30:41 Yep.

30:41 And another is it doesn't have to hurt to work.

30:45 Oh, damn.

30:47 I am a soft tool champion.

30:50 And I will tell you right now,

30:52 the soft tools were 500 times more effective for me.

30:55 Yes.

30:56 So stress transfer mediums are what we call the tools.

31:01 This is the the mechanical term,

31:04 the scientific term for self-massage tools or self myofasial release tools.

31:08 So you have foam rollers, you have um balls of various hardness,

31:14 you have uh roller sticks, you have little like uh pokey things.

31:19 Um and hardness matters to your body because you are a living being.

31:28 You are an organism that has responses.

31:32 Um, it doesn't feel good to get poked with something

31:35 that's hard unless you can attenuate your response to that.

31:39 So that's that's a that's a that's a part of this conversation strategy, right?

31:43 So what a hard tool will do is

31:46 it will initiate a sympathetic nervous system response.

31:49 This is called the muscle bracing response because your body

31:52 doesn't want to be deformed by something that might cause pain,

31:56 that might cause injury.

31:58 This is a natural autonomic protective response

32:01 and this is called the muscle bracing response.

32:03 So there was it's just crazy to me

32:07 but in the over 200 and something um published papers

32:12 on selfmofascial release there was one paper that disclosed

32:17 the hardness of the actual implements used in the rolling.

32:23 Okay, just for perspective, you know, foam rollers are they're dense foam.

32:29 They are they're very hard.

32:31 Even though an individual foam cell you can compress it,

32:34 when all those foams are together, that's hard like wood.

32:38 It's really hard.

32:40 A lacrosse ball is the same hardness as a bowling ball.

32:45 Did you know that?

32:45 Did not.

32:46 There is no difference in the material substrate

32:49 of a bowling ball or a lacrosse ball.

32:51 It is the same thing.

32:52 The lacrosse ball is interesting though because it's

32:54 covered with this grippy um rubber which I love.

32:56 I love the rubber of a lacrosse ball.

32:59 But a lacrosse ball has no yield.

33:01 Neither does a bowling ball.

33:03 Neither does a foam roller or a hard foam roller.

33:05 These will just keep pushing their weight into you

33:09 and you either suffer through it or you brace against it.

33:13 It causes so much discomfort.

33:14 You're like, I I'm just fighting against my own tension.

33:17 I'm not getting anywhere here.

33:19 So this one uh Korean paper it it was very special for two reasons.

33:25 It disclosed what's called durometer.

33:26 That's the that's the way we measure hardness in objects.

33:30 Right?

33:31 So you know wood is harder than foam.

33:34 Um gum is much softer than a tennis ball.

33:38 Right?

33:38 So we have this this scale of hardnesses

33:42 um that's measured by um measured um in what's

33:45 called uh the shore scale and you use

33:47 a durometer to to to test for indentation hardness.

33:52 So they uh this cohort used uh people with chronic neck pain

33:57 and they used a cohort of over 60 year olds in Korea.

34:02 So it's very unusual to have a cohort of aged people.

34:07 Most research in self myofascial release is

34:09 on young people in college on foam rollers.

34:13 Most of them are rolling their calves, spoiler alert, or their hamstrings, Andy.

34:17 Or their quads.

34:18 But to find old people with neck pain.

34:20 Yep.

34:21 And then to either put them on a lacrosse ball or a soft inflated ball.

34:30 So what do you think happened to the co?

34:33 The ones that put themselves in more pain got better.

34:35 Right.

34:35 the hard ball folks.

34:38 Um, what they found was there was a a thickening

34:41 effect in the when they were measuring EMG, the muscles were just in tension.

34:46 The trapezius muscles braced against the ball.

34:50 So, the the ball couldn't even get to depth, right?

34:52 Because the body was protecting itself.

34:54 Those that used the soft ball had an increase of uh neck range

34:59 of motion and a decrease of pain because the ball could get in.

35:04 the ball was actually to do the therapeutic work

35:07 because they weren't fighting against their own neurological tension.

35:12 Um, so in my book, soft is supreme in terms of working

35:16 with your nervous system rather than working

35:19 against it and creating even more sympathetic stress,

35:22 propagating even more pain.

35:24 Um, there is uh some other research

35:26 by a guy named Leonard Bloom and Mark Driscoll.

35:30 Uh Leonid specializes in cerebral pulsy and he works with families um to help

35:36 uh the children with cerebral pulsy to you know improve their posture and pain.

35:41 Um and that he uses only soft implements uh with these kids and it really

35:46 helps them to create a more spontaneous

35:48 upright posture and um have better movement patterns.

35:51 But what they did, what Driscoll and Bloom did is they um did some

35:55 indentation hardness tests with a lot

35:57 of different substrates and they made I think

35:59 they made like a mock uh cell not cell culture but they were able

36:03 to measure the distance of forces using

36:07 these different um tools into the substrate.

36:10 And what they found was that the softer tools were

36:14 able to reach the furthest distance into the the body.

36:18 So that's one of the reasons why I'm a really big fan of soft tools.

36:24 They don't have to hurt to work.

36:26 And when you're rolling and it hurts, that's a great information for you.

36:32 You know, the rolling isn't about trying to make more hurt.

36:36 You're actually trying to get rid of the hurt.

36:38 But when you do roll into something that does hurt,

36:41 that also should tell you either it's a protective response or I'm

36:47 actually encountering parts of my body that are inflamed or don't move well.

36:52 I think it's really good information,

36:54 but you want to be able to work with that instead

36:56 of um think that you can just beat it out of you.

36:59 Yeah.

37:00 Well, I'm still going to try to beat it out,

37:01 but I appreciate you and your science, Jill.

37:04 The glare.

37:04 If you all just saw the glare she just gave me.

37:07 No, I don't do it.

37:08 I use I' I've learned my lesson from there.

37:10 So, yeah.

37:11 And the other thing is, you know, your own um muscular tension or your gluey

37:17 tissue from uh overuse or overtraining.

37:22 Um the glueiness coming from increased viscosity

37:26 of this hyaluron that the fascia sites produce.

37:29 Uh this is really a hot mess inside of there and we want to not have that there.

37:35 And so when we get that feedback from tools,

37:37 I think it's really great information that we we may be burning

37:40 ourselves out and setting ourselves up for an injury down the road.

37:44 So I think it is really really good

37:45 feedback when we come across those pain spots,

37:47 but then I think we need to to work

37:49 in an informed way to reduce that um at at all costs.

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40:42 I would imagine the same logic extends to formal massage.

40:47 So this is if you're thinking about the classic Swedish massage.

40:50 Yes.

40:50 And deep tissue, right?

40:52 So obviously the the normal thing feels good.

40:55 Deep tissue is great, but uh probably the same thing for any type of self-care.

41:01 Uh any type of stretching if you're to the point of extreme discomfort,

41:05 potentially not your best strategy because of protective mechanisms,

41:08 locking up and stuff.

41:09 So some amount of discomfort, but not past what,

41:13 like three out of 10, four out of 10.

41:15 So, I think they it's like a therapeutic discomfort.

41:18 I call it comfortable discomfort,

41:20 like tolerable discomfort where you can still breathe.

41:23 Um, you know, you're you you don't have involuntary overflow,

41:26 meaning you're not clenching your jaw.

41:28 Um, I mean, some of the things that we see when I'm

41:31 rolling people out in the classroom is their eyes will freeze open.

41:34 Um, their hands will clench like they're holding onto

41:36 a gun and a purse at the same time.

41:38 Um, or you know, they'll do uh weird ticks

41:41 with their jaw and and this just means they're in overflow.

41:43 they're in sympathetic overflow.

41:45 They're not engaging a therapeutic response and they

41:48 might also actually be frankly dissociating from their body.

41:51 So that to me um is a really a removal of presence.

41:55 And I think you I think and this is what I write about in body by breath.

41:59 It's really important that you are present

42:01 with your entire being while you're doing this work

42:05 so that you can um be a conscious chooser of your own healing and that it's

42:12 not just happening to you because you're

42:13 getting lucky or you're not bypassing it

42:16 and you know sort of splitting or dissociating

42:18 in the context of self- massage or massage.

42:21 Now, I know I have endured massages where I finally am like, "Okay,

42:25 I'm gonna leave psychologically and I'm going

42:27 to let this person do whatever they

42:29 want because they're not listening to me or I'm just choosing to leave, right?

42:34 And I'm just going to be a shell on the table,

42:36 which sounds like totally crazy, but you know, we can make those choices, too.

42:39 Like, we don't always have to be totally,

42:41 you know, zen and present and all of that.

42:42 sometimes are like, I kind of want to see what

42:45 will happen if they just maw on my vasis mediialis.

42:51 Yeah.

42:51 Till I bruise.

42:53 I just want to see what's going to happen.

42:54 Will that free up, you know, this portion of my my knee?

42:58 Yeah.

42:59 I would imagine then what you're saying is if

43:02 you're if your myofascial release strategy is check your phone,

43:08 hands come up with emails while you're

43:09 cruising on a foam roller for three minutes.

43:12 What you're trying to tell me is

43:13 that's probably not the most effective strategy.

43:14 You know what?

43:16 It is an okay strategy for the fibroblasts and the fascia sites.

43:22 Those fluids, those fibers,

43:24 they will respond to that contact because it's just smashing moving.

43:28 Yeah.

43:28 I mean, it's it's fine.

43:30 But I think if you really want to be in control of this remodel of yourself,

43:36 you want to be aware.

43:38 You want to remain aware and pick up on both the subtle and gross

43:42 sensations that are percolating from these different

43:45 sensory neurons at different levels within your tissues.

43:48 I think this is a really nice way

43:49 to frame it because it's still not negative, right?

43:53 You hop on a foam roller for one minute, but bad things didn't happen,

43:58 but are you getting the most bang for your buck?

44:01 And this allows people to level up when they want to, right?

44:05 So if you need to check out for a few minutes on the massage table, check out.

44:08 Great.

44:09 But if you're also then trying to use

44:10 this as a strategy for many other things, there are options.

44:14 And just people knowing you can use modalities like this to go after

44:19 bigger problems is something a lot don't think a lot of folks really realize.

44:23 So I know you have many examples of that.

44:26 But before we get to any of that, I really want

44:28 to dwell on double triple quadruple tap on this compression idea.

44:33 Okay.

44:34 I want you to walk me through.

44:36 You said glide earlier.

44:38 This is what I said earlier was I didn't realize you could do it.

44:41 I didn't realize self massage could be anything besides compression.

44:46 Oh, okay.

44:47 Right.

44:47 So, hit me with why am I pulling?

44:51 You gave the examples earlier of your skin.

44:53 I had no idea your skin should move, right?

44:57 When you pull it up and pop it like, okay, great.

44:59 But I didn't know it should glide past and feel like that.

45:02 I didn't know when it got pinned down that that was telling me anything.

45:06 I didn't realize if I grabbed the outside

45:07 of my quad and I punched the skin off there, it should slide past itself.

45:15 Once I realized that, once I started using your strategies and then I

45:19 started watching and looking at people doing

45:21 things like cupping, I was like, "Oh, there is way more to this game than

45:27 just compression." So whether this is massage compression,

45:31 self massage compression, foam rolling,

45:33 we're still talking compression, compression, compression, right?

45:37 What's the other side of this equation or the other

45:38 two sides or however you frame it to be?

45:41 Yes.

45:41 So your your fascial tissues have the ability to move in every direction.

45:48 They're vectorred in every possible angle all throughout your body.

45:56 So, um, just squishing them is beneficial,

46:00 but only squishing them is leaving out the possibility

46:04 of offloading them or tractioning them in the opposite direction.

46:10 So, um, this suction type of thing that a cup

46:15 can do is just so amazing because it can

46:19 allow a gapping to occur from bone to skin

46:24 rather than you just pressing in from skin to bone.

46:27 And that can relieve a lot of overcompression tension.

46:31 um or possibly you have um some adhes adhesions or elomerations um

46:39 that uh can't be helped at a certain vector and so doing

46:44 techniques uh like I say in the role model we do this thing

46:47 called um pin spin mobilize and this is a term that I

46:50 picked up from Kelly so much right and so what we're doing

46:53 is we're using uh one of the soft balls or any you

46:57 can really do this with any tool as long as it has

46:59 grip and you place it into your tissue and you you spin it,

47:04 you twist it, you wrangle the tissue until you feel there is a tolerable pinch.

47:11 Once you have that tolerable pinch, just think about that.

47:13 That's a vortex of tissue that's whirled into the tool.

47:17 That's a tremendous amount of stretch.

47:19 And then from there,

47:20 you attempt to move the tool or move your body right, left, um, back, forth.

47:27 And so then that's moving that twisted knot in a variety of different ways.

47:31 When I say knot, I don't mean like a muscle knot.

47:32 It's that the twisted um skin, superficial fascia, loose fascia,

47:37 and possibly deep fascia at that level that we're getting all this traction.

47:41 And then when you release that, there'll be a ton of perfusion.

47:44 Uh there'll be a a whoosh of warmth and this sudden onset

47:49 of range of motion improvements um that's local to that joint, you know.

47:53 So if I were uh doing that on the the rib cage,

47:57 you will have such dynamic breaths after that.

48:02 Um so the pin spin immobilize that includes this uh vector called shear, right?

48:10 So shear is where we're getting um basically horizontal stretch.

48:15 Um but you know cupping cupping is is an additional

48:19 uh local traction that really stretches um skin superficial fascia all

48:26 the retinacular cutis and then can even grip into deep

48:30 fascia and create a force vector maybe even to the perryioium.

48:34 So that's the skin the fascial skin around the bones.

48:36 Um and there are of course nerve endings and blood vessels all

48:42 the way at depth that are being um teased in a novel

48:46 way that they're not getting dayto-day because most of right most

48:49 of gravity is pushing us into ourselves instead of like I mean

48:54 there's a good reason like we don't want to float off

48:56 of ourselves but just think of that that feeling you get when I'm

49:02 thinking about my husband um when just think about when we walk

49:07 the dog and I grab him by the scruff of his neck,

49:10 you know, where that coat hanger area is, right at the base of the neck,

49:15 the upper trapezius, and I just traction him right in that dowardgers hump area.

49:20 He doesn't have one, but you know what I'm talking about.

49:22 Just like I would lift a puppy by the scruff of its skin.

49:25 It feels amazing to have stretch in that direction.

49:28 We just don't get it.

49:30 Um, so I try to do that using uh two balls in different areas of the body

49:36 to to also create that type

49:38 of of offloading traction rather than a compression traction.

49:44 Um, I think you'd have to look into the cupping literature

49:46 to see other benefits of what that offloading type of of stretch does.

49:51 And I haven't really looked into that.

49:52 Yeah.

49:52 How do I perform decompression by myself?

49:58 And as I was alluding to earlier, this is what changed for me, right?

50:03 I can foam roll my back.

50:04 I feel a little bit better for 5 seconds.

50:06 But when I do traction, when I do decompression,

50:10 for specifically my low back, that's the big changes I get.

50:14 And that lasts hours hours for for me personally.

50:17 It's not the same.

50:18 Other areas of my body feel better actually with compression, with smashing.

50:21 Mhm.

50:22 But certainly early is it is always going to be traction.

50:25 You mentioned glide and slide.

50:26 You talked about twisting and for people at home like visualize this.

50:30 Literally pinch your skin like your little brother would pinch

50:34 you and twist it and do that and keep doing that.

50:37 Move it around and then you'll let it go and once the kind of pain

50:40 from the pinch goes away you realize like oh

50:42 my gosh that whole area is moving better now.

50:46 I would just love a few more direct examples.

50:48 How can people do traction and decompression all by themselves?

50:53 During the pandemic, I was in peak stress just like everybody else.

51:00 I was homeschooling a 5-year-old,

51:03 a kindergartener and a three-year-old preschooler who had never had

51:08 a computer in front of their face in their whole lives.

51:11 And all of a sudden, their schools were on Zoom.

51:14 and we were pivoting our company and filming

51:18 all this content and it was so stressful.

51:22 I started to have and also I was writing

51:24 a book of course about stress regulation and I started

51:27 to have panic attacks which is not and that is

51:30 not in uh something that I'm not used to.

51:33 I definitely had panic attacks in my life, but this was horrible.

51:38 And I had come across just some anatomical body part that I'd read about before,

51:46 but sometimes there sometimes a body part,

51:49 especially when it's fascial topography, it doesn't stick the first time,

51:52 doesn't stick the second time,

51:53 it doesn't the seventh time, but finally the eighth time,

51:56 I became fascinated by this particular area

51:58 of the thoracco lumbar apenurosis called the lateral raft.

52:01 So the thoracco lumbar ainurosis is the the plane upon plane

52:06 of flat epimesial fascia that is the tendon of your lats.

52:13 It's the tendon of your external abdominal obliques,

52:16 your internal abdominal obliques,

52:17 your transversus abdominis, your erector spina.

52:20 They're also layers that envelop the soas and quadratus lumboreum.

52:24 So we have a layer cake of deep

52:27 fascia on the back called the thoracco lumbar ainurosis.

52:30 All right.

52:31 And within this there is there are these little seams where

52:36 all of the layers of the thoracco lumbar app apenosis come together.

52:40 And these are called the lateral raf

52:41 or lateral rafé if I'm pronouncing French correctly.

52:45 So I want to see if I can massage that lateral rafé.

52:48 And so what I did was I I have

52:50 these tools called gorgeous balls and they're soft inflated rubber balls.

52:55 And the ball feels like a human hand.

52:57 It's very grippy and they're very gushy these balls.

53:01 And so I place them on either side

53:03 of my lower back right about where the lateral raft is.

53:06 Where is that?

53:07 Just above the pelvic bones uh connecting to the 12th rib.

53:13 So we have this little zipper.

53:14 This is where this lateral raft is.

53:16 I laid on my back and I had these gorgeous balls

53:21 on the the girth of my low back and my sacrum was on the floor.

53:26 These balls were on the sides of my low back,

53:30 rib cage and head was on the floor.

53:33 And I laid there and I breathed for many,

53:36 many minutes using my diaphragm as an internal massage tool

53:42 uh to reach my way into this thoracco lumbar ainurosis.

53:48 And I experienced a lot of pleasure over the many minutes that I was there.

53:58 And that pleasure was I could feel from my sacrum to the crown of my head,

54:04 my entire spine was lengthening while these balls

54:09 were broadening me from side to side.

54:14 When I um there's a lot more that happened there,

54:16 but when I finally took the balls out,

54:18 I could feel that my little body I'm a little 5 foot two girly.

54:23 I took those balls out and I swear to God, I had grown an inch.

54:26 All of my discs had reperused.

54:30 My anteriorly tilted pelvis was no longer just passively

54:35 hanging out in anterior tilt in a reclined position.

54:37 And I know this is the experience you had because

54:39 I did this with Andy and after he did this decompression,

54:43 he's like, "Oh, my my lumbar spine is not extended anymore.

54:46 It just feels quote unquote neutral.

54:48 It doesn't feel like it's hypertonic in this." Um,

54:51 and so I had that same experience.

54:53 And part of that back tension that I had

54:56 was all the emotional stress of carrying this business,

54:59 of carrying this family, of not having a way out.

55:03 So there was a lot of emotional release that went along

55:06 with this decompression because I was just holding on to so much.

55:10 Um so this is a way that one can painlessly address back pain.

55:17 Um that can address uh arthritis in the spine that's

55:22 you know making you hold your body in a certain way.

55:25 Um and that isn't a rub out.

55:27 It's not like a roll out.

55:28 I'm not like creating aggressive friction.

55:31 This progressive position anchors these layers of thoracco lumbar ainerosis.

55:37 And the breath is the tool that's creating this almost

55:41 like this squeegee swipe balloon action inside your body and creating

55:46 this progressive stretch from bone to ligament to disc to fascial

55:54 layer to muscle uh to induce better glide throughout the entire axis.

56:00 And then within that little capsule,

56:03 that little position um there are so many little micro movements that one

56:07 can do to address um you know very nuanced things as well.

56:10 But also you think about this decompression

56:13 of the spine isn't just decompressing the spine.

56:15 It's also decompressing all the visceral organs that are are

56:19 hanging out just on the front side of your body

56:21 that are also like dealing with how they process

56:25 stress or how they're processing your posture at all times.

56:27 I think there are many different things that are decompressing.

56:31 That is the overall emotional feeling of release.

56:34 So I heard you say release when you were leading up this question.

56:39 That word release in the selfmofascial release literature.

56:43 Unfortunately we have this term selfmyofasial release although

56:47 I think foam rolling is a horrible term also.

56:49 Yes.

56:50 Okay.

56:50 So both I know the science hates self myofascial release.

56:53 No, but you you feel this ephemeral uh

56:57 psychological almost spiritual sense of something has released.

57:01 Some heaviness that I felt before or some

57:04 strain that I was preoccupied with has evaporated.

57:10 Why?

57:10 I just laid on two gushy air filled balls and I breathed.

57:15 I didn't even move.

57:16 I just Nothing even hurt and nothing hurt.

57:18 And my breath was the movement.

57:19 how subtle and amazing that is.

57:23 There is I would say I don't know probably a doubling

57:26 of the literature in mileage release in the last couple of years.

57:30 Mhm.

57:31 It is really really exploding.

57:32 There was not much to I mean I would literally think it's probably doubled.

57:35 You're right.

57:36 So we're learning more clearly.

57:38 We don't have all the answers.

57:39 This is a field where we have to lean

57:43 on clinicians is my opinion because the science is catching up.

57:46 We're getting there.

57:47 But we need to have people like you who have can simply

57:49 tell us this is what I've done and this is the people

57:52 and this is the the coaching access um to give us more tools

57:56 because the science is is just going to be behind us for some time.

58:01 So I know that there's distension with the term

58:04 myofascial release and you've alluded to that earlier.

58:06 It's doesn't necessarily only mean

58:09 that the myofasia themselves are being released.

58:11 So um do you know is there a more appropriate scientific term?

58:14 Is that still kind of up for debate or landing?

58:17 Um, I think I proposed like myofascial.

58:21 What did I propose?

58:22 Treatment or Well, I think I think massage is actually Okay.

58:27 I think that's actually a right word.

58:29 Well, we don't have a great term.

58:30 We'll acknowledge like manipulation.

58:33 Yeah, cuz the actual result the the release, we can't guarantee.

58:37 We can guarantee the massage part or the manipulation.

58:39 The manipulation.

58:40 Exactly.

58:40 Massage manipulation.

58:42 I described how I came a lot of a lot

58:45 of how I came about the rollouts that I do are so

58:51 many of them are about stress regulation but they happen to help

58:54 be so helpful for people with pain and and so many

58:57 other different um syndromes but I wanted to point out about

59:01 this spinal decompression um exercise what's so notable by the way

59:07 it's I call it the lumbar hammock for short but in in Body

59:10 by breath it's called spinal decompression via the lateral raft.

59:14 It's really an embarrassment.

59:16 I can't believe I overtitled that, but it's just a lumbar hammock.

59:19 You're just setting up a hammock.

59:21 Um, but there is a researcher in a professor in Wisconsin

59:26 who is forming some cohorts right now in the firefighter community.

59:31 She's had an end of one.

59:33 She has a a firefighter that she's been working with who

59:37 has been doing these uh these these type of rollouts,

59:40 very gentle, non-p painful, not aggressive rolling.

59:46 And she was really having trouble with a stress

59:49 test that they regularly have to go through,

59:52 I guess, to maintain their certification.

59:53 They have to run um run up stairs with a heavy pack,

59:57 many many many flights of stairs.

59:59 And she kept breaking down.

1:00:00 and she was having difficulty in her preparation for the test.

1:00:04 And the professor said, "Give me a month.

1:00:07 Let me let me work with you on some stress relieving techniques."

1:00:11 And she shared this and a number of other the body by breath techniques.

1:00:15 And she was able to run the test with energy to spare and with no pain.

1:00:20 And so now she's creating a cohort of firefighters to test out some things.

1:00:26 Um but the same researcher has also been

1:00:29 doing this work in a much older population uh

1:00:33 in a population of folks with Parkinson's disease

1:00:36 and all of them say they have immediate postural improvements.

1:00:40 Their tremors stop or diminish greatly.

1:00:43 So there are a lot of other autonomic nervous system benefits

1:00:47 that this type of work does that isn't just necessarily tissue dependent, right?

1:00:53 But there are other shifts I think that are

1:00:55 happening throughout the body that are notable and can

1:00:59 be very helpful and you know low to no

1:01:02 cost if you don't have balls like I'm describing.

1:01:06 What I've done as a substitute is I've rolled up yoga mats.

1:01:09 I mean most people can find yoga mats or something.

1:01:13 Yeah.

1:01:14 But the grip is important.

1:01:15 So you need to find something to put over

1:01:17 the towel that's going to create the grip um for you.

1:01:21 So you have to experiment in your house.

1:01:23 I like um like uh you know cano bottle

1:01:27 openers that you use to open a mayonnaise jar.

1:01:29 Those are good.

1:01:29 You have to have a few of those.

1:01:31 You can put those on some rolled up towels.

1:01:33 But the grip is really important again

1:01:35 because we're talking about this layer cake.

1:01:37 We're talking about trying to create um horizontal forces,

1:01:42 sheer forces that are going from skin all the way to bone.

1:01:45 And but we're not just doing it with compression like you said.

1:01:47 We're not just pressing in.

1:01:49 We're trying to traction and offload.

1:01:51 So you have to look for that in your house.

1:01:54 Quick question.

1:01:54 Do you have any sample videos online if someone want to see

1:01:59 that the exercise something like that that we can link to the show notes?

1:02:02 Yes, I have many on Instagram.

1:02:04 I have many free videos on YouTube and I have this I

1:02:08 think I have a 9minute version on YouTube of this one.

1:02:10 Okay, great.

1:02:10 So you guys want to go try that out,

1:02:11 we can link all that directly in the show notes.

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1:03:34 You alluded to this earlier.

1:03:36 You spoke about the diaphragm.

1:03:38 I want to go to this side of the equation.

1:03:41 Can we start by walking us through the two

1:03:43 primary diaphragms we're going to be worried about here?

1:03:45 People hear diaphragm, they forget there like multiple, four of them.

1:03:49 Top one, bottom one.

1:03:51 What are they doing here?

1:03:52 And what's this got to do with our conversation?

1:03:53 And you can see again the point I'm working to here is like how do we actually

1:03:56 use the gut very physiologically and anatomically to get

1:04:04 pain gone from everywhere else in my body?

1:04:06 It's so cool.

1:04:07 I had to write a 480 page book about it.

1:04:09 I love the diaphragm.

1:04:10 Sure.

1:04:11 Oh my goodness.

1:04:12 The respiratory diaphragm specifically.

1:04:14 Yes.

1:04:14 The respiratory diaphragm.

1:04:16 The respiratory diaphragm.

1:04:17 Yeah.

1:04:17 This is this interesting horizontal muscle, this sort of misshapen parachute.

1:04:23 Um inside of the rib cage, you have this um partition between

1:04:29 the abdominal organs and your heart and lungs.

1:04:33 And this muscle acts as a a pump for both the the viscera

1:04:40 below it as well as the lungs and the heart above it.

1:04:44 Um, and it's also keeping those things separate.

1:04:46 If you didn't have your diaphragm, your small intestine would be coming out

1:04:50 of your nose most unattractive and disgusting.

1:04:55 So, it's it's there for for that reason.

1:04:57 The the diaphragm, let me just uh rewind just a little bit.

1:05:02 When you're doing that decompression exercise, one of the cues,

1:05:07 one of the attention cues that I gave to you

1:05:09 and to the other folks here at the perform

1:05:14 podcast was to once the balls were in place

1:05:17 was to deliberately breathe south of the rib cage, right?

1:05:22 to breathe in a gutward direction,

1:05:26 to breathe the energy of your attention into the balls

1:05:30 that are on either side of your low back.

1:05:33 Um, and what that enables is you to begin to sense the actual excursion,

1:05:40 the downward movement of your diaphragm on Exactly what I felt.

1:05:44 Yep.

1:05:45 And then it's relaxation on exhale.

1:05:48 This was a basically a slow forced inhale meaning you're deliberately

1:05:53 inhaling and then I asked them to not force the exhale.

1:05:56 So the exhale was just a what we call passive recoil

1:05:59 in the diaphragm space or rather in the uh fascia space.

1:06:03 So we have this inhalation where you're feeling the movement

1:06:06 of the diaphragm into the right and left ball.

1:06:09 Um, but what I also asked them, especially Andy, to pay attention to was,

1:06:14 I wonder if you feel any difference in the movement

1:06:17 on the right side versus the left as you're here breathing.

1:06:22 And was there a difference for you?

1:06:23 Yeah, it was I think I described it as it was so different.

1:06:27 It didn't even feel like the same body parts.

1:06:29 It was as different as my right knee is from my left elbow.

1:06:32 Like it was completely separate.

1:06:35 Totally different.

1:06:37 These are two hemispheres of one muscle.

1:06:41 We have a right diaphragm and we have a left diaphragm

1:06:43 and they're inervated separately by a right and left frenic nerve.

1:06:47 Um, and your right diaphragm is a little bit higher in your body

1:06:52 and the left hemisphere is a little bit lower but can't sense it.

1:06:56 You can't feel your diaphragm.

1:06:58 This partition is devoid of muscle spindles.

1:07:02 So, you can't really ever know.

1:07:05 Like I can say to you right now, Andy,

1:07:07 can you tell me the degree of contraction in your right bicep?

1:07:14 Or can you tell me about you can tell me about

1:07:16 the position of your elbow by thinking about your right bicep?

1:07:20 But if I told you right now, if I asked you right now, where is your diaphragm?

1:07:24 Yeah.

1:07:25 Only because I know where it is when we

1:07:27 do different parts of breathing, I would know that.

1:07:29 But I have no kinesthetic or propriceptive awareness at all of my diaphragm.

1:07:32 you have no prop propreceptive awareness of this muscle.

1:07:36 Um, thank God because if you had to feel it 20,000 times a day,

1:07:41 descending and ascending, you'd go mad.

1:07:45 You can't afford that.

1:07:47 This is this breathing is happening um automatically for you

1:07:52 most of the time unless you're taking control of it.

1:07:55 This is a skeletal muscle and we can control it.

1:07:57 It's amazing.

1:07:58 we can do things with the skeletal muscle

1:08:01 um that directly impact every system of the body.

1:08:04 The diaphragm is a node that spawns responses all over our body.

1:08:12 Um but for me, one of the most um practical

1:08:16 things that I do with my clients regarding the diaphragm is

1:08:22 inducing pressures into all the tissues that connect to the diaphragm

1:08:27 so that they can build a better mapping of it.

1:08:31 And at the same time they can

1:08:33 release tissues that unbeknownst to them are inhibiting

1:08:37 the diaphragm from its full range of motion

1:08:41 or from its potential range of motion.

1:08:43 Now I will say one more thing the diaphragm you you do feel the diaphragm

1:08:48 in one particular activity and that is when

1:08:53 it goes into spasm and that's the hiccups.

1:08:56 Mhm.

1:08:57 So that's really the one time when you like feel the diaphragm.

1:09:00 Other than that, it's really hard to feel.

1:09:02 So we have to make it visible through pressure,

1:09:06 through um uh novel breathing strategies with pressure.

1:09:09 When I talk about pressure,

1:09:10 I'm talking about using the especially the cordis ball

1:09:13 or the different uh therapy balls that I use in different

1:09:16 ways um and trying to enlarge your propreceptive and interosceptive

1:09:22 awareness of the relationship of breathing to the diaphragm.

1:09:27 And so one of the key places we go,

1:09:30 there's a lot of key places, but one of them is below the diaphragm.

1:09:33 will go into the gut because the diaphragm is sewn

1:09:36 into the same exact fascial fabric as the transverse abdominis.

1:09:40 And so um if your transversus abdominis uh is uh very

1:09:46 rigid from overtraining or from sucking your stomach in, these are things

1:09:51 that will create adaptations in the collagen network of your fascia and create

1:09:55 a lot of of stiffness and your your diaphragm as it descends.

1:10:02 There should be a corresponding ballooning of everything that's below it.

1:10:07 Right?

1:10:07 So, as your diaphragm presses down, this is called intraabdominal pressure.

1:10:11 Your your organs are going to be they're going to bob

1:10:14 down because they're being pressed from above by the diaphragm.

1:10:17 Your pelvic floor will have a stretch.

1:10:19 And there'll be a circumferential stretch.

1:10:22 The abdomen will stretch forward.

1:10:23 the waist and that thoracco lumbar appinosis that I was trying

1:10:27 to get you guys to perceive should also have a corresponding distension.

1:10:31 There's your horizontal movement right there.

1:10:33 That's right.

1:10:33 But most people are missing this horizontal movement um because of just

1:10:39 the way life creates so much tension in our back body.

1:10:44 Um low back pain is the most prevalent cause of pain worldwide.

1:10:49 And I'm here to solve that problem.

1:10:52 I wish.

1:10:53 Um, so by going into the transverse abdominis

1:10:56 with the cordis ball, um, by the way,

1:10:59 if you've never gone into the gut to massage,

1:11:04 I don't advise going into the gut to massage.

1:11:06 I always advise a sideline position first to attenuate your pain pressure

1:11:11 response because when that ball or when that object goes into the abdomen,

1:11:17 we go back to this muscle bracing response.

1:11:19 Yeah.

1:11:20 Your body will do anything to get to the next breath.

1:11:25 And if your transversus abdominis is compromised by pressure,

1:11:29 your brain is going to start to signal pain.

1:11:32 And that's going to get you off of the the object.

1:11:34 It's going to be so uncomfortable.

1:11:36 So, we have to figure out stealth ways to acclimate

1:11:41 your body to this uncomfortable pressure

1:11:43 that is threatening the diaphragm's movement.

1:11:46 So, there's a lot of paradoxes in here.

1:11:48 So we in in body by breath one of the things we do is we work with mindset.

1:11:52 So we'll actually self-suggest things to ourselves

1:11:55 in order to welcome this discomfort

1:11:58 um in a tolerable way like I I'm a student of my breath.

1:12:02 Right?

1:12:02 So we might say something to ourselves like I'm

1:12:04 a student of my breath or my breath is welcome here.

1:12:07 You know things like that can be really helpful because you want

1:12:10 to be a student of this relationship

1:12:14 of the diaphragm to the transverse abdominis.

1:12:16 And by the way, it's not just a transversus.

1:12:18 There's other stuff to there, too.

1:12:20 But, um, you know, visceral pain is also very real.

1:12:23 When you put an object, you know, right into your Yeah.

1:12:27 into your small intestine or your large

1:12:28 intestine for the first time or your bladder.

1:12:31 Uh, there might be some kickback.

1:12:32 Yeah.

1:12:33 Yeah.

1:12:33 Fair enough.

1:12:33 Duly noted.

1:12:34 Uh, I I went for gut smash first for the record.

1:12:37 Of course you did.

1:12:38 Okay.

1:12:38 Fairness.

1:12:39 It's an easy story to tell.

1:12:41 If uh my diaphragm isn't working,

1:12:44 I could see how this could reduce performance, right?

1:12:47 I could reduce my endurance because I'm not breathing correctly.

1:12:50 I could see all the things.

1:12:52 My question is past that.

1:12:53 Mhm.

1:12:54 How do I know?

1:12:56 How can I tell if my diaphragm is working or not?

1:12:58 I can't feel it like you said earlier.

1:13:00 Maybe my back doesn't hurt.

1:13:01 So, I don't have any sign of dysfunction.

1:13:04 How is one to know if their diaphragm is working correctly?

1:13:08 I believe you.

1:13:09 It is the It is the center of human movement.

1:13:12 It's all those things.

1:13:13 How do I know?

1:13:15 Yeah, Andrew has a quote, "Never skip diaphragm day." I don't know if he made

1:13:19 it up or I It's I have it in my book.

1:13:21 I think it's hilarious.

1:13:23 Okay.

1:13:23 Um the diaphragm is probably working if you're alive.

1:13:31 Okay, fair.

1:13:32 Your diaphragm is working.

1:13:33 Yep.

1:13:34 It's doing its thing.

1:13:35 But your intercostals may not be rhythmically moving very well.

1:13:40 You may have inappropriate stiffness in this relationship

1:13:44 between the transverse abdominis and the diaphragm.

1:13:47 Um you may not be getting good riers or you may

1:13:50 be over breathing by using what we call accessory breathing muscles.

1:13:55 In body by breath I break breathing into three different zones of breathing.

1:13:59 There's zone one which is this area that we've

1:14:02 been talking about this very relaxing gut expansion diaphragm descending.

1:14:07 Zone two is the area of the intercostals uh in combination with the diaphragm.

1:14:13 So we have uh rib upward rotation, rib downward rotation.

1:14:17 And this is you know you have 12 sets of ribs

1:14:19 on one side and 12 sets of ribs on the other.

1:14:21 And they've got to be moving well.

1:14:23 Um, but if you are a person who is under a lot of stress and diabolical stress,

1:14:30 eventually if you're only doing rib breathing all the time,

1:14:33 which is a over time, this is a sympathetic breathing style,

1:14:37 you'll probably end up defaulting into what I call zone three breathing.

1:14:41 And that zone 3 breathing is face, neck,

1:14:44 shoulder type of breath where you're you really gasping for air.

1:14:50 And you can see this in um asthmatics.

1:14:52 You can see this in, you know, sudden onset of panic.

1:14:56 Um but this is also not always necessarily a harmful breath.

1:15:01 You'll have this type of zone 3 breath in an orgasm,

1:15:04 like a really heightened sense of delight, you know,

1:15:06 so you'll hear these airfilled type of breath that are very very shallow,

1:15:10 but it's not a long-term strategy for health, right?

1:15:14 So I what the way we test for it is

1:15:17 um through uh responses to touch in these different areas.

1:15:23 So I think that you know neck and shoulder pain uh are very common.

1:15:30 Um and I think with the use of tech it's gotten you know worse and worse

1:15:34 and worse because you have the the hand

1:15:36 to eye positioning that comes from holding cell phones.

1:15:39 So we can create we can be in the cast of a zone 3 breather more

1:15:45 often than probably our ancestors because of our um

1:15:50 our close environment with work and with tech.

1:15:53 Um, and so these tensions in the face, neck, jaw, eyes, shoulders, um,

1:15:58 all the way through the brachial plexus down into hands and fingers, um,

1:16:02 I think are providing more sort of a simulation

1:16:08 of zone 3 armoring that is really unnecessary for um,

1:16:13 efficient length tension in zones one, two, and three.

1:16:17 How would I know if I'm in one, two, or three?

1:16:20 What would be signs, symptoms?

1:16:21 help me figure that one out.

1:16:22 Oh, chronic neck pain, jaw pain, um headaches,

1:16:27 that would be somebody uh or hand pain, right?

1:16:30 So, anything that is coming from this, you know,

1:16:33 all the the areas that I described.

1:16:35 So, this would be uh we would be addressing that in zone three.

1:16:38 What do we do for that?

1:16:39 Well, typically I'll do some zone 2 work first

1:16:43 because you don't really get your shoulders to sit

1:16:46 on top of your rib cage well unless your rib

1:16:49 cage is able to upwardly and downwardly rotate well.

1:16:52 So, um I'll do a lot of sideline positions um on the cortis balls

1:16:57 on the on the rib cage and I'll train

1:17:00 people to use the ball as an elastic bio feedback.

1:17:03 So, they'll they'll do breathing in side lying also in front lying.

1:17:07 So they'll they'll place the the ball on their sternum um with their body

1:17:10 weight and feel the intrathoracic pressures

1:17:15 changing as they breathe into the tool.

1:17:18 And so you start to pick up on the movements of breathing.

1:17:23 Um and these sensing of the movements of breathing helps

1:17:27 anchor you into more and more appropriate long-term healthy breathing patterns,

1:17:33 which is zone one, zone two is really where you want to be most of the time.

1:17:36 And you want to use zone 3 in case of emergency.

1:17:39 You're trying to cross the finish line,

1:17:41 by all means, like breathe however you need to breathe.

1:17:43 Breathe however you're going to breathe, right?

1:17:44 So we need zone 3 to be filled.

1:17:46 But if it's always armored, if it's always in this high stress position,

1:17:51 you can see right we're on camera.

1:17:53 If you're looking, I've got my shoulders pinned up

1:17:54 into my ears and my my head is being thrust forward.

1:17:57 U my upper back is rounded.

1:17:59 You know, I've got nowhere to go.

1:18:01 Boxism, chronic headaches.

1:18:04 I would imagine this would be the same story, right?

1:18:07 Pretty, you can't go as far as to say

1:18:09 that's always because you're breathing that way,

1:18:11 but I would imagine there's some

1:18:12 pretty reasonable correlation between somebody who

1:18:14 is in zone three breathing as you're mentioning and again chronic headaches,

1:18:19 migraines, bxism, jaw glitching, the whole thing, right?

1:18:23 Even a apnea, sleep apnneas, right?

1:18:26 So, this nighttime um unconscious um um mouth,

1:18:30 jaw, tongue behavior that is deadly.

1:18:34 And so, what you're really trying to do is to get them

1:18:35 to be more self-aware by spending more time in two one and two.

1:18:40 You're saying you'll realize you're in three and you don't even know it.

1:18:43 Yeah.

1:18:44 Yeah.

1:18:44 So, I call this playing your wind instrument.

1:18:47 So by becoming aware of the feedback

1:18:50 of the soft tissues in these different zones

1:18:54 uh you can really make choices about

1:18:56 I mean obviously your physiology is your physiology.

1:18:59 I live in LA.

1:19:00 We had fires in LA.

1:19:02 I couldn't believe what happened um to me

1:19:05 psychologically when this this devastation was going on.

1:19:09 So doing um practices that familiarize you with your own zone 1, zone 2, zone 3,

1:19:17 and that you have ways to at least flip the stress

1:19:21 switches now and again um and bone up on practices

1:19:26 that build your recovery resilience or at least uh fill up

1:19:31 your parasympathetic cup rather than continue to overload the sympathetic cup.

1:19:36 Uh I think this is this is what I'm

1:19:39 referring to in terms of playing your wind instrument.

1:19:41 But for me pressure is always a part of that because that is what's giving you

1:19:46 the bio feedback about which zone is

1:19:49 my home like where am I mostly breathing into?

1:19:54 Could you give me a one sample of what something like that would look like?

1:19:59 I'm laying there on my side.

1:20:00 How many breaths am I taking?

1:20:02 How long am I staying there for?

1:20:03 Am I doing this every day?

1:20:04 multiple times a day.

1:20:06 I know the answer is, you know, depends and all the situation,

1:20:09 but what would be, you know, kind of a sample strategy here.

1:20:12 This can change within two minutes.

1:20:15 Yeah.

1:20:15 Yeah.

1:20:15 And you want to do the other side.

1:20:17 Obviously, you want to do both sides.

1:20:19 Um, but, uh, I like to do a lot of contract,

1:20:22 relax type of exercise there because that also plays

1:20:25 with some of the barerrow receptors in the aorta.

1:20:29 And so we get a really interesting I think veagal

1:20:32 veagal rush from doing some of these breath hold contract.

1:20:37 Let me describe that to you.

1:20:38 So so you're laying on your side and I

1:20:40 have many videos on Instagram that cover this.

1:20:44 And um you can put like a block or a pillow

1:20:46 underneath your head and you have a soft gushy ball like gorgeous

1:20:50 or something else underneath your ribs and you take a dynamic breath

1:20:53 a zone 2 breath that really broadens the rib cage like Popey.

1:20:57 You hold your breath and then you stiffen.

1:21:00 You activate those muscles that moved your ribs

1:21:04 apart and then you exhale and let go.

1:21:10 So you can exhale passively and just let it all go.

1:21:14 Um, but you can also build on the exhale

1:21:17 strategy and try to void your lungs of air.

1:21:22 So, let's say we inhale, hold, contract, and then exhale,

1:21:30 and then once you think you're empty,

1:21:32 then blow out four more candles on the birthday cake.

1:21:35 Blow out six more candles on the birthday cake till you get

1:21:39 to such a absence of intrathoracic pressure

1:21:44 that you have a spontaneous um inhalation.

1:21:47 So, there's lots of different tricks to work

1:21:49 on creating this elasticity of the rib cage.

1:21:53 And I do find that doing both ends,

1:21:56 this dynamic inhale hold and then the exhale with the, you know,

1:22:00 really forcing the air out, forcing the air out,

1:22:03 not in a way where you're um pinching your face

1:22:06 and scrunching your eyebrows and going into a zone 3 reactivity,

1:22:09 but truly using the intercostals and the diaphragm

1:22:12 and the transversus abdominis to get the air out.

1:22:15 Um, this is a really great way to build that just the costal recoil.

1:22:20 And when you do that, you do the both sides,

1:22:23 you're this really helps the costal vertebral joints also.

1:22:26 So, you're going to find that your thoracic spine,

1:22:29 your whole spine is going to have better mobility,

1:22:31 especially um rotation, like transverse plane rotation.

1:22:34 It's it's amazing what it does.

1:22:37 So, I'd imagine once a day to start

1:22:40 to get that going and see what happens, right?

1:22:41 And you could probably get better.

1:22:43 Once a day.

1:22:44 Do you want me to prescribe?

1:22:46 Everybody get down a little bit every day.

1:22:49 Oh, it makes such a difference.

1:22:51 Morning or night would be better.

1:22:53 Um, I like if I'm going to only do it once a day,

1:22:57 I'll Boy, that's a really hard call.

1:23:00 You got one, Jill.

1:23:01 Give me one.

1:23:02 Do I got to do it?

1:23:03 Let's say I'm dealing with headaches and jaw pain at night.

1:23:05 Rox, yeah, you got to do this in the morning.

1:23:07 Well, okay.

1:23:07 Okay.

1:23:08 Excuse me.

1:23:11 You need to do it at night and the morning.

1:23:13 Okay.

1:23:13 Okay.

1:23:14 You're not going to just let me get away with No, you're not.

1:23:16 No, because uh one of the things pre-bed uh and I've seen

1:23:21 this happen in my students um doing many of these parasympathetic exercise.

1:23:29 So all the by the way all these exercises that I'm describing

1:23:32 are going to do what I call turn on your off switch.

1:23:37 They will accelerate a parasympathetic dominant state.

1:23:42 um and again keep pushing off this weird sympathetic overflow.

1:23:46 So when people have the jaw grinding happening at night,

1:23:50 they get incredibly um incredible soreness in the all the muscles of the face.

1:23:56 Um a lot of this is uh you know beyond your control.

1:24:00 This is just happening unconsciously.

1:24:02 Um but what I have seen in students that do

1:24:05 a number of these exercises also exercises for the face,

1:24:09 neck and head, not just a cordous ball in the rib cage,

1:24:12 but we need to address the temporal mandibular joint, the temporales muscle,

1:24:17 um other um muscles that are floating

1:24:19 in the the superficial fascial layer of the face.

1:24:23 This is very interesting.

1:24:24 Um can help to adjust that sympathetic switch.

1:24:29 By the way, these muscles of the face that I'm describing,

1:24:32 they also share source nuclei in the the brain stem with the vagus nerve.

1:24:36 And so this is another way to just

1:24:38 stimulate the vagus from a palpation point of view

1:24:41 combined with this breathing type of exercise that also

1:24:45 is pushing the gas on your off switch.

1:24:49 So, I think the more you can dose up on a parasympathetic stimuli prior to bed,

1:24:55 um you may find over time that you

1:24:58 have less and less of this unconscious clenching overnight.

1:25:01 But I would say if you know you have pain

1:25:03 in the morning every day and you want to go work out,

1:25:06 just do a little bit of the work and then it'll free up

1:25:09 so much of your range of motion and change the pain as we described.

1:25:14 You know, we talked about earlier.

1:25:15 So, why not do a little bit in the morning and do a little bit at night?

1:25:18 Yeah, it makes sense, right?

1:25:19 Get into good positions before you go train and then

1:25:22 getting into good positions before you go to bed.

1:25:24 Like, how could you not do that?

1:25:26 When we think about stress, autonomic nervous system,

1:25:30 all right, we have our our two branches.

1:25:32 We we'll keep it as two for now, right?

1:25:35 So, we have our sympathetic nervous system, fight and flight.

1:25:39 We have our parasympathetic rest and digest.

1:25:41 There's more to the story here, friends.

1:25:42 Yes, I'm aware, but for the sake of conversation, we'll keep it right there.

1:25:47 Most people assume if I'm not at a high heart rate,

1:25:52 if I'm not mentally stressed right now,

1:25:56 that my central nervous or my my sympathetic nervous system,

1:25:59 my fight or flight is not on.

1:26:01 But there's a very clear difference between not being on and actively

1:26:06 pressing the gas or turning what do you say turning off on more?

1:26:10 Turn on the off switch.

1:26:12 Turning on the off switch.

1:26:13 How should we think about this?

1:26:15 What are strategies we can do to be

1:26:17 more effective at turning the off switch on more?

1:26:20 Did I capture that correctly?

1:26:21 Yes.

1:26:22 Yes.

1:26:23 So, one of my goals with writing Body by Breath

1:26:27 was trying to sell this notion of parasympathetic tolerance.

1:26:35 I think that we are we're not in a parasympathetic dominant society.

1:26:40 We're not parasympathetic dominant beings.

1:26:43 We're sympathetic dominant beings.

1:26:45 Um, but without doing without investing in our own recovery,

1:26:51 um, it's hard to keep producing.

1:26:54 It's hard to stay creative.

1:26:57 It's hard to keep thinking clearly.

1:26:58 It's hard to make decisions for your family.

1:27:01 Um, it's hard to pick out which freaking color curtain

1:27:04 you want to have in your in your new office.

1:27:06 So it really is important to be able to um create

1:27:12 the physiological ability to allow parasympathetic

1:27:18 virtues to arise within your body.

1:27:20 So I call this parasympathetic tolerance capacity and um

1:27:28 I personally need it for my own well-being.

1:27:31 Otherwise I just I mean I will just grind it out.

1:27:35 Like I will just go non-stop.

1:27:37 Um I think that's just part of my own family lineage.

1:27:42 Like you just you go go you produce you produce you produce.

1:27:46 So um and I think that um one of the things that I've

1:27:52 also picked up from the fascia research space is that when we are

1:27:57 constantly in a sympathetic aroused state exposed to shots of our own adrenaline

1:28:04 and cortisol constantly there are adaptive changes

1:28:08 in our fascial tissues because of it.

1:28:10 So namely your um fibroblasts it's been shown

1:28:14 when they are exposed to adrenaline um don't

1:28:17 have an immediate change but uh after 24

1:28:21 hours the fibroblasts they convert due to the presence

1:28:26 of something called TGF beta they start to convert

1:28:30 into like a gremlin version of a fibroblast

1:28:34 which is a myophiroblast and a myophiroblast becomes

1:28:39 comes a contractile cell within the the fascial network.

1:28:45 And these myofibrolasts actually have meiosin in them and they

1:28:50 are prevalent in people who have uh thickened fascia, non-gliding fascia.

1:28:56 This was first found in thoracco lumbar apparosis.

1:28:59 It was first found in people with low back pain.

1:29:02 This high prevalence of these myophibro blasts

1:29:05 and um but it doesn't happen immediately.

1:29:09 So you can you you can be startled and then

1:29:12 you can calm down and get on but these repeated insults.

1:29:17 So the presence of adrenaline um over a course of 24

1:29:22 hours this uh the fibroblast will start to uptake um TGF beta

1:29:29 and this will convert into this myophibroblast but what happens with that is

1:29:34 it starts to shrink the tissue and it's at a very slow rate.

1:29:38 So you don't all of a sudden become tight um

1:29:42 like I said in a day, a day and a half, but over the course of a month um you

1:29:48 will have 1 cm of tensioning in these tissues.

1:29:52 So exposing yourself to stresses is

1:29:56 very important for adaptation and for health.

1:29:58 But the chronic soaking in a stress response will change

1:30:03 the nature of your connective tissue and you will have tissue thickening.

1:30:07 and this can lead to pain problems.

1:30:10 So, exposing oneself to parasympathetic practices as a way

1:30:15 to offset um and refill your cup, so to speak,

1:30:20 I think is a really great way to consciously balance our life because there

1:30:25 there's never not going to be enormous amounts of stress showing up in our life.

1:30:30 Um but having this as a respit that's within

1:30:34 you like this is your own internal medicine chest.

1:30:37 In body by breath I talk about um

1:30:40 the five Ps of the parasympathetic nervous system.

1:30:42 There's really five Ps that this is a self-produced

1:30:46 recipe that will change state guaranteed every time.

1:30:51 So the first P is perspective.

1:30:53 And so this is that that mindset piece.

1:30:55 There's a top-down appreciation that you are

1:31:00 willing to create conscious change or conscious awareness.

1:31:04 So that top down is a is a host for the experience.

1:31:09 So if you just go into rolling willy-nilly, will it do something?

1:31:13 Yes.

1:31:14 But if you're really trying to, I think, improve your parasympathetic tolerance,

1:31:20 you want to be there to receive the information

1:31:24 that your body is going to start to share with you.

1:31:28 Because one of the things that happens when you turn

1:31:30 on your off switch is quite frequently in the off switch, your emotions arise.

1:31:36 And those emotions can be pretty unpleasant and intolerable.

1:31:40 And it's but it's very important because that's what's in the way of for many

1:31:45 of us of communication of growth

1:31:47 of relational uh relational safety all those things.

1:31:52 So perspective um for example,

1:31:55 one of the perspectives that that I worked with when I released the book is all

1:32:02 of me is welcome here because releasing a book

1:32:07 and you know because you've written books you are

1:32:11 that's my entire brain that's my my everything I

1:32:15 feel think and perceive is like in that book

1:32:18 and so it's really scary to you know what if this word is wrong what if

1:32:25 I got this theory you know what if

1:32:28 I misappropriated something or you know it's so all

1:32:32 of me is welcome here and that really helped me with uh a lot of the public

1:32:35 speaking that I did post that book but something

1:32:40 more simple than anybody can do is like

1:32:43 I embody my body I love that one because it's just like Okay, I embody my body.

1:32:52 And so it allows you to be a student of this internal process.

1:32:56 Parasympathetic dominant state is not a loud state.

1:32:59 It's very quiet.

1:33:01 So you really have to put yourself into a state of deep

1:33:04 listening and sensing in order to um to have it manifest.

1:33:13 So perspective.

1:33:15 The second P is place.

1:33:17 And place ideally for true quietude, for true parasympathetic arousal,

1:33:25 um you need to have a place where you feel safe.

1:33:30 And that could be, you know,

1:33:33 indoors or outdoors, but it should be relatively quiet.

1:33:37 Ideally, for the relaxation response to occur, it should be on the darker side.

1:33:43 So, not in the presence of bright lights,

1:33:45 not in the presence of a lot of noise like clanging,

1:33:48 kettle bells, you know, and things being slammed here and there.

1:33:51 Um, but when we work with teachers,

1:33:53 we we tell them how to set up environments where they're able to establish place

1:33:58 for their students so that their students feel

1:34:00 like they can let their guard down, right?

1:34:02 Because you can do this stuff in a gym.

1:34:03 You can um you can also do it in a war zone.

1:34:06 We have people working in refugee camps doing this type of work.

1:34:09 So it's just about setting up parameters of like here's

1:34:11 our space to let go to be able to be vulnerable.

1:34:15 So your perspective, you have place.

1:34:18 The third is position.

1:34:22 And position can change your physiology immediately.

1:34:27 As soon as you recline,

1:34:29 there's just no more postural stress on your heart and your diaphragm

1:34:33 and you're able to not have as much sympathetic tone in your body.

1:34:37 So, we always encourage people to typically to recline

1:34:41 or to even boost that by going into a gentle slope position,

1:34:45 which takes advantage of the barceptor reflex.

1:34:47 So, if we can put people in a position where

1:34:49 their pelvis is just a little bit higher than their heart,

1:34:52 higher than their head, right, in a little bit of a gentle slope,

1:34:55 um that'll really enhance a veagal dominant state.

1:35:00 So, you've got and also just getting on the ground feels so good.

1:35:04 And of course, there's all this research about earthing and whatnot.

1:35:07 So, go with gravity, perspective, place, position.

1:35:13 Four, pace of breath.

1:35:16 pace of breath or pneumatic pacing if we want to have two P's there.

1:35:20 Um breath pacing exercises can alter

1:35:24 your your state and I'm sure you've talked about

1:35:27 this on your podcast but slow deep breathing is primal um you know uh the HHP

1:35:34 foundation I know you are aware

1:35:36 of the health and uh human performance foundation which

1:35:39 um is a great amalgamator of all

1:35:41 breath research and it's free and available online.

1:35:43 and Tanya Bentley is their founder and Brian

1:35:45 McKenzie is also one of the co-founders.

1:35:48 So they recently put out a systematic review on all the breath research

1:35:54 that was targeted towards anxiety reduction and what they found in you know

1:36:01 running all the the numbers on the on the different papers is that slow

1:36:05 deep breathing was for five minutes daily is really the the sweet spot.

1:36:13 uh you can do a mix of fast-paced breathing with slow breathing,

1:36:18 but you mustn't only do fast breathing.

1:36:20 Fast breathing alone is not going to alter your stress response.

1:36:24 You must include the slow pace breathing.

1:36:26 Uh so I really appreciated this um

1:36:29 this paper from them because it certainly validated,

1:36:32 you know, my instincts and and what I've seen in my clients.

1:36:36 So, um, extended exhales tend to be really beneficial,

1:36:40 but you can also do extended inhales.

1:36:43 Just make your breathing slow paced.

1:36:44 And I would add to that, let's also not

1:36:48 um use our zone 3 muscles for that breathing.

1:36:52 So, I mean, obviously slow breathing is

1:36:54 going to be involving zone one, zone two.

1:36:57 And then the fifth P is palpation.

1:37:00 And we've been talking about this palpation

1:37:02 via selfmyofascial release um you know

1:37:04 the whole time that we've been talking um as a way to dampen sympathetic outflow

1:37:10 and to enhance uh sensory feedback

1:37:13 both propreceptive and subtle sensing interosceptive feedback

1:37:17 into the body and this all enhancing

1:37:19 the relaxation response or this parasympathetic dominant state.

1:37:22 So for me, this this recipe of the five Ps um is something that's very doable

1:37:27 and can happen in a very cohesive time frame of of this five minute time frame.

1:37:33 Um like the simplest thing I could suggest to your listeners is you can just

1:37:39 get down on the ground and put your pelvis up on something like a corgis ball.

1:37:44 Um because that's going to give you traction.

1:37:46 So that there's the palpation piece.

1:37:48 Um, and you're already, you know,

1:37:50 positioned in the recline and you do very, very slow breathing there.

1:37:56 You're hopefully in a safe place where you're

1:37:58 doing this and then you say to yourself,

1:38:00 you know, my breath is home or I embody my body.

1:38:03 One of those things.

1:38:04 And there, there you have it for five minutes.

1:38:06 Super easy.

1:38:07 I really appreciate you laying that out.

1:38:09 That is going to be phenomenally effective for a lot of people.

1:38:12 I guarantee it.

1:38:13 The last thing I want to draw into all this is

1:38:15 then how does this relate to things like the pelvic floor, right?

1:38:22 So we I said earlier there's multiple diaphragms.

1:38:24 Oh, sure.

1:38:25 Pelvic floor is a diaphragm, right?

1:38:26 This is it's just the bottom one, right?

1:38:29 Um I admittedly don't spend a ton of time on pelvic floor development,

1:38:35 but this is a clear aspect of it, right?

1:38:37 So, how does the the pelvic floor

1:38:39 and we could certainly do an entire discussion,

1:38:41 many of them on the pelvic floor,

1:38:43 but what are the the top hitting things as it relates to the conversation

1:38:46 thus far that we should be thinking about with the diaphragmic floor?

1:38:51 Uh, so one of my friends, Katie Sinclair,

1:38:55 calls the respiratory diaphragm the thoracic floor,

1:38:58 which I think is hilarious, right?

1:38:59 Um, and the this pelvic floor is another uh tissue

1:39:03 that has uh horizontal fibers like you know crisscrossing at this bottom

1:39:08 of the uh bony funnel of the pelvis and the it

1:39:13 looks quite similar to the respiratory diaphragm by the way like reasonably.

1:39:17 Yes.

1:39:17 And it's going to have movement that mirrors the action

1:39:21 of the thoracic diaphragm of the respiratory diaphragm rather.

1:39:25 So as the diaphragm descends and applies pressure

1:39:29 into the visca um and provides this distension the circumferential

1:39:34 distension to the core there should also be

1:39:36 a little bit of stretch in the pelvic floor.

1:39:39 Um unless your pelvis is a kimbo unless your pelvis is your pelvis

1:39:44 is rotated pretty far out of the pressure wave of the diaphragm.

1:39:49 So if the the diaphragm isn't be able

1:39:52 to exert this rhythmical pressure down into the pelvic floor,

1:39:55 it's probably going to exert it elsewhere.

1:39:57 And so one of the classic shapes is you see

1:40:00 the kind of the banana back that rib thrust anterior tilted pelvis.

1:40:06 So if the diaphragm isn't pressurizing down

1:40:09 to create stretch in the pelvic floor, which is very healthy for it,

1:40:12 it's going to pressurize forward into the front of the abdomen

1:40:15 into the rectus sheath into a a strong ligament called the len alba,

1:40:20 which often is breached and creates what's known as a diiaasis recti.

1:40:25 So these are fascial systems upon systems.

1:40:29 These are um connected sheets that rely on the correct amount

1:40:34 of integrity in in all layers for this great global response.

1:40:38 That's actually really really helpful.

1:40:41 People have oftenimes heard of things like rib flaring, right?

1:40:45 And you just described it a little bit differently.

1:40:47 So imagine again your the bottom of your ribs are opening up.

1:40:50 Instead of the bottom of your ribs pointing directly down,

1:40:52 they're pointing say at a 45 degree angle out.

1:40:55 Therefore, when you breathe and you're expanding that, that pressure

1:40:58 is now going outwards horizontal to your body instead of vertically,

1:41:02 which then pushes on the pelvic floor to get it to move correctly.

1:41:07 You're also then reducing pressure posteriorly.

1:41:10 Right?

1:41:10 And that matters because that's the low back getting pinned down again.

1:41:14 Right?

1:41:15 Like low back victim yet again.

1:41:18 Right?

1:41:18 There you go.

1:41:19 Right?

1:41:19 So, it's all of this stuff.

1:41:20 That's why stacking is like we we'll use that term pretty colloally.

1:41:25 stacking those two diaphragms on top of each other is the optimal scenario.

1:41:29 Yes, they're both tilted front or back, we can live.

1:41:32 It's when they are offkilter and the pressure,

1:41:35 whether it's the bottom one, by the way, or the top one.

1:41:37 So whether this is pelvic tilt causing the problem

1:41:40 or rib flaring or the opposite, either way,

1:41:43 we're in dysfunction, which can manifest itself,

1:41:46 as we've been saying all day, in a thousand different things.

1:41:48 Yeah.

1:41:49 I mean, there's so many different things to discuss here.

1:41:51 It's like, oh, well, you've got chronic hip pain.

1:41:54 That's going to move your pelvis a little bit

1:41:58 away from your center of mass so that you're

1:42:01 not putting as much weight on that uncomfortable

1:42:03 hip or knee or ankle or whatever it is.

1:42:05 But, you know, people people are perfectly imperfect.

1:42:08 We're incredibly uh adapted to our asymmetries.

1:42:13 Um, and that's uh for the best.

1:42:16 Uh, but there's probably better and better ways.

1:42:19 And I think this is one of the places

1:42:20 that I love talking to Kelly about is, you know,

1:42:23 looking for uh being able to centrate joints so that they have

1:42:28 more options of movement because if you have rotated off of axis

1:42:31 so considerably that your range of motion in a as we account

1:42:35 for joint by joint um then we can get into a lot

1:42:38 of trouble and that's where doing you know some really good

1:42:41 fascial work self myofascial release um in very specific joints in very

1:42:46 specific ways can um allow for a restore a restoration of elasticity

1:42:51 and muscle function um in tissues that have been compromised by position.

1:42:55 So this is something I I mean I love working with people

1:42:58 to you know tune up these little areas that have become

1:43:01 messed up by you know scar tissue or positioning or injury

1:43:06 because you see the you see the this remodeling happening over time.

1:43:10 The remodeling is the collagen network adapting to your new normal.

1:43:14 Yeah.

1:43:15 What are the accepted best practices for dealing with diastasis recti?

1:43:20 My friend Katie Bowman, she wrote a book called Diastasis Recti and she's one

1:43:25 of my favorite movers and thinkers in the movement movement space.

1:43:29 And uh her book, one of the things that she t

1:43:34 talks about is that dasis erecti is a whole body issue.

1:43:38 Mhm.

1:43:38 It's never just that you have this over streretch syndrome in the abdomen,

1:43:44 but there were there were probably things that um

1:43:49 led up to your uh body harboring more anterior pressures.

1:43:58 Mhm.

1:43:59 Although if you are carrying triplets and twins um

1:44:05 or if you have overtensioned your abdomen through overtraining

1:44:09 um this can also be problematic when when time

1:44:13 when the time comes for the abdomen to stretch.

1:44:16 So let me backtrack a little bit.

1:44:19 Diasis recti is a breach of the connective tissue link

1:44:25 between the right and left halves of the anterior abdomen.

1:44:30 So we have these deep fascial layers

1:44:33 that lock themselves around the rectus abdominis,

1:44:37 the obliques, the transverse abdominis,

1:44:40 and they all zip into a common ligament called the lana alba which um

1:44:46 connects from the bottom of your sternum all the way to your pubic symphysis.

1:44:50 And this is an incredibly uh a lot of integrity in this system.

1:44:55 And this is how you get your core force production.

1:44:58 Um, we've got the right half and the left half

1:45:00 of our abdomen working well together to stabilize our spine,

1:45:03 our pelvis, and do all the things, help us to breathe.

1:45:06 You can imagine uh playing what's what's the game like the doctor game

1:45:10 where the uh the kids can go in and try to operation, right?

1:45:13 So, you imagine a slit going from your sternum all the way down.

1:45:17 You would spllay left and right

1:45:19 horizontally and you would spllay vertically, right?

1:45:22 You would open up in all four areas.

1:45:24 That's exactly the line you're talking about.

1:45:26 Yes.

1:45:26 If you can imagine.

1:45:28 And I'm basically saying this little piece for the male audience because

1:45:30 I know every female listening knows exactly what you're talking about already.

1:45:33 But if you think about a six-pack and you

1:45:37 think about the muscles are two columns of three, right?

1:45:40 So one next to each other, left and right, five and five.

1:45:42 I mean, I've seen dissection where you've literally

1:45:44 got one one rectus abdominis from soup to nuts

1:45:49 on one half and then the other one you

1:45:51 had one uh one divided by a small tendon inscription.

1:45:55 I've seen so many anomalies in the rectus.

1:45:57 So if you can't get a six-pack, boys,

1:45:59 it's because you got a one and a half pack by birth.

1:46:02 Okay.

1:46:03 Yeah.

1:46:03 Yeah.

1:46:03 Yeah.

1:46:04 Well, that middle middle line between the two

1:46:06 columns is exactly what you're talking about.

1:46:09 This is a fascia.

1:46:10 This is a connective tissue issue.

1:46:11 This is why we're talking about it, right?

1:46:12 So when that becomes spled open, you have that effect of of the operation.

1:46:17 You've had a tight line.

1:46:19 You called it a zipper.

1:46:20 Perfect analogy.

1:46:21 It's supposed to keep those two sides

1:46:23 connected so force can transfer and everything else.

1:46:26 It's not working.

1:46:28 It's it's damaged or whatever, however you want to phrase that.

1:46:31 What it really a 100% of women get a diiaasis recti during pregnancy

1:46:37 and that is granted by the amount of elastin and relaxin um that's produced um

1:46:44 from your growing fetus and all of the hormonal

1:46:48 changes that happen within you that change

1:46:50 the elasticity of the tissue you must enlarge in order for the fetus to grow.

1:46:55 And so the accommodation we have is we

1:46:58 have these elastic changes in our fascial tissues.

1:47:02 The problem with a diiaasis recti is in you know after

1:47:07 birth for some women um it can take many many months.

1:47:12 Um there is never a resealing so to speak of the you

1:47:18 know the heat seal like as if you were a meat

1:47:22 a meat packer that it never gets reinforced and there is

1:47:25 a very wide gap and that gap is then filled in with superficial

1:47:30 fascia atapost tissue and collagen but it doesn't have the strength

1:47:33 or integrity um that you had pre-birth and so um this is

1:47:39 very problematic for force production through the core we're not getting

1:47:42 transfer of forces from right to left or from top to bottom.

1:47:47 We have a propriceptive deficit.

1:47:49 Um and you know it it is integral.

1:47:51 I mean I've seen these I mean you've got it's

1:47:53 it's a good connection between the right and left in terms

1:47:56 of the the fatty layer that has filled it in but we

1:47:59 don't have the muscle force production in a cooperative way.

1:48:03 And so um these women can have symptoms for years of back pain,

1:48:07 pelvic pain, incontinence,

1:48:09 prolapse um but you know people who are more lax in their connective

1:48:13 tissue tend to be more prone to get these um diiaasis that linger.

1:48:19 So most will close about 66% will end

1:48:22 up after a year they'll have almost no legacy of a separation and then you have

1:48:28 this this this you know third of women that are outliers.

1:48:32 Okay.

1:48:32 Okay.

1:48:32 Well, that's important to know.

1:48:34 Again, speaking I'm sorry to offend,

1:48:36 but mostly to the male side of the equation here,

1:48:39 a year, not not six weeks, not not six weeks, not 16 weeks, right?

1:48:46 This is 2/3 by a year,

1:48:48 which means a third still after a year are not back, right?

1:48:52 So, when we go back to this discussion on the fibroblasts,

1:48:56 they're a slowmoving cell.

1:48:58 Yeah, they are going to repair you, but you need time and you need consistency

1:49:04 to allow that collagen remodeling to occur, right?

1:49:08 It will or it won't.

1:49:10 I mean, sometimes it just doesn't

1:49:11 because there's pathology or there's there are,

1:49:14 you know, maybe you have hyperlapse tissue.

1:49:16 Um, but what one of the things that Katie talks about is that the diiathesis

1:49:22 is a whole body thing and we really need to address um hip,

1:49:28 pelvis, low back and we really need to address shoulder,

1:49:31 rib cage to adjust the position of the rib cage

1:49:34 to try to optimize consistently the position of rib cage to pelvis

1:49:38 and then do exercises that um co- occur with breathing rhythms

1:49:44 because by the way Your breathing is the lining of your core.

1:49:48 These breathing muscles are the lining of your birthday suit.

1:49:50 We need to use them appropriately to try to build correct tension over time.

1:49:56 But it's not something that can be rushed,

1:49:57 but it's definitely something that needs to be done.

1:49:59 I mean, you really should be doing um

1:50:02 these type of breathing exercises during pregnancy as well.

1:50:04 I mean, hopefully.

1:50:07 And this is a longer story.

1:50:09 It's a much longer story.

1:50:10 Sure.

1:50:10 I do have a chapter in body by breath

1:50:12 that covers diiaasis recti and also um self-massage application

1:50:17 for that and I will say this is one

1:50:20 of the warnings I have if somebody does have a diiaasis recti

1:50:25 is you don't want to put a ball right

1:50:27 in the center of the area that is overstretched but you

1:50:30 want to really think about um creating movements that would

1:50:34 move the core muscles from the side to the middle.

1:50:41 So you think about uh creating vectors

1:50:43 of pressure that don't necessarily scrub over the midline,

1:50:46 but they move from the side to the middle

1:50:49 and doing that in in a variety of different

1:50:51 ways with different breathing exercises and then with tension

1:50:54 based exercises to try to rebuild tension on axis.

1:50:58 So this is not something that's easy to describe in a podcast,

1:51:01 but and it's very personal because each woman

1:51:05 um will have a different level of stretch.

1:51:08 Um, you know, some people have just more more

1:51:10 of their right side moved away from the midline.

1:51:13 Maybe it's not both sides that moved away, right?

1:51:16 Maybe the baby was sitting in a way

1:51:17 because babies sit weird in your uterus, man.

1:51:20 They just do weird things, you know,

1:51:22 just sort of jammed up against the the right side of your abdomen

1:51:25 with a little bottom there for the the last two and a half months.

1:51:29 And it just puts so much stretch load on, you know,

1:51:32 the external abdominal oblique um and the transversus.

1:51:35 maybe the the you know you don't have that much gapping.

1:51:39 Anyway, there's different ways to measure this with fingers and you definitely

1:51:41 need to get y get it checked out by a pelvic floor PT.

1:51:45 They're the ideal people to diagnose um and to give input on that.

1:51:50 But these things are a fascia based injury.

1:51:55 Amazing.

1:51:56 We could certainly do a whole show just on Dr without question,

1:52:00 but I think we'll leave people right now with saying

1:52:03 pelvic floor physical therapist would be the place to go.

1:52:06 And generally your recommendation for for this area

1:52:09 for people that want a program they're dealing

1:52:12 with right now or maybe they're pregnant or going

1:52:13 to become pregnant, so on and so forth.

1:52:15 That would be the the broad category people

1:52:17 to to start off with at least, right?

1:52:18 Yes.

1:52:19 And I would also if you know you're pregnant or you want to get pregnant,

1:52:23 I would get diastasis the book by Katie

1:52:25 because she talks about exercises pre, during, and post.

1:52:29 They're it's an excellent book.

1:52:31 What you're talking about is a case of kind of hypermobility, right?

1:52:34 I consider the pregnant body on the hypermobility spectrum.

1:52:38 And when we have pregnant students, we treat them like a hyper mobile client.

1:52:43 And there are differences in terms of rolling

1:52:46 with a hyper mobile body than a non- hyper mobile body.

1:52:49 For sure.

1:52:49 I love working with the hyper mobile population.

1:52:52 And just FYI, according to Jessica Eckle's research,

1:52:56 20% of people have some degree of hypermobility.

1:53:00 Not this is not to say that it's pathological.

1:53:02 It's not to say that it's um you know, Ellers Danlos or Marfon syndrome,

1:53:06 but like 20% of the population is pretty loose.

1:53:10 So, I've come up with a framework for rolling with hypermobility.

1:53:14 And one of the uh other clinicians I follow, I love her work.

1:53:18 I wrote the forward to her book is Libby Hinesley.

1:53:20 She wrote yoga for bendy bodies.

1:53:22 And she's got great information in there for um

1:53:24 practicing if you if you are hyper mobile.

1:53:27 And so, I would include the pregnant cohort in here.

1:53:29 Also, um number one is breath.

1:53:32 Use a conscious breathing practice while you're rolling

1:53:35 because it will tune you into interceptive feedback.

1:53:38 Um, it'll also put you in touch with a calmer nervous system.

1:53:44 Uh, hyper mobile bodies tend to be higher in anxiety

1:53:48 in general and the there are changes in brain regions.

1:53:52 This is the work of like I mentioned Jessica Eckles and Hugo Critley.

1:53:55 You can look this up.

1:53:56 It's so fascinating.

1:53:58 Um, so when you're rolling, if you know that you are hyper mobile,

1:54:04 you should stay towards muscle bellies.

1:54:08 So these are all B's.

1:54:09 We've got breath, bellies.

1:54:11 Stay in the belly.

1:54:12 Don't go rolling at the joints.

1:54:13 Why don't we know?

1:54:14 Why don't we just want to roll at the joints?

1:54:16 Because makes sense.

1:54:18 Bony junctions are where dislocations happen.

1:54:20 So that's one of the the third B's.

1:54:22 Avoid bony junctions because you couldn't easily dislocate.

1:54:27 um because there's just less muscle there's less muscle mass there

1:54:31 and you're hanging out in your joint capsules and your ligaments there.

1:54:34 Regarding rolling in the bellies,

1:54:36 the other thing about rolling in the bellies is

1:54:39 a lot of times um like you were mentioning,

1:54:42 there will be these hypertonic areas in people

1:54:44 with hyper mobility and we want to be

1:54:47 able to restore good length tension so they

1:54:51 can really get appropriate strength in agonist antagonist relationships.

1:54:55 And so rolling within the muscle bellies might help us

1:54:58 to decouple some inappropriate trigger

1:55:00 points or inappropriate hypertonic regions.

1:55:03 So that's that's the aim.

1:55:05 Um the fourth B is brace.

1:55:08 So using contract relax techniques.

1:55:12 You're not always trying to roll to the bone.

1:55:14 You're not always trying to get all the way at depth.

1:55:16 So I can do rolling that can address some of the more

1:55:19 superficial tissues by creating um a little bit of muscle bracing.

1:55:24 And that's going to allow me to roll superficial fascia

1:55:28 and also to roll loose fascia transition with the deep fascia.

1:55:31 So I can where normally I would say contract relax

1:55:36 um to amplify parasympathetic values in most bodies when I'm dealing

1:55:41 with a hyper mobile person especially let's say they have um

1:55:45 hypermobility in certain spinal segments I actually want them to keep

1:55:49 some amount of tension in there while they're rolling so

1:55:52 I can get some of the benefits some of the maybe

1:55:53 the parasympathetic benefits of rolling but I don't want to lose

1:55:56 some of my support benefits so that's it's very personalized there.

1:56:01 Um and then yeah to avoiding going all the way to depth and again dislocating.

1:56:06 So the bracing can be very important staying superficial.

1:56:10 So this takes us back to superficial fascia.

1:56:13 We can reap a lot of the parasympathetic

1:56:15 benefits of rolling and the propriceptive benefits of rolling.

1:56:18 by staying in the skin, the fatty layer and the superficial fascia.

1:56:22 The majority of the sensory neurons um within

1:56:25 the the nerve net that's associated with the fascial tissues,

1:56:30 the majority of them are in the superficial fascia.

1:56:32 And so I can get a lot of propriceptive

1:56:34 bang for my buck by staying on the surface.

1:56:37 And um that might be all it takes to give

1:56:43 the that propreceptive feedback to a very

1:56:46 loose person to improve their positioning.

1:56:49 So a lot of times and this goes along

1:56:51 with the contract relax also um a lot of the time

1:56:55 with the very hyper mobile person they have a really

1:56:58 hard time sensing uh where their joint junctions are.

1:57:01 They blow past them which isn't good for overall stability.

1:57:05 I mean they can go there and they should occasionally but maybe

1:57:09 not load in a really weird vector right so working superficially and working

1:57:14 with the contract relax can then heighten my propriception of of my body

1:57:21 um and then I also say with hyper mobile people like

1:57:24 when in doubt don't roll it out you can cause injury you

1:57:27 don't necessarily always know until it's a day too late but um

1:57:33 I do encourage people who are hyper mobile to roll out especially

1:57:36 if they are the the highly anxious type or also have digestive challenges.

1:57:41 So you know in hypermobility when you think about um super

1:57:46 loose people super bendy people it's not just the fascia that's comprised

1:57:53 of collagen but all of your organs are comprised of collagen

1:57:57 and there are you know your your eyes are comprised of collagen.

1:58:02 There are so many other weird symptoms that hyper mobile people will have.

1:58:07 Um, uh, breathing problems, um, autoimmune challenges.

1:58:13 A lot of them have mass cell activation challenges and, um, uh, IBS symptoms.

1:58:20 So, there's just like a host of things.

1:58:22 So tamping down the sympathetic overflow,

1:58:27 putting them into a place where they can be reflective and calm

1:58:32 is I think very very helpful for for all of that.

1:58:35 Going to the other end of the spectrum, somebody that needs to gain flexibility,

1:58:41 needs to gain um mobility outside of of course,

1:58:48 you know, the foam rolling and things you've described so far.

1:58:52 Where does static stretching land in this equation?

1:58:55 Do you like it?

1:58:56 Do you hate it?

1:58:58 Should it be done in a particular way?

1:59:00 Oh, I love all movement.

1:59:01 I love I know you do.

1:59:03 Static stretching.

1:59:04 I love isometric work.

1:59:06 Um, where does it fall for people who are very um

1:59:09 muscle bound or maybe even what we would call scar tissue bound?

1:59:12 So, somebody who maybe has overtrained like say

1:59:15 they want to have a really big bubble muscles.

1:59:18 I call these people where you have just a more

1:59:22 bicep than is necessary for you know general health.

1:59:27 Um but they've done it by really overtraining.

1:59:31 Um I think a combination of rolling and static stretching.

1:59:34 What we see with the the rolling can

1:59:37 actually allow for that temporary elasticity to show up.

1:59:41 You can actually improve joint positions after rolling.

1:59:45 So, I'd recommend that as a prescriptive for them.

1:59:49 Um, and you can roll the bicep.

1:59:51 You can do um techniques called stacking where you have like

1:59:55 the balls like a vice on either side of the bicep.

1:59:57 Yeah.

1:59:57 Um, you can also just, you know,

1:59:59 lean against the wall with a block between your rib cage

2:00:02 and your arm and you have a ball here and you have

2:00:05 a ball here and you just lean and create like a pancake

2:00:07 of your bicep and then do different movements of the elbow,

2:00:10 different movements of the shoulder and create different

2:00:12 vectors and that can in increase elasticity so quickly.

2:00:17 And then I would work on static stretching just

2:00:19 to to do longheld traction within the fascial tissues.

2:00:25 But I would also work on the antagonist.

2:00:27 So that would there would need to be some tricep work.

2:00:29 Um I'm just thinking about this particular model.

2:00:32 I mean but you also need to work into the forearm because you've got

2:00:35 you know myofascial expansion into the uh

2:00:38 membrane between the radius and the ulna.

2:00:40 You know this basically is perryostial sheath.

2:00:44 So there's there's a lot more to it, but um I've seen this in many clients

2:00:51 and they're always shocked that after a few days

2:00:55 of rolling and static stretching that they gain generalized

2:00:59 improvements in range of motion all over their body.

2:01:02 Um but they're they're really not going to do it on their own.

2:01:05 They need to Yeah.

2:01:07 Some of these people they just they just they need to be led day after day.

2:01:11 um and then their mind is blown and then

2:01:13 they go right back to their overtraining after that.

2:01:16 You mentioned at the very beginning and I and I said when I

2:01:19 tend to think of manual therapy I almost always associate this as pain.

2:01:27 In other words, I did too much training in my quad.

2:01:31 I'm going to roll it out so I'm not so sore.

2:01:33 Or I think about I'm tight, right?

2:01:35 So I'm going to use these two things.

2:01:36 I basically didn't think about this area at all outside of those two cases.

2:01:40 Either I'm tight, so I want to release things more.

2:01:43 I'm my back's bound up.

2:01:45 I'm tight from a 12-h hour plane flight

2:01:47 or you you following stuff or and I'm sore.

2:01:52 You just alluded to some of them now,

2:01:54 but what are some of the other benefits that have

2:01:57 been shown either scientifically that you're aware of or just you've

2:02:01 seen in your clinical practice that we can get from and we'll just keep calling

2:02:06 it selfmmyofascial release or similarish things?

2:02:10 There are so many benefits to self myofascia release.

2:02:13 Um now mind you I already mentioned I have a bias.

2:02:16 I'm a ball softball person.

2:02:19 This is the evidence from all the literature.

2:02:22 So this is a combination of rollers and sticks and tools.

2:02:25 This is not about vibrating tools, by the way.

2:02:27 So this is like just really cheap implements that anybody can do home care with.

2:02:32 Um so it improves movement coordination.

2:02:35 You just gain better propriception by rolling.

2:02:38 Um it improves range of motion and mobility

2:02:41 and that those changes can be obvious very very quickly.

2:02:46 um either rolling like along the spine, you can change your shoulders.

2:02:50 Rolling around the knee, you can uh rolling around the knee,

2:02:54 you can help your hip, you can help your knee.

2:02:55 So, uh it works everywhere.

2:02:59 Uh the surprising I think some of the surprising

2:03:00 thing is that the rolling improves torque.

2:03:03 So, when you roll, the muscle that you're

2:03:05 targeting will be able to generate more forces afterwards.

2:03:08 Um and this is specifically with rolling, not necessarily static compressive.

2:03:14 So, um, that I'm not I'm not sure of.

2:03:17 I don't think anybody's done that research with torque and just, you know,

2:03:20 but there's a lot on actual strength and torque in in this specific realm.

2:03:24 So, regardless of that other section, who cares?

2:03:26 We know for sure.

2:03:28 Uh, and it's been shown again many times at many

2:03:30 angles that this stuff will enhance acute force production.

2:03:34 That's great.

2:03:35 Um, it decreases pain.

2:03:37 There you go.

2:03:37 That's great.

2:03:38 Yeah.

2:03:38 You woke up, you're sore, get on the ball.

2:03:41 Yep.

2:03:41 roll yourself out and go practice again.

2:03:44 Um, it reduces arterial stiffness and improves vascular and epithelial function.

2:03:50 It's really good.

2:03:51 You know, we don't want to have sticky vascule that's for sure.

2:03:55 So, getting stretch um through this um you know,

2:03:58 pressure and uh ringing very helpful.

2:04:02 Um it decreases delayed onset muscle soreness.

2:04:06 So whether that it times it out so that you get it on day

2:04:11 three instead of day two or you just have less of that inflammation.

2:04:15 So that's a good thing.

2:04:16 Um it induces physiological relaxation and parasympathetic features

2:04:21 which is one of my favorite parts about it.

2:04:23 Yeah, of course.

2:04:24 It's a chill pill without taking a pill, right?

2:04:27 Um it reduces lympadeema and uh decreases local tissue inflammation.

2:04:33 And there's some really cool research out of Harvard.

2:04:35 Uh Bo Reio did some uh research with very very soft tools.

2:04:40 I'm talking about the amount of pressure that a pencil

2:04:44 eraser would exert if you dropped it into your hand.

2:04:46 Um when they they destroyed some anterior tibialis of of mice

2:04:51 and they did these uh very gentle oscillations using this implement.

2:04:56 The mouse can't do self myofasial release.

2:04:58 So this was administered through these little like little tiny vices.

2:05:02 Um, but the it was a very very soft latex, not a hard um thing.

2:05:08 So, I'm extrapolating here uh for that because yeah,

2:05:11 the mouse did not roll itself.

2:05:14 Uh, but it was a tool.

2:05:15 Yeah, we get it.

2:05:15 There's some research out of Germany.

2:05:17 Dr.

2:05:17 Robert Schlip is one of my favorite fascia researchers.

2:05:20 He's one of the originators of the fascia

2:05:21 research uh congress and the fascial research society.

2:05:24 He has found um with this uh group he's working with in a uh

2:05:28 mental health institution there that the rolling

2:05:31 is helpful from major depressive disorder.

2:05:33 Oh yeah.

2:05:34 Um they're doing surveys um you know very regarded surveys you

2:05:38 know before and after rolling uh around affect around memory and cognition

2:05:43 and they're finding that the rolling um changes some of the uh

2:05:47 tissue mechanics as well as um improves their emotional affect.

2:05:53 Um, and then finally, it's helpful for interosception and sustained attention.

2:05:58 So, there's some work um out of Canada.

2:06:01 Um, I'm blanking on that researcher's name.

2:06:04 Well, I'm sure we'll find that and hopefully put it in the show notes for you,

2:06:08 but I can appreciate all this stuff because I didn't appreciate any

2:06:11 of that before really coming across some of the stuff you were doing.

2:06:15 And I know that the field is evolving.

2:06:17 We're learning more.

2:06:19 This is a particular area that I actually

2:06:23 don't care that much about the molecular mechanisms.

2:06:27 I'm interested in.

2:06:28 I think it's really cool.

2:06:29 We do.

2:06:30 The fascia researchers are very interested in it.

2:06:33 I know.

2:06:33 I know you are.

2:06:35 But why I'm saying I almost don't care is I

2:06:38 didn't care that this was working because it was repairing tissue

2:06:44 damage inside a muscle or if this was a nervous system

2:06:48 or if this was a connective I I didn't really care.

2:06:51 What I cared about was I don't hurt

2:06:52 as much anymore afterwards or I'm seeing this change.

2:06:56 Is this helping me get better?

2:06:58 It's interesting.

2:06:59 I of course as physiologists like to hear the the things.

2:07:03 We'll learn more about it.

2:07:04 I'm sure the field will get more specific.

2:07:06 You'll find different tools, different strategies,

2:07:08 techniques work for better applications and outcomes and all

2:07:11 that, but it's incredibly valuable in my opinion

2:07:14 to have people like you who know the science based on where it stands now.

2:07:19 We know the limitations.

2:07:20 We know what we don't know.

2:07:21 We know what's been shown to not work.

2:07:25 But then you have on the other side of this equation thousands of hours,

2:07:29 years of experience with countless types of clientele

2:07:34 personally with courses with seminars and you can

2:07:37 really add context to saying well we've tried

2:07:40 this and we've seen this and we've noticed this.

2:07:42 So when you have a field like this where the science is

2:07:46 just is where it is having that clinical experience is incredibly valuable.

2:07:51 So, I can't thank you enough for coming by today,

2:07:53 sharing a ton of research, a ton of physiology, lots of personal anecdotes.

2:07:57 I know that uh people if they want to see direct examples,

2:08:00 they can go and and check out uh all

2:08:02 your videos and your free things you put out there,

2:08:04 and we'll link to all of that, of course.

2:08:06 So, thank you so much for all of that and and all the years as well,

2:08:10 and we really appreciate you coming by today.

2:08:12 Thank you, Andy.

2:08:13 Your work has been life-changing for me and I love being a friend

2:08:16 of yours and I also love being a student of the education that you offer.

2:08:21 Awesome.

2:08:21 Thank you so much.

2:08:23 I hope you enjoyed today's discussion with Jill Miller as much as I did.

2:08:26 To find direct links to the videos we referred to earlier,

2:08:29 Jill's courses, seminars, products, and other services,

2:08:33 please check out the links provided in the show notes.

2:08:36 Thank you for joining for today's episode.

2:08:38 My goal, as always, is to share exciting

2:08:40 scientific insights that help you perform at your best.

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