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Why should you stretch? I don’t know… Maybe you shouldn’t. But maybe you should! I can’t possibly tell you what you should do, because your body knows way more about itself, than I know about it 😉

Here’s a quick summary of the points made in Why Should You Stretch? (part 1) (give it a read if you haven’t yet):

• Stretching and flexibility seem to be the universal go-to solutions for pain and tightness.
• Sometimes, especially if you’re me, stretching makes things feel worse.
• Being more flexible doesn’t make you a better person.
• Most people (including me) could save their future-selves a lot of time and money and suffering by asking, “why is it tight??“, before scrolling through Instagram for fancy stretches (probably demonstrated by a very attractive-looking, half-naked person with thousands of followers and a free ebook)

After writing part one, the question I got stuck on was why do we silly humans stretch in the first place? This question took me to some interesting existential spaces which may not be useful for 80% of you. Whatever. For the other 20%…

…Why Do We Stretch?

Despite our incredible cortex, opposable thumbs, and abilities to think, reason, and create cool shit, at the base, we humans are wired just like any other animal- With massively over-riding instincts, beyond reason, for sex and survival.

So I got to wondering: Do animals stretch?

Apparently they do, and they do so involuntarily, typically accompanied by yawning in the transition from sleep to wakefulness.

When animals “stretch”, it is referred to as pandiculation, and, according to THIS serves as a way to:

“reset the central nervous system to the waking state after a period of sleep and prepare the animal to respond to environmental stimuli”…

and,

“to maintain the animal’s ability to express coordinated and integrated movement by regularly restoring and resetting the structural and functional equilibrium of the myofascial system...“

A fancy way of saying, “keep shit moving good, like it should”.

Now please enjoy these animal pandiculation videos:

And here is a very satisfying video of a lion yawning:

If you want to read more about pandiculation and how modern humans are using this “primal” wisdom to “reset” their systems, and develop “natural” mobility, go right ahead. I’ve got nothing new to add to that conversation.

My mind wants to know: At what point did humans stop instinctively, pandiculating, and start stretching deliberately? And why? Was this a useful and necessariy transition?

When did the yawny, morning system-reset, become a form of remedial therapy (one that many of us feel guilty about not doing)? Or a means of control? Or a show-offy thing to post about online and have competitions based around?

Yoga competitions still baffle me.

Is the move from casual, instinctive pandiculatory movements yet another sacrifice of our evolution from quadruped to biped?

We suppressed our pandiculatory instinct, but gained rocket ships. I’ll leave it to you to judge that however you like.

Did our technological prowess hit a tipping point at which we were able to live with less physical burden? A point at which, with less manual labor, stretching had to become a compartmentalized “thing” to make up for the lack of general movement?

Some people say stretching originated in ancient Greek and Roman times, as a means to train their soldiers.

Or do the origins of modern stretching date back to ancient India, before yoga turned commercial, when it was a means to prepare the body to sit more comfortably for extended periods of quiet meditation (non-competitively…)?

At some point, did stretching became a “thing” to do in addition to living, because we started setting lofty goals for living that were beyond the capacity our bodies currently had?

So could it be that we use stretching to serve the ambitions of our higher brain- the frontal coretex? Whether that be to sit for 12 hours per day to build a piece of life-changing software: Stretching as remediation for sedentarianism (not sure if that’s a real word).

Or whether that be to run a marathon: Physical preparation; preventative care.

Or to get out of the physical pain caused by either of the above: Damage control; emergency care.

I guess it doesn’t really matter. Because its not even about stretching per se, but consciouly noticing when you’re neglecting your body’s needs for healthy movement and responding with the right action. Which may or may not warrant stretching.

Let’s get personal

Let’s make this less about humans, generally, and more about you. Why do YOU personally stretch?

If you keep asking “why” enough times (usually 7 is enough), you can get to the root of any question. So I invite you to try this exercise with me:

Ask yourself, “Why do I stretch?“. And don’t think too hard. Just write the first things that come into your head (below are my answers, yours will hopefully be different, because you are not me):

Monika, why do you stretch? (and let’s just assume for now that I actually stretch)

1. Because it makes my body feel good. But why?
2. Because my body feels crusty on days that I don’t stretch, and I like not being crusty and in pain. But why?
3. Because I’ve had injuries and accidents that have distorted my posture and movement potential, and I need to do something daily to balance things out. But why?
4. My body is healthier and functions more efficiently when it is more balanced. But why?
5. Because I’m not in pain, and I can participate in my life without distraction or fear or frustration. But why?
6. Because life isn’t about being stuck at home shackled to my couch, or bed, passively watching TV, drained of energy. I’ve got stuff to learn, explore, and share, and I need my body to be able to cooperate. But why?
7. Because my body is a vessel for me to live life in a way that is meaningful to me, participating with my highest values, part of which is that I genuinely love the feeling of moving for moving’s sake.

Ahhh there it is at #7: I want to be free. Free from pain. Free from restricted movement. Free to explore. Free to learn. Free to enjoy moving. Free to participate with my life and what fulfills me in it. (I guess my workshop is called Liberated Body for a reason).

Is this the answer you came to as well? You want to set your body free? Not just because pain is annoying, and it sucks, or you want to be more flexible, but because your body is your vessel for participating in what is meaningful to you?

I think this could be a universal principle. Humans just want to feel free. Physically, existentially…

Note here that I’m not saying stretching will help you find meaning in life. If only it were that easy… Remember, I don’t really like stretching. But I know my reasons WHY I’m doing what I’m doing with my body, so now I can choose wisely what I do with it.

Stretching may or may not be part of your process, but let’s put stretching aside momentarily and look at the question: What does it actually mean to set your body free?

What if discipline is real freedom?

When people say things like, I want my body to feel “free” and “more open”, what does that mean? What are we trying to set our bodies free from? And what does a free body feel like?

Do you want to be free from restricted body movement? Do you want to be free from how you restrict your own body’s movement?

Is freedom to be able move the way you want to, when you want to, free from worry? (like, if you ever wanted to try a handstand without fear of breaking your money-maker…)

Do you want the freedom to NOT move the way you want to? (like, to sit on a plane for 10 hours, or sit to meditate, and not be crippled afterwards)

Does freedom mean the courage to take up a new, random sport, or go for a difficult hike, and trust your body has the basic body mechanics to perform it without injury?

Speaking of basics, is real freedom is having the discipline not to skip past the basics? To put in the tedious, not so enjoyable work now that you know will bear fruit later.

Maybe freedom is having more options for how to move because you put in the basic, foundational work. You can’t paint a masterpiece without doing the rough sketch, first.

Maybe you don’t have the goal to build a skyscraper, but if you limit yourself to building a foundation that will only support a bungalow, you only have that one option. And one option is really no option. And who knows if you might change your mind about wanting that skyscraper 10 years from now?

My favourite definition of freedom so far is from Krishnamurti’s book Think on These Things. I feel that his definition applies particularly nicely to the body, too.

Per Krishnamurti, freedom means (his quoted words in bold):

Not to want to BE anything more than what is. To be free from ambition.

Acceptance of whatever our bodies are experiencing without needing to immediately fix it, or solve the problem. Freedom to sit with the problem long enough to understand it before trying to solve it. Not seeing the body’s limitations as a reason to condemn onesself, but as something to be curious about and explore.

A state in which we are are not acting out of fear or compulsion, not needing to cling to a sense of security or protection. 

As it relates to stretching, sometimes we compulsively stretch tight muscles out of fear, because it makes us feel like we’re doing something useful when we don’t know what else to do, because we lack information. That’s what I did with my hamstring. It ended badly.

Not to operate based on traditions or do something just because other people are doing it. 

Many sports/movement forms have a traditional way of doing things- Stretch a certain way, warm-up a certain way, not so much because it is useful, but because it’s how it has always been done. Beware tradition.

To be able to understand who you are, and what you are doing, moment to moment. 

Being present with our bodies. Moving with awareness, not just mindlessly going through motions. And knowing why you’re doing it. If you understand who you are and what matters to you, you can link any movement practice to your highest values.

And, freedom is not just to be able to do or say whatever you want, or go wherever you wish, but to understand what is happening, and why.

Paradoxically, setting the body free isn’t about doing whatever you want to do with reckless abandon, ignoring the facts (yes, you are free to run that marathon, but what is your body saying about that, really?).

Freedom isn’t ignoring and outsourcing your responsibilites to your body, even though it might feel that way. It’s about disciplining yourself to understand the real demands your body has. Asking, is this right for me based on my body’s current state of affairs? Have I done my foundational work? Do I know why my knee hurts, and am I ignoring it? And putting in the time to do the work to get things moving well again.

Freedom might be taking ownership of our bodies needs- When taking responsibility becomes not what we feel we have to do, but what we actually want to do, and find delight in it, for it’s own sake.

But I don’t want to take responsibility, that sounds like no fun

I 100% relate. Every year at tax time I just want to ignore my responsibilities. I may have learned how to take responsibility for my body, but I’ve got other problems…

Taking responsibility of our body’s needs for healthy movement initially feels like no fun- even scary- because it means looks at how you’ve failed to pay attention to your body. It means seeing just how long you’ve been going in the wrong direction, and how much work it may take to correct that. 

If that causes a feeling of overwhelm, you’re not alone. The overwhelm is just a sign you don’t have the information you need to make your first step in a new direction. Get to learnin’!

But its not easy… I had a client tell me that he spent 40 years of his life deliberately dissociating from how his body felt so that he could keep going, doing the things he loved to do, ignoring he was in pain, until one day, after starting to work with me, it became clear that this strategy was no longer going to work, and the reality of just how much work lay ahead of him set in.

OMG I’ve been a bad friend to my body.

Fortunately, I’m pretty good at making befriending-your-body-again process fun (or at least not awful). He is currently doing great. Learning new things about his body every day. In much less pain, able to do the activities he loves with more enjoyment and skill than a few years ago.

A less positive example is a personal training client I had a few years ago. She would ignore when her elbows hurt, yet continues to ask me to put exercises in her program that make her elbows hurt.

She’d say, “it’s fine, I can just work around it”. Even though this was keeping her stuck with sore elbows, she would rather pretend things are ok than understand the root of why her ebows hurt. Her biggest fear is that she’ll stop being able to workout, so she’s clinging to her pushups, and rows for dear life, while the pain is still only tolerable, and not crippling. Ironically, this is the fast track to not being able to workout.

We eventually stopped working together when it became clear that I was not going to enable her. In the end, she confessed that she didn’t believe there was hope that she could ever get out of pain because she was “too old”. She believed she was stuck the way she was, with hurtin’ joints, for life, and that was that. And what could one do or say to change her mind?

Maybe show this amazing video:

And on that inspiring note, perhaps you’d like to sit with these questions:

Why do you stretch? or if you don’t stretch…

Why do you feel like you should stretch?

What does taking responsibility for your body look like for you?

What are your excuses to not take responsibility? (and “I’m too old”, isn’t allowed)

Stay tuned for part 3, which will be a lot more practical, and less philosophical.

Friday March 19th was the March edition of my monthly, free, Movement Nerd Hangout. Our topic: Make Pals With Your Pecs. (scroll to the bottom to watch the session recording).

Those pernicious pecs get blamed for causing a lot of trouble for our posture and shoulder health. In therapy world, most of the solutions involve stretching pecs, digging into the pecs with a ball, and other “myofacial release” strategies.

Back in the day, I used to do a ton of pec stretching and ball rolling and it didn’t change one single thing about how my body felt. Nothing changed until I began to pay attention to the actual motion of the bones and joints that the pecs connect to and manage:

• Clavicle (collar bone)
• Scapula (shoulder blade)
• Humerus (big ol’ arm bone)
• Ribcage (and by virtue of that, the spine)

As per Gary Ward’s second rule of movement, joints act, muscles react, we need to show those above bones how to move across their entire spectrum, in all three dimensions, if we want the muscles to do something.

We need real articulation between bones to generate an actual lengthening of muscles. And by virtue of Gary’s first rule, muscles lengthen before they contract, we need a muscle to first lengthen in order to generate it’s best contraction.

Bones moving= muscles get to do something.

Muscles getting to do something= happy body.

It is with this paradigm- what I’ve learned from studying Anatomy in Motion, that I set out to guide a movement-based query into your ability to access three dimensional lengthening and shortening of the pectoral muscles, via actual motion of the structures of your shoulder girdle.

Since I began working with my body in this way, I haven’t done a traditional pec stretch. They usually make my hands go numb… Instead, I simply make sure all my joints can do what their articulating surfaces are set up for, and the muscles seem to take care of themselves.

Anyway, here’s the replay of the full session. Follow along and let me know how it goes 🙂

If you enjoy this style of movement session, you may also like to participate in my online workshop Liberated Body. Its a study of how the human body moves in gait, through 4 exploratory movement sessions, based on the teachings of Anatomy in Motion. I run it live every so often, but you can start learning now by doing it as a home-study, at your own pace.

Forgive the click-baity title. But its true: You’re probably screwing up hip extension (and I’d wager in more than 10 ways).

It’s not an insult. Garbage hip extension is perfectly normal (trust me, I know). But that doesn’t make it ok to live with…

I’d like to use this blog post to help you reclaim your best hip extension ever. Even if that happens 5 years from now… Get cracking today.

To give you a movement orientation to hip extension, check out this short excerpt from week three of my workshop, Liberated Body. Follow along and see where your hip extension capabilities are at:

FYI my next Liberated Body workshop is coming up Feb 18th! If you liked this clip and found it useful, you’ll love the whole 4 week workshop. 

The 10 most common hip extension errors you might be making

As you followed along with the hip extension movement in the video, were you able to feel lengthening of your hip flexor muscles? Or did you just feel your lower back getting cranky? Or your calf burning? Or or nothing at all…?

Check if you doing/not doing any of the following:

1. Not maintaining a supinated foot, Either by lifting your heel too high and losing forefoot contact on the 1st and 5th metatarsal heads, or rotating your leg internally, leaving you with a pronated foot.
2. Not getting a flat surface at the front of your hip (if it feels more slanted, it’s not extending)
3. Pelvis staying behind your head, instead of moving forward underneath it.
4. Stance is too split apart, pelvis cannnot travel enough onto front foot, and you may end up over-moving from your spine instead.
5. Back knee bends as you move your pelvis forward, which has the effect of flexing your hip instead of extending it.
6. Pelvis starts and stays in anterior tilt, which will also cause that hip to stay flexed.
7. Accessing hip extension with a massive glute contraction, which you shouldn’t need to do. This may indicate how much additional work it is for your body to get into hip extension.
8. Leaning ribcage backwards causing a hyper extension in the lumbar spine (swaybacking it).
9. Leaning torso forwards, thinking that you’re moving your pelvis forward.
10. Assuming that just because your leg is behind you your hip is extended! 

And here’s the confusing part: Just becaues you feel a hip flexor “stretch” it doesn’t necessarily mean your hips are extending well.

But before we get to the nitty gritty technical details of how to get your hips extending like a boss, I’d like to tell you the story of my poor, abused, hips.

The story is called…

Why You Shouldn’t Stretch in Bed

In my less informed days, I remember a dance teacher telling us it was good to sit in the splits for 30 mins at a time. So I did that.

I think one teacher even said that if we were really serious, we’d sleep in the frog position at night. Which I obvisouldy tried, too.

Other silly things dance teachers have suggested include:

• If you’re not in pain you’re not a real dancer.
• Wearing padding in your pointe shoes makes you weak.
• Never, ever, take time off or you’ll lose all your hard earned technique.
• And, always stretch. Always. Stretch. ALWAYS the solution.

I could drop into a split cold. I thought it was a cool party trick. I did a ton of hip flexor stretching, and as such, I thought I had a PhD in hip mobility.

But my hips were still “tight” all the time. I had anterior hip pain. Stretching felt good in the moment, in a palliative way, but never seemed to get me any additional mobility or relieve my tightness.

So I just forced harder (remember, dance teacher said ALWAYS STRETCH and pain is good).

Looking back on my hip flexor stretching efforts, I had at least 10 different ways to make it feel like my hips were extending, all of which were clever ways to avoid moving my actual hips by moving every other part of my body instead. 

So instead of extending my hips better, I was just compressing my lumbar spine with more resolve than ever before (see above photo). This is a factor in why I had so many lower back injuries (along with trying to show off in yoga classes).

The moral of the story is that stretching more and stretching harder didn’t help improve my hip tightness or range of motion. Quite the opposite: It reinforced all the other non-hip-motion strategies I’d unconsiously found in a naive attempt to stretch my tight hip flexors.

Promise me you will learn from my mistakes?

If you are like me- hip extension challenged- I hope this blog post helps you to find your truest, cleanest hip extension. 

And guess what… It’s not all about stretching your hip flexors.  

What is hip extension? 

If you Google “hip extension”, this is the first image that pops up:

More commonly appreciated in the guise of the all-mighty “hip flexor stretch”, hip extension is a joint motion that refers to the opening of the space at the front of the hip.

With each step we take our rear hip needs to extend well for efficient gait.

I can’t ever take for granted that all readers of this blog know what the hip is, or reference it in the same way. Not since I had a chat with a student who stated, “What are you talking about, Monika?? The hip IS the same thing as the pelvis.”

No it is not… 

The hip joint is the space between which the femur (leg bone), and the pelvis meet. 

The joke in my movement nerd fam is that the hip is actually nothing. As it is nothing, it does nothing.

The two bones- femur + pelvis- are the actual moving structures of the hip. How we name the motion of the hip is based on the relative motion of those two bones and the resultant change in space between them.

In hip extension, the bottom portion (foot end) of the femur moves behind (posterior to) the pelvis, with relatively little motion of the pelvis itself.

To name the bones’ motions, we could say the pelvis is doing a posterior tilt, and the femur is doing an anterior tilt, opening the space at the front of the hip.

So just tucking under your pelvis, squeezing your glutes, or getting into a deep lunge with your leg way behind you are not sufficient criteria to create an actual extension of the hip. We need the articulating surfaces of the two bones to experience real motion between them.

It sounds simple enough in theory. But in practice, oh man is it ever easy to screw up.

This leads us to another important techincal detail…

What’s the difference between a “hip flexor stretch” and accessing hip extension? 

A hip flexor stretch is the lengthening of hip flexor muscles. 

Hip extension is the joint motion that should result in hip flexor length when done correctly.

The two sound similar, but have different intentions, teach the body different things, and have very different outcomes. 

The irony is that one can find a hip flexor stretch without actually moving the hip joint. But it doesn’t feel very good because it means that you are over-moving another part(s) of your body in an attempt to put length into those hip flexors! (ie everything desribed in my story at the beginning of this post)

For example, over-extending your lumbar spine, over tucking your pelvis, leaning your ribcage way back, splitting your legs really, really wide apart and squeezing your butt, or any of the 10 things I listed earlier.

Another piece of the irony is that our hips only have up to about 10 to 20 degrees of actual extension. Finding those elusive degrees isn’t about making the movement bigger, but making it more precise and accurate.

Size is not the problem 😉 Accuracy and specificity are.

Eccentric load vs. hip flexor stretching: What’s the diff?

Eccentric load (or eccentric muscle contraction) is when the two bones of a joint are moving away from each other, and the muscle that spans those two bones must contract in it’s lengthening state to decelerate them moving away from each other.

However, the force of the bones moving away is greater than the ability for the muscle to contract to pull them together. All the muscle can do is slow down how fast the bones are moving apart.

(This is why eccentric muscle training tends to cause a lot more DOMS than concentric contractions, FYI.)

So one could say that the ability for a muscle to load eccentrically ensures a certain feeling of safety for the body in motion, because it is preventing a joint from opening too far for comfort, into a potential danger zone.

Gait (walking) is a predominantly eccentric muscle experience- Muscles decelerating joint movement, then contracting back.

Most muscle strain injuries are a result of a muscle’s inability to load eccentrically in response the force of the movement being undertaken. In fact, that’s exactly how I strained my hamstring: Over-stretching forcefully while warming up for dance class. *POP* Careful with those splits, guys…

This is why in Anatomy in Motion we consider the ability for the body to experience eccentric tissue load with joint movement to be so crucial. Not as a “stretch”, but as an indicator of healthy management of joint motion and efficiency in gait.

Joints act, muscles react, and muscles lengthen before they contract.

With each step you take, joints move, muscles respond to decelerate movement, and then contract back to move the joint back in the opposite direction.

This is a very different intention for a muscle than what my dance teachers had in mind: Stretch it into submission.

In an eccentric load, we are asking the muscle to respond back with a contraction.

In a stretch, we are asking the muscle to do nothing.

This was one of my biggest paradigm shifts when I began my AiM studies: We are not simply stretching muscles to get more mobility or flexibility, but we are showing the body how to access a joint motion in it’s correct context in gait, which should result in the muscle experiencing an eccentric load.

We don’t just want to tug on a muscle and over-ride the stretch response, because the intention of the eccentric muscle action is to contract that muscle back again, not make it longer and stay there. 

An eccentric load is an educational experience for the body.

If we are trying to access hip extension in the context of gait, we want to feel the hip flexors under eccentric load- not static stretch- which should give them no option but to contract back from their most lengthened position.

And where do they contract to take the hip? Into hip flexion! 

So what are we trying to teach our body with an eccentric load of the hip flexors, by virtue of true hip extension? To flex the hip.

This answer adds even more irony: Practicing hip extension isn’t necessarily to give you more mobility, or longer hip flexors, but to show your body how to better flex your hips.

When does hip extension happen in gait?

Hip extension, as a position, is a snapshot in time of your leg behind your body.

But as a motion in gait, hip extension doesn’t start and end with your leg behind you with the hip already stretched open. Hip extension starts the milisecond after the hip is fully flexed.

Hip extension begins when your leg is in front of you, and continues building until it ends up behind you, the moment when your foot swings forward again.

Remember the rule: Muscles lengthen before they contract.

Just as hip flexion is reliant on hip extension to eccentrically load the hip flexors and contract the hip into flexion, hip extension is reliant on being able to flex the hip with the leg in front of you, eccentrically loading the hip extensors, which then receive the stimulus to contract and bring the hip into full extension. 

(sorry, that paragraph was hard on my brain, too…)

So paradoxically, if you only have time to do one exercise to help your hips extend better, I personally would choose to work on my access to hip flexion instead of taking them directly into extension.

How can you tell if you’re actually extending your hip?

Your muscles are the best indicator for actual joint motion. Can you feel the hip flexors loading/lengthening?

Remember Gary Ward’s other rule: Joints act, muscles react. 

You will feel a hip flexor “stretch” if the surfaces of the pelvis and femur are actually articulating against each other, generating length (eccentric load) in the tissues spanning that joint space. 

What muscles? Anything that crosses the front of the space between the pelvis and femur, aka the hip flexors:

• Psoas major
• Iliacus
• Tensor fascia latae
• Adductors pectineus, longus, brevis, and the anterior portion of magnus
• Rectus femoris
• Sartorius

Here is an excellent video by Gary Ward, showing how the psoas, one of the most famous hip flexors, lengthens in three dimensions in gait to decelerate the forwards motion of the body through space.

Hip extension is just one dimension of the phases in which your leg is behind you in gait. Note how there are two other planes of motion to consider- Frontal and transverse plane, but that’s a topic for another time.

Also remember, hip extension STARTS from a flexed hip. What muscles do we consider to be the main extensors of the hip? Glutes and hamstrings. So we also want to be able to find eccentric load in those muscles to get our best hip extension.

I covered this in the November Movement Nerd Hangout: Wake Up Your Butt. It’s all about how to access hip flexion, which you now know is crucial for hip extension, too. Check out the full 60 minute session and technical write-up here. 

Conclusions?

Clean, honest hip extension means the joint surfaces of the two bones- femur and pelvis- need to articulate with each other, not move as one clump.

A hip flexor stretch is not the same thing as accessing hip extension cleanly.

A hip flexor stretch is not the same thing as loading the hip flexors eccentrically.

Hip extension starts from the moment your hip finishes fully flexing, not as the snapshot of a stretched open hip. 

In gait, hip extension must happen within a set of parameters that include foot supination, knee extension, pelvis posterior tilt, and center of mass moving forwards through space.  Change one thing, and you change everything.

There are more than 10 ways to screw up hip extension, but if you remember one thing: Never assume that just because your leg is behind you your hip is extending.

That’s it for now! It always amazes me how much I can write about one thing… It’s not a talent, it’s a real problem.

Let me know what came up for you. How is your hip extension? Shoot me a message and let me know!

I hope this was interesting and useful for you, and aids you on your journey to inhabiting your body with more ease and joy 🙂

Every month I do a free movement session to help you understand a part of your body better.

Friday Nov 20th the topic of the monthly Movement Nerd Hangout was Wake Up Your Butt.

Before I go on and on in typical long-winded Monika fashion, check out the full 75ish minute session on Youtube:

SIDE NOTE: Interestingly, despite doing very little to promote it, this hangout, and being very, very tired on go-day, this session got the most positive response and highest attendance to date. Must be the magical allure of the glutes. After all, who can resist the promise of a stronger butt, more functional butt, and less irritating pain in the butt.

The rest of this blog post will be the technical/conceptual summary of the session.

Let’s begin with some basic functional anatomy…

Anatomy of your butt 101

(excluding sphincters, pelvic floor muscles, and your butt’s role in elimination…)

You have three glute muscles: Glute maximus, glute medius, and glute minimus.

Not to be confused with this silly depiction of the glutes show below.

The glute muscles cross the hip joint, managing the motion of the pelvis and the femur.

The hip joint has lots of triplanar motion, which the glutes respond to by either shortening or lengthening. Here’s what the glute max does during each hip motion:

SAGITTAL PLANE	GLUTE MAX STATUS
Flexion	Long
Extension	Short
FRONTAL PLANE
Adduction	Long
Abduction	Short
TRANSVERSE PLANE
Internal rotation	Long
External rotation	Short

However, glutes become tricky when we look at what they actually do in gait. During some phases the glutes can be long in two planes, and yet short in another! Muscles can be confusing…

For example, in the loading phase of gait- when the front foot pronates and our entire bodyweight is on it (aka suspension phase, in AiM) we have the following:

SAGITTAL PLANE	GLUTE MAX STATUS
Flexion	Long
FRONTAL PLANE
Adduction	Long
TRANSVERSE PLANE
External rotation	Short

And so at this point we shall switch gears from the traditional “what does that muscle do?” conversation…

Gary Ward’s First Two Rules of Motion

If you haven’t already read What The Foot, this is a good place to start to learn more about Gary’s 5 rules of motion.

The first two rules are very important for our glute discussion:

Rule 1: Joints act, muscles react

Rule 2: Muscles lengthen before they contract.

In gait, our muscles react to the movement of our bones and joints as we journey forward through space, from one foot to the next.

Walking is a predominantly momentum-based activity in which the role muscles contribute most strongly is to decelerate joint movement- Load up muscles like a slingshot, which then contract to move the bones in the opposite direction, then go on slack to let momentum do the rest. 

From this perspective, the solution to a sleepy butt is not just to squeeze it.

In gait, we do NOT want our muscles to only be concentrically contracting (shortening) to pick up our limbs and ambulate, which is a more energetically costly walking strategy. And we definitely don’t want to micro-manage every muscle contraction consciously.

Just think about the last time you had to walk in knee-high snow, and the feeling of having to contract your hip flexors more than necessary with each step. Tiring!

Unless you have a pair of snowshoes…

Think of muscles as managers of joint motion.

In gait, joints act, muscles react: Muscles manage the joint they cross by decelerating the motion of the bones that just moved into them, and sending them back the opposite direction, which generates our forwards locomotion. 

In efficient gait, glutes come alive, unconsiously, when the hip moves in such a way that lengthens them, providing the stimulus to contract back in the other direction.

This is important because each footstep you take contains all the building block joint motions that underlie every other movement pattern a human can do. If your hips can move with all their innate options, and glutes can load unconsciously while you walk, trust that your body has a much better chance of accessing them in all other activities.

Like deep-snow country snowshoeing

Now let’s apply this to the glutes, which manage the motion available at the hip.

What motions of the hip do the glutes manage? 

In any textbook or anatomy app, you’ll get the list of concentric joint actions a muscle does- What happens to the joint when that muscle shortens.

But you’ll probably never get the list of joint actions that muscle decelerates.

Key point: In gait, a muscle’s most important role is what it does eccentrically- A contraction while the muscle is lengthening.

Key question: What joint actions causes eccentric loading of the glutes?

Concentrically, the textbooks tell us that, at the hip joint, glute max will do:

• Extension
• Abduction
• External rotation

Which means that to eccentrically load the glute max (in accordance with the rules joints act, muscles react, and muscles lengthen before they contract), we need the hip to do the opposite:

• Flex
• Adduct
• Internally rotate

These three motions would lengthen glutes, which would then stimulate them to contract and create extension, abduction, external rotation, pushing us along our merry way.

So…

Flexing the hip gives no option but for glute max to generate hip extension

Adducting the hip gives no option but for the glute max to generate hip abduction

Internally rotating the hip blah blah blah hip external rotation.

So the question is not, “how many reps of side-lying clamshells should I do to activate my glutes?”, but rather “Can both of my hip joints access flexion, adduction, and internall rotation?”

Because if the hip joint can do those three motions, the glutes should have no option but to contract! 

Now of course there are many more muscles that cross the hip, which means we have a choice: Try to micromanage individual muscles OR, move the one hip joint in such a way it stimulates all said muscles to perform their role.

In Gary Ward’s words (from the Closed Chain Biomechanics of the Lower Limb course):

Looking at a single joint- the hip, will give us movement in every single muscles that is attached to it. So rather than thkning of working with 10 different muscles, we can still just focus on quality of movement in one joint.

It’s a great course FYI. And you can get continuing education credits at last!

Why do butts go to sleep?

The million dollar question: Why did your butts go “asleep” in the first place?

“Sleepy glutes” is a popular buzz term, and I am now guilty of propagating it (#marketing, yo). Calling any muscle “asleep” is a bit of an over-simplification.

Muscles don’t “sleep” exactly. They don’t have a REM cycle 😉 But they do adhere to the “use it or lose it” principle, and “joints act” is the “use it” that keeps us from losing our glute reaction.

Muscles “fall asleep” when we stop moving the joints they cross! Stop giving them anything to do, and they stop doing anything.

Most people’s technical solution to “waking up” a muscle is to repetitively contract it. Endless glute-squeezy activation drills. Thank you Jane Fonda.

However, you can squeeze your butt all day and it might not result in any actual new joint motion.

Try it: You can squeeze your butt without moving your hips. But if you move your hip, you give your glutes no option but to respond.

Give the glutes no option but to contract

Imagine you’re 8 years old again, and it’s Christmas morning.

You’re wide awake and ready to open the presents under the tree, but Dad’s still half asleep because it’s at 5am on a Sunday and he just came back from working in the coal mines to buy you said presents (you ingrateful punk).

But you don’t care about Dad’s back-breaking manual labour, so you poke Dad over and over hoping he’ll wake up so you can open presents and eat candy for breakfast.

Well, poking Dad more won’t make him want to wake up, he’ll just get pissed off and want to stay in bed. Poking doesn’t provide the right incentive to change Dad’s behaviour. 

However you can give him no option but to wake up, by setting the Christmas tree on fire.

That’s the action that will stimulate sleepy ol’ Pops to move! 

Maybe this is a bad analogy, but what we want to do is stop poking Dad incessantly (squeezing glutes over and over), and instead create an environment in which he is given no choice but to wake up. Cruel… But does the job 😉

So how do we light that Christmas tree fire for your glutes? Create an environment that gives your glutes no option but to contract.  

Hip joint acts, glutes react. 

If the hip joint isn’t actually moving, the glutes won’t respond. This has nothing to do with how flexible or stiff you are. No actual motion of the hip= no glute reaction.  

Stop blaming your muscles

Far too often we blame muscles as the primary cause of our problems. But(t) unless there was direct trauma generating scar tissue (like sitting on a nail, a surgery, etc) it’s probably not orignally the muscle’s fault. 

Even a muscle strain might not originally be the muscle’s fault. After all, it was only doing what the joint’s access to it’s own motion permitted it to do.

Remember, in gait, the muscle’s role is to simply react to what the skeleton is capable of doing.

So don’t blame your glutes, they’re doing the best they can given their environment (aka the joint’s movement potential). Ask instead, “What might be preveniting my hip from moving?”

Well I don’t know what might be preventing YOUR hip joint from accessing it’s movement potential.

It could be a learned movement patterning based on a sport or skill.

Maybe an ankle sprain that makes you not want to put weight on that leg- and if you can’t put weight on a leg when you walk the hip joint isn’t going to move.

Or maybe you just sit a lot and literally just don’t move your hips.

Whatever the case may be, I hope this inspires you to to think and work with your hips and glutes in a new way.

Conclusions?

Muscles can be confusing, but if you can get your hip to move in all three planes, your glutes will have no option but to contract.

In gait, we are more interested in eccentric muscle action, because this is what most effectively stimulates a muscle to contract and move us forward.

Gait contains all the building block joint motions. Accessing glute function in the context of gait, by virtue of quality hip movement, opens the door of opportunity to use dem glutes in all other activities and exercises, unconsciously.

Ask not, how mnay reps of X-Magical-Glute-Exercise I should I do, and instead, seek to understand what could be preventing your hips from accessing tri-planar motion?

Now go any do all the glute things your heart desires 🙂 Do your squats, and glute bridges, barbell hip thrusts, clamshells, and side-lying leg raises, and trust you actually got glutes to squeeze.

Did you do the full movement session? Did you find it useful?

Did you find your glutes in all of the exercises? Was there one plane of motion that was harder than the other? Easier on one leg than the other? Shoot me an email or leave a comment below to share your experience 🙂

Let me know how it went 🙂

Last Friday my weekly Movement Deep Dive session was all about calcaneal motion: Let Your Heel Bone Slide!

Before you read the rest of this blost, take a moment to get in the mood with da Maestro himself:

I’m not sure WHICH of the 33 vertebrae Maestro is referring to by “backbone”… But for today I will opportunistically pretend he’s talking about the pelvis (including the 9 total vertebrae of the sacrum and coccyx), because that makes for a smoother segway into today’s topic…

A movement detective’s comprehensive guide to calcaneal motion!

In today’s post and series of six tutorial videos, we’ll be covering:

1. What is the heel bone (calcaneus)?
2. What motions does this bone do in three dimensions when we walk? And can your calcaneus access those triplanar motions?
3. How should calcaneal motion couple with pelvis and skull motion in the gait cycle for more ease and efficiency?
4. Could a movement restriction at your calcaneus be impacting on movement of your pelvis of skull (reducing or liberating)?

If you don’t want to read, simply follow along with the videos and explore your own calcaneal motion- The embodied learning approach is better anyway 😉

But first… The basics.

What is the calcaneus?

The calcaneus is the big sturdy bone at the back of your foot.

It articulates with the talus above, the cuboid on the lateral side, and the navicular on the medial side.

Its the bone that first meets the ground in the heel strike phase of gait, so it has a nice cushy layer of fat to help it absorb the shock from each foot step.

The achilles tendon, plantar fascia, along with 9 muscles of the foot and lower leg attach to the calcaneus, including soleus and gastrocnemius (the two big juicy calf muscles).

So whenever there is an issue with any of those muscles, like achilles tendinitis, plantar fasciitis, or any other “itis” of the foot, we should get on our detective hats and look at how well the calcaneus can move.

Got a big toe issue, like a bunion? Hammer toes? Limited big toe extension? Other weird toe stuff I’ve never heard of?? The infamous flexor hallucis longus (flexor of the big toe) does not actually attach to the calcaneus, but has its own special groove that runs along the medial side of the calcaneus, behind the sustentaculum tali.

Your calcaneus should be able to move in three dimensions while you walk so that all it’s attaching musculature and tissues can lengthen and contract with every step you take.

Motion of the calcaneus, and its neighbour the ankle, also play an important role in venous return– Pumping the blood back up to the heart, because gravity makes that a little harder.

One reason people may get varicose veins is because of an increase of blood pressure in the venous system because the blood isn’t pumping effectively back up to the heart. Making sure the heel and ankle complex can move optimally to prevent venous blood backflow can reduce the chance of varicosity and distortion of the veins.

So… Calcaneal motion is kind of important!

Unfortunately many of us have restrictions in one or more planes of calcaneal motion (me included!), which can lead to a multitude of whole body issues, not only locally at your foot.

What if your heel bone can’t slide?

As mentioned above, one could experience any number of effects, ranging from local stuff such as a knee issue or plantar fasciitis, to distal issues like neck restriction and discomfort (stay tuned for how to assess that in part 6 of this calcaneal motion 101 video series).

The following two videos are clips, from Friday’s Let Your Heel Bone Slide session, to acquaint you with your calcaneus.

And now let’s take a look at the tri-planar movements your calcaneus ought to be able to do, and how to name them. We’ll be using the same langauge we’d use to name the movement of the pelvis (if you took my Liberated Body workshop, or are an Anatomy in Motion student, this will be familiar):

Being able to name and feel the motions a part of your body should be able to do is important in healing our bodies, and re-patterning movement. However, a barrier can be that every school of thought seems to use their own preferred anatomical langauge, and when everyone’s using different words to describe the same movements it can be super confusing!

The nomenclature I chose may not be the most “text-book-technical” anatomical verbiage, or sound fancy, but it is accurate and specific to describing the bone’s motion. So for those of you who are interested, here’s a little “univeral translation” chart:

TRIPLANAR CALCANEAL MOTION:

	Sagittal Plane	Frontal Plane	Transverse Plane
Pelvis language	Anterior and posterior tilt	Hiking and dropping	Rotation right and left
Anatomical language	Plantar and dorsiflexion	Eversion and inversion	Internal and external rotation
Foot pressure distribution	12 o’clock: Front (anterior)	3 and 9 o’clock (medial and lateral)	3 and 9 o’clock (medial and lateral)

I really don’t care what words you use. You can make up your own terms, as long as you and your body know what’s happening.

Also note that in the video I am exagerating the size of calcaneal motions. In reality, they are much smaller. Calcaneus motion also happens concurrently with motion of the rest of the foot (and the rest of the body…), not in isolation, to give us pronation and supination.

Let’s move along and look at how the backbone and heel bone slide together.

What motion relationship do the calcaneus and pelvis have in gait?

This is where can start to have a little fun (if you’re a movement nerd like me).

The pelvis and calcaneus have a specific movement relationship in gait that should happen unconsciously for efficiency with each step.

Before I say more, check out this next clip:

In case you didn’t watch the video: When you walk, your calcaneus, pelvis, and skull move in the same directions, in all three planes of motion, at all times. Cool right?

So…

When your pelvis rotates right (which happens whenever you step forwards with your left leg), both heel bones, and your skull should also be rotating to the right right.

When your pelvis anteriorally tilts, so too should your calcaneus and skull.

Now, I know you’re dying to check and see if these movement relationships are present for your body, right? 😉

The next three videos are guided check-ins will help you do that:

• #1 How well can your calcaneus move?
• #2 How well does your calcaneus move in harmony with your pelvis?
• #3 How could a lack of calcaneal motion impact (restrict or liberate) motion at your pelvis and skull?

Calcaneus movement check-in

This first little check-in is to feel if your calcaneus moves appropriately while you are weight-bearing onto your leg.

Could you feel the movement from back, outside corner to front-inside corner of your heel when you bent your knee? Or did you skip right forwards into your forefoot and toes?

Now let’s bring your pelvis into the equation…

Pelvis and calcaneus movement check-in

In this next video, we’ll be checking in to see if your pelvis and calcaneal movements are synced up for ease and flow as you walk.

It’s not enough just to be able to move your calcaneus on its own. Does it move in the right relationship with your pelvis? Follow along and see what you find:

Are your pelvis anterior and posterior tilts synced up with your calcaneus anterior and posterior tilts? How about the hikes, drops, and rotations? What’s missing from your movement map?

Lastly, let’s tune in to see if your calcaneal motion has an impact up the chain, at your pelvis, neck, and skull.

How does calcaneal motion impact on neck motion?

What if a movement restriction at your calcaneus, due to an old ankle sprain for example, could be related to a movement restriction at your neck?

This final video is by far the most fun to play along with! Give yourself 10 minutes to geek out on how movement of your heel could be influencing stuff all the way up to your neck:

My personal findings:

To use me as an example, in the chance it helps you interpret your own data…

If I prop my calcaneus into more anterior tilt it frees my neck in both flexion and extension in the sagittal plane.

When I nudge my left calcaneus into a left hike- outside edge higher, more pressure on the inside edge (ie eversion) my neck motion into lateral flexion to the right (left skull hike) feels much happier.

So when I give my calcaneus(es) (calcanei?) back what’s missing, it has a positive effect on structures above.

So could it be that a “neck problem” might have a component to it that involves the foot?

Could it be that a hip problem is related to a heel that can’t move?

These things are good to know so we can approach any issue at one part of the body as a whole body issue.

This has become the over-arching intention of my Movement Deep Dive sessions: Let’s understand, explore, and restore the body’s potential for movement, one part at a time. Zooming in, zooming out, and integrating it all as a whole.

Conclusions?

Your calcaneus moves in three dimensions as you walk. Unless it doesn’t 😉

This three dimensional motion should occur in a specific interaction with pelvis and skull motion: Your heel, pelvis, and skull travel in the same direction, in all three planes, with every step you take.

A neck restriction could be related to a calcaneal motion restriction, and wouldn’t you want to know abut that? I sure would, so I can stop stretching my neck and get to the real root of the issue.

If you would like to learn even more about foot mechanics and how to use your “calcaneus influecing tools” more effectively, I recommend you check out Gary Ward’s online course Wake Your Feet Up. You’ll even get a set of official AiM wedges mailed to you, and more instructions for how to use them. But in the meantime, I’ve found that socks and towels work just fine 😉

This leads us into to one final important question regarding footwear..

Are you wearing shoes that could be messing with your pelvis and neck?

It’s quite possible…

If a foot motion restriction could lead to a neck restriction, then could a shoe that restricts foot motion also restrict motion elsewhere? For sure!

In fact, I have a system you can use to check that out for yourself.

My inaugural monthly Movement Nerd Hangout in September was dedicated to testing out whether your shoes or orthotics are working for you, or messing with your body.

Check out the entire 90 minute session, Are Your Shoes Working For You? for free, and get the PDF handout I created to test and document allll of your shoes.

That’s it for today folks 🙂 I hope you had fun exploring your bones and practicing your DIY movement detective skills with me today.

Feel free to share this blog post and video series with people in your life with stiff feet, or if you think it offers a useful perspective. And let me know what you discovered about YOUR calcaneal motion when you have a spare moment 🙂

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A Liberated Body student recently asked me this question:

“I find myself not really taking the time to do the exercises we went through and continuously do my stretches, I’m not really sure why there is such resistance. Does this happen with your clients?”

Ummm YES. 100% this was me. Does this feel familiar to you, too?

This student is essentially asking: I know this work is important, so why am I not prioritizing it? I answered her question in a video:

I didn’t realize I was talking for an hour! So if you’d like to listen while you’re on the move, I have an audio-only version for you:

Audio quality isn’t fantastic, but I wasn’t really planning to make it into a “podcast”. Next time I’ll use my mic!

Originally, did this video on a Facebook live, my first time ever doing that (you can check that out here in all its unedited, awkward glory).

Do you need to practice the “middle finger mudra”?

Usually if there is something we want (like to move better with less pain) but we aren’t taking the action to get it, it’s because a form of resistance is in the way.

Identifying your resistance will show you exactly what action you need to take. What story you’te telling yourself that you need to say a big F*#K YOU to. Starting today.

I find the middlge finger mudra very helpful here 😉

Go 100% into the resistance. Give yourself no option. Stop thinking, just do the thing. No matter how small that first step is, go into it 100%. Worst thing that can happen is you’ll quit and things will stay exactly the same.

So there’s really nothing to lose! Just take the next little step.

If you haven’t tried this meditation yet, do it now (and use that special middle finger mudra to embody it…)

Do you need a little help with that first small step to taking ownership? Need some accountability to make sure you don’t back out again? Or feel like you need a “reset” to help start a new movement practice or routine? 

I invite you to join my next Liberated Body workshop.

I make the process of doing your work less big and daunting, showing you exactly what to do and how to do it. And hopefully fun, too 😉

Not sure if its right for you? Email me and we can figure that out.

Anyway, below is a complete breakdown of the stuff I rambled on about in the video, in case you’d rather read the bullet notes.

Enjoy!

Why am I so dang resistant to doing the work?

In the video I cover:

• What is resistance?
• 6 step framework to get from facts to results
• 13 of the most common mindset blocks that are keeping you from actually doing dang exercises you know you should be doing.
• 3 step process of awakening: Consiousness, witnessing, awareness
• How behaviour influces our attitude, not the other way around

What is resistance anyway?

That voice in our head that says:

• This isn’t important
• I don’t want to do that
• I don’t know how
• It’s too overwhelming
• I don’t have the time
• It’s too complicated
• I’m not motivated
• I’m too tired
• I’m scared
• I’m embarassd 
• What will people think
• I have this other thing that’s more important, I’ll do it later

The 6 step framework

Using this framework can help take you from seeing the facts to getting the result you want.

Let’s say for Annie, the result is she wants to get out of pain so she can do her work better- Acting, dancing, and living without fear of flaring stuff up.

What does her six step framework look like?

Facts→ truth→ demand→ effort→ transformation→ result

1.  What are the facts? Annie is in pain and can’t seem to get out of it. 
   
2. What’s the truth? Annie can’t bring herself to prioritize the work. To put bluntly: The work isn’t important enough to her, yet. 
   
3. What’s her demand? To see the importance in the work she has to do. To do this, she must have a clear vision of the result she will have in her life when she is no longer living in pain. 
   
4. What’s her effort? What’s the Sadhana- The daily effort to undertake. Not perfection. For her this might mean putting in her calendar 5 minutes everyday to start working on just one exercise.
   
5. What’s the transformation she needs to make? From someone who isn’t able to give herself even 5 minutes a day to focus 100% on her, to someone who can face her facts with confidence, and be disciplined to do the work, put herself first, prioritize her body’s demands for recovery and healing, while saying no to everythign getting in the way. 
   
6. The result? Annie is able to live a pain free life. The result is also bigger than just her. It’s also a blessing for all, when she are living out the vision she has for herself. Annie becoming pain free and modeling ownership of her body’s needs is a blessing for others who meet her. Seeing the blessing relinquishes the sense of guilt or feeling selfish that can arise.

I encourage you to define what these 6 steps look like for you, right now.

13 common forms of resistance: Which do you identify with?

Disclaimer: I’m not a psychologist. Far from it! I’m definitely not claiming I know what’s going on in your hear. These are simply some of the common things that come up, that I’ve observed in my clients, and in myself.

1. You think you need more information, or something external to happen before you can get to work. In reality, what is necessary is to put 100% of the focus on YOU. Putting 100% of your focus and attention on you, might be scary because you see how much of a mess things really are, how much effort it will take, so you abort mission. Are you treating your body like I treat my taxes?
   
2. “I can’t change”. Nope. The only truth is that change happens. So we need to be very selective about the tpes of stimuli we expose ourselves to.
   
3. “I don’t have the time”. AKA this is not yet important enough to me. Do you know your values? Can you link doing the work to one of your actual highest values
   
4. It feels too overwhelming and you don’t know where to start. What is overwhelm? It’s the failure to organize something complex into a system with easy to follow steps. Are you not willing to ask for help, or do the research to break the process down systematically? Is there a book you can buy? Is there a program you can enroll in? Do it! You just have to start! The longer you put off doing the work the more it builds up and it seems daunting and you don’t know where to start so you convince yourself its not important anymore.
   
5. The fear that if you commit to getting the result, your entire life has to change. Becoming the new version of yourself can be utterly terrifying because you’re so attached to the comfort and familiarity of the routines and habits and structures you’ve built for yourself, even though they might be keeping you in pain. Are you numbing yourself to this? What are you using to numb out the fear of rising to the new demands?
   
6. “I don’t think it will work for ME”. AKA do you think you’re special and the rules of “put in the work, reap what you sow” don’t apply to you? Or that if it doesn’t work instantly that it doesn’t work at all? Are you addicted to instant gratification so that if something doesn’t immediately make a change, you dismiss it? Sometimes this work takes time. This might be a long term process. It will work for you if you do the work.
   
7. “I’m afraid that things will get worse because I might do it wrong, so I don’t do anything”. Well they’ll get worse if you do nothing, so you might as well start doing something so you can rule in and out what works for you and what doesn’t. 
   
8. “I don’ thave the motivation”. Motivation is relying on something external. Inspiration is when something wakes up inside and says “I need to do this, and I want to do this”. When we can see the situation clearly- the facts- and wake up to the demand, something WILL automatically spark in us to take action.
   
9. Are you worried about what other people will think? We get invested in the image people have created of us. Maybe taking time to do self-care isn’t part of your identityand you worry what people will think of you. Will it look selfish? Will I look weird? Will people think I’m weak? Could trying to be who you think people want you to be keeping you stuck? Two options: Stop caring, or get new friends.
   
10. Is your identity built around moving and exercising in only one particular way? And do you put up a wall against anything that isn’t that thing, because it’s not in line with the current image of yourself you’ve built? Are you addicted to intensity? Unwilling to try a gentler way because the only way you can feel something is when its 100%, hardstyle? We can’t toperate at 100% all the time. What if you aimed to operate at 20% effort, 80% of the time, to build a reserve?
    
11. Does taking the responsibility for your body feel too scary? Do you think life shouldn’t be scary sometimes? This is called delusion… Do you just want to escape into fun, and when things get too hard, or aren’t interesting do you quit? Use this resistance as the cue to do the thing. Stop thinking about it and just do it.
    
12. Do you see doing the work as punishment, or as an act of self-love? Can reframe it? Can you make YOU sacred, and the work your ceremony? Can you see this work as love, not punishment? 
    
13. Are you unwilling to say no to the things and people you need to say no to, in order to say YES to doing this work? To do one exercise for just for 5 minutes a day, what will you have to ssay no to? Mindless scrolling on your phone?

Thats’ definitely not a complete list. And I’m certainly not trying to psychoanalyze you, or Annie, or anyone else. I simply hope that this helps you identify if any of these patterns exist in you, right now.

Now your turn… What forms of resistance did you identify with? I’d love to hear. Shoot me an email back, or write a vomment on this post. Or is there soemthing else I didn’t mention? I’m genuinely curious 🙂

Books and stuff I referenced:

Dance Stronger ebook and training program

The Values Factor, book by Dr. John Demartini

The meditation teacher I mentiond: Dhyan Vimal

In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts, book by Dr. Gabor Mate

The Flinch, book by Julien Smith

Liberated Body Workshop

Want more movement nerdy goodness? Come hang out with me in one of my monthly free Movement Nerd Hangouts, every second Friday of the month. Check the schedule here and get on the VIP list.