Normal Wednesday that didn’t leave the draft folder by accident.
By far the three videos I’m going to showcase in this three-parter are the ones I’m most proud of, find most useful, and send to the most people. They teach ideas and increase what you know about your body so that you’ll never forget.
Help any stretch, any time, anywhere is the basic technique of using light contractions with direction, out of pain that in many cases quickly resolve tightness, tension, and avoidance strategies by the body.
YouTube comments include:
This is amazing Sam. Instant results. It feels like magic. Why does it work?!
This is a brilliant video, instant relief!
Your instructionals videos are always very helpful ! Have a nice day !
Here’s some written instructions without actually rewatching my own video before writing from scratch memory:
Find something a little sore, off, uncomfortable, or painful in your body.
Do a little exploring with the area, moving with the intent to discover exactly what creates that feeling.
After you find it, freeze at that exact angle, placement, and intensity that you found it in, then act like you are on video and you’re rewinding the tape. I want you to back out of the position just slightly, retracing the exact path that got you there. Back off either just until you absolutely think you do not feel it or a little bit past that into “safety.”
Use your other hand, a wall, or any solid object to press at a low but steady, unwavering intensity for 30 seconds in that exact spot. You should be able to breathe easily and just feel your muscles working a little bit. If your actions create pain, back off the trail a little farther or go a little softer with how much you are pressing, or try pressing in the opposite direction. Soften after 30 seconds to relax but do not change the position yet. Breathe a few long easy breaths.
Repeat exactly what you did from pressing to relaxing then resting without changing your position through the whole series 2 more times.
Then, try and find the pain again. Note that if you feel it in a different place, in a different range of motion, or less in the same spot, this indicates that you can continue doing this for your benefit. Only if you feel worse in the same spot would I say this is contraindicated.
WHY DOES IT WORK??
: neurological guarding is when the body is holding tension out of fear, for simplicity’s sake. I’m sure you could use much fancier labels. This doesn’t mean it’s logical to you or has to make sense, but your body has decided it is not safe to move past a certain range of motion. I know that when I move someone’s arm and there is a bouncy end-feel to the way the shoulder, elbow, or wrist stops me from moving it any farther, that we’re dealing with a neurological guarding symptom. The first time I discovered this on my own I was working on a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu student at Unity BJJ in NYC that couldn’t raise his arm to even shoulder height. Two rounds of ten seconds of the stuff I show you here and he was doing a full circle again. This is not something that will magically clear up damaged tissue, though it can be an incredible ally and asset in that healing as well, without changing any of the instructions. The reason for that is that when tissue is healing, your body is looking for directions as to how to lay down new fibers and heal. And you and I are basically piles of water and electricity. Send more electricity across the water inside of you/us, the more signals you send telling it what you want, the better quality tissue gets laid down in the healing process. Since this is an exercise that’s intrinsically exploratory, you’d also notice in that case that over time your body opens up more and more ranges of motion for you to use. This is the type of exercise that makes your first doctor checkup after a surgery go, “I’ve never seen healing like this before” before calling in the med students to see you model, followed by, “Keep doing whatever you’re doing.”
Even in a healthy and undamaged and unguarded joint, doing isometrics like this will gradually expand your range of motion and often quickly at first.
In the first case I mentioned overcoming guarding, where there is tension. But all of us have a difference between our passive range of motion (that which our limb CAN move via an external force) and our active range of motion (that which our limb can access via an INTERNAL force). Meaning, you can stretch pretty dang far but it doesn’t mean you can lift or hold your leg as high as you can stretch it. It’s fun to try though and usually results in cramping. High five!
Doing isometrics of all intensities gradually increases the amount of nerve signaling to the area and begins to close the gap between what you can reach (meaning there is no physical barrier to accessing the range of motion) and what you can actively move into. Eventually, after this passive/active gap is closed, it will take a much longer time for the tissue to actually change and adapt to the things that you’re asking it to do, but it will, and range of motion will eventually increase again.
And that’s not all - since isometrics are engagement without moving, which means there is no shearing force which means your body gains confidence and trust and we cycle back to overcoming guarding again here - you begin to get better nerve differentiation between different areas of your body. You get cleaner movement. If you’ve ever seen someone turn their torso in order to move their neck and look behind them, that’s someone without a lot of nerve differentiation. They don’t have a lot of information, or afferent feedback, coming to or from the areas that map the body and tell him, “Hey, you have both a neck AND a back!” And a ribcage, and multiple joints across your spine, and……..
More “good” (pain-free, again, keeping things simple here) information = more freedom of movement. More freedom of movement means literally more mind/body connections. More freedom of movement across more joints means better balance and emergent problem solving. It means knowing where you are in space. More freedom of movement across more joints means less “throwing your back out” or “I can’t get up off the floor” or surgeries because the one or two or three areas that could move were taking up all the movement forces that were meant to be distributed across all those other joints that aren’t moving.
More freedom of movement across differentiated joints means better dancing, more elegance, and smoother carriage.
So yeah, I like this video. It’s easy to learn and put into practice.
I’ll be sharing the other parts of this series in paid articles over the next two days, including how to overcome a seized up back, meet God and overcome depression in the process, and a method for expanding breathing, hip, and back mobility in one movement. For just $32/year or $5 a month you can enjoy this ridiculousness with me.