Manual Therapies Make Space
At this point there is very little (if any) compelling evidence that massage or other manual therapies can heal, fix, or cure anything. I’m not saying that manual therapies are ineffective or unwarranted, but research thus far shows that manual care alone produces only short term changes. Despite their short term nature, these changes can be extremely valuable if leveraged correctly. This understanding can help set reasonable expectations and produce more favorable outcomes for everyone involved.
read moreBreaking Painful Habits
Sometimes you push too hard, don’t recover enough, stress piles up, and you start to hurt with certain activities. A lot of the time you don’t even know how these things happened, yet they linger over months or even years. These pesky things that we often mislabel “old injuries” can limit you from doing things that you enjoy and are good for you. You don’t have to give up those activities, you just need to find different ways to do them.
read moreWhy Your Body is Not Like a Car
The argument goes something like this: “Your body is like a car. If parts of your car are out of alignment, it’s going to put uneven stress on the wheels and somewhere down the line your car is going break down. So too, if your body is out of alignment then your joints and muscles will be more stressed, which causes your body to break down and get hurt.” It’s a compelling story that I’ve heard hundreds of times from all sorts of well meaning therapists, trainers, and coaches, but in most cases it’s probably not true.
read moreA Primer on Pain
Pain is a subject that’s very personal to me. For about half of my life I’ve suffered from varying degrees of chronic pain that has substantially altered the course of my life. In dealing with this I’ve seen PTs, OTs, DCs, MDs, and LMTs. I’ve tried ART, IASTM, PRI, DNS, IMS, SMR, and LMNOP. That last one might not be real. Each of these things helped in varying degrees and I am grateful to everyone who took the time to try to help me in a time of need. However, one thing that was distinctly lacking throughout this process was education on pain. Understanding pain has greatly empowered me and improved my quality of life, which is why I’m so passionate about pain education for others. I hope that by the end of this article that readers will have a better understanding of how pain works so that they are better equipped to be in control of their own health.
read moreDefining Good Form
If you talk to almost any trainer, coach, or therapist, they’ll all tell you that good exercise form matters. Good form is designed to keep you safe and move you closer toward your goals, but what is good form? For the purpose of this article I’ll define form as: the way a person looks and feels when performing a choreographed sequence of movements with their body. Defining what makes form good is far less clear.
read moreCandles & Card Games: Navigating the Unknown
One of my favorite things about the health and wellness industry is that each aspect the field has such great breadth and depth that my learning is never done. Since embarking on my journey into the field I’ve made a point to study at very least 1 hour a day, often devoting 5 plus hours to my education and foolishly foregoing sleep in some marathon knowledge binges. Yet despite what I would consider a wide knowledge base, there are very few things I am certain of.
read moreFriend and Follow Me
