I have amazing news that may you gross you out and leave you questioning who you really are. Our skin is literally crawling with bacteria, fungi, viruses and little mites. Our body is comprised of significantly more DNA of exogenous bacterial organisms than it has of actual ‘human’ DNA. One immediately has to pose the question of who is actually running the show here, me or them? If I am predominately a colonization of various ‘conscious’ organisms symbiotically dancing with my host self. What is actually me? Is my perceived ‘I’ even the host or am I dependent on this concoction of creepy crawly creatures. Ahhhh, I’m freaking out man!

Our micro biome is getting a large amount of press as of recent for good reason. Our skin for example is inhabited by these various phyla of bacteria, fungus, virus and anthropods we call demodex mites. These organisms are serving and protecting us and at the same time they are feeding off of us and each other. This relationship is analogous with the acacia tree ants in Australia. These fearless ants defend the tree against vines that would deprive it of light if it weren’t for the ants snipping the vines on arrival. The ants defend against any outside invaders as the micro-organisms do for humans against destructive pathogens. The tree in return provides nutrition for the ants and a place to live. The ants are completely dependent on the tree for survival and the tree the ants. We are the tree and our micro biome the ants.

Now imagine if the tree suddenly suffered from a crazy delusion. The delusional tree believes ants are enemies and starts disinfecting itself 10 times a day to make sure the ants could not survive. It may seem nice for a day or so but the tree would very soon meet its demise if it kills off its main defense system. We as humans intentionally rid ourselves of these beneficial organisms with antibacterial soaps and toxic chemicals that we apply to our skin. In a sense, this is a psychobiological auto-immune disease. We consciously paralyze ourselves and leave our immune system defenseless because we find ourselves icky.

Not only does being a germaphobe weaken your immune system but it can throw your ability to attract a mate. Our bodies are constantly producing pheromones which naturally arouse potential sexual partners. We have been sold the idea that we better buy a product to cover this aroma up with an artificial one instead. I’m not saying stop showering (please keep bathing for the sake of everyone) I am simply asking you to be vigilant about the quality of the products you use to enhance your natural scent and be comfortable with a little dirt every now and again. It is ok to reinstate the 10 second rule for dropped food and daily antibacterial soap all over yourself will only compromise your body’s ability to naturally stay clean.

‘Dear God, thank you for protecting and loving my family, friends and I. We trust in you and your divine illuminated path. You are the captain of my ship and as long as I walk in your light, I have no reason to STRESS.’

That’s gotta feels nice to say every day if you genuinely believe it! Regardless of the religion one is occupied by, there is undoubtedly a physiological impact. Whether there is or isn’t anyone on the other side of the receiver during your daily celestial transmission, if you genuinely conclude it is real, your biology does too! If you grew up in a ‘stable’ household, do you remember how comforting it was to know that dad is in charge and will protect you no matter the circumstance. (Wasn’t always my personal experience but thankfully I got some of that in my pre-teen years) Our stress response can relax in an environment engrossed in safety, predictability and purpose. Stress being an insidious seed of disease.

Does this mean religion is the answer to health? In my opinion, absolutely not. But for the right person, it can do wonders.

When you or your family are stricken with a severe obstacle such as cancer or perhaps heart disease, the belief that a higher power is in charge is quite motivating. He knows you can handle it and he is imposing this bum deal upon you to make you stronger in his name. This mind-boggling scenario of disease is of no fault of your own and you are safely guided by grace.

We are beginning to document and understand that stress alone is not so deleterious but instead our perception there of. Is it possible that heart attacks are correlative to our attitude toward life’s stressors? Dr Herman Nabi, from the Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health at Inserm, Villejuif, France, conducted a study which showed there is definitely a correlation. ” The study revealed that the people who said they believed stress “extremely” affected their health at the beginning of the study period were much more likely to suffer from a heart attack than those who said stress “did not affect their health at all”.

Can you think of anything that may ease your mind during the stressors of this modern world. Perhaps that there is a grand plan and you are simply a piece in the universal puzzle. Religion is a substantial void filler of the ostensibly distracting wiggle room that exist in a more agnostic world view. Once you commit to a secular dogmatic perspective on why we exist, it undoubtedly fills a ton of potentially questionable neural/spiritual blank space that could instead be occupied by a cacophony of anxiety in relation to why the hell am I here! Sure glad I met that dude on the subway ranting about the end of times rapture, he seemed pretty confident. The biggest question known to man; voila, answered. You can finally take a load off and abdicate yourself to a passenger on God’s bus instead of driving the thing solo, feels good doesn’t it…

Red Ford Williams at Duke University observed patients with severe coronary heart disease to be three times more likely to die within 5 years if they did not have strong social support. Once again, whether you do or don’t have a strong social network, what better place to look during tough times than the heavens for an extra hand. Is it me or do dire scenarios seem to spawn faith? Could this be an evolutionary response to stress and your biology’s way of finding homeostasis and clarity during a dust storm?

There was a study conducted in Finland with 148 patients in line to receive atheroscopic knee surgery. Half of the patients received a standard surgery and the other half, a fake! They cut the knee open, knocked around like they were following standard procedure, sowed them up and sent them home with the sense of a ‘new’ knee. A year following the ‘surgeries’, there was no distinguishable difference in either groups recovery! What does this mean? The power of our intentions whether we are being duped or not are a dominating factor in pain and recovery.

This seems to share qualities with the power of prayer, no? If we can genuinely convince ourselves we are healing because we trust in our doctor, mom, god or any authority of the sort, I believe healing will ensue. Our internal healing mechanism is extremely powerful and underrated in the western medical model and religiosity. God and or my doctor need to intervene because I am powerless. Alan Watts said something along the lines of ‘sometimes you need someone to steal your watch and sell it back to you for you, to realize you have ever had one.’ He also said religion represents a lack of faith but that is a different conversation. It’s clear in numerous situations western medicine is demonstrably valuable, but a staggering percentage of patients seeing doctors are there for psychogenic reasons and we are being trained away from trusting our internal compass. Belief is power and we can wield it in any way we see suitable…

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In the community of health and wellness we have a developed a substantial fear of anything potentially conceived as “woo”. I would contest that we can limit the grasp of our stoutest foundation of optimal health in confining ourselves to only that which has been summated in a laboratory. Many modern humans are becoming ruled by the all mighty gods of self quantification.

“Consider that you can see less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum and hear less than 1% of the acoustic spectrum. As you read this, you are traveling at 220 km/sec across the galaxy. 90% of the cells in your body carry their own microbial DNA and are not “you.” The atoms in your body are 99.9999999999999999% empty space and none of them are the ones you were born with, but they all originated in the belly of a star. Human beings have 46 chromosomes, 2 less than the common potato. The existence of the rainbow depends on the conical photoreceptors in your eyes; to animals without cones, the rainbow does not exist. So you don’t just look at a rainbow, you create it. This is pretty amazing, especially considering that all the beautiful colors you see represent less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum.” –Sergio Toporek

Let’s talk the impact of music on our health for example. Their have been numerous clinical studies demonstrating the power of music for developing cognition, immune system, recovering from anxiety and depression. The philosopher Immanuel Kant called music the ‘quickening art’. We can see at a rudimentary level the various physiological indicators of increased vitality simply from tuning into a catchy tune but if we stop at our measurements, we begin limiting ourselves. It’s like you’re being moved by the experience of falling in love and you take out your iPhone to snap a photo to capture the moment. Is it possible to encapsulate the feeling of the moment in a ‘selfy’ or do you have a greater likelihood of ruining the moment with technology.

Ready for some new age hippy ‘woo’ talk? Harmonious music seems to ‘tune’ an individuals nervous system, if the individual allows themselves to become moved by it. Have you ever tuned an instrument to match the key of another instrument? You listen and adjust your guitar strings until you can feel a resonance between yourself and the other guitar. What do you think you are doing when you adjust the rhythm, tempo and style of your movement while dancing to a variety music. There are two types of movers; those that dance to music and those that are danced by music.

We are able to measure the symptoms of experience but what remains is a beautiful mystery; the seed of being moved by music, emotion or relationships. If we limit ourselves by our language and our scientific measurements, we run the risk of missing out on the magic that is life. Optimal health comes from these inexplicable, uncontainable miracles of every moment. Filling our heads with facts and statistics does not ensure optimal function and avoiding science all together can leave us ungrounded. I am asking for a middle path. Bruce Lee said we should combine our natural instinct with control. Control would be science and natural instinct is everything else! The staple foundations of health revolve around movement, physical contact, self-worth, whole foods, self expression and community.

Sometimes we need to LET GO of the PURSUIT of happiness to experience happiness and the same goes for health!

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Our bodies are constantly providing feedback loops which perpetuate themselves. The catch; we actually need to make the choice and guide our own ship or it undoubtedly will be guided for us.

Albert Einstein said it doesn’t matter how fast you go as long as you are pointed in the right direction and our modern society has complicated the choice of direction. Our bodies move perfectly with nature and we have done an incredible job of extricating ourselves from this natural flow. This is why we are seeing the radical increase in various pathologies both physical and psychological. These categories of course are constantly dancing with each other and you will see a direct correlation between the two.

Originally I was going to explain the HPA-axis and various biological stress pathways and decided it would be too much and cut the whole thing out. You can check out my conversation on the Align Podcast coming up with Dr. Justin Marchegiani to learn more specifics.

Any who, our stress response is a very good thing and only becomes an issue when the response becomes stuck on overdrive due to the modern day, perpetual built in stressors of bills, felt sense of inadequacy, social pressures, unhealthy relationships and living under the illusion that a symbol of power in the form of paper will bring us happiness. This is brand new to our species and is more insidiously damaging than any gun ever could be. The results of this system not adequately relaxing is a resistance to our stress hormones which causes the signal to continue to be secreted until we eventually burn our adrenal glands out and we call this adrenal fatigue.

Our sympathetic nervous system is activated during this response and releases epinephrine and norepinephrine into our system which will tell the heart to hurry up and pump more blood. Our veins constrict to raise the acceleration of blood back to the heart by increasing blood pressure. Our arteries dilate to increase amount of potential blood flow and the blood is diverted into our muscular periphery, so our skeletal muscles are optimally ready to ‘fight or flight’. Our vital organ function, tissue repair, cognitive development and digestion go on hiatus until the storm is over. If a hurricane is coming, it’s no time to paint the house.

These responses if sustained end up crippling our immune system, blowing out our endocrine system, leading to diabetes, hypertension and leading a to a wide variety of psychopathologies. Essentially everything that can go wrong, will go wrong with prolonged stress. We need to recognize stress as being any stimulus that temporarily impacts our natural homeostasis. This includes positive stress (eustress) such as exercise or public speaking. Because stress starts off invisible, it is significantly more insidious than a gun.

How is all this fire and brimstone talk relative to becoming better today? I would like to see everyone simply step back and observe their lifestyle and determine whether we are treating our systems with the utmost respect. Stress will likely not kill you today but slowly impair your system like a parasite.

One Week Challenge

• My challenge to you is for one week, step back and sincerely observe how genuinely happy you are to be doing everything you are participating in. Even if you are working a job you don’t love, you have the ability to choose your perception of your experience. Studies have shown that people who perceive life stressors to be positive are significantly less likely to suffer a heart attack.
• Then take the next step and decide if there is any aspect of your day that is stressful and you could do without, start changing that immediately. We are creatures of habit and most of the things we ‘think’ we need to do are actually just products of our never trying any other way.
• The next part of the challenge is guard your sleep with your life. Be sure to get at least 7 hours of sleep as though your life depends on it (because it does).
• Next step, dive into your relationships and tell people how much you appreciate them. Make eye contact and be honest 100% of the time. Lies are stressful and will build up until there is chaos.
• Sincerely observe every relationship and determine if the individual makes you a better person or is a dead weight. Drop the weight immediately and feed the positive relationships the remaining energy you will gain from ditching the vampires.
• Ditch simple sugars and processed foods. Check out Evan Brand episode of the Align Podcast for greater details.
• Move that body of yours, a lot. Dance, sex, hiking, running, yoga, singing, laughing or whatever floats your boat is necessary. Not once a week but every single day. It allows our body to express out the stress chemicals stored in our tissues.
• Shut up! Have some quite time, meditate, go for a walk with intention on checking in with yourself.
• Be appreciative, this could be your last day.

Live Life Posthumously…

Alrighty, I am preparing for an interview with Joel Salatin, aka “The most famous farmer in the world!” In doing so, I’ve been collecting my thoughts on the whole food controversy. After re-watching Food Inc., Farmegedon, reading through his books and putting some personal time into my own morals around purchasing food, something has become blatantly obvious.

For more information on the specifics of the food industry and the power of organic, sustainable farming, check out the Align Podcast episode with Joel on iTunes or Stitcher.

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE for the current state of the food industry. You may be thinking, “woh woh, hold on a second, the government subsidizes the farming industry to grow the GMO, inorganic, cloned crap we call food and therefore, the government is to blame”

Yes and no. Break the word responsible down and you get “Able to Respond” That is us people, we are able to respond and we are beginning to! We are seeing organic food in most places now, weird fermented drinks like kombucha are all over the place and Kelly Starrett can get raw milk lattes at the farmers market. Good sign, I’d say so. Is it enough? Nope…

Our strongest votes are sitting inside our wallet right now. That’s right, your dollar is the only thing that has a real impact on this industry. By choosing to purchase organic real ideally seasonal and local food, you are voting to have pesticides, antibiotics, toxic manure, cruel animal treatment, wasted fossil fuels and pollution from shipping all the “products” banished from our reality. This is a slow battle, I know, but it is winnable if there is a shift at the individual level.

You may be saying, the food has already been shipped, the cow slaughtered and the corn mutated, it would be tragic to waste it. False, allow it to waste today and it will not be sent tomorrow! That is the key, we are voting every single day and we need to be conscious of our every vote.

Please spread this message and let’s make a difference!

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I just wrapped up an amazing conversation with New York Times best selling Author, Steven Kotler on the value of a concept he calls Flow and it’s impact on our health. Our talk was incredibly fascinating, quite enlightening and can be found on the Align Podcast!

We got into several fascinating topics including impact of marijuana on mental performance, actionable ways to hack “flow” for optimal health and performance and much more. You are probably wondering what in the world is this concept of Flow in the first place.

Have you ever been in a car accident or any “extreme” situation and noticed a heightened sense of mental acuity? Ever wonder what in the world the experience actually looks like in the brain or perhaps how to harness it in day to day life? Well, we got into all of that in our chat.

Time will actually slow down when we go through certain extreme situations because our brain predominantly processes time in our prefrontal cortex which reduces activity in these instances. Another factor in this was shown in a study conducted at Baylor University of Medicine that showed our amygdala in the brain becomes more active during moments of danger or deep concentration which in turn lays down an extra set of memories on top of that created by other parts of the brain. This could be why as we get older time seems to fly by and as a young child a summer camp feels like an eternity! It could be linked to the novelty of the experience. Therefore, if you want to live longer (or feel as though life didn’t zap by), you need to fill days with new novel experiences to give your brain fresh information to wraps itself around!

Is it ok if we get slightly heady for a moment, we did talk about psychedelics in the interview after all. Our linear time model that we all have agreed to follow, as convenient as it is for scheduling lunches, is fairly arbitrary in terms of our felt sense of time. If a minute to you felt like a life time because your brain is packing in so much acuity to creating memories around every aspect of the novel experience, then you are extending your felt sense of your life line. My challenge to everyone out there…

Load your life with novel challenges and your brain will endow you with the felt sense of multiple lifetimes. Don’t be the guy who chose average and just wants to fit in and not make a stir. This guy is glued to his computer screen all day watching other people create novel experiences and extend their own felt sense of time while his days are zapping away. This guy is going to be an old man, and say wow it felt like just yesterday I was 18 years old and I got nothing of true value to show for this lifetime. Right now is your opportunity to start packing this lifetime with epic novelty! Your brain, body, relationships and everything else will be incredibly appreciative. If your job sucks, change it. If your relationship is draining, end it. If you at any point are hiding who you are to impress others, stop that! Life is a tear drop and if you blink you could miss it.

Alright, back to science talk…

This state of Flow is also tapping into the the theta brain waves which are associated with deep meditation and or REM sleep and is recorded around 4-7.9 Hz. Flow also plays in the alpha waves which is a calm, resting brain state recorded at around 8-14Hz. Why is this relevant? Because these states of mind are also optimal for healing and processing information. On top of that, these are fantastic for dropping our nervous system into more parasympathetic response (AKA rest, digest and heal).

Do we need a wings suit to drop into deeper mental clarity and organization? Absolutely not!

Meditation in various forms produce the same effects, playing instruments, art, dance and almost anything that take you out of thinking about the stresses or preoccupation of thinking about your day and dropping you deeply into the task at hand. These activities are apart of the fountain of youth. More time spent in these states equals greater tissue healing, mental organization and the felt sense of a longer more fulfilled life!
iTunes | SoundCloud

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Here we go people, 5 simple tips to make your life better that you are probably not doing yet. I’ve been uber busy with the production of the “Align Podcast” , so I am ganna be fairly to the point with these simple steps EVERYONE outta be executing each day. Here we go…

1) Set your car mirrors to fit your “optimal” sitting position. Make yourself have to grow into your car instead of being eaten by your seat like so many others. You’re better than that!

2) Park on the outside of every parking lot. I know it is fun to play the parking lotto game but the outside of the lot you will ensure more exercise and the likelihood of someone dinging your car when you are in the middle of an open lot are far less. Close parkers are not be trusted…

3) Start using your non-dominant hand for everything. It will activate the other hemisphere of your brain, coordinate that side and be fun game. That obviously depends on your definition of fun…

4) Have a good scream each day. Play with the full range of your vocal chords. Singing and speaking well is an acquired skill just like play golf or badminton. Play with throwing your voice and expressing various sounds and feelings through voice. It will make you a better person and if you want to get all sciencey, activate your vagus nerve which connects your brain, belly, heart and more. Integration and sophistication of these pathways leads to you becoming happier and more of a bad ass than you already are.

5) Be sure to utilize your full range of depth perception every day! Myopia is becoming more and more “normal” in our computer glued, book reading, inside dwelling, congested city living society. Your eyes have muscles just like any where else in your body and if you do not use them, you will surely lose them…

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Alight, I created an acronym (is that cheesy or awesome?! Let me know in the comments) to remember the key components to creating lasting structural change in your body. All you gotta remember is to ALIGN…

A

Activation- Most of us think that if a muscle is in pain or feels rigid, it must be too tight, right? If you get massage regularly, you may be on a perpetual mission to loosen everything up. Paradoxically, the road to maintaining fluid, dynamic and mobile tissue is developing a strong neuromuscular connection and possessing the ability to contract with great power. Remember, you can be very powerful with out becoming a bulky. It’s about muscular conductivity (motor unit recruitment) and complexity of our movement map.

L

Length- Here is the second part of the equation. Length (Flexibility) + Activation (Powerful Contraction) = Building Blocks of BOOOM!

The answer is not to lengthen everything but find a balance of muscular length from all angles in the body. Think about setting up a tent. Our body is a tensegrity structure and you want every cord to maintain consistent tension. Pull one guy wire too tightly and compromise the whole entire system! Aka-sore neck, back pain and that creaky knee problem persist. Therefore, it’s not about stretching everything out but instead it’s about mobilizing and being specific of the tissues you lengthen and shorten. Here is an example of Lengthening/Mobilizing Tissue. Sometimes working with a sniper rifle is better than a shotgun approach…

I

Integration- This is the holly grail of structural bodywork, hence the name structural “integration”. Not working with integration in the body is like having the most incredible surround-sound home theatre in the world but not knowing how to plug it in. The whole is greater than the sum its parts by far. Our systems are dependent upon efficient seamless communication in order to produce the BOOM effect we are shooting for from our equation. Here is an example of an Integrational Technique!

G

Gravity- Ida Rolf (founder of Structural Integration) stated “Gravity is the therapist”. What she meant by this is that as a bodyworker, PT, personal trainer or anyone who works with the body, their goal should be to get the system in line so that when the patient/client leaves the office, their body perpetuates structural alignment. Imagine our self-care techniques, movement practices and therapists we see as helping us to set up our dominoes effectively so when we finish up, we can watch the show! The force of gravity pushing us down allows our bodies to push back up and out. This relationship is what permits function of every aspect of our body.

N

Now-Simple enough right? This means the obvious of get started this moment as you’re reading this. Pay attention to the positioning of your body, location/fullness of breath, does your mind feel clear or filled with static? Every moment is an opportunity to move and think better. It is pertinent to understand and embrace this truth in order to see positive developmental results in yourself every day for the rest of your life! Here is a fun video to play with! How to Be Confident in Seconds

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1) Move as though life is a gift and not a burden

Mind-set is key- Some folks need a good brush with a life threatening experience to appreciate their moments here on Earth. Put yourself around humbling nature such as raging rapids, waterfalls and waves, volcanoes, violent lightening storms, mountains etc.

2)Movement is a key to assimilation of nutrients in the body. You aren’t just what you eat. You are what you eat, what you eat ate and what you are able to absorb and assimilate.

3)Abandon objective based fitness and find your passion in movement. It’s about the journey not the number on the scale. Numbers come if you are moving in the right direction and the journey persists. Deeply enjoy your movement practice and it will be a sustainable part of the rest of your life.

Time x Effort = Potential Success

4)Make eye contact with every interaction. Have you ever noticed how beautiful the human iris is? It’s absolute magic and it is all free, you just need to take second out of your hectic day of Facebook messages and Twitter notifications to pick your head out of the phone and make human connection. There is no stronger medicine than human connection…

5)Treat every moment as an opportunity to progress your mind and movement. Life is a dance and we are all dancers. We need to recognize in each moment we have an infinite number of options as to how we will develop our bodies and minds. The only problem is, most people don’t realize this is a conscious choice and we forget to make it! If we do not to remember to choose our development, it will be chosen for us dependent on our environment. (If you’re an african tribesman and spend the day running, playing, hunting, dancing, napping and making babies; you are naturally doing what these bodies are intended for.) For everyone else, we gotta recognize what our desks, cars, couches, computers, smart phones and T.V.’s are doing to us. I’m not saying any of these things are evil, I am saying we need to leverage them in our favor with responsibility and awareness. Sedentary, compromised movement is a very slippery slope and I’m tired of hearing stagnant movers talk about getting old. Malarky! If you don’t make an effort to move dynamically, expressively and functionally every single day of your entire life than it is physical blasphemy to blame your body for aging ungracefully on you.

6)Never sit longer than 25 minutes with out moving. Get a standing desk at work and have a foam roller and myofascial release balls at your feet to play with, balance on and perform foot massage as you are working. This will pump blood and lymph out of your legs, keep tissue hydrated and healthy and burn 100’s of thousands of extra calories with time! It’s a no brainer…

7) Squat functionally every day at least 40 times. Our bodies are built to squat and if we forsake our bodies this right, we shall be smoten with hip/back pain and lack of athleticism. Easy solution, watch the how to squat videos I’ve created for FREE and explore this position every single day.

8)Sprint instead of jogging. It’s painful to watch the horror that is most people’s jogging form. I am surprised there is not literally smoke coming out the sides of their knees often times. Not always, but very often, there is dramatic room for improvement. Start working into sprint/walking intervals. Start to expand your range of motion and degree of contraction with moving faster and then take break. Try 15 second sprint with a 25 second walk for 5 repetitions to start and add time/intervals as you become stronger. This is shown to burn more calories, make your muscles more metabolically efficient and leave you looking better naked than slugging through a jog!

9)Pick up heavy things functionally at least 3 times per week. Picking up heavy things is another right we all possess until we decide to forgo it with fear and or laziness. Trust me, you will want it back at some point in your life so don’t let it slip! Not only that, it is shown to make you smarter and make your whole body work more efficiently! Exercise is shown to release the hormone irisin which has neuroprotective properties, stimulates neurogenesis (growth of new neurons!), stimulate cognition and protects our DNA to boot.

10) Actively rest instead of farting around on the couch all day while your muscles “repair” from over working at the gym. Our bodies thrive on adaptation and depend on us to continue pumping fluids through our tissues even when we are resting. Actively rest by taking up a completely different activity on your rest days. Take up line dancing, go swimming, run in traffic or whatever feels right. Just don’t stop completely!

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Alright everyone, let’s put on our neuroscience caps here for just a second and look at injury prevention as more than just not going outside when it’s icy. Let’s ponder for a second why it is that some folks can take world class falls such as parkour athlete leaping several stories and landing unscathed like a ninja while others will blow out there hip watching a wiffle ball game. Is this just a genetic phenomenon or does anyone have the potential to be fall proof. I undoubtedly agree with the latter…

Our brains and bodies are mapped out and continually communicating signals as to where all of our pieces are located in relation to each other and our environment. Simple enough right? Where it becomes fun is the fact that 100% of the time our maps are being written dependent upon our movement and thought decisions.

That’s correct, right now your body is recording the position you are in as you read this and writing the software for how you will move in the future. Our bodies are incredible interpreters of information and working full time to make sense of the messages we send them via movement. The fancy word of the day for this interpretation process is called mechanotransduction and you can use that any time you want to impress your biology professor. For our purposes, you probably don’t care so much about polysyllabic words like this so let’s simplify shall we.

Literally every cell in our whole entire body is processing and transmitting new signals depending upon our movement/thought decisions. This is incredible news and should be taken full advantage of! This means you are not stuck in any random human predicament of being in crumby shape, poor reflexes, anxiety, cardiovascular disease or ANYTHING for that matter. All of these conditions are a product of misguided cells and all they need is a helping hand to get them back on track. You are doing it right now by reading this, kudos for the effort and intention.

To prevent injury and wire our bodies effectively, we must begin by hacking away the imbalances.

It is about decrease, not increase. Hack away the unessential. ~Bruce Lee

The tricky part is it not just about movement like most people say. It is in fact about functional and dynamic movement. You see, if we move dysfunctionally, we deepen broken patterns into our system which eventually will lead to an injury and or chronic pain. Adding weight to these patterns acts as a pattern accelerator and amplifier, essentially meaning you begin digging your rut even faster and deeper. Once again great news, because this means we can fill in ruts and create new more functional patterns with this same speed when we add a little weight and intention to the program.

Everyone should be doing these staple foundation exercises to fill in dysfunctional ruts and reintegrate balance and integration to the system.

1)Dead Lift-AKA functionally practice picking heavy stuff up off the ground.

2)Squat-AKA be able to poop in the woods and eat in thailand

The third I wish I could say everyone should be doing this but some folks may have injuries or imbalances that need assessed, repaired and integrated before a full safe sprint will be possible. Make it a goal if it is not possible today!

3)Sprint-AKA be prepared to escape a zombie attack. Jogging often times ends up being the repetition of heinous movement patterns for an hour straight. If you love jogging, make sure you make every step intentional and powerful. Running is a skill just like juggling. Learn how to do it effectively before you start juggling chain saws or running marathons in this case.

Sprinting or running fast may be long journey for some and I suggest getting a coach or someone that knows what they are looking at to run with you and get you moving in the right path. Start playing with interval training of walking for 30 seconds and sprinting for 10-15 for 10 repetitions in place of jogging on pavement. Trail running is significantly better for the body and mind due to the adaptation to various ground contours and environments…

Next, implement these same movement baselines of functional squatting and deadlifting into every aspect of your day. Never again will you pick something off the ground dysfunctionally. No excuses, it’s very simple and will change your life. Make an effort to be in a functional deep squat position at least 5 total minutes of every single day and start thinking about raising your arms over your head as you squat as well. Practice getting up from the ground functionally and powerfully everyday for the rest of your life and you are sure to never be a victim in your own body. Explore and have fun with this!

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