What’s up, Patrick Lerouge here. I’m an intuitive healing expert and the creator of the live pain-free process. You can find me at live pain-free process.com. I help people understand that everything is connected in the body. You have to learn that connectivity to heal rapidly and efficiently. Today, we’ll be talking about the concept of the way that you walk, and the majority of us don’t realize that we’re gracefully avoiding a fall. What do I mean by that? It means when we walk, we’re just allowing our bodies to just keep up with us, and it’s flopping all over the place. All it’s technically doing is using muscle tissue in any way, shape, or form to keep us upright, so we do not fall. If we would take it apart, it simply looks like we’re just gracefully trying to avoid falling; we’re flopping all over the place to avoid a fall.
Let’s take apart the things that you can do to get your body to balance out the way you walk. It’s the small conscious things that you need to do to get your body to start moving more efficiently and a lot easier so you don’t look like you’re a zombie in The Walking Dead. And two, you avoid injury from walking. You’d be surprised how many people get injuries just by walking because it’s an overused activity.
I want you to understand one thing. If you’re not walking with purpose and drive, your body is always going to flop all over the place. If you’re always point A to point B or very mindful about how your body moves, your body is going to do one thing, and that’s the way the body works best. If you focus on one thing, it’s just going to take it and run with it in the most efficient way possible, but if you’re all over the map, your body is going to be pulling information from everywhere.
We’re not going to be talking about the mindfulness aspect because that’s another big topic. What we are going to be talking is just the strict mechanics of being purposely walking and getting your body to propel itself forward without hurting yourself. The three areas I really want you to focus on are: what’s happening in your feet, what’s happening in your hips, what’s happening in your core, your driving force, all of which translate into how confident you are.
Now we’re set up, I want you to focus on your feet, what’s happening in your hips, where you’re propelling your engine from, and how structured of a unit you are. If you focus on those three things, everything will get easier when walking because when you’re walking and not realizing where your feet are landing, you’re more likely going to try to grab the world and have more of a connection.
So if you have an A-type personality, you’ll see that this is easier because you’re already so driven. Taking ginormous steps out, you will be doing that because you are try to reach your destination faster. The result is that you will automatically heel strike, and that’s going to throw a lot of kinetic weight up into the system without much disbursement. And it’s probably going to land in your back, your knees, or both. There’s many different places it can land, and a lot of people talk about that.
If you want to understand that more, go back to my old video about “The importance of walking video” I was outside. I show a lot of mechanics of how you’re supposed to walk and how that’s supposed to propel you forward, so take a look at that. Just notice that I want you to start focusing on pushing off.
Next thing I want you to focus on is what’s happening in your hip. Where are you leading from? I teach a lot of people about the core, and it’s not about doing planks to strengthen your belly; there is more to it. I want you to start driving your energy from your navel, so that when you’re walking, you’re not walking with a belly out/bowed out sensation, but you’re walking leading with your navel. It’s automatically going to keep you upright. If your navel is pointing forward, straight and forward, now your hips have to readjust somewhat, so it’s not pointing down or pointing all the way up. If you have a back injury, it’s still the same thing; if you find this sweet spot, the back pain will diminish. Find the sweet spot where your navel feels comfortable leading the route. Your body’s going to be upright so much easier.
And number three, the thing that I want you to do and the third aspect is notice how structured you are when you walk. We’re talking about what’s happening with your knees and your feet. If you’re still allowing your body to flop around and you’re looking like you’re in The Walking Dead chasing somebody, you will consistently hurt yourself, but if you’re structured, and you start watching the way you walk, one, your core will start to define itself all by itself. So if you’re looking for a six-pack, start walking more, and start using it properly. It is not holding your breath when you’re walking either.
What we’re talking about is just a nice subtle contraction where now you have a controlled twist and not so much flopping. So as you walk, you want this natural twist to happen, but not excessive which means your oblique system has to work properly with your abdominals and transverse abdominals. There’s so many aspects to the core. I’m not going to get into that because that’s just a whole conundrum in itself, but all those muscles have to start learning how to work together to get you to do a number like this.
If you’re doing that on a conscious basis, you’re now walking with your navel, and you have this nice little twist. Now, you’re going to be walking with consciousness and with more purpose, and it’s going to make you feel more confident. It’s opening up your chest. You’re going to be able to breathe better, you’re going to be able to walk, and you’re not going to be pounding on yourself consistently, and all you have to do is watch those three areas.
Make sure you’re not flopping all over the place. Make sure this is not extremely tight. Make sure your core has a nice subtle tightness to it where it actually is restricting itself. And then now, it’s working with itself. It’s not a hard frozen aspect, like when you do core work, and you’re doing planks or anything like that. It’s just a subtle contraction, where now, it’s controlling you from moving side to side and a complete rotation. You want a nice and easy movement.
You focus on that. Focus on where you’re landing with your feet. Pushing off with your back foot with your foot behind you, your other foot is naturally going to land in the right spot underneath of you. And now, you have the ability to walk and not be putting more damage on your body. And your body is going to walk gracefully, it’s going to walk smoothly, and it’s going to be so much easier on you all the way around. Then, you start working on your mind influence, and you can start doing the meditative walks and all those things. And that’s a whole different story, but, I want you to really focus on that, and that will help you avoid falling.
One thing you can do get your self-care habit to stick
What’s up everybody? Patrick Lerouge here. I’m an intuitive healing expert and the creator of “The Live Pain Free Process.” I help people understand that everything is connected in the body. You have to learn how to use that connectivity to eliminate pain quickly and effectively. Today, we’re going to be talking about one strategy that you can do to make your self-care habit into a habit. It’s an exercise that I do with students that come in for the first time who are having a hard time looking at the bigger picture and seeing that it’s not all about me doing the body work.
The exercise is this: I want you to now sit down and think 20 years out. I want you to think about what physical habits that you want to have 20 years from now. Do you still want to be taking long walks with your significant other? Do you want to be able to go to the gym? Do you still want to be able to go swimming, biking, or running in any way, shape, or form? It doesn’t have to be competitive; it’s just doing for your liking. Do you want to be upright, or do you want to be in a chair all the time? Having a hard time getting in and out of the car because your knees are bad? Make a clear image in your head, and see what that is. What do you truly want? Once you start seeing your vision for the future, interact with it, like, “I want to be able to play with the old folk in the old folks’ world, or I want to be in league where I still have kids, and I’m doing open gym. I want to be able to coach my son’s sports team and actually be able to show them how to bat. I want to properly do things without worrying about my body hurting afterwards. I want to play in a league of some sort in some way, shape, or form.” You have to want this and be able to see it clearly; then you have to feel what that feels like. It is like a movie playing in your head; see everything that can happen. “Oh, my body aches and pains from the all the activities, but “I can go to my therapist to clean this up.” Or “I can clean it up myself.” An even bigger thought could be, “I won’t have any aches and pains because that’s what I see.” Once you realize this, your body will attempt to make it a reality.
For that future to exist is there are all the little things you need to do now. Once you start doing those small tasks consistently, you are on a good path, so in order for that to happen, I’m going to have to do some body work done here, I’m going to start doing some soaks, eating better, and other small, different things that are not hard now, but with time have a huge impact. Once you regress the future back to now, the how will show up because you will be looking at what is happening now with the end game in mind. So now, you just have to start getting the “Whys” or the end game flushed out.
Let’s recap: We just looked a clear image of your future, so you can find out why you’re doing everything now. Yes there will be some bumps in the road, but then it’s similar to learning how to fall and roll. I have to start learning how to get back up after an injury, so I have to start learning how to stretch, foam roll, and trigger point work my body.” Those are just three of the many things that you’re going to do in the world of self-care.
You have to start understanding why you’re doing it. Once you have that, there goes your one huge piece of the puzzle. You have the “why.” It’s all about the “why.” Once you have the “why,” the “how” always finds its way out. It’s just like, “20 years from now, I want to be able to do this, this, this, and this.” The clearer the vision, the clearer the thought in your mental image maker here — once you get that, that’s when everything changes. And hopefully you actually do it. What I’m talking about, it works. As soon as you sit well with what you’re looking to do as if it can be a reality, I guarantee that you’ll make it there.
Okay, folks? If this helped, please, share it. If you know someone who needs to hear it, give it to them. If you’re not part of the evolve family, please, come over, and ask some questions. I love them! Until next time, folks. Bye.
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Today, what we’re going to be talking about is what we looked at last week’s talk about bicep tendonitis and having a different look. Last week, we spoke about the concept that we’re using too much muscle out in front of us because we might be in a different environment or we might just have the personality type that we have the muscle things all the time. We always have to do things in really, really hard ways and we just like using our muscle tissue a lot, which then destabilizes our body. What I’m going to do is show you how to clean up bicep tendonitis still in a different way but in the world of trigger point work.
What is a trigger point? Trigger point is a nodule in a muscle or in my world – I tell people – is inaccurate or inefficient muscle functionality. It’s a muscle tissue that’s not functioning properly. It’s just binding rather than helping movement. So, what happens in that world is we have to get that muscle tissue to learn how to open and expand, but the classic definition of a trigger point is a nodule in a muscle that refers someplace else. You guys heard me say in the past that you never want to go head on with an injury or pain because you will lose 100% of the time – I would say 98% at a time. Because your body is designed to protect it and it’s telling you that place is at fault for a reason, so it’s not going let you in very easily. If you do get in and it does make it better by going head on, all it did was trick you. It says, “All right. I don’t want you messing with this anymore, fine, I’ll stop giving you that pain response but it’s going to recycle again even worse,” which is making it harder for you to get in or it will take that issue and compensate someplace else and start ticking away on something else.
Where do we look for bicep tendonitis? This is where we want to start looking in the world of trigger point work. Ask yourself, what refers to the front part of the shoulder forcing the front part of the shoulder to work harder? It’s behind you, it’s actually infraspinatus. It’s all the rotator cup muscles that are all behind you. Everything that pulls the posterior capsule’s going to refer to the anterior capsule.
What you want to recognize that what’s happening here is all referral pain patterns. Referral pain patterns can be all over the arm from the shoulder almost down to he elbow When you’re doing the trigger point work that you need to do, you need to start focusing on the whole posterior side of the scapula as well as the posterior deltoid and some of your tricep, which then refers issues to the top part of the shoulder. You want to start gaining more and more awareness of what’s happening in that posterior girdle because that’s going to really refer to that area. That’s one of the many different areas that I want you to focus on for trigger point work. Now, let me tell you how to do it.
It’s actually relatively easy for you to do trigger point work on your posterior side of your body. All you need is your trigger point device of choice, whether it’d be a handball – which is my favorite. You can use a tennis ball. You can use a door knob. You can use a wall. You can use anything to get to these areas. What you want to do is put the ball against the wall and you lean against the wall itself, so the ball is against your scapula and all you have to do is wait and hold. This is the one little trick that I want to tell you guys. Infraspinatus in this area is notorious for taking its time to talk to you. So take your time in the world of pushing against the wall and waiting to see what happens. Do it with ease. Do it with grace. So your body says, “All right. This is a delicate area. I don’t have to protect against you.” It’s actually going to allow you in. That’s going to be very important for you to understand. Take your time with this. Put the ball against the wall. Lean against the wall, and it’ll start to talk to itself.
If you need more help, I have the complete injury prevention program to your liking. All you have to do is go do it and purchase it and it’s all yours, and it’ll show you everything in the world of trigger point work as well as foam rolling and stretching. So take a look at that but my caveat] is take your time with this, guys. It’s really, really slow. Then you’ll start noticing all the stuff that refers on the front part of the shoulder. And that’s how you inadvertently start to take down the concept of bicep tendonitis and no longer will you need to muscle things all the way out here because you’ll start having that range of motion that’s forcing your body to move with you.
If you know somebody that has bicep tendonitis, tell him to look at the first article and video as well as this one. Guys, I love the questions I’m getting. I’ll see you on the next one. Bye.
What we’re going to be talking about is the power of imagination and visualization. What I want you guys to realize is that your brain is a problem solving device and whatever goes into your head, your brain is going to try to figure out how to give you what you want or need. That’s the way it works; it works well with the universe so the universe is going to give you whatever you ask for. So be careful what you ask for. That’s why this is going to go two different directions.
I’m going to talk about the positive way first. Everyone knows when you journal things and you look at things and you visualize, you see what you’re going to do, you’re most likely going to get it. But this was a fun topic for me to actually research and look up, because I was seeing all pictures like this of the brain, and they had so many studies out there and so many images of the brain. So many parts of the brain just opens up and starts firing off. If you’re having that much part of your brain working, it’s so simple that it can’t be wrong that it’s not going to give to you what you visualize.
So you can use this problem solving device to help alleviate your pain. Let’s start visualizing our bodies actually move and trusting that movement. I was in pain but now, look. it’s starting to go through. If it doesn’t move that well, what would it feel like? What does it look like if it finished that range of motion? Start seeing it without even trying to move it. Just like you would finish a race. You see yourself finishing the race; you’re seeing yourself going through all the turns of the race. Now let’s minimize it here, and focus it and laser focus to what does it feel like for blood flow to go to this area? What does it feel like to have this area move to the proper range of motion or even extra range of motion? What would it be like to touch your toes, to be flexible? What would you do with it new ability? What are the possibilities? Imagine those things, and then visualize the things that you need to do to get there, and there you go.
On the downside, this is what normally happens: We are in pain, and we visualize ourselves in pain. We see the pain. We say, “Oh my god, I can’t move it. I can’t do this, I can’t do this. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” What happens is the body gives you more “can’ts.” The body gives you more pain, because that’s what you’re showing, that’s what you’re visualizing, that’s what’s firing off all those areas in your brain – protect, protect, protect. But what we have to focus on is, when you imagine and you visualize the forward progression of something positive, something that you want to do, that’s when your body is going to say, “All right, I don’t need to protect as much. I need to get this thing moving.” So it’s going to start making changes. Sometimes change is not the greatest feeling, but sometimes — majority of the times when you rephrase – it’s going to really start ramping up the healing because that’s what it’s trying to get you to, rather than protect itself.
Let’s start playing with the power of imagination. Be that child. Imagine yourself climbing Mount Everest like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, one arm and go nuts. Let’s imagine all those things. The bigger the better. Don’t be scared of it, it’s your imagination. But remember, whatever you see in your head, your body is going to try to accomplish as long as you keep on seeing it. It’s not a one and done. It’s something that you see constantly, over and over again. And then boom, you’re going to be getting it. Time and time again. Especially focus on self-care. If you heal, focus on healing, focus on blood flow, focus on circulation, focus on movement, focus on the proper range of motion, proper stability – all those things – once you see it, you feel it, and your body will make it real. Because you just light up. You light up. Oh my goodness, it was so fun doing this research on this one, guys. Thank you and if you guys want some more, please, e-mail me. Find out what it’s like to be in the self-care world and what I think about these things
What we’re talking about today is breathing through back pain and the importance of it. I’ve broken down back pain in a lot of different ways. I’m going to tell you today the fastest way to get out of back pain, to start the process of getting your back pain to eliminate itself.
What people mainly do is they focus on either the massive muscles that are in the back – the lat, the erectors, the back fascia, the glutes. Or they start focusing on stabilizing the back, which is getting the hips to function properly, working with the glutes and the hip flexor complex and getting them to balance out so the back doesn’t have to brace itself so much. Some people go even broader by getting the whole posterior chain from the back of the calf, the hamstrings, the glute, the erectors, lats, all the way up to the upper trap, to start functioning properly – getting them to elongate, getting them to move. Some people work with contracting the abdominals – those are also important motions to go through. However, the fastest way to eliminate your back pain, is meshing the external world with the internal world, and the avenue to do that, is breathing.
What everyone tries to do with those bigger muscles, is get those muscles to function properly, but you’re forgetting why the muscles are acting like that in the first place. We have done something to the internal structure to make our body want to protect our spinal cord. That means all the muscles on the internal aspect have now contracted themselves. Unless we get those things to stop protecting themselves so hard, we’re going to consistently be fighting against ourselves. So what everyone does is focus on the quadratus lumborum, which is underneath the twelfth rib and attaches to the hips, the back fascia which runs all the way around the back itself. The erectors that run up through that area and the glutes do also. But you have to also understand that really close between the spine there’s something called your multifidus. The multifidus is really centralized, really right close to the spine as well as – there is muscle tissue that runs all the way along the spine. Not only do the hip flexors run through the same area, but there are also muscle tissues that stabilize the spine all the way through there. We have to get those muscles and that tissue to learn how to move. That’s it. Because remember, it’s trying to lock the spine in place in an effort to keep it sturdy. What we have to do is access that muscle system and get that muscle system moving. The way that we do that is through breath.
The more you can actually do the deep diaphragmatic breathing the better, and then you can alter where you’re breathing and that’s when you get things to move. So, with proper breathing, you’re getting these big muscles to move all the way around, but you need to get the whole entire structure to start learning how to expand. Because the discs that are in between every single one of these vertebrae, need to breathe. They need to collapse and go up. Up and down, up and down. But right now, its main job is protection and holding itself down. We have to break that cycle, right? We don’t want the discs to be crushed because that’s when you start getting herniations after prolonged times of that et cetera, et cetera. So what do you do? You start breathing.
Let’s get into the finer points of how to use this. You hurt your back, pop, something happened – you can’t get up, you can’t do anything. Your first task is not instantly getting things to stretch and move, is one – break fight or flight, and we already gone through this diligently. We have to break the cycle of protection – you’re going to do that through breathing, so you’re going to do your deep diaphragmatic breathing. Then you’re going to target that breathing. The diaphragm core is pretty much like a balloon; it pushes down when you breathe as well as your pelvic floor pushes up. Try it and see how it crushes your belly out. When that happens, your core wraps around and brings it in. So now everything pushes in, but where does the air go? This is the internal pressure that your body needs to structure itself.
What I want you guys to start focusing on is – we can use this internal pressure to now start pushing back. Once we do here – your back, if we lie down on the floor or curl up into a ball and we breathe and we focus on just our lower back expanding; now we’re starting to get the back to start moving on its own terms because it’s your breath that’s doing it. Not a muscle doing it – it’s your breath. So now you can breathe and get it to open slightly and close. Does that make sense? We want the breath to do all the motions, not just muscle tissue. Once you get those to move, then you’re in the position to really start changing how your body is feeling and thinking – do I need to protect this area or not? Especially if you do it on a turn.
With each breath that we take, your rib cage has to move. When you diaphragmatic breathe, it’s the rib cage is not going to move as much, but you’re going to push more pressure down low close to your hips. The rib cage is attached to the vertebrae so those are going to start learning how to move more and more now. If we trap the air, so putting your belly button against something like your legs if you’re curled up into a fetal position or the floor, your body has no choice but to push the air back. This is something called “crocodile breath”. Crocodile breath is going to get you learn how to push the air in the back. A lot of opera singers use that low diaphragm, all the air goes into their lower back to get the power that they need to sing. That’s what we want to access. We want get the body to start learning how to breathe in the back. So if your back is in pain, you’re going to want to lie on the floor anyway – curl up into a ball. Now you just want to focus that breath that you have to take to live in the first place. You want to focus that breath back into the back. Once you do that, that’s when you start getting the spine to expand.
What you have to realize is – once you start doing this consistently time and time again, your body might give you a little bit of a resistance at first, because it naturally wants to protect itself, but the more you do it– give it time, give it a good three, four, five minutes of you laying there and just getting it to move, very, very slowly and you’ll start realizing the back is going to start coming out of it. Once you get things to move – I say it all the time – once you’re in pain, as soon as you get something to move on its own terms – you get blood flow. Once you get blood flow you get healing. Once you get a lot of blood flow and begin to trust that the pain will go away, that’s where rapid healing happens.
So folks, when you have back pain, the first thing that you have to do, the fastest way to get it is work external and internal. First get that internal system to start wanting to let go – that’s with your breath. Fight or flight system calms down. Then you start doing all the structuring of the hips. Then you start doing all the erector work, all the trigger point work, all the stretching – all the other things that work. There are many things that work, but you have to get that internal system to match the external system – outside system. Get everything working and wanting to move – now you’re in charge. Now you have a way to really speed up how fast your back pain goes away.
Folks, if you loved it – share it. If you know somebody that has back pain – chronic back pain that happens every now and then, they need to hear this, too. Have them get my newsletter.
What can you do to restore your body and eliminate body aches at the hotel?
This is important for many people because they are sleeping in a place that their body is not used to. Either the bed is too hard or soft for their physical comfort, and their body responds by protecting itself. This can cause stiffness and your body will ache in the next morning.
One of the first things you want to think about is that you are indeed not in your bed and in your home. So you have to mentally get your body ready for this new environment.
Allow your body to ‘just roll with it’ when the time comes for you to sleep in an unfamiliar bed.
Control What’s Inside You
The best way to do this is to focus on controlling what is happening inside you, not your environment. You can do this simply by breathing.
One of the first exercises you can do is the following:
When you first wake up, you can sit up straight, bending your legs and moving them tightly close to you. You can wrap your arms around your legs so all your extremities are close to your main torso. Take a few minutes to get into this posture and breathe so your belly is expanding into your legs. This is going to be an indicator that your belly is expanding.
As a result, you will start to gently move your body up and down. As your belly hits your legs, your whole body will start to expand as well, because you are filling up with air. This will clear your mind and give you a slight stretch in your lower back which will get your back to open up. So if you have a bad night’s sleep, this will start the process of getting your body to move better as soon as you wake up.
Activate Hamstrings
The next exercise you can work on is getting your hamstrings to move.
By getting your hamstrings to activate, you are protecting your back from any ongoing pain that you had the night before. Place one leg outstretched on the bed, and the other down on the floor at a ninety-degree angle. Now tighten your glutes and make sure everything is straight in your lower back. Then you are going to try to bring your heel to your glutes slowly.
This exercise will stretch your quads and will get your hamstrings to turn on, which in further protect your back. As you slowly do this, you want to continue breathing into your belly. As your heel is brought up, you can exhale your breath. This exercise does not have to be done fast or hard, just slowly and calmly.
Performing both of these exercises will reset your body every morning and will begin getting it to move better from the start of your day.
Takeaway:
Control what is inside you, not what is in your environment. Your environment might always be changing, but that does not mean your body needs to change with it! Focus on what’s happening inside your body to help it stay in a constant movement pattern. You can do this by sitting up and moving your belly towards your legs as you breathe in. Gently fill your body with air so your mind can become clear and focused.
Next, activate your hamstrings by slowly moving your ankle towards your glutes. As you do this while breathing continuously, your hamstrings will protect your back and allow it to open. These two exercises will get your back and lower body to start moving, giving your energy for the day!
