Welcome to Season 2 and Episode 31 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Laurel and Sarah discuss three types of cues movement teachers like yoga teachers and strength coaches use—verbal, visual, and tactile cues. Namely, we look at the differences between these three ways of cueing, and the plusses and minuses of all three types. We also discuss:

• What deeper understanding we need to have about our students as well as the movement we’re teaching before we cue at all
• What a verbal, versus a visual, versus tactile cue is.
• The timing of verbal cues and how it relates to motor learning.
• A debate in the yoga community about whether or not teaching using verbal cues (only or predominantly) is preferable to demoing while teaching.
• How Laurel & Sarah’s teaching has changed with respect to cueing.
• Different ways of stage and contextualize a demo.
• Why highlighting the difference between what a movement looks like versus what it feels like can be helpful.
• Whether to use first person or second person pronouns (or even to talk at all!) while demoing.
• 3 main ways you can give tactile cues, tips for teachers when giving tactile cues, and the benefits and drawbacks of each way of giving tactile cues.
• Why obtaining consent is crucial before touching students.
• The perils of “creepy hands”.
• How trying to teach too many things means not teaching much at all.
• The importance of using multiple types of cues—verbal, visual, and tactile—and aligning them toward a clear movement goal.

Sarah’s Motor Learning Presentation

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Mastering Physical Literacy with Dr. Chris Raynor, MD

Welcome to Episode 30 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Sarah is joined by Dr. Chris Raynor, orthopedic surgeon, sports medicine specialist, and founder of Human 2.0, an integrated healthcare and fitness facility in Ottawa that holds a “Movement Is Medicine” philosophy.

Sarah and Chris discuss how he managed to avoid surgeon stereotypes, why avoiding pain at all costs is not the answer, how to determine if surgery is the right approach, PLUS your Instagram questions answered!

• The difference between discomfort and pain, our tendencies to interpret all pain the same way, and the need to better interpret this “low level language” to make better movement choices
• Whether myofascial manual techniques are really making as much difference as we think they are
• How and when he steers patients away from surgery and towards strength and mobility work instead
• The frustrations he faces with non-musculoskeletal doctors who instill fear of movement in their patients through their own lack of knowledge
• How the conservative world of orthopedic surgeons is slowly changing with the newer generations to emphasize mobility and strength for themselves and their patients

Human 2.0

Dr. Raynor’s YouTube Channel

StableKneez (Dr. Raynor on Instagram)

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Welcome to Season 2 and Episode 29 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Laurel and Sarah discuss the cues movement teachers like yoga teachers and strength coaches use, and then what research has to say about them. Namely, we look at the difference between internal and external cues, and what both types of cues are good for. We also discuss:

• What motor learning is and how it’s different from motor performance.
• What motor learning versus motor performance look like in the context of teaching and learning movement.
• What attentional focus is and how attentional focus affects motor learning.
• The difference between internal and external cues and what specifically defines them.
• Which type of cue is better for enhancing sport performance.
• What the mind muscle connection is and how it can enhance muscle growth.
• How internal cues can enhance the mind muscle connection.
• How the goals of yoga are different from the goals of athletics, or even the goal of improving skill within the asanas, and why that matters for the cues we use.
• Why internal cues have value both within the context of yoga and rehabilitation.
• Whether metaphor and analogy are internal or external cues.
• Tactile cues and what category they live in—internal or external cues.
• Constraints and what category they live in—internal or external cues.
• Lots of example cues in the context of yoga, strength, and kettlebells that illustrate the nuances between these different types of cues.

Attentional Focus and Motor Learning study 

Enhancing the learning of sport skills through external-focus feedback study

Standing Long Jump Performance With an External Focus of Attention Is Improved as a Result of a More Effective Projection Angle study

The Language of Coaching book

Internal Cues Don’t Affect Muscle Activation With Explosive Lifting article, by Greg Nuckols

Can the Mind Muscle Connection Enhance Hypertrophy article, by Chris Beardsley

Amanda Tripp website

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Welcome to Season 2 and Episode 28 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Laurel and Sarah discuss how women have been hoodwinked into believing that strength training is not for them - when in fact it’s the most protective and valuable training for women to do, in particular for bone density for women post-menopause.

• The history of weightlifting and bodybuilding in the US, including the influence of Jack LaLanne and Arnold Schwarzenegger
• How the myths of “lifting weights make you bulky” and “you’ll injure yourself if you lift weights” are deeply detrimental to women’s health
• The importance of your training environment and how many gyms are off-putting to women and other people who have been subjected to somatic dominance
• How weight lifting has a PR problem
• That women’s muscle mass and bone density both benefit from heavy lifting
• What are the parameters for heavy lifting and why is there so much confusion around the terms

Jack LaLanne

Pumping Iron

www.sarahcourtdpt.com for a free guide to squat/deadlift/chest press with weight

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Welcome to Episode 27 of the Movement Logic Podcast! This is our last episode of the season!

In this episode, Laurel and Sarah reflect on their top three takeaways from season 1 of the Movement Logic Podcast. You’ll have to listen to the episode to hear what they are! We also discuss:

• How podcasting for the first time went for both of us, what was challenging, specifically.
• How science asks us to hold ideas loosely and remain a student (rather than fact holder and disseminator of facts).
• Why the language we use to talk about our bodies or our students’ bodies—and the re-education around using more positive, optimistic language—is so crucial to our ability as teachers to actually help our students feel better.
• The problem with all-or-nothing type thinking when it comes to better understanding a topic or finding the truth.
• Why publishing your learning process can be the best way to learn.

Reference links:

Episode 19 Oh, NO! Nose Breathing & Nitric Oxide

Episode 20 Pelvic Floor In-Depth with Stephanie Prendergast, MPT

Episode 16 Training the Non-Traditional Athlete with Rosalyn Mayse, AKA Roz the Diva

Episode 12 Movement Fads and Myths: Interview with Jules Mitchell MS, CMT, E-RYT 500

Episode 7 Is Pain Automatically Bad?

Episode 8 A Perimenopause Perspective with Trina Altman PMA, E-RYT 500

Episode 17 Pros & Cons of Using Resistance Bands

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Welcome to Episode 26 of the Movement Logic Podcast! In this episode, Sarah discusses her experience with cancer treatment, and the guidance (or lack thereof) around how and when to exercise. She covers:

• The current exercise recommendations for people going through cancer treatment
• The most recent research around strength training and cancer treatment, specifically chemotherapy
• What going through chemotherapy is like, and how it can be difficult to figure out what to do when in terms of exercise
• Her personal experience using strength training during treatment and how it changed everything for the better

References:

Sarah’s website and mailing list

High-intensity strength training improves quality of life in cancer survivors

Effects of resistance exercise on fatigue and quality of life in breast cancer patients undergoing adjuvant chemotherapy: A randomized controlled trial

Long-term follow-up after cancer rehabilitation using high-intensity resistance training: persistent improvement of physical performance and quality of life

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Welcome to Episode 25 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this solo episode, Laurel shares her history with yoga butt, or, proximal hamstring tendinopathy (high hamstring pain.) This episode is packed with tendon and muscle physiology. It also busts the big myth that yoga butt (and any yoga-related injury) is because we’re all woefully “overstretched”. At the end, Laurel shares a 3-step approach to nipping yoga butt in the yoga bud using strength training knowledge and tools.

Additionally Laurel examines:  

• What yoga butt is (hint: a pain in the butt right at the sit bone more technically referred to as proximal hamstring tendinopathy).
• What a tendinopathy is.
• Short and sweet hamstring anatomy.
• Why yoga students might be more likely to experience PHT.
• That a typical vinyasa or Iyengar-inspired asana class involves a whole bunch of passive forward bends/hamstring stretching and why that makes managing and overcoming yoga butt tough for students in those classes.
• How Laurel nipped her yoga butt in the bud.
• The contradictory advice yoga teachers (including Laurel!) gave about what to do about yoga butt.
• How proximal hamstring tendon compression (rather than tension) plays a role in causing or exacerbating PHT.
• How strength training can help students overcome and avoid yoga butt.
• Why the narrative that we’re overstretched is illogical and a distraction away from the solution.
• What motor units are, what muscle recruitment is, and how understanding this aspect of muscle physiology can explain why yoga asana won’t make your tendons stronger but strength training will.
• A 3-step process to overcoming yoga butt as well as encouragement to see a clinician if what you try doesn’t seem to help.

Reference links:

Get the Hip & SI Joint tutorial before the cart closes this Sunday 11/27/22: https://movementlogictutorials.com/movement-logic/hips-tutorial/

If you want to stretch your hamstrings please continue to do so

Ebonie Rio - Isometric exercise in tendinopathy

Putting “Heavy” into Heavy Slow Resistance

Do we need to think about connective tissues when strength training?

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Welcome to Episode 24 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Laurel is joined by her friend and colleague, Jesal Parikh. Together, Laurel and Jesal discuss the topics of cultural appropriation, biodiversity, and accessibility. Jesal offers clear examples and anecdotes to help listeners relate to and understand these topics within the context of everyday practice and teaching. She offers simple, actionable tips to yoga teachers to help them bring a greater sensitivity and understanding of these topics directly into their teaching. Laurel and Jesal discuss:

• That cultural appropriation is a form of theft and commodification.
• How cultural appropriation shows up in the yoga community.
• The difference between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation.
• Why cultural context and Yoga’s roots matter when “thinking critically” about Yoga.
• The effect of culture, genetics, and many other environmental factors on our “signature of movement”, or, the way each of us as individuals moves differently.
• How accessibility is different from adaptability when we take into account how social issues (not just biological issues) affect who can and cannot participate in a Yoga class.
• What connects cultural appropriation, biodiversity, and accessibility.
• Science’s tendency to discredit indigenous practices, rename them, and take “scientific”  credit for them.
• Tips for teachers who want to honor Yoga’s roots, make space for biodiversity, and make their classes more accessible.

Guest Bio:

Jesal Parikh is an Indian-American yoga teacher, movement educator, podcaster, author and disrupter working on creative solutions for equity in Yoga. She co-hosts the Yoga is Dead podcast and offers movement education through the lens of social justice.

Jesal’s aim is to uplift those who are feeling isolated and marginalized by the yoga industry. Pronouns: she/her/they/them.

Reference links:

Visit Jesal’s website

Devdutt Pattanaik TED Talk East Vs. West, The Myths That Mystify

Hips Tutorial link: https://movementlogictutorials.com/movement-logic/hips-tutorial/

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Welcome to Episode 23 of the Movement Logic Podcast! In this episode, Sarah outlines five practical steps you can take as a movement teacher when you have a client or student who is injured. She discusses:

• Whether “just don’t do this pose” is a valid and useful answer for some teachers
• Why memorizing a billion modifications can work, but there’s an easier way
• What to do with a student when you don’t have any experience with their condition/injury
• How to think critically in the moment when you are teaching so you can offer the most logical solution to their issue
• How to relate to someone’s unique anatomy such that it might cause them pain or discomfort in a pose that you don’t experience
• A logical step-wise approach for any student

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Welcome to Episode 22 of the Movement Logic Podcast! In this episode, Laurel and Sarah ask where the 10,000 step benchmark came from (you might be super surprised!), and if every person needs the same number of steps to receive the same amount of health benefits. We also discuss:

• What are the parameters that change your number of steps
• How do you “get your steps in” without becoming totally obsessed about it
• How where you live might determine how much you walk (versus take the car)
• How the pandemic changed a lot of people’s overall fitness and activity levels
• Whether it’s more valuable to track your general activity level vs number of steps
• How it’s useful to focus less on how many is enough to how many is too few
• How a workout doesn’t cancel out the negative effects of a day of sitting
• In what ways do strength training and cardiovascular exercise support each other
• How to get more movement into your day overall

Reference links:

Step Trackers available to purchase 

Daily Steps and All-Cause Mortality: A Meta Analysis of 15 International Cohorts

Daily Step Counts for Measuring Physical Activity Exposure and Its Relation to Health

The relationships between step count and all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events: A dose-response meta-analysis

Guardian Article by David Cox

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