The Thinking Practitioner

By Til Luchau & Whitney LoweAlternative Health Health & Fitness Education Courses

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The Thinking Practitioner episodes

January 27, 202131: Headaches of Another Kind: Cervicogenic Headaches
What are cervicogenic headaches? Are they even a thing, and if so, why are they particularly amenable to manual therapy and massage? Til Luchau and Whitney Lowe discuss these questions, and share some self-care tips for you and your clients. Download the handout with detailed episode notes, techniques and tests from http://a-t.tv/ttp-cgh/
Episode topics include:
What kinds of headaches CAN manual therapy help with?
What’s the controversy around cervicogenic headaches?
What kinds of self-care help?
Get the handout: a-t.tv/ttp-cgh/ or get the full transcript at Til or Whitney's sites!
Resources and references discussed in this episode:
Toby Hall, Kathy Briffa & Diana Hopper (2008) Clinical Evaluation of Cervicogenic Headache: A Clinical Perspective, Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy, 16:2, 73-80, DOI: 10.1179/106698108790818422
Whitney Lowe’s site: AcademyOfClinicalMassage.com
Til Luchau’s site: Advanced-Trainings.com
Sponsor Offers:
Books of Discovery: save 15% by entering "thinking" at checkout on booksofdiscovery.com.
ABMP: save $24 on new membership at abmp.com/thinking.
Handspring Publishing: save 20% by entering “TTP” at checkout at handspringpublishing.com.
About Whitney Lowe | About Til Luchau | Email Us
(The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is intended for professional practitioners of manual and movement therapies: bodywork, massage therapy, structural integration, chiropractic, myofascial and myotherapy, orthopedic, sports massage, physical therapy, osteopathy, yoga, strength and conditioning, and similar professions. It is not medical or treatment advice.)
56 min
January 06, 202130: Excuses, Excuses: Our Favorite Reasons Not To ________
What makes taking care of ourselves so hard? Til Luchau and Whitney Lowe dissect the difficulties, and share their favorite excuses for not putting their own care first.
Episode topics include:
The five key self-care behaviors;
The date we’re most likely to give up on our resolutions;
Getting “internal bipartisanship” around your own self-care initiatives.
Get the full transcript at Til or Whitney's sites!
Resources and references discussed in this episode:
Stress in America™ report on caregivers’ self-care
Whitney Lowe’s site: AcademyOfClinicalMassage.com
Til Luchau’s site: Advanced-Trainings.com
Sponsor Offers:
Books of Discovery: save 15% by entering "thinking" at checkout on booksofdiscovery.com.
ABMP: save $24 on new membership at abmp.com/thinking.
Handspring Publishing: save 20% by entering “TTP” at checkout at handspringpublishing.com.
About Whitney Lowe | About Til Luchau | Email Us
(The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is intended for professional practitioners of manual and movement therapies: bodywork, massage therapy, structural integration, chiropractic, myofascial and myotherapy, orthopedic, sports massage, physical therapy, osteopathy, yoga, strength and conditioning, and similar professions. It is not medical or treatment advice.)
49 min
December 23, 202029: Season 1 Retrospective - Best of the Thinking Practitioner
Til Luchau and Whitney Lowe review highlights and take-aways from the star-studded first season of their acclaimed podcast (yea, right).
Most-Downloaded:
03 Sacroiliac Joint Pain: Causes, Controversies, and Considerations
15 Robert Schleip: Talking to Fascia, Changing the Brain, 20 Years Later
07 Scoliosis and Manual Therapy
11 Stretching the Tissues, or the Truth?
12 The Cytokine Storm of COVID-19
First Season, by Episode:
01,02 The Back Story, Pt. 1, Pt 2
03 Sacroiliac Joint Pain: Causes, Controversies, and Considerations
04,08 Key Challenges Facing Our Field, Pt. 1, Pt 2
05 Documentation and Electronic Health Records (with Diana Thompson)
06 Tendons and Tendinopathies
07 Scoliosis and Manual Therapy
09 What the Heck is Descending Modulation?
10 When Does the Tissue Matter?
11 Stretching the Tissues, or the Truth?
12 The Cytokine Storm of COVID-19
13 Inflammation: Hands-On
14 Do We Keep Doing This?
15 Robert Schleip: Talking to Fascia, Changing the Brain, 20 Years Later
16 Benny Vaughn: Black Lives Matter.
17 Who Charts our Path?
18 Ann Blair Kennedy and Kemi Balogun: Project COPE
19 What About Risk? (cohost: Ruth Werner)
20 A Pain in the Neck: Cervical Challenges and Strategies
21 My Aching (Upper) Back: Thoracic Spine Pain
22 Gil Hedley: Fascia, Fuzz and Furor
23 Do Expectations Shape Results? Mark Bishop
24 Plantar Foot Pain Crash Course
25 Psoas Work: Is it Safe? Is it Necessary?
26 Zoga: Movement for Manual Therapists (with Wojtek Cackowski)
27 The Little Man in Your Brain: The Homunculus
28 Advanced Credentialing and Massage as Healthcare (with Cal Cates)
Get the full transcript at Til or Whitney's sites!
Whitney Lowe’s site: AcademyOfClinicalMassage.com
Til Luchau’s site: Advanced-Trainings.com
Sponsor Offers:
Books of Discovery: save 15% by entering "thinking" at checkout on booksofdiscovery.com.
ABMP: save $24 on new membership at abmp.com/thinking.
Handspring Publishing: save 20% by entering “TTP” at checkout at handspringpublishing.com.
About Whitney Lowe | About Til Luchau | Email Us
(The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is intended for professional practitioners of manual and movement therapies: bodywork, massage therapy, structural integration, chiropractic, myofascial and myotherapy, orthopedic, sports massage, physical therapy, osteopathy, yoga, strength and conditioning, and similar professions. It is not medical or treatment advice.)
1 hr 5 min
December 09, 202028: Advanced Credentialing and Massage as Healthcare
Whitney Lowe talks with Cal Cates, executive director of Healwell. They tackle the challenging issues of how to recognize advanced training and the challenges of integrating massage into the healthcare system.
Episode topics include:
Why is advanced credentialing important for us?
What are some of the big challenges we face when attempting to be part of the healthcare system?
Who is ultimately responsible for advanced credentialing?
Get the full transcript at Til or Whitney's sites!
Resources and references discussed in this episode:
Healwell: https://www.healwell.org/
Whitney Lowe’s site: AcademyOfClinicalMassage.com
Til Luchau’s site: Advanced-Trainings.com
Sponsor Offers:
Books of Discovery: save 15% by entering "thinking" at checkout on booksofdiscovery.com.
ABMP: save $24 on new membership at abmp.com/thinking.
Handspring Publishing: save 20% by entering “TTP” at checkout at handspringpublishing.com.
About Whitney Lowe | About Til Luchau | Email Us
(The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is intended for professional practitioners of manual and movement therapies: bodywork, massage therapy, structural integration, chiropractic, myofascial and myotherapy, orthopedic, sports massage, physical therapy, osteopathy, yoga, strength and conditioning, and similar professions. It is not medical or treatment advice.)
51 min
November 25, 202027: The Little Man In The Brain: The Sensory Homunculus
Til Luchau and Whitney Lowe discuss the most famous (yet, unreplicated) illustration in neuroscience, the sensorimotor homunculus, which purports to show the proportion of the brain dedicated to each body part. Is it accurate?
Episode topics include:
Is the cortical homunculus a map, or the territory?
How did it come about? Penfield's methods and limitations.
How might this all apply to manual therapy and massage?
Get the full transcript at Til or Whitney's sites!
Resources and references discussed in this episode:
Catani, Marco. 2017. “A Little Man of Some Importance.” Brain 140 (11): 3055–61. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awx270.
Schabrun, Siobhan M., Edith L. Elgueta-Cancino, and Paul W. Hodges. 2017. “Smudging of the Motor Cortex Is Related to the Severity of Low Back Pain:” SPINE 42 (15): 1172–78. https://doi.org/10.1097/BRS.0000000000000938.
Whitney Lowe’s site: AcademyOfClinicalMassage.com
Til Luchau’s site: Advanced-Trainings.com
Sponsor Offers:
Books of Discovery: save 15% by entering "thinking" at checkout on booksofdiscovery.com.
ABMP: save $24 on new membership at abmp.com/thinking.
Handspring Publishing: save 20% by entering “TTP” at checkout at handspringpublishing.com.
About Whitney Lowe | About Til Luchau | Email Us
Episode image from a sculpture by Sharon Price-James (public domain image).
(The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is intended for professional practitioners of manual and movement therapies: bodywork, massage therapy, structural integration, chiropractic, myofascial and myotherapy, orthopedic, sports massage, physical therapy, osteopathy, yoga, strength and conditioning, and similar professions. It is not medical or treatment advice.)
49 min
November 11, 202026: Zoga: Movement for Manual Therapists (with Wojtek Cackowski)
Til Luchau talks with Polish physical therapist, Anatomy Trains teacher, and manual therapist Wojtek Cackowski about his innovative Zoga Movement method, and how it can help manual therapists not only with their clients, but with their own embodiment and self care.
Episode topics include:
What is Zoga? How does it relate to manual therapy and massage?
Fascial shearing and gliding, vs fascial “stretching”
Til and Wojtek’s collaborative online courses combining Zoga and Advanced Myofascial Techniques
Get the full transcript at Til or Whitney's sites!
Resources discussed in this episode:
Zoga online courses with A-T (from $20, plus save 15% with coupon “TTP”)
Zoga video clip (scroll down)
Wojtek Cackowski’s site: Zoga-Movement.com
Whitney Lowe’s site: AcademyOfClinicalMassage.com
Til Luchau’s site: Advanced-Trainings.com
Sponsor Offers:
Next Zoga course with A-T: from just $20, plus save 15% by entering “TTP” at checkout at a-t.tv/zoga-amt-headaches/
Books of Discovery: save 15% by entering "thinking" at checkout on booksofdiscovery.com.
ABMP: save $24 on new membership at abmp.com/thinking.
Handspring Publishing: save 20% by entering “TTP” at checkout at handspringpublishing.com.
About Whitney Lowe | About Til Luchau | Email Us
(The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is intended for professional practitioners of manual and movement therapies: bodywork, massage therapy, structural integration, chiropractic, myofascial and myotherapy, orthopedic, sports massage, physical therapy, osteopathy, yoga, strength and conditioning, and similar professions. It is not medical or treatment advice.)
1 hr 7 min
October 28, 202025: Psoas Work: Is it Safe? Is it Necessary?
Whitney and Til discuss the controversies, disagreements, considerations, and their own views on the infamous psoas muscle in manual therapy and massage. Download the handout with detailed episode notes, techniques and tests, and a special chapter from Til’s book from http://a-t.tv/ttp-psoas/
Episode topics include:
Psoas: Holy Grail muscle, or wholly irrelevant?
Psoas and back pain, leg length, etc.;
Safety considerations;
What Til and Whitney actually do (and don’t do) in practice.
Get the full transcript and handout at Til or Whitney's sites!
Resources discussed in this episode:
Free Episode Handout with extras
Book: Yoga Biomechanics (Mitchell 2018)
Blog: ‘Psoas, So What’ (Ingraham 2015)
Study: Psoas and lumbar disability (Wagner et al 2018)
Video: Whitney Lowe demonstrates a modified Thomas test
Video: Til Luchau demonstrates a hands-on psoas technique
Whitney Lowe’s site: AcademyOfClinicalMassage.com
Til Luchau’s site: Advanced-Trainings.com
Episode image copyright Primal Pictures, used by permission
Sponsor Offers:
Books of Discovery: save 15% by entering "thinking" at checkout on booksofdiscovery.com.
ABMP: save $24 on new membership at abmp.com/thinking.
Handspring Publishing: save 20% by entering “TTP” at checkout at handspringpublishing.com.
About Whitney Lowe | About Til Luchau | Email Us
(The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is intended for professional practitioners of manual and movement therapies: bodywork, massage therapy, structural integration, chiropractic, myofascial and myotherapy, orthopedic, sports massage, physical therapy, osteopathy, yoga, strength and conditioning, and similar professions. It is not medical or treatment advice.)
49 min
September 30, 202024: Plantar Foot Pain Crash Course
Whitney and Til share a treasure chest of foot-pain ideas and techniques, packed full of assessments, anatomy, concepts, and hands-on tools. Download the free (optional) handout and follow along as Til and Whitney give an audio preview of their upcoming Plantar Foot Pain collaborative webinar (part of the ABMP CE Summit).
Get the full transcript and handout at Til or Whitney's sites!
Resources discussed in this episode:
Free Episode Handout
Whitney & Til’s Foot Pain Webinar at the ABMP CE Summit, Oct 20 2020
Whitney Lowe’s site: AcademyOfClinicalMassage.com
Til Luchau’s site: Advanced-Trainings.com
Episode image from Advanced Myofascial Technique Vol 1, under license from Primal Pictures.
References:
Insert comparisons: Bonanno, Daniel R., Karl B. Landorf, and Hylton B. Menz. 2011. “Pressure-Relieving Properties of Various Shoe Inserts in Older People with Plantar Heel Pain.” Gait & Posture 33 (3): 385–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gaitpost.2010.12.009.
Slow heel raises vs stretching: Rathleff, M. S., C. M. Mølgaard, U. Fredberg, S. Kaalund, K. B. Andersen, T. T. Jensen, S. Aaskov, and J. L. Olesen. 2015. “High-Load Strength Training Improves Outcome in Patients with Plantar Fasciitis: A Randomized Controlled Trial with 12-Month Follow-up: HL Strength Training and Plantar Fasciitis.” Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports 25 (3): e292–300. https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.12313.
Arch height and other biomechanical factors: Warren, B. L. 1984. “Anatomical Factors Associated with Predicting Plantar Fasciitis in Long-Distance Runners.” Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 16 (1): 60–63.
Plantar fascia core/sheath anatomy: Zhang, Jianying, Daibang Nie, Jorge L. Rocha, MaCalus V. Hogan, and James H.-C. Wang. 2018. “Characterization of the Structure, Cells, and Cellular Mechanobiological Response of Human Plantar Fascia:” Journal of Tissue Engineering, October. https://doi.org/10.1177/2041731418801103.
Sponsor Offers:
Books of Discovery: save 15% by entering "thinking" at checkout on booksofdiscovery.com.
ABMP: save $24 on new membership at abmp.com/thinking.
Handspring Publishing: save 20% by entering “TTP” at checkout at handspringpublishing.com.
About Whitney Lowe | About Til Luchau | Email Us
(The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is intended for professional practitioners of manual and movement therapies: bodywork, massage therapy, structural integration, chiropractic, myofascial and myotherapy, orthopedic, sports massage, physical therapy, osteopathy, yoga, strength and conditioning, and similar professions. It is not medical or treatment advice.)
47 min
September 16, 202023: Do Expectations Shape Results? (with Mark Bishop)
Mark Bishop’s research shows that clients who think treatment will help benefit more than those who don’t expect much relief. What is more, practitioners who expect their modality will help actually get better results than practitioners who are less certain. What’s up with that?
In this episode, Til and Whitney interview manual therapist, physiotherapist and researcher Mark Bishop about his fascinating investigations into how expectations can shape results; the role of client preferences in treatment success; and how practitioners can most effectively leverage these effects.
Mark Bishop PT PhD FAPTA is a physiotherapist with more than 30 years of clinical and research experience in the area of rehabilitation of musculoskeletal pain disorders. His work has focused predominantly on the mechanisms underpinning the efficacy and effectiveness of conservative interventions for pain, especially manual therapy and exercise. He is currently a faculty member in the Department of Physical Therapy with affiliations in the Center for Pain Research and Behavioral Health, and the Pain Research and Intervention Center of Excellence at the University of Florida.
Get the full transcript at Til or Whitney's sites!
Resources discussed in this episode:
Center for Pain Research and Behavioral Health
Pain Research and Intervention Center of Excellence
“Patient Expectations of Benefit From Interventions for Neck Pain and Resulting Influence on Outcomes” (Bishop et al, 2013)
Spinal stiffness study mentioned by Dr Bishop (Fritz et al, 2011)
Whitney Lowe’s site: AcademyOfClinicalMassage.com
Til Luchau’s site: Advanced-Trainings.com
Sponsor Offers:
Books of Discovery: save 15% by entering "thinking" at checkout on booksofdiscovery.com.
ABMP: save $24 on new membership at abmp.com/thinking.
Handspring Publishing: save 20% by entering “TTP” at checkout at handspringpublishing.com.
About Whitney Lowe | About Til Luchau | Email Us
(The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is intended for professional practitioners of manual and movement therapies: bodywork, massage therapy, structural integration, chiropractic, myofascial and myotherapy, orthopedic, sports massage, physical therapy, osteopathy, yoga, strength and conditioning, and similar professions. It is not medical or treatment advice.)
57 min
September 02, 202022: Fascia, Fuzz and Furor (with Gil Hedley)
Anatomist Gil Hedley discusses fascial debacles, debates, and dissection with Til Luchau.

In this episode,
Gil Hedley’s Fuzz Speech: facts, fantasies, and furor;
Sexuality in the dissection room;
Conspiracies: pattern of meaning, or menace?
Get the full transcript at Til or Whitney's sites!
Resources discussed in this episode:
Gil Hedley’s Fuzz Speech on YouTube
Gil Hedley’s site: gilhedley.com
Til's “patternicity” reference: Finding Meaningful Patterns in Meaningless Noise: Why the brain believes something is real when it is not (Michael Shermer)
Whitney Lowe’s site: AcademyOfClinicalMassage.com
Til Luchau’s site: Advanced-Trainings.com
Sponsor Offers:
Books of Discovery: save 15% by entering "thinking" at checkout on booksofdiscovery.com.
ABMP: save $24 on new membership at abmp.com/thinking.
Handspring Publishing: save 20% by entering “TTP” at checkout at handspringpublishing.com.
About Whitney Lowe | About Til Luchau | Email Us
(The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is intended for professional practitioners of manual and movement therapies: bodywork, massage therapy, structural integration, chiropractic, myofascial and myotherapy, orthopedic, sports massage, physical therapy, osteopathy, yoga, strength and conditioning, and similar professions. It is not medical or treatment advice.)
51 min

About The Thinking Practitioner

From the publisher's feed

For the practitioner who’s never stopped being curious. Til Luchau and Whitney Lowe bring together leading researchers, master clinicians, and big questions from across bodywork, massage, and manual therapy — exploring not just what we do with our hands, but why it works and how to do it better. Smart, grounded, and genuinely useful conversations for the somatic arts and sciences.