MOVEMENT LOGIC

Movement Teacher Continuing Education

Episode 21: Is the SI Joint Painful Due to Instability?

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In this solo episode, Laurel shares her history with sacroiliac joint (SIJ) pain, and how no less than shifting her identity as a teacher, the way she thought of her SIJ, and the way she moved her body on a regular basis is what was required of her to get herself out of pain. 

The SIJ is an area of the body that is surrounded by misinformation and tainted by a rather pessimistic outlook on its stability and robustness. 

These fragilizing, pessimistic attitudes often result in triggering language around the SIJ that can lead people in pain to believe that their SIJ is unstable, out of place, or moving in the wrong ways.

This episode combines some anatomy and biomechanics along with plenty of human psychology and even human evolution to examine the power that words have over shaping our beliefs and identity, and how our beliefs and identity, in turn shape the language we use.

Laurel invites teachers to examine their beliefs about the body and question the words they use as thoughtfully as they choose their sequences, exercises, props, cues, and alignments. Additionally Laurel examines: 

  • Prevailing myths around the SIJ in both the movement and PT world.
  • Non-evidenced based, yet unfortunately, routine assessments PTs use to show causality between SIJ pain and SIJ movement.
  • The problem with ideas around right and wrong alignment or good and bad exercises with regards to SIJ pain.
  • A walk down memory lane to remember all the poses, alignments, and whole approaches to practicing the asanas that we demonized and blamed for our SIJ pain.
  • Four reasons the SIJ is inherently stable, robust, and awesome.
  • What pain science can teach us about SIJ pain and more and less effective ways of addressing it.
  • What human evolution suggests about the SIJ and its stability.
  • Why looking for a specific faultily-functioning mechanism to “fix” the SIJ is often less helpful than casting a wide net and making the body, or a general region of the body, more tolerant to loads.
  • The scope of practice of a movement teacher when helping their students with painful SIJs feel better.

 

Reference links:

Sign up for a FREE mini course about the Hip and SIJ from Movement Logic co-creators Laurel Beversdorf, Dr. Sarah Court DPT, and Jesal Parikh.

Changing the Narrative in Diagnosis and Management of Pain in the Sacroiliac Joint Area

Diagnostic Accuracy of Clusters of Pain Provocation Tests for Detecting Sacroiliac Joint Pain: Systematic Review With Meta-analysis

The Physio-Network

Born to Walk: Myofascial Efficiency and the Body in Movement

The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease

Explain Pain

Pain is Really Strange

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

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In this episode, Sarah interviews Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist Stephanie Predergast, co-founder of the Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center, about everything and anything pelvic floor related. Stephanie also answers your questions from Instagram! Here’s what we cover:

  • Understanding the mechanics and function of the pelvic floor and how it’s different than other muscles in the body
  • Why strengthening your pelvic floor is not always the goal and how it might make your incontinence symptoms worse
  • The difference between stress incontinence and urge incontinence
  • Why dyspurnia (painful sex) and vulvodynia (vulvar pain) are treatable but might get misdiagnosed as an ‘incurable disease’
  • When pelvic floor muscular dysfunction gets misdiagnosed as a UTI, depending on which kind of practitioner you see
  • The efficacy and safety of hormone therapy for menopause symptoms according to NAMS (North American Menopause Society) 
  • What is GSM (Genitourinary Symptoms of Menopause) and how is it treatable
  • Pelvic floor concerns for people with male genitalia, a chronically underserved population
  • Why people with low back or hip pain very often have an underlying pelvic floor issue
  • What are some signs that a movement teacher can look out for with their clients to indicate they may need to see a pelvic floor specialist (and a screening questionnaire included below)
  • What is the female pelvic triad and how teenage athletes may need help 

 

Reference links:

As the Pelvis Turns Newsletter

NAMS position paper on hormone therapy

Pique Health  for online care for pelvic floor and sexual health 

Poise Impressa for incontinence support

Speax by Thinx for incontinence support

Quick Screen for pelvic floor PT

PHRC YouTube page

Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center (they’re hiring PTs!)

Sign up here for the Movement Logic Newsletter for course discounts and sales and receive a free mini Pelvic Floor course!

Episode 19: Oh, NO! Nose Breathing and Nitric Oxide

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In this episode,Sarah discusses nose breathing, mouth breathing, taping your mouth shut (only at night), and best practices for breathing while exercising, sleeping, and every time in between

  • What’s the difference impact on our physiology between nose breathing and mouth breathing – and why it might be really important to try and nose breathe
  • Are we breathing too shallowly either way
  • How do you train yourself to nose breathe
  • What is the impact of nitric oxide on our bodies
  • Why it might not be as simple as “get rid of as much CO2 as you can when you exhale” but we don’t have a clear answer for that yet
  • AND a very special breathing practice we can do together at the end of the episode

Reference links:

Breath book by James Nestor

Medical tape

https://www.mrjamesnestor.com/breathing-videos

Sinusology 

Could nasal nitric oxide help to mitigate the severity of COVID-19?

 

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Episode 18: How To Enjoy Teaching Private Sessions

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Welcome to Episode 18 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Laurel and Sarah discuss teaching privates, why we didn’t use to like teaching privates, and why we like it now. This episode is full of awkward, funny, and frustrating stories from our past as private yoga teachers. We end with helpful tips that will help you enjoy teaching privates more.

Where to meet with one-on-one clients/patients
Charging differently based on how much commuting is involved
The big reason we didn’t like teaching privates: no clear understanding of the goal.
Students who talk too much and aren’t focused on the movement
Students who have expectations but you don’t like teaching that way.
Students with persistent pain and questioning your scope of practice.
The game changer for Laurel: training strength clients with clear, trackable goals.
The benefits of talking less and observing more.
Admin is a bummer. How we avoid back-and-forth emailing and tracking clients down.
Our top 6 pet peeves about teaching privates, and tips we share to avoid these and love teaching privates!

Reference links:

Work one-on-one with Doctor Sarah Court, DPT

Work one-on-one with Laurel Beversdorf, E-RYT 500

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Episode 17: Pros and Cons of Resistance Bands

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Modern postural yoga utilizes bodyweight as a form of resistance, but within the context of modern postural yoga, is bodyweight sufficient load for building strength? If not, does adding resistance bands to the practice mean we can build strength? Welcome to Episode 17 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Laurel discusses the best kept yoga prop secret—resistance bands and unpacks what she sees are both the pros and the cons of using resistance bands, both for strength training as well as for practicing yoga.

Here’s what this episode covers:

  • How resistance bands lower the barrier for entry for someone to start adding external load to their movement practice.
  • What research has to say about bands effectiveness for building strength and muscle mass, as well as some caveats to consider.
  • What are some of the main limitations resistance bands present when looking to build strength?
  • Why do some people use free weights and bands together in the same exercise? What’s the point of that?
  • What constitutes a heavy weight versus a moderate weight versus a light weight and where do resistance bands and bodyweight tend to fall on this spectrum?
  • The difference between resistance training and strength training and how the goals of both can be very different.
  • How strength endurance and strength are different variables we can train, and why both are important.
  • Why physical therapists might use resistance bands when rehabbing their patients.
  • How resistance bands are like other yoga props, as well as their unique advantage.
  • How resistance bands can help hypermobile yoga practitioners, people in pain, or people who are just bored with their practice and looking to change things up.
  • Why resistance bands might not be necessary and why people might not like adding them to their yoga practice.

Reference links:

 

Chris Beardsley’s article What do you think you are doing by adding bands or chains?

Laurel’s Yoga with Resistance Bands Teacher Training

Laurel’s Virtual Studio

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Episode 16: Training the Non-Traditional Athlete with Roz the Diva

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In this episode, Laurel is joined by multidisciplinary movement teacher, Rosalyn Mayse aka Roz the Diva. Laurel talks with Roz about how she went from always being picked last in gym class to building a successful career as both a personal trainer and a pole dance instructor, and the often exclusionary industries both pole dancing and strength training occupy. Throughout, Roz shares stories of how she built a successful career (in her words) as a, “dark skin, semi-bald, overweight, outspoken woman running around NYC half naked.” Roz shares her humor and wisdom around what inclusivity actually looks like, as someone who understands firsthand what it feels like to be excluded.

 

Here’s more of what Roz and Laurel discussed:

  • The different yet complementary fitness cultures of pole-dancing and strength-training
  • The positive impression it made on Roz when she got to see female athletes that looked like her
  • The benefits of an artistic focus in a movement practice 
  • How pole dancing helped Roz overcome guilt and shame about her body and exercise agency, self-exploration, and self-expression
  • The fact that people in bigger bodies have to be stronger to overcome more body weight than slender people
  • How Roz defines the term athlete. Spoiler: more broadly than the mainstream
  • How Roz connects with clients who are skeptical about exercise after negative mainstream exercise experiences
  • What the general public thinks pole-dancing and strength training are vs reality 

 

Reference links:

Dangerous Curves New York Times Documentary about Roz

Roz’s website

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