Move Like An Animal: Learn to Pandiculate: Free ebook through Monday

Have your muscles forgotten how to move? Somatics is a form of therapy based on the idea that muscles can suffer something called "sensory motor amnesia" in which certain muscles might have forgotten their role in movement or shut down through a "trauma reflex" due to injury, overuse, or pain. They no longer function properly to protect themselves from perceived pain. Somatics helps restore that function through gentle movement exercise as your muscles relearn how to move "without pain".

I have been extremely interested in Somatics and have written a bit about some help I have had over the past few years working with Martha Peterson's excellent book Move Without Pain, one of my favorite and most used books, and her videos. Running with an injured body over many years and pushing that running has led to many compensations and my muscles certainly don't work correctly anymore. Over the past three years, since my hip surgery, I have used a variety of methods to some success and then sometimes they don't seem to help, but it is a slow road to recovery. The good news is that over time, my muscles are getting better.

Somatic movement is built on something called "pandiculation" where you tighten the muscle first and then let it relax to its normal length It wakes your nervous system, so that the brain controls the movement.  It is what your cat or dog does that you call you sometimes call stretching, but it is not stretching like we stretch. They contract the opposing muscle and lengthen the muscle before relaxing it.

Last week, I saw an ebook called Move Like An Animal: Feel Comfortable, Be Flexible, Move Well for Life in 3 Simple Steps. and since it was only a buck, I purchased it. It went through the basics of a few key Somatics movements, but it got really in depth into them. I worked through the book one night and I felt much better right away and it has continued. The key thing I got out of the book that helped me with the pandiculations was to slow down more and not to push my movements. I tend to work like an athlete and want to push things. With Somatics, you do not do this.

I was going to recommend the ebook anyway, but found out that the ebook is now free through Monday, so if you are interested you can get it here: Move Like An Animal: Feel Comfortable, Be Flexible, Move Well for Life in 3 Simple Steps. It includes some video and has an audio link so you can do the exercises without having to refer to the book.



Here are a couple of other of the posts I have made on Somatics.

How Somatics Can Help Runners

Somatics: Pain Relief Through Movement