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.
This is my list of the top 10 running related books that I read this year. The links will take you to my more extensive reviews.
1) Dandelion Growing Wild by Kim Jones This was the most unexpectedly wonderful book that I read this year and it has stuck with me more-so than other books. Reading about world class marathoner Kim Jones' life and triumphs over the many adversities placed in her pathway from her childhood to her retirement from competitive running. The details read like fiction at first, but she deals with life's challenges from a humane and understanding perspective. You better get the Kindle version. A new copy of the paperback version is now selling for over $400 on Amazon! A newly edited paperback version will should be back on at Amazon next week according to Kim.
2) The Purple Runner by Paul Christman Not a new book, but a reissue of a classic running book that was hard to find, and it definitely lived up to my expectations. This is one of the best fiction books you will find about running.
3) Running with the Kenyans by Adharanand Finn I would certainly like to do what Finn did! He journeys to Kenya's Rift Valley to live and train with the Kenyans to see if it would improve his running and to shine a light into the world of the Kenyan distance runners and their hopes and dreams.
4) Running for my Life by Lopez Lomong A wonderful story of survival with Lopez Lomong's journey from war torn Sudan, to a being a lost boy in a refuge camp in Kenya, to journeying to the United States where he becomes a high school runner and eventually a two-time Olympian for the USA. What a life!
5) 14 Minutes by Alberto Salazar The great American marathoner, Alberto Salazar, and his 14 minute brush with death to a heart attack. The book details the career of this great American runner and coach.
6) The Secret Race by Tyler Hamilton This book is not really about running, but it makes you wonder if the same drug culture is/was as prevalent in running. This book was certainly one of the final nails in Lance Armstrong's coffin. If you want an honest look at how the cycling superstars kept their pedals in the game and their feet on the top of the winner's podium, then you should read this book.
7) Move Without Pain by Martha Peterson This is the only "exercise" book on my list although I have checked into many others. I use this as a go to book when I want to do Somatic movement exercises. It is a well thought out and presented book and the movements work!
8) Because I Can by Janet Oberholtzer Never give up! Janet is nearly killed in an horrific automobile accident and is told she may never walk again. Janet details the recovery process and the changes it made on her body and in her soul. Yes, Janet returns to running. This is an inspiring read!
9) I'm Here To Win: A World Champion's Advice for Peak Performance by Chris McCormack I didn't review this book, but Chris tells the story of how he became one of the greatest triathletes in the world and his eventual wins in the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon. Chris details the mental aspects of the game. He had to think like Mohammed Ali and plan out his triumphant race strategy in advance and get other triathletes in on his plan even when though they did not realize this.. Here is Chris McCormack on his 2010 Ironman Championship win.
10 A Life Without Limits: A World Champion's Journey by Chrissie Wellington I did not review this book on probably one of the greatest female triathletes of all time. Chrissie wrote more of a "gee-whiz look what I just did" account of her triathlon successes. I liked the thinking, training, and facing bits in Chris's book better as she does not go into the nitty gritty of what it takes to be a sports superstar. However, you do get a glimpse into her "well-lived" life and her many interests and accomplishments outside of triathlon racing. Here is Chrissie winning her fourth and final Hawaii Ironman World Championship, including her Blazeman roll. She said she has retired from triathlon just last month.
Some of the other running related books I have read this year:
Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health by William Davis. I read half of this and was convinced to try going gluten-free. It seems to be working quite well for me one month later. The book was heavy on the science and you can find most of the gluten-free information you would want online. The bread of today is not the bread that people ate for ages!
Natural Running: The Simple Path to Stronger, Healthier Running by Danny Abshire and Brian Metzler Another book on how to run post "Born to Run" I was told that this post would be sent to Danny Abshire, but I never got a response. I got my questions and feet problems answered through Muscle Activation Technique (M.A.T.) and no longer wear orthotics and my feet and big toe are landing on the ground much better now!
Movement by Gray Cook It was much cheaper to buy the Kindle edition. It is not worth reading on a Kindle. I haven't read much of it, due to that fact. I would want to browse and leaf through this book to find what I want, not push Kindle buttons.
For fans of The Perfect Mile and Born to Run, a riveting, three-pronged narrative about the golden era of running in America—the 1970s—as seen through running greats, Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, and Alberto Salazar
In 1972 American distance runner Frank Shorter won Olympic gold in the marathon, a history-making accomplishment that launched a seminal decade in the sport. Kings of the Road tells the story of running during that golden period from 1972 to 1981 when Shorter, then Bill Rodgers, and then Alberto Salazar captured the imagination of a disillusioned American public, as they passed their figurative baton from one to another. These three menwere American running during those years, and though all three toed the line together only a few times—at the legendary Falmouth Road Race—they gave their sport real conflict and drama for the first time. Each man built on what the other achieved, and their successes, in turn, fueled a nation of couch potatoes to put down the remote and lace up their sneakers.
As America now experiences a similar running boom, Kings of the Road delivers a stirring narrative of three men pushing themselves toward greatness and taking their country along for the ride.
The legendary long-distance runner details his historic victory in the 1975 Boston Marathon that launched the modern running boom
Within a span of two hours and nine minutes, Bill Rodgers went from obscurity to legend, from Bill Rodgers to "Boston Billy." In doing so, he instantly became the people’s champ and the poster boy for the soulful 1970s distance runner. Having won the Boston Marathon and New York Marathon four times each, he remains the only marathoner to have appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated twice. Winning the Holy Grail of marathons in an unthinkable record time changed Bill’s life forever. But his dramatic breakthrough in Boston also changed the lives of countless others, instilling in other American runners the belief that they could follow in his footsteps, and inspiring thousands of regular people to lace up their shoes and chase down their own dreams. In the year before Rodger’s victory at the 1975 Boston Marathon, 20,000 people had completed a marathon in the United States. By 2009, participants reached nearly half a million. Thirty-seven years later Bill Rodgers still possesses the same warm, endearing, and whimsical spirit that turned him into one of America's most beloved athletes. In Marathon Man he details for the first time this historic race and the events that led him there.
I wanted to highlight a recent and important blog post by Martha Peterson called How Somatics Can Help Runners. I have been on a years long search to find the best ways to recover my stride as a runner. I have found many useless ideas as well as many promising exercises that may help this aging beat-up runner get back to the form and feeling that I lost along the roads and trails of New Hampshire. I really like Somatics and Martha Peterson's book "Move Without Pain" and her DVDs which are an integral part of helping me get the "feel" back into my legs and my whole body as I make my journey back into running. The book is clearly written and has the photographs and instructions to help you understand the movements and how to do them properly. It also presents the rational for learning Somatics. I highly recommend it to any athlete that wants to explore and restore lost movement patterns. I ordered my third DVD, Pain-Free Athletes: No Pain, All Gain last week and like the previous two DVDs, Pain Relief Through Movement: The Basics and Pain-Free Legs and Hips, that I have, I learned all sorts of new ways to move and the timing of doing the movements (go slow and don't force). Sometimes a new movement just reaches out and immediately my body says, "Ahhhh!" like it reopened up a new possibility of movement that I had been guarding against. As I am building up my running, post hip surgery last summer, I have a lot of patterns to relearn and years of compensations prior to the surgery that I have to erase.
In her new post, Martha writes about deals with the issues of sensory motor amnesia with runners. That is my story with so many years of my running. She says:
When you’re injured, your muscles reflexively adapt and learn to move differently. This is called compensation.
Running while compensating for an injury doesn’t doesn’t change what your muscles are doing; it only creates more compensation.
You must first eliminate the compensatory pattern (the SMA), and then you can regain your original running form.
Anyone that has run with me could probably "see" this with my form and could hear my complaints through the years as I tried to figure out what was wrong with my running. It is not long-lost cases like mine where it is so obvious that something is wrong. On the running message boards and forums, I see so much written about inactive glutes, a loss of coordination in leg while running, or many other posts asking for help about injuries. I wonder how many runners just "quit" when they lose the feel for running or can't get out of an injury pattern? I think Martha's ideas and Somatics could help a lot of athletes, injured or not. The movements are simple, painless, and powerful and the payback for doing them may keep you running for a long time.
When you read her post on running, you will discover some of the reasons that runners can start creating compensations that may eventually derail their running career: running on injuries, running on paved slanted roads, running with limited hip movement, and running with orthotics or supportive shoes. These are just a few of the things that many runners are guilty of doing on a regular basis. We are not invincible. Eventually these may lead to injuries or compensationary patterns that we can't get out of. As you can see by the credit at the end of Martha's post I tried to give her some feedback while she was writing this post, but I really want to thank her for her insights as she answers my questions and gives advice and encouragement. Currently I am rethinking my use of orthotics while running.
Martha gives a few Somatic exercises that may help runners prior to going for a run or post run. It is just a starting point. You can search her site and find videos or descriptions of some of these and other movements. I would highly recommend trying out one of her DVDs along with her book. I would also suggest reading through her blog and website. The original book by Thomas Hanna on Somatics is called Somatics: Reawakening The Mind's Control Of Movement, Flexibility, And Health. I find Martha's book easier to read and it certainly has better and easier pictures to follow, but is it is the source book from the founder of Somatics.
I graduated from Physical Therapy with Leigh Boyles yesterday. I celebrated with a trip to the YMCA and a treadmill run. I wanted to run harder than I had been going and eventually ended the run at 5 miles at my fastest pace yet. It felt good. Some wobbling on the left side, but things are improving. I also had 4 trigger point injections in my left glutes on Friday. I think they have loosened things up a bit. I have been feeling tightness in my adductors at times and I also feel tight at the front of the left hip. I asked Leigh about this and she said that as the front of my hip loosens up (by pushing back as I run) the adductors should feel better.
One thing that Leigh has been mentioning all along is that I have to retrain the way my brain works through proprioceptive work. This is something the Gait Guys have mentioned as well as Dr. Michaud in the past weeks. There was the mentioning, but finding out what to do about it is hard to do. Sure, some exercises and taping have helped me, I am running noticeably straighter, but how do you get your brain to change your whole-body movement patterns?
Last summer, right before my hip surgery, I discovered something called somatics through Martha Peterson's blog Pain Relief Through Movement and webpage. Some of her movements helped my hip in the weeks prior to my surgery when I was in Kenya. I received her DVD after I returned from Kenya and started going through it again post-surgery a while back. I have been doing the movements more frequently and then I got her newly published book Move Without Pain this month which has new exercises as well as guides to those on the DVD. It also includes a good overview of somatics.
It is a very simple to understand book to both read and use. The pictures and text structure make it easy to read and follow. While the DVD guides you through the exercises and the speed as to how to do them, the book is easier to pull out and review before doing an exercise. These are not exercises that will leave you stiff and sore like yoga or stretching can often do, but they are exercises that feel good and leave you feeling changed. I am not ready to thoroughly review the book at this time, but I do want to highlight the key ideas of somatics. You can read more here from Martha's blog.
1) Sensory Motor Amnesia- This happens when muscles are so tight that they will not relax. One thing that I found very interesting is something that Martha mentions in her book: what looks like a structural abnormality can be an issue of sensory motor function -tight muscles that won't relax. The point of somatics is that because the brain and nervous system control the muscles you have to engage the brain to unlock muscle patterns.
2) Three Reflex Patterns- In somatics there are full body reflex patterns that people us in reaction to stress. The Green Light Reflex involves an arching of constantly tight back muscles. The Red Light Reflex is another stress related posture with a rounded back due to anxiety or fear or from sitting all day hunched over a computer. The Trauma Reflex is a response to an accident or injury and involves a twist or rotation as a way to avoid injury or pain. This can lead to imbalances as your body gets stuck in this pattern.
3) Pandiculation- This is the somatic alternative to stretching. It works like a reset button. It involves making a tight contraction, followed by a slow release of the contraction to lengthen the muscle, and a complete relaxation at the end.
Somatics uses these ideas to help you rebuild your movement patterns and get rid of chronic pain. I highly recommend Martha's website, DVD (more are promised to come out soon), and her book Move Without Pain. It might just be the method to get you to get out of pain, move better, and to recover your stride.
I have emailed back and forth with Martha and she graciously offered to do a Skype session with me. I won't go into too much specifics, but will write down the things I need to remember before I forget them. It was an awesome experience to have someone so knowledgeable take a look at how I move, perform exercises, and offer me ideas to pursue.
We also worked on theback-lift (directions here) and then she gave me a different exercise for my tight illiopsoas that I don't recall as being in the book or on the first DVD but is found right here.
For the last two weeks, I have been on attack mode. I am doing all I can to get myself healed up and it's been enlightening. I have had 4 doctors visits (3 different doctors) as well as 2 PT sessions. I am very hopeful that with all the advice, knowlege, and work that things will start progressing quicker.
First, I had the visit with Dr. Michaud who measured all my angles and joints and gave me somewhat of a confirmation of things that aren't right and what to do to get stronger. A few days after that I went to Dr. Dannenburg and he did manipulations on my knee-popliteus and on a cuboid bone in my foot that was causing my foot to be stuck and not work or move correctly. I also had PT work each week where I am getting graston technique done on my popliteus and surrounding muscles as well as getting taped around my knee as a proprioceptive thing to get my body and mind used to a better positioning of my knee. Today I had 4 trigger point injections into my glute medius. I will go back every two weeks for more for 2 or 3 more times.
My goal 2 weeks ago was to run only a mile or two each day. I got in 7 straight days of running before my glute medius tied up after one run and things fell apart again. The good news this weel was the physiatrist wanted me to stress my glute medius before the injections this morning so I ran 10 miles on the treadmill last night. That was my longest run since August 2010 and if felt good to go that long.
So I have had work on my feet by the podiatrist, on my knees and popliteus through PT, and on my glutes through the trigger point injections. That should cover a lot of things and hopefully everything will play nice together. I have also been doing all my PT work to get my hips strong. I will say that when I run on the treadmill, my hips stay aligned and straight which is very different from how I ran before surgery. Everything from the knee up looks a lot better than before. It is just the left leg rotating out that looks bad. It had appeared to be pointing out about 40 degrees last month, after seeing Dr. Dannenberg it improved to about 20 degrees, but if I pushed off more on the foot, it got down to about 10 degrees. That tells me I can improve on things.
Despite all that work, I have also written back and forth a bit with Martha Peterson this week and learning more about somatics. I found a few of her videos and postings online a few days before I went to Kenya this summer and some of her exercises helped keep my pain at bay during that trip. I got her DVD, but didn't start working on the movements until recently again as I was letting my hip heal from surgery. She also just published her book Move Without Pain which I have been reading and enjoying very much. Somatics deals with sensory motor training and reteaches the body how to move properly. I enjoy the movements and their effect and they don't "hurt" my body like yoga or stretching often can. I will have more to say on this at a later date, but her book and video are top notch.
Here is a new hip movement from Martha's soon to be released DVD "Pain-Free Legs and Hips" .
I had another successful week testing out my hip to see what I can do. For the second week in a row I did 12 miles of running, however last week I did no gym work. This week I also went back to the YMCA to work on the bikes, elliptical, and indoor track. I also went out mountain biking for the first time post surgery.
Monday: nothing
Tuesday: 5 miles run. I felt OK during the run, but my piriformis or glute medius got real tight after the run and into the next day. I decided to be careful of pushing too much.
Wednesday: 10 miles recumbent bike, 5 miles stationary bike, 2 miles elliptical
Thursday 5 miles stationary bike, 2 miles elliptical, 1 mile run
Friday: nothing
Saturday 10 miles mountain biking-felt great- only a bit of difficulty getting my leg over the crossbar, 1 mile run, 1 mile elliptical, 1 mile run, 1 mile elliptical, 1 mile run
Sunday: 5k run through Mine Falls Park
I am being careful to not hurt things, my hip feels fine, but the muscles around it can act up a bit. Last Monday, I called my doctor's' office to see if I really was OK to run. I was told it was find as long as it doesn't hurt. I called again today and asked for a referral for PT, just to make sure I know which exercises to do and which to avoid to speed things along.
I saw this video posted on two sites that I follow last week: Better Movement and Conditioning Research. It shows one of the greatest explorers of all, a human baby, as she learns to move. Babies work hard to figure things out, we sometimes forget how to move and our bodies become rigid and locked. This leads to a lot of aches, pains, and improper movement patterns. The video reminded me to continue to practice Feldenkrais movements, particularly after surgery. I have written plenty on Feldenkrais before as it is a gentle and powerful way to get back in touch with how your body should move, just like the baby in this video. Despite having plenty of Feldenkrais audio lessons I decided to try out The Fundamentals of Better Movement as well as Becoming Bulletproof: An Uncommon Approach to Building a Resilient Body. I will review them later at another time as well as review Martha Peterson's The Essential Somatics Pain Relief Through Movement DVD. I found her website through this link on labral tears two days before heading to Kenya and learned a few of her Somatic exercises that literally kept me out of pain for the longest time in over 25 years (you have to explore more on her website- look for posts written in February on the hip). I was free from the pain that I normally get and can never fix the whole trip. Except for the day when we flew to Kenya, I was able to control all pain by doing less than 5 minutes of exercises that I found on her website. The whole flight to London, I was very uncomfortable because I did no exercises that day. When we stopped to change flights to Nairobi, I did the exercises and I was fine the rest of the way as well as the rest of the trip. Every time I felt like things were getting out of balance, I did the exercises and I was fine. Some of the exercises are similar, but presented in different way with the Feldenkrais movements on "The Fundamentals of Better Movement".
, 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.
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.
by William Davis. I read half of this and was convinced to try going gluten-free. It seems to be working quite well for me one month later. The book was heavy on the science and you can find most of the gluten-free information you would want online. The bread of today is not the bread that people ate for ages!
by Jay Dichary I think this is one of the best and most up to date books I have read on injuries and injury prevention. You can learn to be your own physical therapist!
By Bill Katovsky and Peter Larson of the highly regarded 
by Danny Abshire and Brian Metzler Another book on how to run post "Born to Run" I was told that this post would be sent to Danny Abshire, but I never got a response. I got my questions and feet problems answered through 
by Gray Cook It was much cheaper to buy the Kindle edition. It is not worth reading on a Kindle. I haven't read much of it, due to that fact. I would want to browse and leaf through this book to find what I want, not push Kindle buttons.
by Evan Osar Here is another book that I should have bought a hard copy version of instead of the much cheaper Kindle version. It is not easy to find what you want on a Kindle.
. I find Martha's book easier to read and it certainly has better and easier pictures to follow, but is it is the source book from the founder of Somatics.
. I will review them later at another time as well as review