How to Relax Your Shoulders While Sitting

My guest on this episode is Adam Young, a golf instructor and author of the excellent book The Practice Manual. We discussed Adam’s personal journey in developing a unique task-oriented teaching style. He explained how his early experiences with textbook-based instruction led to physical injuries and frustration, prompting him to explore alternative methods. We also discussed a variety of topics related to motor learning, including the effects of internal versus external attention, the complexity of biomechanics, why deliberately making mistakes can be helpful, and the psychological and cultural factors inhibiting the exploration of new movement patterns. Even if you're not interested in golf, I think you will find Adam's ideas highly relevant to any movement-based practice, in the context of either rehab or performance. Links Adam’s website Adam’s book: The Practice Manual Follow Adam on Twitter Related PostsFocus of Attention in GolfLearning From MistakesThe Feel of Good Movement This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit toddhargrove.substack.com/subscribe

My guest for this podcast is Greg Lehman. Greg is a physical therapist, chiropractor, and researcher. Our main subject was a new study that found very positive results for Cognitive Functional Therapy (CFT). I thought Greg would be a good guy to ask about the strengths and weaknesses of the study, and how to interpret its meaning in light of the broader literature.Greg is a popular writer and teacher whose main interest is reconciling pain science with biomechanics. Part of his approach involves looking at many different kinds of therapies that seem to work, and then asking: what do all these different methods have in common? It’s a good question that generates insight. One of Greg’s strengths is a broad knowledge of the relevant research. Therefore, he always supports his arguments with specific citations, and he also has a good context to interpret the meaning of a news study. For example, if a new study comes out showing that therapy X works or doesn't work, he can probably think of other studies with different results.Another great thing about Greg is that he is always willing to challenge his own biases. So if a study comes out validating his ideas, he will be the first one to stand up and point out its limitations.In this podcast we talked about the strengths and weaknesses of the new CFT study, and how to put it in the context of the larger literature. We also talked about broader issues related to being aware of your own biases, cherry picking evidence, and using double standards to interpret studies.Links Greg Lehman’s websiteGreg on TwitterMy previous podcast with GregInformation on the study and Cognitive Functional TherapyA previous post on Pain Reprocessing Therapy, which I compared to CFT This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit toddhargrove.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s podcast is a 15-minute movement lesson you can do in a chair. It's a novel way to get the pelvis and spine moving, and bring some awareness to how they coordinate to keep you comfortable and balanced. It involves walking the sit bones over the base of your chair as if they were feet. Maybe the best alternative to getting up and going for a walk. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit toddhargrove.substack.com/subscribe

Leigh Egger is a physiotherapist and trainer working as head of performance at Feyenoord Rotterdam, a Dutch professional soccer club. I first became interested in Leigh’s work because he had extensive knowledge about applying the ideas of Frans Bosch to athletic training and injury prevention. Bosch is the author of two fascinating books on movement (one of which I reviewed here.) His ideas are notoriously original, controversial, and somewhat confusing. Leigh has worked with Bosch closely and has significant experience putting his ideas to practical use. I first met at Lee at a Bosch seminar in Los Angeles that he was helping to teach. Here’s a video of some highlights (with a brief cameo by yours truly.) If you watch the video you will see some interesting and unusual exercises. In this podcast, Leigh provides some simple explanations of the logic behind these and other exercises as a way to improve athletic performance and prevent injury. We talked about motor learning, passive versus active attractors, control of the pelvis and spine in single leg stance, the hip lock position, the proper use of the ankle during running, and many other topics.LinksSpeed Power Play, a consulting company run by Leigh and John PryorSpeed Power Play on InstagramLeigh’s Twitter page This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit toddhargrove.substack.com/subscribe

My guest for today’s podcast is Tom Jesson. Tom is a physiotherapist and author of a two excellent books related to nerve root pain: Sciatica: The Clinician’s Guide and Cauda Equina: The MSK Clinician’s Guide. He also writes a newsletter on nerve root pain here. I highly recommend Tom’s writing because it is well-researched, easy to read, and respects the complexity of the subject matter. In this interview we talked about about sciatica including: the difference between referred pain, radicular pain and radiculopathy; the anatomy of the nerve root; the different ways the nerve root can become irritated; disc herniations and whether size and type matters; how discs heal over time; and how to prevent and treat sciatica. Highly recommended if you want to know more about this complex subject. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit toddhargrove.substack.com/subscribe

If you are interested in predictive processing, you should definitely listen to this podcast. It’s an interview with Mark Miller, a philosopher and cognitive scientist who studied under John Vervaeke and did his PhD with Andy Clark. I've read a bunch of Mark’s papers on using predictive processing to understand psychopathology, well-being, addiction, substance abuse, social media use, and playful behavior. These papers are filled with interesting insights about perception and action (along with some difficult technical materials that I won’t pretend to fully understand.) In this interview, Mark did a great job of minimizing the technical stuff and maximizing the interesting insights, of which there were many. We talked about pain, play, meditation, therapy, horror movies, roller coasters, and many other things. This was a super fun conversation and I highly recommend it. To learn more about Mark and his work, you can visit his webpage here, find him on Twitter here, and check out his Contemplative Science Podcast here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit toddhargrove.substack.com/subscribe

The podcast today features a 15-minute Feldenkrais-style movement lesson that you can do while sitting in a chair. It's a progression from a couple other sitting lessons which you can find here and here. (You can do the lessons in any order by the way.)Each lesson is about expanding you're sitting “vocabulary”, by which I mean all the different configurations of the pelvis, spine and ribs that can keep you in a balanced and comfortable position. Let me know what you think in the comments. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit toddhargrove.substack.com/subscribe

Christopher Johnson is a physical therapist, performance coach, international speaker, published researcher, and elite triathlete.I consider Chris to be a world-class source of information about the connection between movement and pain, especially in the context of endurance running. He knows all the research, has years of experience working with runners, and competes at the highest level. Chris lives here in Seattle, so I’ve had many chances to get together with Chris and geek out about all things related to sports, movement and pain. This podcast is a recorded version of one of those geek-out sessions. We decided to make it a joint interview where we both ask and answer questions. (As it turned out, I think I had a more questions for him.) In any event, it was an informal conversation that touched on a wide variety of topics including:* Chris's background as a multi-sport athlete in skateboarding and tennis.* differences in how we grew up playing many sports versus the modern environment where kids are forced to specialize. * our personal experiences recovering from overuse and traumatic injuries.* common injuries for runners, especially bone stress injuries and tendinopathies.* raising kids to be healthy movers.* how Chris deals with the mental stress of triathlons, including his absurd claim that 5Ks are harder than Iron Mans. * our most recent projects and interests.LinksChris’ webpageChris’ new project collecting the best running drills: Top Shelf Resource SuiteChris on YouTubeChris on FacebookChris on Instagram This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit toddhargrove.substack.com/subscribe

My guest on the podcast today is John Kiely. John is a senior lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, Institute for Coaching and Performance.I've been reading John’s research for several years now and his papers are always very interesting and fun. He's written on a wide variety of subjects like running, coordination, periodization and the science of smooth movement. You can find links to some of my favorite papers below. What I really like about John’s writing is that he relates specific data points to big ideas, like complex systems, evolution, or stress/adaptation. And the perspective is very broad, so he makes interesting connections between seemingly unrelated topics. In his paper on smoothness, he refers to the Supreme Court free-speech debates about pornography. In his article about periodization, he writes about Henry Ford's theories of efficient car production in factories. When John agreed to do this podcast, I was excited to talk about a whole bunch of topics, but we focused on one: how to be a coordinated and robust runner. In John's view, running performance and injury is far more about coordination then we might imagine. We talked about:* the neural hierarchies governing coordination, ranging from the “smart” motor cortex to the “dumb” reflexes* what neural “degeneracy” means and how it’s different from redundancy.* the role of variability in performance and injury prevention* how fatigue and aging affect variability and coordination* why I strained my hamstring in my soccer game last week and what that has to do with coordination* how to train fast versus slow reflexes* the role of perturbation in training coordination* John’s opinions on the work of Frans Bosch We could have gone on for much longer, and I have many more questions, so I plan to ask John for more time in the near future. Links John’s research John on TwitterSome great papers by John that I recommend: * Smoothness: an Unexplored Window into Coordinated Running Proficiency* My post about the smoothness paper* Periodization Theory: Confronting an Inconvenient Truth* The Robust Running Ape: Unraveling the Deep Underpinnings of Coordinated Human Running Proficiency This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit toddhargrove.substack.com/subscribe

For this week’s episode of the podcast I have a 15-minute movement lesson you can do while sitting in a chair. The goal is to release unnecessary tension in the shoulders and neck. Based on the Feldenkrais Method.If you are enjoying these movement lessons, stay tuned for a coming announcement about a new series of online classes starting in January. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit toddhargrove.substack.com/subscribe