Yoga: Like Flossing for your Joints!

For our whole lives, we participate in a daily practice to ensure the health of our teeth, as it is obvious that tooth decay is extremely undesirable. Neglecting dental hygiene can lead to issues far beyond affecting that beautiful smile on your face, including infection, as well as compromised gut and heart health. In order to ensure dental health, we brush and floss daily, and visit the dentist two times per year. We have accepted this as the gold standard practice, and dental hygiene becomes almost an unconscious part of our lives.

What about our joints? We have over 200 of them in our body, and without them, we would be unable to move. Each of these joints desperately need movement, compression, and relaxation in order to stay healthy, mobile, and well-lubricated. Unfortunately, we have an epidemic of poor joint health that is on the rise. In fact, around a quarter of US citizens have arthritis (an inflammatory disease of the joints), and the prevalence of knee osteoarthritis has actually doubled since the mid-20th century.1 This is contributing to extreme rises in healthcare costs, risky surgeries, chronic disability, and unnecessary pain and suffering. Poor joint health is also associated with many other health conditions- depression, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and metabolic conditions such as diabetes.2 There are many theories as to why the incidence of this disease is so high- increasing weight, sedentary behavior, as well as the overall aging of our population. However, there is little discussion about how to address the root cause of this disease through education and prevention.

Why is there not more education about how to keep our joints healthy as we go through our lives? My main takeaways from gym class growing up were pretty much as follows: how many sit ups and chin ups can I do in a minute in order to "perform well" on the presidential fitness test, as well as how quickly can I run a mile in order not to embarrass myself around my peers? However, there was absolutely no discussion of joint health in any of my education up until physical therapy school.

What joints need is movement- movement that goes behind repetitive gym exercises, walking, and running. As joints do not have great blood supply, they are completely reliant on us moving our bodies through our given ranges of motion in order to distribute the lubricating synovial fluid around the joint space. As we move and load our joints through their given ranges of motion, we develop an improved mind-body awareness that helps us control the force we put through each joint through our body's posturing and muscle recruitment/relaxation. By regularly moving each joint, we also build up our injury resistance to both chronic and acute injuries. For example, if you never practice moving your ankle inwards, and then you accidentally trip over a root during a hike that forces your ankle into an inward position, you will be far more likely to sprain this joint compared to someone who regularly practices moving and loading their ankle in this position.

One might be thinking…."Are you telling me that in order to have to have healthy joints, I have to move each and every one of them every single day?? This sounds like a lot of work… I already have enough on my plate, especially with how often I am supposed to floss my teeth!"

Luckily, even a brief mindful movement practice such as yoga can help ensure your joint health! A yoga practice has the potential to move every joint and engage every muscle in your body in a relatively short, continuous sequence. And, you will naturally start to use what you learn on the mat in your daily life as well, perhaps without even meaning to! Rather than a chore, a yoga practice can be fun, and make you feel more comfortable and strong in your body. Yoga can be an excellent supplement to whatever else is in your fitness routine that can actually improve your performance in other athletic endeavors as well.

Written by: Jacob Tyson, DPT - Physical Therapist and Yoga Instructor

References:

1. https://www.pnas.org/content/114/35/9332

2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31207113/#:~:text=The%20key%20comorbidities%20associated%20with,to%20have%20other%20chronic%20conditions.

Yoga: Like Flossing for your Joints!

For our whole lives, we participate in a daily practice to ensure the health of our teeth, as it is obvious that tooth decay is extremely undesirable. Neglecting dental hygiene can lead to issues far beyond affecting that beautiful smile on your face, including infection, as well as compromised gut and heart health. In order to ensure dental health, we brush and floss daily, and visit the dentist two times per year. We have accepted this as the gold standard practice, and dental hygiene becomes almost an unconscious part of our lives.

What about our joints? We have over 200 of them in our body, and without them, we would be unable to move. Each of these joints desperately need movement, compression, and relaxation in order to stay healthy, mobile, and well-lubricated. Unfortunately, we have an epidemic of poor joint health that is on the rise. In fact, around a quarter of US citizens have arthritis (an inflammatory disease of the joints), and the prevalence of knee osteoarthritis has actually doubled since the mid-20th century.1 This is contributing to extreme rises in healthcare costs, risky surgeries, chronic disability, and unnecessary pain and suffering. Poor joint health is also associated with many other health conditions- depression, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and metabolic conditions such as diabetes.2 There are many theories as to why the incidence of this disease is so high- increasing weight, sedentary behavior, as well as the overall aging of our population. However, there is little discussion about how to address the root cause of this disease through education and prevention.

Why is there not more education about how to keep our joints healthy as we go through our lives? My main takeaways from gym class growing up were pretty much as follows: how many sit ups and chin ups can I do in a minute in order to "perform well" on the presidential fitness test, as well as how quickly can I run a mile in order not to embarrass myself around my peers? However, there was absolutely no discussion of joint health in any of my education up until physical therapy school.

What joints need is movement- movement that goes behind repetitive gym exercises, walking, and running. As joints do not have great blood supply, they are completely reliant on us moving our bodies through our given ranges of motion in order to distribute the lubricating synovial fluid around the joint space. As we move and load our joints through their given ranges of motion, we develop an improved mind-body awareness that helps us control the force we put through each joint through our body's posturing and muscle recruitment/relaxation. By regularly moving each joint, we also build up our injury resistance to both chronic and acute injuries. For example, if you never practice moving your ankle inwards, and then you accidentally trip over a root during a hike that forces your ankle into an inward position, you will be far more likely to sprain this joint compared to someone who regularly practices moving and loading their ankle in this position.

One might be thinking…."Are you telling me that in order to have to have healthy joints, I have to move each and every one of them every single day?? This sounds like a lot of work… I already have enough on my plate, especially with how often I am supposed to floss my teeth!"

Luckily, even a brief mindful movement practice such as yoga can help ensure your joint health! A yoga practice has the potential to move every joint and engage every muscle in your body in a relatively short, continuous sequence. And, you will naturally start to use what you learn on the mat in your daily life as well, perhaps without even meaning to! Rather than a chore, a yoga practice can be fun, and make you feel more comfortable and strong in your body. Yoga can be an excellent supplement to whatever else is in your fitness routine that can actually improve your performance in other athletic endeavors as well.

My mission for PhysiYoga is to teach people more about their bodies, provide engaging and challenging movement sequences, and create a safe space for self-care and self-compassion. The current series- PhysiYoga Fluid: From Ground to Crown, will consist of full-body yoga practices with a special emphasis on joint health in particular body areas (e.g. the foot/ankle, the knees, the spine, etc). Consider this practice like "flossing for your joints"- take the opportunity now to learn what you may not have learned in gym class: how to keep your joints healthy so you can live your life to the very fullest for as long as you are here.

Written by: Jacob Tyson, DPT - Physical Therapist and Yoga Instructor

References:

1. https://www.pnas.org/content/114/35/9332

2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31207113/#:~:text=The%20key%20comorbidities%20associated%20with,to%20have%20other%20chronic%20conditions.

Embodied Anatomy

What is the best way to get to know the body from the inside out?

Written by Jacob Tyson, DPT - Physical Therapist, Yoga Instructor

While countless hours spent poring over anatomy textbooks in physical therapy school was helpful for learning the names of all of our internal structures, the most meaningful anatomy lessons have been on my mat, alone with my body and breath. Without complementing textbook knowledge with movement, there will be little relevance to real life. However, movement alone is also not enough- without having some background knowledge of the intricacies of our structural body, there may be blind spots in our awareness as we move through our day or move on our mat. This is why informed movement is so important- it can help one to avoid injury and move more efficiently.

Having a better sense of the biomechanics and anatomy of the physical body can help to improve mind-body connection and kinesthetic awareness by allowing us to move with intention and embodied intuition. For example, one might lack awareness that, unlike the hip or the shoulder which move in all planes, the knee is designed to perform sagittal plane movement alone, known as flexion and extension. By better understanding the structure and function of the knee, we can move the knee with intention, rather than trying to force it into a position that might be detrimental to our joint health. The same awareness can be applied to all individual joints, which we can integrate into whole body movement as well.

Through PhysiYoga Fluid: From Ground to Crown, I hope to share the anatomical knowledge I have in the context of a dynamic movement experience. These yoga classes will contain tidbits of relevant anatomy and kinesiology as we shine our awareness throughout different areas of ourselves. We will start to form an embodied understanding of how our parts move separately, together, and relation to our connection to the earth and to gravity. By starting from the ground and working our way up to the crown, we will learn more about ourselves, help to prevent unnecessary injuries, and develop the knowledge and tools to get the very most out of our yoga and movement practices.

I hope to see you on the mat!

What is Mindful Movement?

What is mindful movement, and why do I need this in my life?

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the state of being aware of something in the present moment. In a state of mindfulness, one calmly and non-judgmentally acknowledges and accepts emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations. Applying mindfulness to movement allows us to feel more fully what is going on in our bodies in order to improve our quality of movement, steer clear of pain, strain, and injuries, and become immersed in the pleasurable sensations that accompany the motion of our bodies. A mindful movement practice has a different purpose from traditional exercise, which tends to be prescriptive, and focus on external outcomes such as weight loss and muscle building. While mindful movement practices can also lead to these outcomes, the focus is more so on the journey, rather than the destination. Mindful movement tends to be more exploratory and creative, and cultivates a state of self-kindness and self-compassion which has carryover into our daily life. Mindful movement tends to be performed in the parasympathetic state of our nervous system, which brings about a sense of calm and ease, rather than the sympathetic state which is associated with our fight-or-flight response, an elevated heart rate and blood pressure, and a sense of anxiety.

Yoga

Yoga is an excellent movement practice that can bring about powerful health benefits when performed in a mindful and consistent manner. A yoga practice can cultivate a powerful mind-body connection, instigate self-healing behavior, instill a love of movement and exercise, and grant us a sense of agency and control over our lives. We can go upstream of many chronic illnesses, pain and dysfunction by developing the tools we need to live active, healthy, and informed lives. The mindfulness cultivated in yoga may elucidate any destructive forces at play (e.g. self-destructive behavior, maladaptive movement patterns, over-eating, postural tendencies developed from staring at screens all day, sedentary lifestyle, overactive stress response, poor self-image), and consistent practice can grant us the tools and agency necessary to improve our health and the quality of our lives. Not to mention improve our overall performance, cognition, physique, mental health, and much more! This practice can benefit our minds, nervous systems, tissues, all the way down to every cell inside us. Yoga can change us; yoga can change the world.

PhysiYOGA Fluid Class

Our latest class series, PhysiYOGA Fluid, seeks to integrate all the positive benefits of a mindful movement practice, while also providing an energetic flow to help improve the strength, responsiveness, and suppleness of our musculoskeletal system. We will navigate through a wide variety of movement patterns, juicy stretches, and will end our practice with a mindfulness meditation. We will use the power of our breath to create lasting change in our bodies and minds. By remaining mindful of what we are doing and how we are feeling throughout the class, we seek to enter a parasympathetic flow in which we are learning more about our bodies and nourishing each and every cell within us. Take the time you need for yourself this year, and join us on the mat for PhysiYOGA Fluid!