It Took Me Nearly 20 Years To Understand This One Thing About Strength (+ a New Offering)
Things have been full personally and professionally, and since I wouldn't say I like to email "just because," I wait until I feel I have something valuable to share.
April kicked off with a bang. We went to the Women's NCAA Tournament to support my beloved Hawkeyes, and I attended a retreat the same weekend to clarify some learning in my mastery program, which I will complete in June. It was a whirlwind and very fun.
This past year, a friend and I decided to buy into the Dance Cleveland subscription. It's been a fun way to pass the cold weather months. Even though most of the dance is modern, I am a former ballet and jazz dancer, and I appreciate the artistry and strength of the dance.
The other night, we were watching a dance company from Israel called Vertigo, and the amount of strength I saw when one of the dancers was hanging by her arms from a thick artificial branch and pulling herself in many directions while two other dancers held it was 😮.
A lightbulb went off.
When I was about ten years after my dance career, I told one of my fitness instructors that I felt "heavy." It was not heavy in size or weight but just a heavy feeling.
She suggested doing things that were more about lengthening, but yoga didn't help as much as I thought it did.
After completing my most recent lessons for my mastery program, I know what dancers have that most people don't.
Intrinsic Strength.
Dancers defy gravity. It has nothing to do with their body size and everything to do with the fact that they are pulling their bodies away from gravity and using smaller, intrinsic muscles that we don't typically use in our day-to-day lives.
Most people are familiar with phasic muscles, such as quads, hamstrings, biceps, etc., which can be seen visually.
But when we don't have our intrinsic muscles firing, our phasic muscles take over. This can cause compensatory patterns, nagging pain, etc.
At the end, my friend said, "That was one of the most impressive things I have ever seen, but I could never do that," I said, "Maybe not to that extent, but we all have that strength in us."
It's tough in a society where we sit more, but there are ways to work on intrinsic strength that do not require a dance class or a lot of time. Yoga is a tool that can be used if that is someone's preferred movement practice (and let me tell you, it's a different ball of wax moving with intrinsic strength). 😳
I have taken two friends through the power of getting these intrinsic muscles online. One was told she needed to get repeated massages for pain and didn't need to go back after we worked together (not a knock on massage therapy; I love it, but I don't think any modality is helpful when it's cyclical and not getting to the genesis of the issue if it's used for pain relief). Another friend was having a ton of lower back pain, and we worked on glute med and intrinsic core strength to pull her lower back away from gravity. She hasn't had a flare-up since January.
This is the power of focusing on alignment. Pain typically disappears when we trace it back through an anatomical lens and how the body functions optimally (which can look different depending on many factors with an individual). Things improve when we repattern the musculoskeletal system to use muscles it doesn't usually use. It is a connection between the brain and the body.
I saw firsthand repatterning a cat-cow position in one of my yoga classes. My student looked at me euphorically and said, "OMG, this feels so different and not crunchy!" Those moments remind me why I love what I do.
I am excited to share that I have launched The Schatz Methodas a new one-off service. I fought for a long time about returning to more in-person/virtual 1:1 work, but I am seeing results in the short time I have been implementing this modality, and there is nothing gimmicky (you all know I don't do quick and easy).
Vitality clients will also benefit, as this will be baked into their program before I add weights to their regimen. It does me no good to add heavy loads to a body with compensatory or structural misalignments (P.S. I am working on mine, too)!
If you are interested in this approach or know someone who could benefit, please share this link; they can contact me with any questions. No age limit or physical issue would prohibit anyone from engaging. I would ask, as usual, that they be cleared by a medical professional, especially if a diagnosis or pathology is involved.
Thank you for listening to me share my discoveries and explaining why I am excited to use this new knowledge and skill to work with folks from all walks of life. Sometimes, our bodies have incredible power to heal themselves, and it's been amazing to witness. I look forward to sharing more about what I have learned and how we can all benefit from knowing our bodies better.