September 22, 2016

*You play hard, it’s who you are.

*Are you benched due to injury or pain?

*Worried you won’t be able to play your favorite sport?

*Afraid the doctor will just prescribe invasive procedures or drugs to try to fix the problem?

*Have you had bad experiences with traditional approaches in the past?

*Interested in a more holistic, effective, long-lasting solution for pain or injury?*Ready to get back to doing what you love?

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www.BraveHealer.com

5 Powerful Secrets to Healing Faster & Preventing Sports Injuriesby Laura Probert, MPT

September 22, 2016

Copyright © 2016 by Bodyworks Physical Therapy, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.Bodyworks Physical Therapy, LLC 7618 Carteret Road, Bethesda, MD 20817

Disclaimer:All the material contained in this book is provided for educational and informational purposes only. No responsibility can be taken for any results or outcomes resulting from the use of this material. While every attempt has been made to provide information that is both accurate and effective, the author does not assume anyresponsibility for the accuracy or use/misuse of this information.

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September 22, 2016

“Discipline the mind, the body will follow.” Master John Holloway

It’s time for better solutions to pain and injury prevention and when it comes to your body and performance, you’re ready to find what works, what’s holistic, and someone who can be your resource for continued peak performance. Traditional approaches break the body into parts and treat that one part. That doesn’t work - because the body is a system of intimately integrated parts that work as a whole. Until we start treating it like the miraculous system it is, we won’t get good healing or performance!

Many injuries occur due to abnormal patterns of movement and/or asymmetries the athlete isn’t even aware of. Getting a proper solution to pain or injury involves a holistic, hands-on, unique approach to an athlete’s issue, NOT a cookbook recipe for healing.

Getting back in the game will be easier after you learn the secrets to injury healing and prevention.

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AWARENESSWhat if they're things

you haven't learned yetthat could change everything?

September 22, 2016

Here are 5 powerful secrets to healing faster and preventing sports injuries:

1. Get a holistic evaluation and treatment for the issue. If the doctors and practitioners who’ve seen you up until now have only addressed the painful area and not looked elsewhere for the cause, they’re missing something. And that’s most likely why you’re still injured or in pain, or have only experienced temporary relief. A holistic evaluation is going to include looking at whole body movements and the health of the myofascial system. If you haven’t had anyone assess your issue this way, you’re in for a great treat. Some areas of pain or injury can be coming from other parts of the body. It takes a skilled, holistic practitioner to find those restrictions and asymmetries and help teach you how to correct them!

2. Learn corrective exercise. Traditional forms of exercise do not address asymmetries well. Asymmetries in the muscles and fascia can cause tightness, pain, pressure and injury. Exercise to correct those asymmetries and faulty patterns of movement require the body to be exercised on one side of the body. This goes against traditional thinking and so when traditional programs are developed for athletes, they never truly correct the problem - they only make an already imbalanced area stronger.

There are several effective forms of corrective exercise. When you learn these tools, you’ll have a forever toolkit for helping injuries heal faster and for preventing them from occurring in the first place.

3. Learn body awareness. Learning body awareness is crucial for athletes and can greatly reduce pain and injury, as well as help prevent injuries from occurring. Being aware of the body, how it feels during exercise, what is normal/abnormal, and how to address discomfort or pain when it occurs is a wonderful, lifelong tool that’ll increase chances for peak performance, and give you a gift for a life of increased health and wellness. I recorded a 7 minute body awareness exercise that you can listen to today: BODY AWARENESS

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September 22, 2016

4. Learn how to breathe. Breathing is a form of body awareness and even though it should be natural to breathe deep and well, we learn from an early age to hold our breath or shallow breathe, especially in times of stress. Learning breathing techniques you can use on and off the field/court increase your chances of feeling a smaller issue before it becomes an injury, and it also gives you an instant pain reduction technique.

Simply focusing on the breath can be a powerful mind/body focus for athletes before, during and after competition, and will carry over to all aspects of your life in addition to sports.

Here is a basic deep breathing exercise to begin practicing: Sit or lie down and relax. Begin begin to clear your mind and focus on the sensations of the breath. Breathe in and out of the mouth, relaxing more and more with each exhale. Breathe into the lowest part of your belly and into the low back area at the same time. Breathe into the side rib cage, left and right as well. Like a balloon expanding in all directions, let the breath fill up the lower part of you and release completely on your exhale. Continue for 5 minutes or more.

5. Learn how to test and treat your own body! The skills I teach most often to help people assess and treat their own body come from Tom Dalonzo-Baker and are called Total Motion Release. This is an easy, effective system of looking for asymmetries in the body and then correcting them right on the spot! Here are two exercises you can start with: 1. The Arm Raise: Start by sitting in a comfortable chair with your feet flat on the floor, knees straight forward. Pick one arm and with the elbow straight, raise it up and back as far as it goes without the elbow bending or the head moving. Now test the other arm the same way. Which one went further? On the side that was better/went further, I want you to do a 30 second effort. Lift and raise that arm fully for 30 seconds, breathe and move as far as you can in the direction it can go. Rest and repeat that one more time. Now going back to your original test position, check the “bad” arm. Raise it up with the elbow straight and see if it’s any better than before.

2. The Trunk Twist: Start in the same seated position as the arm raise. Put your hands over your belly button and keep them there. Now twist your trunk/spine around in one direction as far

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September 22, 2016

as you can go, keeping your feet and knees straight. Return to the middle and now do the same test on the other side. Which one goes further?

On the side that went further, do a full, 30 second effort moving into that side as far and fully as possible. Rest and repeat that one more time.

Now go back to the “bad” side and test it once, keeping the feet/knees straight. Is it any better than before?

With both exercises you should have noticed that the “bad” side got better when you tested it the second time. And that was without doing any reps on that side. This is the magic of corrective exercise - the motion to the better side of the body acts to unlock the myofascial system and increase motion throughout the body, even on the side that was not exercised.

These exercises work kind of like when you have a busted kitchen drawer that won’t open. If you pull harder in that direction you’ll probably bust the drawer more. Sometimesyou have to push in, giggle it and get it on it’s track before it will slide open - the opposite direction from normal. Good side movement is like that giggling and getting the body system on it’s track so that it can move better.

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September 22, 2016

Here are some other healing tips you might find helpful:* What you think is as important as what you do physically. Practice being mindful of the thoughts you hold about your own body and the healing process. If you think it won’t get better, guess what? It won’t get better. * It’s not always best to ice an injury - sometimes icing can slow

down the healing process.

* Many times tight fascial restrictions can make a muscle feel weak. It’s not actually weak. It’s being squeezed tight, like a straight jacket and needs to be released, not strengthened, to gain it’s full power. So if you’re injured, it’s not always more strength that you need.

* If hip or pelvic alignment is off, stretching out the hamstrings (or other thigh/hip muscles) is a waste of your time. Tightness can be caused by the mal-alignment, so that has to be addressed before you’ll gain flexibility with your stretching routine.

* The permanent elongation and release of the tissue you’re looking for to help increase flexibility can only be attained with a 5 minute or longer hold during your stretch. Myofascial tissue needs several minutes of pressure/stretch to begin the physiological process of release, so shorter holds are a waste of time.

* A more effective way to “stretch” your body is to do self myofascial release using your hands or a tool. Try using a foam roller or ball and leaning into the tender, tight areas for at least 5 minutes to achieve a release, rather than stretching the heck out of yourself.

* Pain can occur from past trauma. If you’ve suffered past trauma, the tissue can hold the energy of that event and create tightness and pain. Authentic healing isn’t just physical - it must address all components of a person; mind, body and spirit, no matter what your age.

“Without awareness, there is no choice.”John F. Barnes

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September 22, 2016

About Laura:

Laura Probert, MPT is a holistic physical therapist, published author, inspirational teacher, poet, and black belt in Tae Kwon Do. She’s serious about integrating mind, body and soul as a journey to passion and power and it’s her mission to show you how. You can find her writing featured in places like The Huffington Post, MindBodyGreen, Best Self Magazine, The Wellness Universe, Wild Sister Magazine, PersonalGrowth.com, Tiny Buddha and The Elephant Journal. Laura graduated from Samuel Merritt College in Oakland, California with her Master’s in Physical Therapy in 1994. She’s been practicing in both inpatient and outpatient environments for over 22 years, with her passion being manual therapy - specifically John F. Barnes Myofascial Release. She’s managed several clinics in Northern Virginia and Maryland and now works out of her home in her private practice, Bodyworks Physical Therapy, in Bethesda, Maryland.

Laura started using the term holistic physical therapy because she realized she was doing things differently than most traditional clinics. With her focus on evaluating and treating the whole individual she’s able to put the pieces of the pain puzzle together much more effectively and quickly than her traditional PT colleagues. Those important pieces include not only the physical body but the mind and spirit as well.

Find Laura’s services, books and programs at www.BraveHealer.com and on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/kickasswarriorgoddess

Email her at bodyworkspt@comcast.net or call her to chat about your issue: (703)915-3653

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