Breath Training Along the Full Movement Spectrum

Part I

Part I: The Structure

We hear a lot about Breathing these days. Using it to regulate your Nervous System is having a moment. Postural Restoration begins with the Intrinsic Core Muscles (breathing muscles). Breathing is also a big topic in Pelvic Floor Health. Do we fully understand how to use it? Moreover, do we fully understand why we would begin with breathing as a mechanism for training strength in the many varying scenarios it is warranted?

Let’s dive in, without getting too complicated!

• Part I: The Structure

• Part II: Breathing for Nervous System Regulation

• Part III: Breathing for Mobility

• Part IV: Breathing for Core Stability + Strength

The Structure: Breathing Muscles / Organs / Skeletal Components

Let’s first understand the entire process/structures of ‘the system’.

Breathing 

• The process of inhaling and exhaling air

• Involves the contraction and relaxation of the diaphragm and rib muscles

• The two phases of breathing are inspiration (inhaling) and expiration (exhaling)

Respiration 

• The chemical process that exchanges oxygen and carbon dioxide in cells

• Releases energy in cells

• Requires oxygen to break down food and produce energy

• Produces carbon dioxide as a waste product

The respiratory system 

• The system of organs that allows the body to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide

• Includes the lungs, trachea, bronchus, bronchiole, diaphragm, intercostal muscles, and ribs

The entire respiratory system uses breathing as a mode to move the oxygen/CO2, while respiration is a metabolic process. These 2 actions are interdependent.

Importance of Breathing Structures:

How well we pull air in + expel CO2 has to do with the quality of your inhale + exhale. This is why, when we begin the program in Phase 1, we are establishing connection with how well we inhale + exhale. It’s important to get a sense of how the intrinsic core is working to get a handle on how you maintain Intra-abdominal Pressure, which is not only important to managing your oxygen + CO2 levels, but how well those structures support the spine (‘the core'“) + for a lot of us, pelvic floor functioning. Having a “strong core” begins with how well you inhale + exhale.

When we pause to consider the structures of Breath, we have to consider their anatomical purpose, their strength + their mobility. Let’s analyze the big ones:

The Muscles:

diaphragm, intercostal muscles (those in between the ribs), multifidus, pelvic floor muscles, transverse abdominus, internal obliques

How strong these muscles are will affect your ability to inhale, exhale + stabilize your spine/pelvis. Further, if there is a weak link in the chain of connections, there will be compensation somewhere. This typically happens as postural dysfunction, pressure mismanagement (resulting in chronic pain, usually in the chest or lumbar spine) or pelvic floor dysfunction.

The Lungs

The primary function of the lungs is to exchange gases between the body and the environment. 

• During inhalation, air enters the lungs, and oxygen from the air passes into the capillaries. 

• Carbon dioxide, a waste product produced by the body, moves from the capillaries into the alveoli and is exhaled. 

• This process is known as gas exchange and is essential for providing the body with oxygen and removing carbon dioxide. 

IF there is not a proper inhale + exhale, aided by the muscles of the system, there might be a host of downstream issues like an imbalance of oxygen + CO2 in the body or imbalanced breathing (too much shallow/costal breathing or too much diaphragmatic/deep breathing).

The Skeletal Components

The ribcage is the main structure here. Though let’s not forget what those ribs are attached to: the spine, the shoulder joint and its best friend in the neighborhood — the pelvis.

Over time, we tend to see immobilization of the ribcage. This can be from a number of habits, but the biggest one is the lack of proper posturing, then breathing. And this is often as a result of muscle atrophy (see above). The bottom line is: when we restore balanced breathing in our respiratory system, we restore our core. Though in order to do this, we must first know:

• how well we inhale + exhale

• how strong our core muscles are

• how mobile our ribcage (and pelvis) are

In Part II, we will start with the first set of movements we initiate with Breath — those of the Nervous System

Breath Training Along the Full Movement Spectrum

Part II

Breathing for Nervous System Regulation

What is the Nervous System?

The nervous system is involved in receiving information about the environment around us (sensation) and generating responses to that information (motor responses/movement). The nervous system can be divided into regions that are responsible for sensation (sensory functions) and for the response (motor functions).

The nervous system has two main parts:

• The central nervous system is made up of the brain and spinal cord.

• The peripheral nervous system is made up of nerves that branch off from the spinal cord and extend to all parts of the body.

Your breathing usually does not require any thought, because it is controlled by the autonomic nervous system (ANS), also called the involuntary nervous system. The parasympathetic and sympathetic systems are two parts of the ANS. The parasympathetic system slows breathing, while the sympathetic system speeds it up. 

How you feel about your perception of the environment (or your motor responses), via your sensory system, will determine how you breathe. For instance, if you perceive threat your breathing might get quicker, along with your heart rate. If you feel relaxed, your breathing might slow down. If you’re steady-state, your breathing will be pretty balanced. This will all happen automatically, since breathing is controlled mostly by an “un”conscious process.

What is Nervous System Regulation?

In order to turn your involuntary motor responses (like breathing) into conscious motor responses (like conscious breathing), you have to be able to observe how you feel or are perceiving the world (your perception based on the information from your environment/sensory inputs). When we interact consciously in this process, we are attempting to observe ourselves and potentially regulate the sensory/response feedback loops. This is, at its very heart, Pillar 1: Connection to Self with proprioception/interoception awareness.

Let’s consider it from a common, very pertinent example:

Jane has trained an unconscious tendency to grab her phone and scroll. When she does this, she visits her regular feedback loops (news, email, social media) where she gets stuck for at least 30 minutes. She hasn’t noticed her body’s response at all, but as she scrolled she got upset by a few headlines, her heart rate and breathing changed, and now she’s feeling anxious/angry. Her perception of the headlines (maybe fear or lack of safety) alerted a sympathetic activation response, which automatically shifted her Nervous System into activation. The body is responding to her perception as a threatened, unsafe stressor. When in fact, she is in the safety of her home, surrounded by all the comforts that should have her feeling safe. She’s altered her physiology by interacting with a perceived threat, not a real one.

Do this enough and you’re living in your own private, self-inflicted hellscape called anxiety. Do it even more and we call it hypertension or depression or panic attacks…

The main point here, is that we must begin to know + pay attention to how we feel and why we feel the ways we do. If we feel:

• balanced, Why? How is the body/mind communicating this?

• Imbalanced, Why? How is the body/mind communicating this?

If there is a need to fulfill, like you need to calm down because you feel stress (whatever those inputs are, they’re different for everyone) or you need to get energized, breath can be a primary tool to not only change your state, but to assess it in the first place. You can use it to regulate yourself or to get in your body to determine what is needed.

Nervous System Regulation simply means to (1) know what state you are in and (2) respond, if needed

Nervous System Regulation (NSR) is NOT just to calm down…

Y’all — our Modern Lives have put us in our heads more than our bodies. This is perhaps my mission with Pillar Strength; to get us into this awareness. The reality we are in separates us from our Self. Distractions abound and we’ve grown away from knowing ourselves and what we need. We continuously downgrade our self-awareness, our self-care, our primary needs and focus that energy outwards. As you know, I believe we must turn our energy inwards to become strong, and with that strength, we can then harness the outside world. No matter what the inputs may be.

That said, one mainstream narrative around NSR is that we all need to calm down. And while I believe that is the case for many, it’s not the case for all. Some of us need to amp UP. It’s not about breathing to be Calm, it’s about breathing to be centered, neutral, balanced. But in order to do this, you must to know what you need in the first place!!!!!!

This is why I always suggest this Pillar 1 Feedback Loop:

We use breathing to begin our movement practice, every session, to establish a baseline over time of what it feels like to be in your body, without the distraction of larger movements. Many of us don’t know what that feels like. And without that regular slowing-down practice, we inhibit our ability to sense our body’s messages (pain, tension, overactive mind, calm, intuition, high/low energy). This disconnect is a significant issue plaguing our population (more on that in the next series!), so it’s very much worth the time to start this (tiny) movement practice.

Using a regular breath practice can allow us to ask, “Now that I can listen to my body, what do I need or what is it saying?” (over and over) until it becomes a habit. If you’re feeling tired, depressed, low-energy, and you know it’s not any of the main culprits—you could use another kind of Breathing Exercise that gets you UP to your center. Conversely, if you are feeling amped up, anxious, nervous, you might need to breathe DOWN to a centered feeling.

Breathing iExercises abound as powerful tools in NSR. But most important, it can be an immediate check-in for all-things Self-Awareness, because if you don’t know what you need, you can’t find the right movement (breathing in this case) to help you restore balance.

In Part III, we will understand how to use Breath to increase Mobility in key musculo-skeletal structures.

Breath Training Along the Full Movement Spectrum

Part III

Breathing for Mobility

Continuing Along the Spectrum of Movement

The Human Body moves. I’ve introduced many of you to a concept I call the Full Spectrum of Movement. This spectrum considers all the movement the Human Body makes. On one end, there are the very small, unnoticeable movements of your cells, neurons, synapses, microbiome of your gut, thinking/feeling/making choices…the other end includes the larger functional movements we know well like squat, hinge, push, pull press, jump, walk, rotate, etc.

We can consider breath somewhere near the beginning of the spectrum. As I stated in the last part, breathing is an involuntary motor response, that can be made conscious, either using it to down-regulate (calm), up-regulate (increase energy) or restore your energy to homeostasis. When we use the Stamina app (Bridget), we are attempting to bring homeostasis, while assessing our energy + breathing muscles.

If we move along the Spectrum of Movement, we can understand breath as a way to access more movement like mobility of our joints/muscles. When we focus our awareness on certain regions of the body, we begin to notice how much access we have to the muscles/skeletal structures in the region. This is where we use Breath to mobilize key areas of our “Stack”: the ribcage + the pelvis.

Breathing for Mobility

A lot of times an immobile pelvis and/or immobile ribcage will result in disordered breathing (and vice-versa!). Mainly this happens as the inability for the thoracic diaphragm and the pelvic diaphragm (muscles) being unable to coordinate. In Phase 2 or 3 of your program, all of us will begin to see breathing exercises used to aide in more thoracolumbar spine + pelvic mobility. These are the areas where we see chronic pain most often. Having a healthy, mobile spine + pelvis are essential for performing any kind of movement the human body does…including breathing. A lack of mobility in any region can help inform better awareness of: shoulder, hip, knee, neck, pelvic floor dysfunction, dysregulated nervous system (!), which then helps inform what needs more attention in regard to training protocols or core support.

Take Note:

Mentally make an ‘x’ on the spots where pain/discomfort lives in your body. Then, make an ‘o’ on the spots where your body feels mobile and strong.

Understanding that breathing happens as a coordination of muscles, bones/cartilage and your lungs themselves, in the round, can help with this next bit of information…

We see breathing dysfunction happen most when these things occur (with prolonged frequency):

Sitting a lot

Posturally you get fixed in a crappy position, which has your pelvis stationary in posterior tilt (assuming you sit without much postural awareness or an ergonomic seat). This prolonged, dysfuctional posturing will wreak havoc on your pelvic floor muscles, your abdominals, your hip joints (since the femur gets ‘stuck’ in a certain spot) and your shoulder joint(s) from forward slouching towards a keyboard/screen. When this accumulation of poor posture happens, it causes a disruption in your ability to breath well.

“Front-facing”

This one affects a lot of us. We tend to be frontal beings. We move forward, we can see the front of our body, so we become oriented that way. Especially with our breathing. We pay little attention to our sides + back when we breathe. So, what ends up happening is our belly pushes out and in + the shoulders lift up + down as we breathe. Another way we ‘posture frontally’ is we rarely rotate/twist our trunk or side bend. “The Core” is a 3-dimensional system — meant to move you in all directions. This is a situation where “if you don’t use it, you lose it” happens. We should mobilize our trunk/pelvis with breath + with a variety of movement.

Pelvic Floor Dysfunction

Fellas, don’t tune out. You have a pelvic floor, you have most of the muscles associated with the pelvis, so this ultimately affects you, too, but no, I realize you will never get pregnant. That said, when the body does grow a baby, the abdominal wall will separate to accommodate the size (diastisis recti). With many women, this never fully heals postpartum + causes a significant issue with core functions like breathing, urinary function, hip or lumbar pain. We also see pelvic floor dysfunction in the obese population because of prolonged stress/weight on the pelvis and with any kind of surgery where the abdominal wall has been entered. Targeted core strengthening, along with mobility training + breathing exercises can be very helpful here.

Mobility with Breath Training

Using targeted breathing alongside small, mobilizing exercises of the top, middle and bottom of the spine are essential modalities to restore your core — which then, will restore the larger movements of your body like: bend, lift, push, pull, rotate, walk.

In Part IV, we will understand how to use Breath beyond the “small movements” to increase Strength Gains in the larger movements of the body.

Breath Training Along the Full Movement Spectrum

Part IV

Breathing for Core Stability + Strength Training

The Great Core Debate

There’s such a rich conversation in the age-old debate between the Strength World and the Rehab/Functional Training World, and that it is, “How do you actually train Core Strength"?” and “Do you need to even do targeted Core Stability when Squat, Hinge, Push, Pull, etc., use the core and strengthen it along the way?” The disagreement stems from a few things, though at first glance, I think it tends to just speak more to preference: Some find “bigger” movement patterns more meaningful, while others find “root cause” to be more meaningful. I’d say the answer lies somewhere in the middle (as usual!) and of course, depends on your goals/baseline level of health.

But…let’s consider this common scenario I see all. the. time. :

Jack needs to lose about 50 pounds. This is doctor’s orders, and he’s feeling some stress since he’s got a pre-diabetes diagnosis, high blood pressure and his lower back has been bugging him from carrying the extra weight. He starts training with the primary goal of weight loss, with secondary hopes to lower his BP and get rid of his low-back pain. He trains for 3 weeks and then his hip starts screaming at him. This derails training for a week and he’s also now nursing a strain indefinitely.

When we go from “not a lot of movement” into “movement-on-the-regular”, strains + pains can happen, But, what those strains/pains often tell us is that your core strength has some missing links. It’s usually smaller muscles/connective tissue, taking on much more than they should for a lack of strength in the larger muscle groups. These are common compensatory strategies and what plagues so many of us. This is where tension starts to build as those smaller muscles are screaming for help, while the larger muscles are just trying to move you (walk, step, bend, lift…the basics of living).

Another common scenario:

Jane is always on-the-go. She considers herself an active person — works, gardens, house-holds, runs kids, organizes a lot in her neighborhood. She has been struggling with some shoulder tension + low back pain. She realizes she needs to add Strength Training to her activity list, so begins a program and realizes her back pain and shoulder tension is limiting her ability to complete/do her workouts. Her consistency suffers and her never-ending list of priorities has her pushing self-care to the bottom of the to-do list. Her pain ends up getting so bad, she goes to the doc, who orders her PT for 6 weeks, and they tell her she needs to develop her Core Strength.

The lesson here? Every, single movement (no matter how tiny on the Movement Spectrum), is dependent on your Core Strength. Your ability to stabilize, produce and absorb force is the #1 determinant for injury — whether that be chronic injury, bad posturing of your body + mind or acute stress on your body or mind. The body is a system of interconnectedness, not compartments. So, whenever I hear someone suggest Core Stability training is auxillary or isn’t really as effective as Strength Training, I tend to think they’re missing some essential learning components on Movement Mechanics/Advanced Anatomy, common Postural/Emotional + Mental Compensations in the modern world and how force is produced, absorbed or stabilized in the body.

Finding the Right Modality

As always, it’s finding the right mix of: where your baseline strengths/weaknesses actually are, core stabilizing techniques and effective exercises that help you (re)pattern strong movements of your body AND mind. This is where someone like me is very helpful. A good trainer will have the right mix of training experience in their own body, experience training others and the kind of knowledge that can design a program to meet your needs.

Breath Training is Core Stability training. Period. In order to have a strong core, you have to build those muscles in isolation, in their kinetic chain, and in the body’s dynamic movement patterns. We’ve already mentioned that Breath helps us train these smaller movements on the spectrum:

• self-awareness

• Nervous System regulation strategies (calm, amp-up, balance, sharpen our focus)

• functional movement in the core/intra-abdominal space

• awareness of + access to mobility in the thoracolumbar spine, pelvis, neck and shoulders

Now we can talk about how we can use breath to develop strength in our global movement, which is what most of us come to someone like me to do! To start, I’ll share with you what modalities I use (have training in) that gives you a really effective program. I’ll go in the order on the Movement Spectrum.

1. Breath/Somatic Training (Essential Somatics, Postural Restoration, Restore Your Core, DNS, Pilates, Kinstretch)

2. Core Stability Training (Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS), Postural Restoration, Restore Your Core, Pilates, Kinstretch)

3. Mobility Training (Functional Range Conditioning, Kinstretch, Postural Restoration, Dynamic Variable Resistance Training DVRT)

4. Strength Training (DVRT, Strength + Conditioning Coaching, Pilates, Corrective Movement)

A good practitioner will have a set of efficient tools and know how to use them for custom jobs. My job is to give you better access to your fullest range of strength. Each one of us uses some combination of the above practices to develop our strength where-needed. So very often, we come with “gross motor” skills but lack the more subtle stabilizers that coordinate movement with the bigger muscles. This is where we have movement break down. If we understand that (1) Breath is the a primary functional movement, (2) a strong set of Instrinsic + Extrinsic muscles = strong breath and (3) breath control = control of our Self and Balanced State, then we know that Breath will bring us back to what needs to be strengthened every time. Whether that be cardiovascular fitness, hypertension, stored trauma, weak muscles, overactive muscles, overactive mind, postural dysfunction…everything. And breath will make YOU the master of your strength, not someone else (trainer, guru, doctor, etc), because it will provide the right feedback, as long as you have a skilled guide knowing where to help you begin, progress and develop your strength over time.

Our next series will focus primarily on Nervous System Regulation. While breathing is often considered to be a primary tool for this, I believe it has more to do with our Feedback Loops and using them in systematic ways. As many of you know, our Pillar App is in its infancy stages (some of you are using it already), but my hope is to give everyone access very soon to a comprehensive Nervous System Regulation program that we can use in-supplement to our primary strength practice and develop the strongest body/mind possible using progressive overload principles.

Until then, much-love to you,

Kate

Bonus Footnote:

Breathing in Bracing

Before I wrap this up, I need to touch on 3 different strategies for using your breath to help stabilize your core, as you’d do in a big lift. Many of us have been trained to do this or have at least heard about them:

• Bracing (breathing)

• Valsalva (breath hold)

• Bearing Down (breath hold)

Bracing — This is when we stiffen the core muscles as if bracing for impact, stabilizing the spine.

Valsalva — This is a bracing technique where you increase Intra Abdominal Pressure via a big inhale, then an exhale against a closed glottis (at the center of your larynx and allows for air flow in breathing). This causes your diaphragm + pelvic floor to move up + your abdomen moves out

Bearing Down — Here is another forced exhale like Valsalva, that causes the pelvic floor to relax and move downward. This is why it’s used in childbirth and sometimes to help you poop.

Bracing + Valsalva are great for lifting, but we should never bear down in resistance training.

But the bigger point is that most people don’t know how to breathe to brace in any of the above techniques. It requires first a solid understanding of your inhales + exhales AND how you manage (or don’t manage) pressure, how strong your core muscles are and whether you’re ready to coordinate that breathing movement with a dynamic action. If there were any protocol for training these, I’d start with the first parts of our spectrum and stay there until you’ve mastered them.

Muscle, Part III

Patience + Prioritizing

Building Strength is a long-haul game. It’s not ever done in the time we’ve been conditioned to think (6-Week Challenge, anyone? <<<eye roll>>>).

Deprogram, Please

There is literally NO (zero, none) complex skill that can be fully mastered in 6 weeks. You can lay some really great foundations (simple skills/concepts) in that amount of time, but those need to be methodically practiced, nonetheless, to be acquired and used to build the next layer. Most of us have a kind of amnesia, brought on by the rapid information loops in our Age of Media, around reality and the passage of time. Everything seems to move much faster than it actually does and it makes us forget that time has a spatial component. IMHO!

We’ve also been conditioned to get things very fast. And when it’s not happening accordingly, there must be a blip in the system. OR we’ve been conditioned by savvy media campaigns/product culture — Lose 30 pounds in 6 weeks with a metabolic jumpstart or The 6 Habits that Everyone Needs to <<insert desired outcome>>. It’s exhausting and, while I’m all-for a jumpstart or a significant motivator, if you don’t have your basics in-tact, chances are you’re heading back to where you began in 6 weeks, once you finish your 6 weeks…I realize that sounds a bit cynical, but I think there’s a better, more sustainable, more fulfilling way to go.

The truth is, there is no product that will get you fast results that last, unless you invest time putting in your own reps. AND, if you’ve spent a lifetime (or at least a good chunk of time) cultivating unhealthy habits, you’ll have to put in a lot of time to even get to a baseline of building the kind of body/lifestyle/level of health you want to have.

That said, if you choose 1 point of entry to initiate significant change to your body, it should be building strength/muscle. I’ve outlined some reasons in Part I of this series, but I want to flesh this out a little more here.

Strength is a Process of Deepening, Remember?

If you do the 3 things I mentioned in Part II (show up consistently, eat a nutrient dense diet + sustain your effort/adequate stimulus), you will start to notice something pivotal: You want more of whatever you’re building. For some of us, it’s the increased energy/strength we’re feeling, for others it’s noticing what happens when you start to nourish yourself, some of us love the feeling/endorphins we get when we move our body. Whatever it is, it starts to change your baseline of how you feel — you feel more connected to yourself, more in-control.

I typically notice this shift in everyone between weeks 12 - 18. It’s like clockwork for those of us that are putting in the time (consistently showing up), eating for nutrient density (nourishment) and can give the right effort to get adequate stimulus in the body. It’s never perfect, but it’s always noticeable. This is the time most of us are unlocking from the old limiting beliefs/behaviors that were once keeping you in pain or in constant exhaustion or feeling defeated or just not feeling as strong. Basically, you’re being consistent with a few key habits.

Let’s pause and consider the timetable. 12-18 weeks is about 3-5 months. This is just getting started…

When we focus our energy on strength/muscle-building, we start to calibrate the physical body to function as it should. The quickest way to target metabolic health is to target building muscle. Once we do this, we start to see a cascade of things fall into place: hormonal shifts start to happen, energy recalibrates, neural REprogramming happens, better movement patterning +/OR just better awareness about our old, unhealthy patterns. If it takes about 3-5 months just to get started, then it would take about a year or two to really see significant health changes. After year 2, you’re becoming a completely different person, should you choose to stick with your focused journey.

Priorities + Patience

No two bodies are the same. Therefore, no two journeys take the same path of growth. I often say that the present moment is an accumulation of your choices up to this point. What you’ve prioritized will often dictate those choices, and then, your chosen outcomes (current state). Life isn’t linear, so what we have to attend to changes from one season to the next, though the big question we all need to ask is, when we’re carefully examining our health: “What are the opportunity costs of my priorities?”

Jobs, families, life responsibilities are important. They create a toggle of prioritizing that can leave us feeling all-over-the-place at times.

This never changes.

Harnessing the responsibility to yourself, should always be the first few tasks in the To-Do List for the day. While for some of us that seems silly, or even selfish/privileged, I would say take a hard look at the data on longevity or conditions plaguing the health of the majority of adults in America. Or better yet, take a look at your own health metrics to decide if you fall into any of these categories:

• chronic inflammation (ie: autoimmune disease, hypertension, diabetes)

• obesity/significant weight gain

• substance abuse (yes, that’s alcohol/marijuana more than 1-2x/month)

• anxiety/depression

• chronic pain (especially in the hip/shoulder/neck)

• sedentary lifestyle (EVEN if you train 3x/week)

• blood sugar dysregulation/energy imbalance (see also: prediabetes, Type 2 Diabetes)

• hormone dysregulation (due to a lot of the above conditions)

The list goes on. But the research is very clear: Lifestyle Factors play a huge role in these conditions. And, choices can be made to not only reduce the symptoms, but to get rid of the conditions all together. The act of Radical Responsibility — taking full responsibility for all of our choices (or lack of important choice-making)— is the point here. How we prioritize our choices is a huge self-awareness task. To take inventory and consider our blindspots is essential to actually growing.

We can’t take careful inventory of anything if we aren’t actually honest. And then we can’t make an efficient set of priorities to target the change we want, when we don’t have enough integrity with ourselves about how we sabotage our healthy rhythms (See Pillar 1, Pillar 2, Pillar 3 to get some good feedback loops established).

Prioritizing efficient habits we need to grow + Patience = sustainable growth . Real change doesn’t happen in a year. Good change happens incrementally though, over at least 9-12 weeks of consistent practice. Layer by layer we deepen our practice to fortify it into mastery. What we decide to practice should come with some careful, honest self-examination, some good old fashioned discipline and a willingness to continue that cycle over and over. The long-haul process + mentality doesn’t come easy, but when we step back to look at things, we’re really just getting back to basics.

One very efficient habit to train is Strength/Muscle. Along the way, you will build consistency, adequate stimulus, energy balance AND the patience it takes to sustain your fullest health. And then, we see the real gains: more peace, more trust and more at-home-ness in our own body. I think that is the pinnacle of strength.

Much Love,

Kate

Muscle, Part II

How to Build/Maintain Muscle

• Consistency

• Adequate Stimulus

• Nutrient Density

If you work out with me, I have designed a program that will “progressively overload” you. This means you will practice squat, hinge, push, pull, rotate + carrying, and with each of those movement patterns, you will progressively increase your capacity to lift heavier or progress to more advanced movements. We train between 8-12 reps, with medium-heavy loads, to stimulate muscle growth (add muscle fibers) AND to train strength (training the Nervous System to better- recruit the muscle fibers you have).

In order to progress, or develop strength + muscle, in your program, we assume you:

1. Work those patterns with enough frequency (show up regularly and perform the movements = consistency)

2. Work within a planned phase that provides adequate, consistent stimulus so progress can be made (effort + readiness = adequate stimulus)

3. Nourish yourself to support your energy output (basically have energy balance, and in food terms = nutrient density)

When we work a program like this, you will develop more muscle/strength. Any kind of problem with building strength/muscle will probably be as a result of 3 things: Lack of Consistent Effort, Lack of Adequate Stimulus or Readiness to Train and/or Lack of Nutrient Density/Energy Balance.

Consistency + Adequate Stimulus

I always say ‘Consistency is the magic’. This is because it is. You can initiate strength around any habit if you train it enough. Good or bad, remember….

The reason why this is one of the harder habits to harness is because we find some things getting in the way:

• Your effort/adequate stimulus just isn’t enough (you’re not showing up consistently to train, you don’t move in other ways with consistency outside the studio, you aren’t consistently ready to train, therefore can’t give consistent, adequate effort or you don’t have consistency around your nutrition/energy balance)

• Some other Consistent Habits are getting in the way of your gains (see above…what bad habits might be getting in the way of begin consistent/putting adequate stimulus in your body each time you train?)

Stimulating muscle growth requires us to lift heavy things/do novel things with effort (adequate stimulus). In order to train, you need to be ready. You can’t give consistent effort without being ready to give that effort each time you train. Readiness is your bodymind’s (remember, that’s a combination of your mental, emotional and physical) ability to perform a task. Your readiness is affected by your energy balance at that given moment.

Common causes of low readiness, which affect consistent, adequate effort:

• poor sleep/feeling tired

• substance use (hangover effect of that)

• no food energy/low energy/dehydrated

• poor mood/lack of motivation

• emotional or mental stress affecting your physical readiness

In order to get the fullest effect of each training session, and therefore progress, you must be ready. This is definitely subjective, and varies per person, though being able to give a solid effort will allow you to progress into lifting heavier/harder loads. This is how strength is built.

Building muscle takes time. The body needs the adequate, consistent stimulus over time to actually start to create an adaptation. To manage your expectations, you’ll need to decide on how quickly you want the change, along with how hard you’re willing to work. If you accounted for everything perfectly — nutrition, adequate stimulus/readiness and consistency — it would take the ‘average’ person about 9-12 months, being active at least 5x per week, to create meaningful change.

Though, ‘average’ is a loose term. Progress gets hard to define if your habits have created an environment of overall weakness, inflammation, chronic pain/stress, emotional or mental loads affecting your self-awareness or if you’re working with some sort of illness that requires medication, etc.. There are SO many factors, which is why using our Pillars can help provide feedback loops that prioritize how we target this stuff in our daily lives.

Nutrient Density

Whew, nutrition is such a big topic. You’ll hear about a million ways you can dial in your nutrition. There are so many messages it’s really hard to keep them straight. Here’s the scoop:

Prioritize protein. It’s the foundation for your muscle gain/sustain AND for your body’s functions.

Muscle will not get built OR it will break down if you don’t consume enough protein. Period. Further, your body needs it for basic strength in its day to day functioning. It will bring you out of brain fog, help you feel ready and it will help the other nutrients do their jobs, too.

Next message:

Fats + Carbohydrates are essential as well. Prioritize them next.

We need them both. But instead of counting them (unless you’re trying to lose weight and are really motivated to drop pounds) try this:

• at every meal or snack, combine your macros but prioritize them in a 3:2:1 ratio amount—protein first, then carb next, then fat last

• at every major meal, when you combine your macros, make every single morsel of food on your plate WHOLE. No processed food here. Everything on your plate should be recognizable and from nature. Fruits + Veggies are carbs AND micronutrients AND fiber! Eat them A LOT.

Your body will change when you consistently prioritize your nutrition. The denser we make the nutritional value of the food we consume, the more your body thrives. Your gut changes + your internal environment does, too. There is no better investment we can make for our strength gains + long-term health. Own your blindspots here — if you have some room to grow, get clear about where you are blocked and take some aligned actions to unblock. Nutrition is typically the weakest link in our habits. I often see this show up as:

• excessive processed treats (desserts being used as punishment/reward, or comfort items. NEWS FLASH: They’re not helping your cause, they’re hurting your comfort, your strength, your health…)

• excessive added sugars into the diet with juice/alcohol/coffee dessert drinks/processed foods (See above news-flash)

• seeing alcohol or marijuana/edibles as ‘needed’ ways to relax or numb-out (ya’ll—don’t make me write a whole book about this. It’s bad for you and it causes short + long-term metabolic sabotage. 1 drink/edible a month? No problem, maybe, depending on your baseline. 1 drink/edible per week? Now we’re affecting every other good habit you’re trying to build. A couple drinks/edibles per week? Forget about it—you’re spinning your wheels 100% of the time.)

• Undereating for our body’s needs. If you don’t get enough Nutrient Density to fuel the body, you can’t possibly fuel muscle gains. This is not about caloric intake, it’s about the nutrient density of your food. Get a handle on this and watch the gains show up across the full spectrum of your health.

The next piece of the puzzle is time. Patience is the biggest part of seeking change. It’s also one of the harder “ways of being” to cultivate. This is why it is part of the focus of Muscle, Part III.

Muscle, Part I

Scratching the surface of How + Why Having a Muscled Body Impacts our Emotional + Mental Health

What Muscle Actually Does for Us

Well, to start, muscle moves us + keeps us going. There are 3 types of muscle:

• skeletal muscle (connected to bones with tendons)

• cardiac (contracts to pump blood)

• smooth (involuntary movements, inside stomach, intestines, bladder and uterus)

Skeletal Muscle is the only organ you have voluntary control over. You can build it, strengthen it or protect it at any age. The earlier you start, the better. The strength we build today, is the investment for tomorrow and your long-term quality of life. It is a critical determinant of survival + longevity. The importance of regular physical activity to prevent and treat chronic and degenerative diseases is widely accepted. This does not only include metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and morbid obesity but most if not all widespread and common diseases of the increasingly aging society worldwide. There is growing evidence that regularly performed exercise is a powerful therapy against the progression of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, psychiatric disorders, and chronic pulmonary diseases (Pedersen and Saltin 2015).

Stimulating muscle growth with strength training creates a cascade of hormones that initiate mental, emotional — and then physical— gains.

Myokines are powerful hormones that get released when we contract skeletal muscle. When they travel through your body, they affect brain function, mood, balance inflammation and even support immunity. Think about how you feel when you begin a workout kinda glum/ho-hum but end up feeling great. That’s a small part of the hormonal cascade at-work. Now consider that can happen in just one workout. What happens when you do that, with consistency, for 6 months, 2 years, 5 years? It becomes exponential growth in all areas of your functioning, but where we see it manifest is in your conscious mindbody: You become a new person over and over again.

Movement gives you energy. Per research, core muscles in-particular, stimulate a powerful neuro-motor feedback loop between brain-body. When we work “the Core” it initiates an adrenaline release, which activates receptors on your vagus nerve (the longest cranial nerve in the body, which connects the gut-brain) which in turn excites brain areas that release norepinephrine. This hormone is typically responsible for alertness during stress-states or danger. When levels are too high, it can cause panic attacks/anxiety, but when we engage in this kind of neural feedback loop with ‘safety’, like strength training, it allows for: increased energy, mental alertness, improved memory and can lower blood pressure. I call this the ‘practice loop’. When we work this feedback loop with consistent training, we create stronger movement patterns in all areas: emotional, mental, physical.

A lot of very smart people call Muscle an endocrine organ…and while it hasn’t always been categorized this way, it most-definitely makes/facilitates optimal hormonal function.

WITH a muscled body (which is the biological design), we can begin to harness our body’s optimal hormonal health. With that, we get:

• Growth and development: regulates growth and development from conception to old age. 

• Metabolism: regulates metabolism and blood sugar levels. 

• Reproduction: regulates the reproductive system (and into our aging reproductive systems. hello, peri thru post menopause…) 

• Energy levels: regulates energy levels. 

• Response to stress: regulates the body's response to stress, injury, and mood. 

When we chase muscle growth, with laser-focus, we eventually create the body we want. We create the emotional + mental set points to stay disciplined + consistent, which gives us the increased positive feedback loops to initiate even more dedication to the process. Again, eventually we are a completely different person or version of ourselves over + over, forever.

When we lack muscle-mass, we create a condition of dis-ease.

We are hard-wired to move in our environment for survival, connection + stimulation. Though, we don’t move around like we used to. Our modern lives rob us of our need to move. Whether that be convenience items like chairs, phones, computers, cars, etc., we don’t have to move. Our communities are spread out and we often can’t walk to get our basic needs, so we have to drive. For a long time, and I’m afraid for many of us still, we’re trying not to move. We value our lives of ease and product culture sells us the convenience living we’ve grown accustomed to. Many aspects of our work lives are sedentary…and on + on.

So then, we find ourselves living within negative neural feedback loops. Isolation, disconnection, fatigue, high stress, unprocessed emotions that sit in our stagnant, disconnected bodies. This is the language (and pathology) of many of our modern Metabolic dis-eases:

• inflammation

• depression/anxiety

• tension/chronic pain

• headaches

• hypertension

• diabetes

• cancer

• Alzheimer’s/early-onset dimentia

The very act of creating muscle/strength is the recipe for creating emotional resilience + mental clarity. This state is one in-which we cause with regular effort. Once the feedback loops and hormonal cascade gets going, with regular frequency, it becomes the body chemistry of resilience + adaptation. We adapt quicker, we adjust to stress better, we literally make better connections within, which allows for better connections in our external world. We are acting in alignment of our biological design when we move. And when we do this, positive outcomes happen for our mental/emotional health.

Muscle, Part II describes the simple (I didn’t say ‘easy’) formula for building strength/muscle.

Pillar 4: Strong Movement Patterns

Seeing how using the Feedback Loops of the Pillars allows for strong movement patterns

For the past few weeks, we’ve taken a closer look at each of the first 3 Pillars:

• Connection to Self

• Strong Energy Balance

• Connection to the Natural World

Pillar Strength exists to build strong bodies, with the use of a PHYSICAL modality to enter the space for growth. Many of us come to ‘weight training’ or ‘physical fitness’ with a need/desire to get stronger, correct a movement dysfunction or lose weight. My niche was, for many clients, to target chronic pain by building strength and to help bridge the gap between formal PT into the general strength space. That takes a certain set of skills, though I found that what it really takes is a certain lens, or understanding, of how people get to a place of pain, postural dysfunction, carrying extra weight or just generally in-need of global strength. This understanding has everything to do with a framework of seeing how certain behaviors + functionings work together to build a condition for strength or weaknesses in the system.

Strength doesn’t get built with a formula. It also doesn’t get to a peak functioning point + you stay there forevermore, once you ‘make it’.

Strength is a deepening process. It happens over time, when you pay attention, create some consistent + efficient habits and continue to align your actions to your chosen outcomes.

Once we step onto a path of growth, we begin to notice a shift within us as we move from ‘awaiting outcomes’ to ‘harnessing better choices’.

When we step into a program or a ‘fitness challenge’ or a ‘routine’ that has been designed by someone else, we have a choice: rely on the system or use it to become better informed. The fact that you pay me to help you stay accountable and to design a specific set of movements I know will help you isn’t The Solution to developing strong movement patterns. It’s absolutely a key Pillar that you will have intact and can use to gather better information about yourself (if you come consistently, that is). It’s also preferred to work with someone who has a good handle on best practices related to Movement and stays informed of them + thinks critically about all of it.

Speaking of that, it dawned on me about a year or two ago that, even if my clients stay the course with my movement programs, they always want more change. It is a beautiful, inherent part of the Strength Process: once we begin developing one area of strength, we find we want more in other areas. As a coach, it’s worth mentioning, that I often have to listen as well as assess movement on the mat, and in that process, I can discern some important distinctions: what part of my client’s body needs more strength?:

• Is it truly physical (genetic or congenital or acute injury factor present) OR…

• Is ‘the physical’ being impacted by another factor like stress or nutrition?

• Is there a real need or is it a perceived need being influenced by subconscious/conscious limiting beliefs (I’m not strong, I’m fat, I’m damaged, I’m not worthy or deserving of healthy change, etc)?

• Is the lack of progress/strength caused by other factors that you (client) either don’t see or don’t want to see? (this is often nutritional, but can certainly present in other habits like complex trauma patterns, stress states or denial about potentially harmful habits)

My conclusion was three-fold:

1. Physical + Mental + Emotional states are not separate, but in fact integral pieces of the full body. I call this the BodyMind (Mindbody was annoying me bc we’re so Mind-centric + it separates our understanding…it’s the Body that actually does the full Human-ing)

2. We can’t train the physical only. It’s sort of like only sharpening a pencil when we need to write a full essay. This is when I came up with the idea of training The Full Spectrum of Movement. In order to do this, we need feedback loops. Those became the Pillars. I refined those so many times based on what I’m always learning about in the fields of Neuroscience, Psychology, Movement, Somatics, Metabolic Function/Nutrition…these pillars exist for us to pay attention to the right feedback and continue to make informed decisions based on what you’ve learned.

3. Any practitioner, no matter what they do or how good they are, cannot possibly know what you need in order to help you get stronger or healthier. Now, don’t get me wrong—I’m not anti-specialists or anti-established, sound science/medical practice. But, I 1000% believe that YOU should be The Master General Practitioner of your own Health Practices. When we are, we can harness the modalities needed to get the help we need — from whatever source you choose.

The first 3 Pillars are the strongest feedback loops for determining Pillar 4. The strength in your movement patterns includes not only the large movements of squat, hinge, push, pull, rotate, gait. The Full Movement spectrum includes the tiny movements of things like your perception, your cognition, your metabolic functioning, your choices, your subconsciousness, your emotions…Whether your tiny movements are strong or need strength, has a lot to do with how Self Aware you are of them, how much you assess your own Energy Balance and how you connect/thrive in the world around you.

When we harness the first 3 and begin to involve ourselves in the process of deepening each one, we see our physical movements improve or become easier. We also begin to harness the importance of having a strong, muscled body and this becomes a non-negotiable for health. We also see that harnessing (not mastering, remember, but endlessly refining) the first 3 Pillars is necessary to create the condition for tissues, whether they be muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, to strengthen. You can’t build muscle or tissue health without them.

Stay tuned for next week, as we end our Pillars Deep-Dive and focus specifically on the art of building muscle + movement ease in our body.

Combining the Wisdom of Pillars 2 + 3

Pillar 3 = You are Nature

Human Beings are biologically attuned to the greater world around us — whether that be our larger community, ecosystems or Nature

Pillar 2 = Energy In + Energy Out

We consider Energy from the logical perspective: Food. And we dig into the rhythms of your Daily Energy Cycles to gather a full picture of your behaviors with Food. 

We also consider energy from the less-obvious, though more consequential perspective, of your emotional + mental setpoints: What is your relationship to stress? How do you handle it? What subconscious hunger is presenting itself in your habits? What choices are you making to harmonize, or sabotage, your Energy Balance? (yes, choices are movements, too) 

Winter, in the larger cycle of Nature, is for energy restoration. We’re not separate from these rhythms, though you might think differently, in observing the manufactured busyness to which many of us ascribe.

It’s not natural. It’s self-inflicted. It’s all a mismanagement of energy.

The New Year often brings with it the hope of change. We’re given the blank page of January to begin anew.

Though, let’s stop for a moment and reconnect to the rhythm of Winter, because it doesn’t end until March…

We live in a time where it is encouraged to remain action-oriented amidst a season meant to be for slowness + reflection. Biologically, in order to maintain progress, there must be a period where enough energy is cultivated and stored so it can be used for cyclical growth later. Our body is attuned to this natural rhythm, yet our socio-cultural programming (in our minds) has us currently scrambling towards Action (hello, resolutions).

Let us not forget that SPRING is the time for action, rejuvenation + anew-ness. This would be the most-appropriate time for making those resolutions; utilizing all of the integrated wisdom we’ve gained from Winter’s reflections and the stored energy from physically slowing down.

We grow in cycles. We shift in seasons. While some of those are natural rhythms (seasonal, lunar, solar for example), many of us are on our own trajectory of growth depending on our age or season in life (marriage, children, perimenopause, retirement, etc).

Further, our Training Program is designed to work in phases and mirror the wisdom of the Natural Cycles. This allows us to build in periods that mimic Winter-like periods of reflection + integration. We must bring self-examination to the front of our awareness at all times, should we care to progress in any facet of growth, at any layer of our experience.

Attuning Awareness to your Energy Level to Affect Your Training Progress

Energy In: What do you put in your body? How is your current state fueled? Do you rest when you need to? How’s your sleep? Do you know what nourishes you? How’s your connection to food? Does stress own you or do you manage the inputs (hello, boundaries).

Energy Out: How do you use your energy? How much do you move daily? Do you *exercise*? Do you actively build relationships? Do you know how to regulate your Nervous System? Do you have excess energy that builds as tension +/ has become chronic pain? 

These questions can begin to help you focus on where you are over-investing and under-investing your energy. When we show up to train we must take inventory of how “ready” we are to perform. Your state of readiness (current energy reserve) will affect your performance and determine how well-stimulated your body is during training (adequate energy out). Conversely, if you worked hard during your session, your body will need adequate recovery (energy BACK IN, whether that be rest or nutrients) to build muscle/strength. It is a CYCLE. And a cycle doesn’t necessarily have a beginning or an end, but a continuous feedback loop of Energy Balance.

We will assume you want to feel mental clarity, steady energy level and readiness to perform your activities during the day. We will also assume you want to feel like you are progressing towards a healthy, strong, capable body that moves with ease. It’s within your best interests for long + short-term health, then, to get straight about where your choices are affecting your energy level.

Strong Choices lead to Strong Energy Balance

The only place to start assessing your energy level is now, the present moment.

Take Inventory of how you feel. Use proprioception + interoception to do this.

Ask:

• How much has my body moved today?

• How do I feel right now, mood-wise.

• How is my energy level? Low, High, Steady?

• How clear is my brain/thinking/cognition?

• What have I eaten?

• How has my heart rate been affected today? (stress, exercise, sleep, substances, etc.)

• Have I had/do I have a headache or other pains?

Depending on the answers to your questions, you might have to dig a little deeper into your choices:

• Have I eaten nutritious food today, so far? Have I ingested any substances today (medication, alcohol/marijuana) or yesterday?

• Have I hydrated sufficiently so far?

• Have I had any conflict today or a conflict hangover from yesterday/lately?

• Have I slept well lately? (please don’t forget that processed foods, alcohol and other substances affect your sleep)

• Have I trained heavy today or yesterday?

• Have I worked particularly hard doing other intellectual/phyiscal/emotional pursuits?

Choices are movements. We can have strong movement patterns of choosing (habits) or we can choose to not pay attention/surrender our choosing to outside stimulus.

Real-Talk Alert: Whether you are stressed out, whether you have poor sleep, whether you have acute/chronic pain is a choice. Often our state is a sum-total of choices from days, months, years of inaction or ignoring the body’s signals. While of course, there are happenings beyond our choice (age-related health conditions, blunt Trauma from outside forces, etc), and of course happenings that we just simply don’t have the power/awareness to affect, most circumstances can be changed from choice. How deeply we want to peel back the layers of our choices to see the affects of them over time, will determine our ability to change.

The Art of Choosing actions that align with our highest self is the real flex for the next training cycle. Radical Honesty with ourselves is the only way to get truly strong. Strength Training is a great way to begin seeing the outcomes of our choices on our Energy Balance. When we start to calibrate that balance is when we start to see and feel the shift towards strength.

To Health + Strength in the next energy cycle,

Kate

The 4 Pillars Deep-Dive

Pillar #2:

Imbalanced Energy =

Imbalanced Choice-Making

2025 is about developing strength in…your choices.

Winter Energy, in the larger cycle of Nature, is for restoration. We’re not separate from these rhythms, though you would think differently, while observing the manufactured busyness to which many of us ascribe. 

It’s not natural. It’s self-inflicted. It’s all a mismanagement of energy.

The New Year often brings with it the hope of change. We’re given the blank page of January to begin anew. Resolutions are now being given a bad-wrap – many see them as trite or quaint – and given the high-expectations we often assign to them, they become a reminder of our own lack of discipline.

<<Insert opportunity to reframe Resolutions>>

I think many of us push too hard in the wrong directions. I think many of us need a reset in prioritizing time, which would dictate the need to re-prioritize choice-making.

Let’s consider Pillar 1, which has us practicing proprioception + interoception to sharpen Self-Awareness. If we put it to the test, we could ask questions that bring our attention to Energy Balance + Self-Connection. Like, “How connected am I to how I move in space + how my body moves within me? Do I even pay attention to my habits of movement? Do I even know how I feel?”

What if we used Winter to bring clarity? What if, instead of deciding to feel low-energy/mood because of the grey days, we value that downtime to develop a practice of clearing space within, + without, to sharpen our awareness of what we need? 

I’d be the first to say that a practice which consistently Integrates the Body + Mind will eliminate the need for constant reframes or times of drastic measures. The more we connect the mind’s focus to the body, the deeper we can connect to what our body is doing + what it needs. Outsourcing someone else to tell you what you need will work in a pinch, but the goal is to do this for yourself. How often do we walk around in decision fatigue or energy depletion or looking to a healthcare professional to help us diagnose problems that start with poor lifestyle choices? 

Honesty with Self and staying in integrity with our choices, has been downgraded as something we really don’t have time for. Or is it our Consumer Culture that has atrophied our Integrity Muscle and replaced it with convenience mechanisms that pacify? Any which way we look at it, our physical, mental + emotional health has never been so weak, yet our addiction game is on fire. Buying stuff, decorating stuff, worrying about others’ needs before you own, consuming industrial food, consuming alcohol, consuming marijuana, needing more, splurging on luxurious vacations, responding to Hustle Culture or deciding “we’re very busy” – it’s all a series of choices. The question is whether the myriad of choices you have to make from one day to the next are actually serving you. 

If you’ve stuck with me for this long, you’re among the narrow-few individuals who “have time” to interact with longform writing. And/or you are interested in some part of what I have to say. Either way, you might be looking for a connection to your Strength Training.

Everything we do can be widdled-down to a series of choice-points. Every circumstance we are in can be understood by looking at how we came to those choices to begin. Take these common concerns from clients I serve:

• Not seeing fat loss? What are your energy needs and how are you accommodating/adjusting them?

• Not seeing muscle growth? What kind of protein consumption are you engaged with and/or what is your Recovery Cycle?

• Still in significant chronic pain? Do you lack integration (body-mind)? What do you do to recover? Do you engage with numbing-out habits (substances, scrolling, over-consumption of anything, really)?

• Tired/exhausted all the time? What choices are causing your energy imbalance?

• Not able to consistently complete your Daily Movement/Strength Sessions? Where are you prioritizing other needs above the Movement needs?

When we bring more awareness to our choices, we begin to see where our Energy is balanced (or imbalanced) by them. This process can be a challenge when we consider the reasons for our choices - often that comes with vulnerability, shame or defensiveness. It’s not easy work to be honest OR admit where there might be some victimhood with those choices. It’s also hard to observe our choices without judging them as good or bad.

4 Pillars Deep Dive

Connection to Self, Part 2

I created Pillar to represent a paradigm shift in the way we approach Strength-Building.

So often, we come to the physical work of training strength with an assumption: My physical body is separate from my mental + emotional states.

I would never make assumptions about what you know or understand to be true about your body. Though I do know, with training, experience and education, that your mental + emotional states work with your physical body and are not separate from it.

You are the sum-total of those components. I’m afraid our cultural / health care programming has us thinking they exist in some sort of separate buckets. I understand why we specialize in treating them separately, though it seems the more we do, the further we get away from The Truth : All Systems work together. When 1 system is struggling, they all work together to seek balance.

It’s worth it to tune into our feedback loops (the 4 Pillars) and refine our capacity for each, with every rep we take, to become to most-informed, evolved + strong version of ourselves.

Interoception: Communication from Within

Interoception is the collection of senses providing information to you about the internal state of your body. This can be both conscious and subconscious. These sensory networks happen at the neural level and are what call “the tiny movements” your body makes.

Let’s think about it like this: Proprioception is the process of perceiving the world around you, transmitting that information to your CNS, then sending that information to the systems that create movement in space. Interoception is that process, but it initiates movements within you.

Is there more to it? Yes.

Is that an oversimplified/somewhat flawed comparison? Yes, but it’ll do just fine.

Though, I’m sparing us a crash-course in neuroscience. Which you all know pains me, because there’s nothing more I love to do than dive further into the science of Movement, Mrs. Frizzle-Style…

The Age of Distraction = The Age of Outsourcing our Health Choices

In my last post, I explained how distracted our world is. The barrage of information, the infinite choices, distractions, busy-ness of Life leaves us with “noisy blocks” in awareness of our own systems. As we pile on the distractions, we become more + more removed from our Intuition and overall ability to discern what is most-essential for us.

When these sensory systems become dulled by “noisy blocks”, we can significantly fracture our health. The sophisticated articulation between Proprioception + Interoception provides a roadmap of sorts, to any kind of communication blip (or breakdown) and can be very powerful in helping you determine root causes.

Take a look at this for help understanding some types of interoceptive signals. Think about whether you have them + potential root causes for them in your body:

When we read our internal signals, we begin to understand ourselves more clearly. Further, when we tune-in often, we can begin to see patterns. I often call patterns “postures”. Over time, we can begin to correlate the internal posturing with an outside postural pattern.

How you posture in this world has everything to do with how you move on the inside. I mean Posturing In all States (Physical, Mental + Emotional).

Here are some examples:

• Actual Spinal Curvatures (what we typically think of as “posture”) and how that affects physical movement

• Mood Styles//Energy Levels (amped up/hyper, fidgety, lethargic, sleepy, angry, sad, depressed, aggressive, passive, balanced, etc)

• Level of Self-Care

• States of tension vs. States of Ease

• Prolonged sickness, pain or stress

How you posture within will always give clues about how you posture in the world.  The more we bring awareness to these states of posturing, the more we can attune to our body’s signals. When we read those signals well, we can rearrange postural patterns. When we ignore (or do not even sense) the signals, we end up in some sort of chronic maladaptation. Those often become larger issues in-which we need outside support to treat (pain, weakness, hypertension, sleep deficit, diabetes, obesity, anxiety, cancer).

I’m certainly not saying we can avoid any + all health problems, especially as we age. What I am saying is the better-attuned we are, the more we can show up to any provider and chronicle very significant information, in order to get the best care/plan. Too often, we show up to providers either woefully under-informed of our own body’s condition or we show up with blind-eyes—relying on the provider to know what to do.

I’d go one step further and say we can greatly reduce our reliance on any provider when we sharpen our senses, tune into our selves and begin to connect the dots of our experiences in the body we inhabit, and make lifestyle adjustments, as necessary.

How is this specifically practiced in our Training?

We can use our 4 Pillars as ongoing feedback loops to inform how we build strength. Instead of “checking out” as we workout, we “tune in”, by design, to get very present with ourselves and specific elements of our current Phases.

Check out these ways we sharpen interoception in our programming:

Barefoot Training = GROUNDING

This is a BIG one. Not only are the feet designed to be high-communicators, the more we use that system, the more our Core Structure begins to strengthen. The more it strengthens, the better we articulate gross + fine motor skill, from the center. This allows for better use of our limbs and ultimately provides a structure that moves with greater ease. The Feet provide GROUNDING. And when we are able to ground, we are able to calibrate the full-body coordination of strength (physical, mental, emotional).

Breathwork to Begin

Paying attention to the movement of our Breath has deep affects on how we perceive everything — including movement — in our environment. We don’t breathe to wind down, we breathe to begin. It is the first movement we engage with every time we train. Stay tuned for a longer deep-dive into just breath mechanics/neuroscience in 2025, but for today’s purposes, it’s worth mentioning that breath as a movement is the way in-which our training considers breathing and becoming aware of how breath moves in our body, each time we train, is a way to focus our attention, sharpen our awareness + unite the body/mind into presence for our session.

Better breathing = stronger core structure, tool for regulating your nervous system, stronger everything

Making “Interoception-specific” Feedback Loops

Our program, by design, seeks to make us conscious of how well we “interocept”. We narrate this with intention. We seek to tune-in and listen to the body’s physical cues. When we do this, we sharpen our senses. This makes us move with better-strength and health.

4 Elements in Phase 1 that are specific feedback loops: The Ground, Your Breath, Your muscle chains, Your Stability and how it articulates

4 Elements in Phase 2 that are specific feedback loops: Your Energy Balance, Your Stack, Your reaction to Intensity via Volume + Tempo, Reaction to increased need for Stamina

Emphasis on Muscle Growth

Muscle is going to have its own deep-dive soon. There are SO MANY benefits to having it. I’ll focus on this: muscle acts as another significant communicator in the body. Without it, here’s what we’re missing:

• Muscle-brain communication

  Skeletal muscles release signaling proteins called myokines into the bloodstream, which affect the brain and other tissues. Myokines play a role in mood, learning, memory, sleep, and appetite regulation. 

• Muscle-nerve communication

  The neuromuscular junction (NMJ) is a specialized connection between the peripheral nervous system and skeletal muscle fibers. The NMJ controls vital processes like breathing and voluntary movement. 

• Muscle-tissue communication

  Skeletal muscles secrete messenger molecules that help them communicate with other tissues. For example, skeletal muscles release prostaglandins in response to injury.  

Strength Training = Self Study Forever

Strength Training = Self Study. When we narrate it well, and track our progress via essential feedback loops (The 4 Pillars), we grow our capacity. That capacity leads to an upleveling in Full-Body Strength that never ends.

Here’s a common upleveling I see (and have experienced myself):

When we access strength in our movement, we feel empowered. When we feel empowered, we seek more input. That increased input stimulates muscle growth. When you have more muscle, you have better movement patterns inside + outside of your body, which reduces chronic pain. When you have more muscle, you typically eat more protein, which leads to mental clarity. Mental clarity creates new awarenesses. With that new awareness, you tune in even more to your body’s needs and begin to heal deep-seated trauma/unhealthy patterns and realize you have new ideas of what you want to accomplish next and so on…forever…

In Strength + Gratitude,

Kate

4 Pillars Deep Dive

Pillar #1: Connection to Self, Part I

The Pillars:

• Connection to Self

• Energy Balance

• Connection the World

• Building Strong Movements

These pillars were developed with careful consideration of the most essential traits that make strong, resilient people. By design, we can always grow/shift in any of these components of strength — and once we step onto this path, the growth trajectory is limitless.

For most of us, we come to this work with a Health need…whether it’s to build strength in our movements, target chronic pain/stress, rehabilitate an area or lose body fat. After working in the Strength Space for over 25 years, it’s become abundantly clear, to me anyway, that in order to build it, you have to create the right type of environment within to support the work we do in the studio.

Winter is a great time to pause and integrate these training principles a bit deeper, and bring renewed focus to our practice in 2025.

These first 2 weeks will be bring focus to Pillar 1: Connection to Self.

The Jedi version is the simplest way I can articulate Pillar 1: Yoda tells Luke to use The Force.

What is The Force?

The Force is your Attention. How much you care to give attention + focus to yourself will correlate with how self-aware you can become. Your Self-Awareness is limitless. So then, the more you increase your self-awareness, the more you attune to your body/mind’s capacity.

(PS—I’d go so far as to argue that each one of us, should we develop our awareness enough, could, in fact, move the X-Wing out of the Degobah swamp with our mind like Luke did in Empire Strikes Back, but that is for another time!)

Unfortunately, our world is filled with distractions. They, too, are limitless and we’ve grown accustomed to trading our self-awareness for the awareness of what’s happening all around us. The Phone, perhaps, is the biggest Distractor in our current time, and with it, many of us have surrendered our Attention. And I’d say Attention is actually the currency of Health + Strength Capacity…

Proprioception + Interoception

There are 2 key ways you can invest your attention via Strength Training:

Proprioception and interoception are two sensory systems that help us understand our bodies and the world around us.

This week, we’ll focus on the former.

The word "proprioception" comes from the Latin words proprius, meaning "one's own," and capio or capere, meaning "to take" or "to grasp". Proprioception is the sense of body position and movement. It's the result of sensory information from receptors in the muscles, tendons, and joints, which the brain uses to determine the position of the body and limbs. Proprioception happens at the neural level and can sometimes be a heady topic to describe. But, all of us can understand this graphic I’ve used to explain it to children in the past:

This happens differently from one person to the next and has everything to do with your Nervous System and how you perceive via your senses. The more attention we bring to how our body moves in-space and senses effort, force or heaviness, the better chance we have to make the right neural connections to develop strong movement patterns.

In optimal situations, we use proprioception to get really present. Our mind + body are focused together to create solid movement articulations. Our ego isn’t interfering, our mind isn’t trailing off and our energy isn’t distracted or in a deficit (tired, hungry, under the influence for instance). This makes training a fantastic way to sharpen our senses + get really attuned to our body/mind.

We see proprioception interrupted (or can deteriorate) in various situations. To name a few common ones:

• age (wear + tear, over time, on tissues and neural networks)

• injury (acute trauma to an area or system)

• non-use (this can be applied to cognitive functioning or specific regions of the body)

• Nervous System Dysregulation (chronic stress of an affected area or neural network)

• Chronic Inflammation (heavy gut inflammation, auto-immune or metabolic disease)

In a lot of ways, proprioception is the body’s unique method of communicating movement in the environment around us, while interoception is the communication method of the movement within us. The two work in-tandem, but we often focus on proprioception, since much of the work we do with our attention is outside of ourselves. While this makes perfect sense, as we live and work in The World, I’d argue it isn’t advisable to spend our attention outside of ourselves to the degree with which we do. Especially since our distractibility has been amplified with the current technologies and habits of our culture/society.

Further, many of our common afflictions’ symptoms (mentioned above and including aging), can be reduced with consistent proprioceptive training, alongside interoception. When we begin to think of these 2 sensory functions as communication systems, we deepen our Connection to Self and better-train a resilient, strong body/mind. Focusing our attention to the ways in which our body/mind works in the environment and under our skin is one of the bigger health hacks I currently know.

How is this specifically practiced in our Training?

All movement programs consider proprioception. They have to, since proprioception is automatically (non-consciously) used in any movement pattern. Our program, by design, seeks to make us conscious of how well we “propriocept”. It’s very intentional in all aspects, but let’s frame a few big ones.

Barefoot Training

The sole of the foot has a high density of mechanoreceptors. They are responsible for managing contact with the ground to communicate vital sensory information to the CNS about: standing, balance, force absorption + production. When we cover them + bind them with footwear we dull the communication network.

Breathwork to Begin

Paying attention to the movement of our Breath has deep affects on how we perceive everything — including movement — in our environment. We don’t breathe to wind down, we breathe to begin. It is the first movement we engage with every time we train. Stay tuned for a longer deep-dive into just breath mechanics/neuroscience in 2025, but for today’s purposes, it’s worth mentioning that breath as a movement is the way in-which our training considers breathing and becoming aware of how breath moves in our body, each time we train, is a way to focus our attention, sharpen our awareness + unite the body/mind into presence for our session.

Cues, Cues, Cues

I am simply a guide in your Strength Journey. I might see things about your body/mind that you don’t see, since my awareness is calibrated differently via training, education + experience. Though, you are the master of your body/mind and it’s my job to attune you to your highest, strongest Self, via the goals you’re hoping to accomplish together.

So, I’ve developed cues to get you connected to yourself in the most essential ways. This is guided by propriocetion/interoception pathways. The words of: “ground” or “foot focus” are related to the barefoot knowledge I shared above. Other cues like “manage your stack” or “foot to core” or “side-body/lats” are trained to get you closer to observing your core’s movement in space.

Environment

When we stop to consider the materials in our training space, you will notice a lot of texture. There are visual elements that sharpen our focus —metal, wood, black + silver. Our tactile elements stimulate different mechanoreceptors (for proprioception). We have two mats (one smooth and one rough), our step options have various cushion surfaces and the Pilates box, specifically, has a bumpy surface and is slightly sticky on the skin. Our free weights’ handles (and barbell) are made with a variety of thicknesses + knurl (raised bumps) on their surface. These stimulate hand/arm kinetic chains. Our banded movements (along with the Reformer straps) allow for a variety of proprioceptive connections. The Reformer itself challenges our perception of where our body is in space, with its moving “floor” and depending on which plane of motion we’re in.

Self-Study is The Work

Sometimes I wish I was Yoda, though I’d say we all have the capacity to be that fully-aware, Jedi Master of our own universe. No matter the tradition, all the wise leaders tell us to become present to our reality… and that deepening our purpose is the meaning of this life.

While I don’t think Strength Training is the Way of the Jedi Master necessarily, I do think finding a practice that consistently unites our body/mind in a world poised to steal your attention, is a worthy pursuit.

And I firmly believe that Strength Training with the essential foci (our PIllars in this case), can be the kind of discipline that elevates our lives into Growth Spaces we never knew existed. The only prerequisite is the passion for Self-Study. This kind of learning never ends. How exciting is that — to get to LIVE + LEARN, forever, about our body’s special design?

Stay tuned for next time, when we get to unite our awareness of Proprioception with Interoception. I’ll share some exciting information and exceptional tools to use outside of our formal training space.

In Strength + Gratitude,

Kate