Brian: 0:00

So you're thinking about running, but not sure how to take the first step. My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here to help. Welcome to Brian's Rompod. Welcome back to Brian's Rompod and I'm your host, brian Patterson, and today we're diving into the second part of our enlightening conversation with the incredible Janice Isarman. In our last episode, we touched on her journey from injury to becoming a bodily body movement specialist. So what if your understanding of your body's mechanics and incorporating practices like yoga and Pilates could revolutionise your fitness routine? Janice will share the benefits of using Pilates machines to mirror the everyday movements, helping us identify imbalances and emphasising the significant role of core strength, flexibility and balance muscle engagement. We explore therapeutic exercises, such as yin yoga and body rolling, that not only alleviate pain but also enhance overall performance, guiding you towards a more effective and pain-free fitness journey.

Brian: 1:21

This episode is packed with insights on preventing running injuries and promoting body sustainability. We discuss how techniques like yoga and self-massage with balls can enhance joint health and prevent injuries, especially for us runners. With a special focus on the body's lower half feet, ankles, knees and hips. Janice explains the importance of early intervention to avoid long-term issues. Plus, we dive into the emotional aspects of running and the necessity of having multiple outlets for emotional processing. It was a fantastic episode and maybe in the future we'll get Janice on a future episode of Brian's RomPod. But all I can say it was great talking to her all the way from Calgary in Canada and I hope you really enjoy this episode as much as I did. I mean just on, that is, let's say, supposing I come to you or someone comes to you who's used to working at a high intensity, always been running that kind of thing and then you're going into, let's say, either yoga or pilates, which are kind of you know they're taking the temperature down they are, and you know and, and, and.

Brian: 2:41

Are you having to, or you have you had to, you know, convince people that, although you know we're not getting a heart rate up to 160 billion beats per minute, you know you're trying to, you're taking it down but it's doing as much benefit for you. You know how do you kind of like approach?

Janis: 3:02

Ooh, I love this question. So the way that I actually work. When people come into me to see me, we never start with something that is going to look or feel like a workout. So I always talk to people on the phone before they start with me because I need them to know that. So the first two sessions, probably even longer, especially for somebody who's really fit, who's really athletic, who's used to that feeling of pushing or burning, it's going to be. It's going to be a dramatic difference.

Janis: 3:33

But what I will do is I will have somebody on the Pilates machine and we start with I don't know, I think there's five or six exercises. They lay down and start, and then I have them start telling me what they feel. I have them start telling me what they feel. I have them start telling me where they feel it. And then I give them verbally what I'm noticing about their body. Oh, I noticed that your left leg works a little bit more. Do you agree? And they say yes, and then they start to realize that.

Janis: 4:02

So the Pilates I love a Pilates machine because it mirrors a lot of the ways that we move through the world, but it's not something that most people have ever done. So. If I put you on your back on a Pilates machine doing what is a squat, you probably wouldn't recognize it as a squat. Or there's another movement where you take your leg and you extend it backwards. That mirrors what your running gait would look like.

Janis: 4:27

So as soon as we kind of start talking about oh, I see that your right side works a little bit more than your left side, oh, I see that your leg doesn't actually move behind your body and your glutes not engaging, then all of a sudden it's actually really easy for people to make that jump to oh yeah, I'm struggling with this, or my back hurts when I do that, or whatever it is.

Janis: 4:47

They'll start revealing the things that they actually know are problematic. They'll start sharing what they're feeling and sharing all of this and then all of a sudden, that idea of it has to be high intensity, it has to be two hours long, we have to do this. We have to do that all of the window, because suddenly they're very, very, very invested in mechanics how they're transferring load, core strength, flexibility, balance from side to side and a lot of those things are not things that most people have ever really been taught. They've never thought about them. They're just trying to get through to the next thing and check the. I mean I can't speak for everybody who's listening, but I certainly did.

Brian: 5:29

I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, I was the same, yeah, but do they, I mean like say, do they, you know, suddenly realize? You know, the next day they wake up and I thought well, you know I, I can yeah yeah, good question.

Janis: 5:45

So what we do after kind of that process that I just just shared was then I will assign what I put in the box of a therapeutic, so that's going to be a yin yoga, a body rolling, a critical alignment therapy, something like that.

Janis: 5:59

Where it's it's more in the category of a body work exercise, and then we go back and do that Pilates exercise again and and I don't need to convince anybody of anything after that because suddenly pain is gone, the joints are more open, the whatever problem we kind of identified is gone and they realized there was kind of all of this tightness and all of this dysfunction in the body that can, within a five minute period, we can move forward from that and suddenly running is easier, it it's less painful and speaking just about runners and a huge part of that, again, that is that trauma piece where we're linking what do you feel? Where do you feel it? What do you feel where do you feel it? Over and over and over again, because that way the person I don't have to ever tell people to kind of repeat it at home, they want to, but B they're leaving with that knowledge that they can do on their own.

Janis: 7:00

So you know it doesn't happen in an hour, but if you work with me for two months, I guarantee that you you can do this yourself it is not, it's practice and it's reinforcement and it's developing a language and noticing things.

Janis: 7:17

But then you can kind of tailor your own running program and you can, you know, when things don't feel right, because we've worked through that because you kind of answered my my question, kind of my answer.

Brian: 7:25

My next question and maybe you know when things don't feel right because we've worked through that, because you kind of answered my next question and maybe it's something I have a question about Pilates in general is that you know if someone comes to you and then you, you know you're doing a certain exercise, it's am I feeling the right thing, sort of thing, or not knowing if I'm feeling the right thing. But you're kind of just reinforcing that to make sure. But you're also looking and you can see with your experience, you know you can say that you know one side stronger than the other or whatever. You know that's right.

Janis: 7:59

I know, even when I was, you know, I I think I was doing this work already. Yes, I was. I remember and I I actually do recommend this for runners is, do an exercise where, for one block, you really tune into. Are you using your legs equally from side to side? I don't, so I would. So I would notice my right leg will dominate and my right glute will help push me forward. I have a lazy left side of my bum. I just do, yeah.

Janis: 8:33

So then I would try to, for a block, even those out and then it would get kind of mentally and physically exhausting and then I would let it go and then I would repeat that and it really helped kind of balance my gate out. So the benefit in having someone like myself is we can really talk through that. But I definitely absolutely think that there are things that you can do without me that are there, because the things that I'm teaching I want to keep them that simple for people it's like okay, which side of your body are you using more? Is it at your foot, is it at your knee, is it at your hip, and can you consciously adapt and change it? Now where you do need to see someone like myself is, if you know that something's wrong, right, and you can identify where it is, but you can't change it, then you need kind of some interventions in terms of For instance, give an example.

Brian: 9:30

What could that be?

Janis: 9:32

So I'll give you actually that very same example. So I knew that my left glute wasn't powering me forward. So anybody who runs can appreciate that when only one glute is pressing you forward, your gait is off. So I have a lot of clients who can actually identify that Maybe they have sciatica or they have shin splints, but then they don't. It's not really a brain issue. So it's not a simple saying okay, left glute, let's do this. So they'd probably need a yoga program or they need a Yamina body rolling program. Those things are accessible and actually if there was one kind of blanket easy thing it depends on where people are listening from but I would invest in a set of Yamina balls and I would go find a Yamina body rolling instructor. It's going to keep your shins, your hips, your knees, everything kind of pain-free and able to go. But if you don't know where one is or who that is or what that is, yeah, um, can you just briefly explain, what it is so?

Janis: 10:34

yeah, so it's a technique that it's actually based in New York city? Um, it is. It is like it goes back a long ways that this is the root, but it's been around for 40 something years.

Brian: 10:46

And the.

Janis: 10:47

The inventor's name is. Her name is Yamina. She's rooted in yoga. So if you think about the benefits of yoga, where you get that extension of your joint and you decompress and lengthen your joint and you open up the space, that's the idea. But it uses balls. So it's a technique that you can do yourself, where you take the ball from where the muscle inserts to where the muscle originates or the other way around. You go origin to insertion, but basically it's very anatomically based.

Janis: 11:24

I give that to all my runners for their hips and their glutes. But to link it back to your question, we can't correct everything out of our brain. The reason that I added some of these other techniques to my teachings is because it might take two, three, four months with Pilates to correct it. I can get somebody down on a ball doing this and in five minutes it's changed because we've opened up the space in their joint. So sometimes, sometimes, we can't really get our brain to say, okay, let's just move through the glute, because if your joint is stuck, you need help releasing that. So that could be a massage therapist, that could be a different kind of body worker, it could be a rolfer, but you might need help with something like that. But I think, especially as we age and especially as we put mileage on, we as runners really need to to invest time, effort and knowledge into that body sustainability piece, otherwise we get injured.

Brian: 12:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean before we finish. I think we've got about 10 minutes or so, but I mean, I know it's very difficult because you know you're basing it on the individual, but are there any sort of generic tips? You know, you know, take into account, you know that, the type of experience and knowledge that you have that you can give to the audience and say you know, you know it's not just about the running and you know, here there are certain principles you know, to help be injury free or you know that kind of thing.

Janis: 13:06

Yeah, I mean the generic part is number one. All runners really need to be conscious of what's happening, basically from our waist down and that's going to sound obvious, but we really need to check in with our knees, ankles, feet, shins, hips, and that covers a huge swath of your body. I'm aware of that, but a heel strike is a minimum of about 300 pounds and there's not really even shoes that can help us avoid that. So that's tremendous force going up and down your leg and it leaves a lot of room, especially the more mileage we put on. It leaves room for slight shifts in those biomechanics to lead to injury. So I think honestly, on a daily basis, we need to really get into a check-in with how do my feet feel, how do my ankles feel, how do my knees feel, how do my hips feel, because at the very first sign of this doesn't feel good. That's when we need that intervention, if we're not already doing it. So I'm a big fan of preventative intervention.

Janis: 14:20

But let's say you ignore all of that. Yeah, I'm a big fan of preventative intervention, but let's say, you ignore all of that. Yeah, you still need to do those check-ins, whether you're doing preventative or not, because, as I mentioned already, I get people in who you know. It's two years later and then we've got some really entrenched patterns, and it's because what most of us will do most of us are can remember being younger than we were now where things spontaneously went away.

Janis: 14:45

they just fix themselves yes and that isn't necessarily your station in life at the moment.

Janis: 14:53

But most people will just be like, okay, let's just wait for it to pass yes, yeah, yeah, yeah so right, and most of us are, and it's partly because we don't really know what we should be doing anyways. Like if we, if we knew that, okay, if I just do some yoga today or I just go get a massage today, it would, it would help, we probably would do that. But I just I really feel like that's probably my best tip is do an honest check-in of those body parts, because a small problem is actually relatively easy to fix and once it's entrenched it's a big problem and it takes even more of the time and the patience that you spoke of earlier to actually unwind all of that. I think as well.

Janis: 15:38

You know, runners tend to be really high intensity people. We tend to be those type A people that want that accomplishment, we want to check the box, we want, we want to achieve. Those are all great things, but we really have to watch that component of ourselves as well. And when I say that adding in those body sustainability pieces is broad advice for everybody, I don't think that there's a single runner who shouldn't also have some sort of practice, be it yoga, pilates, regular massages, whatever it is I made.

Janis: 16:18

But I think, wrapping our head around that achievement being as important as the running or the miles, or the races, or the times or the whatever it else it is that we're tracking. Start to track how much care you're giving your body, because, especially as we age and especially as we put mileage on, that will keep everything kind of balanced. And then I also would say that emotional piece is a big one because, again, many of us are. I mean, I started running to process my emotions and to avoid my emotions and time to think and time to listen to music and all of that.

Brian: 17:02

That stuff is all good, but we also need dolphins and the dolphins yeah exactly.

Janis: 17:08

All of it's great. I mean yay for all of that. But we also have to watch that that's not our only kind of emotional processing piece, that that's not the only way that we can. We can anchor ourselves in that, because if we lose it due to an injury, that's not good. But also, I have encountered many people and I was one of these people that that was.

Janis: 17:29

That was the only way I had to get rid of anger, aggression, sadness yeah, all of them and I think my body would have been better off to do 25% less and to have another kind of emotional processing capacity in my life yeah, doing what?

Brian: 17:48

something like pilates or yoga or something like that.

Janis: 17:50

Absolutely yes, and I and I recognize how hard it would have been to convince me to do it before that injury. So I realized that when I say that you know, many runners are going to be like, no, that's not, that's not happening. But if, if all I've done is just plant a seed to consider that, then then I consider that a positive thing. So you know, if it could be a creative outlet, it could be another form of athleticism. I actually I really like cycling as cross training. That can give kind of that same component.

Janis: 18:24

And I think the two biggest areas of injuries I see in runners are shin splints and glute problems, and the glute problems can manifest as knee problems. So just make sure that you're really tending to those areas in particular, because they can. They can kind of feel like they sneak up on you and that's where, again, if you're going to, if you're going to take part of this advice and be like, okay, I'll do five minutes, do a glute stretch there's. You can Google what a figure four stretches, that's a good one. Shins are a little bit harder to stretch, but you can look something up on the internet and just what I see a lot of is runners doing 22 seconds. So I would say my own experience with that was I decided to do seven minutes and I actually had a yoga teacher trainer who laughed at me. He's like what's the point in that? But it changed things for me.

Janis: 19:28

So I think 30 seconds before and after a run is not adequate for most of us right so decide, decide if it's seven minutes, 14 minutes, 22 minutes, and then kind of put that on your training plan as much as you put in your long runs I don't mind me asking.

Brian: 19:48

I'm just getting over a sort of what they call policeman's heel planter, whatever.

Janis: 19:53

Okay, yeah, the planter pressure.

Brian: 19:55

Yeah, what advice? I mean sort of like part from rolling on a golf ball or you know, and the ice, and the ice. I mean, is there anything you'd recommend for that?

Janis: 20:09

So again, I would actually dip into my Yamina body rolling toolkit. There is actually a foot device that's specifically for that. I've used that with great success for the last 17 years with clients. It takes away most, if not all of it. The other piece with plantar fasciitis actually I will say this about all injury the other piece with plantar fasciitis actually I will say this about all injury. The tricky thing with our body is that most of the time when we have injury, that's not the beginning, middle and end of the problem. So a plantar fasciitis also is a problem of the foot, but it also is a problem of higher up the body, so all the way up to the hip.

Janis: 20:51

So for you roll out your foot, yes, but also there probably should be a bit of an investigation of what's going on with your hips, your hip strength, your shins, your calves, your hamstrings, all of that. So, and when I say hips, you have 22 muscles across your hips, so that's a pretty, that's a pretty wide spot of your body to kind of start investigating. But I would say generally, this is this is a gross oversimplification, but anything that's happening from your waist down if you have an injury, a there's a high chance that whatever's happening if you feel an injury on one side, high chance that your other side is just as bad, if not worse. That always surprises people. So if we feel that on the left side, once I start digging in to the right side on people, they're always shocked that it's usually just as bad, if not worse.

Janis: 21:47

The second thing is there's nothing ever in isolation. So whatever is happening if you're from the waist down, probably the whole chunk of your legs needs to be kind of worked over again with your yoga, your Pilates, your massage, whatever it is that you've decided to do. Runners don't tend to get a ton of injuries from the waist up, but your back is usually your abs, quite often the. The root cause, if you will in quotations, is not where you think it is. So your plantar fasciitis could be your glute. It could be a problem of your foot.

Brian: 22:26

It probably relates to your I mean I have quite a sedentary and I sit down a lot and obviously but that's quite a lot of people. So you know, you know if you're doing a job where you're not walking about or that kind of thing, then you know, there is it is a bit of a time bomb.

Janis: 22:43

So yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up, because there is a lot of information and there's continuous information that if we are sedentary so there's information that I have seen that shows that the average person sits 16 hours a day Then we get up and we do this really intense activity. There's a gap there for your body, so sitting is going to tighten up your hip flexors at the front of the body, it's going to tighten up your quads, it's going to make your glutes really tight, and then we go out and do it a high intensity, repetitive activity where we are putting a lot of load through that system. That fundamentally, is tight.

Janis: 23:25

So I often have people that really kind of argue with having to do, you know, stretches or yin yoga or whatever it is. But that's why we're actually so susceptible to injury, because we're we're. The human body was never, ever, ever, ever made to sit for 16 hours, ever, um. So just think about all of the pieces of your body that are under compression some of them are under loaded compression from chairs and then we, for one hour a day or two hours a day, we get up and we do one of the most intense biomechanic activities that we have so there's there's trauma there.

Brian: 24:02

Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah for sure.

Janis: 24:05

Yeah, so you know one of the things. I know that this advice is crazy and I had a desk job, but if you can even get up once an hour and just sit and stand, or there was there was a little bit of a mockery of this idea, but doing a heel, I think they call it a, they called it a calf pushup, but basically where you lift the heel, it actually it actually helps. So there's tiny things even at a desk job that you can do Stand up, go get a drink of water. The more often you're able to actually break the cycle of sitting, the better off you are. But there's increasing research that shows that that activity doesn't offset sitting, and so I am fully aware that part of desk jobs is focus and all of that stuff and it's hard to break that focus. But it's going to be easier again to kind of do a few preventative pieces than it is to deal with physiotherapists and doctors and yeah and and even the mental health aspects of not being able to run.

Janis: 25:11

So I don't have like specific answers of how to do that exactly, because that's a really individual piece. But you know all that advice of just park a little bit further away and walk to your coworkers office and set an alarm and stand up once an hour.

Brian: 25:28

Figure out one or two of those that actually is a bit effective for you and do them, because sitting is the worst enemy of runners by far yeah, um, I think you've been brilliant today and I know we've been really good for time and I could have talked for you for hours and I'm sure maybe we could do this again. Because, um, because, I apologize I would love to yeah, so it was um, thank you very much.

Brian: 25:55

I mean, if you have you got any links, social media that you can sort of promote at this time?

Janis: 26:00

I do so. I, I, my office and my studio is in canada and I know that most of your audience is not, but my website is my body couture, which is three words my M-Y body, b-o-d-y, couture, c-o-u-t-u-r-e, so I do work both digitally as well as, if you do have listeners, in Canada come to my office in.

Janis: 26:21

Calgary, but I also really love connecting with people digitally, so anywhere that I'm active on social media. I'm not the best about like putting up posts, but I am the best about engaging with people If they want to send me a DM and get a conversation started. Ask me a question, tell me your running problem, tell me your injury.

Brian: 26:42

I mean I'll put links in the show notes and stuff.

Janis: 26:45

So yeah, yeah, so you're welcome to reach out to me and a conversation and I really like connecting with people and hearing from them and hearing what's on their minds and what their problems are. All of that because they love being able to help with solutions, especially because a lot of things that that in the running world I've been there, I've done it, um, you know, two decades of of my living in that experience. My own body is as a runner slash going on retirement from running, slash struggling in all the ways. I've done it all. So that's always near and dear to my heart is kind of helping runners keep their shoes on their feet and not on the couch.

Brian: 27:30

Yeah, great, great, great. Anyway, I'll drink to you because, um, thank you, my, my daughter's come home from university, but no, this is great. So again, thanks very much. Maybe we can, we can do this again. I apologize for the, yeah, technical issues at the beginning, but anyway, I think, yeah, so we'll work out, I'll let you, I'll, I'll let you know when it will be coming up and if you in a few weeks, be great perfect, all right, awesome, well, thank you.

Janis: 27:58

Yeah, if you want to have like a follow-up episode, I would love to, because I this really like. I love, I love runners and I love, I love the fact that you have a podcast and I yes, and I think I hope you enjoyed it so great yeah, I did, I did. Thank you so much, cheers.