Clarence Bass expounds the power law....

That may not be the way in which he would present it, but I have just read a really interesting piece by the great Clarence Bass, which I think illustrates on of Art Devany's principles about physical training: the power law.



Art Devany explains it thus: The power law shown here (frequency is on the y axis and intensity on the x axis....so you have a high frequency of low intensity stuff, while you have a low frequency of high intensity stuff) is the signature of nature's strategy of organization and one humans followed for millenia. It is one I follow today. Note the frequency versus intensity scaling and the lack of a central tendancy. The mean is not a good indicator of the typical activity, in fact the mode is over at the far left where languid ease is the rule. The variance is infinite, which is the same thing as saying it does not exist. Constant variation but within a pattern of constrained novelty is the human condition until very recently.

Mix brief, intermittent episodes of highly intense physical action with languid periods and play.

Art Explains more in the essay

Clarence is commenting on the apparent contradiction between the high intensity crowd - e.g. Doug McGuff - and those that favour long easy aerobics, like Phil Maffetone. (both athletes and writers that I really respect and incidentally, both trainers who favour a low carb diet).

It is really worth reading Clarence's article - McGuff’s Brief Muscular Effort and Maffetone’s Slow Aerobics, Never the Twain Shall Meet? - you can combine the two he concludes.

"If you took McGuff’s ideas and combine them with Maffetone’s ideas, you would perform one extremely hard anaerobic workout every seven to ten days, and the rest of the time would be very low intensity aerobic workouts,” Dr. Johnston suggested in an email message. Far fetched as it sounded at the time, I believe he’s on to something. Maffetone is off base on high-intensity training, and McGuff is out of the strike zone on aerobic exercise. The combination of the two, however, may very well be a home run.

One commonality that comes to mind is that McGuff and Maffetone are both risk averse. Both claim that their system prevents injury. Low intensity aerobic exercise and slow lifting are both about preventing wear and tear on muscles and joints. That’s one for a combined system.

My earlier suggestion (two months back) that McGuff’s Big-5 workout might work well with a walking program now makes even more sense. Consider doing the Big-5 workout on day 1, walk on days 3, 4, and 5, rest on days 2 and 6, and then repeat. That would be an upgrade on either system alone. Recovery from the 12-minutes of strength training would be enhanced by walking, and walking during the week would build aerobic fitness and lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and early mortality. Sounds like a win-win to me.

It is the power law again.....lots of low intensity easy stuff, coupled with a few brief, infrequent really hard sessions. It is natural.....

It is also Mark Sisson's approach summed up in 3 of his primal laws:

• Primal Blueprint Law #3: Move Frequently at a Slow Pace
• Primal Blueprint Law #4: Lift Heavy Things
• Primal Blueprint Law #5: Sprint Once in a While

CR Interviews

I thought I would just put up a post which listed some of the interviews I've done so far this year. I am amazed to have been able to get in touch with these guys and to have been able to learn directly from them.

Some of these guys seem quite different and come from different perspectives. However, interestingly, they have each been really helpful, open and willing to share their experience. I think they also share a common fascination for and love of movement and physical training, of the benefits of training the body and the mind.

Evolutionary / Paleo Interviews

Frank Forencich - Founder of Exuberant Animal

Erwan Le Corre - the athlete behind MovNat

Tamir Katz - a medical doctor who writes on hunter gatherer diet and exercise

Intermittent Fasting

Brad Pilon - the Author of Eat Stop Eat, an accessible but scientific book in intermittent fasting

General Fitness Training

Rannoch Donald - a top kettlebell trainer and conditioning expert from here in Edinburgh

High Intensity Training

Doug McGuff

and

John Little authors of the great Body by Science

Luke Carlson - with whom I discussed the various misconceptions about "functional training"

Back pain / Tensions Myositis Syndrome

Monte Hueftle - runner and expert on the way our emotions can cause physical pain.

Mindblowing Tumbling

I think this is the most amazing tumbling / parkour video that I have ever seen. Hat tip to the Extreme Human Performance blog - which is carrying an interview with this guy (Damien Walters)

Mind-Body Conditioning...

Last week I posted an interview with Monte Hueftle, a runner and writer who specialises in running injuries generated by emotional factors, following in the teaching of Dr John Sarno

There are other writers that have traced their own pain to emotional factors too. This is a guest post from one of them - Adam Rostocki. Adam is a martial artist who has battled with pain and finally conquered it through following Sarno's approach. I am convinced that much pain is emotional at its root.

Mind Body Conditioning

Physical Conditioning vs Psychological Conditioning

I welcome the opportunity to speak to you about conditioning.

As a serious martial artist for over 34 years I am well aware of the demands we all place on our bodies. In the course of training, I learned to use physical conditioning to make my body strong and increase my endurance and overall physical abilities. However, the type of conditioning I want to share with you today has nothing at all to do with the body. Instead, I would like to share some thoughts on psychological conditioning, specifically how it relates to physical performance and especially the generation of pain. A tremendous amount has already been written on this topic, so I hope to provide some intimate knowledge on the subject by relating my own personal experiences on how the mind can cause physical pain.

A Student of Chronic Pain

I am a student of chronic pain. I suffered from a variety of physical ailments as a child and teen, including wrist pain (blamed on my fanatical pursuit of drumming perfection), headaches and an ultra-sensitive stomach. None of these conditions were really more than annoyances, but they were ever present in my young life. I was a sensitive and independent child, the product of a broken home and I became a vegetarian at age 4, despite the protests of my family. Doctors had no real explanation for why these painful symptoms never went away, but I was too concerned with being a kid to care much about them…
The beginning

At 16, I was working hard in school, with my band and in a part time job. My family was poor and I felt that stress terribly as I readied myself for college. I knew I needed a full scholarship or I was simply out of luck. Within a few months, I developed horrific back pain completely out of the blue. The symptoms were in the lumbo-sacral junction and were linked to movement of my neck. I could not sit at all without burning, searing pain. Being completely naïve to the ways of medical and complementary medicine at this point, I visited a chiropractor after weeks of suffering and was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease, muscle imbalances and scoliosis. I entered treatment and so began my 18 years of tortuous agony with chronic back pain…

I suffered with recurrent bouts of acute back spasms and continued to suffer stomach concerns for my entire young adult life. None of these symptoms stopped me from doing what I wanted, since I was an extremely driven, perfectionistic, stoic, self-critical and achieving person. If I was in misery, I just coped with it. My love for martial arts led me to achieve various degrees of black belt ranking in 4 separate styles of Karate, Judo and Jiu-Jitsu, as well as instructor certification in Tai Qi Quan. I developed my own system under my instructor’s tutelage and opened my own martial arts school. However, as I got older, my pain became worse and worse, evolving into a chronic pattern of daily torment.

Nothing worked…then hope!

To make a long story short about my back pain experience, I tried virtually everything to cure the suffering. I was treated with chiropractic, injection therapy, pharmaceutical therapy, TENS, acupuncture, massage, physical therapy, Traditional Chinese medicine, Reiki, traction, dietary therapy and activity addition and avoidance. I was recommended as an ideal candidate for surgery by many doctors and was even threatened with my continuing functionality if I did not acquiesce to surgical intervention by at least several noted orthopedic surgeons. Eventually, I began to discover the same path that other incredibly frustrated back pain sufferers find as a last hope…knowledge therapy.

Dr. Andrew Weil was my first exposure to a medical practitioner using the mind as a causative explanation for physical maladies. His brilliant writings led me to explore further, leading me to Dr John Sarno, Dr. Candace Pert, Dr. Marc Sopher and others. I never would have even considered the idea that my back pain, as well as all the other chronic physical concerns I endured, were the result of a mindbody process. They just seemed so physical and had structural anatomical explanations provided to me by my trusty care givers. This was my mistake and is also the number one reason why people DO NOT recover from chronic pain.

The beginning of recovery

As I became well versed in mindbody medicine, I realized how much it all made sense. I had studied the mindbody connection my entire life and was an expert in certain aspects of it, but was completely ignorant about others. I learned that the mind could make my body do incredible things in martial arts training. I could literally will my body to perform anatomically impossible tasks using internal energy. I just never realized that this ability also reflected the subconscious mind’s capacity to make the body do what it wanted, as well. I knew who I was personality wise, but did not realize the effects my very nature had on my body. The way I was wired emotionally made me particularly susceptible to mindbody conditions which stem from emotional issues, but are expressed in the physical body. This was the beginning of my recovery…

It is obvious to all that the mind controls the body in many ways. Hypnosis, sexual arousal, fear, fight or flight response, anxiety, stress and happiness all cause noticeable reactions in our bodies. However, even though these facts are well documented and accepted in medical literature, doctors still do not credit the mind for being able to cause pain in the body. Instead, they blame a plethora of structural scapegoats throughout the anatomy. When it comes to back pain, the spine is the typical target pariah. Doctors will be happy to do a battery of diagnostic testing and tell you all the seemingly horrible abnormalities you have in your spine. However, they will not tell you that practically everyone has these same issues, including themselves, but not everyone suffers pain from them. Scientific evidence clearly shows that there is little relationship between the most common spinal diagnoses, including degenerative disc disease, herniated discs, osteoarthritis and spinal stenosis, and the occurrence of chronic pain.

Conditioning

So, finally, we come around to conditioning… Conditioning occurs constantly in our minds. We perceive events and relate them to feelings and experiences we have. This is life. However, when it comes to pain, we rely heavily on conditioning. Our drives to succeed and our inner desires to avoid sensitive and painful emotional issues place a huge burden on our subconscious. The subconscious fears the conscious acknowledgment of these emotional concerns and pressures, so it looks for a way out. Physical pain is the answer.

The subconscious uses the autonomic system, and other bodily systems, to create pain anywhere in the physical body. However, statistics clearly show that the mind will target areas known to be sites of former injury or regions with an obvious and known abnormality, in order to make the pain seem more “physical”, more convincing, if you will. We are conditioned to accept the structural nature of these aches and pains every time we experience them in conjunction with an otherwise innocent activity, such as sitting or bending. These are typically things our bodies have done countless times in the past, but are now agonizing and it is no surprise that these painful activities are most often linked to things we MUST do for work or family responsibility…

We never even consider the source of the pain as being anything except the part of our body which hurts. We also do not question our diagnosis, even if the symptoms presented do not correspond exactly with the expectations from a particular diagnosed condition. I encourage all of you to discount the body as the cause of most chronic pain. Consider that fact that medicine is extremely efficient and successful at curing structural issues with the body. If you have not enjoyed relief from ANY chronic bodily pain, despite a wide range of seemingly appropriate treatments, there is a very good chance that the source of your discomfort is not residing in our body, but instead, in your mind.

It is up to you to cure yourself

This simple philosophy literally saved my life and has put me on a new path. I have dedicated my life to helping others see the truth about how the mind and body are equal parts of the human entity and work together to create ALL conditions of health and disease. I have written exhaustively about this topic in my books, articles and websites and encourage interested readers to continue to study these ideas in order to find true health and comfort in life. The mind can make the body feel pain logically or illogically. The subconscious mind will also use its influence over the consciousness to make you think and believe the pain is anatomical. It is up to you to learn why the scientific model of chronic pain DOES NOT make sense. It is up to you to investigate how and why millions have recovered from disabling pain syndromes, including dorsopathy, fibromyalgia, TMD, carpal tunnel syndrome and plantar fasciitis, using only emotional and psychological therapies. It is up to you to cure yourself.

Knowledge Therapy

I leave you with a final thought… Many doubt the theory of how the mind can enact pain. Objectively, medical science is adamant in their Cartesian beliefs, but abysmal in their curative results. Knowledge therapy is highly effective and flexible in application. Would you rather follow the accepted norm and continue believing in a myth while in pain or embrace the truth and find relief? After all, the world was flat for thousands of years…

Sensei Adam Rostocki is the author of 3 books and maintains of huge database of dorsopathy information on his Back Pain website, Cure-Back-Pain.Org. Interested readers are encouraged to find all of Sensei’s writings by searching Google using his name. Sensei would like to thank Chris Highcock for this opportunity to share this article with his readers.

Interviewing an Exuberant Animal!

Previously on this blog I've featured some material from Frank Forencich - author of "Play as if you life depends on it" and founder of Exuberant Animal. My friend Rannoch Donald of Simple Strength is bringing Frank to Edinburgh to do a seminar in September and I thought it would be a good time to interview Frank to find out more about his approach and what we can look forward to at the seminar. I've read Frank's books and lots of his articles and they have inspired, refreshed and excited me.

It has been good to interview him and learn a little more of his thinking and background. There is some great stuff in here, from the placebo effect to the need for a tribe! Read on.....

1. Frank could you tell the readers something of your background in health and fitness?

Actually, I got into this more than 30 years ago and back then, there really wasn’t a “fitness industry” to speak of. I was doing martial art (karate), which completely turned me on. I was fascinated by the culture, the mythology and the romance, even though it was really just a shopping mall dojo. I trained really hard and loved it.

At the same time, I was studying human evolution at Stanford and I kept wondering how my training methods might have relevance to human history. Later, I began training in aikido and spent a year in massage school. This in turn led to studying various physical therapy practices and the functional approach, especially as taught by Vern Gambetta and Gary Gray. Finally, I met Stuart Brown at the National Institute for Play. He turned me on to the vital importance of play in all domains.

2. I can’t remember where I first came across your name but it was a few years ago (maybe here). I bought “Play as if your life depends on it!” and I remember devouring the book, loving it. Could you explain the premise of the book for those that have yet to read it?

My main idea is that physical training ought to be “primal, practical and playful.” In other words, it’s got to have some relevance to our ancestral origins, it’s got to be functional, and it’s got to be fun.

At the time, I was simply working the language, but the triad has proven to be extremely rich; each concept feeds the other. No matter where we start, one practice leads into the others: playful movements tend to be functional, functional movements are ideal for life outdoors.

It’s my version of a holistic practice. I feel very fortunate to have stumbled across this combination.

3. How did you arrive at this philosophy?

I never felt comfortable with any mono-discipline; I’m always looking for checks, balances and confirmations. Plus, I like to mix and match training practices to make things richer.

I’ve always believed that physical training can be an entry point into a wider education. Yes, train the body hard, but use that experience to explore other domains. The ancients were all about seeking a well-rounded practice of physicality and knowledge. My sensei was big on this: he never allowed us to concentrate exclusively on physical training. The idea was to branch out whenever possible and keep reaching for new ideas and experiences.

4. One of the things that I remember feeling as I read your book was a great sense of freedom. So much of modern training and conditioning – even the word smacks of psychological experiments - seems regimented and focussed, driven by formulae and theory. Structures. You seem to give permission to just have fun? Just to move. Is that fair?

Yes, play is vital, but I still believe in the fundamentals of sweat, rigor, discipline and hard work.

The neat thing is that we can combine these two perspectives into a single training process. The trick lies in creative oscillation–moving between the poles of discipline and freedom. This requires lots of judgment, attention and a sense of timing, but the payoff can be immense.

Neuroscience backs this up, by the way. We know that the human nervous system thrives under conditions that alternate between serious effort and playful messing around. Reach and rest, strive and relax. Unfortunately, not too many people build this oscillation into their practices; we tend to specialize in one style or another.

5. One thing that you do not discuss much in the book in any detail is the idea of diet. How do you eat? Do you try to replicate the diet of our hunter-gatherer ancestors as well as their activity patterns?

It’s taken me some time to formulate an opinion on nutrition. The problem is that there was probably a lot of diversity in primal diets and we can be sure that nutrition varied a lot between tribes and bioregions.

The one constant however, is that they all ate real food, minimally processed, and they had to work pretty hard to get it.

The Paleolithic rhythm was simple: locomote, then eat, locomote, then eat, etc. This alternating pattern is surely fundamental to our physiology.

The other problem–one that no one seems to talk about–is that our experience with food is massively influenced by placebo effects. If you believe that your diet is the right one, it will probably be better for you! You’ll probably absorb more nutrients and make better use of what you do eat. Psychological factors may very well outweigh minor differences in actual food content.

This is why I’m reluctant to get involved in strident debates about food. In any case, I like Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman on nutrition. I’ve recently been reading Richard Wrangham’s book, Catching Fire. According to Wrangham, cooking made all the difference in human history. Heat makes food easier to digest and surely made a survival difference for many people and tribes. More cooking means more calories and protein, and over time, a smaller gut and in turn, a bigger brain.

Like everything else, the extremes of processing are problematic. Raw food is natural, but it takes forever to chew and it doesn’t deliver as many nutrients. Hyper-processed food is easy to chew, swallow and digest, but also promotes disease. The sweet spot is in the middle: lightly cooked and processed food is best.

At any rate, I try to stick to real food and avoid the “edible food-like substances,” especially trans-fats and high-fructose corn syrup. I try to eat like my grandparents. Not exactly Paleo, but pretty tasty and sustainable.

6. Modern society seems to be sad! I keep hearing of friends or family members who are depressed or suffering anxiety attacks. How much of this stress and dissatisfaction do you think comes from our “modern” lifestyles?

Depression is epidemic. The World Health Organization forecasts that, by 2020, “depression will be second only to heart disease in terms of disability or disease burden.”

To me, this is even more shocking than our epidemics of heart disease, obesity and diabetes. This is a disease state that’s psychospiritual as well as physical. There are many explanations, but I like the work of Kelly Lambert. She’s a neuroscientist who’s traced reward centers in the brain. She’s discovered a strong association between areas that coordinate movement and those that deliver a sense of satisfaction. I call this “the ancestral reward system.”

We move vigorously in search of a goal, usually food, and then we feel a sense of satisfaction for having done so. In contrast, modern society offers us only abstract striving (with computers) and even many of our rewards are non-physical and intangible. Consequently, we experience a sort of neurological black hole of non-reward. A huge percentage of our circuitry goes unused and dormant. I believe that an enormous amount of depression stems from inactivity. The human body thrives on action.

7. What can we do about it?

This puts our physical training in a new light.

As trainers and educators, we are doing a lot more than building muscle, cardio or skill. We’re actually pumping up the reward circuitry in our brains and delivering a sense of satisfaction and resilience.

Movement is thus highly protective against depression. Sooner or later, people are going to figure this out. The way to counter the epidemic of depression is to get people moving again. Any movement is good, but locomotion is probably the best place to begin. Long walks, or running if people can manage it, are ideal.

Mimic the experience of travelling the grassland and you’ll get a good outcome.

8. Do you think that the social aspect to exercise is important? I enjoy a run on my own, or time in the gym, but there is something special about walking with friends or sparring at a martial art class. Have we missed something? Do we need a tribe to be fit and healthy?

The research is pretty clear on this. People learn better in groups and they tend to be healthier as well. Social isolation is dangerous to mind and body across the board.

This is completely consistent with what we know about human evolution. Obviously, the ancestral environment was thick with danger, especially in the form of predators. The key to staying alive was to stick with the group; loners tended to become cat food.

Consequently, we are hyper-social animals and we need one another in order to thrive. So, instead of setting up gyms with “stations” and rows of machines, we ought to be focusing instead on group classes. But drop-in classes aren’t really the solution either.

What we really need is a culture of social experience in which people spend more time together, moving their bodies over the course of months and years. The martial art dojo is a perfect model for this: start as a white belt and stick with the tribe for a few years. This experience fosters cohesion, mutual support and a sense of community.

9. Another aspect of you book that I really enjoyed was your work on walking – you have a chapter on Being a Better Biped, which is fascinating. Do you think we have forgotten how to walk properly?

Absolutely. Modern athletic shoes are a catastrophe, especially the marshmallow trainers that we wear to “cushion the shock.”

When kids wear these shoes from an early age, they never really learn how to engage the ground on its own terms. They never learn the sensory-motor connection. Plus, most of our modern “terrain” is flat, smooth and level. Thus, there’s no diversity of challenge and no reason for the sensory-motor system to adapt. We wind up with one style of gait – a recipe for injury and ineffectiveness.

Primal hunters probably had hundreds of gait combinations for various terrain; their ankles, knees and hips were smart. In contrast, most modern people need remedial education in walking.

This is something I’ve learned over the last couple of years: as I’ve increased my barefoot time, I’ve realized how much skill goes into simple walking. This is an immensely rich discipline in its own right.

10. How are your ideas developing? Are there any new concepts and games that have recently entered the Exuberant Animal programme?

The primal-practical-playful combination continues to yield new ideas.

One of the most promising is “partner-resist.” This is a unique physical relationship in which one person acts as “athlete” while the other acts as “coach.” The coach selects a functional movement and then provides smooth resistance by hand as the athlete executes. It takes some learning and leadership to get it going, but the whole thing is immensely promising. Not only can you build some strength, you can also make your body smarter in the face of constantly shifting resistance. Plus, it’s a lot of fun. The physical negotiation in partner-resist is fascinating and we’re only now just scratching the surface. You can find examples of partner-resist training in the new collection, The Exuberant Animal PlayBook

1. I saw a video of a lecture that you did - "A Body Centered Curriculum", subtitled "The Primate's Predicament" where you explained very well your proposal that our bodies are designed for a world that no longer exists. Sometimes in those who recommend a paleo / hunter-gatherer diet and exercise approach I detect a romantic, almost utopian view of the life of our ancestors. However, I for one am grateful for many of the comforts and benefits of 21st century life. How can we combine the best of today’s technology, food and medicine with the lessons of our Hunter Gatherer ancestors?

Yes, great point. Many of us romanticize the Paleo life, but it must have been brutally hard at times. I think the best way to look at modern comfort is “the dose makes the poison.”

Yes, the soft bed, hot food and easy transport is great, but only up to a point. If we imbibe too much, it makes us sick. So, I like to take intentional trips away from modernity. A few climbing trips each year seems to do the trick.


Deprive yourself of comfort and you really begin to appreciate it. Another approach is to set intentional limits on modern comfort.

I never take an escalator, for example. I wrote that one off my list years ago.

12. Generalist or specialist? It is fun to get good at physical skills but I get the impression that you would prefer us to be generalists. Is that fair? Do you think that we suffer from specialising as athletes?

The problem with specialization is that it tends to inflame tissue with excess repetition and lead to “ruts” in the nervous system.

It’s exciting to develop a single capability to its full potential, but there’s danger there as well. The generalist won’t develop spectacular skills, but will probably have a longer training career. And even among specialists, diversity is essential.

The conventional wisdom these days is that it takes 10 years or 10,000 hours of training to develop a complete talent or world-class athlete. But no one can sustain such long-term effort without some side trips. So, even if you want to excel at a specialization, branching out is still a good idea.

13. I was interested in your view of the pull up or chin up in the book. You indicate that this would not be a normal natural move for us “in the wild”. Could you expand on that idea?

That’s easy. Would you ever climb a tree without using your feet? Maybe, but if I had a lion chasing me, I’d be using every appendage possible.

When I observed the chimps at Gombe, I noticed that they used their feet constantly, in spite of having immense upper body power. If you’re a hunter-gatherer, you might be forced into an arms-only pull-up, but that would be rare.

Better to become an accomplished full-body climber. With that in mind, I modify my movements. I still do pull-ups, but I use my feet–either one or both. Rock climbing gyms are ideal for this. You can do thousands of pulling combinations that involve whole body integration. Or better yet, you can practice real climbing in real trees.

14. Have you any thoughts about sleep?

This one is really fascinating.

When I was in Gombe, I learned that the chimps went to bed at sundown and pretty much slept all night. But a recent book by anthropologist Frances Burton suggests that fire shifted our circadian life dramatically.

(See Fire: The Spark that Ignited Human Evolution)

The excess light of the campfire altered our melatonin cycles and suddenly we began staying up later into the night. It seems likely that this development opened the way to an oral tradition, storytelling and later, art and culture. I know some people who advocate for “sleep at dark,” but I think that staying up a bit later is natural.

In any case, sleep is profoundly important and massively underrated. If you want to build memories and promote learning, you’ve got to sleep as much as possible.

15. I understand that you have recently been doing some work with Erwan Le Corre of MovNat. His videos on YouTube and the articles on his approach in magazines seem to be switching people on to this way of training. Do you think that these concepts will ever catch on in the mainstream?

Great question. In the great battle of sex appeal v. function, sex usually wins. But word is getting around. More and more people are talking about core training, function and the importance of the nervous system. And even more importantly, serious people are talking about the virtues of outdoor experience and contact with nature.

The science is pretty conclusive and is getting more compelling all the time. And even more encouraging, it’s now possible to talk about evolution in public. The evidence for a human history is now so overwhelming that it is impossible to deny our past. More and more people will start thinking in these terms. Eventually, the fitness industry will get the message.

16. Another name that I have seen associated with you recently is Barefoot Ted. From what I read in the excellent Book – Born to Run - he seems to be a real character! Any stories to tell?

Ted is a wonderful person and capable of intense focus. Once he gets his attention into a project, watch out! After working with him on some projects, I can see how he can run long distances barefoot. He’s got the mind for it and his body is incredibly capable.


Another great personality is Mick Dodge, “The Barefoot Sensei.” Mick has been barefoot for over 15 years and has worked up an entire philosophy and mythology of the barefoot experience. He’s currently on a 1,000 mile walk across the Pacific Northwest, carrying the message on health.

17. In September I understand that you are coming to Edinburgh to do a seminar with my friend Rannoch of Simple Strength / Kettlebells Scotland. What can we expect from your seminar?

We are going to have a blast! As usual, I’ll alternate between scholarship and movement. We’ll talk about the human predicament and the state of the animal, then we’ll get down to some functional games. Then back to the classroom and a discussion of human origins and primal lifeways. Then more movement and so on. We’ll do lots of partner-resist and a little bit of martial art.

I’m assuming some pretty robust and motivated participants, so we’re going to make a vigorous go of it. You’ll learn lots of new movements as well as get some interesting new ideas for expanding your training.

18. Thanks for taking the time to do this interview Frank. I hope to be able to meet you in September!

If you are interested in attending the seminar in September (5th and 6th) get in touch with Rannoch - rannoch@simplestrength.com

Running Pain - An interview with Monte Hueftle

In a recent post I talked about my back pain and about the idea that much of it is not due to physical injury, but to emotional factors (TMS or Tension Myoneural Syndrome as the originator of the theory - Dr Sarno - now calls it). It is still real physical pain – not imaginary – but the cause is emotional. Public speaking can make you blush – a real physical reaction – but the cause is emotional. Physical pain can be the same thing.

In this post I interview a guy called Monte Hueftle, a long distance runner who has also battled back pain. He explains where his pain came from, how he finally identified the cause and - crucialy - how he has managed to cure it.


I first read Monte’s book – Get Rid of the Pain in your Butt Now! – a few years ago when my own back was playing up. My pain has returned recently and I have gone back to Monte’s book and one or two others. You may find this stuff a bit challenging and but I’d urge you to read and consider what Monte is proposing. I thoroughly recommend his book.



Monte can you give the readers a little bit of background on you as an athlete: what is your record as a runner?

Sure. I have been running since cross country in high school. I mainly focus on the longer distances. I have run 6 marathons with a PR of 2:42, 8 half-marathons – PR of 1:16:50. Haven’t run a 10 in a couple of years and that was around 36:10

Are you still competing?

Yes, I’ll be 49 in December, can’t wait to get to the 50-54 age group though. I train about 75 miles per week and have my sights set on running a new PR in the half early next year. One of my goals is to continue to set PR’s.

Most of the readers of this blog are fairly serious amateur athletes. We may not be that good, but we enjoy our training and love the sheer pleasure of movement and exercise. We take it seriously and it is a big part of our lives. As an athlete do you understand the frustration that many of us feel when we are unable to train or compete because of injury?

Absolutely I relate. Running was and probably is still the most important part of my life. When I had piriformis for 3 years it was the most depressing/frustrating time of my life. And this carries over into work life and your relationships. When you can’t do something you love and can’t completely figure out what is going on with the body it’s not much fun.

What sort of pain were you experiencing at its height?

I had chronic lower back pain from about the time I was 18 years old. I would get back spasm about 3 or 4 times per year and chronic stiffness in the legs and back. Incredible inner knee pain that came totally out of the blue but it was the piriformis and sciatica that just make running and life in general miserable. I had non-stop piriformis for 3 years.

Your book explains that you went through a whole series of treatments – physical therapy, massage, yoga. Did it help?

I got absolutely no relief from chiropractic, massage, nerve stimulation, orthotics, lower back brace, specific exercises to strengthen, acupuncture, relaxations exercises and knee brace.

How did you finally work out what was causing the pain?

I found Dr. Sarno’s book on healing back pain. The book described my physical condition, my Type-A personality and stated that the pain was caused by psychological dynamics like inner stress and tension. It also stated that the biggest key to healing the pain was to Think Psychological. This means that you must stop treating the pain/injury with physical treatments and that the pain symptom is always a signal to reflect on your thoughts and your emotions---what and how you are feeling.

How quickly did you manage to conquer the pain?

My chronic stiffness and back pain were gone within weeks—at least 90% of it. The piriformis and sciatica I had to work on myself a little more. It took me about another 7-8 months to be fully pain free. Much of that was due to learning how my thoughts and behaviours were generating inner tension and then on how to reverse or change those patterns. That was the hard part and this is why I have written three books on how to permanently end this pain disorder.

At first did you think that this approach – the emotional aspect of pain - was all a bit too “alternative” / hippy / weird stuff or did it make sense?

Two things about this:

1. When you have tried everything and are at a loss you are probably going to be more open to an alternative diagnosis.

2. I earned a degree in clinical hypnotherapy and had studied the mind body connection for quite a few years, so I was very open to it from the beginning. This is quite important to understand. A person must accept the mind body diagnosis in order to begin to think psychological and stop all the physical treatments. This is the biggest challenge for people and especially athletes who are really conditioned to treat any pain as an over-use or muscle imbalance injury.

Does you pain ever recur? How would you / how do you cope if it does?

Never like before. I have not had one spasm in nine years. The low back pain has never reoccurred. On occasion I will feel the sciatica or piriformis sensations. They are like a reminder to make sure you are paying attention. The key to coping is to always, always, always Think Psychological. The biggest key to remaining pain free is paying attention to your thoughts and behaviours. A person knows when they are creating inner tension or losing energy to a person or situation. When you monitor the psychological aspects of yourself and then change or redirect when you are creating lots of inner stress you can keep the pain disorder from coming back.

I must admit that I am pretty convinced by the argument that you and Sarno and others advocate. It seems obvious to me that mental and emotional issues have very real physical impacts on the body. An example I think of - which I suppose reveals my base nature – is sexual arousal. An image – even a mental image – that is explicit can easily cause a physical change in the body – an erection or whatever. Something wholly mental has an impact on the physical body. Does that make sense?

Yes, perfectly. Also people accept for example the tension headache or the ulcer caused by stress. Scientist have now shown us that emotions have physical locations in the body. The challenge is accepting this for chronic soreness, back and knee pain or piriformis, especially when you are an active person and you can associate the pain with activity.

How would you explain your approach to pain to - say - a recreational athlete struggling with persistent / intermittent back pain?

First, take a look at your history of pain and of treatments. Have you been able to successfully heal these pain symptoms or injuries? Also does it appear that you win certain battles of pain but then always seem to be fighting a new one, a new injury or a new pain symptom or location? It is important to take this type of investigation so that you can open your mind to looking at a completely different diagnosis as the cause of the pain.

Next I would want to make the association that people have with a tension headache and stress in their life or an upset stomach and stress. We all in some way are able to identify stress with affecting our body in some way. I would then ask this person if they identify themselves with the Type A personality behaviours—Striving, People Pleasing, Perfection, Highly competitive. Do they consider themselves the type of person that worries a lot and is being self-conscious and/or do them seem to hold their feelings inside. I would then explain that it is common for people with many of these qualities to generate a tremendous amount of inner tension and that there is a chronic pain disorder that is caused by this generation of inner tension. I would explain that this is real pain and it closely resembles the pain sensations felt by physical injuries.

Next I believe it is important for people to understand the biochemical event taking place in the body that is manifesting the pain. When our autonomic nervous system becomes overloaded with inner tension it will automatically constrict blood vessel walls. This means less oxygen is making its way to muscle and nerve tissue. When these tissues have their oxygen supply restricted the result is a variety of pain symptoms—burning, soreness, spasm, stiffness, shooting, burning, tightness and numbness.

While understanding the argument, I still struggle with back pain myself, particularly at stressful times of my life. I do my best to “think psychological” as Sarno prescribes, but sometimes I’m left more frustrated. I am aware of some of the things that stress me out – work, a relationship – but thinking about them doesn’t seem to get rid of the pain. Where could I be going wrong?

You just explained the major struggle most people have and why they remain stuck to some degree in this pain disorder.

For some, at least initially being aware of this pain disorder caused by psychological factors is enough to reverse the pain. However, I have discovered that usually just being aware of the stress-pain relationship and knowing that stress is the cause is not enough to reverse this disorder. Here is why. This is a chronic pain disorder caused by our daily, moment to moment, chronic behaviours and thoughts. So a person will be aware that they are in a striving, people pleasing mode, and they know that this is generating inner tension and then pain, but they don’t do anything else!

My work in this pain disorder is focused on helping people understand that they must begin to change their chronic behaviours and thoughts that generate inner tension. If a person doesn’t stop generating inner tension/stress they are not going to stop this pain disorder. It is significant to understand that a person in worry or being very self-conscious or holding in anger is doing two things:

1. Generating new inner tension and

2. Repressing emotional energy or holding it down, which also generates inner tension.

Awareness is where you must start, but once you are aware that you are generating tension/stress, you must learn how to change or redirect out of those patterns.

I admit that I still get a regular massage. Most of the time it is purely for relaxation but when I have a back spasm or cramp I do submit to their treatment. Could this be an issue – me still looking for a physical cause?

I am extremely anal when it comes to physical treatments. The short answer is that if you are doing anything to treat your body in the hope that it is going to somehow fix or cure your pain/injury, you are breaking the number rule on how to heal from this disorder. This is the crux of Think Psychological. It means that every communication that you make back to the body/pain/injury is psychological. In the beginning a person must be this anal about getting or even thinking about physical treatments. This may sound quite knit picky, but I am telling you it is a big, huge deal. If you can truly go and get a massage because it makes you feel good and by no means do you believe it is going to fix your body then yes, have at it. You must be completely honest with yourself here though.

Thinking psychological is also hard work! It is not easy to dwell on things that are painful / frustrating and disappointing to me. I sometimes feel that I am fighting my own mind.

Yes, in the beginning, it is mentally exhausting. For maybe the first time in our life we are actually paying attention to what we are thinking and then we are analyzing it and then trying to change it. But this becomes much easier and then it actually begins to give you more energy. At first you need to listen in on your inner conversations so that you are aware of what you are thinking. Once you are aware of your thoughts, the chronic ones become a signal for you to change or redirect out of that thought.

Here is what I mean. Let’s say you are a big worrier. You know that this worry generates tension and anxiety within you. The next time you catch yourself in these worry thoughts you make the choice to deliberately think a new thought, one that is not so much in worry, and then you built on that thought with another one. It is a process and it takes discipline and practice.

When we make the decision to stop generating inner tension so that we can stop manifesting pain we find the inspiration and energy to continue on. Because suddenly we begin to feel the results in our body and then we go “wow” this is fun, this is working and we keep moving forward with it.

How much pain do you think is caused by mental factors? Is it the predominant cause of pain and disability in our society?

I believe it is easily 90% and probably higher. My own case as an example. I’m 48 and I have averaged running about 50 miles per week for the past 30 years. I have had all sorts of back, neck, leg, piriformis, itbs and sciatica pain. Chronic stiffness and soreness and probably 25 back spasms. I can say that 100% of this pain has been due to psychological factors creating inner stress/tension. For the past 5 years I have been consulting with chronic pain patients and it is phenomenal to hear the success stories of people who have been in physical pain for half of their life, tried every treatment known to man and when they begin to apply the principles of treating chronic pain caused by inner stress/tension and anxiety, their pain goes away. It is absolutely astounding!

You seem to take quite a “spiritual” approach. Other writers working from the same premises seem to be a bit more into positive thinking. Fred Amir for example focuses very much on goal setting, rewarding his “inner child” and mental imagery. Does this just reflect your different personalities or are your approaches really similar?

Everyone at the core practices "Think Psychological". This always means the pain is a signal to think about how you are being/thinking and not to think physical injury or treatment.

I am 100% confident that this disorder is caused by inner stress/tension/anxiety, as are all TMS doctors. I take the approach of then getting to the core of how a person is generating this inner tension in order to reverse the effects. Everyone is generating inner tension through behaviours and thoughts. Period!

I was fortunate enough to experience my pain subside greatly though a very physical power yoga practice. What I realized though, it was not so much the physical exercise as it was the tremendous amount of mindful focus that it took to breath, hold locks, stay balanced, count your breaths and change postures that was the transformational healing force. Understand that it is impossible to be in angry or worry thoughts when you are counting breath #3, contracting your perineal muscle, holding in your abdominals, breathing closed mouth, while keeping your balance in a position that is stretching legs, arms and everything else.

It is impossible to be generating inner tension when you are being so mindful. So I began to apply this mindful focus to simple mindless activities like: eating, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, walking up steps. When you do this or I should say be this way you are not in your dominant chronic behaviours and thoughts that generate inner tension. Having been a certified, clinical hypnotherapist, I believe that imagery and hypnosis are very beneficial in helping a person understand their psychological make-up. I have been fortunate to be pain-free for the past 8 years.

The reason for this is three-fold:
1. Understanding that you must Think Psychological and not physical.
2. Realizing that you must change the unique ways that you create inner tension through your thoughts and behaviours.
3. Implementing an on-going practice: of paying attention, being mindful, having a focused practice like power yoga and utilizing different practices like guided imagery and journaling that help keep you in check and balance mentally-physically and emotionally.

One thing that I have thought of - prompted a little by Scott Sonnon is the idea that if the mind/emotions can affect the body, can the body also affect the mind/emotions? Are there physical things we can do that can prompt certain mental states?

Sure.

I love what Dr. Elmer Green, the great Mayo physician and biofeedback expert stated.

"Every change in the physiological state is accompanied by an appropriate change in the mental emotional state, conscious or unconscious, and conversely, every change in the mental emotional state, conscious or unconscious, is accompanied by an appropriate change in the physiological state"

Physical exercise is the best example right. Go out for a high tempo 10 miler and experience the runners high. Do a highly focused 45 minutes of power yoga and you will feel emotionally and mentally clean. Practice guided imagery. Image energy or light moving through your body. Do it slowly at first and then have it move at the speed of light. Do this for 3-5 minutes and you and have changed the chemistry of your body and of your mind/emotions.

One of the themes of this blog is that I am very much sympathetic to the evolutionary fitness approach / primal blueprint. There are a number of writers now proposing diet and fitness approaches that start from the premise that we are still basically hunter gatherers and as such our activity patterns and diet should be those of hunter gatherers to promote health. We are still physically cavemen but we are living in a world that is very different form the one for which we were designed. One aspect of this approach that I think is underappreciated is the psychological. In his essay Evolutionary Fitness Art DeVany states:

Modern life leaves our minds restless and under utilitized because we are confined, inactive, and comfortable. That is why we restlessly seek stimulation and sensory satisfaction. Some find it in entertainment (an industry that could not exist but for the extraordinarily stimulating environment of our ancestors) in the form of television, movies, or novels. Others seek it in simulated adventure like mountain climbing or dangerous sports (like me). We cannot be satisfied with more and more, because we are evolved for another lifeway in which material goods do not matter. The result is that we are deeply unsatisfied with modern life and don’t know why.

Do you think primitive man – or even present day hunter gatherers – experience the sort of chronic emotionally induced pain that seems to dominate our societies?

Sure. Anyone anywhere that is competing and being self-conscious or striving to please or judging, comparing and complaining, holding in resentment, anger, guilt from the past or wishing for the future to arrive and not living in the present moment is susceptible to generating inner tension. When this becomes a chronic way of being it manifest into chronic pain.

For any of us struggling with chronic intermittent pain and stiffness, what would be the first step that we should take in tackling it?

Think Psychological and not physical.

Check how you are being, what you are thinking, where is your focus.

Who or what are you giving thought energy to.

Go into this psychological mode while totally stopping the physical treatments and thinking. Look at your past struggles and determine if the physical treatment approach has worked. Be open to an alternative cause of pain and then trust your intuitive self.

If readers wanted to learn more, what would you recommend that they should do?

Find a TMS book to read. Sarno has 4 or 5 out there. (That is Dr John Sarno)



I’m a little biased as I believe that my most recent book and cd program, The Master Practice, gives people the tms knowledge they need but more importantly the “how to” knowledge needed to reverse this pain disorder. There is a tremendous amount of free information at my site: www.runningpain.com

Monte – thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. I have enjoyed and benefited from your books and hope that other people might learn something from this too.

It was my pleasure to share this information. Thank you.

Contact Monte at monte@runningpain.com

Shoulder Mobility

More mobility stuff from Mountain Athlete.