Fitness
**Movement Logic: Strong Opinions, Loosely Held**

Welcome to the Movement Logic Podcast, with yoga teacher and strength coach Laurel Beversdorf, and physical therapist Dr. Sarah Court. With over 30 years combined experience in the yoga, movement and physical therapy worlds, we believe in strong ideas, loosely held – which means we’re not hyping outdated movement concepts. Instead, we’re here with up-to-date and cutting-edge tools, evidence and ideas to help you as a mover and a teacher. Music: Makani by Scandinavianz & AXM

Latest Episodes:

19: Oh, NO! Nose Breathing and Nitric Oxide Oct 12, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to Episode 19 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode,Sarah discusses nose breathing, mouth breathing, taping your mouth shut (only at night), and best practices for breathing while exercising, sleeping, and every time in between.

What’s the difference impact on our physiology between nose breathing and mouth breathing - and why it might be really important to try and nose breathe
Are we breathing too shallowly either way
How do you train yourself to nose breathe
What is the impact of nitric oxide on our bodies
Why it might not be as simple as “get rid of as much CO2 as you can when you exhale” but we don’t have a clear answer for that yet
AND a very special breathing practice we can do together at the end of the episode

Reference links:

Breath book by James Nestor

Medical tape

https://www.mrjamesnestor.com/breathing-videos

Sinusology

Could nasal nitric oxide help to mitigate the severity of COVID-19?

Sign up here for the Movement Logic Newsletter for course discounts and sales and receive a free mini Pelvic Floor course!

Watch the video of this conversation at: www.movementlogictutorials.com/podcast

Want more Movement Logic?

Follow us on IG: @movementlogictutorials
Get on our mailing list for tons of free content
Contact us (we're super friendly)

Thanks for listening!

18: How to Like Teaching Private Sessions Oct 05, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to Episode 18 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Laurel and Sarah discuss teaching privates, why we didn’t use to like teaching privates, and why we like it now. This episode is full of awkward, funny, and frustrating stories from our past as private yoga teachers. We end with helpful tips that will help you enjoy teaching privates more.

Where to meet with one-on-one clients/patients
Charging differently based on how much commuting is involved
The big reason we didn’t like teaching privates: no clear understanding of the goal.
Students who talk too much and aren’t focused on the movement
Students who have expectations but you don’t like teaching that way.
Students with persistent pain and questioning your scope of practice.
The game changer for Laurel: training strength clients with clear, trackable goals.
The benefits of talking less and observing more.
Admin is a bummer. How we avoid back-and-forth emailing and tracking clients down.
Our top 6 pet peeves about teaching privates, and tips we share to avoid these and love teaching privates!

Reference links:

Work one-on-one with Doctor Sarah Court, DPT

Work one-on-one with Laurel Beversdorf, E-RYT 500

Sign up here for the Movement Logic Newsletter for course discounts and sales and receive a free mini Pelvic Floor course!

Watch the video of this conversation at: www.movementlogictutorials.com/podcast

Want more Movement Logic?

Follow us on IG: @movementlogictutorials
Get on our mailing list for tons of free content
Contact us (we're super friendly)

Thanks for listening!

17: Pros & Cons of Using Resistance Bands Sep 28, 2022

Show notes

Modern postural yoga utilizes bodyweight as a form of resistance, but within the context of modern postural yoga, is bodyweight sufficient load for building strength? If not, does adding resistance bands to the practice mean we can build strength? Welcome to Episode 17 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Laurel discusses the best kept yoga prop secret—resistance bands and unpacks what she sees are both the pros and the cons of using resistance bands, both for strength training as well as for practicing yoga.

Here’s what this episode covers:

How resistance bands lower the barrier for entry for someone to start adding external load to their movement practice.
What research has to say about bands effectiveness for building strength and muscle mass, as well as some caveats to consider.
What are some of the main limitations resistance bands present when looking to build strength?
Why do some people use free weights and bands together in the same exercise? What’s the point of that?
What constitutes a heavy weight versus a moderate weight versus a light weight and where do resistance bands and bodyweight tend to fall on this spectrum?
The difference between resistance training and strength training and how the goals of both can be very different.
How strength endurance and strength are different variables we can train, and why both are important.
Why physical therapists might use resistance bands when rehabbing their patients.
How resistance bands are like other yoga props, as well as their unique advantage.
How resistance bands can help hypermobile yoga practitioners, people in pain, or people who are just bored with their practice and looking to change things up.
Why resistance bands might not be necessary and why people might not like adding them to their yoga practice.

Reference links:

Chris Beardsley’s article What do you think you are doing by adding bands or chains?

Laurel’s Yoga with Resistance Bands Teacher Training

Laurel’s Virtual Studio

Sign up here for the Movement Logic Newsletter for course discounts and sales and a series of free pelvic floor exercises.

Watch the video of this episode at: www.movementlogictutorials.com/podcast

Want more Movement Logic?

Follow us on IG: @movementlogictutorials
Get on our mailing list for tons of free content
Contact us (we're super friendly)

Thanks for listening!

16: Training the Non-Traditional Athlete with Rosalyn Mayse, AKA Roz the Diva Sep 21, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to Episode 16 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Laurel is joined by multidisciplinary movement teacher, Rosalyn Mayse aka Roz the Diva. Laurel talks with Roz about how she went from always being picked last in gym class to building a successful career as both a personal triner and a pole dance instructor, and the often exclusionary industries both pole dancing and strength training occupy. Throughout, Roz shares stories of how she built a successful career (in her words) as a, “dark skin, semi-bald, overweight, outspoken woman running around NYC half naked.” Roz shares her humor and wisdom around what inclusivity actually looks like, as someone who understands firsthand what it feels like to be excluded.

Here’s more of what Roz and Laurel discussed:

The different yet complementary fitness cultures of pole-dancing and strength-training
The positive impression it made on Roz when she got to see female athletes that looked like her
The benefits of an artistic focus in a movement practice
How pole dancing helped Roz overcome guilt and shame about her body and exercise agency, self-exploration, and self-expression
The fact that people in bigger bodies have to be stronger to overcome more body weight than slender people
How Roz defines the term athlete. Spoiler: more broadly than the mainstream
How Roz connects with clients who are skeptical about exercise after negative mainstream exercise experiences
What the general public thinks pole-dancing and strength training are vs reality

Reference links:

Dangerous Curves New York Times Documentary about Roz

Roz’s website

Sign up here for the Movement Logic Newsletter for course discounts and sales and receive a free mini Pelvic Floor course!

Watch the video of this conversation at: www.movementlogictutorials.com/podcast

Want more Movement Logic?

Follow us on IG: @movementlogictutorials
Get on our mailing list for tons of free content
Contact us (we're super friendly)

Thanks for listening!

15: Three! Easy! Rules! About! Research! Sep 14, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to Episode 15 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Sarah discusses the lima beans of learning: research. But guess what? Reading research doesn’t have to feel like a chore, and the more you understand what different aspects of research mean, the more interesting it becomes.

Three easy rules to follow for quoting research as if it’s facts
Why we get so excited about some studies - and why we need to pump the brakes
How to know the quality - and thus the value - of the research you are reading
Why it’s important that movement teachers quote research responsibly and what can go wrong when studies are not good quality

Reference links:

Power Posing Study

Get Up from Ground Study

Yoga Reverses Osteoporosis Study

WHI Study

YouTube video of SRT test

Sign up here for the Movement Logic Newsletter for course discounts and sales and receive a free mini Pelvic Floor course!

Watch the video of this conversation at: www.movementlogictutorials.com/podcast

Want more Movement Logic?

Follow us on IG: @movementlogictutorials
Get on our mailing list for tons of free content
Contact us (we're super friendly)

Thanks for listening!

14: How to Handle Burnout Sep 07, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to Episode 14 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Laurel and Sarah discuss burnout: what is burnout, how do we avoid it, what do we do when it happens, and why do we see so much of it in the yoga and movement world.

Does everyone experience burnout in the same way
What does it mean to be emotionally labile
Why do so many yoga and movement teachers go through burnout
Can a teacher in a big expensive city make a living on group classes?
How do we create boundaries that keep us from trying to ‘solve’ our students’ problems?
What’s the best kind of relationship to have with your students?
Some practical tips to prioritize yourself and preserve your own time
What does Work Smarter, Not Harder actually look like?

Reference links:

I Know How She Does It by Laura Vanderkam

Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder by Nassim Talib

Sign up here for the Movement Logic Newsletter for course discounts and sales and receive a free mini Pelvic Floor course!

Watch the video of this conversation at: www.movementlogictutorials.com/podcast

Want more Movement Logic?

Follow us on IG: @movementlogictutorials
Get on our mailing list for tons of free content
Contact us (we're super friendly)

Thanks for listening!

13: Should We Teach Alignment? Aug 31, 2022

Show notes

In this episode, Laurel answers a listener’s question of whether or not it’s within a movement teacher’s scope of practice to help people with their posture. Her answer is yes and no depending.
Here’s what else this episode gets into:

How Laurel formerly identified as an alignment-based teacher and why she no longer does.
The difference between “default-mode” alignment versus deliberate alignment.
Alignment less in binary terms of good v. bad and more as a neutral tool for helping to restore variability and influence adaptations toward specific skills.
Theory-induced blindness and the difficulty of noticing flaws in theories that inform your professional work.
How our beliefs about posture can produce a nocebic effect.
How Laurel sees posture and alignment instruction as well within a yoga teacher’s scope of practice, but how she also sees movement teachers stepping outside of their scope of practice in providing instruction.

Reference links:

SITE WIDE SALE

Paper: Therapists Perceptions of Optimal Sitting and Standing Posture

Paper: To flex or not to flex? Is there a relationship between lumbar spine flexion during lifting and low back pain? A systematic review with meta-analysis

Paper: Posture and time spent using a smartphone are not correlated with neck pain and disability in young adults: a cross-sectional study

Paper: Is neck posture subgroup in late adolescence a risk factor for persistent neck pain in young adults? A prospective study

Paper: Clinical measures of foot posture and ankle joint dorsiflexion do not differ in adults with and without plantar heel pain

Todd Hardgrove: Great New Paper on Targeting the Brain for Treatment of Pain

Sign up here for the Movement Logic Newsletter for course discounts and sales and a series of free pelvic floor exercises.

Watch the video of this episode at: www.movementlogictutorials.com/podcast

Want more Movement Logic?

Follow us on IG: @movementlogictutorials
Get on our mailing list for tons of free content
Contact us (we're super friendly)

Thanks for listening!

12: Movement Fads and Myths: Interview with Jules Mitchell MS, CMT, E-RYT500 Aug 24, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to Episode 12 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Sarah is joined by the one and only Jules Mitchell, to talk about myths and misbeliefs around strength, stretching, and how to really understand how research applies to our teaching.

What are other models for movement beyond soft tissue - and can they coexist
Does it matter if your teaching still “looks like yoga”?
Should you call yourself a movement teacher instead of a yoga teacher?
How accurate is it to make claims about strength in yoga?
How teachers misinterpret research and why it’s happening
Does age reflect interest in different aspects of yoga
Should we still be stretching? Is it possible to overstretch?
What movement trends are we moving towards in the future

Reference links:

Yoga Biomechanics: Stretching Redefined by Jules Mitchell

Jules Mitchell Website

Twelve-Minute Daily Yoga Regimen Reverses Osteoporotic Bone Loss - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4851231/

Sign up here for the Movement Logic Newsletter for course discounts and sales and receive a free mini Pelvic Floor course!

Watch the video of this conversation at: www.movementlogictutorials.com/podcast

Want more Movement Logic?

Follow us on IG: @movementlogictutorials
Get on our mailing list for tons of free content
Contact us (we're super friendly)

Thanks for listening!

11: Let's Stop Fragilifying Older People Already Aug 17, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to Episode 11 of the Movement Logic Podcast! In this episode, Sarah debunks the commonly held beliefs around aging, strength loss, and frailty, where these beliefs come from, and what we should be doing for people 65+ instead (spoiler: once again, strength training FTW).

What is the narrative around falling and why do people become so afraid of it
How the fear of falling creates a self-fulfilling prophecy around age-related decline in physical performance
When does muscle mass loss start as part of the aging process
How strength training improves not just muscle mass but many other aspects of performance including balance

Reference Links:

Quantum Leap Community (Sarah’s mentorship group)

QLC: The Library (Sarah’s recorded classes)

Strength Training for Seniors (book)

Strength Training past 50 (book)

Multicomponent Exercise Program Reduces Frailty and Inflammatory Biomarkers and Improves Physical Performance in Community-Dwelling Older Adults

MRI comparison of active vs sedentary 74 year old

Sign up here for the Movement Logic Newsletter for course discounts and sales and receive a free mini Pelvic Floor course!

Watch the video of this conversation at: www.movementlogictutorials.com/podcast

Want more Movement Logic?

Follow us on IG: @movementlogictutorials
Get on our mailing list for tons of free content
Contact us (we're super friendly)

Thanks for listening!

10: Is There a Right and Wrong Way to Breathe? Aug 10, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to Episode 10 of the Movement Logic podcast! In this episode, Sarah and Laurel tackle the question of whether there is a right or wrong way to breathe, whether or not someone needs help with their breathing, how to help various populations explore their breathing, and whether it’s always bad if our clients and students have pain.

The problem with belly breathing
What the respiratory diaphragm is
Effective tactile cueing to help people to use their diaphragm effectively
The problem with cueing people to breathe deeply
Why creating a safe space to downregulate the nervous system takes priority
Why some people benefit more by externalizing (rather than internalizing) their focus
How to breathe during strength training
Breathing and the pelvic floor
Pranayama versus cardiovascular endurance training
Should we breathe through our nose or mouth?

Reference links:

Adam Meakins, The Sports Physio

All about Nitric Oxide

Sign up here for the Movement Logic Newsletter for course discounts and sales and receive a free mini Pelvic Floor course!

Watch the video of this conversation at: www.movementlogictutorials.com/podcast

Want more Movement Logic?