Episode 1: Pillars of Pain-Free Movement

Are you ready to start moving and feeling better?  In this episode, I talk about the 4 pillars of pain-free movement to help you understand what you need to do in order to achieve this!

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Show Notes:

1. Introduction

   • Welcome to the first episode of Better Than a Pill

   • Cari Vann, creator of Movement Craft, shares her expertise on health, wellness, and pain-free movement

2. Four Pillars of Pain-Free Movement

   • Pillar 1: Stretching - establish a weekly routine for reducing pain and improving flexibility

   • Pillar 2: Fascia Release - techniques for managing and relieving pain through the body's connective tissue

   • Pillar 3: Therapeutic Pilates - an individualized regimen that grows with you, focusing on natural medicine and safe practices

   • Pillar 4: Whole Body Center-Based Strength - cultivating strength from the body's center for better control and injury prevention

3. The Importance of Mindfulness

   • Slowing down to understand and connect with your body

   • Focusing on breathing as a powerful healer

4. Recap and Closing

   • Four key takeaways: Stretching, Fascia Release, Therapeutic Pilates, and Center-Based Strength

   • Tune in every Wednesday for new episodes

Key Takeaways:

• Pain-free movement is a lifestyle and self-care approach, rather than just a fitness or exercise program

• The four pillars of pain-free movement are stretching, fascia release, therapeutic Pilates, and whole body center-based strength

• Mindfulness and focused breathing are essential components of the pain-free movement journey

• Practicing these four pillars can lead to a healthier, more active life with reduced pain and better overall well-being

Transcript:

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the very first episode of Better Than a Pill. I'm Cari Vann, and I'm so grateful and excited to be here today to share with you.

For those of you that don't know me, I created the company called Movement Craft based on a combination of many years of both my personal experience as well as over 26 years of professional experience to date, in which I've learned what really works best when it comes to our health, wellness, and pain-free movement.

Today, I'm going to break down what those important pillars are. And there are four pillars I'll be focusing on, all of which I teach, preach, and practice myself.

Now, pain-free movement is a term that I use to describe being able to either move without pain or manage that pain we experience naturally in our bodies.

In my experience, I have seen both. I have worked with clients that have become pain-free. I have also worked with clients that have reduced the amount of pain they are experiencing. And honestly, I view pain-free movement as more of a lifestyle and self-care versus a fitness or exercise program.

So all of the things that I teach, preach, and live are designed to become lifelong habits. And this serves as an amazing form of natural medicine. And yes, it is better than a pill.

Now, infused into all four of the pillars, there is a component of mindfulness. And this means slowing down and getting to know and understand your own body and developing a deeper connection between the mind and body. And of course, this makes use of our breathing.

And once again, our breath is such an amazing healer in and of itself. So there is a place for quietness where we can actually hear our breathing.

And this allows for concentration and focus without distraction, such as the distraction of her, say, music. Don't get me wrong, I love music. I used to be a dancer.

I love to listen to music.

But when we're doing this work, it doesn't serve us to have that noise. In fact, it is just like I said, more of a distraction.

Okay, so let's get into this.

Pillar number one is stretching. It is so extremely important to establish a weekly routine of stretching. Let me repeat that. It is crucial that we implement time for this into our week if we want to reduce pain and be pain-free. This is 100% achievable and it is beyond powerful.

Pillar number two is having an individualized therapeutic Pilates regimen that grows with you and as you progress in the skill set, that's where you are as well.

And when I say therapeutic, I mean therapeutic natural medicine. Folks. Pilates is taught in so many different ways, and I've seen it over and over.

And guess what? You can still hurt yourself doing Pilates. And I've seen this too many times. So it is important to understand individual limitations and what needs to be avoided as well as included.

And I won't go off on a tangent here, but I will say that I have learned how to protect the body from injury while doing Pilates on your own in a very safe manner.

Okay, pillar number three, fascia release.

What what is this?

Okay, first off, the fascia is a thin layer of connective tissue. It surrounds and holds our organs, blood vessels, bones, nerves, fibers, muscles, all of it in place. It's a system in and of itself.

You can kind of think of it as like it looks like a thin spider web-like substance.

Then there are so many things you can do and tools you can use to help this entire system.

And it's connected your whole body by this system. So some of you may get body work done or have had a massage in the past or something like that. And that is great when you're getting that done.

That's what they're working on, the fascia. But I don't know about you, but for me, I can't run out every day to have body work done on myself.

Yet I can implement things into my week to help manage my own fascia. And this is again, extremely powerful for pain relief and pain management.

Okay, pillar number four is whole body center-based strength.

And we need to be strong to prevent injury, reduce pain. And this involves our entire body. And the focus needs to be on our strength coming from our center in all of our movements.

And you could even call this Pilates-based strength, which I do. And it leads to better control of your body. So you don't necessarily have to lift weights to get strong. You can, but you can also do whole body center-based strength.

And that's what I do as a form of strength for my body.

Okay, so let's take a second here and recap what we talked about today were the four pillars of pain-free movement.

And they are pillar number one, stretching; pillar number two, fascia release; pillar number three, therapeutic Pilates; and pillar number four, whole body center-based strength.

I hope that you have enjoyed this episode and found it helpful. Remember, new episodes will be every week on Wednesdays.