Kate Strozak Education

Some guiding thoughts of mine when it comes to working with clients and students. The list could go on but these are a few of the core ones.

Now more than ever I really appreciate the concepts of time and investment. Just throwing that out there.

Any core beliefs that you have when it comes to your life or work?

Hello, I’m Kate! There’s been a surge of new people here and I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself over the next few days. Here’s a little info on my professional background and interests. Would love to learn more about you all, drop a line about your passions and interests!

2nd in the series of daily things you can do to optimize your nervous system - options for breathing.

Respiration is controlled by the medulla oblongata in the brain stem. Fortunately, it is an autonomic process - one we don’t have to plan, control, or coordinate.

The state of our nervous system (parasympathetic vs sympathetic/rest and digest vs fight or flight) can determine our breath. Our breath can also help us return to a parasympathetic state or enter into a sympathetic state. (Why would you want to enter into the sympathetic state? Another cool topic for another thoughtful day).

Optimal breathing has huge impact on our pelvic floor function, visceral health, stimulation to our vagus nerve, spine mobility, speech, and more. It really pays huge dividends to address this.

We adapt and respond to the tasks and events in our lives which means we can form various preferred breath patterns. There’s no such thing as a bad breather, and there’s no need for judgement. It is imperative for survival that we options for mouth breathing and secondary muscles of respiration.

Simply, can we help make sure somebody has more options for breath? This way, in any position, any task, any situation, we have more options for optimal breathing?

Integrating into a mindfulness practice is a great way to go about it but it’s helpful to work on breath in a variety of positions and movements - lateral, rotation, posterior, anterior etc.

Here’s some pictures but I’ll try to get around to some videos one of these days!

Love the Oov and buteyko breathing for respiratory work. MFR and cranial sacral therapy can also be hugely helpful. Pelvic floor physical therapy as well - we’re accustomed to addressing joints above and below an injured site to promote healing - consider the pelvic floor. Lots of other great references and options out there.

Research and experience suggest that mindfulness has a significant impact on our mental health and brain function. I have a full 3 hour workshop covering the science and application of this and it’s a workshop that is very near and dear to my heart.

Mindfulness doesn’t have to be sitting still and not thinking - that’s a very narrow, rigid, and inaccessible way to approach this. Mindfulness comes in the form of meditation (whether still or moving), gratitude, breath work, bodywork, being immersed in joyful hobbies, etc.

It can be incorporated into our work as movement or bodywork professionals and something we can facilitate for our clients and ourselves.

Incorporating mindfulness into your daily life can help decrease cortisol levels, shrink the amygdala (region associated with anxiety, fear and negative/chronic stress), improve focus, memory, learning, feelings of self-worth, and much more. The list is extensive.

Something worth considering if you haven’t already been considering it! Since prioritizing this in my life, I’ve noticed profound impacts. I experience more joy and focus. I’m better able to draw boundaries and have self-respect. I’m less reactive and more present. I experience higher highs and higher lows.

Is this something you practice yourself or incorporate into your sessions that you’re delivering?

I disappeared! Needed some time to focus on family, vacations, and some exciting work projects. Along with fermenting, old home improvements, and last but not least our lovable pups. Going to continue sharing my musings here on nervous system focused information for movement and bodywork professionals so here we go!

Kicking off a new series of posts on optimizing the nervous system with ideas that are evidence and experience supported along with applicable. Going to post the first of six tomorrow so stay tuned.

Love to hear from you all, reach out with questions or requests! Also welcome disagreements.

I make sure to assess and reassess these (along with some other items) with clients and in my own body. Gives valuable insight on function and helps me make informed decisions.

Included with these are: ability to get on and off of the ground and ability to put pants/socks/shoes on while standing. Along with scar tissue assessment, upper body hanging, pushing and pulling.

Do you have favorite assessments you do in your movement sessions?

There’s a lot of jargon that’s thrown out there and you might wonder what some of it means. Here’s a cheat-sheet with a few prominent ones. Keep in mind that I am simplifying things here to give a basic understanding but that certainly these terms are more complex and there’s a lot more that could be said about any of them.

• upregulate: increase activity
• downregulage: decrease activity
• “heightened state” can be used to indicate the sympathetic nervous system/SNS. Also “fight or flight”. Also sometimes indicates being “upregulated”
• parasympathetic nervous system/PNS = “rest and digest”
• afferent = sensory nerves = info traveling from the periphery to the central nervous system
• efferent = motor nerve activity = info being conveyed from central nervous system to the body
• central nervous system/CNS = 🧠 and spinal cord
• peripheral nervous system/PNS = and neuron extending out or existing out of the spinal cord and brain

Are there any others you run into that have you stumped or stymied?

You can’t truly work any system in isolation. If you’re effecting muscles, you’re involving the nervous system via motor control and sensory information along with fascial tissue and the skeletal system. If you’re working with the breath, you’re effecting the musculoskeletal, nervous, and fascial systems. And so on and so forth.

But I believe there’s great potential in considering the nervous system when impacting the fascial system and considering the fascial system when effecting the nervous system.

We continue to rapidly learn more about the fuzzy white stuff which got in the way of anatomy studies and was dismissively tossed into discard bins (fascia). And we continue to learn more applications supported by evidence when working with the nervous system.

Fascia encases and often runs throughout all of our tissues. This being the case, of course it could have impact on our nerves. If fascia is compressed/restricted/not gliding, it’s reasonable to see how it could impact the efficiency of nervous system communication.

Scar tissue is a great example of this. Address the scar tissue and fascia of the area and along with the healing of the soft tissue you’ll likely decrease the nerve sensitivity and increase the nerve communication. (Often times this isn’t as simple as just addressing the specific scar but addressing the fascial tissues system wide).

Working with respects to the nervous system (incorporating multi senses, considering parasympathetic state, etc), I’ve been finding you can make longer lasting and more impactful, work involving the fascial system.

It’s easy to get swept away with muscles, bones, and fascia. For some reason they’re easier to wrap our heads around. To a degree they’re more predictable, seem more concrete, and can seem more user friendly. And in my biased opinion, they’re easier concepts to understand. We can’t see or feel our brains and nerves. But we can feel and see changes of shape of soft tissue and touch and see bony landmarks.

With excitement about the nervous system, there’s also a lot of misinformation, misinterpretations of research, and quick-fixes out there that end up leaving people feeling more confused about the topic. It’s from enthusiasm and good intention, I think, but helpful to consider your sources.

When you understand the basics of the nervous system, you realize it’s not as complex as it might seem and that there’s so much we can do on a daily basis to optimize its function and achieve the goals we want to achieve which involve other systems of the body. These things supported by both evidence and application.

Working with respect to the nervous system means you’ll get more impactful, longer lasting results for the muscular, skeletal, and fascial systems. It’s worth considering! Don’t ignore the other systems by any means, but consider learning more about the nervous system!

I have a Neuro Principles workshop launching later this year along with other neuro based workshops coming for movement and bodywork work professionals and enthusiasts. Would love to have you join me and I’ll be announcing its launch here!

Your questions and feedback help sculpt my content so keep them coming!

Excited to dive into neural tension here! Have you run into this personally or professionally?

Have you or your client been working on flexibility and not seen improvement?

Do you experience range of motion limitations that feels not like a soft tissue stretch but rather a wall, tingling, or numbness?

Does stretching make you feel worse after?

If yes to any of these, you might be experiencing or seeing neural tension. Sciatica and thoracic outlet syndrome are examples of neural tension but neural tension can occur with various nerves and regions of the body.

Our nerves do not stretch. If you ever go to a dissection course and feel a nerve, regardless the preservation method, you’ll notice a nerve feels cord-like in nature. No real give to it. It moves and such but it doesn’t change in length. A nerve will not stretch but it does need to glide within the tissues it runs through to allow for human movement.

Neural tension can result from soft tissues surrounding the nerve, adhering to the nerve. Or structural restrictions that can impact a nerve. For example, sciatica stemming from compression from vertebrae on the nerve root at the spine versus excessive stiffness surrounding the nerve in your butt/glute region. Or inflammation of tissues surrounding or adhering to the nerve somewhere along it’s length.

I talk about neural tension any chance I get because if you’re not aware of it, you could unintentionally cause yourself or your client great disservice. Putting soft tissue “stretch” type forces on a nerve can cause or exacerbate symptoms or at best, result in frustration from no progress.

In future posts I’ll share more information on identifying this and working with it. For personal assistance in diving deeper on this topic, I’ll be covering it in future continuing education workshops or I’m happy to help via zoom sessions.

Second in our neuromyth series.

FALSE! There has been a lot of talk about how somebody could be left brain dominant (logical, analytical) versus right brained (creative, artistic).

We established last week how we use our entire brain. While yes, certain functions are housed in certain areas, different regions of the brain work together in order to have various functions. The halves of the brain are connected by the corpus callosum and information relays across the halves of the brain.

If you believe you are more creative than analytical, it is suggested that it’s not because you’re dominant in using one side of your brain rather that you enjoy being creative or spend time doing so. Perhaps through use you’ve developed the connectivity of this region of the brain but to call it dominance doesn’t appear to be supported by evidence.

Hello!
Continuing my return to social media with a reintroduction post.
For those of you who don’t know me, here are a few little factoids.
• I love all things movement, from tiny to explosive, snails paced to lightening speed, refined to exploratory.
• I love all things stillness. Appreciating, reflecting, and being mindful.
• I’m not a purist about anything. I’m a human focused on the experience
• I enjoy geeking out over fascia and tissues but my fascination runs deep with neuroscience
• I’ve been teaching Pilates for 18 yrs but in the past 10 years, my focus has shifted to incorporate other movement modalities and body work. All with the backbone of neuroscience and quality science and evidence.
• I used to be a skeptic and questioner. I still am, to a less limiting degree. I combine experience with evidence. I am discerning in the information I take in. I reflect, process and explore. And I have more trust in my instinct and senses.
• For more info on how Pilates fits into all of this, take a peek at my last post - the happy pilates day post.
• I’m a home-farmer of vegetables and cut flowers. I have two beautiful daughters, a husband who amazes me, and two goofy and lovable labradoodles. We live in a 109 year old home that we have blind love for.