Practical, patient focused discussion of fascia management is so hard to find! I’ve been treated by the John Barnes method, in addition to lots of physical therapy. Figuring out how to self-manage is challenging. This is such a fantastic resource, thank you so much!
Aw I’m glad to hear! What did you find most helpful about it? “Patient-focused“ is a good word for my approach, thanks for naming it so that I can keep being deliberate about it.
How do you square the focus on interoception with advice that suggests that external focus is better for movement? E.g. coaches/physiotherapists are moving away from telling people specific cues for how to hold/move their body and more towards external task-based cues like "squat as if you are sitting down on a stool" https://www.thestrengthathlete.com/blog/external-cues
The idea is that your body knows how to organise around a task, so interoception actually interferes with the smooth intuitive functioning of the body. There is a similar idea in Alexander technique, where the idea is to maintain external focus. At one session I went to, the teacher said he had no internal experience.
Also, with listening to your body - I think this sometimes causes problems. I had RSI for a long time because I was stuck in a cycle of worry about pain, which then caused the pain. I got out of it by mindfully attending to the pain while keeping doing the things that activated it. Eventually by pushing through I taught my body that nothing bad is happening and the pain went away. I've heard lots of similar stories from other people. My physio recommends continuing through pain, as long as it's not getting worse, because it seems my body just produces pain in response to any change in load, so the pain is not necessarily pointing to any actual problem and I just need my body to get used to the new load. My physio also mentioned a client who did a lot of yoga and who had all sorts of movement problems because she was over-focussing internally on specific muscles.
So I guess what I'm asking is - is a move towards interoception really healthy? Especially as, if you think of our ancestral environment, we wouldn't be constantly interocepting, we would more be doing task-based externally-focussed movement.
Hm, thanks for the resource! It's a nuanced subject and - my first thought is that those coaches and I are probably working with different target demographics. My average desk job client leans dissociated, not, "overfocused on manually coordinating serratus anterior with deltoid during a shoulder press." So, for Desk-Job-Bodycare-101 I am sticking with interoception.
Also, there's a reason I chose the phrase "interoceptive literacy," rather than strictly interoception. There's an aspect of - learning to read the body sensations, which is realizing that some kinds of pain mean "stop" and some kinds of pain actually don't. I'm not sure how common this is relative to pain-that-resolves-when-addressed, but I've definitely heard it as well. But that said, there would still be an interoceptive signal of over-focusing - people can detect when they're anxiety-looping rather than feeling increased ease-via-attention. The cue would be - huh, if I pay less attention to my body most of the time, it winds up feeling better when I *do* check on it.
I still think the ideal is having an easeful body-awareness most of the time. This is different from anxious-over-focused body awareness.
Last note. My hypothesis for what's going on with that article is that - "inner cues" versus "outer cues" are not the relevant causal dimension that explains their results.
Probably what's happening is they're unknowingly testing "cues which make less sense to the person" and "cues that make more sense to the person"; but calling it "inner" vs. "outer." Or perhaps "cues that promote overthinking" versus "cues that holistically organize the body and promote ease."
Their example of an inner cue is -
> If someone isn’t swinging a tennis racket correctly, you need to make them more aware of their hand, their arm, their feet, and how to time these all together.
^ This would make me move from manual conscious control, rather than instinct! If that's what they consider an "inner cue" then I'm not surprised by the results. My inner cue would be more like "call up the energy of a striking cobra and, hit the tennis ball from that," haha.
Their example of an outer cue is -
> “press the bar through the ceiling” or “press into the floor”
Imo this includes inner cue-ing, because I experience the sensation of pressing as I do that, and I distribute it evenly and pleasurably through my body. So maybe I'd say - for sports, "relational cues" are best - ones that situate your body in 3D space. I'd call "press into the floor" a relational cue.
> in ancestral environment, we wouldn't be constantly interocepting, we would be doing task-based externally-focused movement
Oh I straight up disagree with you here. I've spent some time studying ancestral somatics, and it seems like there was a FAR higher level of baseline easeful sensory awareness, that was so present it didn't feel like effort or even a deliberate task. Here's one example - https://x.com/FU_joehudson/status/1843053117744493027
The kind of interoception I'm talking about feels like - checking in on a friend, not shining a harsh controlling spotlight on a situation I'd rather avoid?
> Alexander technique is about external cues
Hmm we've met different Alexander Technique teachers. My AT colleague teaches interoceptive cues, such as lengthening away from joints.
Practical, patient focused discussion of fascia management is so hard to find! I’ve been treated by the John Barnes method, in addition to lots of physical therapy. Figuring out how to self-manage is challenging. This is such a fantastic resource, thank you so much!
Aw I’m glad to hear! What did you find most helpful about it? “Patient-focused“ is a good word for my approach, thanks for naming it so that I can keep being deliberate about it.
How do you square the focus on interoception with advice that suggests that external focus is better for movement? E.g. coaches/physiotherapists are moving away from telling people specific cues for how to hold/move their body and more towards external task-based cues like "squat as if you are sitting down on a stool" https://www.thestrengthathlete.com/blog/external-cues
The idea is that your body knows how to organise around a task, so interoception actually interferes with the smooth intuitive functioning of the body. There is a similar idea in Alexander technique, where the idea is to maintain external focus. At one session I went to, the teacher said he had no internal experience.
Also, with listening to your body - I think this sometimes causes problems. I had RSI for a long time because I was stuck in a cycle of worry about pain, which then caused the pain. I got out of it by mindfully attending to the pain while keeping doing the things that activated it. Eventually by pushing through I taught my body that nothing bad is happening and the pain went away. I've heard lots of similar stories from other people. My physio recommends continuing through pain, as long as it's not getting worse, because it seems my body just produces pain in response to any change in load, so the pain is not necessarily pointing to any actual problem and I just need my body to get used to the new load. My physio also mentioned a client who did a lot of yoga and who had all sorts of movement problems because she was over-focussing internally on specific muscles.
So I guess what I'm asking is - is a move towards interoception really healthy? Especially as, if you think of our ancestral environment, we wouldn't be constantly interocepting, we would more be doing task-based externally-focussed movement.
Hm, thanks for the resource! It's a nuanced subject and - my first thought is that those coaches and I are probably working with different target demographics. My average desk job client leans dissociated, not, "overfocused on manually coordinating serratus anterior with deltoid during a shoulder press." So, for Desk-Job-Bodycare-101 I am sticking with interoception.
Also, there's a reason I chose the phrase "interoceptive literacy," rather than strictly interoception. There's an aspect of - learning to read the body sensations, which is realizing that some kinds of pain mean "stop" and some kinds of pain actually don't. I'm not sure how common this is relative to pain-that-resolves-when-addressed, but I've definitely heard it as well. But that said, there would still be an interoceptive signal of over-focusing - people can detect when they're anxiety-looping rather than feeling increased ease-via-attention. The cue would be - huh, if I pay less attention to my body most of the time, it winds up feeling better when I *do* check on it.
I still think the ideal is having an easeful body-awareness most of the time. This is different from anxious-over-focused body awareness.
Last note. My hypothesis for what's going on with that article is that - "inner cues" versus "outer cues" are not the relevant causal dimension that explains their results.
Probably what's happening is they're unknowingly testing "cues which make less sense to the person" and "cues that make more sense to the person"; but calling it "inner" vs. "outer." Or perhaps "cues that promote overthinking" versus "cues that holistically organize the body and promote ease."
Their example of an inner cue is -
> If someone isn’t swinging a tennis racket correctly, you need to make them more aware of their hand, their arm, their feet, and how to time these all together.
^ This would make me move from manual conscious control, rather than instinct! If that's what they consider an "inner cue" then I'm not surprised by the results. My inner cue would be more like "call up the energy of a striking cobra and, hit the tennis ball from that," haha.
Their example of an outer cue is -
> “press the bar through the ceiling” or “press into the floor”
Imo this includes inner cue-ing, because I experience the sensation of pressing as I do that, and I distribute it evenly and pleasurably through my body. So maybe I'd say - for sports, "relational cues" are best - ones that situate your body in 3D space. I'd call "press into the floor" a relational cue.
> in ancestral environment, we wouldn't be constantly interocepting, we would be doing task-based externally-focused movement
Oh I straight up disagree with you here. I've spent some time studying ancestral somatics, and it seems like there was a FAR higher level of baseline easeful sensory awareness, that was so present it didn't feel like effort or even a deliberate task. Here's one example - https://x.com/FU_joehudson/status/1843053117744493027
The kind of interoception I'm talking about feels like - checking in on a friend, not shining a harsh controlling spotlight on a situation I'd rather avoid?
> Alexander technique is about external cues
Hmm we've met different Alexander Technique teachers. My AT colleague teaches interoceptive cues, such as lengthening away from joints.
Thanks for this short series of fascinating information and resources.