FAQ: About YoMaMa

What is YoMaMa?
YoMaMa is the union of yoga and massage, actually self-massage. By incorporating a massage tool as a yoga prop, your yoga students receive the benefits of massage and yoga. YoMaMa brings a new awareness to an ancient practice.

Who practices YoMaMa?
People who want to experience yoga and their bodies in an exciting new way.

Why Combine yoga and massage?
Merging yoga and massage delivers a deeper physical experience and a healthier practice. The combination of benefits will empower old students and attract new practitioners to your mats.

What are the advantages of YoMaMa?
Your students will receive all the benefits they’d normally get from yoga plus many of the most salubrious perks of massage, including:

• Relief from muscle pain and soreness
• Improved health and mood
• Increased energy
• Reduced likelihood of injury
• Improved knowledge of your physical nature
• Improved athletic performance and fitness
• Faster recovery time between workouts
• Reduced muscle tension and stress
• A trigger point release to your entire back body and feet

To learn more about the benefits of self-massage, see Chapter 2 of Self-Massage for Athletes, a book that serves as a resource for YoMaMa practitioners.

Does YoMaMa provide any other benefits?
In addition to the long term benefits of a yoga practice, YoMaMa packs a sensational short term benefit, an immediate sense of physical well-being. This benefit is measured by how much better practitioners feel leaving the class than entering it. Your students will walk out of class feeling as if they’ve experienced a full body massage and a yoga practice.

Is YoMaMa a form of therapy?
YoMaMa heals the body, mind, and spirit in a new immediate way by mating two of the oldest therapies in the world.

What form does it take?
YoMaMa is both a preventive and a remedial therapy. All active people sustain tiny injuries, of which they are largely unaware. Because yoga and massage can both prevent those injuries from growing, they are excellent preventive therapies.

How does YoMaMa work as a remedial therapy?
The goal of preventive and remedial therapies is similar. Both therapies prevent a medical problem from growing larger, while allowing the injury to heal. Preventive medicine corrects a problem before you’re aware of it. Remedial medicine is a post awareness therapy. As such, both yoga and self-massage help you stay healthy and become healthier.

How much class time will the massage component take?
As little as ten minutes or as much time as you like. The massage component is time well spent because it delivers benefits that would otherwise only be available through a massage therapy session.

Why is it called YoMaMa?
The practice is named YoMaMa because it combines one part traditional
yoga with two kinds of massage. The first massage component is the implicit massage that is traditionally part of yoga but is rarely noticed. For instance, in a seated pose when weight is brought to bear on your glute muscles and the muscles are moved they’re massaged. Many yoga asanas impart an implicit massage to your internal organs, especially twisting poses. The second massage component in YoMaMa is explicit and is delivered by a yoga prop or massage tool.

What does the massage tool look like?
The massage tool looks like a big blue “S,” standing for Super Yoga. It’s molded from a durable polymer composite and measures twenty inches long by ten inches wide, and weighs two pounds. At each end of the “S” is a small ball or knob which serves as a powerful massage tool. In fact, the entire prop can be used for massage. The serpentine piece between the knobs can glide over and compress muscles, to improve circulation and energy.

How does the tool work?
You can use the massage tool much as you’d use any other yoga prop to assist in asanas. The tool also gives you the power to deliver a complete back body massage in about ten minutes. Lying supine, your body will naturally relax letting you release trigger points and neuromuscular tension while restoring balance and energy. You’ll feel an intense and immediate release and will leave class feeling a sense of well-being bordering on euphoria. Students will attend yoga classes more often and bring friends to experience the wow effect of YoMaMa. Teachers will find their classes grow in size and will have to schedule more private sessions as more people are attracted to this new style of yoga.

How can I use the massage tool?
Lie on your back and allow your body to relax onto the yoga mat. Then place the end of the tool under your back body. Allow gravity to press your muscles onto the knob. The pressure releases muscle tension, stress, and trigger points while promoting chi balance. Then by moving the knob along the muscles in your back body a couple of inches at a time, first on one side of your body and then on the other, you’ll gradually massage points along your entire back body releasing waves of tension and stress. YoMaMa puts the power of massage directly in your hands.

How about my feet?
You can massage them using the little knob at the end of the tool. This too provokes a powerful release of energy. YoMaMa gives you the benefits of a foot massage without the costs.

When can the massage tool be used in class?
It may be used anytime but it should be used at least twice, once to massage your lower back body and feet, and a second time right before shavasana to massage your upper back body from your head to your glutes, along your erector spinae muscles, and the muscles around your scapula.

Can the tool be used at other times during class?
Yes the massage tool can be incorporated into yoga asanas just like other yoga props at your discretion. For instance, when balancing on one leg and extending the other leg straight-out in front of you, the tool can be used to both massage the foot of your extended leg, and support it. By pressing the knob into different points on your foot, you’ll get an intense foot massage and yoga stretch. The tool can also deliver a potent glute massage by balancing on one leg while folding the other leg on top of your knee and pressing the knob into your glutes. YoMaMa delivers an exciting new dimension to the physical experience of yoga.

Is the massage tool easy to use?
It’s easy to learn, and simple to use. Any yoga teacher trained as a YoMaMa instructor can lead you through the massage component effortlessly. YoMaMa is extremely easy to teach. If you teach yoga and are interested in teaching YoMaMa,contact us.

What does it cost?
You can get it online for between $30 and $40, and by delivering a constellation of massage benefits, it pays for itself in no time. So it’s cheap if you use it and expensive if you don’t.

Where can I get it?
The tool, called the Backnobber II is made by the Pressure Positive Company, can be purchased at their website www.pressurepositive.com or at Amazon. You can also use the Thera Cane® or Body Back Buddy™ massage tools.

Why teach YoMaMa?
It’ll attract more students to your yoga classes and private sessions because it provides a new and exciting experience for everyone. You’ll feel improvement in your own body and see it in your students. YoMaMa delivers the goods to students and teachers. For more information on YoMaMa contact Rich.

Stretching It: The Truth about Stretching

Stretching by Tobyotter

The perceived benefits of stretching are that they make your muscles more flexible and will protect you from injury. The truth is that they do neither. According to a recent New York Times article, old fashioned stretching just doesn’t deliver the goods. When the Times talks about stretching it’s talking about the kind of stretching you probably learned as a kid or at the urging of a coach or from a book on stretching. It’s the kind of stretching that you felt obligated to do but didn’t continue because you didn’t feel it did you much good. It was generally painful, unpleasant, and failed to make you more flexible. The good news is you were right to stop because it didn’t work.

This old fashioned stretching was over sold before it was understood.

New York Times reporter Gretchen Reynolds wrote an interesting piece on stretching Phys Ed: How Necessary Is Stretching? If you don’t have time to read it in its entirety, here are some of the highlights.

Women are more flexible than men.

Flexibility is not “a cornerstone of health and fitness.”

“It’s been drummed into people that they should stretch, stretch, stretch — that they have to be flexible,” says Dr. Duane Knudson, teacher of biomechanics at Texas State University in San Marcos, and an expert on flexibility and muscle reaction. “But there’s not much scientific support for that.”

The newest science indicates that excess flexibility is undesirable, unnecessary, and unachievable.

“To a large degree, flexibility is genetic,” says Dr. Malachy McHugh, director of research for the Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital and an authority on flexibility. Either you’re born supple or stiff. “Some small portion’ of each person’s flexibility ‘is adaptable,’ McHugh says, “but it takes a long time and a lot of work to get even that small adaptation. It’s a bit depressing, really.”

Stretching after a run or workout won’t lengthen your muscles making you more flexible, nor will it increase your range of motion.

There are two pieces to stretching a muscle, according to Dr. McHugh: first the muscle, second the mind. It’s not your muscle that becomes more flexible over time, it’s your mind and the message it sends to the muscle telling it to stretch a little further. The structure of the muscle will not change but your tolerance to pain will. Thus the illusion of a gain in flexibility with stretching, is just that an illusion. “You’ll start to develop a tolerance” for the pain of stretching, Dr. McHugh says. The fact that you can hold a stretch longer over time is a function of your mind accepting the stretch and not your muscles or tendons growing permanently longer. Sadly even this illusion of flexibility is fleeting says Dr. McHugh.

Changing the physical structure of a muscle takes months of hard painful work and sessions lasting hours. Still the changes you can expect are small.

And for most of us there is no reason to. “Flexibility is a functional thing,” Dr. Knudson says. “You only need enough range of motion in your joints to avoid injury. More is not necessarily better.”

Trigger Point Yoga

Admit it, you go to yoga for one reason and one reason only because it makes you feel better. For you, better might mean healthier, stronger, more flexible, or happier. Adding massage to your yoga practice will make you feel even better. How much better? For some it’s the difference between a firefly and a fire. Here’s why:

Massage and yoga are two different ways to stretch your muscles and two different ways to release trigger points. Trigger points are those nasty little knots that form in muscles day and night. If your body is to feel its best, you must continually release them. Yoga and massage release different types of trigger points.

If you weren’t aware that yoga asanas release trigger points, you’re not alone. Few yoga practitioners are aware of this hidden benefit. Fewer still are aware that trigger points are continually forming in their muscles. The more active you are the more trigger points you’re likely to have. Every time your muscles are overworked trigger points grow.

One reason you practice yoga is because of a need, albeit unconscious, to release trigger points. In part, it’s that release that gives you a sense of pleasure and pain. But yoga doesn’t release all of your trigger points. Some trigger points are resistant to yoga and release only when direct pressure is applied to the muscle, by pressing on it with a finger or a massage tool. The best way to eliminate trigger points is a combination of pressing and stretching your muscles which is what trigger point yoga is all about.

What’s a trigger point?
Think of a trigger point as a knot of muscle fibers. It serves as a defense mechanism when your muscles are injured, over worked, or weakened in some way. The tiny strands that make up your muscles contract into a hard knot. Imagine an injured muscle as being like a scared turtle receding into its shell. It’s a good defensive strategy but not good for getting any work done. Trigger point therapy is a way of getting your muscle to come out of its shell so it can get back to doing its job.

If the trigger point is not released your muscle will remain weakened. Other muscles will be recruited to do its job and they too will be compromised as they try to make up for your slacker muscle. In a weakened state, they’re more likely to get injured and form trigger points of their own, until your entire muscle group looses strength and range of motion.

This loss usually happens gradually over a long period of time so its not noticeable. Your loss of strength and range of motion will be blamed on the usual suspects: old age and arthritis. You will become less and less active and eventually your body will give up and you’ll take drugs to ease the pain. That too will happen over a long period of time so you’ll accept it as part of the natural aging process. Don’t!

What Types?
There are two types of trigger points, active and latent. The active ones emit pain on their own so you are aware you have one. The latent ones are sneakier and only emit pain when pressed. Latent trigger points are much more common. Both types reduce muscle function and can be resolved in the same way. Unless they’re released they will continue to weaken your muscular system and burn excess energy doing so.

Pressing it is stretching it
When trigger points are pressed they hurt. If they continue to be pressed the pain will give way to gain, and disappear like a fist when you open your hand.

Go
If you want to leave the yoga room feeling much better than when you entered it, add a touch of trigger point massage to your yoga practice. Click here to learn more about trigger point yoga.

above photo by Neeta Lind

Wake-Up Massage & Yoga

The goal of wake-up massage is to make your body feel and perform better by getting out the kinks caused by a “good” night’s sleep and the soreness and stress caused by a “bad” night’s sleep. Traditionally this kind of massage is done before getting out of bed and takes about ten to fifteen minutes.

Wake-up massage allows you to zero in on the muscles most affected by your nocturnal twists and turns, on those occasions when you awaken with your neck at a right angle to your head or one of your legs twisted under the other. The problems sleep causes can drag on for days or be gone with a few minutes of massage in the morning. You can do it yourself or hire a professional.

Many people believe that they are entitled to wake up fully refreshed and invigorated. Most of the time though we wake up in the morning feeling as if we’d been in an accident. We’re tired and have deep doubts about how we’re going to get through the day.

Little has been written about massage in the morning because people use to believe there was only one small part of the human anatomy that needed a massage in the morning. Science has debunked that theory and many scientists now believe that massaging the whole body in the morning is a good idea, especially if it’s their body that’s getting massaged.

We’re not too concerned now about technique. You can pick that up on the website. What you will probably want to know now is how morning massage will benefit you. How will it improve that most important relationship of all, the one you have with yourself?
Having played around with morning massage for a while, here are the three main benefits I’ve gotten:

1. Morning massage relieves muscle pain and soreness, i.e., those tiny knots called trigger points that often form in muscles while I sleep. Massage gets rid of them.

2. A massage in the morning identifies muscle pain and soreness so I can focus on those areas of my body that are weakest and most likely to get injured. By detecting these tiny injuries early, I’m able to prevent them from growing into large debilitating problems. Massage is an effective way to eliminate them.

3. Massage has been shown to improve health and mood by reducing stress which not only affects my mental well-being but physical well-being. Most illnesses are believed to be related to stress. I notice I’ve experienced far fewer sick days since starting my day with a massage.

Can I have all these benefits independent of massage? Definitely. There are other ways to relieve muscle pain and soreness, improve health and mood, and prevent injury. So why even consider using massage? This is a hard case to make, only if you have to get a massage therapist over every morning when you wake up.

The value of self-massage is obvious: immediacy and cost. No other therapy or medicine can work as quickly and cost effectively with no harmful side effects.
With self-massage you get instantaneous feedback from the only person who knows how your body feels. Your body tells your hands exactly how deep to go, how long to go, and where to go.

I’m a big believer in using self-massage to understand how massage works, even if you are fortunate enough to wake up next to a massage therapist in the morning. After all, you didn’t understand the value of working out until you started doing it regularly yourself, even if you were living with an athlete.

The benefits you get from massage are only going to be achieved when you’re genuinely interested in feeling and performing better. If you’re interested, take self-massage for a test run, play around with it and let me know what you think.

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Body Magic: Inaugural Post

This blog is intended to help you keep your body tuned, to move, delight, inform, amuse, and entertain you. 

Its subjects are the human body, health, happiness, massage, self-massage, athletes, activity, sports, fitness, movement, action, running, yoga, Pilates, cycling, swimming, triathlon, dancing, flying, endorphin cocktails, and anything else that's worthy of your attention.

It's written for active people who want to be healthier, happier, and smarter--in other words you.

Stay tuned!