I’m aching all over today from Aqua yoga teacher training day yesterday. If you’ve ever been sore from using muscles you didn’t know you had you’re half way to appreciating how movement patterns work.

Why do I get pain when?

Gardening –  being sat in a squat or kneeling down for five hours?

Walking – in unsupportive footwear like flip-flops, ugg boots and wellies?

Hoovering – forward folding twisting the spine like a pretzel?

Sleeping – putting ourselves in positions we could never hold conscious?

The most common ways to obtain sore muscles are from:

  1. Overuse, like in repetitive activities such as gardening or walking.
  2. Going out of our range of motion like when we’re asleep or reach to grab something from behind ourselves in the car.
  3. When our bodies aren’t used to certain weakened positions like bending whilst twisting when hoovering (it’s the reason why you are banned from doing it after an operation).

I once strained my neck so much trying to do a side crow that I couldn’t  understand why a part of my body I wasn’t supposed to be using hurt so much the next day. The next time I came to do it I focused on relaxing my neck and it became a completely different pose:

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Sports massage is a wonderfully effective way to sooth soft tissue and to encourage muscles to remember how long they should be.