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Florida Flute Convention 2012

January 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Are you going to be going to the Florida Flute Convention this year? I am and am excited to announce that I be giving two presentations.

Being A Flutist in the National Guard – Friday 4:30 PM

The first presentation will be Friday at 4:30 PM and is entitled “Being a Flutist in the National Guard”.

Drawing on my 8 years of experience as a member of the 129th Army National Guard Band and as a recruiting assistant,I wool be bringing you all kind of information to let you know about this viable job opportunity, the demands and the perks of joining. So many musicians know about the Premier bands and Active Duty band but are unaware that there is a part time military band opportunity that offers fool time benefits but would allow you to go to school, finish school, keep your job and not even have to move to live somewhere else. There will be time for Q&A and LOTS of FREE goodies to everyone who comes. If you have a question you would like answered, feel free to leave a comment below, email me at Angela@Music Strong.com, or leave a message on the facebook page.

Morning Mobility – Sunday 9 AM

The second presentation wool be given in Sunday morning at 9AM and is entitled “Morning Mobility”.

This presentation will be more of an interactive workshop as I will lead you through a property whole body warm yup to address your muscle imbalances, increase your mobility, and get you ready to play for the day. Exercises and stretches learned will be appropriate for preparing fits the practice eton out the weight room. In addition, the equipment used in class shook be available for purchase right then: $15 for a foam roller and $5 for a mini-band. This will save you cost plus shipping if you were to buy them online and this way tippy learn how to use them right in the class and can take them with you to start using right away whereas if you wait to buy you might forget how to use them. Again, if you have specific areas our questions you would like addressed, leave a comment below, email me or leave a message on the facebook page.

Special Bonuses for Flute Convention Attendees!

Bonus #1 FREE Assessment

As a special bonus for those already at the convention,I will be offering FREE live assessments and consultations, to get yours all you need to do is email me to let nd know you are interested and we will set up a time. There is no cost and no obligation for this, the info is free and I will be able to show  you your probable individual muscle imbalances and exercises and stretches to help you address them.

Bonus #2

As a secondary bonus, I will also be offering single training sessions at a reduced rate. If you would like to get a free assessment with me AND an individualized workout where I can lead you through a proper workout for you to take home and do on your own, I will be offering training sessions in the hotel gym for $40 for a whole hour, that’s a reduction of from my usual hourly rate of $65 – a $25 savings!  Again, this offer is only good through Sunday the 29th.  I will be arriving at the hotel Thursday night and will have time that evening, Friday morning and select hours thereafter to lead you through your workout.  Contact me TODAY!

Bonus #3

As a thank-you to all convention attendees, if you sign up with me for 3 months, you will get 50% off your first month with me!  With online training only costing $100/mo, that’s a $50 savings and you get SO much: an assessment, individualized plan, access to online meal tracking softwear and video demonstrations, goal tracking information, motivational emails, Skype session, nutritional information and more!  This is a deal that can’t be beat, so make sure to sign up with me at the Convention, because this deal expires on Sunday the 29th.

 

So, to reiterrate, here are your bonuses if you are going to the convention:

  • Free assessment
  • Special reduced price of $40 for 1-hour on-site training session
  • 50% off first month of training with me when you sign up for 3 months of training

What do you need to do to take advantage of these offers?

  • Contact me via Facebook: www.Facebook.com/MusicStrong
  • Send me an email at Angela@MusicStrong.com
  • Leave a message below this post
  • At the convention, you can get ahold of me by texting/calling 931-698-3130.

See you in Orlando!!!

Filed Under: Fitness, Flute, Travel

Inside-Out: The Ultimate Body Warm-Up

October 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This is one of my most highly referenced books.  Excellent for gym goers wanting to know how to design a warm-up before lifting and just as effective for musicians or desk workers to design a stretching routine before playing or stretches to increase mobility.

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How to Squat – From Diesel Strength

September 14, 2011 By 2 Comments

Diesel Strength and Conditioning | Athletic Strength Training.

This is a comprehensive (read: long and highly detailed) post on HOW to squat.

It’s amazing that something so incredibly simple, something we did as 2-year olds without a second thought has become so incredibly difficult for us.  Unless your daily job has you squatting (like lots of people who are not in a cubicle-based-computer-obsessed societies do), we have forgotten this most basic of human functions.  Our hips are stiff, we bend at the “waist” because we don’t know where our hips  are, we round at the back and keep our legs straight….it goes on and on.

Just look at the picture of this child squatting and what do you see?  No problems with balance or flexibility, no excess tension, she hasn’t learned any muscle compensations – no, everything works exactly as it should.

Compare this with your typical desk jockey….think this range of motion would be easy?

Not likely.  Attainable yes, but with LOTS of work.  Which tells me there is hope for all of us!  Just because you can’t squat not doesn’t mean you can’t learn and get there.  You can work on your mobility, your flexibility and technique and it can happen for you.

 

And just because it makes me happy to look at pictures of happy kids squatting with perfect, unadulterated technique, here’s another picture of how we were born to squat….BEFORE we learned to mess it up. Yes, that’s right, we LEARNED to mess it up.  Which means you can un-learn it!

Everything about what this child is doing is right!  His spine is in neutral alignment, his neck is free, his knees are in line with his toes….how did we go from that to all wrong?

 

We went from this beautiful picture of ease to this:

 

You get my point.

 

In fact, let’s get back to the article at hand.  This article put out by Diesel Crew will show you a lot of different ways to squat and coaching cues to all of them.

The take-aways from this post  are EXACTLY what I talked about in my presentation at NFA: the 3 aspects of form you must master if you want to lift.  You must arch your back (keeping your chest tall, towards the ceiling) draw your shoulder blades back and down, and drawing the belly button in toward the spine – also known as “bracing” which they cover in the double breath.

From the article:

How to Squat Video Series Summary

How to Squat – Squat Tip #1 – Elbows Down, Chest Up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNGnxRxCWPo

How to Squat – Squat Tip #2 – Setting the Lats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edmMGoVIBW8

How to Squat – Squat Tip #3 – Setting the Lower Back
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVNMMJnotnQ

How to Squat – Squat Tip #4 – Fewest Steps Possible
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm1OYuX0-sI

How to Squat – Squat Tip #5 – The Double Breath
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUka0l0BFf8

Tip #1 – Elbows Down / Chest Up


After you unrack the bar and before you even attempt to move into the squat, you must take care of your elbows and chest. You must drive the elbows down. Drive them down until they are facing the ground. As you drive the elbows down, you’ll notice something else; your chest rises. This is a good thing. In fact, you need to accentuate this thoracic extension.

Driving the elbows down will help you engage the lats for more stability and tension. The lats are an important part of the “core“. This, along with pulling your chest up, will keep your head up when you are in the bottom (hole) of the squat.

Because what will happen when your elbows drift up and back?

Your torso will fall forward and the hips will rise too early when you are drive upward. You see this with athletes who don’t have good torso strength or immobile ankles, hips and upper back. This might be ok when the weights are light, but will put a lot of stress on the lower back when the weights get heavier.

Remember “perfect practice makes perfect”, so keep drilling form.

So you’ll notice first off, the chest must be high and the elbows come back.  This CAN help retract and depress the shoulder blades, but what you’ll notice most of all is that you set the bar high on your traps (NOT ON YOUR NECK! :) ) and then only way to do this is to have your hands on the bar in a closer grip so that they are close to your shoulders, not far away.  This can lead to big time instability.

 

Tip #2 – Setting the Lats

When the lifter prepares to squat, they must first create tension. This is especially true if the weight is a max or near maximal effort. In the first part of the how to squat series we learned about pulling our elbows down and our chest up. As we do this, the next step is to squeeze the bar very hard. Not only squeeze the bar hard, but engage the lats by pulling the bar into your upper back. This tension is so important for stabilizing the torso, protecting the spine, helping you to remain upright and increasing the amount of weight you can lift.

In fact, renowned back special Stuart Mcgill states that the simple act of engaging the lats during the squat can add 20-30lbs to your squat weight immediately.

Remember, more tension equals more strength.

See that beautiful picture of the back muscles?  Those muscles are HUGE players in helping you play the flute.  If they are weak and can’t stand up to the task of holding the flute up, when they fatigue, your rotator cuff muscles and shoulders take over, even your chest muscles and your neck flexors take over and you wonder why you’re in pain.

SQUATS ARE FOR FLUTE PLAYERS! :)

If that last paragraph wasn’t enough to convince you, make sure to head over to the article via the link above and check out the videos.  You can see that when performing this squat, the shoulder blades are squeeze together (what he calls setting the lats) and arches the back (lots of lovely good tension there keeping the back in neutral alignment) and the core is safe and protected and stiff – in a good way.  The amount of strength and power to do any kind of squat with good form is immense and translates into being strong enough to handle the demands of playing Beethoven, Tchaikovsky or Debussy.  Squatting will give you a strong core and a strong body, which equals a strong flutist!

 

Tip #3 – Setting the Lower Back

Setting the lower back is as easy as slightly arching the lower back (into it’s natural curve) while taking a huge breath and isometrically contracting the abdominals simultaneously.


When you first watch the video it might look like Ryan is overarching his lower back. He is in fact, just setting it hard into its natural position and holding it. Most times when lifters unload the bar from the way they assume a posterior pelvic tilt under the weight. This position isn’t optimal especially when we talk about stabilizing the lower back and pelvis prior to squatting. He has to consciously move his pelvis back to neutral and “set it”. And like we stated, this is a dual effort with the bracing of the abdominals and his breathing pattern.

Coaching Cues

Remember, don’t just squat down. You will lose tension!!! Move the hips slightly back (loading the hamstrings and glutes and setting the back) and spread the knees. The act of spreading the knees will lower you (under tension) into the hole.

I didn’t go into too much detail with this at the convention.  Arching the lower back is good, and you should not do it to the point of lordosis (as you can see in the picture) but what it does is that it forces the spine to stay in neutral alignment and stay safe. Practice these basics of form without weight until your are comfortable, because as you can see by now they are crucial to safety and strength.

Something else they touch on is the hip hinge.  This is something I really talked a lot about in my presentation and if you’ve ever gone to any body mapping or Alexander Technique classes, you’ll know what it is.  The hip hinge is basically understanding where your hips are and bending from that place while keeping your spine in neutral alignment.  In layman’s terms?

  • put your fingers in the crease between your leg and body
  • Push
  • your butt should go back
  • if not, 1) you are pushing in the wrong spot 2) you are not pushing hard enough 3) your body doesn’t know what the heck you’re doing because you haven’t bent this way in so long and is trying to bend from the middle of the spine like usual.
  • as your butt goes back, you should feel a pulling stretch in the back of your legs
  • Keep your shoulder blades back and down, neck looking down or slightly in front of you and lower back arched – thus, keeping your back in neutral alignment.

You MUST master this before attempting any kind of big lifts like squats or deadlifts, or even Romaninan Dealifts, Good Mornings or split squat.  You truly need to understand that the body should bend at the hips (which are not the body things that stick out of your body at the top of your legs – that’s the top of your pelvis, your hips are the JOINT) and your butt and hamstrings should do the work of pulling you upright again.  We’ll get into this in a later article

To end the article I really like how they talk about mobility exercises for the upper AND lower body, because the squat is truly a full body exercise, not just a lower body one.  If you have lousy upper body mobility (aka, your arms don’t go backwards much, chest is tight, etc.) you will not squat well.  Period.  Give some of these exercises and stretches a shot and see how they work for you.  The favorites are the upper body mobility work, shown below.  This, believe it or not DOES have to do with your squat, but they are all excellent exercises/stretches to do:

  • before your workout
  • before your practice session
  • in the morning or before bed
  • any other time of day – the more you do them the more flexible you become!
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NFA Convention Recap

September 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

So I’ve been back from the convention for a few weeks already, and I haven’t found the time to be able to write anything!  My head has been swimming with thoughts and ideas, but, fortunately for me, business has picked up in a big way and, well, I had a lot to catch up on.  You see, the last day of the convention, an article about me and my boot camp class was run in the Sunday paper.  A full page full color spread in the Lifestyle section!  I’ve seen an increase in personal training clients from that, so I’ve been up to my eye balls in writing plans, training clients, running my boot camp classes and responding to the emails and questions I got from NFA.  I have put out a newsletter since then, which gave a big update on the convention, and if you aren’t signed up for my mailing list, you can do so in the bar to your right where it says “sign up for our newsletter” and I will send you the latest one!

Oh yes, and if you want more information about my boot camp classes (the one to the right was taken at our beach location) you can check out the new website! It’s at www.PCBeachBootCamp.com  I’d love it if you left a comment and can give me your feedback.

So what happened at the NFA?
Presentations!!!!
As stated in previous blog posts, I was very blessed to have been able to give two presentations.  The first was on Friday at 5 PM and was a panel discussion titled “Injury Prevention and Pain Management”.  My fellow panel members, Dr. Susan Fain, Karen Lonsdale and Lea Pearson along with myself all spoke on different topics relating to playing the flute and some suggestions on overcoming the special health challenges it presented.  Lea talked about breathing and body mapping, Karen talked about the ergonomics of the flute and how to set up for practicing be it solo or in a band setting and Susan talked about some common injuries and solutions to them with posture and stretching.  I, of course, gave a quick overview on the benefits of strength training for flutists.  I had so much to say and sadly, I ran out of time – 10 minutes just isn’t long enough!

We had a really wonderful turnout and I did not have enough handouts for everyone to get one, so if you would like a copy of my handout for this presentation and did not receive one, you can download it here:

Using Strength Training to Prevent Injury and Improve Pain

 

My second presentation was just me and it was on Sunday at 8 AM.  I went far more into depth about the benefits of strength training for flutists, and then demonstrated proper weight lifting form (which we all did together), did a little body mapping in finding where our hips are (here’s a hint, it’s not the bone that sticks out) and then we did some sample stretches and some activation exercises.  It was a lot of fun, and again, I ran out of time.
The easiest way to for me to remedy my problem is for flute clubs and associations to hire me to come out for a day or a weekend to give a workshop and then we can really go  in-depth about how things work, and do some exercises together!  In fact, I had a few people approach me about doing that very thing so be on the lookout to see me coming to your area and if you would like me to come to your area, you can get in touch with me by emailing me at angela@musicstrong.com or via the contact link on my website: www.musicstrong.com

Again I had a great turn out and ran out of handouts so if you would like a handout and didn’t get one, you can download it here:

 

Lift, Play, Love : Basic Weight Lifting for Efficient Flute Playing

I also had a “muscle man” image that I used that went along with both handouts. You can get him here:

 

Career Development Workshop

I am very grateful to have been selected as a participant in the 2nd Annual Career and Artistic Development Committee’s Career Development Workshop.  The room was not nearly big enough to hold all the people and we had people spilling out into the hallway trying to get in!  We learned a lot of things: from how to write a mission statement, to a bio, to a cover letter, to how to take a good publicity photo and what NOT to do.

In addition, I and two other people got to present our business ideas to the group and ask for help on certain parts of our projects.  I presented my business Music Strong, and while it is not exactly in its fledgling stages and I have a lot of the work done, my biggest problem is in reaching my audience.  I needed help finding out how to go to where the flutists are and where the people who need me are.

I got a LOT of positive feedback from people who heard me; compliments on the business concept, comments on how excited people were that I was doing this and overall enthusiasm for my business.  I also got asked to come give a presentation in Texas, so be on the lookout for information there!

 

Other wonderful happenings

I had a lot of great things happen at the convention.  Besides my name getting out there and being recognized, I was also asked to help man the Performance Health Committee’s booth.  I was more than happy to do so – not only for the opportunity to socialize and network with my fellow health professionals, but to answer questions and help the myriad of people who came by with health questions.  It is so rewarding to be able to look at someone, listen to their problems and even if you cannot diagnose or fix their problems, you can give them HOPE and that is super exciting.

I made a lot of new connections, new friends and got a lot of great music I hope to be performing soon.  The convention was a success in every way and I’m very blessed to be able to have been a part of it. Now I’m working on presentation proposals for next year for Vegas!

If you went to the convention, if you got the chance to come to these presentations, workshops or even if you didn’t, I’d love to hear your comments about it and if you have suggestions on future articles or presentations, I am welcome to those as well.

Meanwhile, here are some pictures from the convention.  I hope you enjoy!

See you in Vegas!

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Filed Under: Fitness, Flute, Travel

Exciting Announcement!

September 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

After my NFA panel presentation on “Injury Prevention and Pain Management” I was approached by Mary O’Brien from FluteFocus.com about writing for her website on a regular basis.  I gladly said yes so keep a lookout for my articles there.  My first post is going to be about that very panel presentation topic.  I am very excited to be writing for FluteFocus.com on a regular basis and I hope to see many of you over there leaving comments and benefitting from the great articles on that site.  Please share with your flute friends, and if you have a specific topic you would be interested in seeing me write about, please don’t hesitate to send me an email at angela@musicstrong.com or leave a comment in the comment section below.

Be on the lookout very soon for a convention recap, complete with pictures and handout links.  There has been so much gong on I have not been able to do the recap yet, but it will be going out very soon!

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When Was the Last Time You Took A Break?

August 31, 2011 By 2 Comments

Like most siblings, I grew up driving my brother crazy, and him doing the same to me.  He’d try to hug me, I’d get grossed out, he’d get mad, I’d cry, you know, the usual.  Then I went to college and left him at home with mom and dad and the coolest thing happened: we became friends.

Me and my little brother

I count my brother among one of my best friends now.  He knows me unlike few others (save my husband and parents) and can relate to me on a large scale.  We both love music (though in different ways), LOVE lifting and can talk for hours about nutrition, psychology and our workouts.

One of the funniest things that happens between us happens over and over again.  One of us will call the other looking for advice about some aspect of nutrition or asking some question about “why is my strength stalling?  I can’t bust through my plateau!” etc. and invariably, one of us will ask the other

“When was the last time you took a break?”

It never fails, give us a few months and one of us will be calling the other complaining about something and that question will arise from the other one of us.  That’s one of the neat things about having a sibling with which you share a lot of common traits: we undersand that both of us

  • overanalyze things to death
  • are dead-set of getting things right the first time
  • When we get into something we go in 110% – we don’t dabble….which invariably leads to burnout

All of these traits can be seen in a positive or negative light.   On the positive side, the analyzation leads to greater self-awareness and discovery with deeper understanding for future struggles and the perfectionism and enthusiasm belie a FANTASTIC work ethic.  On the negative, the analyzing will drive our friends and/or significant others crazy, we tend to lose out on the learning process by perfectionism and by ceasing to dabble in something, burnout occurs a lot faster.  I’m willing to bet that a lot of you reading this can relate to me on one, if not all of those personality traits.

So the question invariably comes up

When was the last time you took a break?

From dieting?

From training?

From practicing?

etc.
The list can go on and on.  We all need times of solitude, times of respite, of quiet.  We need times to break out of our routines and habits – which is why we go on vacations.  But sometimes, you don’t necessarily need a vacation from life, you need a vacation from your workout or your diet.

Two Take-Home Points

1. If you find yourself asking “when was the last time I took a break” and have a hard time answering definitively, that’s your first clue it’s time for a break

2. There are warning signs everywhere

  • you are not sleeping well
  • you have no desire to workout
  • you are frequently tired
  • You DREAD going to practice and when you are there, you get very little done, you have little stamina
  • You are in pain more often
  • The things that used to bring you joy now cause you dread
  • just thinking about your workout makes you tired
  • you suffer physically.  This can be seen in any number of ways, be it lack of sleep, lack of interest in things, joint pain, muscle pain, headaches, feeling “wired but tired”, hair becomes dry or falls out, you get sick more often and take longer to recover (sick can mean anything from viruses to allergies, because your immune system becomes cocmpromised)

The gym is for tearing down, rest is for repair and building

When you lift weights, you aren’t going to build or strengthen your body, you are literally tearing your body down.  You cause low-grade (sometimes mid-grade) inflammation and during REST is when your body repairs the damage you’ve done, creating new tissue, stronger or bigger tissue.  If you are constantly working out, going heavy 6 days a week and not giving your body a chance to repair, pretty soon you’re going to hit a wall.

Rest is underrated and you desperately need it.  If you’ve been lifting 5-6 days per week for years, I beg you to stop.  Switch to 3 days a week and work your whole body.  Do the big lifts: deadlifts, squats, bench press, pull ups or rows and throw in extra stuff for mobility and stability like lunges on top of it.  It will feel weird at first, but I dare you to do it for 3 months and see if you don’t grow more during that time than you ever have since you started.

Sometimes, you need a break from your diet.

We have break times like this at Christmas, Thanksgiving and maybe your Grandma’s birthday party, but if you have been anal retentive about your diet or even been gung-ho and “on your diet” for months and can’t remember the last time you just let yourself eat….it’s time.  You have to be willing to trust yourself that you will do yourself no harm by not tracking and weighing your food.  If you’ve been dieting for months and can’t remember the last time you ate at maintenance calories, then today is the day.  Stop today and take 2 weeks, starting today, and eat at maintenance calories.


What about practicing?

So what happens when you take a break?

You might find out that a host of good things happens.  Not only does your enthusiasm for the sport or the instrument return, in regards to lifting: you might have gotten stronger, or bigger or even leaner, depending on what you were trying to accomplish in the first place.  When the inflammation response goes down, water drops, muscle repairs and hormones stabilize, good things happen and suddenly, what you were training for, actually starts to work the way you were hoping.

My brother's amazing calvesCalves like these are grown OUT of the gym.  Just ask my brother, they belong to him and he works out 2 DAYS A WEEK.

In regards to practicing, I assure you, your technique does not fly out the window, your tone does not disappear, nor do you simply lose everything you worked for in the last decade. On the contrary.  Just like in lifting, good things can happen.  Your tone, your technique, your memory, whatever you’ve been working on can actually IMPROVE!

Point in case…

Let me tell you a story.  At some point during my first year of graduate school I said to myself “I want to be principal flute of USO” (the top university orchestra).  I thought this thought once and filed it away in my subconscious.  I worked very hard on my excerpts and worked all year to improve.

Then came the summer.  I knew I should practice, and I did, in fact, but I practiced piccolo mostly.  I didn’t practice that much.  A few hours a week, maybe, not a few hours a day.  I began practicing in earnest about a week or two before auditions for the next school year, just to see how things were.

I stepped into the practice room and to my amazement,

  • my tone was better
  • my technique was spot on, better than during the school year and more accurate
  • my excerpts, while certainly not flawless, were better than I had ever played them, even without working on them all summer.

I went in to the audition room, played the Debussy the best I ever had (in one breath no less!) , nailed William Tell FLAWLESSLY, had FUN in the audition and guess what?  I got 1st chair.
What happened?

What happened was that I gave my body, my mind and my abilities time to rest.  I worked hard all year on improving my technique, my tone and my excerpts, then I basically took 2-3 months OFF.  It allowed my brain and my body to actually absorb and process what I had learned.  You see, you don’t necessarily get better when you are in the middle of practicing, the results show up later.  What they forget to tell you is that it’s partly a result of rest.

So, take heart from my story, and take a break.  Your body will thank you. :)

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Activating the Lower Traps

August 10, 2011 By 4 Comments
Muscles connecting the upper extremity to the ...

Image via Wikipedia

What are the lower traps and what do I mean by activate?  This is by no means an exhaustive, comprehensive post, but this should give you a general idea.

There are three parts of the trapezius muscle: the upper fibers (used to bring your shoulders to your ears), the middle fibers that bring your shoulders up and also inward, just like the rhomboids, and the lower fibers (that pull your shoulder blades downward.)  If you will, try a little exercise with me for a minute: pull your shoulder blades down.  Kind of an odd feeling, isn’t it?  When was the last time you remembered performing this kind of action?  Probably not very recently, as we don’t spend a good deal of time with our shoulder blades back and down….unless we’re doing a good stretch because we’ve been sitting at the computer for too long.

Now, lift your shoulders towards your ears – fairly easy?  This action is performed readily when the “fight or flight” syndrome is engaged; pulling our shoulders towards our ears is a protective mechanism.  What else feels tight when you hold your shoulders there?  Well, if you hold your shoulders there long enough, you might feel several things

  • tightness at the base of your neck
  • a pain or pulling in your rhomboids or that vague area somewhere “in between my shoulder blades”
  • your chest feels sore from contracting
  • you begin to feel a pulling soreness along your rib cage

and several other things.  What happens all too often is that the “shrug mechanism” is seen in a lot of people’s posture today.  Our more sedentary lifestyles coupled with movements that encourage a protruding head and neck and arms forward posture have led to an epidemic of sorts of “bad posture”.  I say “bad” because really, what we get is altered posture due to muscle compensation.

This is one of the reasons I do not advocate anyone (except bodybuilders who are training for size and symmetry) include shrugging movements in their weight training regimens.  Most of us, who train for function and stability (and even those of us training for size) need to be focused on the middle and lower fibers of the trapezius.

When the upper traps are chronically activated, this can lead to dysfunction in the form of the lower (and possibly middle) traps becoming weakened to the point of “sleeping”.  This term is used not in a literal sense but to describe the problem of muscle imbalances caused by the upper traps being chronically activated, which causes the lower trapezius muscle fibers to not fire properly.

What to do: Activation Exercises

First off, as stated in several previous posts, you must first stretch what is tight.  In this case, that can be several muscles: the pectoralis major and minor muscles (chest), levator scapulae and scalenes (muscles in the neck) are the ones I would stretch first.  These can be accomplished with a doorway stretch (at 90 degrees to hit the pec major and with the arm extended to hit serratus and pec minor) and the specific stretches for levators as seen in the previous post: The Flutist’s Pain Points

Once the tight muscles have been stretched (also called autogenic inhibition – or static stretching) one can move into activation exercises: which could also be called active-isolated stretching.  This is done by a process called Reciprocal Inhibition which uses agonistic and synergistic muscles to dynamically move the joint into a range of motion.  These stretches are done for 1-2 sets of each exercise and hold each stretch for 1-2 seconds for 5-10 repetitions.

Activation Exercises

The lower and middle traps are vital for shoulder stability, so doing exercises to ensure they are doing their job is vitally important.  The first rule of strength training form is to retract and depress the shoulder blades.  This not only ensures that the middle and lower traps (as well as the rhomboids) are active and functional, it inhibits upper trap, levator and other compensatory muscles from taking over.  Use this motion any time during the day as an exercise on its own, and then use it during strength training sessions to make sure your shoulder girdle is stable and lower traps are activated.

Some excellent exercises for activating the lower traps (and rhomboids – as by now you can see they can be synergists) are wall slides, soup can pours, Face Pulls, Prone lower trap raises and LYTP’s.  The primary movements, as discussed before, are Adduction (retraction) and depression.   This website lists some excellent exercises, shows their movements and gives more anatomical descriptions.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a few suggestions on some exercises you can do to “wake up” those lower traps.  For a warm-up, I might do something like this:

  • Active Pectoral Chest Stretch (major and minor – 90 degrees and extended) 1-2 setsx5-10 reps each. Hold 1-2 sec.
  • Wall slides 1-2 sets of 5-10 reps
  • Arm circles 1-2 sets of 5-10 reps
  • Scapular pushups or dip shrugs 1-2 sets of 5-10 reps
  • LYTP’s on stability ball or bench
  • Prone lower trap raises on incline bench

By now, your lower traps should feel a pleasant “burning” or tingling sensation, letting you know that the muscles are beginning to fire.  After this, I would probably follow up with a few rotator cuff exercises to help with shoulder stability.  In fact, Diesel Crew has put out an excellent circuit for “shoulder rehab” that you might want to check out.  You can sub it in for the circuit above. (Always check with your doctor or a qualified medical professional if you have any shoulder injuries, issues or concerns before attempting any of these exercises.)

 

(By the way, I LOVE the pull up retractions!)  And flutists (and other musicians) you should pay special attention to this video!  These are great exercises to perform before practicing, or any other time of day you want to counter balance the effects of playing your instrument.

 

From there, with whatever workout I was doing, I would make sure to include exercises that engage the lower traps and throw in one or two exercises to help strengthen the shoulder girdles, my favorite exercise being face pulls.  These are very easy to do incorrectly if the shoulder blades are not depressed and retracted.


The list goes on…

There are lots and lots of exercises to increase shoulder stability and when you make a regular habit of incorporating these activation exercises into your programs, you will not only see increased stability, but an increased range of motion, a possible decrease in pain and a possible improvement in upper thoracic posture.

Make sure to include lower trap activation exercises in every warm-up if not each workout!  Please let me know how these exercises worked for you and your own experiences!

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Filed Under: Fitness, Flute

Off to NFA!

August 9, 2011 By 3 Comments

It’s finally here!  Hard to believe it but today I am leaving to go to the National Flute Association Convention.  I will have a JAM-PACKED schedule and that doesn’t even include just going around to the things I WANT to visit!

So far:

Wednesday: Meet up with Flute Specialists and see if I can help them set up their booth.  This is after checking in, of course. :)

Friday:

8AM “You on the Page” Career Artistic Development Mini-Conference participant

9 AM: “You in Pictures” CAD mini-conference Participant

5 PM: Presenting  “Practical Steps Towards Injury Prevention and Management”

Saturday

8 AM: “You in Your Work” CAD mini-conference participant

9 AM: “You, learning from others” CAD

Sunday

8 AM: Presenting “Lift, Play, Love: Basic Weight Lifting for Efficient Flute Playing”

That, of course, doesn’t include going to the other lectures, exhibits, classes and playing!  I hope to do a good bit of reading and playing with others and I’m really looking forward to it.  If not there, you just might find me hanging out around the Flute Specialists table, maybe even in the gym doing my own workout or helping others.

Want to see the entire schedule?  Check out my previous post with a link to it!
If you’re there, I really look forward to meeting you- come say hi!  When I get back, I fully intend to write up a nice recap of the experiences with links to my handouts.  See you in Charlotte!

Filed Under: Flute, Travel

It’s a Wild Ride…

July 31, 2011 By 4 Comments

So life has been crazy, lately.  I know, I know, I was on a roll, posting a few new blog posts every week, and believe me, I have more than a few drafts in the works, but I just haven’t been able to get to them.  I could put something out just for the sake of generating content, but I don’t feel that serves much of a purpose.  I like to spend time on my articles; researching the content, searching for the right images and references and working to make it something I can stand behind.  So, I’m afraid you’ll just have to bear with me for awhile as life gets even more hectic for me in the next two weeks.

So What the Heck Have I Been Doing???

Well, let me lay it out in bullet point format…I like bullet points. :)

  • I travelled to Tennessee to spend two weeks with the Army National Guard Band.  We were engaged daily with the TN Arts Academy Conducting Symposium.  While there I got to play woodwind trios, organize the Army Band library (I’m in awe at the amount of music we have) and network.
  • I bought a road bike!  I’d like to introduce you to my new friend, Lexa:
    My new bike!
  • With a new bike comes a lot of work – learning how to ride, acquiring the proper gear, skills and logging miles.  I went on a 40 mile ride yesterday and while it was fun, it was humbling to be with a group of people who rode faster than me – I found out just how far fitness-wise I have to go!
  • I’ve been working like a mad-woman on my NFA  presentations I can’t believe it’s 2 weeks from now!!!  It’s crunch time now – getting all my presentation thoughts, handouts and ideas together.  I’ve also got the great news that I’ve been selected to participate in the NFA Career and Artistic Development Committee Mini-Conference, where I will be presenting Music Strong as my business and being mentored by great people in the flute world: Eva Amsler, Alberto Almaraz, Stephanie Jutt, Laura Barron,  and Jill Felber – so I’ve been getting those materials together, too.  In addition, I will hopefully be assisting Flute Specialists at their booth at NFA.  So it’s going to be a BUSY convention!  Oh, and did I mention my birthday is the 12th?  Right in the middle of the convention – not a bad present. :)
  • I’ve been promoting Music Strong like crazy and have gotten a lot of work done!  We now have T-shirts for sale!! You can order them on the Music Strong website .  I’ve also gotten new business cards, been sending out announcements for my NFA presentations, and I’ve launched the PC Beach Boot camp!  We’re having a great time so far and if you’re interested in coming, we welcome all age and ability levels – you can tailor the class to your needs and what you can do.  We meet every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 5:30 at the PC Beach Pier Public Access.  And speaking of promotion, you might find some “Groupon” type deals for me in the Panama City newspaper, soon – they’re launching something called “Deal of the Day” and I plan to be a part of it!  So be on the lookout for that!

Ok, are you tired reading all this?  I am! So to finish up, I’d just like to let you all know that I WILL be posting soon, and I fully intend to do a NFA recap.

In the meantime, I’d like to wax poetic about my bike for a minute.

Why do I like it?  This thought has come to me more than once while riding and that is, I like it for the challenge. The mental challenge.  More often than not it’s not the physical challenge that is what is a struggle, it’s that it’s a mental challenge.  When you ride on a stationary bike, you can get off any time.  You can cite any excuse you like just to get off and quit.  When you ride a bike in the great out doors, you log a lot of miles and suddenly, you are in the middle of nowhere with no choice but to ride back.  Sure, you can get off and quit, but no one will come pick you up, you’ll have walk back, and who wants to do that when you’ve got a perfectly good bike?

My boot camp class is the same way, in a way: you can “get off” and quit at any point.  But you won’t.  Why? Because you’re there with a lot of other people and THEY aren’t quitting, and you don’t want to be seen as a quitter, right?  So you end up going farther, going harder, pushing yourself beyond where you THOUGHT you could go and that makes you stronger and can boost your confidence in a way you didn’t think was possible.  With every class I get sore and then I get stronger, physically AND mentally, and so do my “campers”.  With every ride, I can go longer, my cardiovascular endurance increases and my mental toughness increases because no matter how far back it is, no matter how hard the wind is blowing in my face and making it a struggle to go forward – I don’t have a choice, I HAVE to keep going.  Besides the fact that the scenery changes, THAT is why I love bike riding (and boot camp class).
So I hope to see you all at my class on Tuesday.  It really is a fun experience and who doesn’t love that feeling of accomplishing more than you thought possible?

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Do What You Suck At

June 20, 2011 By 2 Comments

One of my mottos for awhile now has been “You are only as strong as your weakest link”.  This picture exemplifies the idea perfectly.  When I was in Army Basic Training, that was one of the things they told us almost constantly.  We had to do everything as a team, and if one person was wrong, you were all wrong.  If one person wanted to keep the Kevlar helmet on instead of taking it off, we all had to keep it on.  If one person got punished…well, that didn’t happen, we all got punished.

The point was that you HAD to learn to do everything as a unit, as a team, and that each person was as important as the next.  You are being taught to pay attention to detail and you realize very quickly that even if YOU excel in one area, your Battle Buddy probably doesn’t, and to work together as a team, everyone has to come together to support and encourage and work on their “weakest link” before you can excel as a team.

Your body works as a team as well and if you don’t address your weakest link, you are shortchanging yourself.  As a musician, you know that if you don’t work on your weak spots, you’ll never reach your full potential because being a musician is made of several “links” – scales, intervals, tone, technique, body awareness, attitude, work ethic, etc.

As for my title…

You’ll have to pardon the hanging participle and bad grammar….but it got your attention, didn’t it?

Here’s the point if you do what you’re good at, you’ll never get any better.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  Sure, but what do we do?  We do the things at which we already accel.  Why?  Because we like doing well, we like feeling that good feeling that comes with doing well, and when you do something well, it’s, well…..easy.

Another way to say “do what you suck at” is to say “work on your weaknesses”.  Now, honestly if I had put that as the title, you wouldn’t have stopped by to read, would you?   Not nearly as interesting.  But the truth is there in both statements.  When you take a good look at the areas in which you lack and you go forth and WORK on those weaknesses what happens?

Well, it’s hard.
It’s generally not much fun.
You might fail….a lot.
But in the end, you end up succeeding and ultimately not only gaining a greater sense of achievement due to the feeling of overcoming something at which you used to not do well, but it gets easier from there for you to get better at it.

Two examples: music and fitness, of course :)

Fitness

Take your pick: squat, pushup or pullup.

Sure, there are other hard exercises like deadlifting and benching and rowing but in all honesty, these are tough for me and most women.  Most people do a HORRIBLE job of squatting with good form.  They either

  • don’t go low enough
  • elevate their heels and squat on their toes
  • have their knees cave in
  • point their toes way out

It’s sad really, because what should be easy to do (we did it as 2-year olds without another thought) becomes so much more difficult as we age.

Side note:
This is why I suggest EVERYONE get some training in Alexander Technique.  It’s not just for musicians and you will relearn how to use your body the way God intended and the way you used to, as aforementioned 2-year old but with better motor skills :)

Walk into almost any gym in the country and undoubtedly you will see a lot of the same things: the treadmills, ellipticals and bikes will be mostly full (sadly, mostly with women), lots of people using machines, and in the free weight section, the few people you see will be mostly men, mostly doing chest and bicep exercises.  Occassionally you’ll see a man doing a squat….probably only going half-way down with too much weight (because it’s always better to improve your ego by using too much weight with bad form than to use no weight with good form, right?) and even more rarely, you’ll see a lady in there, doing “toning” exercises with the pink dumbbells.  She’s doing it because she knows she needs to do something but isn’t sure what, so she sticks to what’s safe, what isn’t challenging, and pats herself on the back for venturing into the “guy’s” part of the gym. And year after year the ladies on the treadmills wonder why their bodies haven’t changed the way they “should”.

The guys do their same routines for the same reason: they work the vanity muscles using some outdated routines they found in magazines (that really only work for newbies) because they don’t know any better, it’s safe, it’s what the other guys are doing and hey, what woman looks at a guy’s legs – they look at his GUNS right?   And year after year, he does the same stuff, blindly going forward, his gains decreasing every year and wondering why.

I’ll tell you why.  It’s because they don’t work on their weaknesses.


Music

Where is your weakness when it comes to music?  Ignoring etudes, scales and technique exercises – only focusing on working on pieces?  Not really “wood shedding” the music, but just playing it over and over again?  Putting off memorizing something?  Not practicing much at all?

As a musician, my biggest weakness is 1) not making the time to practice and 2) not giving myself structure during practice time….which leads to feeling like I”m just wasting my time, so I end up not practicing at all!  If you are one of those musicians  who has been out of school for awhile, you know how easy it is to get out of the habit of daily practice, espcially when you aren’t surrounded by other musicians pushing you, endless rehearsals and recitals.  If LACK of practice is your nemesis, ask yourself why?  And chunk it into manageable goals: 1) I will  practice every day or every other day 2) I will work on these pieces and these exercises, etc.  Just write it down and give yourself structure.

If there is something specific you suck at and you’re just avoiding it, it’s time to take the bull by the horns and go after it!  If you are a person who plays by ear and has a difficult time deciphering rythms on the page…..well, you need to start reading more music with difficult rhythms.  If you suck at sightreading, the only way to get better at sightreading is to sightread a LOT.

See how this works?  Identify your weakness, have the courage to put your ego aside and say “ok, what do I really suck at?” and then do THAT.

Take your dreaded evil and look it square in the face and say

“Today , it’s you and me and while I may not conquer you today, maybe not tomorrow, I will not fear you, and I WILL do this”.

 

And from there, you start with Moyse Gamme Arpegge and work your way through :)

 

So Do What You Suck At

If you are a gym “bro” who splits his workouts into “chest days’ and “arm days”: have the courage to do a full body workout,

If you are a lady who does nothing but stay on the elliptical or do curls and crunches in the “guy’s part of the gym”, have the courage to pick up some 20 pounders or hire a personal trainer and learn how to do a real deadlift…I can tell you, there’s nothing more empowering than deadlifting your bodyweight (with excellent form) in a gym full of men who are doing superflous exercises (with bad form).

If you are a musician and you’ve been putting off attacking Berio’s “Sequenza” GO FOR IT!  You just might find that it’s way more fun than you ever realized.

 

In the end, we all have to work on our weaknesses, because there is only so far you can go in the areas you already excel.



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