Scott Sonnon's Intu-flow Joint Mobility Program
 

Jomar posted one of these youtube videos a while back and I wondered if anyone else here has tried this or I'm being the pioneer here. I started doing the Sharon Butler stretching program last April and lately I've been doing more and more of this Intu-flow. I'm finding these two programs go together hand in hand. They are both about gently and gradually stretching the body to break up adhesions, or stuck together muscles. The cool thing about this program is it shows you how to gently stretch every joint in your entire body and it's different than anything I've ever tried or seen before. Here's the link if you want to listen to Scott Sonnon explain it.

Oops! I guess I don't have enough posts to post a video link. It will come up on youtube as Scott Sonnon's Intu-flow beginner part 1. Most of the beginner program is on there so if you want to try it won't cost you anything. I just bought the DVD myself because I really like it and I want to try to get my wife to start doing it to see if it will help her headaches and neck problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsMPqP7hxRk There. Needed more posts.

intu-flow
 

Coop42 or anyone who can answer this for me,
I have heard of sharon Butlers program but have never been able to get any real info on this, I am hyper-mobile anyway with winging of both scapula (trying to correct posture for long time)
Now intuflow how would one know if this is good for them as everyones situation is a little different?

I can not ask PCP DR as he has zero understanding of TOS and does not want to know very dismissive on subject. I need to find new pcp but in meantime am trying to find anything that I can do to help myself.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

andismom

here 's the info page on the TOS pgm by Sharon Butler.
I got her TOS pgm in 2004 and it really did help me a lot, especially while I was still working , and when I got released back to work again for a short time - until the work was just too much to handle and my RSI/TOS injury flared up-again.
No amount of PT or selfcare could offset the 10 hrs a day of the job.


http://www.selfcare4rsi.com/thoracic...rder-page.html
from the site -
[Here's My Promise To You!

Buy a copy of the Thoracic Outlet Syndrome Self Care Toolkit. Open it, try it, test it, feel what it does for your body. Kick the tires on it for a full 60 days. If at the end of that time you are not happy with the results you have achieved, let me know and I will gladly refund your full purchase price, NO questions asked. You have nothing to lose! ]
----------------------------------------------------------------------


Also there are many video clips on You tube about posture and RSI, even TOS, you can carefully sample a few styles and see how you respond, just go easy on yourself -and with awareness of what your body can handle.
Easy baby steps are best, don't force or push through any discomfort, it often will cause a set back if you do too much.

another one with fairly passive stretches for whole body that I liked is Pete Egoscue -
he has books in library and here are some vids to see how they look-
http://www.google.com/search?q=Egosc...d55752a4aea6a6

Trial and error
 

Trial and error and many, many flareups and painful days. I wish I had a more encouraging answer than that but that's how I've been doing it just a whole lot of experimenting. A lot of the stretches I've been doing lately is stuff I've made up myself.

I just turned 49 last week and I've had TOS since I was 17 or 18 so it's been awhile now. I had surgery 20 years ago(scalenectomy) and that just made me worse. Last year I was lying in bed watching TV and I realized I just had to do something to try and improve myself. I was going stir crazy and needed a reason to get up in the morning. I pulled out the Sharon butler book that I had, read it cover to cover and it made lot of sense to me. I've stretched every single day since then but it's been no picnic. The first several months the pain was horrible and it took me eight months before I could straighten my right arm all the way out. Everything was that tight. I've learned to pace myself, on the good days I stretch more aggressively, and on the painful days I just do a lot of movement exercises. Circles with neck, shoulders, arms etc. just to keep the muscles moving and the blood circulating.

To be fair, I don't work so my muscles get plenty of rest after stretching. I don't think I could have kept this up if I was trying to work.

Circles
 

So with this intu-flow, once you start to get some basic movement in each joint then you start to do circles. When I first started I was so tight I really couldn't do this but with constant work and practice I'm getting better at it. They also call this circular strength training or CST. The way Scott Sonnon explains this, the circular movement of the joint allows synovial fluids to get in there to lubricate the joint. Also, the torque helps to gently breakup adhesions and decompress the joint. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being very uncomfortable you want to keep your pain level at a 4 or less as you do the movement. The idea is to gently shave away the tension day after day and gradually increase the flexibility.

Thanks
 

Thanks so much to both of you!

I am 2 years out after surgery RT rib and scalenectomy. No real improvement. Have RT upper arm swelling and sensitivity around elbow that drives me nuts then some days it just is totally numb.
I am no where near a TOS SPECIALIST just dealing with every day PCP
who is so complacent about everything. Only meds I am on is Neurotin 600mgs a day even I know this is not even a theraputic dose.

Dr says to me at last visit as he casually leaves the room Oh by the way I noticed you have winging of both scapula.

I replied would that cause the stabbing feeling I get sometimes when I reach for things of try to use my arms?

DR has no reply already down the hall to next patient in next exam
room.
HELP!

Andismom

Adhesions
 

Adhesions are something I don't really hear talked about much, on here, or even by doctors and therapists. I've never been to a therapist who had me do much more than general stretching or lying on some foam rollers to try and stretch the chest area out. I know many others have tried that stuff without much luck. The more I stretch and do this Intu-Flow I'm realizing that it takes movement to stretch out the joints and free up the adhesions. The movement also brings nutrition to the joints so they can heal.

If you think about it it makes a lot of sense. The joints are where the nerves tend to get impinged. I hear many people on here, including myself, that have wrist and elbow pain and I don't think that all of starts in the neck. I read somewhere that there's 10 or 12 places that the nerves can be impinged from the neck down to the hand. By doing a total joint mobility program like this I'm hoping that over time the nerves will get freed up in some of these areas.

A colleague of Sharon Butler's has a book out with similar type of movements for body stiffness, restrictions, adhesions.. I just placed a request for the book in my local library.

Some online info-
http://www.undulationexercise.com/
some vid clips- http://www.undulationexercise.com/exercises.htm
[Excerpted from
"Relieve Stiffness and Feel Young Again with Undulation"
By Anita Boser, LMP, CHP]

Thanks Jomar. I added the videos to my favorites. Some more things to try out. That hand and finger one feels pretty good.;)

This is another site I found ages ago that I liked.
It's listed in the useful stickys post #1 - but I'd like to add it onto this thread also.

http://www.bodymindresources.com/Class1/Class1lab.htm

Here's the main page for all info/overview-
http://www.bodymindresources.com/

Thanks for all the above info

Interesting interview with Scott Sonnon
 

http://physicalliving.com/exclusive-...hed=1&ids=2953
I thought this interview was really interesting. He talks about a lot of things that I've never heard before. It's pretty long but the part where he's talks about joint mobility starts 24 minutes into it.

Not today
 

One of these days I'm hoping to do some posts on how much I've improved from stretching, but not today. I overdid some new stretches yesterday and my shoulders are tight and hands are swollen. Unfortunately, that's how it's been from the start of my stretching journey. There's many ups and downs, it's not a steady uphill climb.

Most of last year I felt worse. It wasn't until the last couple months that I've started to see some big improvements in some areas. I'm constantly playing around feeling for tight areas and figuring ways to stretch them. It's usually when I try something new that I flare up but that's how I learn. There's no way around that, that I know of. It takes so much patience and persistence and can be very frustrating and discouraging at times.

It's really true though, we each have to more or less experiment for ourselves to see what will work for us.

And to find our limits as to what is a little bit too much, then you go back a step and then go forward with a smaller increase. Baby steps are about the best way for us to go forward.

I still will overdo once in awhile, especially if I've lapsed on my stretches like I have this long winter.:(

Still having some cool weather here and it's just hard to get myself moving to loosen up in the mornings...and I can really feel the difference when we have a warm day vs a chilly day.

If you guys only knew how many wrong keys I hit ...LOL
thank you to Firefox for the built in spell check:D

Bodybuilding
 

I don't know if anyone listened to that interview with Scott Sonnon that I posted here but he mentions how bad bodybuilding is for you. Unfortunately, I did a lot of that in my younger days and I think it's caused a lot of my problems. It compresses your joints and it can cause nerve impingement, rounded shoulders, and many other problems. He's a coach for many types of athletes and he says," Bodybuilding is as close to death as you can come while remaining animate". That's an exact quote from that interview.:eek: If you're someone that does any weightlifting you may want to listen to it.

Surgery side vs. non surgery side
 

Since I had surgery 20 years ago(scalenectomy) on my right side it's always been worse and more painful than the non surgery side. However, lately I've been noticing that the two sides are getting more evenly matched. In fact, during this last flare up that I've had there's been more pain in the nonsurgical arm than the surgical one. Also, I've noticed that I now have better flexibility on the surgical side than the nonsurgical side. So what does this mean? Could it be possible that the surgery I had 20 years ago did me some good but I just never had the proper therapy to release all the adhesions? I did work that way for more than 10 years before I was ever diagnosed with TOS and had the surgery. I don't know but this is getting pretty interesting. I just plan to keep on stretching and see what happens.

Fruit and vegetable smoothies
 

Sharon butler recommends that you drink a lot of water when stretching to relieve repetitive strain injuries. I've also read studies where people who eat alot of raw fruits and vegetables tend to be more flexible and pain free, so I've combined these ideas and started drinking a lot of fruit and vegetable smoothies. I've been doing this every day since last Christmas when I got a blender.

I start out by putting about 2 cups of water in the blender and then adding raw spinach, coleslaw mix, baby carrots, bananas, apples, oranges, frozen berries, frozen peaches, frozen pineapple, and sometimes a little bit of yogurt. I don't put all that in at once, usually 4 or 5 different things. The frozen stuff is nice because it's already cleaned and cut up and it doesn't spoil. If you put enough fruit in there these things actually taste pretty good.

I try to drink at least two of these a day. Do I think it helps any? It's hard to say but I figure all the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and enzymes aren't going to hurt any.

ive sworn off stretching but that sideways roll looks very tempting

antioxidants have definitely helped me
and just moving in general

Bruising or discoloration from stretching?
 

I noticed yesterday that I have some bruising and discoloration on the outside of my right knee. It's kind of where the lower leg muscles tie into the outside of the knee. I have been doing a lot of stretching for my legs and and that spot has been a tight, painful area for many years. It doesn't hurt so I'm thinking that I must have released some adhesions or scar tissue in that spot, which would be a good thing, I think. Has anyone else ever noticed bruising after stretching?

Intu-flow update
 

I've been doing my intu-flow everyday and I'm really liking it alot. The more of this circular stuff I'd do, the better I seem to feel. I can do almost all of the beginner program now but I've found it's better to break it up into small stretching sessions throughout the day then to do all of it once. That way I don't overdo myself as easy.

I'm realizing now that when I started stretching a little over a year ago, both of my shoulders were frozen and so was my left hip. I was just so used to it I didn't know the difference. Also, all of my muscles were really tight and hard feeling and it hurt to touch them. One Dr. said it was fibromyalgia. Now they're starting to feel softer and looser. I can really notice a big difference.

I'm not pain-free or anything yet but at least I'm making progress.:cool:

Good explanation of adhesions
 

I've been spending a lot of time studying anatomy to help with my stretching. I just came across this web page that does a good job of explaining what muscle adhesions are. I'm starting to firmly believe that muscle adhesions are a big part of TOS that is getting missed by most people.

Here's the link.http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...KKPQiALdtcTSCQ

I really think so too, it is kind of a use it or lose it syndrome.

If we don't keep gently moving we tend to get more and more adhesions & restrictions.

The long winter and cool damp spring weather here is really putting a crimp in my activities and I am feeling the results or not moving around as much.

Funny how much better I feel when we do get a warm day.:rolleyes:


One of the links on that site is this one -
http://saveyourself.ca/articles.php

I hear ya on the weather, Jomar. It's been raining here for the past two days and I'm really feeling it in my muscles and joints. It's not supposed to rain this much in June around here. Crazy weather.

Stretching with movement
 

All of the stretching I do lately involves movement. The reason for this is simple, holding a stretch flare's me up, even after more than a year of stretching. Not just my upper body, but my legs will flare up just the way my arms do. Things like the doorway stretch, where you press your arms against the doorway, I don't do. I never try to stretch against a solid object like that, it just doesn't work for me.

I do some stretches standing, some sitting, and some lying down. All of the intu-flow exercises are done standing. I just move the area I'm stretching to the edge of the pain 3 or 4 times, never to far. I go to the pain, not through the pain. I'm just trying to shave off small areas of tension. It's much better to stretch an area many times throughout the day gently, then to push too hard and cause a flare up. I also try to stretch the tight area from as many different angles as possible. The circular movements I've learned from intu-flow are great for this.

Coop: I've been reading your story with this program and I'm impressed. Good for you at keeping this up and trying to make a change. I can only stretch slightly as there is a thin line between good and muscle recoil. I do have ROM, but pay the price if I do to much. I've done different programs and moving your body in all dimensions is foreign to me, but so important. Most programs suggest you make one movement with your spine (ie arching), but not arching when you're turned at various angles.

I played sports all my life and never stretched. I believe I'm paying for it now.

Cheering you on -
Anne

Thanks Anne:) I was actually a little hesitant to start posting this for fear I might jinx myself. After this many years I've tried a lot of things that I was excited about at first, but then I kind of hit dead ends, and got discouraged and gave up.

Forearm bruising
 

On one of my posts I mentioned that I had some bruising on my knee. Now I'm noticing that I have some bruising in my forearms. I've been doing a lot of circles with my elbows and wrists and I think the torque is breaking up the adhesions and tight tissues, causing the bruising. So in my opinion, it's a good thing. I have no nerve pain or tingling, so it's not hurting the nerves any. My elbows and wrists are actually starting to feel better than they have in quite a while.

It's good to hear you figured that bruising out, it sounds logical to me.
If it was a bad thing you probably would have had some pain with it.

Indian clubs
 

During the last couple of months I've started using Indian clubs in a few of my exercises. Indian clubs look like baseball bats, but they're smaller, and the end of the handle is round like a ball, so you can rotate them more easily in your hands. They come in different sizes and weights. The ones I have are 16 inches long and weigh 1 pound. I bought the smallest ones because I was afraid of hurting myself.

Indian clubs are another part of circular strength training. I've been using them to do a lot of circles with my wrists and a few things for my shoulders. Holding the club creates a little more torque and traction when you're doing an exercise, to help stretch the muscles, and open up the joints a little bit more. In the beginning, my hands would usually swell, and get tight and inflamed after using them, but this seems to be getting better as things gradually loosen up.

I know it sounds crazy for someone with the TOS to be swinging things around but it seems to be helping me. A year ago, if someone told me I'd be doing this, I would have said, "That's ridiculous, there's no way I could ever do that," but here I am. The key is, everything I've done has been gradual and incremental, one baby step after another. It's taken tons of patience and creativity.

Sitting
 

Besides the scalenectomy that I had in 1991, I've also had two lower back surgeries. One in 1990 that was a flop, and another one in 1994, that turned out pretty good. Joe Montana's Doc did that one. But ever since then, I've still had lower back and leg pain. That, along with the upper body pain from the TOS, has made sitting very difficult and painful. I mounted a TV on the ceiling in the bedroom, so I spend a lot of time lying in bed and watching TV. It's way more comfortable than trying to sit.

One of the benefits I'm starting to notice from all my stretching, is that sitting is starting to get more comfortable, which has me pretty excited. It's really hard to go places and do things when you can't sit comfortably. Many times I've flared myself up, just because I sat in an uncomfortable chair for too long, or rode in somebody's car that had uncomfortable seats. Most of the time I just stand, and sometimes people get kind of weird about it. They think I'm uncomfortable because I'm standing, and it makes them nervous or something.

I'm hoping if I keep all this stretching up, the sitting will keep getting easier. Just that, would be a huge quality of life improvement for me.

Layers
 

The more I stretch and do this Intu-flow, I can feel the layers and pockets of tension gradually getting smaller. It's pretty neat. I'm actually having a lot of fun with it now. In the beginning, say the first 8 or 10 months, I actually dreaded adding new stretches because it was so painful afterwards. Everything would just get so tight and inflamed later in the day, from the stretching.

I'm starting to see now how tight and stuck together my muscles really were. It's kind of like unthawing a bag of frozen chicken parts. The more twisting, turning, and rocking back and forth I do, the easier they come apart. It's the same thing with muscles. I'm learning to play around and hit them from as many different angles as I can. Sometimes that's what it takes to get a muscle to release.

As things heal, I'm also finding that I can spend a lot more time during the day stretching and it's making things go faster. My body is starting to recover from the stretches alot faster. It's also getting easier to stretch the tight areas because I have some slack to work with. In the beginning everything was so tight, I had no side to side movement in my joints.

Does anyone get real bad inflamation after doing these streches?

I did the shoulder and neck ones and wow, the areas got very imflamed afterwoods. Is that normal? and is that a good sign or bad sign?

Also how often are you meant to do these streches? a few times a week or ?

thanks

The inflammation is normal, especially when you're first starting out. It's because you're stretching tight, injured tissues that aren't used to it. It's probably best to let the inflammation calm down before you do it again. Also, you may have done too much. In the beginning, less is better. If you do too much you'll get discouraged and quit because of the pain afterwards. I try to do these daily now, but in the beginning I waited for the inflammation to calm down before I did them again. Even now, sometimes I over do it and have to let things rest for a few days.

Everything's connected
 

Everything on my left side(nonsurgical side) is still tighter than the right side. Shoulder, arm, back, hip and leg, everything all the way down. If I reach overhead with my left arm, sometimes I get a sharp pulling pain in my left hip. It works the other way too. The other day I was sitting in a chair doing some leg stretches and little while later my left arm started hurting a lot. I couldn't figure why. Then all of a sudden it dawned on me, stretching my left leg must have pulled on things in my shoulder and arm. There's been other times I've noticed this too.

The lesson here is everything in the body is connected. When you've had problems for a lot of years, like I have, one part of the body starts to affect another part, and that part can affect another part, and so on, so and on. It's kind of a domino effect. Like Scott Sonnon says, " The human body is one big myofascial matrix", and this is a perfect example of that.

Surgery side vs. nonsurgery side update
 

I seem to be making progress on both sides. My flexibility is gradually improving and I'm noticing more veins in both of my hands that weren't there before, so I'm assuming my circulation is improving, which is a good thing. Also, as the pockets of tension get smaller, my pain level is starting to drop a little bit, but it varies from day to day, of course.

On the surgical side I used to get a lot of burning and redness on the right side of my face, my neck, my right ear, and my forearm and hand. It was pretty painful and uncomfortable. In the beginning, the stretching made that a lot worse but it was just something I had to deal with. That seems to be improving a lot though. It did happen about a month ago when I stretched my neck too hard, but if I'm careful it's not too bad.

The nonsurgical side is still tighter than the other side. I have some pain that starts under my arm and goes down the inside of my elbow, but it has really improved a lot from the stretching and joint mobility exercises. Also, this arm doesn't go overhead as easily. If I reach too much, I can feel a pulling sensation in the left side of my neck. I'm assuming that's where the nerves pass through the scalenes. I have to be kind of careful doing overhead movements or I end up twanging the nerves.

After this many years, I have no idea how much I can improve from this, but I plan to just keep chipping away every day and see what happens.

Fibromyalgia
 

Besides having TOS, I also have fibromyalgia. When I first started stretching about 15 months ago, I came across this website.http://www.releasefibromyalgia.com/s...romyalgia/#how

This lady says that she cured her fibromyalgia with stretching and it took her about 4 or 5 years, so it's a very slow process. She also thinks that fibromyalgia is basically muscles that are too tight, and I agree with her, in my case anyway. When the muscles get too tight, the nervous system gets out of whack and it causes pain throughout your body.

She also said that she used gentle yoga type stretches and held them for up to 20 minutes at a time. All the stretching I've been doing involves movement, and I never hold a stretch because it flares me up, but it's working for me. So which style of stretching is better? I think you have to experiment and figure out what works best for you. Just because something works for someone else, doesn't mean it's the best way for you. We're all different.

The Edgelow protocol
 

I just thought I'd put this in for comparison. I know some people here have done, or do, the Edgelow protocol. I've done some of it myself, but I never could get to the point where I could do all the exercises. I improved a little bit with it, but I'm making much better progress with the things I'm doing now.

I pulled the Edgelow tape out and watched it a couple of days ago because I thought maybe there might be something on there that I might want to add to my routine, but no. I'm already doing total body mobility exercises. Neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands, fingers, thoracic spine, lumbar spine, hips, knees, ankles, and feet. I didn't see anything that was better than what I'm already doing, and I'm doing it all free hand. I don't need all those foam rollers and stuff. I'm a big believer in keeping it simple.

Sharon Butler says," Your best chance of a 100% recovery comes from making up your own stretches" and I've taken that to heart. I really enjoy making up my own stretches and coming up with new ideas. By constantly experimenting it keeps things fresh and fun. Enjoying what you're doing is half the battle, if you're bored with what you're doing you'll stop doing it.

Coop:

Thanks for the article on the Fibro lady. Almost a year ago, I did the Child's Pose one day for just a few minutes and my thoracic got very irritated, but it felt good while doing it. I'd been doing Edgelow stuff for so long, getting no where and it felt good to be concave, rather than stretched back all the time. I've had a lot of manual therapy since then and tried the supported Child's Pose you posted. I can do it now :). So far, I can hold it for about 10 minutes. It's not my back which hurts, but my feet and knees. I need to put some extra cushion down.
This may be a really dumb question, but are you doing this Scott Sonnon program off the You Tube videos or did you buy a set online?
Agree with you about finding your own thing. I've dabbled in it all and spent to much time on some things. For me, manual therapy, which they told me not to do, is what's saving me, plus my own little routine of stretches, breathing and audios.

Anne

Hi Anne, I'm glad that you're finding that fibromyalgia information helpful. That's cool that you are able to do that pose now. A little bit at a time.;)

I started out doing the intu-flow program on youtube, but several months ago I ended up buying the dvds from Amazon.Com. I'm hoping to get my wife to try some of it. She has chronic headaches and neck problems and I'm hoping it might help her. So far I haven't been able to get her to do much of it though. It's hard to get people to try new things.