Muscular stiffness and your heart

So far we've looked at heart health in women, particularly around menopause, and how movement can help you - both cardio and strength workouts.

But where does that leave mind body exercises like Pilates and yoga?

As I said last week, bodyweight strength counts as much as lifting weights does - so any squat, lunge, hinge, push, pull moves you might be doing will help with lowering blood pressure in the same way.

But there is another reason why it helps

Stiffness in the upper body is related to arterial stiffness

So any mobility work you do to get the upper body moving more freely - side bends, rotations, extensions - will help

Upper body stiffness is also implicated in:

• lower back pain
• pelvic floor dysfunction
• shoulder immobility
• headaches, jaw and neck pain

So it's always worth including some kind of mobility work!

(Rotation can also help with relaxation, as it targets the vagus nerve, and with constipation!)

Click here for a quick little upper body mobility sequence you could try

Blog post: Upper body mobility sequence

Another way to work on stiffness is with lymph work

I always associated lymph with your immune system

But it is more than that

The lymph nodes are responsible for clearing toxins and broken down cells and other waste products out of your body.  

What can happen is that the body gets blockages and the lymph can't flow properly. 

This results in a reduced capacity to get rid of toxins, leading to swelling, inflammation, stiffness and pain

There can then be an imbalance in the fluids, so as well as not getting rid of toxins, the cells don't get as much nutrients as they should

I've had great results since I started working on lymph:

• I lost half a stone and my stomach became less bloated
• no sinusitis since starting the work - usually any cold goes straight to my sinuses
• any headaches that have started to develop I've managed to halt
• less stiffness in my joints in the morning
• no more chicken skin on the back of my arms!

I've only taught the course once so now feels like a great time to revisit!

So I'm going to be doing two workshops - working on the lymph can cause detox symptoms, so I don't like to do too much at once!

The first session will be on Wednesday February 28th at 6:30pm for 90 minutes, via Zoom

We'll cover a full body test to see where the blockages are, the Big 6, which is what I do everyday and the head releases - this is the one I've done whenever I've felt a headache coming on and it has worked wonders!

There'll also be a follow up workshop where we'll cover two full body releases - one quick, one a bit more in depth - and the Umbrella Reset, which helped my stomach lose it's inflammation.

If any you would be interested in the workshop, book on below.  I'm going to keep the numbers small, so I can see everyone clearly

Liberate your Lymph part 1