Joy Keller's Blog

So yesterday, midway through my day, my old friend illiotibial band syndrome woke up. This time, on my left leg (it’s usually my right that’s affected). If you’ve never experienced this before, I’m sure you know someone who has, maybe a client or participant. It manifests as pain in the lateral aspect of the knee and can get progressively worse if you don’t pay therapeutic attention to it. Hobbling around for the remaining days of the conference was not an option. Luckily I’ve had this before. In fact, this little dysfunction is what introduced me to the delights of self-mysofacsial release techniques almost 10 years ago. What in the beginning took me months to figure out took me a matter of hours this time. Rest-roll-ice. That’s what a searing need to alleviate pain and extreme thirst for knowledge can do for you. Efficient outcomes. And you become an epic geek who wants to show the world how the right tweaks can help you move pain-free.  I am a geek among geeks here at the 2010 IDEA World Fitness Convention, and it’s always nice to come home to fitness geekville. Yes, the education is top-notch, but do you want to know what moves me even more? This morning as I was leaving the women’s bathroom I saw one of IDEA’s international members from a Spanish-speaking country teaching an L.A. Convention Center custodian dance moves. In the bathroom, folks. My guess is the convention center employee had little experience with “aerobicos,” based on her shy gleefulness. However, she was eager and smiling and willing to go on this new adventure with her new IDEA friend, a fitness professional who obviously likes to inspire wherever she goes. Who knows what might have happened after I left? They probably devised some sort of ingenious programming using the mop! I wouldn’t be surprised in the least.  Speaking of exercise programming, I heard an interesting anecdote from Bill Sonnemaker in his session “Corrective Exercise Solutions Using Myofascial Lines.” He said a colleague new to personal training asked him where he came up with all the exercises that he uses in his program design. “Do you get them from a video library or a magazine?” Bill realized that this young man, along with many others apparently, had no idea what the myofasical lines were and how integral this knowledge is to understanding muscles and movement. It’s key to have this deep knowledge because it opens up a wellspring of creativity. If you know how these lines works, you know how to program for muliplanar movement.  See what I mean? Geekville.  By the way,what an amazing awards show last night! For a jaded person like myself to be impressed, it takes an extra ounce of pizazz, personality and pomp and that’s exactly how things landed. If you missed the ceremony, I wish I could replay for you the authenticity and warmth the U.S. Surgeon General portrayed or the dazzling dance numbers or the class Andre Agassi showed, his grace and generosity of spirit. There was also a lot of buzz about IDEA Fitness Connect and rightly so--it’s going to revolutionize the fitness industry. It’s 100% FREE, and I have an account myself. So go ahead and get started on yours, you won’t regret it.