From Non-Athlete to Movement Specialist: Janis Isaman's Story Part One

This week we have one of those professionals . After a few technical nickels , we managed to get the interview up and running . Professionals After a few technical nickels , we managed to get the interview up and running . This episode is so packed with wisdom and inspiration that we decided to split it into two parts .

Today we're thrilled to have Janis Salmon , the amazing founder of my Body Couture . Janis has an incredible story of transforming personal struggles into a holistic approach to wellness . From her tough high school gym classes to the life-changing experience with a consumer-led running club , Janis takes us through her inspiring journey .

In part one of our interview , Janis reveals the power of personalised , non-competitive fitness routines and shares her valuable insights on managing runner's knee . Her story is a treasure trove of wisdom for anyone dealing with chronic pain of movement limitations . We also dive into the fascination discussion about how trauma can affect physical training .

She sheds light on the critical role of trauma-informed principles in marathon preparation , the risks of generic training plans , and shares a compelling personal account of running a marathon post-childbirth . This narrative underscores the importance of listening to your body and incorporating sustainable practices like yoga and stretching , and not forgetting Pilates .

So , whether you're a seasoned marathoner , a casual runner or someone interested in overall wellness , this episode is packed with practical advice on achieving a balanced and injury-free fitness journey . So let's jump right into part one of our conversation with the incredible Janis Isarman . And don't forget forget . The following week we will have part two .

So you're thinking about running , but not sure how to take the first step . My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here to help . Welcome to Brian's Run Pod and your go-to source for all things running and health and wellness , and I'm your host , brian Patterson , and today we have a fantastic guest lined up for you .

Today we're diving into the world of body movement and holistic wellness with none other than Janis Isarman . I think I've got the right surname right . Janis is a founder of my Body Couture , a one-to-one private movement studio . That's all about personalised , body-focused services .

If you've ever dealt with chronic pain , illness , injuries and other movement limitations , Janis approach might be just the game-changer you need . Janis whole-body approach addresses the root causes of limitations and aesthetic concerns , offering practical and usable tools that have transformed how thousands of people to relate to their bodies . And it doesn't stop there .

She's also a keynote speaker , award-winning writer , and has been featured in top publications such as Reader's Digest , prevention and Women's Health . But wait , there is more . Janis is also a mother and a passionate community volunteer . So lace up your running shoes and get ready for an enlightening conversation about movement , wellness and living pain-free .

And let's welcome Janis to the podcast . Everyone gets that .

But before I start with everyone is basically what was your experience of exercise , sort of growing up from school , you know , sort of into your teens and and sort of before you did the extracurricular ?

So I was definitely the classic in high school . I was the yearbook editor , I was the creative person , I was in the choir , I was a singer and I was the fur in the choir . I was a singer and I was the furthest thing from athletic that you can possibly get .

So I actually remember sitting in my high school phys ed teacher's office crying because that was bringing down my academic average . So I am .

If you were going to go back to my yearbook , if we had such a thing , and say who's the least likely to be a body movement specialist in their grown-up life , I definitely would have been either the actual winner or right at the very top of the nomination back .

Because the very first thing that happened after high school was I don't know if you have these where you live , but we had a store called the Running Room and it really popularized the consumer-led run clubs . So , they sold running gear , but then they had running clubs in the store . I don't know what ?

But that aside , I'm the same .

It took me out of that phys ed environment where they're grading and there's people who are not really good at it and it's competitive and you're on teams and you're doing , you know , ball , sports et cetera , to the concept of it's for everybody . You don't need to be fit , there is no measurement , there's no race , there's no .

And again , I kind of changed my mind with how they ended up . Really . I ended up living in New York city and really enjoying competitive running . But at that moment it was exactly the thing that I needed to kind of get on my way with fitness and movement .

But because I did come from that non-athletic background , bad at everything , I ended up with runner's knee .

If you're going to kind of pin a map on why I do what I do , that's why and it's why , when you were looking for podcast guests , I was like like running and injuries and all that stuff is something I know very , very well because runner's knee for anybody who has not had it is it's a real pain in the butt , it is tell me about it , yeah yeah , like I

had an experience where my knee would hurt and then I went to all these different practitioners and some of them helped . So whether it was massage or rolfing or the sports therapist or the doctor , things would help , but they would only help until I went for my next run and then the thing would get worse .

And I actually lived in a city called Edmonton in Canada . It has a huge river valley , and so we would do these hill runs . And I actually lived in a city called Edmonton in Canada . It has a huge river valley , and so we would do these hill runs . And of course , I didn't put one plus one equals two together , but it was .

It was partly the hill running that was killing my knee , um , but I was , you know , 17 or 18 years old , so it's not even like I was . Technically I wasn't old enough to have runners me in the woods . But that's not what the problem was . That's what the doctors kind of focused on is why is this teenager in pain ?

And you know , you should be able to just do this simple thing and get out of it , which in a way , I ended up doing . But subsequent research at the university of Calgary also where I currently live .

That would have been great research to have back then , um , but they they discovered that runner's knee really comes from the hip , and so you know in a in a very direct way , that lack of athleticism when I was a kid meant that my hip joints weren't actually strong enough for those hill runs and what I really actually needed to do was strengthen my glutes and

and open my glutes with things like yoga or Pilates . But I didn't know that , so the doctors didn't know that and the physiotherapist even at that time didn't know that . So I just kind of suffered through being the age that I was . I was in university and it's not .

It's not great because you have to sit and study , you have to walk up and down stairs on campuses , all of it , and I remember it was even affecting you when you were walking .

And so a lot of people right now will ask me why I do what I do , and the long answer and the short answer is I became the practitioner that I needed at the time , and that has remained the case , even as my work has shifted .

But just rooting into that idea of my body's in pain , I want to be able to function and I don't know how to get out of the pain . And , yes , I can go to a practitioner , but that only lasts for an hour a day a week , whatever it is .

And then , as soon as I do the activity that I want to do , again , the pain comes back , and it's worse because I haven't actually gotten to the root of the problem . Pain comes back , and it's worse because I haven't actually gotten to the root of the problem , right ? So my history doing what I do is very , very , very tied to running .

? Yeah , that's a good question , so it . So what ended up helping me through that period that I was just talking about actually was pilates , and it was long enough ago that pilates was a very esoteric , hard to find thing . In fact it was called contrology .

Quite often there wasn't any easy way to access it , there wasn't any way to easy way to train in it . But again , because I've revealed the you know the big , the big research from the university of Calgary , what it really did was strengthen my hips and it strengthened the tiny muscles in my hips , also lengthened and gave me kind of that flexibility .

So it fixed it . Up to this day I've never had another problem with my knee , but I have continued to do Pilates as flexibility . So it fixed it . Up to this day I've never had another problem with my knee , but I have continued to do Pilates as well . So fast forward 10 years into my life . I had it .

You're right , I did not study any of that in university . I have a business degree . And then I was living in Toronto and I was moving to New York city and the world's largest global Pilates .

So , fast forwarding , it became a bit of a snowball , so I did that for myself . I never intended to teach it to as a as a career , for a living , but the way that all of these certifications work is you can't finish the certification unless you have clients and you start seeing people .

And it turned out to be very rewarding and for six or seven years after that I actually continued to add certifications and to teach people in my spare time and then , 10 or 11 years ago , it became my full-time career , and so I have subsequently added yoga discipline called Yamina body rolling , which is magical for runners . Um , there's a .

There's a discipline that's based in Europe called critical alignment therapy , et cetera .

So I have some therapeutics , I have some functional movement pieces and then I added an emotional piece with trauma therapy and I have a specific designation called trauma center , trauma sensitive yoga and that's really all about the bridge between emotions and movement , and that has also been .

It's been every bit as transformative in myself and my clients as my Pilates certification was or as my Yamina body rolling certification was .

So it's really about it's about being able to listen to our own body signals and to make effective choices and take effective action about that information , which is something that is sounds so simple , but it's not really how most running or any other exercise discipline is typically taught .

I mean I know that you know , because it's something , it's an exercise that you do regularly and you're not able to do it because of the injury , then it is going to affect your kind of mental health . Yeah , yeah .

So and I and I want to mention actually that my my first and primary client base ever and substantially so , because I was living in New York city was people that wanted to run the New York city marathon .

So there's always been rooting in my business with runners and I always you know anybody who runs or wants to run or hates running I'm just like , yeah , let's have conversation . So I do , I do at this point . I do get referrals for people who have PTSD . I get referrals from therapists .

I have a specialty base , but I also have still a ton of people that come to me because their knee hurts , their back hurts , they have sciatica , they have shin splints from running , they have all of these kind of really physical pieces . So not all pain is from trauma , but some of it is .

Sometimes we get things that repeat themselves in our bodies because we do have that trauma . I don't ever force trauma work on anybody but , that said , the trauma work that I am trained in is mostly based on principles that are , across the board , useful , whether you have trauma or quote quote need trauma work or not . So I would .

I would make a very strong argument for the concept that most runners are could use a little bit more connection with their body right connection with their bodies , what their body is messaging , so that we can actually tailor the program .

Many runners are still kind of clipping content out of either a literal magazine , a literal book , or they're getting it from an instagram or somebody else at the gym or their running club and then they follow a program which isn't necessarily .

It can be okay , but it also might not be a good idea , because if we're , if we're doing the program at all costs to get to the end , that's where we really could get injured .

So being able to modulate and moderate a program or customize it to yourself , as opposed to blindly kind of following whatever so those are concepts that you know much , as the average person isn't thinking oh , that's a trauma concept , it is .

So I'm just thinking that if people talk about the kind of right running technique and from what you're saying it's not just- about that you know there are other elements that you need to and that very personal elements that you need to think about and you know , in terms of your running and that kind of thing , because you know , so I will even give a bit of

a personal example .

Fun fact , you don't anyway , yeah , um , no yeah there's also information that you know I was a breastfeeding woman and all of that relaxin is in my body and I actually ended up . I ended up injuring myself because I pushed through to reach the finish line and I was very proud of myself . But I think that that's where we can kind of get into now .

New York City Marathon is a bit unfortunate in the sense that you can't downscale it to a half marathon or a 10k .

You either it's very binary , you either run it or you do not yeah and so in that sense it was a bit unique , because most other races , many other places in the world , you're able to to actually you could downscale at the day of the race if you wanted to , but in new york you have to , you're going to get stuck out in the borough .

Okay , you have to finish . You have to just finish , um . So I think that I mean how ?

I was standing at the starting line and the thing I told myself is just don't stop , just don't stop . And the the thing I told myself is just don't stop , just don't stop . So and I I I've stuck to that , and it was the last while of that race was was , if it was anybody else and I was advising them , should you keep going or should you stop ?

I would just tell them to stop . But I think there was a , there was a huge part of me that just needed that accomplishment . I needed to . Actually , it's , it's very true , although I joked about it there's no kind of way to get yourself home if you , if you stop .

I mean I guess you could grab the subway somewhere else , but but it's , there's a whole lot of of brain involved in running and that's that can be a good thing . But I think there also needs to be some awareness of the body , because the , the injury I sustained actually lasted with me for a long time .

But I think that after that , I actually realized that my body and myself as a , as a woman , I had a lot of energy before I had a baby and then , after I had a baby , I'm up in the middle of the night I'm tending to the baby , my core energy was communicating really different things to me and I actually ended up pausing my running and I really struggled

mentally and intellectually with that . I mean , think again , if I was to go back and talk to myself at that point , it's okay . It's actually okay because I was listening to my body's signals but I really wrestled with it and I would kind of push through and then I would gear myself 40s or 50s .

We really need to make sure that we're doing a lot more stretching things like yoga , those really body sustainability techniques .

Yeah , it's hard on the body and that can be really hard to message , because when you've got all these hours that you need to log in order to finish your big race , how do you also find time to do two hours a week of yoga , stretching , flexibility work , pilates , whatever it is .

But I would say that that's where you really need to be super connected to your body , because 99% of people that come to me who have injuries , they didn't just wake up with them . There was signs and signals .

Whether it was fatigue , whether it was kind of that mental piece where where you had to talk yourself into running , whether it was small pains or tiny twinges , it usually were not knocked out of left field just without notice .