Healthy Effort vs. Strain: A Key to Lasting Soundness

Do you know the difference between effort and strain? It matters for well-being and soundness. Mary explains why strain creates wear and tear over time, and shares simple first steps for you and your animals. 

Resources:

Grab your FREE video training to help your dog. 🐕 https://www.marydebono.com/lovedog 💥

💥Learn how the Feldenkrais MethodⓇ can help improve your seat, position, and balance on your horse! Free rider videos masterclass: https://www.marydebono.com/rider 💥

Get Mary’s bestselling, award-winning book, “Grow Young with Your Dog,” for a super low price at: https://tinyurl.com/growyoungwithyourdog. Demonstration videos are included at no extra cost. ⬅️⬅️⬅️

All information is for general educational purposes ONLY and doesn't constitute medical or veterinary advice or professional training advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider if you, your horse, or your dog are unwell or injured.  Always use extreme caution when interacting with horses and dogs.

About the Host:

Mary Debono is a pioneer in animal and human wellness, blending her expertise as an international clinician, best-selling author, and certified Feldenkrais Method® practitioner. With over three decades of experience, Mary developed Debono Moves, a groundbreaking approach that enhances the performance, well-being, and partnership of animals and their humans.

Mary's innovative approach draws from the Feldenkrais Method®, tailored specifically for horse and dog enthusiasts.  Her methods have helped animals and humans:

• Improve athletic ability and performance
• Enhance confidence and reduce anxiety
• Reduce physical limitations and discomfort
• Deepen the human-animal bond

Mary's flagship online programs, "Move with Your Horse" and "Easier Movement, Happier Dogs," provide animal enthusiasts with an innovative approach that combines the concepts of Feldenkrais® with her signature hands-on work for horses and dogs (Debono Moves). Through this transformative approach, both people and their animal companions discover greater harmony, ease, and connection.

Transcript

Hi. Do you know the difference between effort and strain? A lot of people don't. They just think of, you know, effort means, you know, say you're going to lift something heavy, or it could be cognitive effort, like you're, you know, working on a project, and it takes a lot of effort. Right. But there is a. In my world, anyway, in the world of movement education, somatics, there is a big difference between effort and strain.

So if you think of effort, I like to call it healthy effort, which means that whatever you. You're doing, like all that energy, all that, whether it's muscular power, whether it's cognitive power, but whatever you're doing is directed to what you want to achieve. If you want to, you know, run, run from one end of your yard to the other, right? You're not doing unnecessary things and this.

And. But let's talk about strain. So then what is strain? Strain is when you're doing things like you're working against yourself. And we do this all the time, right? We have habits in our body. We have, you know, habits of movement that are not working in our best interest. Maybe we use one part of ourselves, you know, more strongly than it's intended for. We kind of like, let other parts of us kind of fall off the map, the body map.

And what happens is then that we create damage, we create wear and tear. We're physically not as strong, we get tired more easily. That is strain. And we can take this. Also, if you think about, you know, mental work, if you are, you know, you want to achieve, you know, you want to work on a project, but yet you're fighting yourself all the time. And, you know, many of us do that, right?

There's procrastination. There's, you know, the. Which includes the temptations of social media, if that's your thing, or podcasts or book, whatever it happens to be, you know, sometimes it's cleaning the house is your form of progress. Procrastination. But. Or am I just talking about myself here anyway, that then you're. You're creating a sense of strain. There's a sense of stress about what you're doing. But if instead your energies are aligned.

So again, whether that's physical performance, you know, you know, again, doing something, maybe riding your horse or walking your dog, you know, climbing up that hill, whatever it is, when all the parts of you are working in harmony to do that, that's healthy effort. So it may be. Feel effortful to some degree, but it. There's a sense of ease about it. It's as efficient and effortless as possible.

But again, strain is a different story. Strain could be, you know, you're working out at the gym, and the. The way you're moving, right, you're lifting weights or something like that. The way you're doing them, you're. You have muscles that are activated that are not helping. They're actually doing the opposite movement. You have other muscles that are not on board. So now you have strain in certain joints and tissues of the body that you don't need to have.

So why do you care about this? Well, of course you care for yourself because you want to be the most vital you can be, right? Especially as we get older. But this is true at any age. Like in my case, in my 20s, I realized I was using strain and not healthy effort in a lot of things I did. I was overusing some parts of me that created a lot of problems.

You know, I had a problem with my right hip that was very severe. I had neck issues. I had back issues. I had severe, severe carpal tunnel syndrome. I had all kinds of things. But when I got into the Feldenkrais method, which is the method that I teach for humans, when I. When I learned how to move in an easier way, right, I replaced strain with healthy effort so I could do all the things I wanted in a way that wasn't harming myself.

Now, let's talk about your animals, your horse, your dog, right? We want the same for them. We want them to move in a way and to, you know, go through life with a sense of healthy effort and not strain. Because horses and dogs get into similar movement habits that we do. In other words, over time, they may use some parts of the back more than others. They might use one hind leg a little bit more than the other or one shoulder, or, you know, have a little asymmetry in the way they're using their neck or overuse those parts, right, and underuse others.

That creates strain, which creates wear and tear. It can then cause injuries or contribute to injuries. It can also prevent full healing after an injury. And these could be like minor injuries, minor injuries that then over time, develop into more of a problem. So in the work that I. That I teach called Bono moves, right? So work that I do for animals, for horses, dogs, and other animals, and it has.

Takes its inspiration from the Feldenkrais method for humans. And in this work, right, how do we help the dog or the horse use healthy effort and not strain? Well, we do that through our hands. We do that through very light, gentle, slow, Generally slow movements that kind of wake up different parts of the body and help the animal's nervous system feel like, oh, you can let go here.

This doesn't. You don't have to work so hard here. But what about this part? This part can contribute a little bit. And of course, there's a whole way of. You know, I teach this, right? I teach this in my programs. I have equine programs and canine programs, and they're online, by the way. Although. Although I have some exciting news. I am going to Wales, the United Kingdom, next week.

I'm based in California, so I will be teaching this work for horses in person. Also doing private sessions with humans, horses, and at least one dog. So super excited. Anyway, back to our episode. This is something that you can think about as far as, you know, just so, again, there's. There's a whole methodology behind learning to let go of strain and embracing more of the healthy effort, the appropriate effort.

But let. Just to get you started, you can even just think of it from, you know, a stress point of view. Do you feel really stressed when you're doing something like, just even mental stress? Like, how do you feel? And can you just start to, like, do a physical inventory, maybe from head to toe, and think about places that you can let go? Like, can you let go of tension around your eyes, around your mouth, in your neck, your shoulders?

That's a big place, right? Your upper back, maybe you have an image of just these places kind of melting. What about your middle back, your low back? It's another place a lot of us hold tension. What about your belly? Can you let go? Can you breathe in an easier way? You think about your hips relaxing and the muscles of your legs and your feet and down your arms, your hands.

A lot of people are clenching with their hands all the time. So we get into these habits that are working against us and they create then this level of strain. So even a simple scan, like just doing like, this inventory of yourself can be very helpful. It's very nice if you can do this lying on the floor. If you can comfortably lie on the floor with your legs long and your arms down by your side, doing a scan can be super helpful to kind of teach your nervous system how.

How to let go of unnecessary effort. And then with your dogs and your horses, you can even just. And I'll just tell you just the briefest overview of this, but you can use your hands to just very slowly run them over your. Your horse or your dog. And just with the intention of helping the animal feel that they can let go of unnecessary effort there. And it also, because this is different than how you normally stroke much slower, you're pausing, you're really paying attention to what you feel.

You're bringing a different sense of awareness to your animal. So their nervous system can feel like, oh, I didn't realize that was tight, right. And can start to let go. So that's like a very first baby step and it can be very, very helpful. And when you're doing your own scan, you can even imagine someone's doing that with you, that they're running their hands just bring, you know, some attention to those areas.

That's why doing it on the floor can be so useful. So for, for yourself, lying on the floor helps your anti gravity muscles let go. It's, you know, there's less muscular effort involved in lying on the floor than there is in sitting or standing. And of course with your dog it's the same thing, right? You can ask your dog to lie on their side and, and that would be ideal.

If not, you can really do the scan in any position. With horses, we generally do it while they're standing up. So these are just some little ideas for you and some things to think about whatever you're doing in the day. If you kind of stop and think, am I using strain or can I, can I let go somewhere and just use healthy effort instead of strain? You know, by you doing that, you're also serving as, you know, we mirror a lot with our animals.

So you're kind of acting as a little bit of a guide, right. It'll help you also be more attentive to your horse or your dog when you remind yourself, can I let go? Because after all, the way we move, the way we breathe and how we direct our attention are all felt by our animal and they all shape our, our interaction with our animal. So the more we can embody a sense of ease in our life, the easier it will be for us to help our animals and for them to live that same harmonious life with easier movement.

So, and deeper connection with you. So thank you so much for listening. I love sharing this work with you and I appreciate you listening. Talk to you soon. Bye for now.