The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 189 Austin Pancner: The Functional Musician

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

In this episode, Austin Pancner, founder of The Functional Musician, discusses musician injuries—why they happen, prevention strategies, and recovery steps. Gain insights into holistic wellness tailored for musicians.   Book your free consultation with Renée HERE Download the transcript from this episode HERE     MORE ABOUT AUSTIN PANCNER Website:  https://www.thefunctionalmusician.com/ YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg5ISvN5014_54OzdSy6aIw Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefunctionalmusician/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefunctionalmusician/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefunctionalmusician/   Mind Over Finger Click www.mindoverfinger.com/coaching to book your free consultation with me. Visit MindOverFinger.com for my online courses as well as free resources on peak performance. Connect: https://www.youtube.com/@MindOverFinger https://www.facebook.com/mindoverfinger/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindoverfinger https://www.instagram.com/mindoverfinger/     THANK YOU: Most sincere thank you to composer Jim Stephenson who graciously provided the show's musical theme:  Concerto #1 for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra – Movement 2: Allegro con Brio, performed by Jeffrey Work, trumpet, and the Lake Forest Symphony, conducted by Jim Stephenson.

You're listening to The Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 189. Welcome to The Mind Over Finger Podcast, where we dive into the world of mindful music making, peak performance, and crafting a purpose-driven life and career. I'm your host, violinist, certified performance and life coach for musicians, and your guide to unlocking your full potential, Dr. René-Paul Gaultier. Hello there. I hope I find you doing amazingly well as you're tuning into this episode. Today, get ready for an enlightening episode with Austin Pinchner, the brains behind The Functional Musician. Austin has a multifaceted career as a performer, educator, and health and wellness professional. As a performer, he holds the position of bass

trombone at the Southwest Florida Symphony, and he's performed with ensembles like the Cincinnati, Atlanta, and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras. As an entrepreneur and health and wellness professional, Austin founded The Functional Musician, an online coaching company that helps musicians live and perform without pain through injury prevention and recovery programs. He also holds several health and wellness accreditations, and he's obsessed with learning more about the body. In today's interview, we're diving into a crucial conversation about musician injuries, why they happen, how to prevent them, and the essential steps for recovery. Plus, Austin shares valuable insights on holistic wellness tailored specifically for musicians.

Tune in for a dose of wisdom that could make a world of difference in your musical journey. And no need to take notes, click the link in the show notes to grab the summary and transcript of this episode. And before I hand over the mic to Austin, I want to remind you to join me inside the Mind Over Finger Facebook community for a series of live conversations on how to create your ideal performance. Go to facebook.com slash groups slash Mind Over Finger and catch all the secrets on the tools you need to experience the type of performance you are capable of giving. From

how to plan to how to practice, and most importantly, how to powerfully transition between the practice room and the stage, I have the complete blueprint for you. So join us live or catch the replays inside the Mind Over Finger community at facebook.com slash groups slash mindoverfinger. Also, pre-enrollment is open for a new cohort of the Music Mastery experience. If you're ready for the next stage in your career, I'm here to help you get there. Go to mindoverfinger.com slash MME for all the information on this life-changing program. Book your free call right now to lock in all the pre-enrollment bonuses, and let's plan together for your best year yet.

All right, let's go to the show. Austin Fentzner, it's so great to have you on the show. Oh, thank you so much for having me, Renee. It's really, really great to be here. Austin, I've been following you on social media, namely Instagram, for a while and I just love your work. I resonate with it a lot. And I just know the conversation we're about to have is going to be very inspiring for my listeners. And before we dive in the hot topics

of, you know, wellness, physical health, and all of the implications that has for us as musicians, I'd love to hear your story in your own words. So please tell us about that journey, how it unfolded for you. Oh yeah, sure. I'm happy to. I'll give you a short version and a little bit of a longer version. So the long version, no, let's start with the short version. The short version, I was in grad school and I switched over to bass trombone and I ended up not taking care of my health too well all the way from high school and my undergrad. And it all kind of caught up with me. And I ended up injuring myself. And that injury led to another injury leading to another injury leading to this systemic, almost breakdown of my physical and a little bit of my mental

health as well. And followed me for three years. And even though I was only injured for three years, it took me a couple years to get back on track and get back to playing the instrument and get back to loving music again and on that path again the shortened version I was looking for other skills or looking at another career path because music wasn't making me happy anymore and I wasn't fulfilled so I went down this personal training rabbit hole and I had some mentors at the SRSC it's the gym at Indiana University and they kind of picked my brain all the time and they knew my interests and they would recommend certifications that I look into or consider or that I should consider pursuing. And one led to another and it led to another. And I started using myself as a

guinea pig, as a model to learn these different skills, because some of those certifications can be really quite demanding and quite holistic from a sports science perspective. So it took me some time. But I found that despite, you know, investing in my recovery and going to countless medical professionals and trying a lot of different things, ultimately, what led to my recovery was taking care of myself, taking care of my movement, taking care of my lifestyle, and really kind of putting a lens and magnifying glass on how I was living, and how I was practicing and how I was moving, and taking care of myself mentally and physically. So within six months of doing that, I was able to play trombone again. And for context, when I was injured, my very first

injury, I blew out my left forearm, took me about seven months to recover. And then quickly after that, I started developing just chronic pain in my shoulders. I did tear a rotator cuff, lifting weights during that time too, that didn't help. And then I also started developing upper back pain and a little bit of neck pain. And it eventually got to the point where my upper body was so compressed on both sides that I couldn't really expand or breathe in my rib cage pretty much at all without some type of pain. And as you can imagine, as a trombone player, we need air. We play an instrument that is fueled by air and I couldn't do that. And as a result, actually developed an overuse injury in my lips because I wasn't giving fuel. I didn't have a

good balance between my omissure, the buzz and the aperture and the air. My lips were overworking all the time and I developed a bruise on my bottom lip. And that sensation followed me for multiple years. And, uh, yeah, it was, it was really hard and it just kind of like compounded and compounded and compounded. And it was a really hard lesson I had to learn, but I'm also really grateful that I'm here having this conversation with you today, being on this podcast, being one of the many somatic people that you've talked to during, you know, your time since, since launching Mind Over Finger. And it's just, it's kind of funny looking on the other side, you know, in the moment

I was like, I hate music, I hate music, I hate music. But really in reality, I was just clouded by my own pain, clouded by my own injury. and I was also clouded by and this is a conversation maybe for another episode but also like I was just kind of asking myself question like what's the point you know like why am I trying to practice and win a job and ultimately when I win the job what am I giving back to society what am I how am I helping people so in reality life kind of led me down a path where I get to help people. And I absolutely love what I do. So then that is the shortened condensed version. But that's pretty much what led me down this path. So during COVID, I was dating my now

wife, we were visiting her family in Florida for a week. Right the day before we were supposed to go back, we found out, oh, it's gonna be two weeks. Day after that, we found out, oh, it's indefinite. And I ended up living with actually her parents for eight months. And they're actually visiting, visiting us this week. So it's actually kind of a full cycle moment there. But during that time, I, I was already doing work in person, and I was taken away. So that's where I finally had that courage. And I've been thinking about it for years and years and years, but finally launched the Functional Musician. And we're coming up on our four year anniversary here on February 14th in a couple weeks. That's amazing. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. It's crazy how fast time flies

by. It's absolutely amazing. I love hearing that journey and you said it really well. It's so interesting how so many of us through our own experience in the struggles that we have, we start going down this rabbit hole where we learn so much and then are able to come back and then have an impact on the people around us. I love that. That landed very powerfully for me when you said that you got back to loving music because injuries physical pain is really something that gets in the way of of the purpose and when you say that you couldn't really enjoy it because you were seeing it through you know experiencing it through this lens of pain this shows how taking care of our body as well as our mind of course you and i before i hit record we were

talking about this holistic experience, right? But taking care of our body and paying attention to the signals that we're getting from the body has such a powerful effect on everything else. So I'm so excited to dive into this today. I want to hear about, you know, your work. And I will invite everyone to follow you on social media. Of course, you just said it, you're the functional musician. I'm going to have that show, that link in the show notes for everyone so let's maybe start general before we start to go more specific but please talk to us a little bit about why musician injuries happen and how we can prevent them and what we can do for recovery so a really really big question and then we maybe can go

more into the specifics yeah for sure well generally speaking i think it's helpful to simplify a lot of these complex topics that we could break down and talk about for hours and hours and hours. So for musicians, in my research and experience, most injuries happen from some sort of overuse type of situation where certain muscles, it could be your armature, it could be your shoulder, it could be your back, tend to become overused from the countless hours of practicing or rehearsals or traveling or performances. And then you throw in the added emotional stress of being a musician on top of that. And it's a little bit of fuel for fire in that situation. But we could think of injuries as two different categories. You have a catastrophic

or an event type of injury where I fall down a fight of stairs, I break a leg, or I'm running, I tear an ACL or I'm in a car accident and maybe I have a whiplash. There's some major event that's very distinguishable to be like, wow, okay, like that is a medical injury, like let's go to the hospital. And then you have the other end of the spectrum where I would argue that even just regular people who exercise regularly in the gym fall under too. And that's this idea of a lot of different factors, accumulating tension, posture, how we breathe, how we move in combination with our environmental stresses, such as playing an instrument. And I would say, so overuse injuries is probably the most common injury that musicians deal with. Although there are a lot of other

injuries that can still happen in our field. And looking at the data, I mean, there have been wonderful guests on this podcast that I've already shared statistics like this, but you could look at a lot of systematic reviews over, you know, all the way back to 2016. And they're roughly going to tell you the same thing. There's a systematic review, I forget who the author and co authors are. But it basically said that anywhere from 62 to 93% of musicians will develop some sort of performance related injury during their career that will prevent them from performing their best. and I think that's a really good statistic to just keep in mind and when we think about overuse injuries it doesn't have to be something that negatively impacts activities outside your

life if it's enough to prevent you Renee from going on the performance stage and playing your violin to the best of your ability whether it be a little neck pain or shoulder discomfort or you couldn't take a breathe you know you can't you don't have access to your breathing capacity so your performance anxiety is just ramped up to the extreme, that is something that could fall under that umbrella, in my opinion. 100%. Yes. Yeah. So when we think about overuse injuries, the crazy part about being in this field, and I know you may resonate with me being a coach, but like, you don't know how much you know until you know what you know. And then you realize you don't know anything. And there's just so much to constantly learn and absorb because there are so

many different perspectives and lenses we can use to look at overuse injuries. But I want to encourage everybody who's listening to think of overuse injuries as not one single factor of, oh, I practice too much. But, you know, kind of look at the bigger picture, more of this holistic lens where we are thinking of it as more of a multifactorial type of experience where it's not necessarily just the practicing. What is your sleep like? Are you eating, you know, are you getting enough calories per day? Are you eating enough meals? Are you hydrating? What is your movement lifestyle like? Do you live mostly a sedentary movements or sedentary lifestyle? Or are you pretty active on a regular basis? And under the lens of my education and certifications

and experience, I consider breathing a movement. And if breathing is a movement and moving our body is a movement, theoretically, just playing our instrument, no matter who you are, is a movement based art form. And if we start thinking of it that way, that can be something that can be really helpful when we start looking at the bigger picture. Does that make sense? It makes so much sense. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. And kind of piggybacking off of that and kind of going into just a little bit more. I mean, when we think about looking at the bigger picture, if we can recognize and appreciate that there are a lot of different factors that can contribute to an overuse injury, we can start by reflecting on those different factors and determining where we want to focus on

what or how we want to focus on those as we move forward. So for example, if you're someone that lives a sedentary lifestyle, knowing we are a movement-based art form, knowing that living a sedentary lifestyle also greatly reduces you know our longevity of life our body function our body and mind's ability to endure mental and physical stress that's something where you can simply start walking 25 to 30 minutes a day incorporating a little bit of movement start building that habit and eventually that can turn into some cardio maybe some strength training maybe a yoga practice whatever the case may be. If it's something where you're like, you know, I don't really have great practice boundaries. I don't really know how to practice, or I don't know how to, you know,

I'm always over practicing. This is something where we can start to put the lens under that factor and develop healthier practice boundaries. For example, many students reached out to me going into the new year, expressing that they had pain. And I asked them a little bit about their practice history. And it turns out over the break, they weren't really practicing that much. But then as school auditions started to come up, they were practicing two, three, four hours a day, just right away jumping in the deep end of the pool. And the music literature in terms of or the medical musical literature related to performance related injuries is still quite young and underfunded compared to that of sports science or other professional sports teams or sports in general. and but one one thing is clear is that how we ramp up and how we ramp down our practice time can be a huge factor in overloading certain areas or tissues or muscles of the body

so just kind of being aware of that just from you know a baseline can be really helpful as well but also i think being able to recognize when you start accruing tension and when when your body starts to develop other postures that maybe aren't as efficient as we want to when we're playing our instruments, starts compensating in different ways when we get tired. And that could be a conscious or subconscious experience. But if we don't recognize the tension that's generating or accruing in the body, we're only going to start to recognize it when it becomes to the point where you're like, wow, I have to stop. And at that point, you're probably going to feel that tension a little bit after that practice session and maybe into the next practice session if we

don't do anything about that or we don't, you know, do any type of physical wellness to kind of de-stimulate things. Yeah. Yeah. I resonate so powerfully with everything that you're sharing right now because I can map my own experience onto this, but maybe I'll share about my struggles with physical injuries later, but for now I want to keep the spotlight on you. So, so then what are the things that we can do when we are in these situations where we're experiencing pain and maybe dealing with some injuries, then what can a recovery process look like? Yeah. Oh man, that's such a powerful and apt question. But I think looking at the bigger picture, everybody is going to be different. Everybody's injury is

going to be your own unique experience. And it's going to, I mean, I hate to say this, but it's really going to determine what type of injury you're going through and what the context is of that injury. But one of going back to the practice modality and developing healthier practice techniques or healthier practice boundaries, one of the things I talked about was being able to recognize tension in the body. And I think one of the biggest and most important factors in preventing an injury is having some sort of somatic movement practice

as part of your daily routine. And this is something that I think music schools could jump on right away. And some have already done that and offered some movement modalities like Alexander technique or Feldenkrais or maybe a yoga practice for musicians in their music school.

But there are many somatic practices that can be beneficial. But what happens is over time, as we start to invest our time into consistently doing a somatic practice, we can view that as a skill where over time it's going to improving it better. You're going to start to develop a deeper sense of body awareness with how you hold yourself, how you breathe, how you move. You're going to start to discover where maybe you don't move so well. I view those as movement restrictions. And you maybe will know where certain movements agitate or make your body feel worse. And as you start to develop that body awareness, it becomes a skill and a tool that you can actually use when you start experiencing

pain. And I think a big conversation to Renee is that just because you're experiencing pain doesn't necessarily mean you are injured as well. And there's a big gray area in there too. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, first things first, if you, if you do feel like you're injured, it's always helpful to go see a medical professional, go see a doctor, definitely get medical advice, but also look within your own life and see what areas are in your control that maybe you're neglecting because a lot of discomfort and tension and pain that is accumulated, a lot of this happens from preventative measures we should or could have been doing in our life. So for example, if you've ever had like a long car ride, 20 hour car ride

multiple days, or like a long travel day, or you've ever been stuck in an airport for 12 hours, chances are you've gotten here to your destination. And the next day, you've probably felt one of the many physical symptoms of discomfort, pain, tightness, all my body feels like, you know, not, not so great. It feels like garbage. And that's when we can recall and use our movement somatic practice to start getting the body moving, helping restore range of motion and making movement a little bit more easy and efficient. And, uh, last thing I'll say going off of that, I know I'm going a million miles a minute. I love coffee in the morning and why I love talking about this stuff. But in my, when I, when I'm working with someone or when I'm

considering pain, even with myself, I'm viewing a lens of there can be pain that happens from movement. And if I have movement related pain, if I'm lifting my arm up and I feel a lot of tension in my neck or my upper traps, or maybe even my chest or my lats or my bicep or tricep, because it's movement related pain, if I have a movement based somatic practice and a toolbox of movement tools I can use to restore that range of motion, and teach my nervous system that movements are safe, so it doesn't have to tense up, contract, or tighten, or send the pain signal to be like, hey, stop doing that, then that is in my power to feel better again. And that becomes a huge tool where if I'm going to freelance in another orchestra, and I'm traveling out of state,

I'm traveling 18 hours to get there, and I have to go to rehearsal next day, if I'm in pain, or I have tension or I feel tender or achy or whatever the symptoms may be, and it's movement based, then I know I have the tools in my capacity if I choose to, to perform maintenance on my body to feel better. Yeah. Yeah. I love that you say that we are movement based art form. Absolutely. And as you were talking, I was talking, I was thinking also about the powerful correlation to with the nervous system, which you just mentioned. And as I grow older and wiser, I noticed so powerfully how the life situations I'm going through emotionally, mentally, how they impact my health because of how everything is connected in the body. You were talking earlier about,

you know, how the breath is, you know, breathing is such an important aspect of physical health And how when we are accumulating a lot of stress, a lot of tension, going through a lot of difficult emotions, it starts to impact the nervous system in a very powerful way, impacts the breathing, impacts the posture. So all of these things are connected so powerfully. And as you mentioned, how are we sleeping? And the other factors, how are we eating? All of that coming together is rooted in this awareness that we have of all these different aspects of our lives and tuning into what we're experiencing physically and having this keen awareness as well as what we are experiencing emotionally, mentally. Oh, man, very well said. Yeah, the powerful the everything starts with the nervous system. And, you know, going back to my injury, when I couldn't take a breath, I was just stuck in a chronic state of fight or flight. And as I get older and recognize all of life's different challenges, and, you know, the mental states like in the mental challenges that you've talked about, you know, in many instances, there are many people who live in that mini state of fight or flight all the time where they're just their body and their mind is just alert. Yeah. And many of the musicians I work with that are in pain also experienced that too, where their body is stuck in a fight or fly and they can't expand in all directions in their breath or they're resorting to an all, all inclusive belly breath with no expansion in the rib cage or their chests are so shallow. I'm like, take a deep breath. And they're like,

this is the deepest breath I can take. And you don't see any visual movement anywhere. It's almost mind blowing. If you think about the importance of the nervous system and how it can impact everything that we do. It's so funny as you're talking, I really can see myself through all of these situations that you explore. I think, for example, if I can go, you know, take a couple minutes and go through my own journey, how in my late teens and early adulthood, I had a lot of back pain and, you know, aches and, you know, or the traditional freshman tendonitis. I don't know if that's a thing, but I definitely had it. And, you know, part of it, I think, is me not knowing a lot about physical conditions because we, you know,

there's so much we didn't learn, especially back then, about how to be healthy and all of these topics of wellness, well-being, taking really great care of yourself. There was no education. about this. I won't say what years those were, but, um, and also there's the fact that we are still growing at that stage. So the body is still going through transformation, especially I think female, uh, complete their, their growth cycle a little bit later. So it's not rare for, you know, female in the early twenties to still be growing. And so going through these, uh, growing muscles, growing skeleton and all that. And when I started exercising and doing a lot of yoga, all of my pains went away. I mean, re-education of my movements along the way was also

part of this, but having this physical awareness of how I move when I practice, of making sure I warm up properly, making sure that I sleep enough, but also then exercising, lifting weights. In my case, I was running at the time. I can no longer run, unfortunately. But doing a lot of yoga, I never experienced physical pain. I felt so great, so vibrant. And then we fast forward a few years and had a couple of kids. I was in my, I think it was second year maybe of my doctoral studies. So lots of courses, but also still a working musician. So driving to gigs and having a toddler and a newborn. So there was a lot of stuff going on and I really started to neglect my health.

And you add to this the stress just of juggling all of these things. The hours spent sitting in the car and maybe being less in tune with my body. my needs. I started to get sick a lot that year and would have all sorts of weird, like tingling pain everywhere. And that's when I realized, okay, we need to slow down a little bit and get back to healthier habits. So exercising a little bit more and really ramping up the meditation practice, that was really helpful for me. But even now I am recovering right now from a frozen shoulder and that initiated with an injury unrelated to music back in November, 2022, which I neglected to, to take care of. And that eventually turned into a frozen shoulder. I am very lucky that I

have a range of motion for the bow. So as a violinist, if you're going to have a range of motion with your shoulder, if you can play your instrument is great. So I was extremely lucky in that sense. But that affected negatively so many other things. And the constant physical discomfort was a huge wake-up call as to why I forget the things that are helpful for me. I don't know, but it was a reminder to really get back to the basics and what it is. Well, I need to make sure I sleep well, that I eat well, that I take the, you know, additional supplements that are appropriate for my body. And then, you know, maybe lacking some vitamin D, things like this. So also having a conversation with my doctor about all of these things, of course.

But then how is my meditation? How is my emotional state? How is my mental state? All of these things, making sure I go back to my somatic yoga practice. That was huge. Go back to regular exercise regimen, making sure I make that a priority. And I'm so happy that this injury is now recovering. I did a chiropractor and massage therapist, acupuncture, cupping, all of these things, as I mentioned, the yoga, um, somatic practice, um, but bringing into this awareness of all of these other aspects that I need to be aware of and keep in check to contribute to my recovery. You know, it's, you can't ignore the body. So, um, wow. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Thanks for sharing Renee. Wow. That's such a powerful story and such a powerful lesson. And we often,

I find this with myself that we often don't want to take care of ourself or we don't appreciate our health until it's gone. And there are different moments in life where life ebb and flows. And, and I, as I get older, I'm wanting to do more and more things. And it's so easy some days to just kind of be like, Oh, I don't need to do cardio today. Oh, I don't need to go to the gym. Oh, I don't need to move. And for me that, that is, you know, like hearing these stories is just kind of reminder of why I'm doing what I'm doing. And, you know, I found in the past, I hate being sick. I hate feeling physical pain. I don't have a high pain tolerance. So that's kind of like my reminder is I don't want to get sick and I don't, I hate being sick because every time I get sick

and I experienced something like that, Renee, I, I get real sick or my injuries tend to get really bad to the point where it does restrict my daily life. Um, but I'm happy to hear that you were able to check in with yourself, number one, and reflect and veer back on course to taking care of yourself and going back to the basics. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's so important for all of us to talk about these injuries as well because it's less of a taboo subject now but i still feel that there's a resistance in the music world and probably in other um in other worlds but what do what do we call them other fields yeah in other fields ballet sports athletics all of these things where we're hesitant to show this vulnerability but the

more we talk about it the more we can help each other prevent it by raising the awareness by raising the knowledge and the propagation of information so important so you mentioned briefly um that you work with people tell us a little bit um about about that so what type of musicians injuries do you you know see most often and um and how does that look like yeah so i run a one-on-one recovery program and i'll work with musicians in an online capacity over the course of three to five months it originally was just three months but i found that part of my mission and vision of the functional musician when i work with people is to help them understand their body so well that they can use this toolbox of mental and

physical health and wellness tools that we work on developing together and applying that to their body so they can take care of their health. And part of that mission and vision is when they leave the program, I do not want them to come back to me and I don't want them to happen to or have to rely on other professionals to feel better. I want them to be able to take care of themselves and hold themselves accountable in that way. So my program is built around HABL implementation, accountability, but it's also this pish posh stew

of all of the different certifications that I've have to customize and personalize movement programs for the people that I work with. And in terms of injuries, I like to think of just like, if we were just gonna describe it, it would be really any musician that is experiencing an overuse injury that wants to overcome tension, pain, or injury. And they don't feel that they have enough physical or

mental health and wellness tools to help them with that. But also any movement-based pain is pretty much the umbrella that I work under. And a lot of people who come to me are the people that have a lot of upper back pain, a lot of shoulder pain, a lot of neck pain, maybe some lower back pain. I've worked with some, um, uh, I'm not sure overuse injuries with woodwinds and brass as well. And even people who just want to develop their mental and physical health and wellness toolbox from a prevention standpoint, that's, that's not as common as someone to come and coming to me with pain, but it is still valid. And I'm still, you know, if someone wants to come learn, if they're ready to work on developing all of these skills and bettering their health, I'm going to be there

with you every step of the way. Who am I to say no? Yeah. Yeah. You know? So really it's based around, if we were kind of like, look at it too, it's a somatic, all these somatic practices are kind of combined and I'm really obsessed with learning. So I'm constantly trying to learn and integrate new tools into my program so that when someone comes to me, I can pick their brain a little bit understand where they're at and kind of help them take those next steps so by the time that they graduate they're feeling better they're feeling confident about their journey and they know what they need to do in and out of the practice room to just live and live their best life and play to the best of their ability yeah and how is what you do different than

there's so many modalities and i've had a lot of people on the podcast as you mentioned earlier um you know body mapping there is alexander technique had someone that came and talked about tamani right before christmas um tell us a little bit more about your approach and that toolbox that you mentioned sure thing so i have a lot of different certifications that are in the sports science realm and that combines a lot of different principles uh from science and research based modalities but something that i've been really getting into the last couple years something called biomechanics. And this is the somatic practice that has a huge foundational component in the program. It's a approach to movement and somatics that is based on postural restoration.

Postural restoration is an institute that has a physical therapy and rehabilitation approach that focuses on restoring and optimizing the alignments in function of the musculoskeletal system and the respiratory system. So the cool thing about this, all the complex mumbo jargon and all of that stuff, it, it, it basically recognizes that every human is naturally asymmetrical. If I were to put you on a scale, Renee, and I were to cut you in half, I'm sorry, cut you in half, you would actually be biased to the right side. You'd have more weight on the right side. So what happens is over time, you know, if you look at people who are in retiring homes or in their seventies, eighties or nineties, gravity is eventually going to win. And, you know, living is a constant

resistance. I don't like, you know, it's, it's a constant battle against gravity. We're just trying to hold ourself up, up, up against gravity. And what happens is we all have our own unique skeletal structures that will have implications on how we adapt. Oh yeah. And I can prove with x-rays that my body is highly asymmetrical. Yeah. Oh, me too. Yeah, totally. And, you know, as we start to either bias towards the right side and start to rotate or some people, although it's rare bias towards the left side, we start losing a range of motion in particular areas on how our body adapts. And what I love about this though, is that it recognizes the importance of the nervous system and the respiratory system. So everything I do movement wise is breathing based and how we

breathe is so important when we are trying to increase movement capacity or deescalate our nervous system or switch from that fight or flight to that parasympathetic rest and recovery switch. And I have found that everybody who is in chronic pain that comes in, when I walk them through the very first breathing exercise, they're always surprised how easy it feels and how good and relaxed they feel afterwards. And I think that's the biggest thing reflecting on every somatic practice there is. I forget. I think it was Hannah, Hannah Marks, Hannah Murray, Hannah Murray. I'm sorry, Hannah, if you're listening to this, I butchered your last name, Hannah Murray. She was talking about how every somatic practice, we're ultimately all going for the same thing. We're

just working within different lenses. And for me, I've always been asymmetrical. And body mapping and Alexander technique and Feldenkrais all have their benefits. And every somatic practice will have their pros and cons. There's no one perfect somatic practice. But what really got me into this biomechanical realm was it recognizes the asymmetry. And I was like, oh, that's bloaty. that's not a thing. And then I tried it on myself and all of a sudden my left shoulder, which has been raised pretty much since middle school, I started having a little bit more asymmetry. I started being able to breathe better and move better. And I started being able to focus longer and the holistic benefits has had on me personally, as well as many of my clients has

been astounding. It kind of encouraged me actually to go all in on the health and wellness and just kind of like truly commit to the mission and vision of the functional musician and the purpose that i have in this life um so i would say like the difference between this somatic practice summing up your question and me just kind of giving you an encyclopedic answer uh is this somatic practice is breathing based which they all are but it recognizes asymmetry in the body and it helps people restore that asymmetry and restore movement based on their particular skeletal structure and how it's adapted to gravity if that makes sense oh yeah yeah that is so important i have a couple more questions before we move on to the rapid fire question and the first

one would be you mentioned the toolbox what are some specific advice you could give us in the nutshell so anyone who's listening right now of things that would be beneficial for them they consider maybe adopting in their life to either prevent injury or maybe help them heal as they're going through dealing with an injury? Yeah. Can I give two pieces of advice? Absolutely. Okay. So number one, because I know other people have said it, but it's worth saying again, if you don't have a regular movement routine, if you're living a sedentary lifestyle, that is a game changer. absolutely step number one develop some sort of movement practice and when we think about developing a movement practice the ultimate goal is to find something that you love to do

that you could do every day that makes you feel your best so if you try yoga for six months and you're like oh that's not for me guess what there are thousands of other movement practices you can try go try to mind go try feldenkrais try mobility whatever the case may be keep experimenting and exploring and finding find something that feels good to you and that you love doing so you can do it every day and integrate that into your life second thing is take a look at what if you do have a movement modality in your life take a look at your movement modality and see what that movement modality might be missing so for example and i'll go through just a couple of examples but for example alexander technique great at reducing tension it's breathing based but we also it

doesn't appreciate the cardiovascular health or the strength training component that we need to increase strength and endurance, resiliency of the tissues, our ability to manage physical and mental stresses. So that would be something where I would say, see if you can make your movement practice, adjust it and see if you can make it a little more holistic. Same thing with yoga. It's fantastic for flexibility, fantastic for holding positions for a long time. So static positions where you're developing maybe like an isometric type of strength, it doesn't necessarily, um, cover the cardiovascular aspects again, or it doesn't cover, let's say, um, more specific strength, uh, isometric strength training joints that are smaller groups, like the biceps or the

triceps. It works everything together, but I would say there are some instances where you would want of strengthen your biceps or your triceps or your shoulders, or maybe your traps or your scapula, you know, your lats, um, whatever the case may be. And for me, I'm mobility and biomechanics based again, the cardiovascular health is a huge component. The cool thing about biomechanics and what I do, it does scale to the weight room if someone is ready for that. So eventually, like if you're in that realm and you're still not there yet, keep on it

and eventually get to the weight room. But the whole idea is to get to a point where you can do every activity that you love to do. And we really do want to approach our health in a really holistic way. And I guess if we look at all the somatic practices, basically, I guess what I'm saying now that I'm talking is go do cardio, which is like the last thing we all want to hear. But I'll give one short example. It's winter.

We got first snow in Cincinnati and we have a fireplace. and uh we decided to get a cord and well half cord cord is a lot of wood but half a cord so uh we were both out and they dropped it in our driveway and our cord uh device is in the back and we have to go around and we're having some friends over for a game night and we had 20 minutes to move half cord in the backyard we were just running back and forth my wife and i um god bless her i was going to do it by myself but she was amazing and just came out and started helping and we were running back and forth and we finally did it we got in with five minutes to spare took us 15 minutes we both look at each other and my heart is just like i'm just like healed over and

she's like oh my god i'm dying and um i'm gonna be honest with you i haven't done cardio in a month and a half and that right there was a great reminder it's like that's what happens when our body starts adapting to the sedentary lifestyle even though i am walking every day and i'm going on my exercise bike, I'm not pushing my heart rate into from zone two, which is more fat burning zone is zone three, which is more the upper cardio limits of our cardiovascular system. And I saw the impacts right, the negative impacts right away from that. Yeah. Yeah. And so for me, you know, in the next coming month, I'm making it just my goal once a week is touch the upper limit just one time to make sure I can get that back into my regular movement practice.

I love that. Touch the upper limit. I'm taking notes here. Some people, if you're just listening to this, you can't see what I'm doing. But if you're watching it, you see that I'm taking some notes. Touch the upper limit. I relate to this. I know that all of the periods in my life where I have felt the most vibrant, pain-free,

and a great sense of well-being was always these periods where I incorporated all of these things that you mentioned. I was thinking of the word of varied diet as you were talking about it. And it really shows the importance of balance and variety in life, because as in our nutrition, where we want to get all of the nutrients with a great variety of food, same with our life where we want to yes work but spend time with loved ones and you know get entertainment and soulful moments right so same with conditioning for our body and I know that for me when I was a very avid yoga practitioner a very avid runner and a very avid weightlifter I felt incredible. So I think that for me, it's a great reminder to stick to this. And these days

I've added to this, um, uh, a meditation and mindfulness practice that really keeps me rooted all day. Um, so having all of these components, um, are really helpful. Um, so the question, the second question I had for you before we move on to, um, the rapid fire question, or maybe we'll just skip straight to the actionable tip is, um, for those of us who are, you know, increasing in age, this is something that becomes prominent. And I would love to hear about, in addition to what you suggested, all of these suggestions are so great. Um, what are some ways that we can take care of the body as we age? Hmm. Well, I love that question. Um, well, number one, the myth of, oh, it's just my body aging. All of these tensions and pains are just a byproduct of

that. There is a little bit of truth to that, but we don't want to fall into the trap of using that as the primary excuse of not to take care of ourselves. I think that's a really important caveat to make as we go into this conversation. But when we look at ways to take care of ourself, I want to encourage everybody to remember that the body is always adapting to its environment. it doesn't matter what age you're at there are certain ages where yeah it adapts very quickly where you can retain and absorb just you can learn a new language in like you know half a year if you're like you know in your teens or early 20s when you get older it's a little harder to learn the body is kind of the same way the older we get the more consistent and persistent we have to be

to make those adaptations to the environment because it's already been adapting for so long It's used to how you've been living. It's used to your lifestyle. It's used to your posture. It's used to gravity. And along those lines, I would encourage everybody to, again, move their body. We are a movement-based art form. But even if we weren't musicians and we were having that conversation about physical health and wellness, there is a huge link to longevity of life to how much we're moving a day in terms of steps.

There is a huge link to the longevity of life to how strong you are. and that is a gradient you can be too strong where you know if you're bodybuilding and putting on a lot of muscle mass that can be so much load on the body and cause so much compression that that can also reduce lifespan in some studies but just imagine as a gradient and we want to kind of be in the middle of that curve so to speak but also our cardiovascular health as well has a huge impact on our longevity of life so when we look at the big big span of things we're humans from a survival from a survival perspective, we're meant to move, we're meant to gather, we're meant to survive, we're meant to hunt. And the 21st century lifestyle is not conducive to any of those

things, especially if, you know, you're like Renee or I, and we're in front of a computer, you know, like all the time, you know, that's a lot of sitting, or maybe you're someone who travels to work and drives, you know, multiple hours a day, or if you're in a professional orchestra, you're sitting for 20 to 26, maybe sometimes more depending on if it's not cracker season, uh, hours a week, you know, that's something that if we're not actively trying to put our body in a different adaptation environment and state or a different environment, so we can adapt, that is something where we're going to start to see, you know, accumulate tension and start to see the ramifications of that in our movement and

our breathing and how we physically feel. Yeah. So that's so, so, so important. austin i want to be respectful of your time so let's jump straight to the actionable tip is there something that you would recommend that maybe the listeners implement today in their musical life oh in their musical life or as you know um practitioners of a movement-based art form. Yeah, sure thing. Again, going back to what I said earlier, if you don't have a movement practice, develop a movement practice. It's really a fantastic, it's life changing. And I would say on the other end of the spectrum, Renee, we haven't talked about this, you know, it hadn't come up in previous conversations, but I also maintain a consistent meditation schedule. And

when I don't actively do my meditation, it does have negative impacts on my ability to focus, to ground myself, to live in the present, to fully engage with the people I'm connecting with and including my wife sometimes, you know, if I let that go. So I would say for those of you who have a lot of time focusing or, you know, there's some form of, you know, living in the present or future in terms of rumination, or you feel like you, if your brain is a phone and you have a hundred different apps open and you've never tried a meditation practice before, I would say start today. It doesn't have to take a long time, five minutes a day, just close your eyes, try to connect to your breath, whatever thoughts that come in your head, just let them happen. You don't

have to let them go. Just kind of be aware, just kind of sit there and see if you can tune into how your body is feeling physically or how you're feeling mentally. And over the course of the next six to eight weeks, I want you to dedicate yourself to that much time. And there's this course, you actually had him as a guest, Dr. Frank Diaz from Indiana University. I took one of his mindfulness courses, one of the very first ones that he offered at Indiana University. And that's where I developed this meditation practice. And he, from the first couple of weeks, like he was like, all right, let's go over the research on, you know, the physiological changes that happen over the course of a meditation practice. And there's pretty clear data around the six to eight

week mark is about time we experienced the most physiological changes. So every week, the first up to that six and eight week mark, he's like, Hey, even if the meditation feels like poopoo, or he didn't say poopoo, I'm saying poopoo, but even if the meditations aren't going well, I want you to, even if it's five minutes, I want you to stay consistent. I want you to trust it. There's going to be a moment where you want to give up, where you want to quit. I want you to push through the hump. And I promise you that six to eight week mark, you're going to notice the difference. And that encouragement was really helpful and provided a level of accountability and allowed me to experience that. And once I experienced that, I was like,

wow, this is amazing. And just like with life in the ebb and flow, it's fallen off for me a couple of times. And when it's fallen off, I definitely take note and am aware of how that impacts me. And getting back into the swing of things has its own challenges with any type of, you know, habit rebuilding. But whenever I'm in the meditation practice consistently, it's had so many positive impacts on my life so much so that the number one tip that I have to offer from a movement-based health and wellness professional is meditation aside from the you know developing a movement practice I second that wholeheartedly I agree with you too that it's when I stop that I notice it as well and it's so crazy how I see it in the quality of my

sleep. I see it in my quality of presence, how hectic my brain feels, you know, even, I mean, of course, levels of energy as well. So that is an actual tip I can stand behind fully. Yeah. I'm glad you also feel the holistic benefits as well. It definitely impacts my sleep and has this like, you know, it positively impacts everything we do. If you're showing up as your best self in any activity, you know, that is, you know, ultimately one of the goals of any mindfulness practice, in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, this, we're coming back full circle with the holistic here. I think realizing the implication of everything and how everything comes together in your own life is very powerful. An example I could use is I've been very aware of

what impacts the quality of my sleep. So if I stop any kind of electronic device an hour before bed, I sleep differently. If I stop meditating, negatively impacts my sleep. I've been experimenting with some supplements and I know that there's a specific kind of magnesium. I forget which one it is, but I've talked with my doctor and that really helps with the quality of my sleep. So it's figuring out how we function, what is helpful for us, and by paying attention. And I would say that that's at the root of everything. Mind over finger is simply paying attention to what is, how we feel, what we're thinking, and having this very intentional approach to everything. Oh my gosh, I love that so much. And I would agree, you know,

listening to Mind Over Finger, that is definitely something that is portrayed through your episodes and your speaking and your topics. And if we can take that, put it up in a little package and carry it around with us all the time. And, you know, I think that's something that can also have a holistic, you know, benefit just from listening to this podcast, just from being aware of what we're doing and how we're doing things. Yeah. Awesome. Where can we find you? How can we work with you tell us everything about the functional musician you can check me out at the functional musician.com i have a blog that i've been better at updating in the past but i occasionally put new resources available there as we head into 2024 that is one of my goals is to provide 30

new resources by the end of the year on that blog i already have uh i think around 50 available so you can go in there you can read on a wide variety of resources that is holistic in nature based on the topics that you want to learn from. If something's out there and you want to learn more about it, just shoot me a message and I'm happy to work on that. You can also catch me on Instagram. I'm just at the functional musician.

That's where most of my content goes. And if you want to work with me, I have a one-on-one recovery program. If you go on my website or Instagram, all you have to do is click the application link, submit an application. That just kind of explains your situation a little bit and why you want to work together.

and then we can go from there. I love that. And your Instagram account is always such a great reminder for me. I mean, we all know so much and we all need reminders. And I know that every time I see one of your posts go by, I either learn something or I'm reminded of something that I forgot about. And, you know, I either take a deeper breath or stand up taller or, you know, take a second to bring more mindfulness into the next action that I will take. So I highly recommend that the listeners follow you on Instagram. Thank you so much, Renee. I really appreciate that. Austin, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your thoughts and your insight on this very, very important topic. I really appreciate it. Yeah, of course.

My pleasure. Thanks again for having me. And if anybody has any questions, just reach out to Renee me and you know i'll get back to you awesome there you have it thank you for joining me today i hope you enjoyed this conversation with austin pensioner the functional musician you can find more information about austin by going to the functional musician.com and you can find all things mindoverfinger at mindoverfinger.com. I have these links for you in the show notes. If you found our discussion valuable, please share this episode with friends and fellow musicians. Grab a screenshot of the episode, share on social and with anyone you think might benefit from this conversation. Also, I would be truly grateful if you could take a moment to leave a review on iTunes.

Your feedback means the world to me and it helps the podcast reach more listeners. Together, let's inspire and empower even more people on their musical journeys. All right, that's what I have for you this week. Until next time, much love going your way and à bientôt!