The Butt (glutes) are our main powerhouse and driver that partner with the hip flexors (psoas). In the video above you can see how Donna's butt fails the muscle test, the glutes don't know how to function correctly. I then do the activation points for the glutes and re-test, as you can see a huge difference, with me making her hold that leg position and press down with power tells me the butt now knows to switch on and work easily.

The activations are like the muscle to brain communication gets re-plugged into the right socket for that muscle instead of another small muscle's socket. For the computer or tv you have corresponding sockets for cables, usb/ firewire/ ethernet/ power, well each muscle has it's own neural connection wire to the brain that gets plugged into another socket when a stress situation happens (injury, emotional trauma.)

The Video shows me doing  a muscle test on the Psoas (hip flexor) on Donna to see how it is firing, if the leg can not hold it's self in that position then the Psoas is not doing it's own function.

When you have pain else where in the body and previous injuries, say to the lower leg/knees/back/shoulder/arm, I take it that your hip flexor (psoas) is not doing it's correct function of flexing the hip and another muscle has taken over it's job, which puts your body into a stress state.

When I have activated the Psoas it then holds strong in the muscle test, which takes far more effort from me than before, the hip flexor now is being taught to remember it can do the hip flexion job and keep doing so. You can see the big difference in the test and how simple it is to change the dynamics of the body.

The Psoas muscle is quite an important muscle to have functioning correctly in our bodies, we can not do anything without hip flexion happening in any form of movement. So the better it is performing the easier our movement can be from exploding outwards with power instead of the common pattern of implosion due to stressed out lives/jobs/injury trauma.

The hip flexors partner is the butt (glutes) both these muscles should be driving our movement and power outwards, when they are not functioning other muscles take on their jobs which other muscles are not designed to do and means the body starts to implode in on it's self, which means pain and stress in the body, survival mode instead of live and thrive mode.

So Last Friday morning I was out with 2 friends doing some MovNat playing up in Belper, hanging around on the goal posts, balancing and jumping in the woods, climbing through the trees at low height, as I still not released my fear of heights.

One way was easier to climbing through from tree to tree, so we decided to experiment going the other way, my friend Becky was successful, although she is good at climbing trees, my turn................

So I got to the bigger gap where the opposite way you can grab on to the short dead branch to help lever yourself into the tree, but I was only using one hand and short amount of time with weight on it..................


So I had one hand on it trying to get across the gap to the next tree, so I decide to put to hands on it to swing across, with Becky going "I don't think it will hold your weight Em" I either said out loud it will be okay or I was thinking it in my arrogance...........

Next thing a loud crack............... and I knew I was making my way to the ground, full of holly leaves that were pricking me earlier, that wasn't my thought, my thought was as I was falling which part of me is going to hit the earth 1st, which part is going to hurt the most! That second seemed to take along time!

So my butt hit the ground 1st followed by my shoulders, with my head hitting rather lightly compared to the butt and shoulders.................

So my hands went on autopilot activations, from the start the diaphragm to the end before I even moved as I knew my body was in shock and pain, which I only felt when I got up, I made sure I had some belly breaths beforehand and I got up slowly and I could feel the sacrum into my butt complaining and my left shoulder.

On getting into the car and driving home I knew more activations were required over again with sensations that were coming up............... getting out of the car opening the gate was sure interesting and plenty of neural pain sensations going on in the buttasna............. getting back in the car the same to drive down the yard to park it............

So I sat in the car and activated whilst my visual field was under stress to shift that impairment that was causing more stress on the body from the accident, which made getting out the car easier.

I was going out to Derby Climbing Unit that evening so I wanted to be able to move better for that and myself........... so I spent all afternoon moving into  positions that caused me pain and activated, which was painful through the whole sequence every time I found a new painful movement, but knew it was working.


I walked my dog and found I was better for moving so I definitely went out to watch the bouldering competition at the climbing unit, taking my carob and banana smoothie for dinner. By being out and moving and staying upright definitely helped things shift, as I was concentrating on the climbers and the moves they were doing, some were amazed that I was mobile from the fact I said I fell that morning!

I am mobile and still healing 2 days later, but most of the neural pain in the butt has shifted only on some movements it still goes off, shoulder is so much better and the simple fact is it is down to the activations that Doug Heel, Be Activated, taught me and softening to the pain ( I am still learning to do!) instead of running from the pain, I breathe into it with deep belly breaths.

So for any injury that has happened I highly recommend to get doing your activations if you have been seen by me, it will drop your body into the healing state instead of the stressed state. I have no bruising, it was a heavy impact and no swelling all thanks to doing the activations.

I didn't realise that one day I would be rescuing my own ass with the activations, but sure am glad it's on autopilot! Lesson learned in that situation! ;)