The people who are the most successful in solving their pain problems are the ones who hands down really understand the connection between their body's position and their pain.
It's the people who use common sense, logic, not buying into popular media messages or dogma. They are actually taking time to do self-education and learning while making the extra effort to see and feel what is going on with their body. This is taking responsibility to really understand the underlying problem and not being satisfied by some garbage basket diagnosis. If you have pain in a joint or body part, look at it. Stand in the mirror and look at it. Look at the joint and body part above it and below it. Look at yourself from the front and side and if needed have someone take a photo of you from the front, rear and sides. What do you see? Is your head forward and out in space? Have you lost your butt? Is it flat? Is your spine flat missing curves? Do you have any exaggerated spinal curves? Are your hands rounded showing knuckles? Is one leg of your shorts higher than the other? Is your belt level with the ground or slope downward on one side? Is one shoulder higher than the other. Do your feet turn out like a duck, even a little? Do your knees caps point inward or outward? OK....now do you have degenerative disc "disease"? Why? Oh right, sure, someone is blowing smoke up your skirt, it's "arthritis"? Gee whiz....maybe your muscles are holding one side of your pelvis higher on one side than the other. And since the spine sits directly on the foundation called pelvis, do you think the degeneration in your spine could be caused by the muscle imbalance hiking up the pelvis? Do you know each vertebra is designed to move forward and back, side bend and rotate? Do you know your spine is not designed to stay in a tilted or rotated or bent position on an ongoing regular basis and held there? Do you know the way your body protects it's vital parts is to produce inflammation (called arthritis, or bursitis or tendonitis or....), or lay down extra calcium (called stenosis) or to add fluid (called edema)? There is nothing wrong with your spine it is doing exactly what any spine would do which is deal with the cock-eyed, caddywhampus position your pelvis is in caused by muscle imbalance. You created the problem, the muscle imbalance, not your genes, not your your uncle and father and grandfather. YOU created it. And YOU can fix it too. Not with drugs. Drugs cover up the problem so the problem grows bigger and meaner and worse. Not with surgery or manipulation. Cutting and removing the body's parts will in many cases lead to further problems usually because your body needed those parts in the first place. Pushing muscles around or ignoring the rest of the body is short sighted. The muscles have been trained by you, to hold your bones like that. And until you know what is out of position and you make the muscles move the bones back into position, guess what? They are not going to change regardless of the injections, cutting, pain pills, manipulations etc. Do you have shoulder pain and/or neck pain and headaches? Then look at the position of your head and rounded and/or elevated shoulders and flat low back and flexed and or hyperextended knees. Whoa....ya think your posture is creating the pain, arthritis, stenosis and "disease"? Oh my goodness, of course it is! The point is, how can there be terrible posture, terribly mispositioned joints, muscle weakness or overly strengthened muscles and pain in half dozen places and these things NOT be related to your pain, your arthritis, your stenosis, Spondy, disc herniations, disc compressions, ACL/Meniscus tears? Come on. Go bend the frame of your car, or the drum of your washer or take 6 of the 40 spokes from your bicycle's wheel, bend the heating element on your stove, bend the hands of your watch or clock. Do any of these things continue to work and function well or at all? No! Then why do people expect that their bodies are any different? If you change the position of any of the body's load bearing joints, over time there will be problems. The body is not impervious to breaking down. Pete Egoscue says it perfectly: the body has great tolerance, just not infinite tolerance. If you modify the design, by repositioning the parts with muscle imbalance, you are creating dysfunction and all these labels (arthritis, stenosis, spondy, tendonitis, tears, etc.) are in truth just symptoms of the real core problem - the posture gone a wry. Your body has 600+ muscles and some of those muscles are imbalanced from injury or habitual repetitive movement patterns. Gosh maybe your pelvis and hips are out of position and you are hitting the gym strengthening that imbalance. Don't blame arthritis or stenosis or your relatives because you spent the last 40 years bending over a desk or computer or slouching in chairs and not keeping your body FUNCTIONALLY operational and sound. (By the way going to the gym does not necessarily create proper muscle and joint function but that's another topic.) One of the best gifts you can give your self is the gift of awareness and common sense by looking at yourself and linking your physical pain and problems to how your body is positioned and your current posture. If you need help, get out of the chair and call us. We are always here to help: 772-559-1532 or Posture4Life@gmail.com
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"The extreme emphasis the running world has put on foot strike is misplaced. ... The emphasis on foot strike missed the mark by putting the attention on the end of the chain, rather than the beginning. We need to shift our focus upward to our hips and glutes, where the stride begins. ... Heading to the gym to attack these (muscle) weaknesses often doesn't correct them, however. Research has shown that strengthening alone - without retraining movement patterns - does not alter mechanics." Running Times article It's All in the Hips, March 31, 2014 http://m.runnersworld.com/person/jonathan-beverly "My best friend continually tells me she knows its her posture causing her pain and that she felt better after the posture session. But this knowledge never translates to willpower. I think she almost likes the attention all the pain is getting her. I'm about to tell her I can't handle another phone call where she tells me how bad it is then how great this new PT is but then continues to be in pain ... cause the entire time she is refusing to take personal responsibility! The exercises are there ready to get her body out of pain and she knows it but she wants someone else to fix her, but that never works." Egoscue Trained, Posture Alignment Therapist working with Professional Athletes "Damage from prolonged forward head position contributes to muscle spasm, disc herniation, osteoporosis and nerve impingement. Posture has impact on and helps modulate all body systems from breathing to hormonal production. "Just as the position of one joint can drastically affect other joints, a change in joint angle can affect the tension produced by muscles that surround that joint. If muscle length is altered as a result of misalignment (i.e. poor posture), then tension development will be reduced and the muscle will be unable to generate proper force for efficient movement. With movement at one joint being interdependent on movement or preparation for movement of other joints, any dysfunction in the chain of events producing movement will have direct effects elsewhere." National Academy of Sports Medicine.
"Musculoskeletal misalignments can not only negatively influence the tone of the muscles that attach to the neck and head but also shut off blood supply to the brain. This is because 30% of the blood delivered to the brain comes through the vertebral artery. If the neck is out of alignment due to poor posture or trauma, the brain can actually go into partial asphyxiation as the oxygen level decreases and the carbon dioxide level increases. Headaches, especially tension headaches are symptoms of this occurrence. "
A Popular Question asked Pete Egoscue (Courtesy of The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion by Pete Egoscue) Is there a point of diminishing returns when it comes to exercise and movement? I have heard that a workout lasting longer than 30 minutes is a waste of time and energy. Pete: First of all, just moving --any old movement--isn't enough. I'm talking about design movement. Where people go wrong is that they decide "Okay, I've got to get back in shape." They start running or hitting the basketball court after years of being on the sidelines. By that point, the necessary functions are on "hold." To run or play basketball, the body starts compensating, using muscles and joints that weren't intended for the job. Pretty soon there's pain. As for 30 minutes of exercise, it's ridiculous to think that the body has an internal stopwatch ticking away, and precisely at 30 minutes--not 29 or 31 minutes--says "Wait, that's enough." But the body does, in fact, know when it's had enough. It will tell you. More and more effort will be required to run or row or operate the StairMaster until the motion stops being pleasurable. I'm not saying that it's time to stop when you begin sweating, working at it, and growing short of breath. There are plenty of pleasurable activities that require work, sweat, and wind--sexual intercourse to name one of them. My contention is that by deliberately pushing an exercise past the pain threshold, we are simply engaging in a form of masochism which does not yield any real fitness benefits, and may in fact be injurious. GREAT Article concerning why ANYONE (not just athletes) gets injured or are in PAIN! The following article is written and provided by colleague Tim George, Clinic Director at Egoscue-San Diego South. Are Some Athletes Injury Prone? Absolutely there are some athletes that are injury prone, but it can definitely be corrected. It is true that some athletes are prone to injuries, but the issue can be resolved with proper therapy. The picture above shows two basketball players. The gentleman on the left is Julius "Dr. J" Erving , one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He played for over 15 years scoring over 30,000 points, and was rarely injured. The gentleman on the right is Andrew Bynum. He is an up-and-coming player who at times is one of the best centers in the NBA, but knee injuries have hindered his progress. Bynum's knee injuries might be blamed on bad luck, bad work ethic, or just bad genes. However, I think Bynum's injury woes are a result of postural imbalances, specifically his valgus knees. Take a closer look at the above picture, specifically the left leg of both gentlemen. Do you notice any differences? Bynum's left knee is valgus, or knocked kneed. This occurs when the adductor muscles (inner thigh) and rotational leg muscles compensate for the main posture and gait muscles (the ones that should flex and extend the hips, knees, and legs). When Bynum walks or runs the left knee visibly tracks to the inside and the foot turns out, pivoting on the heel, and rolls inward. This leads to a lot of instability when he walks or runs, and means that any unstable surface could spell disaster for his knee. On the other hand, you can see how straight the line is on Dr. J's leg- a great example of a knee in proper alignment. In my opinion this posture kept Dr. J out of the therapy room and on the court playing basketball.
How do these differences occur? In my opinion Bynum's valgus knee position is nothing more than the product of growing up in a motion-starved environment. Dr. J grew up during a different generation where the environment was motion-enriched. For example, Dr. J had to stand up and walk to change the channel on the television, whereas Bynum can stay seated and change the channel remotely. The example may seem trivial, but the cumulative effects of the body in motion contributed to Dr. J maintaining a functional and balanced body, and led to the success of his basketball game. Some may argue the fact that Bynum is a professional athlete and he gets plenty of motion....right? He probably spent countless hours in the gym working on his basketball game, but also think about the time he spent riding in cars, sitting in front of the television, or at desks in classrooms. Bynum's life (like many people today) lacks the movement that provides function and balance to the body. Consequently, he steps onto the basketball court with a body and posture that lacks the proper musculoskeletal functions to keep himself injury free. This scenario is not an isolated issue for Andrew Bynum- the rate of injury for athletes in all sports of all levels is on the rise. The reason for this increase is that more and more athletes play their sport with postural dysfunctions that predispose them to injuries. What athletes need to focus on is a pre/post exercise routine that will align their joints into a stable position both before and after they have exerted themselves on the playing field. If done regularly this will no doubt keep the athlete on the field and injury free, and it should also result in a better overall performance. _______________________________________________________________Life is short. Living with numerous or slowly increasing limitations due to pain and dysfunction is not really living. Change can not happen if all things stay the same. No one can truly heal your body except you. External forces, gadgets (shoes), pills, surgery, manipulations are just addressing symptoms and not the root cause. We are happy to help people use their natural healing ability to make the necessary changes without special shoes, pills, manipulation or surgery. Catee Ingwersen is a Posture Alignment Specialist trained, certified by the Egoscue University in The Egoscue® Method. She empowers people every day to overcome pain and physical limitations unlike any other healing or medical intervention. Call 772-559-1532 or stop by our Clinic in Vero Beach, Florida to discuss this common sense approach and your individual needs. Do you have heel pain, corns, ingrown toenails, hammer toes, plantar fasciitis, bunions, numbness, crossed toes? Biologically, your body is designed to have and keep muscle tension balanced to allow the major joints to remain optimally functional which keeps the skeletal in proper healthy position to live a long active life without limitations. If muscle tension and muscle length are modified over time, bones will be pulled or pushed in detrimental positions. Some joints will become too tight and restrict movement, some too loose not providing enough stability. Sometimes a combo of each: one side of the limb, joint or body is too tight and the other side too loose which makes the bones move "wonky" at angles and in ways they weren't meant to. This causes dysfunctional joint and structural wear and tear and pain. Arthritis and other maladies will develop and structural, muscular, pain and problems will surface. Another way to seriously compromise your health is by making a habit of wearing shoes that will deform the feet. As you may have read on this website, a problem in one area of the body WILL create problems in the other areas of the body. Our body parts are inextricably interdependent on each other. Here are 3 Main Problems with most SHOES today: 1. Heel elevation When your shoe heel or "wedge" is higher than (2:1 ratio or more) the height of the forefoot of the shoe (under the ball of the foot), this extends the bones of the toes and toe joints and changes the angle of the ankle. The foot is now jacked up and can no longer distribute weight across the base of the whole foot. This puts the majority of weight in the bones of the forefoot (the metatarsals) and toes. This causes a myriad of painful problems for the foot and toes. 2. Toe Spring The toes, forefoot and ankle are designed to bend and straighten to allow for freedom of movement and for open communication with the brain about the terrain. A rigid sole or inflexible platform prevents the foot's natural rolling motion which shortens the muscles (extensors) on top of the foot and over lengthens (flexor) muscles on foot bottom. Rigid shoes shut down the neurological communication feedback loop to the brain about the terrain. Your shoes should allow you to bend it in half and to twist it in a wringing fashion. That is how much movement your foot should have and your shoes should allow. Feet that are in immoveable shoes will become immoveable too. A braced encased joint, joints or foot is a dying one. Photo from Dr. Jonathan Cluett 3. Toe Box Widest part of the foot is the toes or toes "box." Put your bare foot on top of a plain piece of paper. Draw around the outline of your bare foot on the paper. Now compare the width of your foot drawn on the paper with the width of the shoes you own. The outline of your actual foot shows how your shoes should be shaped. Cramming your feet into too narrow or too short or or ill-fitting shoes is creating disturbances in the function of the muscles of your foot. Since our bodies function as an entire unit and not parts in isolation of one another, the ankles, knees, hips and pelvis and possibly shoulders can be negatively impacted as well--all because of the shoes you wear. Your body is designed to have a specific "gait". Shoes that impede your body's natural movement patterns will create muscle imbalances, tension and problems elsewhere in your body. Although shoes can have a dramatic impact on your feet, ankles and gait, that is not all that may be creating pain in your feet, ankles and toes. If your muscles which surround and operate joints and bones are not doing their jobs properly and completely, your limbs and joints won't move properly. If you do have muscle imbalances in your body this can wreak havoc on all other areas and joints and even organ systems over time. Proper shoes are critical but they won't necessarily fix a dysfunctional hip or knee or shoulder or spine. Muscles move Bones. Muscles can move bones out of their proper position over time. Muscles can be reprogrammed to move bones BACK into their proper position with the Correct Stimulus. It doesn't matter who in your family had or has what you have. It doesn't matter your age. What matters is your muscles have forgotten some of their jobs over time due to injuries or habitual patterns of movement or non-movement. Many of our clients have been very successful returning their bodies to the functional status they once had and getting themselves out of pain naturally without "state of the art" shoes, gizmos, surgery or drugs. Corrective foot surgery, corrective shoes, orthotics, special running shoes that correct for supination or pronation are merely providing a crutch for your feet, ankles and body. Once the crutches are removed the underlying problem is still there. Don't sweep your pain and physical problems under the rug. Come in for an evaluation. We know you (like many others) will be astounded at what you will discover about your body's position, movement patterns and muscle imbalances. Call today: 772-559-1532
Catee Ingwersen is a Posture Alignment Specialist trained, certified by the Egoscue University in The Egoscue® Method. She empowers people every day to overcome pain and physical limitations unlike any other healing or medical intervention. Call 772-559-1532 or stop by our Clinic in Vero Beach, Florida to discuss this common sense approach and your individual needs. This article is provided courtesy of and written in large part by Deb Preachuk, Posture Alignment Therapist, www.painfreeposturemn.com Here are the FOUR BIGGEST MISTAKES people make when doing Posture Alignment Therapy 1. Missing the Connection Between Posture & Pain You got a Posture Evaluation without understanding the connection between Posture and Pain. Or you worked out of the "book" (The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion, or PainFree) without reading the first three chapters explaining how your posture creates pain. To take full advantage of this astounding therapy process as a vehicle to reduce and eliminate pain, and to live life without limitations, it is important to understand how the position and mis-position of your joints and the corresponding muscle imbalances wreaks havoc on your body. The first chapters of Pete Egoscue’s books lay out the DIRECT connection between misaligned joints and body parts and pain. If you don’t understand that connection, the lack of understanding can be an impediment to the therapy process. Many people, even after doing the Posture Alignment Therapy, run to the doctor at the first hint of pain instead of : a.) looking in the mirror to see if their rotations or elevations or issues have crept back in; b.) getting on the floor to do a menu; c.) or go see, call or email the Posture Therapist for advice. The doctor is going to treat the symptom and not the underlying cause. You may feel better from the drug or injection because the pain is masked. The problem will be waiting for you to address the cause when the drugs and injections wear off. Meanwhile the problem has been shoved under the rug but it is still waiting to be resolved the right way, by correcting the misalignments and getting the deep muscle imbalances balanced again. 2. Keep doing one menu over and over You did some menus with a Certified Posture Alignment Therapist and found symptom relief weeks, months or years ago and stuck with one menu without ever changing it or without going back to your Posture Therapist for a Maintenance session and “check ups.” The Posture Alignment process is definitely not a “one menu and you’re done” thing. Even if you’ve done 8 sessions and have 8 menus and are no longer meeting with your therapist, those menus should be kept and used regularly. In other words, you should be using all of those menus on a rotating basis. Do not throw them away. You may have a favorite menu but you do your self and your posture a disservice if you don’t periodically give yourself the other stimulus contained in the other menus. In the technological age we live in we are surrounded by negative stimulus. Look around everyone is much more sedentary, most people are hunched over their tablets, or phones or games. Most people exercise very little and if they do, they have misaligned postures and are reinforcing their misalignments. Now that you are more aligned, you need to continue using all your exercises not just a few to maintain your posture for the rest of your life. If you go to the dentist and he says, “you’re not flossing, you are headed for periodontal problems”, would you start flossing to get the improvements but then stop flossing after the dentist says your gums have improved? You’re going to have to keep maintaining the posture you achieved with your therapist just like you maintain other aspects of your body. You will need to go see your therapist periodically to see if you have in fact maintained the improved functions and posture-just like you go to the dentist for check-ups. 3. All Alone on Your Own You tried a single menu from one session with a Posture Alignment therapist (educated at the Egoscue University) or from one of the Egoscue books on your own. You experienced discomfort you were unfamiliar with, and/or struggled doing the corrective exercises and simply gave up blaming the methodology without investigating further why. When you work one on one with a Posture Alignment Therapist certified by the Egoscue University, you are getting cutting edge expert help tailored, custom designed for all of your individual problems. Depending on the length of time your body has been impaired, injured or dysfunctional and out of balance, one session and one menu will not take your body to full function and getting out of pain. There are steps and hurdles in the healing process. The muscles need to relearn the proper way to engage and it takes time, again depending on the amount and extremeness of the problems. If you're in a hurry and want a fast cure, this is not the process for you. In fact there is no fast cure. The body is out of balance and it took a long time to get to that point, it's going to take some concentrated focus, time and energy to get it back in balance. There is no short cut. There is no elevator to being pain free, you have to take the stairs. Pete’s books are written to be read by the masses. Sometimes depending on the type and amount of a person’s postural dysfunctions, the exercises in Pete’s books are just not going to address the problems. The more painful areas you have, the longer the pain has existed, the more surgeries and medical interventions you have tried, the simple basic exercises in the books just won’t cut it. (I don't believe the book was written to get the entire body realigned. The book is there as a 911 resource when you have specific joint pain. Further, the exercises will be less than effective if they are NOT done in the sequence provided. They will be a good deal less effective if they aren’t done correctly. And they definitely won't be effective if they aren’t done over a long enough period of time. In our “instant gratification” society, this process is not for people looking for an external instant cure with little effort. Even though the books have exercise instructions and photos it is not uncommon for a therapist and client to discover that in fact the client was doing an exercise entirely wrong all along. Working directly one on one with a Posture Alignment Therapist, special attention is given to a number of nuances and details which help the client learn the best and precise way to execute the exercises. The Posture exercises may APPEAR to be similar to other exercises but they are really done differently with a different intention. The BODY IS A UNIT and functions with all parts and systems being interconnected and directly affected by one another. Postural dysfunctions are dysfunctional neuromuscular patterns which effect all joints even if the person has no awareness of the other joints not functioning properly. Posture alignment exercises and menus address all body parts and joints. For instance, when doing Standing Arm Circles, it is actually important to keep the feet pointed straight ahead and the legs hip width apart and it is very important to keep the shoulder blades pinched together. So not only is the exercise targeting proper function of the shoulder joint, when doing these exercises all other parts of the body have to be properly positioned as well. It's not OK to do Standing Arm Circles with duck feet, a wide stance for example. The exercises are NOT hard, they are profoundly simple. The nuances of their execution are what is key. The exercises are 95% effective and will work IF: a.) they are the right exercises for the pain and problem. (There are HUNDREDS of exercises that the Posture Alignment Therapist knows and can choose from.) b.) the client does them not only correctly, exactly as instructed, but also in the SEQUENCE or order in which they are assigned. c.) the client does them regularly 5-7 days a week on an ongoing basis or as agreed upon with the therapist. 4. Thinking since you're done with your package of sessions therefore you are completely aligned and done. Seldom is this the truth. Just because you used your package of sessions does not mean you are totally posture perfect. If you still have joints or parts that are not in the proper position and your therapist has said even though you are out of pain, there is still work to be done, you should not stop short of the full alignment goal. If you have learned enough and feel you have all the resources in the form of menus to keep the posture change process going at home on your own, good. Do your menu regularly, do it correctly, see your Posture Alignment therapist periodically for a tune up or continue to come in for sessions to get full function and alignment - these are the keys to living life without limitation. If you are having pain or problems again, reevaluate if you need to be more regular with your menus. If you are not doing your exercises correctly or if you are doing something that is reinstituting your compensations and dysfunctions again (doing more strenuous weights) and you have limited or reduced use of your menus then time to reevaluate with your therapist the real cause. Call and come in for a check up and some posture photos to get an impartial view of your joint position and problem. Some clients can work on their own with their own menus and not see their therapist except for periodic tune-ups. These are cases when the problems and dysfunctions respond quickly to the exercises and the posture changes fairly quickly. (This pertains to people whose problems are relatively recent.) Some clients body's have been developing the postural misalignments over long periods of time, decades or even since early childhood. Remember posture dysfunctions start at the deepest of deep layers of musculature-and I don't mean the "Abdominals." Depending on the client's goals, it will take far longer to get the body to relearn what is necessary. It's possible and it may take longer than another person. It will take more followup and maintenance. Either way, this process is a lifetime endeavor. Just think of it. You have to maintain your body in numerous ways every single day. You have to bath, eat, hydrate, take care of your teeth, sleep and every other aspect of your physical selves. The musculoskeletal system is no different. You have to give it the right specific muscle engagement and stimulus to keep your joints and body vertically straight and horizontally level. Go do your favorite physical activity or go work in the yard, or go to the gym but make sure your joints continue to stay aligned and function properly by doing your menu or the old patterns will creep back in. Don't floss your teeth, or engage in poor hydration and nutritional habits, sit in a chair for long periods, move very little, it WILL catch up to you. If you stay on top of your health and your posture your body will thank you. Remember, going to the gym and stretching, lifting weights or doing Pilates,Yoga or cardio classes does not address your own unique individual biomechanical postural, joint and muscle compensation and dysfunction patterns and habits. There is nothing wrong with those activities. However, they are not designed to realign joints or to inhibit longstanding compensations or eliminate dysfunction. Your menu does. Call The POSTURE Clinic (772-559-1532) to discuss your individual situation and find out how you can get to the root cause of your pain. Catee Ingwersen is a Posture Alignment Specialist trained, certified by the Egoscue University in The Egoscue® Method. She empowers people every day to overcome pain and physical limitations unlike any other healing or medical intervention. Call 772-559-1532 or stop by our Clinic in Vero Beach, Florida to discuss this common sense approach and your individual needs. "Don't bend at the waist. Bend your knees and keep your back straight. Don't bend forward at the waist with your knees straight. Don't bend and twist." Is this medical "wisdom"? Many sources with very impressive strings of credentials herald these words. At The POSTURE Clinic we think differently. We always ask why and we are always treating the cause not the symptoms. WHY not bend at the waist? Someone in a white coat came up with the idea, that's why. If someone hurt their back bending from the waist, then all bending at the waist is dangerous to health? Maybe poor posture is pandemic due to too much sitting, the technology age and reduction in activity. Maybe humans have lost their proper muscle balance and skeletal alignment. In the picture to the right, do you see an asymmetrical human body? Do you see one leg positioned differently than the other? Is one foot turning out to the side, like a duck or turning inward like a pigeon? Is the shoulder girdle slanted and unlevel? Is the pelvis tipping up on one side higher than the other side? If you answered NO to all of these questions, congratulations you are right. In the picture to the left, do you see a flattened low back curve or a straight spine or the tail bone tucked under the body or the head forward out in space? If you said NO you are correct. The diagram to the left illustrates the proper shape of the spine and proper position of the pelvis, head and proper position of the whole body from the side view. Everyone (except 5% of the population) is born with this design position. Over time muscle imbalances develop then the design position is lost. The deviation is not permanent nor is it OK. The design to the left is the most efficient effective way to be in gravity. It produces very little friction and no wear and tear from this position and allows full function. Are his load bearing joints lined up vertically and horizontally? Has he maintained his optimal design position? NO. Do you think the belief "don't bend at the waist" resulted from people with bad misaligned posture like this person bending at the waist using a misaligned crooked body and getting injured? Then why not promote proper posture and muscle balance and alignment instead of focusing on limiting movement MORE (by "not bending the back or waste)! The spine, muscles, joints and the whole body for that matter are not fragile. They are only ripe for injury and therefore vulnerable when misaligned. IF YOUR JOINTS ARE NOT LINED UP AND PELVIS not level AND SPINE NOT STRAIGHT THEN YES, BEND OVER AND YOU might have pain or injury. If this person to the left bent over at the waist without using his knees what percentage chance does he have of injury? If you said, "pretty high' or "a lot" - you are right. If our primary load-bearing joints are not stacked properly, if the spine looses it's original curves and functioning as designed, you bet, there is a much greater chance of injury including back injury. Here is the same man. Now what do you think? Does he have a pretty good chance of no back injury bending at the waist? If you said yes, then you are right. In this position, his joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones are much more balanced and therefore can function without injury. NEW BELIEF #2: A properly aligned posture is a functionally strong posture which allows bending at the waist. THE GOLDEN NUGGET: Here is the take away message. If your load bearing joints are not stacked and functioning properly, if the curves of your spine have changed, either flattened or become exaggerated or produced other curves, then bending over from the waist could be disasterous. If your load bearing joints are stacked and functioning properly, you can bend and twist and be free of injury. You can live life without previous limitations. You won't have to live in fear. If you do your work to get yourself back in proper body alignment and work closely with your Posture Therapist, you can be free to move without the threat of injury and limitations. It takes dedication and hard work, but in the end the peace of mind will be worth it. Come in for a consultation and your Posture Photos and see how your Posture is connected to your pain and what you can do about it. Catee Ingwersen is a Posture Alignment Specialist trained, certified by the Egoscue University in The Egoscue® Method. She empowers people every day to overcome pain and physical limitations unlike any other healing or medical intervention. Call 772-559-1532 or stop by our Clinic in Vero Beach, Florida to discuss this common sense approach and your individual needs. Your body is an amazingly resilient natural movement machine. It's design and function has been around for a very LONG LONG time. When our bodies do things we don't understand, produce changes that make us anxious, nervous or fearful, what do we do? We rely on the beliefs we've acquired. Where did we get the beliefs? Usually they are acquired from family or friends, electronic and print media, or "experts". Oftentimes these beliefs aren't questioned or examined. They are taken for granted. Sometimes we discover that long held beliefs no longer serve us. As this discussion relates to the human body and specifically the musculoskeletal system, we may follow advice and discover later that perhaps it wasn't in our best interest. Here is an outdated belief concerning shoes that we will reexamine, question and replace: Outdated Belief: "Always wear supportive shoes, avoid going barefoot. The foot is a movement machine. How could your body move from point A to point B without feet? It couldn't. Mechanically, when you walk there is a complex series of components of movement your foot, ankle, knee, hip and shoulders (YES! shoulders too) goes through. This is called the Gait Cycle. Thinking about your foot for a moment, when you are walking (or "in Gait") your Heel should strike the ground in the Heel's rear center edge. As your leg and body moves over and above the heel, the next part to make ground contact is the Center aspect of your foot. You should not be using exclusively the inner or outer edge of the middle section of your foot. Weight is then transferred to the Ball and then all toes with which you push off with. You should not be putting pressure exclusively or pushing off only with your big or little toe. Shoes MUST allow the foot and ankle to make all these Gait movements sequentially, correctly, fully and freely. Further and as important, the foot is also getting important information about the terrain and sending messages neurologically to the brain about it. The brain sends neurological signals back to certain muscles of the foot, low leg, upper leg etc to manage navigation of the contours of whatever is underfoot. When the foot is encased in rigid immoveable shoes so is the foot and the associated muscles. All rocker bottom or rigid shoes do not allow the foot to bend nor do they allow the foot to "read" the terrain. People with foot problems like these shoes since they do seem to help "quiet" the symptoms but they never resolve the real underlying problem for the bunion or hammer toes or plantar fasciitis etc. Feet are sending neurological messages to the brain about the ground and the brain replies back sending nerve messages to the muscles of the feet and legs to adjust accordingly for changes in terrain etc. Hard inflexible shoes, shoes with anything but flat flexible bottoms are cutting off that entire process. Put mittens on and go about your day trying to feel anything and operate like that. A week of that and the hands and fingers are pretty stiff from not being able to move freely. The stiff sole makes the muscles of the feet very stiff and possibly atrophy and the ankle is not required to move very much. That affects the rest of the body and makes injury likely. With stiff, inflexible shoes this important feedback mechanism is impossible. New Belief to Replace Old Belief: "Wear shoes allowing the same amount of foot and toe movement as the foot could make without shoes. Go barefoot whenever possible." The bottom line is: Almost all shoes ENCASE or trap the foot and do not allow for freedom of proper functional movement required that must occur. A stiff shoe, stiff orthotics that can not bend JUST LIKE the foot bends will cause the muscles of the foot to weaken and in some cases to become very tight and immobile. This can change the gait mechanics which will effect all the other load bearing joints in the body: ankle knee, hip, shoulder. What type of shoes should you wear? Hold one of your shoes, the heel in one hand and the toe in the other hand. Now bend the shoes in half. Now twist it like you're wringing out a towel. If it's very easy to bend, twist and is supple, that's good. Your foot will be supple and easy to move and bend. If you can not bend or twist your shoe, neither will your foot. Donate them to charity. Orthotics over time will weaken the arch of the foot as orthotics are stiff and merely serving as a temporary prop. The orthotic props up the arch while you are using them but when you aren't the arches collapse. Essentially they are propping up the dysfunction- actually supporting the dysfunction. This solves nothing. Ultimately, you will have a weaker arch and foot. When the Posture is not aligned properly the various muscles groups holding the joints and bones stable no longer have equal tension front to back and side to side. This can reposition any part of the body, put pressure on organs, create friction in any joint and will set up the body for injury. Some muscles will become unable to fully do their job and other muscles will have to chip in to help. Any of these and other scenarios can occur which can create mechanical problems for the foot, the arches and ankle function. If you have foot pain, pain going barefoot, bunions, hammertoes, plantar fasciitis and other foot problems there is a great likelihood the muscle tension and mechanics of other joints up the line are to blame. Dr. Gangemi, chiropractor in North Carolina writes an interesting article about Flat Feet, orthotics and shoes which we couldn't agree more with: "There should be little to no cushion or padding in the sole, and the shoe should not be rigid anywhere – it should bend throughout the shoe and in any direction. The shoe should also be wide at the toe box allowing the toes to naturally splay apart. Standing and walking barefoot are two easy ways to start treating flat feet naturally. ... barefoot is the ultimate way to naturally and most effectively strengthen the muscles, tendons, and ligaments of the lower leg and foot." We are advocates of helping you understand as much as you can about your own body so you can make your own INFORMED decisions. Specifically, being informed and understanding the musculoskeletal system is not hard nor complicated, unless we make it. We are here to help clients discover that the real causes of their pain and musculoskeletal dysfunction are usually not where their symptoms are. We have been working with thousands of people to help them understand their muscles and body and to resolve their pain. The answer is not to shut down the body's only voice-- pain. The answer lies in looking upstream to see where the REAL CAUSES are - the dysfunctional muscles - and to get them back working again so the whole body can be balanced without friction, wear and tear or from progressively shutting down body functions with Gimmicks. Give us a call we'll show you what is causing your foot and ankle problems. If you'd like to understand your body and resolve your pain please give us a call. The POSTURE Clinic: 772-559-1532 There is a popular myth I'd like to dispel. The myth is: extra body weight increases pain and physical dysfunction and the extra weight should be reduced or eliminated in order for the pain to go away. In our current "Age of Motion Starvation", most people have misaligned joints and dysfunctional muscles. The excess body weight and the posture joint misalignments are separate issues which must be dealt with separately. Let's use this example: Take a car with BADLY misaligned wheels, fill it with people then strap enough extra weight on it so that the total weight exceeds the recommended weight or load tolerance for the vehicle. Did the misaligned wheels become worse? Maybe. Maybe not. Now, remove the excess weight hop in behind the wheel and take the vehicle for a spin. Is the car still badly misaligned? Yes. Did the misalignment get better without the excess weight? No. We need to think logically. Did the extra weight stress the already dysfunctional, ill-positioned wheels? Maybe yes. Did the problem of wheel alignment get solved by eliminating the excess weight? No. If you are slightly overweight and in pain chances are not very great there is extra strain on your body. If you are 40, 50, 60 pounds overweight there will be increased stress on joints and muscles that are already misaligned and dysfunctional. The same 40, 50, 60 pounds of extra weight is not healthy overall for the organ systems or the musculoskeletal system. The excess body weight will not produce pain and dysfunction unless the pain and dysfunction already existed. A colleague of mine Deidra Loesch says it succinctly: "When a person is overweight, like has a “beer belly,” the extra weight could actually be pulling the pelvis anterior (tipping it down in the front). I’ve also heard female clients who are bigger in the bust say they think that is part of the reason they have forward shoulders (because of the extra weight they are carrying in the chest). I have to say I would lean on the side of disagreeing with the above comments because I’ve seen overweight people who don’t have excessive anterior pelvis and I’ve seen women with bigger busts who don’t have forward shoulders. So I think more often than not, the actual deviations probably don’t have to do with weight in that sense. However, I would think that extra weight could create an increase in joint pain if they already have joint pain due to their posture. So as far as symptoms go, extra weight probably makes things worse, but even if they lose weight, the problem will still be there if the posture is not corrected. There may be less stress (weight) on the misaligned joints, which could help the symptom, but it does not take away the problem." Let us help you see the root cause of your pain and help you correct the misalignments. Call The POSTURE Clinic for an appointment 772-559-1532. Catee Ingwersen is a Posture Alignment Specialist trained, certified by the Egoscue University in The Egoscue® Method. She empowers people every day to overcome pain and physical limitations unlike any other healing or medical intervention. Call 772-559-1532 or stop by our Clinic in Vero Beach, Florida to discuss this common sense approach and your individual needs. |
AuthorCatee Ingwersen is an Egoscue certified Posture Alignment Specialist and Licensed Massage Therapist. Archives
June 2018
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