 My mouth dropped open when I saw Sam's Club advertising Wolfgang Puck's Electric gadgets. Specially, Puck has an electric Wine Opener with foil cutter and an electric Salt and Pepper Mill Set. What is SO hard about opening a wine bottle? What is SO hard about shaking salt or grinding peppercorns??  Why do we need battery operated machines to do simple tasks humans can do? It is bad enough humans are more physically IMMOBILE than ever before but now we can save our strength when grinding pepper or dispensing salt?? If you don't use it, you loose it. Have you every heard that expression? It couldn't be more true when that statement is applied to the human body. Loosing "it: refers to loosing full function of muscles, joints. Therefore, not using your muscles enough is the REAL CAUSE of "old age". When you stop moving there is stiffness, then pain, oftentimes followed by injury followed by more stiffness, more immobility, more pain. Other parts of your body are now assisting the problem parts...next thing you know you're compensating big time for joints and muscles that no longer can move properly, fully. Compensating muscles and joints soon become dysfunctional muscles and joints. Arthritis inflammation and joint degeneration are well underway. Reach above your head lately? Ask yourself if you reach up above your head and if so how often. Do you get down on the floor and then back up? How often? Can you bend over to get the golf ball out of the cup? When's the last time you swept anything with a broom? Do you scrub your shower wall? Do you transport or carry your own groceries to your car? How many hours of the day do you sit or stand? How much do you move your body, your limbs? Do you have poor balance?  Do you sit a lot, in front of the TV or at the computer or reading? If you're sedentary then most likely the muscles that are needed for balance are no longer strong enough for the job. Stimulation of key posture and gait muscles is needed in order to avoid having to cling to the wall or furniture for balance. If you spend a lot of time on the computer or reading or watching TV, chances are pretty good, you have rounded shoulders, forward head position, flattening of the lumbar curve....just to name a few musculoskeletal changes. Musculoskeletal functions are retained only through regular use. Pete Egoscue says: ............. "Every system of the body is energized by motion. From the instant the human fetus first kicks or shifts its position in the womb, it is moving in reaction to its environment, and it will continue to do so for the rest of its life as long as the environment provides one key ingredient - stimulus..... But today the fetus eventually emerges into a modern environment that demands of it less and less motion. This lack of stimulus is affecting all of us young and old. Today unlike our ancestors, we may choose not to move. In modern life, moving appears to be optional. Thus, what we do to work and play no longer fully engages our major musculoskeletal functions. The biomechanical paradigm is reversed: The less we move, the less we are capable of moving." Pain Free, pg 5  Severe right hip elevation and rotation. Right trunk (thoracic) offset. Right shoulder rounding and either right shoulder or thoracic rotation Movement is a BIOLOGICAL imperative. "Pain has one and only one function: to alert us to danger. Chronic pain is not telling us that we are frail, or that our bodies have lost the ability to cope with the physical demands of life on earth. It is warning us of danger, and the danger is acute motion starvation. No longer do we sufficiently walk, run, or otherwise react to what was once a motion-intensive environment. Our systems are in a dysfunctional state - they are not being refueled by motion. I know this because, based on my work with clients at the clinic, I know that the body is using other forms of communication besides pain to tell us that dysfunction is happening. ...We get sluggish and stiff and we start to hurt. Our knees and feet turn outward, our shoulders become rounded, or our hips become misaligned." Pete Egoscue, Pain Free, pg 6  Severe valgus (knock knee) stress. Left knee is also pointing to the left side versus pointing straight ahead. Her left leg, knee and foot are trying to deal with the unfortunate (but reversible!) angle. Her arches are flattened. Valgus knee stress often is a result of muscle imbalances in the hip joints.  The thigh bones have turned outward to the sides ("external femur rotation") ....this degenerates the knee joint!!! Thigh bones, knees and feet must point forward. The hip joint has become restricted and has locked the legs and knees in this position. Although not shown, the feet are likely everted or "ducked". Both knees are flexed but should be in an extended position.  This is an illustration of a very typical client coming to The POSTURE Clinic.  Rounded Shoulders, Kyphosis (exaggerated rounding in spine of the trunk), forward head position, flattened lumbar spine.  Humans are motion starved. The body is extremely smart and efficient. It will shut down joints and muscles and functions that are not being used regularly. Those areas atrophy and loose their neurological stimulation, blood and oxygen circulation slows down, coordination, balance, movement and function suffer. I see it in The Posture Clinic every single day. What people don't realize is, it is not just a matter of the muscles loosing their strength or coordination but once the body OR ANY PART OF IT is repositioned (any of the major joints, the pelvis, the segments of the spine), then other organ and body systems are negatively affected as well. Your POSTURE has impact on and helps modulate all body systems from breathing to hormonal production. How do you get your body functioning and moving properly?  The body functions as an integrated unit. If you have a weak shoulder, knee, hip, back, it is not enough to go to the gym and strengthen the weak part. Other muscles ("compensating muscles") are now doing the job for the weak joint or part. Just strengthening the weak part is not enough since the compensating muscles will likely absorb the strengthening stimulus, leaving the weak part unchanged. Trying to isolate muscles or injured parts doesn't work since muscles work closely in collaboration with other muscles.
The POSTURE Clinic works to realign the entire body versus isolating therapy to one body part. (Seldom is the cause of the pain or problem the real cause.) You'll notice the drawing of the human body to the left has all load bearing joints (ankles, knees, hips, shoulders) vertically stacked and horizontally level. This is the blue print design everyone is born with. This is the position that must be retained or reinstituted for a fully functional musculoskeletal system and organ systems. Therapy or any medical intervention will succeed only when treating the body as an integrated unit getting all load bearing joints moving and functioning again. Reinstitute movement into your Life again.............. -- simply, gently, easily!!!! The process of Posture Alignment begins with these steps: . 1. Identify your unique postural imbalances. 2. Understand how function, dysfunction and compensation are tied together and how they cause pain. 3. Learn exactly what needs to change in your daily thought, habit and action for you to become pain free. 4. Have a personalized "menu" of corrective exercises created for you to decrease compensation movements and restore correct movement and joint function. 5. Learn these specific corrective exercises with your therapist and implement them on your own at home on a daily basis. 6. Follow-up appointments to evaluate progress and change stimulus, receive a new menu as your neuromuscular coordination improves and your body adapts and heals. 7. As the pain continues to diminish and go away begin to address the root dysfunction underlying your compensation movements 8. Implement full body range of motion exercises to restore full function to all your joints 9. Learn to recognize new dysfunctions and compensations when they first appear and how to intervene before pain sets in. You are now acting proactively and fully participating in preventative health care management! You will have the additional benefit of Photo and Gait analysis for use in evaluating your progress. This gives you a visual 'marker' of how your menu of exercises is helping you change your body into an optimal and efficient postural position. Call The POSTURE Clinic in Vero Beach to schedule your posture evaluation or to discuss your individual needs, 772-559-1532
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AuthorCatee Ingwersen is an Egoscue certified Posture Alignment Specialist and Licensed Massage Therapist. Archives
June 2018
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