My Blog
The Path To Wellbeing
What movements do running, hiking and classic cross-country skiing have in common?
Very simply, the legs move from in front of the body to behind the body in the sagittal plane. The sagittal plane divides the body into left and right sides. You can see this in the image of the dancer to...
Within your body, you have a powerful source of self-healing. To illustrate, think of the many bruises, cuts and blisters you’ve had that your body has repaired. Additionally, think about the colds, injuries and infections that you’ve overcome. This self-repairing biological system...
In my last blog, The Secret Role of Your Abs, I disclosed the vital role your abdominal muscles play in breath and deep core alignment. There, I explained how this part of your body provides the base of your posture. Additionally, I emphasized that if the ribs and pelvis are not stacked,...
Have you ever wondered what your abdominal muscles actually do? Most of us are concerned with the look and strength of our abs. But what is their purpose? If you read anatomy books, most list actions such as flexing the lumbar spine to bring the chest towards the pelvis, performing side...
My last blog, Why do glutes shut off?, outlined the three main reasons your butt muscles stop working - pain, position and lack of use. In this blog I am going to provide more information about this powerful muscle group and demonstrate isolating exercises to facilitate their activation....
Have you ever been told your glutes don’t work? I have! When I started my posture therapy program, I couldn’t activate my left glutes at all. It’s like they had amnesia, which they did. In other words, my muscles had forgotten how to work. To illustrate, Dr. Stuart McGill often...
Your hip flexors are vitally important to aligned posture and efficient movement. Your two primary hip flexors are the Psoas and Iliacus muscles. As you can see in this Wikipedia illustration to the right, the Psoas muscle attaches to the spine, then passes in front of the pelvis and...
Body awareness is the first step towards a pain free body.
One of the initial things a client often experiences while working with me is enhanced postural awareness. Prior to our session, they rarely thought about how they held their body. After our time together, my clients become aware of how...
Ankle Taping: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Ben Franklin said these famous words in 1736 in reference to fire prevention. You can apply the same philosophy, however, to sports injuries. For several reasons--beyond the obvious--we want to avoid any initial injuries...
“Pain is part of the body's defense system, producing a reflexive retraction from the painful stimulus, and tendencies to protect the affected body part while it heals, and avoid that harmful situation in the future.”
This is the evolutionary and behavioral role of pain as described...
Gravity: it’s a constant, unrelenting force. It pushes down on your body all day long. If you are not vertically aligned against this continuous pressure, not only will you fail to build your bones (see my blog Prevent Osteoporosis with Aligned Posture), but you may also suffer back pain.
...
Road to Recovery Healing is not a neat and tidy process with well-defined steps from pain to wellness. Instead, it is an individual journey that is unique for each person. The source of chronic pain and the strategies needed for recovery can be simple or complex. Some people get better quickly,...