Diversity of Movement Matters

You can develop good judgment as you do the muscles of your body, by judicious, daily exercise.

~ Grantland Rice

Any Journey Starts with that First Step 

Three years I embarked on a journey of self-discovery when a friend of mine and fellow yogini suggested I read Katy Bowman's work. I was having difficulty with my ageing students inability to do the simplest asana (yoga postures). They were stiff and having a hard time getting up and down off the floor. Of course, I didn't want to hurt them, so I felt very limited and received the best suggestion for my situation.

Katy Bowman is a biomechanist. She is a well studied/researched individual who found herself injured and in pain (in her 20's) following the "correct" exercises to stay fit. While attending graduate school, she would run for an hour in the morning, then teach several aerobics classes afterwards. Back pain and other injuries should not have been an issue for her and her athletically minded school friends - but it was. Katy was driven to find out why.

My People  

I find joy and inspiration from someone who has a burning question who then spends decades discovering the potential cause of the problem. Katy now teaches and writes about "nutritious movements." Since our culture has a tendency to sit for most of our waking hours - maybe fitting in an hour or two of exercise - we now have diseases due to very little time moving but also due to a loss of diversity of movements.

Diversity is Key to a Healthy Lifestyle

If you, like most people, sit in a chair for decades - your body will adapt, save energy, and mold into that shape. Period. All your tissues not used will atrophy. Muscles that help pump fluids through the body by you using them will no longer be strong and supple but tight and weak. Your heart will be forced to work harder. When you stand up from a seated position, your body will still have the residue of the previous posture. The head may be forward slightly, especially if you collapse your chest when you are at the computer. How you sit in a chair is going to reflect what your body looks like when you are standing.

Do you tuck your tailbone when you sit? The you are flattening your lower back causing compression on the vertebral discs which may cause you pain now or in the near future. You are also sitting on your lower pelvic organs - which could cause a prolapse over time due to the constant compression without a change in your body's geometry (posture in relation to gravity). 

Remember: It's not so much the position you are in but the duration that counts, especially decades of sitting.

There is Hope!

Now please don't think that there isn't a solution to this dilemma. Maybe you have heard about standing desk stations - well great. But don't think that standing for 8+ hours at your work will immediately protect you from seated ailments. 

Again, we need to think about what we do the bulk of our day that counts. Standing or sitting for 10+ hours in about the same body configuration is the problem.

We have lost our diversity of movement and removed walking almost completely from the equation. Somehow we need to add those nutritious movement ingredients to our life's recipe for a healthier lifestyle approach.

  

What Next?

What body positions are you in during a 24 hour period? Write it down over a 7 day time period. 

• How many hours are you in a seated position in a chair, not omitting being seated while driving/passengering in a car (or other modes of transport like biking)? 

• Do you ever choose to sit on the floor? 

• How much time do you spend walking daily? 

• Any uphill/downhill miles? 

• Are there any stairs that you choose to take instead of the elevator?

• Are there opportunities for varied terrains other than the flat surfaces in homes and on concrete pavements? 

• Do you ever walk barefoot?

• What are your activities during the weekends?

    
Check in with yourself and the activities that you choose and why. Do you seem to choose activities where there is a lot of car driving (sitting) and then sitting to watch a concert or movie? 

It's nice to take an assessment of the habits we have formed over the years without questioning why we don't vary very often. Now might be a great time to make some slight changes that will have profound effects when practiced daily. 

Just walking every day can improve digestion, increase range-of-motion, move all the fluids to and from the organs the way we were designed to function which in turn improves our overall body's health. It's a win-win!!

  

One Step at a Time

If you spend the bulk of your waking hours in a chair, it might be time to change your habits.

Try this: 

• Every 50 minutes you are at a desk, stand up for 10 minutes to round out the hour. 

• If you can, walk around. Move your limbs.

• If there is a window available then look out at the farthest point and keep the gaze for 2 minutes. Now you have exercised your eye muscles, which have adapted to your computer screen and the walls (short distances vs. long distances) in your workspace. 

Great job! Keep that up for a month and see how you feel. It will take your tissues time to adapt to your new demands but you should feel better, more alert, and able to adapt more to changes in your posture.

Can you fit walking into your normal routine? Is the grocery store close? Bring your family members or friends along for the outing. Maybe you will need to make several trips per week due to the loads (the weight of the groceries) being added to body - but you needed groceries and the walk, so why not combine the two? You get stronger in the process and potentially gain some wonderful memories while hanging out with family and friends.

Tissues Need time to Adapt

I always appreciate the enthusiastic student who wants results sooner than later. I get it. Like with any change, everything takes time. The tissues in the body need time to adjust to the new movements. They will adapt faster if you do short intervals multiple times a day. No one jumps off a well worn couch and immediately runs a marathon.

Go for short walks. Increase the duration over time. Sit on the floor daily. Find ways to move more and sit less.Your healthy lifestyle is achievable by just using your body more.

This approach seems so simple. And if it weren't for my friend's suggestion to read about this "nutritious movements" concept put forth by Katy Bowman, I might still be a little perplexed about how to teach my students yoga. Now my classes are less about yoga postures and more about how to live better by moving more. I've seen the positive results in my own body as well as my students. 

Sometimes the most profound, life changing events start with a question. Never be afraid to ask, and be patient. The answers are there for those that seek the truth.

      

While looking through my notes I found this gem.....

 

 

 

"Hypermobile people are attracted to classes 

that have a lot of stretching and flexibility like yoga 

because is it easy for them. The problem is 

when entering into stretches those hypermobile 

students actually rearrange their bones to 

bypass the stretch. People with hypermobile 

joints actually have very (very, very!) tight muscles!"

~ Katy Bowman, biomechanist

 

 

 

I am really excited about Saturday's foot health class.

Email me if you have any questions.

 

yoginiofoz@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

A Class You Won't Want to Miss!!

Food for Thought

Deane Juhan in Job's Body, a must read for any bodywork practitioner, notes "bones can only go where muscles pull them, and muscles can only respond to conditions which prevail in the nervous system."

Diversity matters

What I find increasingly important over the years of
research and experiential anatomy is that diversity
of movement dictates more than we realize.

Notice your posture. How do you present yourself to 
a friend as opposed to a stranger? Do you always have 
your arms crossed in front of you? Do you notice or even
care that your posture represents how you feel about
yourself and the world?

What are you doing right now? Notice your breathing. Is
your breathing something that you are ever aware of during
the course of your busy day? Does it change with activities
or even the weather?

How often do you sit? You would be surprised to find out that
even if you are a daily walker, runner, exercise enthusiast....you still spend a large majority of your waking
hours in one seated position in a chair.

How do you change these habits? Acknowledge them. Notice
what you do daily and then alter your position to the floor or standing more. And, if you live in the area, attend one or both of my healthy movement classes coming up this September and October.

If you have any questions, please email me: 
yoginiofoz@gmail.com

Effective shoulder stretching happens with proper body alignment

 Don't confuse the familiar with the healthy. 

~ Judith H. Lasater

Alignment really is the key to unlocking tension patterns in the body. As most humans are aware, we carry a lot of tension in our neck and shoulders. 

What I would like to discuss today is that while stretching tight muscles is great, you might not be reaching certain muscle groups effectively due to your posture. 

Misalignment patterns can have a cascading effect that may result in not only tight muscles but compression of the vertebral discs in your spine.

Let's look at the biomechanist, Katy Bowman, and her two photos below.                                                                                                       

My hope is that you can tell the difference between the left picture and the right. When the arms are raised either straight or in this bent elbow position, it becomes very obvious that the anterior ribs are thrusting forwards. While this movement is very normal, it isn't healthy if we are in a rib thrusting position for most of the day.

This rib thrusting over time can be problematic due to the shearing force that is applied to the anterior spinal discs (which are fluid filled sacs between the bones of the spine). 

If you default to this postural position, this constant compression can become chronic as the muscles adapt to your postural habits and the discs may burst or a nerve may start to pinch. Pain doesn't always result immediately but over time issues will become more dramatic and less likely to change with just proper alignment cues. 

The reality is that if it took you decades of bad posture to get into this predicament, it will take some time to get you back into a healthier position. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, but I do believe that change will come with persistence over time. The first step is knowing what a neutral, healthy spine looks like. 

 Rib thrusting not only affects the bones but the soft tissues as well. Muscles, organs, nerves, arteries, and veins; it's all connected. Chronic misalignment in one area isn't isolated but systemic.

 For the first few years, I was just taking the ribs back and lengthening the spine from the heels all the way to the crown of the head. That works as a first step in the process of observation and integration.

Now I not only think about the anterior, front body but have a new focus. Taking the posterior ribcage (approximately where the kidneys are located) back and up, again lengthening the spine from heels to crown of the head.

In the video above you will be introduced to an excellent exercise to discover how tight your shoulders REALLY are and to then how to work on isolating the shoulder movement while keeping great alignment.

Just remember your tissues need time to repair. Short intervals several times a day will help with the repair and strengthening process.

I hope this essay helps move you in the direction towards better range-of-motion in your shoulders. I will be spending the next several months introducing concepts relating to the shoulders and building on those ideas with each essay. My want is that you will leave with a better understanding over time. I do well with repetition, approaching the topic from a variety of angles to uncover little gems along the way.

Have fun and I will be back soon with more shoulder health tips.

Namaste`

 

Recap of the Shoulder Health Exercises Class

Just a brief blog entry. 

I wanted to share a few of the slides that I displayed during the PowerPoint because I think they are important.

More mobility = less stability

There is a lot of space in the shoulder joint and the only way that the upper arm bone (the humerus) is attached to the body is by soft tissue (muscles, tendons, and ligaments).

Let's compare the hip joint to the shoulder joint.

As you can see with the x-rays, the hip joint is a 

very stable joint. The acetabulum (in Greek means vinegar cup) sits on top of the femoral head. I have even heard that when the thigh bone is removed from the hip socket it makes a "pop" sound because of the suction. Our body wants the femur to stay in the socket.

When you look at the next x-ray of the shoulder socket, what you may notice first is the largeness of the ball of the humerus (upper arm bone). The cup that that "ball" sits in (the glenoid fossa) is very small and shallow. My teacher describes it as looking like a snow man. Smaller at the top and larger at the bottom.

 What you can see from the center scapula in the picture above is the glenoid cavity (aka glenoid fossa) and how it is shallow and sort of shaped like a snow man. :-)

Knowing what your shoulder joint looks like and how to move it in a healthy way is key to keeping this important joint happy. 

Those that attended the workshop will remember
this video. I really appreciate having all these tools to help me learn what my shoulders are doing while I move my arm bone.

You can probably deduce from the x-ray above, our posture matters. My plan over the next several months is to expand on the original workshop topic of the shoulder joint in this blog and in my weekly Yoga classes. I have learned so much in the last year and a half, and there is so much more to discuss and learn that was not addressed fully in the workshop.

So with that said, I do hope you can attend class at either the PBPN Health Center or the Rossville Community Library very soon!

Questions: yoginiofoz@gmail.com

Take care and see you on the mat!!