For Princesses of all ages :o)

A colleague's post on foot discoveries with her daughter
a true story

Princess Feet

A good friend introduced me to Katy Bowman's work on biomechanics and body alignment a couple of months ago, and I've found her work to be fascinating and incredibly helpful, not just for my own issues, but as a healthcare provider. Many of her posts on the importance of healthy body alignment and the effects of one part on the entire system compliment my own interest in the importance of  breathing technique and body position in working with issues such as pain, anxiety and decreased oxygenation, especially during recovery and physiological stress.

One of the subjects which Bowman talks about frequently is the importance of walking, squatting and the cascade of problems which positive heeled shoes can cause. I was never a big fan of heels, and have been carefully considering the angle of my shoes ever since. But my fashion sense has always been decidedly...unfashionable. I cannot say the same for Anya, and preschool girls have some very particular ideas about what to wear.

The Princess Years

Yesterday morning, my 4-year old daughter wobbled into the room wearing a princess tutu, a princess tiara and one of the 6 pairs of cheap plastic princess heels she was given for Christmas last year. I had thought she forgot about them when I buried them in the costume box, quarantining them from the real shoes. I have socio-political issues with girls and princess culture. My kids know that I hate princesses, know that I dislike that princesses rarely save themselves in stories, are considered special simply by the circumstances of their birth or because of their beauty. When I explained the problems of a monarchy vs. a democracy, Anya was the first to chime in that the people should decide who the leaders are. And yet. The princess culture in the preschool set is overwhelming, infectious, and all-consuming. The fixation with prettiness is problematic but workable; the conflation of "pretty" and "fancy" with "princess", and "princess" with the requirement of pretty above all else!!!1!- that is the spiral of death by pink for me.

When Anya wobbled in in that outfit, all smiles and pride in how pretty she was, I knew I had to pick my battle; all out War, Mom vs Princess was asking for an epic loss. I told her how beautiful the dress was, how impressed I was that she had created a whole costume for herself, and how beautiful she was when she was pretending to be a princess AND when she was being regular Anya. She asked what I thought of the shoes. I told her that I didn't like high heel shoes because the heels were no good for running and no good for the muscles, bones and the whole body.

She twirled for me a couple of times, then wobbled her way out.

Be free!

A minute later she wobbled back in and said, "Why are my pretty shoes not good for my body?" I know what to do with that kind of soft pitch! I leapt up and showed her where her hamstrings are, showed her how to feel them stretch, pointed out where they attached to the skeleton- we did a great activity using a little movable guy with rubber bands attached to his bones to represent muscles and how they move bone, which I'm just realizing I never blogged about- and she was fascinated. Then we lay down and held up our legs to look at the angle of our feet and how a pointed toe shortened the length of our hamstrings. I talked to her about how walking like that and never stretching them out would make the muscles get tighter and shorter, till it was so bad that our feet couldn't even get into a neutral position without some effort on the part of our muscles. And, by the way, our lesson on simple machines has totally come in handy- the kids now often differentiate between things that take work from our muscles and things that don't!

Next, I did some silly poses to try to show her how the whole body has to compensate for the forward lean of the body standing on heels. Katy Bowman's illustrations are better than my clowning around, but when your audience is 4, a little mama slapstick goes a long way towards remembering a complex lesson!

Anya wobbled back out to the living room, then returned, without the heels and said, in the most woeful voice ever, "But how can I have princess shoes if they are bad for my body?" I took her out to examine her shoe collection and tried to push the hot pink, turquoise glittered light up sneakers as sufficiently fancy for a princess. Anya was not impressed.

Then I had an awesome idea.

Princess Feet

"I think that princess FEET are even cooler than princess shoes, don't you?" She looked doubtfully at her feet. "I can make your feet extra fancy and special!"

I collected up red, pink and purple markers, a washable glue stick, gold glitter, and two colors of nail polish. I painted her nails and drew suns, hearts, flowers and swirls all over the tops of her feet, then rubbed some glue stick over the top and went to town with the glitter. She was beyond thrilled.

We went outside to test out her new princess feet. It turns out that not only are princess feet cool-looking and fun to create, but you can run in them way better than in high heeled princess shoes.

 We also did some careful scientific tests of climbing, playing, skipping and hammock pushing. Princess feet outshone princess high heels in all the categories!

Esteemed Colleague's excellent blogpost on alignment

Thanks, Jillian!

The Path You Take

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Don't just stand there! How are you *actually* supposed to stand?

There's a lot of talk in the media these days about how standing is way better for you than sitting, but did you know there's actually a "right" way to stand?  Here it is: space your feet pelvis width apart, line up the outside edges of your feet, fully straighten your legs, relax your quads, and carry your weight in your heels (get your hips directly above your heels).  This advice may be different from what you've heard over the years, like "keep your knees soft (slightly bent)", or "tuck your pelvis under to engage your core".  So who's right?  How do you know which advice to follow?  In my opinion, you should follow the advice that doesn't do damage to any of your body parts.  Read on, you'll see what I mean. 

First image: hips forward, loading the feet.  Second image, knees bent, loading the knees and the feet.      Third image, hips over heels, loading the posterior muscles.

Let's start with the feet.  Your feet are like your hands, your toes are like your fingers.  If you did a handstand, you probably wouldn't let your body go forward and put your weight on your fingers, you'd keep it in the heel of your hand, closest to your wrist.  The rules are the same for the foot.  Your feet actually house 25% of your body's bones and muscles, and are packed full of nerves.  The fact that your feet are capable of an infinite number of positions and are so sensitive to pressure, shape and texture suggests that they are made to read information from the environment.

A nice, flexible foot will be able to form to the surface you are walking on, giving you greater stability.  If your foot can't move to accommodate a rock or a hole in the ground, or a rogue Lego, some other joint will have to (sprained ankle, knee), or you fall over and break a hip.

The side of my foot can come up over the block so I don't have to fling my whole body to the floor to avoid getting hurt.  If I carried my weight in my toes, this would be very painful.

When you carry your weight on your toes, your foot has to contract and grip the ground all the time to hold you up.  This puts a significant amount of strain on the small muscles and soft tissues of your feet, makes the muscle stiff and unyielding, and actually cuts off blood flow to your foot.  Your poor foot loses its fantastic range of motion and will be in pain and may even start to deform from the strain (bunions, hammer toes, flat feet, etc.)

The size of muscles and bones can give us a clue to their intended function.  Bigger muscles and bones should be doing heavy load bearing work.  Smaller muscle and bone is more for proprioception and other functions, like the delicate task of capturing nose goblins from a sleeping 2 year old.  When you carry your weight back in your heels and turn OFF your quads, you allow the large muscles on the back of your leg and your butt to hold your weight, rather than the teeny tiny bits and pieces that make up your feet. 

Another thing to look at is the effect of a contracted muscle on other parts of your body.  When you use the back of your legs and your butt to hold you up, your butt muscles gently tug your tailbone outward, which maintains a healthy tone to your pelvic floor ( it is attached to your tailbone).  Cool!  When you use your quads to hold you up, either by having your hips shoved forward or having your knees bent, it pulls your kneecap up and into the knee joint, grinding through the cartilage, creating lots of friction and inflammation, leading to chronic pain/disease, eventually knee replacement.  Uh-oh.  Also, you lose any toning effect on the pelvic floor.  Dang.

The last thing I'll mention is the effect that the placement of your weight has on your bones.  In order for your hip bones (femoral heads) to develop and maintain their proper density, your legs MUST be vertical.  Your leg bone is triggered to grow (ie, NOT degenerate over time) through the compression it gets between the ground and gravity. 

A tilted leg bone, as in hips forward OR knees bent, is not getting the right amount of compression, which means your bones are not as strong as they have to be for your weight.  If I weigh 100 lbs, I want my bones to be able to handle that weight when I'm walking, or if I have to jump to avoid getting hit by a bus, or if I'm going downstairs and I think there's another step but there's not and I land hard on my leg and get that jolt that reverberates through my skull (we've all done it) .  If I don't bear my weight on my bones properly, that means that maybe they'll only be able to handle 85% of my weight, which is bad news for me in the above scenarios.  I don't know about you, but I'd REALLY rather have my bones strong enough to hold me up, since I have an aversion to chronic pain and osteoporosis and hip fracture.

(A side note, this is why time spent sitting is such a big factor in the development of osteoporosis.  Those hours you spend sitting in a chair are hours that you're telling your bones to go on vacation.  A horizontal bone isn't getting ANY compression from gravity, so it isn't getting ANY signal to replenish!)


So there's my case for standing with your weight in your heels, and for learning how to relax your quads when you stand around.   Makes sense, doesn't it?

The best things in life are free :o)

Stressful times.  If you’re not already rich, your net worth has likely taken a beating in the last little while.  Dang, Jim.  For most of us, enriching one’s existence will likely be headed in the “inward” direction, not in the acquisition of cool toys.  My Tesla will just have to wait for me.  And that’s not entirely a bad thing.  What the greed heads don’t want you to know (or feel) because when you do, then you don’t need to buy anything:

The Best Things in Life are Free  :o)

(I feel a song coming on) A genuine smile shared, holding your baby in your arms, a moment to reflect, taking a walk in the sunshine OR on a rainy day and jumping in puddles, or __________(your good and free thing goes here).

For the moment, oxygen is free, so take a deep breath and notice:  are you creating downward pressure on your Pelvic Floor in so doing?  If you move your ribcage to bring air in, make the cavity larger-changing the air pressure-outside air rushes in, downward pressure doesn’t happen.  Huh?

If you ride a horse, the next time you dismount:  notice that their entire ribcage expands as they breathe, it’s not just their belly reaching down to the ground and back up again.  If you toss a stick or a ball to your dog, once they’ve fetched it back to you and set it down, check it out: their entire rib cage grows all over for respiration. The ribcage is a moveable affair.

Put your hands on your own ribcage and see if you can give them a ride away from each other when breathing in deeply.  Breathe into those hands:  booyah!  See?  You can "ride" your hands in and out using the muscles in and around your ribcage. 

Soon, we’ll see swimmers race in the Olympics.  Their ability to compete successfully has a great deal to do with how much oxygen they can take in repeatedly:  the ability to move their rib cages.  After the race is over and they’re hanging poolside or on the ropes, check them out:  their backs are big – the ribcage goes all the way around.

Maybe you don’t partake in competitive sport.  You may take something else seriously, encounter other daily stresses.  In a stressful time [or when you’d like to remain separate from one] give your hands a little ride:  a couple of good, deep breaths.  It’s so relaxing.  And relaxed is where you do your best stuff:  like dancing or singing in the shower or ____________ (your best stuff goes here). 

Adult diapers: are you in? (know someone who is)

I think it's pretty clear that anyone who's outgrown them, does not want to return to wearing diapers.  Yet there are football and tv stars advertising them on tv in primetime:  expensive time.  That means the market for this item is BIG.

So many of us spend lives with our butt permatucked (a technical term) and it ain't natural.  Gentlemen and women, influenced by a 'civilized' culture, that sticking your bottom out isn't done, "tuck" them and in so doing set off a chain reaction of tension traveling throughout the body.  Think: tossing a pebble in pond.

Sitting for long periods of time [all day?] [got an hour commute to add to that on either end] exacerbates the situation.  Your hamstrings are way tight, (another technical term) from being asked to do nothing all day long, and while seated, the weight of your torso is jamming that sacrum in from the bottom. We're designed to sit on our ischial tuberosities, where the sacrum can assume its natural position.

So you say, "what's the big deal, I'll do my downward dog, and stretch those hamstrings, all right already."  Sure.  But your pelvic floor is muscle and it's the only thing keeping your guts up inside you and not falling out on the floor. Your PF is attached to different spots in the pelvis, one of which moves: the sacrum.  If it's jammed in on the bottom, there's slack in the PF muscles created only by the narrowing the obstetric conjugate (the shape is slightly different in men, but is the functionally the same). The PF muscle which used to be serviceable is now hanging like a hammock.  The muscles shorten and tighten in an effort to remain structurally useful, yet if the angle is extreme, you're out of control.

Your doctor (who's likely forgotten any of the biomechanics he/she may have studied in college) recommends kegels to you, so you can strengthen your pelvic floor, failing to realize that the tissues are weak not because they're lazy, but because they are not physically able to shorten any more than they already have.   Not too loose: too tight! 

Your entire body is amazing and it moves just as you ask it to.   Were we a people who squatted for toilet affairs we would not have these issues.  The places in the world where people still squat for eliminations have no need of diapers.  And they're definitely not tucked, as the tucked squatter sends their business between their feet (and those desiring to leave some items behind will be UNtucking their pelvis, no?) 

Developing your ability to squat and stick your tail out (and one ought to be able to maintain this position for as long as is necessary) will restore their obstetric conjugate to its natural ratio/relationship to the rest of the pelvis and your pelvic floor will (magically) be able to function normally once again.

Surgery doesn't work for long, so if you're dealing with pelvic floor issues your choice is simple.  Start asking your rear end to behave naturally or start shopping for diapers.

And if I've piqued your interest in restoring your body to its natural vibrant state, come see me or my colleagues in lovely Pt. Richmond for classes in Restorative Exercise.  And if you're not nearby, don't worry.  There is much instruction available on line, a line of DVDs, a great book on Fixing your Feet (they're where the rubber meets the road) all available at www.alignedandwell.com. 

the Hurry Cane. Really?

How about learning to use the hurry canes that were issued along with the rest of you?  They're ever so handy and they're always there when you need them :o)  The graphics in this commercial are great.  The stick, the leg.  The bend at the knee.  Oh, that's right.  What's so useful about the Hurry Cane is that the middle doesn't bend.  That's why you'll need/buy it.  It's so handy!  You don't have anything that will do this...oh wait.  You do.  Your LEGS.

OK that sounds a little sarcastic.  Sorry.  People suffer traumatic injuries and require all manner of TEMPORARY assistance in such times for the miracle healing machine to get itself back to Go.  Your very own pair of hurry canes are designed to serve you for a lifetime.  And you can decorate them a whole lot better than you can the hurry cane offered on tv.

Long term use of your body parts outside of what's delineated in the owner's manual can be deleterious to your health and well-being, so you'd be clever to inform yourself.

My sixty seconds are almost up, so instead of purchasing something additional which you'll soon stuff in the hall closet, why not take a peek at the owners' manual at allignedandwell.com?  Your own hurry canes will be glad you did :o) and you will too, as the better you feel the more fun you can have. In fact, when your body feels good you can have a whole lot more of whatever it is you want:  good time or bad.  Sweet, no?

bodywisdomstudio.net  Here's where my journey into these good times began.  Thanks, Nancy!  See you soon.

Alignment: what it means [to me]

what's found in the dictionary : 1. To arrange things in a straight line or 2. The process of adjusting parts so that they are in proper relative position.

If you're going to align dominoes so you can break the world's record of greatest number of dominoes progressively knocked down, you will of course have to pay a lot of attention to alignment (and not sneezing).  You'll make curves and be careful that the forward motion of each will impact the one that's in front of it at least enough to send it forward into its' neighbor.  Alignment is very important to this endeavor and probably making sure all your dominoes have a nice square bottom on which to stand (no wobbly dominoes thank you).  

If you're stacking blocks, the straighter you stack them vertically, the higher you're able to build.  Aligning them perfectly one atop the other makes them most stable.  Where you're slightly off center, that's going to be where the toppling occurs.  You align the blocks to successfully oppose the force of gravity.  This definition of alignment clearly presents the good reason one's knees ought to be straight as opposed to having a slight bend:  as soon as you bend even a little bit, you're going down, my friend.   The only way to stop going down is for there to be muscles gripping somewhere and that sets off a chain reaction of needless tension even when you're standing still and take it on the road the unnecessary gripping possibilities expand exponentially.

The second part of the definition is the one I find myself plummeting through these days:  the process of adjusting MY parts so that they are in proper relative position.  We didn't cover this in Physical Education school (but we could have).

I'm a singer and I have developed the ability to listen really well.  I've come to think of it as good relative pitch:  I know where to place my sound relative to what others are playing or singing.  Anyone can easily tell when it's working, as it sounds good.  Conversely, anyone can tell when it's not working so well, as it sounds SO bad.  Puhleeze make it stop!!

Properly relating one's body parts could be looked at this way, also.  When you're in optimal alignment you are feeling really good and your miracle body can do whatever you ask it to.  If you're reading this, you probably carry a bunch of tension places it's not required:  places that are tight.  When the muscles stabilizing a joint are not fit for duty (too loose or too tight) the joint they're meant to serve becomes compromised and over time its capacity to move in the manner it was designed becomes impaired. Oweee.  Hello tightness, heat, friction, swelling, arthritis. 

For me, and for many others this process of relinquishing joint wellness remained a mystery and I'd thought there was nothing I could do about my knees but sit down and shut up.  Decades of poor relative positioning of my upper and lower leg had put my knees in an awkward and finally painful position.  Enter Restorative Exercise, the Alignment Markers for Optimal Body Function and I'm re-writing the story of my knees.  The reversal of my fortunes has been astoundingly rapid and I started the process in my 60s!  If you're still breathing, you can do it, too.


I'm a Pilates instructor too, and a well-conditioned core really DOES make everything better, but concentration on correct relative positioning of one's parts has brought my picture of wellness into living color.  My body tells me through muscle tension what's right (feels good) and what's wrong (doesn't feel so good).  It's simple.  Perhaps simpler for me as I have a mobilized ribcage already and maybe you don't.   

Going barefoot makes my knees (and the rest of me too) happy and putting on the high heels for a glamorous appearance somewhere feels just so stupid, now.  Who'da thunk it?  Getting the alignment picture and how it's going to help you stay healthy for the rest of your days is the most important part and you can start right now:


Katy Bowman has set everything you need to know down in black and white.  Much of what I've been doing is presented in her book,

Every Woman's Guide to Foot Pain Relief: The New Science of Healthy Feet

(& it works the same for guys, too)  You can also spend some time on her website and enter into the conversation via her blog: KatySays which you'll find at  alignedandwell.com.   You can talk to me, but, hey, she wrote the book!  You may feel the need of a personal tour guide and that's where I (and other Alignment Specialists) come in.  bodywisdomstudio.net  We're here to lend a helping hand and our numbers are swelling.  There's probably one of us practicing near you.


You might be saying, "Well, it's my _____ that hurts, not my feet." But, think about the blocks.  If the block on the very bottom isn't solid, you're not going to stack very many blocks:  they're going down.  This is where "the rubber meets the road," and feet have the greatest affect on your ability to hold your body as the designer intended, along with the ability to move through life that way.


Object to the high cost of healthcare?  Have no need: understand these concepts.  Aside from avoiding toxic exposures in our environment and from the food we ingest, our miracle self-healing machine:  our bodies, if aligned in the manner intended, will heal magically and serve us faithfully until we're done with it.   :o)
 

Have joint pain?

Today's newsletter/email of the day from a good doctor talks to me about exercise, joint pain and the supplements he'll sell me to help with my joint pain.  Yet joint pain is a thing of the past when one is able to align body segments as the designer intended.  When you stack your body up so you're perpendicular to gravity (stand up straight), you don't need to grip any one muscle:  they're all  "live" and ready for your next move.

Happy muscles are those which are capable of both generating force AND stretching.  To be capable of this they need to hold themselves at a happy 'medium.'  There is a "goldilocks" place for your bones (and the muscles which support them) and if you habitually hold yourself in a manner counter to that, you get muscles which must become either too loose or too tight.  Muscles work antagonistically, meaning that when muscles on one side flex, the ones on the other side stretch...so you can see it's pretty simple to assume a position which compromises the way your joints feel over time.  Tight hamstrings, anyone?  Tension in your neck and shoulders?

My joint pain has been in my knees, indicating (which I nonetheless ignored) that there was muscular weaknesses around the joint:  but instead of listening to the cues my genius body was sending me, I did nothing.  Unable to wait for me to come to my senses, my body adapted to the weakness by tightening up and I pretty much relinquished most of the functionality of that knee. Which, by the way, had an effect on all of me.

Enter Restorative Exercise, my great awakening. The more upright I become, the nearer I get to having straight legs, the better my knees feel.  I believe that strengthening my hamstrings was a big part of the equation but you could also say it is a matter of lengthening my quads & adductors and they'd both be right. The prescription is:  whatever you need to do to align yourself to oppose the force of gravity with ease.

It's a complex issue, as whatever part of you that's out of whack affects everything else.  When one muscle's too tight, it's not as if everything else can just 'let that be.'  For you to get on with your day, every other muscle has to make an accommodation for the tight/weak muscle you're not addressing.

I recently injured the fourth toe on my left foot swinging a door open onto it after a yoga class.  (Man!  that smarted. )  :o(  Even putting my five finger shoes on was tricky & what does my neck and shoulders have to do with the end of my toe??? The response to this little event was whole body - every step could be felt right up through my shoulders and neck:  how could I avoid hurting this toe more?  My entire body seemingly had to tense up to make it happen: to favor that toe.

Maybe you have some sexy looking shoes that produce a similar effect.  Trust me, the shoes don't make you look so sexy when you're all hunched over, (maybe you just have to wear your shoulders a little higher and a bit forward for now) but you know you're headed in that direction if you feel it in your knees when you descend a staircase.... (can I get an Amen?)

Time to straighten up and locomote right.

Restorative Exercise to attain optimal alignment:  it's the right thing to do.  Or the upright thing to do.  What the Designer intended.  Don't find those declarations compelling?  It feels really good too.  :o)

Oh yeah: as if saying goodbye to joint pain weren't enough, being in proper alignment (and moving through life that way) helps all your cells function optimally, too:  your blood moves smooth and easy (tight muscles = poor circulation), which brings the good stuff in and carries away that which is no longer useful.  Which is why a massage feels so good on tight muscles:  a little blood flow brings in the good stuff and releases the bad.  Ahhhh.

You could arrange yourself so you feel as if you just got a massage all the time.  That's my personal goal.