The Wonders of Walking......

Happy New Year! :)

It's been far too long since I updated my blog, so I thought I would kick off 2016 with a new post to my blog. The Wonders of Walking.

The last couple of months have been a bit crazy leading up to Christmas and I've been very busy with work trying to get some projects finished before year end (so no time for blogging). One of them down in London, meaning daily commutes down to the City for a couple of weeks in December which was quite depressing in general. I'm not a huge fan of London, actually, I generally hate the place! But.....the time spent commuting did allow me to reflect and realise........

Firstly, how very blessed and fortunate I am to be based and working from home. I have worked from home for over 12 years now (when not travelling around), so I am pretty used to it and it's easy to forget, but commuting down to London in peak times for 5 days in a week really reminded me how lucky I am to not have to do that sort of thing every week of the year like many people do. At least 3 hours of my day was just spent travelling, or even more while waiting at the station for my train......wow! What a waste of time.......but actually, not entirely wasted!......as secondly, I came to the realisation that I just don't walk enough!!!!

While commuting to London, I was walking from my home to the station in Rugby and then from Euston to my customer in Harley Street and the same back again. In total I was walking just over 3 miles each day as part of my commute......how awesome! I was also using stairs and not the lift to get to the 5th floor of the building I was working in. I was amazed at how many able bodied people took the lift up just 2 or 3 floors!! I was considered crazy for walking up all the stairs (wtf is the matter with people, it's free fitness. I even ran them once bottom to top, but then I got collared for a chat at the top and had to catch my breath first! So I didn't do that again!) But anyway....while I wasn't keen on the commute and being in London, I loved the opportunity for walking and it was great to stretch the legs and have a good brisk walk every day. I literally haven't walked that far for years!!

So then I started thinking about how much walking I do generally in my life, on a daily or weekly basis when I don't have to commute to London......and it's not a lot! None in fact. I never just go out for a walk. I will happily go for a swim (I did this morning before work), I will go for a bike ride, I might even go for a run (not recently), or have a gym workout......but, when do I ever just go out for a walk? ..........I don't! Until now that is!!

I don't just mean walking to get somewhere either, like town or the shops, or the pub, I mean just going for a walk for no other purpose than getting out in the fresh air, wind and rain (whatever) and stretching out the legs. So, I have come to the conclusion that I should walk more and my plan from now on is intentional daily walking! It's a not a New Year's resolution or any of that unsustainable bullshit, it's an attempt to form a new life habit, or a 'G-Habit' - but more on G-Habits another time, perhaps my next blog.

My plan is to walk at least 1 k/m a day, over lunch time, or before work, or even just to get away from the desk mid morning or afternoon. Maybe I could walk twice a day....wild! But whatever, I will be walking a lot more from now on! And not a meandering stroll either, a good brisk paced walk! Just to be clear, the walking is not to replace any type of other exercise, swimming and cycling or even running for example, it is just to supplement it and if I don't get chance to swim or cycle one week, no bother, I'll have got plenty of exercise from my daily walks. Or that is the plan anyway, to make it a habit.

But why am I deciding to prioritise my walking, over say other forms of exercise? Well, quite simply, it is how we evolved and what our bodies are designed to do. Plus, it is really rather good for you! Just Google 'the benefits of walking'. So it just seems a bit rude and stupid to not take advantage of this wonderful ability we evolved to have. Also consider that not everyone is blessed with the ability to walk, so don't take it for granted! Use it....don't loose it and go for a deliberate and intentional walk!

If you have a dog, you probably already have this one covered though! ;-) At least I hope you do or you are a terrible dog owner!

Finally, I would also like to thank Keith Nickless for the additional and final inspiration for adopting my new life habit. After undergoing back surgery earlier this year to relive the pressure/pain from a herniated disc, having been laid up in bed totally immobile for 10 days and stretchered to hospital in an ambulance, Keith is now fully recovered from the surgery and the back pain is gone, this was just 3 months ago. Guess what his post surgery recovery consisted of, apart from not sitting down too much.....you guessed it.....walking. Taking intentional daily walks! Lots of walking. Cutting grass as well I believe, but of course, that's still walking.  He looks great, feels great, has lost loads of weight and his consultant is amazed at his post surgery recovery. What more convincing do you need??..............so go on.......go for a walk! Enjoy! :)

#TheWondersOfWalking
#ThePowerOfPosture

The Superficial Back Line

Since starting this blog and my journey into my own postural correction, I have been meaning to write up a short post to document my understanding of 'The Superficial Back Line'. So here it is, finally......I am trying to avoid too much technical anatomical terminology, or at least clarify it when used, so the regular person who may decide to read this post (not many I know) can hopefully understand a little bit of what I'm talking about. That is my goal at least.

As defined by Thomas Myers and his 'Anatomy Trains' metaphor, The Superficial Back Line (SBL) is a continuous line or 'track' of connective tissue (myofascia) which runs from the bones of our toes on the base of our feet, under our feet (including the plantar fascia), behind the heel and up the posterior (back) side of the legs following the calf and hamstrings up to the hips where the line then continues on up our backs, tracking closely to our spine and erector spinae muscles (supportive spinal muscles) to the bony ridge (Occipital Ridge) at the base of our skull and then over the top of our heads where is stops at the brow bone just above the eye sockets.

The primary function of this line and it's associated muscles (kinetic/posterior chain) is to create extension in the body, i.e. to support us in an upright and standing position, and prevent excessive flexion (bending/curling forwards). With the one exception of knee flexion, or bending your knees back. This action of bending the knees actually disengages the line/chain, causing a 'derailment', to use the Anatomy Train terminology.  But more on that later.

The SBL is the first line to develop in new born babies and it is the development of this line that brings babies out of their flexed and curled over fetal position, raising and supporting their heads, helping them to first crawl, lift them selves up and then eventually stand upright. As they begin to stand, their calcaneus (heel bone), will begin to shift back behind the ankle - look at a baby before they can properly stand and you will note their heel does not protrude behind their ankle yet and if they do stand, it will likely be on their toes first, instead of the soles of their feet - and this is a key stage of the development in the SBL becasue as the heel bone shifts back, it helps create the required tension on the line to support the child standing upright, and provides a more solid base of support from the feet.

The SBL is entirely continuous and can be dissected from the human body in one entire piece, from toes to head. Below you can see this........

This continuity means that limitations and restrictions in the SBL can manifest as refereed pain or movement restrictions in other far reaching parts of the line. The most extreme and not uncommon example of this would be tension headaches or migraines, where tightness in your lower body, even as far down as the the feet for example, can refer pain to the top of the line/track and present itself as a headache. For myself, as an example, I was able to relieve cramp in my feet/toes, by releasing tension held around my hips, again a very common dysfunctional area of the SBL in today's society! These patterns of dysfunction can be quite common, but are also unique to individuals and their lifestyles etc.

In my opinion, understanding and accepting the continuity of this line (and others) is of vital importance when trying to understand human posture, efficient bio mechanics and movement patterns. It is also pretty important if you are trying to prevent or relive your lower back pain pain. Or foot, knee, hip, shoulder, neck or head pain maybe. Chances are, if you suffer from pain/discomfort or movement restrictions in any of these areas (which is very common amongst people in today's society, myself and most of my friends and family included), you will have some restrictions or movement limitations somewhere in your SBL.

Can you touch your toes with straight knees? No? You should really be able to you know, if not, you have lost a very basic human movement and function! And it will be restrictions/tightness in your SBL, that is restricting full forward flexion (forward bending) and preventing you from touching your toes. 3-4 months ago, I could not touch my toes with straight legs, now I can do it very comfortably without any warming up or stretching first. #ThePowerOfPosture

It should also be noted that there are obviously two SBLs, one on either side of the body. Imbalances between the two are also very common creating other postural and more asymmetrical movement imbalances and compensation patterns - one shoulder lower than the other for example - but that is getting a little beyond the scope of this post for now.

As I mentioned above, there is one exception to the 'extension' (standing upright) movement function of the SBL, and that is flexing/bending the knees. This action of bending the knees actually disengages the tension and continuity of the SBL by separating the myofascial (soft tissue) connection between hamstrings and the calf muscles, almost  disconnecting (from a myofasical point of view) the lower and upper body and therefore reducing the tension or tightness in the line increasing hip mobility. To try and clarify my point here.......

Try and bend forward and touch your toes with straight knees, whether you can do it or not (and unless you are hyper mobile/double jointed), it's probably quite a stretch and you should feel the 'tension' in the back side of your body as it challenges the entire SBL from feet to head. Now stand up again, just slightly bend your knees and try and touch your toes again.....much easier now right? This is because the bend at the knees has disengaged (or derailed) the SBL between the calf muscles and the hamstrings, separating the myofascial continuity between the lower and upper body. This 'derailment' of the track releases the tension in the line, allowing us to flex forward and bend over more easily. This is why it is easier to pick things up from the floor with bent knees.

So that just about concludes my post on the SBL for now. I hope you found it of some interest if you are still reading. I will be writing more on the SBL, especially around identifying and releasing restrictions in it. But I should really finish by stating that the SBL does not of course work in isolation and it is actually balanced by the 'SFL'! Yep, you guessed it, we have a 'Superficial Front Line' as well as the other lines of myofascial continuity that run throughout the body; lateral, spiral and arm lines for example, but we'll get to those and more in due course.

#ThePowerOfPosture

Dysfunctional Patterns - Understanding Your Back Pain...

It has now been 4 months since I started on this very specific and intentional journey of addressing my postural imbalances and bio mechanical dysfunctions, with the main goal of relieving my bodily aches and pains as I approach my 40's.

As per my last status update post, focussing on postural improvement has simply been an amazing discovery and I have never felt better, literally in every aspect of my life. See previous post for further details.

http://smfr-tpop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/an-update-on-my-progress-so-far.html

So, aside from the on-going corrective KMI bodywork (Structural Integration), what have I really been doing to identify and correct my postural and movement dysfunctions.....?

Well, step 1 has actually been to educate myself on some basic anatomy and physiology. This is of course incredibly important. You need to understand how we are designed to stand and move as humans, before you can start making improvements. This really helps to start understanding the basic dysfunctional patterns in your own body as well, because if you don't know why your lower back hurts (or your shoulders, or knees or hips), then how are you ever going to fix it, but crucially, also prevent it from reoccurring......?

From what I have learnt so far, lower back pain for example is incredibly easy to explain and also fix in the majority of people who suffer from it. It is really a mechanical issue, an issue of poor bio mechanics and ultimately, a lack of strength, even in seemingly 'strong' people. By 'strong', I mean muscly. Big muscles do not equate to strength, at least not in the context of being a functional and efficient human being, they are actually quite detrimental to it, but that's a topic for a future blog post.

The cause of mechanical lower back pain really stems from reciprocal inhibition and muscular compensation.....sound a bit like 'wank words' don't they? But what do they actually mean? Well, it basically means we are out of balance in our bodies...... in our muscles and in our structures. Our generally sedentary lifestyles lend themselves to creating these unintentional imbalances, which then lead to fairly predictable chronic pain and injury. We are simply not designed to sit! We are designed to move!!!

The typical dysfunctional patterns that are caused from a sedentary lifestyle in today's technology driven society are actually quite predictable. Starting from the hips, because as I have learnt over the last few months, this is where the majority of dysfunction and chronic pain will actually stem from. After some basic anatomy education, mobilising the hips and correcting hip dysfunction is step 2 to correcting your posture and relieving chronic pain. Acute pain as well actually, but additional consideration and expertise is required for more acute cases. Maybe a course of osteopathic or chiropractic treatment would be required first, but the cause (and cure) of the acute pain is really just the same as the chronic pain....the signs have just been ignored for too long, so additional intervention is now required. Ignore them for too long though, and that might be a hip replacement, or some other surgical intervention later on down the road.

The typical dysfunctional pattern from the hips will manifest itself in the following way. Firstly, with over active and tight hip flexors, predominantly caused from sitting too much. These hip flexors, the primary ones being illiacus/psoas, rectus femoris, satorius and TFL, become short and tight and given that they all attach to the front of the pelvis, this tightness in the muscle, will pull the pelvis down out of it's natural position and into a forward tilt.......

Mobilising the hips, basically means loosening up those tight hip flexors. But that on it's own is not quite enough.....although it will bring very quick relief to lower back pain, I have witnessed this in others, it will only be temporary relief unless additional corrective steps are taken.

So the hip flexors are over active, very tight and short from sitting down too much. But muscles, groups and chains of muscles even, operate in what is called 'antagonist pairs'. That is, when one group of muscles are contracted and short, the opposing muscle group/chain is relaxed and long. The bicep/tricep relationship is probably the easiest analogy to use here, even though I hate it because it is such an isolated and overused view of human bio mecahnics, but it does make it easy to understand the principle.

When you bend/flex your arm at the elbow, your bicep is the agonist muscles (the mover), which contracts and shortens. While the tricep is the antagonist (or reciprocal) muscle opposing that movement while relaxing and lengthening. Extend your arm again and that is reversed, the tricep contracts and the biceps relaxes. Simple?! This doesn't apply to all muscles in the body, but it certainly applies to the muscles groups which are causing your lower back pain......so anyway......back to the hips.......

The hip flexors are over active and tight from sitting down too much.....so what are the reciprocal (opposing or antagonist) muscles of the hip flexors?  Well, it is obviously the hip extensors, which are primarily gluteus maximus, the big muscle of our butt, and the hamstrings which work with the glutes to extend the hips, when standing, walking and running for example. They are the primary hip extensors! Other muscles facilitate them in that function (or over compensate for lack of function), but these are the big guns which should be doing the bulk of the work when extending our hips. However....we make a very bad habbit of switching these muscles off, both physically and neurologically. That is when other muscles have to step in and compensate and over time, that musclar compensation becomes a hard-wired, or a programmed dysfunctional pattern which will eventually results in pain and injury.

The other key factor in hip dysfunction is the relationship between the abs and the supportive/stabilising back muscles, like quadratus lumborum, multifidi and erector spinae muscles. The abs, transverse abdominus in particular, is another muscle that becomes very weak from spending too much time sitting down. As we slump over our desk with rounded shoulder and a forward tilting head, we are basically switching off our abdominal muscles, which play a major role in supporting the spine. Again, we adapt over time to this dysfunctional pattern causing compensations with other muscles. In this case, the deep and supportive muscles of the back (as mentioned above) are the ones which are forced to compensate for the weak abdominals....and guess what....that is going to start causing some pain and discomfort in your back, especially the lower back.

This same pattern of dysfunction and reciprocal inhibition expands and in very simple terms can be applied all over the body in the common areas of chronic pain.......the relationship between the abs and the lower back,  the chest/pecs and the mid back, and the neck and upper back.

Dysfunction and pain in all these areas, between all these muscles groups, is very common place and it is ultimately down to sitting too much in combination with a lack of movement and true functional strength. I say it a lot, but a huge part of the problem really is with sitting!!

The final piece to relieving your back pain for good, step 3, is building a good and solid foundation for your body with functional strength. Having mobilised the hips, which in turn will facilitate better gluteal activation, now you need to activate those glutes, remind them how to work properly and get them really firing up, but in the relevant context of human movement, i.e. Applied to how we stand and walk. This is actually quite challenging to do properly in the context of efficient human movement, but it is very, very important for the prevention of future chronic pain and injury, otherwise you will just be chasing the pain! To use a cliché........, 'prevention is better than cure'.

Strengthening the supportive abdominal and back muscles is the next step along with the glute activation. All these muscles and groups of muscles need to learn to operate in complete integration, not in isolation - so stop doing crunches to strengthen your abs please, they cause excessive hip and spinal flexion and if you spend a lot of time sitting, are pretty much the worst thing you can do as it just compounds the problems that sitting causes!

Anyway, this is how the body will be re-programmed and re-learn the functional patterns that we all develop as babies, but then are unintentionally forgotten about as we evolve to our sedentary and high tech life styles. Kids slumped over iPads is going to cause big problems for the next generation if ignored!!

Along with yoga, pilates and a specific stretching routine, which are amazing systems for general core strength and flexibility that have obviously been around for years, I have also discovered some new and amazing methods/training modalities for specifically addressing and specifically targeting these areas of dysfunction which I will be sharing in future blog posts.

Hopefully, if you are still reading this, you can start to understand these dysfunctional patterns a little bit and once you start to break down these patterns for yourself and consider your lifestyle and exercise choices (if any), you can start addressing the problems and fix the dysfunctions and imbalances in your own body, with the ultimate goal of improving posture, movement and just generally feeling great!

#ThePowerOfPosture

KMI Session #4 - The Spiral Lines

The 4th session according to the Anatomy Trains KMI 'recipe' is The Spiral Line/s (SPL). I have spoken to Angela during previous sessions about The Spiral Line and she does not normally do a dedicated session on these lines, mostly because much of the myofascia in the SPL also participates in the other lines, front, back and lateral, which have already been worked on during previous sessions, so she can work on SPL dysfunction at the same time as needed. But......as always, she needs to asses my structure as she sees/reads it and from her assesment, she decided that she did need to work on the SPL for this session. Even though she had already worked some of it already on the previous visits.

So let me just very briefly summarise the SPL and it's function in the body. As the name suggests, it spirals around the body in two opposing twisted curves, right and left side, and helps to maintain balance across all planes. It connects the foot arches, literally wrapping around underneath them.

So as Angela observed my feet, especially the rise in my left foot arch, she decided more spiral line work was needed to balance things out. Pronation and supination of the feet, or lack of it, especially in the right was also another reason for the spiral line focus again.

Another observation she made was around the tightness in my right side, especially the abdominals, and she wasn't sure where that was coming from exactly, maybe one of the deeper lines, but she decided the SPL should be the focus, so she started there, beginning with my feet.

This was just like in session 2, where she had me standing upright with my arm folded across my chest, rotating my torso through the full range of motion from left side to right side as she worked into my feet. She then worked on my lower leg, up my tibialis anterior (a muscle which basically runs along the front side of our shin) as she had me slightly lunge forward to flex my foot as she worked. This movement just aids with the tissue stimulation and release for maximum effect.

Afterwards this work on the lower extremities, on both sides, Angles re-assessed my structure and foot movement as I rotated my torso with arms folded across my chest. Right foot was a little better, but still not moving like the left. Now I'm sure she did some work on my hamstings next, bicep femoris probably, if following the SPL, but I don't completely remember. She then moved onto my hips.

Now this part was really interesting for me, I was on my back on her table with my knees flexed while she dug into my Iliacus, a muscle which covers the inner grove of the pelvis, inserting into the femur and basically joining into the psoas and attaching to the base of the spine. This is a muscle that gets chronically tight and over active from sitting down too much, as many of us do, it can pull our hips into a forward tilt putting pressure on the lower back and consequently is a common cause of lower back pain, or at least part of it.

Now this is an area, along with my TFL, that I have spent quite a bit of time working on myself with self myofascial release techniques using a theracane and lacrosse ball, with great succes. So as she dug her knuckles deep into the inner grove of my hip, stimulating the iliacus as the abdominal muscles gradually gave way to the deliberate and sustained pressure, it was a sensation I was very familiar with. But she could go so much deeper, just with gradual and sustained pressure. There was no movement, it was totally passive, she was just applying downward pressure and waiting for my body (my myofascia) to give in to her. I just tried to relax, focus on my breathing and let it go. Once she had penetrated a little deeper, she then had me extend my knee and lengthen my leg down onto the table pulling it away from my hips. This brings about further activation in the soft tissue/myofascia, allowing additional stimulation and changes.

Using a theracane, it is quite easy to get into the inner grove of the hip and stimulate the iliacus, I am going to take away some extra tips from this session with Angela when working on this area again myself, or indeed when instructing anyone else to try this self release technique with a theracane,

After the Iliacus she worked into my abdomen, across and towards my ribs, following the SPL. This is always a bit weird in the abs, purely because it is a strange sensation, but nice anyway. We (humans in general) hold a lot of tension and shortness in our front sides, especially in the abs, shortening the distance between our bottom rib and hips, as we sit lots over iDevices rolling our shoulders forward. This gap should be opened, to allow more space in the front side, to expand the ribs and lengthen the spine, allowing the shoulders to pull back and drop. Working into the abs is often overlooked in my experience of body work before, but it is clearly a critical aspect if the goal is to open up and re-align the body.

She then stood me up off the table and checked my structure again before considering some work on my legs, quads I think, but then decided the quads weren't the problem and continued up the SPL, around my obliques and ribs while having me stand and laterally bend into her wall apparatus holding a bar. She also did some work into my glutes from here as well, but changing standing position and had me facing into the wall apparatus.

Finally and as always, to balance the treatment, she did the release down my spine, from a sitting position as I slowly bend down from my neck through my thoracic and lumbar spine, until touching the floor, as previously described from previous sessions. I have actually seen a self release technique recently where you can tape two lacrosse/rubber balls together, forming like a peanut shape, and then place the balls either side of your spine at the top of your neck, with your back against a wall or on the floor, applying gentle pressure onto the balls, work your way down the spine. Starting with knees bent and then slowly extending the legs to push up allowing the ball to run down the spine. Not as goods as Angela of course, but it works pretty well and gives quite a nice release of the superficial erector spinae muscles.

It is nearly a full month until the next session. Sesssion 5 should start getting a bit deeper and is the start of the 'Core sessions'. Deep Front and Lateral lines will be the focus. I look forward to these session as they progress, going deeper and unravelling more and more dysfunction and imbalance from my body. I especially look forward to the later 'Intergration sessions', even though I have no clue yet what these session will entail.

In the mean time I am continuing on my own programme of corrective exercise and truly 'functional training', trying to build on the great work Anglea is doing to my body, rather than destroy it by abusing myself with high intensity workouts and heavy weight sets. For the normal person (anyone not competing in elite sport), there is no real benefit in these type of workouts. Well, that's not entirely true, there is no real benefit in these type of work outs if that is all you are doing! It is much more important and beneficial to focus on the human foundations first and then add high intensity an additional resistance if needed. But really, this isn't needed.

I have spent the last 4 months now, with the help of Angela, really opening up and lengthening my body, especially in the hip and thoracic (chest) region, front, back, left and right. In my mind, this is something everyone should be trying to do with their bodies, especially with our sedentary, hi-tech, forward slumping and stressful life styles. The fact that so many people insist on placing really heavy bars on their backs, compressing both the spine and the ribs totally baffles me!! I think I will discuss this more in my next blog post as I introduce Foundation Training! I feel stronger than I have ever been and I have not lifted a single weight since I started out on this amazing journey of 'fixing myself'!!



#ThePowerOfPosture
#KMI
#StructuralIntegration
#FunctionalPatterns
#FoundationTraining

KMI Session #3 - The Lateral Line

I had a morning KMI session (number 3) with Angela at Structural Balance last week. What an amazing way to start the day/week!

Session #3, according to the KMI 'recipe', is the Lateral Line (LL). Posturally, and in very simple terms, the LL functions to bring balance to our bodies, as well as lateral flexion (bending sideways). Where The Back Line (session #2) primarily supports extension, i.e. standing upright and lifting the body, The Front Line (session #1) primarily supports flexion, i.e. bending over, and the LL brings balance to both those aspects.

"
Anatomy Trains 'recipe' - Session 3
Thomas Myers - Anatomy Trains

Open the Lateral Line, differentiate all four Arm Lines from below, and open laterla aspects of the Deep Front Line at either end of the rib cage

Goals:Open the body's sides, spread the 'wings' of the breath

• Contact and balance the body's stabilising system
• Contact the body's 'lateral core'

Key structures:

• Peroneal fascia
• Iliotibial tract
• Lateral ribs
• Quadratus lumborum and scalene myofascia

"

But of course, there is no exact formula to the art of Structural Integration bodywork and as per the previous session, there was slight deviation from the prescribed 'recipe' based on Angela's assessment of my structure as she read it.

Having already done a good deal of work on my feet and legs in session #2, including both the back and lateral lines already, today's focus was very much the Lateral Lines of the upper body. This included a LOT of work on the ribs! Not really that surprising really considering the upper part of 'The 'Lateral Line' completely surrounds the ribs and intercostals - muscles between the ribs which help move the chest wall and aid our breathing - before connecting into the neck and shoulders. 

As always, Angela does an initial assessment from front, back and both side views. From the front, she noted that my structure was really changing already, as I took a deep breath up into my chest. After assessing me (my structure) from all sides, she had me lay down on the couch on my right side with knees flexed, so she could work on my left side.

I can't remember all the wonderful things she did to my ribs exactly. But Angela had me slowly moving and rotating my shoulder with my arm/elbow above my head while she worked into my ribs, eleasing the tension/restrictions. The sensations were pretty intense, I'm not going to lie, but it also felt good! I could certainly feel the benefit. As always, Angela would come across a bit that was particularly 'stuck' and these are the areas that give the greatest sensations, just bordering on the cusp of being painful, but with no intention to withdraw or have Angela back off despite her regular enquiries as to whether it was too much or if she should back off a bit. 'No, I'm fine!' I replied, while wincing through my breath a little!!

If you have ever had a really deep sports massage, then you will have some idea of the sensations that I am talking about here. Now imagine them in your ribs!!

So she worked on my left side for quite a while, before asking me to get up slowly and see how it felt..........

'Wow!' I think were my exact words as I stood up drawing back my shoulders and puffing up my chest. So much more room to move, more room to breath. It felt so good, especially compared to the right side, which was still very tight and restricted. Even more noticeably given the changes on my left side. I was straight back on the table, keen to get balanced out and have the same feelings of openness in my other side.

After repeating the same treatment on my left side, she then had me lie on my back to finish up around and into my neck. For this area, I just needed to make my head heavy in Angela's hands while she did her thing. The purpose of this technique is to help stabilise and support the head through the axis of the body, so it can be properly supported by our spine and neck, and not recruiting our back and shoulders for this purpose, which is a very common dysfunction in today's society.

Angela then had me sit up, slowly, and then she did the thing she does down my spine to balance out the treatment, repeated twice. I have described this before, she has done it every session and it is just amazing. I must learn this technique myself!!

Finally, she had me stand up to observe my structure after the work she had done on me.

It continues to amaze me how much ones structure can be changed in such a short amount of time during these KMI sessions. Now my right side had actually dropped slightly lower than my left after the session. This could be seen clearly in both my shoulders and my hips as I observed myself in the mirror. 'It's not a problem' she said, 'we'll leave you like that for now and let the treatment settle until I see you next time.'

So it has been a week now since I had this session and the benefits have been very significant for me yet again. I feel so spacious and open in my chest and ribs and can open up my chest so much more now, I can get more air into my lungs!! I know this for a fact as I can now swim an entire length of a 25m pool down under the water. The morning before this session #3, I could only manage 3/4 of the pool. I had no real awareness (in terms of a feeling) of restrictions in my chest/ribs before this session. Compared to other areas of my body that I can really feel the tension and restriction, like my shoulders for example.

Thomas Myers talks about primarily treating the intercostals, the muscles between our ribs, as muscles of walking (supporting the contralateral and rotational forces as we walk), rather than muscles of breathing. It makes total sense as well and I am sure that is the case, but for me personally, I have noticed the biggest benefit in my breath and the expansion of my chest. At least in terms of the ability to intake and hold my breath, so not the act of breathing per say. Maybe that is the differentiator.

The prescribed 'recipe' for session 4 is 'The Spiral Lines'....but given the deviations so far, I think we are deviating here again. I can't remember exactly what she said last time, it's been over a week now since I was there for this session. I think we are going into The Deep Front Line next. I can't wait to find out though!!!

#ThePowerOfPosture
#StructuralIntegration
#KMI

An update on my progress so far......

It was the 1st May this year that I started on this journey into intentionally improving my posture, so that is nearly 3 months ago now and it seems like a good time for an update on my progress. In that short time, I think the change in myself has been pretty remarkable. I am fast approaching my 40's, I will be 37 this year. But do you know what?....I feel better than I did when in my early 20's! By better, I just mean, fitter and healthier with more energy. Just better all round really.

The most noticeable, unintentional and yet measurable difference for me so far has actually been in my swimming. Yet my goal was never to improve my swimming performance, I have not been 'training' with faster swimming in mind (unlike previous training attempts). I just swim because I enjoy it, yet I feel so much more natural and am much faster in the water than ever before because I am finding more length, rotation and balance in my body. This brings more efficiency and speed from holding a more streamlined position in the water.

demonstrating length and rotation in the water.....

Relieving the cramp in my feet very early on in this process was a huge boost for my swimming, but the gains have continued since then with breathing improvements by enabling greater rib cage expansion and increased thoracic rotation from the postural improvements/correction I have been applying. Breathing and rotation are key factors in swimming........not just in swimming of course, but in life! Both of these key factors are very often overlooked when 'training'. I personally think this could be a big miss if seeking performance improvements in your chosen sport, or more importantly, for life in general.

Other significant and measurable changes are my weight loss. Again, this was never a goal. But by focusing on my posture I am somehow just more motivated to take better care of myself in general. I am not dieting because 'diets' are just not sustainable, but I am just trying to eat real, home made food and cut back on my sugar intake, especially chocolate as I am a total chocoholic. I also keep myself well hydrated and drink lots of water, much more than I ever have before and I always have a glass or bottle to hand. And it is really working as I weigh under 16 stone for the first time since I was about 18 year old. Not that I really care about my weight per say, it is just a measurable and an interesting observation.

I did not take any measurements of my body before I started this process and I am regretting that now to be honest. I especially wish I had measured my height. I am sure I would be slightly taller now through opening up and lengthening my body. From a clothes point of view, I have gone from 38" waist trousers to needing a new hole in my belt to keep up the 36" trousers that I have. Probably 35" would be a good fit about now (if they existed), I've not tried 34" trousers yet. I must have been about 18 the last time I wore 34" trousers. But I'm just using my belt for now though.

One of my only intentional goals and motivations was, and still is, to relieve my bodily aches, pains and grumbles. I am pleased to say that this intentional aspect of the programme is going pretty well too. Lower back pain is gone! 100%.....just gone! Like with my cramp, this was actually quite quick to relieve. My shoulders feel so much better now too with much more range of motion and they don't clunk and grind any more on rotation. I am still tight in my neck and upper back, but improvements are coming here with the help of the KMI work I am having done and my continued postural reprogramming regime. But it is going to take some time to unravel the 20 odd years of dysfunction I have been building on while sitting with my head slumped over my desk.

Improved movement was also another intentional goal and I can certainly move my body better than I can ever remember. Touching my toes is no problem at all now and I have much more freedom of movement in general, shoulder and hip mobility for example, yet increased spinal stability. My balance is also hugely improved because of this.

Throughout all this process of re-training and re-conditioning my body for better posture, there has not been any muscle stiffness or soreness. No D.O.M.S. (delayed onset muscle soreness) caused from over working muscles. Tell a lie, I did strain my wrist practising yoga the other month (a wake up call for me to the dangers of yoga if you overdo it and push too hard) and I also strained my hamstring pushing it a bit hard on my bike the other week. But with an increased bodily awareness and some basic knowledge, I was able to quickly relieve the problems myself with some self myofascial release and specific stretching using the techniques I have been learning about regarding  myofasscia, trigger points and referred pain patterns.

Emotionally, the power of posture continues to be....well.....powerful! This was the biggest unexpected side effect. I just feel good in myself with a really good energy and motivation. I certainly sleep very well and wake up feeling fresh in the morning. Getting out of bed without any bodily groans and grumbles really helps set you up for the day I think! I am still boring everyone with my blog, not that anyone is forced to read it of course. But for the few that do, I hope you are enjoying following along. Thanks for reading!

#ThePowerofPosture

The importance of good posture

I just wanted to add a short post to my blog to summarise and highlight some of the real life benefits and importance of good posture......

Having been focusing on addressing my postural imbalances for nearly 3 months now, I firmly believe that good posture is the absolute key to our general long term health and well being, both physical and emotional, regardless of your lifestyle choices and goals, posture can help you!

Yes, you!.......or 'us' I should say......human beings, that is!! Whilst every person on this planet is so beautifully different and wonderfully unique, we are however all fundamentally the same in our basic design and bio mechanics (genetic diseases and physical disabilities aside of course).

So in simple terms, what can you expect to gain from practising 'good posture'.........

#1......a slimmer waist! Straight away, no diet, no exercise or magic pills or supplements. Just good posture.........and BAM!.....you will slim down in the belly straight away and get the narrower waist that so many people strive to achieve through habitual dieting and exercise programmes. Don't believe me.....? Try this out for yourself........

Look at yourself naked (or in your underwear) in the mirror. Make a note of where you see rolls and folds in the skin/fat. Now....pull yourself up straight, push back your shoulder and let them relax down (don't hunch), breath into and expand your chest growing tall and tighten your tummy ('engage your core'). Now look for the rolls and folds again......Note how they have significantly reduced, if not disappeared completely. Now hold onto that image! With good posture, you can look like that all the time. No exercise, no diet! Just good posture. Not bad eh?? 

You can see the same results here.......

When I say posture can help everyone, in every aspect of their life, from elite sports to couch potatoes and everyone in between....I am not even exaggerating. I picked on a 'slimmer waist' as an example because it is a very common goal in society today that most people who adopt some sort of new diet and exercise programme would be looking to achieve. Weight loss would be up there too I suppose.

But instead of these kind of goals, I would encourage people to try and change their focus slightly and make good posture the ultimate and primary goal, not just for 30, 60 or 90 days (or whatever specified term for the selected 'challenge'), but for life......You might just be very surprised how everything else and other goals you might have had, just kind of falls into place......

Here are some of the benefits that can be reaped by focusing on postural correction and the specific routines and exercises that need to be applied to promote and train your body to naturally hold a good posture........

(Non exhaustive list and in no particular order of priority or importance)

• Reduce and cure chronic bodily aches, and pains (Lower back pain for example)
• Improve breathing, by opening up the chest
• Improved blood flow and circulation
• Improved flexibility
• Improved core strength and stability
• Better balance
• Reduce stress and depression
• Improve sleeping
• Better movement through increased range of motions
• Relieve muscles cramps
• Relieve sprains and strains (more importantly, prevent them in the first place!)
• Massively reduce injury risk (prevention is better than cure)
• Improved motivation
• Increased height and length (our bodies become very compressed though poor posture)
• Hold and project yourself with an air of confidence
• Increased confidence
• Increased bodily awareness ('mindfulness'- it's bit of a 'wank word', but is so so important!!)
• Faster swimming through increased efficiency (longer and more streamlined in the water)
• Save money from costly body work injury (physio, chiropractor, etc) treatments.
• There is no pain left to cure!
• ..................

(the list could go on and on......you name it, and posture can probably help......) 

As I said at the top, I want this post to be a short one, so I'll just leave it there for now!

As always, thanks for reading!

Just to finish off and hopefully give some food for thought........here are some examples of VERY common postural dysfunctions in today's society........human dysfunction being applied and unintentionally trained for a life of chronic pain, discomfort and injury risk!!!!

We start unintentionally training the postural dysfunctions from a very young age!!

#ThePowerOfPosture