New Year Resolutions

As the New Year hits us and we start to feel heavy and grim after the holiday indulgences, many people will be making resolutions.

Getting fit and eating healthier are usually top of the list. Many people will be grinding food into smoothies and taking out gym memberships full of good positive intentions.

 Whoop!whoop! A good start, positive steps are good.😁👍🏾

Most often after a few weeks down the line we are off course skipping the gym and munching cheese and chocolate before bed and feeling bad about ourself. Nothing positive in that.😟👎🏾

So here are a few tips.

1. Don’t be afraid. 😬When you take up a new event . No one is looking at you or judging. Everyone else is just as self obsessed and self absorbed as you are. Even if they do notice your efforts, the size of your bum or whatever.  Smart people will applaud you and no one cares what the stupid people think.
2. Do not rely on others. 🧐You don’t need a mate to go to a class or a studio or for a workout in the park. The place is full of potential new mates who have already made the decision to be there.
3. If you don’t like the gym don’t go.🤪 Don’t punish yourself trying to do some thing that doesn’t give you pleasure.  If you enjoy team games find a local team and join in. If you like to dance do that. If you are more solitary you can climb or run or walk a dog.( there is a website called borrow my doggy that helps if you don’t have a canine of your own.) If you like to be different then do something different. I am involved with an adult parkour class it’s great fun and there is an aerial  class on at the same time that has lots of laughter. The world is full of weird activities. You don’t need skills, you don’t need special gear and you don’t need an age range or particularl body shape. Our class has 16 to 70 year olds and we applaud them all.👏🏼
4. Be honest.😇 How much time can you afford to give this without getting to the point where you have to miss out due to other commitments? If you have one hour a week do that and enjoy it. You will be happy that you have achieved your goal. If you have 5 minutes a day then do a 5 minute good body workout.  (I’ll be blogging about some excellent start up moves throughout 2018, that are just a few minutes a day and make a huge difference.) If you promise to hit the gym every morning at 6 and you hate getting out of bed then don’t! You are going to feel terrible if and when you fail. Instead run up the stairs daily and go climbing at the weekend. And enjoy it.
5. Don’t dump on others. 🤨If your new health regime takes away from family time, you may piss off a partner or kids. So find a family thing to do. Hillwalking, swimming, frisbee. I work from a gym  and parents sit and drink coffee while their kids are at judo lessons. There is a rowing machine right there! Access Parkour has family classes in Edinburgh you can get fitter whilst playing with your children as they too develop movement skills, win, win!
6. Get the order right.  👉🏽 If you want to give up eating the bad stuff first learn how to prepare the good stuff. You need a replacement because you can’t stop eating. Learn how to prepare healthy food quickly. E.g.  Roast veg. It is easy to put chunks of veg into oil and seasoning and put them into a hot oven. Some cook faster than others, you’ll soon learn to cut the slow cookers into smaller chunks. Eat them straight from the roasting tin with sauce or meat. Make some into a salad with fresh leaves nuts and fruit for lunch and the rest are for soup. 3 great meals from one pan. There are so many simple healthy options! You can learn to prepare one a week or one a month. Substitute these for your poorer choices
7. One change at a time. 🤗We are creatures of habit. It will be uncomfortable to try to make many changes. We crave the comfort of the familiar. In fact the body will demand the familiar. So make one change and once adapted choose another. Better that you manage just one positive change than failing many.
8. Substitution. 🤜🏽If you eat chocolate every day at 4pm your body is going to demand it every day at 4. If you offer a couple of satsumas instead you will soon find that your body is  craving satsumas at 4pm. Once you have cracked that bad habit move on to the next substitution. 
9. Employ tricks. 🤫 eg If you want to reduce your alcohol intake, try a glass of water before the first glass of wine.  You are less likely to guzzle it if you are not thirsty.  Drink a pint of water before and then between every pint of beer. It will slow your intake and do your body some good. When you fancy a late night snack have a nice shower or a bath and go to bed, you may well be craving calories because you are tired.
10. Don’t buy it.😉 Don’t buy stuff you don’t want to consume. Because you will consume it and then you’ll feel bad.

 I could go on. I hope this has given you some ideas. Success and achievement are wonderful motivators. So keep it simple and attainable and have a successful and healthy 2018.

What shape are you in?

I have a problem with this expression. It is judjemental but not just that one person judges another, we use it to judge ourselves. The best athletes I know are; tall, short, squat, wide, skinny, rangey, petite, fat, thin and scrawny and broad. The best human beings, the happiest people, the kindest people, are also tall, short, squat, wide, skinny, rangey, petite, fat, thin and scrawny and broad.

Fit isn't a shape. It is a description of capability. It isn't necesarily healthy. You can be fit to play football, fit to climb a mountain or fit for a game of scrabble or fit for bed. Being fit for one element is not fit for another as different body and mind preparations are required.

A pair of jeans may fit your body but not your image.
A car might fit your lifestyle, or image but not your budget. It is about compatability it is not about shape.

A fit body does not have a specific shape. We train to make our bodies to be compatable with what we  wish it to accomplish. This will result in different functional shapes that depend on many factors.

 This pic from dyemelikeasunset.deviantart.com

A fit body is compatible with the demands of your life. Some of these demands can be extreme.  You may wish to lift heavy weights, you may wish to cycle very long distances. These events will put a strain on your body that pulls it out of healthy balanced state and causes pain. That is not healthy but it is still fit for a particular purpose.

A healthy body will be able to cope with all normal human tasks and range of motion without breakdown and it will be without pain or disease. It will be a good place to enjoy life and it doesn't have a particular shape.

I like to tell my clients that in any society there had to be a guy who chased the deer and another to carry it home. There was one who climbed the cliffs and one who roamed for hours collecting fruits and herbs. All are valuable but they all have to be in their own particular shape.

The Achilles Problem

Recently a client of mine (lets call him Duncan) tore his Achilles’ tendon.

Duncan is a pretty active guy he is Middle aged, walks a lot and in good health. He tore it when he twisted off from  a beam just a few inches from the ground. It seemed unlikely that this tiny event should result in him being in a full leg cast. We discussed why it had happened so easily. What had gone wrong? The answer is that it is not anyones’s fault he is a victim of modern life. 

This tendon connects the hard working, ever flexing, big strong muscle system of the leg, to the foot. All of the power of your body is harnessed in this strong belt as it controls the foot.

If your body was a crane the Achilles’ tendon would be the chain attaching the load to the machinery. In Duncan’s case the machinery was strong and the load was heavy - the chain was not strong enough.

Flat floors, pavements, car parks, office floors, parks and playing fields ensure that the ankle is never worked out, never has to become powerful and flexible. Duncan’s parents, like most, will have put him in supportive shoes and convention has dictated that he continued to wear them. The result is that regardless of the efforts he has put in to keeping the rest of his body fit and flexible his feet and ankles have not become supple and strong. This imbalance is a weakness, an Achilles heel….had to, sorry!

I recently went walking in Clachan Seil. There are no paths there. The ground is uneven.  Grassy tussocks, earth mounds, animal foot depressions filled with mud, rocks and tree roots in the rushes, ferns and heather make it difficult to know how your foot will land.   In order to recover from the odd angles and slides that inevitably occur In such natural conditions the ankles have to be strong and flexible if not it is easy to turn an ankle.

Traditionally walkers wear heavy boots. Firm souls and laced support over the ankles will minimise torsion but it does nothing to help with your balance. The rest of the body has to take up the strain of the work that the foot and ankle would and should do. This results in hip tension and tight calves, and that can lead to…wait for it….Achilles tension!  

It is hard to find footwear that allows your feet and ankles to function and it takes years to gain strength that you were never able to develop naturally. But dear Duncan’s recent incapacity proves that we really need to start working out our feet.

Recently a client of mine (lets call him Duncan) tore his Achilles’ tendon. Duncan is a pretty active guy he is Middle aged,  walks a lot and in good health. He tore it when he twisted off from  a beam just a few inches from the ground. It seemed unlikely that this tiny event should result in him being in a full leg cast. We discussed why it had happened so easily. What had gone wrong? The answer is that it is not anyones’s fault he is a victim of modern life. 

This tendon connects the hard working, ever flexing, big strong muscle system of the leg, to the foot. All of the power of your body is harnessed in this strong belt as it controls the foot.

If your body was a crane the Achilles’ tendon would be the chain attaching the load to the machinery. In Duncan’s case the machinery was strong and the load was heavy - the chain was not strong enough.

Flat floors, pavements, car parks, office floors, parks and playing fields ensure that the ankle is never worked out, never has to become powerful and flexible. Duncan’s parents, like most, will have put him in supportive shoes and convention has dictated that he continued to wear them. The result is that regardless of the efforts he has put in to keeping the rest of his body fit and flexible his feet and ankles have not become supple and strong. This imbalance is a weakness, an Achilles heel….had to, sorry!

I recently went walking in Clachan Seil. There are no paths there. The ground is uneven.  Grassy tussocks, earth mounds, animal foot depressions filled with mud, rocks and tree roots in the rushes, ferns and heather make it difficult to know how your foot will land.   In order to recover from the odd angles and slides that inevitably occur In such natural conditions the ankles have to be strong and flexible if not it is easy to turn an ankle.

Traditionally walkers wear heavy boots. Firm souls and laced support over the ankles will minimise torsion but it does nothing to help with your balance. The rest of the body has to take up the strain of the work that the foot and ankle would and should do. This results in hip tension and tight calves, and that can lead to…wait for it….Achilles tension!  

It is hard to find footwear that allows your feet and ankles to function and it takes years to gain strength that you were never able to develop naturally. But dear Duncan’s recent incapacity proves that we really need to start working out our feet.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome/Repetitive Strain Injury

It's not just about what you do, it's also about what you don't do.

When you have pain it's easy to suggest that movement is the cause but  lack of movement should also be a contributing factor - movement can be the solution.

I hear this sort of thing a lot..
'My doctor says I have carpal tunnel syndrome, it's because I use a keyboard all day.'
'The doctor says  I can get an injection or, if needs be, surgery'

Yikes!

Carpal tunnel syndrome is becoming common in our desktop workplaces. It can occur due to the body reacting to a repetitive action. The strain causes inflammation and the body reacts by laying down scar tissue similar to the way it might create a callous to protect and area of skin that was heavily used. The medics like to call it a RSI, a repetitive strain injury. Interestingly not everyone who does a repetitive movement gets the RSI or the carpal tunnel syndrome, Why is that?

If  all you do all day is hit a keyboard it might well be that this narrow little spot at your wrist is getting overworked inflammed and congested, this will lead to tissue damage and result in pain. But hitting a keyboard is pretty light work for a great big human. If you moved the rest of your body then perhaps that work would have a balancing effect and pull that congestion out of there!

To illustarate, think of your cardiovascular system as a huge road network. If the hands are doing all the work then all the traffic is going to that one spot. The traffic carries essential services; cleanup crew, workers energy and waste disposal. They deal with blood, lymph and all associated  chemistry and inflammation. All traffic has to go through one space, the Carpal Tunnel. this Creates one small area of heavy congestion; a lot of very slow moving or standstill traffic around the entrance to that place.  Of course that area will be worn and damaged.

You can remedy the situation by reducing the workload, less cars/ less activity, or you can enlarge the space/tunnel sugically.  But really you dont need a bigger tunnel, you need a more efficient network to reduce the blockage in that space.

You need higher powered services going in and out of  there quickly, they need to be backed up by a strong and efficient external communication sytem.

Basically if all the rest of the systems. (the entire transport network) are on the line and efficient there will be no need for blockage.

To reduce the congestion of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome long term you have to work the whole line. The pecs across the front of your chest need to be stretched and strengthened; the stabilising muscles across the back of the shoulder need the same treatment. The entire upper and lower arm need to worked out regularly because they are the muscle and fasia systems pulling on those wrists  and contributing to congestion. The heart needs to pump strongly and you have to breathe well and move all day to keep everything 'on' and functional. Once you have created a superfast strong, flowing  network you only have to maintain it to keep the carpal tunnel healthy.

All of the clients I have seen who make great recoveries without medical intervention have worked on their upper body, they have done the complex opening and strengthening exercises. They remain pain free.

I know this is model is an oversimplification (it's what I do) but the message is simple.

Move more. Move lots of different bits of yourself in many imaginative ways and everything gets better.

How to move well, resist injury and feel good in your body.

I go to the gym therefore I am fit--NOT.

Have you ever heard of someone living to be 110 who is a regular Gym hound?

No these ancients usually live up a mountain, live off the land collect a lot of herbs and live a pretty stress free clean life.

Repetitive training for any sport or for pleasure doesn't make you healthy, it just makes you well adapted to that pursuit. 

Sitting around doesn't make you healthy. Lots of the body systems are dependant upon movement, the Circulation of blood and lymph, digestion, bowel movements, bone mass, mental health, stress reduction....

A healthy body is one that can answer all the demands that you make of it and remain free of disease. It is a good place to live. A healthy body is responsive, reactive, strong and supple and has energy.

Eating appropriately is a huge part of that but this is not my special field, movement is. But the approach to healthy movement is much the same as it is to healthy eating, lots of different healthy food in lots of different combinations. So to put it in context, carrots and peas are  good for you but just those are not enough. Pull ups and squats are good for you but just these are not enough.

Use your gym time to redress the imbalance caused by your lifestyle.

So if you sit all day, spend time opening the hip flexors and activating the thoracic spine, find out what your core really is, and work it. If you spend hours on a bike, spend time taking out the calf tension and the quad tension and get the rhomboids activated after all that holding. Then challenge your body with different moves and activities to get every single muscle and joint firing again.

The oldest person I knew, was a client who was 102 when she died. She hated Gym at school. It hurt. She disliked sport, she was never competitive but she was always active and had, 'no time for lazy folk, there is always something to do'. The the oldest person I know now is my mother at 91. When her much younger friends, 70+ , complain that they can't manage down the hill to the shops or they need to get their prescription delivered because they are, 'just no able'. Mother will reply, 'well of course you cant do it, you're sitting on your arse all day and you've only eaten some toast'. Mother rarely sat in her long and challenging life, she prides herself on her ability to get about and is not afraid of a challenge. I know, I take her on holiday and boy am I in trouble if I try to carry her bag!

You know that old saying, variety is the spice of life. It is also the life of movement.

Move, people, in lots of ways. Just keep challenging yourself and change it up!

Barefoot Hippies and Bad Backs!

Have you ever wondered why the barefoot brigade are so staunchly hippie with their big feet and their huge wide shoes?

If you have lived in restrictive shoes most of your life - I include trainers in this as well as any shoes that do not allow your whole foot to feel the ground - then you will have no way of understanding how the transition into a barefoot or minimalist shoes changes your life.

You could say that it is the visual equivalent of living your life in black and white and then suddenly someone gives you colour.

For example, if I walk through our local park barefoot, I can feel the difference in temperature between the grass in the shade and the grass in the sun. I can feel the damp dew. Daisies feel like little sponge balls below your feet. The longer grass feels luxurious as it caresses around my ankles. Moss is amazing and the tight ground around the golf holes looks hard and smooth but is surprisingly velvety. Tension eases from my back and shoulders as I move and I feel encouraged to breathe deeply. Sounds like a hippy mantra but it is truly fab and if you haven't experienced it then you are missing out.

There is of course much more to barefoot locomotion than the sensory experience. Away from the protection of a heavy sole and heel we alter the way we hit the ground.

To illustrate.
Imagine how you run barefoot around a swimming pool compared to how you run in cushioned trainers. In the swimming pool scenario you would bend your knees and stay on your forefoot, you would keep your bodyweight directly above your feet. (Otherwise you'd risk a nasty fall and hurt your heels.) This motion absorbs the shock as you hit the ground saving your heel from the pounding of your foot strike and the shock that would follow and travel up your spine. This type of movement is, of course, how you were designed to work. Nature made us a beautiful strong supportive foot and ankle with tremendous shock absorption  and an amazing ability to not just absorb the energy of hitting the ground but to to store it like a superball and release it back to us for the next step with amazing efficiency.

It is therefore no wonder that being barefoot it is a relaxing experience. It is no wonder that small children resist socks and shoes and remove them at every opportunity. It is no wonder that bodies ache when footwear stops our feet from becoming these strong super machines and leaves us tottering on dead blocks sending shock waves to our painful bodies.

I don't suggest that everyone throws off their shoes and goes barefoot. This is not practical in our world of cold streets and office dress code.

Note that the foot overhangs the soul of this
shoe.This reduces your stability and restricts
 the function of the foot

But I do urge everyone to make small changes on behalf of their body. So I urge you to do this for yourself.


If the sole of  the shoe is smaller than the sole of your foot, then it is too small for you. 
         Don't buy it.

Draw around your foot and take the cut out shoe shopping. This means that you will have difficulty finding shoes. But once we start buying foot shaped shoes, shops will stock them and designers will make them fashionable.

Let's stop self mutilation!

ENJOY YOUR BODY!

It pays to try something different.

After our last, Access to Movement workshop we all had a little informal injury clinic. One lovely Pilates Instructor named Stephanie had a particular issue that we discussed and I did a quick on the spot treatment. Stephanie was so pleased with the immediate change that she booked in to visit me at my clinic.
As Stephanie was clearly an experienced movement specialist I quickly agreed to a therapy exchange.
so on Friday I took myself along to her little home studio. Fuschia Pilates

I have a long standing problem with joint laxity at my sacro-iliac joint.  I shan't bore you with the details, the outcome is that my right hip muscles seem to panic, turn off (become hypertonic) leaving me with a weak hip. Due to the wondrous connectivity of our muscular, skeletal and fascial system, the clearest manifestation of this is that my right ankle collapses in (pronates)

Many things help to restore this issue and I am great believer in looking at the whole picture and all the fascia and muscles as a big connected chain. Stephanie's more specific muscle by muscle approach however was very useful as we managed to pinpoint which particular muscle was disinclined to engage in play and target the obturator( deep bum muscle that helps to turn the leg out) for a hard hitting session.

Feeling great now.
Thanks Steph!

So no matter what activity you are involved with and no matter what you think you know. It is Always, Always worth trying something different!

A diagnosis is often just a description - not a life sentence.

This is a bug bear of mine.

Clients will arrive with various ailments and complaints. They may come for a couple of treatments. I may encourage them to take part in conditioning exercises to revamp a few dying muscle systems, they will re-think their diet and all will be going well with improvements being made - and then they go to their GP.

The GP does her job, unsure of exactly what is wrong the client is sent to a specialist or the hospital for an X ray and the client is given a diagnosis, e.g. arthritis or tendonitis or perhaps they may have a syndrome like carpal tunnel syndrome or maybe they just have bunions (not their fault because Mum had them too .. aargh! don't get me started on that one! I'll be ranting all night!).

Then the exercise, and the progress stops!

Arthritis is wear and tear, it to be expected, everyone has it or is going to get it and it is usually only a problem if it's excessive or uneven. Most of the discomfort is often due to trigger points in the muscle and the physical stress of poor movement patterns that contribute to this excessive wear and tear.

Bunions are often due to a poor choice of footwear and/or improper gait so that the foot musculature is not being used properly, again poor movement patterns.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a build up of tissue in a small space in the wrist. It can often be helped if not completely sorted with the aid of some decent stretch routines, a bit of massage and a change of habit.

These ailments and many others can be helped through exercise, postural changes, lifestyle adaptations, massage  and other advice.

BUT people seem to think that a diagnosis is some kind of life sentence to pain, and medication, and an excuse to stop trying. It isn't. It is merely a description of your symptoms!!!!!

Figure out how and why you have pain then
Don't Live with Discomfort........Get it fixed!

That's all...

Injured? "How can I fix this?" is not the question...

The real question is, "How did I create this?"

When people present themselves at my clinic, they are usually looking for a specific 'fix' for what they perceive to be their specific problem.

The truth is that most issues come down to the same 2 things.

1.  How you move, or
2. The fact that you don't move.

The many ailments that present themselves can be viewed as cracks, stresses and strains in the structure of your body. These may present in many different places and working on them is rather like plastering over the cracks. Eventually you have to look for the root of the problem. That is usually found in the foundations. The foundation of movement - if that is strong and correct then everything will work in perfect dynamic posture.

If, on the other hand, you have weaknesses, overused structures or movement patterns that are not suitable for the structure of your body, damage will result.

How do we learn these poor movement patterns?

We start off well enough but as soon as our first shoe is fitted our body mechanics is changed.

Imagine our hands were put into mittens at 14 months old and we had to learn to cope with our many textured world through the mittens.
Then, as an adult, we trap our wrists into extension, as a shoe heel does to the ankle! Touch typing would not be so easy!

How would we have adapted to manage without all of those fingers and our wrists?

The body has had to adjust to the many difficulties that shoes present. Lack of flexibility, lack of feedback, restricted space. The result is a great deal of strain on other joints and structures.

The next lot of damage occurs when we do not get to exercise ourselves to our full potential.
 Rather than body testing mixed activities we are trained in specific sets of movement skills so we become good at a particular game. A 5 year old football champ that can't climb a tree is already in crisis!


Then there is the problem of chairs and computer terminals, cars, commuting........ the damage is endless in our modern lifestyle.

When we do try and exercise we take this broken piece of  biomechanical wizardry out and we bash it around, hitting balls with sticks, chasing people or more balls in our deformed feet, pedalling, lifting or squeezing on some crafted piece of machinery. We do this in ignorance of our body's true fabulous form and function.

Thinking to ourselves, 'hey! I am exercising, it is good for me, right? I am fit, right?'
If you are in pain then no, you are not fit. Broken is not fit for purpose.

The solution is to start at the basics. Learn to move. It takes strength, flexibility, agility, power and stamina in every joint all directions and in all combinations. Choose a selection of activities that challenge every joint and every aspect of fitness.

Some basic guidelines might be.

• If your wrists can't hold your bodyweight for more than a few seconds,..don't be lifting weights over your head with them...Yet! 
• If you don't have the flexibility to kneel or perform a full squat,... don't try running. Yet! 
• If you can't stand and be stable on your tip toes with your weight through the pads of the big toe don't try body pump.,,,, Yet!
• If you have bunions callouses, collapsed ankles or any other deformity of the feet, the likelihood is that they are incapable of doing the job of moving you, instead you are relying on shoe to do the job of 30 plus joints. Regain full foot function. You will be surprised at how it impacts on hip knees, and even your neck

There is a lot of information out there on how to get moving safely. Educate yourself. I am currently reading Katy Bowman's book, Whole Body Barefoot. That's a good start. Or you could try Pilates or Parkour. Preferably all of the above.

Best Exercise Practice As We Age.

I used to be quite the gym hound.

Nothing felt quite as good as hitting the weights for a tone up and producing a little endorphin high. Then a bit of cardiovascular work to justify the chocolate and I would come out feeling good.
That was then.

Now I have a body that is ageing and such a workout can leave me tired and sore, recovery takes longer than it used to and as I have a physically demanding job, I can't really afford the down time while my body builds and repairs. What little time I can devote to  nurturing my own body has to be as productive and sustaining as possible.

Popular advice given as we age, is that it is important to take care of our bones, and there is no doubt that a workout with weights does that. However when I chat to clients from many disciplines (runners, footballers, judokas, ruggers, boxers, dancers, golfers or gardeners!) we all agree that we feel the most benefit from a good stretch coupled with some big movement exercises that challenge our range.

Ageing isn't an inevitable decline into less power and less movement.  It is an accumulation of injuries, little and large. It is an accumulation of compensations that our clever bodies have made to these injuries.

Compensation is the body's way of surviving. If you can no longer make a movement the conventional way, the body will find a different path to complete the task. If there is too much stress on a structure the body will lay down more bands of tissue as support against damage. If something hurts or isn't working the body will turn that bit 'off' for a while. Unfortunately the body sometimes forgets to turn that system on again!
Examples of such compensations might be:

• The habit of walking with extra weight on the right leg after breaking the left ankle 
• An inclination to elevate the shoulder before lifting the arm, after a bout of frozen shoulder
• A forward head position from years working in front of a PC
• Shortened hip flexors and a pelvic tilt from all that driving. 

On top of all of these compensations there are poor postural habits. Some of these postural issues will be the result of repetitive movement patterns in a favoured sport or pastime. Some will be due to poor gait and fashion shoes. The body is dealing with strengths and weaknesses all over its structure.

 

Flex, Bend, Stretch and Lengthen

The Fix. 
A good stretch, eases out the overbanding and the scar tissue. It gets fluid into the far away spots in the joint and tissue, nourishing everything.  It restores a good range of motion and, if coupled with some challenging full body movements, it reactivates lost pathways and gets the system running again.

By good stretch I mean holding the position for around 2 minutes, it takes that long for the fascia to react. A few seconds will only temporarily stretch out the muscle. A good stretch is not your favourite stretch that you are good at, it is the nasty one you hate.

My stretch and move class in Edinburgh is at MES Sports centre on Tuesday or Room to Move on Wednesday evenings. But there are many places offering good workouts. If you don't feel the benefit immediately then it isn't doing the trick!

Training for health versus training for skill development

There are big differences in working out, or training, for skill development and working out, or training, for health.

If we think of  a new movement sequence as a piece of code that is stored in the brain. That code would be a list of instructions.
Contract muscle A,  relax, B stabilise with isometric contractions in C and D, then.......(I know, oversimplification but I am sure you get the idea!)

Each new experience is stored as yet another piece of code. Lots of stored sequences is like a huge library of movement information that we can draw on.

Lots of new, ever changing and challenging experiences will result in a lot of learned sequences. This is healthy it helps us cope with our changing environment. It helps us react to danger and cope with the changing demands of workload. Our body, effectively, has lots of movement tools to draw on. Muscles would be able to work with, and cross reference, all the other groups of muscles and movement sequences to ensure maximum efficiency of movement. This movement intelligence limits the likelihood of injury as we would then have the ability to access from our library, so many different sequences to ensure we move efficiently and healthily.

Skill training involves the repetition of an action or set of actions until we become very precise and clever at that action or set of actions.  This would be the equivalent of knowing every detail in one small section of our library. It would be our favourite part of the library. People who work out by doing the same sequence of movement over and over may get better at those movement practices but they are not fitter in the wider sense; they have not added to their library. Instead they are in the same section of the library all the time. Their movement intelligence is restricted. This can result in imbalance in the body and ultimately in injury because when they call on their body for movement, the response will be to use these strong but restricted set of movement patterns often inappropriately.

The word cross training used to refer to the idea of doing a very different and challenging type of movement routine to restore balance and add to movement intelligence. It now refers to a sport that does exactly the opposite, it hones a very limited skilled set of exercises. Ironically cross fitters now need to spend time cross training.

If you want structural body health, do something different. Really 'cross train'! Learn a new skill, get your body out of its comfort zone, challenge yourself and add to that movement library. It can be learning to juggle, climb, dance, yoga. Do it but don't over do it. Move on and gather movement intelligence.

Use this challenge technique to keep yourself generally healthy and also to restore healthy balance to your body if you sport or activity demand repetitive movement training.

Our Back in the Game class uses elements of parkour, (you couldn't get a more randomly challenging activity than that) to help people, including regular gym goers, to regain healthy movement. We have just started  a new group,Wednesdays at 7am (yes am) for a lovely crowd from the older generation. I am so looking forward to witnessing their movement regeneration.

If you'd like to learn more about healthy movement and clever simple ways to achieve it. We run an Access to Movement Workshop. The next is on March 11th

Anterior tilted pelvis! Twisted pelvis! Leg length discrepancy!

Low back pain, knee pain and other structural aches are often caused by a misaligned pelvis. It is usually fairly straightforward for a body therapist or fitness professional to spot these issues. For a body therapist it is not usually difficult to correct.

Dorn Method, Spinal Touch, Myofascial Release and CranioSacral Therapy are all gentle approaches that can rectify this issue without the need for heavy handed manipulation. 

Stopping the re-occurrence is of more interest. To do that we have to understand: "Why does this happen?"

Leg crossing is often to blame.

The long slow pull of muscle and fascia on the sacrum when your pelvis is pulled squint for extended periods of time does have huge impact. You can literally pull your body out of alignment.

Cars - check your driving position! 

Depending on your size and driving habits, the right hip may be lifted to cope with the ever-changing accelerator position or the left might be held up to work the clutch. Holding this position for an extended period of time will train the hip out of position.

Wallet in the pocket - this is a regular culprit. 

The 2 to 3 cm of folded notes and many cards tucked into the back pocket causes an imbalance in the pelvis when you sit on it. And the longer you sit, the greater the imbalance.

The body is highly adaptable, that is how training works. An hour or 2 a couple of times a week can bring about a huge change in our body. Hours spent daily with a tilted pelvis or crossed legs will force the body to adapt on a big scale. Giving up these habits may be difficult but well worth the effort.