Healthy Habits and Remedial Movements.
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Core balance from nasa's training astronauts for their return to gravity to our local yoga classes.
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Core balance plays an essential role in our everyday lives.
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Our ability to move with an upright, flexible and balanced core directly relates to one of our ongoing behind the scenes and autonomic physiological processes.
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The medical term for this automatic process is homeostasis.
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Homeostasis comes from the Greek words for same and steady and refers to any process that living things use to maintain the stable conditions necessary for survival, homeostasis and muscular balance.
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Follow along as I walk you through the relationship between balance homeostasis and longevity.
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Our central nervous system contains two built in automatic responses to external stimuli.
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One response is to loud noise and the other response is to falling.
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That our body is programmed to respond to falling is relevant to our goals of health, fitness and longevity.
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My understanding is that within our central nervous system are controls and monitors that are responsible for continually maintaining our balance and equilibrium.
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So we start to tilt too far to the left counterbalancing muscles are then automatically activated to pull us back to regain our balance.
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Consider this daily real-life example of core muscular homeostasis in action.
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When we are walking, there are moments when our entire weight is on one side, we are able to hold balance and not fall to the other side.
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Because our homeostatic behind the scenes process has activated our numerous counterbalancing muscles and sustained our balance.
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This brings clarity to how and why our body integrative activates over 200 muscles to take just one step.
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Simply stated.
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when we drift off balance, our central nervous system automatically responds by tensing up the appropriate counterbalancing muscles.
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Those counterbalancing muscles will continue to receive the message to stay tense up until we have returned to a more stable state of balance.
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Our central nervous system can interpret core unbalanced muscular tensions to mean that we are falling, which then ignites this muscular rebalancing and adaptation process.
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One consequence is that until core balance is reestablished, our automatic homeostatic response mechanism will continue to labor in the background searching for equilibrium because our central nervous system thinks we are falling.
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Our central nervous system thinks we are continually falling and thus creates continual background stress.
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Several theories have hypothesized that continuous physical imbalance can often be a contributing factor in mental imbalances.
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These theories serve to explain how massage, yoga and stretching can assist in sustaining peace of mind via stress reduction within the muscular system.
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In my 40 plus years of clinical practice, I have found that this responsive adaptation compensation and resultant background tension can linger for years.
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This unbalanced state appears to irritate and annoy our nervous system and interfere with our natural continuous built in maintenance and self repair ability.
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Often when a client stands up following their rebalancing session, they often express that they experience a more balanced and lighter state of ease.
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I refer to this balanced state of ease as core muscular homeostasis to give you a broader understanding of homeostatic activity throughout the body.
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It serves to understand that we have other built in programs that are monitoring, maintaining and ensuring that body temperature is within a healthy range.
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Blood pressure and its p are within strict healthy limits.
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Nutrients are supplied to sales as needed and waste products are processed.
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These are just a few of the automatic processes continually going on behind the scenes that allow us to move live and smile to simplify this information.
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If you are even just a bit out of balance, this can keep your central nervous system working overtime and that may be a component interfering with your fitness goals and contributing to premature aging, intentional stretching and movement towards a more balanced core may be an invaluable self help ingredient for your fitness and longevity goals.
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The following guided movements and stretches are intended to encourage a more balanced core.
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Welcome to the core balance maintenance technique section.
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The intentions here are to help guide you through several very effective stretches to help maintain your balance, your flexibility and your stability in the muscles affecting your core.
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These stretches are designed so that you can do them throughout your day in order to help maintain and restore your core balance.
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Some of you may be in a situation where it is not medically safe for you to involve yourself in a self-help program without professional medical guidance.
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If that is your situation, these stretches would be beyond the self-care parameters that they are being presented in in that case.
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And with your doctor's permission, I recommend you start getting some body work, whether that is massage therapy, Rolfing chiropractic osteopathy.
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If you happen to be lucky enough to have a very method practitioner nearby, I would highly recommend connecting with them.
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So with that said, and it's safe for you to perform these stretches.
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Here's what is to follow each of the videos will guide you through positioning and movement, whether you're standing sitting or on the floor.
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So to get started, simply click on one of the movies down below and start rebalancing your core, enjoy.
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And I hope these serve you.
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The intentions of this remedial movement are to encourage balance and flexibility within your core musculature begin by bringing your knees up towards your chest.
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Note, the resistive tension in your abdominal area, that tension can evolve from that position, allow your hips and legs to slowly roll over towards the floor.
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Your opposite arm may be pulled up off the floor, that's fine.
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This is where you meet and begin to reduce your tensions and the benefits start to flow, allow your shoulder and arm to relax down towards the floor.
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No hurry, exhale and relax.
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Listen to your 10 exhale and relax.
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Feel that tension releasing, exhale and relax that arm and shoulder down towards the floor.
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Pay attention, you might notice more tension release while you are exhaling.
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Thus, you can amplify your tension release by prolonging your exhale, exhale and relax.
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Even if you do not feel much resistive tension, know that this position creates gentle pressure which encourages lymphatic fluid movement.
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Your positional muscle contractions can be compared to wringing out a towel while you are relaxing out your tensions, you are also boosting your flow of interstitial and lymphatic fluid.
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This remedial movement can reduce tension from your lower back up into your shoulders.
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Also known as your core note, where you meet and feel your resistance.
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This will evolve.
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This remedial balancing movement is designed and intended to be performed for both sides.
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The following is an alternative.
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Begin by lying on your side with your knees up which forms the fetal neutral position.
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One of the reasons this is called the neutral position is it opens up the facet joints so that the vertebrae are less involved.
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And the movement can focus on the muscles slowly.
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Bring your shoulder and arm up and over, relax and breathe into that position for a minimum of 30 seconds, exhale and relax, exhale and relax.
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The most efficient and beneficial usage of my remedial movements has proven to be performing them several times a day scattered throughout your day, making them part of your day.
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In my opinion, they all qualify as healthy habits and repetitive distresses, repetitive distresses.
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What a great idea.
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Four muscles comprise the hamstring muscle group.
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These four muscles include the short head of the biceps, femoris, the long head of the biceps.
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For Morris, the semimembranosus and the semi tendinosis.
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Each of these muscles individually.
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And as a group directly influences hip and lower leg movement.
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It's also helpful to consider the functional kinetic relationship, our hamstring muscles with muscles influencing balance and movement in our core and lower leg, especially the gastrocnemius.
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At this point, it will serve you to have a clearer understanding of the anatomical relationships between the hamstring muscle group and the gastrocnemius.
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It's worth noting that the hamstring muscles and the gastrocnemius cross the knee joint and blend into the ligamentous fabric surrounding our knee.
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This fabric serves as a tangible example of our body's multiple relationships, especially the soft tissue in this location.
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We refer to this organized fabric as the knee capsule.
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It's helpful to understand several things about the knee capsule including one, this unique fabric, inner weaves with the surrounding tendons and ligaments, adding strength, flexibility and stability to our knees.
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Two, it helps to contain the synovial fluid which helps lubricate and cushion the ends of the bones thus helping to reduce friction.
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Three, these fibers share in the transfer and disbursement of regional stress.
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And four the joint capsule contains sensory nerves.
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This interconnectedness and innervation makes it easier to understand why resistant tension is often experienced in the knee region.
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When utilizing this remedial movement.
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Should you find this stretch painfully uncomfortable?
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I suggest you approach rebalancing the hamstrings initially by utilizing the sitting hamstring pin and stretch as a temporary alternative to understand this relationship between tension and pain.
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I suggest reviewing the nose ring analogy, the remedial movement comprises several phases.
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One, lock your knee down into extension and maintain this throughout the movement.
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Two flex your foot towards your knee and maintain that dorsal flexion throughout the movement and three while keeping yourself upright with your knee in extension and your foot flexed, reach your arm towards your flexed foot and lean forward at your waist.
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Hold that for two or three seconds and relax.
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Repeat this same sequence for the other leg.
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Lock your knee down, flex your foot, reach your arm towards your flex foot and lean forward at the waist.
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The most efficient and effective approach is to meet the tension and hold that for a minimum of three seconds.
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Relax and repeat that process three times, then relax that leg and repeat the process for your other leg.
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I suggest a minimum of three repetitions for each leg.
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This remedial movement will require about a minute of your day.
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But guess what you're worth it.
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Welcome to the side, Standing Boogie.
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The intention of this remedial movement is to help reduce tension in musculature that often affect our core balance.
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Several of the muscles we'll be targeting include the quadratus Limor, Iliocostalis, Lumborum, Longissimus, and the MFIs.
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Though similar to most stretches, the whole region will be benefiting the reasoning behind doing this movement is that everyday life can create tensions in this area that affect your core all the way down to your feet and can remain there until such time as you loosen them up and encourage those muscles back to a balanced state.
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That's what the side standing Boogie is about to help loosen up those muscles that affect the core that affect your balance and can affect your feet.
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Introducing movement with intelligent applied pressure can often times break those muscles out of those patterns rather quickly.
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This qualifies as a pin stretch and mobilize technique of which you can find more information at the pins stretch and mobilize overview.
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It's easy to do.
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It's simple.
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It's effective.
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Follow along, bring your thumb up and place it in your back just above your hip and start to push in and feel like you're starting to gather muscle fibers under your thumb and nudging them inward towards the middle of your back.
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Hold a gentle pressure while you move your hip and your core, hold that pressure and move.
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After a few movements, move your thumb pressure to some different muscle fibers and move your core.
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Simply apply the pressure anywhere you can reach with your thumbs or fingers and move the side.
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Standing boogie is simple.
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It's handy.
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It's useful.
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It's beneficial and it's almost always available and consider.
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You can also do this when you're sitting, hold that pressure and move, hold that pressure and move.
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That brings to conclusion the side standing boogie.
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Enjoy.
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And I hope this serves you.
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Welcome to the quad stretch.
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Oftentimes when we perform a specific stretch, other tissue behind the scenes are also benefiting.
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In this case, we'll be focusing on the rectus femoris, vastus, lateralis, vastus, medialis psoas, the iliacus and even down to the hip joint capsule.
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Though you'll be feeling the stretch primarily in your quads, the muscles from your hips up into your chest will also be benefiting.
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I'm presenting this stretch in two variations.
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The first one finds you sitting back on your heels, curling your hands into fists and resting your knuckles on to the floor.
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And I suggest this hand position over the less stable on your finger tips or palms down as neither one of those appears to handle the weight distribution as successfully as the knuckle down position.
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If sitting back on your heels, hurts your knees, you might try inserting a pillow between your heels and your hips or use the second version of this stretch, which is less intense.
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The second stretch will also work on the muscles affecting the core, but it will do so with less of a knee involvement after a week or two of doing the second version, return and try the first stretch.
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It should be a little easier for you.
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If that is not the case, then stay with the second stretch and, or get some body work for the muscles surrounding the leg from the knee up into the hip.
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The inability to obtain that sitting on the heel position without pain may indicate that some of the contributing factors to your foot problems are associated with muscles further up your leg.
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So here's the first stretch you're in position now, slowly raise your waist up toward the ceiling.
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Once you get as far up as you can tighten all the muscles around your posterior hips, your butt muscles, and as you do that, continue to push your hip up toward the ceiling, hold that for three seconds, 123 and then relax back down to your heels.
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I would recommend doing this stretch minimum of three repetitions and do it two or three times a day.
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Now on to the alternative technique which creates less stress around your knees.
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Position yourself on your knees, place the heels of your hands at the top of your hips contract.
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Those posterior hip muscles maintain that contraction.
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While you push your hips forward and pull your arms back, hold for two or three seconds and relax.
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Repeat this two or three times two or three times a day.
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These two versions of the quad stretch can be incredibly effective in terms of bringing your core and maintaining your core in balance, which in turn can help many parts of your body, especially your feet.
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That brings the quad stretches to conclusion, enjoy.
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And I hope they serve you.
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Welcome to the sitting hip stretch.
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The intentions of this stretch are to increase mobility, stability and flexibility in this region of the hip, which includes the posterior hip rotators that often play a major role, a critical role.
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If you will in core balance, the muscles that this stretch effects include the gluteus minimus, gluteus, medius, gluteus, maximus, the piriformis, the gla superior, the operator, Internus, the Gemellus inferior and the quadratus for moris, all of these muscles play an important role in core balance.
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Now, on to the stretch, one of the great things about this stretch is you can do it pretty much any time you have the opportunity to sit.
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This can be on the airplane while you're waiting at your desk, while you're sitting listening to a boring lecture.
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Or when you're watching a movie, pretty much any time you can obtain this position with your leg drawn up and your knee bent so that your ankle is laying across the other leg.
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Once you've reached that position, the other components in this are maintaining an upright posture so that when you bend forward, you're bending at the waist, not rolling your shoulders forward.
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Yes, you'll still get some of the benefits if you roll your shoulders forward.
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But it's much more efficient stretch.
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If you maintain an upright posture, observe, simply bring your legs into position, sit upright, then forward at the waist, hold that for two or three seconds and relax.
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I recommend repeating this minimum of three times for each hip.
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The simplicity of this remedial stretch makes it such that it's easy to perform several times a day.
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And it wouldn't be unusual for us to be in the sitting position.
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That would allow this, that brings to conclusion the sitting hip stretch enjoy.
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And I hope this serves you.
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Welcome to the sitting hamstring, pin and stretch.
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This stretch could become one of your most favorite healthy habits, mostly because it's simple.
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It's effective and it's easy to do.
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This stretch is done in the sitting position, position your hands just above the knee so that your thumbs are on the top side of your thigh and your fingers are on the underside of your thigh.
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On the hamstring.
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Our primary focus within this stretch include the biceps for Morris, semi tendinosis and semi member, not the neighboring muscles will also benefit from this stretch.
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So the technique is more effective when we focus in on these three muscles.
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Now that you have your hands and fingers in position.
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One technique for specifically targeting those muscles is with your hands and fingers in place, gently bend your knees, start to bring your heel back towards your hip.
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You'll now feel those muscles tightening up.
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Those are your targeted muscles.
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Now focus on your thumbs and fingers, your thumbs take on the passive role of stabilization.
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While the fingers on the underside play a more active role in terms of pinning those muscle fibers that you found just a few minutes ago up into the posterior side of the thigh.
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While you also apply a traction up towards the hip while holding that pressure, extend your leg.
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What you should feel while your leg is straightening out while it's extending is a little pull on your fingers.
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That indicates that the muscle tissue upon what you have put your pinning pressure is receiving an amplified stretch.
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The effectiveness of this stretch is created by the combination of the pinning action of the fingers.
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The stabilization with your thumbs and the extension of the lower leg.
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This essentially creates a tug of war between the artificial attachment you've created with your pressure and the insertion points of the hamstring muscles on the other side of the knee.
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Now that you understand the remedial stretch, the movement is simply hold pressure with your fingers on those hamstring muscles while you extend and straighten out your leg, hold that remedial stretch for two or three seconds, relax your leg back down and repeat two or three more times.
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I recommend that you do each leg two or three times several times a day.
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Thus utilizing this incredibly effective stretching technique to help maintain your core balance.
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This stretch is very effective, useful and easy to do in terms of how much pressure to apply with your fingers with adequate pressure.
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As you extend your knee, you should feel your fingers being pulled in that direction.
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You don't want so much pressure that it causes pain.
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You simply want your fingers to be feeling like they're being pulled to the knee as you extend your leg.
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My suggestion is to perform this stretch two or three times for each leg, two or three times a day that brings to conclusion the sitting hamstring pin and stretch enjoy.
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And I hope this serves you.
Balance is at the core of health.
Reflecting on our early education, we could have used information to help us to understand:
- Our ongoing relationship with gravity and our 'built-in' apps for maintaining balance.
- How to respond to pain.
Had we understood these foundational components, we would have had more opportunities to make healthy choices as we navigated life.
My goal is to fill in some of those gaps.
Dis-ease can be understood as an accumulation of stressful imbalances.
The focus here is the muscular system.
These videos serve as repetitive 'Healthy Habit De-Stressors' to aid in returning major muscle groups towards balance.
I suggest learning and repeating these remedial movements throughout your day within 15-30-second intervals.
Repetitive de-stressing...what a great idea.
Balance is at the core of health.
The body has an enhanced opportunity to utilize its self-repair abilities
when not repetitively preoccupied, trying to reestablish core balance.
One of the primary goals within Taum's approach to Corrective Massage is to establish, encourage, and maintain the body's core balance.
"I hope you find this information serves you."
Foundational guidelines
Foundational principles:
- The human body has an innate ability to ‘repair and maintain’ itself.
- When presented with pain and/or dysfunction, it is presumed this natural ability has been compromised via trauma, adaptation, repetitive stress, etc.
- This innate ability is greatly influenced by the state of balance within the core musculature.
- The compromises are often the result of muscular/soft tissue imbalances. (spasm, adhesion, distortion…)
- By maintaining core balance, the body can get back to fixing and maintaining itself.
- Corrective work throughout the body has an enhanced opportunity to last when one's core is balanced.
The Fundamentals of Corrective Massage
A Holistic approach.
It serves to remember that we, as therapists, do not heal anything.
We recognize, respect, and support the body's amazing ability to heal itself.
Corrective Massage recognizes the importance of balanced relationships and interactions throughout the body's soft tissues*. These relationships include natural anatomical positions and functionally balanced movement.
Functional balance implies that our soft tissues are working harmoniously to support pain-free, healthy movement and function.
In Taum's world of Corrective Massage, considering all bodily movement as an orchestration of soft tissue relationships is a fundamental principle and starting point.
These foundational principles include familiarity with Equilibrium and Homeostasis. AKA Balance.
For example: Walking initially appears to be a simple activity. It actually involves a complex orchestration of numerous soft tissues.
A symphony of movement:
Our body requires over 200 of our 600 muscles to take one step. Of those 200, many serve as compensating adapters working in the background to keep us upright as we walk. While all our weight is on the right foot, those background muscles are adapting and counterbalancing so we do not fall over.
Each and every soft tissue plays a vital role in the body's ability to move and adapt to unbalanced tensions.
Our bodies can adapt to those tensions.
But only so far...
Limping is an example of crossing the adaptation line.
Pain serves as an alert that unbalanced tension has exceeded the body's ability to adapt, and corrective therapy is required.
The foundational focus of this unique therapy is to interpret the alert and then identify and correct the soft tissue tensions and imbalances that have created those alerts.
Corrective massage has repeatedly proven to be an efficient and effective method to reduce and relieve pain.
I hope this information serves you and those you serve.
*Muscles, tendons, ligaments, membranes, and viscera.
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