Body Mind & Spine Alignment

Healing from Pain in High Heels - a Testimonial on the Pilates-Based Approach

 

 

Our High Heel Recovery Clinic has received an amazing rave from an attendee from our very first clinic around this time last year in our studio in NYC.

Our approach combines elements of Pilates and other movement-oriented exercise.

If you are interested in future clinics,

please comment on this post, or email tim@backboneandwingspan.com

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Name: Megan Forlines 

 Age: 20

 

I took the How to Walk in High Heels Clinic with my Aunt Sue this past spring. I have always loved high heels, but could never manage to walk on them for more than an hour before taking this clinic.

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This clinic really helped me to be able to walk in heels, and I could feel the difference immediately while still in the clinic!

The clinic was not only extremely beneficial, but fun as well! Since the clinic I have been able to finally take the  city by storm and walk around in my heels without wanting to switch to flats.

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The way I learned to carry myself in the clinic has allowed me to wear high heels all day and not even feel them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Just this past Thanksgiving my Aunt Sue was so impressed that I was able to wear 6 inch high heeled boots the entire day, and even managed to go on a hike in the woods in them! Although I don't recommend going hiking in heels normally, I was actually able to do it and not kill myself!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This clinic has

really helped my posture and

I am now able to carry myself in heels and

look confidant and great doing it!

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I would highly recommend this clinic to anyone woman who wants to be able to buy great heels and actually be able to walk in them.    

- Megan Forlines

 

Thanks so much Megan!

Hope you still are pain-free in any height of heels you choose! - Tim

 

Read an article in which Megan is interviewed and quoted by CNN.com Health reporter Madison Park. Here's what she said about her the successful experience in using what she learned in the clinic:

Women risk snapped ligaments for shoe fashion

Quote from the article: "She took a high heel recovery course that trains women to walk in heels. Tim Driscoll, founder and director of Backbone and Wingspan, a New York studio, started the class that incorporates Pilates-based exercises."

Tim teaches at Mind Your Body Fitness on the Upper East Side in Manhattan and also at Contour Studio in Bedford Hills.

Backbone and Wingspan®  212-647-8878

www.backboneandwingspan.com

tim@backboneandwingspan.com

Call or email Tim for information about the next clinic, or if you live beyond the boundaries of Manhattan or Westchester, Tim is happy to send you a free PDF of an exercise called Suspension Bridging! Just email him!  tim@backboneandwingspan.com

Making Waves in Other Ways to Sense the Relationship Between the Feet and Spine for Pilates, Posture, and Pain-Free Movement

The approach to Pilates exercise using the methodology of

Backbone and Wingspan in Manhattan

whether on the trapeze table or the reformer includes using imagery to forge the kind of mind-body connection that:

enhances free spinal movement,
accesses deep core strength,

and

encourages the person studying here to be able to use the imagery for

sports, stretching, exercise, and posture
performed outside of the studio.

Imagery is what creates
 

the most instantaneous and most sustainable changes in the body despite our tendencies to doubt or even dispel subtlety.

  
In a previous post I wrote about one type of wave 

and it's potential effect on the feet and spine:

ocean waves that roll on to the shore are immediately

drawn back into the sea where they emerged from.

There is a great informative force in this element of surf.

The retreating surf can be used either actually or imaginatively to help you to better understand how you connect to the supportive power of the heels in the back body by releasing the tendons in the front of the ankle.  

You can see with your eyes as well as feel with your feet the waves of the sea,

but there are countless unseen waves

that affect our lives in every moment:

thought waves, brain waves, cellular waves.

 
If only we could trust that the thought waves we send from our minds into the  universe and from  our minds into our bodies have the unquestionable ability to be helpful to understanding and empowering ourselves.

The way that we unquestionably trust that when we press send on our cell phones that the signal goes through and gets us connected can get us connected in our own physical bodies as well.

Learn to trust that your imagination is key to your everyday postural support:

If your back and feet are killing you while standing in stilettos at a party, or while you're waiting for the bus, or while you're jogging along the sidewalk, it is awkward to have to remove your shoes, and implausible to be able to lay down on the dance floor or your host's carpeted foyer or on a street corner to perform some stretching exercises.

But you can, in any social scene,  sport or exercise endeavor, send thoughts of softening to the toes, top of the foot, and front of the ankle as if the gentle rushing of the ocean's retreating surf were washing back over the tops of the feet.

This softening of the entire front of the foot (everything extending in front of the ankle) gives you the wave energy forward in order to be able to advance in your steps

But the body works in balance:

It is most efficient, and you will find the most ease, freedom, and power to your steps:

if you can imaginatively extend a wave energy also with your heel,

even with your feet still in your heels..........................

 

This imagery would be appropriate for partying all night, 

for marathon running, 

for performing the challenging chair pose in yoga,                                    

as well as for practicing roll up exercises

on the Pilates trapeze table here at Backbone and Wingspan.

At this time in the course of human development, it seems that people really wish to believe that their thoughts can change their life circumstances.
 
 Hence, the enormous mainstream popularity of The Secret, but also   
  
             Law Of Attraction by Esther and Jerry Hicks  

Manifest Your Destiny by Wayne Dyer 

Think and Grow Rich  by Napoleon Hill

Each of these books and their authors

explore various avenues towards

using thought to bring about desirable life changes.

There's More on the Shore than Meets the Eye:

Water Waves

 Emotional Waves

Electromagnetic Waves  

Light Waves  

Sound Waves     Shock Waves

 Standing Waves

 

"On the atomic level, all phenomenon vibrate as standing waves.

Standing waves appear with finite boundaries. Our bodies, organs, cells, etc. are standing waves…..

The four elements: Earth, Water, Fire and Air are archetypal standing waves, meaning they are types of arcs in the face of the wave." 

                                                     - Elizabeth Andes-Bell

 

 When I first explored standing waves a year or so ago through the writings of my teacher, Elizabeth,

and her weblog 

Everyday Sacred

I thought of the image of my upright spine as being a wave that extended out from above my head and also extended down from below my feet, as opposed to a rod that was constrained in my body.

 

The emotional wave that  washed through my body from imaging this thought of my spine as a wave in two directions led me into a transformational experience.

You can read about it if you like by clicking on to the link above for Everyday Sacred.

Even though I had not been to the ocean in months when I read Elizabeth's writing and commented on it during the month of March, I could recall the sense of oceanic waves that I had experienced in times before at the beach, and I could re-imagine the ocean waves' effect on my spine.

This is a key element of what I would like to put forth to you:

your thought of sensory feelings that you have experienced previously or that you can imagine experiencing are empowering to your body now in this moment.

Backbone and Wingspan

Founder and Teacher: Tim Driscoll

New York City

212-647-8878

Pilates

 

Tim teaches his unique support-for-the-spine, posture, and core methods at:

Mind Your Body Upper East Side Manhattan

and Contour Studio in Bedford Hills

 

Call Tim at 212-647-8878 or

email him at tim@backboneandwingspan.com

to inquire about his availability and special introductory rates!

Backbone and Wingspan®

www.backboneandwingspan.com 

Backbone and Wingspan LLC

 

Heel to Heal: Using Notions of the Ocean to Release Tendons Around The Ankle Gives Better Support in Footwear for Any Sport in Any Season

Movement principles become ingrained in the body by performing Pilates exercises or any movement-oriented exercise regime while using mindful imagery. This can be imagining a sensory experience you haven't yet had, or re-imagining an experience you've had in the past. Although it's mid-winter, you can call upon the elements of sea, surf, and sand at any time in any clime. 

Creating elasticity in the tendons

 in the front of the foot

leads to being able to access the muscular tone attached to the leg and hip bone structure that supports your spine.

 

Elasticity in these tendons, because they are small, is   accomplished primarily through imagery -

by what you envision in your mind while you are having to use those tendons.

 

 This is what a mind-body connection is:

using your imagination and  mindfulness to

affect the way 

 you walk, stand, and exercise.

Using imagery is the way in which you will make the most profound, sustainable, and long-lasting changes

 to your body...
    

  

 

 

If you tense and overuse the tendons in the front of the ankle

because

your high heels push you forward into 

the balls of your feet and toes,

or

you run by overusing the tightened tops of your feet, 

or

you pull the toes back into a hard flex when exercising, 

   

  

 

 

you will needlessly deprive yourself of the

hugely supportive power of the

heel

which connects to the powerful back body muscles:

 hamstrings, glutes, and lats.

At Backbone and Wingspan in Midtown Manhattan, NYC, mind-body connections are forged using the back-body posture connections that employ the use of the heel.

In order for the heel to come into play to direct the entire line of backside connections which support the spine, the tendons on the front of the ankle must be released.

Use sea, surf and sand imagery to help release these tendons while performing bending movements of the ankle, knee, and hip. These images from the beach experience are often very vivid sensory experiences that anyone has had and can recall.

The images are helpful because as the tendons are released in the front, you can expand the heel in the back and begin to avail the body of the support of hamstrings and the lats.

Now as to notions of the ocean that can help you to soften those tendons, and assuage those tendon's "tendency" to grab and grip.......

I spent ten days this summer on an island in which my intentions were to rest, write, and study how the sea related to my feet.

I thought that I would take pictures of my soles above the undulation of gentle waves coming to shore on a day when the surf was not so rough.

I found that it was the retreating surf that helped me better under-stand my feet. 

 

Can You Dig It?

Try the following, whether you are lucky enough to be going to the beach on a winter's vacation or 

even if you have to imagine the last time you had the waves lapping at your ankles.

 

  

 When you bend the knees, rather than the bend coming from a forward movement of your  knee-caps,

feel that the knee bend comes from expanding through the back of the heel.

The deeper you bend, the more you have to soften the tendons so that you can create a fold in the front of the ankle.

The retreating surf helps with this softening and folding:  

the water rushing back to the sea creates a flowing force in the front of the ankle that can  help to ease and crease those tendons, and the water will dig out the sand underneath the back of the heel.

So then the next time you are riding your bike,

and your hip flexors get tight,

see if you are also grabbing the tendons

in the front of the ankle.

Next time you take yoga, and you are performing a lunge with a deep-knee bend,

and your muscles on the tops of your thighs are screaming,

or

the next time you have your feet on the   

Pilates Reformer Footbar

try releasing the tendon in the front of the ankle by

envisioning the retreating surf flowing over your feet, and

being drawn forcefully back to the sea.

 

In releasing the tendons in the front of the foot, you will be availed of the expansion of the heel, which will connect to the hamstrings, sits bones, and the backs of the hips. All of these forces: hamstrings, sits bones, and the backs of the hips are the paired places in the back body area which are on either side of the line of the spine.

In this way, the Heels, Hamstrings, and Hips provide support for the spine.

Of course this imagery can also work for you whether you are wearing

sneakers, stilettos, or any kind of shoe and

whether you are dancing, jogging, or waiting for the bus.

Speaking of sea and wave imagery, my practice and teaching have been greatly influenced by my teacher, Elizabeth Andes-Bell,

who uses many nature-oriented images in her class and her other teachings.

For my next post, I will write about another way to discover notions of the ocean in relating how Elizabeth's weblog

Everyday Sacred and her writings about Standing Waves

has influenced my body and being.

 

Backbone and Wingspan   Pilates

Founder and Teacher: Tim Driscoll

New York City          212-647-8878

 

Tim teaches his unique support-for-the-spine, posture, and core methods at:

Mind Your Body Upper East Side Manhattan

and Contour Studio in Bedford Hills

 

Call Tim at 212-647-8878 or

email him at tim@backboneandwingspan.com

to inquire about his availability and special introductory rates!

Backbone and Wingspan®

www.backboneandwingspan.com 

Backbone and Wingspan LLC

 

Pilates Studio Hosts: Putting the Heel In Healing: Sample an Exercise That Changes Support and Tone

 

"Yesterday in a pilates studio,

Tim Driscoll of

Backbone and Wingspan

hosted a high heel recovery clinic.

He explains that the back of the heel is a part of our bodies that needs some... um, healing..."

September 15th, 2009

So wrote reporter and photographer Andrea Silenzi of WNYC Radio in her blog posting on the Culture page of their website.

 

 

"Putting the Heel in Healing..."

 

 

 

 

 Here are some great photographs taken by Andrea showing the different stages of the clinic:

 

leveraging the heels

 

 

 

 

exploring buoyancy using exercises on stability balls

 

Also check out this great quote about the supportive potential of the

top-of-the-hamstring-tethering and core strengthening principles experienced

in the clinic by Kendall Farr, fashion stylist and author.

Andrea Silenzi; "After the workshop, participants put their heels back on and took a walk around the room. Kendall Farr of Brooklyn felt that with the stretches, she could now consider wearing her red, patent leather pumps to an upcoming wedding instead of her old faithfuls."

Kendall Farr: "I’m a stylist and I saw these shoes on a shoot, and I said to my client, Yeah, I could just about crack my head open over those. And he said, well, alright, then take them. But here’s the thing. Because they’re the red patent leather, I feel a little like Dorothy, but I also feel like I am on my way to drinks at Trevi fountain or something, or meeting someone on the Spanish Steps. Now they won’t make me cry and sob and beg for mercy."

  Kendall's Red Strappy Heels

 

Kendall has her own great blog which at the moment is featuring shoes and boots of the fall season. Her website as well has a section "Ask Kendall" in which she answers style questions with savvy. www.kendallfarr.com

 

Because Tim is writing a book about High Heel Healing, he's getting feedback from people who could not attend the clinic, but whohe could send a detailed description of an exercise and see what the response is:

His friend and fellow blogger,

Deb Markanton

who lives in L.A. has this to say about the Suspension Bridge exercise:

 

 

 

 

"Oooh Tim, this is very good! I love the imagery. It makes perfect sense and I was able to read it once and do it myself.  Wow, that is some stretch. And it really makes a difference in how you stand."

Here: try it for yourself, the way Deb did!

If you don't have a stability ball, you can just put your heels on an upholstered surface that is not too squishy, like a chair or an ottoman.

 

Lie down on your back on a mat or soft flooring,

and place the backside of the heels of your feet on a stability ball.

Position your body so that the knees are bent with the thigh bones perpendicular to the floor. Establish what would be a sitting position, only you are laying down on your back

Don't flatten your lower back - instead, lengthen the tail.

Don't flex the feet, instead, find the contact of the heels into the ball

Place the feet together and allow the top sides of the feet and the toes to soften and drape into a forward curve

Press gently but definitely with the backsides of the heels into the ball in a way in which your body senses the buoyancy of the ball, and you sense your body's own potential to be buoyant

Place your fingers on your sit bones to discover how the hamstrings on each leg connect on to each sit bone, as if the sit bones are little anchors for the hamstrings to tether down on to, like the way cords on a tent tether down to the spikes in the ground

Perform the bridge by using the gentle force of the heels down into the ball to initiate the tethering of the hamstrings down on to the sit bones. It is like a pulley system that would suspend a piano off the ground for it to be moved to a higher floor: the cords pull down for the piano to rise. In this case, the cords of the hamstrings tether down to the sit bones for the pelvis to rise.

Once your body is in the bridge, sense the suspension. The hamstrings are like the swooping cables on a suspension bridge. The cables are tethered to anchors that are fastened down toward the ground. The cables don't lift or hike the bridge up. The cables suspend the bridge so that it is buoyant and has resilience.

These are the sensations you develop in the heels-to-hamstrings-to-sit bones connection: buoyancy in the backsides of the heels and resilience in the giving full length of the hamstrings in order to give your spine suspension.

These sensations along the backside of the body (which begins with the backs of the heels) takes the weight off of the toes and also supports the spine, so you can frolic in your footwear all evening.

To read more about tethering, buoyancy, and suspension and how developing these sensations actually tones and strengthens, check out my previous posts in this High Heel Healing category. But if you really wish to understand how the heel can really connect you in your body along the entire backside from calves to hamstrings to lats to the fully supportive length of your spine....

Consider taking a session Tim!

He has had more than just a hand (and heel) in the development of the High Heel Recovery Clinic:

Let him know if you are interested

in the next clinic or if you'd like to try your own private one-on-one session with him!

Call 212-647-8878!

 

Backbone and Wingspan   Pilates

Founder and Teacher: Tim Driscoll

New York City 212-647-8878

 

Tim teaches his unique

support-for-the-spine, posture, and core methods at:

Mind Your Body Upper East Side Manhattan

and Contour Studio in Bedford Hills

 

Call Tim at 212-647-8878 or

email him at tim@backboneandwingspan.com

to inquire about his availability and special introductory rates!

Backbone and Wingspan®

www.backboneandwingspan.com 

Backbone and Wingspan LLC

Tim Driscoll: Universal Principles of Movement with Pilates Apparatus

 

 Backbone and Wingspan Upper East Side Manhattan NYC and Bedford Hills

Integrating Fitness, Movement, and Health Call anytime!  212-647-8878
 

 

 

Pilates Based Exercises : High Heel Recovery Clinic Raves: Tension Replaced with Toning

Pilates Iconoclast Brought to You From Manhattan NYC:

In the September issue of Gotham Magazine, an editor who attended one of our press previews had this to say about the experience: "movement studio Backbone and Wingspan's.... private one-on-one Pilates program designed to restore your posture..... after just one hour you'll feel taller. looser, and better prepared to to rock this season's platform Louboutins." - Ingrid Skjong - Gotham Fitness 

Read the entire mention about Healing Heels if you are already or would like to become a fan of Backbone and Wingspan on our Facebook Page.

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The principles related through Pilates based exercises taught on a stability ball give practical application, such as how to wear heels (or really any shoes) in a way that you can not only avoid injury, but actually start a muscular toning process.

Whether you are like this woman with a stash of heels under her bed, or whether the new cool weather has encouraged you to ditch your flip flops for shoes of more substance, we invite you to read about what other participants of our previous High Heel Recovery Clinic have raved:

"The High Heel class provided a nice combination of theory and exercises with some knock out visuals such as a juice cartoon with one corner smashed in to represent a heel (in a high heel) that had collapsed.

Another unforgettable visual was a plastic sacrum that was held over a person's real sacrum and was then compared to a picture of a stone arch. The topmost stone of the arch enables it to hold its structure

The clinic instructors pointed out that in a similar fashion the sacrum functions to provide stability to the pelvis and upper and lower body.

The level of instruction by all the instructors was excellent. - Sue Rothwell

 

"We learned the ins and outs of the backbone, the tail bone, why they effect your posture, and why your balance and stability are what makes your feet ache. It’s cause you’re not walkin’ right. We’ll be there again on June 24th to double check our techniques. I have worn heels a couple of times since our private class, and have consciously noticed less pain in my footsies, while using Tim's advice."

                                    -  Ashley from The Luxury Spot

Backbone and Wingspan is dedicated to presenting Pilates exercises with Universal Principles of Movement as the underpinnings. In this way, the workout you receive can be sustained in subtle ways more efficiently through the rest of your day, and the simultaneous release-of-tension-while-toning process becomes more second nature. 

 

Tim Driscoll, Backbone and Wingspan founder and owner and

author of Pilates Iconoclast

is now located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan

at Mind Your Body Pilates

1370 Lexington Avenue @ 90th Street

and also at Contour Studio in Bedford Hills

 

\Tim can still be reached at 212-647-8878.

 

Backbone and Wingspan: Pilates-Based Movement-Oriented Exercise and Posture

Manhattan New York City     212.647.8878       Tim Driscoll

 

 

 

Boning Up on High Heel Healing

Backbone and Wingspan in Midtown Manhattan features Pilates based exercise that is movement and posture oriented, but that doesn't mean that you don't receive tone! The truth is, that efficient use of the muscles to support the skeleton brings an elastic toning of those muscles because the part of the muscle that attaches to the bone is most often the part of the muscle that needs the tone!

People's perceptions of Pilates usually don't include any mention of the bones - most people think of Pilates as having to do with muscle tone and core strengthening.

Because my approach at Backbone and Wingspan is movement and posture oriented, I approach the people I teach primarily from the bones - the spine, the pelvis, the shoulder girdle.

In our upcoming High Heel Recovery Clinic, we will hone our knowledge and utilization of two often-overlooked bones (and they're not elusive just because you can't see these bones of your own):
the sit bones.

The phrase 'bone up' implies studying an aspect of something that you wish to explore or pursue - becoming familiar with some element of some activity you wish to embark upon. How did that phrase originate?

Why did someone use 'bone' to imply the acquiring of knowledge? Maybe because there is intelligence in your bones. Feeling it in your bones implies a deep experience and a knowing or sensing of something beyond understanding it intellectually.

The bones are deeper than the muscles, so it makes sense that to have a deeper understanding of your body you would go to the deeper places of your body which would be your bones.

Going deep down to the bone takes more imagination and sensitivity than exertion.

Truly working deeply from a physical standpoint means that you are conscious of the bones that are the structural framework beneath the muscles.

In terms of you 'boning up' on what

will be presented in our

High Heel Recovery Clinic,

fortunately there is a lot of

alliteration

in that the bones we have chosen

to highlight each begin with the

letter 's' :

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         sitbones     sacrum     scapula       spine

as do the sensory experiences of

       stability     structure     support    suspension 

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                                                                                  suspension of the spine calls for the stabilization of the two sit bones, and the structural support of the central sacrum and the two scapula bones

Tim's favorite  's' word  phrase:

"subtlety is sustainable"

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In our clinic, we hope to present

an informative experience that

will knock your nylons off !

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Buoyancy

Pilates based movement

methods employed at

Backbone and Wingspan Universal Principles of Movement studio in NYC
in our High Heel Recovery Clinic focus on postural support mechanisms that are active and imaginative.

                           This spring serves to give the sense of  uncoiling                             potential in the Achilles tendon necessary especially in high heels

 It is not just in that our teachers employ imaginative methods towards exercise and fitness, health and healing that is movement oriented, but that the client's own imagination is called forth within each Pilates or Feldenkrais or CranioSacral or Physical Therapy session.

Stability balls impart to the body a sense
of buoyancy inherent within our spine and joints

Because the changes that the body is able to sustain come from subtle adjustments that the mind and imagination engender, your mind and imagination must be engaged when you are being led through exercises and movements.

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For the kind of postural support necessary in getting around without pain in a sidewalk city with a focus towards fashion, the qualities you imagine are potentials within your body are essential.

To get past that frontally-loaded feeling that tends to unavoidably happen in high heels, by first making a few subtle physical and mental adjustments, you can then call upon aspects of your imagination to become buoyantly balanced instead of teetering.

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When I think of the term buoyant I think of a buoy softly bouncing up and down in the bay - I can see the top half of buoy above the water, obviously, but I know without being able to see it that there is another half of the buoy below the water line -

that is what a buoy is - half in and half out of the water - and it bounces.

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That is what we wish to impart to your bodies - that in order to achieve buoyancy in your body there must be an interplay between what is above and what is below - in this case what is above is your sit bone-hamstring connection and it must resonate with what is below which is your heel - that way you access your own buoyancy.

Tethering the Hamstrings

Backbone and Wingspan presents it's next High Heel Recovery Clinic featuring Pilates based stability ball exercises to simultaneously tone the legs and give more support for the feet and the spine.

Also featured will be balance point movements inspired by The Feldenkrais Method which will take the connection of the heels to the spine right into changing the way that you walk and thus the way that you feel in your highest of heels.

Join us on Monday, November 16th from 6-7 PM for our next presentation of Free Wheeling High Heeling !

In the interest of honing the specific information for our next High Heel Healing I decided to focus on the visual image of a suspension bridge and employ the sensory image of tethering the hamstrings to the sit bones as these cables are tethered from one part of the bridge to another in the photo below.

                                                                                                                                     The thought of having hamstrings that could serve the same structural function as  the suspension cables that serve as struts for a bridge allows for resilience and buoyancy - all of which would be desirable sensations to have when walking in high heels.

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A High Heeling Mantra : Heels * Hamstrings * Sit Bones Heels Hamstrings Sit Bones Heels Hamstrings Sit Bones

As I began to use the term tethering in my teaching, some people questioned me about what exactly the term tethering means. I will elaborate on it now as I have found in my teaching that all images and verbal cues have the potential to deepen someone' s experience the more that the images are expanded upon and not just repeated.

Another thing that uses tethering for suspension is a tent. When you pitch a tent there are cords which must be tethered by extending them down from the top of the tent and staking them into the ground.

The tethering stabilizes the tent so that the sides and top can be suspended. The opposite of tether is slack. In our clinic I hope to relate to each participant how to literally (as well as physically) "take up the slack." 

The part of the hamstring that tends to slacken is the part which attaches on to the sit bone.

The sit bone relates directly to the hamstring because each of the three hamstrings on each leg attach on to the sit bone and can serve to anchor that stabilizing force of the sit bone by anchoring the bone whether you are sitting or standing.

The hamstrings also relates to the heel in that in the same way the hamstrings  need to be drawn back or tethered on to the sit bone, the heel bone also needs to be drawn back away from the ankle with the same subtle but powerful force as the hamstring tethering the sit bone back.

The drawing back of the heels and hamstrings is in the same direction but to a different degree, but this is the way the body is designed and built so brilliantly: to be in balance through these complementary forces and dynamics.

To feel the full supportive force of the back of the leg it is vital to connect what needs support - the heel - with what is sizable enough to give the suspended force necessary to take the body's weight off of the feet which is the three hamstrings attached up on to the sit bone. These three hamstrings can only be brought together into their fullest potential supportive force when they are taken out their slacking tendency and gathered together to tether.

Suspension Bridging

 

 

In the Backbone and Wingspan  approach to helping women understand the supportive places in the body when wearing high heels, the perfect balance between tone, efficient movement support, and release of tightness or pain is what we shoot for in each exercise.

 

There are several ways of performing a bridging movement to access strength, resilience, balance and weight distribution that will grant relief of pain in high heels.

 

A way to think about bridging that will keep you from overworking the belly part of the hamstring is to visualize the quality of a suspension bridge.

 

Using Mooring and Tethering Images:

A mooring is defined as:
 

any device used to hold secure an object by means of cables, anchors, or lines

 

Any bridge has a mooring which would be where the cables would be tethered down into a stable point. The sitbones can be utilized like moorings for the hamstrings to be tethered to.

 

What gives the actual bridge suspension are the coiled cables that reach down into the moorings.

 

 

What gives the

bridging movement suspension

is tethering the hamstrings

to the sit bones and uncoiling the calves into the Achilles.

 

The sit bones are the moorings which the hamstrings tether on to for stability.

 

For a free downloadable copy of detailed instructions for the

 

Suspension Bridge Exercise featured in the

High Heel Recovery Clinic

 

email:

tim@backboneandwingspan.com

 

 

Tim Driscoll,

Backbone and Wingspan®

Founder and owner

and author of Pilates Iconoclast

 

is located on the Upper East Side at

Mind Your Body Pilates

1370 Lexington Avenue @ 90th Street

 

and at Studio Contour in Bedford Hills

 

Tim can be reached at

212-647-8878

Call him today for info or to find our about

his special intro rates for new clients!

 

 

 

Read Some Great Press and

 

 

 

 

See the Website: Backbone and Wingspan  

and sign up for free guides including

High Heel Healing: Tips for Fashion Footwear Comfort

 

Backbone and Wingspan LLC

 

Email: tim@backboneandwingspan.com

Hamstrings

Exercises to create stability, balance, and strength are a feature in the approach of Backbone and Wingspan.

 

Exercises performed on a stability ball, not only create more challenge; the connection of the body - in this case the heels - to the ball gives the person performing the exercise a sense of the buoyancy inherent in every human body.

In the High Heel Recovery Clinic, 

 

we will utilize the buoyant support of a stability ball to lend the participants of the clinic

the experience of engaging the hamstrings to the sit bones

which is crucial for support in wearing high heels but also

gives the added aesthetic benefit of toning an area of the body that is challenging to tone:

(for lack of a better term),

the saddlebag area.

People tend to overuse the middle parts of most muscles because we are conditioned to perceive that muscle strengthening comes through contracting the muscle. This is particularly true of the hamstrings in which the middle of the muscle tightens, bunches up, and often seizes up or gets sore.

Using the part of the muscle where it attaches on to the bone, (in this case, the sit bone is what the three hamstrings on each leg connect to). uses more of the entire length of the group of hamstrings.

When doing a movement while lying on your back such as a bridge, it is possible to think of the hamstrings also as a hammock of support for the femur, or thigh bone. The "ham" part of the term 'ham'mock is the same root as 'ham'string.

 

*******************************************************************

More on the bridge exercise that will be part of the experience in the next Backbone and Wingspan High Heel Recovery Clinic will be featured in the next Pilates Iconoclast blog.

 

If you are interested

in upcoming

High Heel Recovery Clinics, 

call me at 212-647-8878, or

Read more in Events on:

Backbone and Wingspan Facebook Page

 

********************************************

For a free

PDF version of the

Heel-to-Hamstring /

Suspension Bridge /

Stability Ball Exercise,

email Tim: 

 tim@backboneandwingspan.com

Also visit my website and subscribe for my

Free and Fab Informative Guides including:

High Heeling Tips for

Wearing Fashion Footwear with Comfort

 

Please check it out and stay in touch!

www.backboneandwingspan.com

 

 

 

 

 

Tim Driscoll,

Backbone and Wingspan®

Founder and owner

and author of Pilates Iconoclast

 

is located on the Upper East Side at

Mind Your Body Pilates

1370 Lexington Avenue @ 90th Street

 

and at Studio Contour in Bedford Hills

 

Tim can be reached at

212-647-8878

 

Call him today for info or to find our about

his special intro rates for new clients!

 

 

 

 

Read Some Great Press and

 

 

 

 

See the Website: Backbone and Wingspan  

and sign up for free guides including

High Heel Healing: Tips for Fashion Footwear Comfort

 

Backbone and Wingspan LLC

 

Email: tim@backboneandwingspan.com