Body Mind & Spine Align: High Heel Healing

14 posts categorized "High Heel Healing"

June 11, 2009

Hamstrings

Now Available :

High Heel Healing E-Book

Using the Feet & Legs Efficiently for Improving Posture and Enhancing Exercise & Sports

Click Here for the link to the iTunes Store to view a sample of this enhanced e-book and to purchase your copy now !

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

Backbone and Wingspan as well as High Heel Healing

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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.

But hamstrings strength without hamstrings tightening is challenging unless you learn that the three hamstrings on each leg attach back on to the sits bones. This is important not just for wearing high heeled footwear, but for jogging and cycling and really anything you do with your feet and legs including walking.

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 bones are what the three hamstrings on each leg connect to) uses more of the entire length of the group of hamstrings.

You can perform arching exercises with attention to the lumbar spine and how the hamstrings help support it rather than overusing your cervical spine.

If you set up any exercise you enjoy with a mindfulness to the truth that the hamstrings will serve your spine much more efficiently when you direct the length of these three hamstrings up to the stability of the sits bones, you will strengthen your postural support.

These sits bones are the bottom points of the pelvis so lengthening hamstrings to the sits bones contributes to pelvic stabilization which not only grants you stronger legs, but adds to your hip muscle toning and access to core strength.

In the video above I use the image of a plane taxi-ing on the runway so that the head directs the upper spine low and long away from the lumbar spine which extends down through the sacrum and out the tail.

The more that the lumbar is in a long extension, the more that the hamstrings will be able to connect up to the sits bones on either side of the lengthening lumbar-sacrum-tail / lower spine stability.

It's very challenging to use the heels of the feet properly in a way that will support the lengthening of both the hamstrings as well as lumbar spine especially when performing exercises while lying face-down on the frontside of the body.

But if you become mindful of using the heels in exercise situations, the feet will serve you better when you put on the challenging heel-heights for social situations.

Because of the popularity of yoga and Pilates which have many moves that are performed from this challenging face-down position, I add information about this approach so you can be mindful about the hamstrings-to-sits bones connection for whatever you do.

These three hamstrings are an enormous amount of power for the support of your legs, pelvis and spine, so when you perform any kind of exercise with attention of heels-to-hamstrings-to-hips you'll be improving posture support as well as getting benefits of toning for your aesthetics concerns.

But 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.

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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

Body Mind & Spine Align blog posting.

If you are interested

in upcoming

High Heel Recovery Clinics,

call Herald at 212-647-8878, or

May 11, 2009

High Heel Healing

This is a recap of the High Heel Recovery Clinic recently offered at Backbone and Wingspan

which incorporated stability ball exercises, and balance point movements.

Bodily wisdom of the sacrum being the keystone to spinal support and enlightening information about the intricacies of the sole of the foot were also given.

Are you struggling in the midst of an abusive relationship with your strappy stilettos?

The High Heel Recovery Clinic is not about abstinence!

We want to give you the tools to keep looking fabulous..... just without all the pain!

When I posted a notice on the Backbone and Wingspan Facebook page

about the studio's first High Heel Recovery Clinic in April, one woman responded,

"They're not trying to get us to stop wearing them, are they?"

I answered, "Absolutely not!"

Our intent is to give you imagery, exercises, and movement experiences that you can recreate while you are walking or standing in your shoes that better support your body so that your weight doesn't all fall forward into the ball of your foot, but can balanced across the entire foot surface.

I started out the clinic by having people look at the soles of their own feet (some sole searching) to identify the three parts of the foot which are the ball, the arch, and the heel.

I related that the heel is three-dimensional - that feeling and imagining your heel as a sphere - like the ball pictured here - has the potential to grant you a much more spring-like support and shock absorption than imagining your heel as flat.

Another teacher then took the floor (so to speak), - taking the floor -literally- is part of what can come across to anyone who experiences pain in terms of walking or standing; to "take the floor" is imagining not feeling separate from the surface upon which you are standing, but letting the floor, whether it be the kitchen floor or the dance floor - come up to meet those searching soles seemingly separated from the earth underneath by your fabulous, but sometimes treacherous high heels -

We imparted some wisdom concerning a key part of the spine - the sacrum.

The sacrum is the keystone of the spine

(which if you think of your body as needing the kind of support that an architectural structure would need)

the weight of the spine and ribs and head, rather than having to be hiked up, can be instead suspended on the sacrum in a similar way in which the keystone arch of a building could be imagined as the legs coming up into the pelvis and at the center of the pelvic support is the weight-bearing, but able-to-shift sacrum.

We identified the location of the sacrum by showing on one of the teacher's bodies, (who teaches a form of Pilates at Backbone and Wingspan which has a lot of back-strengthening elements) that the two dimpled areas at the top of the pelvis (one person I worked with recently said, "Oh yeah, I've seen those on my boyfriend's back - those dimples are so cute...") that in between those two dimpled areas is the sacrum, that keystone to spinal support.

I include above three images of the sacrum to show its size, its relationship to the tailbone, and its location as being between the two pelvic bones. I show the plaster cast of the sacrum that we have in the studio next to the black release balls to illustrate that the sacrum is not flat.

Participants were then taught the

High Heel Workout

in which exercises were performed on a stability ball, (first with the body laying down and eventually coming to kneeling).

Hamstring-strengthening, low-back-releasing, and spinal-stretching movements bring the body to a state of empowered ease.

Teachers related more imagery to the high heelers (which included feeling the ribs like fish gills) moving the clinic attendees to experience the breath as being integral to the support of the body, and how when the ribs expand with the breath that it gives the body access to the deep wrap of the abdominals.

Then we got the attendees back into their high heels, taking their experience to the next level with techniques which allowed them to feel their weight differently in their shoes and to put into practical use the subtle strengthening they received in the stability ball work.

We brought home to the high heelers the experience of what was promised in our press release and promotional flyers:

Showing you innovative ways to strike that challenging balance between a comfortable shoe experience and a fabulous fashion expression.

If you are interested in future

High Heel Recovery Clinics

please call 212-647-8878.

For a PDF version of the

Heel-to-Hamstring /

Suspension Bridge /

Stability Ball Exercise,

please visit :

feetforfitness.com

Also visit my other websites:

www.backboneandwingspan.com

www.highheelhealing.com

Heel & Sole for Foot Pain on Facebook

Read Some Great Press

Thanks so much for reading ! Comments and questions always welcome !

- Herald

Backbone and Wingspan®

Founder and owner

and author of Pilates Iconoclast

can be reached at 212-647-8878 or:

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: [email protected]

Backbone and Wingspan LLC

Posted at 11:08 AM in High Heel Healing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

April 23, 2009

The Advent of Spring : Spring Loading the Sacrum

Whether you are like this woman who has a stash of spring sling-backs hidden
under her bed...........

Or if the weather has simply inspired you to want to get out and move more,
experiencing Universal Principles of Movement through the spring support
(not resistance) of the Pilates reformer, can engage the sense of suspension, and the shock-absorber-like resilience of your own body's spring-like mechanisms.

The Achilles tendons can be
imagined as little spring-loaded mechanisms

to take the spring feeling that you can connect to through

the footwork on the
Pilates reformer

and transfer that sensation
of spring to the sacrum.

If you like, review the video of the previous Pilates Iconoclast weblog post entitled
"The Spring in Your Step Could Be The Achilles." The video at the end of this post will build on that utilization of the springs on the Pilates reformer to create that feeling of buoyancy and spring through the sacrum and beyond.

Just like the little springs inside
battery-powered
things like this
remote control,

the battery must load on to the spring in order for the other end to connect to its receptacle in order to receive the charge.

For anyone needing to know exactly what a sacrum is,
here is one for you to peruse...... actually,
this is a plaster cast
of a sacrum, aligned
with my actual
sacroiliac joints.

Most people are well aware of the
dimpled areas that reflect the sacroiliac joints,
but have little knowledge or functional awareness
of the massive stability that the sacrum
in between those joints encompasses.

Also note the tiny tail bone at the end of the sacrum here.
If you like, review the "Footing" Pilates Iconoclast weblog post
for the connection between the tailbone and the heels.

It is more apparent
on a physical level
that if the Achilles
are crunched, and not
uncoiling in a way as
to assist the lengthening
of the sacrum,

the sacrum will be
crunched as well.



                                 Many people, when arching                                        the spine, don't ground down
                                       through the feet, and thus
                                       crunch both the Achilles and
                                       smash the sacrum up into
                                       the lower spine.

In my Pilates studio,

we use sandbags on

the feet to give a

feeling of groundedness

And hands or fists laid on the feet can also assist in uncoiling the Achilles

Extension (what most people know as arching) of the spine is crucial to postural support, and general health of the spine. Proper, functionally supportive extension of the spine must involve the feet.

Although the following video accompanying this Pilates Iconoclast post involves the Pilates reformer, I am including it here to give an inkling of how the springiness of the Achilles enabled partly through the springs connected to the Pilates apparatus moves from the feet to the sacrum to the lumbar spine and on into the ribs.

Spring is here!

The foot work on the Pilates reformer isn't merely for the feet - or even just for the feet and legs. When Backbone and Wingspan Universal Principles of Movement are applied to the Pilates exercises, and the client is given instruction with keen imagery and guided with sensitive hands-on, the springs (which are usually thought of and utilized as resistance) on the Pilates reformer become resilience tools to convey to the muscular and skeletal and joint system the body's own capacity for resilience.

Thanks so much for reading ! Comments and questions always welcome !

- Herald

Backbone and Wingspan®
Founder and owner and author of Pilates Iconoclast

can be reached at 212-647-8878 or :

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: [email protected]

Backbone and Wingspan LLC

Read Some Great Press and

get more great information

at the Integrated Back Strength Website :

Also see feetforfitness.com

highheelhealing.com

Heel & Sole for Foot Pain Page on Facebook

Posted at 01:22 AM in Ankles, Shins, Calves, Foot Alignment, High Heel Healing, Spine Support | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

April 22, 2009

The Spring in Your Step Could Be The Achilles

In teaching movement through the use of Pilates equipment, springs attached to the underside of the reformer can be perceived and utilized, not as resistance, as is widely asserted:

People using the Pilates reformers are usually told to push the carriage out away from the springs, then to resist the springs with the movement of the carriage on the way in.

Instead, the springs can be utilized as sensory support and information - the feeling of the body being connected to a carriage connected to an uncoiling spring has the potential to tap a person into his or her own inherent buoyancy or springiness.

This is particularly relevant when teaching someone how to use the heel on the Pilates reformer foot bar to access the springiness of the Achilles tendon. The heel must be drawn down away from the ankle, not hiked up into the Achilles and then shoved down and under the bar,

but drawn down with gravity away from the ankle so that whether the person is lowering or raising the heel, the Achilles can remain in a state of constant uncoiling.

This action of drawing the heel away from the ankle is especially relevant in working with women who wear high heels to teach them that the heel of the stiletto shoe doesn't have to shove their own physical heel up into the Achilles, jamming the tendon and tightening the calf.

As is evident in the accompanying video to this Pilates Iconoclast blog post, the teacher assists the student in levering her heel down towards the floor whether the heel is lowering or raising.

The Pilates reformer is ingeniously designed and its foot bar is particularly useful to releasing tight calf muscles - engendering a sensation of spring in the Achilles tendons.

It is important that the heels be drawn down towards the floor during both the lowering and raising of the heels to teach the calves and the Achilles that when the feet are involved in a walking stride, particularly in high heels, that the calves can connect down into the Achilles tendons and extend a gentle and sustainable springy feeling to the step.

You can notice that the instructor here doesn't pull the heels of the client forward and up for the release - he helps her to lever the heel down towards the floor away from the ankle to create space in the ankle joint, and then she can continue to lever the heel away from the ankle even when she raises the heel, so that when she takes that experience out on to the street, her body can recall the sensory experience of space, release, and spring, and the calves will have less of a tendency to tighten up again.

In the next Pilates Iconoclast weblog post, more on the Achilles: using these tendons as spring loading mechanisms to transfer a springy feeling all the way up into the sacrum ! Watch in the following video a bit about how the springy feeling in the Achilles tendons that comes from levering the heel away from the ankle can create a springy feeling first into the hips sockets and then into the central sacrum and even the spine.