​The Mysterious Psoas Muscle!

"Picture a circus tent with its main pole and guide wires stabilizing the pole. The psoas muscle supports the spine as guide wires support a main tent pole." - Liz Koch, The Psoas Book 

The psoas muscle is deep within the abdomen, so it is difficult at first to identify exactly where it is.  The many functions of the psoas include: aiding in flexion and external rotation of the hip joint, and the bending and straightening of the trunk (i.e. all that bending over we do even though we know we shouldn't...).

If your psoas is very tight, it can contribute to lower back pain by compressing the lumbar discs.  

But there are ways to stretch the psoas gently, starting with a simple rotation of the spine. Because the psoas attaches to the front of the vertebrae, just turning your upper body back and forth can give you a little psoas relief.

Can Pilates and Psoas Awareness help you? Join us at our community event and find out! 

The Psoas: Mystery Muscle

Practicing Psoas Release 

Did you know that a "psoas release" not only balances your spine and improves your posture but it also helps with digestion?   

"It is the vital and dynamic interrelationship of the psoas with the diaphragm, organs, blood, and nerves that gives the psoas muscle a powerful unifying function." - Liz Koch 

As the holidays approach, we know we will be eating more, traveling more, and exercising less. 

Taking 5-10 minutes daily to pay attention to this very deep muscle can steer you away from aches and indigestion and keep you floating in holiday cheer.  

Not only does the psoas muscle help us move our legs and torso, it also acts as a shelf-- providing support for the organs and viscera. According to Liz Koch, author of The Psoas Book, "The health, length and vitality of the psoas muscle affects organ functioning. Whether or not there is room within the pelvic bowel for the organs to rest comfortably and function normally is determined by the length and tone of the psoas muscle."

In other words, if your psoas is habitually tight or contracted, it may actually change the structural position of your skeleton.  It can shorten the torso and leave less space available for your internal organs.  Believe it or not, this can change your digestion and actually result in a sub-par nutritional absorption rate.  It can make your body's job of absorbing nutrients from your food and eliminating waste significantly harder.  

In order to help lengthen the psoas muscle, a good place to begin is constructive rest position.  Lie on your back, preferably on a carpeted floor, with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor.  The feet can be about a foot away from your buttocks, but feel free to adjust to whatever is more comfortable for you.  Some people like to put a bolster or a couple of large pillows under their knees for additional support.  It may help to put a thin pillow, a folded towel, or even a paperback book under your head.  Different people will have different relationships to the floor: don't worry about smushing your back flat into the floor, just allow the comfortable, natural curve of your spine to relax into comfort. Lying this way even a few minutes every day can help your psoas release and your body de-stress. 

In Pilates we are asked to work the deep abdominals and the psoas to stabilize the trunk while the legs move in scissors or leg circle exercises. The deeper your connection and understanding of how the psoas functions, the stronger and more gracefully you can move. Join us at our next community event to learn ways to release and tone those deep mystery muscles that all your instructors are talking about.

When: Monday December 15th, 7pm 

Where: The Pilates Garage 441 3rd Ave, Brooklyn

Mark your calendars now, and call or email us to reserve your spot!

The Pilates Garage promotes techniques that help people to prevent and recover from injury while getting super fit. We offer classes in Pilates and Alexander Technique and also have a physical therapist in-house.

Please join us!

 

Save The Date: Ask the PT!

Date: Thursday, October 16th

When: 7:30 pm

Where: Pilates Garage, 441 3rd Avenue at corner of 8th street

Physical Therapist Caroline Feig

Physical Therapist Caroline Feig is available to answer your questions at this special event. Do you need advice on how to heal or treat an injury? Or are you just curious about what might be wrong with your knee? Ankle? Shoulder? Instructors and clients welcome. We will all learn together.

We are so lucky to have Caroline at the Pilates Garage, where she can utilize the Pilates apparatus as appropriate to the injury. Follow up with Garage teachers for an ongoing program to help heal what ails you.    

Suggested Donation: $10

Call 718-768-1235 or email pilates.garage@gmail.com to reserve your spot!

Standing On Solid Ground

Be Kind to Your Feet! 

How do you feel about your feet?

The seasons are changing here in New York, and many of us are putting away our summer footwear to prepare for fall.  Some people love wearing sandals and shoes without socks in the summertime, even if it sometimes results in stinky sneakers.

Others, however, don't have much love for their feet.  They are happy when fall weather returns so they don't constantly feel like their feet are on display. But whether you like traipsing around in sandals or prefer a heavy boot, we should all take a moment to appreciate our feet.

First of all, our feet are extremely complex arrangements of bone, muscle, tendons and nerves.

When we have difficulty with our feet it is hard to avoid the pain.  If you have pain in a non-dominant hand, it's possible to reduce the use of that limb in order to allow the healing process to continue.  But our feet are the foundation of our entire body, as well as our means of transportation. So we need to be kind to our feet! 

Common Foot Ailments  

If you tend to roll inward on your foot, and your shoes tend to wear out on the side by the big toe and arch, this is called pronation. If, as I do, you tend to roll outward, with shoes that often wear out on the side with your pinky toe, that is called supination. Some of you may have experienced plantar fasciitis, pain caused by inflammation of the plantar fascia at the bottom of the foot.

While some of these issues may be serious enough to seek medical attention, we can help prevent some problems from developing by the way we take care of our feet.  The flip-flops we wear in summer don't provide any support, and probably aren't ideal for walking further than from the dressing room out to the pool. But what about the shoes we choose in the fall?

Whether we like heavy boots or high heels, both can be problematic at times.  When choosing boots make sure they have room for your toes-- repeated chafing can cause corns, blisters or bunions. High heels, especially above 1 or 2 inches, further challenge our feet and legs. In addition to squeezing the toes, they can place a great deal of pressure on the balls of our feet. 

As you can see from the diagram above, the height of the heels we choose will radically change the way the weight of our body is distributed throughout the foot. When wearing a 6 cm heel (approximately 2.36 inches) 75% of the weight of the body will be resting on the ball of the foot. It's obvious that this can cause foot pain.  What may be more serious is the way it changes the rest of our body.

This illustration shows the way in which our body balances when our weight is evenly distributed.  When the weight is displaced on to the ball of the foot, the pelvis shifts and the spine curves in order to compensate. This can obviously result in additional pressure on the knees, pelvis, lower back, and even the neck and shoulders.

I'm not saying you have to throw away all of your high heels. But perhaps you can save the highest ones for a special occasion where you are going to spend most of your time sitting down. For walking, for working, for daily life? Try to stick to a one or two inch heel whenever possible. If you're doing any back-to-school shopping, consider those high-heeled boots carefully before you purchase. Sure, they look fabulous in the store, but can you walk more than a city block without discomfort?

What can we do to help? 

After a long day, perhaps you want to give your feet some extra love!  Here's a few simple exercises I found at RealSimple.com.   

Sit on the floor facing a wall with your legs straight and your feet flat against the wall. A small pillow or folded blanket can make this more comfortable. Bend forward as far as you can to stretch and lengthen your calf muscles and hamstrings. This can be soothing to the feet, legs, and pelvis, especially if you have been wearing heels.   

Sitting in a chair or cross-legged on the floor, rest your left ankle on your right thigh and take hold of your left foot. Weave the fingers of your right hand through the toes of your left foot to separate them. Using your fingers, stretch your toes wide; try not to pull them up or down. Hold, then switch sides.

Stand up, placing your weight on your right foot and extending your left leg behind you. Tuck your left foot under so the tops of your toes touch the floor. You should feel a stretch along the top of your foot.  Don't put too much weight on the left foot, just a gentle stretch will feel good. Hold, then switch feet.   

Lastly, lie on your back with your bottom a few inches from a wall and your arms out. Place your heels on the wall with your legs forming a wide V. You'll feel a gentle pull in your inner thighs. What does this have to do with the feet? Overly tight inner-thigh muscles can overload the arches of your feet, so this stretch can relax them when they're cramped. Plus, elevating the legs reduces swelling, and spending a few minutes prone can help the whole body feel more integrated after a long day.

What more can we do? Love your feet!  I've heard so many people say they think their feet are ugly, too big, too fat, too stubby, their toes are weird, their toes are too short or too long, they don't want anyone to see them unless they have been filed and polished and scrubbed and smoothed out. Whatever shape your feet are in, it's never too late to show them some respect.  While a pedicure or a foot massage can be a lovely way to pamper yourself, don't be ashamed of your feet, even if they haven't been professionally groomed.

Be kind to your feet and they will be kind to you! If we take good care of our feet now, we can ensure that they won't fail us in the years to come.  Thank you, feet! You give me support every day. You help me dance and run and walk around the city and the country and the planet that I love.  - Erika Iverson  

Source for the exercises

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Do you have problems with your feet?  Why not set up a special Feldenkrais session with Caroline Feig or an Alexander Technique session with Margi Sharp Douglas? Or ask your Pilates instructor how to be extra-kind to your feet! 

Balancing On Your Skeleton

Exercise: A Balancing Act

Do You Take Your Skeleton For Granted?       

What does it even mean to "balance on your skeleton"?

Pilates and Alexander Technique teachers often talk about "finding balance." Sometime we may mean this figuratively, when we talk about making time in our lives for work and play, family and friends. Or we may think about trying to balance on one foot in pursuit of athletic or artistic movement.  We don't often talk about the balance of simply standing on our own two feet.

But looking at the skeleton, we can see that it functions quite beautifully as an architectural structure.

Our heads balance atop the spinal column.  The weight of our upper body is distributed through the pelvis and divided between our two sturdy legs.  At the ankle, the heel extends back and the toes spread out in the front to further distribute our weight down into the floor. 

Alexander Technique and Balance

According to Matt Pressman, an AT practitioner in Florida, working with the Alexander Technique has been proven to show a reduction in stiffness and pain in low back pain patients in Britain and the United States.  What does this have to do with the skeleton?  "The Alexander Technique teaches the intrinsic power of aligned bones to support the body," Pressman says. "Bone is one of the strongest materials found in nature.... Ounce for ounce, bone is stronger than steel."

"A student of Pilates who understands the power of their bones to balance is miles ahead of someone working out with no knowledge," says Owner/Instructor Margi Sharp Douglas. "Every Pilates exercise, particularly the standing balancing work on the wunda-chair or reformer is made easier and more effective by employing an awareness of how the bones are balancing. Core muscles actually kick in stronger when a better alignment is found."   

What if we were to rest assured that our skeletons were strong enough to hold us up? What if we could trust our skeletons to do their jobs while we work out or even just stand still?  Balancing on our skeletons, we could then release all unnecessary muscular tension before we move. Of course we need some muscular involvement to sit or stand upright, but I'm willing to bet that it is much less than we usually think.   

Beauty and Complexity of the Skeleton  

The skeleton has its own architectural logic.  Years can be spent studying the interaction between muscles and bones, nerves and circulation.  But try, for now, just thinking about your skeleton.  

Try This: A Balancing Act

Find a quiet place where you can concentrate for a few minutes. You can even shut yourself in a bathroom stall, just for a moment, if you need to get away from it all.

Feel your feet on the floor, at a comfortable distance from each other. (It's helpful if you are wearing relatively flat and comfortable shoes.) If you're at home, go barefoot in your living room or out on a patch of grass!

Balance your pelvis over your feet.  Now balance your shoulders over your pelvis.  Now balance your head atop your spinal column, allowing the weight to cascade down through the front of the spine.  If you need to readjust the placement of your pelvis, shoulders, or feet, feel free to do so-- where can you find a place where you feel "balanced"?    How does your weight balance on your two feet as they spread out onto the floor? 

How much tension can you allow to flow out of your body and still remain standing?  You'll be surprised. Your skeleton is remarkably well balanced.  You don't need to hold your shoulders up, or your butt in, or your legs tense.

Now for one more element-- you don't need to "hold still."  Our bodies are always moving! Our blood circulates, our lungs breathe; why, in tiny microscopic ways we are growing hair and skin and fingernails!  Balance isn't static.  Think of balancing as an ongoing process. You can allow your body to sway, to shift, to readjust as you continue to seek balance.  

- Erika Iverson  

Mr. Bones peers out the window of the Pilates Garage 

For more information on Alexander Technique clinical studies:  http://alexandertechnique.com/resources/pressmanbonevsmuscle.pdf  

How can you find balance?  Why not set up an Alexander Technique or Pilates session with Margi Sharp Douglas! She will tailor a workout specifically for YOU!