Healing Journeys with Suzie Daggett
The summer hiking season is here! With the beautiful summer weather and clear skies, many people are exercising outdoors and perhaps pushing their physical limits. To better understand movement therapies to help improve physical functioning, I asked Jackie Mason, Karen Attix, a GYROTONIC® trainer, and Amy Eldridge, a Alexander Technique practitioner to answer this question: How does your movement method assist a runner, hiker or walker to become more comfortable and improve functioning?
Jackie Mason: In humans, walking is a diagonal movement meaning the ribs rotate opposite to the pelvis (think of wringing out a washcloth). To allow rotation, the muscles of your lower back, ribs, buttocks and belly must be finely tuned to contract and release. Try walking in this way and see how much rotation you can achieve easily; do not cheat by using your arms or shoulders! If you can walk diagonally easily you will sense your legs thrust forward by the rotation of the pelvis and your arms swinging as a result of the ribs rotating. It will be easy to increase the size of your stride and cover more ground whether running or walking. If you feel restricted or it is painful to try to walk or run this way then you might want to change how you organize yourself. The Movement for Life approach helps you learn how to re-train your brain to move optimally whether walking, running or just wanting to move with more ease and comfort. The Movement for Life method consists of two ways to help you learn: A personal session with a practitioner to facilitate becoming aware of patterns of holding through hands-on, guided movements, and, class sessions that verbally guide you through a series of movements that clarify muscle holding patterns that cause stiffness and pain. As you progress with the classes and personal sessions you will find the learning that takes place creates ease, comfort and vitality for the rest of your life! Jackie Mason with Movement for Life can be reached at 530–478-9547 or email at moveforlife@pacbell.net.
Karen Attix: Runners, hikers and walkers have certainly one thing in common. They use their legs in repetitive motion, in fact, many repetitions. With 60 bones between the hip and the foot, 40 muscles in the leg and 13 in the foot all attached to each other with 7 joints and 18 ligaments, it is vital to keep all these parts in biomechanical alignment. I practice and teach the GYROTONIC Expansion System developed by Juliu Horvath which stretches, strengthens, and elongates the muscles while improving the connective tissue in and around the joints-crucial for runners who demand so much of their hip, knee and ankle joints. I work with the client on the GYROTONIC Pulley Tower Unit, a system that works the body on all planes with circular and spiral moves. This creates space in the joints allowing for more range of motion and less compression. Mis-aligned joints fatigue tendons and muscles and thus, your running or walking stride. With over 100 exercises, the student gets a full work out for all five limbs- two legs, two arms and the spine. Some people compare it to yoga with a machine as the tower unit uses resistance whether you have your limbs in straps or your hands on the rotating wheels. Unlike Pilates, a GYROTONIC session can be aerobic as repetition is encouraged once the student masters the choreography and the breath which improves both circulation and metabolism. Karen can be reached at 530-575-1452 or karenattix@yahoo.com.
Amy Eldridge: The Alexander Technique is all about movement and ease - regaining the natural dynamics of our physical structure. The human body has natural balance and poise, but many of us have become restricted in our movement by pain and excess tension. We develop habits and unrecognized tension that affects breathing, posture and movement. The Alexander Technique gives us practical knowledge of principles that govern human movement focusing on the relationship of the head, neck and spine as essential for all coordinated movement. An Alexander teacher will observe and bring awareness to a student’s poor postural habits, helping the student to replace them with proper patterns of muscular movement. Students learn to “think in activity” and redirect their movement patterns. For walkers, hikers and runners the technique helps them learn to do these activities with less tension and greater efficiency. When walking, many people have their head pulled down toward their feet, creating compression in the spine, hips, knees, ankles and feet, requiring more energy than needed. In the well-coordinated walk, the head moves forward and up to lead movement pulling the spine up and reducing the amount of tension needed to complete the movement. Learning to walk with the head forward and up and lengthening the spine, can help to increase breathing capacity and thus, endurance. Learning a new more coordinated way of walking can also diminish the physical limitations and discomfort that come with aging like knee pain, fear of stairs and shuffling to walk. Amy can be reached at 530-613-2143 or email aeldridge@usa.com
Healing Journeys is a column written by Suzie Daggett for the Grass Valley Union newspaper. Suzie interviews a variety of health practitioners most Fridays in the Wellness section. Click here to read past articles prior to 2005. Enter "Suzie Daggett" in the search box to get listing of all articles. |
