From Design to Dysfunction and Back Again

In my last blog, Designed to Move, I shared with you the important role motion plays in maintaining the health of all of our body’s systems.  Today I want to talk about how failing to move creates a downward spiral that makes it increasingly more and more difficult to adequately move our bodies and stave off dysfunction, pain and illness.  Let’s start with a little perspective.

Our musculoskeletal system is a success story of creatures who for hundreds of thousands of years, could not keep still, or they would perish.  The body’s arrangement of muscles, bones, joints, and nerves enables a hungry man or woman to reach over his/her head to pick apples, or to bend down to dig through snow to unearth edible roots.  He or she can run from danger, climb a tree, and throw a spear made by his/her own hands.  Our ancestors “worked out” constantly in order to stay alive.  Motion is required to sustain muscle.  It is muscles that move our bones.

 

The increasing occurrences today of bodily breakdowns that result in such things as plantar fascitis, knee injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome, rotator cuff issues, and hip replacements are not a result of faulty design of the human body but of a flawed environment.  With each labor saving device we incorporate into our daily lives, our motion is restricted more and more.  Without adequate motion, the muscles, designed to walk, run, reach, climb, jump, swing a golf club, and even sit properly, atrophy.  Inactive muscles lose their ability to contract.  An efficient organism (which our human body is) doesn’t waste resources on unused functions.  The more inactivity, the more incapacity.

Standing upright on two feet isn’t easy.  It is a major feat of engineering.  Balance is everything.  To achieve it, the body’s major posture joints or load joints—the ankles, knees, hips and shoulders—are stacked one atop the other, 8 in all, 4 pairs on each side of the body.  Gravity presses down, and there is vertical load-bearing.  To balance the load between two feet, the load joints are in horizontal parallel alignment from left to right.  A functional body has ninety-degree angles between the 2 vertical lines and the four horizontal lines. It is active postural muscles that keep the joints in proper alignment.  When those ninety-degree angles are lost all hell breaks lose.   Gravity is a powerful force that puts tremendous stress and strain on the body when it loses its proper alignment.

Most of us spend our days sedentary and as a result, our posture muscles disengage because they are not being used.  So, when we decide to stand up, the body has to figure our how it will accomplish this.  Being a master at adaptation, it recruits other lesser muscles, usually on the outer periphery of the body, to help out.  The problem is that these muscles are not strong enough or in the right locations to maintain the right angles and parallel lines.  In the interest of moving, the body compensates for the lost or dysfunction and sacrifices alignment.  The problem is that lost alignment, or dysfunction, interferes with proper range of motion, which in turn leads to more lost alignment, compensation and dysfunction.  Eventually there is pain to signal that something isn’t right, and ultimately, if not corrected, the body can no longer stand upright and can’t move.

Look in the mirror, to see if you have one or more of the following conditions: one shoulder higher than the other, one hip higher than the other, one hand appearing closer than the other, your feet and or your knees pointing in any direction other than straight ahead, or, from the side view, your head forward, your shoulders rounded, your back flat or excessively arched, your knees flexed (bent)or hyper-extended.  If any of these are present, your body is violating the 90 degree rule of proper alignment.  What you are witnessing is dysfunction and the compensations your body has created to keep you moving.  Now that you have acknowledged the bad news, here is the good news.  You can return your body to design function by re-introducing proper motion that re-trains the posture muscles!

The Egoscue Method® provides proper motion through a series of e-cises chosen specifically to address your unique alignment issues.  With 20 minutes to an hour daily, you can regain your design function.  For more information on The Egoscue Method® please visit my website at http://loveinmotion.me/, or contact me by email @ suzannelamarche@gmail.com or call me at 951 704-5965.

YOUR HEALTH IS IN YOUR HANDS!

Material based on Pete Egoscue’s book, Pain Free at Your PC

Designed to Move

The human body is a perpetual motion machine.  From birth to death we are in constant motion.  Some motions like the beating of our hearts, the expansion and contraction of our lungs, and cellular activity that enables our digestive, immune and other systems, is involuntary, running on autopilot.  The musculoskeletal structure of our bodies is driven primarily by our voluntary nervous system.  As such, we have a lot to say about the amount and quality of the stimulus we provide to our bodies.  The kicker here is that these two systems interact and are interdependent.  The voluntary side, by enervating the muscles, which move the bones, energizes the involuntary systems; in turn, those sustain the voluntary functions by distributing oxygen and deploying white blood cells and making other vital contributions.  If we eliminate the movement of either the voluntary or involuntary functions, both are imperiled.

We are, in fact, largely eliminating the movement of the musculoskeletal system every time we sit down in front of the TV, get behind the wheel of a car, or spend our work or school day at a desk.  All of our other systems, dependent as they are on musculoskeletal motion, can’t go it alone.  They are not designed that way and the stress on those systems is enormous.  We have got to move the body or we lose it.   Once the body is deprived of the ability to move, extraordinary measures are necessary to keep its systems going.  Sadly, it is a losing battle.  A shriveled body means shriveled and inadequate systems—respiratory, circulatory, digestive, immune, etc.

Let’s take a look at digestion for a minute.  When you ate breakfast this morning, your digestive system went to work.  The egg and toast eventually made their way through the small and large intestines.  But how was this accomplished?  Gravity plays a big part in the digestive process but gravity alone isn’t enough.  When you walk, run, bend, and twist during the course of the day, breakfast is being pushed toward its final destination.  The digestive process is roughly 70% mechanical—dependent on motion, the rest is attributable to chemistry, gravity, and diet.

Nutritionists urge us to eat more fiber to decrease “transit time” between intake and elimination because the quicker the waste products are moved through the body, the less risk there is of toxic residues leaching out into the internal organs.  Decreased transit time reduces the risk of colon cancer.  But fiber, or lack of it, is just one element of the problem.  Transit time increases as the body’s movement decreases.  It is one of the reasons doctors want hospitalized patients out of bed as soon as possible.

There is mounting evidence that the high incidence of colon cancer in the U.S. is not exclusively a matter of diet (a subject for another blog).  People living in other less developed countries consume more animal protein and fats than we do; yet their colon cancer rates are lower.  Is the reason attributable to genetics, other cultural food choices such as onions, garlic, or red wine, OR that they haven’t succumbed completely to the “good life”?  They still walk.  They rake leaves instead of using a blower.  They swing an axe instead of firing up a chain saw.  They wield a shovel, they don’t ride a backhoe.  For our part, we are not moving enough.  As a result, our motion-dependent systems from digestive to circulatory, respiratory to immune are breaking down.

 

Make today the day you decide to improve your health.  My website, http://loveinmotion.me/ is full of information on ways to create mental, physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.  If you have pain or physical limitations that make it difficult for you to “move”, I urge you to review the information found at the “Pain Free Posture” tab on my website.  Let me help you re-learn how to move with renewed energy and ease for a longer, happier, healthier life!

*This material is based on excerpts from The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion, by Pete Egoscue.  

The Labyrinth -- A Metaphor for Life

Labyrinths have been around for thousands of years and can be found today in churches, parks, hospitals, and on private land.  Unlike mazes that have many paths and dead ends, labyrinths have only one way in and one way out.  They are most often circular but come in other geometric shapes as well.   With a circuitous path, it leads you to its center.  Twists and turns that seem to take you away from your desired destination make you feel as though you might be going the wrong direction.  Yet if you keep your faith and keep walking, placing one foot in front of the other, you will reach the center.   The labyrinth is a metaphor for the journey of life and has been used for centuries as a tool for prayer, meditation, problem solving, celebration and just plain fun!

On a recent trip to the Atlanta area over the Christmas Holiday, my boyfriend and I used the website, labyrinthlocator.com to find labyrinths that were within 25 miles of our location.  We chose two in the town of Lilburn, GA that were outside and available to the public.  Both were on church grounds.

One of them, Harmony Grove United Methodist Church, had brochures available that provided a simple and beautiful explanation of how to walk a labyrinth.  Here are some excerpts:

·      There is no right way or wrong way to walk a labyrinth; there are no “rules” to follow and nothing you need to know.”  Very little preparation is needed for walking a labyrinth.  Just gather your thoughts before you walk in.  Take a moment to take a few deep breaths to center yourself, and begin walking.

·      The first time you walk a labyrinth you might want to walk the pattern to enjoy the walk and become familiar with the labyrinth.  On your walk in, just relax, let go, and allow your mind to calm.  At the center spend as long as you want in prayer, reflection, meditation, contemplation, or just in quiet time.  On the walk out, allow yourself to continue to deepen your labyrinth experience and bring your experience with you to the “outside” environment.

·      Different people experience the labyrinth in different ways.  The same person will experience the labyrinth differently on different days at different times.  Sometimes your expectations can actually get in the way of your labyrinth experience.  Suspend your expectations and just enjoy the walk!

“The labyrinth is a spiritual tool that … reduces stress, quiets the mind, and opens the heart.  It is a path of prayer, a walking meditation, a crucible for change, a watering hole for the spirit and a mirror for the soul.” – The Rev. Dr. Lauren Artress, Author, Walking a Sacred Path

Find a labyrinth near you or in the vicinity of a city you will be visiting at labyrinthlocator.com and enjoy!