RNC News: January 2010

Your Body Is Listening - Part 2

5:42 AM | Posted by Our Philosophy | Edit Post

Contributed by Dr. Gregg Hoffman DC, CSCS, CGFI

Okay, I decided it was time to invite the proverbial experts on posture in to lead us in today's message. Ha-ha, don't laugh; they've got it figured out better than we do. After all what other species keeps repeating things that are known to have such terrible affects on themselves.

It's holiday time and we've all got priorities to attend to so we'll get right to the doing. If you didn't read the preface from the last issue, you might like to take a peak to see what we're getting at here. Click this link http://rivernorthchiro.com/Newsletters.html, and then open the last newsletter to see what's up.

The focus here is to

the facilitated or over active and irritated tissue while simultaneously

turning on the inhibited or muscle groups that have been shut off due to the neuro-reflexive response to the baaaad input and impulse of our "ADLs" (activities of daily living).

We'll choose a couple of the most important regions:

Wall Angels: Great for activating the muscles in the back and shoulders while opening up the "anterior chain" (muscles that pull us forward). Most ADLs in our Western society tend to pull us forward promoting pronation or rounding forward of the shoulders. This totally helps to negate that.

Don't want to get up from your work station. Try the Open Book:

Opening or elongating the Illiopsoas, a big, big, trouble maker. This is the one that makes it hard to stand up straight after you've been sitting for some period of time. Stretch it forward without letting the hip open up or arching the low back to execute.

And last, let's turn on the gluteal region:

This may seem a little strange, but the low back muslces are one of the culprits that tend to be wanting to take over the work of everything in the region. So, to exclude them, tilt the pelvis backward (push low back into the ground) before extending the hips up to full range of motion. Careful, the hamstrings could be right there with the glutes leaving you in anguish.