The first post in this series asked if a pigeon toe was friend or foe. It is certainly a strategy, an adaptation that has a purpose. For me, my half with the pigeon toe also carried my biggest problems, particularly… Read more ›
Oh, the mighty pigeon toe. Such a strange little insurgent, and yet, it exists peacefully all around us. Where does it come from and how does it form? Does it afflict one leg or both? Is it the tibia or… Read more ›
Part 1 of this series explained how knee should not be used as a load-bearing joint. Part 2 showed how pressuring the knee can help build safety, alignment, and desired force at the desired time. This third and final segment… Read more ›
In part 1, I suggested that using the knee as gas instead of brakes could help free up the knee for motion and elicit the hips and ankle-foot as stabilizers. For folks with chronic pain, however, their nervous system likely… Read more ›
There are three hinges on the feature photo door. It’s a strong front door, solid and meant to take some battering. The cheaper, lighter, all-have-problems-closing-and-opening doors inside the house have only two hinges. Weight-load divided by two, or weight-load divided… Read more ›
Torsion. We all have it: a particular line of twist running through our carriage, gripping us in a certain way and keeping us upright. Each fold and joint tells its story, whether you realize it or not. It’s how we… Read more ›
Flexion and extension. Compression and Suspension. There are pairs that govern movement, both globally and locally. The system and its parts act to pull apart and come together. Posture, moving fast, and any sort of training or exercise is versed… Read more ›
This piece serves as the follow up to How To Push Down. When we are talking about compression, we are also talking about tension. It is the interaction of these two push-pulls that creates suspension. Otherwise everything would collapse. … Read more ›
This post serves as a follow up to: A Path Towards Harm. Otherwise titled: The things I did wrong when I didn’t pay attention or have compassionate patience. The tag to this blog used to read, “fix yourself.” But… Read more ›
Some context. I have been learning to be sensitive to signals of and mitigate pain for about a decade now. My training revolves around feeling things out, noticing any off-ness, spending some time and attention there, and finishing the session… Read more ›
Push down. Seems simple enough. Intuitive. But I got it wrong. I got it wrong because my posture and mechanics favored a front-side dominance. (Quad-dominant folks tend to also fall into this category.) The knee bend, rounded shoulders, and dropped… Read more ›
This post serves as a companion piece to A Non-Central Axis. Where it showed you ways to identify a shifted midline, the following hopes to show how pulling to the right or left affects performance. The first thing to… Read more ›
When assessing the lower leg, it has become common place to examine the foot. The pliable and separable toes receive much of the attention. The heel, strange and seemingly uninteresting, gets neglected. Considering the calcaneous is a starting point… Read more ›
The low gait might be the truest test of healthy knees. It requires full flexion under full bodyweight while pulling the center of mass. A single knee is responsible for stabilizing load while the feet and ankles pivot and reposition.… Read more ›
Joint ‘popping’ is a curious thing. It alarms without hurting. Especially when you realize it wasn’t there before. You notice something is different when you do that particular thing in that particular way. The different becomes ‘less than’ when… Read more ›
Movement overlaps. Brain work = joint work = speed, power, strength, and coordination work. We have structures and we have capacities. Our practice establishes the abilities of both. There is a general consensus that if your parts work better you’ll… Read more ›
Hip extension is a vital movement to both health and performance. Wellness wise, hips that can extend, coupled with an unstuck spine and pelvis that can naturally posteriorly tilt, means you likely don’t suffer from back pain. Power and speed… Read more ›
The vast majority of movements happen going forward. We reach, walk, look, and move toward what’s in front of us. Then we sit by pushing our butt backward. This front-to-back plane of motion (or stillness) is where we reside. Our… Read more ›
For about two months, I’ve had some chronic discomfort in my left knee. On a scale of 1-10, with ’10’ being agony and ‘1’ being noticeable/annoying, it oscillates between 1 and 4. Though this might be thought of as acceptable… Read more ›
The pelvis speaks volumes. The position in which you hold it dictates whether or not you can use your abs, release your hip flexors, and/or likely have symptoms of back pain. It’s the first thing I check with new clients… Read more ›
Thirteen years ago, I had ACL reconstruction surgery using a hamstring graft. My tissues have long since ‘healed’, but the overall function still lacks behind my non-injured leg. Full flexion remains it’s biggest weakness. Here’s snapshot of the discrepancy in… Read more ›
The lower leg can be a mess. The shins are responsible for two main movements, dorsiflexion (top of foot pull) and plantar flexion (bottom of foot push). … Read more ›
Systemized by functional range conditioning (FRC), lift-offs are an ingenious way to focus on stability to achieve gains in mobility. Lift-offs are essentially lever tighteners. You place yourself in a supported end-range position, ‘screw-in’ the limb connection to the torso,… Read more ›
In part one of this series, we tried to resolve hamstring tightness by adjusting the pelvis and degree of flexion in the hips. The goal was to get the leg straight with varying closeness of the thigh to the chest. This… Read more ›
Chronically tight muscles don’t get resolved from mere stretching. Most often, there’s a positional issue at the attachments keeping the muscle in a lengthened position. For the hamstrings, look at the pelvis. If it’s stuck in anterior tilt, like many of… Read more ›