49 W. 27th St. Mezzanine B, New York City 212-904-1399 www.movementsafoot.com

We have two great workshops coming up:

Pilates Lab for Teachers: Muscular Imbalances 


Click on workshop to register.

With Shelley Studdenberg $60   


Mondays 1:30-3:30 Lower extremity – knee and foot 2/27/2012
Shelly Studdenberg brings to this workshop her amazing knowledge of being a Pilates teacher, a certified Rolfer and advanced studies about the body. She will teach you the skill of observation, and how to use the Pilates/ other movement repertory to make positive changes in your client’s well-being. Shelly has influenced the master teachers’ careers at Movements Afoot

Franklin Method: The Knee

Click on workshop to register.

With Lesley Powell, Franklin Method Teacher, Certified Movement Analyst, Balanced Body Pilates Faculty
$60  Early discount sign up by first of the month.

The Knee
March 3, 2012 Saturday 2-4 PM

The knee is the largest most challenged joint we have. It is situated between the two longest bones in the body, which creates large forces within the knee as we walk, run or jump. Healthy, well aligned knees, deal efficiently with this situation. However, incorrect alignment and lack of proper training can cause the knees to become painful as ligaments, joints and muscles are strained.

One of my friends had this picture on Facebook.

At Movements Afoot we jokingly talk about mooning.  Why?  It gets you to learn how to use your hip joints which is needed in most activities.

A lot of people locked their hips.  The hip joints is a much stronger mobile joint to hinge at then from your spine.  Many people blow out their backs because they are using their backs as the fulcrum to pick thinks up.  A safer action is to squat to lower your body to the floor.

By learning to use the hip joint correctly,  the legs have to do more work. When the legs are working correctly, it also changes the quality of tone in your core.

Stand poorly and tighten your abs.
Your posture doesn’t change.

Now stand well and engage your abs.
Notice how your posture immediately changes.

]]> http://movementsafootblog.com/2011/10/14/mooning-techniques/feed/ 0 40.745342 -73.990191 40.745342 -73.990191 Body thinker Mooning http://movementsafootblog.com/2011/07/11/sitting-up-straight-to-avoid-back-problems/ http://movementsafootblog.com/2011/07/11/sitting-up-straight-to-avoid-back-problems/#comments Mon, 11 Jul 2011 20:11:34 +0000 Lesley Powell http://movementsafootblog.com/?p=2938 Read more]]> Sit Up Straight. Your Back Thanks You.

Click on above link for a great article in NY Times

When you sit, do you know where the sacrum is.

The sacrum is the triangular bone in the back of the pelvis.

Tilt the top of the sacrum backwards. Feel how this curves and flexes your upper body.

Now reverse it and arch your back.  Notice how the weight goes towards your pubis and your lower back arches.

Find the place of the sacrum between those two movements.  This is neutral.  Placing the top of sacrum in the correct place can be like a shelf for your spine.  By placing the bones in the correct position, your muscles will know how to work better.

Sitting Around by Lesley A. Powell Click on picture to see more artwork

Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

There was a great radio show this week, how sitting all day can be bad for your health.

‘Our Body Just Kind Of Goes Into Shutdown

“We just aren’t really structured to be sitting for such long periods of time, and when we do that, our body just kind of goes into shutdown,” Yancey says.

When I sit for long periods of time and then standing up,  I feel my psoas and my hips tight as I stand.  It is hard work to sit up well.  It is harder on the body in the long run when we don’t.

Movement is essential to our well-being on all levels – including the neurological, the muscular, and the emotional. In our culture now, we are forgetting essential habits of movement in large part because of being less physical due to cars, computers, and TV. We believe all people should move more. When we move with awareness and a sense of pleasure, all will benefit from it.

What is Core?

This weekend we ran BodyMind fitness: Core.

I shared the teaching with Dr. Martha Eddy, Doris Pasteleur Hall and Kim fielding.

Core is more than your abdominals. It is the torso that houses important organs for breath, circulation and digestion. Giving 3D support is not only important for backcare; it gives the organs room to function. If a person’s posture is chronically slumped, can you see how it will affect breath and the movements of the diaphragm and lungs. With diminished breathe, comes poor circulation without the right amount of oxygen getting to the blood and heart. A domino effect!

A lot of fitness’ core training is bracing down on the torso. Great core support should uplift you. Getting to the deeper
muscles of the core takes great awareness and sometimes backing away from more superficial muscles such as the rectus.

Training of the Pelvic floor, transverse abdominus and the multifidus have a different quality of tone than many muscles. It is the coordination of these in dynamic movement that it becomes complex. Take the plank pose, a full body action.  Bonnie Baindridge Cohen has a great image about deeper muscles.  They current into the joints for stability where our larger muscles groups current out.  When you see poor torso stability,  you see the larger muscles groups compressing the torso down.

49 W. 27th St. Mezzanine B, New York City 212-904-1399 www.movementsafoot.com

Dr. Valdimir Janda has made the world look different at the body.   Prior history about back pain and posture was to treat the specific part.  Janda opened our eyes that pain is reflective of a full body pattern.  As faculty on Balanced Body’s Pilates teacher program, I teach a little a bit about this.  There is mention of his view of the body in most of the manuals.

Come this January 15 & 16 and learn more about Janda’s Upper and Lower Cross Syndromes.  Dianne Woodruff returns again to teach about this.

Dianne L. Woodruff, CMA, PhD, has been teaching for 35 years and has been in private practice for 20 working with people who have movement difficulties and unresolved myofascial pain. Her newest video, 3-D WORKOUT™, vol II, an integrated approach to fitness, was released in 2006.  A Certified Movement Analyst with a doctorate in Somatic Education, she developed the anatomy curriculum for Stott Pilates in Toronto. She writes and lectures widely.www.body-in-motion.com.

Lower-Crossed Syndrome

Date: Saturday January 15.2011 Time: 9- 5 PM  $200
Lower-Crossed Syndrome is a faulty postural pattern that starts from the feet and knees and shows up as an excessive lumbar lordosis and weak abdominal wall. The problem cascades into the upper body so that our dynamically self-regulating posture is compromised. Dr. Janda identified this problem as a series of dysfunctional muscular relationships which, when understood, can be changed and maintained. You will need a working knowledge of human anatomy.

Upper-Crossed Syndrome

With Dianne Woodruff
Date: Sunday January 16.2011 Time: 9- 5 PM  $200
Upper-Crossed Syndrome is that slumped posture of the back/shoulders along with a forward neck and head. Learn how to recognize, assess and treat this wide-spread postural problem identified by the late Dr. Vladimir Janda. An understanding of this syndrome and how to work with it are excellent tools for solving postural issues in yourself or in your clients. Participants must have a working knowledge of human anatomy.

To register click here

The medical model has been to look at the pathology of specific static structures through special tests (X-Ray, MRI, CT Scan, etc).  Many medical practitioners do not know how to look at the organization of a moving body to understand poor function. This model can be good when there is acute injury or exacerbation like a car accident.

On the other hand, many injuries are the causes of poor function, muscular imbalances and overuse injuries.  A functional approach looks at the body; its processes and systems within the body.  Pain at a specific place is not always the originator.  Janda looked at how the neurological and muscular system can be reflected at different parts.

Join us this January with Dianne Woodruff teaching about Janda’s work.  I am so excited to have Dianne return back to Movements Afoot.  Her workshops last spring were amazing.

49 W. 27th St. Mezzanine B, New York City 212-904-1399 www.movementsafoot.com

Lower-Crossed Syndrome

With Dianne Woodruff Date: Saturday January 15.2011 Time: 9- 5 PM  $200
Lower-Crossed Syndrome is a faulty postural pattern that starts from the feet and knees and shows up as an excessive lumbar lordosis and weak abdominal wall. The problem cascades into the upper body so that our dynamically self-regulating posture is compromised. Dr. Janda identified this problem as a series of dysfunctional muscular relationships which, when understood, can be changed and maintained. You will need a working knowledge of human anatomy.

Upper-Crossed Syndrome

With Dianne Woodruff Date: Sunday January 16.2011 Time: 9- 5 PM  $200
Upper-Crossed Syndrome is that slumped posture of the back/shoulders along with a forward neck and head. Learn how to recognize, assess and treat this wide-spread postural problem identified by the late Dr. Vladimir Janda. An understanding of this syndrome and how to work with it are excellent tools for solving postural issues in yourself or in your clients. Participants must have a working knowledge of human anatomy.

To register click here.

Dianne L. Woodruff, CMA, PhD, has been teaching for 35 years and has been in private practice for 20 working with people who have movement difficulties and unresolved myofascial pain. Her newest video, 3-D WORKOUT™, vol II, an integrated approach to fitness, was released in 2006.  A Certified Movement Analyst with a doctorate in Somatic Education, she developed the anatomy curriculum for Stott Pilates in Toronto. She writes and lectures widely.www.body-in-motion.com.

How you use your feet can affect your alignment, foot and back pain and how you move.  Learn simple exercises to enhance your foot fitness and the fitness of your entire body.

Taking a stand

A lot of people want to come up with a rigid recipe to solve a problem. To me, Pilates is more than core. It is about connection, quality of movement, balance and sound biomechanics. When someone comes in with Back issues, I look how they walk, how they lift their legs and what is mobile and what is not?

Majority of clients with back issues are unleveling their pelvis in a unhealthy way. They don’t understand the importance of the hip socket over the back. Improving function will improve tone. Tone is a dynamic changing use of muscle depending the needs of the movement. One can strengthen muscles that has nothing to do with function.

Pilates especially with the equipment is a rich system. One can challenge and build the correct foundations for movement.

Lesley, First, as always, how are you?  I hope wonderful is the answer!

I am confused about osteoporosis. I have a client who is 61 years old.  She loves yoga.  She loves to garden.  She has low back pain (muscular), piriformis syndrome and a tightness in her IT Band on her left side.  She also has osteoporosis in her right hip (I’m looking at the summary from her bone density test and it says “analysis of the right femoral neck reveals osteoporosis’).

At one point, she was diagnosed with osteopenia in her lumbar spine.  This current report however, indicates that the lumbar spine level “reveals a normal BMD”.

Here’s my confusion:

1. Do we as Pilates Trainers completely avoid all flexion when there is a diagnosis of osteoporosis (period)?  Or if it is localized to the hip, is spine flexion still contraindicated?
2. If there was a diagnoisis of osteopenia in the lumbar, then, after prescription treatment, this diagnosis is reversed, do we still avoid flexion?

According to this client’s doctor, no movement is contraindicated.  She asked the doctor specifically about flexion/rotation/extension of the spine & of the hip (I wrote it down for her) and her doctor said “Yes, you can do all movement, you have no contraindications”.  Obviously, I’m leery…..  Can you please shed some light and offer your advice? Pilates Teacher

One of the best resources for Pilates and Osteoporsis is Sherri Betz.

Since your client is having a combination of osteopenia and back pain,  I would work the spine in neutral and extension as possible.  Gardening can be hard on the back. She is already doing a lot of flexion and more if her form is not good.  I would also educate her about the importance of the legs of making level changes and articulating from the hip socket instead of the back.  Majority of back issues and the blowing out of disks come from lifting when the spine is in flexion.

Standing work is great for osteoporsis of the hip.  Weight bearing exercises forces a load on the bones which will increase bone density.  See post on Pilates Upright