New ideas of stabilization can enhance the body without making the body rigid. Past old principles of knitting the ribs together and tucking does not allow proper movement principles of walking, dancing, golf and tennis for example.  The problems of the back being hyperextended may have other reasons than weak upper abdominals.

• How does the legs organize the pelvis?
• Are the legs not doing their correct job and the back is compensating?
• The Back muscles are tight.
• The iliopsoas is tight.

When I feel well organized over my legs, my abdominals naturally engaged.  With full breath and a diaphragm that moves,  the pelvic floor and transverse abdominus can engage.  Knitting the ribs together diminishes the movement of the diaphragm.

Visualizing the multifidus helps me get back my flexion in my ribcage of a neutral spine.  We have a skeleton at the studio that suppose to move.  Seeing the skeleton, its posture is horrible.  When I bring the spinal processes together, you can see the skeleton come back to a neutral spine and the ribs open in the back.

Taking a stand

What makes Pilates Upright different is using the block.  Betweeen a workshop with Liz Koch, Marika Molnar and my studies in yoga, they inspired me to play with the block to explore balance and correct sequencing in standing.  Many are trying to use the gesture side to hold themselves up. The block shows how important the standing leg is.

with Lesley Powell Dates: Sun   5/23/2010 Time:  9:00 AM – 4:00 PM $200
PMA Approved -Pilates Upright is a dynamic workout that incorporates the training of Pilates mat with weight bearing exercises in standing. Pilates Upright gives you a new underSTANDing of the coordination of your muscles & bones in standing, which is very different from exercising on the floor

Lower body enhancing the core.

How one stands can affect your posture and your core. Leg alignment and coordination of the bones and muscles are essential for good posture and fitness. The organization of the legs is different in standing (closed chain) compared to leg exercises such as side kicks (open chain).

Purposely stand with your legs hyperextended.

• Observe how your legs feel. Where is the weight on your feet?
• How does the pelvis organize without you consciously making any changes?
• Feel the tone of your abdominals and back.

When the legs are not well aligned such as with hyperextended legs, the spine has to organize around this. When there is a poor tailbone-heel connection, the legs and feet work unevenly to support our body. For many, one tucks to bring the pelvis over the feet and pulled the front ribs down to solve the problem of a poor head-tail-heel connection. Poor posture and gait diminishes proper shifting our weight forward for simple actions. This poor action forces our upper bodies to shift us forward to walk and other movement actions instead of our legs.

Rudolph Laban’s concept of stability/mobility.

To mobilize a joint, there has to be stability in adjacent parts of the body to assist in this movement. With a clients with hyper-mobility in the legs and hips, I see the client having to brace down on their spine to compensate. This lack of dynamic strength in the legs affects the alignment of the spine. Different strategies will happen with certain clients standing on one leg:

• One client braces down on her back and their thoracic spine becomes more flexed.
• One client’s pelvis goes into anterior tilt.
• Another the pelvis rotates with upper body rotating in the opposite way to compensate.

Amazingly as you improve the dynamic alignment of your legs, your core support improves. When I am better organized in my legs, the tone of my abdominals and my alignment is better. When I hyperextend my legs (yes I have hyperextended legs), the tone decreases and my pelvis goes into anterior tilt. Improving my legs makes core support feel effortless. All the years that I was dancing, I struggled and push my body into alignment. In truth without understanding my legs, I was creating more imbalance.

Pilates is a wonderful way to create the awareness and dynamic strength for standing. When someone comes in for their initial evaluation, I watch the following:

• How they stand on two legs?
• How is the alignment of their spine with their legs?
• How they stand on their feet? Where does the weight fall on each foot?
• How the legs and pelvis organize in lateral shift?
• How they organize their bodies to stand on one leg?
• How they organize their bodies to shift forward on one leg?

My goals to develop better awareness in legs:

• Alignment- is there muscular imbalance? Poor flexibility?
• Improper sequencing of joints and bones for standing actions?
• Too much mobility?
• Improper strength of legs to accommodate standing moves?

I always look at the pelvis to give me information about the legs. How the pelvis is organized can influence the work of the legs. As the imbalance of the legs becomes a habit, this leads to more disorganization of the pelvis and spine. Some clients unconsciously stand more on one leg.

Purposely stand on one leg more than another.

• How does that affect the rotation of the legs?
• How does it affect the feet? Pronated? Supinated?

Notice when your client lies supine, how the pelvis touches the floor. This is where the simple actions of pelvic tilts and clocks can be quite effective for change. For instance, the tightness of the hips can affect the pelvis and the use of the legs.
In pelvic tilts, are they sequencing equally on both sides of the sacrum. If the pelvis is rotated in standing, usually the pattern is reflective throughout the workout.

Pelvic shifts forward and lateral give me information how the client uses their legs. When a client tucks for a neutral bridge, they are kicking important coordination of leg muscles that assist standing.

Building from the Ground Up

Most of my warm-ups include neutral bridging. I like to wake up the back of the legs before I take the client through foot work.

In Foot work, I look if the same patterns in assessment come up in the foot work. For instance if a client stands habitually on one legs, one can sometimes see the pelvis shifting slightly. I might use my foot or hand against the opposite hip from the shift. They press their hip into me to prevent the shift.

Hyperextended legs.
It is very easy to hyperextend the legs on the reformer.

To teach a new pattern, I have the client do small pushes out.
Each time I increase the movement, but they must keep their quadriceps engaged. If they are tightening around the femoral folds, this takes away from the work of the quadriceps.

The calf muscles are very important in the alignment of the lower leg.

• Push the carriage out half way. Your legs will be bent. Releves on two legs without moving the carriage and then one with the legs bent. Do not move the carriage as you releve.

Have the client stand up after this exercise.
Everyone will feel different after this deceptively simple exercise.

Semi-circle

As BalancedBody faculty, I learned a different version of semi-circle with legs in second instead of first position. Because of knee injuries, I could never do the original version. It is very important not to tuck. When bridging correctly, the legs should bring the sacrum and tailbone as one. This teaches hip extension which is needed in standing.

Remember tucking will kick out important gluteal muscles and hamstrings
for better standing.

Side leg lifts

Can your client lift the leg up without engaging the front of the hip or the quadratus lumboram? The pelvis needs to be perfectly still.

Take a New Stand
Great standing is a tango of all the muscles of the legs around the joint to stabilize and move. New understanding of the calf and foot muscles, the quadriceps, abductors, adductors, gluteals and hamstrings will improve the coordination in standing.

Proper use of the

• Calf and foot will ground the foot and organize the lower legs.
• Quadriceps support and balanced the knee.
• Gluteals and hamstrings help to extend the hip.

Side splits on the reformer

• Does the alignment of the legs change when they push out?
• Bring all the principles of foot work into standing.
• Can they keep their lower leg stable over their ankles as they push out?
• Or does the lower leg swing backwards with the movement. The pelvis will compensate with the mobility of the legs?

Taking a stand

Yoga block or moon box

• Have a client stand on one leg on a block.
• Are their hips level?
• How is the alignment of the leg?
• Are they using the opposite hip of the standing leg to bring the pelvis level?
• Is the gesture leg hanging directly down? If not, this can give you hint about tight psoas, ITB, and back muscles.

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

by Lesley Powell

I have had the great fortune to start my Pilates career in a physical therapy practice.  We had clients with Repetitive Stress Injuries (reporters injured from the work on  the computer), back, knee and shoulder injuries.  Pilates works on the entire body, not just the injured place on the body.

As with the journalists, Pilates worked on improving their posture and the foundations of support.  When you have poor posture, it changes how you use your shoulders and arms.  Try it. Slump and lift your arms up.  Stand tall and feel how different your arms feel.

When the hips are unleveled (this picture shows a subtle gluteal weakness) with lifting a leg up, this is a reflection of gluteal weakness.  This weakness can show up in back, knee and hip discomfort.  Even my working with dancers,  there is poor use of the gluteals to maintain good alignment of the spine and leg.  When the true function of a muscle is not working correctly, other muscles compensate to stabilize.

Rudolph Laban had a concept of stability/mobility.  We need both principles in any movement.  As in the movement above,  true function the standing leg and core should stabilize the mobility of lifting one leg up such as the passe in dance.   If the leg/hip hypermobilizes on the standing/working side,  the back has to compensate.

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

Join us this April.  Register before April 4 and save $20 on each workshops with Dianne Woodruff

for a workshop with Dianne Woodruff.  I took a workshop about the Gluteals with Dianne at a Laban Conference last year.  I felt amazing and it helped with my sacrum as well.

Glute strength for true balance

With Dianne Woodruff
Date: Saturday 10 April 2010
Time: 1-4 p.m. $120

We have only two legs and must stand on one of them to take a step. No one would argue the importance of good balance and prevention of falls. Balance boards and other devices are fine but the anatomical and functional issues behind bipedal stability deserve more attention. This seminar for pilates instructors, personal trainers and health-care practitioners addresses essential movement patterns for bipedal stability and a healthy back in a pedestrian culture. Such patterns were identified and researched by Dr. Vladimir Janda as early as 1964. Over the last 20 years Dr. Woodruff has developed an approach to assessment, correction and preventive exercise that you will learn in this seminar.

To register

Dianne Woodruff

Dianne Woodruff, CMA, PHD

founder of Body-in-Motion

I am so excited to have Dianne Woodruff
teaching this April at Movements Afoot.

I have studied withher at a few conferences.  She always deepens my knowledge as a teacher and my practice.In the fall of 2008, I took an hour workshop about the abductors.  It was amazing and my body felt great.

Introduction to 3-D Workout

With Dianne Woodruff
Date: Sunday 11 April 2010
Time: 2-5 p.m. $120

3-D Workout is a low-impact, low-tech fitness program you can do anywhere. This workshop introduces you to the basics as shown on the DVD and then some. We use our bodies in three-dimensions at all times so your exercise should go beyond the conventional biceps curl and other single plane exercises. The 3-D Workout program, developed by Dianne Woodruff, CMA, PhD, is inspired by the Laban/Bartenieff framework. Available in classes and as instructor training, this workshop is open to all. DVDs will be available for sale at a discount.

Sacroiliac treatment protocol

With Dianne Woodruff
Date: Sunday 11 April 2010
Time: 9:30-12:30  $120

This workshop offers a step-by-step method of assessment and treatment for sacroiliac pain. It includes the anatomical framework and function, observation of whole-body and defined body parts in motion, various tests for sacroiliac dysfunction and methods for treating the problem. The workshop, aimed at “the dead seven inches” is an application of Bartenieff Fundamentals in a therapeutic framework. Open to personal trainers, pilates/yoga instructors and health practitioners.

Glute strength for true balance

With Dianne Woodruff
Date: Saturday 10 April 2010
Time: 1-4 p.m. $120

We have only two legs and must stand on one of them to take a step. No one would argue the importance of good balance and prevention of falls. Balance boards and other devices are fine but the anatomical and functional issues behind bipedal stability deserve more attention. This seminar for pilates instructors, personal trainers and health-care practitioners addresses essential movement patterns for bipedal stability and a healthy back in a pedestrian culture. Such patterns were identified and researched by Dr. Vladimir Janda as early as 1964. Over the last 20 years Dr. Woodruff has developed an approach to assessment, correction and preventive exercise that you will learn in this seminar.

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.

To register

The back of core

Core support allows us to move against gravity to be upright and move.

Great core support will enhance your posture and the tone of your muscles.
It is three-dimensional.

The connection is the coordination of the abdominal muscles, pelvic floor, and the back muscles with the limbs. Core support is about this connectivity.

Core support is providing the spine, the spinal cord and the organs 
with the necessary space to function well.

Poor posture leads to compression of the vertebra, disks and our internal organs. With our culture in so much flexion with computers, driving cars and watching TV, we need to train the spine 3-dimensionally.  Equal attention needs to given to how the back muscles support the spine and the legs.  Our standing requires an upright spine with the mobility of the legs for our everyday movements of walking and our movement loves.

Many of our clients are very weak
in their deep muscles of their spine and extensors of the hips.

Because of weakness of the extensors, clients will use other compensations to accomplish spinal and hip extension.  This will usually lead to compression and/or shortening to perform extension movements.  For instance,  a client will lift the head and hyperextend their neck for upper spine weakness.  A client with poor core support and weak hip extensors (the gluteals and hamstrings) will use the muscles around the lumbar spine to lift the leg.

This weekend I have been doing a workshop w. Roxlyn Moret and Amy Matthews. This workshop on the legs is part of BodyMind Centering’s Yoga series.

We have been going over how the bones and joints move in the lower limbs. There has been some partnering to help us feel better movements of the bones and joints. It has been very gentle. We have not even done a full yoga class.

I am so sore this morning! It just proves how good function and form are essntial for real positive change in the body.

We are going to talk about the important of bridging and how to do it correctly.

How we use our legs is very important for posture, moving and helpful in backcare.  Bridging is very helpful as the building blocks for better understanding of how the legs need to be strengthen.

• When someone comes in with back pain, I look at their bridging.
• Many are weak in the legs.
• They compensate with their backs to initiate the movements of the bridge.

Our lack of understanding of the correct use of our legs creates different kinds of POSTURE.
First of all, the legs are not under-standing the relationship to the pelvis. When there is a poor tailbone-heel connection, the legs and feet work unevenly to support our upper bodies. For many, one tucks to bring the pelvis over the feet and pulled the front ribs down to solve the problem of a poor head-tail-heel connection.

So we are going to look at types of bridging and how to use them in your warmup.My teacher, Irmgard Bartenieff, created a great concept about the neutral bridge. The Bartenieff Fundamental, the pelvic shift forward, is a bridge with the spine neutral. The legs lift the pelvis up. The pelvic shift forward relates how we use the legs to move and support the pelvis.

Pelvic shift forward is a concept of how the legs and the pelvis influence the weight shift. The best example of this is our gait, walking. The pelvic shift forward is our getting from sitting on a chair to standing. The pelvis and the legs influence our moving forward in space. Our hips have to go through hip flexion and extension to propel us through space.

Poor posture and gait diminishes proper shifting our weight forward for simple actions. This poor action forces our upper bodies to shift us forward to walk.

The pelvic shift forward is a different bridge than the articulating bridge with the pelvis begins in posterior tilt. The articulating bridge is about the sequencing of the spine. For some clients with certain back injuries or spinal osteoporosis, articulating bridge is not recommended.  The articulating bridge for a healthy spine is a great exercise of opening the back.

To extend the hip through the legs, one uses the hamstrings and depending on the force needed, the gluteals. We only think of the gluteals as of squeezing the buttocks. This is primarily the gluteal maximus and the fibers closer to the gluteal cleft.

Tucking occurs when both sides of the gluteal maximus are fired at the same time. In gait, we are firing one side of the gluteals at a time depending on the gait cycle. Recent research has proven the gluteals are being used to assist us in standing and moving on our legs. There are other sections of the gluteals we want to put our attention to. These muscles are the attachments to the femur on the side of our hips. The gluteal medius, gluteal minimus and the lateral fibers of the gluteal maximus help us to stabilize on one leg. The gluteals help us extend our hips especially in larger forces needed as in walking up stairs, changing levels such as a deep lunge to standing and standing on one leg. The tone needed to extend the hip is very different than in tucking.

Isn’t this video amazing?  Standing work brings into all your connections, core, arms and legs.

Watch how Joe does front rowing.  You can see the anterior serratus kick in when he reaches the arms forward.  Doing full body work like this and the plank are amazing full body exercises.

Many overuse their backs due to weakness/stability in other areas of the torso.  Another issue is overuse of the superior muscles of the back and weakness of the deeper muscles, the multifidus.  Learning correct stabilization is key.

Laban’s concept of mobility/stability is about differentiation.  To mobilize a body part, one has to stabilize somewhere else.  If the attended mobilized body part is rigid, the body will hypermobilize above or below.

In the last post, we talked about the psoas.  This post addresses when the thighbone is not moving well in the hip socket and other compensations in the body.  Sometimes the back and sacrum compensates when there is a lack of mobility in the hip socket.

When the thighbone moves inside of the hip socket, it needs to roll, glide and slide. If the thighbone is not moving well, the hips will unleveled or tucked to lift the leg up.  There is some posterior tilting of the pelvis, but it is in degrees.

In standing, the back can compensate with a weak standing leg.  Many clients (dancers as well) have weak gluteal medias on the standing leg.  They compensate to make the hips level using the quadratus and/or shortening the psoas.

As in a prior post about the abductors:

Side Kicks

I think of side kicks (abductors lifts) as a sideways differentiation of the thighbone moving in the hip socket and stability of  the pelvis.  When people cannot feel how to move the thighbone freely in the hip socket, the muscles around the pelvis have to work harder.  Harder does not mean functionally well.  If the qradratus is working instead of the gluteal medias, this takes away from training the tone of the leg muscles.

In footwork on the reformer, a lot of clients are pushing from their backs and muscles around the femoral fold.  I have clients start doing small pushes out half way without unleveling and/or tucking the pelvis.  As they learn to feel more stability, they have to work their legs better.  Than I increase the range of motion of footwork without the pelvis changing.  If the pelvis changes as the legs extends, the workload ususally travels away from the leg muscles and Core.