Does your chair fit?

Chairs for home and the work place are designed for the average height and build. But what about for those who are at either end of the bell curve? Matching the right chair to the individual should really be as important as have the right fitting shoe, especially for the desk worker who sits all day.

In reality, in offices everywhere, this is not the case. Companies tend to buy chairs in bulk and all of the same make and size. Does one of these common scenarios sound like you?

1. Tall people sit in standard seats with too much of their thigh unsupported and hanging in front of the chair.
2. Short people sit in standard chairs that are too large and cannot get their bottoms to the back of the chair, or if do, have their feet swinging and not firmly on the ground.

How do you know if a chair fits you properly?

There are 3 important dimensions to measuring a well fitted chair for any individual.

1. Can you easily get your hips and bottom back into the seat with the backrest supporting your back?
2. When you are seated back into the chair, do your feet sit firmly on the ground with your knees and hips at a right angle?
3. Is there a 2-5cm gap between the front edge of the chair and the back of your knee when you are sitting well into the back of the seat?

If you answered ‘no’ to any of these questions, then your chair should be modified or changed altogether. Office chairs do offer great adjustability such as a seat slide, and gas compression chambers for lift and tilt. Seat depths, heights and tilts can therefore be altered up to a point for the average sized of us. However, for the petite and larger of us, there are chairs out there that would better suit you.

I would suggest that if you are one of our smaller or larger friends, speak to your HR department or physiotherapist about whether your chair is adjustable enough or whether another new chair is really the answer.

Just like Golidlocks and the three bears, there is a seat size best for everyone, no matter how big or small.

Read More

Do you suffer from ‘gluteal amnesia’? Pilates can help 

Thanks to a lovely Fix Program regular, I had such a laugh reading this article about men over 40 losing their buttocks. Girls, don’t laugh - we tend to lose them too. Men’s tend to disappear around to the front to their bellies and we women seem to have them slide down the backs of our legs. 

http://www.afr.com/Page/Uuid/033a59e0-39fb-11e3-a334-c26c4e617206 

But is all seriousness, the buttock muscles are terribly important in supporting our pelvis and back, holding our hips in a good alignment in our pelvis and in providing us with the power to get up out of seats or to walk and run. Underactive and weakened gluts will result in a greater instability about the hip and pelvic regions. This can result in an increased load transferred to the lower back above and to the hamstring muscles below.

Some of us can feel that our hamstring muscles seem to become tighter as we get older. The hamstrings are a powerful and often over worked group of muscles running from your sit bones of your pelvis to the backs of your knee. If you once had quite flexible stretchy legs and hamstrings and now notice they are becoming tighter and stiffer, then perhaps your buttock muscles are weakened? Perhaps you are reliant on these hamstrings for more power and stability about the pelvis in your day than previously? Is there an imbalance about the muscles of your hip and leg?

Has your brain developed ‘gluteal amnesia’?

So how do you ‘find’ your buttocks again? The solution is often a simple one, but also quite a challenge for some brains! Often you need the kind and expert assistance with appropriate cues from your favourite physiotherapist to discover these muscles again. Here are my top 3 Pilates exercises to firstly find, awaken and then challenge your buttocks.

Step 1: Let’s find our buttock muscles again with ‘Virtual reality leg lifts’

Lie on your tummy with your knee bent to 90 degrees. Imagine your thigh is stuck to the mat and unable to lift off.

Gently lift your pelvic floor muscles and deepen your navel, becoming aware of the subtle tightening between your hip bones and lower belly coming off the mat. Try holding these muscles on while you breathe. Next, imagine you are lifting the foot of your bent leg towards the sky. But remember, you can’t as it is stuck to the mat.

Where do you notice the muscle activating? Is it in your buttock region or down the back of your leg?

If you feel that your buttock is not engaging, try placing your hand on the buttock and imagine very gently holding a piece of paper between your buttock cheeks. Feel it now?

So, try again. Lift your pelvic floor, gently deepen your navel, imagine the paper held gently between you cheeks and then an imaginary lift on your foot towards the sky. Any luck?

Practice, practice again- it is really a brain challenge! This is the hardest step – rewiring your brain to habitually activate your buttock. If all else fails, practice on the other side and see if you can activate your buttock on this side before returning to the other.

You really must master this before progressing to step 2.

Step 2: Awaken your buttocks with great squat technique and side stepping squats

We should all know how to squat safely but here’s a quick recap.

Standing with your feet hip width apart, find your pelvis neutral posture. Become aware of your pelvic floor muscles lifting and abdominals deepening as you lift through your waists gently. Fold your trunk over your hips as if you were aiming to sit onto a chair, your knees bending and your weight shifting into your heels. Remember your tall waist posture and unchanging spinal curves. AS you push up to a standing posture, push through your heels and be aware of your buttock muscles activating.

You can make this more challenging with your theraband tied around your knees, or with sidestepping squats across the room. Remember your sinking hips, folding trunk, tall waists and pushing up through your heels. When sidestepping, feel your leading leg doing most of the work.

Wake up those buttocks.

Step 3: Challenge your buttocks and build endurance with single leg squats, step-ups and jumps

So now you have found your buttocks and your brain knows what it’s like to use and feel them, you can really go for it. Single leg squats, with or without weights, lunges, step ups onto a step or parkbench. All of these will build endurance in your new found gluteals and give you a shapely derriere.

Remember the basics – good pelvic posture (‘neutral’ and no tipping sideways), tall waists, pelvic floor and deep abdominal engagement and pushing through your heels. Even a cupped hand over the buttock cheek will help to reinforce to your brain that you are activating well and feeling that lovely bulky butt!

Good luck rediscovering a shapely behind and giving your back, posture and tight leg muscles a lending hand too.

Read More

Think of your ‘tall ribs’ and get twisting

This exercise at a good slow and controlled pace really gets those oblique abdominals and upper trunk muscles going. Remember that these muscles are needed every day for any movement involving a turn of the body. Add to that your great shoulder stability and pelvic control and this exercise is a challenge for the whole trunk. This version has you in sitting, but you could also try it in a static wall squat or deep lunge position.

The Starting Position:

The focus:

• Sit on a chair or Swiss ball in ‘active sitting’. Active sitting starts with legs hip width apart to your feet, a neutral pelvis posture, long waists and a lifted breastbone.

• With a partner or your theraband fixed at one end, hold your theraband with clasped hands out in front of your chest.

• Set your shoulder blades softly and widely into their ‘pockets’ in the upper back and melt the tension away from your neck and shoulders.

• Imagine you are on a skewer, turning with a beautifully tall and centred axis.

• Twist with long waists and tallness between all of your ribs each side of your trunk. Think of the rib rack and thick meat between each and every rib.

• Keep melting through your shoulders and neck and keep stable and neutral on your pelvis.

The Movement:

 

• Breathe in deep and wide to prepare. As you breathe out, gently lift your pelvic floor muscles and imagine your hip bones drawing together at the front as your navel deepens.
• As you next breathe in, turn your trunk against your theraband resistance, keeping your hands in front of your chest at all times.
• As you exhale, slowly return your trunk to the middle.
• Repeat to the same side 8-10 times, before changing your set up to turn to the opposite direction.

 

 

 

Tip:

Try this same movement with a partner as you squat against a wall to really challenge your legs and pelvis more so for that complete body workout.

    

Read More

In July’s version of ‘pain tales’ we looked into nerves and how they send messages to the brain (and back again). Nerves conduct messages from our muscles, skin and joints as electrical impulses to and from our brain. Even the brain itself is made up of trillions of nerves and connections, and then there are the nerves that supply to our vital organs.

So what can happen when all of this goes amiss? When nerves become hyper sensitive due to injury, pressure or in chronic pain?

We have all probably heard about brain plasticity. This ability for the brain to change, adapt, ‘be plastic’ in reaction to stimuli can also be demonstrated in the peripheral nervous system. This peripheral nervous system includes all nerves outside of the brain (or central nervous system).

Lets explore…

Nerves are able to conduct electrical impulses or messages via their conductivity. Positive and negative ions pass over the nerve ‘walls’, charging them until the point that an impulse fires along the nerve. This is called an ‘action potential’. Charged ions can rush into the nerve via sensors, also known as receptors or ‘ion channels’. These are made of protein and ‘listen out’ or measure different stimuli. They are specific and specialised for just that stimulus. For example, light receptors in your eyes, or sound wave sensors in your ears.

There are only 3 types of sensors in your nerves for your muscle, skin and bones – one to detect the stimulus of temperature, one for mechanical changes (such as stretching, vibration, pulling) and one for chemical changes (such as adrenaline, acids, endorphins).

Changes detected by these 3 types of sensors will create the influx of ions to create a message that rushes along your nerve pathway to your brain, or back again. You may remember from previous discussions that these messages are NOT pain messages. Pain is the construct from the brain after weighing up all the information that the nerves have delivered for that time and that place.

The most amazing thing about these sensors is that their life is short- only living for a few days. They are always being replaced by new sensors and the type of sensor may change depending on what your brain decides is needed for your best survival. The brain does this by producing sensors proportionate to the stimuli around.

So, for example, if your posture is poor and you have rounded shoulders when you sit all day, the mechanical sensor numbers will be higher than the temperature or chemical ones in the nerves of this area of our body. This is because of the constant pulling loads on the nerves about your neck and upper back through your rounded shoulder and chin poked out. This makes for a very over sensitive area in your body, detecting lots of mechanical changes and forces and producing a higher rate of impulses from these nerves to the brain. Your brain may choose to ignore these, but will be more likely to feel more pain. And this makes for a tired painful neck and upper back. Sound familiar?

So back to ‘plasticity’ (and the good news if you suffer from pain)! The same can happen in reverse. The number of a particular sensor type in a nerve will reduce if the stimulus is less. And a return to a relatively balanced and stable number of each receptor type in all of your nerves. Using the same example of poor posture and rounded shoulders in our neck pain sufferers, better your posture –‘mangoes under the chin’, ‘long tall neck’, ‘lifted breastbones’ – move more, be stronger. This will decrease the mechanical pulling on your nerves up there, reduce the mechanical sensors about and therefore the number of impulses to your brain. The result – less pain!

So remember that nerve sensors are dying and being replaced every few days. Pain and sensitivity is always changing and that the pain you are in now is not fixed.

Read More

Read More

Pilates, Yoga and Feldenkrais can really capitalise on the practice of mindfulness

Mindfulness is originally a Buddhist term and is used a lot in clinical psychology for reducing stress, anxiety and depression. It is all about being in the present moment and allowing your thoughts, feelings and sensations to just be, without judgement. It is about being aware of the you without evaluation. 

Exercise disciplines such as Pilates, Yoga and Feldenkrais can really capitalise on the practice of mindfulness to enhance practice and results. Making contact with what is as you move, breathe or relax can better help you learn the movement, improve your strength, mobility and reduce pain levels. 

Mindful movement can be done through becoming aware of how you move. This can be done in the most simplest of ways, including:

Visualising the movement with closed eyes as you move

Visual representations and cues for your movement

Focusing on the sensations associated with the movement, such as muscles contracting or shortening, lengthening, stretching, or bones feeling heavy

Focusing on symmetry of movement across your body

Smooth and controlled movement

Mindfulness in movement allows for improved motor learning, or skill acquisition. By definition, human learning is any permanent change in behaviour, knowledge, skill or ability that cannot be ascribed to development or inherited growths. Motor learning is the process of learning a movement – from acquisition to practice. It requires the brain to ‘write’ motor programs amongst your nerve pathways using information about the movement, knowledge and experience. This includes the correct muscles to be used, the correct nerve pathways talking to the muscles, movement sequencing, timing and automation. To be more aware of your movement, you can ‘write’ your motor programs better to develop new movement habits and for them occur automatically. This is just like the preparatory activation of the deep pelvic stabilising muscles before your body moves to protect the spine and pelvis. Through thoughtful practice, your deep muscles can do just this! 

Pain management for those with all sorts of pain associated with movement or postures benefit hugely from thoughtful movement. Pain is ‘wired up’ in the brain as ‘pain movies” (as we’ve spoken about several times in our ‘Pain Tales’ posts). We know that subjective feelings about movement and pain can ‘fire off’ the pain experience in someone with persistent pain. Remembering that particular movements have always been painful, have caused pain before, evaluating movement experiences as ‘good’, ‘bad’ or fear that movement or exercise will make the pain worse – this can all get in the way of beating the pain cycle. By minimising these subjective describing words and judgements when exercising mindfully, it is often possible to move through the pain. This can establish new nerve pathways, movements that are no longer as threatening, less pain with activity and a potential breaking down of the pain cycle. 

At The Fix Program, as physiotherapists, we truly believe and place a huge emphasis on mindful movement. Within our classes, we use a mix of strategies to bring you ‘into the moment’ with your exercise, to forget what’s going on outside the studio, become more aware of your own movement patterns and to make change. And we see wonderful results in doing this.

Why not try practicing mindfulness in everything you do? From your exercise routines, to your work and home life. Live in the moment without judgemental thoughts getting in the way.

Read More

We’ve discussed how the brain can produce a pain experience when it perceives a threat. Threatening inputs, memories and circumstances can also lead to a stress response, which many in turn worsen your pain. Today we’ll talk about how relaxation brings pain relief – but first, what is stress?

We’ve all heard the expression ‘fight or flight’. This is how the body has evolved to respond to any threatening situation. In times of stress the body uses a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol turns on process we need for survival and switches off process that are not needed for survival. What do you need if a tiger is chasing you? Muscles – to fight or run away and your brain – for quick thinking! What don’t you need if a tiger is chasing you? Reproduction and digestion. Healing can probably also be put on hold.

So as you can see, this stress response is great in an emergency, but what if that tiger follows you around for a year and you’re stressed all the time? Prolonged elevated cortisol levels have been linked to depression, mood swings, memory changes, poor healing, weight gain and immune problems.

So you can see that if your pain is making you stressed, your stress can make things much worse, including the pain itself.

On the flip side, when you’re relaxed and feeling good, your body produces ‘happy hormones’ such as such as opioids and serotonin that block danger messages travelling up the nerves to your brain. We know that they’re 60 times more powerful than the strongest pain-relieving drug on the market. A lovely ‘soup’ for your brain and nerves to float around in.

So how do you de-stress. For a start, stop worrying about the pain. This makes a lot of sense now you know that worrying about your pain is scientifically proven to make it worse. Yoga, relaxation, meditation and breathing techniques have also been proven to reduce the level of circulating stress hormones and increase your level of happy hormones. Try going for a walk, listening to relaxing music, or just clearing your mind for twenty minutes every day.

Another technique is to set aside ‘worry time’. Rather than worrying about things constantly (and keeping your Cortisol levels elevated) make a specific time every week when you think about your worries. If a worry enters your head at another time, like when you’re trying to fall asleep, set it aside for your ‘worry time’.

So remember - relax and feel less pain.

Read More

Tabitha shares her personal feelings about taking on the running challenge

Until four months ago, I could not have conceived of calling myself ‘a runner’ – I was sure that it was something obviously, even inherently impossible. I’m not sure what made me so sure, since I’ve led a fairly active life and have exercised in many different ways. Yet for some reason the thought of jogging for 30mins straight seemed insurmountably difficult.

Somehow, the idea of learning to jog began circulating amongst my friends and family. Many were total beginners, and enthusiasm occurred across the whole spectrum of age, shape and size. I was intrigued, and discovered a quiet envy for the joy and achievement that runners reported. I was also looking for a way to increase my overall fitness to combat the pain I feel from old sporting injuries – the relationship between increased fitness and decreased pain experience has been a valuable lesson I have learned from The Fix Program.

Soon afterwards, a friend recommended the book Running like a Girl by Alexandra Heminsley. Initially it reads like a runner’s memoir, telling the tale of Heminsley’s own journey in becoming a runner – from the first agonizing jog to her marathon peaks and troughs. She demonstrates that while running requires some commitment, its rewards are many, particularly for your self-confidence. She encourages the reader to tie up their laces, give it a go, and keep running regularly. Ideal for novice runners, this book’s heartfelt, conversational and hilarious style guides you through your concerns and assures you that they are both common and unfounded. It also includes very helpful practical pointers about running, debunking ineffective practices and thoughts that beginners (such as myself!) could fall into and offering positive advice in its place. I took her advice and resolved to start running.

To help me along the way was the popular smart phone app called Couch 2 5K. This isa complete jogging program that aims to turn a beginner into a 5km runner – about 30mins of continuous running – in just nine weeks. The app directs you through audio cues, easily heard over music, to alternate between walking and jogging in prescribed intervals over half an hour. The lengths of the jogging intervals are slowly increased throughout the sessions, and the change felt gradual and entirely manageable to me. This handy, practical tool uses the principles of goal setting and pacing (as discussed in many Fix Program classes). With this you can slowly and steadily achieve your jogging goals while giving the body time to recuperate between sessions. This helps in avoiding the boom-bust cycle of yoyo exercisers and the associated injuries and discouragement I had both experienced and been warned about in Heminsley’s book. By the end of nine weeks I had read the book twice and could jog without stopping for a full half hour – I was completely transformed, both mentally and physically, and feel fitter and more confident than my pessimistic past self would have believed possible.

Maybe you too can become a runner?

Read More

Make time for yourself

In pregnancy and after the arrival of your baby, even a short relaxation time each day will make a big difference to your stress levels and feelings of tiredness that can seem overwhelming. This time spent relaxing can also increase your ability to cope and aid in a better overall hea_l_th and mental wellbeing. If you are still to give birth, these techniques can be used within labour to aid in pain relief.

What makes me stressed?

We’ve all heard the expression ‘fight or flight’. This is how the body has evolved to respond to any threatening situation. In times of stress the body uses a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol turns on processes we need for survival and switches off processes that are not needed for survival. This is great in an emergency, but if you are stressed all of the time, prolonged elevated cortisol levels have been linked to depression, mood swings, memory changes, poor healing, weight gain and immune problems.

On the flip side, when you’re relaxed and feeling good, your body produces ‘happy hormones’ such as opioids and serotonin.

How do I de-stress?

For a start, try to stop worrying. Yoga, relaxation, meditation and breathing techniques have also been proven to reduce the level of circulating stress hormones and increase your level of happy hormones.

Try going for a walk, listening to relaxing music, or just clearing your mind for twenty minutes every day.

Try to set aside ‘worry time’. Rather than worrying about things constantly (and keeping your cortisol levels elevated), make a specific time every week when you think about your worries.

Try this relaxation technique when lying down or sitting comfortably. Close your eyes and focus on your deep breathing. Focus on the cool air as you breathe in through your nose and the warm air and you breathe out through your mouth. Focus on one body part at a time starting from your head all the way to your toes imagining all your muscles releasing and feeling heavy.

Try to take time to practice the Buddhist practice of mindfulness throughout your day. Even a minute here and there to become mindful of your breath, the comings and goings of your body sensations, tensions and your surroundings can help to de-clutter your brain and provide energy and calmness.

Read More

Discover the ‘core’ muscles of your neck – the deep neck flexors

We are all aware of the role of the deep abdominals, pelvic floor and diaphragm as postural support muscles for the lower trunk and pelvis. These act together and in balance to support and stabilise the gentle curves of the lumbar spine and the alignments of pelvic joints.

Just as we have this deep and balanced support in our lower trunk, we have a similar set up and about the neck. The neck or cervical spine, like the lumbar spine, has a gentle concave curve to it and there are many muscles attaching to these vertebrae. It is again the relative activity or balance between these muscles that can help support our curve well and release tension from the larger superficial muscles at the back of our neck. We probably all know of these after too much time spent in a poor posture at the computer or after a long drive.

The neck flexors sit at the front of your neck (near your throat) and the extensors behind our neck from the base of the skull to across the upper shoulders. Postures with our chin poked forward or with a head that tilts back too much (such as reading though bifocals at the computer screen), cause a relative imbalance between these 2 sets of muscles with too much activity, tiredness and tension in the extensors and not enough activity from the front at the flexors. How often have you had the painful tense neck and shoulder region, possibly stretching to the shoulder blade region, or up to the head as a headache?

Gentle lengthening through the back of your neck from the base of your skull and remembering to hold your mango gently under your chin is a great start to achieve muscular balance around the neck. Try this when you next sit at your desk, drive or read the newspaper at the breakfast table.

Here is another deep neck strengthening exercise to try on your mat on the floor. All movements here are extremely subtle, so learn to take it easy and feel for slight contractions in your neck muscles near your throat.

The Starting Position:

The focus:

• Lie on your back in the basic relaxed position, pelvis neutral and with your head resting on a folded towel of approximately 9 layers.

• Make sure your towel is pulled to the base of your neck for support.

• Focus on your wide shoulder blade placement and feel their heaviness on the mat.

• Allow your neck to melt, release your jaw and feel your shoulder melting away from your ears. Imagine a mango held delicately under your chin.

• You could picture the clowns with wide open mouths for pingpong balls here at the Easter show – turn with a lovely long neck on a pure central axis.

• Keep breathing

• Focus on subtle contractions and slow movements

• Try to maintain a soft length to the back of your neck.

The Movement:

 

• Gently lengthen the back of your neck as if your skull is moving away from your shoulders.
• Now gently push your tongue to the roof of your mouth. Become aware of the subtle muscle activity at the front of your neck near your ‘voice box’.
• While keeping this tongue position, gently roll your head to one side. Imagine the front of the neck melting, shoulder melting away from the ears and the neck feeling long at the back. Repeat rolling side to side 8-10 times.
• Finish by gently pushing the back of your head down into the towel. Focus on your long neck, soft jaw, tongue pushing upwards and not squashing your mango

 

 

 

Tip: Try this every night before you go to bed. It will take you 2 minutes and will help alleviate neck tension from the day and support your neck in the balanced way as it were meant.

Read More