Use Your Breath to Relieve Back Pain and Tightness
Today’s exercise is a go-to solution I give clients for homework, especially if they are needing back pain relief, or chronic feelings of tightness in their back. It’s inspired by an exercise from Marie-José Blom’s Smartspine™ System.
Stress and poor alignment habits can change how you breathe, resulting in shallow breathing, or breathing that inappropriately uses your neck and shoulders. Poor alignment and breathing habits can also contribute to poor spine health and can leave your back feeling chronically stiff.
This is my absolute favorite exercise for relieving my back!
The Flamingo Stretch for Chronic Sitters and Heeled-Shoe Wearers
We’ve talked a lot about how frequent daily sitting over time shortens the muscles and soft tissue on the front of your hips and we’ve demonstrated an effective stretch to help with shortened, painful hip flexors. We’ve also talked about how the lifted heels in shoes can shorten your calves; even the smallest heel in a […]
Assess Your Hip Flexors and Quads to Solve Back Pain and More
Your leg’s ability to go behind you is called hip extension. And when it comes to walking, hip extension is vital for a healthy gait. When the muscles on the front of your hips (your hip flexors and quads) get too tight and short, they can actually prevent your leg from going behind your body. […]
How to Realign Your Toes and Relieve Tightness in Your Feet
Foot health equals whole-body health and, unfortunately, the design of many modern shoes doesn’t support the health of our feet. When the alignment of your foot is altered by a narrow and/or lifted toe box, or a lifted heel (which includes the padded heels found in many running shoes) it’s going to impact the way […]
Relieve Forearm, Shoulder and Neck Pain with the Thumb Stretch
Our hands are an easily overlooked part of the body when it comes to release work and alignment. We rarely even think about our hands, and everything we use them for, until something hurts or stops working. Consider everything you use your hands for every day: making food, typing, texting, cleaning, gardening, driving, just to […]
A Subtle Hip Flexor Stretch that Releases Hidden Tightness
Your body adapts to the way you use it every day. For example, when you walk, your hip flexors stretch to one length and, when you sit, they become dramatically shorter. This flexibility according to need is very important. If you spend a lot of time sitting every day, your body eventually learns that you […]