Hey everyone! If you have landed here, you have probably been THINKING about taking Pilates classes, or getting in some extra cardio, or been curious what exactly is Roll Model Method® self massage. Well that curiosity probably came from some types of pains you have been having in your body and you feel it’s hard to find the right kind of exercise that works for you. I feel you. I have tried, and not stuck with, plenty of fad exercises over the years and I have dealt with LOTS of chronic pain starting from the age of ten.
Yep. You read that right. TEN YEARS OLD.
That’s a long time to be dealing with chronic pain. If you have chronic pain you probably feel like you get injured easily or you hurt MORE after a workout. You might feel like you need to hold back in class to protect yourself. Maybe you were feeling good and giving it your all in a workout class and but something still hurt. Then a couple days later you really felt sore. And not that good sore feeling, but that feeling of UGH!!! My body is not right.
Chances are you have some habits going on in your body that probably need to be addressed!
Did you know 98% of all pain is from moving in a bad position or having lack of mobility somewhere in your body? That means we can start to doing things RIGHT NOW to begin to alleviate our aches and pains.
Here are 3 things you can do RIGHT NOW. EVERYDAY.
To address your pain.
Straighten out those feet!
Ok here is what I want you to do. Turn around in a circle 3 times and then
STOP!
FREEZE!
Don’t try to fix anything. Look down at your feet. How are they pointing? Straight ahead? Out like a duck? In like a pigeon?
Are you a half duck/half pigeon? Now try to straighten out your feet. Place your feet under your hips with your SECOND TOE pointing straight ahead. Lots of yoga teachers in my past used to say make the outside edges of your feet parallel. That is actually a little TOO turned in. You will see the difference below.
When the 2nd toe aims straight forward you are able to carry your weight over your feet better, it puts less stress on any hip/knee/ankle pain you might have. And it can even help low back pain!
Pretend your 2nd toe and knees have headlights on them. Point them straight ahead.
Now check yourself all day long. How are you feet pointing in the grocery store? How do they point when you are on a walk or run? How do they point in your squats or downward dogs? Can you make them straight?
Duck feet. (see how my 2nd toes are pointing away from each other
Straight feet! See how my toes and knees are pointing straight forward. Now that’s nice!
Pigeon Feet! See how my toes are pointing toward each other
2. Drop your ribs!
Imagine if your mother told you to “STAND UP STRAIGHT!!!” What would you do? Would it look something like this? ——->
Hmmm looks a little like a military posture, right? Or like you are a human banana. Your low back and hip flexors are really not going to like that.
Military Posture Ribs out in front of my hip bones.
Now try this. Stand up straight, but NOT like your mother told you. Can you feel the front of your rib cage sticking out? It’s like you have rib boobs (and you want to only have one set of boobs, not two). Put your hands on those front ribs and then DROP those front ribs down. Feel how that makes your abs start to wake up? Feel how your back starts to lengthen out behind you? THAT’S BETTER!
Ribs dropped. No more rib boobs! Ribs right over my hips!
AHHHH your whole body is smiling at you! Here’s a video demonstrating how to do that!———>
3. Find your puppet string!
One last thing. When you dropped your ribs did you feel how your head came forward? WOAH! all of a sudden we REVEAL our forward head habit (all that driving and computer work we do, everything is in front of us, and our head goes toward all that stuff). So we lift our ribs to bring our head back. Now we know that lifting our ribs only gives up an extra set of boobs and probably an unhappy low back amongst other aches and pains.
So here is what I want you to do: Imagine you have a top knot or a puppet string on the crown of your head. feel like someone is gently pulling that string up to the ceiling while you make the gentlest of double chins. I mean gentle, like it’s a secret. No one will see it I promise. Now you should feel like you just grew an inch! If you had on long dangling earrings they would fall right on top of your shoulders instead of in front of them.
<——-Here’s a video!
Let’s put it it all together.
Straighten out your feet so your 2nd toe aims forward then:
Drop your ribs, smile your collarbones, and roll your shoulders down your back
Feel a puppeteer gentling pulling your head up to the ceiling while you secretly make a double chin.
Try it out. Tell me how it goes in the comments!