Hip Shoes

by John Elder (Egoscue Nashville)

This will also be posted at www.myfivefingers.com in the near future, but I wanted to give you all a sneak peak! This is part 2 of a 4-part series:

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Today we begin our journey onward and upward with the second installment of my guest blog spot with Daniel and www.myfivefingers.com. Over the next few weeks, we will work our way up the body, talking about your breathing in addition to that rotator cuff pain you’re having at Mile 4 of your run, but this week we’ll take on something that sits a little closer to your feet.

As a reminder from last week’s article, I gave an introduction to The Egoscue Method and described to you how we look at the body and what the designed alignment of the body should be. I also told you that Egoscue believes that the vast majority of musculoskeletal pain, be it that never-ending headache, plantar fasciitis, or anything in between, is due to misalignment of the skeletal system.

We believe that you are designed to move! There is no such thing as a bad motion, and pain is simply your body’s way of telling you that something isn’t quite right. When we address your pain and when talking about overall function and biomechanics we have to keep in mind the kid’s song that states, “The foot bone’s connected to the leg bone.” You can’t forget that the body is a unit, and as we address the cause of your pain we need to stay focused on the big picture.

This week I want to tackle your hip pain. I’m sure some of you reading this article are dealing with a degenerative hip and have been told that you’re headed for a hip replacement. And, you very well might be. Whether you have been told that you need one or not isn’t really what you should be concerned about. The bigger question at play here is the one focused on “why” you have the pain. Yes, surgery can instantly take pain away but the true cause, or the mechanism of pathological movement, has not been addressed. That is where YOU come in. Let me ask you this question and see if it gets your attention. What if you could avoid, or at the very least, delay, that hip replacement and hang on to your original parts for as long as possible?

Think about this: When you cut your arm, it doesn’t stay cut. When you break your leg, it doesn’t stay broken. When you get your hair cut, it grows back. You are a living, breathing organism, and your body is in a constant state of renewal. Your degenerative hip is no different. There is a reason why your hip is degenerating, just like there is a reason why the right front tire on your car is going bald and the others are not. If you eliminate the cause, you’ll eliminate the symptom.

Remember, we are talking about your Vibram FiveFingers (VFFs) and how they, when given the chance, will help you stay functional. So let’s talk about how the VFFs impact your hip function.

When we compare the VFFs to the vast majority of other shoes, if not all shoes, we realize that the VFF is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Go look in your closet and you’ll notice that every other shoe you own has a tapered toe box and brings the toes together. It is, most likely, extremely stiff, and allows for little-to-no motion. In comparison, the role of the VFFs is to let your foot spread and move freely with each step you take in life. We at Egoscue have basically adopted these amazing shoes as our own! They really are that good…but you already knew that! They allow the bones of your feet to spread apart and then compress together as your foot progresses through the normal walking or running motion. With stiff shoes, this just doesn’t happen. The VFFs call upon the muscles and arches of the feet to do their job properly, without worrying about “constriction”. When the muscles of the foot and arch function better, so does the ankle, knee, hip and spinal column. The load joints above the foot are finally doing their job (and ONLY their job, rather than compensating) because of the functional domino effect that begins with a more neutral, free-moving, foot. Because the VFF is extremely pliable and malleable, they create a free-flowing mechanism to happen in your feet without disturbing your busy lifestyle. I can’t say enough great things about them, and just to be clear, I don’t work for Vibram, I just love the concept and product!

Is this starting to make sense? I hope you can see that there is a huge connection between what the foot is being allowed to do and how the hip responds. Just for fun, let’s play a game of anatomical “connect-the-dots”:

In an effort to not get overly technical and anatomical, take a look at your leg. That’s it, just look down. See how your foot is connected to your hip? Congratulations! You just played your first game of anatomical “connect-the-dots”. If you can see that the two are connected, then we have to assume that your shoes are greatly impacting your hip. There aren’t any hidden secrets here. You don’t have to have an anatomy degree. It truly is that simple. The foot bone is connected to the leg bone!

Try this on for size! What would you say if I told you that your “overly pronated” feet, diagnosed by your nearby shoes store, are that way in an attempt to create a locking mechanism during your standing posture and your walking? This locking mechanism is crucial to correct foot, knee, hip, and spinal motion. Kind of makes you think a bit, especially when you have been told that pronation is a bad thing. Egoscue begs to differ, and the reason we differ is that we have faith in the human body doing exactly what it should be doing at that time. So instead of hindering your motion, let’s increase your motion and what better place to start than your feet! If you let the foot move like it should, it will relearn exactly what it is designed to do, and do it! Remember, your symptoms are signals that something is not working as it should. Your hip pain or your degenerative joint issues are symptoms of something much larger at play. This must not be overlooked, and the VFF shoes could be just the answer you are looking for.

Trust me, I’m not expecting the guys at Vibram to come out and say that your degenerative hip will be cured by wearing their shoes, but I am here to say that their shoes will play a huge role in your hip joint regaining full function because of what the VFFs allow your foot to do and the way they positively impact the rest of your load joints.

Once your gait is changed, the hip will be allowed to function properly and, only then, will the body have a chance to heal itself. Remember, you cut your arm and it doesn’t stay cut, you break your leg and it doesn’t stay broken, why is your hip joint any different? The answer is, it isn’t.

Get in your VFFs (regardless of how weird they might look) and let your body function at its optimum level. If you’re wanting to get a head-start on your overall function and biomechanics you can CLICK HERE to download four e-cises that will help you start living life PAIN FREE!

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The premise of The Egoscue Method is postural therapy: realigning the body to its original design blueprint through proper functional muscle engagement and without the use of drugs, surgery or manipulation. John Elder is the Clinic Director and Owner of the Franklin, Tennessee location. John found the Method at the age of 16 after suffering for two years with a bulging disc in his lower back. He has lived the last 16 years pain free and the last 5 years as an Egoscue Therapist sharing his story of hope with others throughout the south. Contact John today by emailing johne@egoscue.com or by calling the Nashville Clinic at 615.771.8556.

Posture relates to pain for Judd

Below are exerts from a great interview with Chris Judd on how his football career has been affected by incorrect posture. Pain and posture will always be linked whether your a weekend warrior, a professional athlete or an office worker.

The great thing is, no matter what condition your in right now your body can "turn back the clock" and regain what seems to be lost. Enjoy.

Pete

CHRIS Judd is standing upright in an inner city cafe, demonstrating how a new posture will save his groin. For the football fan, this is an arresting moment.

Judd is, truly, an inside player. His advice to the impatient masses is not to expect the stellar Judd early in the 2008 season. He is recovering from a groin injury, and an operation he now reckons might have been unnecessary.

"Had I had my time over, I’d think long and hard about having surgery at all." Judd, a reader of The Australian Financial Review, is dampening initial market expectations.
"Yeah, I think it will take a while. I don’t think I’ll bowl into the season the same way I bowled into last season or the season before. I mean, just because of my preseason, I’ve only been kicking for a month. I’m still yet to do any competitive work."

The elite athlete Melbourne identified is most animated when discussing his new way of standing, and walking, and how his groin is mending because of it. Judd has always played the game with a rare awareness of what surrounds him; now, that awareness extends to his body.
He understands now that his groin problem was caused by the way he moves and stands, that the teenage shoulder injuries that so worried clubs pre-draft have influenced his posture, and thus impacted upon his groin.

"My sitting posture was terrible. It’s very interesting the way it works. It’s interesting how something like my shoulders had an impact on my groins. Ever since I was sort of 16 years old, I’ve never done bench press. But I’ve just hammered chin ups . . . and my lats got so tight that it was that tightness and the effect that was having on my posture — you know, along with a million other things — that played a role in the injury.

"It’s amazing how much my awareness of everything I do has really increased."
Judd has spent several hours a week working on his new posture with movement expert Mark McGrath, formerly of the Victorian Institute of Sport, who works for an anti-child obesity organisation. "That illustrated to me just how sort of bad a lot of my postures and things like that have become."

The most painful lesson of 2007 was that he should not have kept playing injured, as he did in late in the season. "It was a dumb decision. I’m lucky to have gotten out of it . . . the groin’s pretty good now. "I’m pretty close to actually being able to play. But it’s just a case if I do too much, then they flare up and they get sore and then I’ve just got to back off for a while.

by Jake Niall

The Bodies notion for Motion is missing a proper method

I see hundreds of casualties from what is called "compensatory motion" every week. Thirty-five million Americans suffer from some sort of back or joint pain, and the United States Labor Department's Occupational Health and Safety Administration estimates that upward of 100 million people have varying degrees of repetitive stress injury.

More than two decades ago, I made an observation that is now the cornerstone of what I call the Egoscue Method: the human body - bones, muscles, every system and subsystem - is designed to maintain itself through motion. The body is designed on the basis of parallel vertical and horizontal lines forming 90-degree angles. The verticals run down the right and left sides of the body through the shoulders, hips, knees, ankles and feet. The horizontals go right to left through the pairs of shoulder, hip knee and ankle joints. It's a grid. When the 90-degree angles are violated, the structural integrity of the body is compromised.

Modern living does not provide enough motion and - most important - enough of the proper motion to keep the body fully fit, totally functional and pain free. The body is so efficient that when a muscle is not being used, it is literally shut down, put on hold. All of us have experienced this. Catch a cold or get busy at work, lay off the exercise routine for a couple of days, and what happens? It's tough to get started again. We're stiff and easily winded. On a much larger scale, muscles that were designed for vital function like walking, bending over at the waist, twisting to the right or left and lifting heavy objects have shut down from disuse. Even so, we still have to move around and that's where compensatory motion sets in. Without these major muscle groups, other muscles that weren't designed for the function are called into action. They're not up to the job over the long haul. The result is pain or diminished physical capacity and performance.

It may take years of compensatory motion to arrive at the final destination - our bodies are tough - but breakdown is inevitable. Remember it's not just motion, it's proper motion. I've worked with talented offensive and defensive football linemen who were unable to transfer their weight when the ball was snapped without first bobbing upward at the knee and shifting their feet. Wham! That nanosecond left them vulnerable to being taken out. Despite all the hours of practice and weight training, high school and college ball and endless drills, these athletes are still products of their own culture, and that means they've been running a motion deficit since infancy.

The great thieves of bodily function are cars, desks and television sets. Technology is robbing us of a precious legacy. We are losing our life-support system. In many respects, quarterback Joe Montana, now suffering form a foot injury, is like Sampras. The femur, the large bone of the thigh, is internally rotated, his feet are externally rotated and his hips are tilted forward. He has lost the curvature of his spine, and his shoulders are rounded forward, which has also pulled the head forward. All of these conditions have nothing to do with football and every thing to do with proper motion. Montana has been playing with a dysfunctional body since the day he first put on shoulder pads. It has been getting worse by the day. Everyone knows Montana doesn't throw deep anymore. It's not that he's 38 years old. His body will not allow him to transfer his weight into the throwing motion. Montana compensates by throwing with his arm and not with his entire body. Joe is like us. His posture is identical to that of millions of other Americans, from cab drivers to schoolteachers.

Look in a full-length mirror: Is one shoulder higher than the other is? How about the hips? Are they dead level? Do the knees and feet point straight ahead? Stand sideways. Are the shoulders and head rounded forward? Are the hips rolling forward or back? Our body grids are a mess and we rationalize it as old age, family traits or just the way things are. But we've become a sedentary society. It is easier not to move. There's no penalty for remaining relatively stationary in one place hour after hour. In fact there are handsome rewards in terms of money and prestige. Sadly, when we decide to finally "get in shape," we end up further stressing out the muscles involved in compensatory motion and continuing to bypass those that need to be re-engaged. What we need to do is give our major muscle groups a wake-up call. What we need to recognize is that the body isn't fragile. It isn't broken. But without enough motion - proper motion - we are all slowly dying in place. Do you have any questions? Feel free to email us.
We are committed to your health and well-being.

by Pete Egoscue

Pete Hedley is a Postural Alignment Specialist trained in the Egoscue Method and can be contacted at postureguy@bigpond.com