The loss of mobility, its evident with people trying to get up or down, or even into and out of a car. We all get it. It creeps up on us. But does it have too? You can see it in all of us, just go out and watch people walk.
Clients I saw this week. I just ask them to walk.... we want a fluid walk, no struggle as if its poetic. But for those that struggle, there is movements missing, and its never just one
I call these blind spots
There is an awkwardness a hesitation as if the body can't quite get there.
the head may not fully rotate the jaw is locked more to one side the eyes tend to favour looking down no equal sway of the hips one arm swings more forward than the other one foot may turn out like a duck and pull the body with it a knee maybe bowed out also pulling that way the body may have exaggerated curves and favour a side of the body
For me and my clients it’s what can be done to regain better mobility. For you to walk you need both muscles and a skeleton Consider the joints, they're like cogs The muscles are like chains. Fascia is like a fine film of lubricant.
None is more important than the other.
With no bones, you are a bowl of porridge on the ground No muscles, and you are not going anywhere. Both move within the fascia
These things, they all interact at the same time, when walking if it is not all on then it’s not beautiful anymore.
Think like the Cogs have frozen up....the joints are jammed. Maybe not all of them, just selective ones. Initially its just a few but as we age our walk becomes less expressive
Chains have been deactivated. Fascia is way overactive. The muscles are not all firing, so now there is unequal forces and the person walks less perfectly and its not as easy or as much fun as it was. If this happens, you don't move well. You see it, it looks very awkward.
If you keep pushing it , “ look just train harder” its working against its ability, less is actually working but you fight through it. The body will create a change, to appose your fight, an equal but opposite force against what you are trying to do, it changes the cogs chemistry and freeze it up harder, thus the beginning of arthritis.
With over 300 cogs and over 500 muscles that is a lot of possible interaction and a lot of possible movement issues.
Why would the body do this to itself??? Its genetic, the genetic code created everything and the genetic code maintains it.....you dont, you just feed it and use it.
If there is an environmental influence, a fall an accident it will protect itself.....thus a challenged birth, a toddler event Thus falls, car accidents, horse or surfing or heavy duty sporting crashes, scars, surgeries...it's the survival systems, the fight or flight trigger, it protects itself, it hunches down and locks joints, stops muscles moving towards the pain and tightens up the fascia....blind spots.
The cool thing. You can work around this, get the body to correct itself. But its a huge but obvious issue, you have to get past the over protection first then...."a limbic reset" 1. Turn off the history and reset ( I use NKT, NOT, myofascial, kinesiology, AiM, ART....etc) the structures one step at a time....like a factory default as i said a reset, one after another after another 2. The body heals itself, and it can, and it knows that it should, as I said the genetic survival and protection must be turned off and then back on ....a reset.
As I said body is like a clock with those joints like cogs and muscles like chains moving the clock.....for some a poor clock, for others its OK, still a clock, not a good one others it’s ....broken.
But movement or walking follows rules, muscles turn on as other are turned off, and walking is in three dimensions. Its easy to see which cogs are freezing, which patterns are wrong.
Muscles also follow rules, chains of muscles work as a team not as individuals. But if one chain is on, others must go off.
So to re-aattain better movement, a lot has to be done. Firstly its not about the client, they would walk beautifully if they could, its about the body, its in those places we have no access too.....but we must get that part of the body to realise its not working well.
Test what works and what does not.....if it doesn't work, it wiill fail, lots of fails gets that brains attention.
Find what turned these structures off....this is all about the history.
Once we have structures, joints and muscles back on. We put the team back together, we need to continually reteach better movement, improved mobility, essentially how to walk again,
My clients ....we can reinstall a better clock, by following the bodies natural rules. But walking is now a good way for them to “check in, maintain and correct” the whole body
It’s not exercise it’s creating better habits