Low Back Pain, Sciatica, Hip Pain, SI Joint Pain, Knee Pain What do they all have in common?

Lower back pain, Sciatica, hip pain, SI joint pain, knee pain are all symptoms of intrinsic core muscles that are not well coordinated. No amount of crunches, planks, or sit ups will fix this. More often than not, they make the problem worse.

When you suffer from low back pain, etc. you are feeling the result of a disconnect in your intrinsic core. There are several muscles deep within you that work together to provide stability and support to the spine. These muscles are harder to feel as they are not superficial. When the intrinsic core muscles are well coordinated it provides stability for walking, climbing stairs, carrying heavy objects, sports and moving about your day without bracing.

Bracing happens when there is a muscle imbalance. A muscle imbalance means the nervous system tells a muscle to stay high tone or tense all the time, like setting an emergency brake. Unfortunately, if one muscle is constantly tense the opposing muscle must release its tone (reciprocal inhibition). This tensing of muscles on one side and weakening of muscles on the other side of a joint begins to pull the joint out of alignment limiting balanced support. As we move our body friction is created in the vertebrae, hip, knee, etc. Pain isn’t the problem, it is the body’s way of telling you your core is not stabilizing, you're bracing, and friction is deteriorating a joint faster than it should.

There is a predictable pattern of bracing within the body. We already know which muscles tend to hold tension and which tend to release tone, see picture above.

How do we correct it? We recoordinate the intrinsic core muscles. We reconnect to the cylinder of stability within each of us by doing what we did to build it originally. Babies build their intrinsic core first because it provides stability for all other movements, even superficial core movements like crunches and sit ups.

Retraining our deep intrinsic core muscles to work together isn’t hard. It does take focus and awareness to reconnect and learn to use them throughout the rest of our day.

Schedule a Functional Movement Assessment to start rebuilding your support system and get back to or keep doing the activities you love.

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By Julie Hill • 15 Mar, 2024

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Spine Stability First then Range of Motion

By Julie Hill • 21 Sep, 2023

When it comes to spine stability and health maintaining shared segmental load is a must. Producing too much movement (or load) from one spot in the spine creates structural issues leading to osteoarthritis, degenerative disc disease, and disk herniation. Often the muscles that support shared segmental loading of the spine need to be retrained. A yoga class is great for getting us to move our spines through the different planes of movement. If we are not careful, we can get caught up in the poses and miss the awareness of where we are moving from. We are born with thoracic kyphosis (flexion) in our spine. It is developed in utero and referred to as our primary curve. As infants we work hard to develop our secondary curves. Lordosis is developed in the cervical and lumbar sections of our spine during our first 12 months. Our movements as babies help develop the muscles to support and maintain these curves. As adults our occupations or habits can cause movement patterns that fail to maintain shared segmental loading of the spine. Repetitive motions, sitting, looking at a computer or down at our phone for extended periods of time all shift us toward failing to support our spine. Unconsciously we move more and more from just a few segments in the spine and eventually suffer from neck or lower back pain. Through awareness and retraining, we can coordinate our muscles again to support and maintain shared segmental loading of our spine. These movements are most likely ones you haven't done in years :) Our spine is a miraculous structure. If you haven’t gotten down on the floor and crawled around, I recommend it! Interested in feeling a change? Schedule a Movement or Breathing session with Julie.

Nasal Breathing Boosts Overall Health & Fitness

By Julie Hill • 21 Sep, 2023

There are numerous benefits to breathing through your nose. The benefits range from obvious ones such as better sleep, a calming state, avoiding dry mouth and gum disease to the less obvious ones like straight teeth, better posture, improving your energy and immune system. Your initial reaction to thinking about how you breathe is probably like mine was, "I always breathe through my nose, 100% of the time". Take a moment to explore this. Try this short self-quiz. (Be honest.) Recite the Pledge of Allegiance out loud (Or read this entire article out loud) notice if you are inhaling through your nose or mouth. I find that over 90% of people I encounter breathe through their mouth while talking. Watch the newscasters on TV or listen to the DJs on the radio for examples. What about when exercising? I definitely used to breath threw my mouth while exercising. When I combined the mouth breathing, I was doing while exercising and talking (I talk for a living) at least 50% of my awake time was mouth breathing. Who knew what I did while sleeping! Training yourself to continually breathing is worth the effort. Benefits of Nasal Breathing: -Filters dust and allergens in the air -Moistens and warms the air -Prevents over breathing (it's a real thing and very common) -Releases Nitric Oxide (NO is a vasodilator, it opens air passages naturally) -Boosts oxygen consumption and improves circulation -Improves lung volume -Aides immune system -Supports the correct formation or teeth and jaw -Lowers risk of snoring and sleep apnea -Prevents dry mouth and gum disease As a functional breathing coach, the first place I work with clients is nasal breathing which automatically improves their overall breathing. We breathe over 25,000 times a day, 24 hours a day. Taking 4-5 minutes a few times a day to retrain your breathing pattern goes a long way to improving our overall heath. You may be curious about breathing through your nose while exercising. I was recently interviewed by Matt Miller with Cycle Magazine for the benefits of nasal breathing while biking. Read the interview here: https://www.singletracks.com/mtb-progression/why-nasal-breathing-could-be-key-to-breathing-better-on-you-next-mtb-ride/ Here is another article from the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/when-it-comes-to-breathing-during-exercise-youre-probably-doing-it-wrong/2019/01/23/b4d3c338-1e59-11e9-8b59-0a28f2191131_story.html Use this video link for exercises to improve your nasal breathing habit. https://youtu.be/auNlCLS2uCI?si=Z50LvbMkz-SQdMkY Questions about where to start with improving your own breathing? Schedule a Functional Breathing Assessment or send an email.