I recently wrote about our CLUB CVWC, our Fundamental Movement Therapy (sm), and most recently what will help keep you from the need of using a walker and creating better balance. The following are some random thoughts and just how all of this ties together for your overall Wellness!

This picture is one that depicts stress in our daily lives. There are many different forces that we are bombarded with on a daily basis. How our bodies and most importantly our brain deals with them is what will drive our overall feeling of health and vitality. The drug companies keep on coming up with prescriptions that will make us sleep better, not wet our pants, have better sex, make sure that we have good blood pressure and as you all know there are many more. What I do find amusing, as many others do, the commercial is a minute long with about 15 seconds devoted to the benefits and 45 seconds to the side effects. I do find some of them amusing and frightening, especially the one that says it may cause death. 

I have recently signed up for Medicare and had the prescription drug plan explained to me and why I should sign up for it. Research has shown that as we get older we are supposed to take more and more prescriptions so that we may feel better and help us age. This program allows us to better afford these prescriptions. Do not get me wrong, as in the case of any issue, some prescriptions are necessary for us to heal and help abate some issues that could be potentially dangerous to us; therefore you do need to listen to your doctor and if you have questions about a prescription you are taking, contact your pharmacist, their education has given them that knowledge.

What I am purposing though is an aide in preventing the everyday stress from overtaking your body. My main proposal is that we stay healthy in our movement patterns during our day to day activities. By maintaining a proper balance of tension on the skeleton, our movement qualities improve exponentially. This reduces the brains need to create both a neurological and hormonal balance. This is what we perform here at the Wellness Center. We have many forms of therapy that we use here to help individuals with their structural balancing. 

Our main therapy is Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh® which I have worked on developing over the past 25 years. Of course we have traditional Massage Therapy by our licensed Massage Therapist and if you really want to commit to yourself join the CVWC Club. Another therapy we have here is Acupuncture and our Licensed Acupuncturist Allison has over 20+ years experience and individuals who have stated to me that they were afraid of needles overcame that fear, not only because it doesn't hurt but by the compassion and care that Allison shows. One other form is Structural Integration or a new format of Rolfing that is provided by our Certified Therapist Pat Gates, LMT. Pat has studied under Tom Meyers who was educated by Ida Rolf herself. What this entails is a series of treatments that looks at and re-creates a Fascia Reconstruction of the posture so the building blocks are "stacked" one on top of the other. One other new form of therapy being introduced is Ortho-Bionomy which use the position of the muscle and the lever to help reset the tension on the skeleton.

As you can see we offer many choices and  have many different modalities to help relieve the internal stress on your body and brain. Please call today for a free consultation or just to talk with one of our therapist or instructors.

a REASON to HOPE! - Wellness solutions for your relief of stress to your body!

Dennis

With all of the early Spring snow we are getting I thought this was an ingenious way to use a walker. I was not supposed to add to the blog this week but it seems the universe was beckoning me to espouse on this topic. 

In the practice of treating chronic pain there is often very similar issues that will constantly present themselves, and this week it seems to be the issue of an aging population that are experiencing leg pain. This week it seems to be somewhat epidemic.

I really felt the compulsion after one particular long time client yesterday came to me with a reoccurring problem that she has. Without getting into any personal information there is a pathological issue that this person deals with but with regular exercise, water aerobics, the issue has been controllable. My services are normally required two times per year but in recent months there seems to be more of a re-occurrence. As many know this disturbs me that the treatments are not holding for longer periods of time. 

What has been a common thread is the chaos that is happening with the Pelvic girdle. What I have also noticed the last few times is that there is a common thread to the chaos, and that is the upper thigh or Quadriceps are extremely tight and disorganized. When asked about her form of exercise the individual claimed that they were told to strengthen these muscles in order to prevent knee pain. As many of you know I find that these create an imbalance to the normal tension on the lower skeleton and thus creates a conundrum in standing and walking. Many also know that when I am teaching in the PIlates studio we often bring this subject up. The use of these larger muscles for dynamics creates more problems than they prevent. 

What will help prevent you ending up like the man in the picture? We all need to strengthen the ability of the lower leg or calf muscles to aide in the skeleton's ability to move. The body moves from the end point to the mid point and what this individual was doing was moving the opposite way. This forced the Pelvis into an awkward presentation and therefore distorted itself to adapt to the imbalance in tension integrity of the skeleton. If it did not, there would have been an unusual pull that when the concurring push happened the individual would have lost balance and fell. This becomes a larger than life issue especially when there has been so many snowy and icy days here in Northern Ohio and throughout the country. 

The question is "Well how should I do this?" My pat answer is learning how to reprogram the neurological connections in the body. Remembering that we move from the end to the middle we have to consciously, in the case of standing and walking, move the ankle joint first. This action will trigger the mechanism in the brain to use the correct muscles, this is the best way to create strength, and proper use of the muscles. Strengthening the upper thigh muscles will eventually compound the  problem and negative results will happen.

What needs to be accomplished is this re-programming of the nerve impulses to the brain so that an unconscious action takes place just upon thought. I often have someone place a one pound weight in their hand, flex the wrist and just focus on the elbow bending so that the weight is moved toward the shoulder. The hard part for most is that they want to perform the action instead of forcing the brain to figure it out and re-pattern the proper muscle movement. 

In our Pilates studio we create scenarios with the use of the equipment so that individuals will start to develop these patterns. The repeating of the process ingrains the message to the point that when movement is required the brain processes this information and not only allows for pain free movement but re-strengthens the muscles. 

One last item I want to address in this blog is the issue of, "it is hard and painful for me to rollover in bed!" People are always amazed that we can get them to roll over with no pain and great ease when done properly. Once again in the beginning you will have to think this one out to re-develop the proper pattern, but when rolling over you need to use your spine. Since the low back or lumbar section doesn't rotate start by using the shoulder that is in the up position and generate the ability to roll over from the upper spine to the lower, the rest of the body will follow. To many people want to generate the twisting motion with their butt muscles and they don't work like that. 

Hopefully this information helps and I would love to entertain any and all questions and concerns you might have. My recommendation is that you come in and try our Fundamental Movement Therapy(SM) that is taught in our Pilates studio to help in reorganizing your brains pattern of movement. This will help strengthen the proper muscles and help you drive away the demons that many call getting old.

Remember there is always a REASON TO HOPE!


~Dennis Gibbons LMT