Feel it in your bones: 50 day blog - day 43

I'm all for making life simple!

When it comes to alignment, life is a lot simpler if we feel and sense from our bones. By this, I mean using our bones as a framework for how we place ourselves in space and how we align ourselves with gravity. 

I am often asked 'which muscles am I working?' or 'should I be feeling this in my xxx muscle?' While that may potentially seem a simply answered question, it's not! When one muscle is moving one way, another is moving in contrast to it, and a plethora of muscles are stabilising the action. When you move your whole body (which in reality we are always doing in some sense), the answer to the 'which muscles am I working?' question is, 'all of them!'! 

And then when you take into account individual fascia patterns then it can blow all muscle movement theory completely out of the water (see So Heres Where We Start With Fascia ).

Muscles are complicated. They work in a whole set of strings and pulleys throughout the body, with varied roles depending on the job in hand. They lengthen and shorten as we move (think of them all as mini little pistons) and hold various degrees of tension when we need them to stabilise us. Even with all my training and experience my head sometimes wants to explode when I try to think 'muscularly'!

But muscles also move bones! 

So, if we strip things back to feeling our bones moving and getting them in the right place, then everything else (muscles, ligament, tendons, fascia) will organise to support that alignment. Simples!  

For example, in standing, try this:

• Stand with your feet about hip distance apart. 
• Feel the bones of your feet soften and plant on the ground. 
• Place your pelvis above your feet, neither too far forward, not too far back, but just right (like Goldilocks porridge!). Imagine the bowl of your pelvis floating about your feet, with your legs bones suspended from your hip sockets. If your knees want to sink then lift your pelvis a little higher. If your knees feel locked, then soften the knee bones, imagining them floating between your thigh bone and shin bones.  
• Visualise your ribcage and place this above your pelvis, the centre of your rib cage above the centre your pelvic bowl. 
• Place your skull above the centre of your ribcage, like a dot on the top of an i. And feel that your head is being held high by an imaginary strong string.   
• Allow your arm bones and shoulders to drape down the side of your body. 
• Feel the movement within your spine, as you stand. Nothing is ever completely still within your body, so allow the bones the freedom to ever so slightly sway as you stand, like a tree responds to the lightest breeze. 
• Know that you have space between your bones, and in a sense your skeleton floats within your whole body. 
• Understand that everything else in the body is doing what it needs to do, even if it now feels that you don't have to work hard in this 'posture'! 

Next time you go for a walk, let the bones move you. Feel where your head placement is in comparison to your ribs, your pelvis and your feet. Let your thigh bones initiate each leg lift and let your whole skeleton float forward over your feet as you step forward. Enjoy the sensation of moving from your bones, as that's real 'core' work! ;-)

Til tomorrow.... :-)

CT :-) x