Posture and stabilization

Written by Dave:   One of the goals that I have had with our travels was to improve overall fitness and wellness, both mentally and physically.  Often times the daily distractions caused me to push this to the background, even though I knew it was important.  Now on our travels, we have been reading more, and focusing on learning.  A friend of ours let us know that one of our favorite authors, Tim Ferriss, was putting on a free internet class for 2 days.  The classes started at 6:00pm our time, which was 9:00am back home.  This kept us up late into the night as they were all day classes.  They covered business creation, charity work, cooking, learning strategies, fitness, and attitude.  He taught how to break any task down whether learning, physical skill, or mental attitude for maximum speed and efficiency in growth.  All in all, it was an excellent 2 days of learning and self improvement.

One of the guest presenters was a physical therapist by the name of Kelly Starrett, from San Francisco.  He particularly caught my interest since my focus with patients was on keeping the information simple, and educating them for self treatment.  The goal was always to get the patient to a place that they no longer needed you.  The body is complex, but many things can be broken down to a few simple strategies that have tremendous impact on function and performance.  Core stability is greatly under appreciated.  Everything is rooted to the trunk, and without a stable trunk throughout, you lose coordination and strength.  Posture and stabilization impact every facet of your life.  Often times it means the difference between living with pain or being pain free.  I always taught my patients to work on strengthening and control from proximal to distal, meaning from the core out.  At times, I have issues with back pain, but when I follow my own advice, I don’t have pain.  I always felt that if everyone was taught these basic skills, many injuries or wear and tear would be avoided.  Many therapists don’t take the time to get to the root of the problem, and I was thrilled to see a therapist who was carrying this same message.  I had thought about doing a blog to get the message out there, but Kelly has already done this, and done it well.  His blog is MobilityWOD.com, and it is really worth a look.  Prevention is the best medicine, and following this advice  will give you a great dose of prevention, and likely pain relief from many things you had no idea had a relation to a lack of core stability.

We are blessed to be moving down a life path that is allowing us mental, physical, and spiritual growth, without all the daily distractions of the “regular” life.