This is a fantastic exercise to do for a minute each day to help put your body in a balanced position.
Elle X
If you have ever worked with me before you will have heard me talk about stacking up. But what does this actually mean? Imagine a plumb line to the side of your body passing through your ear, shoulder, hip down to your ankle. These bony points should all ideally be stacked up over the top of each other when standing. In this position the joints and muscles in the front and back of your body are working evenly and efficiently. From this half way balanced position your body has the ability to move evenly both forwards and backwards. Which needs to be able to do to move us around. Otherwise we’d all be like little tin men, rusting in one place trying to stay stacked up.
Motion is lotion for the body….
….particularly when you start from a balanced point.
So how do you know if you are stacked up? The easiest way is to stand yourself against a wall. Allow your feet to be hip width apart and your heels touching the wall. Now standing against the wall what can you feel touching it? Does your sacrum touch (the bony triangle bit linking both sides of your pelvis together)? Does the middle point of your spine touch? Around bra line for girls, boys you are going to have to imagine. How about the back of your head?
Does the head even touch the wall or is it floating forwards?
This can be the case for a lot of people. Did you know your head weighs between 8-10 lbs? That’s a lot of weight hanging on those poor neck joints and muscles, no wonder they get tight, tired and worn.
Now try putting all those points against the wall. Where are your eyes looking to do this? Are they looking slightly up or slightly down or the goldilocks point of right in the middle – straight forward? Just doing this exercise will help show up some compensations in your body that you will have to do every day to keep your eyes on the horizon. Keeping our eyes on the horizon is something that has been bred into us from prehistoric days to keep us alive from hungry prey with sharp claws and big teeth. Lets just have a little play, still keeping those points against the wall. What happens to your head if you start lifting your chest? Can you feel your head begin to change positions and your chin tuck? What happens if you start lowering your chest? Can you feel your head rock back? Do this a few times and just get used to the feel then start thinking what’s happening to your pelvis when you do these moves to the edge of your comfort zone (not crossing into pain). Now just begin to make your moves smaller until you find that point where your eyes are straight forward. In this place if you give yourself a little prod front and back of your body can you feel all muscles are working a little bit front and back. In this sweet spot you have achieved the stacked up position. Well Done! See it really wasn’t that hard. This is a fantastic exercise to do for a minute each day to help put your body in a balanced position.
Until next time …
Knowledge is absolutely power but only when ACTION is taken
Elle x