Whidbey Island Yoga with Amanda

08/18/2021

Fall changes -

05/27/2021

Progress!! -

05/24/2021

Pelvic position post!

Part five

Unfortunately, it's unlikely that your pelvis rests in only one of these three dimensions of human movement. Some will be anterior tilted with a hike on the left and a pelvic rotation to the right. Others will be posterior tilted, with a pelvis that sits more left than right and rotated left. These are just two of many combinations of possibilities for each resting pelvis.

To be able to make sense of the pelvic resting posture, to be able to follow the consequences of such a posture both up and down the body and have an approach to reorganise the pelvis so that it can rest more easily and have access to all movements (rather than just a few) creates a great opportunity for us to better understand our whole body posture and begin to point fingers at our aches and pains.

Can you see how a pelvis that is anterior tilted and hiked up on the right now adds two dimensions of compression into the right side of your lower back? And how a posterior tilt and a left hike of the left side of pelvis might instantly generate relief? This is how simple I like to think about our anatomy. To over-complicate has never been on my agenda... and yet 🤷🏻‍♂️ it still seems complicated and complex to almost everyone I come across 😂

The image is a page in my book What The Foot? That we often use to combine individual planes of posture to make up one distorted human, from there we can use the AiM method to work out not only how it’s going to navigate the planet but also what we would like to do it with to help 😃

05/21/2021

Common issue!!

So in the context of “What the Femur” what’s actually missing in our life is most likely femur external rotation which couples with foot supination and pelvic posterior tilt. This hopefully makes sense when the majority of people find themselves anterior tilted with pronated feet and a resultant internal rotation of the femur. The hip joint itself has way more access into external rotation than internal rotation as I alluded to a couple of posts back. Oddly in gait, external hip rotation occurs when the femur rotates internally, this creates the conditions for a pronating leg shape. Foot pronation / knee flexion / femur internal rotation / anterior tilt. What we really want to be able to access to pull us out of this shape is the opposite movements: Foot supination / knee extension / femur external rotation / posterior tilt. This forms a straightened supinating leg that will efficiently drive us forwards and into our next step. It will also take the pressure off our pronated feet, our , our , our , our , our discomforts. This is because human movement is always about being able to access both ends of the movement spectrum. If your femurs are internal and can’t go external (supinating the foot when they do), then you are going to struggle to straighten your knee and open up the anterior part of your hip with a posterior tilt. So you remain , , and anterior tilted. That is not to say that these movements are bad, we need them, we need all movement capabilities as to be able to have both: to internally and externally rotate the femur, to anterior and posterior tilt the pelvis, to flex and extend (correctly) the knee and to pronate and supinate the foot, is the true definition of movement. This is what your skeletal system craves and has most likely forgotten how to access. You normally focus on one thing or the other thing rather than creating the opportunity to focus on multiple things all at once. It’s easier to do the former, I get it, but in the human body it does not make sense. All movements in the human body require each other.

01/14/2021

Let’s kick the new year off with another six part series?

The femur itself is the longest bone in your body and forms the link in the chain between your pelvis and your shin bone. Between the pelvis and your femur is the hip joint. This is the articulating space between the two structures. Between the femur and the tibia is the knee joint. The hip operates in three dimensions and the knee strictly operates in only two. The dimensions are explainable through the articulating surface of the joints where the structures meet. The hip joint is much more mobile with it’s ball and socket arrangement than the knee which is limited to a bending and straightening with either an internal or external rotation.

The femur itself has a cute relationship with the foot. This may not be obvious given that the tibia or shin bone sits between the two AND YET an interesting consistency occurs between the foot and the femur, with one certainly impacting on the other.

When a foot pronates, or flattens (educate yourself more on what this means in my Wake Your Feet Up programme) the femur always rotates internally (this is for the thigh bone to rotate inwards toward the midline of the body). When a foot supinates, or increases in arch height, the femur always rotes externally (this is for the thigh bone to rotate outwards away from the midline of the body)

Given that the vast majority of people spend their life in a pronated foot posture, this tells us that most people’s femurs will already be resting internally rotated. If you cannot supinate the foot well, the femur will struggle to rotate outwards - this is a key movement for health of the pelvis, hip joint, knee, flow through the femoral triangle (arteries and nerves etc). Likewise if your struggle to externally rotate the femur, the foot will lack the ability to supinate and get you out of your pronated posture.

Follow along all this week for more What The Femur insights and hit the link in the bio to see our education offerings.

12/10/2020

Indoor fitness closures continued until January 4

We are seeing some signs the current restrictions are working. But our hospitals are still on the brink. Therefore, I am extending existing restrictions for three weeks – ending January 4th.

The hospitalization projections are scary. We’re already at 80% ICU capacity in Washington.

Unless this turns around, our system will be overrun. That impacts everyone needing hospital care, not just COVID patients.

This is an incredibly hard decision to make. We know some of our businesses are hanging by a thread.

In light of that, we’re making an additional $50 million in grants available for businesses impacted by these safety measures.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. The first vaccine was given in the UK this morning. But our communities are not safe right now – and the vaccine won’t change that in the near future.

It is a dangerous time in Washington. We need to buckle down through the holidays and get this virus under control.

11/15/2020

new Washington Covid mandates -

02/10/2020

Walking workshop, winter and spring closures -

01/18/2017

I am so excited to welcome contributor, Carol Robbins. Carol is a friend, mentor, fellow Restorative Exercise Specialist and all-around awesome human being. Some people call her the Bunion Whispere…

02/29/2016

RUA Rib Thruster? November 12, 2010 / 17 comments I think it’s the perfect time, in this political climate to ask: Where do you stand? Try this.  Stand with your heels three to four inches from a wall. Press your thigh bones toward the wall, letting your tailbone relax. Next, bring your shoulders, a…

10/16/2015

Learn the fundamentals of Natural Movement® Fitness. Our 2-day workshops are equally designed for beginners, fitness experts, and professionals alike. The skills you learn will allow you continue with your own Natural Movement® training and will dramatically improve your ability to perform in any sp…