Today we're going to explore human gate movement patterning. So functional movement and how we can help improve people's gait. So why is that important? Well, there are many reasons. One is helping someone move more efficiently, right? And so our body is designed really to walk.
We've been walking for millions of years, right? And our body has developed into a pattern of movement that is very functional. And when we get off of the pattern, because of our habits, because of injury, because of emotion, there's many reasons that we get kind of locked into a certain, a different kind of pattern. We all have a unique way of walking. So we want to look at that and say, hmm, let's see that spine isn't rotating in the area where it should be rotating. Or I see the hip isn't really gliding as well as it can.
Or maybe the feet aren't adapting to the ground as well as they could. So this ability to see gait and do a little analysis in terms of very simple observation, I can then design my program around their exercises to help them improve their function and to get stronger. So it's just a a way for a teacher to kind of come into your work and be able to go, okay, I think this is where I need to focus my session or my class on that. The other reason is really important is that new studies are coming out and there's many studies on gait and the studies are coming out that they're now able to predict their survival of older adults by their gate. So the speed of your gate and the stride length of your gate is a real determination if you're going to fall, right? If you're going to survive.
Also, if someone's starting to have some neurological changes just at the very beginning, you start to notice a change in the gate. So they're able to do some pretty incredible early interventions if somebody starts to show some kind of neurological disease going on. So, and it's, it's right now, especially older adults who are clients who are 50 and older, maybe 40 and older, but mainly 50 and older, start getting concerned about balance, right? So, and how do we work on balance? What people are trying to stand on one leg all the time and things like that. But really the balances when you're out walking in the street and all of a sudden there's a hole in the ground or the curb steps off in a different way and you have to catch yourself, right? So if you're able to do that, then you're not going to fall and you've got good balance. So to me, balance is not how long can I stand still on one leg? It's how do I adapt to the ground so that I can not fall? Right?
So all of these is very good information, uh, that we can help our clients. And you can also help yourself with that. So, uh, and cuing. So if I teach a client the simple movements we're going to do today, so today we're going to do, I'll just come down with what we're going to in our order here. So we're going to observe two people walking and then discuss what we're seeing and wanna stick to pretty much spine, pelvis, motion and hip, joint motion and feet. So there's many gait can be, we can really go crazy with a lot of analysis, but I want to keep it simple because you also want to learn these movements. My lumbar spine, my lumbar spine should be side bending, not rotating.
My thorax should be rotating, not going side to side. You know, when you see people walking like that. So these are the things you can point out to your client. And then they can start becoming aware of how their gait is. And it can really help facilitate much better gait for balance, but also their joints. So if there is injury and there is pain, people tend to shorten up their steps, they have back pain, then the hips gonna be not moving well. And you can actually see that happening in their gait.
And then cue them or give them the information and what they should be feeling in their body. And that's what we're going to do. We're going to go through the movements and then try them. And then we're gonna observe two people walking, one male, one female, and then we'll just point out what we're seeing. And then we're going to do a movement class based on trying to facilitate better movement in these areas, specifically the spine, the hip joint, and the pelvis and your feet. So, and uh, and then after we're going to reassess and watch them walk again and we'll be able to see within doing that short movement session that we'll do that their gait will have improved. So that's the plan. Okay. So let's describe how gait works.
So first off your spine is what drives your movement. So the rotation of the spine is what's moving the pelvis and propelling you forward. So we can, uh, even walk without legs, right? So because of the spinal motion and through the spinal motion, then the pelvis does it, it's like a figure eight motion. So it does this kind of rotation and the hip joints have to move and the feet have to adapt. So basically we move in three planes. So the sagittal plane is seen from the side, right?
So that's flection and extension. That's this plane, right? And of course it's overlapped, right? So, and then the other plane is side bending plane. This coronal plane. So you go this way, right? And then the rotation, this is a transverse plane, rotational plane, right? So in the, uh, spine, we want to see that the lumbar spine is side bending and the rotation is happening in your thorax. So this is what we want to really primarily be watching for when we start watching our models walking. So we want to look for a rib cage rotation and Lumbar side bending a little sway of the hip. Okay. And how the feet adapt.
That's the basically we're going to be looking for, so to feel those motions. Let's put our hands on the hips here. So when you sway to the left, sway to the right, right. So you sway the right, what should happen is that left side of your pelvis should drop down a little bit. Just a tiny bit. It's only five degrees. Yeah. And sway the other sign. Just note, it's not a very big movement. It's just you're just transferring your weight.
Like you're going to take a step, right? So you're transferring your weight onto one foot so that you can take that step forward. So when there's that, that's called a pelvic list or a hip drop is what I call it. So that pelvis needs to be able to, one side needs to drop down, just five degrees down like that. And you can push on your hip a little bit too, and you can kind of feel that. So when that happens, when your, let's say your left side of your pelvis goes down, all right? So this is going to go down the lumbar side. Bendings going to happen to the right. All right?
So when your pelvis becomes on level, it side bends to the right. So when you sway the left, your right side of your pelvis will come down and your lumbar spine side bends to the left. Okay? Now we can feel it by doing a hip drop. So this will be one of the assessments we're going to watch for. Okay? So if you soften your right knee and bend it right without, yeah, keep this leg straight, you'll feel again, this hip comes down, you can feel it. And it also may come forward a little bit.
So you want to notice is it coming forward and then straighten your leg, try it again. So as you bend that knee it should, yeah, that was pretty good. Yeah. So that's what Lamar side bending to what side, what to the left. Exactly. And then when you do the other side, that should come down to should be side bending to the right. Okay. And what happens in this area of the body? Of course it's, we're all connected through the fashion, the muscles and all of that tissue in the pelvic bowl and all of that. And your hip joint, you can feel your hip joint moving too.
So when we have a restriction in spinal movement, it could be the spine itself, but we have all the tissues that's restricted. So if I have a t intention in my lower back, my hips not going to drop so well. So my spine is not going to be doing it. Side bending and we have a preference. We all have a certain preference for movement. Some like to side bend to the left more than they do. Right.
That's pretty common, you know. So the, the ideas that I know my preference, so I have a preference to the left. So I know that when I'm doing a lot of activity and I start getting tight and I notice that my lumbar side bendings not happening well to the right, then I know, oh, I need to do something about it. I need to do these movements so that I can restore that lumbar side bending. And that's what we're going to do in the movement class, that kind of thing. So, and then the other is if you put your hands on the side of your hips like this, right, right. Where it's right, where the greater trocanter is and you sway to the right, you should also feel there's a little little like spinning going on a little sway of the greater choke canter's to keep the leg straight when you do that. Yeah. So if you sway to the left, you should feel the right side kind of gets deeper in here.
It kind of moves away from your hand and this goes into your hand. Yeah, that's, so that's the head of the femurs and they're, they're kinda doing, they're doing this when you sway that way. So this one's going medial, this one's going more lateral. That's what it's called. Or in more and out more. Right? And then if you sway the other way, again, the head of the femur should, so there's this little tiny bit of movement and of course it's three dimensional movement. Even though we break it down into three planes, it is three dimensionally overlapped. So it's more like a little spin that has to happen. So when we get a restriction in our hip joint, all right, there's that tightness. It could be the capsule, it could be your pelvic position and it's not moving very well. That's going to influence the levelness of your pelvis.
Which one then is going to influence your spine. So these are the key elements that we're going to be looking for. All right, the other plane is rotation. So rotation should happen in the thorax, but it is a full body rotation. So let's just take a look at that motion. So start by looking over your right shoulder and then just keep going as far as you can go and notice how your rib cage rotates and then your pelvis can rotate and you'll feel your ankles rotate. You feel that and see how far back you can go. And then come back. Like if you can pick a spot on the wall and notice something, right.
Go to the left. So look and then feel the ribs and then feel the pelvis follow, and then feel how your feet adapt to the rotation and come back to you. Feel a difference between a right and left side. Yeah, do it one more time. So rotation to the right, which one do you prefer? That's what you want to feel.
You should feel your right foot is, goes towards the little toe side of your foot, right? And then your left foot should go towards the big toe side of your foot. Or you can call that super nation on the right foot. And pronation on the left foot. He said he'd get that. And if you a to the left, you're going towards the little toe side of your left foot, you should be, and you should be going inward on the big toe side of your right foot. So that's super nation of the left foot and pronation of the right foot.
So these words like pro nation gets to be, it's not a bad thing. You actually need to have pronation and supination in your foot, right? So the bottom of your foot, right? So when you do a heel strikes of you put your heel out in front, you're going to hit the, uh, out the little toe side corner of your heel. Can you feel that? It's like on that? It does, that's a considered a super nation. And then if you follow an s pattern along the foot that it rolls along that little toe side of your foot, but then it's going to move inward.
So now you're starting to pronate. You get that right? And then you're going to come towards the big toe and then you would be taking your step the next foot and pushing off. So the bottom of your foot and uh, you'll see the image. Okay. The bottom of your foot has this. So it's a pressure point of the foot that happens as you're walking. So we need, it's like we supinate we pronate and then we re supinate again to t to push to propel ourselves forward, right? So there's this, um, phase here that, I mean we can go into all the heel strike and all of that, but it's like you're here is you're getting heel strike and then there's a transition. So you're transitioning through your foot, right? As you're pushing with the back leg, you're transitioning through your foot and then you're getting right over towards the big toe and then your big toe and your foot is propelling you forward. So there's a propulsion phase of the foot, so that action for your foot to adapt. So if you have very stiff ankles, right? And you can't do that pronation, supination, and your toes, you know, if you don't have that good foot mechanics there, that's also gonna Affect your gait. Okay?
So that's the breakdown of the movement that we'll be looking at. So let's take a look at them walking. Alright,
so we're going to observe Andy walking. So just to review some of the things I want you to look for, right? Watch his arms swing. Watch for the rotation of the thorax, the rib cage. Okay.
And is it even from right to left? So you want to be observing that and then you want to be observing the hips sway. So when the weight is transferred onto the foot, do you see a little bit of a sway? So it'd be a little bit to transfer the weight over to the foot. Okay. And then I want you to think about the center of mass, right? The center of your mass of your body, right? The center of the mass is, I've heard l four five I've also heard s too, cause that's where your center of gravity is in the body. So if you think s two so here and the center of mass.
So when someone's walking is center of mass moving between the two feet. So you want to see that the sacrum is really moving forward and not hanging back. That's exaggeration, but the right. So you want to look for that center of mass being there and then observe the feet. Do you see that s pattern through the foot? Do you see the push off phase or not? There's two kinds of walkers too that I like to say. And one is a walk.
There were someone's pulling yourself. So they pull themselves along the ground, right? And then you've got the walkers who actually push, which is more functional is you're pushing yourself that center of mass. You see, it's moving forward with that. So that's very simple. That's all we really want to look at it. And um, so we'll just start and I'll just point out things that I see. So try to walk your normal tempo. I know it's funny to have someone watching you walk and yeah.
So notice the arms swing,
How much movement or no? Moonmen so there's not a whole lot of rotation happening. So let's look down now at the pelvis area. All right. All right. So in the pelvis I can see that he, his pelvis likes to rotate and you could see that better from the back and side view. Then you can from a site of a side view. So the back and front view, I mean, right.
So his pelvis is rotating to the left and then it comes back to the center. So as he's walking, he's preferring this left rotation. So because the thorax is not rotating very well, then who's having to do the rotation in his hips joint and the lumbar spine is rotating and that is very stressful because your lumbar spine is not designed to rotate. It's really designed as a side bending mechanism. Okay. And what else do we notice? How about his feet that he's pulling himself along? As I was saying, so there's no propulsion. You see a propulsion phase. So what does that mean?
It means his hips aren't extending fully if you look at the groin and the hips so that he's not able to get good hip extension. All right. And he's not really rolling through his feet going supination, pronation and [inaudible].
So the first movement is the hip drop that we did earlier. So you're gonna keep your foot flat on the floor and you're just going to bend or soften your right knee. And what we should notice is that this right ilium comes down and the lumbar side bending, we'll see it from the back. You'll see it a little bit better, and then come back up and let's do the other side. So this side didn't drop as much and come back. So let's go a little slower if he can go slower. Right?
So there's a little more of a buoyant feeling as the hip drops and as he's doing this, you see it's not dropping and he's having to sway into his hip a little bit and we'll see that, um, from the back.
So right side comes down, see that and come back and then the left.
Do you see a rib shift? So yeah. So as he's trying to to drop the left hip. Okay. His thorax is shifting more here. So the movements happening up here as opposed to down here. Okay. All right. And now the hips sway.
So place your hands on your sides of your hip here. So flat. Yeah. So what we're going to see is as he sways to the sign, go to one direction there. And don't bend your knee if he can. Yeah. So see his trunk, He side bending right here. He's not swaying quite so well in his hip. And then as he sways here, do you see the sway happen? And he's got less of his trunk watch when he goes to this way. His trunk, his side bending. All right. And then when he goes this way, there's less of that.
So he actually prefers to kind of sit in this kind of left hip like this. All right. So there could be that this hip joint is actually a little too loose. Little weaker, right. And the right one is a little more restricted. The right hip joint is restricted. All right? So we'd, we'd have to look at that and see if we can free that up. All right.
And then the trunk rotation. Let's just see. Can you place your arms like this? Like yeah. And not too high just to like, and then just slowly look over your right shoulder and keep rotating in trunk.
this is Jackie and we're going to now watch Jackie Lock and look at her assessment as well.
So just normal walk as best you can. Normal tempo. You just walking down the street.
You can see the elbow bending, similar to Andy. All right? And if you watch her shoulders, we'll see not a whole lot of rotation going on in that ribs. And you can see her shoulders because of the arms swing that she's kind of impinging her shoulders. So people with shoulder issues, you see if they're always buttoned up their shoulders this way because their thorax isn't rotating as they're walking. That could become a shoulder issue for someone down the road. All right, now let's look more at what pelvis is doing in the lumbar spine. All right? So the pelvis should be facing forward as she's walking and we're trying to see what her preference is. She's got a hip drop. You can see that kind of fishy.
She on the arm, the left side, the right side, her right side is dropping. And that's that pelvic list.
And then as she takes that step, um, there's a little bit of a Hitchen her hip. So it'll be interesting. Interesting to see what her hips weight would be like. And let's take a look at her feet as she's walking. Yeah. The heel strike and she does move through her foot. Can you see that motion? So from the moment the heel hits the ground as she rolls through, I would like to see a little bit more of her toe pushing off.
So I mean I could even coach her to do that. If you start to think about your pre propulsion phase, Jackie, see if you can push a little bit with your toe. Like push your back foot to push yourself forward. Yeah, yeah. See, see what happened. Yeah. Do that again. So her center of mass changed. You see it starting to move forward a little bit more. Yeah. So if you could see you start walking faster. Yeah. Because your PR, yes.
That was an excellent correction. Okay, great. All right, so now we're going to take a look at her assessments. So now we're going to take a look at the movement assessments on Jackie and see how they relate to how she was walking. So the hip drop is the first one. So what she's going to do is just bend the right knee slowly and we should see that that right side of the pelvis drops down, which is creating that left side bending of the lumbar spine and then the other side. Very good. So she's got very good hip drop going on here. Let's look at it from the back and we can see what your spine is doing. Alright, so she's going to bend the right knee. Okay, now watch what she did here on her rib cage right here. Did you see that?
All right, so do the right side again, as she bends this goes forward and her ribs are translating towards me. All right? And come back. So her, her move in of her spine, the Lumbar side, Benny is actually hot higher up in her back and it should actually be a little bit lower. So that, that's interesting. So let's do the left and she has a little better way of, uh, side bending to the right. Do you see that and come back? There wasn't a whole lot of shift in her rib cage, so we'll do it one more time on the left. Slowly. So the hip, it is a little restricted, it's not coming down as well as I'd like to see it. So she has a little bit of complication there in terms of probably a double curve in her spine, in double lumber, you know, up high and low.
So there's like a little s little s shape there. So, um, and that's, we saw as she's standing, so come faced front again. Okay. That her pelvis just does prefer this side of her pelvis is more forward than this one. So she's preferring to do that than she is this way. Okay. So she, uh, is showing us that she is kind of held in this rotation, which should then is going to change her hip joints. All right. So if her pelvis is facing left, then her left, uh, hip joint is going to be a little bit more in that, uh, internal rotated position. Yeah.
And this one in a little more external rotated position. So there'll be some, let's see, restriction the hips. So let's do the next one. So hands on the sides of your hips and we're gonna shift now to the right and then notice the rib cage, see if she does a more of a motion instead of the hip. And then you can come back and shift to the left.
The right foot of supernatant and her left foot is proning. That's excellent. So she does prefer to go that way. She goes this way, that right hips. I don't feel like you're uh, able to move so well in that right hip. And if you watch her feet, go ahead and go this side again. It's more difficult for her to, she can't pronate that right foot. Do you see that? So now I'm zeroing in on her right hip. It's like, okay, so there's a restriction in this right hip and that's causing her to not be able to adapt with her right foot. So she's lacking that pronation in her right foot so that that's good information to have. Um, rotations. So let's have you, yeah, let's face the window and cross your arms. Okay.
So she's going to look over her right shoulder and we want to watch, can the rib cage move before the pelvis can move and then watching the feet and see if they also rotate. Yeah. And then to the other side. Very good rotation in her thorax. Then pelvis and the feet. Let's see it to the front. Okay, let's turn. Yeah, cause it'd be easy to see your, your feet there. So all right. When she went to the right, she went fairly, could do it a little bit slower for me. Okay. So, but what I noticed was that her pelvis goes with it pretty, pretty quickly. Right. Instead of a little rotation. And then following with the pelvis, no, go to the left. Yeah. Her pelvis is moving pretty quickly, I have to say.
Yeah. Though she gets good range. I mean she has definitely a good range. I'm, where's that range coming from? Is the question right? Is it really coming her spine? It's coming from her spine and your hips and rotate again. Yeah. Okay. You don't have to force it. It's good. So do you feel you have a preferred way? Which side feels easier for you to rotate? Yeah, to the left. It looks like it. Yeah.
So then we saw that when you were walking that your pelvis was almost stay almost stuck in a left rotation. Like you like to spiral to the left so we could improve your rights, spiraling a little bit more, and then that could help balance out your gate. And the other concern is really your shoulders for me, your shoulders, because you're, you're not rotating in the upper thorax here, so the shoulder, now your arm is doing this and your humeral head is really budding up every time into the shoulder so that it's important to get this rotation so that you don't overstress your shoulder. Okay. All right. So now we're going to move into the movement class.
Okay, you're ready to move? Yeah. All right.
So I designed these movements around trying to improve these gait mechanics that we just looked at before. So hopefully at the end you're going to be able to feel a difference in your own body through these functional movements. All right? So just stand normal hip width for yourself here. So this first move in is, it's a little complicated, just kind of have to get into the rhythm of it and just let it just let it happen, right? It's called walking in place. So what you have to do is you lift one heel up, all right?
And then you lift the toes of the other foot up. So you're basically on one heel and ball of the foot, and then you switch your heels. So you lift one heel is the other one goes down and you just go back and forth. So it's like pretend you're walking with straight legs in place. Yeah, that's it. And you're going to find we're doing all of this, the gait mechanics in this movement. You've got your feet working. We've got the hip hike and feel the hip hiking and dropping. Right.
And if your arms are swinging, you'll get a little rotation going in your thorax. Try to keep the legs straight. That's it. Get the heel up and down. You can go a little faster too. And just let it swing. And notice that one side feels really easy. All right, and are you turning your chest right or is your chest staying forward? So just make a note because at the end of the class we're going to repeat this motion and see if it feels any different. Okay, so let's start with the feet.
So we're going to go to arches out. So arches out is when you go to the little toe side of your foot. So feel the bone on the floor and then we go arches in till the legs are straight. So it's going to make you internally rotate who want to get that into the big toe side of your foot. So out and in and feel the angles roll and n good.
Roll them out in out. We'll do it a couple more times. And I'm trying to just loosening up the ankles and feeling the pressure of your feet, the bones on the floor. Okay, let's
And I want you to feel that bone of the little toe on the floor and around. So feel the outer edge of your foot. Feel the inner edge of your foot and just let your hip and your knee do whatever emotion it wants to do so that you can hit those contact points of your foot. And let's reverse it now. So inner heel to the big toe along the toes, little toe to the back corner of the heel. So find that whole surface. Let your knee and your hip move. We'll do a couple of more here.
Plus it's making you stand on your left leg. Yeah. One more circle. Snapping. Crackles and pops are good. It's all right. And then come down this to the other foot. So outer heel, a little toe side towards the big toe on the inner edge of your foot. Try to feel all the contact points on the floor. Yeah, roll it and let your hip and knee move with the motion. See if you can exaggerate. If you feel like it's more difficult, exaggerate.
Let your knee come in. Try to get that inner edge of the foot, especially if you know one foot has more difficulty in it's pro nation or super nation. You can just emphasize that and let's go the other way and rotate them around a little toe side, circling good. And it kind of feels good in the hip and the knee. So I'm kind of getting that around. All right, one more time. Great. Good. Okay. Now we're going to step up onto your blocks here.
Okay. So you're going to need the two blocks and make sure you're on a sticky mat because the blocks can slip. All right, so we're going to stand up on the blocks, right? And the first thing I want you to do is we're going to do a little bit of a, we're going to step back on the right foot. So step back. So there's like a little lunge. Alright? And what's going to happen is we're gonna hinge from the hip.
So you do hip hinge, arms of by your side, and you can be not parallel to the floor, but keep your back straight, whatever that means for you. And then bring your arms forward and over your head like that. Good. And now take your left knee and exaggerate towards the midline. So you're turning it in. You're going to roll a little bit onto the inner edge of your foot.
Can you feel that? So you're going to feel a great tension through the posterior lateral hip here. And then what I want you to do is you're going to stand up and come back to where we started. So don't even think about the process, but you're going to come back, right? So let's do the same side again. So step back into a lunge. Arms by your side, hip hinge, arms come forward. Great knee goes into the midline and then you stand up and again, repeat that. Step back, good and hip hinge.
Then arms come forward. Great. Let your knee go into the midline. Exaggerate that. I know we usually keep it over our second toe, right? But this time I want you to go past your big toe and then stand up. And again, step back. This is called exercise, a repeat and hip hinge. Arms Up, let that knee fall into the midline. Good. And then stand up, stew it two more times and back down and forward.
Nigos in excellent and stand up last time, back arms, hip hinge, arms overhead. Nigos in and stand up. Great. Other side and step back, right hip, hinge, arms. Come forward. Let that knee come into the mid line and then stand up and back. Hip Hinge, arms reach. Allow your need of, go into the mid line there and then stand up. Very good and back.
Hip Hinge and arms. Come forward. Let your knee fall in and then stand up. Great. And again, we'll do two more and hip hinge, arms overhead. Good knee comes in. And then standing up. And last one. All right. And back hinge arms.
Come up, Nigos in and stand up. Great. Now we're going to step back with the right leg, but a shorter stance if you would. And get on the ball of your foot of the back foot and see if you can drop your knee down. That's it. Good. Now just keep your body vertical arms just down by your side. And all I want you to do with the back knee is to bring it into the midline and then outward. So you need goes out and you're going inward and outward. Oh, that's good.
And in so doing internal rotation and external rotation. Good. And in and out and in and out. You guys have great range in, out, in, out. And one more time in out. And I'll come back to the middle and we're going to stand up. Woo.
Feel that right. And come back to the other side. So we want to be on the ball of your foot and you wanted to have the knee drop towards the floor. And here we go. In out. You'll notice a difference between your right and left hip. I bet. Yeah. One maybe has more range than the other side. Yeah. And out in, out, in, out in good.
We'll do a couple times more. There we go. Last one out. No, come back to the middle and stand up and come back. So good hip glute abductor work, which is really important in your range of motion. Okay. So now we're going to take the blocks and just put them aside for the moment. We'll be coming back to them. Okay.
And now we're goodness. Stand in a wide parallel position. Okay. So you feet will be on the outside of your hips here. Okay. And then we will get to do is just like a little bit of a, another hip hinge and squat. Okay. So we're going to be in this position now. Cab your head up on top so we're not dropping the head forward.
So we want that spine nice and long. And all I want you to do is you're going to do a hip sway gonna Shift your weight to the right and you're just going to unweight that foot. And then come back and then you can deepen your squat a little bit in the middle. It kind of feels good. And then transfer your weight and lift and hold and then come back and then deepen your squat. That's it. Shift the weight, lift and hold. Excellent down shift. And again, you might notice, oh, I have a little more difficulty bouncing on my left leg versus my right leg.
And that's okay. You just notice that that's your pattern and that's something that we need to work on. Now be careful your trunk that you're not over bending your trunk, right? Don't do the movement. So try to keep your sternum right over your leg and see if you can keep and lift this way. So don't let your sternum move. Try to keep it over this leg.
Good. We're going to do one more each side. Excellent. Yeah, it's tricky, but if you feel like what the thorax is doing there, right? Excellent. And come back and now we're going to stand up. I'm going to bring the feet together. All right, and we're going to do the same thing again. Where are we going to go into a hip hinge? Now, if you want to make this a little bit more difficult, all right, we can stay in this position. It's like a skydiver. Okay. Or you can bring the arms up, which will make it a little bit more difficult.
And how much can you sit back into that position? So it's your choice where you like, and I want you to shift the weight, but it's gonna be much smaller, right? So shift and lift the one foot in, place it down. Now it's less of a shift in the torso, but you feel the work in the hip. Yes. Good. And shift down. Good. Shift down, shift down. Good shift. And then pay attention to your trunk again.
Is your sternum moving too much over your leg or can you keep it right over the standing leg? All right, we're going to do one more each side. That's it. Good. Good. And stand up. Whew. That's hard work, isn't it? Okay. So now we're going to take the blocks. Just have them in the front of your mat nearby.
Okay. And we're going to kneel down onto the mat and this is how we know would just tell we're going to do it. So this is how we're going to get down to the floor. All right, we're going to take that back leg again, bend the knee and kneel down and just barely touch the floor and we're going to stand back up. And then kind of just, just do that a couple times. Stand down and then push. Use your back foot a little bit. Yeah, to come up now can you notice one side is more stable, like your, you're able to go down a little bit easier than the other.
Now pick the side you weren't so good at doing and you're going to go all the way down now. All the way down to the floor. Okay. And then you're just going to kneel and you're going to need one block and we're going to take the one block and put it under our right knee. And you gotta be careful that I'm looking for is that you don't have too much hip flection. All right, so I'm going to show you on this view so you can see me. All right? But You keep it until your right knee. I don't want so much flection here, so you have to bring your hands forward. Your other knee is on the met, right? So this line, your femur is vertical. Your pelvis will be rotating to the left and your hands are pretty far out because we don't want to be sitting back and we don't want to be too far forward. Okay, so I'm gonna switch to the right knee.
All right, now this is placing your pelvis in our right rotation and end gate. We want the ribs to rotate to the left. Okay, so we want to take your right hand and we're going to move. I'm sorry, your left hand towards the midline. Okay. And then you need to take your right hand and kind of move through. You're just rotating a little bit. That's it. Good.
And then just come back and do that again. Bring your hand through. Yeah, good. And come back. It's not a very large movement because your pelvis is rotated in the other direction. Yes. So you want to bring that side of your rib cage around. Good. And come back. And I'm going to do it one more time and rotate. Try not to sit back when you rotate. Okay. And then come back. Alright, now replace your hands. So their level.
And now what we're gonna do is rotate around that right hip. And you're going to lift this knee and you're going to rotate your pelvis so it faces the left, arm's a straight, and then you lower it down to touch the mat and you lift up, rotate the pelvis, keep your arms flat on your wrists down. Yeah. So the rotation can you feel you're rotating your pelvis around that right femur. And I bet you you're feeling your obliques like crazy, right? So exhale, rotate. Good. The need is just pretty much staying where it is.
So don't lift the knee out to the side. You're just rotating around. That's it. Let's do a couple more times and rotate down. Now the elbows want to bend, right? Don't bend the elbows and come down. Very good. All right. Now, next six section is we're going to lift up to level now and then you're going to extend the leg back behind you like you're standing. Flex your foot and push through your heel like you're standing on the wall behind you. And then bring the knee in and then lower it to the floor. Lift the knee up, reach back through your heel, stand on the wall behind you.
Bend the knee in and lower it down and rotate back with the leg. Good. Bring the knee in and lower it down. Can you handle two more and lift and reach back
Towards the mid line and we're going to take that left hand and just try to rotate and then come back and again, try to keep the pelvis where it is, right? So we're rotating the ribs. What a difference between the sides. Yeah. Can you feel that? It's remarkable, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Much differ for me on this side. And that just shows you what your preferences, you know, in your rotation. So you might want to do a few extra repetitions here and in your daily workouts. Kinda think about, I really need to work on this thoracic rotation yet.
So let's do one more
So this is showing you where you might have an imbalance in your oblique system. Through that, I'm going to do a couple more because it's so good. Alright, rotate and down. Okay, let's do one more rotate and I'll come down. Keep your knee off the floor and let's send that leg behind you standing on the wall. Flex your foot and that's it. And bend the knee in and lower the hip. Knee down to the floor, rotate your pelvis, stand on the back, reach, bend the knee en and hello are down and again up.
Reach back. Good knee in, lower and up, reach back, excellent in. We'll then do one more down and we'll lift up back in and down. Rest. Very good. Excellent. Okay, now we're going to go into a little bit of a bridge series and we're going to want one block for our foot. So we're going to lie on our backs now.
So what this is going to do is going to make one hip in more fluxion and the other hip in more extension and in the gate patterning. Remember the push off part of your toe. You need to extend your hip. So this is going to help us with that. So just first start by feeling your both feet solid on the ground and then reach your knees over your toes and start to lift your pelvis up into your bridge. Now the right side should be as level to the left side.
Yeah. So put your hands on your top of your pelvis here and check to see that one is not sitting. You don't want your pelvis rotated. We want to extend that right hip, feel that good, and then roll down. We'll do that three times. Okay. And if you want to make it harder, you can actually take your arms off if you'd like. So you're resting on your shoulders and then you roll down.
If you're not sure about your pelvis, you can put your hands on the front of your pelvis to check to make sure that their levels, so those are your choices for your arms or you can just keep them down. Okay. So if your arms are up, we're gonna come up to the bridge. We're gonna stay in bridge and all I wanted to do is to lift your right foot slightly off the floor very little bit and roll well it out. And then place your foot down. Ah, let's put your foot down. Okay. And do that again. So bridge up, that's it.
Hold the bridge. Barely lift your foot up and roll it down. And I'll see if when you roll down that you don't lift your knee up higher. Do you understand? So one more time again. So up. Good. So just barely, that's it. Barely lift your foot. That's it. Now rolled down and keep the leg right here. Exactly.
Keep that like there. Good. Just see. So we're trying to do a bridge. You wanna do it one more time. We're trying to keep that extension in the hip. That's it in the handy. That's good. Yeah. Keep the extension the hip. Don't let it lift more. Yeah, exactly. All right, let's switch. So three bridges without, yeah.
So this is getting your post to your hip, that's for sure. And your hamstrings. Yeah. Okay. So here we go. Three times. So arms are up or on your pelvis is actually a nice, so you can check to make sure that left side is as high as the right and we roll it down
That's your oblique system again. Yeah, I noticed that. I'm kind of favoring rolling to the left. Okay. We did four on the other side. So let's do one more and lift.
You can play with that. Yeah. Okay. Rest. All right, so come sit up for a second cause I want to show you what we're going to do next. Cause it's about the sacrum and it's about trying to feel the center of mass that I was talking about that we want to feel it moving into the body. Okay. So I'm going to ask you to place your thumbs if you can't or you can place your fingers like that. But I like getting my thumbs right in the middle of the sacred.
And there's actually a little bone you can, maybe some people are Bonnier than others, but you can maybe get your right on here and you're going to be lying on your stomach. So if you can just pretend I'm lying on my stomach. When I'm going to ask you to do is two things. One is you're going to press straight into your body, you're going to press inward. So you're just going to push in like that, okay? And then I want you to drag it down. I don't know if you can see what I'm doing. It's, it's like I want to take the wrinkles out of my shirt, so it's not, I'm not doing this, but that's the direction I'm going in.
So the feeling is the sacrum is being buried. That's what we say is we buried the sacred in and we drag it down. Okay? So that's the motion. All right? So you're going to lie in your stomach, okay? And I want your legs in a parallel position, okay? And just hip lith. So first before we put our hands on the sacrum, just stack your hands and put your forehead down. And I'd like you to just to take a slow breath in to your sacrum, into your sternum. And then as you exhale, just sink, sink, sink. Let your sacrum sink. Maybe want to wiggle a little bit. You know, you want to just settle the bones in there. Okay. And again, take a breath into your sacrum and into your sternum.
And then as you exhale, let it all go. Let the Sacrum Crum sink and let your sternum sink and you might find yourself flattening out. Can you feel that? So gravity's actually lengthening your spine. Yeah. One more time. Take a breath into that sacrum into your sternum. This is a great way to work extension because you're extending your spine right now. Yes. Very nice. That's excellent. Okay. Now you're going to float your head off the table just a little bit off your mat and get your thumbs on the sacrum there.
And what I want you to do is on the exhale, take a breath in and as you exhale, press the sacrum into the floor and then drag it down. And I want you to float your head up a little bit and float your legs up. But keep that sacred, them moving down towards your feet and into your body. Can you feel that day? Just your legs just float up. Up, right? And then lower down. Relax for a second, take a breath in, and then exhale.
Let your sacrum sink in. Drag it down, let your legs float up and float your chest up just a little bit. Good and lower down. And again, take a breath in and exhale. Sink the sacred men and float the legs up. Float the body. Excellent. It's more in the center. So if you can get more in the center. Yeah, the thumb. Yes. That's it. Good, Jacqueline. Yeah. So see if you can get a little more in the center. Can you get mold? Thumbs?
Yeah. So it's one point you're actually pushing. There it is. Do you feel that and drag it down? Do you feel the difference? Yeah. So it's only one point that you're pushing in. Okay, great. And now rest for a second. We're going to do it again, but now this time, bring your legs together and I want you to keep your inner ankles, if you can, together in her ankles and your heels, right. Heels an inner ankles. And we're going to do the same thing here.
So you have to really work your add doctors too. So take a breath. Exhale, sink the sacrum and drag it down and float your legs up together. Inner ankles and inner heels together. Yeah, in her ankle bones, ankle bones. There you have to use your add drs and come back down. It's more here. Right here. There you go. Relax. All right. Inner ankles, inner heels and press the sacrum. Let it Barre and drag it down. Yeah, but I don't want it to go posterior. So you've got to keep this point in and down.
There it is to feel the difference. Okay, excellent. Now, where's your inner ankles? Hmm? Your inner toes. Inner toes. More les heals more inner ankles. They are for you. That's it. Oh, how are you guys doing? All right. One more time.
Very good. All right. Now come back and sit into child's pose.
So what I want is actually moving away from my hand and down away from, so don't feel the sacrum pop up into your thumbs. You got that? Okay. Did you understand that? Did you feel that? Yeah. So the thumbs are really at s two if you know what that is. So if you follow your Iliac crest around, and this would be at the top of the Sacrum, you want to just go down a little tiny bit. And that's where s two is. If you know where that is, but it's basically there's a little bony bump right there.
So we're not down near the tailbone cause that's going to make you tuck like that. And we want this part of the sacred more at the top to go in. Okay. And that changes the musculature around the gluteals on how they're working. And that's really important for this moment of your gate because your sacrum has to go this way and your glute has to fire. So that's it. You can't send her a mass. If I go back with my sake, I'm like, Jacqueline was doing that. I'm going to be walking like this. The trucking. Hi.
Okay. All right. So to stand up, this is how you're going to stand up. Pick the hip that you think is a little bit weaker, bring it forward, Tuck your toes under, all right. And you're gonna push with your back foot and you're going to stand up and walk forward. Excellent. Okay. Now we're going to take a couple more movements. All right, we're going to take our block again, one block and all right? So this, this can be a challenge because of the balance. We're going to stand on one block. Now at home, what you can do also is use a wall, okay?
So if this is the wall, what I can do is you put the block here and I'll be putting one hand like this and my hand can be on the wall here like this. So you want the leg that's dangling between the block and the wall, all right? That way you won't lean kind of funny, but we're going to be brave and try it without the wall, okay? Now what your arms are doing is you're going to reach the same side that's on the block. You're going to touch your scapula right here, the top right here, and you're really trying to get the elbow to go up. And what I'm interested in is that, and we're gonna put our hand here because I want you to push your elbow up into your hand. You see that and you push it to the ceiling.
So I don't want the elbow out here. I know if you have tight shoulders, that might be a challenge, but push up that way. What this is doing is it actually translates your ribs to the left. It's on end. So you're on your left leg standing, so you'll be more stable actually. Okay, so here we go. I'm going to do a couple of movements here. So the first thing we're going to do is see if we can get our balance here.
So we're going to be standing here, okay? And now you're going to bend the knee that's on the block and you're just going to touch your foot to the floor. Just touch your soul, feel the surface of the sole of your foot on the floor, and then you just going to stand up when you stand up, push into your elbow. So you're going to bend and stand up. Good. And Ben, and you might notice you're doing a little bit of a hip drop and a little bit of a hip hike and that's okay. Yeah, just a little bit. Good. Okay. Now we're going to go to the little toe side. We're gonna do the same movement.
Go to the little toe side of your foot, touch the little toe side of your foot, and then come back up. And now we're going to touch the big toe side of your foot. And then you're going to push up, push up with the elbow, little toe side of your foot, and stand up big toe side of your foot and stand up. Let's do one more each side, little toe side of the foot. Turn your foot. Yeah, we want to get that flexibility and inside and up. Okay. And then try to stay in here. Okay. Now we're gonna have straight legs, right? And we're just going to lower that. You're going to do that hip drop.
Lower your foot. Try not to touch. Don't and lift. So would hip hiking. You see that hip sway and hip hike and lower your foot. Good. And come up excellent. Lower. See how much your ad doctors have to work. Yeah, especially on that left leg right and up. Don't bend the knee one more time. It's hard on my left side and Oh, you could take a little break in between the two.
But if you do the whole thing without stopping, it's quite the workout. All right, here we go. Other side, right arm to the Scapula. Touch the elbow, pressing up through the elbow. And now we're bending the knee and we just touch the sole of the foot to the floor and stand up. When you stand up, push it into that elbow and touch and press up and touch and press up. Keep breathing. Good and up. And one more.
And up. Now the little toe side of your foot, little toe side of your foot and up. Big Toe side of your foot and up. Little Toe side of your foot and up. Big Toe. I'm going to do one more outer stand up and inner. Stand up. Good. And then release the arms down. And now straight legs, we go lower and up. Ah, lower and up. So we want to drop the hip.
We want hip drop, I'm sorry, straight leg. We want a hip drop and we want to hip hike. Tried to do it without bending. That's hard when that side, the left side's restricted in the lumbar spine, your side bending. So this might be more difficult for some of you than the other side and hip hike and drop and hip hike. Couple more drop. And I thought the other side was bad. Yeah, and step off. Very good. Okay. All right, so we're going to finish with two more movements. All right, so let's take the blocks away and we're going to do a side lunge.
All right, so you can face me. All right. It's not a very wide stance, so you're just going to step out to the side. So we're stepping out to my left. All right, go that way. Good. And then you're going to reach over and we're going to get a nice lateral stretch from the fingertips all the way down to the little toe of the other foot. Now you're going to bring your trunk upright and we're going to transfer the weight onto the bent leg. And we're going to try to stand on that leg, lift that, and come back. Good and step not too wide, because you gotta be able to transfer your weight. So reach little fingers all the way to your little toe.
Bring your trunk up right then and, and come in and reach. Bring your torso up, stand on the bent leg. Straighten and good
Let's do one more side. Reach and up. Bring the torso up. Good and down. Last one, side reach. Bring the torso up and stand and down. Okay, let's do our walking in place again. So you're lifting one heel and your on the other heel and you're switching back and forth. Feel different. Really easy now. Right?
Excellent.
So we're now going to take a revisit a after view of Andy walking again.
So let's see what happened after the movement. So just your normal walk, normal gait, normal tempo. I mean, right. Just look where you're going. This is good. At least you're smiling. So let's make some observations. Yeah. Tiny bit of motion in the thorax. All right. It's, I would have liked to have seen more, but he's getting a little bit of rotation cause you can see his arms are swinging a little bit better. So, and again, we only did a one movement session. So yeah.
And then there's also the motor learning part. So Andy, go ahead and let your chest miss. Move a little forward and back. Just let it happen. There you go. That's a little better. And then his pelvis. Let's notice what's happening to it. I actually do feel that his center of mass is more forward. He's, he's a little bit more upright. His Torso looks more upright. He's moving through his feet a little better.
His feet are peeling off the floor there and his pelvis isn't rotating as much. It's still rotating to the left, more than the right. But he's not driving all of the motion from the rotation of the pelvis because he's, he's actually got a little more thoracic rotation. How does it feel? It's good. It feels good. You feel the lift. Excellent. Well let's now take a look at his assessments. Okay.
All right. So the first one we did was the hip drop. So you're gonna keep your feet on the floor, right? And drop the hip. Now your right side was the easy side to come down. So go slowly on that. Wow. Okay. We got some good move there. Turn around and let's see from the back angle.
So let me come over here cause this is where I was before. So we're going to be observing. Yeah. So a little bit slower for me. Just look at that. That's a really big difference. One more time, right? That was his good side. His preferred side. That's awesome. That is a really great change. Good. All right, now let's see your hip sway.
So place your hands on your hip joints there and he's going to sway to the side. Keeping the legs straight. Good. And then what we noticed last time was when he went to the right, his rib cage shifted a lot, if you remember that. So to notice now his rib cage is just pretty much following along and there's not an extra side bending that he was doing and the other time. So I feel a little different to you. Yeah. Good. And then the rotation.
So go ahead and grab your arms, right. And then turning, Ooh, look at that. His ribs moved and then his pelvis moves. Go ahead. Good. I love that. That's excellent. Big improvement. And his feet are actually adapting a little tiny bit. So allow your feet to, to allow your feet to rotate, to go take it all the way down into your, yes, you can do it. Yeah, let it ankles rotate. Let them rotate. Excellent. So part of it is also kind of your awareness and the motor learning parts. So his body was able to rotate more. He could rotate more through his feet.
It's just that his mind, his brain hadn't really said, oh, I can do this now. So there's a little bit of that motor learning that he has to do and I would point that out to you. Excellent work. Thank you. So that one, let's take a look at Jackie. Less elbow flection. You notice that her shoulders not being brought up against, that's, that's a big change. Yeah. So there's this, the little town, it's still, again for both of them, I'd like to see a little more rotation in the thorax, but it's really nice that her upper thorax is moving because you can see it because she's not having to use her arms as a pendulum to kind of pump herself forward. So that's really good. And I can see the lower rib cage, she's got that rotation. If you look at the back view, you'll be able to see that a little bit more of that.
Her ribs are actually rotating. That looks really good. And then we'll see her pelvis rotation. You know what you corrected your pose is facing straight forward. So before you were kind of stuck in a left rotation, can you feel that your pelvis is really forward? Yeah. Excellent. And they can really see the hip drop happening on both sides.
She's got a very good hip drop. You can see it. She has her gait is happening and then her feet and again she was, yeah. Do you feel like you're, you could feel like you're s your sacrum is really driving you forward there. Yeah. Very good. Center of mass moving forward. So all those elements really improved for you. Okay. So let's take a look at your assessments. Okay.
So first was the hip drop. All right. And separate your feet. Just a tiny bed. Yeah. Okay. So slowly right knee. Excellent. Not a whole lot of rib translation. We'll see it from the back and then drop much better. Yeah. Do you feel a difference on that left side? This turn around?
Cause we'll be able to watch the ribs and the pelvis. Right. So nice drop. And she didn't go anterior before when she bent the knee. That pelvis went forward because you liked that left rotation. Yeah. So and then look at that. That's really nice. And your ribs are staying right over. Excellent. Okay, let's see. The hips sway.
So and watch again the rib cage. Okay. Whoa. Improved range there. She wasn't used to that again. Her body didn't know that. Oh, I could actually go that far. Yeah. Excellent. And then you can watch her feet that they're adapting. Yeah.
You don't have to go quite so far. You can keep your feet flat. And if I remember right, your left foot wasn't pronating very well. Right. So that's improved through there. Okay. And let's see your rotation. Unless she had a good range of rotation. Yeah. Okay. And she had a lot of pelvis motion also see the ribs moving. Keep going. See, let your pelvis rotate. Keep going as far. Yeah, keep going. Keep going.
And let's watch the ankles. Yeah, very good. And come back and rotate again. Yeah, it's all in the queuing too. So come back to the center. So start with your head. So look over your shoulder with your eyes and keep moving. Yeah, just keep moving. There you go. You know, it all depends. I mean I can start a rotation from my pelvis if I choose to just say, I mean that's a choice I'm making for the movement, but if I start with the head, it should all gradually go, you know, with the head through the whole spine. Excellent.
So that's looks pretty even as it feels improved. Yeah. Okay. And how did your gait feel to too, yeah, definitely. Your stride was longer, right? And your rhythm was faster. Yeah. And those are the elements of the gate that we really need to help people improve is also their speed of the gate. Right. And also their stride.
And that center of mass is really important in addition to the feed. So you can do the movement class again. All right. Thank you. So an interesting, a phenomenon that happened in this class is we had six bodies and we had six bodies that had different patterns. So when they each did their own assessment, they found that one person had a left side bending, one person had a right side bending, or they had more restriction in one hip. So six people had different patterns going on in their bodies, but we all did similar movements sequence. And through that movement sequence, everyone had a change in their body, which eased up these motions for the gate mechanics. So that's really interesting to see that even though I have a specific pattern that I want to work on by doing movement that's more functional, meaning that it's matching the, the mechanics of the spine, that we can actually improve all these different patterns and then
So thank you very much.
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