Blog

The ribcage has three major roles in the health of our body, how it moves and more.  Watch this fun, interactive webinar and discover the major roles of the ribcage and why it important for you to know when it comes to the health of your body and how it moves.

We left off our last newsletter about the rib cage with some questions for you to think about.

1. Does your rib cage feel mobile or stiff?  Do you breathe easily?
2. When you turn or move your head, can you do so easily?
3. Is your rib cage flared at the bottom?

How did you answer these?  

If you answered, your rib cage feels pretty stiff: You are likely not receiving all the benefits of breathing well. When we breathe well or three-dimensionally, it helps create mobility in our rib cage.  The opposite is true when we don't breathe well. It can make our rib cage stiffer by overusing the muscles that are attached to it for the simple task of breathing.

If you answered you don't breathe well:  Your rib cage may also be it stiff or rigid.  Perhaps you feel like you cannot get a breath fully in or out.  

If you answered you do not turn your head well or easily to one side or the other:  The muscles that are attached from your neck to your...

If you have been following our newsletters we have been sharing some great strategies to decrease the tightness, pressure, and discomfort in your eyes, neck, and shoulders.

In this installment, we will look at some common exercises you may be doing and how to bring the new information into your workouts to decrease the pressure on your neck and shoulders.

Planks, push-ups, and rows can all be great exercises for improving upper body and core strength.  Yet, when these same exercises are performed less than optimally they can cause tightness, pain, and injury.

Keys to getting the strength without the tightness pain and injury:

1. Modify the exercise for success.  This means you can perform the exercise while maintaining the alignment of your spine, neck, and shoulders.
2. Avoid exercises or performing exercises in a way that changes your alignment or causes you not to be able to breathe properly.
3. Stop doing the exercise before you lose your alignment,...

In this interactive webinar, we share why you may be experiencing neck discomfort from your daily technology use and what you can do about it.

There are some super useful tips in this forty-minute video. 

Take this quick quiz.

Can you move your eyes without moving your head and neck?

Hmmm…

Give it a try. 

• Turn just your eyes to the right. Come back to center.
• Turn just your eyes to the left. Come back to center.
• Move just your eyes to look down.
• Move just your eyes to look up.

How did you do?  Were you able to move just your eyes without moving your head and neck?  Unsure?  Try again.

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, six eye muscles control eye movement. One muscle moves the eye to the right, and one muscle moves the eye to the left. The other four muscles move the eye up, down, and at an angle.

Why is this important?

To move your eyes from side to side requires just two muscles.  To move your eyes up, down, and down requires just four.  If every time you look right or left just 30 degrees and you must turn your neck to accomplish this, you also use about 3-5 neck and the eye muscles. Depending on the flexibility of...

Did you know that every exercise is a core exercise?

Over the last few installments, we have been discussing the core muscles of our bodies.  Since the dawn of exercise, core workouts have been a big part of what we are told for aesthetics to helping with back pain.

Let's look at two things commonly prescribed and used core exercises can do to our back and aesthetics.

The chart below highlights two exercises, crunches and supermans.  Both are commonly prescribed exercises for the core and back.  As you can see by the chart both are pretty high for excessive pressure on the spine.

The images below show what can commonly happen when we do 'crunch' type exercises. If you look to where the arrows point, the abdominal area is not getting smaller or flattening.  (Which we are told will happen.) Rather, it is pushing out.  This pushing out is your abdominal contents, like your intestines, being pushed up into your abdominal wall.  This is caused by the...

If you struggle with back issues and have been told you need to strengthen your core you need to watch this webinar.

Jenice covers your deep core muscles that attach to and stabilize your spine.

She will also take you through simple yet effective exercises for your deeper core muscles.

Do you ever feel a twinge in your shoulder when you move your arm(s) in a certain way? 

Maybe it is when you lift your arm a little too high when reaching into the cabinet or bringing your arm down.  Perhaps it is not in your shoulder but more in your neck you feel the discomfort.

There are several muscles that connect your shoulder to your neck, thus why when you move your head or neck you may feel discomfort in one or the other.

There are two primary movements of the arms, pushing and pulling.  How you perform pushing and pulling patterns when exercising and during your daily life can affect how 'good' your arms, head, neck, and ribs will feel.

Today we will look specifically at the concept of pushing.  In everyday life, we push a shopping cart, a. door, a lawn mower, a stroller, a suitcase, and more.  When exercising we push a chest press, overhead press, a cable press, a sled, and others.

An important concept is how we do anything is how we do...