Rolfing Bellevue: Raising Your Fallen Arch

By Christopher Horan, CR, CFNC September 10, 2012 General, Rolfing Tips

Raising a fallen arch is not easy but it can be done in my Rolfing office(s) servicing Bellevue, Seattle & Tacoma.  This is assuming that we’re talking about a “fallen arch” not flat feet that you might have been born with.  There are a couple of things to think about when trying to raise your arch. The first being what exercises you can do to strengthen and hopefully “lift” your arch.  The second is opening up or lengthening tissue that might be keeping you in a fallen arch.

Two of the primary muscles that help raise support your medial (inside) arch are your Tibialis Posterior and your Abductor Hallusis.  The Tibialis posterior tendon (a leg muscle that crosses the ankle joint and inserts in the medial arch) is usually focused on during acquired flat foot deformities as a primary cause.  It however doesn’t kick in until the passive support of the arch breaks down so we will not focus on it here.

The abductor hallusis muscle starts at the inside base of your heel and inserts into the base of your big toe.  The best way to work this muscle is called the “short foot” exercise.  Here is a brief explanation on how to do it:

To perform a short foot exercise, sit in a sturdy chair, using good posture. Place both feet flat on the floor with your toes pointing straight forward.  Raise the arch of your right foot off the floor without curling your toes and lifting your heel. This is called the short foot position. Hold this isometric contraction for six seconds. Relax, and repeat with the left foot. Inch your feet forward and perform another rep with each foot. Perform 15 to 20 repetitions with each foot to strengthen and stabilize the muscles that comprise the longitudinal arch of the foot. Reposition your feet a little farther away from the chair each rep to target the muscles at slightly different angles. When this exercise is executed properly, you will feel muscle contraction in the foot and lower leg.  As quoted by, Dr. Nicholas A Campitelli – Podiatric Medicine and Surgery

Here’s a Youtube video that will give you a visual on how to do the exercise: Click Here

I’ve done this exercise myself quite a bit trying to maintain healthy arches.  It’s a bit awkward at first but you’ll get the hang of it in a few days as long as you are diligent about doing it a few times per day.  I also find it useful to do the exercise while standing since eventually you’re shooting for this muscle to support your arch while you’re standing and walking.

The second part you need to do is lengthen the tissue on the outside of your feet.  To do this you can stand on the outside of your feet and slowly bend your knees until you feel a stretch on the outside of your ankles.  You will probably also need to see someone who does structural integration Like Myself at my Rolfing practice in Bellevue, WA. Who can take a look at the bones of your feet to see if the bones in your feet are articulating against one another appropriately?

Want to Schedule a Session, Click Here

Clients receive Rolfing from me for flat feet from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.

Here are a couple of links to other sites with exercises you can do IN ADDITION to, not instead of, the short foot exercise:

-http://www.livestrong.com/article/142341-what-exercise-can-i-do-my-fallen-arches/?utm_source=RELARTICLES_R1

-http://www.marksdailyapple.com/flat-feet-treatment/#axzz25hIOMaaQ

Rolfing Bellevue: Carpel Tunnel Syndrome

By Christopher Horan, CR, CFNC August 23, 2012 General

At my Rolfing practice(s) servicing Bellevue, Seattle & Tacoma, WA I have a lot of clients coming in who think they might have carpel tunnel syndrome.  In fact, I have yet to have a single client who has had carpel tunnel syndrome.  A large majority of people get numbness or tingling in their fingers and have heard that that is a symptom of carpel tunnel syndrome (CTS) and assume that’s what they must have without doing any research.  Let’s take a look at what carpel tunnel syndrome really is.

 

Wikipedia defines CTS as, “an entrapment median neuropathy, causing paresthesia, pain, numbness, and other symptoms in the distribution of the median nerve due to its compression at the wrist in the carpal tunnel”.  The median nerve is one of 3 main nerves that send and receive information in your arms.  It originates from a grouping of the nerves in the neck, called the brachial plexus, dives under your collar bone (clavicle) and extends all the way down into your fingertips.  Entrapment median neuropathy simply means that the median nerve is being pinched or compressed and it’s causing disease or damage to the nerve itself.  The carpal tunnel is as you guessed it, a tunnel that passes through your carpal (wrist) bones.

 

CTS is often thought to be caused by repetitive motion at work but in fact has many origins including lipomas, obesity, oral contraceptives, hypothyroidism, arthritis, diabetes, and trauma.  The symptoms usually include numbness, tingling, or burning sensations in the thumb and fingers, in particular the index, middle fingers, and radial half of the ring fingers (on the palm side of the hand).

 

To date, all of the clients that come to my Rolfing practice in Bellevue end up complaining of nerve numbness or tingling in fingers or place of the hand that are fed by nerves other than the median nerve.  Therefore, they probably have a nerve entrapment issue, but not of the median nerve through the carpal tunnel.  More often than not, the entrapment is happening further up the arm as the nerves weave their way in between muscles and ligaments or even as they dive under the collar bone on their way from the neck (which in fact is the most common place for entrapment).

 

As a Rolfer in Bellevue treating “carpal tunnel syndrome” like symptoms, I’ll look at your whole body to find out where the source of the issue is and not just chase where the symptoms are showing up.  Most of my training following the Rolf institute has been on working with nerve pathology & entrapment issues and how to resolve them non-surgically.   And, on the rare occasion that I can’t help I am in constant contact with a great team of medical professionals (both western and eastern philosophies) around the Austin area that can help you get rid of your pain.

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Clients receive Rolfing from me for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.

Rolfing Bellevue: Rolfing After Pain Symptoms Go Away

By Christopher Horan, CR, CFNC July 25, 2012 General

You’ve been seeing me for Rolfing sessions and we’ve gotten rid of your pain, so you’re done seeing me right?  Well, maybe not.  Just because you’re not feeling any pain currently doesn’t mean that your body is functioning in a healthy way.  That kind of thinking is like saying that you are perfectly healthy just because you don’t have a cold.  There might be something lurking just underneath your awareness that is causing long term damage to your body.  Something might be off such a small amount that there is no pain involved, but if left unchecked and unresolved over time will wear down your tissue and turn up as serious pain down the road.

 

Part of what makes Rolfing unique is that I’m treating the entire body, not just the area of the body that hurts.  Every part of your body is connected some way or another, so something going on in your foot can cause symptoms to show up in your neck and head.  If we get the pain to go away in your neck and head but never address what’s going on in your feet, your symptoms will eventually come back because we’ve never address the core of the issue.

 

You could also have misalignments or unbalanced areas in your body that don’t cause you pain right now but will do so down the road.  The unbalanced tissue might have absolutely nothing to do with the issue you came to see me for and might not have any symptoms showing up.  However, if we don’t bring the tissue back into balance pain is likely to show up later in your life.

 

Ultimately, I started My Rolfing Practice in Bellevue, WA because the work is effective at getting people out of pain.  But I want those changes to be permanent.  So, it’s imperative that we bring better alignment back to the entire body and not just chase pain symptoms.  Doing so will help ensure that not only will your current symptoms go away, but you can sidestep future aches and pains as well.  Effectively, keeping your body feeling young and supple.

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Clients receive Rolfing from me for after reduced pain from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.

Rolfing Bellevue: Compensation

By Christopher Horan, CR, CFNC June 25, 2012 General

The fact that your body compensates is incredibly important.  If it didn’t compensate every time you got a new injury you’d have a hard time getting much done in your life.  Whenever you hurt or damage tissue in your body, that tissue often times can’t perform its normal function as efficiently as it normally can.  So, instead of your body just giving up and telling you to just lie down while the tissue is repaired it finds someone else to do the job while it repairs itself.  Adjacent muscles work harder, bones rotate to adjust to the change in bio-mechanics, ligaments & nerves stretch as necessary and soon enough you’re off on your way again.

 

The damaged tissue does repair itself while it gets the vacation from working.  This all sounds like a great plan, except somewhere along the way we run into a problem.  Your body isn’t so great at knowing that it can let go of the compensation.  You see, you’ve created a new pattern.  Your body is essentially lazy and is always trying to find the most efficient way to do any task.  It WANTS to save energy.  So you’ve created a new pattern and your body has had time to get good at this new pattern and wants to stick with it.  If you try to change that pattern it’s going to take WORK, and the body inherently doesn’t want to work harder.  So what’s the problem with that you say?  Well, this new pattern isn’t how your body was designed to function.  You’ve got muscles doing jobs they weren’t designed to do and you’ve got bones moving in directions that they weren’t supposed to be moving.  If your alignment is off on your car, your tires wear down faster.  If you don’t have the proper alignment and balance around your joints and through your body, things wear down faster.  Your body can handle the changes over a short period of time, but over an extended period of time things will wear down.

 

In My Rolfing Practice servicing, Bellevue, Seattle, & Tacoma, WA,  I evaluate your entire structure.  I look at all of the compensations that are going on in your body to get an idea of where the original source of the issue is coming from, which is most often nowhere near where you feel the pain.  Rolfing is set up to manipulate your soft tissue (fascia, nerves, organs, muscles, etc.) to bring better alignment and proper mechanics back to your body so that it functions at its optimal capacity and the pain goes away.  In short, Rolfing is very effective and undoing years of abuse to your body and the resulting compensation patterns.

 

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Clients receive Rolfing from me for Compensation Issues from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.

Rolfing Bellevue: Improve Posture

By Christopher Horan, CR, CFNC June 4, 2012 General, Rolfing Tips

Is posture important? The answer to that questions is very clear….Yes and No. Not very clear was it. But it’s true, posture can be important in some cases and not so much in others. Let’s start off by taking a look at some of the ways that “good” posture can be helpful.

One of the ways that a healthy posture can be a good thing is that it means you’re fighting less against gravity. For example, if your head is properly positioned over your torso (your ears should line up with your mid shoulder as viewed from the side) then you entire structure gets to support the weight of your head. This allows the muscles in your neck to perform their designed tasks of stabilizing and mobilizing (i.e. turning, nodding, etc.). However, if your head is shifted out in front of your body it puts a lot of stress on the muscles in the back of your neck and shoulders to hold the weight of your head up while gravity pulls down on your head. This fatigues these neck and shoulder muscles as they weren’t designed to counterbalance the pull of gravity all day long. So they get tight from over-contracting all day long and they’re not freed up to help rotate and extend your neck and head as they were designed to do.

Posture, from a structural integration standpoint, can be an indicator that something is not right in the body. The postural imbalance might be coming from a usage imbalance, or an entrapped nerve that is not allowing a muscle to fire as it is supposed to, could be a genetic variable, etcetera. There are many ways that posture can be affected.

More important question to ask your self when looking at posture is why is the posture not “correct”? As well as, asking whether the poor posture has a potential to be harmful to the body over time. You can have great posture with pain and an ill-functioning body. In which case, the pain may be stemming from something on a deeper level like an entrapped nerve or an irritated organ. Conversely, it’s certainly possible to have poor posture and have a very efficient functioning body with no pain. What’s most common however is that if your posture is off, it’s a strong indicator that you have some type of compensation going on in your body that needs to be addressed so that your body can function at a more efficient level. As a Rolfer servicing Bellevue, Seattle & Tacoma, I will review your posture and ask those bigger questions to find where the true source of the issue is coming from in the body.

Want to Schedule a Session, Click Here

Clients receive Rolfing from me to improve posture from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.

Rolfing Bellevue: Holistic Approach

By Christopher Horan, CR, CFNC May 16, 2012 General

Online dictionaries define Holism as, “the treatment of any subject as a whole integrated system, esp., in medicine, the consideration of the complete person, physically and psychologically, in the treatment of a disease”. I take this concept seriously while working with clients in my Rolfing practice in Bellevue, WA.

A large portion of clients that come to see me come because they have pain showing up somewhere in their body and want me to help them get rid of it. One thing that’s always important to point out is that nobody ever heals your body for you. They help facilitate your body being in a healthier place so that it can heal itself.

Pain can be a pretty funny thing. Pain is pretty reliable at telling you that something is wrong somewhere in the body. But it’s often not a very good indicator of where the source of the issue is. I often find that the source of the issue is not only not where the client feels the pain but is often not even close to the real culprit. Pain can show up in your low back because of a toe injury that is forcing you to limp (even just slightly). Pain can show up in your neck because of an old fall onto your tailbone that is just slightly changing your alignment, which in turn forces the rest of your spine to compensate. You can develop bunions because of organs in your abdomen that are adhered to tissue that they’re not supposed to be adhered to. The list can go on and on and almost every scenario involves multiple parts of the body that need to be addressed in order to completely get better.

Rolfing is designed not only to look at the complete body to see where changes can be made, but also how the client is using their body/mind in their everyday life in ways that might be contributing to their discomfort. Taking a holistic approach to the healing process helps ensure that the client sees results that are permanent and not just temporary.

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Clients receive Rolfing from me for a holistic approach to pain resolution from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.

Rolfing Bellevue: Does Rolfing Hurt?

By Christopher Horan, CR, CFNC April 25, 2012 General, Rolfing Tips

The short answer to that questions is no, at least not in my office.

Rolfing® Structural Integration has a bit of a reputation for being painful and there are practitioners out there that contribute to that belief. Even though all of the Rolfers go through the same basic training, we all have our own personalities and belief systems and as such, work differently. I believe, and my experience has shown me, that it is much more productive to work WITH the person’s nervous system to help facilitate change in their body in lieu of working the clients tissue to mold it how I want it with disregard to the client’s comfort level. If I’m working too deep, too fast your body will naturally tense up to try to protect itself and we’ll be fighting against each other. I try to work at the appropriate depth and allow the tissue to open up at its own pace. With that said, we are trying to facilitate change in your body so we will be pushing your system some. But the idea is to work at a level so that you’re not tensing your whole body up on the table. The more you can stay relaxed and focus on the sensations, the more change will happen in your body.

Overall, there will be a broad spectrum to how the session feels. When I work with your organs or free entrapped nerves, the work will feel incredibly gentle. On the other hand, you might have patterns in your body that have been held for a very long time and the tissue might be sensitive to accepting change. Persistence and communication will be important in these cases.

At my Rolfing practice servicing Bellevue, Seattle, & Tacoma, WA it is always important that we communicate with each other throughout the sessions. I encourage every client to notify me when something is getting too intense. Every client’s sensitivity thresholds are different, so I need you to be my guide as I do my best to read what’s going on in your body. As long as we communicate, there should be no issues.

To Schedule a Session, Click Here

Clients receive Rolfing from me from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.