Move to Nurture

Want better balance this year? Good balance makes you unstoppable, no matter your age. Just ask my 85 year old mum who is more stable now than when she was 60. As we age our balance can deteriorate for a number of reasons. This can reduce our body confidence and stop us maintaining and building strength. There are many factors that contribute to the balance system and lots of things to consider when wanting to improve your balance. This article will outline the systems in the body that contribute to good balance and then give you 5 tips for better balance!

What makes good balance?

Having good balance relies on three senses in the body operating well and interacting together, these are:

Visual – what we can see

Proprioception – our perception of where each part of our body is in space

Vestibular – how our head is sitting in space and our head righting response in relation to gravity

When one of these senses is not functioning well or is compromised the others tend to compensate. The sense that tends to suffer most as people age is proprioception. As we move less and take on less physical activity the brain has less input as to where each of joints are in space. The more time we spend sitting, the less we activate the pathways to the brain from each of our joints moving through space.

We begin to rely more and more on the visual system which is intimately linked to the vestibular system via the vestibular ocular reflex or the ability of our eyes to focus as we move our head. The trouble is that our visual system can also deteriorate as we age.

It is easier to stimulate the proprioception system than to repair the visual system. For this reason it is important not to rely too much on the visual system for balance. And that is where targeted movement and exercise can develop proprioception and muscle strength to improve balance. Strength on its’ own is not enough to improve balance, improving proprioception is essential.

How to improve your balance – 4 tips

If we take what we know about the senses of the body that contribute to good balance and combine this with an understanding of body mechanics there are a number of things you can do to improve your balance. Many of these can be done at home and some will require specific equipment and guidance in a Pilates studio.

Tip 1 – Make your feet more pliable

Our feet are our foundation and when you want to improve your balance this is the place to start. We love to overlook our feet (literally!) because they are right under our noses and it is so obvious they are important for our movement. But our feet are often not what we want them to be. Usually our feet spend most of their time in shoes, they lose their agility to cope with different surfaces.

The very act of wearing shoes, makes our feet, weaker. So, to build balance, we start from the foundation. Yes, I want you to kick off your shoes and spend more time barefoot. If this causes you pain you may need to seek some advice and support for this. But generally, spending a little more time each day, bare feet will bring you great benefits for your balance.

This is a great exercise for our feet, that helps bring back some of the suppleness, articulation of the many joints in the feet, and pliability to your feet.

Tip 2 – Hip strength

Hip strength is directly related to our feet, when our feet are weak or not able to respond to the terrain, our hips immediately compensate to find and create stability for our body. This results in tight and immobile hips. This is why we started with the feet, the exercises in the feet will then support connection to your hips.

Every step we take is a balance on one foot for a moment. Many of us don’t have the strength to manage this moment very well and so we compensate with all sorts of movements that do no good for your knees and your back.

So this tip strips it all back to a simple movement that will have your standing hip burning (in a good way) to build strength exactly where you need it. This exercise will help you have less pain when walking and make you more stable on different surfaces and will help you prevent falling.

What’s more it’s a super simple way to get really strong in your hips. Try it out below:

Tip 3 – Core muscles

Core muscles strength and coordination is a key part of balance. It is the part that a lot of people focus on to the exclusion of all else. In my approach to balance core strength is just one key part of improving your balance.

When I talk about core muscle strength for balance. I don’t mean a great six pack. What I mean is, being able to activate the very deepest abdominal muscles to stabilise your bones (your skeleton).

Practicing this very deep, stability, doesn’t come from doing a lots and lots of sit ups or ab crunches or exercises that are in a typical gym workout. These smaller stabilising muscles need exactly the right load, and to be in the right position to be activated.

Here is an exercise that will teach you core coordination or how to coordinate your core muscles with your breath. We use the breath, initially to teach the sensation of the core muscles firing. And then as you get more comfortable with that you can do the core firing independently of the breath which is ultimately where you want to be.

This exercises may feel very easy although there is a lot to think about. They’re not the sort of muscles that will give you a deep burn straightaway. This is a more subtle sensation than that. And it is the subtlety that allows you to develop better control of your deep muscles to stabilise your skeleton and improve your balance.

Tip 4 – Neck strength and head alignment

In our current lifestyle we spend a lot of time in front of screens or driving cars. It is very common for people to develop forward head posture, this is where your chin, and head starts to slide forward of your body, and the back of your neck needs to become very strong and often quite tight to stabilize your head.

When people take this into an exercise setting, often they continue to hold this forward head posture. Sometimes they’ll get a sore neck from that, but often they are trying to strengthen their neck. To reverse forward head posture we need to strengthen the front of the neck, the deep cervical flexors, in the front of the neck, rather than the sternocleidomastoids that attach the back of the skull to the sternum and collarbones at the front.

Strengthening the front of the neck will re-align your head over your spine, it will take some of the pressure off your upper back and shoulders. This will mean you won’t have the weight of your head pulling you forward and making it more difficult to balance.

Here is an exercise to strengthen the cervical flexors at the front of your neck and some cues or ways to remember about how you are holding your head throughout the day.

Now challenge your balance!

Once you have explored some of the exercises from each of the steps above, you can challenge your balance. Start by standing on one leg, if this is easy close your eyes. If this is easy come into a deep squat and come on to one leg and close your eyes! Let me know how you go!

Having a work out designed for you is the best way to improve your balance quickly. If you have tried other things and you are ready to try an approach tailored to you, sign up below or call me on the number at the bottom of the page.

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I am Brigid Pearse a certified Pilates instructor, an ex-dancer and a mum. I run a fully equipped Pilates studio from my home in Lennox Head and I run community Pilates mat classes in Byron Bay, Ballina and online. To receive regular body wisdom sign up below.

Your Psoas muscles are the keys to good posture and pain free movement. Read that again. Your Psoas muscles are the keys to good posture and pain free movement.

In the movement world whole books have been written about the Psoas ( and I have read them so you don’t have to!). This muscle is so influential on the way we move that it is worth getting to know it a little better.

We get our Psoas from our evolutionary history as a quadraped (four legged mover). Other quadrapeds have Psoas muscles, dogs, cows and horses for example all share this muscle arrangement with humans.

We are obviously not quadrapeds anymore and our Psoas muscles have adapted to support us to stand upright and to be bi-pedal (two legged mover). However if you suffer from sway back, weak core, tight mid back, rib thrust forward and forward head posture, chances are your Psoas is the key you are looking for to restore your posture and make moving feel good again.

This article will cover some basic anatomy about where and what your Psoas muscles are and what they do. I’ll also cover how your Psoas influences your posture and movement in a positive or negative way. I’ll explore common symptom from a tight Psoas and give you range of ways to move to nurture your Psoas to restore healthy function to these muscles.

I’m excited to share this with you! Enjoy X

Your Psoas and why you need to know it

Your Psoas muscles are the muscles that join your upper body to your lower body. In a quadraped animal, in this case a dog, the Illiopsoas looks like the image below.

In a human, a bi-pedal animal, it looks like the Illiopsoas muscle group looks like this:

Your Iliopsoas muscle group is made up of three muscles, Psoas Minor, Psoas Major and the Iliacus, these occur on the left and right sides of the spine attaching the spine to the pelvis and the legs.

As you can see from the image above the length and health of the Psoas muscles (Minor and Major) will have a big influence on the position of your pelvis and your spine.

As the tenderloin, or “filet mignon,” of the human body, a healthy psoas is a juicy, supple, dynamic tissue that supports full body expression and responsiveness.

Liz Koch

The Psoas muscles are deep tissue muscles. They do not respond well to ‘muscular’ ways of toning, strengthening or stretching. Psoas muscles need to be well hydrated and free from tension. This unique muscle tissue is located deep within your central axis, growing out from your spine, intimately connected to your nervous system governing your felt sense of the world and how easily you move through it.

Your Psoas and your posture

The condition of your Psoas affects your underlying sense of your body. If your psoas is tight, your whole sense of your body will be tight. If your Psoas is long and unstable this will be your experience of your centre. In this way your Psoas influences your life.

In practical terms the image below shows what a shortened, tight Psoas can do to your pelvic and and spinal position. Over time this arrangement can lead to sway back (lumbar lordosis) with compensations occurring up and down the body.

With this sort of structural force working against you, it is easy to see why good posture becomes hard to achieve. If your exercise regime makes your psoas tighter then this becomes a pattern you are reenforcing in your body, making good posture and ease of movement harder and harder to achieve.

When your Psoas is tight and short it becomes harder to properly activate your lower abdominals to stabilise your lower back. Your body then begins to rely on your Psoas for spinal stability. This has major implication for walking.

Your Psoas and walking

Your Psoas muscles are essentially a hip flexor, they are responsible for helping to lift your leg forward from your hip, something we do with each step we take. Being such a deep core muscle it has other functions as well, the Psoas major connects to the vertebrae of the spine, so it has a role to play in spinal mobility and stability also important for the micro movements of walking.

When the Psoas muscles are out of balance for example, one side is shorter than the other, this can result in a twisted pelvis. This will impact on the ability of the pelvis to ‘balance’ on top of the thigh bones with each step, requiring other muscles such as the deep hip rotators to grip down for stability and the mobility required for walking gets pushed up into the spine causing a lot of wear and tear on the lumbar vertebrae.

If the Psoas is tight and shortened this can result in Lumber Lordosis (as in the image above). In this position the upper body begins to ‘hang off’ the Psoas, leaving the abdominals to lengthen and let go. When the Psoas is under this strain all the time it’s function as a hip flexor is compromised, it pulls the femur (top of the thigh bone) forward in the hip socket and puts pressure on the front of the hip.

Walking with these patterns puts pressures on different parts of the body to compensate for these structural imbalances. Walking sets off a tight back or pinching at the front of the hips or knee pain. But really these issues are coming from the pelvic position set by your Psoas.

Healthy Psoas, healthy breath

Not only does our Psoas influence every step we take but it is also intimately connected to the diaphragm under our rib cage, so our Psoas also influences each breath we take.

If our upper body is hanging off our Psoas, as described above, this tension pulls down on the back of our diaphragm flattening it. So to get all the air out of your lungs you now don’t have the full function of your diaphragm. And when you can’t get all the air out of your lungs you can’t get a full deep breath in.

Rib mobility is also impacted from the pull of a tight Psoas, making it harder for the lungs to fill and expand the rib cage.

All this does sound very depressing! And the impact on your life and movement can be! So let’s get to the move that will keep your Psoas supple and juicy.

Treat your Psoas, treat yourself

Self Assessment

To check your Psoas condition, lie flat on the floor and hug one knee up to your chest. If the back of your other thigh lifts off the mat you have a tight Psoas.

Psoas – relax and lengthen

To begin to release Psoas tension, gently is the only way to go. This requires no effort or force, rather this is a letting go of all doing, of all tension, to let your deep tissues relax and let go. Lie flat on the floor with a bolster or couch pillow under your shoulders and neck with nothing underneath your ribs, legs out straight. If that is too uncomfortable you put a roller or another pillow under your knees, so you can relax. Your job is to let go of all tension in your torso. I like to breath consciously into the back of my ribs. Eventually you want your ribs to drop down into the space that was under them, but this happens through surrender not through pushing them down.

Make this one a regular relaxing position and your Psoas will love you for it. Find excuses to get into this position, if your kids want you near them while they fall asleep this is a great position to get yourself in, if you have a projector and like to watch movies on the ceiling this is a great time to relax your Psoas, or make this part of your meditation practice.

Psoas massage

If you have a soft ball at home, this one is great especially for digestive issues associated with a tight Psoas. The ball needs to be very light and soft, placed to the side of your belly on top of your straight leg.

Psoas – lengthen and soften

Retest again

To be really clever we should do the Psoas test again to check in on tightness after we have completed these moves. So do that at least once or twice a week. To make progress and release Psoas tightness you will need a gentle approach and a fair bit of patience, think of it as a meditation practice rather than an ‘exercise’ or ‘workout’. This is about restoring function to deep muscles in your body. Reach out with any questions!

Do you have shoulder pain? You may have a diagnosed injury such as a rotator cuff injury or frozen shoulder. Or you may feel pinching or strain around your shoulders affecting the range of movement of your arm. You may experience tightness in your shoulders contributing to neck pain.

In my Pilates studio in Lennox Head I work with clients with shoulder issues to improve the way they move and reduce pain and the likelihood of injuries recurring.

High intensity exercise can exacerbate an underlying condition so my approach is to work gently to learn correct technique before levelling up.

Signs your shoulders need care:

• Tight neck and shoulders
• Pinching or clunking of the shoulder as your arm moves
• Rotator Cuff injury
• Reduced range of movement of your arm

Why are you getting pain

Our shoulders are designed to move in a certain way. When we have movement habits that wear and tear one muscle or tendon over others this results in pain in the shoulder complex.

There is a lot going on in a shoulder. There is one thing that will always help your shoulder complex. The position of your arm. With exception of bone spurs, all shoulder issues are improved by proper humeral head (top of the arm) position. You will avoid developing bone spurs by improving your arm position while resting and during movement.

When the humeral head (top of your arm) is being pulled up by tight Trapezius muscles that join up into your neck this puts strain on the rotator cuff muscles. Or if your pec muscles at the front of your chest are pulling your humeral head (top of your arm) forward this will strain the rotator cuff muscles.

Rotator cuff injuries

The job of your rotator cuff muscles is to rotate the top of your arm bone and lift it away from your body. If the position of the head of your arm bone is ‘off centre’ this will wear one or more of your rotator cuff muscles more than the others.

Shoulder bursitis

Bursitis is another common shoulder complaint. You can see in the image above if the arm bone is pressing up and the bursa between the arm bone and the clavicle is getting squashed, over a long period of times, this leads to inflammation of the bursa or shoulder bursitis.

Frozen shoulder

Frozen shoulder also known as adhesive capsulitis is characterised by stiffness and pain in the shoulder. Starting gradually and progressing to limit virtually all movement of the arm. If you think you may have frozen shoulder definitely consult a manual therapist as well as trying the moves below.

Simple moves to improve your arm position

While standing

How you stand can make a difference to the position of your arms in your shoulder joints. If you habitually stand with rounded shoulders this can impinge on the bursa in the shoulder, lengthen and weaken the rotator muscles that attach to your scapula at the back. A good tick is to roll your palms out when standing. This helps to roll your humeral head (top of your arm) and place it back into your shoulder joint.

Pec stretch against the wall

Most of us have shoulders that are rounded forward. You can blame sitting a computer, driving, watching TV, most of what we do involves this rounded forward posture. As a result the muscles at the front of the chest that join to the top of your arms known as the “pec” muscles tend to get tight and short. In order to get the top of your arm back into your shoulder joint you may have to stretch these pec muscles. Try this stretch below.

Band rotations

Arm lifts with bar

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While driving

Pinkies lead the way

While sleeping

Your position while sleeping can negatively impact your shoulder. If you side sleep on a flat pillow your shoulder can get squashed underneath you as in the image below on the left. Try a higher pillow that keeps your neck in line with your spine and takes this weight off your shoulder as in the image below right.

While lifting

I can never let an article go by without mentioning the hip hinge! Hip hinging is a great way to approach lifting in everyday life and this really applies to shoulder position as well. We want the arms to be supported by the back when lifting. If your back is over arched then the arms won’t get the support they need from the back muscles. A quick trick is to tuck the chin when you hip hinge to lift something (see images below). The image on the left shows me popping my chin forward and my back arching as a result. In the image on the right I am tucking my chin and my spine is neutral to allow the full strength of my back to support my arms – a better position for lifting.

A little every day

The important thing for shoulder care , and really any new movement pattern you want to learn, is to practice a little everyday. Try these moves above everyday for at least 2 weeks to see if your shoulders start to feel better. Or better yet get in touch to schedule a session that is tailored for you.

Pelvic health is usually not your top priority, I get that, but pelvic health actually gets you closer to your health goals than you think!

At my Pilates studio in Lennox Head I work with clients to improve movement, reduce pain and build strength and flexibility. The goals that my clients have range from “improve my core strength” to “being able to walk the coastal walk without pain”. Pelvic health play a role in achieving both these goals plus a few other like:

• reducing lower back pain
• having better posture
• treating incontinence
• improve leg strength

If you are interested in improving these things read on to find out why good pelvic health will help you with these things and how to get it!

1 Your pelvic position determines your posture and your pain

Your pelvis attaches to your spine at the top and to your legs (femurs) at the bottom. It is wrapped in layers of muscles. The length of these muscles determine to position of your pelvis, whether it tilts forward or back, or whether it is twisted.

The image below shows how tight leg muscles at the front pull the pelvis forward and tight leg muscles at the back pull the pelvis back. This image also shows how the pelvic position affects the position of the spine. If your pelvic position is too far forward or pulling too far back this can cause chronic back and hip pain.

Knowing your resting pelvic position and how this influences the alignment of your spine (your posture) is the first step in understanding how your pelvic health is affecting the rest of your body.

You can assess this yourself by standing side on to a mirror and observing if your pelvis is tipping forward (belly hangs forward) or tipping back (bottom tucks under).

2 Know the difference between pelvic strength vs pelvic tension

Clients will often come to me wanting to improve their core strength. When I dig a bit deeper to understand why they will often tell me they think they have a weak pelvic floor and they need to “tighten things up”. It is important to understand that tight muscles are weak muscles. It is often (but not always) that when people say they have weak pelvic floor they may have symptoms such as incontinence (leaking) or prolapse. These conditions often (but not always) indicate tightness in the pelvic floor muscles that cause pelvic floor dysfunction (including leaking or prolapse).

In order to strengthen your pelvic floor you need to be able to relax it. WAIT WHAT? Yes. Simply focusing on tightening your pelvic floor will usually make your symptoms worse over time!

To relax your pelvic floor it can be helpful to sit on a rolled up towel to bring your attention to the area. On your inhale focus on letting your pelvic floor muscles drop into the towel. Or try this. The more they drop the better they will lift on the exhale, this flexibility and movement of the pelvic floor muscles builds strength over time. If your pelvic floor muscles are unable to relax and move they are not able to get stronger.

3 Pelvic movement for pain free walking

Understanding your pelvic health is essential for pain free walking. We have already discussed how the pelvic is wrapped in muscles and depending on which muscles are tight and which ones are weak influences the position of your pelvis. Similar to the movement needed in your pelvic floor to build strength, the same can be said for your hips. The muscles in your hips each attach to different parts of your pelvis and your legs, as the bones move the muscles support them. There is an interplay between the muscles and bones. If the bones of the pelvis are fixed and don’t move then the surrounding muscles get weak.

4 Pelvic balance for strong legs

Your legs start where they join to your pelvis. The top of your thigh bone (femur) sits in the bottom of the pelvis. If the position of your pelvis is being tugged by tight leg muscles, then the muscles on the other side are going to be weak and long. This is why the position of your pelvis is important for building leg strength. If you do a lot of leg work without paying attention to the position of your pelvis your progress will non existent at worst, slow at best.

Achieving pelvic balance is about balancing core (abdominal) strength with leg strength to support good pelvic position. This often involves glute stretching and hip flexor stretches to get the balance right for each person.

5 Relaxing pelvic floor for breathing

Your pelvic floor functions as a diaphragm, that means it mirrors the activity of your thoracic diaphragm (under your ribcage). Your pelvic diaphragm moves up and down with your breath just as your thoracic diaphragm does. If your pelvic diaphragm is tight from excessive training or holding on then it will not move with your thoracic diaphragm and this will limit the capacity of your breathing which will, in time, result in a less mobile ribcage.

We all know that breathing is important to supply our bodies with oxygen. It is also important to keep the muscles around our ribcage strong and supple. If they move less because the lungs take in less air these muscles get weaker. They are then less able to support our arms and neck for standing and walking.

In summary…

Your pelvic floor is right in the middle of your body. Every movement you do requires coordination and support from your pelvic floor with other muscles in your body.

Your pelvic floor is the foundation of your core strength. To build core strength without a healthy, functioning pelvic floor is like building a heavy building on the sand. It won’t hold.

For long term independence, continence and mobility, work with a movement professional who understands pelvic floor health to get the most out of your movement efforts and your body.

I am Brigid Pearse a certified Pilates instructor, Pregnancy and Post-natal Exercise Specialist, an ex-dancer and a mum. I run a fully equipped Pilates studio from my home in Lennox Head and I run community Pilates mat classes in Byron Bay, Ballina and online.