the gift of the sternum turn

When I was working out of Zum, I had the incredible pleasure of working with Jeff Haller, a truly gifted Feldenkrais teacher and mover. Having grown up a dancer, I had a great sense of how my body should look, but not a great connection with how movement should feel in my body. I also had a bad habit of sidling around my weaknesses, creating shortcuts to perform exercises instead of addressing my imbalances and working through them. It's pretty impossible to get away with that when working with a good Feldenkrais instructor...they can see through the bullshit and gently (inexorably) encourage you to look at the reality of what your body is telling you.
One day a group of us trainers were working with Jeff on the idea of organizing your body by paying attention to your skeleton...stacking the bones on top of each other instead of making your musculature do a ton of work just to keep you standing or walking. He had me walk towards him as naturally as possible, then pointed out to the others that when I stepped on my right foot, my sternum turned slightly to the right. When I stepped on my left foot, my sternum also turned to the right. He had me stand on my left foot and try to turn my sternum slightly to the left. It was as if my body just didn't understand what he was asking. I felt like Ben Stiller in Zoolander, "I'm not am ambiturner." I sweated and fell over and tried again, and finally managed to orient myself over my left leg. And the whole time I was thinking, geez, no wonder I have such a hard time balancing on my left leg! No wonder my left leg is weaker! No wonder, no wonder...he had us experience this idea of getting yourself properly oriented over your legs in whatever position, walking, running, shifting slowly from foot to foot. It was amazing to feel all the muscular energy I was using to keep myself from falling be redirected into movement I wanted to be making.
In the past couple years I've been experimenting with the sternum turn myself and with my clients, and I've seen dramatic results. I was having a lot of knee pain and IT band tightness while trail running...I slowed down for a week and really concentrated on turning my sternum slightly when I ran so that as my foot landed, I was well-balanced over my foot...my pain disappeared. I showed it to my husband...his knee pain and issues while sprinting and doing single-leg movements disappeared. My clients have been able to correct their knee instability just by focusing on turning slightly toward their standing leg. And in my mobility class this morning, I had my people do two reps of a single-leg exercise with no sternum turn (facing straight forward) and five with a sternum turn...they all said they felt more balanced and stronger with the sternum turn. So I think YOU should give it a try, if you're interested in a little lab session! :)
First walk around a bit. If you can, have someone watch you, or walk towards a mirror, as naturally as possible. See if you you turn more one way than another, or if you tend to keep your upper body straight ahead. Next, try standing on one foot with your body straight ahead and just notice what muscles are working to keep you there. Then turn your upper body just slightly towards your standing leg and see what changes. Do you feel more stable? You can then take this into other movements like walking or running, or single-leg squats or whatever. It's...kinda magic. Watch MC doing a squat progression here...you should see the subtle sternum turn at the bottom part of the movement, when most of his weight is on that leg. And let me know what you think when you try it! :)

Make it Rain

What an insane month!! I signed on to be the strength and conditioning coach for Seattle's first professional ultimate frisbee team, the Seattle Rainmakers, and have been head-down workin' since then to bring all the knowledge and expertise I have to bear for the benefit of the team. This is an incredible opportunity for me to put to use the knowledge I've gained in the past few years while working with frisbee players and my other clients...it's being amazing to work with a group of smart, high-level, hardworking athletes.

My first goal as a coach was to do an in-depth evaluation with each player. I created the assessment using my own work with frisbee players and athletes as a guide, ascribing to Gray Cook and Michael Boyle's theory: mobility first, then stability, then movement. I started by talking with them about their injury history, any current physical concerns, and their activity level at the moment. Then I assessed their movement patterns, identifying imbalances and pinpointing the places where improvements could be made to reduce the risk of injury and increase power. I took the guys through specific "fixes" for these areas, and sent them off with (hopefully) a better sense of the guy-behind-the-guy for issues they were having.

Here's an example of a diagnosis, a fix, and the follow-up I did with the athletes. Watching one athlete perform a series of free squats (no weight) I noticed that his low back was rounding under at the bottom. I pointed it out to him, asking if he could slow the movement down and keep a neutral spine the whole time. When he was unable to, I had him try a no-weight deadlift. I asked him to keep his knees slightly bent and his back neutral, hinging his hips backward until his body was parallel to the floor. He was unable to get close to parallel, so I was able to determine that the problem in the squat movement was poor hip mobility. I showed him the fix, the Frog Stretch (awesome movement), and later sent him a description of it, including how often/long/when he should do it. We went through a few different movements, with me looking for different things each time, and I ended up with a full body profile of each athlete and a sense of where to place them on the training continuum.

I'm gathering incredible data right now, and have just finished the first round of videos for the team workouts I'm leading this season. Thanks to the MLU for bringing me on, and I'll keep you posted about the work I'm doing with this awesome group of people. Learning a lot, giving a lot, super pumped. :)

Frog Stretch