The great big toe

Foot rolling, movement awareness, pain reduction. Our bodies are amazing things and as my colleague Lisa has said, they really are a darn miracle. The number of intricate processes going on at any one millisecond is mind boggling. Our ability to produce directed movement is not less of a wonder.

Weeks previous I have suggested implementing foot rolling to help with overall body mobility, began to discuss fascia, and encouraged movement awareness - not judgment, just awareness.

Here is a personal example of my own movement awareness that may relate to someone reading this:

For me, right shoulder pain will show itself with varying symptoms: sometimes it is a biceps tendonitis, sometimes it is between my scapula/shoulder bades closer to the right side, and other times the pad of my right thumb goes numb in which case I know there is a nerve-fascia entrapment in my upper trap. This comes on strongly with longer work weeks and is succeeded by excessive digging into muscles.

However, it is not only my job which has provoked the right shoulder pain. When I was 16 years old, and approximately every three years after that including earlier this month, I have been the candidate of repeated left hamstring tears. It has been a cycle of tear (usually while doing something fast and athletic), heal, strengthen, repeat. When my hamstring is injured, my shoulder pain gets worse. If I neglect to work on my left leg and hamstring, my shoulder pain gets worse.

As I have said before, it is all connected!

So, is the right shoulder pain a work issue or a body imbalance issue? The answer is that it is truly both. With body misalignment, even millimeters off, if there is a difference from right to left, compensation follows.

If you took some time to pay attention to your movements, you may recognize certain habits or postures you take on a daily basis. You may even have noticed a couple differences from one side of the body to the next!

“Doesn’t everyone have somewhat of an imbalance?”

Almost definitely. And the individuals, at least the ones I see, who address these imbalances have the opportunity to improve on or completely remove tension and or pain.

What we practice, the body remembers… especially the fascia.

In my years in dance and as a ballet teacher I learned the importance of how to break down more complex movements into smaller, more manageable pieces both in my own practice and for the ballerinas I was teaching. The inability to execute a movement optimally had the potential to lead to injury. Taking a complex jump or turn and returning to the foundation of, for example, the torso alignment just before take-off, or the precision in foot placement, always produced more successful results for the athlete dancer.

We don’t have to participate in complex movements in order to create change. Skilled movements are fantastic opportunities to notice and address imbalances. We can also do the same with a more widely known movement such as walking.

The next time you go for a walk I would like you to practice paying attention to your big toe. There are two main phases in walking where I would like you to do this:

  1. Just before your heel touches the ground in front of you, think about lifting the big toe up.

  2. Simultaneously as you push off the back foot, think about pushing through the big toe.

Two points of contact. For best results, practice first paying attention to the points above on the right foot for a series of steps, and then focus on the left foot.

What happens to your stride/step length?

When there is an imbalance, we must breakdown the movement. This could also be some sort of metaphor for life 😀

The result:

See if you can identify muscles working that you may not have been as aware of before and if this has any impact on how you feel in your body.

The bigger question at hand is less to do with your big toe and more to do with what we think we know: What are we not looking at or aware of and how can this be impacting us?

Leaving you with a cliff hanger (maybe). I hope you enjoy a spring stroll!

Walking away politely,

Tiana

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Pain may not always be what you expect it to be!