Unlock Your Potential
3437 St-Laurent Blvd Montreal, QC, Canada

A herniated disc can irritate nerves and cause pain that radiates through the arms or legs: http://www.spine-health.com/b/understanding-herniated-discs

Scapula-humoral rhythm.

Any movement can be potentially harmful if you are not aware of what and how are you doing it!

The body records your experience & expresses how it feels about it. Check out this woman's first hand discovery!

The Movement Minute: The Horizontal Climb Practice makes perfect, but more so permanent. Have you ever stopped to think how many times a day you go up and down stairs? Most likely several, as most people have a stair case, big or small, at home or the office that they climb daily. You could say that you get a lot of practice going and down stairs every day. If this is true, depending on the way you go up and down stairs, you may be reinforcing inefficient movement patter...ns in your body. I have found that the "hip hike" is one of the most common causes of an unbalanced body and unnecessary tension. A hip hike is a pulling upwards of one side of the hip when the leg on the same side of the body moves. It is due to the inability to isolate the movement of the leg in the hip socket. In a balanced body, the leg swings freely forward and backward without affecting the position of the pelvis. How can you tell if you hike your hip(s)? Imagine your pelvis is like a bowl of water: When your leg swings forward or backward the bowl (your pelvis) does not tip forward, backward or to either side and the water stays in the bowl. If you are efficiently isolating your leg movement, you will find that a deep crease forms between the top of your thigh and your pelvis and that both sides of the top of the pelvis remain horizontally parallel to the floor. Muscles are all connected in chains throughout the body. Like a domino effect, any unnecessary tension in one part of the body will cause a chain reaction of tension in the rest of the body. Eliminating the hip hike could alleviate neck pain, back pain and other aches and pains. Take it one step at a time focusing on moving your legs efficiently in their sockets and you may save a trip or two to the massage therapist ;) Amber Copeland, CMA Movement Analyst & Educator www.unlockyourpotential.ca

The Movement Minute: Save Some Cycling Sweat & Fatigue While back on the Rhein river today observing people in movement, cyclists caught my eye. As with running, everyone cycles a little bit differently. Not a lot of them were cycling efficiently, however. What is your style? Is it efficient? If, of course, you are cycling leisurely and enjoying nature as it passes you by, technique is not a big deal. If you have a time and destination in mind, however, you might want to... ride the best you can with as little effort as possible, so that you can enjoy your destination. Throughout my observations, I noticed that foot placement on the bicycle pedals varied person to person. It was interesting to note that the avid cyclists (wearing all the gear and speeding with ease along the path) placed their foot on a pedal such that their toes/shoe were in line with the front edge of the pedal. The placement of their foot in this manner allowed for easy articulation of the ankle, knee and hip joint. The riders with the middle of the foot or heal placed on the pedal had almost no articulation in the ankle. The ankle remained locked in a flexed position, which made the bending of the knee and hip more difficult. Moral of the story: The more difficult the movement, the more energy is required to produce it. Proper foot-pedal placement could save you some energy for your destination and eliminate a couple beads of sweat along the way! Enjoy the ride! Amber Copeland Movement Analyst & Educator

The Movement Minute: Do you run like a duck? It's funny, we sometimes describe external rotation of the legs (where the heels are closer and the toes are further apart, creating a V) "walking like a duck". In fact, it turns out that ducks have great natural alignment in the hips and their toes point straight forward when they walk. Out of the 50 or so people I observed running in the park today, only one person had their toes pointing straight forward as their foot struck the... ground. The other 49 or so people would greatly benefit from "running like a duck", in terms of proper leg alignment. If the foot (or rather the entire leg) is in external rotation as you run, you put excessive pressure on the knee. The knee is a hinge that is meant to flex straight forward. Running in external rotation causes injury to the knee and exhausts the body, as it is constantly fighting against it's natural functional form. To correct external rotation & avoid injury, make sure that the middle of your thigh is pointing straight forward as you run. Imagining laser beams shooting out of the middle of your thigh is often an image that helps. The movement might feel awkward at first but your body will adapt to the more efficient alignment and love you for it in the long run. Here is a cute video of a duckling running for inspiration. Amber Copeland Movement Analyst & Educator http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99k-EAMBuM8