Fancy an overnight in the leaning tower of Pisa?

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Italy is definitely on my list, but I’m not sure I would want to stay the night in a building who’s footings clearly aren’t sound! We can easily apply the same concept to our bodies, though it’s a little easier and cheaper to fix and you won’t need an engineer. When we talk about alignment, we always start at the feet…

 

Why bring the weight into the heels?

Firstly, just to clarify, by ‘bring the weight into the heels’ we mean to have your body weight stacked over the heels, so that you do not have your weight resting in the front of the foot or the toes. Stacking your weight over the heels is beneficial for many reasons.

Increase bone density. When we apply force to our bones we are actually sending the signal for them to become stronger. It’s really a case of supply and demand here. The more you can have your body weight forcing down the bones in your legs, the more they will respond by becoming more dense and increasing their ability to cope with that force. Our bodies are awesome at this. When a breastfeeding mother needs more milk, if she feeds more your body is signaled to make more. So clever!

Work your booty. Another good reason to keep your weight back over you heels is to switch on the muscles through the back of the legs and the behind. This is not the same as contracting the muscles, rather you are getting them fired up. Hello blood flow and tone! If you are using muscles in the back of the legs it is going to make relaxing the quads a whole lot easier too. This will in turn free up the movement around the hips.

 

Let the fun begin!

Stand how you normally stand to find out where you are right now. If you are comfortable to, close you eyes and get a sense of how it feels. Notice where you are feeling the weight in your feet. Are your toes gripping the floor or are you able to lift them? Have you got any weight in your heels or do they almost feel higher than the balls of the foot. Where are your feet positioned? Are they straight ahead, turned out or in? Is one more turned out than the other?

 

How to bring your weight into the heels and avoid standing like the leaning tower of PisaIf you are finding that your weight is more in the front of the foot, you are virtually looking like the leaning tower of Pisa! Now I’m not sure about you but I’m not sure how much I would trust the building to not just topple over. Imagine a straight line directly down from the top. The weight of the top does not have support directly under it, therefore the rest of the building must compensate to support the load. But this is the job of the footings, not the structure of the framework. This is the exact same concept in your body…

 

… So many knee, back, hip issues and even headaches can be linked back to poor ‘footings.’ Just as with the building, if the force of your weight is not back on the heels then other parts of your body must do the work instead. Know that every time you make an effort to correct your alignment you are doing yourself a favour!

 

 


Practice

1. Look down at your feet and align them underneath your pelvic bones. This is what we refer to the pointy bits of your hips as, although their name is Anterior Superior Iliac Spine (you can see why we shortened it!)

2. Line up the outer edge of your feet so that there is a straight line from the joint of the pinky toe to just under the ankle bone. It may fee pigeon toed at this point if you are not used to standing this way, so just bear with it.

3. Bring the joint of the big toe into the floor and move your body weight back over the heels. Notice how you feel in this position.

4. Move between standing with your weight in the front of the foot and bringing your weight back. Pay attention to how the rest of your body reacts to each position. Do you notice that your behind and the back of your legs engage and switch on when you have your weight in the heels? What happens to your behind when you have the weight in the front of the foot? Do you notice it sags a little and relaxes (in other words, stops any form of toning at all?!) By bringing the weight stacked over the heels, you will experience and instant firming and lifting of the behind…did someone just say 10 years younger?!

 

What happens to your shoulders? You may find that bringing your weight into the heels invites you to throw the shoulders back. At this stage just let what ever happens happen. It all begins with awareness and really getting to know how your body feels.

 

What’s happening with your kneecaps? If they are lifted it’s a sign that the quads are contracting. Move back to the front of the feet and slowly come back to the heels, this time really paying attention to when you feel the back of the legs and the behind fire up. At this point you are able to let go of the front of the thighs without falling over. You’ll know you’ve done it when the kneecaps lower. Don’t worry at this stage if it takes you days, weeks or months to allow the quads to relax and release.

 

So there you are. If you’ve got nothing to do on a Friday night, just ask us! You can spend time playing with your alignment and getting to know how it affects the way your body feels. Jokes aside, this is something worth practicing and then adding onto as you build on your knowledge of alignment in the human body!

 

Watch out for next week, when we bring you the next piece of the puzzle!

 

 








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About the Author:

Co-founder of The Callanetics Studio and certified Callanetics Instructor. Owner and operator of Tamborine Mountain Callanetics Exercise Studio in Australia's South East Queensland.
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Comments

  1. Susan Winters  July 27, 2014

    I was not aware that headaches could be caused by poor “footing”, although it makes perfect sense when you think about it. As a student if TCS I am obsessed with alignment. 😀 I’m sure I am not alone.

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