Oregon Exercise Therapy Blog | Egoscue Blog - Oregon Exercise Therapy

Ecise of the Month: Cats & Dogs

10/31/2018

Cats and Dogs is a wonderful ecise that I highly recommend everyone do daily. Cats and Dogs reminds our pelvis and spine to flex and extend and it unlocks our body from the constant flexion many of us spend our days in. Cats and Dogs also restores symmetry and balance to our bodies by reminding both hips, shoulders, and sides of our back to do the same thing. Many of us are one-side dominate which creates rotation and/or elevation of our hips or shoulders, and cats and dogs can help restore balance. I recommend doing at least 10 cats and dogs every morning and evening, but feel free to do them anytime you want.

Start on your hands and knees with your fingers pointed straight ahead.
Be sure your hips are directly above your knees and that your shoulders are directly above your hands.
For the Cat position: Pull your hips under, push your upper back toward the ceiling, and pull your chin toward your chest as you breathe out.

For the Dog position: Roll your hips forward to put an arch in your lower back, collapse your shoulder blades together, and look up as you breathe in.
Move slowly back and forth between the Cat and Dog positions 10 times.

Related articles/videos:
Swimmer's posture
How posture affects lung capacity
Neck curvature and car accidents
Cats and Dogs

Why Runners Need to Strengthen the Upper Back

10/30/2018

I was interviewed for an article about upper back strength by mapmyrun and provided three simple exercises to improve posture and upper back strength and function which will allow you to run more efficiently and help prevent injury.

Check out the entire article and try the exercises today and notice how it impacts your running.

Related articles/videos:
How shoulder posture affects running performance
Running strengthens intervertebral discs
Running warm-up and cool-down
Does running help or hurt your knees?

E-cise of the Month: Walking

6/7/2018

Walking is almost as essential for human health as drinking water and eating food is. The human body is designed to walk and walking helps maintain our physical, mental, and emotional health. Every movement a baby makes from birth to 1-year-old is to help prepare for walking. Walking is essential to for brain development, immune response, digestion, and circulation.

Walking has been shown to lift our mood, boost creativity, increase metabolism, improve sleep, boost brain power, decrease pain, and decrease stress. Walking, like other exercise, can add up to seven years to our life and is considered a miracle drug because it helps prevent cancer, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, and many other problems.

What is a successful exercise program?

1/9/2018

In this blog post I'm going to talk about the components of the successful exercise program. When I talk about successful, I'm not talking about helping you lose 15 pounds over a month or two, or helping you drop 2 dress sizes, or getting you in shape for your wedding.

Successful to me is a lot less about short term visual goals and a lot more about long term health and wellness. If you're overweight, losing 15 pounds is great, but if you don't keep the weight off for good, it had little to no real benefit to your life.

Successful exercise programs help you:

E-cise of the Month: Bear Crawl

12/28/2017

This month I am going to highlight the Bear Crawl. The Bear Crawl is an amazing e-cise that almost everyone can do, but many people do it incorrectly.

When done correctly, the Bear Crawl has many benefits and can improve movement, posture, and performance. When done incorrectly, the Bear Crawl can reinforce bad movement patterns, poor posture, and cause pain and injury.

10 Things That Hijack Your Baby's Physical Development

12/12/2017

Nature designed a beautiful and fool-proof way for newborn infants to develop into strong and capable children and then adults. A newborn human baby goes from completely helpless to walking in the first year of life because of this beautiful process. During the first year of life, this process involves 10 sequential yet overlapping phases of physical development which I discussed here. When this process happens as nature intended it, we get healthy, strong, and happy toddlers.

There are however 10 things that can hijack your baby's physical development which can mean your baby is not as healthy, happy, or strong as they could be. When this development is hijacked, your child might be more susceptible to injury, obesity, and chronic pain throughout life.

Move it or lose it!

12/6/2017

We've all heard the saying "move it or lose it" but what do you do with that information and why is it the key to lifelong health?

Many people think move it or lose it means exercise regularly to maintain fitness. And while that is true, our health would benefit if we look at it much more closely. Our body is very specific and particular in how it responds to our environment. The human body is a stimulus response organism. That means your body responds to each and every stimulus it is exposed to. If we want to maintain our health and function, we need to move each and every part of our body through different and varied stimulus on a regular basis in order to maintain that function or not lose it.

To maintain ankle function we might want to take our ankle through the many different motions and demands it is designed to do. This could look like:

E-cise of the Month: Supine Foot Circles and Point Flexes

11/20/2017

Our feet are our connection to the earth and when they are not functioning well it has a negative impact throughout our body. I am going to explain how Supine Foot Circles and Point Flexes helps to restore normal foot function and links that together with normal knee and hip function.

E-cise of the Month: Downward Dog

10/24/2017

The Downward Dog is one of the oldest, most known, and most practiced yoga poses and for good reason. The Downward Dog when done correctly has many positive effects on posture and function.

The Downward Dog addresses two of the most common imbalances people have: hip disparities and sitting induced chronic flexion.

Running Strengthens Intervertebral Discs

10/5/2017

What can you do to strengthen your muscles? Studies say high resistance exercise like weight lifting.
What can you do to strengthen your bones? Studies say high impact exercises like running and jumping.
What can you do to strengthen your heart and lungs? Studies say any cardiovascular exercise like running, swimming, or cross-country skiing.
What can you do to strengthen your cartilage in your joints? Studies say cyclical loading exercise like running.
What can you do to strengthen your intervertebral discs? Nothing. At least that's what people believed until recently. Before this year there were no scientific studies that showed you could strengthen your intervertebral discs, but a new study has changed all that.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS HAVE TO SAY

I really just wanted to express my gratitude for what you do and your great help. And, great help it was!! When one is in constant great pain for as long as I was and so desperate for help...words cannot express what I want to say....how can I thank you enough? You helped change my life.
– Carrie

I feel soooo limber and free in my hip movements and relaxed in my low back. Outstanding and I'm very impressed with the pdf's and the videos, great support to the client. Wonderful job, keep up the great job. – Mike

It is amazing! I've been in pain for 5 years and worked with other therapists and no one has been able to help me. Working with you I am 95% pain free! It feels so good to not have any pain and be able to walk and do things I haven't been able to do for years. Thank you so much! - Joni

Photos used under Creative Commons from mynameisharsha, Jon Grado