Essentrics with Sherry

As we age, every aspect of our lives tends to slow down, imperceptibly at first and most clearly noticed when we are around those younger than us who move at a much faster pace and with much less effort.

While slowing down to appreciate the world around us can be nice, we don’t want to give up the option of having a bounce in our step and energy in our bodies! We want the choice of moving rapidly or slowly, and it starts with your feet. The beauty of having strong flexible feet and lower limbs is that they give us not only increased energy, but also a bounce in our step!

Loss of stamina is from a lack of pumping action in the calf muscles. The calf muscle is known as the second cardiac muscle due to its large size and its distance from the heart. The more we bend our ankles and knees, the more blood can be pumped upward. Rigid, locked ankles block the ability to stretch and release the calf muscle. If you can’t bend your ankles, you can’t bend your knees — limiting the pumping action needed to circulate blood efficiently.

Regular foot exercises, along with bending the knees and ankles, gives you the ability to pump your blood efficiently throughout your system, increasing the oxygen in your muscles and improving your stamina almost instantly!

Try this quick mini-workout to unlock your toes and ankles:

• Lift one leg slightly, point your foot, flex your toes, then flex your ankles. Reverse.
• Rotate your ankles slowly, and in both directions.
• Holding the back of a chair for balance, lift both heels slowly and then lower slowly.

taken from: https://essentrics.com/boost-your-energy-start-with-your-feet/

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You build strength much more quickly when you are not in pain than when you are—especially if you are recovering from an injury. But that doesn’t mean you should wait until you are pain-free to begin exercising. When you have an injury or are suffering from chronic pain, regular gentle exercise is essential to prevent atrophy while rebuilding healthy tissue.

Essentrics weaves many different methods of flexibility training into every workout to interrupt this loop and achieve pain relief. However, when we are trying to break the neurological pain loop, it is essential to practice all of the following techniques in a gentle, relaxed manner:

1.RELAXATION INTO DEEP ECCENTRIC FLEXIBILITY. Relaxing to release the tension while slowly moving is one of the most powerful ways to gently, safely, and rapidly increase flexibility and strength while reprogramming the pain loop.

2.BREATHING. Deep breathing is a powerful, natural way to help release tension in locked muscle fibers and fasciae. Deep breathing helps release tension and thus permits other forms of flexibility.

3.REBALANCING THE MUSCLES. You are only as loose as your tightest muscle. Your body is one large, interdependent unit of 650 muscles. Any unbalanced muscle will lead to other imbalances in seemingly unrelated parts of your body, and those imbalances, in turn, lead to potential damage, pain, and injury.

4.ECCENTRIC TRAINING: Lengthening the muscle fibers simultaneously increases both flexibility and strength, which decompresses joints.

5.PASSIVE FLEXIBILITY. When no strength is required, we can simply let our muscles slowly release their tension into deeper flexibility—such as in floor work, when we are lying on our back and pulling our leg toward our chest either with our hands or with the aid of a stretch band. The legs should be as relaxed as those of a rag doll as they are being passively stretched.

6.PNF FLEXIBILITY. Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) is a technique that works on the neurological system to trick the muscles into releasing tension. Most people unconsciously hold tension in their muscles, which makes the muscles difficult to stretch. Physical therapists often use PNF when helping clients recover from injury or surgery. It releases contracted muscles, enabling stiff muscles to be stretched. PNF is a four-step procedure of (1) contract the muscle, (2) release the contraction, (3) relax the muscle more, and (4) stretch the muscle. It is safe, achieves rapid results, and feels really good.

7.MOVING WITHIN A STRETCH. This method rebalances and engages all the muscles around a joint, as it helps all muscles to become equally stretched.

All these flexibility methods are helpful, and each is done for a specific purpose. These combined in an Essentrics workout, they work together synergistically, like the ingredients of a gourmet recipe, offering you perfect results.

By Miranda Esmonde-White in Forever Painless