When a childhood song corrects your exercise

This week my attention has been on corrective exercise - using exercise to help improve posture, alignment and pain levels.

The framework I use is looking at each person through the words of the song "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes". It is a fun and easy way to remind us how the body aligns itself while standing.

Yet, I flip the song around and start from the bottom - from the toes.

Why from the toes?

Well let's be honest, how much do we actually think about our toes and I'll include, our feet?

The feet as a whole do SO MUCH WORK day in and out and we (I mean me too!) rarely give them a second thought.

Amazing structure they are! With 26 bones, 33 joints, 19 muscles, 10 tendons and a whopping 107 ligaments!!! With all these pieces, each foot transmits weight from our body to the ground, provides a platform for balance, and propels our body forward, back and sideways as we move.

Quite literally the foundation of our body, the feet play a key role in our daily movement and physical activity.
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And what do we do for our feet?

I can tell you, I don't give them much second thought. How about you?

If you need some ideas of what to do, watch this short video for some quick and easy movements for your feet.

All this work this week is leading in to a workshop I am facilitating later today - Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes: How Corrective Exercise Can Promote Better Movement and Injury Prevention for the Alberta Fitness Leadership Certification Association. It is a three hour workshop on what is corrective exercise and how to use it in fitness leadership.
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I'll have a large dose of empathy for my audience. Many of them will likely be waiting on the sidelines (and hopefully going online to teach) over the next two weeks in Alberta. Effective now, in person group fitness classes are on hold. I hope I can inspire them to fill their toolbox while waiting to get back to in person classes as soon as possible.

Wish me luck! My new camera and mic are set-up with Zoom and let's keep our fingers crossed (and toes too!) that the technology gods are on my side!

Do you like this sort of content? If so, let me know. I get really excited about talking all about anatomy and biomechanics!

Stay well and happy moving,
Lisa