Patient Question about Shoe Inserts and Balance

GW: Thank you so much.  I'm feeling better.

Question for you…Would it be beneficial for me to wear some kind of insert in my right shoe to help balance my body?  If so, what would you recommend?

Linda: Glad you are feeling better.

As for the insert....I would NOT recommend it. After we are quite sure you are balanced, if we find that you have a short leg, than we might reconsider. However, if you were to use one now you would just strengthen any imbalance you already have.  Getting the new pair of shoes so that you are not walking crooked as we re-balance the system is really the best thing you can do at the moment.

GW: What should I do to re-balance besides the getting up and sitting down exercises that you showed me?

Linda: Just to clarify, the getting in and out of your car process is not an exercise to re-balance you, it is an action that helps to keep you from getting out of balance. There are so many activities in our daily lives that the actions we take make it easier or harder to stay in balance depending on whether we are working within the parameters of the body mechanics or not.

I think I was explaining to you about how I liken our bodies to our cars. In order to drive our car we need to keep gas and oil in it to have it run. Sometimes we need to take it in for a 3000 or 5000 mile tune-up and sometimes we need to take it in for more emergency type maintenance because we hit a hole in the road and threw our alignment out and we want to catch it before it causes more damage to the whole car.  

So with our bodies, we need to put good food and water to keep it running on a daily basis. We need to go in for a tune-up periodically which may be a once a month or once every three month treatment to keep us in general good health and alignment. And sometimes we twist or otherwise hurt ourselves and need to come in for an emergency treatment. You called me the other day to get that emergency fix because you knew that you didn't want to have your hip pain get any worse. During that process I was able to see that your shoes were a source of your re-creation of your imbalance on an on-going basis and that the way in which you get in and out of your car can add to that re-creation as well. So the treatments are the way to re-balance and the daily changes are the way to maintain good balance.

Fascial Release?

What is Fascia and why does it need releasing?
Linda: "Fascia is a connective tissue that is found throughout the body. It is a very thin membrane that surrounds and separates the muscles into bundles and muscle groups."

"The relationship of muscle to fascia could be considered similar to something inside a container. Let's use an analogy of water inside a balloon or glass. Both the balloon and water have the ability to move and change shapes, but the balloon can contain the water thereby dictates the shape of the water. If the balloon becomes rigid like a glass then no matter how much you stir the water, once you stop stirring, the water returns to the shape of its rigid glass container. By releasing the tension in the fascia, and returning it to the texture of the balloon, it allows the muscle to have greater freedom of motion with less stress and tension and therefore less discomfort."

What is ITM?

Question:  What is Integrated Therapeutic Massage?
Linda:  "It is a combination of all the different healing modalities that I have come into contact with throughout my years of practice. I choose to call it Integrated Therapeutic Massage because it is an integration of so many styles, techniques and philosophies that one cannot distinguish where one ends and the other begins."

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog. My name is Linda Becker and I am a licensed massage therapist. My hope is to use this site to highlight some of the answers I've offered to clients through the years. Hints about how to make some little changes in their daily activities that will impact the general comfort of their body mechanics.

There are many websites and books out there, but here we can do a question and answer...besides my just rambling on or pulling out questions from past clients  : o))