The StretchFlex Technique can be overlaid onto any stretch that you already know, it just requires one more step.
When you do a normal stretch notice where the pain is. The pain is the tight muscle being stretched. While you are at the end of the stretch focus on precisely where the pain is located and then begin to flex that muscle in the opposite direction. Note: One always needs resistance to flex the muscle into something like an elastic band, door frame, bench, or Friend holding your arm or leg. Flexing into the air sort-of works but it is best to flex into an item. It is an easy technique to do…to the observer it may look like you are just doing the traditional stretch. If you can do multiple slight little flexes and stretches you will notice significant improvements and have greater range of motion and less pain with any appendage.
If you are doing the traditional hamstring stretch where you straighten your leg over bench…stretch the back of your hamstring and then keep your leg straight and flex the painful muscle downward into the bench.
The same technique can be applied when stretching the Pectoral Chest muscle. Against a door frame stretch your arm backwards and when you feel that is far as you can stretch then flex the muscle forward focusing on flexing the painful chest muscle.
If your neck is overstretched, and most peoples are, while lying on a bed tuck your chin and flex your head backwards into the bed. This will shorten and strengthen the back of your neck muscles which will help one have fewer headaches.
The StretchFlex technique will greatly improve your range of motion and you will have less pain doing it which will likely lead you to doing more stretches.
It is important to flex and stretch every appendage in both directions. Pain is usually from an over stretched muscle. However just focusing on over stretched muscles is only half the problem. By working both sides of the motion you will increase the integrity of that joint. This is often what Carpal Tunnel, Computer mouse arm, Headaches, and Arthritis is all about…the joint is being pulled too often in one direction and pain is the indicator that the appendage needs to be balanced.
Sometimes muscles can be so tight that they are unstretchable. A massage 2-4 times a month will help loosen that muscle and then the StretchFlex Technique will be easier to do.
Using the StretchFlex Technique will prevent Arthritis and any other potential injuries which will hopefully keep you off of the operating table.
By being aware of how to maintain your body and know when you are about to hurt yourself, will lead to better health and overall greater spiritual awareness.
Pain is the body showing you how to heal yourself – Pain Awareness
Often stretching is associated with pain which is probably the reasons why many don’t do it. But if you flex the pain you are putting awareness back into your body and awareness in and of itself reduces pain.
Walking Correctly Part 10 of 10: Solutions & Exercises for Superior Walking Health
Walking Meditation
For all those over-thinkers who can’t get out of their head, thinking about your feet is a great mediation exercise. When one thinks about how their feet touch the ground, it helps you forget about repetitive or useless thoughts. It’s like you are sucking all the excess thoughts out of your head and using it as glue to connect with the Earth. If you really think about it, with all that thinking do you really get more done? Taking a break and feeling your body touch the earth will help your conscious rest and your subconscious will come up with better ideas. Plus when you take time to rest your body the mind has a better house to settle in.
Massage is really great for loosening very tight walking muscles. When you have been walking for decades incorrectly it is difficult to just go cold turkey and all of a sudden start successfully walking the correct way. Improper technique has become a habit and breaking habits takes some time to undo. After decades of walking incorrectly overstretched muscles can be very difficult to engage. Overstretched muscles will usually be the muscles that are causing the pain. [Answer Revealed in the Free Download here] these muscles will keep them from becoming more stretched and once [Answer Revealed in the Free Download here] they will stretch the over used tight muscles which exhibit no pain. “Typical toe outward” people will have tight outside legs and over stretched inside legs.
Massage can help get you started walking correctly because massage techniques such as cross fiber friction can help break up scar tissue muscles. Once these tight muscles can relax a bit it will be easier to flex and strength the overstretched muscles. Knots and ropey muscles are overstretched muscles. They have become this way because when a muscle is overstretched it must protect itself by hardening itself. The overstretched muscles are the ones that exude the pain because the tendon is about to ripped from the bone. Tight muscles are the real cause which usually exudes no pain because they are stealing the space from the overstretched muscles. It is like a tug a war in your body. The best way to resolve the battle is to balance the scale. [Answer Revealed in the Free Download here] overstretched muscles and [Answer Revealed in the Free Download here] the tight ones. You can rub overstretched muscles all day and it will have very little lasting effect. By stretching and lengthening the tight muscle that gives off no pain will have more beneficial relief to the overstretched muscle.
Check the [Answer Revealed in the Free Download here] Technique it is vastly superior to just stretching a muscle. It works just how sounds – Stretch the tight muscle one direction and then Flex the painful muscle the opposite direction.
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Now we get a little more detailed and break up the foot into 4 specific contact points.
Step Point 1: Heal
Step Point 2: Outside Ball of Foot
Step Point 3: Inside Ball of Foot
Step Point 4: Big Toe
It is important to hit each point individually. Often outward pointed toe walkers will combine Step Points 3 and 4 together. This will lead to very tight outside IT Bands, shin splints, and low back pain. Inward pointed toe walkers will skip Step Point 1, which will lead tight front hips.
It is important to hit Step Point 1 and 2 when your leg is in front of you. Step Point 3 and 4 occur when your leg is behind you.
Take notice of the muscles in your legs while you’re walking. When your leg is in front of you is when you will use the outside leg muscles. When your leg is behind you, you are going to use your inside leg muscles. What most people miss is you have to hit Step Point 3 and Step Point 4 [Answer Revealed in the Free Download here] otherwise you will NOT access you inside leg muscle which is what most people miss. This leads to hip pain, shin splints, and is primarily how Low Back Pain is created.
Your feet should behave like a wave fluctuating from outside to inside rocking back and forth. However, to the observer it will look like nothing is going on.
The “How to Walk Correctly” 10 Part Series: Empower your health with knowledge and solve your own ailments.
WARNING: The 10 Part Walking Series is for people who want to empower their own self-healing and take control of your life. Do not read any further if you have a closed mind and are looking for excuses to why you are not getting better. Without an open mind the upcoming text may be very disturbing and frightening to you. If one reads and carries out the 10 Part series you may become healthier and happier. The 10 Part Walking Series is For Perseverant and Personally Responsible People only. You have been Warned! Good Luck!
“How to Walk Correctly”, is so simple of a statement it doesn’t make sense. “Of course I know how to walk; I’ve been doing it since I was born.” Yes, you have been. What we have also could have been doing is creating inflammatory diseases and ailments at the same time by not walking correctly. In sports, technique will win out over strength most of the time.
As a Massage Therapist my focus and passion has always been to empower people to heal themselves. Healer means “To Inspire”, Doctor means “To Teach”, and in my book if you are not being taught or inspired by your practitioner on how to resolve your issue, then this is called Failure. Failure in medicine and therapy is when you repeat the same practice and getting very little progress with the same level of pain for the client. The same definition applies to “Insanity”.
I have always been curious on how an injury occurs. It always seems like a game to me, finding the mystery to how the pain got there. Often many people do not know how source of their pain and usually practitioners don’t bother to find out. It is imperative to find out that hip pain got there. Was it from a fall 10 years ago or is it from walking your dog every day? If we can prevent an incorrect actively that is causing us pain then we can administer the correct healing procedure. However, we need the person to stop hurting themselves so that they can progressively heal. If the person is currently hurting themselves on a daily basis is quite difficult to have an effective treatment plan.
The most profound and preventable injury that I see is that people do not walk correctly. As a society we don’t really walk anymore. We walk to the bathroom, to the car, down the hall, but now we rarely walk a mile or 2 to work or to the store. Sometimes I will here, “I had to park 3 blocks away to get here!” If you have trouble walking 3 blocks, you need to walk those 3 blocks. We are such a technological society that we have stomped on Nature for egotistical technology. We think an MRI and surgery is going to help us with our knee issue when really it comes to flexing your muscle correctly. We think technology is going to save us from everything, but if we can listen to Nature it has all the solutions already. The problem is we have to listen to Nature and accept things are easy, which is the hard part.
I have seen many different pain issues such as Arthritis, Scoliosis, Plantar Fasciitis, Bursitis, inflamed joints, ACL/MCL tears, shin splints, falling arches, tight IT Bands, bunions, low back pain, chronic neck pain, and one leg shorter than the other. As far as I am concerned these issues all have to do with one thing: HOW YOUR FOOT [Answer Revealed in the Free Download here] GROUND. If you have ever constructed a house you would know that the leveling of the foundation is an important part of the building process otherwise you will have crooked windows, walls, and roofs. So goes the same with the body.
The full range of motion of the leg and foot must be exercised otherwise if one continually skips parts of the steps it will be like a house on a slowly sinking foundation. Soon you will have chronic issues above the waist and no matter what kind of therapy you do the issue never resolves and continually reappears. Usually where the pain is, is not the problem, but the symptom. If the window is crooked it has nothing to do with the window itself, it is the crooked foundation, the same thing happens with the body. Often crooked hips and low back pain has to do with the simple technique of not [Answer Revealed in the Free Download here] your big toe. You can rub that back all you want but if you do not flex that toe your back is going to keep hurting for a long time.
There have been many devices like orthotics, ointments, and surgeries but all of these are temporary solutions. If you do not flex that foot correctly nothing will change. I have had people lay on my massage bed and they think all I need is for you to rub that spot and it will be gone. And then I have to apologize and say this session is only effective for inspiring you on how to heal and you sir need to flex your foot properly.
Unfortunately walking correctly is not an easy thing to master at first and takes a lot of discipline. Breaking habits is very difficult but the rewards to being able to heal yourself and prevent further injury is quite empowering. I like to think if I was thrown out into the forest would I have to need anything? I don’t want to have to depend on needing something like pharmaceuticals, orthotics, or syringes. I want to be truly health empowered with self-knowledge. After learning the “Walking Correct Technique” you are going to have to ask yourself, “If I can heal this what else can I do? Answer: Everything!
At first learning how to walk again requires a lot of thinking about your feet and can seem overwhelming. So I have broken the steps up so that you can focus on one thing at a time. It is tough to do them all at once but if you can do one you can do the next.
Duvall Massage with Jacob 