Barefoot Bliss 2

As you may remember, I have been trying out minimal footwear and proudly presented my home made barefoot shoes in April. They were very comfortable and a lot more sturdy than I thought but as you may have guessed from the use of the past tense they are not completely intact anymore. The leather soles are fine but the back heel stitches went on my right shoe. I need to re-enforce them with a double layer of materials and they will be fine again.

The other problem I encountered, was that my feet weren't ready for that much barefoot walking. After a few weeks, I had some persistent pains in the arch of the right foot and I went back to wearing more supportive negative heeled shoes. I need to stretch and roll/mobilise my right foot on a tennis ball a lot more before I put that much pressure on it again for that amount of time. Katy Bowman's "Fix your Feet" DVD is one of the programmes I follow to regain foot mobility. Have a look at a trailor.

I found some Bama shoes - Schuhe wie Barfuss - in my mum's wardrobe which didn't fit her well and adopted them. They are cute and very thin soled. Unfortunately there is a little heel at the back.

I also tried out the Swiss kevlar socks last time I was in Austria and they are fine but very fiddly to put on. I didn't wear them lots but went completely barefoot instead.

If you into sewing I very much recommend making your own barefoot shoes out of sturdy material. Send me a photo if you do.

Oh and a little aside, I have figured out what to do with one of my last pairs of high heeled shoes - mules that I wore throughout my pregnancies. They are now my very own garden clogs - ideal for getting into a full squat with neutral spine while weeding and planting.

Get the most out of your time in the pool

I know a lot of pregnant mums and new mums like to spend time in a pool, swimming or baby swimming to prepare for birth in a gentle way or to get baby used to a watery environment. I teach aqua-natal classes and love the lightness I feel submerged in a pool at least once a week. It's great for me but even nicer for my highly pregnant mums. Post-natally, movement in water helps relax those overworked joints and back and give you a break from carrying baby.

The movement that work the best for me in the pool are tension releasing stretches as the water is a naturally relaxing environment. If you enjoy the suberged feel, try the following restorative stretches next time you are in the pool. A couple of minutes before or after a class, or lane swimming will add a new dimension to your pool work out.

The calf stretch is great to relieve tension at the back of your legs. If you don't have a woggle you can do a double calf stretch instead. Stand an arms length away from the pool side with hands on the side. With fully extended legs push your bottom behind your heels and bring your head between your upper arms. Let your head hang. This one is great for the back of your legs and the upper back.

The number 4 stretch is one of my favourite and the water is an ideal medium to practice it. When crossing your legs and sitting back as if onto a chair, try and keep your knees over your heels and you get an even deeper stretch.

Keeping up your activities through pregnancy and preparing for birth

Pregnancy is a time of major change to the body and expectant mothers often aren’t sure how to adapt activities and exercise accordingly. This leaflet outlines how to adapt your fitness regime and provides activities to prepare for birth.


You can buy a version of this information as a PDF leaflet, that is an A4 printable and foldable leaflet. The leaflet is a great reference point for mums-to-be or hand-out for birthing professionals. Cost: 50 p.

BEFORE STARTING ANY NEW ACTIVITIES CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR OR MIDWIFE TO ENSURE YOURS IS A LOW RISK PREGNANCY.

There are many advantages to keeping active during pregnancy, including:

• Keeping up energy levels and improved sleeping pattern
• Can relieve pregnancy discomforts, swelling, sickness, constipation, varicose veins, leg cramps
• Stronger muscles and greater endurance can ease deliver and labour time and improve recovery time for mum and baby
• More efficient placenta during pregnancy and birth which ensures oxygen and food supply to baby     
• Relaxed, strong muscles and the ability to keep correct alignment alleviates back and joint pains, strengthens the pelvic floor.
• Ensures healthy weight gain and reduces risk of gestational diabetes.

Adapting exercise for pregnancy

GUIDELINES:

• Always keep well hydrated. Drink a glass of water or squash every 20 min during exercise.
• Have a light snack within the hour before exercise to make sure your blood sugar level does not fall too low.
• Keep your exercise moderate. If you over-exert yourself, your muscles compete with babies food supply. On a scale from 1 - 10 (1 = no exercise and 10 = as hard as you can work) stay within 5 - 6. You should be able to hold a conversation when exercising.
• Train to maintain fitness levels not dramatically improve them.
• Stick to what your body knows. Donʼt start new types of exercise. If you havenʼt been exercising, keep fit by walking or  attending ante-natal or aqua-natal classes, which are based on  functional, everyday moves.
• Due to increased production of the hormone relaxin, which  loosens ligaments in preparation for birth, be careful with high impact sports or over-stretching as joins become more unstable
• Avoid forceful twists straining your already stretched tummy muscles, e.g. as in tennis or golf strokes
• Don’t exercise when you are feeling unwell and stop exercising if you start feeling unwell, light headed or very tired.
• Avoid exercise in hot and humid conditions to avoid overheating.
• Wear a sports bra or several bras on top of each other
• If you feel dizzy when lying on your back, roll onto your side as baby may be lying on a major vein, constricting your blood’s  circulation back to your heart.

AMOUNT OF EXERCISE RECOMMENDED 

Regular activity 3 - 5 times a week for 20 - 60 min at moderate level is recommended throughout a low risk pregnancy.

Research: Women who continue to perform weight-bearing exercise throughout pregnancy have been shown to have a shorter, often unaided labour and delivery and faster recovery after the birth. Positive effects of exercise on fitness during labour are particularly pronounced if you can exercise right up to full term (Clapp, J.F., 2002). Weight bearing activities are any movement where you support your whole body weight. Walking is the most accessible weight bearing activity.

Activities in preparation for birth

AEROBIC ENDURANCE

Walking in alignment is the kindest and most efficient whole body movement, ideal for training the heart and lungs. It’s free and keeps pressure on your joints low. Speed up for a minute or two until you feel slightly out of breath and slow down again - simulating contraction. Aqua-natal is another low impact way to keep up endurance right up to the birth. Endurance is an important factor for birthing success and recovery.  

ALIGNMENT

Keeping your whole body especially the pelvis aligned is one of the most effective way to prepare for birth. Keeping the pelvis neutral (see picture below) when sitting and walking will increase the birthing space, improve pelvic floor strength and help keep your abdominal muscles strong. Keeping the weight of your body in your heels and feet facing straight ahead will prevent, knee, hip and foot pain and helps keep your pelvis aligned. It is NOT possible to keep beneficial alignment in HIGH HEELS. 

          

PELVIC FLOOR

A strong pelvic floor, will help channel the baby into the pelvis during labour and help it turn before emerging. Traditionally, pelvic floor exercises consist of squeezing the pelvic floor muscles as if to stop urinating and pulling them up and in, Slowly first and then with fast twitching moves. It is beneficial to know how to squeeze and particularly release the pelvic floor. However, too many pelvic floor exercises and sitting on your sacrum with your pelvis tucked under result in a tight and weak pelvic floor.This leads to a decreased birthing space as a tight pelvic floor pulls the sacrum into pelvis. To lengthen and strengthen the pelvic floor and open the birthing space, sit on your sitting bones and exercise the buttock muscles to pull the sacrum backwards with e.g. the squat.

THE SQUAT

With your feet a little wider than hips-width and the outside of the feet parallel and straight ahead, bring weight into your heels and lower. Try and keep your shins as vertical as you can by leaning forward with the upper body and only lower until you start tucking your pelvis. Come back to an untucked position and hold or push back up through your heels.

HINT: Try and squat carefully onto a chair/toilet when sitting down and off it again when standing up without using your arms

ABDOMINALS

Keeping your deep abdominal muscles strong throughout pregnancy will support your lower back and prepares them to support contractions during labour. 

On all fours, with hands below shoulders and knees below hips, relax your tummy and keep a neutral back with a gentle hollow in your lower back. After an out-breath, lift your tummy towards to your spine, lifting your baby towards your body. Keep this position for a couple of breaths and release tummy towards the floor. Let your tummy relax but try and prevent your ribs from poking out. Repeat. 

HINT: You can repeat this when walking, standing, sitting anywhere.

(c) Restorative Exercise, Inc.

STRETCHING

Increase length and strength of muscles affecting hip mobility

One of the tightest area are the back of our legs, which restricts mobility of our hip joint and can cause the pelvis to tuck under. 

The double calf stretch increases the length of the calves and hamstrings and encourages a neutral pelvis and spine. 

Step with the front of the feet onto a rolled up towel/mat. Heels stay on the floor. Feet are hips-width apart facing straight ahead. Lean forwards from the hip and hold onto a chair, sofa or ball Only lean as far forward as you can without tucking the tail bone under. The weight of the body rests in the heels and legs are fully extended. See if you can push the buttocks behind your heels. You can do this exercise to start without the rolled up towel.

(c) Restorative Exercise, Inc.

RELAXATION

Regain energy and control between contractions and make contractions more efficient by breathing naturally and releasing muscle tension. 

Practicing efficient and calming breathing

Bring both hands to either side of your ribcage. Breathe slowly in through the nose and feel how the ribcage expands to all sides. Slowly breathe out through the mouth and gently push the ribcage back together. Keep breathing as slowly and calmly as possible. As labour progresses, you will breath faster through your mouth. The expanding rib cage is still a great point of focus. 

Practicing letting go of tension

Birthing hypnosis and birthing pools/baths or birthing massages are a great way to release tension and speed up labour. Practice releasing tension with each breath:

1. Breathe in as described above and with the out-breath relax your face, head and neck. Add a cue word in your mind e.g. Relax, Release 
2. With the next out-breath relax your face, head and neck and add shoulders and arms. Repeat your cue word.
3. Breath out and start relaxing with the head and neck then shoulders and arms and add your tummy area
4. Repeat adding the pelvis with the next breath and finally the legs and feet. Always starting with the head until you relax the whole body with each breath, adding a cue word in your mind.
5. To check for tension held in parts of your body it helps to tense the muscles when breathing in and letting go on the out breath.

You can buy a version of this information as a PDF leaflet, that is an A4 printable and foldable leaflet. The leaflet is a great reference point for mums-to-be or hand-out for birthing professionals. Cost: 50 p.

 

Further Reading:

Cherry Baker (2006) Pregnancy and Fitness. A&C Black. London

Katy Bowman (2011) Every Woman’s Guide to Foot Pain Relief. BenBella Books Inc. Dallas.

James F Clapp III MD (2002) Exercising Through Your Pregnancy. Addicus Books.

Judy DiFiore (2003), The Complete Guide to Postnatal Fitness 2nd ed. A&C Black. London.

Useful organisations:

The National Childbirth Trust:

http://www.nct.org.uk/

The Active Birth Centre

www.activebirthcentre.com

Rewlea Swimming

http://www.rewleaswimming.co.uk/

The Register of Exercise Professionals

www.exerciseregister.org 

Natal-hypnotherapy/Hypnobirthing

www.natalhypnotherapy.co.uk

www.hypnobirthing.co.uk 

Relevant blogs:

MumsKeepFit:

http://mumskeepfit.blogspot.co.uk

The path you take:

http://pathyoutake.blogspot.ca/

Katy says:

http://www.alignedandwell.com/

For more information contact:

Pre- and Post-natal fitness instructor:

Christine Shuttleworth  

Email: mumskeepfit@hotmail.co.uk

Website: www.mumskeepfit.com

Blog: mumskeepfit.blogspot.co.uk/

Birth space

Congratulations to all our expecting Mums! You have passed the first hurdle of creating life. Your baby is growing happily, slowly expanding its living quarters.

Next stop: Bringing your baby into this world as safely, fast and as non-eventful as possible.

There are many ways to prepare for birth but one of the best must be the physical and mechanical preparations of creating the biggest possible birth space. The pelvis and pelvic outlet is pretty inflexible with the exception of the movable sacrum at the back. The sacrum and attached coccyx is the lowest part of our spine. It is also an attachment point for the pelvic floor. The other being the pubic bone at the front. The sacrum is able to move into the birthing space and out see Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. The red arrows show the length of the pelvic floor and birthing space:

Fig. 1: Looking down into the pelvis, the sacrum is pulled back and lumbar spine (lower spine) is curving neutrally into the body.

Fig. 2: Sacrum is pushed into the birthing space and lower spine is pushed backwards, flexing the spine and causing extra pressure on the lower spine joints.

Now, ideally we all want our birthing space to look like Fig. 1, more space for baby to pass through and less trauma to the coccyx and sacrum, when baby's head pushes against them on its way out. So how does the sacrum move?

1. The muscles attaching to the sacrum from within the pelvis are the pelvic floor muscles. They run from the coccyx to the pubic symphysis at the front of the pelvis. The red arrows point to attachment points of the pelvic floor in the above figures. They also run from the sacrum to either side of the pelvic outlet, creating a hammock for internal female organs and the baby. A very tight pelvic floor will pull on the sacrum and over time will cause it to move into the birthing space, Fig. 2. This is why traditional Pelvic Floor exercises in excess are counter-productive. The more you squeeze these muscles:

- the tighter they will become, 

- the more the sacrum moves into the birthing space and 

- the shorter and weaker the muscles become. 

Short muscles have less contractile length and produce less force. To keep the pelvic floor healthy and birthing space open, it is very important to be able to relax pelvic floor muscles completely and lengthen them.

2. One of the muscles attaching to the outside/back of your sacrum are the gluteus maximus muscles (buttocks), two of the largest muscles in the body. They are used for e.g.:

-  extending the leg behind you, if you happen to walk by extending the leg behind and not lift it in front and falling onto it and 

- stabilising the pelvis when pushing up from a seated or say squatting position.

Whenever the gluteus maximus is active it will pull on the sacrum and over time move it out of the birthing space as in Fig. 1.

3. The sacrum is also moved by passive positioning. If you tend to sit slouched e.g. on the sofa with pelvis tucked under, you are sitting with your upper body weight pushing onto the sacrum. Sitting like this, the sacrum is pushed into the birthing space and the pelvic floor shortens as in Fig. 2. You may also feel lower back pain as a result as this sitting position, which forces the lumber or lower spine to flex and put excess pressure on it. 

To achieve optimal birthing space try the following:

* learn how to relax and lengthen your pelvic floor. If you do do pelvic floor exercises, add a relaxation at the end of each pelvic floor contraction by letting go of the pelvic floor contraction completely and gently pushing down on the pelvic floor. This will help identify the right muscles to use during birth. 2 sets of 8 pelvic floor squeezes a day are easily enough to get to know your pelvic floor. Read more detailed info on a TooTightPelvicFloor and there will be a follow up on this article on how to relax and increase length in the pelvic floor.

* incorporate squat movement into your daily routine see You don't know squat and Maui Squat for more info.

* be aware how you walk. Do you lift your leg in front and fall onto it or are you using your fully extended legs to push back and propel you forward (cue: legs behind body - using your gluteus)? See Walking or Bouncing for more info on how to walked aligned.

* DO NOT SIT ON YOUR SACRUM!! Sit on your sitting bones with your backside behind you and not underneath you. Sit on the chair the wrong way round so you lean forward (also a good way to get baby into the optimal birthing position but about this another time). Sit on the floor leaning on an exercise ball, sit cross-legged, on your heels or don't sit at all, stand, walk, squat, lie - change position as often as possible. For some more ideas have a look at Your position in life.

Enjoy your bump and good luck for the big event!

                                                    Quite a while ago now! Missing my bump(s).

Barefoot bliss

For the last three months I have been debating which barefoot shoes to buy. The last six month, I have spend converting my shoe wardrobe from positive heeled shoes to negative heeled shoes. Earth Kalso are amazingly comfortable and keep me in alignment when out and about. No more backache after a days shopping in town. Their main aim is to keep my weight in the heel of the foot, by increasing the sole at the front of the shoe to be slightly higher than the heel of the shoe, simulating walking in sand. With this set-up it is a lot easier to learn to use your heel to push back when walking instead of falling forwards as most of us tend to do. This blog by Jillian Nicol Why is walking falling? explains the mechanics of walking with comic(al) illustrations.

Now barefoot walking is the next step. Not only does it allow me to walking in my heels it also gives the foot back its ability to move on its own and mould onto the ground beneath. Not very exciting in town but amazing off road. Barefoot walking stops your ankles from tipping left and right to accommodate unevenness on the ground and causing damaging rotational forces in the knee and hips.

I have tried Vibrams five finger shoes but they somehow didn't quite feel right and it may just have been the price (really, do I need to pay almost £100 pounds for shoes to simulate barefoot walking if all I really need is a piece of rubber or leather strapped to my feet to protect me a little from dirt and injury?). I also like the look of Sockwas but am a bit worried that they may be a little hot on the bare foot (is that a problem anyone who has them?). I may still splash out on the Swiss protection socks made out of kevlar. I bought those for my Dad's birthday, as I don't mind spending the money on others. He so far enjoys wearing them but I need to see them in action first before I buy them for myself. The next time I will see my Dad is in May and as I am not very patient and can't wait that long for barefoot bliss, I did what I always do and made my own.

After scouring second hand shops I came up with a leather jacket (£6) for the soles and a skirt with lining (£2) for the upper section. I also got some leather sewing needles and plastic paint to turn the leather soles water-proof and dirt repellent. All in all these shoes have cost me less than a fiver as I intend to make at least 3 more pairs from the same materials :-). For the pattern: I drew around my feet for the sole with a little extra and the uppers are based on a baby shoe pattern, see here.

I love my shoes. They are light and cool and I can feel my feet again. Yesterday was my maiden trip to town (not very exciting as it is all pavement). I could feel my muscle working hard in the front of the foot and realised that when I roll the feet off the floor my heels turn inwards. My walking alignment I have achieved so far went almost completely out the window. Keeping my feet straight and facing ahead is a lot harder without negative heels. But hey, I like to learn and adapt. In the afternoon, I walked across a field and on the seafront/beach. Amazing. Absolutely love the feeling of feet on uneven ground. After a day spent in my new shoes I could feel my feet buzzing when I got to bed. A feeling I last felt after an hours session at the reflexologist - another £30 saved :-).

At a motorcross race with Tommy (it was very loud)

Now I am not sure how long these shoes will last me and I will have to apply at least another three layers of protective paint. The achievement of making them alone has been worth the effort. Once I have the basics of cobbling down a little more I shall investigate different materials and styles to maybe make them even more fashionable.

PS: A few days later. My new shoes have also survived a walk and rock climbing in Dartmoor.

There are a few scrapes in the paint but the leather and paint is surprisingly sturdy and water proof.

Gravity Gravitas

or the gravity of gravity

Now you may be worrying about the amount and kind of food you are eating. Will it be healthy enough to get you through life without illnesses? Or about the amount of exercise you are doing. Will it be enough to be able to function until the ripe old age of 90? High aims and probably worth worrying about a little as the quality of life is dependent on our functionality throughout. 

You may think this is enough to worry about but may I be so mean and throw in another stinker. If you are a new mum or about to be a mum you may want to keep this jewel of information for a time when your children are old enough to dress themselves, get their own food and wipe their own bottoms and you have the capacity again to worry about something else. 

The one and very important other thing you need to worry about is gravity. "Why is that?" you may ask as you can't really do anything about gravity. Well that is were you are wrong. Food is ingested only several times a day and the body has many mechanisms to prevent yourself from poisoning and harming yourself by accident. Exercise may be good for you or may not but either way there is a limited amount of time you spend running, walking, exercising (maybe 7 hours a week i.e. 7 out of 172 hours?), but gravity is acting on your body ALL THE TIME. While your exercising and eating and sleeping and sitting and pooing … It will pull you towards the centre of the earth if you like it or not. It will pull on you, your body parts and each individual cell, the food you are eating, the clothes you are wearing, the bag you are carrying. OK, so far but were is the problem?

Human have evolved to present themselves to gravity in a variety of manners, sitting, standing, walking, but mostly upright, eyes level with the horizon. To be able to live life upright we slowly evolved a complicated set of muscles, tendons, bones that is able to balance on two feet and is trained to stay/live in this position by constant practice, e.g. standing/walking developed over thousands and hundred of thousands of years. Now in the last 100 years, for many of us our life style has change dramatically decreasing the amount of standing and walking. Where are we headed for next in evolution? 

Hmm interesting but where do I come in? In the short term, the way we present ourselves to gravity influences the functionality of our body. If you carry your head forward from your shoulders, gravity will pull on it and as there is nothing underneath it to hold it up, muscles in the neck and upper back have to constantly pull it up and back (neck pain anyone?) If the head is balanced plumb over the shoulders the bones (vertebrae in the neck and back) carrying the weight and muscles are only used to support the spine not carry all the weight itself. This applies to every part and muscle of the body. Out of alignment, muscles and bones not designed to carry weight and work against gravity to keep us upright are called to work and fail over time as they weren't designed to do the job. 

But gravity doesn't stop there. Our body is programmed to make use of gravity, e.g. when we go to the bathroom, give birth or when we eat food. These processes carried out without the use of gravity put a huge amount of strain on the body. Giving birth on your back is a lot harder than all fours and so is menstruating when sitting with our pelvis tucked under or lying down for large amounts of time. The body has to push against gravity instead of with it. Food is designed to slide down the oesophagus, but with a head that is forward from the shoulders, the very few muscles in the neck/oesophagus will need to push the food back first before it can slide (cause for suffocation when eating).

Gravity acts all the time on all of your body. Knowing where you should be in space and how to best present yourself to gravity to avoid and reduce many illnesses caused due to wear and tear and mis-alignment (including CV disease, diabetes II and osteoporosis) is well worth some investigation. If you are already at a stage of pain, find out if a simple (but maybe note easy) readjustment to how you present yourself to gravity can help (sometimes almost instantly) before going for surgery or medication. 

Alignment is the new worry, but luckily gravity applies to everyone the same and the solution is the same for everyone - it is based on basic mechanical principles. It is a simple solution if not easy. Regular walking and living in alignment will provide you with a metabolic change, which will help with weight control and provide all the exercise you need to stay healthy. So no more worrying about exercise. See I am not really mean, all I have done is replaced your worry about exercise with worrying about alignment. 

If you are interested in learning more about alignment work contact me here or on Facebook about one to one classes. I teach 25 alignment marker that are the easiest to control and have the largest impact on overall health. They classes are based on alignment work by Biomechanist Katy Bowman. For a manual on how the body and body alignment works have a look at Katy's Wholebody Restorative Exercise course, her blog Katy says and her book "Every Woman's Guide to foot pain relief". Otherwise, see if you can find a very good physiotherapist or chiropractor who can tell you when you are neutrally aligned - and not just tell you how you should look when aligned but actually gives you concrete points of alignment (bony markers) to look out for based on biomechanics. 

ALIGNED WE WILL CONQUER GRAVITY - or at least live with it in peace until gravity takes us to our grave.

Standing lighter

New year - new aims. If weight loss is on your list of goals for this year, add extra standing time to loose calories and tone up without exercising. A study into standing desks versus sitting desks showed that students used approx. 1/3 more calories standing than sitting (Reiff, C, Marlatt K, Denge DR, J Phys Act Health. 2011 Oct 5. [Epub ahead of print]).

Get a standing desk for your computer (i.e. a little nested table/box on your desk), stand when you talk on the phone/text/facebook, when you visit and chat to friends, when you iron, wash up, while you read or watch TV.

My standing desk upstairs in a nice and quiet spot.

2 hours a day extra will add up to the equivalent of an hours exercise class during the week in terms of calories and you prevent back pain, muscle shortening in the back of your leg and improve circulation.

Start with 10 min and see if you can stand in alignment without tiring, if not, just being able to stand for 10/30/60 min a day in alignment without leaning onto something or sitting down is a desirable goal. After all, standing using your muscles correctly should be a natural skill everyone has.

Stand with feet hips-width apart and outside of your feet parallel and all your weight in your heels. Ears, shoulders and hips stack plumb over your heels.

If you are interested in learning more about standing and walking in alignment and how to replace exercise with whole-body movement throughout the day, visit Katy Bowman's blog. Her classes and courses are an absolute eye opener.