Category Archives: Exercise and posture

Morton’s neuroma

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A neuroma is a thickened, benign segment of nerve and can be found in numerous places in the body. The most common neuroma that effects the feet is a Morton’s neuroma. Sometimes called an “intermetarsel neuroma”, because they are found in between the 3rd and 4th metatarsel bones (connecting the ankle bones to your toes). This condition was actually first discovered and described by a chiropodist called Durlacher.

Morton’s neuromas are caused by wearing shoes with tapered (pointy) toes, high heels, high impact exercises and sports like road running, tennis, squash, cricket, fencing and even walking a lot on hard surfaces. These neuromas may also be accompanied by other foot problems like bunions, plantar fasceitis, hammer toes and foot deformities because these things alter the way  we walk.

The symptoms of Morton’s neuroma include pain, numbness, tingling, burning sensations and a feeling that you have something pressing against the sole of your foot like a pebble or a bunched up sock  inside your shoe. You may feel like there is something uncomfortably pinching inside your foot as you walk and feel like your foot is swelling up when it actually isn’t.

If a Morton’s neuroma gets serious enough it can be immobilising and may even require surgery. The good news is that there are many other, less invasive therapies that can bring relief to this condition.

A frozen drink bottle (with ice in it) can be rolled under your sore feet, Self Massage, stretching, analgesia, anti inflammatories and simple elevation of your feet after a hard day can all be effective in bringing relief to Morton’s neuroma symptoms.

Doctor’s usually prefer to avoid cutting out the offending neuroma out because it can leave you with a numb foot and the resultant scar tissue may create new foot and walking problems. So it is important to get something done about before it gets serious.

I have found toe and foot stretching exercises to be helpful with Morton’s neuromas (see Self Massage book in the ‘Feet and legs’ chapter), if you can keep your foot muscles flexible and supple it can lessen the physical pressure on your neuroma. When your neuroma is feeling sensitive you will need to tie your shoe laces a bit less tightly.

Walking downhill and descending stairs can irritate Morton’s neuroma symptoms too.

Rather than slapping your feet down hard as you walk, roll through your stride from your heel to the ball of your foot, this will stretch your foot fascia as you walk and reduce the impact felt. Walking on grass rather than on pavement can help you too.

Whatever treament you opt for wearing practical rather than impractical footwear is quite important in managing this problem, for women inparticular.

 

 

 

Walking

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It is hard to find a more common place and popular physical activity as walking. Walking is an aerobic (cardio) exercise, the faster you walk the more rapidly your heart rate increases and the rhythm of walking sustains it.The steeper the walk the more strengthening the effect on your legs, walking is then a cardio and strength exercise (but not stretching this must be done separately).

If you cannot go outside to walk you can do it indoors on a treadmill or step machine. Walking is easier with a straight upright posture, focussing on your breathing as you walk can help  you stand straighter and walk faster.Walking up hills can give you a good cardio and strength workout but walking down hills is much harder on your feet, knees and even your back because of the gravity factor.

An effective walking exercise strategy is to walk faster and harder up hills but take it slow and easy walking down hill to get your breath back. Please try to avoid walking fast or running down hill not only because of how landing jolts your joints and your spine but also because you are less likely to twist an ankle on uneven ground.

When you walk your digestive organs gently rub up against one another, walking can actually assist your digestion because your internal organs massage each other while you are in motion. Walking for many is an active meditation, away from your worries, in the fresh air, looking at and smelling lovely gardens along the way listening to the birds. Experiment a bit with your walking speed to find the best rhythm for yourself.

Walking is often good thinking time and will help you think more positively and creatively because of the endorphins and serotinen released during a good walk.

If you have a dog take him with you, if you feel safer walking with a dog but don’t own one borrow your neighbour’s dog. Community notices in local newspaper classifieds often advertise walking groups if you don’t want to go alone.

Bushwalking has even greater benefits because it helps your balance and sure footedness as well as your cardio fitness. You can distribute leaflets to earn some money as you go or just to inform your neighbours about community events.

Some of the best memories I have of my father was all the bush walks he used to take me and my brothers on, it is a great thing to share with your kids and grand kids. We used to go catching frogs and lizards and when we told our friends they wanted to come too. Bushwalking is like a nature excursion for kids and is a great way to keep them active and away from video screens, it has been statistically proven that kids who are not overweight as teenagers are less likely to become obese as adults.

Breastfeeding and back pain

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New mothers often experience upper back and neck pain looking after their babies, the following are some helpful ideas and observations that might be of assistance to you or someone you know well.

As any kindergarten teacher can tell you if you spend much time with people much shorter than yourself it is easy to get poor posture and back pain from repeatedly bending down to help small children and listen to their little voices.

The comfort and safety of your baby is very important if he or she is to thrive, sometimes this happens unnecessarily at the expense of their mother’s comfort. Women are often taken by surprise when they inexplicably get pain in their upper back, shoulder, neck and even headaches when their children are still breastfeeding. This is often related in no small part to the posture they adopt when they breastfeed their baby.

Most back pain is posturally related, keeping your chin tucked in, shoulders back and spine straight is important in avoiding back pain whatever you do. How often have you seen a young mum bent forward from her waist, leaning to one side and craning her neck diagonally forward while she is breastfeeding her baby? A better question might be when was the last time you saw a breastfeeding mother NOT in poor posture?

If you raise the height of your baby on your lap when you breastfeed you can sit back and straight  with a cushion supporting the natural curve in your lower back. This upright sitting position can be achieved using a foam bolster under your baby (you can buy these at baby shops) and can negate the need to tip sideways toward your baby. Set yourself up with your baby fully supported without posturally stressing yourself. A slightly uncomfortable posture at the beginning of breastfeeding will become much more uncomfortable by the end of a feeding session.

Young mums usually love watching their blissful infant happily sucking away by craning their head diagonally forward and looking down which causes neck and shoulder pain. If you cannot resist doing this you can try using a mirror or even a camera and monitor  to watch your baby’s face as he or she is feeding.

I have heard lots of mums comment over the years about how their baby seems to psychically react when the mother is unhappy or uncomfortable you will be more relaxed around your infant if you are comfortable so it is a win /win situation if you breastfeed with postural awareness.

There are some very practical Self Massage techniques for nursing mums in the Self Massage book for any upper body muscular tension and safe upper back exercises to strengthen your posture and to stretch a tight neck and shoulders.

It is just as easy getting into poor posture bottle feeding babies too for similar reasons so please be aware of your posture if you do this.

 

Bones

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Your bones perform the obvious task of holding your body up by forming a rigid and strong light weight frame- your skeleton. It is held in place and propelled by your muscles. Bone also provides protection for your brain encased inside your skull and your ribcage protects your heart and lungs. Bone might look dead from the outside but there is plenty of cellular activity going on within that is constantly forming new bone and blood cells via it’s marrow.

The adult body contains 206 bones, the two major categories of bone are tubular bone that are present in your arms and legs and flat bone as found in your shoulder blades, pelvis, ribs and skull. Bones can fracture, form tumours, can be deformed through diseases like polio and pagets disease, lose their density through osteoporosis, acquire hard to cure infections and can be misshaped through chronic postural stresses.

Posture has a big effect on how bones grow, a forensic scientist for instance can look at the remains of a soldier dead for 300 years and tell he was an archer because of uneven bone shapes in his rib cage (playing regular golf over many years can do this too). The skeleton of a hunch back looks just as crooked on the inside as it does on the outside. When your bones are deformed congenitally there is not alot you can easily do about it but if you are a chronic sloucher you are making the rest of your life needlessly difficult for yourself.

The continuous pressure of bad posture eventually bends a bone like a wire does on a bonsai plant. What starts out as a minor postural fault if not corrected turns into a much more obvious postural problem. Uneven leg lengths can cause the lower rib cage to distend on the opposite side of the body from the short leg tipping the body diagonally backwards as you stand and step forward. If you have a leg that is longer than the other corrective footwear can not only help you walk better it can make you look better too.

One of the better known causes of weak bones (osteoporosis) is by insufficient dietary calcium and bones losing density hormonally in post- menopause in women. Other factors such as the consumption of sugar and carbonated drinks, smoking and lack of exercise can also contribute to a loss of bone density. So can medications like corticosteroids.

The bones along with your muscles, tendons, fascia, ligaments and cartilage form your muscular skeletal system, none of these tissues really mean anything without each other, together they are considered to be a functioning unit.

Standing and sitting straight and doing suitable regular exercise helps keep your bones strong and in the right shape. If keeping a straight spine is uncomfortable a good place to start getting better posture is massage and Self Massage.

Muscle

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There are two types of muscle tissue in the human body, they are involuntary muscle and voluntary muscle, (the heart muscle is composed of involuntary AND voluntary muscle tissue). Involuntary muscle is found in your internal organs such as in your digestive system, your intestines for instance regularly pushes ingested food along from your oesophagus to your rectum, it is called involuntary because you don’t need to think about it for it to work, it does so automatically in a healthy body. Voluntary muscle on the other hand requires conscious thought for it to work like when your legs move when you are walking and it is this muscle that is conditioned through exercise.

There are two types of voluntary muscle, they are type I slow twitch (red muscle fibre) that operates at low intensity but with greater endurance. Type II fast twitch  (white muscle fibre) operates with greater force but with much shorter duration. Type I and type II muscle fibres use different energy sources within the body. Red muscle fibre (type I)  for instance uses more oxygen, it is used in aerobic exercise and can be sustained for hours at a time like when you walk. White muscle fibre (type II) on the other hand is anaerobic and uses another energy process , it can be sustained only for short periods but with much more force. White muscle fibre is used in short bursts of strenuous activity like sprinting or lifting heavy weights. 

A long distance runner will have more red muscle fibre than a sprinter who has a greater ratio of white muscle fibre. White muscle fibre gets bigger when exercised, a successful body builder can be expected to be white fibre dominant. We tend to inherit these traits from our parents. Sports like football and rock climbing will use both, in continuous low intensity body movements interspersed with short high intensity muscle action.

Good blood circulation helps and is helped by muscles in action, the amount of oxygen consumed by a working muscle can increase 20-50 times more than a relaxed idle muscle. A flexed muscle not only uses more blood it’s shape changes because of the way it’s various fibres interlock.

Apart from your red and white muscle fibre ratio the actual size and strength of your muscles is determined by how much you exercise, your diet, neurology, hormone levels or presence of artificial growth promoters like anabolic steroids.

Your muscles are the motors of your body’s movements and posture, we cannot even breathe without them.

About 40% of average body mass is voluntary muscle and most of the rest of our mass is composed of involuntary muscle.

Stress stiffens muscle because when we are stressed the body primes itself for a flight or fight response by flooding your skeletal (voluntary) muscle with extra blood. This creates added strength to save yourself even if you are not actually in physical danger.

During short contractions your jaw muscles are strongest while the muscles of your thigh and butt are stronger in longer contractions. When muscles are stretched the interlocking myosin and actin fibres in your muscle are relaxed and help restore full extension to your joints.

When muscle strength is even between the front and back of your body and between the left and right sides of your body your posture will be upright and straight.

Other body tissues respond well to massage too but muscles respond best. It is easy to forget what it’s like to feel normal, it is too easy to attribute your aches and pains to aging alone. It is how you feel after some regular massage that tells you how young you can still feel.