… asked a coordinator of the City of Toronto activity programs (and a yoga teacher) after my demo Essentrics® class at a North York community centre. My answer was “A full body Essentrics® workout”. “They have a knee pain and you recommend a full body workout?”, in disbelief asked the coordinator.
The answer was, and still is, resounding “Yes”. “When we flip our focus from strengthening individual muscles to improving the range of motion of the joints through multidirectional, whole-body movements, we’re able to pull the joints back into alignment, and the pain disappears. Depending on the degree of muscle-fascia imbalance, relief can occur immediately or over time“, writes Miranda Esmonde-White in “The Miracle of Movement” book. And this is exactly why my right foot and ankle started feeling so much better after a 30 min full-body Essentrics® class, and this became the starting point of my Essentrics® journey.
Many of us do not realize that the cause of pain is often outside of the area where the pain is experienced: a tight ankle can lead to pain in the opposite shoulder; knee or hip pain is often a result of poor feet alignment. The best way to alleviate pain is to rebalance the entire musculoskeletal system (muscles, joints, connective tissue). Rebalancing exercises really “work their magic through all the muscle chains in the body” (“Aging Backwards“, Miranda Esmonde-White).
It’s been more than a year since I was asked about a recommended exercise for knee pain. Why did I think about it now? It’s because I just came back from a 3-day live Essentrics® Instructor training in Montreal. Severina Gates, who led the training, asked what exercise we would recommend to someone with a shoulder pain. It was a trick question, of course. The answer is “A full body workout. Always!”
I know that the day will come when an Essentrics class will be offered by many gyms and community centres, similarly to Pilates, yoga and tai-chi. Until then, find a class near you and join others who want to stay youthful, strong, flexible and happy! Keep moving!