The evolution of movement and postural habits, good or bad, is considered a complex process from a physiological perspective. There are numerous interactions that occur between nerve, muscle, connective, and bone tissues for each and every movement that we execute on a daily basis. The sedentary demands encouraged by modern culture cause us to react to our environment that for most of us translates into subtle, poor movement and postural habits. Various “whole” body movements result from individual muscles that work in concert with one another. It is like a domino effect, one muscle triggers another muscle in a particular sequence that yields a given movement pattern such as sitting down into a chair or getting up out of a chair to stand upright. Since many of us sit for extended periods of time during our work day(s); I wanted to review the dynamics of efficient sitting from a standing position. I will use a frame by frame approach highlighting key points that will assist you in improving your body awareness that will in turn results in changing a poor inefficient movement pattern and replacing it with a more optimal one. I will be reviewing the squat movement pattern as it relates to sitting in an effort to help readers modify their current, potentially destructive sitting action, and make it constructive. Today, taking a BOTTOM UP approach, I will begin this transformative process from the feet. You can learn more about how to move better throughout your daily activities here.

A balance foot structure exhibits three arches that together create a dome that serves to support the leg above the ankle region and also serves to guide the weight bearing forces upward through the center of the body. To keep things simple, this supportive dome can be restored by bearing weight over the ball of the foot and the bottom of the heel, i.e. the midpoint is just over the ankle joints. To find this “sweet spot” of your foot try the following exercise:

Stand upright with your feet shoulder width apart and pointed straight ahead. While in this position gently shift your weight forward and backwards on your feet between the ball of your foot and center of your heel. Do this 3-5 times and then eventually center yourself over the point between these two areas of the bottom of your feet.

When either standing or sitting it is important to place your body weight over the above mentioned two points of the foot, i.e. between the ball and the heel of the foot, this establishes a good centering point for all weight bearing activities. Centering you feet in this way sets the tone in executing weight bearing actions with efficient skeletal alignment between all weight bearing joints, i.e. the feet, knees, hip joints, spinal joints, and skull.

Take the time to be mindful of how your feet are relating with the ground/floor and the weight bearing joints above them, the knees, hips, spine, etc. Now, have fun applying FRAME (1) of many that make up graceful, upright weight bearing motion.

Look for my next blog post that continues with the second FRAME of efficient movement dynamics.