Blue Suede Traveling Shoes

When traveling, stretch your spine!!  How often?  Every chance you get, darlin!

I'm here.  At the USC campus for a quick visit with GianPaolo before heading to Florida for another John Lennon art show.  I am writing this post just outside the buildings of the School of Cinematic Arts and all around me are tones teeming with creativity.  I just love it!

Lucky kid!  I will reap some of his education by asking a whole lot of questions.

Background:  musical scales on a trumpet and a soprano voice sings an obscure tune just around the corner.  Bicycles whiz past me, their spoked wheels beating time to the melodies filling the spit shined, blueness atop the buildings.  I pretend to be one of the students; just a regular gal in a world of genius.  No biggie.  Yeah, I can pull this off.

Just a regular old building here.

On the predawn flight down here, I snap a shot of me performing a perfunctory stretch.  Lady across the aisle looks at me like I'm twisted.

I call this my "number 4" stretch.  I do it constantly during flights.  (Sorry neighbor!)

As I wait in "ground transportation" at LAX for Eugene, our favorite cab driver, (retired engineer with two USC grads to his credit) to pick up my Starbucked body and deliver it to the campus, I release my tight hamstrings by putting one foot up on the bench and leaning into my outstretched leg.  Oh my, I am tight today.

All you need is a bench.  Maybe a few dips?  Nahhh..

My neck has been kind of crunchy, pinchy so I resort to my old faithful; open my chest, lean back without arching my low back and take a deep breath.  The exhaust almost chokes me, but my thoracic spine feels looser.  (See photo above, taken last summer.)



I elevate my legs for a few moments, people watching.  We are all so different.  I love it!

Ahhh, I am alone and nobody knows me!  Yes, use your luggage for an ottoman! 

I will walk a lot.  I will stretch whenever and wherever I can.  I will be someone else for a few days, but I will be myself.

Do you travel for business?  Do you have a fitness related routine that helps you feel your best?  Give me the scoop!  I need to hear from you well seasoned travelers.

Workout Wednesday, Bloggers Back Pain

Stretch! Psoas not to Hurt!


(I know, really cute play on words.)  In last weeks "Workout Wednesday", I discussed the psoas (pronounced "so as") muscles and their importance in our core strength.  There is so much more to these guys than I can discuss today, yet most of us have no idea how common hip and back pain are associated with tight or unused psoas muscles.  Why?  Because we sit so darn much!

Without boring you to tears, the lower section of the psoas is the hip floexors.  When the hip flexors are flexed a lot of the time, they will shorten up, resulting in a tight psoas.

Where the psoas attaches to the hip is the "hip flexors".  (Diagram courtesy of StrongLifts.)

In my class last night, Nancy, my trusted sub-instructor, a Physical Therapist, had this to say:  "The psoas is like a pair of suspenders that run from our pelvis up to our lumbar spine."   Well, these suspenders begin to think they should stay shortened and contracted after prolonged sitting.  When they get tight, so does our QL (quadratus lumorum), a muscle in our low back region, and our illiocus, internal hip muscles.   And, let us not forget our sciatica, as it too can be negatively affected by all this tightening!

OK, so, what do you do about it?  Stretch, stretch, stretch!  And here's how:

Begin in this position.  Think: Lengthening from the front hip up through spine.
Tuck pelvis enough to feel the front of the hip (my right).

If you require more, elevate arms overhead and reach from your hips and spine, not your arms.
Tuck your tailbone a bit more.

And if you can handle a bit more, lean back from the low spine, pull up and back, not arching from the low back.

The stretch can be performed while standing.   So, there is no excuse NOT to do them!

I am proposing that you do these stretches every half hour you are seated.  Just try it!  Let me know how it feels.