Hip Pain/Low Back Pain page 3
Fix Your Feet Balls
By the time you're aware of hip or low back pain it's inevitable
that your postural alignment will be skewed to one degree
or another, and that means that your feet, those poor abused
and neglected things that support us day after day and year
after year, will be in a compromised state. You simply can't
walk around the ways most people walk around and not have
your feet be somewhat, to totally messed up. Any course of
action to help normalize a problem hip joint or low back must
address the feet. Until all the pain is out of the feet and
the 26 bones, 33 joints, and 3 arches in each foot are released
and functional, nothing above them (which is your whole body)
can be working properly. Again, not rocket science but simple
logical, mechanical physics.
High arches, fallen arches, pronation, corns, bunions, callouses,
and most anything else that can go wrong with the feet can
be positively affected by a simple (non-surgical!) procedure.
If your feet hurt I can guarantee you need to use this inexpensive
self-maintenance tool. In all the years and thousands of feet
I've worked on, I have never met anyone who can''t benefit
from these. You can fix your feet!
My how-to instructions for the Fix Your Feet Balls explains
the exact procedures which will enable you to understand your
feet and how to bring them back to normal. If you don't lose
these balls, they should last indefinitely. Fix Your Feet
Balls (in combination with tennis balls) are the perfect tools
for working on your feet. There are 26 bones, 33 joints, and
an unspecified number of hinges in each foot and if you can
find any pain while standing on either tennis balls, or these
Fix Your Feet Balls, then you can be sure that those 26 bones,
33 joints, and unspecified number of hinges are in a disorganized
state. And if your feet are disorganized then you can be sure
that the rest of your body is too. Look at the Leaning Tower
of Pisa for illustration; poor foundation and everything above
goes awry. Soreness (and downright excruciating pain) in the
soft tissue is indicative of stressed and compromised musculature
and thus inevitably as a result, skeletal disorganization.
How did your feet get so messed up you might ask? I'll tell
you.
#1: Shoes which are not the shape of the healthy foot. Feet
are not narrower at the front as most shoes are. Cram your
foot into one and over time your foot will become shaped similarly.
Think about the interesting cultural tradition of binding
the feet in China and then look at the more subtle, but similar
in effect, tradition of women wearing high heeled shoes in
our culture and the disastrous repercussions. No natural foot
is shaped anything like most of the shoes people wear, with
recognizable results.
#2: Heels (anything over ½" high) which lift
the back of the foot up and put too much pressure on all three
arches: the transverse arch ( across the balls of the foot),
the medial arch (inside), and the lateral (outside) arch.
This pressure compresses the bones of the foot and inhibits
the arches from working the way they were designed to work,
as springs.
#3: Arch supports which inhibit the medial arch from dropping
down to work as the spring it is designed to be. When the
foot steps onto the ground it is meant to spread width-wise
and also to lengthen (like a spring). Shoes which do not allow
this spreading and lengthening destroy the natural functioning
of the wonderful foot and cause all kinds of problems, not
all of which are localized in the foot. People who feel they
need arch supports and orthotics have extremely disorganized
feet and using said "crutches" are only setting
the distortions deeper into the disorganized structure of
the foot, as well as everything above it. This of course leads
to plenty of future problems for the complications resulting.
Great for the manufacturers of these products and the administering
physicians but not so good for you.
#4: Walking on hard, flat surfaces. We humans love to make
everything around us simple and easy; trying to make it so
no effort is required, and this we call progress and civilization.
So things do get easier (no need to lift the garage door up,
the automatic opener does it for you, saves you time so you
can go to the gym and lift weights) and we, as a culture get
more spoiled and weak in many ways. Anyway, walking on flat
surfaces doesn't require the 26 bones of the foot to move
much; uneven surfaces (take a hike someday) actually massage
the joints and hinges of the feet, mobilize the ankles, and
cause differentiating movement to occur through all the calf
muscles.
#5: Walking with the feet turned out (like a duck). This
is very common and wreaks havoc with the ways the arches,
hinges, and joints of the foot are designed to work as the
foot lands and pushes off the ground during organized walking.
This practice also destroys ankle function and creates a dense,
painful calf, due to the fact that the ankle joint and the
calf muscles are not required to move at all when walking
this way.
The good news is this: normalizing your feet through the
use of tennis balls and Fix Your Feet Balls is the first,
and most likely last, step to putting an end to callouses,
corns, bunions, plantar fasciaitis, pain in your feet in general,
etc. All of this occurs as a result of disorganization. Feet
abnormalities stem from disorganization, and if you can fix
that, you fix it all.
*As you work out the pain and soreness in your feet with
these balls you will be allowing the 3 arches (medial, lateral,
transverse), the 26 bones, the 33 joints, and the unspecified
number of hinges to reestablish themselves back to normal,
individually, and in relation to each other.
High arches will eventually drop into normal, and flat feet,
when the tension holding them down is released, will be able
to rise into normalcy. *(This requires some exercising of
the inner arches by stepping your feet apart medium-wide with
your knees bent and your feet turned out. Begin to push your
knees apart while lifting your medial, inner, arches. Do not
lift your heels or the balls of your big toes off the floor.
Practice walking on the balls of your feet.)
No matter what anyone tries to sell you, never use hard balls
like golf balls or wooden tools to work on your feet. It's
too easy to mistake uncovering and dissolving pain with inflicting
pain. It's not hard to bruise your feet and that will only
set you back. *On that note, I never recommend using wooden
implements in general for self-massage, for the same reason.
You can be very efficient, with more appropriate tools, without
the risk.
If your foundation (your feet) is not organized then nothing
above them has any chance to function properly.
And by the way, as you release and organize your feet, they
will get bigger. This is a good thing! If you find your shoes
beginning to feel as though they belong to someone else and
feel too tight, this means you are doing a great job. Discontinue
wearing those shoes, throw them out or give them away. Your
feet will reshape themselves to the old mold if you let them.
Don't! Cut loose and move forward. Stand on your own two new
feet!
Conclusion
Hopefully this has given you some ideas and some options
you never knew existed for dealing with your hip and / or
low back pain. Any one of the methods suggested above will
create some positive change and relief for you, and all of
them used in conjunction with each other has the ability to
exponentially change your present condition. None of them
are dangerous or expensive but they all require a commitment
to your own health and well-being. If you aren't committed
to doing everything you can to get yourself out of pain and
get your body as healthy and fit as possible then all I can
say is get used to your pain and prepare to be abused by the
western medical profession. There really is no better hobby
than keeping your body in peak condition because when you
are healthy and feeling good, anything is possible and your
time here can be quite pleasant. As you know, when your body
begins to deteriorate it makes the rest of your life miserable
and your time a torment.
Take care of your body in loving, nurturing ways, for without
it, where will you live?
for Health, Blue Dunn
|
