In the movie The Sound of Music, Maria had to teach a bunch of kids wearing curtains how to sing. She suggested starting from the beginning.
Today, I’m going to teach you the Do Re Mi of standing — stripping away your psychological preferences, like “feet together make me feel dainty”, “feet apart make me feel powerful” “lifting my chest and pushing my pelvis forward makes my stomach look flatter,” etc. It’s all engineering from this point forward, kids.
Stance: Step one
Align the outside edges of the foot with a straightedge, i.e. a book, edge of a yoga mat, or that narrow-minded cousin of yours.
Why straight? Because the axis of the ankle and the pulley system of the posterior leg muscles require this position to generate maximal torque without friction. If you stand with your feet slightly turned out, your subtalar joint (located below the ankle) is forced to slightly wobble right to left while walking, which means the muscles down the outside of the shin get misused with every step and slowly rotate your lower leg into external rotation — cowboy style. Giddiyup.
Also, with turned-out walking, your heel bone gets all jacked up and is pulled down and away from its own vertical alignment, forcing it to tip over time. This creates small, incorrect micro-movements in your knees and hips after a while.
P.S. Jacked up is a technical term.
P.P.S. Yes I know, I have totally cool retro floors. If you were here, I would make you stiff jumpers and lederhosen out of my linoleum that you could wear while I was teaching you how to stand. Tee hee.
Stance: Step two
Get your ankles the width of your pelvis.
In order to get a pelvic list going, the lateral hip contraction responsible for walking (as opposed to falling), you need to have your legs vertical.
Here’s a little video guidance for the list:
Also, there’s that Q angle thing I talked about in my last post (click).
Constantly check the width of your ankles throughout the day to make sure they aren’t reverting to old patterns.
(I don’t want to hear anything except how these pictures are the exact replica of a human form and how my skills at portraying the body using Pages Shapes are nothing less than genius.)
I often catch myself crossing my legs while I stand and while I sleep, so I have to stay mindful about this one all the time. WHY DO I CROSS THEM? I don’t know. I’ll keep checking in on my body, and you watch yours like a hawk, OK?
Stance: Step three
Get your pelvis (your center of mass) back over your heels,
instead of out over the front of your foot:
A neutral pelvis requires a neutral leg to perch on, or else the pelvis isn’t really biomechanically neutral. If you’re working on restoring your pelvic floor, or your abdominals, or any part of your body back to health — you need to be maintaining all three aspects of stance, all of the time, even while you’re walking.
But first, let’s start with standing shall we?
Fa So La Ti of standing coming later.
do you have any good exercises for the vastus medialis? I think mine is weak in comparison to the vastus lateralis and ITB. I am balancing one-legged on a bosu ball and doing one-legged squats to a chair. What else???? Love your blogs and all the information you provide. Thanks for any help….Sheryl
Sheryl – Your quadriceps group does not fire individually. If you are experiencing a weakness, then it is because your femurs are internally rotated all of the time, moving the medialis so that it cannot act on the signals you are sending the group. I suggest the Hard To Reach Areas class on the Restorativeexercise.com site — there you will find the remedy exercise…
This may sound a little elementary, but does every single body align they same way. Are there no differences because of body types? For instance, if a person is bow legged, wouldn’t that cause a different alignment for the ankles, knees, hips, and so on?
The base for each skeleton is the same. If someone is bowlegged then this is a result of how they’ve moved — and it can be repaired — but one needs to start at the correct base position in order to be making the correct adjustments! It’s called objective alignment!
This was so helpful. Looking forward to FaLa. You are the best.
Thanks Pepi!
Your stick figures are pure genius. Except they lack arms. Which is disturbing my toddler. Next time I’ll read during nap time!
I’m working on stance when I do exciting things like chop veggies and wash dishes and sweep the floor for the umpteenth time today.
Which, actually, I totally love about you – almost all the things you say to do can be worked on while doing other things. I can even stretch while reading Boynton books to the tot!
Yes, I’m all about multi-tasking! Awesome work…
Multi tasking is essential
I’ve made a little shoulder bag for my knitting so I can carry it with me and stand, walk, squat and stretch while knitting. No more excuses for not exercising…
I love the bag idea.
I knit while stretching, but hadn’t worked out how to make it portable!
You could try this, too:
http://www.journeyman-leather.co.uk/knittingbelt8.html
Then at least one hand can swing freely, besides.
Note: Add arms to stop traumatizing small children. Got it.
align feet with edges of book….but in what relation to body? I can align to book at any book angle to torso or pelvis or shin or thigh….
Yes, of course. The book should create a straightedge parallel to the midsagittal line — the plane that divides your body into right and left halves.
Katy, I wish you taught a specific class in body mechanics for massage therapists, one that had ceus attached to it:)
I get terribly distracted by the pelvic list. It seems to me that if you do them really fast it’s like a dance move. So you could actually do your exercises right there in the middle of the church building and nobody would know it. (Or maybe I just could. My church has a fantastic worship band that rocks out for the glory of God.) Of course, it makes me giggle when I think about strengthening my glutes during church. Jesus would approve, obviously, since he designed the glutes, but me thinks that certain church leaders would disagree.
Katy, I’ve been waiting with baited breath for the update on the new shoes you were trying out! :>)
I’m eagerly awaiting the next part! It’s so interesting. I got huge benefits from untucking my pelvis, but when it comes to getting my legs and feet straight I must be doing something terrible wrong… Or am beyond all help.
When I align my feet, it feels like there’s a lock from my hips to my feet, and I can only bend my knees a little. And now I have burning pain in my hips, SI-joints, feet and knees from trying to bend my knees anyway… :/ I guess I should stick to just standing for now… Although that hurts too…
I know this could be a symptom of doing things wrong for my whole life, but It just feels so weird to align my feet as you say! My feet seem so triangular, with very narrow heels and a wide span between those knuckle-like spots where my pinky and big toes connect to my feet… are you sure the aligning of the outside edges is right for everyone?
Oh, aha, so I just realized I was feeling uncertain about this without bothering to check for myself what my feet actually LOOK like with the outside edges aligned. Amazingly, it looks like my big toes are pointing FORWARDS when I do this, which has got to be a good thing, right? Perpendicular forces to optimize torque, for the win!!
I do love how you get all physics-y in so many of your posts. There is nothing more convincing to me than seeing how the body really does follow many of the same principles as any mechanical system!
I was going to type almost this exact same problem. It feels SO ODD, like my knees are buckling. But when I take a look at my feet as you did, it does make my toes facing forward. Maybe I am just so used to standing incorrectly?
Yep…
I happened to notice today my toddlers feet look exactly like this. He is 18 months and has been walking for eight of those. I will have to check my four year old, I kind of think his are pointed out just a little, not like duck feet, but what I would usually thought was normal.
..nothing less than genius!
Experiment of the day – Walking down the stairs with the “old” stance and the “new” one.
Leaning back (weight over heels) feels a LOT safer on a stair case. Less like i’m going to fall all the way down.
This could become a fun new hobby….. what else can I go up and down? Probably wouldn’t make a lot of difference in an elevator…..
When I align the outside of my feet to a straight edge at right angles to the wall (aka parallel to the body l/r midline), my wide feet point inward – and if I bend my knees they soon bump. What am I doing wrong?
Watch the “all about your knees” video — it explains why your knees are crashing into each other!
http://www.alignedandwell.com/?p=2059&option=com_wordpress&Itemid=223 This one. Took a bit to find it. OK, I get it, I think. Thanks.
Thanks for publishing the link, Gypsy Jane!
You mention “lifting chest and pushing pelvis forward” as incorrect concept, how is that different from tipping pelvis forward to open pelvic floor. I’ve just started with Down There and thought “sticking the behind out” was the idea, but it feels like my back is bowing in and my lower abdomen is bowing out. Please help, I am fascinated and really want to learn and practice this stuff.
“Pelvis forward” doesn’t mean tipped forward but actually way out in front of you! Read the free chapter at http://www.footpainbook.com and search “mind your pelvis” blog to get a better understanding of the difference!
So, if your feet are really deformed, (which mine are, probably by wearing too small shoes during my teenage years) how can you know when your feet are straight? I can hardly see a straight line anywhere on the outsides of my feet. It’s all like a long curve… (Which probably isn’t a good thing)
Hey Katie
This is great stuff as always. In a walking or running stride, when pushing off your back leg with an extended hip, there is the slight inward rotation you describe with straight/parallel outer edges of your feet. (Maybe you’d say that position is neutral – all good.) However, there are a couple of things I’m interested in your take on.
To be able to squat easily, some external rotation in the hips is required. Your feet and knees need to be pointing out somewhat to help your hips to flex. Bearing weight – as in a power-lifter’s squat – has some hip abduction too.
So my question is: why would you use only the walking alignment, over a deep-squat alignment, as the template for a standing position?
The requirements for standing are different from those for walking otherwise too. You need to be stable, and it helps to be able to move in any direction with minimal preparation. For these requirements, I feel that some outward rotation (though not too much) is helpful.
Try standing with the outer edges straight like you describe. Keeping your feet like that, turn to look over each shoulder as if to look behind you. Notice the degree of freedom you have to move in your hip joints.
Now try the same movement with the smallest amount of outward rotation in your hips and feet. There is more freedom in your hips, and this freedom means that you can start to walk in any direction – including forwards.
From a Feldenkrais perspective, this ability to move easily in any direction is a central idea in determining ‘good posture’. I’d be very interested in your thoughts.
Once again, thanks for your great blog – I always find it insightful.
Well, I don’t think we’re talking about things as differently as it sounds like we are — it’s mostly semantics. Ideally the thigh is in neutral — which, for most people who have worn shoes their entire lives, takes active ext. rotation, but ideally it shouldn’t. The fact that the thigh slightly rotates inward is not a human characteristic, but a post-industrial revolutionary habit that comes from limited forefoot eversion w.simultaneous inversion, which is the result of wearing shoes. As I point out in my book, there is dangers in anatomical “science’ because what the human does do, consistently, is being misread as what the human SHOULD do. For a biomechanical perspective — and by that, I really mean for the purposes of only moving necessary axes with the minimal amount of joint reaction force and the maximal amount of force production — all parts should maintain their neutrality. This is what reflex-driven motion should look like. Because the cultural and mental aspects of movement are so large (and as a Feldenkrais practitioner, I’m assuming, you’re well trained in this phenomenon) we are having to stop and correct at first hour by hour, and then eventually nanosecond by nanosecond. All of the alignment markers we use are based on this principle. It would take many hours to explain the physical nuances between each position and why I have selected mine in the way that I have — we have a training program. But all I can tell you is that there is a rationale for why the vertical legs when standing (and walking) — it just might differ from the rationale you have learned for your postural guidelines! Thanks for the great comment! Cheers, Katy
Also, LOVE the Singing in the Rain references. Especially the one where you make clothes out of your retro linoleum.
I wonder whether you have stance modifications for the obese? For instance I feel much less stable with my feet shoulder width because I am carrying more weight and also because my thighs touch. I can straighten my feet eventhough they feel pigeon-toed like that but I need some advice on how to arrange the weight I have so it is better supported.
I really wish you would explain that “rotating your thighs” thing. “Thigh rotation for dummies”
(I’ve watched the video clip a thousand times, but I just don’t understand what she’s doing)
Because this whole feet forwards and rotating my thighs is making my SI-joints hurt like crazy right now.
so, what if i have talior’s bunions on my feet? because when i line the outside of my feet up to a book or wall or what have you, it’s not just that i “feel” like my toes are pointed inward, when i look they really are (like the previous commenters who felt weird but looked at their feet and noticed the correct alignment). is there some way to compensate for this or should i just start this way, as weird as it feels/looks?
or, should i just find a different starting point altogether? this is the first thing i’ve looked at & tried on your site, but everything you write is fascinating and encouraging, and supported by my own experience….
Well, your toes move separately than your feet. Your FEET are straight but your toes have been steering themselves back to straight, which is why, once you’ve put your foot straight, you see that your toes have been migrating inward. The toes now need to be strengthened to go back out!
[...] you have read the book (which book, you ask? This one — click) or this blog post on Stance, then you are aware that your feet should be “pointing forward” as opposed to turned [...]
Could you clarify 1 tiny thing from the stance photos? In neutral stance, it looks like you’re showing your body weight to be over your heels (or maybe that’s just what I want to see……) When I use our Wii Fit balance board (do you have one? Crazy fun) the system always tells me that my weight distribution is off, because my weight is in my heels. When we stand in neutral alignment, is that correct? Or should the weight be balanced mid-foot? If I shift the weight forward, I feel like I’m listing forward too.
Katy, you say when we’re standing still, we should have our feet hip-width apart, right? What about when we’re walking? Hip-width, or no?
(I also have a lot of pressure on my heels when I do these ABCs. Is this normal?)
Katy…thank you. I recommend your dvd’s to my clients who have been diagnosed with osteopenia/osteoporosis. Thank for your willingness to share so generously.