Myths, by their very nature, are very hard to dispel once they've taken hold. Despite the core stability myth being exposed nearly ten years ago, and journalist Peta Bee writing about it in The Times in 2010, from conversations I have with people I'd say its hold is as strong as ever. 

The myth is that by having a stronger "core" (a poorly defined term anyway) you will have better posture, less back pain, and will perform better in your sporting activities. There's an elephant in the room regarding this too and I'll come back to it later.

From personal experience I have never met anyone with a core so weak that they can't achieve good posture and less back pain without having to strengthen it. If you can walk into my Alexander Technique clinic, your core is strong enough. And if it is technically a little “weak”, well-coordinated functional movement (the ability to perform normal daily tasks efficiently) will soon give it the tone it needs. Muscle tone, not strength; there's a world of difference! Balanced poise doesn't require "strength", and "stability" invariably translates into rigidity at the expense of mobility.

What isn’t weak are the habits that pull you away from your natural poise and freedom of movement. Millions of years of evolution have given you postural reflexes that work just fine if you don't interfere with them. You don't need to "do" good posture, simply stop doing bad posture. Stop thinking of posture as a correct position and instead as a dynamic and fluid balancing act.

So that elephant I mentioned: it (he) has a name, Joseph Pilates. If you haven't read his book Your Health, you'll find it quite amusing by modern marketing standards. He states quite clearly that what is required is "the simultaneous drawing in of the stomach and throwing out of the chest". The photos of Pilates demonstrating the “correct” way to stand look extremely tiring, I can't imagine anyone could keep that up for long. And it's clearly an affectation, it’s not natural at all. Why after millions of years of evolution would you need to do this? Why don't we instinctively do this as children? Ever see indigenous communities do this? They're not typically known for the postural abnormalities so prevalent in "civilised" culture. To be honest I found Pilates contradicts himself quite a bit in Your Health. I'd often find myself nodding in agreement with his principles only to not see it evidenced in practice. I guess it's very much a book of its time.

Not having read his other books I've not had a chance to see if he developed or changed his ideas over time. But I have spoken to a number of Pilates instructors (and had great feedback from my own clients about their Pilates instructors) who now place much less emphasis on this "drawing in of the stomach", working on quality of movement in general, training movement rather than muscle, which I can get on board with. It's all relative. I have been challenged that some people can't do the plank because their core is so weak. But that's not normal functional movement. Who needs to do the plank in their daily lives? And I have nothing against being generally strong. I just challenge whether it's medically necessary for the "core" to be specifically so to overcome back pain and improve posture.

​Ironically, Stuart McGill, professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo in Canada, has shown that drawing in the stomach during movement can actually destabilise the spine. “In studies we have done, the amount of load the spine could bear was greatly reduced when subjects sucked in their belly buttons,” he says. “What happens is that the muscles are brought closer to the spine, which reduces the stability in the back. It becomes weak and wobbly as you try to move.”

The idea of core strength may have stayed within the Pilates community but for Professor Paul Hodges, head of human neurosciences at Queensland University. He performed experiments by attaching electrodes to two groups of people, one with healthy backs and another with chronic back pain. His results showed that the healthy group engaged a deeply embedded muscle called the transversus abdominis, causing it to contract and support the spine just before movement. In those with back pain, no such engagement took place, leaving the spine less supported. Hodges then claimed that this muscle could be strengthened by “drawing in” the stomach during exercises and this provided some protection against back pain. What he failed to see was that this wasn't an issue of poor strength, but poor coordination. Despite no clear link to core strength, the concept quickly spread spawning a huge rise in exercise classes based on Hodges work. And before you knew it, a stable core was lauded as a prerequisite in the fight against back pain and postural problems.

Thomas Nesser, assistant professor of physical education at Indiana State University, later tried to establish a positive link between core stability and the ability to perform ordinary daily tasks, but failed! He says that “despite the emphasis fitness professionals have placed on functional movement and core training for increased performance, our results suggest otherwise”. When he looked at top football players he found that those with a strong core played no better than those without. He concluded that “the fitness industry took a piece of information and ran with it. The assumption of ‘if a little is good, then more must be better’ was applied to core training and it was completely blown out of proportion.”
For an indepth look in to all of this there’s Professor Eyal Lederman’s paper The Myth of Core Stability - he’s an osteopath with a PhD in physiotherapy. Thankfully Jeff Cubos, who works in sports injury rehabilitation, has already reviewed it and I recommend you read his summary here.


My two favourite take home points from Jeff’s summary are: 

• Focusing internally to concentrate on contracting stomach muscles is counter-intuitive to motor learning principles.  Focusing on tasks external to the body is more conducive to performance improvement. 

I’m telling my clients this all the time: you don’t hit a tennis ball by focusing on your muscles, but with spatial awareness, and:

• Chronic and recurrent back pain has been shown to be associated more with psychological and psychosocial factors.

This is Alexander to a T, in other words, it’s how you react to your environment.


I’ve also recently stumbled on this YouTube interview with physiotherapist Peter O’Sullivan on core stability:

He now calls his work Cognitive Functional Therapy, which wouldn’t be a bad name to describe the Alexander Technique, although as a profession we’d prefer Cognitive Functional Education. I don’t know what his methods are for achieving change in his clients, but he’s certainly taking the principles in the right direction. Maybe a collaboration is in order.


P.S. Since I first posted this Lederman has done an interview that's really worth checking out, it makes his academic paper more accessible.


This blog was originally posted here.

​It's probably at least a generation since we culturally believed in Descartes' duality of body and mind. Now it's the accepted norm that the mind and body are connected. But don't two things that are connected need to be separate entities? Saying the mind and body are connected is still hanging on to dualism. It's like saying someone is a little bit pregnant, or dead! You either are or you're not. They're either separate or they're not. To escape dualism the mind and body need to be seen as a functional and indivisible whole, a "mindbody" if you like, or even more simply, your Self.
 
This is the supposition on which F.M.Alexander (the originator of the Alexander Technique) based his work over 100 years ago now. He didn't coin the idea, there was even an educational establishment set up in New York, by the then well-known Thomas sisters, called "the Conservatory of Psycho-Physical Culture, Elocution and Dramatic Art" at the turn of the last century. Alexander was probably well aware of this as he had a passion for the theatre, and he certainly observed it to be true from tireless experimentation on himself and his pupils and frequently wrote about psychophysical unity.

                              Image used with permission by Depositphotos
 
So what are the benefits of experiencing yourself in this way? For me it changes my perception and awareness of myself to help me use myself as a whole better. I don't think of myself as the Adrian in my head that controls peripheral parts of my body. You don't have to impose thought on your body to move or have good poise, you just need to get out of the way of this wonderful unified system and let it do what it does best, whilst maintaining awareness of it.  You don't just move your body, but your Self, your body and mind aspects together.  Whenever you move, whenever you contract or release a muscle, this involves your whole organism. Not just 'affects', but involves. As Lichtenberg, an 18th century Natural Scientist, remarked: “When I remember something, even my thumb is involved!” (He was arguing against Descartes' dualism.)
 
When I hurt my foot I don't think I have a hurt foot, I consider that I am hurt. I see it all the time, when someone is in pain they mentally separate that part from their being, as if it's an alien entity. But placing that pain in a sea of surrounding support has profound effects on healing, reconnecting your sense of wholeness. It's not simply your back, shoulder or arm that hurts. You hurt. You hurt physically, emotionally, intellectually.
 
Stretching after exercise is not just a physical exercise to force the muscles into compliance and release their tension. Attempting to do so will just invoke the stretch reflex causing the muscles to contract against the stretch and defeating the purpose. Muscles don't like to be bullied into submission. Even by your Self! What is required is a mindful approach that allows you to release into the direction of the "stretch". It looks like the same activity to an outsider, except your eyes and face will communicate the quality of the experience that is being achieved. It's all about observation and exploration. This is what yoga is about when it's done well. Without the sense of competition that always seems to rear it's ugly head in large classes, yoga is also an exploration of the Self , and an excellent activity to bring Alexander Technique understanding too to improve it (David Moore has recently written a new book on this).
 
You'll be familiar with the outward manifestation of mind in simple everyday body language. You communicate as a whole. It’s often said that communication is eighty percent non-verbal (although that's not strictly true). We instinctively know this and our language often expresses it with phrases like "having a gut feeling", or someone being "stiff necked" (not in common use these days, a bit biblical). Being nervous isn’t simply an emotional mental state that affects your body, the butterflies in your stomach are part of an overall pattern. Your stress response is both your mental state and the tightening of your neck and shoulders, the shortening of your breath and your raised heart rate as a total pattern. Listening to and being aware of the physical aspects of your emotions can really help you fully process your emotions. This is the basis of Gestalt Therapy, which although a talking therapy such as psychotherapy, is the only other modality I’m aware of that fully embraces psychophysical unity.
 
Cognitive scientist Guy Claxton is now expressing this view of psychophysical unity as part of a new field called embodied cognition, which is an excellent description of what the Alexander Technique is too. To jump on the mindfulness band wagon I started calling the Alexander Technique embodied mindfulness for a while, but I think I prefer cognition.  There's a common misconception that the Alexander Technique is about showing you how to move, sit and stand "correctly", but it's really about being able to do these things freely, and that's only possible by truly using your embodied cognition.
 
 
“You translate everything, whether physical, mental or spiritual, into muscular tension.” - F.M. Alexander
 
This blog originally posted here …

I don't like to teach from an overly anatomical view, too much detail to think about in day to day living. I'm much more interested in the way we think and react, rather than what we think about, but this is something really useful for you to consider.
​
Look at how the bottom of the spine joins with the pelvis. What changes to that relationship when the weight bearing changes from going through your hips, and ultimately to the ground via your feet, to going through your sit bones into your chair? Not much! You'll notice that both the hip joints and the sit bones are below the sacral-iliac joint, that is, where the base of the spine, the sacrum, fuses with the pelvis.

As far as your spine is concerned sitting and standing is pretty much the same thing, so why do you sit so differently to the way you stand? One reason is that you may simply not be aware that your sit bones are there to be sat on, or "stood" on as I like to say. It's common to see people using their coccyx, or tail-bone, to be the point of contact with the chair which causes the pelvis to tip backwards and rounding the lower back, hence the lower back pain many eventually suffer from sitting in this way.

The surface that you sit on is also a huge contributing factor in how you sit, but as long as it is flat and firm it will do. My motto is "if you can stand on it, you can sit on it". Ignoring that most office chairs swivel, it is the support that the surface provides I'm interested in here, so I don't want you to have an accident at work now!
This is why sofas are so hard to sit on well. Try standing on your sofa and you'll soon find how hard it is to feel balanced. With your sit bones as your "feet" it is no wonder that sitting on a sofa is hard to do well, and you give up by collapsing into it. I'm going to leave out discussing ergonomic chairs for now as that will be the topic of my next blog. 

Another reason is that the act of sitting is incorrectly associated with relaxing. Sure, it's more relaxing for the legs and hips, but as far as your torso/spine is concerned, sitting is as equally dynamic as standing. Even the word "relax" seems to be misunderstood, I'm often heard saying during lessons "that's not relaxing, that's collapsing!"  It is perfectly possible to relax into a balanced posture, whether sitting or standing, so that our bones support our weight. Yes, the postural muscles will still be working, but think of them as having tone rather than tension. It is when poise and balance is lost in collapse that movement muscles as well as the deeper postural muscles become over-worked trying to support the collapse that tension arises; that's not relaxing at all!

If your office chair tilts backwards allowing you to come to rest against the back support this is still likely to be another form of collapse. As I have mentioned in the past, you could think of this as elegant repose in order to do it well, but if you are honest with yourself you'll have allowed the muscle tone of your torso to go limp. And what's wrong with that if your back is being supported? Well, your arms are an extension of your back!

​Don't make the mistake of thinking your arms are simply attached to your shoulders, that may be true as far as the skeleton is concerned, but your arm muscles overlap and are embedded deep into your torso, all the way down your back to the top of your pelvis. So if you lose the integrity and tone of your back you will lose the support from the roots of your arms, and without that the use of your hands is compromised potentially contributing to RSI and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

As with many aspects of the Alexander Technique, there is also the way you think to consider. Like the association of relaxing being inert, the very phrase, sitting "down", encourages the thought that that is where you are wanting to go in your entirety. What you don't want to do is remedy that by doing the opposite, by "sitting up straight" as we were all no doubt told to do as children, as that encourages effort, and effort will lead to tension. That's why it is so tiring to "sit up straight" as it is commonly understood. Instead, just remain lightly standing, but on your bottom, being bright, alert, active and engaged. If you start to feel tired it's fine to use the back rest (still thinking of elegant repose!) and take time out for a few minutes, just don't use your computer like this. Better still, get up and walk around and get your blood pumping again.

This blog was originally posted here.

So you've tried osteopathy, or maybe chiropractic, or even physiotherapy, but after some temporary relief the pain always returns. And it's not like you don't know what causes you so much discomfort, it's the hours sat at the computer every day at work, but a career change hardly seems like a practical solution.  It's bad enough that it affects your work life, but when pain also starts to affect your hobbies you know it's time to take action.   

Everyone knows how to sit, right? Right?! It's not like you haven't been doing it all your life. Yet you have a suspicion that you could do it better, if only it wasn't so much effort.  Your employers provided you with a DSE workstation assessment, an ergonomic chair, keyboard and mouse as well as silicon filled supports to rest your wrists on, all to no avail. Maybe if you had a more expensive ergonomic chair, the one your company wouldn't shell out for, all would be well. 

What's Changed?

What is missing from this equation? What's the only thing that hasn't changed? Have you changed? Take another look at all this equipment that's causing you so much pain, the chair, keyboard and mouse. Keep watching them. Have they done anything yet? What do you mean "they're inanimate objects!"? So how are they causing you harm? 

OK, enough already (as our American cousins would say), I'll get off your case now, you get the picture. The only thing doing anything is yourself and so that is logically what you need to change.  Although without knowing what it is you are doing in the first place that might seem like a tall order. 

But help is at hand, the Alexander Technique allows you to strip away all your unconscious 'doings' and start again in neutral gear, preventing the habits you've built up over your life from getting the better of you.  

How is Alexander Different?

Your symptoms are not a natural by-product of ageing, or gravity, but a wake-up call that you are unconsciously doing something harmful to yourself, something you can also learn to undo, leaving you free to enjoy your life and increase your performance and productivity. 
Alexander Technique enables you to be an Application Support specialist for your Self. Notice I didn't say your 'body', we are way more complex and interesting than that! 

Going to the osteopath to fix your pain is like rebooting your computer instead of reinstalling the software.  Better still, the Alexander Technique allows you to rewrite the software altogether. 

Yes, it's my favourite Snake Oil solution for just about everything, but WHY is Alexander Technique so universally useful? Think of the skill of learning A.T. like learning to read. After you know how to read, you can apply that skill to reading any content you’re interested in. In the same way, you can apply the Alexander Technique to any activity.

If I may return quickly to the ergonomic chair, I've noticed that the more expensive the chair, the more folks expect it to take responsibility for them, and I'm sure you see now that office furniture can't take responsibility for you. Good design and set-up of your workstation does of course provide advantages (and I'll cover this in a later blog),  but not guarantees . You need to provide your own guarantee.

My Story

​If you think this all sounds either too good to be true, or too hard work, I spent 12 years working in I.T. for Investments Banks and Stock Brokers, which, as you can imagine, is a highly demanding environment.  I fully understand the stress that work commitments place on you and how it contributes to your problems, and it was the Alexander Technique that saved me from chronic neck, shoulder and wrist pain. 

Within a couple of months of weekly Alexander lessons, the pain I was suffering with was largely resolved and I continued to have lessons for many years even after finding relief from my physical problems, because I found the technique so fascinating and useful. Not only did my balance, coordination and posture continue to improve, but I found myself much calmer, and able to handle stressful, demanding situations much better and with more clarity.  It also helped to improve the performance of my hobbies, running and playing the guitar. The latter had been hugely affected by being sat at a computer all day, but with the undue tension gone my playing became much freer. 

Ultimately I became so fascinated with the technique that I decided to train to teach it, and I'm confident that it can help you too.  

You can also rest assured that it's a clinically proven method, an NHS funded trial produced such good results for back pain that in January 2016 the National Institute for Clinical Excellence will be including the Alexander Technique for the treatment of it. 
​
Adrian Farrell MSTAT

This blog was originally posted here ...