How do you bend over to pick something up from the floor? Do you find yourself having to "push" yourself up after sitting for a while? Do you feel "unbalanced" when you walk? If your child is doing something in the back seat of your car that warrants your attention, can you easily rotate around to look? When you get out of bed every morning, do you feel like you sometimes have to "unfold" yourself for the first few steps? I'm asking you these questions because most likely you've never actually stopped to think about such things. Who has time? You just go about your life because you have to get things done, right? "Who cares if I have the occasional ache or pain along the way, that's life," you may think. It doesn't have to be that way.
If you ever want to observe the way we're supposed to move as humans, check out your kids. Watch them play. Watch an 18 month old squat down with perfect form and correctly pick up an object. Nobody instructed them on how to move, they just do so innately. Somewhere along the way (my colleague hypothesizes that it's when we're 6 years old and go off to first grade and begin to sit for longs stretches of time), we begin a gradual assault on our natural, healthy movement patterns. It's a shame, because we were all gifted with these incredibly complex and capable machines that are our bodies. But rather than treat them with the care that we should (after all, we only get one), we tend to let life's demands override that needed attention. Sometimes it seems as though we're more willing to invest time and money into protecting our "stuff" than we are our own health. Why do we have the tires on our car rotated, the belts tweaked, the fluids checked, etc.? Isn't it to maximize performance and ensure the longevity of the investment that is our automobile? Why would we treat ourselves with any less care?
With proper, healthy movement in mind, I wanted to write about the concept of moving well in all dimensions. There are three planes of movement the I'd like you to think about. Using your body as a point of reference, the sagittal plane runs front/back. The coronal (frontal) plane runs side to side (think of how your limbs move while making a "snow angel"). And the transverse plane is a rotational plane. Stick your arms out to the side and swing them around your trunk like helicopter rotors, and you're moving in the transverse plane. In daily life, we move in combination of all three planes. However, as we get older, this combination of movement probably becomes thrown out of proportion. For those of you with sitting jobs, my guess is that your daily existence is dominated by movement in the sagittal plane. Unless you prefer to sidestep or roll your way to work each day, you're probably spending most of your time in one dominant movement pattern. Sure, every time you take a step there are many moving parts working in all three planes. It's just that they're probably working in relatively narrow ranges of motion.
"Who really cares about my planes of movement," you may ask? Well, if your body adapts over time to moving in diminished ranges of motion in one dominant plane (i.e., your day mainly consists of getting up, showering and dressing, commuting to work, sitting for 8-10 hours, commuting home, eating dinner, and plopping on the couch for some mindless television watching), you're setting yourself up for potential injury. How will your body respond when it is asked to move out of it's "comfort" lane?" Will it be up to the demands, or will it rebel and say, "Whoa, you haven't prepared me for this!!? What do you mean you want me to lean into this car and pick up this child? What do you mean you want me to swing this golf club? What do you mean you want me reach overhead and pull down that suitcase?" These are examples of the typical answers I receive in the clinic to the question: "Was there an event that lead to the pain that brought you in today?"
So, what can you do about it? If you are somebody who exercises already, that's fantastic. You are already taking care of your body. But ask yourself if you are training in all three planes. I see people working out in the gym all the time who look like they are in great shape, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily move well or are protected against injury. The guy who can bench press a small house undoubtedly has great strength in the sagittal plane, but unless heavy furniture is constantly falling on him throughout the day, there's not too much functional use for those overdeveloped pecs. One example of multi planar movement for an incredibly important joint (the hip) would be clock lunges. Rather than performing your basic front/back lunge, try rotating your "lunging" foot along an imaginary clock dial on the floor. This will strengthen your hip joint in multiple ranges of motion. Free moving, strong hips are very important for long-term back health, in case you were wondering. We were granted an incredibly stable ball-and-socket joint at the hip. But if our movement becomes stiff and limited there over time, the body will seek to dissipate it's rotational forces elsewhere up the kinetic chain. We're all much better off leaving that work to the ball-and-socket hip joints rather than the lumbar spine, which is not designed to rotate much at all.
I'm very much interested in the concept and importance of quality human movement. I think that if we move better, we'll ultimately be able to prevent a lot of the painful conditions that we see exist today. This will translate into health care cost savings. But more importantly, it will lead to a better quality of life for those who recognize its importance and act to do something about it. That's really what I care about most.
If you ever want any ideas about what to look for in terms of movement quality, or on how to exercise to attain more healthy movement patterns, please feel free to reach out to me. I'm always happy to offer any advice I can. Move well, my friends!
James W. Horn, MSPT
Owner/Director
Chelsea Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation, LLP
119 W. 23rd Street, Suite 1002
New York, NY 10011
(212) 675-3447 (W)
(212) 243-5213 (F)
@Manhattan Spine & Sports Medicine
300 E. 56th Street
New York, NY 10022
(212) 935-1700 (W)
(212) 753-9856 (F)
