Remember when you were two years old and had to focus on your squat without collapsing into your knees while you dropped your butt to the floor in order to pick up your baby blanket? Of course not! As a baby, you learned to move through repetition, proprioception (a message from fibers in the body that tells you where you are in time and space) and failure. As a result, the body developed movement patterns that are so hard wired we no longer have to think about them in order to move.

The problem? These days, we move less and less. We sit in front of our televisions, our phones and our computer screens. The result is that our muscles find new compensations and learn to become lazy. The scary part? Lazy muscles lead to joint instability and ultimately injury and unnecessary pain.

So to prevent all of this agony, let’s get back to the basics through Original Strength!

Whether you are a master of sitting in the corporate office chair, a weekend warrior, or a fitness extraordinaire, Original Strength can press reset and change your life by teaching you how to breathe properly, move like a kid again, and decrease muscle tension without stretching.

Original Strength retrains you to breathe from the diaphragm (i.e., belly breathing), which creates a shift from stressed out New Yorker chest breathing. Breathing from your diaphragm prevents your neck muscles from becoming tight or overworked, and increases the oxygen supply to your brain and body. One benefit of this? Lower blood pressure!

Original Strength also retrains your body to work from the core before any movement, thereby protecting the spine, improving strength, and preventing common injuries like lower back sprains, strains, and disc herniations. Original Strength follows how we as humans learn developmental movement patterns of eye tracking, head nodding, rolling, and crawling. It combines this with cues from the vestibular system, or the control center for balance located in the inner ear, to help relearn movement patterns.

By increasing proprioception, you can help your body prevent injuries – like ankle sprains – that might occur while trying to run or walk across uneven pavement. Original strength extends beyond getting the body stronger: it’s about freeing the body to move in the most efficient way possible.

This is what we do at Urban Wellness Clinic. We strive to get you moving better, moving smarter, and moving pain free so you can get back to the activities you love.