Do you remember the days….
Oh those days…
The days when we climbed trees while playing manhunt. Climbing trees while playing tag. Climbing trees for the perfect hiding spot.
I remember those days, do you?
Those were the days, when we hopped fences to run to the jungle gym. The days we walked along the fence pretending we wouldn’t fall into a volcano, those same days we ran to get away from pretend monsters.
I loved those days.
They faded away like a childhood memory, never to be visited again. Until…..
We had kids.
As a stay at home father who was rehabbing his spine, studying to become a pilates instructor and raising a beautiful little lady, the last thing I was going to be was a parent who took his kids to the playground and stared down at his phone.
I wanted my daughter to be active. To be outside as much as possible. To learn her body and become confident on the jungle gym.
The problem was, I had to do it first.
Sometimes we unknowingly allow our limitations to become our childrens.
When I was born, adults were still having children in their early twenties.
For the most part, adults were still active at this age.
In this day and age, couples have or adopt children at a later stage in life. Financially there may be more stability but physically for the most part our bodies have lost it’s mobility and stability. Children have a lot of energy and their mechanics are much more efficient than their parents.
I don’t have to repeat the news cycle or current studies but simple observance would reveal that children are becoming sedentary a lot earlier in life and the habit of being slumped in a chair and staring down at a screen is the norm.
I made it a routine to get outside with my daughter everyday and bring her to a jungle gym or an indoor playground to get active and learn her body.
We would go barefoot and I would guide her along the playground always reminding her to feel her feet. Feel her body. I wanted her out of shoes and to be confident in whatever situation she found herself in.
She loved the monkey bars but had to gain the strength to swing from one to the next.
So did I.
Part of my issue from my past was that I was high tackled playing Rugby in high school. I had about three or four guys wrap themselves around my neck and bring me down to the ground with force. After a few days, maybe weeks passed by and I was back in the gym bench pressing. My left shoulder gave out one day and I nearly dropped the weight on my chest. My shoulder began making a clicking sound and it never went away. That same shoulder I injured years later diving for a ball while playing beach volleyball. I landed on it with my arm fully extended straight above my head and instantly I felt pain. I had it in a sling for weeks and as time went on my body as well as my game regressed. The last thing I could do was climb a tree or hop a fence. I was aging and quickly.
Time went on like I didn’t exist, as if I never had control over the left side of my body. I had gained a fear of heights and a severe dislike of laying on my left side watching tv. Whenever I placed my head into my hand with my elbow directly underneath my shoulder, my shoulder would raise up to my ear. I remember one day when I did this while watching tv I ended up stuck and could feel how stiff one side of my neck was. I lost all movement and was freaking out.
I had to teach later that day and I couldn’t move.
I quickly searched my phone and booked an appointment with a massage therapist I knew.
It was an interesting appointment to say the least.
I showed up ready to be fixed and she was having a moment to herself where she was at a crossroads of what her profession did for people.
It was a great and very honest moment. She told me she didn’t believe that she could help people. I was like yes you can, yes you can, YES YOU CAN……
Did I mention I couldn't move my neck?
Eventually she got to work and she did wonders. She loosened up the muscles and I regained my mobility. She was very skilled as a massage therapist but I understood what she meant.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t help people, it was more that the massage wasn’t a permanent fix. This is why massage therapists give out exercises to clients. The massage will loosen up the muscle, you need to do your homework and strengthen the new range of motion.
I was not this mature of a student back then. I assumed I was fixed and I was. I was fixed in a position where my shoulder blade was elevated. One higher than the other. I was out of balance. This affected everything I did in life, I was just unaware of it.
My shoulder was elevated and internally rotated. A disastrous position for a tree climber and a fence hopper.
It wasn’t until I had the right motivation to do something about it that it became a priority.
I wanted to climb trees with my daughter and evade her when playing tag.
I needed shoulder stability.
In my past I tried stretching, I also tried strengthening both on its own.
Once I started to do pilates I did both with breathwork as well.
The breath helped me to relax the muscles by strengthening my core.
What I needed was something that could stretch and strengthen at the same time.
The shoulder was elevated so I need an exercise to depress it. The humerus was internally rotated so I needed that same exercise to externally rotate it.
One day while I was studying the pictures in Raels Pilates book I stumbled upon the pilates ring.
I picked up the one that was laying on the floor in my home studio and started to play around with it.
I placed one of the pads on side on my hip, while the opposite pad I pressed into with the heel of my palm. Nothing really changed other than myself staring in the mirror looking lopsided. I fixed my alignment so that my legs were parallel, feet sit bone width apart, placed my right hand on my hip (think I’m a little tea pot posture) and made sure the ring in my left hand was parallel to the ground. My wrist was flexed and I began to rotate my elbow pit upwards towards the ceiling. This allowed the humerus to externally rotate and as a drew my left shoulder blade down I could feel the lower trapezius fire. My anterior deltoid, bicep and pec all began to stretch while my posterior deltoid began to fire. Overtime, my upper trapezius began to loosen up as well as my levator scapula. I hadn’t seen the exercise before but my tinkering around gave me relief.
I began doing this exercise three times a day, everyday, five minutes at a time.
I could see the results.
I went from a WWE wrestler with a forward head position and no neck to a long neck straight across collarbone pilates instructor look alike.
This wasn’t an overnight thing. This was a five year ordeal chasing after straight across collarbones. I could tell I was stretching but where I started to really see the difference was when I began to climb trees. My daughter was five and she was at the age where she wanted to see me climb. I was forty and needed to find better hiding spots when playing outside.
What a blessing to climb trees.
What a blessing to hop fences when my daughter bumps a volleyball over the fence to my neighbours house.
What a blessing to teach people how to stretch and strengthen those muscles to regain their youth and enjoy spending time with loved ones!
Would you like to climb trees? I hope so, if not, being pain free kind of rocks too!!!