Sometimes, it seems to me the principles of alignment are still somewhat unacknowledged and reserved for exercise specialists. I recently participated in a discussion with other trainers who asserted that alignment is good for the professionals so they can know what to look for in their clients, but unnecessary for the layperson to know for themselves - it’s more important to get people moving and exercising rather than getting bogged down in the details.

I kept ruminating on that discussion:

Surely, the trainers are teaching form, technique and skill in their exercises; and sound biomechanics are part of those teachings…

Why would there be resistance to teaching alignment principles?

I think the issue comes down to semantics and a few differences in philosophy.

On the one hand, I agree: if the choice is move and enjoy moving, or get bogged down in academic discussions of anatomy- leading to loss of interest, getting discouraged and never coming back to class… well, yeah… let’s not worry about it. let’s move, let’s exercise, and let’s have fun. After all, any kind of movement is better than no movement for our health.

However, here (and in the next few posts) is my attempt to argue in favor of including alignment teaching for every-body:

We Learn by Moving:

These teachings can be very active and do not have to be taught in a sedentary, academic way.

I believe the best way to learn about the body is through direct experience and the internal feedback you get from moving the body. I’ve always been a kinesthetic learner and, in my experience, I understand best what’s being taught by actively engaging my body with the concept. In classes, I get people moving and use that movement to deepen an understanding of a particular topic. So, not only do you learn a concept from hearing an explanation and understanding it intellectually, but your body experiences those movements and begins to adapt its motor programs through that kinesthetic experience. In this way, classes become less like a series of exercises intended to make you feel like you’ve had a workout, and more like a series of movement experiments designed to give you a better understanding of yourself. More on this philosophy in a later blog post…

The principles are simple:

In my experience, the actual concepts of alignment are really quite simple. For this reason, there’s no need to get bogged down in too much talk of anatomy and research if that brings the movement to a standstill, but rather to refer back to a simple principle over the progression of exercises allowing the understanding to unfold through experience. Deeper layers of explanation and nuances can be explored if the time and class theme allows.

The principles are observable and provide direct feedback:

As you begin to learn the principles of alignment, you begin to observe your body in a new way. After a little practice, you’ll be able to observe these principles in all the movements you do. Thus, the result is these principles aren’t secluded to doing an exercise correctly, but to how you move your body generally throughout your daily life.

Let’s illustrate this with an example:

Alignment Principle: back up your hips.

Can you see how my hips are leaning forward?

Many of us have a tendency to lean forward from the pelvis bringing our weight over our toes rather than our heels. Whatever the reason for this, it has some negative effects such as:

restricting the mobility of the toes
unloading, and overtime, weakening the bones of the legs and hips
increasing stress to the knees and overuse of the quadriceps
increasing compression of the lower back
increasing the excessive curvature of the upper spine (hyperkyphosis)

The simple practice and principle to alleviate these problems is to back up your hips so that your weight predominantly rests over your heels.

While in class, we may practice balancing, stretching the muscles of our legs and back, walking, lifting and carrying weights, and a number of other activities. Each time we engage in a different activity we can come back to the alignment principle to observe that how we carry our own body weight affects how we move.

This observational movement practice can then be extrapolated to anything you do.

You may ask yourself: How am I carrying my weight while standing, walking, sitting, wherever you are and with whatever task you are engaged in. And if you find yourself habitually leaning foward, you know the easy fix is just “back up your hips.”

After teaching even one principle to somebody, I’ve had them come back a week later exclaiming they already have a new relationship with their body and their symptoms (ie: lower back pain) were already getting better!

Alignment is for "Every-Body"