"This is way harder than I thought it would be.  I have been doing some alignment workouts for about 4 months so I thought it would be pretty simple.  On the strap and knee blocks exercise I thought I was having a panic attack which I don't have.  But I felt somewhat claustrophobic while doing them.  It was so strange.  I am sure I will see results but it is tough."

It was interesting to hear that Holly felt "claustrophobic". I have had many clients say this in the past and they all had similar muscular systems. Holly has very little muscular engagement around her hips which is the cause of her poor posture. As she was doing the exercises and the muscles around the pelvis begin to engage it makes them feels tension they do not normally have. That is what causes that claustrophobic and a feeling of needing to stretch all the time.

Here are her pictures from the second round of postural photographs we took. These were done 6 days after the first set. For Comparison purposes I am going to put the first picture we took on the left with the more recent one on the right so you can see them side by side.

As we mentioned in the first post one of the most glaring imbalances Holly has is in her pelvis. In the picture on the left notice how far out in front of her the pelvis is. In the more recent photo on the right you can see the transition as her pelvis begins to come back underneath her. This is from the tremendous amount of muscle stimulus she did this week to restore the efficiency around her pelvis. Also notice that her pelvis is not rolled forward as much as it was previously.

You can see the same thing her on the left side of the pelvis as well. Also notice how much less pressure she has in her lower back. We will continue to promote greater positioning of the pelvis in her next round of exercises as well.

From the front view our hunch was correct. I figured that the tremendous amount of tightness Holly had in her upper back was masking some form of imbalance. In the new round of photos we can see that the left shoulder is quite a bit higher than the right. Now that her muscular system is relaxing this imbalance is more pronounced. We will be addressing this in her new routine.

We will update you again next week.

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So you can have an idea of where Dan was starting at, here are some of the basics of info we will share. Dan is 45 years old and has 2 sons. One in College, the other about to graduate High School (we hope). Just Kidding Luke. I tease Dan that he is a secret Agent but really he works as an International Corporate Pilot. Sounds like code words for James Bond but he denies it. With his job he is gone for 5-8 weeks at a time which comes at a serious cost to his muscular efficiency. There are times he has to stay in the same seated position for as much as 12 hours at a time. He spends most of his days either flying, working on the aircraft, or he stays at his hotel for the day, most of the time for his safety.

Currently his body suffers from many of the common symptoms associated with prolonged sitting. He has a bulging L-5 disk in his back. He constantly has discomfort in his hips, both joint and muscle pain. Then recently he suffered a scary lower leg strain that originally was thought to be a torn achilles tendon. He is generally very tight all over.

Here is his diagnostic photos from the first meeting:

Like we mentioned with Holly, there are several issues here to point out but we are going to focus on 2 main ones to start with. Looking first at the front and back views look at Dan's Pelvis. Notice how the right side is significantly higher than the left? This is one area we want to really focus on. an imbalance in the height of the pelvis has some serious negative side effects throughout the body. We always say that your hips are the foundation of your body so any imbalance there will have repercussions elsewhere in the body. One of these examples is how the imbalance in the heights of the pelvis will cause lateral curvature in the spine (scoliosis). Commonly when you have someone with an elevated hip then one of the shoulders will also be elevated in relation to the pelvis. Notice how this is true in Dan's shoulders.

The second issue is similar to what Holly was suffering from. He is not accepting weight correctly into his pelvis which creates a significant amount of stress in the lumbar spine. In the lateral views notice how far out in front of the midline his hips are. Look at this picture to to see again how the skeletal system is designed to be positioned. Holly was teasing Dan after we were going over the photos during the session that his butt has disappeared. I promised her it is still there but due to the position of his pelvis it gives the appearance that it is gone. We gave Dan his first series of exercises to begin the process of correcting his postural imbalances.

I have asked Dan and holly to give us a weekly update on how they are feeling and doing. I will post these up for you as they are ready. Then we will also go over the updated pictures each week.

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We began with the basics of information gathering. Here is a quick synopsis of Holly. I will not put unimportant information on here, just the basics you need to know to understand where she is at in her life.

Holly has just turned the big "40" although she has the energy still of any twenty year old I know. She works as a Chaplain for a local Fire Department and is very involved with volunteering in her church and kids school. She has two sons, one now in College and another about to graduate from High School. She is on call 3-4 days a week for the Fire Department which can turn into 5 hours of walking or 3 hours of sitting at a time.

She is currently bothered by sciatic pain in her right hip, tightness in her IT bands, and she constantly has a significant amount of tension all across her back and shoulders which causes aching throughout the day. She also notices she is unable to type for long periods at a time without serious discomfort in her wrists.

She has not had any major injuries in the past but was involved in a serious rear-end collision that caused significant whiplash symptoms.

Her goals are to improve her posture, eliminate the pain symptoms in her body, and maintain her ability to move efficiently in an effort to fight aging. She also wants to be able to do a lot of traveling for many years to come.

Below are Holly's first round of postural photographs.

For the first round I want you to focus on the two pictures from the side. Holly has several postural issues but trust me we all do. This was very brave of her and Dan to do this. It is amazing what you learn about yourself when you get put on the grid. We will dissect a few other issues in the next few posts because I think certain issues will look worse before they look better. From the sides look at the position of her pelvis. There are two issues. The first being that her hips are way out in front of the anatomically correct position.

Look at the picture here of the skeletal system. Notice how each of the structural joints (shoulders, hips, knees, ankles) are all vertically stacked on top of one another. If you compare that to Holly, notice how far out in front of that line her pelvis is. This is what is causing many of her issues. Secondly her pelvis is tilted forward or as we say, she has an anterior tilt. These two things have a drastic impact on the position of her spine which is causing her muscle tension and aching through the shoulders and back. Notice how unlike in the skeletal photo that has a nice "S" curve to the spine, Holly's forms more of a "C". This creates a significant amount of muscle tension in her neck as the muscles are trying to hold her head in place. We call this a cable example. The muscles of her upper back and neck are being used as cables to hold her head in place. This is where the tension and tightness that she feels is actually coming from. It has very little to do with her upper back but rather a pelvis that is completely out of position.

The first few exercise routines for Holly will be focused in pulling her pelvis back underneath her as well as leveling it out. This will then correct the exaggerated "C" curve in her back.

Next post we will go over where Dan is starting at.

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Train2move would like to offer you an alternative this year. The style of muscular efficiency training we utilize at Train2move allows you to restore the performance of your muscular system. We have talked about this in hundreds of our posts but we want to take this New Years opportunity to actually show you how effective it can be and provide you with access to the training.

To provide this opportunity to you we needed to find people willing to go through the program and share their experience with you. Lucky for us we found Holly and Dan Migas. They are parents of Luke, one of our Hood to Coast team Members on our Runwithpower team. We selected them based on the fact that we thought they represented what this program is all about. They were both healthy individuals who cared about their bodies but noticed that they were starting to slow down physically. They both want to stay active for many more years but are concerned that they are not going to be able to .

Dan and Holly are perfect examples of what many people say is just the by product of aging. We are going to prove to them and to you that it is not their age but rather their current level of muscular efficiency that is making them, "feel there age".

Over the next month we will take you through their progress with updates from us about their training, postural photographs so you can visually see their progress, and most importantly feedback from them. We have told them to be completely honest about how they feel about the program and of course how they are feeling physically.

If you are looking to try something a little more successful than the annual weight loss goal this year we invite you to join Dan and Holly on their quest to restore their muscular systems to a level that enables them to feel great physically and maintain a level of efficiency for many years to come. As we get near the end of the month of January we will be giving you access to the exact program that Dan and Holly went through.

Check back here soon for the initial interview and postural photographs so you can get the complete look at where Dan and Holly started.

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