glutes

We’re a month into the New Year—and that has me thinking about what helps us to keep going and succeed with our New Year's resolutions. Including our posture and exercise goals. One thing that I have found works well for me, and for my students, is to choose my words carefully. Choosing words with care The words we use can be extremely powerful. They can shift your mindset from negative to positive. We may not even realize that we have disadvantaged ourselves with a mental framework of negative words and phrases until we gain a fresh perspective. These frameworks can go back so many years we have mistaken them for a permanent part of ourselves. Some of our self-talk goes back to our childhood. Our parents of course do their best for us, but parenting in our culture is often an isolated, poorly supported, and arduous journey. Parents’ anxieties, prejudices, and even best intentions are often embedded in negative language and unwittingly passed on to us. Over the years I have seen how many students have internalized their parents' criticism. I encourage students to let this go. It’s a disservice to yourself.

We’re here to help with your New Year’s fitness resolution. Join us for a FREE 10-day New Year 3 x 3 Fitness Challenge, which is offered as part of the Gokhale Exercise program. It will be fun, safe, and effective, enabling you to build your strength without strain and injury, because, all the while, you are also training for healthy posture! 

Few of us, wheelchair users excepted, pass a day without climbing steps or stairs. Students often ask if posture has any bearing on how best to do this—and the answer is yes! Our approach to pain-free, healthy posture works precisely because it helps you with all your daily activities. This blog post is the first of several containing introductory tips for using steps and stairs. We will focus here on how to power yourself upward. Steps and stairs—the benefits If you are looking to maintain or improve your cardio fitness and lower body strength, climbing steps and stairs will check that box. For example, this could be opting for the stairs rather than the elevator at work.

Welcome to the sixth blog post in our series on running. My name is Michelle Ball, and I am a Gokhale Method® teacher living in Tasmania. I am also a lifelong runner and am passionate about sharing the benefits of healthy posture with the running community, be that beginners, seasoned runners, or anyone in between. Even if you walk rather than run, the posture principles outlined in this post can still help you to enjoy an active and pain-free body well into old age. Running with a well-positioned upper body In this post we will consider the upper body. Runners are inclined to pay far less attention to the upper half of the body than the lower half, as they focus on gait pattern, cadence, footwork, and propulsion. This is hardly surprising, but the lower body, while super-busy, really is just half the story.  Healthy posture in the upper body brings the following benefits: Protected spinal structures Improved biomechanics Unimpeded flow and momentum Support that makes the body feel lighter Athletic appearance

Welcome to the fifth blog post in our series on running. My name is Michelle Ball, and I am a Gokhale Method® teacher living in Tasmania. I am also a lifelong runner and am passionate about sharing the benefits of healthy posture with the running community, be that beginners, seasoned runners, or anyone in between. Even if you don’t run, but do want an active and pain-free body well into old age, this blog post is for you! What is an anteverted pelvis? Pelvis refers to the bony pelvis, and means basin, or bowl, in Latin. Anteverted means tipped, turned, or inclined forward, from the Latin ante to go before or in front, and vertere to turn. So we are referring to a pelvis that tips forward.

We assume in our culture that aging will necessarily be accompanied by a loss of height, increasingly stooped posture, loss of muscle strength, and a precarious inability to balance. But is this really the inevitable trajectory? Here we look at why this occurs and focus on how a healthy gait can help us maintain good balance throughout life, including into old age.

Walking sticks and poles help prevent falls but are poor compensation for loss 
of natural stability and balance from the feet and buttocks. Unsplash

Falls can have fatal consequences for the elderly, potentially resulting in broken bones and a cascade of problems that can ensue from hospitalization, injury, surgery, and immobility.

If you’ve been participating in our ongoing Posture 1-2-3 Challenge for alumni, chances are you’ve seen my longtime student, Joan Baez, who regularly joins in. At age 79, she’s sturdy and beautiful, with shapely legs, toned arms, and a peachy, perky butt. Although we’ve all enjoyed her bodacious pipes for many decades, she hasn’t always been such a well-rounded posture student. In her 20s and 30s, her boombox was highly functional, but her booty was lacking. Learn how a posture upgrade helped Joan develop her glutes, and how you can develop yours, too -- regardless of age!

Humans have really large butts. Your cat or dog, by contrast, has a very tiny bottom. Chances are you’ve never stopped to think about how unique your own derriere is. Primate species are unique in having distinctive buttock anatomy—our buttocks allow us to sit upright without resting our weight on our feet, the way our pets do. Human buttocks, which are particularly muscular and well-developed, empower us to be bipedal, and propel us forward in walking and running.

On our website, the top searches include, "glutes," "walking," and "butt." So I thought I'd take this chance to say a few words on the subject. "Callipygian" is an English word of Greek origin. It means “of, pertaining to, or having beautiful buttocks”. The word, (pronounced kal-uh-PIDGE-ee-uhn), is derived from the Greek word “kalli” meaning beautiful, and “pyge” from the Greek word for rump or buttock.

Why Samba? Apart from the fun, the exercise, and the infectious music that's central to this Brazilian dance form, I endorse Samba as a way to promote healthy posture. Among the many benefits, dancing Samba: