Bex Smith

Me ten minutes later: yeah Maggie and Glenn got real boring, one of them needs to die to make it more interesting again.

I’ve had issues with my posture and my body since before I started pole due to years of sitting at a computer for hours at a time, then pole came along and made me even more wonky and unbalanced.

Then I injured my hip during a 13 mile mud run and started walking funny which has led to issues with my left hip over the last 3 years. I can’t walk for more than an hour at a time without being in pain. In recent months my left leg flexibility also started to be affected as the joint was completely locked and not moving freely. It used to be my more flexible leg but then I couldn’t even do the splits on my left side any more. Not even close and it was very painful.

I’ve put off seeing physios or chiropractors or doctors before but I was finally convinced to go.

WOW.

I went for a consultation a little while ago and he came out with the longest list of issue ever but funnily enough me and Amirah, through some of our own investigatory work, had figured nearly all of the problems out already. He just confirmed what we already knew.

The muscles at the top of my neck were in spasm causing headaches, my right shoulder sits higher than my left and is slightly winged. My head was poking forward, not sitting back as it should. Parts of my spine, mainly my middle back, were not moving correctly. My left hip was rotated forward and my hips were facing a different way to my shoulders. Some of my ribs were not moving freely.

I had my first session today and have another on Friday, because there’s just so much for him to do.

I feel AMAZING!!!!!! 

He hasn’t fixed everything but already when I walk my left foot faces forward instead of out to the left as it did. He did something with my shoulders and ribs and I feel like I can breath deeply again, I’ve only been able to take shallow breaths for years and the doctors just blamed it on anxiety. My head is sitting back in position, in the car it now sits against the head rest instead of inches forward. I used to try and force it to stay against the headrest but it would pop back off. I FEEL RELAXED! I feel calm, my head feels clear and not all tight. 

Would laugh if a lot of my anxiety issues have come from my bad posture and wonky body!!

Have another session Friday. Trying real hard not to undo the work he’s just done. Have to teach tonight but going to get students to demo for me so I don’t have to do anything. I’m really interested next week, once my body has calmed down from both sessions, if my flexibility will be improved or not. I’ve also been told it will likely help with my handstands as I feel like I am straight but am really really wonky making it harder to hold and control.

Back flexibility progress. Around 3 years progress here. The biggest improvement is bending through the whole spine.

I’ve decided I want to seriously consider training to be a contortionist. Problem is my whole body is out of whack, my left hip is rotated forward, my hips face one way and my shoulders another, my mid spine is not moving freely, my right shoulder blade is slightly winged and my shoulder sits higher and the muscles at the top of my spine are in near constant spasm 😭

I’ve known for a long time that these issues existed so it was no newsflash but I hoped to ignore them. Now they are affecting my training. I used to be able to back bend comfortably, now I’ve regressed loads. The above photo was after this amazing thing called a “magic cobra” and took over an hour of activation work to open up my spine, before I was close to this with just a reasonable warm up.