Hey Shannon Willits here. The owner of Club Pilates and Fort Myers and Estero, FL. I’m also a master trainer for Club Pilates. I’m here with my friend, Dr. Lee Angle from Upper Cervical Chiropractic Health Centers in Fort Myers, FL and this is “Alignment Matters”. Dr. Lee, you want to tell us about yourself? Dr. Lee “I’m a chiropractor I’ve been in practice about 13 years. Uh, I’ve been here in Fort Myers about five years and take care of all kinds of different conditions and problems.”
So share with us about upper cervical chiropractic care. If you don’t mind, just briefly what that’s about. Dr. Lee, “We really focused on the top two bones in the neck, and this really falls into part of the alignment part is if you think about your spine, you’ve got a bowling ball and a stick.”
“If my bowling ball starts to roll, my stick’s going to have to bend. If the head isn’t centered straight on top of the spine, it’s almost impossible for the spine to be perfectly aligned and straight. It’s got that big bowling ball pulling on it.”
So upper cervical adjustments. How does that differ from other chiropractic modalities? Dr. Lee, “It is very gentle and very, very specific. The top two bones of the neck are made a little different than the rest of the body. The rest of the spine has to be dealt with a little bit differently. You gotta be much more precise. Much more and it’s much gentler. It’s not rip turn, twist and tear.”
We have to see exactly where they’re supposed to be. That’s why I like the upper cervical approach to chiropractic care. For me alignment as a Pilates instructor is the first thing that we’re trying to restore. Functional alignment. I think about the body. If I were to express it like a house, like you’re building a house. So the feet are the foundation, the lower part of the house, the legs, the pelvis. This is your framework of the house. The spine itself, more framework, the rib cage, but ideally these are stacked up on top of each other. If this is not stacked up and aligned the head is going to come forward and we’re going to have issues at the neck.
What do you see in terms of the lower body alignment and how that affects the head placement?
Dr. Lee, “Well, it’s interesting because your foundation is bottom up. Mine is a little bit top down and they really meet each other because if you go from the spinal perspective that my head is off, I’m in trouble, but I’ll use myself as an example. I started going to Pilates about a year and a half. No matter how good I am and how good my friends were ahead of hip pain. I could not get rid of them. Like the Pilates instructor worked on some weaknesses, figured out something as simple as I needed an arch support in one shoe, then we strengthen them. Hip goes away, right? So you really need both. You need a structural system that works, but you also need a muscular system that supports it and they can’t really be fighting either one of what you said about the foot. I had a discrepancy that then was affecting me across at the pelvis, in my right foot, and then magically my left hip.”
Constantly, no matter what it is, it’s going to go, I’m going to go right into it. Yeah. Then the pelvis is going to shift over. And so what happens so often as we started looking at the pelvis, right. And when indeed it’s coming from down at the foot and I love it. It’s the same thing top down from the head placement, which can indirectly affect the foot.
To find out more about Club Pilates and Dr. Lee Angle contact Shannon Willits.
