feet – Page 2 – Personal Euphoria: Pilates & Fitness Classes in CT

Learning to Feel

Cami and me exploring sensation through our feet!

We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. –Mark Twain

It is a rare day, indeed, that I disagree with my idol Mark Twain. And while I know he is referring to feeling in a different context than what we perceive and sense in the world around us, I’m not sure we stop and feel enough. And it may just be our ability to feel that keeps us thinking.

It may surprise you to learn that one of my favorite birthday presents this year was a box of rocks. My partner-in-movement, Cate Vallone, from Evolution Pilates and her daughter painted a bunch of small rocks for me. They painted bees, strawberries, little hearts, random colors It was utterly unexpected which made it grand.

The goal is to stand, walk across and just exist in different positions on the rocks to enhance proprioception—the art of feeling. Cate knows I’m not a great feeler. It’s been a running joke between us. I’ll happily foam roll or run half marathons. She thinks those activities are painful […]

Learning to FeelMaggie Downie2017-12-29T21:39:14-05:00

Chill Out for Better Results…It’s Not All or Nothing

The barefoot running movement got a pretty bad reputation because anecdotally lots of people got hurt barefoot running. If I got seriously injured doing something I attempted to do for my health, I’d stop too. If I loved running before I altered the way I did it and hated it now, I go back to my old ways. It makes sense.

One of my friends tore both his Achilles tendons running with minimalist shoes. But what he did and what many barefoot runners did was push too much too fast. The barefoot running movement and the makers of minimalist shoes all said if you want to make this change you have to start slow—really slow. Go too fast and you’ll get hurt. Taking on more than we are ready for is a major reason people new to exercise stop moving. They work too hard in a hope to get quick results, get hurt and don’t want to continue. Some people associate exercise with pain and getting hurt. That’s always been their experience. Moving doesn’t have to hurt, and should NEVER hurt in a “bad” way. The concept of no pain no gain has been disproved, but it is a really hard […]

Chill Out for Better Results…It’s Not All or NothingMaggie Downie2017-10-25T15:49:49-04:00

Spread Em

Spread EmMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:34:28-04:00

Better CT: Feet

If you didn’t get to see the segment on feet that I did on Better CT earlier this week, you can watch it here. Maggie on Better CT.

The show was a lot of fun and the segment went by so fast!

Personal Euphoria

Better CT: FeetMaggie Downie2014-08-04T18:02:20-04:00

Orthotics Are A Neck Brace

I would never tell a client not to wear their orthotics. I’m not a doctor and if a doctor or PT prescribes something for you, I’m not going to go against that. But I do try to give my clients all the information I can, and I feel okay doing that because I actually know a lot about feet. So what I tell clients is if they have orthotics or if they are going to go down the orthotics route, then doing exercises specific to the feet are even more important. We should all do feet exercises, but if you wear orthotics you need them even more.

I have a tendency to question everything, even my own knowledge, so recently I asked my sports medicine doctor what he thought about orthotics (which he does suggest for people). He said something brilliant. He said that no doctor would ever put a patient in a neck brace and then tell the patient that they were all set for life. […]

Orthotics Are A Neck BraceMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:32-04:00