April 2020 Newsletter
Tensegrity
Simply put, Tensegrity is the outward expansive force that meets downward pressure at every angle in order to make a structure strong, durable, and enduring.
At a time when our society is challenged and many of us are isolated from one another, it’s important to remember that our society is made stronger by maintaining connections within our global community.
We are united through our individual adaptability and by focusing on how we can work together to support, heal, and protect each other as we continue to move forward.
For our own bodies that means continuing to move, to practice self-care, and to stay physically strong.
The stronger our own muscular skeletal system is, the easier it becomes for us to respond to new pressures and new challenges.
Foundation Training focuses on the development of our muscular system as our body’s primary support system. By building an integrated and elastic “foundation” we are preparing ourselves for a long future of good movement, good works in our community, and the ability to hug a little tighter.
Remember to breathe and decompress a little.
– The Foundation Training Team
New on FT Streaming
Your April Monthly Workout
In lieu of our monthly workout we’ve decided to put a Quarantined DAILY Workout with Program Director Jessie Salas. We’re literally all in this together.
Bonus Material – Active Decompression
A new, and “serious,” discussion of Decompression Breathing! This video is meant to flip your perspective on this Foundation Training principle.
Tips, Tricks, and Coaching Cues
Shoulder Position and External Rotation
The goal of our work is the integration of muscle chains while striving to create more space in the body. Space to breathe, space for organ function, or space for more fluid movement.
Whether your focus is on the expansion of your ribcage through breathing, or eliminating impingement in the cervical spine, shoulder position is a key factor in space creation
Addressing the negative effects of internal rotation and the shoulders can yield substantial benefits. Here are a few thoughts for the initial set up for most of our exercises.
Measuring Sticks: Check that your clavicles are facing up rather then angled down with the shoulders rounding over.
Long Wing; Rotate the thumbs slightly back, making sure you do this from the shoulder. As you transition towards a sphere of tension, slowly scoop the hands together.
Sphere of Tension: Check that your elbows are pointing out. A great check in, is to squeeze the pinky, ring, and middle fingers a little tighter and see if you can intensify the Lat engagement.
As always, take your time easing these tips into your next session and be patient as your body learns to retrain habits and patterns.
– Jessie Salas
Program Director
FT Anatomy with Dr. Goodman
Protect your neck and shoulders
The shoulder joints are largely supported by the powerful latissimus muscle right below them. The stabilization they provide allows the deltoids and rotator cuff muscles to do most of the movement-control-fine tuning work of the ACGH (Acromion-Clavicle-Glenohumoral) joint complex.
In chaotic times we must rely on our strongest points for support and strength, the latissimus muscles should be one of them! Along with healthy breathing like FT Decompression, and well intentioned abdominal breathing, you’ll find you have all the tools you need.
The BEST exercise to learn for accurate latissimus range of motion and muscular availability is the Shoulder Trace from our Baseline Foundation Training Program. The Shoulder Trace will help your lats respond better to all of the resistance and endurance training you do for them.
Prime the body to train, especially during quarantine type situations. Body weight is plenty for now.
We’d like to thank the Visible Body app for the amazing images it allows us to create!
Feel free to look into our True to Form book for a more in-depth discussion of the anatomy behind our work!
– Dr. Eric Goodman
Virtual Instructor Spotlight
Each month we’ll be bringing attention to an individual from our incredible Certified Instructor community. Each of our Instructors bring something different to our work and we want to share that with you!
This month, we bring you a bigger spotlight, a bigger picture.
Meet our GLOBAL Instructor CommunityPeople are having trouble in the non-emergency health industry, it’s a reality that can be helped by getting gift certificates, maintaining your gym membership during the tough time, supporting your coaches, therapists, and teachers by letting them know you’ll be seeking their services once life lifts a bit.
We’ve got over one thousand instructors around the globe and a lot of them are VERY EFFECTIVE over Skype or FaceTime training. We will be starting a campaign to push towards CyberTraining during this time.
If you need FT type Symptom Relief we would seriously suggest finding a certified instructor and asking for a virtual session. The list is up and live on our site! Our organization will not make any money from anything you do with FT instructors, just know they are a legitimate option and plentiful. We want all of you to collectively feel better.
– The Foundation Training Team
Click on the link below to locate a virtual instructor near you! REMEMBER, start by trying to find someone local to you first.
Upcoming Events
CERTIFICATIONS
Level 1 – Austin, TX – Sept 18-20, 2020 (The Onnit Academy)