CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You

CoreWalking:
First Steps To A New You

by Jonathan FitzGordon

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................ 3
Lesson 1: Walking...................................................... 7
Get Over Yourself..................................................... 11
Cue #1 - Relax Your Butt................................... 15
Cue #2 - Let the Belly Initiate the Breath........ 17
Cue #3 - Ground Through All Four
Corners Of The Feet........................................... 20
The Trouble with Walking................................... 23
Keep On Truckin’.................................................. 23
Hinge the Body to Walk (Cue #1)....................... 25
Use The Whole Foot (Cue #2)............................. 26
Short Strides (Cue #3)........................................... 28
Lesson 1: Aanatomy................................................. 31
Meet The Psoas Major.......................................... 32
Hip Joint Or Knee Joint?...................................... 36
Pelvic Positions...................................................... 39
Hyperextension Of The Knees............................ 40
Four curves of the spine....................................... 45
Lesson 1: Exercises................................................... 47
Constructive Rest Position (CRP)....................... 50
Pelvic Floor/ Kegels............................................. 52
Feet 3 Inches off the Floor.................................... 54
Block Between the Thighs on the Floor..............56
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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
INTRODUCTION

Change is the name of the game. And people

resist change in a big way. The Buddha, one of my
favorite players from history, was disenchanted
with life so he went up a mountain and meditated
under a bodhi tree for forty days and forty nights.
When he was done he was enlightened and making
his way down the mountain he ran into a group
of friends. Right there he delivered his first talk/
sermon to them, known as the four noble truths,
and they too became enlightened. If I might
paraphrase the Buddha—he said, “Life is suffering.
And suffering is due to an unbearable resistance
to change.” But then he threw in, “If you want
to sit and meditate like me you might be able to
transcend this suffering and become enlightened.”
Pretty good advice if you ask me.

Yet here we are thousands of years later still

stuck in a cycle of craving permanence in an
impermanent world. We resist change of any sort,
good or bad simply because we fear the unknown
or something like that.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
In the work I do, the hardest part to deal with is
a resistance to changing things that are profoundly
fundamental to our health and well-being, simply
because we have a skewed vision of ourselves. If
you knew how poorly you walk and stand there
would be a greater incentive to change.

I start all of my initial session

by asking clients to stand up
straight and then tell me if,
when standing in their version
of straight, their shoulders line
up with, are forward of, or
behind their pelvis. Ninety nine
in one hundred tell me that their
shoulders are rounded forward
of their pelvis and ninety nine in one hundred are
wrong. Almost every person that stands before me
for the first time is leaning backwards with their
shoulders falling behind their pelvis.

This is still an amazing concept for me. You

would think that hundreds if not thousands of
clients later I wouldn’t be surprised by someone’s
confusion about their body’s place in space and yet
I am—every time. And this brings up a crazy point.
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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Not only is everyone standing poorly, but they
think they are standing correctly, and consequently
their perception of themselves is incorrect. It is a
triple whammy.

And then I offer the ability to change. But that

change has to happen from within themselves
because while I am a handy guide to help you along
on the journey, the journey of change is a profoundly
personal one and you are the only person who can
make it happen.

Nancy A. called me not long after I had a feature

article written about my program in the New York
Times. In the course of a five minute call, I learned
that Nancy had flat feet, poor posture and a weak
core.

“Fair enough, come on in”, I told her and soon

I was confronted in person with a tall lean woman
with decent posture, feet that weren’t flat and a
somewhat toned core based solely on observing her
feet and posture and determining that couldn’t be
all that weak.

When I asked her why she thought all of those

negative things about herself when I saw someone
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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
different standing before me she replied, “because
my Mother told me that my whole life.” No big
shock but what do you do with that information?
In this case I had good news to offer Nancy. She
wasn’t as bad off as she thought; in fact, she was
very easy to help—all it took was making some
minor adjustments to alleviate some neck pain.

A surprising upside to relearning how to walk

for Nancy was that she was soon able to wear the
closet full of shoes that ordinarily ruined her feet
after just a few hours of wearing them about. Once
Nancy started walking better it didn’t matter what
shoes she wore, she felt fine at the end of the day.

In most cases I have a different message to

deliver to my clients: “You have poor posture and
your see yourself incorrectly in space, and that is
why you have chronic back pain. Are you willing to
change to be free of such a painful burden?”

This book offers you an easy way to make some

physical changes. And you might find that making
simple physical changes can put you on the road
for some emotional changes as well.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You

LESSON 1 - WALKING

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Changing the way you walk is the opportunity
of a lifetime. Most people take between 3000-5000
steps a day and don’t think about any of them. For
the most part, how you walk is how you walk. It is
simply something that you do.

The odds are no one taught you how to walk.

With great anticipation your parents waited for you
to take your first steps, and then when you finally
did, they screamed and clapped for joy. After that,
you were on your own.

You learned to walk because it is instinctual

and imitative. Your walking patterns derive from
numerous factors but imitating your parents who
imitated their parents who were never taught the
correct way to walk either is a vicious cycle that
won’t be interrupted until walking lessons become
as popular as I hope they will be.

Visit the Anatomy Lab to Meet the Psoas

Learning to walk correctly isn’t all that hard it

just takes will power and repetition. Lots and lots
of repetition. But it is something you are already

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
doing at least 3000-5000 times a day. You simply
need to start paying attention to the way you do it.

If you pay attention for a short period of time

(short is relative and the time frame differs for
everyone. Some people change quickly and others
can take way more time), you will be walking with
a new pattern that will better serve your lifestyle no
matter what it is.

People change the way they walk many times

through life without even realizing it. First, most of
us develop with excellent posture in our first three
years. We almost all start walking well. Go to any
playground and watch most kids younger than
four or five. Invariably the transition from standing
to walking happens because they lean their upper
bodies forward to turn on the engine and take off.
This is what we all need to get back to.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
The Trouble with Standing

Welcome to the CoreWalking Program. What

you are about to learn is the first of five lessons. Be
patient as you learn because the changes you are
about to try and make in your body will take time
to implement.

This is pretty basic stuff at its core but changing

conditioned patterns requires a great deal of
repetition. The more you can think about the
essential cues that we offer in each lesson; develop
the proper muscles you need for better movement,
and then learn more about the body and how it
operates with the anatomy lectures, the easier it
will be to bring permanent change to your current
patterns.

In large part this is a standing program; but

standing is hard— harder than walking in many
ways.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
GET OVER YOURSELF

There is an old you and now we are going to

find a way to create a new you.

Which one of these images do you resemble?

Ask someone to take a photo or check in a mirror
but try to get an honest assessment of what your
posture really is. Most people don’t realize that
they are almost always leaning backwards.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Most people don’t realize that they are almost
always leaning backwards.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Learning to stand up straight can be as easy as
taking the legs back and the upper body forward
thinking of the body as a hinge with the pelvis as
the pin.
THE BODY IS A HINGE AND THE PELVIS IS THE PIN

OLD YOU NEW YOU

At the CoreWalking Program we believe that

most people are leaning backwards when they
think they are straight, and are standing up straight
when they think they are leaning forward.

What a conundrum! But now it our is job to help

you go from OLD YOU to NEW YOU… so stop
leaning backwards and get over yourself.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You

Visit the Anatomy Lab to learn

about Three Positions of the Pelvis

THE BODY
THEIS A HINGE
BODY IS AAND THE
HINGE PELVIS
AND IS THE PIN
THE PELVIS IS THE PIN

OLD YOU
OLD YOU NEW YOU
NEW YOU

How are we going to accomplish this feat? Let’s

look at three ways to know you are standing better.
If any of these images resonate with you, stick with
that and you can be well on your way to a NEW YOU.

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Cue #1—Relax Your Butt
We are a tight assed people and we must learn
to relax! Our big butt muscle, gluteus
maximus should do nothing when
you are standing, and it doesn’t do
much when walking. It only really
needs to engage when you are
walking uphill, or doing squats.

So we want to learn to let it go

when we are standing because when
the butt is gripped tight, deeper
pelvic muscles that are intrinsic to standing can’t
really work.

Move to new you by taking the thighs back

under the hips, rotating the pelvis slightly out of
what is likely your habitual tuck. This should
release the big gluteus maximus, and free up the
deeper gluteal muscles to do their jobs.

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OLD YOU NEW YOU

Go back to old you and feel the difference. The

learning is in the feeling. Transit again to new you
and allow gluteus maximus to relax.

You can’t do this too many times in the process

of learning how your body works.

Before long you won’t want to go back to old

you but for now moving between old you and new
you can help you understand the changes you are
making.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Cue #2—Let the Belly Initiate the Breath
Cue #2 is to let the belly initiate the breath on
the inhale and should give you an idea
of how to bring your upper body to its
new alignment. A tiny shift in your rib
cage can have deep implications but is
often deceptively hard to ingrain.

If you believe me that you lean

backwards when standing, it is likely
that you are using the muscles of the rib cage, chest,
and even the neck to do most of the work when you
are breathing.

The tendency of old you posture is for the lower

back muscles to be short
and tight, pulling the
back of the ribcage down
and splaying the front
of the rib cage up and
opened a bit. When that
happens the upper body
does too much work on
the inhale.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Now, move from old you to new you turning
down the front of the rib cage a little (as if you were
beginning to do a crunch), allowing room for the
back ribs to open.

Feel what is happening to your breath. Ideally

the breath moves down more easily into the belly
and the whole trunk becomes involved in breathing
not just the chest.

We are designed very

specifically. When we
breathe in, the diaphragm
muscle—the main muscle
of breathing housed at the
base of the rib cage—is
supposed to lower down a little which actually
creates a vacuum that pulls the air from outside
into the lungs.

We need to have good posture for this to happen

successfully. In OLD YOU feel what happens when
you inhale. If the front ribs are elevated the back of the
body will shorten in opposition and the diaphragm
which should lower straight down, basically gets
stuck at the middle spine and can’t descend.

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There is room for the diaphragm to descend in the picture on the

left but not on the right.

Let the front ribs lower, allow the middle back

to broaden and feel how you have created an
environment where the diaphragm can descend on
the inhale and belly can move out to make room for
the abdominal contents.

It’s not that the chest isn’t involved in breathing—

it is, especially in athletics — but the diaphragm
and the belly should always initiate the breath.

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Cue #3- Ground Through
All Four Corners Of The Feet

When you relax your Butt and let

the belly initiate the breath it will be a
lot easier to find a body with its weight
distributed through all four corners of
the feet.

Visit the Anatomy Lab To

View Hip Joint Or Knee Joint

Ideally, our bones hold us up so that the muscles

can move us. But for many of us the misalignment of
the bones forces our muscles to hold us up instead.

We want stack our bones to bear as much weight

as much as possible so that our muscles are free to
do what they are designed to do.

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Instead, we tend toward a number of
misalignments the begin in the feet and ankles that
put a great deal of strain on our muscles. These
include:

• Hyperextension
• Pronation
• Supinatination

We can see this in the weight distribution on

the feet.

We have a tendency to either hyperextend the

knees or to sink the thighs forward which messes
with our ability to feel the whole foot.

One way that we know our bones are holding

us up better is if we feel an even weight distribution
across all four corners of the feet.

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Hyperextension Anatomy

If you hyperextend
your knees or if your
thighs are forward as
we spoke of earlier,
the shin is out of line
with the ankle and
foot, and the thigh
bone, is out of line with your shin.

Putting all of the standing cues together

• If you bring the shin bone to a right angle to
the floor
• And get your thigh bones back so they are
also at a right angle to the floor
• releasing your butt, and
• allowing the belly to initiate the breath by
turning the front ribs down slightly...

...Will enable you to feel Cue #3 as the weight of

the body spread through all four corners of the feet
evenly.

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THE TROUBLE WITH WALKING

We need to move forward through life literally

and symbolically. Instead, most of lean backwards
to move forwards. It might sound strange but it is
true.

Keep On Truckin’

Do you know this iconic image by Robert Crumb

from the 1960’s. I am beginning to date myself with
this picture but just the same it is really how most
people walk and stand. Leading with the legs the
feet tend to turn out, pulling the trunk backwards
against gravity. If the legs go first it is hard not to
compensate by leaning the upper body backwards.

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But it doesn’t have to be this way. Notice though,

how the two gentlemen in the picture above have
the same patterns as our Keep on Truckin’ dude.
I think most people have these patterns. I can’t
guarantee that this is how you walk but I change.
have a lot of empirical evidence to back up what
I am saying. You need to pay some attention and
truly analyze your walking patterns. Remember
that your perception of straight and forward
might be skewed so be patient and observe your
tendencies. If you look closely and find that maybe
you do walk like this it isn’t hard to change.

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Hinge The Body To Walk (Cue #1)

Walk around and try to feel

the way you move and see if it
resembles our Keep on Truckin’
friend. While the genius of Robert
Crumb lies in exaggeration, you
are probably doing a subtler form
of the same pattern.

Now, take your legs back and the upper body

forward thinking of the body as a hinge with the
pelvis as the pin. Try and feel the shift from old you
to new you.

Think of the five year old on the playground

who leans forward before they begin to move.

Walk forward.

In many ways it is as simple as that. Over and

over and over again.

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Use The Whole Foot (Cue #2)

One key to this first lesson is to

getting to know what your feet are
doing when you’re walking or more
specifically, how do your feet land on
the floor. You might know already but
a quick check of your shoes would tell.

It is most likely that you are wearing

your shoes down on the outside of the
sole, from the heel to the pinky toe.

Walk in old you and feel what happens from

your heel to your toes. Listen to the sound your heel
makes. Think back to the Keep on Trucking Image
and see if you are also reaching out with your foot
to walk.

Take your thighs back and upper body forward

and you should feel and hear the heel land
differently. Your step should start on the outer heel
and then you would like to transfer weight to the
inside of the foot as you complete the footfall. But
for now try and feel that you are moving through
the whole foot instead of only the outside.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
As you change your walk your feet want to fall
more towards parallel but it is key that they do this
because the pelvis rotates to neutral rather than you
turning the feet in.

Old You New You

When you take your thighs back and walk

forward your feet turn naturally towards parallel.
This is a great thing but it is important to note that
this poitive realignment of the feet happened from
the shift of your legs and pelvis, not from turning
your feet.

Start to bring your legs under your pelvis when

you walk as well as when you stand. The third cue
in this lesson will hopefully make it easy still to
facilitate these changes.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Short Strides (Cue #3)

I always ask people what they think will make

them go faster- long strides or short strides?
Invariably people think long strides but it isn’t
the case. Mechanical efficiency calls for short
strides while long strides invariably lead to us
hyperextending the knees to move forward.

Too Long Just Right

Move from old you to new you and start

walking. You should feel that the stride shortens
naturally as you take the thighs back, move the
upper body forward and get walking.

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To Recap:

• Cue #1 – Hinge the Body to Walk

Old You New You

• Cue #2 – Use the Whole Foot

• Cue#3 – Short Strides

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Next Steps or
A Step In The Right Direction

You’ve now stepped on the path toward better

walking and freedom from pain and injury. Now
you have an opportunity to continue the journey.
CoreWalking is a comprehensive program that
teaches you how to move in your body the way it
was designed to move. By simply and accessibly
demonstrating body mechanics and the proper way
to walk the CoreWalking Program is an incredibly
easy way to change your life.

Whether you’re suffering from chronic pain, a

seasoned practitioner who works with people in
pain, or someone who’s looking to improve athletic
performance, CoreWalking can make a difference.

Take some time to work with the concepts in this

book and when you’re ready for more, the whole
program is available to you. We’re offering it to
anyone who’s purchased this book for $99—that’s
$50 off the regular price. Use the code “chapter1” at
checkout to receive the discount.

Change your walk, change your life with

CoreWalking.

What follows now are the anatomy lectures and

exercises. Enjoy!

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LESSON 1 - ANATOMY

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Meet The Psoas Major

The psoas is the body’s

most important muscle for
a number of reasons. The
most obvious reason for
our purposes is that the
psoas is the main muscle
for walking. But, on a
deeper level, it is also the
main muscle for bearing and processing trauma
because of its role as a hip flexor.

The psoas major is the body’s main hip flexor

and one of only three muscles connecting the lower
and upper body. When healthy, the psoas major in
front and the piriformis across the back (gluteus
maximus is the third) help us stand upright in a
perfect state of balance.

The psoas attaches along the lower spine and

comes down to cross over the rim of the pelvis
before it moves backward again to insert on the
back half of the inner thigh.

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The tension that the
psoas creates across the rim
of the pelvis as it moves
backward at its top and
bottom is critical to healthy
upright posture. If the
psoas and piriformis are
well aligned they help to
stabilize the spine on top of the legs allowing the
pelvis to live in a neutral or correct position and the
spine to stack vertically on top of it.

The psoas major connects at six points—it

attaches at the base of the rib cage and the top of
the lower back. It to the out edge of the first four
vertebrae of the lumbar spine, which is the lower
back, and to the front of these vertebrae as well as
the front of the 12th thoracic vertebra, which is at
the base of the rib cage, and it crosses over the front
of the pelvis and goes backward to attach on the
back half of the inner thigh, on a bony projection
called the lesser trochanter. As a result the psoas
spans and affects many joints.

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The piriformis attaches
the leg to the sacrum. The
psoas connects the body
across the front and the
piriformis at the back. These
two muscles, when working
well, perform a balancing
act that allows for successful upright posture. A
problem with one of these muscles always involves
a problem with the other as well.

The troubling part is when the pelvis does not

live in a neutral position. We are a society of tuckers,
most of us living with our pelvis’ falling down at
the back and this by nature pulls the psoas out of
its proper alignment.

The psoas is the main muscle of walking because

of its role as a flexor of the leg. The lift of the leg in
walking is initiated by the psoas.

The psoas is also the main muscle of trauma

because of its role as a hip flexor. The body is always
trying to maintain an emotional balance in our
nervous system between excitation and relaxation.
All excitation involves flexion. Any time our fear

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reflex is initiated we flex. An imbalance between the
systems of relaxation and excitation often involve
problems with the psoas and as a result impact our
movement and posture as well.

The more you learn about the psoas and its

ability to affect us both structurally and emotionally
the more likely this program will be effective for
you.

Back to page 8

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Hip Joint Or Knee Joint?

Do either of these images resemble your posture?

The image on the left is sinking the thigh forward
and the image on the right in hyperextending the
knees.

If one of these (or both) images is similar to

how you stand, what exactly is holding you up? If
your bones aren’t stacking on top of each other for
good weight transfer what is bearing your weight
in standing?

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Ligaments connect bone to bone. But bones

that are misaligned put a great deal of stress on
the ligaments connecting them. The pictures above
show the ligaments at the back of the knee (posterior
cruciate ligament) and the ligament connecting the
leg to the hip (iliofemoral ligament). These two
ligaments often bear the burden of poor posture.

Both of these patterns—hyperextended knees

and forward leaning thighs—wreak havoc on the
natural relationship that the leg muscles ought to
have. If the bones aren’t aligned the muscles can’t
be balanced.

If we align our bones like the middle set of legs

in the image above we allow the bones to stack on
top of one another and allow weight to transfer
through the body freeing the muscles, ligaments
and tendons to do what they are supposed to do.

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Learning to take the thighs back and the pelvis

into its correct position allows our ligaments to
align properly and shrink back to their natural
tension. This will make standing and walking with
the pelvis in the correct position much much easier.

The big muscle at the front of the thigh, the

quadriceps, particularly the rectus femoris, joins
the ligaments in bearing a great deal of the weight
bearing load when we stand like this creating or
adding to the hip flexor issues that so many people,
are afflicted with.

Back to page 20

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Pelvic Positions

Here we are looking at three positions of the

pelvis and the affect on the surrounding area. The
middle image of these three represents a happy
pelvis from my perspective. The pelvis on the right
represents a pelvis that is tucked under. This is the
default position for most of the human race and I
think it is the single largest contributor to back pain.
The tucked pelvis flattens the lower back, tightens
our butt muscles, and generally jams the joints of
the pelvis. The pelvis on the left is rotated too far
back brings to great of an arch to the lower back,
what we refer to as a lordosis. The pelvis in the
middle lives in a neutral postion, neither stuck out
back or tucked under. This neutral position allows

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the middle of the lower back to sit directly on top
of the femur or leg bone. The is the optimal weight
bearing position.

There are three ways you can tell if your pelvis

is in the right position.

Stand in old you and feel if your butt is turned

on. If it is tilt pelvis forward and let the thighs move
under the hips only enough to turn the big butt
muscle, gluteus maximus, off. Experiment with
tucking and untucking the pelvis until you can feel
what I mean by turning the butt on and off. Once
you have a feeling for that action rotate the pelvis
as little as it takes to shut the butt off completely
and feel where your pelvis is positioned. That’s one
way you can tell if your pelvis is in the right place.

Go back to old you. In my way of thinking the

big butt muscle should have a place of its own to
live. In old you posture I am guessing that your butt
muscle is kind of falling down against the hamstring
or the back of the thigh. Rotate your pelvis as little
as you can to give the muscle of home of its own in
space. That’s cue #2.

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The final way to feel the correct position of the
pelvis is with kegel exercises. The strength of our
pelvic floor is of the utmost importance when it
comes to having a balanced core. Kegels are great
exercises but as with all exercises when you don’t
do them correctly they aren’t particularly effective
or useful. In fact, they can be detrimental. Many
women have done their share of kegels and sadly
most men have never even heard of them but
pelvic floor exercises are key to our core and more
importantly they are key to the really important
things like remaining continent and aging well.

We feel that teaching the correct way to do or

feel these pelvic exercises are also an excellent aid
to learning correct posture.

You are going to try and keep your butt out of

these exercises as we discussed earlier.

Stand up straight at tuck under more than usual

and lift the floor of the pelvis. In this tucked position
I hope you will be able to feel that the action of the
lifting the pelvic floor stops at the pubic bone at the
front of the pelvis. Now stick your butt our too far,

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without hurting yourself, and do the same pelvic
lift and this time I think that your sacrum will
interrupt the lift. Now, split the difference and find
the position of the pelvis where the lift is straight
up the central channel with no interference.

I think that this is the correct placement of the

pelvis and what you will hopefully note is that this
is the same exact position where the butt is relaxed
and it has a room of its own.

Back to page 14

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Hyperextension Of The Knees

We are going to look at hyperextension of the

knees. One of our main themes is that the body is
the balance of flexion and extension. Today we are
looking at hyperextension. Let’s look at my knee
for example.

When I am standing I have learned over time to

know that this is a straight leg. But where do I want
to go? That is a hyperextended leg. What I seem to

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
know that it is in hyperextension is that the ankle
and shin should form a right angle

Anytime the lower leg moves past its normal

range of motion, the knee in particular, that is
called hyperextension. And you should be able to
see how weight is not going to transfer nearly as
well through a hyperextended leg as it would if
the bones of the upper and lower leg were stacked
directly on top of one another.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Four Curves Of The Spine

Let’s get a sense of how the spine

should be ordered. The sacrum
curves out; the lumbar spine curves
in; the thoracic spine cures out and
the cervical spine curves in again.

A key thing to note is that the

cervical spine and the lumbar spine
are designed to be mirror images
of each other with the exact same
degree of curve. The upper back rounds backwards
slightly and the sacrum rounds backwards slightly
as well.

What we are hope to do is learn how to lengthen

the spine and minimize the curves in extension as
we try to bring balance to the four curves of the
spine, especially the lumbar and cervical curves.

There is a very interesting detail in our shift

from the lumbar to the thoracic spine. In that shift
a major change occurs. The bones of the lumbar
spine are large weight bearing bones with little to
no rotational ability.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
And there is a slight twist in the shift from the
lumbar to the thoracic vertebrae which are smaller
and have a great deal of twisting capabilities. This
juncture which we refer to as T12 (base of the
ribcage) and L1 (top of the lumbar spine), or the
thoracolumbar joint is a key spot where I see a great
deal of postural collapse in many of my clients.

We are trying to bring adequate space and

muscle tone to this area of the spine to facilitate
good and proper posture.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You

LESSON 1 - EXERCISES

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
These exercises are designed to bring your body
into balance. If a particular muscle is already well
aligned you no longer need to strengthen or balance
it.

One of my students is a young athlete. When

we first started working together it took about four
seconds to get one of his core muscles to burn. One
year later it took a minute to get that same burn. If
he wanted to get stronger he had to go to that place
of burn. But for me personally, I don’t need to keep
getting stronger. I like strong enough.

Again, these exercises are designed to bring

the body into balance. If you try an exercise and it
seems to be easy, you might choose to focus on one
that is harder for you. I will offer a lot of exercises
in these videos. You want to do the ones that you
need. You might find that you need to do twenty of
them to get where you want to go. You might only
need three. Everyone is different.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
The Core Four

At the CoreWalking Program it is all about the

psoas. And when we talk about the core we refer to
the muscles groups that we feel support the psoas.
The first four exercises which we refer to as the core
four are the most important building blocks for
rebuilding the body and creating new movement
patterns.

Constructive rest is a psoas release that we put

on a pedestal above all other exercises. The other
three exercises refer to the muscles groups, inner
thighs, pelvic floor, and abdominals that require
proper tone in order for the psoas.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You

Constructive Rest Position (CRP)

This is the main psoas release that we work
with. It is a gravitational release of the psoas that
allows the force of gravity to have its way with the
contents of the trunk and the deep core.

• Lie on your back with your knees bent and

your heels situated 12 to 16 inches away
from your pelvis, in line with your sit
bones.
• You can tie a belt around the middle of the
thighs. This is a good thing to do, especially
if you are weak in the inner thighs. You want
to be able to really let go here and not have
to think too much about the position of your
legs.
• Then do nothing. You want to allow the
body to let whatever happens to it come
and go. Discomfort arises from conditioned
muscular patterns. Try to allow the body
to release rather than shift or move when
unpleasant sensations arise.
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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
• You are hoping to feel sensation that is
something you can sit with and allow it to
pass.
• Try to do this for 15 minutes a day, twice a
day—in the morning and at night. If you have
time, longer sessions are advisable.

But we are not here to suffer. If sensations come

up and you feel that you just have to move, feel free
to move, then come back to where you were and try
again. It’s possible that you’ll do this exercise and
not feel anything; that is fine also.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Pelvic Floor/ Kegels

The pelvic floor is a large sling, or hammock, of

muscles stretching from side to side across the floor
of the pelvis. It is attached to your pubic bone in
front, and to the coccyx (the tail end of the spine) in
back. Make sure not to use your butt muscles in any
of these exercises.

Doing these exercises correctly will help you

find the coorect placement of the pelvis which is
key to all of the work we are trying to do.

When you tone or lift the pelvic floor the

energetic quality should be a free lift up the central
channel of the spine. If your pelvis is tucked under
it is likely that your pubic bone will interrupt or

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
stop the lift of the pelvic floor. Likewise, if your
pelvis is rotated too far backwards you might feel
that the sacrum or the back of the pelvis stops the
upward flow of the pelvis floor. You know your
pelvis is in the right place if the lift of the pelvic
floor goes straight up the front of the spine.

There are three layers to the pelvic floor. You

are trying to find the top layer, just slightly above
holding in your pee (it can be very subtle).
• Tone your pelvic floor muscles, hold for a
count of five. Do in sets of ten.
• Tone and lift your pelvic floor slowly, trying
to stop and start as you go up, like an elevator
stopping on several floors.
• If that seems easy enough try doing the
opposite, lifting the pelvic floor, holding it at
the top and lowering it incrementally.
• Practice quick contractions, drawing in
the pelvic floor and holding for just one
second before releasing the muscles. Do
these in a steady manner aiming for a strong
contraction each time building up to a count
of fifty.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Feet 3 Inches off the Floor

This exercise works the deep low belly muscle

called the transverse abdominus. First, we’re going
to show how this muscle works and how another
abdominal muscle, the rectus abdominus, works as
well.
• Lie on your back on your mat. Bend your
knees so that your feet are resting on the
floor beneath your knees. Bring your hands
onto the lower belly. Inhale and exhale.
Inhale again and exhale but this time push
the exhale at the end and see if you feel that
your navel moves down to the spine and the
muscle engagement is a feeling that wraps
from the back to the front. Let that go.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
• Now lift your head and shoulders and look
at your knees. Here you should feel how
when you lift the head and look at the knees,
the belly pushes up into the fingers. Let the
head release.
• The first muscle that we engaged was called
the transverse abdominus, a muscle that
supports the lower back and wraps from
the back to the front. The second muscle we
engaged is called the rectus abdominus and
connects the pelvis to the ribcage and moves
in a direction straight up and down. We’re
going to try to isolate and engage only the
deeper transverse muscle.
• Lift your right foot three inches off the floor
and try to stabilize the spine as you lift the
left foot three inches to meet it. Did the spine
move up and the belly push up? Or did the
spine actually stabilize and stay still? Release
your feet.
• Starting with the second foot, lift the left foot
three inches off the floor and lift the right
foot three inches to meet it. Feel if the two
sides were different.
• When lifting the feet without any movement
in the belly or the spine becomes effortless
and you can sustain it easily, bring the feet
up to the height of the knees and parallel to
the floor.
• When this becomes easy extend your knees
forward two or three inches.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
Block Between the Thighs on the Floor

• Lay on your back with the knees bent and

your feet flat on the floor.
• Place a block between your inner thighs.
Engaging the inner thigh muscles against
the block try to isolate them and use the
quadriceps, and outer thighs, as little as
possible.
• Don’t grip your buttocks.
• Lift the hips up and continue to squeeze the
block, drawing the low belly in to stabilize
the spine.

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 CoreWalking: First Steps To A New You
• Make sure you are lifting the hips up
with a neutral spine and not by tucking
under.
• Hold for a count of 10 breaths. Try to hold
longer as you feel stronger. Hold for less if
you need to. See if you can build up staying
for three minutes.

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