Form & Function

Do you experience a sharp pain in your lower back when you bend over to retrieve the morning paper?

Perhaps you feel a persistent neck ache that you contribute to long hours sitting in front of the computer?

If tension, constriction, and pain have become recurring symptoms in your everyday life, it is most likely a signal that your body is undergoing a structural imbalance.

As we age our bodies lose balance and symmetry. Some of it may be due to the adverse effects of gravity, while other impaired mobility issues can be caused by deeply ingrained patterns of poor posture, deficient physical performance, repetitive stress injuries, or just chronic stress.

Rolfing, or structural integration, directly addresses the client’s relationship with their body and their environment. Most humans are out of alignment in some way, and we function better when we are lined up with our gravitational field. Rolfing offers a process of movement re-education in which the certified practitioner helps a client re-discover the most efficient way of using the body, including the proper nutrition and exercise to achieve maximum performance.

Architecture & The Human Body

“Form Follows Function” is an architectural philosophy attributed to the great American architect Louis Sullivan. The premise is simply that the form of a building should reflect its function.

French physiologist, Claude Bernard (1813-1878), made a remarkable observation more than a century ago. He noted that body cells survived in a healthy condition only when the temperature, pressure, and chemical composition of their environment remained relatively constant. An American physiologist, Walter B. Cannon (1871-1945), later suggested the name homeostasis for the relatively constant states maintained by the body. These functions are constantly responding to changes in the body’s environment, exchanging materials between the environment and cells, metabolizing foods, and integrating all of the body’s diverse activities. Our body’s capability to perform many of its functions changes gradually over the years. The body performs its functions at the poorest levels at both ends of life – in infancy and old age. Injury, illness, and changes in our environment disrupt the balance in these processes. In other words, life happens and creates imbalances.

Addressing Your Structural Imbalances (SI)

The methods of SI combine the manipulative with the educational. Manual manipulation is applied to the soft tissues in a manner that is generally more gradual and prolonged than is typical of chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation, yet with more pressure than is typical of massage.

The five most common reasons patients turn to Rolfing for a solution are:

• Postural issues like scoliosis, hunched shoulders, etc.
• Recovery from injury and trauma including accidents, surgeries, and repetitive stress injuries
• Impaired mobility of one or more areas of your body
• Habitual pain issues such as joint pain, headaches, back and neck pain
• Desire to improve physical performance for yoga, dancing, martial arts, athletics, and other body-oriented activities

Reach out to Bob Alonzi Certified Advanced Rolfer for more information, and subscribe to his newsletter for inside tips and offers!