I for one am starting a campaign to save the hip socket! I’m wondering if I am alone in this cause?
No one that I know has written one word about saving the mighty hip socket. Nary a Facebook friend (my “friends” are amazing professionals in a variety of health & fitness fields) has voiced their concern or lamented the loss of the human hip socket. The value of keeping one’s original hip sockets has not been discussed, which is unfortunate as there are many benefits (such as financial savings) that are connected with never needing surgery. But then I’m reminded that we are currently under the cultural spell of thinking that the human body is an object; mechanizing living systems still rules. People assume that the hip socket similar to car tires, need replacing. Better to just update to the newest bionic model then consider why they became unhealthy in the first place and how we might avoid and/or recover from such a breakdown. I might be alone in this campaign but I want to grow old with my hip sockets intact. I don’t believe bionic is better. So I ask you this: with all this talk about the importance of connective tissue and the recent focus on the Psoas, is it not time we offer our clients and/or students a guide for maintaining healthy, functional hip sockets for life? Can we ponder (and teach) about how to keep one’s hip sockets healthy and the movements that will maintain this health? If you are with me on this please share…
4 Simple Ways To Save Your Hip Socket For Life by Liz Koch (author of The Psoas Book)
1) NOURISH: When it comes to having healthy hip sockets for life, use them or lose them is the name of the game. Nourishing your hip sockets means stimulating them through an array of functional and fluid movements. The hip joint provides important skeletal and muscular organization that helps us feel safe, balanced, and centered. When we articulate our hip-sockets through subtle and full range motion, these dynamic joints are bathed in precious life-enhancing nourishment.
2) PROTECT: Hip sockets need loving care from wear and tear. Avoid abrasive force by supporting good skeletal positioning and buoyant rebound. Man-made surfaces, such as cement, are brutal on our hip sockets. The pounding our hip sockets take when walking on cement contributes to the literal wearing away of bone. Avoid wearing thin, hard, and/or rigid soled shoes that not only restrict healthy foot movement but also lack gravitational rebound. When encountering harsh walking surfaces, choose shoes that not only are flexible and bend in half, but also are made with a buoyant responsive sole.
3) SUPPORT: Offer your hip sockets global skeletal support by sitting and standing on balanced bones. Sitting on top and slightly in front of the skeletal pelvic tuberosity (sits bones) articulates the pelvic basin, which is vital for differentiating the torso from the leg. A balanced, centered pelvis and articulated leg relieves unnecessary tension around the hip socket. Avoid or adapt car seats, office chairs, and typical seating that are bucket style as these strain the hip sockets. While standing, stop tucking your tailbone. Doing so interferes with a skeletally balanced, free-floating pelvis. Interrupting skeletal balance invariably calls upon the psoas. Called upon to counterbalance poor sitting choices, this tissue (which directly flows over the ball and socket joint) becomes dry and eventually shortens, which further disrupts movement and limits circulation in the hip sockets. Choose a seat that provides a firm, flat surface for sitting on top of the pelvic bones (not the back of the sacrum). Doing so encourages healthy blood flow within the socket joint and throughout the leg and foot. Further improve circulation by sitting on top (and slightly on the front) of the tuberosity with your knee slightly lower than the pelvis and your foot fully planted on the floor.
4) VALUE: Scar tissue disrupts the coherency of the global connective tissue and is known to disrupt functional movement. Pulled and compressed tissue can also cause nerve pain and may distress organs. By avoiding surgery we not only keep our functional hip sockets, but also we maintain our healthy connective tissue, protecting our juicy, expressive Psoas. During hip socket surgery, connective tissue is cut and the delicate Psoas may be pinned, cut, or slashed in the name of release. When scar tissue forms, this juicy tenderloin loses its dynamic integrity. But that is a whole other subject: how best to prepare and recover when the hip sockets have become obsolete.
