Transcript of Episode 177: Eliminating Pain with Posture Therapy
With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra and Antje Waxman
Meredith:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m your host, Meredith Dykstra, and this is Episode 177. We have our resident cellular healing specialist, Dr. Dan Pompa, on the line, and today we welcome special guest, Antje Waxman. Before we dig in, let me tell you a little bit more about Antje. It’s a very fun show today and, oh, just a little forewarning too. If you can, definitely check out the video version of this show versus the audio version because Antje is going to be giving some very cool demonstrations on her expertise, which is posture.
All right, Antje Waxman is the owner and instructor of REALIGN in Charlottesville, Virginia through Egoscue University. No. She’s a Certified Postural Alignment Specialist through Egoscue University. Egoscue Method has a 95% success rate in reducing chronic pain without drugs and surgery. Antje is also a certified Smovey coach, Nordic Walking and Nia instructor, and that stands for neuromuscular integrative action. She’s developed specific programs for people who want to live pain-free, and improve their health, and return to functional fitness.
Antje has helped hundreds of clients restore their health and live pain-free. In personal and group sessions, she educates and motivates people to understand how alignment is connected to degeneration and pain. She believes that correct alignment is an essential foundation for good health and fitness. Antje works with people of all ages and fitness levels and also with people who have arthritis and Parkinson’s. She’s going to take her through her two-step program for pain-free living in a healthy body. Welcome, Antje, to Cellular Healing TV, so excited to meet you and learn about your technique.
Antje:
Hi, Dr. Pompa. Hi, Meredith, nice to see you. Thank you so much for inviting me today.
Dr. Pompa:
Listen, I know our viewers, and like she said, I usually say viewers and listeners, but hopefully, you’re viewing this show. Viewers are going to really be blessed. Dr. Mercola and myself, we were down visiting you and Dr. Bush. You really took Joe and I separately through the Egoscue. Am I saying that correctly? Egoscue, is that the right…
Antje:
Yes, Egoscue. It comes from a—Pete Egoscue is the founder.
Dr. Pompa:
I want you to explain what that is. We were blessed because I didn’t really—I didn’t know what it was, right? I think Joe knew a little bit. We both left there, and we said, wow, that was such a blessing. First thing Joe said to me was, hey, are you going to do all those things? Are you going to do all the exercises? He was, Joe’s Joe, right? I mean, he planned on it. He was testing me out. I said absolutely. I’m that guy, right, because my back pain.
One of the things, when you looked at my posture—and I’m not far away like you, but you could demonstrate because you saw my posture. I was leaning forward. I couldn’t even believe that was the way I was, right? I mean, I had this forward lean posture. One of my problems was this chronic low back tension, right, that won’t go away despite doing everything. I mean, the best chiropractic, the exercises, stretching, I did it all. When I saw that, I thought, oh, my gosh. That is putting so much posterior tension on my extensors that, yeah, that’s it.
You immediately developed a program for me, just like you did Joe, based on our posture. I could tell you, and I said this to you, it’s really the only thing that really helped. It seemed like it took pressure off, and it made me more stable. I’ve been doing it for the last two months. I don’t know. Gosh, was it two months now since I’ve been there? I don’t know.
Antje:
It’s been two months. Yes.
Dr. Pompa:
I’ve been faithful at it. So much I was impressed that you did a Skype session with my wife, and you lined up her exercises based on some of the postural things that she had going on. She just started, so I can’t give testimony there yet. Actually, she said it was helping, honestly, already, and she just started.
Antje:
That’s so great.
Dr. Pompa:
Anyway, that was my experience, and I got really excited and said you have to do a show. We have hundreds of thousands of viewers. Many of them need this, so hopefully, you offer your services to them too. What is this? What is this? Where was it developed? I mean, how come I never heard of this before?
Antje:
Right. Thank you so much, Dr. Pompa. It’s wonderful to be here. I’m very passionate about my work because I have been going through pain myself at some point in my life, so I do understand pain. Chronically, it can show—it can be very different. It can be severe pain or not so, let’s say, chronic pain that is nagging, but there’s a tension.
The Egoscue Method where I—if I may tell you my brief story. When I moved to the U.S. 17 years ago to marry my American husband, I developed rheumatoid arthritis and, really, so badly that I had inflamed joints everywhere. I knew that it was an autoimmune disorder, a system disorder, and I started healing myself naturally with supplements because I didn’t want to take the immune system suppressing medications. What happened to my body when I had, let’s say, a swollen knee that was—it was not arthritis, like osteoarthritis. It was inflammation. Then I immediately compensated on the other side, and that means I had pain there too. I got into a very viscous cycle. Very often, when there’s pain on one side, then the other side compensates, and there’s pain too.
The Egoscue Method, I learned from a friend about it. It’s a non-medical pain relief posture alignment therapy that I love. I love it because this therapy is, first of all, very popular and has helped thousands of people worldwide. I like the non-medical approach, so there’s no medicine. There’s no steroid involved. What we do is, as an Egoscue practitioner, we are looking at the entire body. We are not just looking at symptoms.
For example, when somebody comes to me with lower back problems, that doesn’t mean—I will not necessarily give him lower back exercises because I’m looking at the entire body, the upper back, the head position, the ankles, the knees. My goal is to find out not necessarily what the condition is. I’m trying to find out the position. I mean the position of the joints. Something else in the body might actually cause the lower back problems. As you said, you’re leaning forward, right, when I took the photos of your posture, so we are also looking at the body. Where is the body in terms of the gravity center? Some people lean forward. Some people lean backwards or side-to-side, and there is immediately a compensation in the body.
As an Egoscue practitioner, I also believe, we all believe, that the body has the innate ability to heal itself. Because I’ve helped myself and many other people, my goal is to help my clients to—or to teach my clients how they can help themselves, right?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. How does it work? Okay. I mean, you saw me in this forward lean position. My pelvis was anterior or forward from my center of gravity, basically, right? Okay. Then I think I had a little bit of rotation in my pelvis. It was all compensation.
Antje:
Yes.
Dr. Pompa:
Then you went to your computer, and then you, basically, figured out through this method what exercises that go with that particularly postural misalignment. The order is very important too. I have certain stretches. I have certain exercises that I did. Some of things were—I would say, okay, I wouldn’t have thought that would be a part of this, I mean, but it is. How does it all come together? Describe that.
Antje:
First of all, what I do is I look at all four weight-bearing joints. That’s my first. They should line up horizontally, the shoulders in particularly, and create a 90 degree angle. If my shoulder is elevated or let’s say my hip is elevated, there is already stress. In your case, I say in the spine. In addition to it, in rotation, it’s a hip rotation. Very often, people have an elevation on one side and a rotation on the other side. There is immediately stress in the body. In addition to it, in your case, you were leaning forward. That means you were in extension all the time, in extension, too much in extension. You were moving and leaning forward.
Do you remember? I took some photos of your posture after the first session. You were much more in the gravity center. At least from the side view, means that the ankles, the knees, the hips, and the shoulders, and the ears should line up. If this is not the case, there is tension in the body. The body is desperately trying to avoid pain, but at some point, there is pain.
Dr. Pompa:
How was this developed? I mean, it is a very unique method. I know that people get it done, and it affects their energy, their sleep. Remember I was a chiropractor. When I was doing chiropractic, I was a structural correction guy, right? I explained to people how their structure affects the function of their body from their energy to their sympathetic, parasympathetic balance, how it can affect. I get that, but most people watching this don’t. That’s one part of the question. The other part is how was this developed?
Antje:
Habits can develop this. Yeah. Also, gait, faulty gait can develop that. Just an example, I don’t know what happened to you, but definitely, when you were standing there, you were leaning forward. Some people, sometimes there’s no reason for that, but for example, sometimes I work with musicians. Let’s say a violin player constantly has his arm lifted. At some point, there is a deviation. This arm is not in the right position anymore because he’s lifting it all the time. I don’t know. Maybe you’re rushing a lot. I don’t know.
Dr. Pompa:
No. In my case, I think—I’m a skier, and we’re trained to lean forward, constantly forward, forward, forward, forward, forward. Even in our boots, we’re leaning forward, forward. That was the only thing that I would think that put me in that forward position. What I actually meant was how was the system developed, Egoscue? How was this developed? I mean, who figured this out? How did it happen? It’s been around in Germany for a while.
Antje:
Not in Germany. Egoscue is from San Diego, California, so Pete Egoscue -inaudible-. This is not -inaudible-. That has to go to Pete Egoscue, the credit. He’s the developer. He developed that in 1971, and he was in the Vietnam War and was injured. Then the physicians told him that he probably will have to live in pain for the rest of his life, so he developed it and looked at different movement forms. It’s a combination of different movement forms.
We do have yoga exercises, as you know, right? I mean, we have—so we also work with the wall and the floor. If somebody is leaning against the wall and does not feel comfortable, like somebody like you leaning forward all the time, that is an indication that the body is out of alignment in terms of the gravity center. Some people with round shoulders, they have a problem with that as well, to lean against the wall. As I said, you might—skiing or you’re rushing all the time. Then another thing can be the pelvis. I know you have an anterior pelvic tilt, so your pelvis goes a little bit to the front, right?
Dr. Pompa:
Correct.
Antje:
Many, many people do this. They lean forward because of that, and then this creates even more tension. Other people who have a posterior pelvic tilt like this, they sometimes lean to the back. The pelvis, that is the heart of the—we call this the heart of the body, the unit. It’s very often also responsible for these misalignments.
Dr. Pompa:
Maybe you could show them some. I mean, this is different for everyone, folks. Don’t say, oh, okay, that’s my—she puts together a whole system, and there is a sequence. You told me the sequence is very important, but with that said, give us some examples. Show some of these exercises. For example, let’s say you have this and this. Just so people can see. Right now, everyone’s going, okay, I don’t get it. What is she doing?
Antje:
Yes. Yes. Would you like for me to show you an exercise, for example?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I want some examples, maybe two or three.
Antje:
For example, so what I do with my clients, I take photos, and then I upload them in a system so that I can really see where are the—where is the postural misalignment? Then I also do a functional testing. For example, when people bend forward and they never reach the floor, they might have an upper body problem that has an impact on their lower body. There’s so much to consider, joint position, also muscle imbalance that creates joint—created through the joint misalignment. Very often, the pelvis is the first thing that we look at and also the upper body and the lower body.
This one exercise, very simple exercise that has helped many, many people, it’s a corrective static exercise. What you have to find is a block or chair that brings your body in a 90 degree angle, and then you just lie in this position. This position called the static back, the lower back is flattening into the—it’s slowly flattening into the floor, so there’s already a relief for the body and the spine in this position. People who go into this position feel immediately very—yeah. They feel that the tension in their shoulders, in their upper body, in their lower back really was eliminated.
Dr. Pompa:
This was one of the first ones that I started with just to get me to—my back relaxed, and then it could rest from there.
Antje:
Yes, exactly. I call this always like neutralizing your pelvis. This is a nurturing—a wonderful exercise to start to neutralize your pelvis. Most of the people I see, they have a hip elevation and rotation. In this position, your body cannot be—your hip cannot be rotated or elevated, and this has also impact on your shoulders.
Yeah. Once I have looked at my client’s or your body, I design a specific program that works for each person. Let’s say one person comes with lower back pain might get a total different exercise program than another person. I look at the entire body as a unit, and find out what is not working. Then let’s say the upper body is rounded, and there’s a C curve. Then I work on the upper body so that the client or the person can find a relief in the lower body. Does that make sense?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Antje:
Yes. I am looking at the entire body, also the ankles. One client had a dysfunctional ankle. I also do a gait analysis, and this dysfunctional ankle had an impact on their lower back or upper shoulders that…
Dr. Pompa:
Let me tell you something. Two things that you had me do in my thing is you assessed that my ankles were part of the problem, right? I’m thinking, all right, I don’t know, maybe. I don’t know. You had me lay on the ground, and you’d twirl my feet. I was ready to show it here, but I can’t. You could show it better than I. Anyways, it was so hard. It was so on my right side worse than my left. My right side, I could barely go in rotations.
I would get to 20, and I would be in tears. You should see me do it now. I’m really good at it now, but it stabilized a lot of my balance point I didn’t realize was out of balance, especially on the right more than the left, which was causing imbalance. You had me do it. That made a dramatic difference. Also, my calves, my Achilles tendons were super tight, so a lot of the stretches were actually stretching that out, which had a dramatic release to my lower back too. Show what I was just talking about because I was in tears. I couldn’t believe how hard it was.
Antje:
Yes, exactly. As we know now, you were not in the gravity center because you’re leaning forward, but you also have a balance problem or had a balance problem in your body. There was maybe because of one hip elevation more weight on one leg than the other, and that means it also changed the ankle function and the flexibility. You mean the full circles here? Yeah. There are pretty tough, if I may show it?
Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm.
Antje:
You stretch out one leg. This is also a very good test. One leg is stretched out, and you flex the ankle. The other leg is—keep the knee still. You don’t want that. It is shaking. You roll your ankle 40 times in one direction, and then 40 the other direction, and then 40 forward and back. Most of the people I work with, they have dysfunctional ankles, and that has such a huge impact to the entire body.
Dr. Pompa:
I know people are laughing at me right now because I said how hard that was. I know people just watched you do, and they’re like what? Okay. I mean by the time I got up to the second exercise and by the time I got to 30, then when you did the forward-back one, I mean, I couldn’t even finish. I was in that much pain. Now I’ve gotten better, but it’s made a dramatic stabilization, just like you said, in my balance and everything. My right side was horrible. It’s harder than you think, folks.
Now, here’s the thing. Just by doing these now—now, Meredith can give testimony to this. We interviewed a gentleman on, and he was talking about the benefit of the squat, right? I’m like I can’t squat even for two minutes. I fall backwards, right? I was already working on the squat, and then when I started doing this, it was like—I mean, I’m telling you. It was like the—I can squat now. I can literally squat, and hold a squat without falling backwards or laying completely forward. What does that mean? It means that I’m opening up my hips, my knees, and I’m more flexible. Ultimately, for me, it took tension out of my lower back.
Meredith, you probably have questions. You’re on outside looking in. She’s done this for Merily and I. You probably have a lot of questions that somebody else watching this would.
Meredith:
Right, yeah. Thank you so much, Antje. It’s very, very interesting to learn this technique. I’d love a little bit more clarification too. How is this different than a lot of other postural therapies out there? For example, years ago I did Feldenkrais, which has to do with fixing your posture and alignment of your system to help it function better. How is it different than some other therapies, and also, do you use it in conjunction with some other postural alignment therapies like chiropractic, for example.
Antje:
Yes. I would say all postural alignment therapies have probably the same approach. That means you want to help people to feel better and to be without pain or live a pain-free life. The Egoscue Method is still very unique as it, first of all, as I said, looks at every body or each body as a unit. We observe each person in a different way, and make a decision what kind of exercises this person gets. For example, very often in other postural alignment techniques, like also Alexander Techniques and others, people get the same exercises for the same problem. Egoscue, people who want to learn about Egoscue will find out we are not doing that. They get a total different exercise menu than another person with the same problem. That is one thing.
There are also the—there are exercises that I have not seen before in my life such as when we do exercise standing against the wall. Pete Egoscue created a very unique exercise form with different combinations and techniques. Also, Pilates, there are some Pilates exercises that are similar, some yoga exercise. It’s a combination almost of everything.
Meredith:
I love the customization too. The plan for the athlete would look a lot different than a senior citizen and versus even a child, right? It’s all good for all ages?
Antje:
Yes. Yes. I have been working with children and especially teenagers. In our today’s time and all the cellphones and computers, say they’re all hunched over, and their head is forward. It’s really sad to see this, and they can succeed very quickly. They very often only need one exercise menu that exists of, let’s say, five to ten exercises that the kid has to do on a daily basis, and they change very, very quickly. It’s to recommend to do this when parents see their kids are already hunched over. Later, they will have the problems and will suffer at some point from pain.
Meredith:
Would those be some of the more common things you’re seeing with the hunched over, and I would imagine the neck, like the cellphone neck?
Antje:
Yeah. Yeah.
Meredith:
What are some other things that you see that are pretty common posture alignment issues?
Antje:
Peter Egoscue, he wrote different books, and we’ll show them a little bit later. He actually has been analyzing types of posture types. I see very often women have a—and I will bring it up here again. Have a rotation, let’s say a counter rotation here, a rotation here, and then let’s say a hip in this direction. Peter Egoscue wrote a book about it and analyzes people. These are skeptical people who have a lot of rotations.
It very often might—really, almost 60 or 70% of the people I see have rounded shoulders. Their hands are here. They aren’t supposed to be here. They are supposed to be here so that—if you go to airports, watch that. The backs of the hands are usually always in the front. No. They are supposed to be here casually without any military posture, but they have to be here. What happens when we have this correct posture, when we grab things and reach out, we do it very differently than if we do it in this posture, for example.
What I also see a lot is leg, and knee, and ankle, faulty ankle positions, for example, and then people, like valgus knees, or people have knock-knees, pronated ankles, and that has such an impact on the hips. Let’s say bowlegs. They are walking on the outside of their feet, and then they wonder why they have hip problems. Then, at some point, they have hip problems, and then they a hip surgery. The original root cause might have been the legs because they were faulty. I have a lot of clients with—they had already signed in for a hip surgery. Also, people who are 70-plus and they didn’t have any surgery. I have to say it’s work though. They have to work for it.
Dr. Pompa:
I remember -inaudible-. I hear my echo. She was maybe 70’s or 80’s, and she was thinking you couldn’t help her much, right? She was doing the old person posture, and now, she was like this but more vibrant, more energy. You tell me all the things that changed so for any age, obviously.
Antje:
Right, exactly. It’s not only head, upper—many people think of posture as only rounded shoulders. There’s posture, as I said, hip, the pelvic tilts, and all of the right chins, knee and ankle positions. Head, also, people with migraine, they have, let’s say, a tilted head, and they don’t know why. They have habits. For example, if some—very often, also, people who cross their legs, sit on a sofa, always the same leg, they have, at some point, dysfunction in their hip. Of course, if you are really sitting in a sofa and you don’t sit upright, that has an impact too. There are so many, many habits that can cause different rotations from side-to-side and front-to-back.
Dr. Pompa:
One of the things I think we’re seeing an epidemic of is anterior head position. I know when I was doing structural work, it was so prevalent. If you look around, especially the younger generation, their heads are here, the hours on the phone, hours at computers, and every inch your head moves to the center of gravity, it doubles its weight to your muscle, right? If you took a bowling ball and held it here, you could do it. Our head’s about eight to ten pounds, and we could hold it here. Every inch you move forward, it gets heavier and heavier, relative, right, because you aren’t moving to the center of gravity. Your head’s doing it.
Not to mention it stretches your spinal cord. It’s called tethering, which affects every aspect of your health, including your digestion. I know that that’s a big deal. We train -inaudible-.
Antje:
Right. Sorry. Yes. There’s another thing that I see because I work in the fitness center here as well as a freelancer in Charlottesville. I see people working out. Let’s say lifting weights, and then they have a deviation. Let’s say a shoulder is elevated or rotated. Can you imagine what it does to the muscles? They lift weights, and they are out of alignment.
Athletic people, they create such an imbalance in their body. When I see that, very often I look away because I see how people workout, and it’s not healthy. It’s dysfunctional workout.
Dr. Pompa:
-inaudible- when I see people jogging. It’s typically women, for whatever. Okay. They have their feet falling in. Their knees are valgus. It’s like their posture’s—and they’re running. I just want to go up and say stop, stop. It’s like I know you think this is healthy, but you’re destroying your knees, your ankles, your spine. It’s like I just want to say stop.
I don’t know why. Like I said, it’s more women than men. Again, you probably have the answer to that more than I do. It’s an odd thing, but it drives me nuts. I point it out to my wife every time.
Antje:
No. You’re totally right, and I see this all the time. It hurts me when I see that because I already know I can’t have—I have made my forecast. Oh, my gosh, this person will get some knee problems, or hip problems, or even upper back problems because it is just faulty how they run. This is why I love functional movement. When people do their specific exercise programs that, as you said, are in a specific order, so one exercise builds up or prepares the body for the next exercise, and that’s one point that I love about the Egoscue Method. Then I also do a functional training after that.
Then, finally, people can walk. Start walking correctly with a correct posture. I believe in walking so walking, running, as long as it is healthy. Most of the runners, as you said, or walkers even, they are walking forward or leaning to the back. They have valgus knees or bowlegs, and this has an impact.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. They’re heading for trouble. You mentioned in the beginning that this is incredible for people with Parkinson’s and neurodegenerative diseases. What kind of results are you seeing there, and why is it so good for that?
Antje:
The Egoscue Method?
Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Antje:
Yeah. It is good. I also work with the Smovey’s. I have been working with people with Parkinson’s and the Smovey, the rings that are discovered in Austria. People with Parkinson’s very often have the tendency to lean forward because their nervous system doesn’t work right anymore. I have been working with one of my clients for years, so whenever I come to him, he’s really—he can’t get himself up anymore. Parkinson’s, as you know, it’s a neurological disorder, but it also has an impact on all muscles in the body.
After that, they find relief, and they can walk a little bit more upright. Unfortunately, after, let’s say, a few days, they go back down, but in general, I prevent the body from getting worse and not staying here all the time so the digestive system, also the breathing, very, very big factor that the breathing is getting better. We also have a lot of exercises where people just lean against the wall and go from side-to-side. Just doing this is, for many people, very, very difficult to handle because their bodies are so much out of alignment. I also work with people with Parkinson’s, also with the Smovey rings, because they also have an impact on the brain that has nothing to do Egoscue Method.
Dr. Pompa:
The moment you showed me those, I said I want those things. You two have exercises that all of us can benefit from regardless…
Antje:
The Egoscue exercises you mean?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Two exercises that you were going to show, that being one of them, the rings and stuff. Go ahead and show the rings, and show these things, these two exercises that we all can benefit from.
Antje:
Yes. I can show you two exercises. Egoscue exercises first if you want on the floor. Is that okay, without the rings?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Antje:
As I said, find a chair. Bring your legs up on this block. These are two of my favorite exercises. Now find a cushion, or let’s say a ball, like for children, something like that, something that has some resistance. Now, squeeze, squeeze the object slowly. This is a block, but you can also use a paper towel roll if you don’t have anything else, but it should not be too soft. You squeeze your knees, and let go. Squeeze. Let go.
This is very nurturing for your lower body and your back, so we are engaging the back muscles and the inner thigh muscles while the body and the pelvis is in alignment. That is a big difference. If I would do it in a standing position, it would be different. My pelvis is in alignment while I activate my abductor so my inner thigh muscles and my back muscles. Another very effective exercise for people who have a tendency to rounded shoulders is interlacing our hands.
Dr. Pompa:
My wife does this one because she has rounded shoulders.
Antje:
Yes. You keep your elbows straight. You don’t have to go—like in yoga, you don’t have to go the floor. You just move forward and back, and bring…
Dr. Pompa:
She’s doing your exercise.
Antje:
This is, yeah, one of my favorite exercise. It stretches the entire upper back while your pelvis is in alignment. That is the position. Your lower back cannot compensate or do something else, so this is a great exercise.
Dr. Pompa:
My wife just showed up. When she was doing this, I’m like, oh, my gosh, it’s—I did it. I was helping her. I’m like it’s so easy. She couldn’t even do it. She was in pain. She was like, oh, my gosh, it’s so hard. Again, it’s because it was specific for her. You knew -inaudible- her posture.
Merily:
Yeah. I just got back from doing my exercises, actually. Every day, I’m there five or six days a week. It takes a good hour.
Antje:
I know. I know.
Merily:
Every single day.
Antje:
Yes. I know. It is a lot of work. The good thing is, Merily, at some point, you will have a maintenance menu, exercise menu, and that will be shorter. It will just keep your body in alignment, so you don’t have to do this for the rest of your life to invest much time.
Merily:
Good.
Antje:
Yeah. We also want or my goal is also to help you to feel a difference, right? I mean, if you—people come to me and say I have ten minutes every day. Then I’ll say okay. We can do it, but I don’t know. It will take some time until your body changes. It is good to invest, at least, let’s say half an hour, 20 minutes to a half an hour. If you want to succeed or if people want to succeed more quickly, they should do a few more exercises.
Merily:
Yeah. I have to -inaudible- because of all that. I have that brachial neuralgia. Actually, today, I did this one for a minute.
Antje:
Great.
Merily:
After a minute here, a minute here, and a minute here, I’m blown out. Honestly, my shoulders are really bothering me today overall, so I just did this one. I just opted out of the other two, which I’d never done before, but again, my shoulders are just so sore that I’m trying to figure out ways to not exacerbate what I’m already dealing with.
Antje:
Right. Right. You can always adjust it. You mean the standing wall clock, or the kneeling wall clock.
Merily:
That’s right. That’s exactly that one. Yeah.
Antje:
Yeah. It’s a -inaudible- exercise. You can also adjust it timewise, and not do any -inaudible-.
Merily:
Sure. I’m so intense.
Dr. Pompa:
Hey, look at these. You got to show her the rings. She’s sending some.
Antje:
Yeah, like this, this, and this.
Merily:
Yeah. The ten and two and the three I opted out of. I have a question. On the shoulder rolls, right?
Antje:
Yes.
Merily:
Are the shoulders just slightly in front? I should probably take this off.
Antje:
Yeah. You roll your shoulders, and here’s the point, really up. Yeah, very good, Meredith. Up to the back and down. Most of the joints are really…
Merily:
Oh, so pretty exaggerated?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, up. Yeah.
Merily:
Daniel was trying to get me to stay in smaller…
Antje:
No. You really want to go a big, big circle, and the same thing when you go to the front. It’s not just up and down. It’s like a circle, up and also down.
Merily:
I hear so much clicking and clacking in there.
Antje:
I know.
Merily:
I don’t know what happened to me.
Dr. Pompa:
You know what? A lot of these things, they look so simple, but when they’re for you specifically, it’s working little muscles in the nerve supply to those little muscles that are very weak and out of balance. That, for Merily, is very difficult, right?
Merily:
It is.
Dr. Pompa:
She has so many little muscles that just aren’t firing and working, and they’re out of balance.
Merily:
Oh, yeah. Honestly, I mean, it’s—believe it or not…
Dr. Pompa:
She’s so strong. It’s these little stabilizers that are so weak, and that’s part of the problem. It’s part of the problem.
Merily:
That’s what happened, right. When I was working out with my son, I mean, he did so good by me until I actually had this muscle and didn’t have the stabilizers and the pressure and the strain of the ligaments to support it. Of course, being perimenopausal didn’t help matters either. Now I’m in a whole—it’s just interesting.
Dr. Pompa:
She’s rebelling.
Merily:
I have this evolution of learning that I’m doing even in my physical body. It’s always something, right?
Antje:
Yes. That’s true. As you mentioned, the Egoscue Method, we also work with primary muscle groups but also with we call lazy muscle groups. Lazy muscle groups are also between the shoulder blades, along the spine because of our posture that we are in many times or often. We are waking up these lazy muscle groups that don’t work anymore, and usually, -inaudible-.
Merily:
I’ve been doing it, what, three weeks now? I mean, honestly, I’ve been there…
Dr. Pompa:
Three weeks already?
Merily:
I would say. Yeah. I think you sent me my first one maybe May 24, I think. That’s the one I—oh, I actually have to talk to you soon, and figure out how to load that app because I have not yet done that.
Dr. Pompa:
She’s going to hijack the show. All right, listen, all right, here’s the deal though. I want you to show those rings. You should see these rings.
Antje:
Okay.
Dr. Pompa:
By the way, before I forget, make sure if people want you to help them, you can do it via Skype like you did Merily. I was with you in person, but how they can get your services, and I know they can get those rings. I want those rings.
Antje:
Yes. Thank you so much for pointing that out. Yes. My office is located in Dr. Zachary Bush Wave Clinic. I’m here in Virginia, and if people don’t live in Virginia, they can visit me and make an appointment of course.
Dr. Pompa:
I had dinner with Zach Bush last night, Dr. Bush.
Antje:
Oh, nice, wonderful, great. That’s great. Yeah. I love the clinic, and I love being part of it. I mean, I’m very grateful. Yeah. If people want to have a session with me, I also do online sessions like I did with you, Merily.
People send me photos. They will get some instructions, how they have to take the photos. I will review them, and then I will meet up with them via Skype, or Google Hangout, or other internet possibilities. Then I can see people. I can see and assess their posture via Skype very, very well, and then I will design a personalized exercise program for their body and their pain and tension in their body.
Dr. Pompa:
How do they get -inaudible-.
Antje:
If you want to reach me, the best way is to my website. It is www, and then realigncville.com, so it’s R-E-A-L-I-G-N-C-V-I-L-L-E.com. If you enter a—there’s another website now that we have created, postureandmotion.com, but you have to enter it in the browser. Then you will get the realigncville site as well. There is a specific discount for your viewers and listeners. We are offering 15% discount until July 15 for everyone who has contacted me within this time. That doesn’t mean that the session will happen within this time, but if you’re interested, we offer this for a 15% discount.
Dr. Pompa:
Meredith, make sure we put that email in some of the writings so that people can get that if they missed it.
Antje:
Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. That would be wonderful. Here’s my passion. I want to help you succeed. That is my personal approach. I really want to help you to succeed and to take responsibility for yourself. That is my passion.
It is so rewarding for me when I see people who are pain-free, and they can jump around. Even if you’re over 80, it’s something for every—or all ages. I have several examples where people succeeded beautifully with 85, 86, and they changed their entire posture, and feel much more healthy and more active than they felt maybe 15 or 20 years before. That is a wonderful thing.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Okay, the rings.
Antje:
We have the Smovey’s, right? The Smovey’s are rings, green rings, that are filled with four [Qigong] balls. When you swing, when I swing these rings, you can hear it. These balls are moving from side-to-side. In Austria, there was an athlete, a tennis player who engineered these rings. He was in a very progressed or advanced stage of Parkinson’s. He could not speak anymore. He could hardly walk, and he engineered these rings. Healed himself to a point that he still has some problems, but he can walk and workout, and he speaks again. This is his true story.
In Germany and Austria, these Smovey rings—I will spell it, S-M-O-V-E-Y rings, are very popular. They are not only working on the body, they are also working on your brain, on everybody’s brain and the lymphatic system. People with neurologic disorders, it’s very good for them to use it but, also, for everyone who wants to become fit and healthy and function again. First of all, as you can see, these rings when you swing them, they have only a pound. They weigh only a pound each. It’s a great range of motion for your upper body. When I see people walking, they don’t even swing their arms anymore from side-to-side.
We open up the chest. I love this movement. What happens while I swing the Smovey, the Smovey’s have a grip, and they create a vibration in my hands while I’m swinging them. They create a 60 hertz frequency in the body, and that is the same frequency that an embryo in a womb of a pregnant woman has. It creates a stimulus in our brain, and it also works on our meridians while we work out. We work on our lymphatic system, the meridians, and create chi flow while we work with these rings.
They’re not heavy on purpose because we can create more weight if you go higher, for example, if we have more emphasis in the movement. The wonderful thing is, in Germany, the fitness industry looks at them, and they found out, oh, wow. This is great. We can also do fitness with them, and do some lunges or some squats, and work on the entire body while we swing the rings. There are also floor exercises, and you can also walk with them. Another wonderful thing is I, personally, have increased my balance. I mean, I never had bad balance. For some people, you can also do some exercises to create more balance in the body, or here, let’s talk about squats. You swing your arms, so the arm motion is you’re moving your upper body while you move the lower body.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s the frequency that ultimately is why it works with the nerve system and the lymphatic flow, right, correct?
Antje:
Yeah. Correct. We have exercises for the lymphatic system. For example, underneath the arms there, they’re a lot cooler here. You can rotate them underneath your arm. It feels really good. For me, personally, I use them when I can’t sleep. I get up at night. Sometimes I have too much on my mind. I use them, and I can fall asleep immediately.
Merily:
Wow. How do you spell that?
Antje:
It’s not a smoothie. It’s a Smovey. It’s S-M-0-V-E-Y. If you want to go—I have on my site some information, but if you want to go and get more information, it’s smoveynorthamerica.com. They are located in Los Angeles and in California. It’s booming. Really, I mean, people buy them, and feel the benefits for their entire body. You’re working out and do something for your nervous system. People become very calm when they use them.
Merily:
-inaudible-.
Antje:
Yeah. They’re also great for people in a sitting position, so they can also do exercises while they’re sitting. It’s not a problem. Sorry. They can even use their legs. They can get a great workout too.
I, personally, have been starting to run with the Smovey’s. Really, my range of motion, my shoulders is so different now. This is my motion after I help people to get in alignment. They learn how to walk correctly again with their ankles, with their entire body, and they create motion in their body with the Smovey rings.
Dr. Pompa:
They can get them on your website too?
Antje:
Yes. They can get them on my website as well, and I also have a special offer for the viewers and listeners until July 30. It’s $168. They are not cheap, but you will not get them cheaper anywhere else. Amazon, it’s handled like a stock market. Now you can get them almost for $200. It’s really expensive because this is such a small company in Austria, and they work with handicapped people. It’s an Austrian good quality product and 168, and there is no shipping cost until July 30.
Merily:
Send them to me. Just send them to me.
Dr. Pompa:
We want them. Yeah. I want to use them. I mean, for the detox, it’s fantastic and also postural correction. Frequency and vibration, that’s actually how we use to correct posture. We use certain frequencies to make those postural corrections, so I get that, for sure.
Guys, the time went so fast. I have to turn it over. I have another appointment, so Meredith, I’m going to turn it back over to you. Antje, thank you so much. I mean, what great information. I know it’s going to be a great show, and I know you’re going to have a ton of response from people who want you to help them like you helped us. Thank you for both.
Antje:
Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me. It was really a pleasure. Yes. If people want to email me, that’s all on my website. They will see the information. They just have to fill out the form. Thank you for inviting me, and I will send you the rings. I promise.
Dr. Pompa:
Oh, man, awesome.
Antje:
Thank you so much. Have a great afternoon.
Meredith:
You too. Thank you so much. Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. I’m excited to try some of these exercises myself. Take care, everybody. Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next time. Bye-bye.
