With spring time blooming before our eyes, it's time to get our wheels into gear. Perhaps you want to get started on tending to a new garden, give your home a thorough spring cleaning, have more play time with your kids, or get out and hike. It can be challenging to complete all these daily needs if our wheels aren't moving with fluidity and the gears aren't in proper functioning order.
How are My Wheels Spinning?

So how are all these wheels and gear metaphors supposed to help you in the first place? A swiss neurologist named Alois Brugger (1920-2001) created one of the first 'get your wheels in motion' theories. Through his concept of the Brugger's Cogwheel, he was able to identify how different parts of the spine are interdependent on one another, much like wheels and gears on a bike. If one wheel isn't working properly then the rest of the system won't function smoothly. It could result in more effort to get up those steep hills of a busy life. Brugger related this with posture in saying that poor posture is not caused by how well you can hold a stoic posture with your shoulders back, chest high, and neck straight. Rather, poor posture is caused by a dysregulation of central motor function, our nervous system.
What Happens When a Wheel Gets Stuck
I'd like to think of the nervous system as the gears that control the movement of the wheels. Minute changes in the different segments, or wheels, of the spine create what 'posture' means to us. That's why everyone's posture is unique and individualized.

Connecting With Your Wheels
Here is a simple movement exercise you can do to connect with the wheels of your spine.
1. Sit at the edge of a chair, feet flat on the floor.
2. Begin to draw your pubic bone forward and down to allow the pelvis to tilt forward. Allow the movement to start at the base of the spine and initiate the cogwheel interplay of lower spine, middle spine & neck.
3. While continuing the motion notice how the movement flows through the torso and mid back...the neck & head. Utilize Brugger's cogwheel image. If you can't imagine the cogwheels, stop, imagine the reverse cogwheel action & then reverse it again.
4. Continue rolling the pelvis forward & backward (tucking tail/lifting pubic bone<>pubic bone down/forward & tailbone lifting) and clarifying the cogwheel effect.
5) For extra credit, see what this same movement feels like with incorporating the pelvic floor in each direction.
Repeat 5-10 times in a pain free range of movement.
The Brugger's Cogwheel is just one way of connecting to the available movement that your body has to offer. At Wholeness in Motion, we can work with you on helping to master these movements and how they are unique for you.
Written by: Susan Trancik, PTA
References:
1)http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=18210 (retrieved on 3/17/14)
3) http://victoriatheraputicmassage.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/8ff6a.jpg (retrived on 3/24/14)
4)https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht5KCSs7JMAoGy77dbgnIuh0gmHnNlbkvemcjXRLch-9NsANcjwQQT8Z2Vml_G-v7CN-EFzSlKi5iBc_DT3e-XHAsqHLCU6-yFjRK0ZWAlVGd8qAB-SAvI2q0lTGYl9ZXPJa8zAsK5jdU/s1600/brugger%20cog%20wheel%203.jpg
(retrieved on 3/24/14)