What is Anatomy in Motion?

An innovative treatment approach to pain and injury that is leading the way in the future of manual medicine available with Leon Baugh at Shine on the Green.

AiM provides a totally unique way of looking at the relationship between pain and the way your body moves. The AiM system was developed by Gary Ward; an expert in human movement and anatomy. He is the author of “What the Foot?” and was featured on the BBC’s Dr in the House, for helping a man rid himself of pain he had been carrying for more than 20 years.

Gary’s philosophy, as with many other manual therapies, is that the body has the ability to fix itself. Unfortunately for the most part patients are rarely told how.
Within the AiM system therapists don’t try and ‘fix’ you, instead they fully assess where your body has become stuck and what is stopping you reach your full movement potential. From there they simply point you in the right direction and coach you and your body in how to do the rest. Through movement based therapy you will learn how to get yourself away from pain.

AiM taps into the way you move, your posture and the pain you might be experiencing.  For AiM practitioners these elements are usually linked.  Throughout your life your body makes adaptations for all kinds of reasons such as injury, working posture, the bag you carry, having children and many more.  Often these compensations arise from a threat response.  If something is causing your body pain or discomfort your body will subconsciously do everything it can to avoid it.  This includes changing the way you move.  Doing these new movements everyday quickly becomes a habit.  And over time habits become your new ‘perceived normal’. However, although this new habit might be avoiding one threat, it could in turn create other vulnerable areas more susceptible to injury and fatigue.

 

A large part of your adaptation will be in your feet.

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These two things on the end of your legs are the first and usually only point of contact with the ground, the things that all of your weight is supported by everyday. To avoid pain you usually have to change the way you carry your body and this almost always effects how your feet function. Creating the habits in your feet mean that you will move in an altered way until you either consciously change the habit or it changes because of yet another adaptation. By teaching the feet how to take care of your mass properly we can set up how the rest of your body works on top of them.

 

Pain is often just an overworking structure trying to get your attention. You might want to be treated where it hurts but most of the time you are just chasing the pain. AiM is interested in searching for the original cause.

 

Ultimately the AiM system is always attempting to bring your body back to a neutral balanced place. When the body is balanced discomfort usually starts to fade away. We do this by re-educating your body to move freely again using the full range of movements available to you without fear of pain.

Assessments are done by taking a full case history where I want to know about all of your past injuries even if they seem irrelevant – don’t forget each injury has compromised you in some way!

Then I use the latest digital and analogue foot analysis techniques (the AmCube Footwork pressure plate) to assess how you are standing, what your feet are doing when you stand and walk and whether you carry your mass centrally or not.

I will then watch how you walk in order to assess your gait and to understand what your body does to move you through space. After this we will use other biomechanical and structural techniques to assess more localised individual structures.

Treatment will largely consist of learning movement patterns that re-teach your body how to move fluidly and without compromise when walking. You should expect to work in the session to achieve best results. All movement patterns are supported by video links so that they can be recapped from home, without having to remember every last detail by yourself.

If deemed necessary the movement patterns will be accompanied by manual techniques such as massage and articulation of joints, although this is not always necessary.

For information on who AiM is for and how the treatments work click > AiM

Leon Baugh  –  Osteopath & Sports Massage Practitioner

Leon is one of a handful of therapists world wide who have trained with Gary Ward on the ground breaking AiM system. He is osteopath to some of the worlds leading dancers and uses his years of professional dancing and choreography experience to feed into the AiM system. He is highly regarded in the theatre world for his observational movement direction and therapy skills, winning a prestigious Olivier Award for choreography in 2011.