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The First Step of 1000 miles


The unique properties of Original SANDDUNE™ provide a cushioning, conforming platform ideal for use in the early segments of a rehabilitation plan. Its surface gently forces the foot’s muscles, tendons and ligaments to stretch as your weight shifts from one foot to the other. Simultaneously your whole body is adjusting to gain its Center of Gravity (COG).

"Toes Down" Stretch

“Toes Down” Stretch

"Toes Up" Stretch

“Toes Up” Stretch

Few balance devices allow the whole foot to sink down into their surface  while offering the benefit of allowing your toes to stretch and work individually.  Original  SANDDUNE’s material and construction allow for these “Toe Cross Fit Workouts.”

Relearning to press each toe, individually, into the floor and then into the SANDDUNE™, is a job many pairs of feet have not done since they were running around barefoot as kids. Try it right now and see how challenging it is! Don’t look down at your feet while you try! Among the select few who  use their whole foot besides kids and a select group of athletes are:

  • Gymnasts
  • Dancers
  • Runners in ” nature’s socks” like Abebe Bikila or Zola Budd
  • Yoga devotees to name a few (sans yoga socks!).
Peeling The Heel

Peeling The Heel

“Peeling the Heel” is an exercise that promotes greater flexion in the ankle arch, and allows the Achilles to tendon to stretch and strengthen slowly. This means greater ankle strength, and can increase the leg stride. You are now “firing the glutes” and learning to walk from the hip. And getting gentle trigger point therapy for the foot at the same time.

Lao Tzu said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.  Help your toes begin your journey today with Original SANDDUNE! Give them theBoost of Balanceas your Holiday Season begins!

Sharing a Post – Weighted Medicine Balls are back!


https://www.yahoo.com/health/medicine-balls-are-ancient-fitness-tools-that-keep-99321740852.html

Challenge your Balance, Build Flexibility and Stamina

with Cardio Pumping “Weighted” Workouts

on Original SANDDUNE™! 

Gary Ball Toss

Weighted Medicine Ball Workout on Original SANDDUNE

SD Weighted Belt WkOut

Weighted Belt Workout on Original SANDDUNE

Get Low to Stay Low Workout


Gary_FF Prt1

Demo and Brief Description of Low Assault Workout

As professionals whose livelihood weighs heavily on their ability to get into and out of buildings that are burning and collapsing, firefighters know that their job demands superior upper body strength and balance coupled with that same demand for their lower extremity strength and mobility. Their job requires them to work in a crouch position staying low to the ground so their profile is not in the midst of blinding, choking smoke. With job descriptions that include:

  • Guiding and carrying people out of burning cars or collapsing buildings
  • Tearing down walls to create escape routes
  • Dragging 50 lb hoses

This equates to lower body strength being paramount. Fast reaction time, speed and strength are key.   In the athletic world:

  • defensive and offensive  linemen in football
  • sprinters coming out of the blocks
  • jockeys
  • ballet dancers
  • martial artists
  • skiers
  • soccer players

are some examples of the athletes whose lower body strength, reaction time and speed are critical to their
Marine in gear performance.
This same premise can be applied to military troops who must carry 75 lbs and upwards on their backs during training and on the battle field. The Low Assault – Get Low to Stay Low workout will help build sustained, explosive muscle strength and fluid lower body power.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!


AS THE NEW YEAR DAWNS

THE ORIGINAL SANDDUNE™ WISHES YOU A 

BALANCED, HAPPY, HEALTHY & PROSPEROUS

NEW YEAR IN 2014!

New Day Dawn 2011_2014-sigSAL

COG – Center of Gravity


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When you begin to learn about the Center of Gravity or COG whether you are standing or sitting, you will learn how many small movements contribute to your COG and how they awaken the spine and your feet as the foundations for your COG.

You learn:

  • how to sit properly on your sit bones vs. slouching and how this affects your posture both sitting and standing. If you slouch when you sit, you will most likely slouch when you stand. This Proprioception trainingmeans learning to keep the belly button pulled in, shoulders square, a long spine and open chest (no slouched shoulders or shuffling when walking).
  • the importance of eye and head movement to sound balance. Most people do not “think” about how eye and head movement affect the body’s everyday functioning. This is especially critical as we age.
  • the relevance of sensing your ankle, arch, heel pad, the ball of your foot, and be able to differentiate and move the five toes, which many people never think of doing.

Because the feet are the Foundation for the COG, weight shifting – both standing and dynamic (walking, running, cross training, etc), and learning to work your First Contact - Jackheels and toes together are paramount to healthy gait and balance. This applies whether one is aging, recovering from an injury/surgery or extended time off of the feet due to illness.

Understanding this leads to the comprehension of how these individual systems tie into “proprioception” or knowing where your body is in space. The sensors engaged by this proprioception are in each joint, the bottoms Front Angle Golf Shot 2of the footpads, the visual and vestibular (inner ear) system as well as touch. For example, proprioception not only helps with daily direction-finding, but also is essential to becoming a beautifully expressive dancer or gymnast, successful professional golfer, or runner.

Together these sensors help to provide information about the environment that we see daily and that the muscles are engaging in judging the height of One leg stand, hands in 2nd - 8 yr olda step, the distance to the rail or ball, the depth of the curb, or the placement of the foot as a turn or a yoga stance is executed.

Learning to stretch and strengthen these muscles, their respective systems and their correlating movements on the non-compliant surface of an Original SANDDUNE™ makes it easier to do on solid ground. Why is it easier? You are not trying to balance your body on the ground as you do on the mirror resisting exercise produced by the Original SANDDUNE™.  Referenced from Miriam Tate’s findings and class development.

HCG 2013 resz

Happy Thanksgiving


The staff of the

Original SANDDUNE™

wish you a

plentiful and joy filled

Thanksgiving Day. 

Prosperity and Thankfullness

“The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception to such an extent that it changes the world you see.”


— Dr. Robert Holden

Foot Pain or Metatarsalgia


SchemaMetatarsalgia

Metatarsalgia is a common overuse injury described as pain in the forefoot

The Original SANDDUNE™ can be utilized in a rehabilitation regimen for the the plantar neuroma known as metatarsalgia, a common problem for many runners and dancers, which is characterized by pain and/or numbness in the forefoot.

People coping with this ailment have symptoms that are varied among individuals. Some people experience shooting pain affecting toes that are side by side (2nd & 3rd or 3rd & 4th toes).

Others describe a feeling similar to having a pebble in their shoe or walking on pins & needles, a prickly/tingly feeling known as paresthesia or PVD/PAD as doctors refer to it. Burning and numbness may also be another symptom experienced.

This ailment can also be the result of a poor diet, a vitamin deficiency, the metabolic disorder diabetes or inflammation like rheumatoid arthritis.

The comforting properties of the Original SANDDUNE™ provides a cushioning and malleable platform, rendering it an effective instrument to utilize in the early segments of a rehabilitation plan.

*United States Armed Forces Original SANDDUNE™ Offer*


  • ~  From Memorial Day, May 27, 2013 thru Labor Day Weekend 2013  ~

 Original SANDDUNE™ is 

30% off the regular price of $279.00 to US Veterans.

Freedom is the sure possession...

 

GA - Military Buddies

Sports-Neuromuscular Stimulation & Mirror Resistance


Neuromuscular stimulation provides your strength, coordination, reflexes, and balance. If this system is lacking you will not have these capabilities in daily living or athletics.  
The neuromuscular stimulation and feedback loops are highly responsive to high frequency contractions which occurs during the rapid compression movements performed during cardio burst workouts. These feedback loops are referred to as Mirror Resistance.
 
Squat Run beginning position. You may want to try dropping closer to heels to increase the muscle activity. As you run in and out of the squat, try touching the foot pads when in full squat. Give yourself that extra challenge building your cardio and strength.

Squat Run beginning position. You may want to try dropping closer to your heels to increase the muscle activity. As you run or pad in and out of the squat, try touching the foot pads when in full squat. Give yourself that extra challenge building your cardio and strength.

 
The movements are characterized by rapid foot padding or alternating toe/heel compression while moving in and out of a “squat run” or crouching running position keeping the feet in contact with the foot pads of the SANDDUNE™ throughout the session .  
The SANDDUNE™’s properties feed your body’s effort  back into your body with the same force that you exert into the apparatus. It excels in improving endurance and proprioceptive functions of lateral movement, leg speed and balance because of its capability. These are crucial components of sports performance in multiple disciplines, the performing arts and fitness.
 
 
 
 

The SANDDUNE’s Goal


Our goal at the Original SANDDUNE™ is to provide orthopaedic and neurological patients of all ages from kids to grandparents, as well as dancers, golfers, and athletes from other sports, the benefit of working out on this challenging and effective apparatus. It will add a valuable new dimension to the goal of helping reestablish greater balance, coordination and strength to those coping with the fear of falling due to   injury, illness and recovering from surgery.

The distinctive properties of the SANDDUNE also lends itself to athletes striving to increase coordination,  greater flexibility in their joints, core strength, a more responsive musculature, and balance components critical to sound fitness and successful athletic performance.

Jack & Weights & Dune

Jack’s 5 minute testimony

One leg stand, hands in 2nd - 8 yr old

Mighty Dancer!

SD Squat

Cardio Burst Squat Run