Esther Gokhale talking about posture at TED
Esther Gokhale is the creator and founder of The Gokhale Method, an ecosystem of posture education, products, and community to help people recover a pain-free life. After experiencing crippling back pain during her first pregnancy and unsuccessful back surgery, Esther began her lifelong crusade to vanquish back pain. Her studies at the Aplomb Institute in Paris and years of research in non-industrial cultures led her to develop the Gokhale Method®. Her method has been featured in many publications including The New York Times where she was given the title, “The Posture Guru of Silicon Valley” and more recently, NPR.
We cover Esther’s view on:
- Optimising walking form
- Heel striking: its potential detriments and how to fix
- How to correct sleep posture
- How to alleviate kyphosis in the upper back
- And much more!
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Listen below:
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Interested in learning from one of the foremost experts on joint-congruent exercise, Bill DeSimone? – Listen here. In this episode, we discuss how to select joint-friendly and effective exercises, how to create an effective home workout routine, how to use push up handles correctly, and much more (stream below or right-click here to download):
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Scroll below for links and show notes…
Show Notes
Click the link below to listen from the exact time stamp on Overcast:
- Esther’s background [03:57]
- Esther’s view on optimising walking form [6:15]
- The potential issues with heel striking and how to fix [13:33]
- The surprisingly potential cause of muscle imbalances [18:15]
- The most ideal footwear [23:45]
- The problems with high heels [29:55]
- Esther’s principles for correct sleeping posture [31:35]
- Optimal sleeping positions [34:20]
- Do less industrialised cultures have lower rates of back pain compared to industrialised societies? [37:24]
- Esther’s view on strength training to fix posture and back pain [41:13]
- Esther’s view on healing kyphosis in the upper back [44:10]
- How to correct posture to correct neck pain [48:30]
- Esther’s personal exercise regime [50:07]
Selected Links from the Episode
- Find your primal posture and sit without back pain: Esther Gokhale at TEDxStanford
- Esther Gokhale, L.Ac.: Walk This Way
- Stretch sitting
- Stretch lying
- Class Locations (Gokhale Method)
- Vivo Barefoot
- Vans Classic Slip-On (Black/Black) Men’s Skate Shoes (Amazon US / Amazon UK)
- An evolutionary hypothesis to explain the role of deconditioning in low back pain prevalence in humans
- How to Use the Gokhale Roller
- Esther Gokhale: 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back (Amazon US / Amazon UK)
- Gokhale Method free newsletter
People Mentioned
- James Steele PhD (Listen to our podcasts here: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3)
QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What did you think? Please let me know in the comments.
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“Strong science background” “acupuncturist” facepalm. So really useful sounding stuff there amongst all the motivated reasoning though.