Power of the Cuboid Notch Reflexology Lecture

whoo thank you ladies and gentlemen here on the stage okay so let's talk a little bit about your window stuff so from a reflexology perspective especially when it comes to working with athletes runners people who have lower body pain sciatica anything that's going to be from that kind of pelvic space downward if you have a lot of clients like that this is a part of the footage that we need to know from a reflexology perspective and from an anatomical perspective if we know this landmark low enough we'll be able to notice whether or not you know the reflexes surrounding it as well as out of alignment but physically like is a bone not where it should be yeah that's helpful to know just from a Massage Therapy perspective but then also if we lay over the reflexes that we're going to talk about tonight on this route on this reflex space we'll be able to not only talk about the cuboid bone as a physical structure for posture but also talk about how we can assess things like whether or not some of these hamstrings are causing the sciatica versus their quad versus the actual knee is the actual knee compromised or is it just muscular push and pull and you know levers and screws and bolts and whatnot that's the gift of the keyboard not just assessing the entire muscular structure of the leg within one small section of the foot so it's a very quick palpite or a way for us to just Zone in on somebody with lower body dysfunction so let me introduce our helpers for this evening so we have Li gamut and metatarsal these are just if you don't have a set of feet to visually look at it's important for you to have like if you don't if you can't look at a screen and visualize it sometimes it's helpful to get like some of these cute little things from Amazon and just like have something that you can look and feel and touch but specifically what we're looking at we'll get to the the bones in a second we're looking at the lateral edge of the foot about halfway down at the proximal head of the fifth metatarsal that's where we're looking at from a physical bone perspective so if you wanted to trace your finger halfway down the foot you'll feel that that bone that actual protrusion and that's where the cuboid not just going to start down from an actual skeletal perspective this is what it looks like from a lateral view so about half way down we see that that literal like curve that's jutting out that occurs and that's the proximal head of the fifth metatarsal that were that were feeling now it's interesting about this bone is that it will be shaped differently on different clients some clients you won't notice it at all yeah and other clients will have it so protruded yeah and not tells us directly the state of the knee itself or kind of when we get into the reflexes but the bone that we're concerned with is just proximal to that yes proximal to that that bone and that is the cuboid bone so the cuboid bone is the lateral support bone for the lateral arch the arch can kind of be divided from a medial and lateral perspective into two postural channels the first channel is where our cuboid bone links are oh my gosh I'm totally messing this up calcaneus the other C bone so the root of the calcaneus then connects to the cuboid which then connects to our fourth and fifth metatarsals and that produces our lateral arch yeah the medial arch goes above and that's the that's the lifted part of the foot and that's where the talus connects with the navicular which connects with the cuneiforms which connects with the first through third metatarsals yeah so we're really talking about the root component of the lateral arch here yeah which for those of you who follow zone Theory know that's gonna be vertical zone four and five everything the lower back lower body yeah so cuboid not just right in the center of that and that tells us all about that four or five joint space and the state of that bone really gives us insight into whether or not this spot on the body isn't managed but the cuboid bone is despite being called a cube is not a cube at all bonus but the actual notch itself represents a triangle so if you wanted to continue with that puppet Ori exercise and just like fuel that ditch on the lateral side of the foot find that proximal head of the fifth metatarsal so we'll start right here and we'll call that the procs head of fifth metatarsal okay once we go there we then have an incline a decline and the plantar surface of the cuboid notch these three angles tell us the core musculature of the leg and then we have the proximal head of the fifth metatarsal which would then tell us about the knee we have the apex of the triangle which would tell us about the sciatic nerve root and I find that this is more backup than II stuff but we'll go over all of that in a second so we have this bone and this bone that's shaped like a cube then produces a triangular structure called the cuboid not the cuboid notes goes from the proximal head of the fifth metatarsal up to that actual cuboid bone down right by that calcaneal surface and then across the bottom forms this a squishy pad of the lateral arch and that's the direct surface that we're looking at make sense so when we have the proximal head of the fifth metatarsal this represents the knee so the knee joint can be felt by that proximal head of the fifth metatarsal and when we look at somebody who has true knee dysfunction this area will be red it will be swollen it will be overly pronounced and it will be painful to the touch yeah none of those symptoms that we would normally associate with tissues that are inflamed and compromised then the knee is fine I can't tell you how many clients come in and they write knee pain on their health history form but I see nothing in the knee reflex it's all the adjoining structures pulling on the joint the joint is fine yeah just because the pain is in the joint doesn't mean that the joint is broken but it's the surrounding structures which like like a marionette pull on the various joints and caused them to go out of alignment yeah but if the knee is actually compromised that's where you're gonna feel it and find it soon when you say overly pronounced you mean like inflamed offbeat yeah that type of you'll feel it you'll see it it'll just be more exaggerated than it should be the body will have wrapped it and protective tissue it'll normally be hot to the touch there might even be fluid or swelling around that space just there will be multiple markers that have coagulated at that spot too like red flag you down and say hello there's a problem here please stop at a drug spain okay so once we have our starting point of the knee at the proximal head of the fifth metatarsal we're gonna start by going at the a sending route and the a sending route represents the quads so how I found this out is a very interesting story because here in Tampa we have this little thing called Gasparilla and there's the Gasparilla training that you go to in order to compete in the run in the races and in all of the the events and so around December timeframe which is like the worst time to start training for a run because it's early February or late February I get this influx of clients that has all the nice stuff all the leg stuff all the sciatica stuff because they trained and they've never trained in their life and now they're broken because they've exposed all of that dysfunction but which muscle group tightened first and where the actual problem is I started to notice that people who had very intense quad pulling people who had literally like gotten all of that very strong muscular hyperactive very powerful front but the leg to start to spasm to start to lock down to get overly tight which then hold on the knee which then pulled on the hip because that's where they attach yeah but it was all of that frontal cuboid notch attention and it was literally like a guitar string that you could pluck it was so interesting that entire frontal bands that a sending band at the cuboid notch would get swollen hot physically it would be too tight to sink into the body would have formed massive amounts of guarding and protective tissue onto it and that's how I started to get really good at identifying quad pain a couple you know stretches where somebody pulls their foot behind and just lets that entire frontal band stretch and they were perfectly fine no cortisone shots no arch supports no fancy running shoes just stretch but don't just stretch the leg stretch the front of the leg because what happens if somebody has quad pain but they're told to do this yeah it stretches the back it stretches the hamstring and it contracts the quads which are already too contracted so that's that's angle number one yeah so we go from the knee to the quad the quad then leads us to the apex of the triangle and the apex of the triangle is the sciatic nerve root so the sciatic nerve up top this was a really interesting one because I had several clients come in with sciatica at the same time none related to running type stuff they weren't very athletic they just flared up with sciatica and what I found was at this exact apex it was sensitive to the touch it was swollen it was hot and this spot up at the apex of that cuboid knotch represented their sciatic root pain so it wasn't necessarily in the joints it wasn't in the muscular structure it was literally the nerve was lit up and of course they had corresponding low back reflux stuff and they had multiple stress points and they had just other stuff going on but it wasn't necessarily muscular or joint related it was literally in the nerve which we needed to calm down from the knee through the quads to the sciatic nerve it's like we're traipsing through a forest but then we go to that descending angle and we have the hamstrings so now we're on from that apex we're going down the back of the ki Boyd notch so we're going from the apex of the cuboid note and descending downward towards that kind of Ridge just along the calcaneus so down the back of that triangle we have the hamstring group and this was the exact opposite of the quad group instead of having all the tension on the front load of the cuboid notch all of the tension went to the back load of the cuboid notch and these clients were doing really funny things they said Sam no matter how much I stretch the pain will go away because everybody told me to do this which contracts the hamstrings and lengthens the quads yeah so if we find this band of that descending knotch start to become hot painful to the touch plucky like a guitar string guarded as well as you'll even find that the muscles are so strong that they'll pull the bones closer together and they'll almost shrink or collapse that space creating instead of like an equilateral triangle kind of like a scalene or isosceles triangle it's really fascinating not really big on geometry but when we look at hamstrings this is where that forward fold would be appropriate so just a little bit of a tweaking of stretching regimen would be all you would need to do to recommend for this client yeah it becomes so much more intelligent of a modality when you combine foot reading and reflexology and you start to understand that this whole space is literally waiting for you to redirect the client just a smidge to the right or smidge to the left they're on the right track they know that they need to do something for the lower body but if they just google it we as reflexology practitioners can then give pointed advice know the stretches that you should be doing should focus here no they should be focused here yeah and there's a difference between those two points so we look for where on that triangle as the tightest then we go to that back point and that back point for me represents the back of the knee sometimes I find this also very true with IT band so so we have kind of back of the knee IT band but that more lateral kind of out-of-the-way knee stuff instead of the actual like joint once we go from that sciatic nerve through the hamstrings to the balcony Denis the only connection that we have left is this splinter surface and this plantar surface is ruled by the calves okay this is a little bit of a problematic place for us to have tension Cavs can be a really fascinating place for somebody to hold their stress when I see clients who have this calf line lit up there's normally some sort of cardiovascular issue because there's swelling involved and the lower body has so much fluid pressure and likewise you'll find so much swelling along that plantar line that really if they did any form of cardiovascular activity it would help but then sometimes it's literal tension like they've done too many calf raises at the gym they're compensating because their shoes don't fit with those postural muscles of the the soleus and the peroneal x' and all that jazz anterior tibialis and you know all that but then also something as simple as like pressing the gas pedal down what if you have a client that drives for work and they're driving two hours three hours a day and their foot is just constantly on the gas well I don't understand I got back from Orlando from that Disney World trip and I don't understand why I have sciatica on the right side and all you see is that calf line lit up on the right side it's because your foot was literally on the gas yeah you step down that postural strength that you need it all weekend you didn't stretch out and so that entire line got lit up and through that pelvic face and out of balance question here so my nephew was diagnosed - he always had issues with his calves doesn't exercise but the doctors told him that he had compartment syndrome surgery for it really as far as I know issues yeah definitely when we look at and this is where clients tend to be difficult is it's hard for us as manual therapists period to work with a client who wants a quick fix and doesn't want to do any of the work yeah so a client like that could very easily come in to see me or any reflexologist knows how to palpate for this and say look we've targeted the reflux we know exactly where the tension is coming from if we just do things to counterbalance that you should be fine even as a regular massage therapist feeling for these lines noticing where the muscles are tight and then working that specific group instead of wasting your time going front back side side but if the client is just like the surgery seems like the easier option you know of course compartment syndrome exists to send the only methodology of surgery because it's being so that's kind of the methodology somebody who wants to work on it great we have the ability to communicate what kind of yoga poses you should do what kind of stretching should be done talk to your personal trainer about dialing it back here and increasing it here you know but then if the client doesn't want to chip in then that's the tough part with anything not just with this but when we look at these muscles being postural and being very much lifestyle related it can be very difficult it's easy when you know that client example comes through and they just started training a couple weeks ago and they've broken down and we caught them early versus the UPS driver who has been at it for five ten years going for that pension you know trying to trying to make a living out of it and they can't slow down they can't not use those muscles yeah and if they're not willing to do the compensation work and actually say just like golfers golfers were coming will come in because they've been hitting one side at the whole time and they need to literally just hit a tire from the other side but if they don't want to spend the time to do that then it's a lot easier to take a pill go get surgery cut the tendon whatever it is but from a cuboid note to perspective that's how we do it we look at the neon front than these three different sections of the triangle relating to the three major postural muscles of the leg and we then are able to palpate and either use a specific modality that we're familiar with or work with stretching with the client or refer them out to a personal trainer who would be able to help them achieve that muscular balance which is throwing off they're not just their gait but also their entire frame okay so let's talk about this from a mental emotional perspective so the cuboid notes just like all the reflexes are not just physical they are also mental emotional when we look at cuboid not specifically cuboid notches on the lateral side of the foot yeah and it's in vertical zone five which is in line with the fifth toe meaning that this whole section this whole lateral line of the foot corresponds to somebody's sense of security and how they're moving forward so pain or dysfunction in this channel has an overall arc of not just physical like root chakra like you know feeling the legs but also the idea of being uprooted think of that example of somebody who's training for that Gasparilla marathon was never trained before in their life they're using muscles that they literally have never used yeah if they've doing this if they're doing this for the first time or at least if they're training like they did it last year then they haven't trained for you know none plus months it's literally uprooting the body but then emotionally we can talk to them about you know what else are you trying to change in your life what else is moving too fast what else is leaving you feeling ungrounded if we find a lot of tension in this area this general area is also into horizontal zone 4 so everything from the waistline guideline which is drawn by that proximal head of the fifth metatarsal to behind that lateral malleolus that's zone 4 which tells us that horizontally this area also speaks to us in regards to family relationships so this not just naturally going to tell us that there's family dynamics that are being changed there's new routines new people yeah that are being introduced into the social circle that's ability to circle the wagons and be comfortable and safe with somebody's intended like relationship unit might be disrupted I could look like divorce that could look like new friends new environments maybe they moved yeah they physically moved and are having to make new friends new job you know all of those moving forward themes but in regards to the people that they're surrounding themselves with as well negative could be and that's something that I find really important to to talk to practitioners about especially because some of this can sound overly critical or negative the body doesn't care if it's good stress or it's bad stress it's just stress you get a promotion at work where you get fired the body still releases the same stress hormones because it's like oh my god new when we look at the different sides of the cuboid knotch I find that there is a little bit of a mental emotional twist to them when we talk about zooming in in the the foot reading books ooming into a particular area and applying the zones we can do that but I find an even an even more interesting way to do that with the cuboid notes specifically so just to remind you quads hamstrings calves let's erase this so the a sending quad portion becomes present the descending hamstring portion becomes past and the bottom portion represents resources so when we talk about this being a sense of security and relationship stuff yeah I find out when somebody has quad issues and when somebody has that frontal load at the cuboid notes that's compromised they're often struggling with literally moving forward in the present moment yeah it's something that is very acute it's something that's literally in front of them yeah versus when we go down the back of that cuboid notch and we look at the hamstrings it's something that's already behind them that's literally pulling them back that's trying to make them prove like either they're facing a wall or they're being held back yeah the wall is up front with the quads but that person that's kind of holding them back by the color of their shirt is the past at the hamstrings and when I find that the calves are really loaded afton find it's a question of resources this is money this is property this is the emotional resources yeah but somebody doesn't have the the substance that they need in order to make that change that could be you know with a zone for zone 5 correlation it could be a family member of passing and they literally have to liquidate the estate and there's an excess of resources which would be swelling through here it would be accumulation it would be crunchiness it would be too much yeah but if we find this cracked limes dehydrated weep Hollow then it would literally beat I don't have enough and we'll be able to see you know is it really the present situation that's causing the tension is it something from the past that keeps nagging at them or you know what's happening with the actual fuel that's driving that change that make sense so resources could also be things like stamina stamina physical stamina energy yep and then we would apply our our hot cold wet dry our earth air fire water language in order to figure out kind of what's happening where we find a lot of earthy stagnant hard dense mists and the reflexes we know that there's maybe physical blockage in the resources you know we find that there's heaviness there's a need to purge there's an excess versus if we find not air that hollowness there's a lacking there's a fatigue there's less of we find water there's often emotions present there's physical lymphatic stagnation but then also there's hypersensitivity it might be kind of like an internal game like it's not necessarily an issue that's external but it's the fear of moving forward that's the problem and then it could just be on fire it could be literally inflamed and that's going to be maybe they're moving too fast in all of this situation maybe physically there's spasmodic there cramping they're in pain yeah maybe their pain is what's preventing them from moving forward like I would take that job but I'm afraid I don't have the physical like I don't know when my body is gonna break next so that's how we can look at the cuboid knotch and when we when we look at modalities like reflexology you would zoom into the part in order to understand the whole it can be such a magical opportunity for you to look at this one part like so many massage therapists freak out like how do you see the whole body through the foot but what if we shrink that down even smaller and we look at this one particular sphere of life which tells us so much information physically mentally and emotionally and zoom that an even more to get a bigger view of what's happening