How "The Energizer" worked for Mrs. MacInerny
January 19, 2026 at 6:23 am,
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As an infant moves, he is constantly counterbalancing the weight of the head and tailbone through flexion and extension of the spine. By the time they are crawling, the infant will have a good range of motion for turing and lifting the head as well as for hip movements. Once they are school age, many children have narrowed their range of head, hip and spinal motion in order to do near-point work. It's not uncommon to see students sitting stifly all day with rounded backs and hunched shoulders, weight slumpted behind the tailbone focusing and stomthing eighteen inches or so from the eyes. This posture does not promote the relaxation needed, on the contrary, it's over-focus. Doing Brain Gym's "The Energizer" movement can bring balance and flexibility to the spine by reversing a typical forward bend, helping to connect with the midfield and establish the sternum as the central reference point for near-point work. This helps release tension of neck, shoulders and back allowing for easier focus and attention for these activities. Testimonial: "It's Superman!" shouted a second grader as I taught the Energyizer to the class. We were all lying prone on the floor as we were doing the activity in the gym. "It certainly feels good", I replied, "almost like flying". Within a week, I reviewed the "Energizer" in the children's classroo mwith students doing it at their desks while the teacher was in the room. Mrs. MacInerny took to it immediately and used it thereafter whnever she needed to quickly bring students back into focus. A couple of years later, after she started teaching kindergarten, MRs. MacInerny impored me to teach her students the Energizer as soon as possible!
~excerpt from Brain Gym Teacher's Edition