Your BRIDGE back to being active at every age and stage

What's new?

Hear Cara’s interview here

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Jan 17

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  • June 12th, 2024 | 6:00-8:00pm

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  • September-November 2024
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Can Bridging help me?

Not able to be as active as you would like? There are often structural causes that exercise, massage, or chiropractic do not address. Bridging both identifies and addresses these causes and has helped thousands of people at every stage of life from 5 days old to 95 years old to be more active.

Developmental concerns for your child
Pain from past injuries
Pain following medical interventions
Balance and coordination challenges
Anxiety
Fatigue

What is Bridging?

What do you do?

The Bridging Technique uniquely uses an engineering-based approach to problem-solve the ways your body should move. In just 2-3 sessions you have less pain, are calmer, more confident, and able to be more active! Here are the three steps used in the Bridging Process:

Assess:

Micromovements of the core and limbs are passively assessed for flow and ease of transition. These micromovements form in early life and are foundational to all daily movement skills.
Analyze:

Assessment results and the causes for the micromovement disruption—injury, illness, medical intervention, and early life/birth events—are analyzed to develop an optimal plan to reset affected muscle relationships.
Reset Muscle Memory:

Gentle rocking and microstretches are used to reset muscle coordination. The results are fast and long-lasting!

What does ‘Bridging’ mean?

From an engineering perspective, a bridge structurally connects two separate segments to make them continuous. In an electrical circuit, a bridge is used to convert an unstable electrical current into a continuous one. The Bridging Technique embodies both meanings when resetting movements.

How can I get started?

Step 1
Schedule your appointment
Step 2
Complete our intake information form
Step 3

Dress in comfortable clothing
It does not need to be athletic wear, but should be easy to move in. Expect to take your shoes off to help keep our floors clean, as we play with little ones here.

 
Step 4
In your session you can expect us to:
  • Keep things safe! Our assessment is limited to what you can do, especially if you aren’t mobile or stable.
  • Photograph simple postural positions.
  • Observe how you move.
  • Move your core and limbs passively to assess movement flow, transition, and symmetry.
  • Play, bounce, and dance with little ones as a way to observe and assess their movement.
  • Rock, wiggle and stretch to gently reset muscle memory.
Step 5

After your session

  • (No homework!) Enjoy moving naturally without home exercises.
  • Be active to reinforce the new muscle memory.
  • Follow-up with your next session in 3-5 weeks.

How can I learn more about Bridging and staying active?

YouTube Channel

Bridging Insider features video sessions which cover a wide range of scenarios of how micromovement disrupters are tied to your pain, balance, and anxiety concerns. In each, you will see how Bridging is used to quickly help. Note: There are no sessions with children out of respect for privacy concerns.

If you've fallen or feel unsteady, understanding balance in a deeper way is important. In addition to static and dynamic balance, we also need to have automatic balance control reactions. This is sometimes referred to as sway control. In this video Cara Lindell, the founder of the Bridging Technique, walks you through how balance reactions are assessed, and how this is different than most PT, neruological or fitness assessments of balance. The primary objective is to understand how the muscles are reacting with postural changes to keep you safe. This should occur in 3D, since we are able to move in 3D. We show you the testing standing up and sitting down, and explain why there may be differences. Often injuries and surgeries will affect the way muscles work together. Once the muscle relationships are reset, these balance/sway reactions usually re-emerge. These are specific postural reactions and exercise alone will not restore them. Enjoy! If you are interested in a session to assess and reset your balanc reactions, find more information on our website. https://thebridginginstitute.com/scheduling/ Professionals are invited to learn the Bridging Technique. Workshop schedules are on the website. Thanks for watching!
Balance Reactions: Why they matter, and how we assess!
In this video, we meet Sue where we discuss her experience with Bridging to help her back pain. Do you worry about triggering back pain when you go about your day? From house-work, gardening, or exercise to walking, Sue was wary for what would trigger back pain again. She had her favorite stretch and a team (chiropractor and massage therapist) to keep her going. It was time to find a longer-lasting solution! Bridging was a gentle and fast way to reset the muscle imbalance caused her back pain. Thanks for watching! BACKGROUND: Today we meet Sue who was helped by Bridging. She had persistent back pain which she needed help with. Often we find that the root cause of someone's pain is a long-forgotten about injury or surgery. For Sue, it was neither. We found a root cause muscle glitch that is likely part of the original her from her neonatal days. She has much to share about her experience and how much her life has changed with Bridging. :-) For more insights on why Bridging is helpful for solving the chronic pain puzzle, check out our BLOG for the related post. https://thebridginginstitute.com/blog/ Cara Lindell, the founder of the technique and of The Bridging® Institute, shows you how the process works and how easily getting the right change at the right place makes all the difference. You get to watch Cara assess a functional and developmental movement framework. Then she uses the gentle stretches and micromovements from the Bridging® Technique to guide and reset how his muscles are working together. Each episode we meet a new person wanting to feel better and more at ease in their body. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of these fascinating case studies! If you're interested in experiencing Bridging for yourself, you can schedule an in-office appointment with the Bridging team at our Northbrook IL office. Virtual session are also an option; all you need is a webcam and a helper that we guide through doing the movements for you. Each week we also publish a newsletter with interesting insights to pain, development and the background physics that allow the body to work well. website is at https://thebridginginstitute.com/
Her ABS WORK and BACK PAIN is gone!
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Insight and Research Blog

Bridging Insights are discussions about common movement and development issues and their relationship to being physically active. The discussion often ties together perspectives and events which we commonly find impacting our clients.

Research Insights share a variety of new or topical research findings on the relationship of being physically active, and why being active is essential to our physical, emotional, and cognitive health.

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Meet The Team

Cara Lindell

Cara is the founder, of the Bridging Institute and the innovative Bridging® technique.

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Becki
Becki Logan

Becki works with all ages to help them move better and to be active.

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Lynne Golden

Lynne loves to help people move better and feel better. With her NICU background she loves being able to help get babies off to a great start with their moves.

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Louise Dechovitz

Louise is the practice manager at the Bridging Institute and brings with her a variety of experiences–professionally in consulting, and personally in parenting.

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Franziska Malsy-Murphy

Franziska (Ziska) is the voice on the phone. As our Client Coordinator, she is able to help with your questions and scheduling.

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Leslie Teng

Leslie works extensively with the younger crowd, and also enjoys helping adults maintain an active life.

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Client Testimonials

Client Testimonials

When he started crawling, we knew we were good. Every time we have a session at The Bridging Institute he sleeps better after.”

Trisha (mom on William, 15 months)

What I appreciate about the Bridging process is that the body is all connected. I may have knee pain, but it might be the symptom of something else which is the real cause.”

Katie (41) elite runner

I have suffered from joint pain for years, maybe decades. After just one session I was relatively pain-free.”

Diane (56)

Bottom line, what changed was that I had a faster recovery time from surgery so I was able to get back to work and my daily activities.”

Lisa (51)

I thought it was regular aging. But after my first session I walked out saying, "Jeepers, I feel 10 years younger!"

Donna (80)

I was skeptical about the process until I tried it and it does work.”

Vic (91)

I’ve  been to so many specialists and had so many tests to try to find answers and relief from severe constant pain. I started to think it was all in head. After my first appointment I left crying because not only did I have significantly less pain, I felt heard, cared for and had a plan on how to continue to feel better. After only a few sessions the pain reduced enough that I was able to return to work as well as enjoy playing with my grandchild."

Nora (60)

After his fist session my 9-year old son said, ‘Mom, I never knew my muscles could work this way!” And he couldn’t wait for his next session.”

Leigh (mom)

The Founder’s Story

Cara’s original quest was to help women thrive through strength and balance.

The three key elements to the Bridging story include Cara’s:

Personal Passion
Professional Expertise
The Evolution of Bridging

Find Us

  1. Park at the rear/west entrance
  2. Enter the building and turn to the right
  3. Proceed to the end of the hallway. That’s it!