Rotate! How far can you go?

In my last post I talked about the muscles of the back. Today I want to talk a little more about the muscles you use and the benefits of rotation.

When we rotate we use some of the muscles of the back, including the multifidus and latissimus dorsi. We also use some muscles from the side internal and external obliques and front, rectus abdominis. The rogation of the trunk uses both thoracic and lumbar vertebrae.

Now stand up and rotate (twist) to look behind you. I bet your hips move and you are rotating from your ankles, your feet may even have swiveled a bit. That is great, because that is how we move as humans.

Now find a cushion and a wall. Fold you cushion in half and prop it behind your bottom so you are stood up straight and the cushion is held between your bottom and the wall. Rotate again, but this time do it without moving your hips. We are looking to find a strong twisting feeling in the trunk, a bit like you are wringing out a dish cloth. If your bottom is lifting off the cushion or pushing into the cushion more on one side then try to do it again without this pelvic movement. When you get really good at this rotation you will be able to rotate your trunk without moving your pelvis. This stability is working your core muscles around your pelvis and the movement is strengthening your waste muscles and deep spinal muscles.

I love rotation in my mat class I teach, standing, kneeling, laying using a roller rotation as part of strengthening you from the inside.

Comments

My feet are amazing! But how should I stand and why does this matter?

Each of your feet are amazing, I know that I did not appreciate my feet until I had a accident and one of my feet stopped working as well as it used to. My extreme sport of choice was piggy in the middle with my children on the beach, when I kick a stone. This has continued to impact my foot health for over 18 months (well I'm still recovering). Each of your feet are made up of 26 bones, 30 joints and more than 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments. Your feet are the most amazing mobile weight bearing structures around. When anatomists write about the foot, they often refer to the "bony architecture" of the foot. Now start to think about the structure of your foot as "bony architecture" and you can start understanding how you foot is similar to a vaulted church ceiling. Lots of individual bones precisely placed to fit together in an amazing arched structure. What is incredible about the foot is that there are three arches at work. You have the arch that yo

Pilates key principles: Control

In Pilates we aim to maintain a high level of control over the movements that we make. As you will have completed some Pilates with me, you will be aware that a small angle change in leg positioning or increased stability through the pelvis can suddenly increase the intensity of an exercise. When thinking about control it is very closely related to precision and you could say that these key principles come hand in hand. You will find that control is improved once you have made multiple attempts at an exercise. Muscles will increase in strength and your muscles will remember the movement of an exercise. Therefore when taking part in a class, stay at a level where you can maintain control. If you work at too high a level you will find it harder to master the control of position and movement and then perfect the exercise. When we have control over a movement we are also able to make the movement using only the muscles connected with that motion. An example of where things can go

Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a condition that lots of us recognise, but do we really know what it is? It is a condition where your bones lose strength, this would not be noticed until you had a slip or a fall, you may not even know you have it. However because the bones have lost some of their strength a simple accident could end up causing a bone fracture (break). This condition impacts both females and males. How do the bones lose strength? Your bone are just as alive and changing as your skin. It is normal for us to shed some old skin as we grow new skin. In our bones, old bone is absorbed by cells called osteoclasts and then new bone is built by cells called osteoblasts. This process is know as bone remodeling and keeps our skeleton healthy. As we travel through phases of our life the hormones that balance this cycle change. As we get older some aspects of our bodies don't keep working as efficiently as they used to. Take the osteoclasts for example, who have worked at top spe

Katie Leaver Pilates

Search This Blog