Want a strong core? Skip the 3- minute plank

Posted on April 23, 2023 by ConAron2799

Recently, I walked by a packed evening kettlebell class, a room full of participants doing a terrific plank variation—slowly sliding a heavy weight in front of them from left to right, and vice versa. A plank is one of the gold standards for working the core in which you assume and hold a position. Sit-ups and crunches are no longer the norm for a great set of abs. Traditional core training sought to isolate a single area, such as the six-pack, which is problematic.

All movement originates through the core. The core is an integral part of the protective mechanism that relieves the spine of harmful forces during activities. Deep stabilizing muscles allow a protective mechanism for posture control and athletic performance.

The main reason sit-ups don’t help you is that they can damage the spine. The traditional sit-up, writes Dr. Stuart McGill in “Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance,” imposes about 730 pounds of compression on the spine. Those participants in the evening workout were shown ways to retire old concepts and learn from a great coach, in her presentation of fresher research: plank variations.

Secondly, planks recruit a balance of muscle from the front, sides and back of the body, as the core goes far beyond a six-pack. Even though Cher boasts about holding a three-minute plank, you don’t need to hold a plank that long. There are better ways to get strong. Once you can perform a 20-, 30- or 60-second plank, you can advance from a stability level to light loads and additional stimulus in a plank.

Here are two simple stability tests to determine your core strength before you add additional stimulus, as in that kettlebell class.

Forearm plank, 20 seconds

Forearm plank. All photos by Connie Aronson

Lie on the floor, with the feet flexed, toes towards the shins, and the elbows and forearms under the chest area. To begin, lift the body off the floor in a position in which the arms are perpendicular to the floor, and the elbows directly under your shoulders, hands under your face.
Brace the core, lock the knees and tighten the glutes.
Have a friend or partner place a long stick or broomstick in line with your spine.
Start the clock only when you are in straight body alignment.
Hold for 20 seconds.

Fail is any part of the body sagging away from the stick.

Pass is if your torso remains in full contact with the stick for 20 seconds without any noticeable quivering.

Anti-rotation Bird Dog

In a kneeling position with hands on the floor, have a friend or partner place a stick or broomstick in line with your spine.
To begin, raise the right arm up and extend it parallel to the floor.
Simultaneously raise the left leg up and extend it backward, also parallel to the floor.
Touch both the arm and foot back under the body to touch left elbow to right knee.
Return to the fully extended position for six repetitions. Repeat on the other side.

Fail is if at any point during the test, the body sags away from the stick, or it rolls off the back.

Pass is if you the body is in contact with the stick, and control is maintained throughout the test.

Straight arm plank with feet elevated

Example of an advanced plank, with increased involvement of the stabilizing muscles of the core.

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https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru-want-a-strong-core-skip-the-3-minute-plank/article_72f3c06c-ded5-11ed-aea5-7f0302c07a5a.html

Break old habits to fix an achy back

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Posted on February 26, 2023 by ConAron2799

Healing a sore back requires breaking some old habits and forming some new ones, says Dr. Stuart McGill. If you’re living with an achy back, getting your swagger back, as McGill, the most recognized spine researcher in the world, states, is different from a knee or shoulder problem. The knee and shoulder, particularly in the early stages of rehab, both do well with full range of motion exercises—think of arm circles. Fixing your low back pain is different and more nuanced, as your spine needs stability, not excess motion. This means that you don’t want excess curves in the spine. A goal for a healthy back is to maintain a neutral spine position during your prescribed program, as well as in daily activities.

The emphasis throughout the day and during workouts is to focus on proper spine stability, rather than more movement in the lower back. Do you slouch when you sit or have too much curve in your lower back while standing? Do you bend over to lift a large object, which is problematic for the posterior back disks? Poor movement habits, repeated throughout the day, can result in a sore back. Stretching and strengthening are important, but not the whole answer. A key to a healthy back is retraining how you position your back during activities, lessening excess spine curves.

Move mindfully with the abdominal brace

McGill likens the abdominal brace as a mild contraction of the abdominals as though you are preparing to get punched in the belly. But it’s not in extremes, like “sucking them in.” Like a dimmer switch gradually adjusts light levels in a room, the abdominal stiffness during your activities isn’t an on/off switch, but works in relationship to what you are doing. You would use less ab bracing during walking and more for lifting a heavy object, for example.

Wall test for excess low back curve

Photo by Connie Aronson

Try the wall test to check for excessive lumbar curve

The abdominal muscles connect your ribs to hips along the front and sides. When you use your abs, they pull the ribs and hips closer. When you stand up, for example, and don’t use your abs, you allow your ribs and hips to be too far apart, creating back sway. Over time, this can contribute to movement flaws, soft tissue stress, or disc problems.

If you can’t stand back with your back against a wall with your heels, hips, upper back and the back of your head lightly touching, without arching your back, you probably have weak abdominal muscles. Remember, our goal is to reduce the excess curves of the spine. Try this test at home.

• Stand with your back to a wall, with heels, butt, shoulders, and head comfortably touching the wall.

• Keep your feet in a neutral position and legs straight.

• Have a friend place a hand behind your low back, or use your hand.

Results: If you can put your whole hand behind the space in the lower back, you have too much back sway.

Ideally, if you know how to brace your core, you wouldn’t be able to put your hand behind lower back !

If you can only get the first knuckle in your hand behind the lower back, congratulations, you have excellent abdominal bracing skills!

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru-break-old-habits-to-fix-your-achy-back/article_b0a8b022-b336-11ed-9db5-5b0e14ef4dc1.html

Fix your low back pain with better body mechanics

Posted on July 16, 2021 by ConAron2799

Too much sitting is hard on our bodies and can add to the prevalence of low back pain. Twenty-six bones make up the spinal column with three gentle curves from top to bottom. For many with low back pain, the cumulative effects of constant or repeated small stresses over time, like sitting, result in back pain. Too much sitting, combined with faulty posture, can flatten these curves over time. The spine is designed to function best as a weight-bearing structure, with the lumbar curve in a neutral position. Sitting rounded, or slumped in a seat, multiplies damaging pressure on lower back discs and soft tissues. Another concern is that prolonged sitting chronically shortens the hip flexors. Once again, too much sitting, prevalent in our modern age, has other drawbacks and can cause secondary health concerns, such as high blood pressure and increased risk for diseases like diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disorders.

The good news is that low back pain can dissipate. Body composition, strength of the core musculature and faulty movement patterns are all potential cause of low back pain. Most back pain is easy to reverse; the secret is addressing common musculature imbalances. Too much sway or arch in the lower back, too much bending, weak or overstretched muscles, or poor posture are contributing factors that can be corrected to ensure a healthy back.

If you are in pain, but not dealing with diagnosed or undiagnosed medical issues, nerve impingement, or traumatic injury, you fall into the category of mechanical low-back pain.

Faulty Movement Patterns

The easiest way to fix your own pain is to correct faulty body mechanics. We know we shouldn’t bend wrong, but we do. We bend over wrong picking up laundry, petting the dog, making the bed, or looking at a phone. We work over our desks, drive and ride bent forward every day. Look around the gym and it’s a minefield of bent backs. You’ll see people lifting weights bent over, and bend over wrong to place them back on racks.

Integrated Core

The spine is at its strongest, most resilient and most supported position when it is in a state of muscular and skeletal balance, and in a neutral position.

The abdominal brace is an important way to use the core to find neutral position. Bracing, says Dr. Stuart McGill, a leading spine researcher, is a different concept than that of simply holding in your stomach, or “pulling your belly to your spine.” Rather, it’s mild contraction of the abdominal muscles, as though you are preparing for a punch in the mid-section. In his book “Back Mechanic,” he asks his back patients to gradually adjust the amount of contraction to find the optimal stiffness, much like how a dimmer switch gradually adjusts light in a room. Whether you are sitting, walking, or are a high-performance athlete, all movement is orchestrated from this fine-tuned control of the core.

Next time you pick up a package, try to brace your core, hip hinge, and use your gluteus muscles, which help extend the hips to assist in standing up, sparing the lower back from over-use.

Self-Test

Here’s a simple test to see if you have neutral spine alignment, or back sway. Stand barefoot with your back to the wall, with heels, butt and shoulders against the wall. Then try to place one hand, palm down, behind your lower back. If the space is up to and in-line with your second knuckle, you have neutral pelvis. Normally the pelvis is rotated approximately 10 degrees. But if the space is large enough for your whole hand, you have a deviation, an anterior tilt of the pelvis called lumbar lordosis. Tilt the pelvis posteriorly by bringing the front of your waistband up to learn neutral, engaging the core.

Connie Aronson is an ACSM Exercise Physiologist and Corrective Movement Specialist (TBBM-CES) Visit her at www.conniearonson.com and

Instagram @conniearon

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_9e3c776e-e5b7-11eb-a0ba-5730f013cbf7.html

Stretch to stay on top of your summer game

Posted on June 22, 2019 by ConAron2799

We all want to enjoy summer to the max, and that means more time outside, doing the activities and sports that warm sunshine offers. But each sport has specific demands on your body. A stretch routine after a ride, golf game or hike can make a difference in staying up to the task, especially as you age. Flexibility can decrease as much as 50 percent in some joint areas. The good news is that this loss of motion can be minimized with a regular stretching and range-of-motion routine.

For decades, coaches have thought that pre-exercise stretching was important for their athletes, and would prevent injury or muscle soreness. However, copious research on the topic of flexibility challenges that old belief. It is thought that due to an alteration in joint connective-tissue compliance, stretching before workouts may lead to greater joint instability.

What the research shows is that stretching will help you achieve positive long-term performance outcomes when done at times other than before performance. A warmup that increases blood flow, like arm circles, or leg swings, to get a mild sweat beforehand, is a better injury prevention component.

Your post-game stretches have to be specific to target the muscles that have been stressed or overused or have a reduced range of motion. Here are some tips to ensure that you end a great day outside energized, happy and loose.

Cycling: Stretch after you get off the bike

The quads and hips are big players in cycling, used powerfully and repetitively, and stretching afterward helps combat tightness. Cycling is different from other sports in that force is primarily produced as the muscles are shortening. In cycling, the pedal stroke doesn’t use the full range of motion of the hip, knee or ankle. Running, on the other hand, bends your knees as you raise your thigh, but straightens and extends your leg to push off the ground.

Cyclists also spend a lot of time bent over in the riding position, which puts the hip flexors in a shortened position. Short, tight hip flexors add to achy hips and backs. Tight hip flexors, particularly the deep-seated psoas, can pull forward and down on the lumbar spine. When that happens, you lose an important lower back curve. No wonder your back can hurt after a long ride. Aim for post-ride hip, low-back and chest stretches. You can view those at vimeo.com/343122017.

Golfing: Get loose

Flexibility is imperative to improving your golf swing. Without flexibility, you won’t have the range of motion to unlock any of the power you already have, or are working on. Picture a golfer, at the final moment of follow-through from a fairway shot. That person is, for the most part, opened and stretched in a fluid spiral line of energy. That takes optimal range of motion in joints or groups of joints.

In just one round of golf, you end up swinging a golf club up to 300 times, including practice swings, and at speeds upward of 90 mph. That’s a lot of stress on your muscles, tendons and joints! A pre-game 5- to 10-minute warmup provides essential preparation for your game. Walking around a practice tee, leg swings or arm circles are ways to loosen up for your game. A good warm-up increases blood flow to working tissue as well as velocity of nerve impulses to muscles. It should be relatively easy, inducing a mild sweat. Stretching is recommended after your game. Click on this link for a golf-specific flexibility routine: vimeo.com/343122336.

Connie Aronson is an ACSM-certified exercise physiologist at the YMCA in Ketchum. Learn more at www.conniearonson.com.https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_6eacb7c8-9377-11e9-9a99-5301d856d0cc.html

Extend your spine~ The Roman Chair for back health

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Our spines need to be subtle and strong

When it comes to musculoskeletal pain, the lower back reigns as king. About 80 to 85 percent of people will experience some sort of low back pain in their life. According to the National Health Statistics Survey in 2012, more than 28 percent of Americans live with lower back pain. Back troubles are the No. 1 reason people under age 45 miss out on activities.

Ironically, most people with low back pain overuse their backs, exacerbating the trouble even more. It’s better to use your legs to bend or squat down, or to use your hips in rotational sports like golf or yoga to spare stresses on your lower back.

Our spines need to be supple and strong, as daily tasks demand that the vertebrae bend, flex, rotate and side bend. The spine does an amazing job of handling loads straight down the back, but over time, poor mechanics repeated hundreds of times in daily life and activities can cause low back pain. Even more problematic is our forward bending posture, especially with aging. It seems we’re all forgetting to stand up and extend our spines. Our preference for slumping, sitting or driving is very hard on our back ligaments, and at worst, it becomes structural, resulting in bad posture or back problems. The end result is that greater compressive forces are placed on the intervertebral discs.

Exercises such as squats and deadlifts help strengthen your back, but the larger hip extensor muscles do much of the work. The lumbar extensors, multifidi (the deepest muscles near your spine) and the quadratus lumborum are the important muscles for spine health, as they help provide stability in the area of the spine most prone to injury. Think of your spine as two stacked boxes, called the vertebrae, with lots of padding between them—the discs, where most back problems begin. The natural curves of your spine help the discs cushion compressive forces.

Any exercises you do should keep spine stability in mind, and be done with muscle control rather than momentum. Avoid excessive range-of-motion movements that damage spinal ligaments or discs. End-range extension, or forceful hyperextension, places the posterior elements of the spine at risk of damage, especially with spinal stenosis or sports hernia.

3 Top Hip and Back Stretches- You don’t have to be sore after a workout

Posted on June 1, 2015 by ConAron2799

These 3 moves will help you recover and realign after a big day on a bike, 1/2 marathon, or strenuous hike. All target the hips, to help extend the body upwards and undo much of the tightness of not only the hips, as well as the back, shoulders and calf muscles.

Foam rolling, or self-myofascial release can help with athletic recovery

1.Foam Roll Quads

Foam Rolling is a self-myofascial release stretching technique that regenerates and rejuvenates muscles and other soft tissue affected by an overzealous day on a bike, or on the trails.There are 4 quad muscles in the upper leg, and the outer most one, the rectus femoris, when tight, pulls the spine towards the top of the leg, causing hip or back pain, or hyper-extention of the spine in an effort to stand up straight.Place the roller perpendicular to your thigh and lie over it. Find any sore spot and hold your body weight there for a few seconds until the tissue releases. Roll each leg for one minute. ( If rolling hurts your shoulder, lie on the floor with a tennis ball )

A "do-anywhere" great hip, upper back and calf stretch

2. Step Back with Arm Reach

This integrated exercise helps realign the entire body by combining a calf and hip flexor stretch, while strengthening the muscles of the upper back and shoulders. Stand with you feet hip-width apart and take a big step back with your right leg. Simultaneously reach the right arm upward.Keep the back leg straight, heel down. Push your hip forward without arching the lower back. Instead, extend from the upper back. Hold for 2-3 seconds. 6-10 reps on both sides.

3. Spine Extension The majority of the muscles in the hips originate at the lumbar spine, cross the pelvis, and attach to the top of the femur. This exercise stretches the whole front body,, and spine extensors, undoing much of the forward bending of many activities, plus feels great. Place your hands, fingers pointed down, firmly on your lower back. Inhale, and extend the spine as you lift your chest. Exhale, as you return to neutral posture. Repeat 6-8 times.

Stretch your low back with this standing stretch.

Photos by Hallie MacPherson

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essential core fitness for living

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