Rotation of the body is used often in our daily lives, e.g. turning towards your bedside to shut your phone alarm in the morning, turning to talk to someone behind you, or even turning to get the toilet paper in the loo. Since we rotate the spine frequently and unconsciously every day, why is it important to strengthen our obliques in rotation?
To answer this question, let's first take a deeper look at the muscles involved in a spinal rotation:
Transverse abdominis are the abdominal muscles closest to our spine and organs, often referred affectionately by Pilates Instructors as TA. TA is THE MUSCLE that Pilates instructors are cueing you to engage in all Pilates movements. This is the most important CORE MUSCLE in your body. When you activate the transverse abdominis during movements, your tummy becomes flatter in engagement as the transverse abdominis tightens and press downwards towards your spine, thereby stabilising your spine and providing support.
Rectus abdominis or the six-pack are the abdominal muscles furthest from your spine and closest to your skin. Hence when it is toned, the definition is very obvious. Rectus abdominis is the muscle that we are discouraging you to activate during Pilates movements. When you engage the rectus, your tummy bulges up in a small hill and your transverse abdominis will be relaxed.
In the article, we will be focusing on External Obliques and Internal Obliques.
Contracting the external obliques rotates the trunk toward the opposite side, as seen in the Bicycle Crunch below:
On the other hand, the internal obliques flexes and rotates the trunk towards the same side, like in a side plank:
Doing these 2 exercises daily (with a combination of the right diet and cardio exercise) will definitely strengthen your core and tone up your obliques. If you're not sure how toned obliques look like, it's the 2 lines at the side of the 8 pecs that this hunky man is pointing to:
Having firm obliques not only looks good, but also supports the back and overall posture. This helps prevent injuries and pain especially associated with the lower back and shoulders.
When we twist our torso, the muscles in our core, shoulders and back simultaneously contracts and lengthens on each side. However, it's common to lead a rotation from the shoulders rather than further down the spine, especially for desk-bound workers who have a lot of tightness in their neck and shoulders due to prolonged sitting in front of the computer.
Here's the correct way to twist the spine while seated upright:
First, ground the hips evenly on both sides. Lengthen your back from the bottom of the spine all the way up to the top of the head. (Picture A)
Then, reach the opposite ribcage forwards as you begin to rotate the other ribcage back, growing taller as you twist. Your pelvis will be stationary and facing square forward. Rotation comes from ribcage movement and not shoulder or pelvis movement. (Picture B)
Tip: Allow the shoulders to follow spinal rotation rather than to lead spinal rotation.
Repeatedly rotating the spine the wrong way might result in weak and unresponsive obliques. The back muscles start to compensate for the lack of abdominal work, causing a lack of support on the spine (bad posture). In the long run, you might start to feel tightness and compression on the lower back area due to an excessive anterior pelvic tilt.
If this posture is not corrected, the degeneration of the spinal discs may occur, resulting in chronic pain. You can read more about the dangers of having an excessive anterior pelvic tilt here.
Having correct spinal rotation patterns also increases flexibility in the thoracic spine (upper and mid back), which helps to release nagging aches and pains in the shoulders and neck.
Now that you know the benefits of improving the way you rotate your body, here are some tips to perform this month's rotational flow better:
Do each of the exercises 8 - 10 times for each side. It will take you 5 - 8 minutes. You should do it on the floor with the support of a Yoga/Pilates mat or a soft towel on a carpeted floor. These exercises should not be performed on the bed! You can do these exercises first thing in the morning to increase flexibility of your spine or at the end of the day to stretch out those tired muscles.
If you have lower back pain, then lateral flexion (also known as side bend) exercises are the best exercises for lower back pain.
Lateral flexion of the trunk (also know as side bend) is a movement that is rarely used in our day-to-day activities. Yet, go to any type of fitness class and you will find side bend stretches included for almost all warm-up and cool down routines.
This is because side bends help to improve lumbo-pelvic stability, provides lower back pain relief and trim your love handles. An unstable lumbo-pelvic area will lead to acute lower back injury, sharp lower back pain, spinal disc degeneration or even knee pain issues as the force from the feet is unable to travel up the whole spine.
Imagine if you stomp your feet hard on the ground and that force generated by the stomp get stuck in your lower back area instead of being cushioned by every vertebrae of your spine as the force travels up from ankle, knees, pelvis, lower back and upper back. You will experience lower back pain simply due to excessive pressure created when we walk or sit. The lower back vertebrae may also degenerate faster than other parts of the spine due to excessive erosion of specific lower back vertebrae when that pressure is unable to travel up to the upper spine.
A deep side bend also helps to open up the sides of your ribs, thereby allowing you to breathe deeper into the lower lobes of the lungs instead of shallow breathing. Shallow breathing may create tension in the neck and shoulders.
What muscles are involved in a side bend exercise that makes lateral flexion so important?
Last month, we covered the importance of having strong obliques and proper rotation patterns. Our focus for this month is on Lateral Flexion of the torso.
The primary muscles used in a side bend are: External/Internal Obliques, Quadratus Lumborum and the Erector Spinae.
Quadratus Lumborum (QL) are muscles located deep in the sides of the lower back. Contracting one side of the QL results in a side bend, while contracting both sides of the QL muscle results in a spinal extension. The QL plays an important role in the stability of the lumbo-pelvic area as it connects the pelvis to the spine.
Erector Spinae (Spinalis Group) is a group of muscles that extends vertically up the length of your back, and are involved in both lateral flexion and spinal extension. Weakness/tightness in the Erector Spinae may result in overworking the QL muscles to pick up the slack, hence resulting in back pain. If left untreated in the long run, shoulder pain and kyphosis may also occur due to tightness in the QL, erector spinae and obliques.
Our body always tries its best to perform any movement we want. However, performing the movement correctly visually does not necessarily means that the right muscles are used to do the job. Any muscle compensation will lead to imbalances and ended up with back pain or knee pain.
Remember, your muscle is painful because it is overworked, not because it is weak! The overworked muscle is often the stronger muscle. If you push the stronger and painful muscle to work further, it will lead to injury or a total breakdown (sprain or tear) - so that it do not need to work anymore (same goes for our mind!). Hence, to relieve any painful muscle, you have to train the weaker muscle to start working to reduce load on the painful (and stronger) muscle. Once the weaker muscles tone up and share the load, the stronger and painful muscle will learn to work less and the ache will naturally go away! It's almost like magic.
HOW CAN FLEXION OR SIDE BEND EXERCISES HELP ME?
Flexion helps to stretch and stabilise jumbo-pelvic area and relieve issues such as:
1. Tightness in your lower back that may lead to lower back pain
2. Acute lower back injury (eg some people can sprain their lower back with just a hard sneeze!)
3. Chronic lower back pain aka pain that is always there but cannot be diagnosed with MRI or Xray. Doctors will tell you, your back is fine. However, you know it is not fine since it is always sore! 🙁
4. Accelerate spinal disc degeneration. An unstable lumbo-pelvic area means an unstable spine and you may be excessively moving only particular vertebrae thereby causing premature spinal disc degeneration. A stable lumbo-pelvic area utilise the whole spine to perform the movement instead of only a few specific vertebrae
5. Knee pains - when the force from the ground (as you walk or jog) travels upwards from feet to ankles to knees to lower back and get “stuck” at the lower back area due to unstable jumbo-pelvic area, the force shoots right back to the knee instead of being cushioned by vertebrae of the entire spine. This is usually described as knee pain after a jog. If the jumbo-pelvic area is stable, the force travels up from lower back and cushioned up all the way to the upper back, thereby reducing pressure on any particular joint.
A basic stretch you can do daily at home is the seated mermaid.
If mermaid seating is uncomfortable for you, perform this exercise in a cross-legged seated position instead.
To strengthen the muscles involved in lateral flexion, try the side plank:
If you find it difficult to balance with the legs stacked, bring the top leg forwards on the mat instead to increase stability.
Simply take 5 mins a day to do these 2 exercises daily (6-8 reps on each side) to increase lateral spinal flexibility and strength, and eventually build a better posture!
Here are some tips to ace this month's side bend flow in class:
If you want to improve your lower back pain or knee pain, our Instructors can help you to accelerate your recovery and performance by using Pilates Reformer machines.
Give us a call/whatsapp us to book your next Pilates Reformer Flow class! See you soon!
Find out about the Flow Challenge and how you can get FREE CLASSES every month!
Do each of the exercises 8 - 10 times for each side. It will take you 5 - 8 minutes. You should do it on the floor with the support of a Yoga/Pilates mat or a soft towel on a carpeted floor. These exercises should not be performed on the bed! You can do these exercises first thing in the morning to increase flexibility of your spine or at the end of the day to stretch out those tired muscles.
If you want to improve your lower back pain or knee pain, our Instructors can help you to accelerate your recovery and performance by using Pilates Reformer machines.
Purchase your first Reformer Pilates class offer here! See you soon!
Shoulder extension exercises are the best exercises to fix rounded shoulders
It is known that shoulder extension exercises can correct rounded shoulders and fix shoulder posture and forward head posture.
Shoulder extension is the movement of your arms from the sides of your body to the back.
95% of the population spend their time with hunched shoulders over a computer or their phones for the better part of the day, which is one of rounded shoulders causes. In March, we focus on shoulder exercises for forward head posture and rounded shoulders to correct bad posture. Shoulder extension exercises are the best posture corrector for rounded shoulder and forward head posture.
Over time, long hours in a rounded shoulders or forward flexed shoulder position leads to a kyphotic posture, which brings about issues such as:
If left untreated, this bad shoulder posture of rounded shoulders and forward head may eventually become permanent leading to chronic neck and shoulder aches and pains due to long term tightness and stiffness of the neck and shoulder area.
Shoulder exercises fix rounded shoulders posture and comes in handy to help open up the tight chest muscles while strengthening the weaker muscles of the back.
Shoulder extension exercises increases the mobility and flexibility of the shoulder joint, which decreases the risk of shoulder or neck injuries, as well as stiffness on the back and shoulders. It is important to do shoulder stretches regularly to ensure the range of movement is not affected. Limited range of movement puts stress on the shoulder joint and may cause injuries easily. The same shoulder exercises to correct rounded shoulders can also increase the mobility of your shoulder joint.
Besides helping to correct shoulder posture and reduce rounded shoulder posture, shoulder exercises also tone your triceps and latissimus dorsi muscles - say bye to bat-wings arms and bra bulge!
After knowing the benefits of shoulder exercises, let us look at the anatomy of the shoulder exercises. Understanding the anatomy of shoulder exercises and shoulder stretches help you to target the muscles better and have a more effective workout.
The primary muscles used in a Shoulder Extension are: Latissimus Dorsi (Lats), Triceps, Lower Trapezius, Posterior Deltoids and Rhomboids.
To reduce the painful and uncomfortable symptoms of rounded shoulders and forward head posture, our aim is to strengthen the shoulder extensors listed above, and lengthen the front muscles such as the pecs and biceps.
A basic strengthening shoulder stretch you can do daily at home is a bilateral shoulder extension.
To further strengthen the shoulder extensors against gravity, try the superman. Superman is one of the most effective shoulder exercises to correct rounded shoulders.
As you get stronger, progress to a reverse plank to challenge the strength of your posterior deltoids while opening up the chest:
Simply take 5 mins a day to do the first 2 shoulder exercises / shoulder stretches daily (6-8 reps) to improve shoulder flexibility and strength in the shoulder extensors, and eventually build a better posture!
You may choose to add the third shoudler exercise if you have more time, or whenever you are comfortable to increase the difficulty of the shoulder exercise.
Here are some tips to ace this month's shoulder extension flow in class:
If you want to improve your rounded shoulders and forward head posture or tone up your triceps and lats, our Instructors can help you to accelerate your recovery and performance by using Pilates Reformer machines.
Give us a call/whatsapp us to book your next Pilates Reformer Flow Class! See you soon!
Find out about the Flow Challenge and how you can get FREE CLASSES every month!
Do each of the shoulder exercises 8 - 10 times for each side. It will take you 5 - 8 minutes. You should do it on the floor with the support of a Yoga/Pilates mat or a soft towel on a carpeted floor. These shoulder exercises should not be performed on the bed! You can do these shoulder exercises first thing in the morning to increase flexibility of your shoulder joint or at the end of the day to stretch out those tired muscles.
If you want to improve your rounded shoulders and forward head posture or tone up your triceps and lats, our Instructors can help you to accelerate your recovery and performance by using Pilates Reformer machines.
Give us a call/whatsapp us to book your next Pilates Reformer Flow Class! See you soon!
Find out about the Flow Challenge and how you can get FREE CLASSES every month!
