Find Your Strength - Maintain Your Function

A strong body is certainly aesthetically pleasing, but there is much more to that story. Having robust muscles and functional movement patterns protects the body against injury and keeps it balanced. This combined with constant movement is an optimal recipe for skeletal fluidity and even systemic health. We are not simply looking for brut strength though. We should be aiming for synergy of our muscles which allow functional and efficient movement to provide long-term skeletal health...and this all starts at our center.

The patterning of the stabilizer muscles in our pelvis and back dictate the quality of movement in the rest of the body. This group of muscles, are anatomically similar to a cylinder and biomechanically similar to a girdle. They function to maintain breathing patterns, continence and segmental stability of the spine. There should be relative automaticity of these muscles to perform all the necessary movement patterns that the human body may go through on a daily basis. The quality of their function can be diminished by lack of movement or injury. This alteration of input from the central nervous system occurs in response to pain or stress and results in compensation that forces the larger mover muscles to figure out a way to keep you upright as you go about your day. Ultimately, this means that the skeleton is either mildly or grossly mis-aligned which creates more work for the body to find balance with gravitational forces. The role of this cylinder is to pre-contract in a manner to prepare the larger muscles for quality movement. As the movement continues, these muscles "reflexively" stabilize the spine to maintain functional patterns. While it is ideal for the body to achieve this in the delivery of whole body movements, we may need to re-educate these muscles in a manner of isolation and then progress towards incorporating them into patterns.

The following exercises take us back to some of the developmental basics. They incorporate motor patterns that we learn as our body grows so we can function starting from the center on out.

*If you have a hip or spinal injury, consult a physician who understands your condition and can quide you on the safety of these and any other strength training exercises.

1. Supine breathing
Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. As you take an inhaling breath, allow your torso to lift by expanding your ribs in the back of the body while simultaneously expanding your ribcage in the front. As you take an exhaling breath, maintain a controlled release of the ribs back to the bodies center while simultaneously drawing the low belly muscles inward towards the spine. This should feel similar to the sensation of zipping up a tight pair of pants.

3 - 5 minutes, 2 x's/day

2. Supine bridging
Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Take an inhaling breath as above. As you exhale, lift your hips and draw in the low belly in to engage the deep stabilizers. Maintain a degree of drawing on as you lower.

12 -15 x's, 2 x'sday

3. Face-down to face-up upper body roll
Lie face-down with arms stretched overhead and on the floor (bring the arms out to a "T" if the shoulders shrug because of tightness). Curl the toes under and engage the core by drawing the navel to the spine. Keeping the core activated, gently roll open to the side starting from the crown of the head and end with a slight opening of the hips to the side. Move in a very segmental manner that looks like you are peeling your body off the ground and then come back to the face-down position in this reverse segmental manner.

12 - 15 x's, 2 x's/day

4. Quadraped rocking
Kneel on all fours. Inhale in preparation. As you exhale, activate your core by drawing your navel to your spine. Important: You should be able to do this without moving your spine. Check to see if your weight is evenly distributed side to side. Maintaining this neutral position, rock your hips back and then return to shoulders over the wrists and hips over the ankles.

12 -15 x's, 2 x's/day