Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Abdominals

I Found this on Movements Afoot Wall post on facebook.


This last weekend I took a fabulous workshop with Marie-Jose Blom on the Smart Spine. Marie Jose is so elegant in language, imagery as well as brilliant in her knowledge of anatomy and its applications to the fine tuning of the body. You must study with her sometime
Muscles have different qualities of tone; fast and slow twitch. Another way to think about them as global and local. Marie-Jose’s image for these kinds of muscles is of a light switch. Your superficial muscles are like the light switch that you turn on and off. The local muscles are your deep stabilizers that are like dimmers.
We need to turn the dimmers on slowly before adding the big lights switching on or off.
The transverse abdominus is a corset especially the old fashion where you tie in back. The fibers do not have the same contration as other muscles. Widening the transverse to the back will flatten the front and give support for the spine.
               Widen the transverse
               In towards the spine
               Up with the pelvic floor
This is the wiup (whup). This is a quick nickname that I came up with. It has been amazing to bring this imagery into my session with students. It made such a positive change!

Work IN vs. Workout
There were so many gems from the workshop with Marie-Jose Blom.
To get to the deep stabilizers, you need to concentrate on working slower to turn on the correct muscles. Our large global muscles are like rock and roll. Lots of power and pizzazzz.
The “Work IN” invites the deep stabilizers to facilitate movement without compression. Many injuries are happening when overtraining prevents the body from moving well.
Try walking with bracing your torso in a crunch. How does it affect your legs?
Now imagine a gentle corset like the new Spanx. You should walk and dance with freedom.