Did you know that in order to rotate your trunk safely, you must use your obliques so your lower back does not compensate?
Did you know that in order to use your obliques, you must utilize your pec muscles and lat muscles to facilitate proper trunk rotation?
Did you know that when you do trunk rotations your hips should not be moving, but only your ribcage?
If you do a lot of russian twists, cable rotations, boxing exercises, and other core exercises to work your obliques, but you always end up with a tight lower back, this is to help you. We have to recognize that our body is connected from head to toe, one muscle can’t work without the rest of the body getting involved. If we stand in the way of total body integration then our body compensates and the wrong muscles start to assist the movement.
If we are setting out to exercise our obliques but we leave the pecs and lats out of the equation then the lower back does the job. In the same scenario, if we set out to rotate our core but leave the glutes and hip flexors out of the equation, again, the lower back takes the brunt of the force.
All of the muscles in our body have to work in harmony at the right time to facilitate a proper function. If one muscle activates at the wrong time, or doesn’t activate at all, our body will still let us manage to perform the movement. However, more than likely our form will be wrong and this will lead to the wrong muscles doing the job. If we repeat the movement in the wrong way over and over again, this eventually becomes engrained in the brain as normal and our ability to function maximally declines.
If you want to function better, when you play sports, when you exercise, or when you’re living life day to day, your muscles must work together in the right way to support your body properly. The right support ensures better posture during movement and the ability to move pain-free. If you want to learn more about proper body movement to enhance your ability to function, then book an appointment with us!
