Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Visit Coach Lark ON SUGAR
Coach Lark's blog is now located at coachlark.onsugar.com. Please join Lark over there, where you can sign up to have weekly blog postings emailed right to you!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Mobility and Stability, Part Two
Last week we talked about the relationship between the body's major joints, and how a balance of mobility and stability is crucial to joint health and overall body fitness.
Here is another exercise you can add to your joint-stabilizing repertoire. Ultimately, the goal is to be able to balance on one leg and perform more sophisticated movement with no risk of injury.
HIPS
To build strength and mobility simultaneously in your hips and ankles: Stand on one leg and hinge at the hips with a neutral spine, keeping the glutes (muscles of the butt) and the abdominal muscles engaged. One leg travels up in back as far as you can hinge forward keeping a neutral spine. The other foot in anchored on the ground. If this strains the back at all, bend your standing knee until the posture is comfortable, but still challenging. Slowly straighten the spine back to standing, training the glutes to aid you in hip extension. Repeat eight times on each leg.
Another good one for hip and knee stability: lay on your side against a wall with your back, butt and heels pressed firmly against the surface of the wall. Wearing socks, raise your upper leg as high as you comfortably can, still keeping both heels, your butt and back in contact with the wall. This will train your abductors (outer hip muscles) which will in turn stabilize the hip and benefit your knee.
You can also train these important hip stabilizers by walking sideways with resistance tubing around your ankles.
To build mobility: Stretch your hip flexors by kneeling on one knee and leaning slowly forward until a stretch is felt in the front of the hip of your trailing leg. The foot of the other leg, which is bent at a 90-degree angle, should be firmly planted on the floor to provide stability.
Make sure to keep your core tight and your forward leg far enough in front of you so that you don't over flex your forward knee.
Next week, I'll give you one more set of exercises to amp up strength, stability and mobility in the joints, this time, the thoracic spine.
Start integrating each of these exercises into your own routine, and you'll gradually increase your ability to take on more challenging movements.
Lark Miller
Infinite Fitness
Bently Reserve
301 Battery St. SF CA 94111
Phone 415.250.5236
Email lark@coachlark.com
Web coachlark.com
Here is another exercise you can add to your joint-stabilizing repertoire. Ultimately, the goal is to be able to balance on one leg and perform more sophisticated movement with no risk of injury.
HIPS
To build strength and mobility simultaneously in your hips and ankles: Stand on one leg and hinge at the hips with a neutral spine, keeping the glutes (muscles of the butt) and the abdominal muscles engaged. One leg travels up in back as far as you can hinge forward keeping a neutral spine. The other foot in anchored on the ground. If this strains the back at all, bend your standing knee until the posture is comfortable, but still challenging. Slowly straighten the spine back to standing, training the glutes to aid you in hip extension. Repeat eight times on each leg.
Another good one for hip and knee stability: lay on your side against a wall with your back, butt and heels pressed firmly against the surface of the wall. Wearing socks, raise your upper leg as high as you comfortably can, still keeping both heels, your butt and back in contact with the wall. This will train your abductors (outer hip muscles) which will in turn stabilize the hip and benefit your knee.
You can also train these important hip stabilizers by walking sideways with resistance tubing around your ankles.
To build mobility: Stretch your hip flexors by kneeling on one knee and leaning slowly forward until a stretch is felt in the front of the hip of your trailing leg. The foot of the other leg, which is bent at a 90-degree angle, should be firmly planted on the floor to provide stability.
Make sure to keep your core tight and your forward leg far enough in front of you so that you don't over flex your forward knee.
Next week, I'll give you one more set of exercises to amp up strength, stability and mobility in the joints, this time, the thoracic spine.
Start integrating each of these exercises into your own routine, and you'll gradually increase your ability to take on more challenging movements.
Lark Miller
Infinite Fitness
Bently Reserve
301 Battery St. SF CA 94111
Phone 415.250.5236
Email lark@coachlark.com
Web coachlark.com
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Mobility and Stability
If you are doing all your training on two legs, it's time to get onto one leg. Single leg balancing exercises are crucial to developing joint alignment, balance, strength and stability.
In order to be confident on one foot through a healthy range of motion, you must possess both stability and mobility in the leg. If any one joint becomes locked up or immobile, it will transfer force into the joint directly above or below it, putting you at risk for injury.
In the case of immobile hips or ankles, the knee is at risk because it's the next joint in line, and, unfortunately, knees are highly susceptible to injury or torque. Hip and ankle joints are crucial to the stability of your leg, as they keep your knee in the correct position over the foot. To protect your knee joints, it's important to have stable and mobile hips and ankles.
Generally speaking, I train the body to be mobile in the ankle, stable in the knee, mobile in the hip, stable in the lumbar (low back) spine, and mobile in the thoracic (mid back) spine.
If any of these "mobile" joints (ankle, hip, thoracic spine) lacks the ability to move in any plane of motion, the force of movement instead gets transferred onto the closest "stable" joint (knee, lumbar), putting that joint at risk for injury and eventually causing pain and dysfunction.
Over the next few weeks I'll post a few of my favorite exercises for both strengthening and improving mobility in the "mobile" joints. Over time, these will give you an edge on one leg. Here's the first one:
ANKLES
To build lateral strength: stand on a shallow ledge, such as a curb, with the inside of your foot on the ledge and the outside (or lateral foot) off the ledge. Hold the outside of your foot up level with the inside, using the strength of your ankle. This exercise is especially helpful if you tend to "supinate" the foot (roll onto the outside habitually). If you tend to roll onto the inside of your foot ("pronate"), do the opposite, placing the outside of your foot on a one inch ledge and holding the inside of your foot up. If your ankles are generally weak, do both.
To build mobility: Sit on your heels, "Japanese style", for 20 seconds, two or three times. Or, take a downward dog (yoga style) and bend your knees alternately back and forth, slowly, to isolate and stretch the calves.
As always, have fun, be safe and don't do anything that causes any level of pain.
Lark Miller
Infinite Fitness
Bently Reserve
301 Battery St. SF CA 94111
Phone 415.250.5236
Email lark@coachlark.com
Web coachlark.com
In order to be confident on one foot through a healthy range of motion, you must possess both stability and mobility in the leg. If any one joint becomes locked up or immobile, it will transfer force into the joint directly above or below it, putting you at risk for injury.
In the case of immobile hips or ankles, the knee is at risk because it's the next joint in line, and, unfortunately, knees are highly susceptible to injury or torque. Hip and ankle joints are crucial to the stability of your leg, as they keep your knee in the correct position over the foot. To protect your knee joints, it's important to have stable and mobile hips and ankles.
Generally speaking, I train the body to be mobile in the ankle, stable in the knee, mobile in the hip, stable in the lumbar (low back) spine, and mobile in the thoracic (mid back) spine.
If any of these "mobile" joints (ankle, hip, thoracic spine) lacks the ability to move in any plane of motion, the force of movement instead gets transferred onto the closest "stable" joint (knee, lumbar), putting that joint at risk for injury and eventually causing pain and dysfunction.
Over the next few weeks I'll post a few of my favorite exercises for both strengthening and improving mobility in the "mobile" joints. Over time, these will give you an edge on one leg. Here's the first one:
ANKLES
To build lateral strength: stand on a shallow ledge, such as a curb, with the inside of your foot on the ledge and the outside (or lateral foot) off the ledge. Hold the outside of your foot up level with the inside, using the strength of your ankle. This exercise is especially helpful if you tend to "supinate" the foot (roll onto the outside habitually). If you tend to roll onto the inside of your foot ("pronate"), do the opposite, placing the outside of your foot on a one inch ledge and holding the inside of your foot up. If your ankles are generally weak, do both.
To build mobility: Sit on your heels, "Japanese style", for 20 seconds, two or three times. Or, take a downward dog (yoga style) and bend your knees alternately back and forth, slowly, to isolate and stretch the calves.
As always, have fun, be safe and don't do anything that causes any level of pain.
Lark Miller
Infinite Fitness
Bently Reserve
301 Battery St. SF CA 94111
Phone 415.250.5236
Email lark@coachlark.com
Web coachlark.com
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