Good cues for a neutral spine

I attended the Halifax Can-Fit-Pro conference on Saturday, and in one of the talks I picked up a nice cue for helping participants find a neutral spine and engage the pelvic floor muscles.

"Imagine your hip bone as a bowl of water. Now don't spill the water either out the front of the back of the bowl."

At this point it's easy to demo what "spilling water" looks like by tilting the hips forward and back.

Once the hips are in place, "lift up the pool liner" at the bottom of the bowl.

If people are wondering how to tell that their "bowl" is upright, I can cue them to find the triangle formed by the two hip bones and the pubic bone and then make sure that the triangle is completely vertical.

After all that, I think most people will be able to find their nice strong neutral spine point.

Next I cue them pull the shoulder blades down and chest open, and Bob's your uncle. I sometimes tell them to pretend there's a star on their chest (point to near top of breast bone) and then make sure I can see their star even as they hip-hinge over for bent-over rows or hamstring stretches or squats. "Show me your stars everyone!"

Oh and one more nice exercise modification I learned about: for a squat, get them to extend their arms forward, thumbs up, and put a dowel (or empty bar) across the biceps. Raise the arms a bit higher than parallel with the floor, and now squat without losing the bar.

Conferences are great!

I like Pilates

So far, I'm really enjoying my Pilates class. It's a lot more challenging than I thought it would be, and I'm getting all the benefits I thought I would, plus some I didn't expect.

I took the class because I need some help with running a good safe Body Trim class, and Pilates is all about proper posture and lots of cueing. That is certainly happening; I am a lot more comfortable telling my participants to stabilize their shoulders, hips, etc, as we work through the exercises.

The second benefit I was looking for and got was a good core workout. I feel stronger every week. I sit a little straighter at work now, and I can sit on the edge of a crappy chair and maintain a nice straight back for several hours.

The unexpected benefits has been the discovery of some weak spots, like my neck and my left hip. The left hip makes sense since that's where my ankle problems are. Hopefully I can correct that. The big challenge has been my neck. I have never been able to do sit-ups without supporting my head, and in Pilates we do a lot of crunches or various sort. The instructor has been really helpful, spending time with me, trying to teach my how to hold my head up so that it's not hurting my neck. (Tuck in the chin but don't move the head forward.) (I know, it sounds easy.) I can do it while lying down or standing up, but as soon as I'm in a crunch position, I lose the alignment and neck start to hurt again. But I think I'm making progress. We have another five weeks to go; perhaps by the end I'll be able to hold up head up comfortably. I'm really hoping that the neck strength will also help with the neck/upper back soreness that I get from sitting at computers all day.

And one more benefit: I'm actually finding the class fun! Today we had only three participants, and we ended up laughing a lot when some of us just couldn't do some exercises. It's interesting to see how different people find different exercises easy and others impossible. I can't "roll like a ball" at all. I get stuck on my back like an upside-down turtle.

I'm going to try to take the same class in September if I can. (It will depend on my work/school/Dalplex schedule.)