Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/31/2023 in all areas

  1. Thanks again Kit for you guidance. when doing this it felt like my scapulas were right at the edge of the bench but looking at the pic it looks like I could even move further away from the bars..
    2 points
  2. Tried this last night with the cue to straighten the arms before loading them. Definitely makes a difference. Something I've noticed is that I never get the same type of soreness in my lats as I do from stretching other muscles. Is that an indication that I can increase the intensity? I'm not even sure how I would. Thanks so much to everyone on this thread. This is one of my biggest issues right now and it's so great to be a part of the conversation. Also tried moving my feet together as shown in the video. Creates a strong fatigue sensation. Like suddenly my legs are really tired, until I move them apart again.
    1 point
  3. Jim, because your lower back is beautifully flexible, the scorpion pose will affect it way more than the thoracic spine, as you report. The box bridge with the cues I have described, is far better at getting into the thoracic spine, in my experience. @andyfitz: put your shoulders on the edge of the bench you show above that's further away from the wall, and hold the next rung up on the ladder bars. Straighten your arms completely before applying any of your body's weight to the exercise (lift your hips up as high as you can to straighten the arms). Then go limp, only holding tension in the triceps to keep the arms straight, and slowly lower the hips, but only as far as you can hold the arms straight. Do that, and please take a pic. of the result. I am editing this to add that it's clear that your lats are v. tight. The exercise I have modified targets these muscles and fascia directly IF you keep the arms completely straight before loading the shoulders.
    1 point
  4. @andyfitz I used to do more backbending before I got old, though most of it was in the lumbar area rather than the thoracic. However my experience would be that in BB's like in the photo of 16 May, there is such a strong force along the length of the spine (from your body weight) that it is difficult to encourage much bending. As well as BBs, some of my experience comes from forearm balances in a backbend (scorpion?) where I found that because the back was supporting the body weight, I couldn't much enhance the bend at the thoracic level. In contrast, I found exercises such as you posted most recently excellent for opening up the upper back - though it is also limited by tightness in the arm muscles. I have a small tight-bend baby whale, that I used to lie back over, grab weights from the floor behind me, and then try to bring my hips to the ground on the other side of the whale, often pressing the feet against a wall nearby to enhance the bend. This produced a very strong bend in the upper back. If my experience is anything to go by, this type of exercise is the way to go - but I never got the upper back flexibility that @Simon shows. This video shows me 14 years ago (age 62; sorry about the music). Note that the upper back is almost entirely straight, although I am putting as much force on it as I can using the weight of the legs. This type of exercise never did much for improving flexibility, I think because of the body weight taken along the length of the spine. I hope you can understand what I am saying. Another way of putting it, is that a lot of different approaches are needed, because different exercises target different areas in different ways.
    1 point
  5. Wow, it’s hard to see comprehend how my spine could ever articulate like that Simon ! I feel like I’ve accumulated many years of playing competitive basketball and Gaelic football as well as lots of heavy pushing exercises and probably lots of poor posture has left my spine glued together am loving the challenge however, of ungluing it some bit at least. really feel is an inhibiting factor in movements like a squat or even a vertical jump, it’s as though force cannot be transferred efficiently because of the inability of the different parts of the spine to move enough. this pic is the bench exercise I do i also do a version upside down kind of like a Mexican handstand where I try to lower my feet down the wall
    1 point
  6. There is benefit (increased shoulder flexion) but this needs to be weighed against risk, like all things. What are your goals? Shoulders above hands is a high degree of flexibility.
    1 point
  7. @Kit_L, is there benefit to pushing shoulders past the hands? Or do you find more improvement in lowering the box height instead and keeping arms vertical?
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...