Erector spinae firing up in wide legged elephant walk

[Timm]

Hello everyone,

i am new here, but i already profited from your knowledge! While doing the stretch therapy starter course, i discovered that i had a hard time keeping a straight back when sitting in a straddle position. I saw a post which recommended the wide legged elephant walk specifically for this issue, so i implemented it into my training (i do them 1-2 times a week, but only since 2-3 weeks). I attached a picture of me in this position. You can see me monitoring my form on my phone between my hands while i film myself with my laptop, which helps me a lot to keep up a good form during my exercises.

Now to my question, which is mostly out of interest: While i am in this position, my erector spinae muscles are working HARD! Does this mean i am too weak or too unflexible (or both)? And what would be your consequence out of this? Do some isolation work for those muscles (i don't do isolated core work except from bouldering 3x a week) or just keep doing the WLEW 1-2 times a week and leave everything as it is?

Thanks in advance and regards,

Timm

[Nathan]

Hi Timm,

Welcome to the forums!

If your erectors are working hard in that position, then it probably just means they're working to hold your torso up. That's not really the point of the exercise, so feel free to support more of the weight with your arms. Judging from your hands, you don't seem to be putting much weight on them. You can use a higher pad if that makes it easier. Of course, you can just keep doing it the same way if you want to get a bit of extra back training in 

As for sitting up straight in your straddle position, try putting some padding under your bum to raise it up off the floor. As you get more flexible, remove the padding.

[Timm]

Hi Nathan,

Thank you very much for your reply, that really helped me to clear up my problem!

It seems like my mistake was implementing an exercise that i only had a rough idea of. I thought that a higher load (less weight on my arms) would lead to a higher torque at my hip and by that to a better stretch. Well, i tried to intentionally keep the weight off my hands and the load was just too high to relax in this position, which i think should be the primary goal. Since i already completed the starters course i should have known better. 

[Nathan]

Hi Timm,

You're very welcome! But I may have been unclear.

I was suggesting that you take more weight onto your arms. Elephant walks are meant to be a bent-to-straight-leg movement, ideally with a fixed pelvis position. Bending over puts an initial stretch on the leg tissues, and (when possible) the torso is kept firmly against the thighs to lock the pelvis position and encourage the body to relax. After this setup, all of the work is done by attempting to straighten the legs. With your setup, you would want to focus on keeping the pelvis and upper body fixed while gently trying to straighten the legs, often one at a time, but both at once can be effective too.

Using gravity or other added weight to pull the torso down into the position shown in your photo is a different movement, sometimes called weighted straddles. If you were doing these, you would generally elevate yourself and hold a weight in your hands to pull your torso further down while standing in the straddle position. I would not recommend doing these before you can even comfortably sit up straight in a seated straddle, though. I would elevate the bum, as I mentioned previously, and work on getting the initial seated straddle position comfortable first.

Hope that makes sense!

[sturob985]

Hi Nathan, in the last post you say "elevate yourself" when did using the weighted straddle position. Could you explain what you mean by this please?

[Kit_L]

On 5/10/2022 at 7:57 PM, Timm said:

While i am in this position, my erector spinae muscles are working HARD!

Of course! You're a big strong lad, and have significant leg development—so your back muscles have to work hard against this tension to hold the form you are using. 

Nathan means when you are sitting in straddle, sit on a bolster or something thick and firm, so you are tilted forwards with respect to gravity. Check this out:

https://youtu.be/Co252bder2Y

You will have to scroll through, but you'll see many of the guys in this class are sitting on rolled-up mats, including me! 

[sturob985]

Understood. Thank you.