The impossible exercises

[Jim Pickles]

I have a few exercises that I use with my students, that I call the “impossible exercises”, Well, they’re not exactly impossible, but its difficult to do them much, or we can do much less than we imagine we ought to be able to do.

One is the transversus abdominis activator – lie on the back, arms crossed over chest, knees to chest, and then raise the sacrum a little bit off the floor. Surprisingly difficult. I get my students to learn the movement if they cant do it, by flinging the legs up a little bit and then getting the deep abdominals to come in at the end to give the legs and sacrum a little kick along the way. I hope this gives them the feeling of what activating the TA is like, so they can concentrate on that and enhance it.

Why is it so difficult? This exercise is much easier if the legs are raised vertically instead (lying on one’s back). I think this shows why – when the knees are to the chest, the pelvis is tilted up towards the head at the front, so the TA is already shortened, so its difficult to make it contract more. Not sure if this is correct though. Maybe in that position other muscles can come in.

Other impossible exercises are done on the front. One is a glut activator – lie on the front, one knee bent up to chest, other leg out straight behind. Then lift the straight leg off the floor, using the glutes – without bending the knee. I can do this on my flexible side, but only sometimes on my other side, and in neither case can I go far, or hold it for a long time. Many of my students can’t do it at all. To make it easier for them, I then get them to raise their hips up on a block, and then they can do it.

Why is it so difficult? When standing, and not working against gravity, we can take our leg back at the hip much further than we can when on our front. I am not sure why, but it may be that with the knee bent to the chest, the pelvis (as in the previous case) is tilted up towards the head at the front, so the hip joint of the leg going back at the starting position, is already extended beyond its normal neutral position. So naturally it is more difficult to take it further. Again, I am not sure if this explains it fully.

Another difficult one is the arch body hold. I and many of my students can passively (with our arms) push up quite high into a cobra. However we find it difficult to raise the upper body in the arch body hold more than a short distance, and difficult to hold it for a long time (though we are working on that). Why is the active range so very much less than the passive range? I think it might be just lack of strength (even on these people who are already stronger than the average). However it is a common gymnastic/contortion exercise to arch the upper body high just with back power, so the muscles are there – just not strong enough in us. Whether normal people need them that strong is another matter. Still, its frustrating that we are so bad.

Same with the legs in the arch body hold. The active range is far less than the passive range (and unlike the earlier cases, the pelvis is in neutral, so there is no pre-contraction at the starting position which might explain the poor lift). Again, maybe lack of strength.

If anyone has any views on this I’d appreciate hearing them, and whether they think my analysis is correct, because it is frustrating that we are so bad.

If anyone cant understand the starting positions, I can post photos if needed.

Thanks,

Jim.

[Nathan]

Hi Jim,

It sounds to me like you've just found a few examples of exercises near end of range, which always feels impossible. The positioning of the pelvis in your second movement reduces the possibility of compensation, forcing you to rely on that weak end-range muscle activation.

This is what people often refer to as active vs. passive flexibility. Our friend Emmet Louis likes to recommend that people aim for having 80% of their passive flexibility available actively in three planes: gravity assisting the movement, neutral effect of gravity on the movement, and gravity working against the movement. Taking pike (forward fold) as an example, this would be standing pike (gravity assisting), seated pike (gravity neutral), and hanging pike (gravity adding resistance).

Working on these movements is probably a good idea!

[Jim Pickles]

Thanks. Some of them are near the end range - maybe - but the arch body hold is not, and I am still wondering why that is so difficult.

 

[Kit_L]

Images of each one, please, Jim.

On 7/8/2024 at 12:00 AM, Jim Pickles said:

Why is the active range so very much less than the passive range?

Re. ABH: it is simply a lack of strength in the active range, as you suspected, especially for people who (like you) have a great passive range. (But see an added note, last par. below.) Add to that the fact that gymnasts and dancers who use this exercise have probably done it thousands of times since they were very young.

The way I made this work in my body (when I was doing those things) was to put a weight behind my hear (5, then 10Kg) and drape the body over a curved support. With someone holding my legs, I then practised the "back uncurl" as we called it: going from gentle flexion to extension, starting with the neck, then upper > middle > lower back. This woke up the connection that I was wanting to make, and did improve the ABH.

Part of the problem, I believe, is the internal language that we use to structure the experience. By this (and using an ordinary chin-up as the example exercise), if you get up on to a straight bar, and hang, your hands immediately "tell' you whether you are 'strong enough' to do a repetition. This is not always accurate. Any ROM outside what you can do right now can be experienced the same way. Because we are thinking about "strong enough"/"not strong enough" as the structuring idea, the experience is structured in those terms. I have helped a very large number of people to do their first-ever chin-up by helping them up to the final position by lifting them, then me letting go and immediately asking them to lower themselves to the start position, under control. The ones who can then do a chin-up (or two) always told me, "I felt like I could do it", having "felt like I can't do it" only a few seconds before. My point is (not talking about the ABH) is that you feel like you can't go higher when you are in the end position, right? Until you can, you will always feel this.

Why don't you try this with the ABH: get into your best position, then ask a student to help you get your shoulders an inch or two higher; you hold yourself in the new position (ask them to let go of any support) and you slowly lower yourself to the floor. Then re-cue (Olivia's video on our YT channel has all the cues), and see what happens.

[Jim Pickles]

@Kit_L Thanks. Here are pics of the first two I mentioned - I won't show the ABH because there's nothing special about it. I put a red belt around my hips that was horizontal when I was standing, so you can roughly see the tilt of the hips though it will I guess move around a little bit. 1 is the TA exercise with knees to chest, 2 is the TA exercise with legs raised (not vertical as I imagined), 3 is the glut exercise on my good side.

Assuming the belt is a reliable marker the hips are indeed tilted up at the front in no. 1, and a little less so if the legs are raised. Maybe that explains why the second is much easier, though I am not sure because the difference in the pelvic tilt is small. In 3 the thigh is neutral with respect to the pelvis, so I'm not sure why that is so difficult (even though I can do it a bit on this side).

However your comments about the ABH express what I think I was feeling my way towards in a fumbling uneducated way - that the lack of ability went beyond the lack of strength. In other words, its due to lack of correct activation, a.k.a. lack of skill. I worked though Olivia's video again with the cues. For the upper body, there was a massive difference, when I first did it with arms down, then aeroplane arms, then arms up. It showed me how to progressively incorporate the different groups of muscles that contribute to the action. I guess if you just go straight into it, you only feel (and therefore activate) the muscles that do most of the work, and this means you neglect the others - and in a complex structure such as the back they may in fact contribute as much or even more than the main ones worked by going straight into it.

I've not been able to do partner versions yet, but will try when I have the chance.

Many thanks indeed for your help and insights. I'll try it with my class next week and see how they find it.

Jim.

[Kit_L]

On 7/10/2024 at 5:44 PM, Jim Pickles said:

I guess if you just go straight into it, you only feel (and therefore activate) the muscles that do most of the work, and this means you neglect the others

It's worse than that, Jim: you said "you only feel (and therefore activate) the muscles that do most of the work"—no, that's not what happens. You only feel (and therefore activate) the muscles that you have used before to do the same function. Very likely it will be the lower back muscles, and not the glutes. The beauty of Liv's approach is that using the cueing she offers, in the order they're presented, allows the student to acquire a new, and known to be efficient, pattern of activation. If you look at the before and after shots of Craig, her model in the video, the difference in execution is huge. And he was expert in the gymnastics strength training methods at that point.

And all she did was talk. The self-cueing, as a result of the cues heard, is the gold of this system.

[Jim Pickles]

Yes, thank you for pointing that out. I've been trying the exercises following Olivia's cues, and the improvement is massive - and immediate. And now it is preserved in a new session, even if I go straight into it. I get to pretty much to where Craig is in the video (though I havent videoed myself yet, so cannot be sure). Many thanks indeed - my students will be very pleased, as I am.

All the best,

Jim.

[Kit_L]

Jim, we can't know what we don't know, and this is truest of all with respect to physical matters. Once we experience something, though, then we do know it. It's a paradox, to be sure, but it's also accurate. The ST system is simply a collection of techniques to encounter that experience. No amount of thinking can do this.