The Amazing Stickie loves to work on spinal extensions while keeping her shoulders healthy and mobile, so today she is doing Scarecrow. This exercise has a lot of parts, but Stickie has found it worthwhile to master them.
She begins lying on her belly on the floor with her arms in a cactus position (upper arms out at shoulder level, forearms extended alongside the head). Stickie’s nose is hovering just off the floor.
As Stickie inhales, she extends her spine (spinal extension = backbend) keeping her arms in line with her head. The curve of her spine comes not from her lower back and not from her neck, but from the segment of spine between the two (thoracic spine). She keeps her body in this curved position and straightens her arms out so that they reach over her head, still in line with her ears as she exhales. She inhales and brings her arms back to the cactus position, but maintains the spinal extension. Finally, she exhales and lowers her torso back to the mat. Phew. That was a lot.
While it is helpful to breathe in the way Stickie does, it is all right if the breathing doesn’t match up with the movements as described. It might work better for some of us to learn the movements and then add the breathing once we know what we’re doing.
Stickie usually finds that three to five repetitions of this exercise are enough.
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