The Amazing Stickie and Mermaid

The Amazing Stickie knows that life does not always move straight ahead.  She prepares for this by doing exercises that work sideways and with twists, like the Pilates Mermaid.

Stickie has no knee problems, so the starting position is not a challenge for her.  Those of us who do have knee problems can modify by sitting crisscross applesauce or with our legs extended out in front of us.  Stickie has one leg bent in front of her so that her shin is parallel to her hips.  The other leg is bent so that her knee is next to her first foot and her other foot is tucked back by her hips.  Stickie, having an ideal body, has no trouble keeping both sit bones on the floor in this position while keeping her spine nice and straight.  Those of us who do struggle can prop up the side that does touch the ground to keep things even.

 

From this starting position, Stickie inhales and raises her arms to shoulder level, keeping her shoulders away from her ears.  As she exhales, she bends to the side away from her feet, one arm coming overhead and the other arm reaching toward the floor.  She does not twist her spine forward or back.  She moves as if she is pressed between two panes of glass.  As she inhales, she returns to the starting position.

 

After doing several reps, Stickie performs the counter stretch, in which she side bends toward her feet.  Then she repeats the whole thing with her legs set up the other way.

Balance

As a follow up to yesterday’s post about how we are whole bodies, I’d like to point out that one of the implications of this is that we need whole body strength and whole body mobility for good function.

Because we move as whole bodies and not as disembodied legs or backs or arms or heads, all of our parts need to coordinate with each other.  If one of our knees doesn’t bend particularly well, the motion has to come from somewhere else (i.e., the ankle or hip, as the joints on either side of the knee).  When one of our muscle groups is significantly weaker than another, the rest of the muscles need to take up the slack for us and we end up trying to do everything with our neck muscles (the codepence champs of the Muscle Olympics!).  In the short term, this is all fine.  We want our body parts to cooperate with each other.

 

In the long term, though, we set ourselves up for imbalances, inefficiencies, and injuries when we let some parts slack off and other parts do more than their share.  This is where corrective exercise, flexibility training, and Pilates come in.  They help us restore the balance so we can move with grace and efficiency our whole lives (in our whole bodies!).

Thank You, Captain Obious!

I have put on my Captain Obvious hat this morning:  we move with our whole bodies.

Maybe it’s my Captain Should-Be-Obvious hat.  We tend to think about our bodies in segments, limbs, sometimes even systems.  We do curls and think:  I am exercising the muscles in my arm.  In truth, we are using our whole bodies, integrating all those different kinds of tissues to lift that weight.

 

What that means, practically, is that stuff that happens in one area of the body affects everything else.  Imagine, for example, that I have a blister on my left heel.  The problem is just right there.  Except now I’m walking differently because my heel hurts.  This changes the way my knees and hips work and the way my spine aligns itself, how my shoulders orient themselves and how my arms swing, even the angle of my head on my neck.  That one blister can give me a headache or aggravate lower back pain.

 

Of course, there are times when it is useful to use our gift for analysis to break down our body into parts, but sometimes we need to remember the whole.  We’re a lot more useful as entire human beings than as just a collection of arms and legs.

Monday Workout: Dip! (Sadly, not the kind that goes with chips)

Both dips and kickbacks work our triceps.  If you choose to do dips, make absolutely sure that the bench/chair/table you choose is heavy enough not to shift when you do the work.  We want our discomfort to come from doing the work, not from getting injured!  Three rounds.

 

woodchoppers	30
bench press	20
1 leg deadlift	10
mountain climbers	30
rows	20
round lunges	10
leg kicks	30
dips or kickbacks	20
Pretty princesses	10

The Amazing Stickie and Scarecrow

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.

Flow

I am one of those compulsively on time people.  Which, here in the real world, means that I’m early for everything because I have planned for traffic, earthquake, tsunami, kidnapping, and a few million other eventualities.  The clock in my mind is always ticking.  Most of the time, I think of this as a feature and not a bug, but.

It makes it hard to get into flow.

 

Why is this important?  Flow is the state in which we do our best work.  We’re fully present with what we’re doing.  We’re both totally mindful of what we’re doing and totally mindless about it because everything comes together.

 

Of course, our ability to find flow is increased by mindfulness practices like Pilates, yoga, and meditation.  It’s right there in that word:  practice.  As we practice, we get better.

 

One other thing that helps me (and maybe other people, too) is to try to find at least some fairly large blocks of unstructured time.  If I know I have a day off, for example, I know I don’t have to be watching the clock while I’m working out to make sure I am done in time for the next thing on the list.  It can be hard to find those blocks, but it is so worth it!

Chill

So here I go being countercultural again:  we need to break up with stress.  I know there’s a whole hustle movement out there.  I know times are hard and we have a lot to do.  But here’s the thing:  it makes us weaker.

Muscles are strongest when they begin from an optimal place.  In fancy fitness jargon, this is called proper length-tension relationship.  Muscles that are too long and relaxed are what we usually think of as weak ones, but muscles that are too tight and short are also not capable of their best work.

 

There are many ways to get our muscles to their appropriate length-tension.  Some of our muscles need to wake up and do some work; others need to chill out.  Corrective exercise, Pilates, massage, self-myofascial release can all help.

 

You know where to find me if you want my help!