13/09/2016
Ever feel like your body is becoming more concave by the minute? You have a lot of company because in this day and age we can spend hours sitting and looking down as we use laptops and phones, and even though we're moving down the road while we're driving, our bodies are sitting still inside the car. We have three big beautiful planes of motion that our bodies can travel through in the course of a day, but often we only move in a small fraction of that range. Activities of daily living and even some sports like running and biking can shorten our hip flexors and cause lots of misalignment in other parts of the body. Most of us don't live on a farm where using our muscles in a variety of ways is built into the daily routine. Modern life has given us many great conveniences, but one of the downsides is (queue creepy horror music) QUAD DOMINANCE! It's really not quite that bad, but quad dominance involves using your quadriceps, the muscles on the fronts of your thighs, to do the work that your glutes (butt muscles) should be doing. When you are over-reliant on your quadriceps, they become tight along with the rest of your hip flexors. This causes your pelvis to tip forward creating misalignment in other parts of your body which can lead to not-so-great posture, inefficient movement, and sometimes to injury. Your glutes are the largest muscle in your body. They actually help your body stay upright and help to propel you forward when you walk or run. If you tend to "feel the burn" only in the fronts of your thighs when you do squats or sprints, or maybe when you're just walking upstairs, then you might be using your quads more than necessary. And we don’t want that, so this is what we’re going to do:
1) get your glutes firing in tiptop shape
2) strengthen your hamstrings
3) strengthen your core- front, sides, and back
4) lengthen your hip flexors
Here’s a video to help you get started. If you need help creating a personal fitness plan, contact me at
[email protected].
Ever feel like your body is becoming more concave by the minute? You have a lot of company because in this day and age we can spend hours sitting and looking...
