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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 13 of 13. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by alexandra_k on May 10, 2021, at 21:11:55
so... around this time last year i joined a gym with the goals of core development and losing some flab.
i'd been finding, progressively, that squats were mostly okay... and sometimes... very much not okay. i'd tweak my back. sort of... not quite hit the right position or something. not holding myself properly or something.
i joined a gym that has lots of really good group fitness classes. they have core classes. because i'm not going to do core work myself. to start with i couldn't feel my anterior core at all. it's taken about a year, now... but i'm getting good activation, finally. not quite getting activation on some of the one-sided or rotational stuff, yet. but just starting to...
i've recently realised it's because i've been in anterior pelvic tilt since... forever. since puberty, at least. worse... i sleep in anterior pelvic tilt. sort of on my side with my belly pushing forwards with gravity. it has been since i've been very young. i distinctly remember when i was about 11 or 12 or 13 becoming very self concious that my belly seemed to protrude in ways other people's did not. and i wasn't pudgey at all back then. so it was something else... and i didn't understand what it was. i mean, i got that 'suck your belly in' sort of altered the appearance a bit. but i didn't know it was about actually rotating my pelvis and holding it in that new position naturally.
so it's work to foam roll the erectors to relax... and then activate... and then strengthen the anterior portion. it feels like... it feels like... there are muscles running along the anterior portion of the spine... to push the spine back... i don't know...
progress on flab isn't going so well. beer keeps me companhy while i do horrible law work that i hate because nobody does their job if they are paid over about 100,000 in nz. seems to me.
Posted by alexandra_k on May 10, 2021, at 21:15:27
In reply to gym progress, posted by alexandra_k on May 10, 2021, at 21:11:55
i don't at all mean this in a judge-y way -- but most people don't hold their spines in neutral in the core classes. i don't know if they are feeling it in their abs or what... if they are feeling activation, i mean, but most of the people look at least a little hyper-extended in the lumbar spine.
of course the gym is filled with corporates. so, people who are mostly sitting, yeah. then spending an hour or so trying to undo the damage caused by the inactivity of the day. yeah.
Posted by alexandra_k on May 10, 2021, at 21:49:05
In reply to Re: gym progress, posted by alexandra_k on May 10, 2021, at 21:15:27
I really enjoy the group fitness classes because the instructors are pretty knowledgeable, with their own, idiosyncratic strengths. I always find that I learn something new in trying things I wouldn't otherwise. Particularly with respect to persisting in trying to get the exercise to work to exercise... Something... When you have to do however many repetitions and they encourage you to keep moving whereas my natural inclination is to slow down... And stop. When I can't feel it. But sometimes persisting with trying sort of helps the discovery.
Anyway...
One of the things I learned was that I have a tendancy to over-focus on my feet. Thinking that feet are the foundation of everything. Thinking that becuase my feet are messed up and my ankle mobility is limited my movements will always be irrevokably f*ck*d up because of that.
But then in some of the classes we do a bunch of stuff on our backs. So then my feet is no excuse at all. That is to say it isn't my lack of anke dorsiflexion that is the problem.
Then experimenting with different stance widths.
I was going wide stance on squats and deadlifts -- because I have long legs and I thought I needed to push the knees out to get them out of the way / I thought I couldn't descend to any reasonable depth because of lack of anke dorsiflexion.
At one point I got an athletic girl with comparable level lengths to me to do a bunch of squats... And she had a lot of dorsiflexion going on. I asked her to try facing the wall squats up close to see how she would solve not being able to dorsiflex -- and she couldn't. So I got it into my head that me trying to squat with a narrow stance was like her trying to squat with a narrow stance up agains the wall with the restriction to dorsiflexion... So I widened my stance. So instead of using my hamstrings I'm using my adductors. Using the medial part of my leg rather than posterior. Using knee extension rather than hip extension...
Using medial glutes to sort of screw the femur into the pelvis. Mistaking that for leg extension.
But there's a distict feeling (that I remember now -- so I did have it at some point) of locking your glutes (maximus) into a hard and fixed position at maximum extention. That's part of finishing the pull on olympic lifting. It sort of locks your leg extension hard so that... If you think of your body as being like a whip and you throw the weight up starting with force through yoru heels... The bit that everything snaps back from... Needs to be your glutes. Not one of the segments of your lumbar spine.
And there's something else that goes on (that i'm still working on) where your xyphoid process is most anterior and lifted high and your t spine sort of hinges back from there... To really finish the pull.
Anyway...
I think my glutes are weak now because I actually needed to start by de-coupling them from my spinal erectors. Glute medius was working with spinal erectors. So it was difficult to get my abs working. Then to get my glutes working with my abs.
Anyway... Can certain see a difference. Looks like I've gained at least 1 inch in height between my ribs and my pelvis.
Spinal compression. Yeah.
But you need to pull everything up from within. Hanging from a pull up bar doesn't do it. Because when you relax one bit you have to do that in conjunction with contracting and strengthening the opposing.
Posted by alexandra_k on May 10, 2021, at 22:35:57
In reply to Re: gym progress, posted by alexandra_k on May 10, 2021, at 21:49:05
'squirrely gimbling of the pelvis' (part three)
yeah. that.
Posted by alexandra_k on May 10, 2021, at 23:00:08
In reply to Re: gym progress, posted by alexandra_k on May 10, 2021, at 22:35:57
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrOvLHt_kgI&ab_channel=TheReadyState
lmfao
Posted by alexandra_k on May 12, 2021, at 21:39:25
In reply to (((meatheads))), posted by alexandra_k on May 10, 2021, at 23:00:08
aw. one of the trainers was saying it was the last time he was teaching core. ever. i hope he's okay and there isn't bad blood, or anything.
he was one of the (rare) instructors who is very very good at the upper core stuff. of course i can't do much about that until i have enough strength in my lower core...
though perhaps not.
it's sad he's going. he was a nice complement to the other instructors who are more focused on different things / who have different strengths.
Posted by alexandra_k on May 12, 2021, at 21:40:54
In reply to Re: (((meatheads))), posted by alexandra_k on May 12, 2021, at 21:39:25
it is very sad, actually. i suppose because i am probably tending to foucus on lower stuff at the expense of upper. lower stuff is coming together. upper is not quite yet. so that means it is lagging. mostest. worstest link.
Posted by alexandra_k on May 14, 2021, at 1:47:51
In reply to Re: (((meatheads))), posted by alexandra_k on May 12, 2021, at 21:40:54
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
there ARE people in the gym with very well developed anterior core.
perhaps (not being judgey being facty) perhaps... overdeveloped. perhaps.
that was the precise specific thing that motivated the style of training that i was raised on.
so.... i am their... not nemesis... their strength-weakness pairing. complement. something like that. solution. i don't know...
i think i do need to work my upper core now that it is (ever so slightly) possible for me to activiate that given some modicum of tension in my lower core. for balance. yeah.
hmm.
Posted by alexandra_k on May 14, 2021, at 1:53:32
In reply to Re: (((meatheads))), posted by alexandra_k on May 14, 2021, at 1:47:51
no, but seriously, wow. girls with long limbs (long levers) and also long torsos. that takes years and years and years and years...
a curved spine... like a bow... when you pull it back... a gentle arc of their spine length...
i wouldn't quite see (because i was trying not to collapse in a little pool of despair) where one was hinging from doing this arm walk out thing on planks... if she was hinging at all...
but, yeah.
to be *able* to do that. yeah.
and now i understand why some have (what i take to be weird cues) for activation... because they have such strong anterior cores they have different cues as to how to get their posterior activated. and they can do weird things like bending back from their lumbar spine because of the strength of their abs... i see...
Posted by alexandra_k on May 14, 2021, at 1:58:40
In reply to Re: (((meatheads))), posted by alexandra_k on May 14, 2021, at 1:53:32
by which i just mean bodybuilders (with focus on anterior 'mirror muscles') vs olympic lifters / powerlifters with the focus on athletic movement in the form of posterior chain strength.
of course everybody wants to be balanced, really. but just a sort of tenancy in the training.
with or without mirrors. the sort of focus. yeah.
Posted by alexandra_k on May 14, 2021, at 2:51:24
In reply to Re: (((meatheads))), posted by alexandra_k on May 14, 2021, at 1:58:40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkP_JqDGJp4
it's like the 105 class for girls
(aim being to fill it out with muscle -- not fat)
lower core
lower core
lower core
lower core
lower core
lower core
lower corecatch it tight and stand it up strong
lower core
lower core
lower corealways gonna be the weakest link.
aka: get busy training it
Posted by alexandra_k on May 14, 2021, at 3:46:55
In reply to Re: (((meatheads))), posted by alexandra_k on May 14, 2021, at 2:51:24
haha the boys are struggling to fill 109.
they keep changing the weight classes to obliterate records created by drug cheats...
europeans:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CESzA10naCI
(on average a little bit taller -- my guess. unconfirmed.)
Posted by alexandra_k on May 14, 2021, at 3:57:49
In reply to Re: (((meatheads))), posted by alexandra_k on May 14, 2021, at 3:46:55
and then there's lauren hubbard.
sigh.
don't get me wrong i'm all for transgendered people *as people*.
but i am not at all for people who have passed through puberty with the benefits of male levels of testosterone and growth hormone competing as female in virtue of identifying socially with the gender. firstly, because you can't undo the benefits derived from bone density and muscle development from having passed through puberty as a male. secondly, because it drives females out of the sport. it isn't fair that she (i accept that) is allowed to compete with levels of testosterone many orders of magnitue higher than female athletes. it drives a competition whereby females are REQUIRED to undergo testosterone and other hormone supplimentation *for a time in their development* in order to be competitive later.
i know that there are many problems equalising sports generally and making things fair...
new zealand does particularly badly at training our athletes so they acquire valuable skills with which to give back to the sport when they have themselves retired as athletes.
that is to say gymnasts etc aren't typically trained in any aspect of training younger athletes. aren't trained in event management etc. aren't priorirised for those kinds of roles.
not anymore than our best studnets / best produers of essays or whatever are encouraged into administration roles within academia.
always to be exploited by people without capacity. to take our their resentment.
i don't see a bunch of kids or teenagers being inspired into olympic lifting with lauren hubbard coaching etc... maybe that's not so...
i don't know...
we don't really do olympic lifting in nz. it's all about the biggest bullies.
until they get to olympic level and get it handed to them by years and years and years and years and years of development and training and technical proficiency.
This is the end of the thread.
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