I was just chatting with my client who is a typical creature of habit. She has been doing #Pilates with me since two years ago. This week I suggested that perhaps adding more rotation in her life would add some colour to life. I was being both literal and anatomical at the same time😉
From a #biomechanics standpoint, our #spine is capable of flexion, extension, lateral flexion and rotation. Fact is with the modern-day technology and habits, how many of us are giving our spine the tender loving care it deserves?
Most times, our spine is doing an overload of #spinal flexion (bending forward) than any other functions it is designed to do. If you commute publicly on the metro, I can guarantee what you see onboard is almost a 100% spinal flexion of every commuter playing with their mobile phones, be it standing or sitting. It’s made worse if they have a heavy bag of grocery or laptop which they carry on their shoulders.
Imbalances in our bodies seem like no biggie as it is prevalent everywhere. True to a certain degree. But the big BUT is we don’t want these imbalances to haunt us when we are most unprepared for; we don’t want to develop an overuse of certain muscle groups which increases left-right imbalances.
You may ask what’s the biggie in left-right imbalances? In our younger days, all of these do not present much of an issue. As we age, the difference becomes clearer. Pain could be felt in areas where you least expect. And your strong side may suddenly feel like a burden as you feel the tightness that you can’t get rid of. Yet your weak side is not able to perform the simple things like loosening a stubbornly tight bottle cap.
More than half of my clients are over 40 years old. My oldest is near 80! And I kept hearing one consistent message from them: Only if we knew what we know today about our bodies!I echo the same message too. If only I knew what I know today, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to develop the imbalances from the two decades of corporate world where I was sitting and flying most of the time. Did you know that sitting is the new smoking? That will be for another blog another day.
For now, I’d like to encourage adding some rotation to your life. If you are already hitting the gym, share with your trainer to add some rotational work to your life. Embark on three planes of movement. Do not limit yourself to workouts in the sagittal plane. Are you rotating your body on your pelvis? Are you including #thoracolumbar #rotation?
For functional purposes on a daily basis, perhaps you can start using your non-dominant hand to do the things your dominant hand has been doing? Perhaps change up a little by placing your usual item on the opposite end of your usual spot, so you can start rotating the other way around to retrieve the item. Added benefit in this exercise: you are promoting brain #synaptogenesis too by creating new ways to do the same thing.
Some form of rotation does add colour to your life, one way or another. Try it😊
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