Hope everyone is holding up and keeping positive. A bit of a change from Carolyn, to your core routine today.
The core corner message remains the same; ‘a strong trunk (or core) gives you the strength to hold a good posture, keeping your lower limbs biomechanically efficient and less at risk of injury. And stretching helps to realign your skeleton, keeping your soft tissues at the right length and tension’.
kneeling arm and leg reach
This exercise will help you to stabilise your hips whilst controlling your core.
Start on your hands and knees. Your hands are directly under your shoulders and your knees are directly under your hips, with your legs and feet parallel and hip distance apart.
Your back should be in a neutral flat spine position (Don’t let your back sag or arch up like a cat, allow the natural curves) supported by your abdominal muscles. To do this, pull your belly button towards your spine without moving your back, hold this position and don’t forget to breathe.
Keep your neck long and your face parallel to the floor. Raise one arm, parallel to the floor, reaching long, pulling your shoulder blade down towards your bottom. Next, raise the opposite leg, parallel to the floor, reaching long. Do not tilt your pelvis or rotate your back, imagine keeping a tray of drinks steady on your back!
Hold for 10 seconds and return to starting position. Then replicate with the opposite arm and leg. Repeat 3 times on each side, 3 times a week.
stretch – the quadriceps muscles
The quadriceps muscle group consists of 4 muscle bellies and runs from the pelvis, over the front of the hip joint, over the knee joint, attaching to the tibia (shin bone). It is primarily responsible for flexing the hip and straightening the knee.
We are all diligent at stretching our quadriceps, as it’s one of the basic stretches we do after a run. We can all be seen wobbling about on one leg, hanging onto one foot behind. The issue with standing on one leg is that it is not a stable position and our pelvis could tilt forward which shortens the quadriceps muscle, resulting in not a full stretch. To combat this, make sure you tuck your tail bone under, tilting the pelvis backwards and push your hip forward.
However, to make yourself more stable, and this stretch more effective, do it lying on your tummy.
Face down, reach for one foot behind. As you pull your foot to your bottom, make sure you use your tummy muscles (core) to tuck your tail bone under, and use your gluts to push your hip to the ground. This will stretch the top end of the muscle more effectively than in standing.
Hold for 30 seconds. Repeat twice on each side. (Turn your head to the opposite side for an extra stretch)