Is Rotation the Key to Feeling Good?

The human body can do a lot of things and will respond to the demands that you place on it! Sit too much? The body will get stuck in a certain posture. Do exercises in the sagittal plane only (up and down) the body will respond with a certain posture. These postures create issues up and down the chain. 

The body is meant to rotate in everything we do, from walking, running, throwing and of course golfing! These postures and habits you place on your body won’t allow it to! So what do we do about it? 

First we need to stack the joints better i.e. get a ribcage over a pelvis. This will allow you to use your core muscles, hip muscles and scapular muscles better, basically they will be more primed to help you move. Picture a person with a big S shape in their lower back, if that person went to rotate, his or her lower back might be in pain due to the body thinking it has to use that more to achieve the rotation. Now picture a person with a flatter back, and what seems to look like the ribcage being right over the pelvis. This person will be able to rotate with their thoracic spine (mid back), ribcage, core muscles and scapular muscles while being able to stabilize their pelvis better to create more rotation and separation! 

So how do we train this? In comes the banded side lying T-Spine rotation! This drill is aimed at creating a stack of the ribcage and pelvis, then activating the proper muscles through pulling a band to get the ribcage to rotate around a stable pelvis. This will alleviate all of your back pain over time and for some of you immediately! The setup is the most important part, first you want to lie on your side. The top leg is placed on a foam roller, the bottom leg is as straight as possible pushing the heel away from you. Your hands are together with a light band. Pushing your top knee into the foam roller, your bottom leg’s heel into an invisible wall, pull the band and rotate your ribcage until you feel tension. Take a full breath in and out and try and rotate a little further keeping knee contact with the foam roller the whole time. You might start to feel some big time activation or even cramping of the scapular muscles or your hip muscles of the leg that is on the foam roller. Check out the video posted below to get a visual on how to do it! This will get the body to start associating a stack and proper muscles to aid in rotation! This will take some much needed pressure off your lower back! 

Check out the video here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpRnF3TW_uY 

Try this out for 3 sets of 5 reps with 3 full breaths in each rep, every day and see how you feel after each time you do it. I almost guarantee your lower back will ease tension and rotation will start to come easier for you! If you need help with the set up and execution of this drill come see us in the Performance Zone or join one of our Small Group Sessions over the next few weeks!