Lumber Multifidus…What?!

Ever hear me talk about your Lumber Multifidus muscle? Often ignored by personal trainers, this muscle is essential in establishing a solid foundation of support for your lumbar spine, allowing you to progress your training to a higher level sans injury. Let’s talk about why it’s so important and how you can strengthen this integral stabilizer:

1) Without them, our spine would have problems!

The multifidus muscles help to take pressure off the vertebral discs so that our body weight can be well distributed along the spine. Additionally, the superficial muscle group keeps our spine straight while the deep muscle group contributes significantly to the stability of our spine. These two groups of multifidus muscles are recruited during many actions in our daily living, which includes bending backward, sideways and even turning our body to the sides. Studies have shown that the multifidus muscles get activated before any action is carried out so to protect our spine from injury.

2) The key is training your body to breathe while engaging your multifidus!

One of the reasons so many people have lumbar back pain is a result of not taking full breaths using their diaphram muscle in their lower abdomen. So often we take short quick breaths using our upper back and neck muscles because this is the most efficient way to get oxygen to our heart quickly. But when not in quick need, it’s important to contract that diaphram so that the multifidus learns it should be engaged all the time. Taking long sustained breaths in and out retrains your body to use your diaphram rather than your upper neck and shoulder muscles to breathe. You can imagine the tightness and pathology you may sustain by breathing from your neck, shoulders and back rather than from your deep abdomen–The upper extremity muscles get tighter and more bulky (theoretically causing lactic acid buildup and reduced oxygenation). This can result in a compression of the cervical spine and a weakness in the lumber multifidus.

3) Key exercises for keeping this muscle strong:

Cat & Cow Pose: Inhale, look up, pull belly in. Exhale, look down, push shoulders towards ceiling.

Pelvic Bridge: Press back flat into floor, raise hips towards ceiling. Hold for 2-3 seconds. Repeat 10x.

 

 

 

 

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Apps Are So Out

I know, I know… Apps are the next “It” thing if you are in business. But I am proposing that you NOT carry your cell phone everywhere you go. And hey, especially when you are exercising. Because, if anything, exercise is your hour to yourself everyday. And it should be peaceful and quiet and you shouldn’t have emails buzzing and text messages being sent and you shouldn’t be looking at yet another florescent screen just to follow an exercise routine. No, I’m thinking all you need is your eyes, your ears, your heart, your arms and legs to carry out the most physical part of your day. Forget technology, get in touch with something even more intelligent and complex–your body.

So I’m developing a CoreFit Deck that you can take with you. Get the first of these workouts here and print out so you can just grab them and go to the gym. In fact, why not just take a few in your gym back so all you have to do is follow the pictures and do the routine. Simple. And it won’t even show up on your data usage.

 

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CORE Check: Day 4

Grrrrr. Getting frustrated my abs are no better. And I am 4 days in. Maybe I will have to drag this puppy out to 7 days instead of 5. Boo.

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CORE Check: Day 3

Not seeing any huge difference before and after exercise today, but I cannot wait to post Monday’s (after beer, burgers) image next to Friday’s!

-Shay

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CORE Check Day 2: Before/After EX

Can working out daily make a visual difference? CorefitChicago presents the CORE check: A series this week of before and after exercise shots of (what else?) my abs. Watch my abs get more sculpted all week, one workout at a time, proving you can make daily changes to your body.

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Challenge #14: Donkey Kicks

Want a BUTT so tight you can bounce a quarter off it? Haha, no, you don’t have to do lunges all day long. You can do something that blasts your booty, core (for HOT ABS too, why not), arms and gets your heart rate going (CARDIO). Wake up the booty for some Monday morning action!

CoreFitChicago’s 30 Day Challenge #14 is Donkey Kicking: Do as many as you can for 1 minute. How high and fast can you kick your legs up?!?

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CORE Check: Before/After EX

Can working out daily make a visual difference? CorefitChicago presents the CORE check: A series this week of before and after exercise shots of (what else?) my abs. Watch my abs get more sculpted all week, one workout at a time, proving you can make daily changes to your body.

Just to prove to you that working out does make daily changes to your body, I will post Monday’s before and Friday’s after shot as the grand finale.

Game on!

-Shayna

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