Posted 05/07/2012
I am reposting this HEALTHY HINT on our blog, as it is a very popular search topic trending right now… If you have questions or comments for me, please post them below.
Recumbent vs. Upright Stationary Bike
Posted 04/04/2012
What is a tilted pelvis? A pelvic tilt is actually a fairly common postural problem. A pelvic tilt occurs when the pelvis tilts in one direction. There is an anterior pelvic tilt in which the pelvis tilts towards the front of the body and there is a posterior pelvic tilt in which the pelvis tilts towards the back of the body. The anterior pelvic tilt is generally the most common. Pelvic tilts are owed to muscle imbalances. In other words, certain muscles may not be working properly and other muscles may be working too much. Structurally, an anterior pelvic tilt can cause some muscles to become tight and others to be lengthened.
The back muscles and hip flexors become shortened in length when the body has an anterior pelvic tilt. Furthermore, when the back muscles and hip flexors shorten, the abdominal and hamstring muscles become lengthened. A common misconception is that the hamstrings appear to be short and tight and need to be stretched. On the contrary, the hamstrings are actually lengthened and tense secondary to the pelvis falling forward and need to be activated to return the pelvis to a more neutral position. Often times patients with low back pain are often told to stretch their hamstrings to relieve their discomfort. In response to stretching of the hamstrings, the pelvis may tilt even further forward and the lower back muscles may become tighter to keep the body upright.
Today I looked at the anterior pelvic tilt and how this position may affect your body. An anterior pelvic tilt can not only be an impairment to your posture but it can place undue stress on muscles, joints and your breathing to name a few. Your problems may range from a constant achy lower back to countless debilitating symptoms throughout your body. With a few exercises from a PRI therapist you can help correct your tilt and have a more balanced pelvis.
Questions or thoughts on this blog? Leave a comment!!
Posted 02/22/2012
Ron just wrote a blog for the Postural Restoration Institute’s website. Click here to read his latest thoughts on rail road beams, city block markers, ribs and doorways…
Posted 01/20/2012
As you may or may not know I am a fairly recent transplant here to Lincoln. I grew up in Colorado Springs, CO. Obviously here Big Red football dominates but as I was growing up John Elway and the Denver Broncos was where we invested our loyalties. I still have to root for the Broncos and this year has been fun. Whatever your opinions of their quarterback Tim Tebow are, he has been the big story in Denver and throughout the NFL. A new word has entered our culture because of Tim. Tebowing. It is the act of getting down on one knee and praying, usually with head bowed on a hand or fist as Tim frequently does on the football field. It is now an internet craze where people will have their picture taken in that position in random locations. Google Tebowing for some fun pictures.
Recently, I have come up with a word for an activity that we like to do in the clinic with our exercises. Smunching. Or smunch for short. I looked it up online to see if it has other meanings and apparently it is used by a group in Phoenix to describe eating a Saturday morning brunch. So I guess I can’t trademark it. I like it though. Smunching. It just rolls off the tongue. To me it is part smush and part crunch and describes a movement where you bend your trunk sideways bringing your ribs down toward your pelvis. As therapists we call it side-bending or thoracic abduction. It requires a contraction of your lateral abdominal oblique muscles and is something we encourage on the left side with PRI exercises. Left lateral abdominal muscles (including internal obliques and the transverse abdominis) are very important, wonderful, and yet too often underused muscles that can make or break someone’s success or recovery with a PRI program. They are the next muscle that I want you to be able to feel. Can you feel it? Smunch. How about now.
It is not exactly news that abdominal muscles are important for “core stability” or back stability. What is often missed in traditional exercise or rehab programs is the need to address and correct differences in the position, function and use of muscles on the right and left side. Our philosophy here at the Hruska Clinic identifies and describes a normal, asymmetrical pattern of function. If you have not read much about that I recommend reading some of our other blogs here or on the Postural Restoration Institute website. This pattern describes a tendency to stand and shift our weight more on our stronger, dominant, stable right leg than our left leading to a tendency for the pelvis to drop forward on the left and orient or point to the right. Imagine if there were headlights on the front of your hip bones. In this pattern our headlights tend to point more into the ditch than into oncoming traffic. However, in order to reach with our more dominant right arm and look at oncoming traffic with our eyes we will rotate our upper body back to the left to compensate. When this pattern becomes too active or strong we can run into trouble.
The last 2 blogs I have done described using the left inner thigh and left glute med to line the pelvis back up and get our headlights pointing straight ahead. Unfortunately what has happened above the pelvis in that pattern (the need to always rotate the spine left) has had some impact on function above the pelvis and needs to be addressed. As our spines rotate to the left to reach with our right hand to drive our car, or use the mouse of our computer, or realign our bodies with the direction we want to walk, the rib cage rotates into a position where the right ribs come down toward the pelvis and are anchored with right abdominals, while the left ribs are rotating up and away from the pelvis. The left abdominals are not working and being lengthened which decreases their advantage to work even if we wanted them to. These left abdominal muscles then become weak in their ability to do several important things for us. They lose their ability to stabilize the pelvis on the left side so it won’t drop more forward. They lose their ability to laterally bend the trunk to the left (smunching to the left if you are paying attention). And probably most importantly they lose the ability to pull the left lower rib cage down and stabilize it so the left diaphragm muscle has an advantage to contract and pull air efficiently into your lungs (maximize the ZOA on the left side for you therapists). The left abdominal obliques, and the ability to smunch or get into thoracic abduction to the left, is of utmost importance to make sure the hard work your left inner thigh and left glutes are doing for your pelvis continues to work, as well as to help correct the compensation your upper body has had to do because of the normal positional shift of the pelvis to the right. The abdominals are what is going to integrate or coordinate what your lower body and upper body are doing so they can work together to do things like walk, and run, and go up and down stairs, and breathe, or do any reciprocal activity without excess strain or falling back into old patterns. In our normal pattern the right ribs and muscles are already smunching so we need to really emphasize the left side to create a functional balance.
Many of our exercises emphasize smunching on the left side by either reaching the left hand down towards your feet, arching the left side up when lying on the left, or even passively just positioning you to bend your trunk to the left. You should be able to feel it. But what if you can’t. Probably the most common reason for not being able to feel it in any position is a tendency to use your left back extensor as the muscle to smunch. It will bend your spine to the left but will also extend your back. If you are smunching and you feel your back make sure you round your back a little more and keep it rounded as you smunch. As we talked about earlier the abdominal muscles pull your ribs down which is what happens when you exhale or breathe out. If you hold your breath or are in a state of inhalation your abdominal muscles will have a harder time contracting so another trick is to fully exhale and feel your ribs go down. We will even use balloons or straws to resist the exhalation to feel the abs work. The key is then to try and maintain that feeling as you use your diaphragm to breathe in. If you lose your smunch when you breathe in we are never going to get anywhere. Sometimes when lying on your left side it can help to roll up a towel and put it under your left side to give yourself a feeling of where to smunch. In standing or squatting if you let your back extend and your pelvis drop forward you will stop feeling your abs and the back will take over. Think about reaching your knees forward as you squat to keep the pelvis tucked and abs on.
I can only hope that smunching (to the left) will become as much a craze as Tebowing has. But until we get a polarizing athlete to do more smunching I think Tim will have a definite edge. I personally am still going to try and see if we can make it a craze one patient at a time. If you all get creative feel free to send or post some smunching pictures and maybe we can start this craze and help people all at the same time!
Smunching for exercise…
Smunching while reading…
Smunch-bowing???
Questions for Torin? to send him an email. Or write your comment below!
Posted May 7, 2012 at 8:24am by Jennifer Gloystein.
