LIFESTYLE NEWS - Exercise is one of the ways to improve your physical wellbeing and it aids in great measure to get rid of ailments, aches and pains.
Follow the exercise programme provided by the biokineticists at Anine van der Westhuizen Biokineticist in George and feel the difference.
This week biokineticist Lana Laubscher continues a series on the bum muscles.
Last week I started off with the basics of glute (bum) exercises.
Activation of the involved muscle is a crucial aspect of an exercise.
If you want to drive your car from point A to point B, you will need to first start the engine.
If you don't switch the car on, you will not be able to go anywhere. This principle is the same when you use muscles.
In most cases, muscles will switch on automatically, because the "movement pattern" (e.g. walking, picking up a glass) is already laid down in your brain and nervous systems.
Then there are those "stupid" muscles, like your glutes, that need a little special attention.
In a large percentage of the general population, the glute muscles are highly underactive.
According to studies, your brain finds it more difficult to recruit glute muscle fibres than those helping hamstring and quadriceps muscles.
So, just as we like to go about life the easy/short way, your brain makes use of a more simple form of muscle activation. In certain cases, it is not just the stupidity of the brain, but actual pain from injury, as previously discussed.
Now let's get to the exercises.
Hopefully you can activate your glutes individually by now.
If not, don't give up yet. In a number of cases it has taken individuals more than 2 months to get that connection going.
The exercise for this week is as follows:
- Lie down on your back (preferably on a hard surface, not your bed);
- Bend your knees so that there is approximately 30cm between your heel and your bum;
- Be sure that your feet are facing forward and that your feet are about a fist width apart;
- Place your hands at your sides;
- Now connect/activate your glutes one at a time (in other words, don't just clench your bum cheeks together);
- While you keep your glutes activated, use your glutes to lift your hips up from the floor.
- If you feel that you are using your hamstrings (the back thigh muscle), rather than your glutes, you can place a step/book underneath your feet.
- Hold your hips up for 10 seconds and repeat 10 times.
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