Hard Core Muscles for Mummies (Part 2)

July 10, 2010

In the previous article on "Hard Core Muscles for Mummies (part 1)", we have touched on the importance of strong core muscles. Now let us look at some simple exercises (that do not require equipment) people can do at home to help strengthen their core muscles.

Exercises should be done daily for 3 -4 weeks to see results.

Seated Leg Lift

  • Sit on a chair with your back flat (do not arch your back) and feet flat on the floor.
  • Resting your hands over the lower abdominal muscles, pull in your lower abdominal muscles and pelvic floor muscles while breathing normally. Do not hold your breath.
  • Keeping the contraction in your lower abdominals and pelvic floor, gently raise one knee so that the foot is about 5-10 cm off the floor. Hold the position for 5 seconds, making sure the pelvis and the spine remain level. Make sure you are still sitting firmly on your buttocks and not shifting your weight to one side, neither should you shift your upper body in any other directions. The upper body should be still with the pelvis level while doing the exercise.
  • Repeat 10 times with each leg. Gradually increase the hold to 10 seconds or more for future sessions.

Lower abdominal Strengthening

  • Lying on a mat or firm surface, flatten the small of your lower back into the mat. This movement will tilt your pelvis back, putting it in a neutral position, thus protecting your back. You should not feel any gap between your lower back and the mat.
  • Next, bend your knees and raise your feet of the floor till the thighs are perpendicular to the mat and the lower legs are parallel to the mat.
  • Then, while keeping the lower back flat and breathing normally, pull in your lower abdominal muscles and slowly extend the legs until you feel your back is about to unflatten or arch. Hold your legs in that position, feel the lower abdominals drawing into your spine while keeping your lower back flat for 5 seconds, then bring your legs back to the starting position. Be sure all movements are slow and controlled, and that you are not holding your breath.
  • Repeat 10 times. Gradually increase the holding time to 10seconds and the repetitions to 20 times.

Prone Hip Extension

  • Lie face down with your lower abdominals pulled in. you may put a pillow under your hip for comfort.
  • Place fingers between hip bone and the floor. Feel pressure on each side.
  • Keep the leg straight and slowly float the leg up 5-10 cm. Ensure the pressure on your fingers remains exactly the same, side to side when you move your leg. Hold position for 5 seconds.
  • Return leg to starting position and repeat with other leg.
  • Repeat 10 times for each leg. Gradually increase holding time to 10seconds.

Hard Core Muscles for Mummies (Part 1)

June 29, 2010

Recently our physiotherapist Cheryl Ng was interviewed by Young Parents Magazine and published in the July version on why having a "hard" core can save your neck and back from daily activities.

Do you have neck and back aches during pregnancy or after delivery? Do you really think it is part and parcel of parenthood? Think again.

What are the core muscles and why are they important?

Core muscles stabilize your body and the pelvis during dynamic movements, such as walking and running. The core muscles include the transverses abdominis (TA), multifidus, pelvic floor muscles and the obliques. These muscles are attached to the inner portion of your thorax, (the trunk region below your ribs to your pelvis), allowing them better control of your spine and pelvis while you move. Imagine a tree trunk that has been cut into half. The rings of the tree represent the layers of your core strength. The transverses abdominis (TA) is the innermost ring, acting as a thick corset around your spine. It gives stability to the trunk and support your spine to help maintain a correct upright position.

All movements of the trunk activates the core muscles, so even when you are lifting your hand, the core muscles in your back and abdominals are recruited to assist the movement. Hence, it is crucial that your core muscles are activated before movement occurs, in offer to offer support and strength to your spine, as failure to do so will result in excessive or faulty loading to your spine, leading to low back strains and pelvic dysfunctions. Fortunately, our core muscles are normally already activated when we are in good posture, the problem comes when we deviate from good posture or sustain back injuries, thus deactivating the normal auto-recruitment of the core muscles.

How are they related to persistent back and neck pains?

Weak or inefficient core muscles are one of the contributing factors to persistent back and neck pains. We are constantly loading our spine with our activities of daily living, such as, working at the desk or computers prolonged, and carrying laptop bags or groceries. These activities stress the spine and the muscles that worked to support it may strain and get injured. This results in faulty postures which either avoid or aggravates the pain, hence, changing the normal activation of the core muscles, thereby reducing the protective function of these muscles. This may eventually set in motion a vicious cycle, in which faulty posture lead to incorrect muscle activation and less protection of spine, which lead to pain, and eventual muscular weakness , which lead to more faulty postures and pain and eventual degeneration of the spine, with persistent and recurring back and neck pains.

What are the negative effects weak core muscles can have on pregnant women and parents (who spend a lot of time bending over to take care of the baby, carrying children etc.)?

During pregnancy, your core requires greater stabilization due to changes in your weight, posture and centre of gravity. As your pregnancy progresses, the muscles that make up your core, plus the muscles that support you and your growing baby become stressed and extremely challenged. In addition, relaxin, a hormone emitted during pregnancy, ‘loosens’ your joints and ligaments in preparation for birth; as a result your supporting muscles have to work harder to achieve adequate stability. This in turn may lead to overstraining of your core and supportive muscles. A weak core will then result in higher probability of back and pelvic strains, which can be debilitating. Hence, strong core muscles play an important role in supporting your spine during pregnancy and also in assisting recovery from child birth.

The same goes to parents who spend a large portion of their time nursing and doing other back-breaking tasks, such as carrying children, lifting heavy cradles or large bags. Since such tasks are repetitive, the stress in the back accumulates over time and may eventually lead to fatigue of the supporting back muscles, resulting in back sprains. Again, having strong core muscles will help in better supporting the spine and back, thus reducing the likelihood of injury.

Weak muscles lead to bad posture. So why doesn’t a gym workout help?

April 4, 2010

Weak muscles lead to bad posture. So why doesn't a gym workout help? If you have chronic back or neck problems, you almost certainly have bad posture, though it may not be certain which came first. Nevertheless, you will often hear (or get) advice that you need to strengthen your postural muscle and correct your posture.

And after months of hard work at the gym with weights and cable machines, you feel slightly better but you still slouch now and then. Why didn't it work fully for perfect posture ALL the time?

Muscles Types

The reason gym workouts fail to completely correct and support your posture all the time, is that it simply did not target all the relevant muscles – the stability muscles. And it was the wrong type of training for some of the muscles – gym works targets the power muscles. And muscles exercises alone isn't enough – postural awareness is also required.

What are the different types of muscles and why does the differences matter?

We tend to think of muscles as simply muscles but in fact, there are broadly two basic muscle types - striated muscles (that includes those postural muscles) and smooth muscles.

  • Striated muscles are your skeletal muscles. Muscles that you usually think of such as your bicep muscle or calf muscle.Your heart muscle is also a type of striated muscle but stands distinct from the rest of the skeletal muscle.
     
  • Smooth muscles are usually involuntary muscle that blends in other tissue type to form say your bladder or intestines.

Longer weaker, Shorter stronger

One key difference between striated and smooth muscles is that the strength of the striated muscle weakens the further it is stretched apart. So the same muscle, at say, 10cm length will exert a lot of more force at both ends as it contracts then if the same muscle is stretch to, say, 20cm. More specifically the strength of the muscle is a function of the area of its cross-section – the fatter, the strong the muscle.

Smooth muscle is different is this respect. It doesn't lose its strength as it gets stretched out. An important feature to have with a full bladder or stomach.

So now we know that skeletal muscle, a type of striated muscle, is weaker when it is stretched and stronger when it is shortened. What does this mean to people with bad posture?

It means that one of the key things to do to strengthen weak posture muscles it to shorten the lengthened ones and lengthen the shortened ones. That is get your posture right to strengthen the key postural muscles and to release to the overly tight/strong muscles that is pulling you out of the right posture.

Sustaining good posture and strengthening the postural muscles is further confused by how we think about muscle strengthening programmes. To build strong muscles, we generally think about more repetitions, heavier weights and repeat as required. This works if we are talking about big power muscles such as your biceps and thigh muscles. Postural muscles have a higher percentage of Type I (slow twitch) fibres. These are fibres that are designed for endurance, not power.

This means for slow twitch fibres, a better type of exercises is one where we use lower load threshold and holding it for longer periods of time. Again, it sounds exactly like holding the right posture for prolonged periods of time (with proper rest periods in between) will improve your posture over time.

When a movement is loaded with too heavy a load, the fast twitch (Type II) muscle fibres take over.This is one of the reason why lower load exercises like pilates and yoga are better for people with low back problems than heavy workouts at the gym.

 

 

Types of Muscle Fibres
Fiber Type Type I fibers Type II a fibers Type II x fibers Type II b fibers
Contraction time Slow Moderately Fast Fast Very fast
Size of motor neuron Small Medium Large Very large
Resistance to fatigue High Fairly high Intermediate Low
Activity Used for Aerobic Long-term anaerobic Short-term anaerobic Short-term anaerobic
Maximum duration of use Hours <30 minutes <5 minutes <1 minute
Power produced Low Medium High Very high
Mitochondrial density High High Medium Low
Capillary density High Intermediate Low Low
Oxidative capacity High High Intermediate Low
Glycolytic capacity Low High High High
Major storage fuel Triglycerides Creatine phosphate, glycogen Creatine phosphate, glycogen Creatine phosphate, glycogen
Myosin heavy chain,
human genes
MYH7 MYH2 MYH1 MYH4

4 signs that you may not be ready for Yoga

November 14, 2009

After our recent article, “Is Yoga Bad For You?“, we had a lot of questions on what are the signs that they need to look out for and if they are ready for yoga. Read more

Is Yoga Bad For You?

August 3, 2009

It depends on whether it is done appropriately. Yoga along with today’s other similar lifestyle exercises such as Pilates are often prescribed as a way to take care of your back or neck pains. However, the problem doesn’t really lie with the exercises. Rather with the understanding of what it can do and what it can’t do.

Read more

Prevention is not Cure

April 27, 2009

 "Hi, I am suffering from pain in my lower back. It has been going on for some time now, about 6 weeks of so. Hot packs and heat rubs don’t seem to be working as before. And it seems to be getting worse. I heard that Pilates and Tai Chi is great for preventing back pain, so I was thinking one of them.  Which would you recommend? Thanks!" – Pauline Shi

Read more

How to choose a Swiss-Ball

April 22, 2009

The Swiss ball has been with us for a long while, since 1963 to be exact. It was invented by Aquilino Cosani, an Italian plastics manufacturer. Swiss balls today are almost de-riguer in gyms and it is not unusual to spot one in place of a chair at work or at home. But with so many choices available, buying one can be a daunting. So how does one go about choosing a Swiss ball?

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Multifidus – Smallest Yet Most Powerful Muscle

March 15, 2009

What is mutlifidus?

The multifidus muscle is one of the smallest yet most “powerful” muscle that gives support to the spine. Most people have the misconception that small is insignificant but it is not the case when it comes to this particular muscle.

Multifidus muscle is a series of muscles that are attached to the spinal column. These series of muscles are further divided into two groups which include the superficial muscle group and the deep muscle group.

Read more

Warm-up Routine For Golfers – Part II

September 11, 2008

In the previous article, we looked at 6 different warm-up exercises for golfers designed by one of Australia’s respected physiotherapist, Dr Barbara Hungerford. Here we’ll show you the remaining 6 warm-up exercises designed and recommended by Dr Barbara Hungerford. Read more

Confused Over Core

July 12, 2008

If you suffer from back pain, you would have likely been told that exercises are good for you and specifically those that strengthen your core. Unfortunately, these days it is harder to get by a week without reading somewhere in the newspapers, health or fitness magazines, hearing in the gym about core strength, core conditioning and core stability or about some new fitness equipment.

It can all be rather confusing. So, if you are suffering from back pain, what sort of core exercises should you be doing?

What is core?

Before we start discussing which core exercises are relevant for back pain sufferers, what exactly do we mean by the ‘core’ muscles?

The core area relevant for low back pain is the trunk region below your ribs to your pelvis. On this point, both physiotherapists and fitness instructors generally agree.

Read more

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