kasanya
Forum Replies Created
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I’ve only competed once and I was really disappointed with the utter lack of feedback. I went first and was scored middle of the road across the board, which was useless for comparison’s sake since that particular competition doesn’t publish anyone’s scores. We also weren’t told what order we placed, aside from the people who came in first and second in each division. And there were no comments at all from the judges. Left me feeling kind of like, what was the point of participating?
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KT Coates has a 7 video series on post-natal ab conditioning for pole on YouTube. This is the first video from the series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjbEdGbVX74&list=UU661peV4XddIqoFZx3IUtuQ
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Yeah, that’s what I figured. Thanks!
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Looks like it’s still around: http://www.weflypole.com/
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Ahhh, ok. It just seemed very early for getting next year organized, hence my confusion. Good luck with everything! =)
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Um, before you invest too much time / money into this project… You want to do the PSO Pacific regionals? This year? Because they were 4 weeks ago…
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In Canada, the place to go for running shoes is the Running Room. You’ll end up paying a little more, but they will spend a lot of time with you and do a gait analysis and make sure you have the right shoes for you. It’s kind of like the running shoe equivalent of spending more up front to get a real pole instead of cheaping out on a Carmen Electra pole you’ll have to replace with a real pole anyway. They also offer really good “learn to run” and “train for race of X length” type programs.
@Sassafrassle: Chances are the physio would say exactly that and would be completely right. Most chronic and/or mystery knee pain is a symptom of muscle imbalances in the hips. If you have something wonky going on with your feet or ankles, it can also be referred up from there. Anyway, if it were me and I could only afford to see a medical professional once for a problem like this, I would go to a physiotherapist and ask for an assessment from the hips down. Once you know exactly which muscles are too weak and which are too tight, you can use Google and YouTube searches to figure out how to fix your specific problems.
@Runemist: You should check what BC healthcare can cover. In Alberta, healthcare can cover your first 2 physio appointments for a problem (6 if you qualify as low income). You just have to call around and find a physio clinic that hasn’t used up their quota of paid slots yet. You may have access to something similar. Good luck!
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If you do go for a laminate flooring, I would recommend a light colored finish rather than a dark. My new condo has dark laminate and every scratch and dent is sooooo obvious because only the very surface of the laminate is stained dark. I’ve manage to mark it up just from my toe nails. I’d hate to see the damage heels would cause.
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Once your pole hold is solid, you can start working on negative pole-ups (AKA the lowering phase). From standing, go into a pole hold and bend your knees. Then, slowly and with control, allow your elbows to straighten and your body to lower. When your knees come to the ground, stand up and start over.
Once your negative pole-ups are solid, you can also start working on the positives (AKA the lifting phase). From kneeling in front of your pole, reach up just high enough that you still have a slight bend in the elbows and grab the pole with a baseball grip. Then, slowly and with control, start pulling yourself up. At the same time, you will be pushing into the floor with the tops of your feet. That will partially support your weight. (If you have hard flooring, you will probably want to fold a towel and place it under your feet. Otherwise this move is a little uncomfortable.) As you become proficient at this move, you will need to push less and less with your feet.
Once you don’t really need your feet anymore, you’re ready to start working on full pole-ups and/or the scissor climb Sassylina mentioned.
Good luck! =)
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Sounds like you ended up in a meditative style yoga class (ie. hatha). You would probably be happier in a flow or power style yoga class (ie. ashtanga). Either way though, I don’t find there’s a lot of interaction between people in yoga classes. It’s mostly just the teacher talking and people focusing on their individual practices.
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If you have poor posture, then your pelvis is probably not in a healthy neutral position. You might find it helpful to have some sort of professional assess your posture and find out whether you have an anterior or posterior pelvis tilt. This is really, really important to know for sure, because if you have an anterior pelvic tilt and you’re doing corrective exercises that are more appropriate for a posterior pelvic tilt (or vice versa), you will actually end up making your posture worse. It may be pretty obvious though which position your pelvis is in if you do some Google research on anterior and posterior pelvic tilts, so start with that and keep the idea of a professional posture assessment in mind.
For the upper body, the common problems are forward head posture, forward rolling shoulders, and a variety of issues with the shoulder blades. If you have problems with all of those areas, you probably have upper cross syndrome. Again, a professional posture assessment will help you figure out exactly what needs to be done to fix your specific problems, but you can also learn a lot from Google research.
Moral of the story: there is no one-size-fits-all approach for fixing posture. You have to figure out exactly what issues YOU have before you can fix them.
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Sorry, I screwed up the link for the transversus abdominis exercise progression. Here’s the correct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8O04WLXFt8 .
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Yes, that video is exactly the test I was talking about.
As for which exercises to do, that seems to depend on the underlying reason for the lazy glute(s).
The glutes are inhibited by tight hip flexors. If the hip flexors are tight simply because you spend a lot of time sitting, then you should be able to sort out the problem with hip flexor stretches + glute activation / strengthening exercises. There’s tons of information out there for glute exercise progressions. Here’s a couple examples I found pretty quickly on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpm36n5UhfQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPQOItIKyPo . It’s important to really pay attention to what your body is doing during the glute exercises. You’ll need to re-wire the brain to get glute dominant movement patterns rather than compensating with your lower back and/or hamstrings.
The other common reason for tight hip flexors is actually insufficient core stability. If you look at an anatomy diagram of the hip flexors, you’ll see that the psoas (one of the major hip flexor muscles) connects directly to the lumbar (lower) spine. If your lumbar spine is not being adequately supported by the deep core muscles (transversus abdominis, multifidus, and pelvic floor), then the body compensates by contracting the psoas muscles to pick up the slack. So if you’re the kind of person who can stretch your hip flexors endlessly and never actually become more flexible there, then this is likely your underlying problem. (Another common indicator of poor core stability is the frequent need to crack your lower back.) In this case, you’ll need to improve your core stability before you can get your hip flexors to unlock and your glutes to start firing properly. Here’s the first video in a 4 part series for strengthening the multifidus muscles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t9bZpl4EEY . Here’s the first video in a 4 part progression for strengthening the transversus abdominis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t9bZpl4EEY . And the pelvic floor can be strengthened through Kegel exercises.
I hope this helps!
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I’ve also noticed a difference in flexibility when working on my right and left splits. My quest for answers led me to discover theballetblog.com, which is written by a physiotherapist who works specifically with dancers. One of the main things she talks about for this issue is lazy glute muscles. Sure enough, I tried her test and my glute works fine on my more flexible side. On my less flexible side though, my glute was taking a nap and my hamstring was firing like crazy trying to lift that leg. No wonder my hamstring is tight on that side! >< So lately I've been working on glute activation exercises. I started with the test exercise and did it over and over again, really focusing on contracting the glute to lift the leg, until my brain figured out how to talk to that muscle consistently. Then I went on YouTube to find more difficult exercises. It seems to be helping, but I've only been working on it for about 10 days so it's a little early for definitive results. Here's a couple links for posts on the subject. The test I mentioned is described in the second one. http://www.theballetblog.com/article/the-relationship-between-your-gluteals-and-your-hamstrings/
http://www.frontsplitsfast.com/are-you-more-flexible-on-one-side-than-the-otherGood luck!
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Oh, another thought. I did private pilates classes throughout my last injury, with the instructor providing modifications based on what my shoulder could and could not handle at the time. When I finally returned to poling, I discovered I hadn’t lost any strength during my time off. You may want to look into a similar sort of cross training.