So if Supine told me who I was, Prone told me who I wasn’t.
and I wasn’t a natural athlete.
One of my friends in my 20’s was nice enough to call me shrek one night while we were partying. It was pretty funny, I just had no clue what he was talking about.
Then one day as I was laying on my stomach in the prone position the floor talked to me.
It wasn’t actually the floor, it was my lumbar spine also known as my low back.
It was having a coversation with my ASIS, PS and Quads.
There were in full agreement.
This position sucks.
My Upper traps agreed as well as my neck extensors.
I told them all where to go and decided I would take charge and do some swan exercises.
My swan, was more like the ugly duckling.
Beautiful on the inside.
On the outside, quite homely.
Since my hip flexors were shortened and tight, my hip bones sunk into the ground which left my lower back compressed. My inner thighs (adductors) were overdeveloped and I couldn’t bring them together. It was near impossible to get my Pubic bone (PS) to press into the ground. I was laying there in an anterior tilt but facing the ground.
The basic back extension which is a fundamental exercise was supposed to work my upper back extensors but since my chest was overdeveloped from bench pressing for years as a teen as well as my anterior deltoids and biceps I was laying prone with a hunch back. I was stuck in a rounded posture.
My upper trapezius which is responsible for elevating my scapulaes (shoulder blades) towards my ears left me balancing on my chin because the back of my neck was shortened. What an absolute disaster I was biomechaniclly.
Remember just because someone has poor posture it doesn’t mean that they cant be a great person and vice versa just because someone has ideal posture it doesn’t mean that they are as sweet as honey. Physical stature is one thing, values is another.
Samantha Wood who is a physiotherapist who worked with Rael Iscaowitz wrote a phenomenal book called Pilates for Rehabilitation. I would learn to regress many exercises and make them even more fundamental than the modifications and fundamentals that Rael included in his books and courses.
I don’t quite know where you are at but for myself I felt the exercise in the wrong areas.
This is why in Raels books he always says to stabilize first. This was my first lesson in this position.
If your back extensors start on your sacrum and end on the back of the skull that means your are loading the powerhouse which includes the back extensors with a very long lever. The weight of your head for the average person is about 5 KG or 11 pounds. Every inch it is forward it adds on 10 lbs of weight.
Trying to lift my upper body off the ground did not strengthen my upper back. All the weight went right into my lower back because my abdominals specifically my transverse abdominis which is the deepest (and the corset muscle) muscle was too weak. I therefore was compressing my lumbar spine under load and strengthening my imbalances.
Back extension proves to be a very vital position to be in to strengthen the back extensors especially as we age. I just was not ready for it quite yet. I needed to stretch before I strengthened. The mat and gravity kept whispering in my ear, you aren’t ready for the swan.
The benefits of Prone and basic exercises
Prone should be comfortable not aggravating.
Basic back extension in my world is much different than others. Laying on your stomach, fingers under your forehead, elbows inline with your ears will set your shoulders in a stable position. Straighten your legs out and place them in a comfortable position.
Here you should engage the core and push the pubic bone into the mat go into a slight posterior tilt. This should help open up the hips especially if you push the tops (dorsal side) of the feet into the mat allowing the knees to gently hover off the mat. You will gain length in the hips and legs.
If you draw the muscles on the front of the pelvis towards the ceiling and hollow out your abdominals, you will strengthen your corset against gravity. You will also gain the skill or rotating your pelvis posteriorly when the hip bones (ASIS) are lifted off the mat.
With your elbows in line with the ears, you should be able to gently draw the shoulder blades down, creating strength in your scapula depressors.
Work in this position until you can have your legs together.
Once this is a comfortable position than you can strengthen your neck.
You would move your arms to a goal post position with your elbows in line with your shoulders, elbows bent to 90 degrees, palms facing each other. Thumbs pointing up to the ceiling.
Once you are in this position, float the back of the skull up towards the ceiling. This will keep your neck in a neutral position as long as your shoulder blades are still wide and not pinching together. Look directly down.
I spent years stretching out my pecs, anterior delts and biceps. I used the pilates ring, Cadillac and later on, wunda chair and ladder barrel. Each apparatus can help you get into those areas in a deeper range once your joints can handle it. This is the fun part of advancing. Once these areas began to loosen up, my upper back could finally perform extension. I began to gain the benefits of working against gravity from a prone position.
The key is to always stabilize first and recorrect your pelvis.
As this happens you can begin to strengthen the upper back and neck extensors.
If you aren’t quite a swan you could always be a cat instead.
The four point kneeling position may just be a better starting point to engage the powerhouse and engage the lower abdominals lengthening the lower back.