Movements Afoot’s Blog

by Lesley Powell

We are going to talk about the important of bridging and how to do it correctly.

How we use our legs is very important for posture, moving and helpful in backcare.  Bridging is very helpful as the building blocks for better understanding of how the legs need to be strengthen.

• When someone comes in with back pain, I look at their bridging.
• Many are weak in the legs.
• They compensate with their backs to initiate the movements of the bridge.

Our lack of understanding of the correct use of our legs creates different kinds of POSTURE.
First of all, the legs are not under-standing the relationship to the pelvis. When there is a poor tailbone-heel connection, the legs and feet work unevenly to support our upper bodies. For many, one tucks to bring the pelvis over the feet and pulled the front ribs down to solve the problem of a poor head-tail-heel connection.

So we are going to look at types of bridging and how to use them in your warmup.My teacher, Irmgard Bartenieff, created a great concept about the neutral bridge. The Bartenieff Fundamental, the pelvic shift forward, is a bridge with the spine neutral. The legs lift the pelvis up. The pelvic shift forward relates how we use the legs to move and support the pelvis.

Pelvic shift forward is a concept of how the legs and the pelvis influence the weight shift. The best example of this is our gait, walking. The pelvic shift forward is our getting from sitting on a chair to standing. The pelvis and the legs influence our moving forward in space. Our hips have to go through hip flexion and extension to propel us through space.

Poor posture and gait diminishes proper shifting our weight forward for simple actions. This poor action forces our upper bodies to shift us forward to walk.

The pelvic shift forward is a different bridge than the articulating bridge with the pelvis begins in posterior tilt. The articulating bridge is about the sequencing of the spine. For some clients with certain back injuries or spinal osteoporosis, articulating bridge is not recommended.  The articulating bridge for a healthy spine is a great exercise of opening the back.

To extend the hip through the legs, one uses the hamstrings and depending on the force needed, the gluteals. We only think of the gluteals as of squeezing the buttocks. This is primarily the gluteal maximus and the fibers closer to the gluteal cleft.

Tucking occurs when both sides of the gluteal maximus are fired at the same time. In gait, we are firing one side of the gluteals at a time depending on the gait cycle. Recent research has proven the gluteals are being used to assist us in standing and moving on our legs. There are other sections of the gluteals we want to put our attention to. These muscles are the attachments to the femur on the side of our hips. The gluteal medius, gluteal minimus and the lateral fibers of the gluteal maximus help us to stabilize on one leg. The gluteals help us extend our hips especially in larger forces needed as in walking up stairs, changing levels such as a deep lunge to standing and standing on one leg. The tone needed to extend the hip is very different than in tucking.