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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.
In my visual assessment, I caught right away that she is bow-legged with hyper-extended knees and her parallel stance is not strong as she prefers turn out. Today, was our first session and we spent a lot of time on the Tower with Roll Down, Push Thru Seated Front and Circle Saw as I wanted to see core strength, rotation ability/mobility and articulation. When I got to Footwork (Bend & Stretch) I found a pattern that surprised me. I expected her to pattern her movement like I used to since I began with bow legs and hyper extended knees. But, instead of her knees splaying out, they come in and almost knock when she corrects her feet to parallel. So, we moved to Reformer Footwork and it was the same, when she pushes the carriage away, if I apply gentle pressure to her heels to “swing” them parallel, her knees “knock” inward. I put the Franklin ball between her knees to keep them apart (when, in my case, I use the ball to keep my knees more together). We then moved to bridging where I discovered the lack of hamstring strength. I focused on the hamstring connection for a while, did some pulling straps/swan and finished with mermaid. Can you offer me any suggestions? Am I on the right path? I do feel that we need to get her hamstrings stronger but will this help with the knock knee/footwork issue? Should I use something bigger than a ball, like maybe a yoga block between her knees?
