Episode 18: Towel Push-Ups
May 10, 2012 in Audio, Episodes
The abdominal muscles are extremely important for the health of your back, maintaining good posture and breathing. They are also very important for reaching forward at the trunk as well as bending your trunk to the side.
HOW-TO:
1. Take the towel and put it under your feet.
2. Keep your hands and toes shoulder width apart.
3. Raise your upper body off the ground.
4. Pull your knees to your chest while breathing in.
5. Straighten out while exhaling.
VIDEO DEMO:
The hamstrings are located in the back of the thigh. These muscles act at the hip joint to move your leg behind you and also at the knee joint to bring your lower leg closer to the back of your thigh. These muscles are especially important for activities like walking or slowing down the leg after kicking a football.
This exercise is one of very few that works the tibialis anterior (the muscle on the front of the lower leg). This movement of bringing the top of the foot closer to the shin is essential for foot clearance when walking.
The prone cobra emphasizes the deltoid (the back of the shoulder) as well as several smaller muscles acting at the shoulder joint and on the shoulder blades for stabilization. This exercise teaches us how to stabilize our shoulder blades and to hold them in a good postural position. It also teaches us to keep the head up and neck long, two cues important to exercise and posture.
Wall Stick-Ups reveal limitations in the range-of-motion at the shoulder joint. This exercise is great for preventing shoulder injury when throwing a baseball, as well as reaching over the head when getting up into those top cupboards.
Push-ups are a great upper body exercise that emphasizes the pectoralis major (a fan-shaped chest muscle), the anterior deltoid fibres (front portion of the shoulder muscles) and the triceps brachii (the muscles on the back of the upper arm). This movement will help develop these muscles and allow for their effective use in activities like pushing open doors and throwing chest passes in basketball.
Wall sits develop isometric strength (that means that the joint angles remain the same throughout the exercise) primarily in the glutes, quadriceps and hamstrings.
