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This Is How You Squat

This Is How You Squat

Did you know a squat is an important functional movement because we all squat during daily activities like sitting, getting off the toilet, or bending to pick something up?  A properly executed squat is critical to your overall low back health because of its ability to strengthen the thighs, hips, glutes, and core.  It can improve your balance, flexibility, and help you maintain your independence. 

This Is How You Squat

Using a resistance band adds more loads to a regular squat and allows for greater muscle activation.  Depending on your fitness level, choose a band that provides challenging resistance, allowing you to maintain proper form without your knees turning inward. 

Jenny Sweat, Legacy Clinic’s Corrective Trainer, recommends the following steps to correctly perform a squat movement using a resistance band:

RESISTANCE BAND SQUAT:

1) Stand with your feet slightly more than hip-width apart with a band just above your knees.  Your toes are pointed forward or slightly outward with your hands on your hips or in front of you.

2) Grip the floor with your toes and press your heels into the floor.  This helps to engage your glutes/buttocks more and maintain better balance. 

3) Slowly push your hips back into a sitting position while bending your knees, keeping your knees behind your toes.  You can lower yourself until your knees are at a 45 to 90-degree angle. 

3) Breathe in and hold the position for 2-3 seconds, then breathe out and slowly lift back up into the starting position, pushing through your toes and heels.  Slowly stand up while pulling your belly button in towards your spine and focusing on squeezing your glutes/buttocks. 

Perform 2-3 sets of 8-12 reps every other day.

Jenny Sweat is a Corrective Trainer at Legacy Clinic. She has over 30 years of experience and holds a master’s degree in exercise science. Her focus is to provide specific training and exercises to help your body function better. If you are looking for unique and corrective personal training, contact Legacy Clinic and set up an evaluation with Jenny Sweat.

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Top Secret Exercise For Back Pain

Back Pain

Did you know that most daily activities and sports put a lot of stress on your SI joint? The SI joint is the joint that is made up of the sacrum and ilium. We have one on each side of the spine and they easily move with walking, bending, twisting, and lifting. The joint is the cause of most low back pain and is the insertion point for most of the lumbar muscles. When the joint misaligns, the lumbar muscles will tighten up and cause limitation in twisting, bending, and lifting. Therefore, limiting full motion for golfers and pickle ball players.

Multiple core muscles work together to produce maximum stability in the abdominal and lumbar back region supporting the SI joint. Weak stomach or core muscles can throw off spinal alignment, balance, and place a strain on the back.

Jenny Sweat, our corrective exercise trainer has an awesome exercise to help strengthen the core and stabilize the SI joint. This exercise is called SI Joint Reset. All you need is a broom stick/handle.

Lying on your bed or the floor with a broom stick, put the broom stick under one knee and bring the other leg up ready to push into the stick. Take a deep breath and as you exhale, pull your belly button in towards your spine, press your spine against the floor or bed, and push one leg into the stick while the other leg is pushing down on the stick in the opposite direction. Exhale and hold for 8-10 seconds. This is an isometric contraction so you will not feel or see much movement.

You can then move the stick under the other knee and repeat, pushing the legs in opposing directions. Remember to exhale, draw your belly button in towards your spine and your spine into the floor/bed while you push your legs in opposing directions against the stick for 8-10 seconds.

Strengthen your core and reset your SI joint with this one simple and cool exercise. You can do this exercise daily or several times a week.

Jenny Sweat is a Corrective Trainer at Legacy Clinic. She has over 30 years experience and holds a masters degree in exercise science. Her focus is to provide specific training and exercises to help your body function better. If you are looking for unique and corrective personal training, contact Legacy Clinic and set up an evaluation with Jenny Sweat.

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Corrective Exercise Trainer in The Villages

jenny sweat_trainer
Jenny Sweat, corrective exercise trainer at Legacy clinic in the villages.

Corrective exercise training improves the effectiveness of your chiropractic care and spinal correction plan. In addition to skeletal misalignment, you may be experiencing pain that is caused by muscles and connective tissues that are weak, tight, or out of their proper place. Muscle imbalances affect everyone. For some, imbalances in the body can lead to stiff necks, low back pain, and sore knees.  Others will see the loss of strength, muscle atrophy, and weaker sports performance.  Some will have a limited range of motion in their hips, shoulders, and back.  Left unresolved, all imbalances will eventually limit performance, increase the risk of injury, and cause pain.

Corrective Exercise helps re-educate your body to move efficiently.   Programs are designed to increase the flexibility of muscles that have become too tight and strengthen the muscles that have become weak.  An intelligent and progressive program combined with good coaching and exercise techniques can not only get you moving pain-free and efficiently, but it can get you amazingly strong and fit.

A typical corrective program will start by mobilizing the areas your body is “stuck” or tight.  Next, exercises will be implemented to isolate the muscles that have become lazy or weak.  This is the foundation of a Corrective Exercise program.  Once flexibility has been gained and the weaker muscles are working, you can begin Corrective Exercise Training by performing exercises to integrate the new, efficient movement pattern.

Increasing the range of motion in your joints and strengthening weaker muscles to become balanced in the body allows you to be able to lift heavier, work a greater percentage of your muscles, decrease your chances of injury, have better posture, and get stronger.  There shouldn’t be a disconnect between corrective exercise and performance enhancement.  A good training program should accomplish both.

In each case, targeted corrective exercises and stretches from our experienced corrective exercise training on staff will maximize your chiropractic care while helping your body achieve balance and health.