Coordinating the muscle groups of the posterior chain.
The muscles of the back body work in a coordinated way from heel, through calves, to hamstrings, glutes/pelvis, sacrum/latissimus dorsi to traps into posterior deltoids.
I like to call the muscles from the posterior pelvis (sacrum) up and out through the posterior deltoids, our angel wings. They behave this way, I think, when shoulders are stacked and stable above a balanced pelvis. The arms are the wings. I mean, they are! Imagine us as chickens! I am just saying… I like to use imagery like angel wings in this way. It integrates nicely with my Alexander Technique based Pilates and mobility training to guide the people I touch into powerful, goal oriented movement patterns.
When it comes to the lower body, the heels and the sits bones really want to be together. Think of an Olympic sprinter, they look like they’re flying, hovering just above the ground, their heels dig down into the ground, then push up onto balls of the feet – feet spatulas. They then draw their heels up behind them and then kick their butts, repeat.
[1.0] Hamstring Pull – seated on box, facing away from pulleys, heels drawn up onto shoulder rest; shoulder stability – draw heels of hands into box, lengthen arms away toward well
[43.0] Single Leg Release in “quadruped”
[1.20] Single leg Hamstring Pull in External Rotation from standing
[1.36] Single leg Internal to External Rotation from standing
Use the box as if it’s a wall guiding the sideline closest to the box on where up is – a nice clean line from the foot up to hip up to shoulder