Daily Mobility Exercises by Dr. Kelly Starrett › Forums › General › Psoas Activation

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    • 01/28/2015 at 6:24 am #71252
      AvatarJoshua Mercado
      Participant

      I am a rower with years of poor technique. My hip cradle is tilting back when seated in the boat meaning i can’t engage my gluts property and the load is taken by my back with huge potential for sheer at L5/S1. Anyone got any experience as to how to activate my posts to try and engage the hip girdle and tip it forward?

      Thanks in advance!
    • 01/28/2015 at 10:55 am #75720
      AvatarNathan Richer
      Participant

      for the first diagnosis, i would work on hip flexion because it sounds like you lack it. do you have a MWOD PRO account? many of the good videos are not free. the exercises would be:

      Gut Smash with Supernova or large ball – to either side of the ab muscles to hit the psoas.
      Couch Stretch:
      Front of the hip; lower leg | Feat. Kelly Starrett | Ep. 29 | MobilityWOD 

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaeAvGh6gkg

      Recover Your Anterior | Feat. Kelly Starrett | Ep. 235 | MobilityWOD 

      Smash the top of quad with a roller – this hits the rectus femoris which also has hip flexing function – you can start with a foam roller but i think you’ll want to move to something harder and with smaller radius like a battlestar small or the metal TP massage roller or a barbell soon.
      Set the femur head to the back of the socket:
      see around 3:10 – you can use a band to distract at the hip out to the back or side.
      before you mobilize, get into a rowing position and see how your pelvis is positioned. then pick a mob to do – do it for 2 min on each side. then retest your rowing position. did it improve?
      you should also work the hamstrings and glutes as well.  
      some other rowing videos:
    • 01/28/2015 at 12:27 pm #75721
      AvatarJoshua Mercado
      Participant

      Great thanks David thats really helpful! Going to search all those tomorrow and report back. Thanks for taking the time.

    • 01/31/2015 at 3:20 pm #75737
      AvatarKatie Hemphill
      Participant

      Hey Angus,

      What sort of movements do you work on in the gym for your rowing?
      If you’re not already on it, I’d say you could use some squats and deadlifts in your life. They mimic much of the lower body action involved in rowing (bending through the hips, knees, and ankles), so they can provide a good framework for training yourself out of your old rowing habits and making your NEW habits very strong and robust.
      What I would recommend is some progression where you find the simplest version of each of these movements that you can’t do properly. And by properly I mean like 90% perfectly. Fundamental movement problems (like not being able to hinge from the hips with a braced neutral spine in a deadlift) are a strong indicator that you will have problems with similar high-level movements (such as rowing).
      Unless you’ve already fine-tuned your squat and deadlift, challenged and trained those patterns against speed, load, and metabolic demand, then doing something like trying to engage your psoas while rowing is going waaaaaaaay deeper into the rabbit hole than you need to.
      Fix those fundamental patterns, restore any missing lower body ranges of motion (especially hip flexion and ankle dorsiflexion), and then apply those lessons learned on the rowing erg before you hit the water. This will be a process, not an all-or-nothing thing, and it starts with you knowing what a neutral spine and good hip motion feel like.
      Now go get’em, rower.
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