Are Sit-Ups Bad for your Back?

When a person sleeps at night, osmotic pressure causes the discs to expand. This decreases lumbar flexion by about 5 degrees.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

The deep stabilizers have multiple functions within the body. Firstly they must co-contract to secure spine stability but secondly and just as importantly, they must assist in elevated breathing.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

The core muscles are structurally different from those of the limbs from a motor control context.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

1. Begin the training session with flexion-extension cycles, also known as the cat-camel exercise. This reduces spine viscosity.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

A healthy performing body depends on correct function of the pelvis and hips to stabilize the spine, avoid disc herniation and prevent lower back pain. The various muscles surrounding the hips and pelvis have multiple functions.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

The side bridge is an outstanding exercise to challenge the major stabilizers of the abdominal obliques, latissimus dorsi and quadratus lumborum, while sparing the spine from high loads.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

Because the intra abdominal cavity contains mainly liquid and viscous material, it can be considered an element that can transmit forces from the muscles surrounding the cavity to the supporting structures of the core.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

The crossed pelvis syndrome is the result of muscle strength imbalances in the lower body and may be one such cause of back pain and impaired athletic performance.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

Isometric contraction requires a muscle to increase its force from rest to a maximum or sub maximum value over a given time, to sustain this force for another set interval and then to decrease this force to rest. You may distinguish between explosive isometrics, which requires rapid acceleration upto the maximum force value and slow isometrics with a much longer onset to maximum force.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

Spondylolisthesis is endemic among athletes participating in sports, particularly those requiring repetitive hyperextension movements such as in gymnastics and cricket bowling.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

The best athletes who perform at the highest level and avoid injury are very intelligent in understanding the process of activating muscles and groups of muscles.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

A muscle does not need to be maximally stretched to be torn. Muscle tears are the consequence of a combination of a sudden contraction and a stretch at the same moment.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

Overtraining and Exhaustion are both a result of imbalance between stress and adaptation of the body. Adaptation leads to an increased functional level of the body where as stress depletes the current reserves.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

Does everyone need to stretch? Some do and some don't. Cross sectional studies of sports such as basketball have shown that the best performing athletes are the "tighter" ones with bodies "wound like springs".

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

The design of any strength and conditioning programme would be insufficient without attention being paid to all features of safety in training, including safety of training methods, individual exercises, sequence of exercises, intensity, volume, time under tension and recovery periods.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

Considering that tendons and ligaments are viscoelastic, they also display sensitivity to loading rate and undergo relaxation, creep and hysteresis.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

Golgi Tendon Organs are nerve networks located in the tendons of the muscles, constantly monitoring tension and help to coordinate actions of many cooperating muscles.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

Acute or chronic injury may make it impossible for an athlete to produce maximal strength or execute other motor qualities.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones

Movement Analysis and Testing can play huge roles and add great value to a training programme. It doesn't matter whether the client is an athlete in peak condition, returning from injury or somebody that is completely new to exercise, everybody can benefit.

4 mins

Matthew Watkin-Jones