Gravity Fx Fitness

This past week we have been working on primitive movement patterns like rocking, rolling and crawling – the movements that infants develop naturally, after coming into this world with a LOT of mobility (like being able to put toes to mouth).  These patterns give your nervous system a lot of stimulus and can be useful to regain the mobility of your youth.

As we mature, go out into the stressful workplace, spend much more time sitting than we are designed for, move too little or do the same movements over and over (overuse/repetitive motion injuries), we tend to get stiff and need to reconnect our bodies and brain, providing proper stimulus for efficient movement.

In the last couple years, I have been exposed to some videos and articles on using these developmental patterns for improved fitness and/or rehab.  This is based partly on a rehab system out of the Czech Republic called DNS, which will be presented in Davenport this April.  I recently came across a fitness website that presented a simple way to make use of this for your own improvement called Pressing Reset.

So as you can see in the video above there are examples of simple but effective movements to help with mobility.  In the rocking portion I should have had a little more arch in my lower back.  This is a simple way to help loosen up your hips.  The rolling patterns are actually harder than they look if you do them right.  You want to “lead” with your arm or leg and let the rest of your body kind of fall into place – trickier than it sounds.

The rope climber finally arrived!!

Rope climbing is a very good exercise but very few people can climb a rope, so this machine has 7 different resistance levels, making rope climbing available to almost anyone.  You can go shorter work periods for strength work or longer to work more on cardio.  Its joint friendly and can help with shoulder ROM (range of motion).  You can reach higher one hand at a time if that is your goal.  Hey, its just fun to use and it provides a little more variety.

A client asked me a couple weeks ago about the inversion table at the studio and what it did.  I wrote an article on this a year ago called Gravity, Posture and Inversion which does a good job of explaining the benefits, including neutralizing the negative effects of prolonged sitting.  A study in the ’70’s by Nachemson et al, measured the pressure on the spine in various positions.

In sitting with good posture, there was 40% more pressure on the spine than there was while standing.  Sitting with poor posture was even worse for your back.  We are designed for movement and the less movement we get in our daily lives, the worse off most of us are.

I use the inversion table at least 3 times a week and it helps me out quite a bit.  Yes, there are contraindications and you don’t need to be fully inverted to receive benefits – 20 to 30 degrees is a good starting place for those who are able to do this.

Finally, I wanted to comment on various people who walk into my gym from time to time.  Monday, the truck driver who delivered the rope climber saw my Power Plate vibration platform and said he wishes he had one of them.  He then said he had a piece of home weight equipment that he was looking to sell.  He said it had multiple stations and cost him over $2000 but it didn’t fit in his house and he couldn’t use all the functions.

He told me he was going to start going to the gym to work on losing weight.  I told him briefly about what I do but many people don’t have a clue about the benefits of the simple tools I use (mostly).  They don’t see any pieces of cardio equipment and somehow aren’t aware that you can get a cardiovascular training effect without a treadmill or elliptical machine?

Yet these people are not slim and no where near the shape that myself and many of my clients are in.  Unfortunately, the cardio strength training that we focus on here doesn’t get much publicity in the mainstream media.  Which is sad because so many people don’t bother going to the gym because they think it takes 2 hours of exercise to get results.

They’ve obviously never done kettlebell swings, battling ropes or sandbag exercises.  They would change their mind very quick.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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