Foundations: Spinal Mobility & Strengthening

Quick Intro: Half Roll Downs

What’s it good for? ⁠

🌟  Increases abdominal strength and teaches deep abdominal activation.
🌟  Increases rib cage capacity.
🌟  Teaches us to separate side bending from rotation.
🌟  Introduces us to Short Box Abdominal series on the Reformer and Barrels.
🌟  Gets us ready for Roll Ups and Roll Overs – the second and third exercises in the tradition series from “Return to Life”.
🌟  Teaches us to sit up on our sit bones in preparation for seated exercises.

A quick “how to”…

Half Roll Downs

🌟  Sit as tall as you can on your sit bones.  Bent knees, feet flat on the floor.
🌟  Draw in your abdominals, and use them to roll off the back of your sit bones as you exhale.
🌟  Roll as far as you can, but remaining in control.
🌟  At the bottom, sniff to inhale and exhaling roll back to the starting position.
🌟  Try rolling down from the sitting position and rolling up from a lying position.

Half Roll Downs & Rotation

🌟  Sit tall as you did for the Half Roll Downs.
🌟  Place your hands behind your head with fingers clasped.  Press your head into your hands and your hands into your head.
🌟  On the inhale, rotate either clockwise or anticlockwise, growing tall as you do.
🌟  Exhaling, roll down, still in rotation.
🌟  Inhaling, rotate to the other side.
🌟  Staying in rotation, roll back to the starting position, but you’ll be rotated to the other side.
🌟  Repeat to return to the other side.

Half Roll Downs & Arm Raises

🌟  Sit up as in the other Half Roll Down exercises.
🌟  Roll Down without rotating, keeping your arms in a horizontal position.
🌟  As your roll back up, reach your hands, palms facing inwards, upwards and backwards, overhead.
🌟  Stick your bum out and bring your heart towards your knees.  Inhale deeply.

Hints & Tips:

🌟  As you roll down, really tuck in your tailbone.
🌟  Think of your stomach pushing you backwards as you roll back.
🌟  Use your exhalation to increase abdominal activation.
🌟  Use your inhalation to increase stretch in rotations and the arm raises.
🌟  Be careful that rotation is rotation, with not side bending.
🌟  In the Arm Raises variation, think of working in opposition between your straight spine and arm raises.

Any Questions?

Ask away – I love to help!  Click here for the Contact Page 🙂 – or leave a comment at the bottom of the post – see you there…

Miguel 🙂