hernia

[advotrina]

I am unsure where to post this.


I have a client who has surgery on their hernia about a year ago. He has now hired me to gain himself overall fitness, flexibilty, lean muscle mass and weight loss.

His doctor says he has no core strength and when he was working out,prior to the operation, his body compensated for no core strength and it was all relying on his other muscles.

He says he does not know how to use his core. any suggestions about how I should go about this. I have suggested Yoga/pilates and also constantley reminding him to pull his belly button into his spine. but any other suggestions would be great.

[Aoife]

I donno, ever look at Core Performance? There's some decent stuff in there. *shrug*

[student]

Check out stuff by Stuart Mcgill. Here are a few links you might find helpfull.

HalfSquare: Caught Between Being Cool and Being Square This gives a very brief look at McGills "big three" Do more research on him.

Better Golf With Fitness: No More Sit Ups and Crunches
GolfWRX.com > No More Sit Ups and Crunches, Part 2 these are good ones from Anthony Renna on how his core training has evolved.

I also like the chop and lift per Gray Cook. The articles discussing that can be found on his site functionalmovement.com under the articles or in his book athletic body in balance.

Hope this helps.

Also... the idea of bracing seems better than "drawing in" or belly button to the spine. Read McGill for more info on this.

[UConnJulie]

The idea is to eventually make the core activation reflexive versus conscious.

Of course, you'll need to start with conscious given the history of injury and surgery. So the initial exercises will need to be very remedial ... McGill's stuff is great as is Gray Cook's.

My progression might be something like this ...

Prone Alligator Breathing
Prone TA activation (pulling bellybutton in to spine like zipping up tight pants)
--> Progressing to Quadruped, then Standing TA activation
Straight Arm Lat Pulldowns (weighted or bands)
Incline Push ups/planks/mountain climbers
-->Gradually decreasing the incline over time
Single leg exercises like lunges, step ups, SL RDLs, etc ... the single leg stance will force the core to work for balance purposes
Chop and Lift exercises - start with light resistance and in double leg stance, then tall kneeling, then half kneeling
More direct core work -- plank variations, hanging leg raises, med ball slams, etc.