What if I told you that you must first find and be able to access your lats before you can strengthen your abs? ‘Whaaatttt?!’ You might ask ‘but why would I work my back muscles if I want to strengthen my front?’ Good question. Let me explain.
Have you ever felt neck tension and shoulder pain during ab work? Does that tension pull your focus from the targeted area? Yea, we’ve all struggled with this because most of us work under the assumption that accompanied pain is a part of the process but it’s not.
The reason your neck is tensing is because the lats are not engaging, as their major role is to pull the shoulders down and keep them in place. If we’ve accepted the tension, however, it can be challenging to access the lats and know if they’re activating.
Years worth of pulling the shoulders into the ears means that we have to retrain the body to work from the lats instead of the traps and the way we do this is by executing exercises that help us to feel that spot engage. The video attached showcases a series of exercises you can do to help turn the lats on and actually feel them engage.
The equipment utilized in the video offers soft spring resistance (adjustable to your needs) that the lats have to work against. In working against resistance, the sensation of engagement is then felt in the targeted area;the lats!
The utilization of the equipment is to ingrain that sensation into your muscle memory, so that you are able to intentionally find it on your own. Finding it on your own is applicable to other forms of activity ranging from placing your luggage in the overhead compartment to rock climbing. This is just one of the many ways that practicing Pilates brings awareness to your entire body, engaging the right muscles at the right time and keeping you injury free.