As many of you know I do my best to follow a joint by joint philosophy when I care for my athletes. Simply put the philosophy is that one joint can affect another. If one joint’s main function is to stabilize it allows the joints around it, which tend to be mobile, to be mobile. The quadruped ball wall pushback, as I call it, activates the lumbar spine to reflexively be stable. By applying a flexion/extension movement, as seen in the video, you can improve quality of movement in the thoracic spine.
This quadruped ball wall push has a number of other applications:
- On it’s own, the exercise can be applied as a early form of loading of the lumbar spine after injury.
- Try flexing one of the knees up towards the chest while maintaining a neutral spine. This helps us separate hip movement from lumbar spine movement
- Perform a hydrant exercise while maintaining the pelvis and spine neutral
- Use a smaller ball so your hips are more flexed like in the bottom of the squat. This may be able to help your lumbar spine to stay stable while the hips are near full flexion.
- Perform a thoracic rotation to improve thoracic rotation/extension
- Perform a reach/roll/lift while in the quadruped to help develop shoulder mobility/stability in a squat position. This would be good for those who perform overhead squats.
Hope you found this interesting
P.S. Some of these applications are just thoughts that go through my head that may help my patients/athletes improve.
Originally posted on May 17, 2022 @ 4:37 pm