Touch Your Toes with the Maestro Part 7: The Assisted Seated Toe Touch
I’m all about regressing to progress, and decreasing postural demands to improve movement performance. Tonight we’re bringing the toe touch to the ground and letting a band assist us through the movement in an attempt to make the nervous system feel safe, while providing an external stimulus to help the body remember what it’s supposed to be doing.
I’ve delivered this toe-touch series in a specific order that goes from the least postural demands to the greatest. We started on the ground on our backs, breathing, lifting our legs, then rolling. Today we progress to the seated posture, but we’re going to use a band to help us get into that position so as to not make the transition so difficult that our nervous system slams on the brakes.
This is a classic example of taking someone through the 4×4 matrix as popularized by Gray Cook and Mike Boyle. If you’re not familiar with it, now isn’t the time for me to school ya on it, but take a minute and go look it up. It provides a clear-cut way to progress through ANY movement pattern ever. Brilliant stuff.
This drill also provides an excellent way to reintroduce spinal flexion with your patients who have suffered an injury or just never knew how to do it properly in the first place. You can modify the leg position as needed, and play around with the band that’s being used for assistance. Cook bands work great for this, but I didn’t have one with me when I filmed it, so I opted for a superband. (You can get both bands at @perform_better). All the same concept. Ideally I’d have the band with enough tension that it would allow me to lower to the floor but also provide assistance at the end of the toe-touch. Can’t win ‘em all. You get the idea though.
The goal is to recreate the standing toe-touch position, so keep the knees straight, let the back round, let the head drop, use the abs to bend forward as you let the band help pull you forward, and breaaaaathe.
Tomorrow night, part 8. Stay tuned!
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