Hey Again! Happy Friday!
I have another video for you, this time with my other niece, Audrey. She is a softball player and needs to develop better tone and stability in her shoulder girdle. Doing this simple exercise, which I call the SuperHero pose will help achieve this.
Why the SuperHero Pose? Well, have you ever seen a sloppy SuperHero? I mean really, they are here to save the day and they usually have oodles of self confidence and perfect posture as they stand there with their hands on their hips. Visualize it.
That’s the exercise. Make a fist and put your hands on your hips. Stand with your feet a little less than hip width apart. Press your fists firmly into your hips and try to fire your Latissimus Dorsi muscle. That’s the big muscle in your back that is shaped somewhat like a V. It runs across the shoulders and tapers down the back along the spinal column. By pressing your fists into your hips, see if you can feel yourself flex this muscle and turn it on like a light switch, then turn it off. On/Off. Keeping doing that about 20 times and see if you can feel it turn on and off. When you fire up this muscle, you will feel that it automatically pulls your shoulders back and down slightly to give you better posture. That in turn will also make you pull in your zipper (lower abdominals to support the back and increase tone in the abdomen). Try it, stand with your hands on your hips and say “Da-Da-Da-done, I’m a SuperHero!” and you will see that it works!
Flexing your Latissimus Dorsi, or Lats as we call them, will help build stability in the shoulder girdle to help with throwing a softball or pitching a ball. It will also give you more power and strength to throw because that muscle is stronger and helps support the core when you throw.
Lesson for the Day…..SuperHero Pose! Thanks Audrey!