Baby J Shows Us How to Develop our Extensors
Why Baby J needs to develop his Extensors
This is a video of “Baby J” developing his back and hip extensors.
His mama gave me permission to use this video. 🙂
Watch the video here on my youtube channel:
https://youtube.com/shorts/SDDKckKN17c?feature=share
We are born in flexion.
Once out of the womb, we must develop our extensor muscles. This begins rapidly by learning to lift our own rather large heads.
The extensor muscles work in partnership with our flexors so that we can stand, crawl, squat, walk, reach, and pull.
I urge you to watch this short 8 second video numerous times. It’s a fast 8 seconds, but watch every single thing Baby J does.
Watch Baby J’s head, neck, trunk, arms, and legs.
Notice how many things/movements he does in 8 seconds!!
Baby J is pretty damn cute and right on track to someday hike and run along the trails his family so loves.
Baby J provides a birds eye view of how our extensors develop.
The extensor muscles are integral to posture.
Some Thoughts About Posture
Let me diverge from Baby J for a moment…..
I can’t tell you how often I hear people tell me they have “bad” posture.
Posture can be defined as the position we hold our bodies in against gravity – the way we hold ourselves, mostly due to a coordinated action of muscles to provide stability in the “shape” we have arranged our body in at any given moment.
Often folks think that “good” postures is some interesting combination of sucking in the belly, tucking the butt, lifting the chin, and rolling the shoulders back and down.
These are really simply superficial “fixes” for posture and often based on a certain aesthetic or a culturally defined idea of what “good” posture is.
I know you’re surprised I have thoughts about this :).
Personally, I’d like to remove the words “good”, “bad”, “dysfunctional” or even “optimal” in relationship to the word “posture”.
Posture is the way we hold our bodies against the force of gravity in whatever “shape” we are making at the time – sitting, standing, kneeling, squatting, pulling, pushing, twisting, side bending….
Posture requires strong back and hip extensors balanced with what is happening on the front body where many of the flexor muscles live.
And as Baby J demonstrates, this is something we develop before we can actually kneel, sit, squat, stand, or ambulate.
I think the biggest issue with modern day posture is that it isn’t “good” or “bad” but that we simply don’t change it enough.
We don’t move around enough.
We don’t change the shapes we make enough.
We don’t change our relationship to gravity frequently enough.
Back to Baby J
I love this video because Baby J shows the process of developing muscles that will balance out his system, allowing him to eventually roll over, sit up, be on all 4’s, reach for things, squat, stand, carry heavy things, run, skip, and all the things.
Open the video and watch it again and then read below to see how I analyze his movement.
This kiddo does a A TON OF MOVEMENT in 8 seconds!
Watch Baby J do the following things (you’ll recognize many of them from our yoga and movement classes).
- Baby J starts off in sphinx pose – both forearms are on the ground, his thighs are firmly down while his lower legs are lifted slightly up, his trunk is lifted, and his head is just slightly turned left.
- Right away he centers his head and his legs lift up – he is in a sort of salambasana sphinx pose now. Lifting his legs help to counter balance the big head that babies have.
- Baby J then begins a sequence, and you’ve got to watch frame by frame to see it, where he is preparing to roll onto his left side. He doesn’t actually roll, but watch carefully… his left arm reaches out on the ground in front of him to stabilize his trunk, his right arm movs back into extension behind his body, his right leg crosses over his left leg, his head and neck begin to turn to the left. THIS ALL HAPPENS IN 8 SECONDS!
Baby J and all of us are born with the physiological imperative to get our eyes on the horizon.
In order to do this we have to lift our heads and we can’t do that without neck extensor muscles.
In order to keep our heads up while lying on our bellies, the trunk extensors have to be developed.
Baby J is using his arms against the floor to optimize keeping his trunk up, but those arms pressing down help him begin to develop his lumbar cure muscles (extensors) – he will not be able to stand up without a lumbar curve.
His primary hip extensors are the gluteal maximus muscles, the big muscle on the back of your pelvis/butt.
His hamstrings and the long head of one of his adductors (inner thigh muscle) will also develop into primary hip extensors.
By holding his legs up off the blanket Baby J is developing the capacity for that hip to extend (lengthen behind the line of his pelvis, which is necessary for the propulsive part of walking).
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Baby J’s mama put him on his stomach on a blanket out in nature.
While most of us just look at him and think, “omg he’s so cute”, the movement scientist in me sees that he immediately grabs the opportunity to strength train because he is physiologically dialed in to move and develop the muscles that will allow him to grow into an independent human being.
Back to You and Posture
OK, back to you and the whole posture thing.
I encourage all of us in the aging population to move our bodies as much as possible – supine, prone, sitting, standing, walking, jogging, hiking up hill, skipping, even jumping!
Change shapes regularly and while being aware of your habits, your tendencies, don’t get stuck on “good” posture.
Be willing to question some of the things people have told you about what constitutes good posture.
Remember that some of the things we’ve been told about posture in our society, yoga, dance, martial arts, strength training, or even the military tend to be more of an aesthetic cuing system. While it may have relevance for the way something might look in that form of movement, it isn’t necessarily “right” for you or your needs.
So…..
- Change shapes regularly
- Change your posture often
- Set a timer to get out of your chair.when you’re watching tv or working on the computer or at your craft table
- Sit on the ground when you watch television
- Play with your grandchildren on the playground – I mean go down the slide, climb the ladders, run around in the sand, pretend to be a dog on all 4’s
- Take walks on varying surfaces with flat, uphill, and downhill terrain
- Switch hands to do a task
- Take your shoes off and walk barefoot whenever you can
- Stand on your toes
- Stand up and sit down on various heights of chairs and stools
- Play with getting up and down off the ground with as little assistance as necessary
- Go outside and play in nature
Work on increasing the strength and endurance in your back and hip extensors, but also work on increasing the strength and endurance in your entire tissue system.
We can add in specific exercises for extensor strength – lifting off the floor in salambasana, leg lifts from all 4’s or standing, single leg squats, deadlift/hip hinge, moving arms while lying prone..
But working on full body actions, especially weight training with external load, can increase our strength, endurance, and power in the extensor system.
I’ll write another blog with some photos and videos of what might help increase the strength and power in your extensor system. I promise.
