Kinesiology THURSDAY – Latissimus Dorsi Abdominal Shut-Off

“I haven’t been able to do a sit up in years,” he said. I looked at him quizzically. A former Ironman Triathlete and now an avid golfer, this man standing in front of me was a fit retiree in his early 60’s. “My wife said I needed to do core work,” he added, “but you can punch my stomach and it is rock solid.”

He stood with a slight increase in thoracic kyphosis and an increased lumbar lordosis, a typical “swimmer’s posture”. He was seeing me because of a low level, constant centralized lower back ache.

He was unable to perform supine to long sit without upper extremity assistance. So, here’s what I did:

Corrected his pelvic alignment (still couldn’t sit up)
Performed thoracic sequence

And presto, he successfully performed supine to long sit “for the first time in years”.

Why did that work?

The latissimus dorsi is the one muscle that creates the sagittal plane “S” curve (increased thoracic kyphosis and lumbar lordosis, due to its origin at the pelvis via the thoracolumbar fascia (back of the body) to its insertion on the intertubercular groove of the humerus (front of the body).

Increased thoracic kyphosis will yield decreased thoracic rotation and increased lumbar lordosis will place the abdominals in a chronically long/weak position. By restoring thoracic rotation with the thoracic sequence (which includes a lat dorsi release), the lumbar spine was able to relax into a more neutral posiiton.

Remember optimal length tension? A muscle activates best when it is elongated to 1.2x its normal resting length. In the case of a lumbar lordosis, the abdominal muscles, at rest, are beyond this optimal stretch position and are, therefore, unable to activate making it difficult to perform the supine to long sit test.

Why does this matter?

Supine to long sit often gets a bad rap. Many people with lower back pain are told never to sit up like that but rather to roll to their side to sit up. But I propose that supine to long sitting isn’t bad for you, BAD supine to long sitting is bad for you. And an inability to some to sitting is often the sign of a fixable problem.

So solve the long sit test. It will get rid of back pain and just may improve someone’s golf game.

Because nobody has time to be in pain.

Until next time…