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If we had to pick one exercise or one movement, one skill
for anyone starting any kind of physical activity,
I would pick a hollow body position. Hollow body position
is the most neutral body position anyone could get into.
This is our starting position, a lot of our
finishing positions happen here and it's always a
projection of what's going to happen down the line.
A hollow body position is just the following:
It's where we hold our arms next to our ears,
toes pointed, legs straight, back is on the ground,
belly's nice and tight, butt is nice and tight.
Key thing is learn how to get into this.
We have to start from a very basic position where
I'm just lying on my back, head is grounded,
and what I'm going to try to do is just kick
my legs up into the sky. When I kick my legs up into the sky,
immediately I'm going to feel my lower back supported
on the ground. There's going to be no daylight coming through
as my legs are up. Toes are pointed just to create a
nice long, straight leg. I'm going to lift my shoulders
off the ground, reach for my toes. Once I'm in this position,
now I have a big connection happening in the midsection,
and that's where everything's going to come from. From there,
I'm going to start thinking about lowering my legs,
but without losing that back position. That back should be
nice and tight the whole time and then my arms are going to
start reaching behind my ears. Ideally, I can hold this
body position without having to break in the back and
lose neutral. If I lose neutral at any point, that's where
I'm going to stop. So if I'm coming down and I feel like
I'm about to lose neutral there, my legs start bending,
I'm going to come up a little higher, and just get myself
into a strong position until I feel comfortable bringing
my head down, shoulders down, legs down, shoulders down,
and still maintain that nice, strong connection throughout
the full movement. It's not an easy thing to do,
but it's something great to practice. If you can do that,
you'll be ahead of the game, for sure.