Hi Friend!
Happy 2nd day of November to you!
I was coaching Body Saws this week and I started reflecting on how great of an exercise it is, so I thought I'd share.
Body Saw First, here's what a body saw looks like if you don't remember, with 4 different progressions you could do.
Benefits
A body saw is a moving plank. Planks are important because they stabilize your lumbar spine (low back) by preventing hyperextension of your lumbar spine. They stabilize by allowing your to hold your lumbo-pelvic region in neutral. If you've ever heard me say, "ribs down, butt tucked, pubic bone tilted up", then you know what pelvic neutral is. This should be the most pain free, comfortable and powerful position for most people.
A body saw challenges this stability through movement in the sagittal plane. Can you keep your lumbo-pelvic region in neutral while moving? If yes, great. Work the reps, sets & progressions and frequency per week to a stronger core. If no, how can we shorten the lever arm (legs), elevate your upper body, reduce the weight of your core (band assistance from above you), coach up your technique better or give you an alternative exercise.
It's also a great exercise for moms & people who sit a lot because, well moms, loose their low ab strength for a while because of obvious reasons and people who sit a lot, lose that strength for similar reasons (anterior pelvic tilt and bellys that hang over waist line). The Body Saw if done properly puts you in pelvic neutral and targets the area of your waist (low abs) that most people like to address.
Planks and moving planks are isometric contractions, which means there is no change in range of motion of the targeted area during contraction. Two cool things about isometric contractions are (1) you get stronger in that specific joint angle and (2) your cross-sectional area of the muscle decreases in circumference at the area trained. So your waist size would eventually decrease through planking & moving planks.
The upper body position works, if done properly, the head packed position which is head back & chin tucked and is the opposite of the head forward and chin up position that comes with your head on pillow or sitting all day looking at a computer, tv or smart phone.
The UB position also targets your scapular stabilizers, specifically your serratus anterior through scapular protraction. Most people lose things they don't use (use it or lose it) and scapular protraction, upward rotation and elevation are 3 patterns that don't get used very often unless you're playing an overhead sport, training on a thoughtful program that exercises that or both. Scapular protraction is when your reach your arm in front of you and then push it forward further so your shoulder blades rounds into your armpit. When you watch me in the videos, look at my shoulder blades. I try to get them to disappear into my armpit while I'm planking. Upon further review, I can do better than I demonstrated as you can still see the vertebral border of both of my scapulas.
Indirect Benefits The Body Saw tells me how unaware, disconnected and/or weak your anterior chain is when supporting your body against gravity. If your knees bend, hips sag, and/or shoulders sink you've got some strengthening to do.
It also tells me about your glutes and rotator cuff. Specifically if you don't contract your glutes by squeezing your butt, then it'll be difficult to stabilize your lumbo-pelvic region in neutral. And if your arms turn into an "A" with your fists touching, it tells me your anterior chest & shoulder muscles are tight and your rotator cuff in the scapular plane is weak.
So like any good exercise, its' both an assessor and corrector.
Reps, Sets, Frequency... You could do the body saw for time, 15-60seconds, for reps, 8-12 reps, for sets, 1-3+, and for a frequency of 1-3+ times per week. Like most things it depends on where your starting from and what you're training for.
That's the body saw. I hope you like it. It's part of our Workout B this phase and part of our programming for this quarter.
Thankful for you,
Coach Mike
p.s. Today and Friday are the last days of guest week for this phase. Registration is still open for our last phase of the year beginning, Monday, Nov 27. If you know someone who might be interested, please reply and let me know or do an email introduction.
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