| Maintenance! -- For Your Outdoor Body, That is
August 14, 2010
If you do outdoor sports, you probably have well-developed big/core muscles.
But unless you do maintenance exercises, I think it's likely that you have weak support and stability muscles.
Heck, I do a fair bit of ski-skating and ice-skating and I even have weakish hip stabilizers, which you'd think would get worked a lot in such balancey sports. At any rate, things still get outta whack for me in that region.
To be specific, if you paddle a fair bit, you should probably be doing some shoulder rotation stretches and stability exercises. Google it. Here's a good link to text and pics: http://www.performancevideo.com/shoulder_exercises_for_sea_kayaking (no vid even though that's in the title). Basically, you're rotating your arm in and out and up and down against resistance while emphasizing the shoulder and back instead of the elbow (bicep) or big lats/pecs.
If you do sports on your feet -- if you're a runner/biker/skier, say -- then from my recent experience with injury/recovery and from my recent readings, I bet you could benefit from improved hip stability. A biggie that gets overlooked and underworked is the Gluteus Medius. If it gets suddenly stressed, or tired, then the 2 muscles on either side of it can try to take over, throwing the whole show outta whack. Here's a good link for exercises to avoid all this: http://www.mikereinold.com/2009/10/best-exercises-for-gluteus-maximus-and.html
I've been wondering what is good exercise lately and I suppose that anything done too hard is a bad idea. So that sports would tend to result in injury, no two ways about it. You get tired and still try to do the right moves and bingo -- some muscle sags out while others try to come in and help where it's not natural for them to do so and TWANG! In normal sport when you're fit you're not working that hard -- bike riding fast is easy for a bike racer. But everyone has their limits and sports people often go a wee bit justbeyond theirs. Then it's OUCH!
At the same time, it's good to stress our joints and muscles. They need pushing, they need shocks. So there's that.
Anyway, I bet if we regularly cover our bases, and stretch, we'll be better off.
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