Prone Superman is harder than it Looks!

Dr. Ashton, my physical therapist gave me some new physical therapy exercises. Prone Superman is one of the most challenging for me to complete. The picture shows that he is using a couple of pillows under the abdomen. While lying face down, squeeze your butt tight and lift your arms off the ground. Keep hamstrings relaxed and legs on the floor. Then lower slowly back to the ground. This stresses the muscles in the lumbar spine, (I have two fractured vertebrae). It made me think about flying as superman is drawn in comics and shown in movies. It is actually more difficult to hold than it looks. Superman makes it look easy. I tried swimming in the water with my hands extended and kicking for a few laps and found that it was not easy there either. In practicality, I question whether the man of steel actually would choose to fly with arms extended?

I also noticed that in the video demonstration for this pose, the model lifts his arms and legs. I tried this pose and I could only manage a few repetitions out of the 20 it recommends.

Stand like a Man

Physical therapy focused on core strengthening today. One of the most helpful was the bracing sequence. The sequence is a 4 step process to help correct posture. The first step is to tighten the butt, then pull the belly in, third, pull your shoulders back and then let everything relax. I discovered that I could stand much longer with no pain. I practiced this several times as we used elastic bands to evaluate range of motion in my arms. I was impressed with the seemingly simple movements that could isolate a small muscle group and how it would fatigue quickly. The left side was difficult to move very much without pain and limited range of motion today. It holds the right side back. I was handed three pages describing range of motion exercises to help strengthen core muscles to correct the poor posture that has developed since two of my lumbar vertebrae were fractured by a tumor.