Bridge Wall Walks Build Both Strength & Flexibility

Cole Dano said:

It involves a pretty even proportion of open shoulders and thoracic mobility. Unfortunately it's not the kind of thing that one gets overnight or without some dedicated work. I was never a natural backbender, so i know by experience it is a lot of work. I did get to the point that i could touch me toes to my head, but once i stopped practicing regularly that went away quickly as well.

All that aside, shoulder mobility, it's the same basic work as with handstands and getting the shoulder up by the ears.

Thoracic mobility, one just start to try to find that part of your body and get it to move. One thing is just to lie on your back and with out moving your body try to move the part of your spine between the shoulder blades into your chest.

Arch body hold, try to keep your stomach flat on the floor and do the same thing as above with your spine try to get your chest to face straight forward not towards the wall. You can do this active/passively as well by putting your hands on the floor in front of you and using them to pull your chest out and up. You can also do this on stall bars standing up holding the bars and arching back.

More dramatic passive work involves laying over a chair or bench so it's right in the middle of your upper back and trying to get your head to the floor.

As for when to do the wall walks. First priority is getting a decent backbend IMHO. Try the elevated feet method as well it really helps give the feeling. You can also start doing baby wall walks, jut by learning to drive your hips forwards and lifting your arms stretch back from your chest until you touch the wall at any height. Wall down maybe just one or two steps, keeping focused on holing an open chest.

Start doing backbends with your hands at the wall and as they get better also walk up the wall any amount. In fact i think it's easier to learn to walk up the wall than down.

Hope something here helps, let me know.

Thanks Cole. I shall work on it and update in a few weeks.

I agree with you it's a mixture of the back and shoulders in my case. With the girls, I notice that they do the extreme

back bridges - it seems that the bend is nearly at the pelvis rather than the mid back. They almost have an upside down

V shape /\. Fergetaboutit! Guys seem to be generally more rounded like an arch.

Is the back really meant to bend that far backwards? Lol. It's something that you see and you want though.

Do you think it is ok to alternate this work daily with weighted pike stretches or could it be too much spinal flexion/extension?

Blairbob - Yup, my shoulders are quite tight. Very clicky too. These bad boys?

http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/09/over ... -prep.html (first half)

http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/10/epis ... ulder.html

Thanks much!

FIN

I've seen plenty of girls (and even some men) with extreme backbends that are only in the lower back.

I had one male colleague who had a very extreme back bend and he said you just had to get one vertebra in lower back loose. Well this is a very bad way to think and i don't agree with it whatsoever. There are countless young girls out there that have been injured from doing bad backbends with poor coaches.

I know because they wind up in yoga classes as adults.

You have to spread the bend over the whole spine.

Now if you can do this properly and get to the point you are doing a very deep backbend, it can look like the body is bent at one place, the mid-back, however that because the spine is actually moving into the chest cavity.

Cole Dano said:

Now if you can do this properly and get to the point you are doing a very deep backbend, it can look like the body is bent at one place, the mid-back, however that because the spine is actually moving into the chest cavity.

That one turns my stomach :shock:

It's completely natural. The problem is most people have lost the connection to the T-spine.

Look at this guy - http://yoga-horizons.com/2011/04/keep-y ... nal-waves/

As an anecdote, the first time I really felt this was lying on my stomach and arching my legs up and over to touch my toes to my head.

In the beginning i need some one to assist and basically pull my feet to my head. The first couple of times were pretty rough to be honest, and i felt the air being forcibly pushed out of my lungs as the spine sunk in. After awhile it became comfortable. However i do think i did some damage in my zeal.

This is also very interesting...

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Worked on some of this a few times last week. It may have been too much in combination with

trying to develop a bodyweight squat and improve my 5k run time, because tweaked my lower back and/or perhaps

psoas. The strain occured later while bending over, sitting. Not severe thankfully.

But it adviseable to not perform other stressful back/hip loading the same week of flexibility

training for the bridge pehaps? LOL!

Doubtful, I was still doing deads and squats last year under 531 while doing gymnastics 5d/wk. That meant bridging of some sort M-F.

Year before I was still lifting 2-3x/wk while doing gymnastics 4d/wk.

SQ was over 2.25xBW, dl WAS 2.5xBW at the time but didn't do too much running. Blah.

Blairbob said:

Doubtful, I was still doing deads and squats last year under 531 while doing gymnastics 5d/wk. That meant bridging of some sort M-F.

Year before I was still lifting 2-3x/wk while doing gymnastics 4d/wk.

SQ was over 2.25xBW, dl WAS 2.5xBW at the time but didn't do too much running. Blah.

Perhaps it's just because I was increasing the intensity of all of them at the same time.

Or just one of those things ...

Hear you on the blah but what's more functional than running? So many interesting ways it can be programmed too...

At the time I was training for gymnastics competition, thus running wasn't something that was too high on my to do list. I ran in the morning a bit for giggles.

It was probably pushing on that intensity. 531 is a slow and steady program

Oh, to note my SQ and DL haven't been at 2.25/2.5 since mid 2010, I was training for competition harder then and wasn't running muh. Last year it was more in the 2/2.25 range and I typically jogged in the morning every day or every other day, rowing instead at the gym.

So I basically got what I was doing in 2010 mixed with what I was doing last year. Yes, I'm getting old and senile as the white hair is creeping in.

Any suggestions for safety? I was doing these yesterday with the Thoracic Bridge stretching routine and, well, I fell and hit my head. I don't have stall bars in my apartment, and don't have the current means to purchase or install any. Are they any alternatives that people know of regarding these? I know the work, I can feel it when my arms want to give out as I lean on them for support (especially when I'm NOT falling down in the process).

Any insight is appreciated, thanks.

Only walk down gradually.  Take it slow. No need to walk all the way down at first. Some of my really tight kids would only walk to between their waist and sternum height.

When you are an adult, you're taller with longer arms which means more leverage and work.

If you are really concerned about it, stack a whole bunch of pillows at the bottom of the wall but not falling on your head is a better idea.

How to approach this correctly? I get a lot of strain on my lower back. Thoracic bridge  is definitely a weakness I need to address.

The elevated bridge is recommended to negate what you describe.

Please refer to the Thoracic Bridge series for detailed information and progressions Bas.

9 hours ago, Bas Albinus said:

How to approach this correctly? I get a lot of strain on my lower back. Thoracic bridge  is definitely a weakness I need to address.

Please post the question on the appropriate sub forum.