Bridge: Inspired by the Tips #1 Newsletter

Feedback welcome. Pardon the robes...Monk Life

You need to open up those shoulders more in order to get your shoulders directly over your hands. The legs look pretty straight, which is nice, but you could do with bringing your feet together as well.

Your current form puts too much strain on the lower back and wrists to compensate for poor thoracic extension.

Try raising your feet a bit. It gives you a better position to push deeper into the stretch and helps concentrate the stretch in the upper back.

Don't make the mistake of putting the feet too high, a bit below knee high is usually good. Play with the height until you can feel a stretch in your upper back and working on pressing with your feet to get your shoulders past your hands.

Keep your feet together, glutes tight and arms locked and try to gradually straighten your legs.

Basically here there is no shoulder flexion. when shoulder flexion is combined with thoracic extension the result is usually lower back involvement as in the photo. if the shoulder flexion does not match at least 180° is more useful to practice ONLY FLEXION.

The stretch course of thoracic has some exercises that should solve your situation.

Also,  a good stretch for thoracic extension without going into a bridge is the cobra one but with bent arms.

Alessandro Mainente said:

Basically here there is no shoulder flexion. when shoulder flexion is combined with thoracic extension the result is usually lower back involvement as in the photo. if the shoulder flexion does not match at least 180° is more useful to practice ONLY FLEXION.

The stretch course of thoracic has some exercises that should solve your situation.

 

You're on fire, Ale. Great post, excellent advice.

Thanks everyone for the valuable advice, i will implement the suggestions and update in a few weeks.

Update with raised legs, straighter this time. Can feel the stretch deeply in the upper back, feels pretty good to just sit and lean into it.

Doing this on carpet over a marble floor? You're a braver man than I. Maybe put some of those pillows under your head at least... 

It looks better to me. I'd try starting with your hands a bit closer to your feet so you can be in this position with slightly bent legs. It looks like your legs are completely straight which doesn't give your any more room to push your shoulders forward.

Another quick thought is if you arch the neck more it can improve activation in the upper back and may help you get deeper into the stretch. Try looking at the floor between your hands and see how it feels.

You don't want to arch the neck back in T-Bridge, let the head hang neutrally. 

I can still hear my teacher yelling at me for the 100th time not to do this, it can be counterintuitive to not look straight down at the floor.

Cole Dano said:

it can be counterintuitive to not look straight down at the floor.

I actually find it's completely the opposite for me. 

This was a recommendation from another teacher. What's the motivation for not arching the neck?

Arching the neck promotes lumbar arch, same as in a handstand, and plain gets in your own way.

Relaxing the neck is a big focus point for myself too

But isn't this different, since the spine is completely arched in a bridge? Whereas in a handstand you're staying with more of a neutral straight spine?

You certainly don't want exclusively a lumbar arch in a bridge. But I've found arching the neck as well, insofar as it is connected to the upper back, helps me create a more even arch across the whole spine.

One reason, which is exactly the same as in handstand, is arching the neck will tend to close the shoulders. 

Also keep in mind that the neck is already naturally arched.

In opening up a good bridge, it can be interesting to play with different head positions. For example try tucking your chin to your chest, while opening the shoulders.

Arching the neck will help wind the spine tighter, as you've already noticed.

In either case, once you've gotten what you can out of using the neck, let the head hang again. Head between the arms is the final position.

I noticed it made quite a difference in my own bridge. I'll see if there's time tomorrow to take a couple pictures to illustrate.

Cole Dano said:

 

Arching the neck will help wind the spine tighter, as you've already noticed.

 

In either case, once you've gotten what you can out of using the neck, let the head hang again. Head between the arms is the final position.

It does increase tension, though I've found it's more the sort muscle activation that helps me open my chest and lets me push my shoulders further.

I'll play with some neck positions and try and get a better idea of what's happening for me. I'll try to get some pictures as well.

Something else came to mind. For the arch body hold, one of the important cues is to fully arch the body, including the head and neck.

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/18819-slpe1/

This would seem to be a much better corollary than the handstand.

What would be the difference between these two moves? It seems to me that both are about actively arching the body across the length of the spine.

The degree of craning the neck is a magnitude lower in HBH and gravity is working in the opposite direction.

But it might help to understand what I*m talking about if you imagine doing ABH and trying to look straight up at the ceiling from you neck. What's going to happen? Is the ABH going to actually improve?

It certainly would be harder to look at the ceiling for ABH, I imagine this is due to a lot less thoracic extension. Meaning that the neck would have to arch far more relative to the back to look at the ceiling. The far greater thoracic extension in a bridge means that arching the neck in that position merely continue to follows the arch of the spine, no?

I didn't believe my teacher at first either, it will make sense in due time. But basically No.

You can use the neck momentarily to help, but then relax the neck. Observe what happens when you do, does the t-spine suddenly collapse back? Is it a nicer position to be in? 

Cole Dano said:

I didn't believe my teacher...

I like the sound of your younger self, he sounds like an intelligent guy.

I'm not set on the idea, more curious as to the specifics because it feels right to me.

Maybe if Jon gets some pictures it will make more sense.