Wall Walk Questions

Are you supposed to feel this exercise at all in the lower back? I know that "as you get stronger you'll use your arms less and less". Well, I'm not "stronger" yet and my arms are usually wrecked by this stage of the routine.

I also don't have enough endurance to make it all the way down to the floor to then walk all the way back up, so I end up using legs and arms to keep balance to even just finish the total reps. Is that acceptable, too?

You're best off reducing the ROM as necessary to keep the stretch where it should be. A bit in your lower back, yes, but if there's anything like an ache there you need to dial it back and bring the bridging through #1 your shoulders and #2 upper back.

In the situation that you can do, say, one perfect rep at a time and then get fatigued, for the purposes of stretching I would rather have you take as long as you needed to to get the perfect reps scheduled. Wall walks and limbers do good things for a whole lot of muscles and tissue; increasing your work capacity is a nice fringe benefit, but it is going to be your developing flexibility/mobility that allows you to put up more reps by moving more efficiently and comfortably through the element than strength building per se

So, in other words, do more with less until I can do more with more. Less meaning, in this case, reps or relative intensity of the movement. I'll keep that in mind. The other two stretch series aren't anywhere near as grueling as is the TBs, but I chalk that up to my having been in Tae Kwon Do and soccer for almost all of my childhood (thus relatively greater flexibility and strength in my lower body).

In addition, how does one go about 'feeling' it in their shoulders and upper back? Other stretches in this series, say the inverted cat and elevated cat, certainly lead to a stretch being felt but as for this movement---never mind. I'll upload a video the next time I do this series.

Daniel Taylor-Shaut said:

 

 

In addition, how does one go about 'feeling' it in their shoulders and upper back? 

To start, every time you take a step, pause and think you are doing inverted cat. Since there is no ball to help, you have to provide the lift for your chest yourself. 

A-ha...Thanks. Who knew there are so many cues to movement. You would think these things are instinctive...

I like to think that they were instinctive, but sitting down all the time has trained those instincts out of most adults.

Even active people may have very few opportunities to walk hands first backwards down a wall.

Cole Dano said:

Even active people may have very few opportunities to walk hands first backwards down a wall.

Unless they're either Ethan Hunt or a high-profile bank robber, or both. Lol.

So, an update. I focused on pushing through my chest and, as a result, felt my tension in my legs and back and was able to do three repetitions (with a bit of rest in between) which was nice. I, however, faced other issues which I make separate posts about.