Hollow body hold; upper back on floor or off?

alan tseng said:

Not exactly, posterior pelvic tilt isn't flattening your lower back, it's more like posterior pelvic tilt causes your lower back to flatten.  PPT is a hip movement not a lower back movement.  Lumbar spine flexion would be a lower back movement, and lumbar spine flexion is different than PPT

This seems a bit semantic to me.

From an anatomical perspective you're obviously correct. At the same time, I think it would be physically impossible to engage a PPT without altering the curve of the spine, so really I don't think you can separate the two and say it's entirely one or the other.

But in terms of physical cues that one can understand on an individual basis, I've found that flattening the lower back is what helps most people (and myself) understand what a proper PPT is. So while technically incorrect in terms of strict definition, I think equating the PPT directly with the position of the lower back to be the most useful in terms of learning body position. But that's just my experience. 

I remember reading someplace that the ultimate goal is the flatter version (first picture) but it is beneficial to properly learn the hollow position (PPT and lower back on floor) from the exagerated version (second picture).

thecolin said:

This seems a bit semantic to me.

 

From an anatomical perspective you're obviously correct. At the same time, I think it would be physically impossible to engage a PPT without altering the curve of the spine, so really I don't think you can separate the two and say it's entirely one or the other.

 

But in terms of physical cues that one can understand on an individual basis, I've found that flattening the lower back is what helps most people (and myself) understand what a proper PPT is. So while technically incorrect in terms of strict definition, I think equating the PPT directly with the position of the lower back to be the most useful in terms of learning body position. But that's just my experience. 

I didn't say that you shouldn't alter the curve at all. I said that the altering the curve of the spine should come from a hip movement (PPT), not from a lower back movement (lumbar flexion).  Every time I've cued someone to flatten the lower back, they do lumbar flexion, which is incorrect so I don't think that's a good cue, since most people have no idea of the concept of flattening lower back through PPT.

i agree, learning how to do the activation to keep my pelvis in a more close to neutral position(while i worked on the angle with stretches) made me feel like i was pointing my junk at people more than anything. 

alan tseng said:

Every time I've cued someone to flatten the lower back, they do lumbar flexion, which is incorrect so I don't think that's a good cue, since most people have no idea of the concept of flattening lower back through PPT.

I don't think there's really such a thing as a good cue or a bad cue, you just need to find the right one that works for your body and CNS. Like I said, it's just my experience, but it does seem to work for a lot of people here.

For me it was a first step, then I started to learn to feel the rotation of my pelvis (or pointing my junk at people  ). I can get into a good PPT from just rotating my hips, but my back still flattens regardless of what cue I use. And for me, contact with my lower back is still the best feedback I have to know when I'm losing PPT and arching with my hollow body work.

Additionally (once again, in my experience) a proper hollow body rock absolutely requires the lower back to be pressing into the ground to make it smooth. Without it, most people just rock on their glutes.

But the primary point was that the two moves are completely intertwined, you can't really separate hip rotation from the position of the spine. If focusing on the lower back doesn't affect the hips, it's obviously a bad cue to use, but that's a separate issue.

Keilani Gutierrez said:

made me feel like i was pointing my junk at people more than anything. 

Thanks for this mental image when I was doing hollow body work this morning. 

thecolin said:

I don't think there's really such a thing as a good cue or a bad cue, you just need to find the right one that works for your body and CNS. Like I said, it's just my experience, but it does seem to work for a lot of people here.

 

For me it was a first step, then I started to learn to feel the rotation of my pelvis (or pointing my junk at people  ). I can get into a good PPT from just rotating my hips, but my back still flattens regardless of what cue I use. And for me, contact with my lower back is still the best feedback I have to know when I'm losing PPT and arching with my hollow body work.

 

Additionally (once again, in my experience) a proper hollow body rock absolutely requires the lower back to be pressing into the ground to make it smooth. Without it, most people just rock on their glutes.

 

But the primary point was that the two moves are completely intertwined, you can't really separate hip rotation from the position of the spine. If focusing on the lower back doesn't affect the hips, it's obviously a bad cue to use, but that's a separate issue.

 

 

Thanks for this mental image when I was doing hollow body work this morning. 

Great post, I feel the same way!

Well crap, I was doing these wrong all along! I was basically piking my whole body until only my butt was on the floor basically....Well, time to re-evaluate from PE1!

KingJR said:

Well crap, I was doing these wrong all along! I was basically piking my whole body until only my butt was on the floor basically....Well, time to re-evaluate from PE1!

But how? Didn't you look at the vids?

Jukkaboy said:

But how? Didn't you look at the vids?

I know! I need to pay wayyyyyyy more attention to the little details in the videos from now on....