Megamove of the month of April 2018: Wheelbarrow
‘How to Wheelbarrow’!
We are very happy to introduce you to the new monthly MEGA MOVE! Every month, we will be providing you with educational information online and during classes, tips and ‘how to’ on one Lagree Fitness Method exercise! We hope they will help you understand how to best perform the exercises that you will find in our classes, maximise the training benefits that you will gain from them too.
April showers bring May flowers, but not without a WHEELBARROW!
April’ s Mega Move is the Wheelbarrow. The Wheelbarrow, is one of the most fundamental and essential abdominal exercises that can be performed on the Megaformer. If you’ve taken a class with us before, you’ve probably tried it and felt the burn! All the muscles of your trunk, as well as your arms remain under tension as the wheelbarrow is performed.
The Wheelbarrow is a core stabilizing exercise, which is performed to help you build up the entire structure of your core. It is important to note, that a core stabilizer is different than a crunch. With exercises like the wheelbarrow, the focus remains on your entire core and trunk, rather than just the muscles in your abdomen (much like a plank vs a sit-up). Even though the target muscles are your core/abdominals, the movement of the wheelbarrow comes from the triceps, shoulders, and lats’ multiple muscle groups are engaged. Performing the wheelbarrow correctly helps you create a strong foundation to prevent injuries anywhere up and down your body’s chain-of-command. This exercise will also help improve your posture and balance.
Michela’s Wheelbarrow
Notice how Michela, by moving very slowly, is able to engage all of her core, lats, shoulders and arms. If you start to feel the famous ‘shake’, you’re doing something right – you are activating both your fast and slow twitch muscle fibres, something we call effective muscle stimulation 🙂 Don’t forget to breath!
If you want to challenge yourself like Michela does in the video, come onto your toes and try the wheelbarrow in a full plank position and remember to go as slow as possible, this will multiply the benefits of the exercise!
Hips alignment
Dipping your hips too low or arching your spine will cause you to wrongfully find tension in your lower back, and make it difficult for you to engage your abdominals. On the other hand, taking your hips to high will also cause trouble with keeping your abdominals engaged and you find your arms working more than they need to.
Try to find a perfect diagonal line from the top of your head down to your knees. Think of this position as your ‘starting position’ for the exercise, keeping your hips as stable as possible once you start to move the arms.
Range of motion
If you perform the movement of the Wheelbarrow at a full range of motion, you would extend your body all the way out, and then pull yourself all the way in.
A full-range of movement is not ideal for the Wheelbarrow. When you push the carriage all the way out, you’re not really working your abs and shoulders primarily anymore – You are adding stress to your neck, your clavicle, your traps, and your lower back… So it is better no to go all the way out.
And in the other direction, if you bring the carriage all the way into the platform, you lose all the tension and no longer stimulate the abdominals / core and lats. Here you don’t feel anything…
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