Hello, Dr. John here again. You’ve often heard me refer to gravity is being one of the major stresses that we’re subject to from a time we’re born till the time we graduate on to the next world.
Well, for the first few years of life, we wouldn’t develop as human beings without gravity. Because gravity is a major stimulus for our body to orientate ourselves to this world. It provides a stimulus so that we can adapt.
Overtime gravity attempts to break us down, I came up with this term call the Gorilla Hand Gravity. Gravity is like a big gorilla hand that wants to pull your chin to your knees. Just compacts you, and compress you. You’re sitting out of desk, you’re at the computer, you’re driving. I’m leaning over patients.
So let’s discuss what can we do to counteract this, in addition to the Chiropractic adjustment, which optimizes nerve system, and neurologic function by correction of the vertebral subluxation.
What can we do to optimize it? Well I thought about it a lot, and if you look at trees and nature, the trees and nature. Their root system is more profound on the windward side of the tree. The direction from where the wind comes from, the roots are stronger okay. Also, if the tree is on a slope, the roots are more profound and deeper and more prolific. Because there’s more stress, there’s more strain on there you got to adapt. That’s what the roots do, they adapt to the stress.
The leeward side of the tree, the wind blow this way. This is the leeward side of the tree, the roots harness profound that’s why you’ll find it in the Northeast, when we get a Northeaster, a lot of trees blow down because the winds prevail from the West. Our bodies are like the root system of the tree as well. You can envision the muscle on the backside of the body, everything from my Achilles, my ankle to the base of my skull is all consider the root system of the tree.
The poster of your chain if you will. All the muscles on the backside, they serve as your root system okay. The front side is the leeward side. When I design to workout program, I design a program from people consisting of a 2:1, or even a 3:1 ratio of exercises that activate the back as oppose to the front. Everybody wants to do crunches, and bench presses. The real core, the true core of your body is your hamstring, your butt, your low back muscles, your traps, your lats.
Your abdominal, believe it or not are the lease of it. They’re there to balance things out. Here’s a great exercise to help you strengthen your root system. It’s called the pull down, basically you want to anchor a band or if you have a pull down machine at the gym you can do it there. Basically I’m going to pull from above downward. I could kneel, I could be here like so, and do it. Okay, like in the gym, the key thing I want to emphasize I’m not just pulling with my arms, I’m retracting, I’m squeezing my shoulder blades, then I’m pulling through with the arms.
You notice too, when I do this it’s a smooth controlled motion. If you’re at the gym, don’t use too much weight. You see people heaving at the end, you don’t want to do that. Essentially, you could rig up a band, just like I’ve done and you’re just going to pull down. Just like so, about three to four seconds in each direction. Okay, you could even do them, one sided if you want, you can do that. This would be a pull down. If I would have this wrap around a base, that’s horizontal I would do a horizontal row.
Picture a horizontal row, that would be like so. I did easy, just don’t want to pull with your arms you want to squeeze your shoulder blades. By getting in this position, I’m working with my legs, my lower back, because the lats, the muscle that do the pulling anchor your rib cage to your pelvis. This is one of the greatest exercises you can do, if you’re out of shape and you want to get stronger. Start with the pull down, or a horizontal row.
Do them the rest of your life, it will help you. Have a great day!
