If you, like me, are spending more time riding a desk chair than you’d like, you may have also noticed (as I did just recently) what the unintentional muscle training of sitting too much does to your “riding muscles.”
After a bout of lower back woes that required considerable treatment and rest I really didn’t have time for, I ran across a conditioning secret too good not to share. With a shout out to Heather Sansom and her site, Equifitt.com for solving this conditioning conundrum (If you don’t already know this resource for riding conditioning, go check it out — and be sure to subscribe to her Heather’s monthly Equiftt News. )
According to Heather, the answer to lower back strain and the fight against hips that tend to tip forward is spending some regular quality time stretching our psoas muscle. This powerful little muscle connects the inside of your hip to the top of your femur and controls a whole lot more about your riding than a muscle that size ought to. And as with all strength work, working one muscle or set of muscles means also working the opposing set of muscles, which in this case is the glutes.
By combining properly executed forward runner’s lunges with an equal portion of good old squats, we can avoid lower back strain and soreness as well as the postural problems that makes us try to force our posture straight to avoid yielding to a natural tendency one riding instructor I know likes to call “duck butt.” (Click here to review Heather’s full explanation of these moves — and take a few moments to add them to your daily routine!)
So . . . as you’re spending too much time in a desk chair (likely also hunching your shoulders just a tad over that keyboard, but that’s another issue) make a note to spend some quality time with your psoas . . .
