Rectus Femoris
With our culture of sitting, the rectus femoris (aka ‘Rec Fem’ often gets very tight). The Rec Fem is of our quadricep muscles that also crosses over our hip joint. This means it also acts as a hip flexor. Additionally, it also cross the knee and therefore assists in moving bending at the knee. This makes the Rec Fem a two way muscle that helps to move at the hip and the knee.
Warming Up Before Exercise: What are the benefits?
While it can be tempting to skip the warm up, warming up can both improve our performance and reduce the risk of injury.
The World Upon Your Shoulders - The Effect of Stress on Your Traps
Stress can result in us holding our shoulders is a partially ‘shrugged’ position which activates our trapezius muscles. Day after day the traps can become shorter and shorter. often resulting in soreness and even headaches. Try these mobility exercises, self-massage techniques and yoga poses to help lengthen a loosen these stressed-out muscle.
Agonists and Antagonists – How we move
Muscles can only pull not push so therefore must work in pairs. While one contracts (agonist), the other lengthens (antagonist). Meanwhile others help the agonist (synergists). By knowing which muscles are do which roles we can look for imbalances and know when synergists have taken over and are causing issues.
Rectus Abdominus - Your Six-Pack Muscles in Action
The rectus abdominus muscles are our ‘six-pack muscles’ and help us to bend forward at our lower spine and tilt our pelvis back. Overuse and poor posture can make them tight and/or weak which can lead to lower back pain. These mobility exercises and yoga poses may help strengthen and lengthen our rectus abdominus muscles.