Oblique, C'est Chic

Due to overwhelming response to my facebook status update about lengthening my ‘short’ leg, you get an extra blog post this week, dedicated to this little piece of awesomeness, courtesy of Sean Hampton, PT extraordinaire.

If the muscle talk is confusing, feel free to a) educate yourself and look up some muscles or b) choose to live in ignorance about the contents of your own body ;-).

Caveats:

1. To everyone who responded “I’m short – will this make my legs longer?” I can’t say yes or no. It’s not going to hurt you, that much is for sure. But it depends how much your psoas is hanging on to your legs, and how much weakness in the outer hip is preventing external rotation in the hips. So maybe yes, maybe no, but either way – it’s not bad for you, and it strengthens the oblique line, which is vital for everyone.

2. I am not a doctor, nor am I a physical therapist, and I am NOT prescribing this to you as treatment for your ailment, especially if I’ve never seen you in person. I am merely sharing my experience. Whether you take it upon yourself to start practicing this exercise is entirely up to you. No litigation, please!

Here’s the story: I’ve been walking around for 2 years post-surgery (and that’s its own long story with its own entire blog, if you’re really interested!) with a shorter right leg (surgery side). My understanding was that because of the effect of the surgical process, this was a structural difference that I was going to have to live with for the rest of my life.

But what was actually happening was that my left back waist had started to get all hitched up and tight, as I was basically turning my whole body away from my right hip. This had probably started pre-surgery at the onset of pain (another interesting side note: how the body mirrors our emotional state. I’ve been turning away from the hip that gives me problems). Thus spinal rotation, muscle spasm on the left side QL and psoas, and a lifting of the right leg away from the floor.

This exercise is one that the brilliant, brilliant Sean Hampton of ADI Rehab in Los Angeles gave me to turn my body back around and release my left side’s grip on my right leg so that it could descend. He told me it would take about a week. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t believe him. But mere days later, I was sitting down and noticed that my right knee wasn’t its usual 2 inches behind my left. I wanted to cry with happiness.

We could all stand to strengthen the oblique line of the body (that’s the diagonal from arm to opposite side leg), which is why this isn’t going to harm anyone. I do this pose exclusively on my right (short leg) side, but if you want to try it and you’re not working with one leg shorter, do it on both sides.

Below is my drawing. It is a bad drawing. I am not a good drawer. Look at the drawing and then I’ll tell you about what actions to do.

In the drawing, you’re doing the pose on the right side, so all my descriptions are for that side. Please reverse everything for the opposite side.

Actions:

Press left forearm down and pull back to engage arm and shoulderblade, as if you were doing that really hard looking belly slide that they do in the army. Pull back enough to engage all the way down into the core on the right side without actually moving your body.

Make sure as well that you are doing your best to keep your right inner thigh down towards the floor. If your external rotation in the hip is limited, this will be challenging.

Keep this, then also push your inner right heel down into the floor, as if you could lift your right knee off the floor. If someone is there to help you, have them put fingertips under your right inner heel and give you resistance to push down into. You will feel this in all manner of places in the hip, but likely especially the gluteus medius, inner thigh, and all those tiny little external rotators (piriformis, gemellus, obturators). Press down for a count of ten, then release. Repeat 10 times, twice daily.

If you try it out, please comment with any questions, thoughts, or updates!