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As we finish up another round of Posture School, I am reminding my students that they have to do their extension exercises daily to continue to get the benefits and not slide back into their stooped posture.

With Parkinson’s, your chest muscles tighten, creating a flexed-forward posture. This creates a host of problems, including back pain. You can use a 45-centimeter yoga ball to facilitate some great extension in your muscles, improving pain and your posture.

Continue reading “How to Treat Parkinson’s Stooped Posture With a Ball”

Tight hip flexors are a huge problem for people with Parkinson’s disease. Many of my fighters complain of hip and back issues that stem from a tight psoas muscle. It’s a hard muscle to stretch, and oftentimes you can strain your back while trying to stretch it.

The psoas is a major hip flexor muscle that performs several complex actions, like lifting your legs and bending forward. It attaches at the bottom of the thoracic spine, runs along the lumbar spine, then threads through the pelvis, over the front of the hip joint, and attaches at the top of the femur (thigh bone). Wow!!

It is the only muscle that connects the spine to the leg. You can see why when this muscle gets tight it causes so many balance, posture, and gait issues.

Continue reading “How To Easily Release Tight Hip Flexors By Yourself If You Have Parkinson’s Disease”

The Cat-Cow stretch originated in yoga, although it’s often incorporated into Pilates and general exercise classes as a great way to warm up and stretch the spine or relieve stress and pain. It’s beneficial for everyone and can be done on the floor or in a chair. It’s especially great for people with Parkinson’s, who tend to get very tight through the neck and back.

Many of our fighters have a stooped posture or rounded upper back, so I am demonstrating a way to target the lower back when the upper back tends to take over as the only part that wants to flex. This slight modification feels so good to those of us who need that little extra lumbar stretch!

Continue reading “Do This Modified Cat-Cow for Parkinson’s Stooped Posture”

With rotation, sequencing, and balance all being common issues for people with Parkinson’s, I often include the half-kneeling chop to our boxing boot camp classes. This exercise can be somewhat challenging to learn in the beginning, but now many of my fighters can do an even more advanced version using a medicine ball or dumbbell.

Continue reading “Parkinson’s Causing You Rotation Problems? Chop It Up!”

Many of my fighters complain about shoulder and lower back pain, but I can clearly see their lats (latissimus dorsi) are tight and are either causing or contributing to the problem.

The latissimus dorsi muscle is a large, triangle-shaped back muscle that helps you do things like pull-ups, pull-downs, swimming, and even breathing. It functions to stabilize your back while extending your shoulders.

What happens when lats are tight?

Continue reading “Learn How to Easily Stretch Your Lats if You Have Parkinson’s”