How ELDOA™ Can Enhance Your Workout
During a past workout, I thought it would be cool to do a little ELDOA™ experiment. One of the many things I am working on in my own personal fitness journey is better glute activation, most specifically glute minimus and medius. When when I get fatigued in any squat variation, I let my knees roll inward and no matter how much my trainer cues me not to, I have trouble fighting it. I just can’t find the muscles. It feels like they are asleep and unavailable to me, especially when the weight gets heavy!
ELDOA™ is usually used at the end of a workout or in a workout all unto itself because of the exercise technique’s ability to lengthen and decompress. But on this day, I thought I would use the technique by incorporating it mid workout to maximize on ELDOA’s ability to open up nerve pathways and better communication from mind to muscle.
I love putting pieces of the puzzle together. The Superior Gluteal Nerve (the nerve that innervates glutes minimus and medius) exits the spine in the lumbar/sacral plexus via L4 to S1 (the lower part of your lower back to just above the dimples at the top of your butt cheeks). So I asked my trainer to choose an exercise where my glute issue was evident so we could video it.
In the first video you will see me dong doing Kettlebell Wall squats with 20kg. Note the fact that I do about six reps and that I look like I am dying and the motion doesn’t look fluid. We then immediately took a 3 minute break from squats and I did three ELDOAs: levels L4-L5, L5-S1, and S1-S2, all the levels of the spinal exit points of the Superior Gluteal Nerve (see pics below). And then immediately after that, we got right back to it and did another set of KB squats without a break, which you can watch in the second video.
The result: Same weight. More power, way more reps (15x). It felt easy. Big difference. Very cool results. Check out the final video.
