Blog on the Lillypad
Friday, January 02, 2004
 | Second visit to the gym to lift weights
One of the best exercises for a bad back like mine is the rhomboid row. Your rhomboids are a set of muscles on either side of your spine, right between the shoulder blades. Not real big muscles, but they are the muscles that keep you straight (or help to). When you see men or women who have developed a permanent slouch with rounded sholders or even a hump from poor muscle strength in back, it's the rhomboids that are over stretched and weak. (picture from http://www.greenapple.com/~jorp/amzanim/animsport.htm) |
Many gyms used to have a shoulder/rear delt station that looks like an ironing board perched at an angle to the floor. You could lie on your stomach on that board so thatyou'd be about 45 degrees to the ground and use a dumb bell in either hand to do a rhomboid row, which almost looks like a dumb bell chest fly except your back muscles are pulling the weight, because you're face down. (on chest flies you lie face up.)
Well gyms don't carry that type of station any more. Chests and abs are in. People want to look good, and the erector muscles along the spine are often ignored or relegated to calisthenic-type exercises.
I actually prayed about the problem because finding a way to do rhomboid rows is critical for me. Today at the gym as I was doing squats at the Smith Machine (because I cannot bear any weight on the bar yet), I saw a man showing his girl friend how to prop herself with her leg under her on one of the slant benches so that she could do rhomboid rows with proper weight distribution chest-down on the slant bench (thus making sure only her rhomboids bear the weight through the rowing motion). He and she both gladly helped me get the form right on the slant bench to do the row. I told them I had prayed about the matter because my back is so bad, and I thanked them very much for their help. They didn't know quite what to say and laughed it off, but it is a witness to them. I did pray about it, and the Lord provided an answer. I'm very thankful.
| I am allowed to do only four exercises with weights (three sets each). So I did lower back extensions, a seated pull on a Hammer machine that works the mid-back close to the rhomboids, squats on a Smith machine, and the slant-bench rhomboid rows. Then I came home and hung upside down. My back is sore, and it cracked a lot as I stretched onthe inversion table, but overall I feel pretty good. |  |
One caveat is that for some reason I get mild throat spasms after lifting weights.
