6 Workouts for a Balanced Body

With a lot demand on the body from energetic training, triathletes need to include building balance as part of their training plans. All professional athletes require shoulder, hip and core stability and ankle, hip and thoracic (mid-spine) mobility. The more powerful your structure ends up being the less you become hurt and the greater your performance will soar.<br/><br/>Endurance athletes appear to wait too long to fix their imbalances and issues. Whether it's an unstable lower spinal column, weak and "loose" shoulders and hips or a weak core, triathletes are destined for a physical treatment clinic. These six corrective exercises can be a huge help to fixing some major issues I see in a bulk of professional athletes. These movements need to be part of a regular routine so you can build a well balanced body, increase your versatility and movement, and decrease your chance of injury.<br/><br/>Keep in mind when you get injured you can not train and when you can not train you can not enhance. Train smart and perform these workouts daily.<br/><br/><strong>Plank/Side Plank</strong><br/><br/>This might be the most essential exercise for triathletes. We require stability and tightness in our lower lumbar area. If we are unsteady our lower back will get unwanted movement, therefore triggering lower neck and back pain. There are lots of recurring motions in swimming, cycling and running. You are constantly doing the very same thing over and over which can trigger asymmetries in the body. Having a stable core suggests that your body will be able to launch power throughout your hips and shoulders more effectively. The slab successfully trains all of the supporting muscles in your body, from your shoulders, through your spinal column, to your ankles and hips.<br/><br/><strong>Mini-band Walks</strong><br/><br/>A lot of triathletes have very strong quadriceps and hamstrings but extremely weak hip stabilizers. The gluteus medius is an extremely essential muscle for supporting the hip joint and controlling the thigh. If you have weak hip stabilizers you will not have the ability to control the movement of the thigh, which can cause hip, knee and low back pain.<br/><br/><strong>Deep Squat to Hamstring Stretch</strong><br/><br/>This is a powerful workout. This will assist chill out your ankles, open your hips, and extend your hamstrings. Triathletes get very tight in their hips and hamstrings from continuous biking and running. This exercise done every day will boost ankle movement, hamstring versatility and hip movement. Make sure to keep your chest up and back flat, keep heels on the flooring and keep your elbows within your knees throughout the squat. As you enter into the hamstring stretch, press your hips up and keep a straight back until your feel the stretch in your hamstrings. Start off by doing five full repeatings of this motion.<br/><br/><strong>Lateral/Straight Leg Swings</strong><br/><br/>This dynamic exercise is performed to increase hip mobility. This is a necessary motion in your day-to-day workout routine. If you lack movement in your hips, your lower back will take the tension and will eventually begin to hurt. These movements will open your hips in a frontal and sagittal airplane of motion.