Please go to Session 10/11 in your Course Packet and follow along. Pause the video to review the question and your answer as we progress through each question.

Video & Article

Please enjoy the following video and article. Pay attention to how Jen layers the cues by first letting Casey feel the movement, and then adding more detail with an inner thigh cue. After that, she adds a lumbar lengthening cue, and then begins to bring the client’s awareness to the other core muscles that are activating with the multifidus. With a real life client, it may take two or three sessions before they are ready for all the cues shown in this short video.

CORE ACTIVATION / THE MULTIFIDUS

by Jennifer Gianni

The multifidus is one of your deepest spinal muscles. We often refer to the multifidus as the lifeline of the core or the lifeline in the back of the body.

The deepest abdominal muscle, the transverse abdominis (TA), is intimately connected with the multifidus. They both share the same fascial sheath in the lumbar spine. So when you are flattening and contracting the TA, you are also strengthening and creating axial elongation in the spine.

If you can help your clients get in touch with the feeling and activation of their multifidus, they can use it as an initiator that starts the pulling up all of the other core structures. Think of it as the conductor to the symphony of the core.

Each mulifidi is wrapped in its own sheath of fascia (like a little sausage). The multifidus is the only musculature over the sacrum. The multifidus is very bulky in the lumbar spine (the best place to palpate) and gets less so as you move up the spine. In the lumbar spine, the multifidus acts as a anti-rotator, and in the thoracic and cervical spine it actually encourages rotation. When the multifidus fires, there is a subtle swell and lift of the muscle into its casing. Remember, like all core musculature, this is a sub-maximal contraction. This swell and lift, like scaffolding around the fine bones of the spine, helps to secure and gap the bones.

This muscle and the action of this muscle is very hard for the client to conceptualize and feel. One of the easiest ways to help them become more familiar with it is the standing multifidus exercise. In the following exercise, the client will be feeling the more global muscles (like erector spinae) that lie on top of the deep spinal muscles (like the multifidus)—but it gives the client an awareness of the back body and how those muscles fire, helping to create and secure the lumbar curve.

• Stand with parallel feet and legs, with an easy stacked skeleton and eyes at the horizon.
• Place hands at the waist, with the thumbs at the front and the first or second finger palpating the musculature right beside the bones of the spine (the speed bump musculature lining the sides of the spine).
• Inhale and, staying tall, start to rock forward a bit onto the front of your foot.
• Exhale and shift or rock to the back of your foot.
• Keep doing a number of reps, rocking back and forth, and sensing the musculature under your fingers firing and relaxing.
• Start to make the movement a bit bigger.
• Inhale and rise up onto the balls of your feet.
• Exhale and slowly lower down onto your heels (land softly).
• Do a few more reps, being aware of the muscles under your fingers firing and relaxing.

Notice if one side is firing and if one side feels a little lazy. This is the case for most people. Just by noticing which side is the lazy one, and bringing more brain energy and attention to it, can help to wake it up with consistent practice.

Make sure to initial and date that you have completed Session 11 in your Master Log.