﻿Hello! My name is Sophie Brazier. I'm a children's physiotherapist. Thank you for joining me today. Today, we are going to be taking a little look at core strengthening, so we are going to be continuing along in Unit 2 on that topic, but we are going to be focusing in this lesson, Lesson 9, on core strengthening in a 4-point position, and the 4-point position exercise we will be looking at is called Swimming in 4-point. So, you do not need any equipment for the exercise. You might need some help from a parent or carer, so if you want to ask them now, then please feel free to go and do that. You might want to pause the video while you do that, and then we can begin. I would just like to give you a little message from our team. We as therapists have tried to think of the best way to continue to support children, young people, and their families. So you may be watching this as a child by yourself, or you might be with a parent or carer. We will be exploring topic areas that we regularly provide advice and support on across all ages and abilities, and each lesson we will aim to give you some ideas and activities that can be carried out either at home or in school. You may already have specific programmes that you're using or advice that that has been given to you by your child's school or therapist, so please make sure that you are using any information I'm giving you alongside anything you already have, and if you do have any questions or would like help tailoring this to their needs, then please make sure you get in contact with your local therapy service. Let's make a start to the lesson, and we'll just recap why is your core strength important. So co-ordination, which is timing of movement and exact sort of execution of movement, is needed from the core muscles with just enough contraction at exactly the right time in the right sequence. So for that to happen, you need to have strength in those core muscles. Also core strength is important because it needs to be activated to make sure your head and your trunk are steady. So remember the tree trunk analogy I gave you before, where you think about your trunk being like a tree trunk, so the middle of your body being nice and strong, and then your arms and legs are the branches. So if you've got a core that's strong and steady, then the rest of your body can move really nicely, so then you can move in a better way and much more freely, which ultimately will minimise the amount of energy you are using, so you'll be working more efficiently and your muscles will have more energy to carry out more activities everyday. And if you've got a strong and stable core, this can help prevent injury, and a strong and stable core if you've got injury prevention, this will protect your body. So your core really protects all around that middle area of your body. So you've got a good strong core, you'll then have a good posture. So with a good posture and a good core, you'll have a good healthy spine because your spine will be protected and you'll be kept in good alignment if you've got both those things working well. So protecting your body which can then help your posture. So posture and core work really well together, so if you've got a strong core, that will help your posture, and if you've got a good posture, that will help your core. And ultimately all these things can help reduce and prevent back pain, which is what we don't want you to be getting. So if you've got a good strong stable core, then that will ultimately make for a good healthy body. I would now like you to watch a little video I'm going to show you, and it's an exercise called 4-point swimming. So you might have tried this activity before, where it might be part of a therapy programme that you've got. So I will demonstrate the activity in the video, and I'll just quickly talk you through it now, and then in more detail you can watch me do it. So you're going to start off on you hands and knees in a tabletop position. So it's called a tabletop because a table is quite flat so that you can put things on it. So when you're in that position, you could maybe get a parent or carer to have a look at your position, or if you want to do it in front of a mirror, then you can look sideways to see what your back's doing because it's quite hard to see what you're doing when you're in that position. So once you've done it and you can get some feedback from a a mirror or somebody, then you'll know what it's like to be in that aligned position and that tabletop starting position. So when you're in that position, you're going to then keep your belly button in, and you're going to pull your belly button into your tummy. So you're going to keep strong in those tummy muscles and in that core area, and at the same time with keeping that stable position, you're going to take one limb out at a time and reach it out and back in. So you're going to go around your body, so you'll do your right arm then your left arm, then your right leg and then your left leg. And if you watch the video, I will also show you some ways to extend and simplify. So if you pause when you've watched it, you can have a go yourself and then rejoin me again afterwards. So you'll see here that I'm just starting off showing you the position that you need to be in. So I showed you there that your back might dip or it might arch, so you need to be in a position like I'm showing you now with a flat-ish back, sort of neutral back. And then what's happening here is I am keeping that position, and then I am taking each limb out one at a time. So I am taking my right leg back and bringing it in, and then I'm taking each limb out again, so I do my right arm, bring it in. My left arm and I bring it in, and then my left leg and I bring it in. So you'll see that I'm doing the exercise quite slowly, and this is because I need to control my tummy area. So now you'll see that I'm moving in a slightly different way. I'm keeping that same position, but I'm extending the activity slightly, and I'm taking my opposite arm and leg out. So here my right leg goes out and my left arm and back in, and my left leg and my right arm, but if you look around my middle area, I'm keeping my back relatively stable, so you need to engage your core first, and then you need to take the limbs out. Make sure you are doing it really slowly because otherwise you can become off-balance. Try those and pause the video after you've done it, and then you can restart to join me. Okay then, let's have a look at some ways to perhaps extend or simplify the swimming activity that I demonstrated. So you can make it more challenging by reaching out with your opposite arm and leg whilst keeping your middle, so your tummy and your core, working whilst you swim. So here you'll be taking your right arm and your left leg, and then you'll swap to your left arm and your right leg. This just challenges your balance a bit, and it's also really important that you are squeezing your tummy muscles to keep that middle posture strong, so then you can use your arms and do the swimming motion. You can speed up or slow it down, so if you want a little bit more control and you need to slow it down then do that, and as you get better or you are a bit more advanced at it, you could speed up your swimming. So you can also increase the number of times you repeat the exercise, so you could perhaps do it for a certain amount of time or do it in short chunks and repeat each section. You can also hold the positions for slightly longer each time, so when I say that, you might take your left arm and your right leg out and you might hold that position, so like you're frozen, but there the challenge is to really maintain that position and squeeze those tummy muscles to keep that position of your back. And okay, let's look at a way to simplify the activity. So not everybody will be able to find the activity that easy, so if you find being in that 4-point position and lifting a limb really hard and your back starts to dip, then don't worry. I'd like you to stay in the 4-point position, so stay on your hands and knees and really concentrate on your alignment, and what you could do in that position is you could just activate your tummy muscles. So think in your head, think about your tummy muscles squeezing and relaxing. So it's almost the beginning of the exercise. You're engaging those tummy muscles, but you don't need to lift your arms and legs. You need to just concentrate on maintaining that nice 4-point aligned position. Another idea is you can decrease the number of times you repeat the exercise. So start off with the basic one of just taking a limb at a time, and then just do it for a short amount of time, and the last thing there hold the positions for a shorter amount of time. So again get into the position and maybe count for a few seconds and try to build up to say five if you can. So give those a try. See how you get on, and remember you need to make it right for you. So have a go at each thing and see what works for you, and then you can perhaps progress it. Pause the video now, give those a try, and then restart again to join. Now that brings us to the end of our lesson today. I wonder how you got on with the 4-point swimming. I find it a really challenging exercise, and you probably would have seen it in the demonstration that I'm wobbling in that position, and if you're wobbling or losing your balance a little bit, that's fine and totally normal because it means that you are working those core muscles, so that is all good. And the more you practise, then the easier it'll get. So thank you for joining me, and please join me again next time for Lesson 10, where we will be moving on to strengthening exercises for your core in a standing position. And in Lesson 10, we will be looking at something called a Pine Tree Exercise, so if you fancy being a tree, then please join me, and also we'll be looking at some breathing exercises while you do it, which is always good. So take care, have a great day, and I will see you soon. Good-bye!

A core exercise in a 4-point position (table top) with options to make it easier or more challenging

In this lesson, we will be focusing on a second core exercise in a 4-point position (table top) with options to make it easier or more challenging. Resources provided by University of Gloucestershire (CC BY-NC-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0)

Lesson overview:Strengthening your core in 4-point (Part 2)

Core Content

Content guidance

Supervision Level

Core strengthening: