After all, they are usually trying for 6 pack abs, and I’ve just told them that their “go to” exercise needs to be eliminated.įirst things first. And, when I suggest that it is from flutter kicks, they seem down-right dejected. So, for 20 plus years I have seen these die hard flutter kickers present to my clinic with low back and/or anterior (front of) hip pain unsure why they even have a problem. As for the other modification, let’s face it, kicking your feet straight up in the air isn’t really a flutter kick. But, there are those that see the hand position assist as cheating, and would rather suffer than be seen as weak. Others, maintain a pelvic tilt by keeping their knees bent or kicking with their legs up in the air and never lowering them to the position a few inches above the floor where the legs are really supposed to be during the exercise. Most people have learned to assist the abdominal muscles in keeping their back flat by sticking their hands or fists under their bottom to force their pelvis into a posterior tilt. To prevent the excess lumbar curve, you must stabilize your pelvis by flattening the curve of your back into the floor and tightening your abdominal muscles to hold it there. This increase in the lumbar curve causes a compressive force through the spine and pain. The largest portion of the psoas attaches to the spine, so, as it contracts it pulls the lower back into more of a curve before effectively lifting the leg. The problem lies with the origin of the psoas muscle. Literally, to prevent back pain while doing a flutter kick, you must to stabilize your pelvis. So, why is the flutter kick considered a core exercise? Simply put, stabilization. If you look closely you’ll see a large number of muscles that assist with hip flexion, but none of them are abdominal muscles. The majority of the iliopsoas is housed on the inner surface of the back of the pelvis, and only a small part of it crosses over the front of the hip joint and attaches to the femur. This diagram shows the muscles involved in flexing the hip, with the primary movers being the iliopsoas (a combination of the iliacus that originates inside the iliac crest of your pelvis and the psoas that originates on the spinous processes of the lumbar spine), and the rectus femoris (your central and most superficial of the quadriceps muscles). First, let’s look at the muscles involved in the flutter kick motion. When you do a flutter kick, your core activates in an effort to keep you from injuring your back, and in my opinion, there are plenty of other exercises that activate the core without the immediate threat of injury. If it was, then those older people I see swimming every morning at the YMCA would have abs of steel. It is not specifically working the core when you kick your legs while holding them straight out (the technically correct flutter kick position). The key here is that it is an exercise used to activate the core. Most training instructors will tell you that the flutter kick is a core exercise used to activate and strengthen the muscles of the abdominal region. So, for all my military buddies at undisclosed locations across the globe, sweating it out doing exercises before the sun comes up, this one is for you.įirst, what is a flutter kick exercise, and why do people do them? ![]() My hope is, that after they read this article, they will spend some time coming up with some equally painful exercise to do that serves the same purpose, and leave flutter kicks to the swimmers. Personally, I just think that they do the exercise because it is hard to come up with original exercises at 0530, but I’ll just leave it at that. I, on the other hand, after 21 years in the military, have seen more than my share of people who have anterior (front of) hip pain either by virtue of the fact that they are obsessed with doing flutter kicks, or their PTL is obsessed with doing them. The PTLs loved them because they are a common exercise every military member knows they are touted to whittle our middles and they easily demonstrate that the PTL takes exercise seriously, and is not going to let us off easy, regardless of the time of day, or the location of his/her fitness class. Every PTL (physical training leader) I’ve worked with loved them, and I hated them. Since I have a background as a military physical therapist, I have a true love/ hate relationship with flutter kicks.
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