Connect

11.26.17

“The hip bone’s connected to the… THIGH bone.” I can hear them singing now, a deep-voiced, gorgeous, racially-insulting black quartet singing “de” instead of “the” at the insistence of Mr. Disney, working down the scale to point out that all the body parts are connected…

…but they left out a few things.

Did you know there’s a connection between your ribs and your elbow?

Not the sharp angle you’re thinking. (She flips a finger through the air, pointing from your waist to your armpit and down to your elbow.) No, I mean a direct line. (The same finger flicks arrogantly across with an attendant “fssht” sound effect to put the bar across the “A” now drawn in the air.)

I lay on my back on a foam roller, eight-pound weights held overhead, inside wrists straight and facing each other. I drop the left arm slowly to the side while the right knee goes out to the side and down. And slowly back up. No worries.

I do the same movement with my right arm and OW – that hurts my elbow.

“Pull your ribs down,” says Barbara in what appears to me to be an absolute and complete non-sequitur. It seems as unconnected as if I said “This hurts my elbow” and she replied “Try a higher rate of withholding on your taxes.”

But Barbara is a wizard. She knows when to add the eye of newt and when to pull back on the tongue of frog. So I gripped whatever it is that pulls your ribs down and in…

…and my elbow no longer hurts doing the exact same exercise.

I know. I don’t understand it either. The Disney quartet never sang that de rib bone connected to de… ELBOW bone. But it is. Don’t know how, don’t know why. Go figure.

I’ll say it again: It is a real advantage to have a wizard with you on your fitness journey. Barbara Gallagher Benson, Body Dynamics in Falls Church, VA. (703) 527-9557. Ask for Babs.