9/3/22 Zoom Class: Enhance Your Somatic Movements with the Internal & External Obliques, Class 3 by Susan Koenig published on 2022-09-04T22:46:43Z This is class 3 of enhancing your somatic movement routine. We spent a good part of the class focusing on the internal and external obliques as reference muscles embedded in a variety of movements. We started with a review of the anatomy of these muscles. Both the internal and external obliques attach to a number of lower ribs and much of the iliac crest. By their tendons they also attach to the abdominal aponeurosis in the front of the body and the thoracolumbar aponeurosis in the low back. Therefore both these muscles literally attach from the midline in the front to the spine in the back. Bilaterally they flex the spine, their lateral vertical fibers are side-benders (lateral flexors), and their diagonal fibers are trunk rotators. The external obliques rotate the trunk toward the opposite side and the internal obliques rotate the trunk toward the same side. Among the movements we did, we especially focused on combining side-bending and rotating forward and backward from sidelying. This is one of my favorite somatic center movements. We also did the "propeller" from sidelying. You'll have to watch the video for instructions. Genre Learning