Exercise “Goldfish” by Katsuzo Nishi for the spine

Goldfish is an exercise from the Nisha health system. It corrects posture, helps get rid of posture disorders, and improves the functional condition of the back. The movement allows you to relieve pain, increase mobility and can be used both in rehabilitation programs and if the athlete simply suffered from a minor injury due to violations of the strength exercise technique. The movement has been known for a long time; it is found in all systems, from classical rehabilitation to yoga and Pilates.

Execution technique

Initial position

• Lie down on the floor. Use a soft rubber mat or mat;
• The back is straight, the body is relaxed;
• The shoulder blades are pressed to the back, the natural deflection in the lower back is minimized, the stomach is pulled up by 30 percent;
• The back of your head rests on the floor; you can place a small pillow, 1.2 cm high, or a towel under your head.

Movement

• Make a wave-like movement from right to left with your body from your heels to the top of your head;
• Imitate the movement of a fish in the water;
• Do all the work using your back and leg muscles, not your arms;
• Oscillations are performed to the side;
• The movement is continuous, there is no synchronization with breathing;
• The exercise is performed for the amount of time specified by the physiotherapist.

Exercise Goldfish Katsuzo Nishi // Exercise therapy for the back and lower back // Sergey Vinogradov

Attention

• Use sportswear that allows your body to glide across the floor;
• Exercise regularly;
• Do not lift your chin or throw back your head;
• Do not lift your body off the floor, the purpose of the exercise is to distribute the load evenly

A little about the creator of fish back workouts

The great Japanese teacher and preacher of a healthy lifestyle, Katsuzo Nishi, was distinguished by very frail health from the very first days of his life.

The parents despaired of their son's recovery.

But he surpassed everyone.

The strength of spirit, contained in a frail body, helped not only to heal the body from many ailments, but also gave hope to thousands of those doomed to suffer.

The system of therapeutic exercises he created to this day helps people who have lost all hope of restoring a twisted spine.

Analysis of the exercise

What muscles work

• The main ones are the erector spinae muscles, as well as the gluteus maximus and medius, the hamstrings, the calf muscles, the tensor muscle, the fascia lata, and the hip adductor muscle.
• as auxiliary working muscles.

Advantages

• Suitable for people with zero physical fitness, helps get rid of the effects of physical inactivity;
• Improves peristalsis and intestinal function;
• Strengthens the abdominal muscles;
• Relieves lower back pain caused by compression of nerve roots;
• Helps relieve tone and muscle tension;
• Removes spasms;
• Reduces headaches caused by spasms;
• Improves blood circulation;
• May be useful during rehabilitation, but consult a doctor

Preparing for the exercise

No special preparation is required. You can do some high-knee walking, do some joint exercises, or even do some basic yoga, Pilates, or strength training exercises. “Fish” is not recommended to be done immediately after getting out of bed, and when you have not yet performed any actions. You should train after a short warm-up, or at least after walking around the apartment for about five minutes.

For those who have problems with increased tone of the leg muscles, for example, due to jogging or walking in uncomfortable shoes, MFR was invented - that is, rolling the back of the thighs and calves with a foam roller. After MFR, it will be more comfortable to perform all physical therapy exercises, including the “Goldfish”.

Proper execution

• The vibrations should be the same to the right and to the left, what is called harmonious in physics. It may be more difficult for people with spinal curvature, but it is worth understanding that even in this case you can learn to do the exercise efficiently;
• The amplitude of the work should not be too high, it should not reach the point of discomfort;
• Hands should be crossed in the area of ​​the cervical spine and not interfere with their movements;
• You should move on a hard surface, not on a bed;
• Throughout the movement, the legs, pelvis and back are in contact with the floor;
• Try to breathe evenly, measuredly, do not inhale and exhale too frequently.

Katsuzo Nishi Goldfish for the spine

Errors

• Lots of too fast and swinging movements;
• Trying to do the exercise while holding your breath continuously;
• Separation of the spine from the floor;
• Moving your head up and down;

Efficiency Tips

• Install a stopwatch app on your smartphone. It will track your training progress and tell you when you need to stop;
• Choose clothes and a rug so that oscillatory movements are easy;
• Always practice the exercise on a hard surface and never on a bed;
• Don't limit your training plan to Fish. It’s one thing if this is the only permitted movement and a person simply cannot do anything else, and it’s completely different if he is lazy and is looking for some one wonderful exercise that will replace all the others for him;
• The complex with “Fish” is usually supplemented with “chairs” against the wall and a plank pose, if we are talking about home training;
• Those who do this exercise because they adhere to the Nishi system must master the entire complex, and not limit themselves to one movement;
• Those seeking to achieve harmonious physical development should do additional strength training, do cardio, and eat right;
• Remember that Goldfish as a treatment method belongs to alternative medicine. It is not the main way to bring the body into shape, and even more so, it is not able to “grow intervertebral discs” as they say in some sources. The effect of such exercises is based on their ability to relieve muscle spasms and reduce pain at once.
• Don't try to achieve greater results by simply doing more reps and spending more time under tension; this usually doesn't lead to results.

Light gymnastic elements. Three gymnastic tricks for beginners

The simplest gymnastic tricks - splits, bridge, handstand - are actually key to most complex gymnastic elements - somersaults, runts, flaps, flips, cartwheels and many others. Beginners in artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, acrobatics, complex dance sports, and trampolining need to pay attention to these simple but important exercises.

Leg-split

Twine is useful for various elements, for example, for stands or flips, wheels, rands.

First you need to do a warm-up - warm up your neck, back, groins. Then you need to do preparatory exercises - we sit on our legs so that one is bent and the other is straight so that the thigh touches the calf, the angle should be 130 - 140 degrees. Then we begin to smoothly move from side to side. It will be difficult at first, so spread out the exercise over several days.

Make the exercise more difficult - do rolls with the body turning. Sit like this for about 15 seconds on one leg, then on the other. Then start making folds to the side. If you do the exercise for several days, the groins will stretch. There is no need to be afraid of pain, it is stretched muscles, or as athletes say, sore throat. After a while, start doing real splits.

What dangers await beginners? You may pull your groin and get a lingering feeling of pain. There will be pain even when you learn to do the splits - for example, after a long break or without proper warm-up.

There is also a danger of muscle rupture in the groin area; the symptom is the inability to walk, it is difficult to move the leg. This problem can occur due to sudden movements, so train smoothly.

Bridge

The bridge is useful for other gymnastic exercises, for example, a tempo flip. The bridge is used not only in sports and rhythmic gymnastics, but also in acrobatics and complex choreography.

The bridge requires a different warm-up than other elements. The back is an important part of a person, so you need to be careful with it.

Place something soft under your head and back, maybe a blanket or a large pillow, or maybe a gymnastics mat.

Possible injuries - you can strain your back on the bridge if you don't warm up or do the exercise too abruptly. The back muscles can hurt for a long time and severely, because there are about five hundred of them.

Handstand

A handstand is a seemingly simple exercise, but in fact it is a complex gymnastic element that is needed in acrobatics and sports dance choreography.

In a stance, the main thing is to find support - a center over which you need to hold the body. Of course, depending on your preparation, the stand can be done against a wall or without support.

First, we do a light warm-up, then do some preliminary exercises:

Then we approach the wall, take a step so that the front leg is bent at an angle of 120 degrees. We bend over, place our hands on the floor near the wall (fingers touching the wall), bend over, throw back our back leg and stand on our hands. The second option is to stand with your back to the wall and stand on your hands, placing your feet against the wall. Then we move our hands closer to the support.

When you are confident in your abilities, do it without a wall, but not far from the wall in case you fall, then you can rest against it, this is a kind of insurance.

Completely independent handstand, we find a fulcrum (we are looking for balance ourselves), we need to tense our back and tighten our legs.

These tricks for beginners can be supplemented with similar ones - a split in the air, a bridge with a split flip and many others, it all depends on your preparation and desire.

Inclusion in the program

If you have health problems, this exercise can be included in the program twice a day - morning and evening. In both cases, you need to do a short warm-up and do the movement quite dynamically, but with a small amplitude.

You can start with 30 seconds under load, and increase the time to 1 minute. Some people do the exercise for longer, but this is not at all necessary.

Gymnastic elements for children. Gymnastics for schoolchildren

Gymnastics for schoolchildren does not at all involve complex exercises like artistic gymnastics. This is a set of exercises similar to industrial gymnastics. After all, students sit at a school desk, then sit at home doing homework, and after school they sit at the computer. If a student does not play sports and leads a sedentary lifestyle, which is associated with mental and psychological stress, his health can be seriously weakened. Psychological and physical development involves a harmonious combination of physical activity and mental activity. During physical education lessons, you can do exercises on parallel bars, horizontal bars, and acrobatic movements on mats, but this requires equipment, and a qualified instructor must ensure safety.

The benefits of physical activity

Gymnastics for schoolchildren promotes the development of bone structure and internal organs, strengthens the immune system. Physical education lessons are not enough to lead a healthy lifestyle, so the child needs to be introduced to physical exercises at home.

You can make a gymnastics wall, buy a punching bag, make them play football in the yard. But classes need to be carried out regularly, and the best time for simple physical exercises is the morning, when you can do a simple set of morning exercises. The hygiene of school education often requires taking breaks between lessons for physical exercise, so the complex is also suitable for school physical education minutes.

It is also useful for schoolchildren to strengthen the body by morning jogging and dousing with cold water. But the loads need to be done gradually so that the body strengthens its defense, getting used to unfavorable factors.

A simple set of physical activity

It is better to do exercises in the fresh air or in a ventilated room, preferably with musical accompaniment. Starting position - feet shoulder-width apart.

Of course, you can do more complex exercises, exercise on the horizontal bar or do acrobatic exercises, but a minimal set of exercises will help make physical activity accessible to everyone, keeping the body in good shape with minimal effort.

In physical education lessons

In physical education classes they learn to do more difficult exercises, because there are special conditions there - soft surfaces, sports equipment. It’s good if gymnastics is included in the physical education program, then the student can get a boost of health and physical development, because gymnastics develops comprehensively.

In fact, at school you can study the elements of artistic gymnastics, do exercises on the balance beam, uneven bars and parallel bars, and study the elements of acrobatics. But in ordinary schools there is not yet enough experience in studying this special course, and there is also not enough equipment and instructors for ordinary schoolchildren to study this sport. But if the material and technical base allows, it is imperative to use various gymnastic techniques that will have a positive effect on the physical and psychological development of children.

You especially need to take care of safety - there should be soft mats when performing acrobatic exercises; on vaults, the teacher should belay, holding the student by the hand and back during landing. Gymnastics is associated with injuries in professional sports. In school settings, it is possible to avoid them if you provide instructions on how to safely perform gymnastic tricks.

Here are sample exercises for schoolchildren that can be done if the gymnastics discipline is included in the curriculum. The list of exercises can roughly guide the teacher, who draws up his own program based on his own skills and the technical base of the gym. But if you manage to implement at least some of the exercises, schoolchildren and parents will be grateful for the creative approach to work, because such physical education lessons are more reminiscent of classes at a sports school.

Contraindications

Here the opinions of experts differ. Classical rehabilitation medicine does not recommend any movements from side to side until the pain in the spine stops, and then the issue must be resolved individually.

Alternative medicine believes that goldfish are simply an ideal option for treating everything in the world - hernias, protrusions, cervical diseases, headaches, spasms and myalgia. In fact, contraindications should not be formed from a list published on some alternative medicine website.

Objectively, an exacerbation of a hernia or protrusion is not the best time to start doing Nishi gymnastics, even though Katsuzo Nishi himself lived to an old age. It is necessary to wait until the person has recovered and can work completely without pain.

The exercise is not a strength exercise, so there is no progression in it. You should not perform it solely on the number of repetitions, focus on the sensations.

Gymnastic elements are light. Gymnastics - what is it and why is it necessary?

The concept of gymnastics combines a variety of physical exercises that contribute to the development or improvement of existing motor skills in those involved.

A distinctive feature of gymnastics from other sports is its versatile and harmonious effect on the human body.

Gymnastic exercises cover all parts of the musculoskeletal system, evenly develop muscles and improve coordination. At the same time, gymnastics affects not only the physical condition of a person, but also forms certain moral and volitional qualities.

It is considered one of the most important components of introducing the population to sports. Gymnastics can be found in schools and kindergartens, it is practiced at home and in fitness centers, and is used in manufacturing enterprises and in medicine.

The variety of gymnastic exercises made it necessary to systematize the types of gymnastics, which was done at the All-Union Conference in 1984.

In general, all areas of gymnastics are combined into several large groups:

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When can you start classes and when not?

When can you start the exercise, and to whom is it strictly contraindicated? Many people often ask this question. Indeed, in case of diseases of the spine, all exercises are recommended to be done with caution. And sometimes they are simply contraindicated.

However, these classes do not concern the fish therapeutic gymnastics system. Both a healthy person coming from the office and a patient with long-standing spinal diseases can start practicing it. Properly performed actions perfectly relieve physically noticeable stress and unpleasant pain, helping to prevent further deterioration of the condition.

In some cases, we ourselves become enemies of our health, justifying our laziness and carelessness with unthinkable reasons.

Instead of a morning run, we prefer to sleep an extra hour.

Then we stubbornly look for an excuse to lie down, not finding even the slightest more or less worthwhile reason.

Instead of a light breakfast, we eat atomic American breakfasts, where the amount of calories is enough for several lunches ahead. In the evening, when we come home from work, we prefer not to look away from the computer instead of taking a breath of fresh air. Forgetting to think that we are causing enormous damage to our body, not benefit.