This might be my favorite exercise using the Wingmaster. When I used to teach online Wingmaster classes, this exercise, in either Setting 2 or Setting 3, would be included in almost every class. The feeling of this exercise is one of the most satisfying of all the Wingmaster material.
There are 6 ways you can move your spine. One of them, circumduction, is a circular movement of the spine, either internally or externally. The idea of this exercise is that its an internal circumduction if your spine was twice as long.
With internal circumduction, your spine makes a circle around the mid-line of your body at the level of the solar plexus, with the two ends of your spine staying in the same place. This exercise does the same thing, but the shoulder girdle is what’s making the circle around the mid-line of your body.
There are 6 spinal ranges of motion. In our Activities of Daily Living, circumduction is the movement we most likely use the least. That doesn’t mean it has no value. This motion is excellent for the health of the intervertebral discs.
Our discs don’t have any direct blood flow. Movement pumps our discs through a process called imbibition. While all the spinal ranges of motion help with this, the rolling of the discs between the vertebrae in circumduction ensures the whole circumference of the disc gets some pressure and release. Circumduction is also the only spinal range of motion that has no end. It’s a circle. Circles have no end.