Using Abdominal Muscles is Not Tightening or Pressing Navel to Spine
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
This week the headline news of British newspaper "The Daily Mail" followed up with inquiry into the incidence of back pain and injuries using the "drawing in" technique: Is Pilates bad for your back? (A minor note - they accompanied the otherwise good article with an incorrect photo depicting the opposite concept of back extension, not the unnecessary contracted abdominal tightening, which was the point of the article.) Pressing and tightening the abdominals has been an incorrect assumption made into ritual in the fitness industry for many years. However it is not the way your abdominal muscles work to do anything helpful to you.
When you bend your arm, you don't tighten your muscles to do it. In fact, you shouldn't want to. You just move your arm bones using your arm muscles. Abdominal muscles work the same way. You use them to move the body parts they attach to. Voluntarily. Strengthening or tightening won't make them move automatically. You may have a strong arm, but it isn't held up in the air automatically - only when you move it there. Strong, or even tight, abs will not automatically support your back. Moving your spine into healthful position will:
- Abs attach from hips to ribs. When you don't use your abs, your ribs lift up and the front of your hip sinks down increasing the inward curve or arch in your lower spine (left-hand photo of the pair). This inward curve is called lordosis and also hyperlordosis and swayback.
- Note how the belt line tips down in front (left-hand photo).
- The lower back aches after long standing because you are letting the weight of your upper body slump down on your lower back. People with the bad habit of overarching often feel they need to lean over forward or sit to relieve the pain.
- Instead, to correct the source of the pain, tuck the hip under (not push it forward) to lift up the beltline in front (right-hand photo). Lower the ribs to level. The action is like a thrust or pelvic tilt or crunch standing up just enough to straighten, not round forward.
- The muscles that move the ribs and hip to healthier position happen to be your abdominal muscles. Standing properly (right drawing) gives a free built-in ab workout, with no tightening and no forward bending; just functional use of the abs to hold your spine in position during all you do.
What Abdominal Muscles Don't Do - The Missing Link
and this for the x-ray view of arching and fixing the arching:
Fixing the Commonest Source of Mystery Lower Back Pain
These posts show how to use abs when standing and moving in daily life:
Healthier Backpack Carrying to Get Better Exercise and Stop Back Pain
Healthier Carrying - Get Free Ab Exercise and Stop Pain
and these show you how to get better, more functional abdominal exercise than tightening or crunches and other forward bending:
Abdominal Muscle Exercise - Better, Different, Not What You Think
If Better Abdominal Muscles Are Your New Year's Resolution, Try This
Throw a Stronger Punch (or Push a Car or Stroller) Using This Back Pain Reduction Technique
Change Common Exercises to Get Better Ab Exercise and Stop Back Pain
Using your abs to move your spine out of injurious over-arched position and hold healthy neutral position during ordinary daily life and during all the exercise you do is good exercise - without tightening. The book that started the sea-change in understanding abdominal use and functional exercise is The Ab Revolution, No More Crunches No More Back Pain.
photo copyright by Jolie from the book Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery
Labels: abdominal muscles, fix pain, lordosis, lower back, neutral spine, strength
7 Comments:
At Friday, March 09, 2007 7:27:00 AM,
Julia said…
Just the other day I saw my cat contract her TA before rising and moving across the room. It's perfectly natural.
Just kidding!
Because I read your blog, I recognize that we live in a flexion-addicted society. I avoid strengthening the front of the body and focus on extension work instead. I don't believe in clenching muscles in order to move.
However, much of the exercise and rehab industry is focused on core strength. How do I navigate this safely? I know to avoid Yoga-Lattes classes, unnecessary flexion and TA clenching. What about Swiss Ball work? Paul Chek? Functional Fitness? The Plank?
At Friday, March 09, 2007 12:24:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD said…
Julia,
It is simple. When the spine is not in "neutral" position, you can get cartain kinds of back pain. "Tightening" does not move the spine into "neutral." "Neutral," as it relates to the pelvis, means the hip is not tilted forward or back (not sticking your backside out in back as many fitness programs promote). You control that by voluntarily moving your hip to neutral, not by tightening, not by strengthening. It takes a second or two to do.
If any exercise systems works and is healthy, I want to do it. That is why I do not do any of the systems out there. I studied what was needed, and developed a system that specifically retrains you to maintain healthful position *while* you get fun active healthy functional exercise. We named it The Ab Revolution™, because it is a whole change in thinking and use of the body back to health. The links in this "No Tightening" article give some of the fun things we do in the Ab Revolution. The Ab Revolution book gives more. Keep me posted how they work for you.
At Monday, March 12, 2007 12:16:00 AM,
Ivy - New Zealand said…
Hi Dr Jolie - Much to my surprise, I have developed bigger biceps - a bonus I assure you. I can only assume it being because I have been doing on a daily basis for the past 15 months, your Isometrics for abs exercise.
Will this same exercise help us older women who have what I call the "flap" in the upper under arm area? Does this happen because of lack of exercise or is it something we have to accept as we age?
At Monday, March 12, 2007 11:07:00 PM,
Ivy - New Zealand said…
It was so hot here the other evening so I had an early shower and was sitting here at my computer in just a sleeveless cotton nightdress. I happened to look down at my upper arms and what did I see but muscle for biceps instead of what I will call "pipis." Pipis are a small shell fish here in NZ. I can remember when I was a child showing my father that I had muscles in my arms and he would tell me that I had Pipis. I have put the muscle increase down to your Isometric exercise for abs using weights and wondered of this same exercise would help us older women for the tripep area. Triceps, what are they!!!!!
At Monday, March 26, 2007 12:58:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD said…
Ivy, you're right, the isometric ab exercise (from The Ab Revolution exercises) works your arms nicely. Lack of exercise weakens and softens arms. Exercise will keep them strong at all ages.
At Saturday, June 02, 2007 4:23:00 PM,
David said…
Dr. Bookspan,
You have to admit that the first picture of the model with lordosis is just plain sexier.
In fact, it feels sexier to assume the first posture because your stomach is relaxed, which communicates to yourself and others that you feel accepted and accepting.
At Monday, June 04, 2007 10:24:00 AM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD said…
David-
To some groups, if she were holding a crack cocaine pipe she would also be regarded as relaxed and sexy.
The point is that unhealthful practices have become so ingrained in populist thinking that they are falsely regarded as positive.
When you incorporate health as a lifestyle into your thinking, things that look unhealthy (first picture with hyperlordosis) are therefore not sexy.
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