Using Abdominal Muscles is Not Tightening or Pressing Navel to Spine

Tighten your neck! Sound comfortable? Tighten your legs and walk around! Sound sensible? Yet, many popular exercise programs have insisted on the erroneous practice of tightening abs. I have written articles, posts, and books on why this is not beneficial and what works your abs better. At last, it is making headline news. The biggest name in spine research, Dr. Stuart McGill, has published that "drawing in" the abdominal muscles, also described as "press the navel to spine" is detrimental to health of the lower back, and that tightening the abs impedes normal movement. In Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2007 Jan;88(1):54-62, authors Grenier and McGill conclude, "There seems to be no mechanical rationale for using an abdominal hollow, or the transversus abdominis, to enhance stability."

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, abdominal muscles 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 abdominal muscles to hold your spine in healthy position during all you do.
  

Moving your spine to neutral should invoke no more tightening than bending your elbow or finger. You should be able to inhale fully, expanding the abdomen even when moving to and maintaining neutral spine. Tightening prevents easy relaxed belly breathing.

Click this for a description of what abdominal muscles really 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 short articles 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

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 abdominal muscles 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.