Posture and How to Keep Breathing During Abdominal Exercises

Getting to “body neutral” is essential because your core is strongest when your pelvis, rib cage, and spine are in the neutral position. Being able to create and maintain a stable core will make all of your exercise efforts way more effective. Good alignment and good pressure regulation are essential to learning how to finally get your pelvic floor function restored.  Clenching your abdominals at all times creates a lot of unnecessary pressure and contributes to constipation, incontinence, and prolapse.

A majority of the weight-lifting exercises in the E&E guides intended to be performed with a neutral spine— but this is not because this is the only position you should ever be in.  Our spine is meant to bend, extend, rotate in all directions. If we train and strengthen our core in its strongest (neutral) position, we’ll be that much stronger when we have to leave that neutral position. Muscles are strongest when they are in the middle of their range of motion (in between their longest and shortest positions). Let’s find neutral posture!

Check Your Alignment:

Stand with feet hip width apart.  

Move your hips back so that they’re directly over your knees and ankles.  

• Turn your feet so they are facing forward and gently lift the arches of your feet (keep your big toe down!) 

• When your arches are lifted, you knee caps should usually shine directly forward.

• “Zip-up” your lower abdominals until your hip bones are over your pubic bone.  

• Drop the bottom of your ribcage and back it up over your pelvis so that your torso is aligned straight up and down— take a look from the side in the mirror!

  • This is the part we often talk about where you are “stacking” your ribcage like a strong building block so it is line with your pelvis

In pregnancy, the diaphragm gets pushed up, ribs get pushed out (into a rib flare), and it can be difficult to get a good breath in or out. People get stuck in this “pregnancy” posture/breathing habits if they never consciously get out of it.

If you feel like your shoulders get slouchy- squeeze your shoulder blades together without thrusting your ribs forward/out (keep your ribs down!)

Place your hand on your belly and RELAX it, envision your diaphragm coming down out of your lungs to a more dropped position

Using your “cowabunga” hand

The key is to have the front of your ribs in line with your pelvis. 

To check this, put your fingers into a cowabunga sign (three middle fingers tucked in, pinky and thumb out) 

Place your thumb on your lower ribs and pinky on the front part of the pelvis. 

Your fingers should be on the same plane. 

If they are not —> get tall as if some one is pulling your hair through the crown of your head (ponytail). This creates space then bring your ribs back or forward to line up with your pelvis.

Stop constantly tensing your abdominals!

Chronically tensing your abdominal muscles at rest leads to an inability to use them well.  

• This can actually create excessive downward force, potentially worsening pelvic organ prolapse, umbilical hernias, and diastasis recti.  

• It puts unnecessary stress on your pelvic floor and restricts your breathing.

• Holding your belly button in all the time makes it impossible for the diaphragm to do its natural downward movement required to get a good breath. 

How to Properly Breathe Under an Abdominal Brace:

Bracing (what we want to be doing during activity!) is the prevention of excessive movement in your spine by creating some abdominal tension.  

You need to be able to get a deep breath AND be able create good core tension to keep your body safe during exercise

Bracing so hard that you go into a shallow breathing pattern is not ideal.  

If you put your hands on either side of your rib cage— you should still be able to feel your ribs expand out the side when you take in a deep breath.  

This movement of the rib cage out towards the sides of your body allows you to breathe under tension!

How to contract your abdominals

When you contract your abdominals, think of doing a light pelvic floor contraction and contracting your core muscles “from the bottom up”, pubic bone up to breast bone.  

A abdominal brace/tension should create no bulge in the lower belly but a nice, flat, tight abdomen while you are doing something athletic.  

When you are resting, let your abdominals rest.  

No need to contract muscles when they are not actively being used!

Your core is strongest when you are in good alignment  

Why You Shouldn’t Suck Belly Into Your Spine:

Sucking your belly towards your spine does not effectively engage your deep core. This can actually create excessive downward force, potentially worsening pelvic organ prolapse, umbilical hernias, and diastasis recti. It puts unnecessary stress on your pelvic floor (yes for men too, this matters!!) and restricts your breathing.

In pregnancy the diaphragm gets pushed up, ribs get pushed out (into a rib flare), and it can be difficult to get a good breath in or out. People get stuck in this “pregnancy” posture/breathing habits if they never consciously get out of it. Holding your belly button in all the time makes it impossible for the diaphragm to do its natural downward movement required to get a good breath.

Bracing (what we want to be doing during activity!) is holding your spine still by creating some abdominal tension. You need to be able get a deep breaths while you create core tension. You can’t brace so hard that you go into a shallow breathing pattern. If you put your hands on either side of your rib cage— you should be able to feel your ribs expand out the side when you take in a deep breath. This is true when your abdominals are braced or not!

An example of muscle tension with loading:

If you standing up on your tiptoes and SLOWLY lower your body down— you can feel tension in your calf muscles throughout the movement. You don’t let your calf muscles go floppy and crash to the ground— those muscles get LONG but they are still TENSING. This is the same thing with our abdominal muscles!! We can contract them but they can still be LENGTHENED and MOVED without going floppy and loose.

When you contract your abdominals, think of doing a light pelvic floor contraction and contracting your core muscles “from the bottom up”, pubic bone up to breast bone. A abdominal brace/tension should create no bulge in the lower belly but a nice, flat, tight abdomen while you are doing something athletic. When you are resting, let your abdominals rest. No need to contract muscles when they are not actively being used!