Following exercises emphasize creation of
Abdominal
Push, engaging your inner abdominal muscles and creating
inner pressure
in your stomach, other abdominal muscles will work too.
1. One Leg Extension
Lay down on your back, knees bent, feet slightly apart. Put
your arms on your
stomach. Raise your head slightly off the floor. If you feel discomfort
in your neck, prop your head with a pillow. Create abdominal
push by either
grunting when you exhale, coughing lightly (you do not need a lot
of it otherwise it is hard to breathe) or exhaling through the pursed lips.
Exhale and inhale couple times into your stomach feeling with your hands
that you keep firmness even when you inhale.
Lift and straighten one leg up in the air at 45-60 degree angle.
Notice how weight of your leg tries to twist your pelvis and abdominal
muscles stabilize it.
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Really pay attention that your pelvis lay flat on
the floor and does not move.
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Put first leg down and lift another one. Keep breathing into your
stomach. Alternate your
legs always waiting for one to come back to the ground before you
lift another one.
Repeat 10 times on each leg and do 2-3 series resting in between.
2. Bicycle Extension
When you feel that first exercise is easy you can start lifting
other leg
before first one came to the ground. Make a bicycle moves with your legs.
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Keep them quite high about 60-70 degrees,
lowering your legs create intense
force that will try to destabilize your pelvis and if your abdominal muscles
not ready for that your pelvis will rotate forward and create dangerous pressure
in your spine.
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Only lower your legs when you feel ready for it. The main purpose of this exercise
is learning to engage
Transversus Abdominis (TA) muscles
(inner muscles of your abdomen), keep them engaged and breathe at the same time. It is more important that you can do
this exercise longer then stronger. At the beginning do it for 5-6 breaths, then rest then
another 5-6 breaths. When you become stronger you can continue doing it until you feel
you are getting tired, keep breathing into your stomach evenly and deeply, don't hold your breath.
Variant: Later, you can add degree of difficulty. During bicycling you
can lean your legs left, come back to the center and then lean them right, not
much 10-20 degrees, your pelvis should lay flat and should not
rise on any side. You will start to feel that you have one side weaker than another,
work on the weaker side more.
3. Reversed Sit-up
Seat on the floor, legs together,
bend your knees
and stabilize your feet either under sofa, or ask someone to hold them.
Seat close to your legs,
back straight and arms folded in front. Create internal abdominal pressure
as in previous exercises, exhale and slowly lower your whole body (from the hips)
down just a little bit, 5-15 degrees, bring it
back on inhale, keep your back straight.
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Do not arch your lower back.
If you only lower your upper body you have failed to create the abdominal push.
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Repeat 10 times and do 2-3 series. As before, lowering your body father is less
important than doing more repetitions. Women can do this exercise without
stabilizing their feet, because their lower body is heavier then upper body.
These exercises have a positive side effect. You start losing your
belly fat (trust me, I did).
Note to women: I do not recommend performing these exercises during your period.
Irina Yastrebova, Riding Instructor and
Trainer.