Foundations: Deep Abdominal Activation

Quick Intro: Fingertip Abdominals

This exercise can help you to connect to your abdominal muscles.  It’s a safe exercise to get stronger before starting more challenging exercises!
It’s a perfect awareness raising exercise than helps us to connect with lower abdominal fibres whilst we are doing other exercises…

What’s it good for? ⁠

🌟 Becoming aware of how our abdominals can give the sensation of narrowing the pelvis.
🌟 Strengthens weak abdominal muscles in a very safe way.
🌟 Teaches us to separate out abdominal activation / contraction without moving the spine.
🌟 Teaches us deep abdominal activation (Transversus Abdominus) that is really useful in other, more challenging, traditional exercises.

A quick “how to”…

🌟   Lying on your back, place your fingertips just inside and underneath your hip bones.
🌟   Draw your navel in towards your spine to contract the abdominals but don’t change the position of your spine.
🌟   Release the activation and repeat, each time focus on the slight movements and sensations produced.

Hints & Tips:

🌟   This is a small, subtle movement, so if you don’t notice anything first time, keep trying and over a period of days you’ll learn to notice the movements and sensations.
🌟  Imagine you are tightening across the hips.
🌟  Or, imagine a big round stone sinking into your pelvis.
🌟  Try holding a 7cm ball between your knees and have a friend try to pull it away to increase pelvic floor awareness.

Any Questions?

Ask away – I love to help!  Click here for the Contact Page 🙂 – or leave a comment at the bottom of the post – see you there…