The proper way to find those deep abdominal muscles
“Lift your pelvic floor”
“Pull your belly in”
“Switch on your core”
We all have heard these words coming out of a group exercise instructor/personal trainers mouth but do you REALLY know how to get those deep (and amazing) muscles firing properly?
And why they are important!
Here is all you need to know about how to get those tricky wee suckers working (and a wee bit of anatomy knowledge thrown in there too because I can’t help it!).
TA (transverse abdominis) anatomy overview (Lynne’s geeking out part)
These are our corset muscles that wrap around your sides from back to front, they are not our pelvic floor (that is different). Our TAs attach into the rectus sheath in the front (just think sheath of six-pack muscle) and thoracolumbar fascia in the back. When our TAs contract, they create tension in your back and linea alba (the tissue that runs down the front of our abs which starts at our sternum and finishes at our pubic bone).
The Importance of strong TAs
- Reduce/eliminate back pain
- Better posture
- Smaller waist
- Better balance
- Less chance of injury
The list goes on and on and on…
Not all core muscles are the same
Think about our core as a canister or a balloon. Understanding alignment and pressure management is the key to a core and super functional core! The muscles you will hear about the most are our TAs (deep abdominal muscles) and our pelvic floor but our diaphragm plays a huge role in function as well as our multifidus (but that is for another article)
TAs act as our corset (or wide belt), our pelvic floor is at the bottom and our diaphragm is at the top. If we go back to the balloon analogy then if we squeeze the middle of that balloon (activating TAs or pulling our belly button in) without first getting pelvic floor engagement then pressure goes down and pressure goes up. As you can imagine, constant or continuous pressure down isn’t great for our pelvic floor.
So TAs are super important but we can’t just get them doing their thing by themselves. The cool thing about the TAs is that they also coordinate with the pelvic floor. They are anticipatory muscles (will activate without us having to fire them consciously) BUT they can stop functioning as effectively after injury/pain (abdominal/hip/back surgery) or pregnancy (getting stretched out).
We have to help that anticipatory system get back firing again with thought and intention. Which will eventually bring us back to them firing automatically again.
The TAs have three segments (upper, middle, and lower). The goal is to make sure you are not over-recruiting one segment of TAs over the others, or any other abdominal muscles over another and this can be the tricky part!
How we find them:
Lie on your back with both knees bent.
Start with lower TAs by finding your hip bones and placing your fingers just down and slightly to the inside to get some sensory feedback.
Think of your pelvic floor as an elevator moving through a building.
If you very gently lift your pelvic floor, you will feel a slight firming underneath your fingers. These are your TAs.
If you contract your pelvic floor fully, you will feel your fingers get pushed out. That is everything contracting (rectus abdominis, internal obliques, external obliques, and TAs).
In everyday movement these will all contract together but right now we just want the focus to be on those TAs.
Work on gently lifting your pelvic floor and drawing in your TAs without letting your rib cage widen on your exhale (put your hands up by your ribs) .
What to look for/what to feel:
- If your rib cage comes down and in and your lower belly pops out a bit, that often indicates too much dominance in other areas (external obliques and Rectus).
- Work on more of the drawing in and less of the bringing your ribs down.
- Only bring as much force as you can without lower belly rising.
The last 30% of a pelvic floor contraction requires abdominals, so increased lower abdominal strength can help improve pelvic floor strength.
Feel: Pelvic floor lift and lower abs flatten
Do Not Feel: Tension in neck, lower abs pushing out into hands.
Hopefully this has given you a bit more of an understanding about what to look for and feel when you get told to “engage those abs”!
If you’re still not sure or I’ve made TA engagement clear as mud then sing out. I have made presentations which are hours long that I could show you, and still not cover everything that I want to talk about. It’s such a fascinating topic! (See me geeking out over here!)
Lynne x
