Abdominal Training Tips at Here’s my thought for the day: Its Ideal to Improve Core Strength with Length.

By striving to maintain or increase the distance from your ribcage to your hip bones while you’re doing curl up exercises like the roll up, and the series of 5 which has the upper body and ribs moving towards the hips.

And thinking about keeping the hips away from the ribs on exercises that have you doing a reverse curl… things like Pilates Short Spine, Pilates Roll Over, and Pilates Shoulder Bridge where the hips and pelvis are moving towards the upper body. You will be developing optimal abdominal core strength with length.

A few benefits of this include:

* Improved Core Strength and Body Control.

* Decompression, rather than compression of the spine. With space between the joints of the spine, it actually helps improve your mobility and ability to bend, extend, side bend, and rotate.

* The internal organs are pulled towards the center of the body cavity, with space to lie in their normal positions without being – squished. This provides a massaging action to help your digestive system and improve waste removal.

* Plus, You’ll develop a slimmer waistline. There will be more space between your hips and your ribs so your waist will appear smaller, and the muscles of your abs and back will be working more to support the length.

To start to getting the hang of this concept, breathing can be your best exercise to practice! If its a challenge to breath, get longer, and pull your abs in while you’re standing still it will be even more difficult to do it during exercise.

* Stand Tall with your straight ahead feet and legs together.

* Keep the knees slightly soft.

* Think of 2 bolts running through your hips. One from side to side, and the second from front to back to help you lift the hips up off the leg bones.

* Stand tall and keep your arms and shoulders relaxed.

* Practice breathing into the bottom back of the ribcage to fill your lungs with air and lift the entire ribcage up away from the hips. Since the ribs are attached to the spine, you will notice that your back will lift and lengthen on your inhale.

* Ideally, your lower abdominals should be lifting up and in as you fill with air. And it is always easier to pull them in even more while you exhale.

* Maintain the lifted support of your 2 bolts and lower abs while you take your next breath!

On each breath in, you should get taller and longer, and on each exhale you should engage through your middle to maintain the lift and support.

I actually like to feel my tailbone lengthen down as my ribs and back lift up, so Im conscious of my whole entire spine lengthening from the tip of my tailbone through the top of my head.

This breathing exercise is something you can practice throughout the day to help improve your ability to use strength with length when you are standing or seated.

The next step is to apply this principle to all of your Pilates and Fitness exercises to help maximize your core training results.

Have fun practicing better breathing to help develop core strength with length and have a Fit and Fabulous Day! Aliesa George I