Core strength is really about core organization. For any movement to be easy your brain must direct the muscles fibre involved to fire in a certain order and allow the work of the movement to be spread proportionally throughout the entire body. When this happens the action is effortless, and we feel strong. If muscles don’t fire in the right order and/or too strongly and other muscles don’t fire at all we feel weak. So, it’s all about timing.
In the following audio lesson you will learn how to use the glutes and abs in an organized way to lift the pelvis from the floor. To get it right with the glutes you first must determine if they are able to fire equally. Tighten your glutes and release—so far so good? Now tighten one side at a time. Maybe not so easy, even if you can do it one side may be “weaker” than the other. Unequal strength in the glutes may cause all manner of problems including, low back pain and sciatica. View my short video to help you learn to fire your glutes symmetrically.
If you did the lesson and still found your glutes didn’t fire equally, I invite you to buy my audio lesson, Recruiting the Glutes before embarking on the following lesson. A description about the audio can be found on the product listing.
Once you have the glutes working in a balanced way then it’s time to synchronize the glutes and the abs. This is a rather simplistic way to describe what’s happening, but these are the two muscle groups we will focus on in the following lesson. This is a recording I made while I was working with one of my clients. You will also hear her comment during the lesson.
I recently gave the recording to another client to work on at home.
She wrote:
“I had a question about your recorded lesson. I wasn’t quite sure at what point when you’re lifting up into the bridge that you should release the abdominal muscles. It felt like it should be fairly soon after you start lifting the pelvis off the floor.”
My reply:
“Yes, you’re right—you let go of the abs as you start the lift. Tightening the abs helps the top of the sacrum go down to the floor so as soon as that starts to lift you have to release the abs.”
After doing the lesson first with me and then at home the same client commented:
“I had my advancing yoga class last night and I noticed a definite difference in my postures after doing the lesson.”
Click here to buy your copy of the Recruit Your Glutes Audio.