Do you “own” your movement?

What is one essential thing that often gets forgotten during core work and other exercises?

Breathing! 

It’s something that I’ve had to do a lot of work on myself over the years as I have a tendency to hold my breath when I’m concentrating. This can happen to many of us and if we are trying to focus on maintaining good form whilst performing an exercise or movement sometimes breathing will temporarily stop! It can be a result not only of the extra effort required of the brain but also if we are trying to create stability, the body may be trying to reinforce this by stiffening the diaphragm and pelvic floor.

What is the reason for doing core exercises? Essentially we are trying to improve the body’s capacity to be able to keep the spine safe whilst in motion.  And we want to be able to breathe whilst doing this in order to provide essential oxygen to the body’s systems. 

If you cannot breathe whilst executing a movement, you are not “owning” that movement (I heard this first from Monika Volkmar - check her out, she is awesome!) This applies equally whether we are doing “core” exercises during our movement practice or if we are dancing.

For this article, however, I wanted to focus specifically on breathing during core work as it can feel pretty challenging to breathe when trying to maintain a “braced” torso (follow this link for more on “bracing your core”.)

You can visualise your diaphragm and pelvic floor at the top and bottom of your torso cylinder acting like a piston as you breathe,

As we breathe in, the diaphragm contracts and moves down, and the pelvic floor releases to allow the abdominal contents to move down - the belly can also expand to allow for this movement too. This reverses when we breathe out - the pelvic floor contracts and moves up as the diaphragm releases. These movements should happen automatically as we are breathing regularly during our everyday lives. (Check out this post for more on contraction and release in the body.)

However, the challenge comes when trying to keep our core contracted as we cannot expand the belly. It takes some practice - requiring the ribcage to expand to allow for the flattening of the diaphragm. When we breathe out, if we can actively engage the pelvic floor at the same time, this is going to increase our stability and allow us to do more. 

Again it takes a little practice to get the coordination happening and it’s why I like to work with my clients on building up the core work gradually. This slow and steady approach is fantastic for building strength and also self-confidence in the body’s abilities.

Give it a try and tell me how you get on!
Are you able to control your movements and breathing at the same time?
Let me know in the comments!