Stop Sucking Your Tummy IN!
At Connect Studio a big part of what we do is getting you to chill out your grippy muscles, and strengthen the kind of “opposite” ones that are a bit weak. Why do we grip our muscles? It can be trying to suck your tummy to look “better”, it could be stress, past trauma or protecting an injury.
For example you might be a back gripper, meaning your back muscles are always hard/tight/on so we want to soften them and strengthen the opposite muscles of your core at the same time!
Doesn’t seem like too much of an ask but let me tell you about the revelation I’ve had about this since being pregnant! I like to grip through my tummy muscles which is always a big source of back pain for me, Nicks always telling me to take a chill pill hah! They are just constantly on, and I have to work on using very gentle core cues in my Pilates programme to get them to work as “nice abs” not trying to be Incredible Hulk abs.
Bracing my abs will be an accumulative result of things like overtraining my 6 pack as a young gymnast, some nervous system and stress related stuff - everyone has their places that they hold tension, but also just being your average woman that feels like she has to be slim! Especially as a Pilates instructor - yikes a chubby tummy is not part of the look. Maybe when you were younger your mum told you to suck your tummy in and stand up straight for photos? Or do you look at too much filtered, airbrushed content on social media where people have perfect flat stomachs? Or you’re just struggling to navigate a changing body as each decade seems to bring with it a new set of challenges around how we respond to exercise/food/stress/pregnancy etc. I know if I had a tighter fitting outfit on my stomach it would not be relaxed, I’d be subconsciously or even a bit consciously “holding it in”.
Roll on pregnancy and I just don’t give a shit! I can “eat for two” and my growing belly is an expectation not something to be worried about! I was a bit nervous about how my back would cope carrying a baby but so far it’s felt the best it’s felt in years! And it’s my theory and Nick agrees, that it’s because I’m not such a tummy gripper these days.
It will be interesting to see what happens postpartum. I’m sure I’ll be wanting to “get my body back” as any woman does, but I’ll do my best to do this in a conscious way and actually just love my body how it is at any given time because it would have just pulled off a pretty impressive stunt! And give it a break from “sucking it in” all the time.