Accessing The Deep Abdominals

Pelvic Floor Activation

  • Lift your elevator up to the mezzanine. (Carrie Stillman)
  • Zip up to your eyebrows. No need for Botox! (Carrie Stillman)
  • Starting from a familiar Kegel contraction use only about 25% effort and release any tension around the sit bones and anus (glutes).
  • Imagine the pelvic floor muscles like a hammock that sits between your two sit bones, your pubic bone and your tailbone. As you activate the pelvic floor draw your hammock upward toward the belly as if it were being sucked upward by a draft of wind.
  • On the exhale gently draw both sit bones and pubic bone toward each other like you could narrow the space in the inside of the pelvis.
  • Imagine a spider web attached to the inside of each sit bone, the pubic bone and tailbone. Draw the spider web up toward the navel without breaking it. (Odile Zelenak)
  • Feel the front of your low belly, two inches below your belly button, and your sacrum draw together like a sandwich.
  • Place two magnets just inside of your hipbones, 2-3 inches below your belly button. To activate the pelvic floor turn those magnets on about 50% and feel them draw together. (AU)
  • Imagine a candle flame in your deepest low belly. Just like a flame is wicked upward, draw the muscles in this area deeply inward and upward as if to wick them toward your very center. As you engage the pelvic floor allow the roof of your mouth to continue to relax. (Variation from Tias Little)
  • Draw the tailbone down and under until you feel a lift in your front low belly, but not until it actually changes the position of the pelvis. (Cori Martinez)
  • Imagine trying to draw a pencil up through your vagina. (Monica Anderson.)
  • Recall what it’s like walking into an ice-cold body of water and feel your genitals be drawn upward toward the abdomen.
  • Feel what it would be like to draw your testicles up into your belly.

Accessing The Deep Abdominals

Narrowing of the Sit Bones

  • With one leg folded into the body and the other extended straight to the ceiling let both legs fall open. As you exhale allow the drawing together of the sit bones to pull the legs back together as well. (Eric Franklin)
  • Place an imaginary rubber band between your sit bones. When you exhale and engage the deep abdominals imagine the rubber band pulling taught to help access the lowest abdominal muscles.

Accessing The Deep Abdominals

TA activation

  • Without moving your spine, pelvis or ribs, draw your waist in in all directions like a girdle just beginning to be pulled taught.
  • Draw the front and back of your body toward one another like you were making a Panini sandwich. (Kristen Iuppenlatz Grech)
  • Feel as if you had suspenders running from your ribs and hips in the front and the back. Imagine all four sets of suspenders being pulled taught but not allowing the distance between your ribs and hips to shorten.
  • On your exhale hollow your belly as if you could draw your internal organs up toward your ribcage. Keep the shoulders at ease as you do so.
  • Feel the lower part of your waist, just above your hips, narrow as if putting on a pair of jeans that were too small for you.
  • Narrow your waist in all directions as if you were trying to fit through a small hollow tube.