Читать книгу Pilates for a Flat Stomach: Perfect Abs in Just 15 Minutes a Day - Anna Selby - Страница 7

A flat stomach is not so much an aim of Pilates’ technique as its inevitable side-effect. As has already been explained in the Pilates Principles, the girdle of strength is the key to the technique and, of all the muscles in the body, the abdominals play the greatest part in creating it. The girdle of strength gives you your core strength and it is from this centre that all your movements should originate.

There are four layers of abdominal muscles, criss-crossing the body over the front, sides and back. They are the means by which you can bend and twist but, even more importantly, when developed and used correctly, they protect the spine and the internal muscles from strain and injury. When they are strong, they give all of your movements support and flexibility. Unfortunately, though, the sedentary lifestyle most of us have nowadays means not only are these muscles not strong, we are often barely aware of them.

The four layers of abdominal muscles form a girdle (hence Pilates’ name for them) between the rib cage and the pelvis. The top layer (see below) is the rectus abdominis, running vertically down the front of the body from the sternum to the pelvis.

It draws the front of the pelvis upwards and is important for maintaining posture. Divided into four sections, it is also the muscle people tend to notice the most – and is responsible for visible six-packs!

The external obliques run diagonally from just below the sternum and wrap around the waist. The internal obliques are underneath them, and run diagonally from the lower ribs down to the pelvis. Both sets of oblique muscles are used in turning and bending the body.

The deepest layer is the transversus abdominis. This runs horizontally around the waist to the back and down in front of the hips towards the pelvis. This is an often forgotten muscle and strengthening it will not only create a strong, flat stomach, it will also give support and stability to the lower back.

As you do the exercises in this book, you will become aware of these layers of muscle and start to strengthen them. However, it is not only when you exercise that you should be using them. One of the most important benefits of Pilates’ technique is that it re-educates your body, how you hold it and move it in everyday life. So, the instruction to ‘draw the navel to the spine’ that starts off almost every exercise that follows is just as relevant to your normal standing posture or the way you walk.

Posture is covered in more detail later and in the exercises in the following section, Applying the Principles. But, even before you begin to exercise, it is worth taking a few moments to see how just this simple movement can change the way you feel and look.

Stand in front of a mirror in your normal posture. Now make a few minor adjustments. Check that your feet are flat on the floor, hip-width apart, with the toes pointing forwards.

Now, without changing anything else, engage your abdominal muscles so that your navel simultaneously lifts slightly upwards and draws back towards the spine. You should feel that the lower back loses just a little of its natural curve and feels more supported. Your stomach will automatically look flatter and, lifting up out of the waist, the waist too becomes more defined. You will also probably look as if you have lengthened out slightly – you might even grow an inch! If you now also let your shoulders drop down and feel your neck relaxed and the top of your chest soft and open, you are getting pretty close to your ideal posture. The effect is not just cosmetic, either. This kind of posture gives you strength and stability, as well as protecting your back.

This simple exercise should give you an idea of how much you can achieve by posture alone. The next section, Applying the Principles, shows you in more detail how to achieve correct alignment and, just as important, how you use breathing in Pilates. Basically, in Pilates, you exhale on the effort – the opposite of many forms of sports and exercise when you breathe in on the movement. The inhalation in Pilates is used as a form of preparation and you do the work on the exhalation. This encourages your muscles to lengthen during the exercise and creates muscles that are strong but not bunched – instead, they become long and lean, like a dancer’s.