By in Yoga & Pilates

Why You Should Not Pull Your Navel In

“Pull your navel towards your spine”…..”Suck your tummy in.”…. “Pull your abs tight.”
You may have heard one of these commands or something similar during a fitness or Pilates class or during a PT session. It is perhaps one of the most popular cues a fitness teacher has in their tool bag in order to help you keep your back save and strengthen your core.

Except it does not work. In fact, it hinders healthy, efficient and balanced movement and can even cause injury and pain in the long run.

I am the first to admit that I was taught this way as a client for many years and I learned to pass this technique on to my clients in various vocational training I undertook in the fitness profession. I never questioned it. It was when I began to study movement at a much deeper level with some of the best anatomists and movement educators in the Pilates, Yoga and Biomechanics world, that I began to understand why constantly pulling the navel towards to spine was really not a good idea.

The idea behind doing this is that we contract our deep abdominal muscles (i.e. transverse abdominus and internal obliques) to stabilise our spine during movement. Here are 4 reasons why it does not work and should be avoided:

1. When the abdominal muscles contract strongly they shorten and encourage the spine and the pelvis into forward flexion. If we allow this to happen we pull the spine out of a balanced upright position and over time assume a flexed posture with a tucked pelvis. This weakens the back and over time pushes the vertebral disks backwards where they can herniate. If we are aware of this and deliberately maintain an upright posture at the same time, and perhaps do not tighten the stomach so strongly, we may manage to stay upright. Still, we are shortening our abdominal muscles. They are attached to sheaths of fascia that knit into the spine and the back. Through this connection, the abdominal shortening does provide short term stability, however, over time it puts tension through the fascia of the lower back (thoracolumbar fascia), which can cause pain. Furthermore, it adds compression around the spine, which can cause also spinal disk compression over time. This will cause the vertebral disks to deteriorate more quickly and prone to injury.

2. Watch a cat or a horse move. They are great, healthy movers on the whole and they do not contract any muscles manually. There is a reason why they do not do that. The impact of movement needs to be distributed through the entire body to be absorbed. We are not machines with buttons and leavers. We are not made of separate parts. We are one biological, water-based organism in which everything is deeply inter-webbed. When we engage a muscle in isolation it does no longer play its natural part in the orchestra of human movement. It plays its own song and rather loudly so. It disturbs the natural movement balance in our body. There is a time and a place for muscle isolation. It should however not be practised as a precursor to every movement.

3. When we pull our naval in we increase intra-abdominal pressure. Again this is meant to add stabilisation to the spine. It does do that to a superficial degree, however, it also limits the spine’s ability to do the natural movements it needs to do, to help us move balanced and naturally. Furthermore, this intra-abdominal pressure can cause a bearing down of pressure into the bottom of the pelvis and cause the pelvic floor to bulge down or even prolapse. Some people try to prevent this by also pulling up on their pelvic floor. A study on Pilates teachers who did this a lot showed that in many of them the pelvic floor had become hypertonic, which means that it becomes permanently tightened and unable to relax and contract, which is vital for our pelvic health and healthy movement.

4. When we tense any muscle deliberately, rather than letting them engage naturally we add excessive tension to our body and our movements. This is very energy inefficient and an issue for those who already suffer from excessive tension in their body, as excessive tension can cause chronic pain, exhaustion and injury.

Ok, so how DO I strengthen my core and keep my back save then, you might ask. Core strength is actually a very complicated topic in itself, however, if we assume core strengths means a stable spine and inner strength, we gain this through balanced, efficient and varied movement practice with an emphasis on coordination and balance. Our muscles will generally do what they need to do best when we do not interfere with them, but allow our body to communicate with gravity and our surroundings. In a way it is very simple, our modern lives take us away from the movement habits we would have if we lived like cats and horses in the wild. What we need to do to keep our bodies able and healthy is rest and move as naturally and varied as possible and reconnect with our natural movement ability. What we do not need after sitting still and tense at a desk all day is to isolate our body parts and manually tense muscles that are meant to function subconsciously rather than when we tell them to engage.

There can be circumstances where we find that an area of our body is not working as it should. In this case a qualified movement professional can help us get the muscle and soft tissue back to health through mobilisation or even manual therapy, followed by specific re-integration of this muscle tissue into our movement patterns. However, it is not as easy as to permanently tighten an area of the body.

If you would like to find out more about how to move healthily and balanced without pulling your navel in all the time, speak to Kristin at The Body Matters. Please call 01702 714968.

Kristin Loeer
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