Wrapping Your Head Around the Abs
I’ve been teaching Pilates for (ahem) 20 years now (thanks to my now sainted friend Joyce). In that time many people have passed though my classes and have heard my explanation of the abdominals and their actions. Well, to be honest, it probably wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I began giving very detailed explanations of this.
I think people have a good handle that you are working your obliques when you lay on your back and rotate. I also think people understand they are working their abs when they do crunches, but working them all correctly is where the struggle comes in.
In Pilates the underlying focus is to work the stabilizer muscles first. The stabilizers are the slower twich, endurance muscles that are closest to the bones/joints. Their job is to hold the joint/bones in place before the mobilizer muscles do their thing and move the limbs. So that brings us back to the abdominals. The Transversus Abdominus is the major stabilizer of the lumbar spine. It wraps horizontally around the midsection and inserts in the back of the body into fascia.
I spend my first moments with clients teaching them how to find and engage their TA’s an then work out to the other abdominal muscles. However, after having detailed discussions with clients who have been with me for years, I realized that many of them still can’t picture the abdominals and the pattern which we would like to get them to recruit (turn on). So I came up with this activity and had my clients wrap this foam block with tulle to visualize how the muscles are layered and activate.
This visual seemed to be very helpful to my clients and I hope it is helpful to you as well.