Never hold your stomach tight during exercise

Why you should never pull your stomach in during exercise

2/11/2015

Have you ever been told to pull your belly button in and hold it there during exercise?

Do you try to keep your stomach tight while lifting weights, working out, or while sitting at work?

Why? Where did this idea come from? The photoshopped images of anorexic models we see in fashion magazines or the heavily touched up photos of six pack abs in fitness magazines?

Should these images really be our role models for health and fitness? Probably not. (Just look at how terrible their posture is because of holding their abs in and tight - rounded shoulders, forward head, thoracic flexion, lumbar flexion, posterior pelvic tilt...a recipe for pain, injury, depression, and acid reflux among other things)

Those fashion and fitness models are often very unhealthy, do not possess functional strength that matters in real life, and their habits of stomach tightening and pulling in can cause many negative health problems.

I think the perfect models for natural, healthy movement and breathing are children. If you have ever been in my clinic, I'm sure you've heard me use children as examples of perfect health. Children instinctively breathe and move efficiently and naturally. They have wonderful upright posture, beautiful S-curved spines, feet that point straight ahead, and soft belly's that move in and out as they breathe deeply. Children enjoy unrestricted graceful movement of every joint and the best strength to weight ratio of all humans. Children are injury free and do not suffer muscle and joint pain except for the occasional bump or bruise.

As an Egoscue certified Postural Alignment Specialist and Advanced Exercise Therapist for over 13 years, I have always stressed the importance of keeping the abdominal muscles relaxed while performing posture exercises (e-cises), while lifting weights, working out, and all day long to allow your diaphragm to work naturally and efficiently. I teach many clients the difference between North-South breathing (bad) and East-West Breathing (good) and how good posture is the key to allowing normal, natural diaphragmatic breathing to happen.

Keeping your stomach relaxed (not pulled in and tight) allows for normal healthy function of the lungs, heart, stomach, intestines, and all internal organs. Pulling your belly button towards your spine or tightening your stomach muscles shuts down normal joint range of motion, muscle synchronization, joint stability, and makes natural, graceful, balanced movement impossible.

Tightening your pelvic floor during exercise is also a bad idea. All muscle tightening should happen naturally and contracting your stomach and pelvic floor muscles together basically squeeze and smash your internal organs. Not good! When teaching East-West Breathing, I talk about how the movement of the diaphragm and lungs during natural breathing acts to aid digestion by massaging the stomach and intestines and helps with spinal disc lubrication by creating small flexion and extension movements helping blood, lymphatic, and spinal fluid movement increase throughout the torso. Since we breathe about 22,000 times a day, tightening your stomach and pelvic floor muscles takes away those vitally important 22,000 movements a day!

This videos by Eric Franklin offer great visuals of what natural breathing is and why holding your stomach or pelvic floor tight is a bad idea.

I would love to hear your thoughts, please leave your comments below.

21 Comments

Michael Quasney

2/26/2015 05:08:04 am

Mr. Whitehead,

I butt heads with many people over the current trend of breathing. Videos like this make gross assumptions that do not delineate between someone's opinion and clinical experience and what is presented as a universal truth.

The information provided in this video is good some of the time. At other times this advice would be catastrophic to a person. Let's look at any advanced bodyweight movement such as a planche, front lever, or muscle up. In any of these movement strong abdominal hollowing and pelvic floor contraction is a fundamental process in protecting the spine and allowing the appropriate muscular contraction and tension needed to complete these movements. Following the advice of this video is out right impossible during these moments of high tension. The same parallel can be made when exerting for a heavy squat or deadlift. Compressive tension is required to protect the spine.

With that said, there is a time for tension and a time for relaxation. What is demonstrated here is an option of movement and breathing. There are other options for movement and breathing as well. Ability to achieve this skill is as important as achieving alternative breathing skills, they all serve a purpose.

Matt Whitehead link

2/26/2015 05:54:03 am

Hi Michael,

Thanks for sharing your opinion. I'm not sure what your background is but I think you just might be misinterpreting what I am saying. Yes muscle contraction is needed, but it should be natural not forced.

For someone who is functional (balanced aligned posture, balanced muscular development, full range of motion of joints, etc) it is not only possible and healthy for them to do planche, front lever, and muscle ups without consciously hollowing their abdominals and pelvic floor, but is much safer.

Having a catastrophic injury from not doing abdominal hollowing or bracing while doing those moves you mention only speaks to how dysfunctional the individual is.

If you google images of those moves, you quickly see people who are either more or less functional and more or less prone for injury. Let's take the planche for example. Here is more or less good function and form: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Planche.jpg

And here is bad function and form: http://www.lostartofhandbalancing.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Top-Planche-on-Fingertips1.bmp

Who is doing more abdominal hollowing or bracing? Bad form. Why? Because they don't have the strength and function in the rest of their body to correctly hold the position. If they let go of their excessive abdominal contraction might they get injured? Yes.

The guy with the good form in comparison is not excessively contracting or hollowing his abdominals and looks to be letting them react naturally to the movement instead of bracing in preparation of the movement. That is the fundamental difference I am talking about and you can clearly see the difference in these images.

As you say, "there is a time for tension and a time for relaxation" and I agree completely. The problem is people are trying to control this consciously instead of instinctively which causes major problems in biomechanics, form, function, and chance of injury. Most people do everything with too much tension which restricts normal joint movement and mechanics, raises blood pressure, increases stress hormones, slows normal digestion, increases chances of injury, and reinforces bad movement patterns which creates vicious cycle/circle.

Love to hear your thoughts.

Michael Quasney

3/4/2015 10:25:07 am

Mr. Whitehead,
Thanks for your well thought out reply. I will attempt to put the same effort into my counterpoints.
My background, from a personal perspective, is advanced calisthenics and vintage strength training. Both of these systems require high levels of body tension to achieve their respective objectives. I often view many of these movements, and most athletic movements, as the acquisition of a new skill. This skill being the order and process by which you complete the movement. Inherently the process of any exercise or rehabilitative movement is to replace a faulty pattern of movement with a healthy one. The means by which you achieve this is widely varied, but in the end we all share the goal of moving better.
Under this thought pattern, hollowing of the abdominals becomes a fundamental movement to create a base for either of the above skills that I gravitate towards. The long term goal is that this automatically happens in a person as they perform various movements, bringing the conscious into the unconscious. Without this base, however, these movements become both unachievable and dangerous. Sam Tribble, an advanced gymnast and the only person I have ever seen perform or even conceive an inverse iron cross, begins with the hollow body as a base for more advanced movements as seen here:
http://youtu.be/ihQT6dkmUVY
The difference in the pictures you provided is the difference of performing a trick or a skill. The first picture shows a trick and ultimately a movement that cannot be maintained or transitioned. The thumb position in the first picture will ultimately lead to injury by over stressing the 1st metacarpal joint and does not allow for fluid transition to other positions. The second picture protects the hand and allows for continued flow, such as moving from a front planche to a front lever.
The second picture shows a strong hollow body to allow for continued movement and creates an oppositional system of tension. Ultimately the hollow body visually neutralizes with different movements and different demands, giving the appearance of a neutral spine, as in your first pic, but there is still a strong hollow bracing happening.
Please bear in mind that in no way, shape, or form does this apply to normal standing posture. I agree with you completely that resting posture should be a natural process and not a series of conscious contractions. What I am saying is that videos like the one you post make statements that are too broad and ultimately a reflection of the individuals limited personal experience with movement and exercise. Simply changing statements like “never” to “most of the time” seems like simple wordsmithing but completely changes the message and allows for other options and information. It becomes inclusive in nature instead of exclusive.

Amy Russell

3/4/2015 07:18:41 am

Hi Matt!

This is fascinating! It contradicts most training I've had in yoga, dance, and PT. Can't count the number of times I've heard "pull navel into the spine"... instructions I repeat to my students. We all say "breathe" but I don't remember any teaching that emphasizes maintaining the natural contraction and release that occurs with breathing. In my body, what all that effort has produced is enormously tight low back (serratus posterior?) muscles, and ridiculously tight psoas.

Working with the roll under low back and neck is really helping me relax abdominal wall. It's a different way of living!

But I don't get how to do active core exercises -- like navasana (boat pose) in yoga, or basic "abdominal crunches" --using this approach. , How do you work with abdominals to not lapse into over contraction?

Thanks.
Amy

Matt Whitehead link

3/4/2015 07:33:04 am

Hi Amy,

You and most people have heard "pull navel into the spine" thousands of times by well meaning experts throughout their lives, but I don't think it's good advice at all.

Think about this: squeeze your bicep in your arm like a body builder...now hold it like that all day. You'd never do that! But that's what we do with your stomach muscles....just crazy!

When your body is balanced, abdominal contraction (and every other muscle contraction) will happen naturally, automatically, and unconsciously as needed to move your body through the range of motion you are asking it to do. As long as we "get out of our own way" and let the body do as it was designed, you will not have over contraction as you said.

They key is restoring proper joint alignment and range of motion and then getting out of our own way and letting the body do what it knows how to do.

Make sense? I hope.

Amy Russell

3/5/2015 11:48:18 am

Thanks Matt. Yes, your words make sense. Glad we're never too old to re-train!

A.

Matt Whitehead link

3/5/2015 03:35:25 pm

Micheal,

Thanks for your reply and thoughts. I agree with you about changing "never" to "most of the time", and do understand the videos I posted are not mine, and not 100% what I believe, but good for starting conversations like these.

I do see the difference in metatarsal-phalangeal joint angles between the two images I linked to that you described, but more shocking is the thoracic spine position differences. Comparing the two images, the thing that should jump out to anyone looking at them is the difference in thoracic position/curve.

The first image the man has a very functional close to natural thoracic curve and in the second image the man has an extremely kyphotic thoracic position. This will quickly lead to shoulder and spinal injuries including rotator cuff tears, shoulder impingement, disc herniations, and arthritis.

I watched the youtube video you left a link for, and while I now see the belief system you are coming from, I would recommend thinking about changing that training process. "Core strength" is not about having your abs tight and hollowed all the time, and actually that is making 3/4 of your core muscles unable to stabilize correctly. This is a huge misconception in athletics and training that has been building for a decade or more but luckily it is starting to change. Doing pushups or any movement out of the position Sam Tribble shows in that video is a recipe for injury and pain down the road. The shoulder joint is designed to work with a certain position and synchronization of the scapula and thoracic spine and the extreme thoracic flexion and scapular abduction Sam shows is not a functional position and will lead to injury. He is obviously strong, but that does not mean functional or a good role model for movement patterns (just as most athletes are not good role models for proper movement patterns because of our "sports specific" training programs that build muscular imbalance and dysfunctional movement patterns).

I know you (Michael) will probably not agree with me, which is fine, but this information is as much for all the other readers of this blog post as it is for you.

Have fun, play lots, stay pain free. - Matt

Michael Quasney

3/14/2015 11:51:52 am

Matt,

Thanks for the mental tennis match. Looking forward to more chats in the future.

Michael

Hiba

12/21/2015 09:31:49 pm

Hi Matt
I came across your sites after searching back pain with tight abdominals. I developed diastis recti with my pregnancy ( mild about two fingers and a half). The go to advice is doing the exercises that pull the abdomin to the spine. When I do them, I get pain under my shoulderblades or mid back, not the spine but under the shoulder blades. I still nurse my daughter and she cosleeps so a lot of times I am on my side kind of hunched up. I stretch my chest as much as I can and started to work out again. I have always had this issue with my shoulder blades even before I was pregnant but it always always coincided with my tucking in my abdomen while performing an exercise. Any tips on combating diastis recti without resorting to the navel pulling? Thank you in advance.

Matt Whitehead link

12/27/2015 11:11:59 pm

Hiba,
Thanks for the question...sorry about the slow response - holidays!
I have a couple ideas for you. First check out the book "Pain Free for Women" by Pete Egoscue and the chapters on post pregnancy exercises - they are great at restoring your overall posture, joint function, and muscle strength, which will help put your body and abdominal muscles in a position to restore themselves.

Second suggestion, check out Katy Bowman and her new book called "Diastasis Recti: The Whole Body Solution to Abdominal Weakness and Separation" which comes out in Feb 2016 and should be helpful also. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Diastasis-Recti-Solution-Abdominal-Separation/dp/098965396X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451286506&sr=1-1&keywords=katy+bowman+diastasis+recti

They are both very much whole body approaches to the problem which is what is missing in other approaches. Your pain under your shoulder blades will go away when your thoracic spine returns to a good position. If you want a free posture evaluation to understand what your body is doing and why, I'd be happy to offer one: in-person, by Skype, or through email.

Hiba

1/6/2016 10:55:46 pm

Thanks dr Whitehead for your helpful responses. I am going to have to see a PT because there are other issues ( pelvic floor.. Etc) however I am going to get this book once it's out. I definitely would like to read up more on it. In the mean time I am going to mention what you stated to the PT and see if we can come up with something that works. Thank you again I will keep you updated as I progress.

Dr. Michael Quasney

1/4/2016 09:54:58 am

Hi Hiba,

In the hopes of helping, I have a few ideas. That tension under the shoulder blade has been two options in my experience: an adhered diaphragm or an inactive serratus. I would try some of these exercises in the order I have listed them. Retry pulling in after each exercise to see if there is improvement. Improvement will be immediate and obvious with the right exercise:
- Crocodile breathing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeqR_Dne9w0
- Lewit Exercise - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmP5O5c5v5g
- Wall Bug - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgSabz-M_cM make sure to keep entire back as flat as possible on the ground. Focus on a stable mid section, not how far you move your legs.

And this was just a good video for some self care for the shoulders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzozw2Aso3M

Hope these help!

Dr. Q

Jeff Doty

12/27/2015 08:37:50 am

Sucking in and tightening your stomach are two different things. Exercise, particularly resistance training, with a relaxed stomach puts unnecessary strain on back muscles and is a fast track to back pain.

Matt link

12/27/2015 11:15:26 pm

Hi Jeff,
Thanks for the comments. Yes I know sucking in and tightening the stomach muscles are two different things which I discussed briefly in this post, but the main point was both of these things are counterproductive to strength workouts, power workouts, endurance workouts, stability workouts, basically all workouts. I would suggest tightening the abdominal muscles while resistance training can and will increase unnecessary strain on the back and can lead to not only back pain but disc herniations, nerve impingements, degeneration, and many other back problems.

Larry

4/10/2016 07:48:59 pm

Okay, I'll weigh in on this.

1. If you eat the food pyramid/modern western diet, then you may well suffer from one of or some combination of digestive and inflammatory disorders. Your stomach muscles may be constantly distended and in tension. If you have a particularly bad reaction to the food pyramid, you will get behaviors like anorexia nervosa and bulimia (as I did) and you will end up with a chronically tense stomach, resultant bad movement patterns, and of course a bad back (and maybe neck, shoulder, knee, SIJ, etc).

So I recommend paleo and home-made sauerkraut as first steps to getting back a relaxed mid-section.

2. I have lived these last five years in an Indonesian farming village. People here work all day every day. Planting and harvesting rise, chopping, digging, lifting, dragging pushing. Yet in five years I am yet to see an OHSA-approved style lift.

When people lift something here, they simply bend over and lift it. No problems. Of course, they never twist with a lift, but that's it.

50 kilo man clean and jerks 50 kilo sack of rice onto his head and walks 50 meters to teh roadside along the wall between the rice fields.

Men and women bend at the waist and cut rice all day. Hours in that position. They squat like frogs and bounce along planting rice seedlings.

No back problems.

People here rarely sit in a chair. Mostly, they sit on the ground with legs straight out in front of them. No hamstring stiffness. My 80-year old neighbor sits like this while cutting vegetables.

Like everything we are told on tv and in the media, the back advice we get, the whole story, is garbage.

As to weightligting, I am prepared to believe that special considerations are involved, but mostly I suspect that modern westernoffice and chair dwellers spend most of their lives without using teir back muscles, and as a result they are very weak and uncoordinated and that leads to the "special" lifting arrangement of weightlifting.

So, step 1, eat right and get your stomach and back relaxed again. Then get out there and move, like a human is supposed to. And to learn do we really need to do anything more than work?

Get a shovel and shovel sand for a couple of weeks.

Matt Whitehead link

4/14/2016 12:16:34 pm

Thanks for the comments Larry.

I very much agree with you. Humans are designed to lift, carry, and move and as long as we do those movements daily as those you are observing in Indonesia, the body will maintain the strength and mobility to be able to do them. When we stop moving and sit in a chair all day we lose the strength and mobility to do very normal things.

Thanks for you insight and advice! - Matt

Seb

9/27/2016 05:29:48 am

I had no idea dysfunctional breathing could have such a detrimental effect on ones health. I have suffered with an anxiety disorder for years which directly affected my breathing pattern and caused a hyperventilation syndrome. With this, I would suck in my abdomen and hold it tense whilst using my chest and ribs to breathe, rather than my diaphragm. This, over time, has created muscular tension in my pelvic floor which has now affected the functioning of my bladder and bowel.
Doctors have ruled out infection and prostate problems.
Dealing with this has been very depressing but now that I have some idea of what's going on, I can start to correct things with better breathing and help it with relaxation, correct posture, exercise, meditation, yoga etc.

Matt Whitehead link

9/27/2016 09:11:55 am

Hi Seb, Thanks for your comment as I'm sure what you have experienced many other people have experienced also. I can understand how frustrating trying to figure out what is/was going on and not getting answers from doctors can be. I very much look forward to hearing how you feel and what changes you experience after working on your breathing, posture, meditation, etc for a couple weeks. Try doing these e-cises for improved breathing: http://www.oregonexercisetherapy.com/blog/east-west-breathing
And spend a lot of time in Static Back just relaxing, breathing, and even meditating.
Let me know how it goes and if you'd like a free posture evaluation just give me a call and I'd be happy to do one for you.

Cheryl S

9/29/2016 11:45:49 am

I wish my gym trainers would have given me this advice 20 years ago. Now at age 40, I suffer fromhypertonic pelvic floor muscles and neuralgia, all from a lifetime of sucking in my belly, pulling my belly to my spine, pelvic floor tilts and way too many kegels. I see a pelvic floor therapist every other week to undo the damage plus stretches at home daily. She always tells me about east to west breathing. Thank you for this great advice!

Matt Whitehead link

9/29/2016 12:48:42 pm

Hi Cheryl, Yes we as a society have misunderstood and mistreated our stomach and pelvis for many years! I'm just glad more people are starting to understand that a tight flat stomach is not natural or good and can cause many problems. Children are the best examples of proper posture and breathing - natural, relaxed, deep breathing.

I'm glad you are getting help now and know that you can change those old patterns and see very positive results. Check out Katy Bowman and has books and website about the pelvic floor. Also try doing this routine and see what affect it has on your body after a couple weeks: http://www.oregonexercisetherapy.com/blog/east-west-breathing

Let me know how it goes...
-Matt

Simon

5/10/2017 07:41:40 am

Great video!

I wonder if you have any suggestions.

I used to hold my stomach in purely for vanity reasons, but over time it became 'normal' for me to do this to the point where the majority of the time my stomach was in a state of tension. I would say that I did this for about 8-10 years.

During sleep, and times of being on my own, I am sure that I returned to diaphragmatic breathing, but I really wonder how much of an effect this has had on my diaphragm and whether I can retrain my diaphragm to operate in a 'normal' fashion.

Currently, I am focusing on diaphragmatic breathing and for the most part, it is going well, but I do suffer from small amounts of pain in and around my diaphragm, ribs and sternum, and I am wondering if this is due to retraining my body to breathe correctly. When I experience pain, it is not in anyway severe, but feels more like a muscle that hasn't been used for a while, and it typically goes away after about 10 minutes.

Do you have any experience with this?
Is it possible to retrain my breathing after chest breathing for so long?

Thanks,
Simon.

Why you should never pull your stomach in during exercise

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