Abdominal Bracing

First, it is important to know how to isometrically activate the abdominal wall. This is called bracing. Bracing is simple. All you need to do is imagine someone is going to push you or hit you. Auto-matically, you tighten your ‘‘core’’ or brace with your abdominals. This is quite different from various popular strategies of sucking your navel in (i.e. abdominal hollowing) or performing a pelvic tilt. In fact, bracing often makes the navel protrude out slightly, and this is, in fact, exactly what weight lifters do to protect themselves.  This trains a high level of control or stability into the back and trunk. 

This means the entire abdominal wall is activated from all angles, sides, and directions, causing the three layers of the muscles to fire together.  This enhances the stiffness and stability of the core to a much greater degree than what would otherwise be produced by the sum of each individual part. It is this stiffness that provides us with 360 degrees of spinal stability, making us injury resilient and helping us achieve optimal performance.

Having a stiff core eliminates micro-movements in the joints that lead to energy leaks. Without stiffness, these micro-movements would gradually gnaw away at your efficiency. Stiffness braces these micro-movements and essentially helps you build spinal armor and become more solid.

Our core exercises are designed and programmed in this fashion.  You will feel strength like never before with our isometric based exercises but you must hold form, fight your spine from moving and keep your hips glued to your trunk.