In class, we will often hear the teacher say “abdominal contraction”, but you will think, why should we do abdominal contraction when practicing posture and how to find the correct feeling of abdominal contraction? First of all, abdominal contraction is very important, it can protect the lumbar spine, let us go deeper into the posture, correctly start the core, and so on.
Just these points, the importance of abdominal contraction is self-evident.
For those who have just practiced yoga, their abdominal awareness is very weak, and they have been used to relax.
The teacher asked you to tighten up, but you can’t find the feeling of tightening up.
Secondly, the tightening up you think is not necessarily the correct one.
The correct abdominal state, Master Ayengar once said.
“The state of the abdomen is like a bulging face, which is not only expansive, stretching, but also elastic.
There is no excessive tightening, nor total relaxation.” – B.K.S.Iyengar So, how to correctly do abdominal tightening in yoga practice? 1.
Abdominal retraction is not stifling breath, it is not directly backward retraction.
Backward retraction is very likely to cause tension in the lumbar spine, and it is not suffocating, and the body will become more and more stiff with suffocation.
2.
The correct “abdomen retraction” is from the pubic adduction to the navel at the same time, and consciously lift the perineum, so that the abdomen retraction will be more stable.
If you still can’t feel it.
Imagine the feeling of zipping up in jeans.
Exhale, tighten up, inhale, and keep half tightened; Next time, tighten again when you exhale; The next time you inhale, keep half tightening.
This feeling can’t be found for a while.
You can give it more attention and practice more core when practicing yoga.
The first step is to lie on your back on the mat and put a heavy object (thick book, dumbbell, etc.) on your abdomen; The second part is to drum up the abdomen and drag up the weight.
At this time, the abdominal muscles are in a state of tension.
Remember the feeling of the abdominal muscles and keep it.
Method 2: Choose the mountain standing posture, try to bulge the stomach to the limit, and then the abdominal muscles on the stomach are also tightened.
There is a difference between abdominal tightening at this time and abdominal tightening at tummy rolling.
(curling up state) In curling up, the abdomen is tightened mainly by raising the upper or lower body upward, inward and squeezing the abdominal muscles.
The length of the abdominal muscles is in the state of squeezing and shortening, similar to the squeezing spring, which makes the spring shorten and increase the elasticity.
In yoga, the abdominal muscles are tightened and the upper body is kept upright, which is equivalent to two segments of the spring fixed, and the middle part of the spring is pulled to form elastic force.
Finally, two abdominal breathing exercises are attached: lie on your back on the cushion surface, bend your knees and put your hands on both ends of the ribs to inhale, the ribs expand and exhale to both sides, the ribs drop, the navel leans to the direction of the spine to do horizontal breathing for 10-20 times, activate the transverse abdominal muscle action 1: kneel on the cushion surface, open your feet and hands with the width of the hips and push the front foot to the ground, the limbs are vertical to the ground to exhale, the pelvis slightly turns the navel back to the direction of the spine, Keep the knee off the ground for 20-30 seconds, or keep it for 5 seconds, and repeat 8-10 groups of actions 2: lie on your back, put your hands on both sides of the body to exhale, bend your knees, lower legs parallel to the ground and exhale again, the navel sticks to the direction of the spine, the pelvis slightly turns back, and there is a beam of light space on the back of the waist for 20-30 seconds, if you can, exhale, the right foot tip points down to the ground to inhale, restore, exhale, Repeat 8-10 groups on the other side.
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