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Old 09-20-2007, 11:35 AM   #7
CTri17
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Tempe, AZ
Posts: 361
CTri17 will become famous soon enough
Using your transverse is a hard concept for many people to understand so dont worry that you cant do it right away!
I am also a pilates instructor and I do pilates with my athletes at my university as well.
When you sneeze or cough you are contracting your transverse so try to mimic that feeling that you have. For women , if you perform a kegel (sp?) that begins a contraction of your transverse, for men if you tell them to stop their flow when going to the bathroom then they are contracting their transverse.

Like nikhi said start with your knees bent on the floor and contract your abs and flatten your back to do imprinting, then start to straighten your legs out and continue to try to imprint, as your core gets stronger that will begin to be easy then you can work on holding that position for time like you will in pilates and then you can start to add movement (ie pilates movements) the key is to keep that core stable the whole time during pilates or you arent getting anything out of it.

When you do bridges , I think of hip bridges like old school jane fonda style, that is what I consider a bridge. And if that is what you are doing when your back hurts I would focus on not only your abs but make sure that you are squeezing your glutes, your posterior chain fires (or should fire) glutes, hamstrings, low back, but many people fire hamstrings and low back and no glutes which puts unneeded stress on the low back, which is NO GOOD!

Let me know if you have anymore questions, and dont get frustrated, your abs didnt get good in a few months before you had the baby, so we cant expect them to come back so soon after (although we all wish it would )

Have a good day!
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