If you use your muscles incorrectly, the exercise may be in vain!

The same exercise movement requires the cooperation of many surface and deep muscles. When the deep muscles are not used well, although the movements seem to be the same on the surface, the actual results of the physical training will be greatly reduced!

Do you know how to control the muscles hidden inside your body?

Many great yoga and Pilates experts are able to properly control the deep muscles of the body. Even though they look very thin and even without strong muscle lines, many difficult strength and fitness movements are easy for them! This is because they use their deep muscles properly to give the body great stability and balance, and this state can be achieved through training!

Our body is made up of many muscles. Many of them are visible and tangible, such as the gluteus maximus, rectus abdominis, erector spinae, etc., which control the range of motion of our joints. There are also many deep muscles that cannot be seen, such as the transverse abdominal muscles, diaphragm, pelvic floor muscles, etc., which are related to the control of proprioception (feeling the use of muscles, feeling the sensations around bones and joints), and are responsible for increasing the tension and hardness of muscles, allowing the body to move better when moving! When you can exercise better control over your deep muscles, it also means that your body's stability increases. Only when your body's stability increases can you perform more intense and efficient exercises!

The transverse abdominal muscle, a large muscle hidden inside the body

I often tell everyone that if you want to exercise your core muscles, it is a good choice to start with the "plank pose". This is because the plank pose exercises the "transverse abdominal muscles that you cannot see or touch". The transverse abdominal muscles provide the body with good hardness, support and stability when exerting force. I wonder if you can imagine it better with this example?

Superman pose is a good choice for exercising the core and buttocks, but are you doing it right?

The exercise I mainly want to share with you in this article is the “Superman Pose”: a great exercise for training your core muscles (especially the erector spinae) and gluteal muscles!

But in fact, many people do not correctly activate the muscles to be used when doing this exercise! Many people feel like "vomiting" or "feeling like the food is being squeezed out" when doing Superman pose or similar movements. Why is this so?

Because most of the time, when people do this exercise, they use the method of "pressing the stomach area against the ground" to lift the hips and upper body, which of course will compress the stomach and cause discomfort, and even cause diaphragm compression, making it difficult to breathe and increasing blood pressure...

When doing the Superman pose, you definitely don’t do it by pressing your stomach against the ground!

Pelvic floor muscles, you must learn them before exercising!

Before you can do the Superman pose correctly, you must first learn how to contract your pelvic floor muscles! The pelvic floor muscles are the bottom of the core muscle group. Only by learning to control the pelvic floor muscles can the overall core muscle group be more stable and more tense! So the more correct statement should be: You should contract your pelvic floor muscles before all exercises!

The clock contraction method is a good pelvic floor muscle exercise.

As you lie on your back with your knees bent, imagine that there is a clock facing your face at the position of your pelvis: 12 o'clock is at the top, 6 o'clock is near the bottom (anus), 3 o'clock is on the right hand side, and 9 o'clock is on the left hand side. In the first stage, imagine bringing the 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock directions closer together when you exhale; in the second stage, bring the 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock directions closer together.

How to do Superman pose correctly?

Before you start doing Superman Pose, you can practice the upper and lower body separately:

Practice lower body lifts first

Practice upper body lifts

Finally, move the upper and lower body together.

The complete startup steps are as follows:

1. Lie face down

2. Pelvic floor muscle contraction

3. Adjust the pelvis to a slightly backward tilt

1. Contract your core abdominal muscles

2. Hip squeeze

3. Keep your upper and lower body away from the ground

When you first start practicing the Superman Pose in this way, you may feel that the distance your body can lift off the ground has become smaller, or even more strenuous! But only by doing this can you truly and completely train the internal and external core muscle groups, avoid compressing the area around the stomach, and maintain this posture for a longer period of time!

This article comes from: Muscle Mom Blog

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