Katie's core tip of the week: Bracing

Apr 13, 2024

 by Katie Wolny

The first step in creating a safe spine position for bearing heavy loads is finding your neutral spine, which you have been practicing at the gym and throughout your daily life.  The second step is learning to “brace.”  Here are the steps to creating a super solid brace, as well as a few fun drills to try at home.

Step 1:  Find your belly breath
Place one hand on your chest and the other hand on your belly.  Breath deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth.  Adjust your breath so that your top hand on your chest remains still, and your bottom hand on your belly expands outward with inhalation and contract with exhalation. This may take a few tries if you are used to breathing to and lifting your chest when you inhale. Practice 10-12 deep belly breaths, until you really feel that bottom move as the top hand remains quiet.  

Step 2:  “Tighten like someone is going to punch you”
Make a C-shape with both hands, and place them around your waist so that your thumbs are on the backside of your body and the rest of your fingers are on the front side of your body.  Squeeze your fingers towards your thumbs so that you are clamping your side waist, then quickly “tighten like someone is about to punch you”, and feel how the muscles of your core push your fingers and thumbs outward away from each other.  Try this 10-12 times until you feel the muscles strongly engage outward 360 degrees around your waist line.  

Step 3: The Brace
Find your neutral spine, and then combine that deep belly breath with the quick “tighten like someone is going to punch you”  move, and hold your breath.  That is your brace.  For fun, you can practice this at home.  Grab a can of beans, and lay down on your back on the floor (knees can be up or down)  Find your neutral spine and place the can of beans on its rounded dimension on your naval. Take a deep belly breath and quickly “tighten like someone is about to punch you”.  Did your can of beans lift? Did you create a hard, stable surface for the can to rest on?  If so, way to go!  If not, go back to steps one and two, and then try again.