rib anchor

The abdominal crunch, though ubiquitous, is actually quite detrimental to the spinal discs and nerves. Better to find an abdominal exercise which respects and protects the spine! Image courtesy Jonathan Borba on Unsplash.

Happy Holidays! The dawning of a new year is a time when many people make efforts to establish new habits, many of them body-related. With the desire to improve ourselves often comes a (sometimes unhealthy) heightened awareness of how our bodies and their shapes appear to others. This is particularly true of abdominal muscles. Photoshopped, unrealistic images of sculpted torsos plaster newsstand covers every January. Crunches are the most commonly recommended exercise for increasing ab strength, often with six-packs as the goal. But do six-packs actually indicate broad-spectrum ab strength? What is actually the best ab exercise —  something protective of our backs rather than detrimental to our spinal health? How can we balance form with function?

The Gokhale Method describes two important sets of abdominal muscles that keep us healthy: the “rib anchor” and the “inner corset.” The rib anchor helps prevent the lower back from arching. The inner corset protects the back from a variety of compressive threats — weight-bearing, impact, and vibration, as well as any distortion in shape like arching, rounding, or twisting. The inner corset includes the rib anchor plus a more extensive set of deep abdominal and back muscles.  

Well-designed ab exercises would:

• tone the deeper layers of the abdominal wall that constitute the rib anchor and inner corset muscles, while de-emphasizing the shallower rectus abdominis (six-pack) muscle 

• put no unhealthy stress on your neck, spinal discs, or spinal nerves

• take as little time out of your day as possible

Here, my daughter Monisha, a high-level athlete, demonstrates how rib anchor and inner corset activation can make all the difference in pull-up form.

Now for some specific measures to strengthen the rib anchor and inner corset muscles. Based on how much time they take out of your day, we will divide them into 3 tiers: 

Tier 1: Everyday activities
These strengthening measures are fully integrated into your everyday activities. They don’t take any time at all out of your day. Your daily activities need to be vigorous enough that they would ordinarily stress your spine. However, by activating the rib anchor and/or the inner corset every time your spine would get stressed, you not only prevent damage — you get your ab exercise as well. Think about this approach like “on-the-job training.” The advantages are numerous:

• You strengthen the various components of your “brace” or “inner corset” in exactly the proportion they need to be strong. No overdevelopment of the six-pack (this is common and tucks the pelvis); no neglecting the deeper abdominal and back muscles (this is also common and leaves the area weak and unprotected).

• There’s no threat or damage to your spinal discs, nerves, or neck in this approach. Compare this with the threat and damage caused by crunches, which unfortunately remain the most popular ab workout in gym routines. 

• It takes no time! It takes no longer to lift well (with the inner corset engaged) than it takes to lift poorly. It takes no longer to twist well (with the inner corset engaged) than it takes to twist poorly. And it takes no longer to run well (with the inner corset engaged) than it takes to bounce around willy nilly and destroy your discs and nerves.

Proper abdominal engagement is crucial for safe running technique — and it doesn’t necessarily look like a six-pack. Image courtesy nappy on Pexels.

Tier 2: Modified activities
These ab strengthening measures are slightly contrived (but not awkward) ways of modifying everyday postures and ways of moving to get our ab exercise needs taken care of. This is the next best choice if your everyday activities don’t quite cover your exercise needs.  As many of us sit behind computers for larger and larger fractions of the day, I’ve begun recommending engaging the inner corset 10% whenever a student can remember to do so. This is the extent to which these muscles would have been recruited in sitting were they primed by carrying weights as much as our hunter-gatherer ancestors clearly did.

Laptops and other computers are wonderful tools, but they also encourage us to be passive and increasingly sink into ourselves over the course of a work day. Inner corset and rib anchor activation, even 10%, can help us learn to “wake up” our deeper abdominal muscles. Image courtesy Brooke Cagle on Unsplash.

Tier 3: Supplemental exercises
Doing supplemental exercises and therapies to strengthen the abs. These take time. To be efficient, I recommend whole-body exercises, yoga poses, or dance sequences that enable you to do several exercises in parallel. Some of my faves are chair pose, samba, and TRX planks.

Samba is a fun, social, sensual way to actively engage and strengthen the inner corset. It’s never too soon to start getting ready for Carnaval! Original image courtesy PlidaoUrbenia on Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 2.5.

Helping it stick
Do you find it difficult to fit posture work into your daily schedule, or struggle to form new habits? (This is part of being human!) I’m excited to announce our new Gokhale Exercise Challenge, a live-streamed, daily 15-minute exercise session I’ll be leading personally at 7:00am Pacific / 10:00am Eastern every morning from January 1, 2020 through January 21, 2020. This enrichment of our Online University content is free for all Online University members.

If you are an alum of our Foundations Course or Pop-up Course and haven’t yet enrolled in our Online University, join today by calling 1-888-557-6788 to receive a special discount on your annual membership between now and January 8, 2020.

Q. What if I miss a session or live in a completely different time zone — can I still participate?
A. Yes! If this time slot doesn’t suit you, you can watch each session at your convenience for up to 24 hours after the live session.

Q. I’m not in great shape. Is this accessible to me?
A. Absolutely! All Gokhale Method alumni at any level of fitness will benefit from these exercises.

I look forward to starting the New Year with you!

Written by Lori Szalay, Gokhale Method Teacher

Here’s a little story I’d like to tell,

Some of you may know it well…..

Twas the day of the Foundations Course and all through the room,

Backs, necks, shoulders and much more were aching and there was a feeling of doom.

The stretchsit cushions were attached on the chairs with care,

A Posture Poised Teacher was there with knowledge to share.

The students knew they would learn to stretchlie to be comfortable in their beds,

As visions of a pain-free life continued to dance in their heads!

With compressed spines, slouchy shoulders and many with rounded backs,

Each had their own concern yet all eager to learn the posture modification facts.

When they lengthened their spines and used the stretchsit cushion for traction,

They sighed with relief from such a simple therapeutic action! 

Next was the shoulder roll…forward, up, back and down,

There was a sound of a crackle, a pec stretch….. but not a single frown!  

Onto the feet, to reshape them like a “Kidney Bean,”

It lines up your knees and hips….if you’ve done it you know what I mean!

With the illusion of helium filling up in their heads,

Their necks elongated, going from pressed down to much taller instead.   

With their inner corset engaged and ribs anchored in,

Standing up proved to give a feeling of being a bit thin.

With feet shaped just right and weight shifted back on their heels,

Each stood so straight…. it really was a big deal! 

As they anteverted their pelvis, tipping forward a slight,

Their ‘bum’ floated back and up…. and landed just right!

Keeping their upper body strong… shoulders back, neck straight,

Each knew healthy posture was part of their fate!

As they learned to bend using a technique call ‘hip-hinge,’

Having flexible hamstrings and hip-rotators is how to avoid any muscle twinge!

Checking the ‘groove’ assuring their back stays tall,

Realizing each hinge is a bend…. no matter how big or small!

Next onto Glidewalking, a four part check list straight from the book,

Now using their muscles with every step they took!

To the sound of music and courses they came, 

They walked and practiced each part by name….

“Keep your heel down, leg straight and extended back,

Squeeze your glutes, land with a soft knee…..Relax!

There is so much more to learn and much more to tell,

If you are student of the Gokhale Method you know all this too well!

If you are thinking about taking the course, do not fret or hesitate,

Log onto the website, register to take the course and begin your Posture Fate!

One more thing to leave you as I go…. Happy Holidays to all and a "BIG HO-HO-HO!!"

Esther's note: Fredrik Prost, the Saami craftsman and posture student I wrote about in these past blogs:  Fredrik's Journey to a Pain-Free Back, Sleeping on Birch Branches in Samiland, Beauty, Art, and Posture, and Better Posture, Better Sleep, recently journeyed to Tuva. Here is an account he wrote for us about Tuvan posture, culture, and shamanism, including photos he took. It is a rare treat to hear about indigenous people from an indigenous person - one who speaks English well and knows our posture language too!

Tuva is an autonomous republic of Russia that lies northwest of Mongolia in the south of Siberia.

This summer I went there to explore the Tuvan traditions, in particular their spirituality.

Tuva is about half the size of France with only 300,000 inhabitants, most of them ethnic Tuvans. The Tuvans have traditionally lived as nomadic herders of sheep, camels, horses and even reindeer.

A group of children herding goats and sheep. The kids start to help out with the herding early - the youngest one here was just seven.

The culture is somewhat similar to that of Mongolia - for example, yurt dwellings, which are traditional in Mongolia, are also part of Tuvan culture.

I was interested in the Tuvan culture because I come from a similar culture myself, the Saami of Sweden. Traditionally we are a nomadic people mostly involved with reindeer herding and our traditional dwelling is a teepee. Our spiritual traditions are also similar to that of the Tuvans—generally known as shamanism. The shamanic tradition is surprisingly similar throughout Siberia all the way to Sápmi, which is the Saami area of northern Scandinavia and the Russian Kola Peninsula. For centuries, shamanism in both Siberia and in Sápmi have been under attack from the state governments and other religions. Soviet rule sought to completely eradicate religion in Tuva, and shamanism was driven underground. Despite this, shamanism flourishes once again and is practised openly in both Siberia and Sápmi. In Tuva it even has the status of state religion along with Buddhism.

The stunning landscape of the Tuvan steppe.

As a traditional Saami handicrafter, I have made many drums for Saami shamans. I am also a practitioner of this spirituality, so Tuva, with shamanism as a state religion, was very intriguing to me. Luck would have it that I have a friend in Tuva, a shaman working in their traditions. He invited me there, and naturally I accepted.

I am also familiar with the Gokhale Method, since I suffered from very severe back pain in 2014, and attended one of Esther’s workshops in Germany. So part of the plan for my visit was to also explore the Tuvans’ posture.

My girlfriend Inga-Wiktoria stacksitting on the edge of the boat while fishing on the mighty Jenisej river.

For almost two weeks we traveled around Tuva on dusty roads and in the wilderness. We met a lot of different people, both Russians and Tuvans. As we expected, a lot of people there have quite good posture, since they are involved in a lot of traditional work.

One of our new friends with shoulders back and rib anchor firmly in place.

What struck both my girlfriend and me was that almost all the Tuvans had good posture but the Russians did not. The Russians are a minority in Tuva these days, but historically they have made up as much as 30 percent of the population. So despite living alongside each other they have very different posture traditions—although it has to be said that it seems like the Russians in general have better posture than the average American or Swede.

A Tuvan carrying a heavy load with good back and posterior shoulder posture.

A group of Tuvans in a small village we visited was digging a new latrine; this man worked with really good form, and displayed excellent walking form with feet pointing slightly out and pushing with the back leg and toes.

They took turns digging and the resting position was of course squatting.

In the first week we went to a holy spring not far from the Mongolian border. There are a lot of springs where Tuvans go, which they find healing for various types of illnesses. There are many different springs for heart disease, rashes, and even back pain! These springs are also popular places to visit during summer, and whole families go to camp and relax together. At the spring we visited, there were a lot of Tuvans there and it was immediately clear that Tuvans in general have pretty good posture.

A visitor at the holy spring, stacksitting with thighs angled down and legs slightly open to receive the anteverted pelvis.

We went to a lot of places all across Tuva, which easily could be described as a land of extremes. There are mountains with pine trees, glaciers, as well as deserts where camels live. In summer it can get as hot as 105˚F and in winter minus 60˚F. Back home we rarely experience 85˚F in summer so we really did suffer the summer heat!

Endless roads through the mountains (Esther’s note: Fredrik has made great progress with his posture. When I first met him, he had been doing his carving round-shouldered; he took the instruction of the course to heart and here you see him with very nice posture indeed).

In the mountains we felt more at home both with the temperature and the terrain, and we even met some fellow reindeer herders! There is actually a minority in Tuva working with reindeer in the mountains. They speak a different dialect than the other Tuvans and just like us Saami they live in teepees not yurts.

Our new friends, the reindeer herders of Tuva, and our guide on the right.

Nadeshda showing us one of their skins; the conversation naturally was about reindeers! Shoulders back and good glidewalking.

The connection was instant despite several thousand miles between our two peoples. It really felt like meeting our long lost cousins. We received an invitation to visit them and their main camp, which we unfortunately did not have time to visit on this trip since it was four days away on horseback.

One of the many nomads of Tuva, with really good riding form - straight back and chin angled slightly down.

In the capital of Tuva, Kyzyl, there are shaman clinics where people go to find remedies for all sorts of ailments. At the clinics, which are run by different shaman organizations, shamans work on a daily basis with patients much like an MD in a hospital in the US. At one of the clinics we met Hurugay, a shamaness working for Dungur, the largest and oldest of the Tuvan shaman organizations. She was very welcoming and open about her work and the Tuvan traditions.

Inga-Wiktoria and I with shamaness Hurugay at the clinic in Kyzyl; Hurugay had really good posture, here tallstanding with shoulders back.

We camped for the two weeks of our trip and slept on the ground for most of the time. This was something I did a lot when I was younger but later on learned to fear because of my back issues. Since regaining the posture health I had lost, my back is really a non-issue and two weeks sleeping on the ground was no problem. Tuva gave us a lot, both spiritually and posturally.

Esther's note: A huge thank you to Fredrik for sharing these marvelous experiences and observations with us! Please feel free to comment and ask questions here. 

As your mother always said, practice makes perfect. Luckily, every day you are presented with countless opportunities to perfect your posture while sitting, walking, sleeping and...showering.

Lathering is a good time to practice healthy posture

Yes, that’s right. You can, and should, be aware of your posture even while performing the most mundane of tasks. So before your next shower, take a few meditative minutes to enjoy the healing properties of warm water...and then pause before you grab your shampoo bottle. Why? Because the half-minute you spend lathering your hair is probably the most vulnerable shower-time for your back.

Just before you lather is an important time to pause and set your posture

Most people in industrial cultures, when lifting their arms above their head, will sway their backs and put themselves at risk for a couple of problems. Swaying is an excessive arching of the back that compresses spinal discs and compromises circulation around the spine--not good. In the shower, be careful not to lean your head too far back while shampooing because this movement can exacerbate the sway.

Raising the arms above the head can easily result in a swayback

To prevent this, I recommend a technique called “anchoring the ribcage”. I teach this maneuver to students to help them achieve a healthy shape in the low back. To anchor your ribcage, you want to contract your internal oblique abdominal muscles to pull the front of the rib cage downward and inward. This is easier said than done! Your goal is to lengthen and straighten your low back.  To isolate the internal obliques (as opposed to rectus abdominis, the ab muscle modern Westerners are more aware of and tend to overuse), it helps to guide the action with your forearm or fists. Place either your forearm or your fists over the lower border of your ribcage (you want to feel bone), and gently press backwards so as to rotate your ribcage forward a little.
 

 Gently pushing back on the lower border of your ribcage helps rotate the ribcage forward and fix a sway back

When you think you’ve got it, you can assess the spinal groove in your low back with your fingers. A healthy low back shape has a mild groove, embedded bumps (your vertebrae), and soft ridges on either side of the groove. If you feel taut muscle ridges on either side of a deep spinal groove, then your back is still swayed.  Perform this maneuver to maintain a relaxed and lengthened position next time you shampoo.  Lather, rinse, repeat, and before you know it, you’ll be a proper posture pro!

Esther demonstrating how to anchor the ribcage to prevent swaying the lower back

Join us in an upcoming Free Workshop (online or in person).  

Find a Foundations Course in your area to get the full training on the Gokhale Method!  

We also offer in person or online Initial Consultations with any of our qualified Gokhale Method teachers.

One of the many benefits of having excellent posture is the ability to enjoy an active lifestyle without injury. Conversely, an active lifestyle can help cultivate good posture. While you are still honing your posture, water is a perfect medium to train in since your buoyancy will reduce impact on your joints. In this forgiving medium, you can safely increase your muscle strength, stamina and flexibility while exploring the nuances of natural posture. You can reset movement patterns and connect the dots that make up the Gokhale Method while enjoying the soothing effect of the water on your body and mind.

The butterfly stroke provides an intense workout for the
"rib anchor" muscles.

No matter which stroke you choose, you will have occasion to summon up and strengthen your deep abdominal muscles. These muscles are especially important for the health and safety of your spine.

Breaststroke / Butterfly for Rib Anchor

The internal obliques keep the front of the ribcage flush with the contour of your torso. This “rib anchor” is our best defense against swaying the back. The breaststroke (and butterfly, if you are able) are perfect opportunities to strengthen your rib anchor. In these strokes, there is a strong tendency to arch or sway your back every time you come up for air. Next time you attempt the breaststroke or butterfly, try to come up with your entire upper body, just enough to breathe, without a sway. Your lumbosacral juncture will gain flexibility and your internal obliques will get a challenging workout.

The internal and external oblique abdominal muscles
get a substantial workout in backstroke.

Crawl and Backstroke for Obliques

Asymmetric motions are a great way to strengthen both the internal and external oblique abdominal muscles. When you twist or rotate your body to the right, the external oblique muscles on your left side work together with the internal oblique muscle on your left. The left external oblique muscle rotates your left side forward as the right internal oblique rotates your right side back. Conversely, when you twist to the left, the right external obliques and left internal obliques are engaged.

One way to engage the inner
corset muscles is reach
upwards vigorously as in this
victory gesture.

The arm and leg motions involved in both the crawl and backstroke have a tendency to twist or otherwise distort the torso. If you engage the external and internal obliques appropriately during each stroke, you will tone your obliques as they work to dampen this twisting effect. The result is that the entire body twists rather than just a piece of it.

Adding the Inner Corset

Even if you are conscientiously using your obliques for all three of these strokes, vigorous swimming will include some distortion. To really protect your spine, use your Inner Corset to keep your elongated J-Spine intact. This will have a dual action, protecting the spinal element during your workout, as well as strengthening your deeper back and ab muscles.

Walking in water is a gentle way to
augment your glidewalking technique.

Glidewalking in Water

Even if you don’t swim, water is a soothing and therapeutic medium for practicing Gokhale Method techniques. Glidewalking in water is easy on your joints and provides extra resistance for building strong gluteal muscles and lengthening and strengthening the muscles in your legs. Begin with tallstanding:

1. Kidney bean shape your feet; 
2. Put your weight on your heels; 
3. Antevert your pelvis and engage your rib anchor; 
4. Keep the back of your neck long and your chin down. As you begin to move, imagine yourself walking regally with a basket on your head, or using your legs as poles to punt a boat along a canal.

Enjoy the healing weight of the water. It slows you down, giving you time to become aware of nuances in your gait.

Join us in an upcoming Free Workshop (online or in person).  

Find a Foundations Course in your area to get the full training on the Gokhale Method!  

We also offer in person or online Initial Consultations with any of our qualified Gokhale Method teachers.