Hello TA - Activating your Deep Core
Every Pilates Instructor makes reference to activating and connecting the abdominals. We might use different terminology, but we are all referring to the same thing, your Transverse Abdominis, to which we will call TA in this article. What is the TA and how do you activate it?
Have you ever experienced abdominal muscle pain after laughing hysterically? That is the effect of your TA working. It is the deepest of the 4 layers of abdominals. The layers include the Rectus Abdominis (the six-pack) which is the most superficial layer. This layer allows us to flex forward.The next layers are the Internal Obliques & External Obliques. These help us twist and side bend. The deepest of the layers is our Transverse Abdominis (TA). This layer wraps around our waist, attaching to the spine. The TA doesn’t create movement, it creates stability. When activated, it tightens around our waist like a girdle and holds us upright while stabilizing the spine.
When this layer is strong, we can avoid low back pain, carry ourselves better, feel stronger and begin to pop those six-pack muscles. Now here’s the question, how do you activate it?
Imagine your TA as a band wrapping horizontally around your lower waist. Now imagine that band (on the front) tightening your hip bones together and lifting your pubic bone upward. This should feel like a gentle tightening across your lower belly, under your belly button. The belly button will then feel like it is drawing inward and upwards towards your spine. You won’t be literally moving your bones, but you will be stabilizing your bones in place.
Another way to feel the TA is gently coughing. Does your core draw in and up or push out and down? If the latter is happening, focus on drawing inward and upward. Connecting in this direction will lighten the weight of your organs and muscles from your pelvic floor. (Stay tuned for that article :-D ) This will also result in a girdled hold, supporting your low back.
Joseph Pilates always spoke about activating to only 30%. This means having a gentle connection rather than tightly squeezing and will result in a sense of ease throughout any exercise. If you feel your upper abdominals or can’t breathe while activating your TA, you have gone past the 30% point. Keep it gentle.
Connecting the low abdominals in this way will create stability through out the body and help support your low back and hip flexors. In this way, you can move with ease and strength, no matter the intensity of an exercise. However, if the TA is not strong, when under intense load, it won’t activate. Have you ever experienced having trouble connecting to your core?
As you train your abdominals, they of course will learn when to come on and with time become stronger to hold more load. The key to maintaining a connection is activating your TA first before moving into any position or exercise. This is setting the tone and setting the muscle beforehand so that you can isolate rather than compensate. As soon as you begin to feel your core turn off or let go (you will most likely feel your back or hip flexors taking over), come out of the exercise, reset or let go of any connection and begin again.
Going by these steps will ensure that you don’t begin to compensate using muscles we don’t want to work and will allow you to get stronger with each movement. This takes the concept of proper form to a deeper level. Proper form doesn’t mean anything if you don’t feel it in the right places. Of course, that is also another topic of discussion!
We hope these tips can help make a big difference in your Pilates practice or in any practice for that matter! Training and strengthening your TA has more to do with making that teaser more attainable. It has to do with creating a more functional and stronger lifestyle so that you can go about your daily activities with ease and staying away from back pain for good!
Happy Pilate-ing!
Tamarra <3
