November 9, 2008

The Dancer’s Body: The Core

“Move from your center,” I order you as you travel across the floor. “Lead with your core!” There’s so much yoga/pilates/fitness talk these days that I often presume you know what I mean.

To find the muscle groups that I’m talking about, try a little experiment.

1. Lie down face-up on the floor, with your knees up, the soles of your feet flat on the floor.
2. Now tilt your pelvis so that the front of your hip-bones move towards your knees. This should increase the space between your low-back and the floor, creating a little bridge.
3. Tilt your pelvis the other way till the space between your low back and the floor disappears and your back is flat against the floor.
4. Now relax into a neutral position.

The muscles that you used may have included your abdominal muscles, but the majority of work was probably done by a group of muscles along-side your spine, collectively called the transversospinalis and the sacrospinalis or erector spinae. This group of muscles, because of their short lever arm, (each muscle fiber connects a short distance from one vertebrae to between two to six vertebrae away do not have the ability to power a lot of activities. But they work very precisely, particularly in standing. They support the head on the spine all day long without much fatigue and allow for specific spinal articulation— small movements and adjustments in posture.

Now, activate the abdominal muscles, which have a bit more power, but which also require more awareness.

1. Lie on the floor, face-up again, knees up, feet flat.
2. Place your hand on your abdomen, next to your belly-button. Lift your head off the floor. Notice that the abdominal muscles contract under your hand. This will eventually fatigue your neck muscles.
3. Now, repeat step number three as above, pressing the low back towards the floor, but this time, activating the muscles around your belly-button. Now, lift your head just a centimeter off the floor. Already, you should be able to lift your head (and eventually your shoulders) with less effort in the neck.
4. Experiment with tilting the pelvis, increasing and decreasing the space between your back and the floor, but engage the abdominals as you do it, keeping your hand there to verify that the muscles are activating.
5. Relax your abdominals and do the action with just your back muscles. Notice that you can do this action with relaxed abdominal muscles.

Conclusion: Because the erector spinae *must* be active at all times to support the body in a standing position, they are the muscles most likely to unconsciously activate when flexion (arching the back) or extension (bending forward) occurs. The abdominal muscles aren’t required to do the action. The result is that after a day of sitting or standing in an erect position, these muscles become fatigued and overworked, creating mid and low-back pain.

Building Awareness: Practice this pelvic tilt in the morning or evening before or after sleep and develop your awareness of the abdominal muscles. Throughout the day, notice whether or not you are engaging these muscles.

When I ask students to “suck your belly button to your spine” I’m asking for activation of these muscles. Dancing with these muscles engaged will relieve your back muscles from having to do all the work. However, this doesn’t mean: “Tense your gut for the entire dance.” It does mean that your abdominals must contract and relax as you move.

Building Strength: Try these exercises to target these muscle groups.

Hollowing:
1. Inhale.
2. Begin exhaling slowly as you pull the abdominal muscles towards the spine, gently lifting the head, shoulder-blades and tail-bone off the floor.
3. Keep contracting these muscles until you have exhaled entirely.
4. Release slowly towards the floor with control while slowly inhaling.
   Repeat each movement in concert with your breath. Remember: exhale on effort. This isn’t a sit-up or a crunch. Doing the exercise slowly and with control builds more precise awareness and strength without straining other muscle groups.

Bracing
1. Lie face down on the floor, and gently lift the upper body off the floor with your arms.
2. Place your forearms flat on the floor, interlocking your fingers into a shared fist.
3. Keep the elbows directly under the shoulders. Your fore-arms should form a little triangle on the floor.
4. Fold the toes under to make contact with the floor, heels pointing towards the ceiling.
5. Lift the body into a plank position. Your upper body should be supported by the sturdy bone support you’ve set up. Engage the abdominals and hold this position for 15, 30 or 60 seconds. Go as long as you can, breathing deeply as you hold the position. The abdominals should flatten and flare out.

Dance Application:

1. On your own, spend a song moving around the floor and being aware of when your abdominals naturally want to contract and relax. Experiment with “using” the musles more for different movements and see what you get out of it.
2. Stand facing a wall with your palms against the wall. Slowly compress into the wall. Now, exhale as you would during the hollowing exercise, sucking your abdominals towards your spine as you push yourself away from the wall. Notice how much power you have! Barely any action is needed in the arms or chest. This is a body lead!

For more research on the core muscles, read up here:
transversus abdominus
rectus abdominus
external oblique muscles
internal oblique muscles

Now! Move with your core!